LEARNING -------- AT WARP SPEED!

Here it is at 5 AM and I can't sleep, so many things running through my mind. And yet, heaven knows I need my beauty sleep and others will suffer if I don't get it! This last month has been such a learning curve and I am ready to slow down some. Seems I have too much to learn and the Lord is surely trying to teach me over and over and over.

I am now in Kansas City and today Daddy will once again have surgery. I belive this to be his 26th time of " going under the knife," in his lifetime, and yet he bears it with bravery and faith. They will be putting a pin in his shoulder and fixing three tears in his ligaments. I know he lives with a constant level of pain. His poor body has been used up and yet he keeps trucking. When he was a very young man he used to lift 100 pound tires and throw them over his shoulder. That was when I was born and he was working 2 to 3 jobs at the age of 18 to support a family. I think one of the things that impress me so much about him is that you never hear him complain or say poor me. He has had some really tough life experiences yet he continues on not lamenting how hard his life has been. I am trying to be like him and yet I seem to want everyone to go along on my life journey with me! I guess I am a wimp. Thanks Daddy for your example.

Now I guess that I need to put this down so that I can try and go back to sleep. I have been thinking how the Lord works in His own special way and how He knows the end from the beginning. As I sit here I have been thinking about how good deeds come back to you. Things that you have done in many years past, long forgotten, without expectations, are repaid at the most unexpected time. I visited my Grandmother today and it is literally breaking my heart to see her. She was the most alive, vibrant person I think I have ever known, and now she is just existing, waiting to go home to where most of her family now resides.........back to a loving Heavenly Father. I never thought I would ever say these words, but I want her to be able to do the same, she is suffering and so are we and there is such a better place for her to be. The ironic thing is, is that she is in an assisted living facility that is virtually out the back door of my house in Kansas City! Why am I in Colorado, when if I was here I could do so much.? Sometimes guilt eats away at me. I still don't understand and struggle with the Lord's plan, but hopefully some day I will.

Anyway, to the point of my story. I have a dear friend who is more like a sister actually. She went to church with me and we have known each other a long time. We were visiting teaching companions and became good friends. She and I have been through a lot of situations together and no one would have ever guessed she and I to be so close. We come from very different backgrounds and life experiances and yet we are "sisters," in the gospel. How amazing when you think about it. Well, come to find out she has been going and sitting with my Grandmother at supper time every evening, feeding her, ( I think my Grandmother is trying to starve herself to death) taking her back to her room, getting her ready for bed, and watching a little TV with her until she is sleepy. I am not talking about occasionally, she has been doing this almost every night. I have cried all day, thinking about the service that this dear friend is giving not only to my Grandmother but to me. She is serving me by doing the things that I cannot do for myself, but want to so badly, unconditionally! I asked her why, and she said, "Because of the Gospel, because I love you." How amazing, and how humble I am to be taught by her. Did the Lord know long ago when I helped someone in need that they would turn around and serve me to this extent? I believe so and "I Stand All Amazed!"