His Blessings in a Different Way

When my COVID hit right around the Holiday Season, my sister had e-mailed, "I hope God will show you His blessings in a different way this year." Boy, did she hit the nail on the head!

Some people think you have to have a big Christmas Dinner to celebrate the holidays. Since my husband and I both had fevers, neither of us were thinking about preparing or eating dinner. My fever came down once but went back up again. When it started to come down again, I was wary of saying I was over my COVID, because I'd been conditioned to feel it could go back up again. When my temperature finally got down to 37 degrees Celsius and stayed there tho', my husband went out and bought a "nikuman" for me to celebrate.

He heated it up in the microwave then handed it to me, saying, "It's hot, so be careful you don't burn yourself." I think that little nikuman tasted better than any turkey stuffing I've ever had in my life.

By New Year's, my fever was completely gone, and I was able to participate in online New Year's service. Kinya saw my coughing wouldn't go away and bought some cough drops, put a bowlful on the kitchen table.

The following day, I mentioned I went to the store and bought a journal. I didn't mention some other cleaning things I got, because I had seen some places in the kitchen I'd meant to clean by year's end but had found myself getting sick so hadn't been able to do it.

It was just the kitchen sink and area behind the stove, but after awhile, the place started looking nice, if I say so myself. Some people think you have to have Christmas Decorations for Holiday cheer. But the surprised looks my husband and son showed when they saw the gleaming chrome were all I needed to warm my heart!

Before year's end, I had asked God to show me how I could show my husband how I loved him.

Ha! We don't think like God thinks! Instead, God showed me how Kinya loved me, caring for me--at the beginning stages while he himself had fever too. When I found out about this, I heard myself thinking I would never complain to him ever again about anything--but I know I will--rats.

KAZUE-NECHAN

"Lord, save this baby boy, and when he grows up, send him to Japan as a missionary."

I've got to hand it to the faith of that missionary on furlough.

There was a missionary to Japan back in Canada for furlough in Brandon, Manitoba in 1920, when he heard that a young Japanese couple had given birth to a little baby boy, so he hurried over to their hospital room. After spending time visiting with them in Japanese, he asked if he could pray for their son. Thinking this man of God would pray for their boy's blessing and success, of course they complied; but were startled to hear the strangest prayer they had ever heard.

"God, save this little boy, and when he gets older, send him to Japan as a missionary."

That child grew up to be a leader and instructor...then informed them one day he would quit teaching. He had become a Christian and wanted to go to Japan as a missionary...they remembered that prayer over 30 years ago!

That boy's name was Roy. He was my father, who came out to Okinawa in 1955, saying, "If I don't tell my relatives about Christ, who will?"

But they did not welcome the Gospel with open arms. In fact, when Daddy went to Glory, only one of his close relatives: a cousin, Seiko--the one he had gone swimming with in the Uken Creek nearby--got saved, while most of the others rejected the Gospel, feeling too strongly entrenched in traditional ways.

There was one other cousin the same age as Daddy and Seiko, however, who respected Daddy's walk, giving him real estate on which to build a house. So, it is this cousin's daughter who lives within a stone's throw from the house. She is the one who, when I went to Okinawa recently for my stepmother's funeral activities, came early to the procedures and stayed after the others were gone.

"You know what I remember about your first mom?" she told me. "She loved plants. She would see a pretty flower by the side of the road, raise it in an eggshell in the backyard at home, bring it a beautiful bloom in a pot one day!"

Only someone like Kazue-Nechan (Japanese for elder sister). Please pray she find God's unconditional love someday soon.

I'm not the only one!

Everyone cries differently.

Once, I remember doing the voice part for the animated story of Ruth, and when we got to the part where the girls part with Naomi, they were to "lift up their voices and weep". I have never raised my voice to cry--that is just not the way I cry. So, when I was told, "Just let your voice out," I tried, but then I was told it sounded like I was laughing, and I heard someone whispering I must be embarrassed. That wasn't it. I didn't know how to make those sounds people called "natural".

Well, in the book I'm reading, p.317, a person with the exact same problem goes to a funeral and is told she needs to cry. Her herculean efforts to produce heartbroken wailing results in first a ripple of laughter then an uproar. See there, I chuckled, and felt a smidgeon of vindication as I read--I'm not the only one.

Oh--this is a sketch made from a photo I saw in Okinawa. It was taken when the kids were little, just before bedtime. My daughter reached down to her little brother, assuring him, "Don't worry. Your Big Sis will be by your side all your life." It was a precious picture.

I know it looks like my son wants to cringe and cry at the thought. But that is because the artist is only a year and a half into her craft and doesn't know how to draw expressions right yet. Give it time, and maybe some drawings will be more accurate and bring out smiles instead of making you want to cry.

Besides, everyone smiles differently too.

MUCH BETTER COLORED

Remember the drawing of my kiddies at the campground? I put my colored pencils to good use, and here it is: Much better, don't you think?

I showed it to my son before he left for work this morning. Yes, the little one in the spotted playsuit is now an adult earning his way in the world; his rambunctious sister is now a mommy of a boy who just learned to walk...which makes the mother in this picture a grandma!

Yup, leaves fall from trees...

WELL, the kids look ok, don't they?

My Dad filled up the house with pictures. The house is like a photo museum.

I found a photo of the time I took my kids to the Bible campground when they were little and decided to sketch it. But I decided not to spend time on me, just on the kids, and it turned out like this:

But after I was done, I realized I had a picture of something that looked like my kids were getting kidnapped by someone, since that woman doesn't look like me!

Hm...maybe I should've spent a little more time drawing myself...

Oh, and I didn't color it either. For some reason, I was pressed for time.

MY FAVORITE MEDALIST

Just before my sister moved down to Okinawa almost 10 years ago, a huge, flat carton arrived at the front door--she had won a color TV! One of those things you KNOW you will never, ever in a million years win, right? She hadn't even bothered to open it then, just let it be sent that way. The TV was set up on a small table in her basement apartment. Well, it made the table look small.

Altho' for a few weeks, I didn't get to see my critter friends at the park, I got to see animals in their natural habitats anyway, via nature TV shows that flashed across that large screen. That's a bat flying over the surface of the water!

Oh--hanging around the edge of the monitor frame are Joyce's graduation tassel on the right side and the longer thing on the left is the blue ribbon at the end of which is the medal for winning the voice contest. And the Clione plankton, monkey, and turtles on rock down the side of the picture are souvenir magnets nearby.

After my stepmother's funeral, I saw my sister running around to the banks, city office, post office, etc., taking care of legal matters concerning the accounts, bills, house, property, inheritance. Many great leaders would be willing to make "brave sacrifices" necessary to stand at the front of a large army. But I wonder how many would spend hours in the dark reminding elderly parents to take their medicine (repeatedly because they forget if you tell them just once) or would humble themselves to work in languages they had to constantly ask for help? I'm sure Joyce felt a lot better being handed a medal for first place than being given repeated explanations by the clerk.

Daddy had several small handwritten memos in his study: "No holiness without humility." Qualities of humility, meekness, integrity have been so forgotten, even in the contemporary Church. But I think I saw one medalist that, at least unconsciously, hadn't forgotten.

SKETCHING NOW

Let me try this again, as I've been making oodles of drawings, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep sending them to everybody separately, and I can never keep track of which ones I sent whom, so...I'll just put most of them up here and hope if you're interested, you look here, ok? (I know. I should have another separate site. I don't know how to set up those things. I barely got this far.) Here are three of some of my more recent ones. Blogging is supposed to be out-fashioned, but I'm not doing it to be "with it"; just to let you see the pics I draw, whoever I usually send them to or whoever else would be interested.

Corner Cove was the place I spent the most time when I first came to the park in 2016. Last week, the Lord gave me a real pretty sight as I took my walk there. Some of the leaves were red and yellow, so there was no need for flowers; it was so colorful. The mallards came by too, adding music to the quiet atmosphere.

A few minutes later, when I saw the Akatombo on some rocks on the side of the pond, I was sure it would fly away but began quickly sketching it. Imagine my delight when it came back and landed on the drawing pad when I'd finished, as if looking at itself, saying, "Wow--a picture--of ME!"

I put the Nov. 1-14 drawings into smaller than 1" form so I could post all of them at once, but then they wouldn't load. I don't know how this computer stuff works, so I'll just show you three of them and show you new things drawn from here on. Well, ONE more. I found an old photo of my kids and tried to sketch it. the cheapo journal I got has a translucent cover so is perfect to slip this sketch behind as the first page--keeps the picture from getting unnecessarily dirtied, plus is a nice picture to look at!

The last time I posted, it was about Daddy having gone Home. It looks like my stepmother is getting ready to join him soon. Please pray for us.