A city set on a hill...

Sunday's sunset

10/12/10 Tuesday
It’s been an interesting day so far. Started this morning with scripture reading out of Isaiah 56 through 58. It amazes me how relevant something written thousands of years ago is today. There was great sadness in both Cherie and I as we saw the life and actions of a couple we know described in this area of the bible. If we didn’t care for them we wouldn’t be sad, but we care and love despite how they have treated us, and want only the best for them. The best does not mean success or money, it means a humble spirit before the Lord and submitting to His will, for without that all the money and fame in the world is only an empty promise that will never bring true satisfaction.

After that I prayed with Cherie to send her off to work and then loaded up Midnight for his trip to the vet. It’s time now for his official initiation into the family. That would be shots and castration. I’ll be picking him up at 4:00 or so. The vet said he has some Great Dane in his genes, but I was happy to hear her say that he wouldn’t be growing much more than he is now, other than filling out some. Trixie sometimes walks right underneath Him. It’s funny to watch.

On the way to the vet my phone rang. It was the widow calling and she was flustered as she explained what was going on. Seems that at 5:30 in the morning she got a knock on the door. The guy asked her if the dog out in the middle of Loop 250 was hers. The dog was a huge golden Great Dane that was barking and playing as cars honked their horns and avoided him. Mrs. G went out there with the guy and when she called the dog he came straight to her. They managed to get the huge beast into Mrs. G’s back yard. She called the phone number on the tag that was on the dogs collar. The guy who answered was in Oklahoma and said the dog belonged to his sister in-law. He promised to call her and have her call Mrs. G. By the time she called me there had been no response so Mrs. G said “This dog has knocked me down twice. What do I do?” I let her know that I was just heading into Midland and when I got Midnight dropped off at the vets I would come over.
This is where I was working on the widow's garden area. Cleared all the weeds out and started putting down this weed barrier cloth in preparation for the lava rock. Worked all day on it and afterwords we all had dinner together.

When I got there I found the Great Dane was definitely full grown. Those suckers are huge. But he was friendly and wanted to play. I looked at the dog tag and found three phone numbers on it. One had an area code that started with a 9 and probably went to the Oklahoma resident and one was for an animal hospital. I called that one and gave the lady who answered the ID number on the tag. She looked it up and told me the dogs name, along with the name and address of the listed owner. The third number I called next and come to find out it was the listed owners work. The lady said she would call her and have her contact me about the dog. It wasn’t long before my phone rang and I talked to the lady. She only lived a block away so I put a leash on RJ (the dogs name) and let him pull me up there. You don’t walk a Great Dane, they walk you and you hang on desperately to the leash so it doesn’t escape. The lady had come out and was waiting for us. She was happy and grateful and explained how the dog knows how to open the gate if her kids don’t put something in the latch.

The finished job. As her funds allow I will continue this process for her whole lawn.

Ok, Great, We’ve done our good deed for the day, right? A few moments ago I got a voice mail from Mrs. G. Seems that the person in Oklahoma, the sister in-law, called Mrs. G. The Great Dane had been stolen from her so she is going to call the police. The lady I returned the dog to told me that they had just moved there from Oklahoma and sure seemed nice. Who knows what’s going on, I just hope the rightful owner gets their dog back.

After all of that I went to the Texas VA rep and we worked on the mess that exists with the VA. He made several calls and checked computer records, trying to figure out what was going on. Seems that the rep before him hadn’t done his job and some of our forms we filled out and he was supposed to send in don’t appear to have been received. So we filled out more forms and he sent them in. Next I will go to the congressman’s office. He called there and identified who in his office I’m to see. I have to write a statement and gather copies of all the records before I go so will need to make that important so it actually gets done. If you read the “book” I posted yesterday you will have seen, towards the end, the part about “poor initiative”. This has been one of my biggest downfalls. I have a world of unfinished projects, things started but never finished, and it’s a huge source of frustration for me. I’m not lazy, I work hard all the time, often till I’m unable to work any more, but I don’t get so many things done that need to get done. This is where I could use some help, where I need to organize and have written schedules, along with reminders to do things.

I’ll pick Midnight up in about an hour. There’s so much to do and so far today I’ve gotten nothing done. There’s a lot of activity at the old store we had hoped to open up as a farmer’s market. Someone’s cleaning lots of stuff out. It brings great sadness to see this, yet another dream we had hoped for that has passed us by because of the animosity and back biting talk of those who would love to see us fail. But we will trust in God, that He will bring good out of evil.

So it’s time to go. I’ve noticed that our readership on the blog is higher than it’s ever been. That’s amazing to me. I learned that someone, who desires to prevent others from reading what’s been happening recently, has been contacting them to plant poisonous seeds and encourage them to not follow the blog. That’s ok, the truth will always come out. I live my life like a city set on a hill for all the world to see. I do that to be honest, even about my faults, and know that in the process a light will shine, showing the wonders of God in our lives. None of us are perfect and all of us do things wrong. The difference is some run and hide from the light so that deeds might be hidden and some run to the light that their deeds might be forgiven. I’d rather live in a way that there is nothing to hide than not.