Vickie J Blair

I arrived safely back in England this week with my flight touching down at London’s Heathrow Terminal 5.  I travel to and fro on this flight quite a lot but each time I fly there seems to be a different way to go to the Arrivals and Baggage Claim.  There are long corridors to walk down, lifts to ride (for my American friends a lift is an elevator), escalators to bring one up or down to another level, more corridors to travel, an underground train to catch, another escalator and finally the destination of Arrivals and Baggage Claim is reached, following, of course, the Passport Control.  As many times as I’ve done this journey I’m still a bit amazed when I do indeed get to the right place.  There are so many wrong corridors one could go down and who knows where they would end up.  That’s the scary thought.  How thankful I am for the clearly placed signs that constantly point the way to Arrivals and Baggage Claim.

That’s a part of my physical world.  In my spiritual world I also need clear guidance that points the way.  Without paying attention to God’s Word, looking into His guidance for daily living, turning to Him to know the way, where would I end up?  There are so many wrong corridors in life to go down.  How thankful I am for Father’s own words that show me in all situations, where to go and how to get there.

It’s been a beautiful week of sunshine and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being outside.  I’ve had loads of fun doing some yard work (yes I really love mowing grass and trimming branches and bushes) and I got to feed the neighbor’s donkeys while they were away.  I love donkeys.  I’m an overall animal lover and nature lover.

At one point in the week I decided it would be fun to take a walk in the woods.  Immediately behind our house is a forest of pine.  I stepped inside the line of trees and the contrast was amazing.  My eyes were met by complete darkness.  I looked back from where I had just stepped and there was the brilliance of sunshine.  I looked back into the woods again and blackness filled the air.  It was stark and chilling.  I couldn’t see clearly.  I was a bit uneasy and looked back at the sunshine.  That was much better.  I looked back at the woods and slowly my eyes were adjusting.  I could now see further into the woods.  The blackness was turning to shades of grey.  In a few more minutes my eyes could locate the other trees.  Even so, I didn’t take the walk in the woods.  I suddenly remembered that snakes are crawling (two weeks ago my mom and I came upon a rattlesnake in our front yard) so I decided to exit quickly.  I stepped out of the darkness and back into the light.  I heard myself let out a sigh of relief.  It really wasn’t fun adjusting to the darkness.

As I walked back to the house I thought about the contrast of dark and light that fills our physical world but it fills our spiritual world too.  We can spiritually be walking in the light of God’s  truth, full of joy and peace, when all of a sudden darkness puts itself in our path.  We feel uncomfortable.  We want to turn away, but we don’t.  We keep gazing into the darkness and before we know it we are telling ourselves it isn’t so scary, we won’t stay long, we can handle the darkness.  In our spiritual world, darkness is everything God is not.  When the darkness of this world lures us in, we are no longer walking in light.  It’s impossible to walk in light and darkness at the same time.

Take a look at I John 1:5-7  ⁵ This is the message we heard from Jesus^[a] and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. ⁶ So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. ⁷ But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

Yes, the title is true.  I have super-glued my fingers together and I admit there were several minutes of panic and pain.  Pain?  Yes.  Did you know,  if you put a lot of super glue on your skin,  it begins to feel like fire, scorching you alive?  Well, it does.  Please just trust me and don’t try to find out for yourself.

It all started with very good intentions.  A few weeks ago when Mom and I were rearranging her bedroom, we moved her dresser from one side of the room to the other.  In our furniture moving venture we managed to chip a small corner of the dresser.  I had the piece and determined  I would glue it back on.  This was going to be a piece of cake.

I made certain both the piece of chipped off wood and the place it had come from were free of any debris.  Next I removed the cap from the tube of super glue.  Then I gently squeezed to put a few drops onto the piece of wood.  Ah, a problem.  No drops squeezed out.  I squeezed a bit harder.  Hmmmm strange.  This had never happened before.  The tube was nearly full.  What was the problem?  I took a small pair of scissors and snipped off a bit of the nozzle.  Probably plugged up,  I told myself.  I squeezed gently again.  Still nothing.  What in the world?!  I squeezed again with care.  Not one drop from that tube!   How dare that brute of a tube defy me!  I would show the tube!  Squeeeeeeze haaaaaarrrrrd!  Sploosh!  Ohhhh no!  A puddle of super glue on the dresser!  Ahhhhhh!  Panic!  I took a tissue from my pocket to mop up the puddle but the glue seeped quickly through the tissue and took hold of my skin.  Oh no!  My forefinger and middle finger were sticking together!  I attempted to flick the tissue away with my thumb!  Oh no!  My thumb was now stuck to my other two already stuck-together fingers!  Ahhhh it’s burning!

I run to the kitchen sink yelling as I go.  My mother runs into the kitchen to see what was the matter.  “I’ve super-glued my fingers together!”  I yell out while the faucet is running full blast onto my fingers.  A soggy tissue dangles and mangles itself all around my fingers.  “They won’t come apart!”  I call out expecting some words of comfort or help from my mother.  I hear nothing.  Oh wait, I do hear something.  Laughter bordering on hysterical!  Imagine that – my own mother in my time of trial reacting like I’m putting on a comedy for her.  Well…laughter is infectious; soon, I too was laughing so hard I lost my breath.  I couldn’t speak for several moments.  What a predicament.

When I composed myself I suggested we go on the internet and google in how to remove super glue from skin.  There was indeed some information.  We followed the instructions and made a mixture of vinegar, dish washing liquid, and warm water.  I soaked and gently worked my fingers and after some minutes they gradually came apart.  I’m still removing bits of glue and tissue from my fingers….and palm of hand…….and wrist…..and elbow.  Don’t ask, I don’t know how it got to my elbow.

As I was soaking my hand in the solution, watching a blister form on my thumb, and listening to my mother still chuckling behind me I could suddenly in my memories hear my dad’s voice.  He had a quick wit and very dry sense of humor.  I imagined him there and easily heard him say something like, “I didn’t know you could be so stuck-up,” or “You sure are stuck on yourself, aren’t’ you.”  I could see his serious face and twinkling eyes.   I laughed some more.

A little while later, when my hands were free, I settled back with a nice, steaming mug of tea.  (The Brits really do know what they’re talking about – tea helps any crisis.)   I recalled again how I had thought of my Dad and could hear his words in my mind.  I smiled some more as I thought of both my fathers.  I so often remember the words of my earthly father and I remember  the words of my Heavenly Father.

When I feel I’m carrying a heavy burden I hear my Heavenly Father say, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

When I feel I’ve failed God- again, I hear His words speak to me from Philippians 2:13 “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.”

Sometimes when I look at the world around me and see such chaos and difficulty everywhere, I hear His words from I Timothy 2:1-4 “I urge you…pray for all people.  As you make your requests, plead for God’s mercy upon them…for He wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.”

I continued sipping my tea, nursing my blister, picking pieces of super glue from here and there, and smiling, being happy for memories of my earthly father’s words and thankful for living words from my Heavenly Father that guide me daily.

Each week since I’ve been back I have had the fun of getting on the tractor lawnmower and away I go!  I love being in the open countryside, the sun at my back, the wind in my face, the slap of branches in my face.  Oh wait, no, not that part.

Pecans are already clinging to the branches of our trees; looks like it will be another bumper-crop year.  It’s the weight of the pecans that are causing several branches to drop lower and lower towards the ground.  Each time I have to drive the lawnmower under the branches, I get thwacked in the face and on the head.  Every time!  After five weeks of this unceremonious thwacking of the head, it dawned on me – why don’t I trim the branches?  Wow!  Thunder bolts of ingenuity!

I get the proper tools and snip, crunch, snap, the offending branches are gone.  I gaze up at the tree and realize how much better the tree looks.  The branches were too heavy.  They were not doing the tree any good, no doubt would have broken the whole limb at some point and, of course, the continual thwacking did not bless me either.

I couldn’t help but see a spiritual lesson in these nuisance branches.  Every week I saw them and every week I just put up with them.  I could have removed them at any time but it never occurred to me until the face thwacking became too painful to endure.  How many nuisance branches do each one of us put up with in our daily lives?  There are all sorts of branches: branches of envy and strife, jealousy and hatred, laziness and irresponsibility, lying and gossip, forgetting about God in our lives and paying more attention to what the world has to offer, self loathing and loathing others too – the list goes on and on and on.  Everybody grows unhelpful branches.  Here’s hoping we can remember to do some regular pruning.  Either that or ouch! more face thwacking in all of our futures.

I spent several days this past week sorting through my Dad’s office.  He told me once, “When I’m gone I hope you’ll rearrange the office and make it your own to use when you’re here.”  I have done just that.  I sat at his desk and there was everything as he had left it before he went to heaven.  I smiled as I saw his harmonica to one side.  It was not unusual to walk by his office and hear him playing.  There was a file on his desk with quotes.  I knew he was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln so it was no surprise to see a quote by Lincoln on the very top.  My Dad actually had this particular quote printed out and pinned to the wall near his desk.  The quote reads:

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”

My Dad often commented on our early presidents and how they openly prayed and publicly announced they were looking to God for guidance.  He was saddened that the power of prayer has increasingly ceased to be acknowledged from the White House in recent years.  He prayed for America everyday.  This leads on to the next quote I found in his file, this one by Chuck Colson.

“Our nation is in (economic) crises precisely because we’ve traded in a Christian worldview of work, thrift, savings, and prudence, and instead have embraced the false worldview of consumerism – of leisure, debt, and instant gratification…….We have betrayed not only our God but the nation we love.  I want to put it in the plainest terms I know how: This nation cannot be saved unless the Church is first revived.  Renewing the Church is the key to saving America.”

My Dad and I often discussed politics and world events in the light of Scripture and Biblical Prophecy.  We were at times saddened to see our nation coming to ruin, and excited at the same time to see Scripture unfolding before our eyes.  We often repeated together the words of Revelation 22:20,”Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.”  It’s very exciting to know the reality that Dad is right now in heaven, he has looked upon the face of Jesus, he is enjoying all the wonders there that we can only imagine until the time comes for all of us who know Jesus to see Him for ourselves when we too leave this earth.  Sometimes I feel I can hardly wait.

In the light of the return of Christ, we often talked of those we love who don’t yet know Him.  Of course, we often talked about Kyrgyzstan and the many there who still don’t know the truth of Jesus. How thankful we both were that Father had it in His plan for us to play a part in sharing the Good News of Jesus in Central Asia.

I dusted his desk, replaced pens that were strewn about, shifted books from one shelf to another, making it all my own.  Most of the time I was smiling throughout.  It was indeed a joyful endeavor.  Only once did tears come to my eyes when I found a Christmas card that he had bought for me.  He had been in the hospital during Christmas holidays so understandably he no doubt forgot to give me the card.  I opened it and the tears came as I read the words, “I remember always the little girl you were and am delighted in the woman you have become. ”  I shared my discovery with a friend via email and she wrote back to me, “How nice to get a card now, when you thought you would never get another one!”  I thought, “Wow, that’s right!  I never dreamed to get a card from my Dad or anything else from him ever again.”  It was Christmas in August for me.  As I  continued to sort I continued to find a treasure of things he left.

There were his Scripture memory cards he always kept in his pocket.  Often he would take them out to test himself.  He was always memorizing God’s Word.  There too was his Greek and Hebrew Bible.  My Dad avidly studied Greek and Hebrew so he could better interpret the meaning of God’s Word.  Near his music center was a stack of his favorite CD’s.  He enjoyed a variety of music.  Everywhere I looked, I was reminded of him and reminded of his deep love of God, family, church, and country.

As I sat in his chair the thought came to me, if I were to leave this earth today, what would people find in my files?  What notes and quotes would be found?  What would someone know about me by the books I read, the CD’s I listen to, the films I watch?   My Dad was always a great example to me by the way he lived and now he is still an example to me by the things he has left behind.

My mother and I are in a mood of celebration this week-end.  We have finished!  Well, we have finished with the inside of the house.  Every room, closet, and drawer has been sorted, cleaned, and rearranged.  It feels just, well, ahhhhhhh so good. On Monday I will begin on my Dad’s office outside and also the garden shed.  Then everything will be completely made like new.

Yesterday we completed our last task in taking all my Dad’s suits to the Salvation Army Store.  I checked every pocket and smiled as I removed the occasional cough drop from a side pocket or a tissue from an inside breast pocket.  As I lay each suit aside I could hear past conversations in my mind.

“Vickie, would you help me find a tie for this shirt?”

“Sure Dad, I’ll be right there.”

“Do these blue socks match my suit?”

“They’re not blue, they’re green.”

“Green?  I thought these over here were green.”

“No Dad, those over there are brown.”

“Brown?”

A tear came to my eye along with a smile on my face as I listened to his voice sound out in my memories.  It was sweet sadness.  Then came another imagined conversation in my mind.

“Dad, we’re taking your suits to the Salvation Army.”

“Good.  There might be some folks who need them.  I like helping people.”

“I know you do, Dad.  You’re still helping people with your suits even though you’re not here.”

Then the thought came, “Old things are passed away and all things are become new.”

As I reflected on that verse in II Corinthians 5:17 I thought about the truth of that statement.   Life is a constant passing away of things old but God is constantly making new the very things that have gone.  My Dad has passed from this earth and He is made new in Heaven.  His old suits are passed from his ownership and will be a new suit of clothing to someone else.  The tears of sadness that  appear today, pass away, replaced with the newness of joy in Father’s own fresh strength and peace.

We need only recognize the old, give the old to Father, and take the new strength, new courage, new wisdom, and new joy He has to give us in all our situations.  It’s a lovely promise from our Father that old things are passed away and all things are become new.

This has been a very busy week.  My mother and I would start at 8:30am, take a short lunch break, and resume our work until 5:00pm.  That was and is our knocking off time.  What have we been doing?  Let’s see – we sledge-hammered a wardrobe apart and pulled the pieces outside, moved furniture around, sorted through all the clothes closets and dresser drawers, made several trips to the Salvation Army Store taking goods no longer needed, and then we headed outside for awhile, cutting back hedges and bushes.

The last two days I have taken the task of cleaning out the pantry and kitchen cupboards.  I’ve completely emptied everything, replaced the old shelf paper with new, dusted and scrubbed, and then put back things in a refreshed order.  If I do say so myself – and I do – it looks great and my mom is pleased as anything.  That’s the best part for me – seeing her smile and feel so good about everything.  We’ve worked hard but had loads of laughs and we are both enjoying the results of our labor.

Yesterday I was thinking about what I could write in my blog this week.  I didn’t have to think for long because it had been staring me in the face for hours – it was the shelves.  When I thought about the shelves the verse in Psalm 51:10 immediately popped into my mind.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.  

I have felt so good cleaning the pantry shelves and putting things in good order.  That’s a part of my physical world but I find it’s no different in my spiritual world.  When I take a moment of time to call to Father, asking Him to “clean my shelves and restore a spirit of right thinking within me” I feel good spiritually too.  My problem is, like the cleaning of the pantry shelves, I wait too long.  Cleaning is long overdue when I get around to it and too often I find my mind has been cluttered and my heart soiled with the matters of this world.  Burdens grow unnecessarily greater when I leave my spiritual shelves unattended.

Therefore, with the reminder of the pantry shelves I have added a prayer, “Lord, my spiritual shelves need cleaning and rearranging into good order every day.  Help me to remember.  Help me not to let them get cluttered.  Show me what needs to be held onto and what needs to be thrown away.  Thank you.  Amen.”

My mother’s second cat is named Blackie.  He lives outside and is mostly only seen at meal times in the morning and evening, and once again for a bedtime treat.  As we live in the country it is not unusual for unwanted pets to be dumped out in our vicinity.  Over the years, my parents and I have all spent time taking care of, and finding homes for unwanted pets that appear scared and hungry in our yard.  Blackie was one of those strays that wandered into our lives and captured our hearts.

Therefore, he is now a Blair cat and I can tell you, it’s not a bad life.  I designed on paper a three story house (we call it the cat hotel) and a friend of ours who is a carpenter built it for Blackie.  We also constructed a special place where we feed him on a raised platform just off the ground.  While Blackie’s beginnings were dismal, he has really landed on his feet by becoming a part of the Blair household.

In the first many months of our getting to know each other, Blackie would run away every time we came out the door.  We all tried to coax him to us with kind words but each time to no avail.  He was scared and distrustful.  One day an acquaintance had stopped by for a visit when it was time to feed Blackie.  I went outside, taking his dinner with me to deliver onto his feeding platform.  He ran away as usual, only returning after we had gone back inside the house.

“Why do you bother with him?”  Our visitor asked.  “That cat doesn’t love, appreciate, or trust you.”

Without thinking, my quick reply came, “But I love him.”

For me, that was all that mattered.  I love Blackie.

I remember as I said those words, I felt a jump in my heart as I thought to myself, that is how I and so many of us often react with God.  He watches over us, provides for us, gives us direction, is faithful in always being there, has never, ever failed us in any form or fashion.  Even so, some situation or event takes place in our lives that sends us reeling in despair and confusion, but there too is God always coaxing us to Him with His kind and wise words, and there we are, running away scared and distrustful.

There are times in all of our lives when situations or events or simply the busyness of life makes it easy for us to remove our focus from the care of our Father.  Before we know it, like Blackie, we are behaving toward God as if we don’t love, appreciate, or trust Him, but there is God…still loving us, still longing that we would come to Him, still waiting, still feeding us, still building us our own cat hotel and all because He loves us.  We ignore Him, He still loves us.  We get scared and run way from His words, He still loves us.

“For God so loved the world, He gave…..”  John 3:16

God has been giving to us from the beginning of time as we know it.  He will always give to us.  He loves us.

I’ve always said that Alabama has some of the most magnificent thunder storms ever seen.  The clouds move quickly, changing shapes and colors as the sky itself can turn from white to grey to black in a matter of minutes.  Brilliant white lightening streaks across the black sky and thunder booms like rumbling base drums or cracks like an artillery of rifle fire.    I never want it to cause any harm or damage but the sheer enjoyment of its power I find exhilarating.  I love weather.  My mother’s cat does not.  She’s partially blind and lives on the front, screened in porch.  She likes to jump onto the rocking chair and then onto a flat, wooden platform, erected there for her own personal perch and look-out point.  Most often   Kitty is on the perch enjoying life.  In thunder storms, she’s on the floor, hiding behind the broom in the back corner.

Yesterday afternoon, when the sky sent out its first lightening streak and roll of thunder, I went out to the front porch to check on Kitty.  I sat in the rocker and looked behind me.  There was Kitty, eyes wide and pupils  round like marbles.  She was frozen in fear.  I called her name.  Nothing.  I put my hand down and tried to coax her to me.  Still nothing.  My attempts to soothe her were only met by the cat stare of fear.  It wasn’t until I stretched to reach back my hand and touched her head that any comforting relief came to her terrified self.   I continued to rub her head and in a minute or two, she eased out from behind her broom of protection.  She came nearer to me and huddled on the floor by the rocking chair I occupied.  Now I could stroke her whole body.  I felt her tightened muscles relax beneath my touch.  In another few minutes, to my absolute surprise, she walked over to her food bowl and had a few bites of her tasty, crunchy morsels.

Was it still thundering and lightening?  Yes.  Was it raining hard?  It was pouring!  The sound was deafening as it pelted the tin roof.  The storm was still there in all it’s ferociousness but the fear in Kitty was not.  I concluded her fear was gone simply because I had let her know…. “I’m here Kitty.  I’m here.”  I had touched her and my touch had brought her comfort that surpassed the fear of the storm.

You know what I’m thinking, don’t you.  It’s the same with our Father.  We know He’s around in the good times and the tough times.  Even so, the storms of life can paralyze us with fear.  No words comfort, no coaxing from well-meaning friends make any difference to the fear that grips us within.  Like Kitty beneath the thunder, we get caught in a cat stare of fear at what life throws at us.  We can’t move, think, sleep, we’re just afraid and we can’t help it.   It’s only the Father’s touch that can soothe away the worries and replace the fear with His own peace…..but does God actually touch us?  After all, we can’t see Him so how  can He possibly touch us?

Father God touches us where nothing in this world can; He touches us in our spirit where His own Holy Spirit resides.   The Holy Spirit lives in us; therefore, everything of God lives in us too.  God’s own peace lives in us.  God’s own joy lives in us.  God’s wisdom, strength, it all lives in us.  Everything we need, to know comfort in any storm, is available to us by His Spirit living in us.   But is that God touching us?  We must think in the spiritual and not in the physical when contemplating the touch of God.

A person may  give me a hug and that is a physical touch.  That touch can indeed bring comfort.  Hugging one another is a beautiful expression of love and comfort….but it’s temporary.  A person can’t hug me for hours or days at a time but the Holy Spirit, living in me, can touch me with a continuous peace that fills me with courage and even joy in the blackest of lifes’ storms.

When I call, He answers me and shows me wonderful things that I never knew before.  Jeremiah 33:3

When I’m scared, He reminds me that He is my God and He will strengthen me, and help me through anything, and will hold me up with His own right hand of righteousness.  Isaiah 41:10

When I’m alone, He lets me know that even if no human can be with me always, He Himself will never leave me.  Hebrews 13:5

When I must make a decision and I don’t know what to do, He guides me and whispers in my inner spirit with His Spirit in me…..This is the way.  Walk this way.  Isaiah 30:21

When I’m baffled at waiting for anything which unnerves me and makes me feel like screaming!!!… He reminds me that the strength I need is found in my own quietness and show of confidence before Him.  He also reminds me that often He waits today, only to bless me more greatly tomorrow.   Isaiah 30: 15 & 18

Father longs to touch me and you everyday with all the comfort, all the joy, all the guidance, all the peace, all the courage, all the wisdom we need to get through any storm of life.  We ignore His promptings to let Him touch us spiritually when we first try to figure it all out by ourselves.  I’ve done this more times than I can count and every time I end up like Kitty, hiding behind the broom of what I don’t understand, thinking I’ll feel protected, when all along, there is Father with His Words that are Living Words (John 1:1-5).  His own living, life-giving words are always ready to touch our inner spirits with all we need to get safely through any storm.