Greetings from Howe, Texas

Happy Wednesday!

I completed the celebration service today. I went to the church for a song list and visited with the ladies of the Wednesday Workers. Mom was a participant in this group. Today they were quilting. They miss Mom so very much and loved to visit about her. I sat across one of her oldest friends. Mrs. Dorothy and Mom began first grade together. Mrs. Dorothy was the valedictorian of their senior class and Mom was the salutatorian. Several of these ladies knew me before there was a me! It was a really wonderful visit. These sweet women are bringing dinner tomorrow evening for us. Another long-time family friend brought a delicious banana pudding. Country ladies’ cooking…completely amazing! The diet will have to begin next week, because right now it doesn’t stand a chance.

Prayer: “O God, when we feel too broken to ever mend, surround us with your love. Amen”

Psalm 147: 3 “The Lord heals the broken hearted, and binds up their wounds.”

The first church I ever remember attending as a very small child was the Howe Methodist Church. It was a beautiful picturesque white frame building with curved pews, cathedral ceilings, hardwood floors and a bell tower with a long rope strong enough to allow a little one to fly up and down and ring the bell. The most prominent and treasured attributes of this beautiful old building were the stained glass windows. They were the real stained glass, not art glass, and had been created into pictures of Jesus and children, or Jesus and sheep and other images of Bible stories. When the building became unsafe with a shifting foundation and cracks in the ceiling it was time for a new building. My Mom and Dad were married in that sanctuary, though, and my first church job as a youth and music director was also in that building. There was such grief when there was no other choice but to build a new building. The greatest amount of thought was how to safely remove those priceless windows from this beloved building without cracking or breaking them. A plan was devised and the windows were removed and reframed. There were bits and pieces left over which were carefully collected and placed into custom made light fixtures that hang from the ceiling in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is now surrounded by these windows and lit by those bits and pieces.

These bits and pieces which seemed so fragile and the windows that were so faithfully restored were reconstructed into precious memories and became another of God’s outward and visible signs of an inward gift of grace. God takes our broken pieces and re-crafts them with His love and tender mercy to make something beautiful. These pieces of ourselves that sometimes seem so fragile and beyond repair are can be restored and made into a mosaic of grace that sing a song of praise.

Even though our hearts are broken God promises in the scriptures that He will heal our broken hearts and bind our wounds tending to them Himself by His loving compassion and everlasting love.

Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes and carry an umbrella. Count your blessings and say your prayers. Continue to pray for Daddy and for all of us. Love you all and are so grateful for your prayer support, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am only moved by what I believe and I believe God.

PS Please pray travel mercy for all who will travel to be with us. gc