God Is Good, All the Time! All the Time, God is Good!

Good Monday morning. We hosted all of our children and grandchildren yesterday to celebrate my wife's birthday from last Wednesday and our middle son's 40th coming up this next Wednesday. What a day! I had put together a barbecue Saturday evening and that's what we enjoyed for lunch. Since it was my wife's birthday I typically try to do all the cooking. I was up in the wee hours of Sunday morning peeling nearly 10 pounds of potatoes for the potato salad. It was not the best of mornings. I couldn't find this or that and I certainly wasn't going to wake her up to find out where anything was located. The potatoes boiled over on the stove and it seemed like everything I got hold of tended to do the opposite of what I was wanting it to do. I was talking with our eldest while cooking Saturday evening and told him it had been so long since I had done that much meat on the grill, I thought I had forgotten how. I also mentioned that I had confidence in Granny Mac's homemade barbecue sauce to cover up any flaws. It's really Granny Mac's plus my wife's brother's secret ingredient, cola! At any rate, it's a barbecue sauce you can't buy anywhere and our family loves it.

This morning I was up around 3:30 a.m., and as I looked around all I could see was stuff turned upside down with toy cars and trucks here and there. Most of the toys our grandsons play with at our house belonged to their dads when they were kids. Instead of being peeved by the disorder of things, all I could do was enjoy a sense of blessing from God as I could see in my mind's eye Brady, Alex, Lexie, Amanda, Alesha, Lil Jim, Kyleigh, Stefani, Brittany, Tiffany, and her friend J. C. I can also see our children and their wives, Rodney and Mitzi, Jimmy and Mindi, and Chris and Sherrie, and of course the lady of the house, wife Marilyn. I also remembered the mountains of food piled up on the boys' plates and how our eldest said he knew he was going to most likely be ill but it was so-o-o-o good, he had to have one more plate. For us, these are our treasured days. Chaotic, loud, laughing, and sometimes crying when one of the little ones fall, but what a day to be thanking God for the birthdays and the blessings!

Today it's back to the real world where I will be very busy getting ready to get ready for my surgery later this week. I have the cardiologist this morning and will need his blessing before they can put me under for the knee scope. Tomorrow I have my primary care guy who has to also sign off a sheet with about 100 boxes that need to be checked. The surgeon told me that 80% of the people who have this surgery have little or no side effects and can return to their normal activities immediately. The other 20% end up with some minor complications, swelling, slow healing, and other stuff. In this case I have built my schedule around the 80% rule, therefore, I intend, with God's help, to have the surgery on Thursday and be back at 100% bright and early Friday morning.

It was a busy last week and a hugely busy last Saturday. Sunday was a great day. We enjoyed meeting with our brothers and sisters in Christ in our Bible study time, our morning worship, and all the other activities of the day. The old saying about not having to be rocked to sleep certainly fit me last night. There is tired, there is weary, and there is total fatigue, but all of these can have the word good in front of them whenever you are humbled by God's goodness, His grace, and His blessings. Yesterday morning as I was rehearsing with my mom all the things that had gone wrong in getting ready for our day, she told me she felt like it was going to be a wonderful day for us and our family. She was right! That's why it is always best to listen to your mother! May God help us all to have a great work week and to find ways to honor Him by helping others! Amen. ....More later.