MY MOTHER'S NOTEBOOK: 10 Commandments For Vacation

I thought it very appropriate to post this entry from one of my mother's notebook entries as many are making plans for vacations and such.
It gets more difficult to make those plans as one is more tied to the responsibilities of home and work.
My parents made many trips, however, they never really called them vacations as they entailed one thing or another.
Here is the entry, titled, TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR VACATION.

1. Thou SHOULD take a vacation; make it a GOOD Vacation.  Refresh yourself and enjoy your family.  Then come back eager to give your best for God's Work.
2. Thou SHOULD not go as far as you can.  That approach is exhaustive rather than relaxing.
3. Thou SHOULD plan with your family well in advance.  Order brochures, read a lot, let everyone help plan.  Many times the anticipation is more fun than the actual trip.
4. Thou SHOULD secure replacements for your Leadership positions in the church well in advance for adequate preparations.
5. Thou SHOULD plan one good trip rather than several so-so-ones.  Traveling in itself is usually not refreshing.  Refreshing comes from what you do after you arrive.
6. Thou SHOULD not use God's money to pay for your vacation.
7. Thou SHOULD take good short trips.  Stop early in the day.  Swim with the family.  Eat a leisurely evening meal.
8. Thou SHALT bring folks who spend vacation with you to church.
9. If thou remaineth at home for your vacation then thou SHALT not take the week-end for running around.
10. Thou SHOULD not vacation from the Lord's house on the Lord's day.  Plan where you will be at the house of worship.  Select outstanding churches in the area and attend worship.  Observe and bring back helpful suggestions to your church.

 

MY MOTHER'S NOTEBOOK: TIME PASSES & YESTERDAY FADES

 Time Passes & Yesterday Fades
 As much as we enjoy remembering days and places how easily it is to forget God's role in our past.  Time passes, yesterday fades and we are consumed with the present because that's where we are now.
How important is it to recall what God did for me when I lived in Mexico.  It is so refreshing to be reminded of what God did for our family in those earlier days.
 >
For protection:
I spent my childhood days romping around the mountain filled with pine trees, spaces of winding paths, open windy patches and random spots of neatly hoed corn rows dotting the country side.
 The town center below and the cottage-like-huts with spirals of smoke also dotted the mountain side.

The Town Center Below

 My childhood pleasures were many, though so simple, a little girl today would think it boring. We played with dolls, built houses of scrap lumber and branches from trees. We climbed trees, waded in tumultuous brooks and rivers and played briefly in deep quiet pool along the way on trips to visit other villages. Many trees and bushes bordered the thin trails we took.
 My home had none of the modern conveniences that we deem necessary now days.

>For provision
The following:
Edited & summarized from the note book as that was our life in Mexico.

We had all the necessities of life.  We didn't have electricity.  By kerosene lamp we read.  We listened to the news on the radio when the battery was not dead.
Our dresses, pajamas, aprons, and curtains were made from the print chicken feed bags, sewn on a treadle sewing machine.
We ironed our clothes with a charcoal filled iron.

Back Side View of House-Tile roof

We did not run to the doctor with each scrape and fall. (In an earlier post I described an incident that occurred when my brother broke his leg.}
We never knew we were poor.
Since we didn't have it, we didn't need it.

Our Adobe House-Front View

My Mothers's Note Book: Lord, You Know I Am Getting Older

I was very bemused at this entry.  I am sure my mother was beginning to think on this topic, of getting older.
Many of these entries from doing some detective work would have been around the later 1980's.  One entry was dated 1988.  This was during the time they lived in Castaic, California.
All of us kids were busy adding to the family tree.  And it was the summer my father had his heart attack and sent my mother into care giving mode as well as thoughts of how life fragile is. 

So back to the note book.  The entry has no title and is written by an anonymous author.
  "Lord, thou knowest better than I know that
   I am growing older, will some day BE OLD.

   Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from
   the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on
   every subject and every occasion.
   (My mother loved to talk and perhaps knew that she
   had a tendency to being overly talkative and that is 
   what might have drawn her to these writings.)

   Release me from craving to try to straighten out
   everybody's affairs.

   Make me thoughtful, but not moody, helpful but not
   bossy.  With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity
   not to use it all, but thou knowest, Lord, that I want
   a few friends at the end of my life.

   Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details,
   give me wings to get to the point.

   Seal my lips on my aches and pains.  They are
   increasing and my love of rehearsing them is 
   becoming sweeter as the years go by.

   I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others
   pain.  Help me endure them patiently.

   Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is 
   possible that I may be mistaken.

   Keep me reasonably sweet.  I do not want to be a saint
   some are hard to live with, but a sour old person
   is one of the crowning works of the devil.

   Help me to exact all possible fun out of life.
   There are so many funny things around us and
   I don't want to miss any of them."           Anonymous  

And now, I find my self wanting to ask the Lord for some of those same qualities as I get older or when I am older and find myself talkative and rehearsing my aches and pains.
 

My Mother's Notebook: Constructive Power of Praise

 My mother and father were always active members in The Christian Missionary Alliance churches  when ever they found one.  Each place they moved found them searching for the nearest Alliance church until it became to difficult to travel and they ended up making First Baptist Church of Auburn (California) their church home for many years.
They still kept up with all the Alliance news and received the Alliance Life magazine regularly.  Dad still gets it.
The second entry to My Mother's Note Book, written in her own handwriting was taken from the Nov.23 '88 Alliance Life by R.Jenks.

The Constructive Power of Praise:
SPECIFIC REASONS TO PRAISE
1. Praise fills God's 
   purpose in our live.
   Isa.43:7
2. Praise teaches us to be 
   obedient! Ps.67:5
   Heb.13:15
3. Praise increases our 
   faith and faith comes by
   hearing the Word of God.
   Ps.22:3 "He is present."
   Ex.15:2
4. Praise purifies our 
   thought life.
5. Praise breaks a 
   complaining spirit.
   Rom.l Acts 16
6. Praise moves us to reach
   out to others.
7. Praise increases our
   love for the Lord.

 

My Mother's Note Book

What treasures I have been finding.  My father handed me a note book to look at one day.

It was a note book that my mother had written many poems, and quotes she had come upon.
I really did not know my mother very well as I had spent much time in boarding schools and then when I was thirteen went to live with my grandparents.
I had to share her when I was just 13 months as by then my brother came along.
I regret not making more of an effort to nourish the relationship so finding this note book gave me some insight as to her relationship with the Lord and what was important to her at the time of the entries.
I also encountered a rough copy of some family history titled "Grandma Remembers" dedicated to her 6 children in which she gives a historical account of her life.  She began these accounts at the age of 70 and wished to continue them before her memory faded to be read to any as of yet unborn grandchildren and beyond.
 Well anyway, back to Mothers note book.  I thought it very interesting that I like my mother and before internet wrote out many poems,quotes and misc. just like she had.  It gave me a little more of an understanding of where her heart was during the times of those note book entries, struggling with perhaps many of life's issues as I in the present and needing encouragement from its composers.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to an all-knowing God

These entries have been  both interesting and encouragingly good reads that I will attempt to share some.
The first entry quoted from Orin L. Crain.   

SLOW ME DOWN, LORD

"Slow me down, Lord!  Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my harried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amidst the confusions of my day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves with the soothing music of the sighing streams that live in my memory. Help me to know the magical restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art Of taking minute vacations of slowing down to look at a flower; To chat with an old friend or to make a new one; To pat a stray dog, To watch a spider build a web; To smile at a child; Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord, And inspire me to send my roots deep Into the soil of life’s enduring values That I may grow toward the stars Of my great destiny.
~~~ Orin L Crain

My Mother in 1948

 

An Incredible Father, A Daughters Memories

Reflecting again on the fact that I have an incredible father, and I am blessed beyond measure that he was the man the Lord saw fit to place in my life.
Granted, he admits, to many failures and unwise choices in his 92 years of life but he was a man who loved God's Word.  Many times, I have observed him reading God's Word and remember being called for prayer and the reading of God's Word before bedtime in my very early years when he was home.  I remember how uncomfortable I was and in my immature wild heart wanting to be under the covers with a flashlight reading some other book instead of sitting on a hard chair listening to words I did not understand.
Because of my father, many in Mexico, would have perished in their sins.  My father and mothers choice to forsake all the comforts of home to minister to the Aztec and Totonac Indians in very rural Mexico in the State of Puebla in 1948 doing pioneer work.

Dad in pith helmet, Uncle Larry Puckett next to Joaquin

Those early days were not easy by any standards.  I was a part of those early days, as I was born shortly after they arrived, not knowing the language or anybody there.  At Tamazunchale, they began Spanish classes, 7 hrs. a day, every day during the week and eventually mastering the language.  It was hot and rainy and very   little electricity at night.  They cooked on a two-burner kerosene stove and washed the clothes by hand in cold water and then had to sit by them as they dried otherwise the clothes would get stolen right outside your door especially the underwear.
Dad's strong point learning Spanish was speaking and my mother's was hearing and understanding so together they learned to work as a team until they both got across what they wanted. 
They both learned to eat many new things and to this day Dad enjoys a variety of foods and is game to try new things.
Well here, I am rambling on about other things but what I had really set out to write about was how much time Dad spent hiking into remote villages, to present the gospel and encourage the believers.  I was recently reminded of this as I read a letter he had written to my grandparents, recalling a recent trip he had made in October of 1954.
"I came back from my trip Tuesday.  Perhaps you will be interested to know about it.  I left on a Sunday after the morning service, here in Cuautempan and arrived in Zapotitlan at dusk for the evening service.  The building was packed to the doors and there isn't room any more for the crowds that attend.  The church building isn't finished yet.  When completed will hold 350…Don Lucas of Zapotitlan went with me to carry my baggage.  We arrived their in good time (Monday) for a service.  The chicken was put on to boil while we had a time of Bible Study.  Oh, how these people need instruction in the word.  In this important town there are only about 20 converted Indians, but the Lord is opening others hearts…
Next morning we didn't get a very early start.  Pedro Tirso invited us to his house for coffee.  Arriving we found no less than 10 people waiting for us.  One young mother, brought her sick child for prayer and a young fellow, a recent convert wanted advice as to how long he should wait before marrying his sweetheart.  His mother wanted him to marry immediately so she would have a maid to help her in the kitchen.
The girl's folks wanted him to wait until the girl was of age as she was only 14.  They marry at a very young age.  After prayer, I advised them to wait at least a year.  The boy took the advice but his mother went away angry.
     It was ten o'clock before we left.  Antonio decided to come along with us.  To complicate matters, one of the horses shoes fell off.  The cobbler in Chapahutlan didn't have nails to put it back on.  We finally found someone who had a few nails so we could continue along that rocky trail.
     To make things more interesting, we met the Roman Catholic priest of Alintla, on his way from Dimas Lopez where we were headed.  He merely greeted us and went on but he must have been greatly displeased because he was the priest that vainly tried to stop the work in Dimas Lopez.  In spite of the rain that night, a number gathered for a service.
     The next morning I sent Lucas back to Zapotitlan with the horse as the river was too high for him to cross.  Antonio stayed with me and we crossed the river by cable, a chair like affair attached to a cable and someone pulls you across with a rope and pulley.  Antonio had never crossed this way before and was somewhat frightened.
     Across the river we began that long climb of 4 hours up Mecatlan Mountain.  The river is the State Line and except for Mecatlan is extremely hot country.
     We arrived in Mecatlan at 5 o'clock and were greeted at our Gospel Center by our two lady evangelists Celia and Delfina.  After a time of fellowship with the brethren we retired for the night.  Next day was Thursday and market day…We were so thrilled at the enthusiasm these believers showed.  The work is new and the first baptisms took place recently.  The girls in charge of the work until Manuel graduates from Bible School.IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HANDS: PUCKETT WEB SITE CLICK HERE
     Friday morning Antonio left for his home and Mattheo served as carrier.  Celia & Delfina accompanied us to Reyes (Kings), a little village alongside the river about 3 hours walk.  We arrived at brother Raphael Cano's house.  Although they weren't expecting us we were greeted with turkey and mole for dinner.  It was his youngest daughter's birthday. Raphael is a rich merchant, but wholly consecrated to the Lord's service, has been faithful.  The presence of the Lord was felt in a real way.  Present were a family who had never been to the services before.  The Lord touched their hearts and we pray for their salvation.
     …….We had to cross the river again, this time, in a canoe.  Again it was uphill against the afternoon sun."

The above accounts spanned about a week.  And I am sure my mother counted the days until he would be back.  There were only three of us children at the time.  I was only five at the time.
      There were many, many, many other trips similar to these.
My Father has had a very colorful life and continues his prayer ministry and encouragement to others when the occasion  arises.