Steve's 57th birthday is on Sunday (Aug 30)! Every day is a celebration as far as I'm concerned! Steve is always so hard to know what to do (or purchase) to let him know he is loved and appreciated. He doesn't like to spend money on himself, so every dime I spend on him, he complains. So...I typically plan something that doesn't involve much money. This year however, I had a really good idea - and I spent money on it too! We had purchased a new car in February that has Sirius radio. The "free" service was only for 6 months - it expired yesterday. Steve loves 50's and 60's music...I love the broadway, classical, easy listening and big band music. The variety of music is so incredible... and there are no advertisements! We have really enjoyed Sirius radio. However, if you know Steve, it is not a necessity, so we were not going to renew the subscription. Well...I just picked up the phone yesterday and called Sirius and renewed it for a year. I was amazed at how thrilled Steve was that his radio was not shut off! So, I guess I got him a gift that he really likes this year! And, he only complained about the money I spent on it once!

Also, to celebrate his birthday we are going to Frankenmuth Michigan to meet Steve's baby sister (age 40) on Friday. I love to eat at Zenders. My favorite thing to eat at this famous chicken restaurant are the wonderful fried chicken livers smothered in sauteed onions. No one else likes them...but to me they are like candy! I can't wait.

Then, on Steve's actual birthday, after church, we are going to meet Jason/Kendra/Kinsen/Jaybin and Stephanie/Daniel at the Tipton park for a picnic and a geocache! Sure wish Sara/Chris/Grant/Mason lived close. It always seems so hard to meet with the family when one link is down in Florida.

On Monday of next week I am supposed to be released from the foot doctor - Wow! It will be 12 weeks. This week I have been wearing a tennis shoe on my broken foot. The tennis shoe works really well. When I put on any other shoe, my foot aches after an hour or two. I tried going to a wedding in a rubber soled black shoe (not very pretty, but at least not a white tennis shoe). I was hardly able to get to the car that evening. When I got home my foot was swollen again. So, I wore tennis shoes to church the next day. Tennis shoes and white socks! Now that was a fashion statement. It was rather humorous to me that it is not the women that noticed that I wore a pair of slacks and tennis shoes...it was the men. They were the ones that made a big deal out of the fact that this was the very first time they saw their pastor's wife in a pair of pants on Sunday morning - let alone tennis shoes.

33 years and counting

Our 33rd Wedding anniversary was this week on Friday, August 14. Thursday evening we hopped in the car and headed down to French Lick Indiana and stayed at The West Baden Hotel. It is a lovely old hotel that was remodeled in 2007. This is the first time we have ever stayed here. There really is not much to do in French Lick but rest. That we did very well. Friday morning we got up and sat out on the veranda with a cup of coffee and the newspaper letting the sunshine wake us for the day.

Then we headed out to Spring Mill State park. The park was quite rustic, but very nice. Since I have a broken foot, we did not hike, but we did take a boat ride through a cave and walked through the old inn. There is a pioneer village at Spring Mill that was delightful to walk. There is also an old mill that is still used to grind corn. Stephen was very tired the entire couple of days that we were there. As soon as he would sit down, he would fall asleep. I am hoping that there is still some anesthesia in his system that is making him so tired. It has been over a week since the heart catheter. It was a very minor surgery and Steve was awake through most of it... Never-the-less, Steve slept alot this weekend. Perhaps he was exhausted with all of the excitement and pain he has had over the past month.

As tired and worn out as Steve was on our little trip, this morning he got up, walked in the pulpit and he was strong, vibrant and shared the WORD this morning with conviction and passion. Grace UMC is doing a sermon series on the book of Phillippians. This morning we were on Philippians 2:5-12. ....Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.... I wish you all could have heard Steve this morning. He has a new sense of power in his preaching since his heart attack. At the end of the sermon, we began singing "He is Lord....He is Lord...He has risen from the dead and He is Lord....every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord .... and one by one people all over the congregation began standing on that Historic confession of faith.

Sometimes, in my weakness/humanity I wish that Steve would retire. Then he gets up in the pulpit and "does his thing" and I relax, placing my trust once again in the fact that we are called to pastoral ministry, and it is good...

Update on Stephen

Steve has been having alot of pain in his left arm, neck, jaw, and chest. He has had this pain in his arm for 5-6 months. The chest and jaw/neck pain has almost immobilized him for over a month. At our last Doctor's appointment, Dr Ritchie suggested that he needed to do a few tests to find out why Steve is in such pain. So, Aug 3, 4, and 5, Steve went through a battery of tests. The first two tests came back normal, for which we were grateful. The third test came back abnormal, which then promoted more testing. After hours of testing, we now have a better understanding of the extent of the damage that was done to Steve's heart during his massive heart attack on October 22nd.

We knew that the bottom portion of the heart was where his heart attack was. We were told after Steve's bypass surgery that the heart was regenerating itself. However, after 9 months since the surgery, we are now facing the fact that the bottom portion of Steve's heart is nothing but dead heart muscle. We also were informed that one of the bypass grafts had failed and is now completely blocked again. Luckily, the stent that was put in before the surgery was still holding and adequate blood flow is getting to the heart.

Dr Ritchie informed stressed with both of us that there is nothing that Steve cannot do. He has no restrictions. He needs to continue to keep on living, and pushing and working. We just need know his body and when he gets tired, back off for awhile.

We know that Steve will have to live with the pain perhaps for the rest of his life - it is just lack of oxygen to the left side of his upper body. We do have a new medication to help with the pain. He has been home for the last 48 hours (per doctor's orders) and has rested alot. The rest has seemed to help the pain as well. He is bored, wrestless and can't wait to get back to work.

As we have been processing what the tests showed, we have had mixed feelings. Feelings of gratitude that Steve does not have to have another surgery, or another stent at this point...but feelings of great sadness that one of the bypasses has already become blocked and that the heart tissue to the bottom of the heart is totally gone now. We are also sobered that his body is still making cholesterol and blocking arteries, even with all of the diet changes we have made.

New Experience

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Conner Prairie in Indiananpolis has a new exhibit - a helium balloon that you can ride in. There is a difference between a Hot air balloon and a Helium balloon. This one is helium - there is no fire to warm and cool the air...there is only a pully that allows the helium balloon to rise and then the pully line pulls the balloon back down to earth. We went over 350 feet in the air and it felt like a hot air balloon ride - the wind was blowing in our face and we were dangling in a basket. Conner Prairie is a wonderful day - and I was able to walk the entire experience with my walking cast.

Getting Ready for the Fall

I have a group of about 30 women that are in Bible Study with me on Tuesday mornings and Thursday nights. I always stew around all summer long trying to decide what to teach/learn in the next Bible Study class. I've stewed and stewed all summer long, I've been praying about it for weeks and I think today I have decided that we are going to do a study on the Holy Spirit. If I were a wise woman, I would have seen God's answer along time ago, but it just dawned on me today...

My mother was talking the last time we were together about the Holy Spirit and the "power" that was promised to us when Jesus left the earth. John 16:7 has Jesus saying the it was to our advantage that he go away so that the Holy Spirit can come upon us - then Christ goes on to say that we will do even greater things than he. Mom and I were discussing this at great length. Where is the Holy Spirit's "power" in our life...etc....

Another friend was talking to me last week absolutely frozen at the thought of publically praying. We talked once again about the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit intercedes for us.

I was leading our Sunday School class and someone in our class was discussing the fact that they were feeling guilty about the way they had treated their fellow Christian,....and yet....their friend had it coming to them, but nevertheless, they couldn't shake the fact that they had hurt their friend...So, we again talked about the Holy Spirit and how he convicts us of something out of kilter in our life...

Another situation came up this summer with a friend and substance abuse. We talked at great length that Christ is the authority in our life and that His Spirit gives us a new identity and that we need to fill our thoughts/mind with the Spirit, not things of the flesh...

Hummm....do you see a theme developing here? You'd think it would have been obvious all summer, but this morning I was outside, having a cup of coffee with my neighbor, watching/listening to the birds at the bird feeder and she said "it's so peaceful back here, sometimes I wish I had peace in my life, it feels so out of control...where is God...?" And we spent two hours talking about His Spirit living within her ....

After she left, it dawned on me...I know where to go this Fall in Bible Study, we are going to talk about the Holy Spirit. No more stewing... I know where to go, now only by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit may I walk humbly as I study and listen to His Word.

The summer is going by so fast. I cannot believe that July is almost over and I haven't even got to enjoy it yet. Actually today I was able to walk around the house without my crutches. What a difference that makes in my attitude about life. I was almost to the point of deciding that I was overwhelmed, stricken, moneyless, friendless, worthless, that my life correlated with that of Job in the Bible,... and then today came. I could actually fix lunch without having my hands tied to the crutches. I even folded laundry out of the dryer without having to "kick" a folding chair across the room so I could sit down to reach the clothes! I was invited to lunch today, and I got to drive myself and converse around a table and for over two hours while I totally forgot about my hurt foot. Okay, maybe life is going to be all right after all - perhaps I am not a burdensome noose around my husbands neck anymore.


















I took some pictures today of my flower garden. I have taken great delight today walking outside and snapping pictures. Shade gardening is not near as colorful and whimsical as gardening where there is alot of sun. Flowers are much stronger and bolder. The color is much more subtle, but there is a beauty of their own, even in their simplicity. This is the first time I have had only shade to work with and I really do find great beauty. A friend said the other day "it is so 'green' in your back yard....I've never seen such 'green'!" I agree with her, It is "green" and quite forestly looking.

I have been so grateful for Christian friends. They have kept my head above water through this whole broken bones ordeal. Whatever I was unable to do, I always had 5-6 people offering to do whatever they could do to help me. Some people really complain about being a pastoral family with all of the great demands and expectations there are in the ministry. I have found that ministry is extremely rewarding. Or, perhaps the issue is not that I am "in ministry" - the issue is that I have Christian brothers and sisters in Christ that know how to love.

The other day I was marveling about one of my friends that has an obvious gift from God of loving others.... She was over here taking care of me for over an hour, then she informed me that when she left me, she was going over to help another friend clean out her mother's estate now that her friend's mother had passed away. Oh the joy that I am learning from the servant's heart of others to be the hands and feet of Christ. May I always remember this lesson.

I have always heard that having Grandchildren is even better than having children. I could never fathom that as any kind of truth, but here I am a grandparent and I do believe that this is the life for me!

Our little Kinsen was given a Lego castle for Christmas last year and then when we went to Disneyworld a few weeks ago, her parents purchased a Medieval village to go with the castle. While we were at Jason's for 4th of July, we put the castle and village together. We set the entire village up in the living room - with the castle up on a tall kitchen stool (to make a large hill) covered with a green (grass) blanket. Kinsen has spent the rest of the week pretending and playing with this castle/village. Jason says that Kinsen has been in her own little world with a fabulous imagination. Fondly, I remembered that when I was a little girl, I believed that I was a princess. I would sit in the upstairs bedroom window (my high tower) and imagine all kinds of "princes" running to rescue me! Wow, that was 45 years ago... I still remember that like it was yesterday!

Of course, after building a Medieval town/castle, we need to pull out the styrofoam swords and imagine that we are medieval knights!