The Christmas memory that became a novella

http://bit.ly/2g6IPh1

What follows is excerpted from a book of sod house memories published by the Sod House Society. Many years after I first read it, it inspired my novella titled "A Patchwork Love" for A Patchwork Christmas. I hope you enjoy reading "the rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey would say).

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It was Christmas Eve! I was seven years old during World War I. My father was in Los Angeles. My mother worked as a satin lady in a big store in North Platte, Nebraska. On Christmas eve when the store closed, we took the seven o'clock train to go out to Ogallala way out in the sandhills of Nebraska where her brother lived on a farm with seven children.

We were the only passengers going to Ogallala as the train headed into a terrible snowstorm. The heavy snowstorm increased the depth of the snow until the train was forced to stop. 

My mother hadn't brought any food because it was supposed to be only a two-hour journey. We were snowbound on the train. The drifts of snow were up to the tops of the windows. The only people on that train (five passenger cars and a mail car) were the engineer, the fireman, the conductor, the brakeman, and us. 

My mother was very tired and emotional. She began to cry and sat quietly crying the whole evening--how terrible it was! But the conductor and brakeman were very good to me, giving me a nickel and some candy, and tried to cheer up my mother.

About twelve o'clock midnight I was awakened, as we heard some jingling bells outside the train. The conductor came into our car and said, "You'd better put your coats and boots on, because a nearby farmer has come to get you in his sleigh." 

We went to the door of the train with our suitcase and my doll and looked out. There were two great big black horses with bells all over the harness. They took us out and put us in the sleigh and covered us with fur lap robes. I recall how wonderful it was for me to ride behind the bells through a white world.

The man could not speak English and neither could his wife. They were Norwegian. She gave us hot coffee and some kind of wonderful bread. I can just remember that good bread because we were so hungry.

It was a two-story homestead house--two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs. We went upstairs and there was a featherbed. It was cold--oh, my land, but it was cold! It must have been 40 degrees below zero and no heat upstairs. We got into bed and the lady put another feather tick on top of us.

In the morning, I dressed by the big cookstove in the kitchen. The lady had made a Christmas tree for me. She had taken this beautiful handmade lace and wrapped it around and around a chair with ribbon bows, and right on the seat bottom of the chair was a dish with an apple, an orange, and some hard candy. Another plate had some beautiful cutout cookies. She didn't have anything else to give me but I thought it was wonderful. My mother had a sewing box for me. Inside was a blue satin lining with needles and thimbles, scissors, and some satin scraps. 

I was happy.

--from "Pioneering--My Story" by Florence May Callihan Noble May

Here is a link to the book of Sod House Memories in which Mrs. May's original ten-page memoir first appeared. The book is out of print, but used copies can occasionally be found.  http://bit.ly/2hGCfy3

Have a blessed Christmas.

My Dad

Cecil Grayson Irvin graduated to heaven in 1996. 

I wrote this tribute as a Father's Day gift to him in about 1983.

Just before he died, he promised to meet me just inside the gate.

The older I get, the more I look forward to that day. 

I know he'll be there. 

Daddy was a man of honor. 

He always kept his word. 

            My Dad is a tall, slender man (“Slim” the guys at work used to call him) with gentle blue eyes and slightly rounded shoulder caused, I am sure, by years of bending his 6’5” frame to catch the words of those shorter than he.

            Of course I can’t remember it, but the family tells of Dad teaching me to walk by standing me on the toes of his shoes as he walked backwards.

            I remember as a child waiting excitedly for the car to pull up in the drive when he returned from his over-the-road trucking job. He would unfold his tall frame from the driver’s seat and put on the brown cap that matched his driver’s uniform. Dad took pride in his well-pressed uniforms with the company badge embroidered on the shoulder. We often laughed to see other motorists slow noticeably when we passed, thinking they were being monitored by a policeman in an unmarked car.

            When I was little, he was often “on the road.” But when he was home, I climbed onto his lap after meals, just for the feeling of being sheltered by his arms while he visited with Mother or read the evening paper. When I grew older, and Tuesday and Thursday nights were Dad’s nights home, Mother would cook corn bread with ham and beans or round steak with biscuits, and we would bask in his presence, just glad that he would be there to share our supper, coffee, and late night popcorn.

            On Sundays, Dad read me the comics and then entertained me by taking out pen and paper and drawing Dick Tracy and Brenda Starr. I still love to read the comic strips, enduring considerable chiding from my husband for the habit. I can’t copy the characters like Dad, but I occasionally clip one to slip into Bob’s lunch sack. He enjoys it in spite of himself.

            When childhood terrors over starting school after the summer overtook me, Dad was there to help relax the wrenching knot in my stomach. With his quiet voice he reassured me that everything would be all right. I believed him, and the knot loosened, and it was all right.

            I don’t remember him ever spanking me. Mother says he didn’t. He never had to. There was just something in his quiet love for me that motivated me to obey.

            In the days before seat belts and car seats, Dad used to sit me on his lap and let me think I was guiding the car.

            On summer nights when I was in junior high, we went to baseball games, sitting high in stadium seats provided by the St. Louis Cardinals to students with the right grade point average. Dad bought me soda pop and peanuts and we cheered Orlando Cepeda, Bob Gibson, and Lou Brock. I knew every player’s batting average and skipped classes once to watch the World Series on T.V. Without Dad in the next seat, baseball just isn’t much fun anymore.

            He taught me to drive defensively—and then trusted me with his car on a weekend away with other students. I would have done anything to keep from betraying his trust, and we all drove carefully that weekend. Dad must have spent a couple of sleepless nights wondering if his daughter would become another highway statistic. But he trusted me. He understood my need for independence.

            I remember my first car. Dad drove it home, parked it in the driveway, and ordered me to change an imaginary flat tire.

            He spoiled me. On snowy mornings I would go outside to find my car cleaned off, the driveway shoveled so that I could drive off to classes at the university.

            I remember tears in his eyes as he walked me down the aisle to become Mrs. Robert Whitson. Those tears still shine every time we have to say goodbye after a visit that spans the miles between Nebraska and Illinois.

            When my first child was born, the familiar knots returned to my stomach over the responsibility of motherhood. Dad reassured me. He drove me to the grocery store and patiently experimented until he found a way to fit the infant seat securely in a grocery cart while still leaving room for groceries. He couldn’t have known how much it meant to have him there, his frame towering over me, protecting his “little girl”—and a new granddaughter.

            Dad loves the Lord. He serves in quiet ways that people often don’t notice. For years, he and mother visited widows of fellow drivers killed on the road, providing help with business details, organizing a fund to provide cash in the early days of widowhood. He still chauffeurs “the elderly” around town and on trips to the airport.

            Dad taught me how to walk. He taught me to love baseball and comic strip characters and molasses-and-butter on bread. He taught me to obey authority. He proved that things would be all right next year in school, and that I could be an efficient mother, after all. He taught me about my heavenly Father, too. Oh, not with many words, but by being there, by loving, by listening—by being so very much like Him.

            I’m over thirty now, and much too old to call my Father “Daddy,” but he will always be “Daddy” in my heart … in my thoughts … in my prayers … because part of me will always be a little girl when he’s around.

            I love you, Daddy … Happy Father’s Day.

Sermon Notes, Psalm 3

Does life seem to be just one huge trial after another? Are you tempted to think God isn't paying attention? That He doesn't care? 

I was so encouraged by my pastor's sermon this past Sunday morning, I want to share my notes. A few comments are mine (a result of my mind whirling as our pastor taught), but most are those of my pastor, Dr. Gil Rugh. 

We studied Psalm 3, titled "Morning Prayer of Trust in God" 

with the ancient note added, 

"A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom, his son."

David fled ... from his own son. A son who had used his position as the king's son to foment rebellion. A son who managed to "steal away the hearts of the men of Israel" to such a degree that David had to run for his life. 

But Absalom's betrayal wasn't the only thing David had just experienced. His most trusted counselor, Ahithophel, had turned against him, too. 

On David's way out of town, someone threw rocks at him, screaming that God now favored Absalom. He was essentially saying, "God has cursed you, David, and it's your own fault!"

O Lord, how my adversaries have increased!
Many are rising up against me.

Many are saying of my soul,

"There is no deliverance for him in God."

Have you ever felt like you can almost hear the Accuser of the Brethren saying things like that? "God's done with you. He doesn't really care about you. He won't rescue you. God has abandoned you. Why would God deliver you?"

Certainly David had reason to think God might turn His back on him. After all, David had sinned. A lot. Remember Bathsheba? Remember David's arranging things so her husband was killed in battle? This is the man who writes:

But you, oh Lord, are a shield about me,

My Glory, and the One who lifts my head.

What can I learn from David? He failed. God doesn't. David could have wallowed in his mistakes and in his sins, but he didn't. He gloried in the God who does not change. The God who gives grace. The God whose mercies are new every morning. 

I was crying to the Lord with my voice

David had great faith in God, but that doesn't mean he didn't cry to the Lord with his voice. Where should I go first when things look really, really, bad? TO THE ONE WHO IS THE REFUGE FOR MY SOUL.

I was crying the Lord with my voice

And He answered me from His holy mountain. 

I lay down and slept.

I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.

David is fully confident in God ... even though he still has to keep hiding. Even though he is running for his life. The Lord has cared for me to this point. He has brought me to this moment to hear His Word and to be reminded of His provision. Take heart. Lay down and sleep, for God is a shield about me.

I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people 

Who have set themselves against me round about. 

The magnitude of trouble shouldn't matter. The Lord will sustain me. He is the anchor for my soul. "Sometimes He brings His strength to me through others."

NOTE: The fact that David is experiencing part of God's discipline (he was told after he sinned with Bathsheba that he would experience ongoing conflict see 2 Samuel 12) DOES NOT CHANGE DAVID'S RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. God is still David's refuge and David's deliverer. God has NOT abandoned David. 

Even in times of discipline, God is present. He is God with us. 

Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God!

For you have smitten my enemies on the cheek;

You have shattered the teeth of the wicked.

Salvation belongs to the Lord;

Your blessing be upon Your people!

David doesn't fall back on his past conquests (remember Goliath). He looks to God. 

Applying Psalm 3 to 2016:

• Sometimes the problems in our lives can be overwhelming.
• It may seem to some that God has abandoned me.
• First, I should go to GOD and TO HIS WORD (not to others)
• God meets us where we are. David doesn't wallow in his past mistakes and neither should we. We belong to Him and that will NEVER not be true.
• In overwhelming trials, remember it is the Lord who protects us.
• Earnestly seek the Lord. Cry to him with your voice in prayer. Claim his promises (like Romans 8:28). I may not see the "good" but He has promised good. His love is the same every day. His mercies are new every morning.
• WE DO KNOW HOW IT ALL TURNS OUT. Remember what Jesus said the night before his crucifixion? "Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."

If you would like to listen to the sermon yourself, here's the link:

https://www.ihcc.org/Resources/Message/4011

God give you peace today. 

He loves you. So much.