Even in the Small Things.

R.A. Torrey once said "The chief purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer."

I don't know if that's the chief purpose or not.  There's lots of reasons to pray.  But I believe in giving glory to God every day, no matter what.  And when a prayer is answered, no matter how seemingly insignificant a request, I can't help but praise Him!

 This is my I-phone.  Shattered.  I dropped it about 3 feet.  Onto a concrete floor.  It was dead.

It's insured, so we immediately took it to the AT&T store.  They said we could pay $200 deductible, and they would mail me a new phone.  In a few days.  To my home address.  This is a problem.  I'm not going to be home.  For a while.  And...$200....really?

Y'all.  I need my phone.  It has my contacts.  My friends live in my phone.  It has my lists.  Lists of everything.  My calendar.  My books on the Kindle app, and more books on the Audible app. My photos that I hadn't transferred to the computer yet. My Bible.  Several versions of the Bible, actually.  Even my prayer list is on my phone. 

So we went back to the fifth wheel, to try to decide what to do.  And I prayed.

Next morning, I still didn't know what to do.  We hooked up the fiver to head north.  I didn't really have a chance to think about it until we were actually in the pickup heading down the road.  I'm not claiming to have tons of faith.  But I had prayed.  I felt a little silly trying to turn it on again.  I'd tried several times the day before.  Two guys at the AT&T store pronounced it dead. 

So anyway, I pushed the button.  Guess you know by now...it WORKED!  And I've been seriously praising the Lord ever since. 

Just had to share. He deserves the glory!

PS - just a thought - What if I hadn't had enough faith to try it one more time?  How many prayers does He answer, and we just give up without even checking it out?

Sunday



Today was a lovely laid back Sunday.  We worshipped with the friendly folks at First Baptist Ashdown, this morning.  A very pretty mid-sized church, and one of the friendliest we've ever visited.  We were greeted first thing by the pastor, Butch Riddle.  He was standing in the entry as we came in, and made us feel so very welcome. He let us know right quick that he is from Fort Worth, Texas!  But he has been preaching here for well over 20 years. 

We enjoyed the morning service so much, we returned for the evening service.  The youth group performed the show they have performed at other churches.  They call themselves First Act, and they are good.  They sang, performed a couple of dramatic skits, and even signed to several songs.  It was very creative and very well done.

After the morning service, we ate at Medrano's Mexican Café.  Pretty good stuff.  Since we come to Millwood Landing pretty often, we are happy to have found a church and a Mexican restaurant that we enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Today being Father's Day, our kids were on our minds a lot today.  We've been blessed with two of the best.  And our children are blessed to have the Cowboy for their dad.  He's the hardest working man I've ever known, as well as the most tender hearted. 

We are also both missing our own dads today.  We were both blessed with hard working, Godly, honest, generous, larger-than-life fathers. 

Yes, it's certainly been a day to reflect on just how blessed we are, in so many ways.

 

Historic Washington State Park

I've been trying off and on all day to write something that would convey my excitement about where we went yesterday.  I just don't have words. So I'm just going to post the pictures, and then write a little about each one.  Just trust me when I say, we had a great day.  And if you ever get a chance to visit this place - do it!

So, this is where we were.  Historic Washington State Park.  It's a town.  Established in 1824. Where real people still live in real homes.  And, it's a state park.  Confusing at first.  But most of the buildings in town are owned by the park, and have been made into living history museums.  With real live people in period clothing in each building, who give guided tours and demonstrate how the folks lived way back when.

This home is now a wonderful restaurant called Williams' Tavern. We had a wonderful lunch with fried catfish, black eyed pea salad, fried squash, corn bread, yeast rolls and sweet tea.  And I hear their fried green tomatoes are the best!  And the price was less than a catfish meal at Red Lobster. Can't beat that!

 

This is the interior of the 1836 courthouse.  The nice man there told us that Washington was the seat of Hempstead County for several years.  And a prosperous little town it was, too.  But the town fathers turned down the railroads offer to build a line through the town. I mean, who wants a stinky old train running through town? No telling what kind of riffraff might come in! Then two years after they built a new courthouse across town, the county seat was moved to Hope, Arkansas.  And the town just kind of withered away.

 

 

This sweet lady showed us around the Sanders House and Farmstead.  She had such a nice laugh.  Everyone working at the park really seemed to love their jobs.

 

 

 

 



 

 Lucky for us, theses old homes are not exactly like they were in the 19th century.  Electric lights and central air conditioning have been discreetly added. 

 

 

 

 This huge Magnolia tree is the largest in the state.  I think they said it was planted in 1836. You can't see it, but the street on the other side of the tree has been closed, because the tree has taken over the street!  This is near the Royston Log House, where a very nice man told us about living in the 1830s–1860s.

 

 

This gentleman  was in the old newspaper shop, where there is a good collection of old printing equipment.  Cowboy even got to run an old printing press here!

 

 

 Next stop was the antique gun museum.  And the Cowboy was in hog heaven, for sure. I thought we'd never leave this place!

 

Another view of the magnolia tree.

 

These 3 pictures are furnishings from the Royston log cabin. 

 

This last pic is from the Block-Catts House, built between 1827 and 1832, a Federal "I" Style building that served as the home of Arkansas's first Jewish settler, Abraham Block. The House is also the oldest two-story, wooden-framed building standing in the state.

We also visited the candle shop, where we got to make our own candles, the 1874 Courthouse, and a re-creation of a frontier Blacksmith Shop. Constructed in 1960, it preserves the legacy of Bowie Knife. It also contains two working forges dedicated to preserving the traditions of Blacksmithing. 

Evidently, in 1831, James Black, the best known blacksmith in Washington, forged  the original Bowie knife for the frontiersman James Bowie.

There are lots of other buildings in the park that weren't open yesterday.  I can't wait to come back with the grandgirls and see some of the things we missed!

Here's a couple of websites where you can learn more about the Historic Washington State Park:

http://www.historicwashingtonstatepark.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_Washington_State_Park

Ashdown, Arkansas

What a busy couple of days!  My plan was to stay around the RV park most of yesterday, letting Charlie Chihuahua get used to his new surroundings, and getting the 5er set up like I wanted.  But the Cowboy had other plans.  After fishing a while, then eating lunch, he wanted to go to Wal-Mart.  So off to Ashdown we went.

 

 

 

On the way, I got him to stop so I could snap a pic of this marker.  The place we are staying is Millwood Landing Golf and RV Resort

 

 

I got this pic from their website.  Pretty golf course.

 

 

 

 

.  Evidently, there was once a landing on Little River (where Millwood Lake is now), where steamboats could come from New Orleans to deliver supplies to the locals.  Just a cool little factoid.

 

 It's been a couple of years since we've been here, so we drove through town to see if things had changed much.  Looks like there's a new Family Dollar Store. 

 

We noticed the Two Rivers Museum the last time we were here, but we'd never gone in.  So glad we did this time!  It's a small museum, but they've done a great job with it.  Every place has some sort of history, and we enjoy learning about the places we stay.  This museum is especially nice, because most of the exhibits are not behind glass or ropes.  You can view most things from all sides, and even encouraged to touch a lot of it.

 

Loved the textiles exhibit, and the 19th century furniture.

 

I am so glad I don't have to do laundry in this machine!

 

 

There was a sign here that said to "open the doors and drawers" so I did.  Found all sorts of old timey gizmos and gadgets.  Sorry I didn't get any pictures.

 

Somehow, this old horse drawn hearse seems a like such a dignified to bid farewell to the dearly departed.  I bet it was the fanciest carriage most folks ever rode in.  Too bad they didn't get to enjoy it!

 

Well, we finally got to the Wal-Mart, bought a few odds and ends, and got back to the trailer.  The Ashdown Wal-Mart isn't the smallest Wal-Mart in the world.  That's in Georgia. (I googled it).  But it's pretty stinkin' small.  But it had pretty much everything we needed.

 

So, that was our yesterday.  Today was maybe the best day we've ever had RV-ing, but I'll have to journal that later.  It's past my bedtime now. 

 

How was your day?

Arkansas

 

Even the longest journey begins with but a single step, or so they say.  Our journey started at 5:18 yesterday morning, when Cowboy decided he'd slept long enough.  Of course, once he was up, I figured I might as well get up.  The alarm was set for 5:30, anyway. 

 

The Red River, just north of New Boston, TX.

 

Speaking of New Boston, we felt like world travelers yesterday.  Paris, Detroit,  and Malta were just a few of the familiar names of "foreign" towns we drove through.  Oh, and Clarksville.  And now I can't get that song out of my head.  Do you think this was the Clarksville the Monkees took "The Last Train from...." all those years ago? I doubt it.

 

So, here we are at Millwood Landing RV Resort.  This is a great resort, complete with swimming pool, tennis courts, restaurant, golf course, lakes, and alligators. 

 

Cowboy is on the golf course this very minute.  Hope the alligators don't get him.

Preparations (probably boring to anyone but me!)

Sometimes I think preparing for a trip is almost as much fun as traveling.  First, there's planning the route.  Where will we go, what will we see, where will we stay?  This is seldom set in stone.  We often get to a destination, find out it's not what we expected for one reason or another, and leave much sooner than we intended.  Sometimes we love a place so much, we extend our stay.  Sometimes, we totally skip a place we thought we might go.

Then, there's the lists:  Clothes and toiletries to take.  Groceries to use up before we leave, or give away, or take with us.  Things we can't (don't want to) live without: computer, Kindle, books, Tim's keyboard, fishing equipment, golf clubs, ropes - this list can really get long. Things our kids need to take care of while we're gone: get the mail, feed the animals, water the plants…we thank God for our kids!

Then there's all the things we have to take care of before we leave.  Things to do and people to see.  This is the most hectic part, but also the most fun.  This past week we have: Gone out to dinner with the other deacons and wives from our church, substituted for our Youth Minister for Sunday School, enjoyed our monthly Dinner on the Grounds after the Sunday morning service, gone for tacos after the evening service with the usual church crowd, took the grandgirls out to lunch, tried to buy their birthday presents (the store was closed on Mondays), gotten a clean bill of health from the doctor (me, thank You, Lord!), fed our friends' dogs for three days while they were out of town for a funeral, had lunch with a friend from high school, practiced team roping (Cowboy), went to art class (me), killed a rattlesnake (Cowboy), served meals at Center of Hope, helped with the Wednesday night Young Adult Class, bought our son-in-law's birthday present, went to our church's Ladies' Brunch (me), got haircuts, went to First Friday Singing at our church, kept the grandgirls, and, last but definitely not least, spent yesterday with our son, who lives two hours away. 

Today (it's now 8:30 a.m.) we have already gone to the church to pray over the Youth before they left on a mission trip.  We will once again teach Sunday School for those who are left, then race across town to a different church to see my cousin be baptized. Hopefully, we will be able to get a little packing done between the morning and evening service.  Tomorrow we go see our oldest grandgirl perform with her piano ensemble team, and finish packing.  Tuesday we will try once again to buy the girls' birthday present. They will both have birthdays while we are gone. I hate missing their birthdays.

The last week or two at home, we don't want to miss any opportunity to see the people and do the things that we will miss while we are gone. 

Traveling, seeing this beautiful country, is something we've wanted to do our entire lives.  I feel like it is a gift from God to be able to do this.  But our home, our family, our friends, our church…these are the greatest gifts we could ever imagine.  God's blessings really do overflow.

 

Not sure where I got this picture.  Hope I'm not infringing on anyone's copyrights. I would love to give the photographer credit, if anyone knows who it is.

 

Showers of Blessings

 

It stormed here a few nights ago.  Almighty God put on quite a show, with ear-splitting thunder, day bright lightning, and a fair amount of wind.  It was very impressive, and the rain was much needed in our area.  And, thankfully, I haven't heard of any major damage.

So. Why? Lord, You know I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why do we get the rain, and Moore, Ok has to deal with devastating tornadoes?

And while I'm being so bold with You, why do I have a hard-working, good, God loving husband who has stuck by me for over 40 years, while some of my dearest friends ended up with no-account bums who were useless in times of trouble?

Why are my children such a blessing to me, while other parents have to deal with all kinds of problems, or even worse, children with cancer or some other disease most people have never even heard of?

Why do I live in a comfortable home (with air conditioning, Thank You Lord!), while some people live and work in extreme heat and/or cold?

Why do I get to travel and see so much of Your creation, while others my age are still working just to make ends meet, with no chance of retirement in sight?

One thing I know.  It's not because I've been a better person, or a better Christian than anyone else.  With Paul, I can say I'm certainly the "chief among sinners."

And, I know, we have certainly had our fair share of problems and tough spots.  Death of loved ones, illness, money problems, marriage problems, worries over our kids….

But You were always there.  You blessed us with friends and family who lifted us up in prayer, and You heard our prayers.  And You delivered us out of every dark place.  Every time. Not always in the way we wanted, nor as quickly as we wanted.  But, eventually, You healed every wound.

Help me to remember, Lord.  Remind me daily that I never have to be afraid, because, no matter what happens, You will be there to rescue me, just as You have in the past.

And help me to remember pray for the ones who are hurting right now, as others have prayed for me when I was hurting.

As the Cowboy and I start on another wonderful adventure, I pray that You will continue to protect us, and to watch over the ones we leave at home.

And…Lord? Thanks for being patient with my bold questions.  Thank You for the many blessings You have poured into my life.  Thank You for loving me.