A Sister Is Born for Adversity

As Angie's birthday approached, I recalled one of Dad's sayings about Mother. He would say, "I give her the roses now." He meant that he expressed daily how much Mother meant to him with his words of thankfulness and praise. Angie and Ben, my sister and brother-in-law, are so instrumental in Mother and me staying on the farm. One of the greatest gifts we can give one another is true appreciation and thankfulness for specific ways our loved ones make our lives meaningful.

Happy Birthday, Angie!

As he prefers, Ben is out of sight taking this photo on Mother's Day in 2022.

                 This week is my sister’s birthday. I recall the morning my maternal grandma awakened me with the news, “You have a new baby sister!” How glad and relieved I was!

                The relief stemmed from many times over past few months when I was with Dad. Invariably, someone would say, “Edmund, I hear you’re gonna get your boy.” My little five-year old heart would sink. I did not want a brother, but it seemed almost everyone thought Dad needed a boy.

                Angie wasn’t perfect, but I could tell by comments made, she was an easier baby to handle – slept better, cried less, and was much calmer than I had been. Even I could compare and know that most of those observances were correct.

               As soon as she could crawl, Grandma admonished me, “You watch that baby.” I took that instruction pertaining to Angie's safety quite seriously for a little five-year-old.

                There were a few times my dogging her steps paid dividends. I discovered her with a pill bottle opened and consuming pills that resembled M & M’s. ER visits were unheard unless someone was on death’s door so Mother called the family doctor and was told of the complications Angie might have. Obviously, she recovered.

                Angie entered a phase of hiding. Of course, with Grandma’s mandate looming over me, I bordered on being panic-stricken. I discovered this tiny preschool prankster hidden under a bed in Grandpa and Grandma’s bedroom, an off-limits area for her and me. During the  search I tiptoed in reluctantly. We both know that we never entered that room without Grandma, but my little risk-taking sister had. 

                Another time she was found in a small room with no windows or a light in the old garage that Grandpa dubbed “the snake room.”  Ironically, Mother admitted recently she hid the very same way often under the porch at the house where she and her parents lived.

                Fast-forwarding to the last two years, Angie has lived out the scripture phrase from Proverbs 17:17b that reads …a brother is born for adversity or the interpretation I like, a sister is born for adversity. She began staying with Mother if I had a dental or optical appointment or other necessary obligation.

                Then following a test in the summer of 2022, it appeared surgery would be inevitable. When the word oncologist appeared in the description of my surgeon, Mother became uneasy. Her anxiety intensified as other appointments and tests became inevitable. Angie, the take-charge sister, said, “I will take Bernadean to the appointments.” She took me to every surgeon appointment and additional test which put Mother’s mind at ease.

                Angie and Ben opened their home for Mother and me during the time I had surgery in October. She changed the décor to predominantly pink in the bedroom where Mother slept, and Ben lowered the bed to conform to the height of Mother’s own bed at the farm.

                Post-surgery, upon our return to the farm, during November, Angie, Vonda and Greg Goad cared for the cattle. Angie figured ways to work smarter, not harder in our cattle feed hauling, a safer procedure for putting out bales, and a few other tasks. Angie came at least once a week to help with whatever needed her assistance and has continued that practice.

                One Sunday in May, I returned to find Mother on the floor after a fall that she explained succinctly, “I was trying to do too much.” We thanked the Lord Mother sustained no injuries, but Angie reminded me she had suggested more than once about coming on the weekends, so she began coming each Saturday to be with Mother, especially on Sunday mornings when I go to church. With Mother’s limited mobility, Angie’s presence has decreased Mother’s anxiety.

                Both of us are in complete agreement with giving Mother the kind of life she wants – in the Bend, in her pink house. Angie’s help has been significant, but her attitude with her willingness to help, without a syllable of complaint, and a cheerfulness and eagerness to assist even in distasteful, difficult farm tasks has been invaluable.

                Mother often quoted from I Corinthians 13:4-7 duirng her parenting. Angie demonstrates these verses each week. They seem the perfect reminder for how we show our love to one another. They have truly been words my sister has lived by for which I am grateful.

Love suffers long and is kind;

Love does not envy;

Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up,

Does not behave rudely,

Does not seek its own, is not provoked,

Thinks no evil,

Does not rejoice in iniquity,

But rejoices in the truth;

Bears all things, Believes all things,

            Hopes all things. Endures all things.

Three More Blog Postings About Angie as a Kid:

https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2015/07/

https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-lofty-goal-for-little-girl.html

https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2020/09/one-version-of-learning-from-home.html

The Arkansas River Photograph

          My maternal grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, affixed an interesting panoramic-type photograph in her well-worn album. The near 90-year-old visual record of a Depression era occurrence evidenced rough treatment based on the creases, smudges, and other unsightly defacements of it.

           Mother, just a month shy of reaching her 99th year, said the photograph was taken following two weeks of a brush arbor revival in the Bend. Mother would have been 10 years old. She related the location of the services was south of the Hutchens’ home and past the road to David Crabtree’s home. She explained the brush arbor was constructed on the right side of that road a short distance before the road turns sharply back to the west to go where several Bledsoe families live in the southwest corner of the Bend.
            Mother described how trees were felled and logs were cut to provide side supports for the frame of the arbor. Then in the earliest days thinner logs were crisscrossed on the roof section, but in later years she thought wire might have been used. Finally, leafy limbs or brush placed for the roof of the arbor frame leant to its name brush arbor. She added, “It seemed like the arbor frame was left to be used year to year.”
            As Mother and I continued discussing, obviously in the 1930s, there was no electricity so they had to plan services before the sun went down (Mother’s family did not get electricity in their home until 1941). Each service consisted of some singing, sometimes special singing, strong Bible preaching, and always an invitation for anyone to be saved by Jesus from sin.
            A collection called Ralston Oklahoma the Early Years, appeared to have been printed with the authorization of the Ralston Historical Society, but no year of printing is listed. I am greatly indebted to one sentence that says
…1935…the revival in the Big Bend…a huge number of people were baptized in the Arkansas, north of the Belford bridge.
            Marilyn Forbes Moon agreed with Mother that one of the 16 women who were baptismal candidates was Marilyn's mother, Marie Forbes. Mother could identify both her parents on the bank. The pastor from the Ralston Federated Church, Robert Stallings, had preached the nightly services. With the 8 men, the number being baptized totaled 24 Benders.
            Grandma would have never wanted this photo if she had not attended a brush arbor previously held in September 1931. Prior to that revival, Grandma and Grandpa were consumed with making a living in the Bend during the dirty 30s and trying to raise my mother, their only child. Then Grandma's beloved father in his early 60s had been buried on her 31st birthday on August 11. It proved to be a turning point in her life. At the revival held in the Bend, Grandma and her younger sister, Alice, were “converted” at one of the evening meetings preached by Brother Stallings. When Grandma wrote in her little family history booklet of her conversion, she referred to the “change, solely by the power of Jesus, of a dead person into a transformed living person because the death of Jesus makes forgiveness of sin possible. His resurrection empowers one to daily walk in obedience to His Word.” From that point in her life, her foundational mission in life became sharing the good news that Jesus would “remake” sinful lives into a new, purposeful existence.
            Our immediate family was radically affected since within a year Grandpa made a life-altering commitment to Jesus. Their commitments impacted how they changed rearing my mother. Upon my mother’s conversion, she purposed to only marry a committed Christian. Grandma witnessed diligently to my dad for over four years before he chose to follow Jesus himself. Then he and Mother worked to parent Angie and I with principles for life from God’s Word.
            One of the last phone calls I had with Grandma’s niece, Dean Rice LittleStar, clearly identified Grandma as the greatest influence in the Rainey family pointing each member to the Lord. Grandma, with conviction, told Mother that at that point in time, there was no person in the Bend with whom she had not shared the gospel.   

            September 1931, didn’t just alter Grandma’s destiny but many of the rest of us, too. May her conviction to tell the story of the birth, death, resurrection, and soon return of Jesus inspire us to devote our lives to telling the gospel story to family, friends, and neighbors.

A Few Sheets of Paper Toweling

          This upcoming week marks a nation-altering event which occurred 22 years ago. Usually, a tangible piece of memorabilia is preserved to recall momentous occurances in our lives--even a tragedy. A few days ago, I recalled the only item I kept other than my journal that recorded the events and my thoughts. I even gave newspapers reporting the 9/11 attack away when I relocated to the farm but saved a partial paper towel roll!

          This practically used-up paper towel roll represented one of many patriotic- type products inspired by President George W. Bush’s urging Americans to support American businesses as a symbolic action of standing with the country through a difficult time.

So many times over the years, I have moved
this roll of paper toweling and every time I 
recall the Attack of 9/11/2001. (The lines of 
perforation for tearing toweling off is evident.)

          As Americans, we needed a way to show concern and sympathy in death or tragedy! Ironically, when we found ourselves unable to change the decimation of 2,977 innocent lives and the destruction of iconic places to never be the same again, we purchased everyday products with patriotic graphics. Somehow, we reasoned we were doing something. It didn’t matter whether we purchased a CD by Alan Jackson or one by Celine Dion. Americans bought commemorative t-shirts and sweatshirts. We couldn’t undo the atrocious acts and their devastation, but we could try to identify with the sorrow and in a small way show we cared.

          The Apostle Paul emphasized the importance of unselfishly observing what occurs to those around us. We should share the joy of those who are experiencing good things, but even more importantly, we must empathize with those who are sorrowing. In Romans 12:15, Paul wrote: Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

            Paul in the early portion of his second letter to the Corinthian believers wrote of God initiating comfort. The comfort we receive from God is to be used to comfort others. Chapter 1, verses 3-4 reads like this: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

In what is believed to be the first book of the Bible chronologically, Job’s life story, though blessed with material blessings and a wonderful family, gets challenged by Satan, the arch enemy of God, who boasted that God sheltered Job and if He removed His sheltering hedge that Job “will surely curse You to Your face!” Soon, calamities began for Job. 

In Job 2, three of his friends heard of the adversity that had come upon Job and came to comfort him. Job 2:13 recorded their arrival. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw his grief was very great. But as they began speaking and conversing with Job in chapters 4-37, the three of his friends’ comforting capability sunk low. The renowned commentator of yesteryear in the 17^th-18^th centuries of the United Kingdom, Matthew Henry, addressed speaking during tragedy and death, “We should think twice before we speak once, especially in such a case as this, think long, and we shall be the better able to speak short and to the purpose.”

          As we recall the tragedy of September 11, 2001, may we continue to bear the sorrow of the families who lost so much that day. May we mourn the grief it inflicted upon our nation. How important to share the importance of remaining true to God who has strengthened our people and nation well over two centuries!

The First Blog I Wrote About 9/11 and a Very Special Class of Third Graders https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2016/09/911-15-years-ago.html

 The Last Military Reunion Dad Attended and 9/11 https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-second-week-of-september-20-years.html

A World War II Memory of Dad and Its Connection to 9/11  https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2021/10/ive-been-right-there.html

Age Is Only a Number

              Several times this summer I have glimpsed our oldest female cat leaping over the north gate of the yard fence. Special, dubbed that by Cailea Rice, is at least 7 years old. To learn more about Special in her younger years, go to https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2018/02/small-but-spunky-special.html
               Special still climbs on the north chicken house roof to “sun” herself. Interestingly, since we kept her last kitten, Baby Bug, Special still tries to “mother” Baby Bug even though Special’s baby is bigger than she is!

As Dad would say, "The oldest old lady cat on the hill."

                Special always speaks using several interesting “meows.” Just as C. S. Lewis, the famed 20th century British author posed in his plot of The Magician’s Nephew that animals communicated with ease to Eve and Adam in the garden, I always found it interesting that Eve spoke comfortably with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I have mentioned to Mother that I think Special has much to say and I would understand her if we were in the Garden of Eden.
                To be a vintage or senior cat, whichever moniker one wants to give Special, she has such vim and vigor (or as Grandma Gladys would say, “vim and vinegar.”) The same is true with people. I recall what Deuteronomy 34:7 says of Moses, Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not left him.
                As I continued musing about Moses, I recalled the Bible used “friend” to describe the relationship Moses had with God. I flipped to that in my Bible and read the first part of Exodus 33:11 where it says, So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.
                Moses died with eyes still strong. His vitality remained robust indicating a healthy body. Then suddenly, the episode of disobedience entered my memory. While wandering in the Wilderness of Zin, water became scarce and the Israelites complaining ensued. Moses and Aaron went before the Lord in humility and the glory of the Lord was manifested. God directed Moses to take the rod and speak to the Lord. Despite the fact that God had led him step by step, Moses gave way to frustration and spoke to the people with these words, Listen, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock for you? The Biblical account in Numbers 20 records Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank.
                So many things were done perfectly by Moses but when Moses speaks right before striking the rock, the reader can since his disgust with the people. He could have simply called water from the rock in total obedience to the Lord God. Moses didn’t. As a result, God speaks to both Moses and Aaron in verse 12 of Numbers 20. This is from The Message, …Because you didn’t trust me, didn’t treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of Israel, you two aren’t going to lead this company into the land that I am giving them.
                As we age, how important our responses with words and actions become! Even though we may have vigor and health like our farm cat, Special, may our responses always give the Lord all glory, recognizing His almighty work in our daily lives. Here is a prayer from Psalm 71:17-18 to pray with a desire to age well like our Special.

God, You have taught me from my youth, and I still proclaim Your wonderful works. Even when I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me. Then I will proclaim Your power to another generation, Your strength to all who are to come.