A Season of Praise

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Pixabay

It has been about a month since the coronavirus became big news and the churches shut down along with many other places. We have been ordered by the governor to stay at home except for essential things such as food and medical care. We are now being told to wear masks and to stand six feet away from people we don’t live with. 

As for Bill and me, we are enjoying the restfulness of this season, and the rules are not hard for us to obey. Some folks online are making jokes about being bored, so we are glad to have things to do…many that we have put off for years. 

 We have been successful with our grocery buying. Once, though we accidentally bought 36 rolls of 1 ply toilet paper. I wish we had read the labels, but even if we had we might not have been able to get our favorite four-ply. Sometimes in the past when hurricanes were predicted the shelves would be emptied. Even then, toilet paper was a big deal. 

It seems as if everyone is getting food and being cared for. I hope not many are falling through the cracks. When we were out today, we saw a huge bight, beautiful American Flag attached to a high crane lift.  What a glorious sight. 

We are old and everyone is good to us. However, we don’t like the label, elderly. We are not all frail and helpless. We prefer the name of Elder because we have lived a long time and most of us have gained wisdom in plain living that some youngsters  do not have.

 I don’t sew anymore, but I was given a handmade mask. Bill has a good mask and we wear them when we go out. It’s kind of sweet the way we ladies would like for our hand-sewn masks to match our clothes just as we expect our jewelry to do.

Our grown children are showing us ways to communicate online. One couple is loaning us a camera to use for a skype situation. They will be calling us on our Smart Phones and telling us how to install it and use it. We have already had two Sunday conference calls with our married couples. 

Two young people in our family live far away from Florida. One of them lives in Queens, New York but she is now staying with a friend further north which seems to be safer than Queens. Another young relative has been visiting a tiny Japanese island off Taiwan. We don’t hear much from either of them except through their parents. The one on the island has been told that he doesn’t have to come back to America after a three-month visit. He can stay until August which is when his business there is over. 

We’ve been having a good time with some of the Christian shows on the internet. Friends send funny videos and Bill disburses them from his computer. I love the ones about animals, especially goats…especially baby goats.

We decided to put in some house plants. Taking care of them is fun. They are lovely to look at, and they will help keep us healthy as well.

Every morning, we each have devotionals on our own.  We get plenty of time to read the Bible or to write in a journal. We can look up a chain of pertinent scriptures and immerse ourselves in them. That seems to lift us into a higher plane with the Lord. 

Our weather has been springy and beautiful. Every year we have six months of hot weather and six months of what we call cold weather. In the winter we usually need the heat on. Summertime demands air conditioners. Right now, we are between hot and cold and can open the house. Aren’t we spoiled, though? I don’t think we’re helping anybody much. Is it because we have not been called to do anything different than what we are already doing? We are praying for people. We especially like to pray for children, for those who are in the Good News Club and for those who are not.  Before the CV, volunteers and wonderful teachers worked together to help the children get the education they will need. 

After supper, Bill and I take out our “Then Sings My Soul,” hymn books compiled by Robert Morgan. We have finished singing through and reading the stories of the hymns on the first volume and are waiting for volume two. It is wonderful to sing the beautiful old songs we grew up on. They have deep meaning for us and easy for us to sing. Robert Morgan says there are many things that music can help us with. One is being connected with people from other generations. Robert Morgan says,  “Each week millions of Christians in local settings around the world, using hymns composed by a believer from every era and branch of Christendom, join voices in united bursts of praise, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord.”  We, like the author, think it would be a shame for the legacy of those hymn writers to disappear. 

We can walk in the neighborhood. We like to listen to audiobooks as we go because it makes the walk go faster. We do the rest of our talking at the table, in the car, or just going from one room to another to ask questions.

The last thing at night we search for a decent movie to watch. I’m working on finding a way to find good and decent movies on the TV. How can it be so hard to find a good movie out of the millions we can access? 

For all these happy days we give thanks and praise to our wonderful Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who supernaturally protect us and show us the way. If you want to know this trinity for yourself, just ask any one of them how to join in.  In other words, get to know them by talking to them and opening your heart to listen to what they have to say. Then you will know how to become one of his children and have all your sin taken away. That’s why we celebrate Easter. If he is ours and we are his, we know that whatever happens, He is in it and He is with. 

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”

Tags: Coronavirus days, Easter