Category: Devotionals

MOTHER HEN

Once a week, my 97-year-old mother gets a full shower, her hair washed and set, and her nails trimmed and filed. Sometimes we polish her fingernails. When I give her a choice of color she always chooses a light pink almost pearl color.

I can remember as preteen girls, my sisters and I would polish her nails. We curled her hair, even cut it, and gave her permanents. When we were young we believed our mother was the prettiest mother there ever was, but as we grew up into our teen years, our mother seemed old-fashioned and behind the times.

I got married, moved about 100 miles away, and settled into work, but I still felt so attached to my mother and family that I came home to Vinita almost every two weeks. I didn’t care what it cost to drive home. The town we had moved to never became home.

After my first child was born, I continued to return to Vinita bringing him to visit my mother and mother-in-law. When he was sick, I called Mother and she’d catch the bus down to help me take care of him. When I was divorced and moved back to Vinita, I moved my mobile home next door to Mother to live, and once again, she was the one who helped me with everything.

Mother and I have had our ups and down, probably because we are both stubborn and mule-headed, but I learned as I matured that my mother was truly my best friend even during those times we butted heads.

Jesus stood looking out over Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood [chicks] under her wings, but you were not willing.” Luke 13:35 NKJV

Jesus, our Savior, our Lord, our Master, our Healer, and yes, even our mother hen who watches over her little children, gathering them under wings of love to protect us in troubled times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One real regret of my life has been that we didn’t take summer vacations. Many families we knew went to Disneyland, Disney World, Six Flags in Dallas and Kansas City. Lots of people traveled to grandma’s house or to visit other relatives, but Grandma lived in the same town we did.

We always felt as though we didn’t have enough money to spend on trips and vacations, but other people who made less money than we did went on great vacations. Of course we were not racking up debt like they were.

One thing I always made an effort to do was send our children to Camp Fire Girls camp and Boy Scout camp. I wanted my two kids to learn to live off the land, to learn to make a fire, dig a latrine, and build a lean-to shelter.

The only vacation I ever remember taking in my childhood was in 1958 when we kids and Mother returned to California with her two sisters and their families. We stayed there about 3 weeks and then came back with our uncle Cecil who was moving back to Oklahoma to live.

California was like a foreign country to us little kids from Vinita, Ok. We visited Knott’s Berry Farm, but didn’t get to go to Disneyland. We went to Seal Beach where we little kids sat in swimsuits while the Pacific Ocean waves rolled up over our legs and ran crying to Mother when we became afraid of drowning.

I am planning a trip some day, a trip to beat all trips. No, I’m not going to schedule a cruise to the Bahamas or up the coast of Canada to Alaska. I’m planning my trip to heaven.

I’ve already obtained my one-way ticket aboard the Great Railway to Heaven. My ticket was bought and paid for by my dear Lord Jesus Christ, with His own blood. I’m not sure exactly when I’m going but it could be soon or it might be a long time. St. Paul said, “The time of my departure is at hand. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

 

My cousins Cathy and Judy were just a couple of years apart in age. My first real memory of them took place in 1958 at a big family reunion held at our grandparents’ home in Altamont, Kansas. Their parents brought them home from California that summer and we all went to Altamont for the reunion. We ran around and played childhood games with them and all our other first cousins while our parents enjoyed their time together.

The next time I saw them was in 1960, when their father passed away and was brought back from California, to Kansas for burial. I remember going with our parents to meet the train in Parsons, Kansas, and I remember them stepping off the train with their mama—two of the prettiest little blonde girls about 7 and 5 years old.

That scene came back to my mind this week when their mother my aunt passed away, all these many years later, the sad picture in my mind of that young mother with two little baby girls to raise all by herself.

That young mother raised those sweet little girls to adulthood, then helped them in raising her grandchildren. She served the Lord faithfully all those years in the church. She always had a smile and loved many people into the kingdom of God. Her last years in the nursing home were spent praying for all those who needed prayer, and all of the nursing home workers loved her dearly.

Our minds are strange, but wonderful, with all those little hidden memories that spring up at the slightest thing. Two or three musical notes bring songs with all the words flooding back to our minds. Multiplication tables come back when we balance our checkbooks. The smell of  hand cream reminds us of  our grandmother who has been gone for 30 years.

The Bible teach us about the memory. “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11.

My memory also holds all those wonderful family memories/ It also holds the Word of God that I memorized when I was a child.

Lavon Hightower Lewis

Email me at llewis2138@sbcglobal.net

When I was in grade school, Mom used to say that I ate more corn-on-the-cob than their old mules did on the farm. I love corn on the cob. I could eat it every day, three times a day, 7 days a week all summer long. White corn, yellow corn, mixed white-and-yellow corn, field corn, home-grown corn, any corn. I even eat canned corn, frozen corn.

One year, my friend and I bought 3 bushels of corn between us to eat and freeze. We sat in the backyard, shucking corn, all morning. I was even eating it uncooked, right off the cob, while I shucked.

She said, “What shall we have for lunch?” I looked at the corn, I looked at her, I looked back at the corn. She said, “After all this shucking, you want to eat corn?” I nodded. So we cooked 4 ears each and I ate one of hers. And we had plenty left over to freeze.

The oldtime farmers saved some of their corn kernels back to plant the next year. They ate the corn, gave some of it to the horses, then saved some back to plant. They didn’t eat it all. They couldn’t run down to the feed store to buy seed.

One ear of corn has about 16 rows, about 100 kernels each. If you planted those 100 kernels and all of them germinated, you would have 100 stalks of corn. There are usually 4 ears of corn on one stalk, so that is 400 ears of corn from that one original ear of corn, in one corn season. Next year when you plant the corn kernels, then from those 400 ears of corn with 100 kernels each, you would get 40,000 stalks of corn times 4 ears each equals 160,000 ears of corn. (It took a lot of figurin’ to cipher that out. And of course this is assuming that every kernel germinates and every stalk of corn has 4 ears.) From one ear of corn. What a harvest that would be.

In II Corinthians 9:7, Paul said, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

Don’t eat all your corn. Plant generously in your local church.

One of my earliest and happiest memories is of our family’s little reddish-blonde cocker spaniel. We have pictures of him with us in about 1958 in which you can see my hair is the same color as his. Then we had a black and white doggie named ……what was his name? Spot? Tippy?

Another one I remember well was our next-door-neighbor’s dog. He was a big, husky, long-haired dog, who followed our friend Velta around all the time. He was very over-protective of her.

Our little dog when I was a teenager was black with a tiny bit of white and brown. Probably part dachshund, with short legs, short hair, and the prettiest eyes. She was a mouser. She’d start nosing around, sniffing, whining, and we’d just let her go. Soon she’d be dragging a mouse out of the closet.

We are so attached to our little pets, as they become part of our families. Some people might not consider our pet animals to be a very spiritual thing, but in the New Testament Jesus spoke about dogs. A little lady came to Jesus asking for healing for her daughter.

 ^“Then he said to the woman, “I was sent to help the Jews—the lost sheep of Israel—not the Gentiles.” But she came and worshiped him and pled again, “Sir, help me!”

 “It doesn’t seem right to take bread from the children and throw it to the dogs,” he said.

 “Yes, it is!” she replied, “for even the puppies beneath the table are permitted to eat the crumbs that fall.”

 “Woman,” Jesus told her, “your faith is large, and your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed right then.” Matthew 15:24-28. The Living Bible.

She had the wisdom and audacity to believe that he would want even the little pet dogs under the table to have the crumbs from the master’s table.

We are not just his little pets, we are his children, so it is our privilege to sit at the Master’s table and eat the good things God has prepared for us, and not just settle for the crumbs that drop off the Master’s table.

 

When I was a kid, the 4^th of July Fireworks show was held at the Vinita rodeo grounds and we could watch from our front yard. Oh, the joy of watching the colors burst against the dark evening sky!

We ooh’d and ah’d as each display was more beautiful, more spectacular, that the one before. A pause between each brought us the expectation of another light bursting forth, then a long pause, followed by more displays. We always agreed this fireworks show put on by the American Legion of Vinita was better than the year before.

Many people I discovered actually went to the rodeo grounds to watch the fireworks show, but we were satisfied to enjoy it from our own yard.

The 4^th of July and the fireworks show was always special to me, more so than some other holidays, with company from out of town. There were always hotdogs and hamburgers, along with watermelon and cantaloupe, eaten outside. We ate our watermelon the old-fashioned way—without forks, and with juice running off our chin and spitting the seeds out into the yard.

Many people went to the rodeo grounds to watch the fireworks show, but we were satisfied to enjoy it from our own yard.

When I was a teen, I went with friends to the rodeo grounds to watch the fireworks for the first time, and imagine my surprise when I realized that the long pause in the middle of the fireworks show was actually a presentation of the US flag on the ground and not in the air. Just think of all that I had missed out on all those years by watching from a distance and not in the arena.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.  But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.” I Corinthians 2:9-10. NKJV.

Many of us are missing out on things that we don’t even realize. What are you missing out on in your journey through life? God will reveal it to you if you ask.