Author: admin

I’ve got one of those new-fangled iPhones, which will do everything except butter your toast. It has GPS and a map. I can read my Facebook, send text messages, tell SIRI (the electronic secretary) to make a call or remind me later of some appointment. The iPhone takes high resolution photos and can store hundreds.  I can even use it to make phone calls through my car stereo system.

I was posting pictures to Facebook one day while visiting Mama, when suddenly I heard a trumpet call. The thought flashed through my mind, “Is that the Lord Jesus Christ, returning with the sound of the trumpet?” I can’t explain the excitement that gripped my heart, along with a wide mixture of emotions.

I wasn’t immediately raptured, but I wasn’t too worried since my 95-year-old saintly mother was still sitting there across from me, alive and well. If anyone is going to go to heaven, it will be my mother, who has faithfully served the Lord Jesus Christ for 80 years. However, I couldn’t figure out where that sound came from. I called my two sisters each and laughingly told them about it all. The first thing out of each of their mouths was, “Is it the Lord’s Return?”

Several weeks later, I was again at Mama’s house. I was taking pictures and when I posted the first one to Facebook my iPhone sounded, “Tah, tah, tah, taaaah, ta-da,” like “Charge!’ The sound was attached to my Facebook program on my iPhone so that when I posted, it made a sound to tell me it was successful.

 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” I Thessalonians 4:16-18.

I guess the Lord was giving me preliminary practice for the great Day of the Lord when He will return to take His children home to heaven.

Easter was always my favorite holiday next to Christmas when I was growing up. Besides the excitement of getting a new dress and new shoes for church, it was because we got to see our cousins from Wichita after a long winter apart.

Our cousins came home to Vinita for Easter, Memorial Day, 4^th of July, Rodeo Week, and Labor Day, but they stayed in Wichita the rest of the year to celebrate the holidays there. Their daddy and my mama were brother and sister who had grown up out north of Vinita on a little farm and still called Vinita home. Since there wasn’t a house on the old farm, everyone always gathered at our little house to visit.

If they didn’t have any car trouble or flats they usually pulled into Vinita by 9 o’clock at night but I started watching for them as soon as supper was over. Every few minutes I’d go look out the front door expecting them to drive in. Any time a car drove by, I just knew it was them, so I’d race out the door.

. When the lights of the car shined on the front door, I ran out the front door, slamming the screen door behind me. I always wanted to be the first one there when the car pulled into the driveway.  Before the car had even come to a complete stop, I already had the car door open, and I was inside, on their laps, hugging and kissing.

That’s how I imagine it will be when we are ready to go to heaven. Our loved ones who have gone there ahead of us will be waiting for us to arrive. Some of them will be so excited they might even show up early to escort us across the great divide. You know, it is common for people who are getting ready to go to heaven to see a loved one coming to escort them home.

Jesus told us, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:2-3.

This isn’t home. Heaven is home.

When we were small, we would go to the corner store to buy groceries and occasionally my mom would let us buy a carton of 6 eight-ounce bottles of pop. Mom usually wanted Seven-up, but we kids got all kinds. There were four of us, counting Mom, so there would be 2 left over to drink later. We kids guzzled our 8 ounces down and then begged Mom until she finally let us drink the rest of her pop. She seldom got the whole bottle to herself.

If one of the neighbor kids came while we were drinking our pop, we had to share, so we usually timed our drinking for when we were sure no one would come over. But my best friend from next door frequently came over and we shared everything with her—soda pop, snacks, hair spray, nail polish. She was just like a sister to us. In fact, once she took a swig out of my pop bottle and swallowed the gum I had dropped down inside to “keep it fresh.”

I remember the Monday after I got married. My hubby went off to work and I went to the grocery store. I remember the pride I felt in being a grown-up and buying the makings for my first meal. And buying 2 six-packs of Pepsi.

Soda pop changed an entire generation. I have to force myself to drink water. I seldom drink milk or juice. I always reach for a bottle of pop.

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O Lord. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalms 42:1-2NIV. The deer naturally longs for water, pants for water.

How long has it been since I was thirsty enough to want water? Pop doesn’t satisfy the thirst, that panting thirst, like water does, but I never let myself get thirsty. So this is another lesson on nutrition from the Lord;  a practical lesson that I seriously need to learn.

My soul thirsts for God. My body thirsts for water.

Do you remember when CB radios first came into wide use? Everyone had to have one. “Breaker, breaker,” we’d say into our new microphone, not really knowing what that meant except that’s what you were supposed to say when you wanted to talk. And we all had to have a “handle,” the name you
communicated by, because no one used his real name. Some were “Hot Mama, Big Daddy, Preacher Man.” Everyone came up with a handle that in some way reflected them to others.

Lots of people have nicknames. When I went to work at 15 years of age in a coffee shop after school, the coffee drinkers nicknamed me “Lovey,” which is also like a play on my real name, “Lavon,” pronounced “love-on.”

Now, may I ask, did I become lovey acting after they gave me that name or did they name me that because I acted lovey? It’s probably a little of both, but Mom says I was born that way. Some nicknames reflect physical attributes, like “Shortie” or family relationships, like “Sonny” and “Sis.”

So if you were going to pick a nickname or CB handle for yourself, what would you choose? Is the “Hot Mama” really that way or wishing she were? Is the “Preacher Man” religious, spouting rules and regulations, or is he a real gospel-preaching, people-loving man like Jesus?

The Word says that one day Jesus will give us a new name, written on a white stone, Rev 2:17. I wonder? Will it reflect the lives we have lived on this earth? Will it speak of who we are? If we are going to have that name through all eternity, wouldn’t it be terrible if it reflected the bad traits that we have developed on this earth?

What will your new name be? I wouldn’t mind if my new name is Lovey.

My car talks. It posts notifications on the dash and talks through the radio speaker. My car is synchronized with my iPhone by BlueTooth and I’m able to call and talk hands-free.

The other day when driving to Mother’s house I initiated a call to her to tell her I was on my way. After I disconnected, I started laughing. I was talking to a car. I have a talking car. This is like something out of a sci-fi movie.

My mom was born in horse-and-buggy days, in a house with no running water, no indoor toilet, no electricity. She got an eighth-grade education, equivalent to graduating high school now, at a country school where all the kids were in the same room. By the time Mom was in her young teens, she learned to drive in a Model T and got her license, but after she had us kids, she let her license expire and walked everywhere she went.

I learned to drive in a two-tone green 1953 Chevy.  I had a 1950 bullet-nose Studebaker. I found out recently that it’s a highly collectible model that marked a dramatic change from the World War II-era vehicles. I’ve had a lot of cars, mainly Chevrolets and my favorite over the years has been the 1957 Chevy that I owned in the 70s.I love my the 2000 Chevy Tahoe too, but this 2011 Chevy Traverse is the first one I could carry on a conversation with.  It looks like I’m talking to myself, but I’m talking to an unseen electronic piece of equipment. Technically I’m not talking to the car, I’m talking to the electronic voice-recognition software in my iphone through the car.

I usually talk to real people and I always talk to God. I frequently talk to Him as I drive down the road, asking for spiritual direction for my life. He’s the one I can always turn to. It might look like I’m talking to myself or my car, but I’m really talking to the King of kings.

Who do you talk to?