Tag Archives: God’s care

Oh Those Israelites!

10 Jun

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I am not a confident driver on good days, throw in rain and curvy roads and I become a teary eyed mess. A few weeks ago, I needed to drive my husband to a doctor appointment in a town two hours away and the weather report warned of heavy rain all day. I was stressed.

In my waking conversation with God I was telling him that I was distressed and plain out scared. When I gave Him the chance to respond, He reminded me of the multiple times he had given us a clear, dry bubble as we traveled. Most recently I was driving through pouring rain in Orlando traffic. I noticed that while my back window was a sheet of water, the windshield wipers were not having any problem clearing the screen.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten His mercies in my anxiety. Kind of like those Israelites who kept forgetting the ways God miraculously rescued them time after time. Think parting of the Red Sea.

Photo credit:https://www.flickr.com/photos/amboo213/7429036760

I confess I have frequently questioned the character of those Israelites who grumbled at every challenge, forgetting how faithfully God delivered them from dangers.

I was thinking like the Israelites!!

On Wednesday we had another appointment set up in the town two hours away. My husband had enjoyed six days in a row of doing well and I was feeling confident I wouldn’t need to drive. No worries about the forecast rain, he handles rain driving very well. Except Wednesday morning his feeling well streak crashed. I looked once again at the rain prediction and felt anxiety seeping in.

Then I made the decision to remember the Israelites and remember God’s mercies. There was rain that day, but not a drop fell on us.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I work as the publicist/marketer/ amateur editor and general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2022 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

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Look at the Birds

30 Mar

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and Artist

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.”

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God Has Been Watching Over Me~Part 5

7 Dec

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

After we were married, DiVoran and I moved to Inglewood, CA for me to go to college. I was still using the 1955 Harley Davidson Sportster for my main means of transportation (yes, she married me even after that night at the River Bottom). One weekend my lovely new wife and I went on a “Poker Run” with the local Motorcycle Club.* On the way home, after the event, I had let DiVoran drive the motorcycle for a while. I had unconsciously been guiding the motorcycle around slow turns with my weight from the back seat. When we came upon a sharper curve she kept going straight! I reached around her to grab the handlebars, but she wouldn’t let go!! Luckily, with my hands on hers and my extra weight, I was able to get us around that turn and avoid a 200 foot flying drop to the desert floor. We stopped to get our breaths back, and DiVoran never wanted to drive that motorcycle again. There is no question in my mind that God was watching over DiVoran and me with His wings of protection that day!

 

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We didn’t live far from the university or DiVoran’s beauty shop work place, so I rode the motorcycle to school and she drove our 1950 Mercury to work. If you have ever been to the Los Angeles, California area you know what the weather can be like. The fog rolls in every evening and by morning everything is wet, including the streets. Luckily, my route to school was on neighbor streets and not very busy, like U.S.-101 or Century Blvd. One morning on my way to school a lady pulled out of a side street right in front of me. She was looking to the right as she pulled out into traffic and by the time she looked left, in my direction, she was in the middle of my lane and she stopped! I had clamped on both front and rear brakes, but on the wet street, I slid right into the side of her car. Our meeting at that neighborhood intersection, a few seconds earlier or later, and that could have been a deadly accident for me. This had to be God’s timing, as nobody was hurt, only repairable fender damage to car and motorcycle.

 

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Some days at lunch time (if I didn’t have a class) I would ride my motorcycle over to the beauty shop in downtown Inglewood, where Divoran was working, to have lunch with her. There was a wide sweeping curve on Crenshaw Blvd, just before I got to the beauty shop, that was easy on the motorcycle. This one day as I was rounding that curve I hit an oil slick; one second I was enjoying the ride around that curve, and the next second I was on the pavement sliding across three lanes into the curb. This was another case were God had miraculously arranged the traffic on that busy street, in both directions, to be clear while I was sliding across that street burning the skin off my leg and hip. Thanks to Him I only ended up with a case of Road-Rash instead of becoming a case of Road-Kill.

 

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—–To Be Continued—–

 

*See Bill’s blog “Death Valley Run”- 6/06/2012.

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God Has Been Watching Over Me~Part 4

30 Nov

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

It was about this time in my life that I decided I needed a car to keep me warm in the winter, so I bought a very used 1940 Chevy Coupe. The plan was to restore the car as a “Street Rod” that would catch the attention of the “chicks” at the local A&W Root Beer Stand (teen hang-out) in the Nob Hill area of the Northeast Heights, on Central Avenue (US-66) there in Albuquerque.

 

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The first thing I needed to do was to rebuild the engine. Of course, that took a lot longer than I had planned. While I was doing that, in my spare time, my trusty 1955 Harley Davidson Sportster was my main mode of transportation.

 

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I had met DiVoran in, of all places, a Basic Typing Class during our senior year of high school (as I mentioned earlier my interest in school was waning by then). You might ask, “What motorcycle “Jock” would take a typing class?” And, I would tell you, “The kind that was just looking for an easy senior year last-choice course that didn’t require homework.” That was me. As it happened, DiVoran used the same typewriter I did in the next class.

 

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As a quick prelude to this next incident, I would like to explain that, over the decades, when the wind blew from the west toward Albuquerque, some of the desert sand the wind kicked up ended up forming a “V” shaped sand dune at the edge of the Rio Grande River. This “V” shaped dune was approximately ¼ mile long and extended from the edge of the river up a 30+ degree incline to the top of the mesa. When the river was low (which was most of the time) there would be a small area, along the river, of hard dirt where the water had washed away the sand. One of the motorcycle sports, some of my school friends indulged in, was what we called “Pulling the River Bottom.”   This involved riding our motorcycles from the mesa down to the bottom of that “V” shaped sand dune to the edge of the river. Then we would get up as much speed as we could, on that small area of hard dirt, and try to get back up to the mesa. It was always a challenge, and I had participated in this thrilling ride many times.

 

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One night I took DiVoran to the River Bottom to show off my riding skills and have some romantic time in the moonlight.* Since I didn’t have a buddy seat, I sat on the gas tank and she sat on the seat with her arms around me (Now wasn’t that cozy?) and her feet resting on the foot pegs. I told her, “Hold on to me tight and try to use your knees as shock absorbers.” With the engine at full throttle, we hit 2nd gear, and the acceleration was trying to pull both of us off the motorcycle. It was all I could do to hold onto the handlebars. We hit a couple of small bumps as we started up the incline and her feet came off the foot pegs. When we hit the next bump, the seat spring sent her flying. The first thing I noticed was her arms coming unwrapped from around my waist… then I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye going over the side and she was gone! I slammed on the brakes, stopping the motorcycle, killed the engine and ran back down the incline as fast as I could looking for her.

 

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As I approached her, I noticed she wasn’t moving and I panicked. “Oh God, I hope she isn’t dead”.   When I fell down on my knees beside her, I could hear her moaning and she was moving some. “Thank goodness!” I asked her if she was OK? (which of course she wasn’t) and she said, “I think so.” She had landed on her backside and it knocked the wind out of her. It took a few minutes for her to recover before we could walk up to the top of the mesa. Boy, was God ever watching over DiVoran and me that night!

 

—–To Be Continued—–

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God Has Been Watching Over Me~Part 2

16 Nov

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

One day on my way to school, the traffic around the school was hectic and I tried to go around an older car that was double parked. Just as I got alongside of that car the driver (who obviously hadn’t seen me) started off, while edging over toward me. There was oncoming traffic so I couldn’t move away from the car. I tried to slow down and let the car pull ahead, but it was too late. My brake pedal got caught under the rear portion of the car’s running board (Google “Running Board” if you have never heard of such a thing) and flipped my motorcycle and me to the pavement under the car (luckily, behind the rear wheel).   The motorcycle and I ended up sliding down the street behind the car on the pavement a few yards. I don’t think the driver knew what had happened, because he sped off down the street. I got some minor road rash out of that experience, but was otherwise unhurt, and there were only a few small scratches on the motorcycle. It would have been a totally different story if I had ended up on the street in front of that car’s rear wheel! Thank you Lord!

 

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Another time, I was giving one of my friends a ride on my motorcycle. He was quite a bit heavier than I was, and that made it difficult to turn if he didn’t lean into the turns with me. When we got to his house, I was turning into the driveway but my friend wasn’t leaning into the turn with me. His extra weight kept me from being able to turn enough, and we sideswiped a three-foot high flagstone wall that tore my jeans and scraped a 2”x4” patch of skin off of my right leg. That incident could have ended up with broken legs for both of us if Someone hadn’t been watching over us both that time.

 

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The summer after my junior year in high school, my girlfriend’s family moved to El Paso, Texas and I longed to see her again. After getting the OK from her family and much promising, on my part, to be careful and not to do anything foolish, my parents gave me permission to make the.* I left early on a Friday morning and rode my motorcycle the 225 miles, from our home in Albuquerque to El Paso, to visit Barbara for the weekend (when her folks would be home). The trip down was long (3 ½ hours), uneventful, and I was filled with anticipation. I liked Barbara’s parents and we had a great visit that weekend. Then it was time to tear myself away from her Sunday afternoon in time to make the trip back home to Albuquerque before dark. It was during the second hour when the lack of sleep, the desert heat, and the constant hummmm of the engine that I woke up with a start, just as my motorcycle went off the road onto the gravel shoulder of the oncoming lane! Somehow I was able to get back onto the pavement, without crashing, and back into my lane. As LUCK would have it, there was not another car anywhere on that stretch of the hiway at that time (now who do you suppose arranged that?). And, as you might have guessed, the amount of adrenaline that incident produced kept me awake for the rest of the trip home.

 

 

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* See Bill’s blog “Trip To El Paso”- 9/29/2012

—–To Be Continued—–

 

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Assurance

3 Jan

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

You might have gathered by now (if you read my postings consistently) that I glean a lot from facebook. If I find something that appeals to me, then I save it, and hope to use it in this venue.

I came across one recently that reached out and grabbed me. In a nutshell, it tells me that I can trust God to take care of me – no matter what the situation. (credit Cross Cards.com) It speaks of His all-powerful greatness.   It tells me I don’t have to worry about any situation I find myself in – because God can, and WILL take care of me.

I’ve found myself with cancer – and He was there.

I found myself with kidney stones – and He was there.

I found myself in physical therapy following total knee replacement – and He was there, giving me encouragement to push through the pain.

You see, I am His child. I’ve given my life to Him, to do with as he pleases. And because He made “all of this out of nothing,” I know I can trust Him to take care of me. And I know – without a single doubt – that God wants only the best for my life. He wants me to trust Him.

The world is in such a turmoil these days, that sometimes it’s overwhelming to think of “what if” and what “might” happen in the future. But my future is secure – it will be spending eternity with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that delights me!

I am so very grateful that God has allowed me to be His child. The assurance He gives me carries me through each day – and through the remainder of my life.

May you and yours have a wonderful and blessed New Year – 2016 – in our Lord’s safety and assurance.

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