grampa

the first 9 years of my life were lived about 75 yards from their house. all of my earliest memories seem to center around the hub of grandma and grampas house. the first time i rode a bike grampa was there. when i learned how to play basketball it was because grampa put up a hoop on his garage. when i fractured my jaw and had to go to the hospital for stitches, grampa went with. i spent hundreds of hours in the maple tree in their front yard. i spent countles hours under the cave created by the overgrown arbivida. when grampa went to cut wood for the wood stove, i went with him. when he went to get his hair cut by the juggling barber, i went with him. when he dug a new water line for the well, i dug with him. the sound of the bell at the front door still rings in my ear and there is only one house in the entire world that has the welcoming smell of g & g hoyt's. i can still smell the unique smell of coffee mixed with the personal smell that is created when one lives somewhere for a long time, not of old people, but of home. i loved watching grampa pour cream into his coffee and it would cloud up. i still love pouring cream into my coffee and watching it cloud up. grandma always had a bag of marshmallows tucked away behind some pots on the bottom shelf of the kitchen cabinets so that we could reach them easily, even though we thought it was a convenient oversight of grandma's. grandma taught me how to play dominos, grampa taught me how to play checkers and the patience. for a checkers genius to let a 5 year old win is something. i loved sitting in the living room red cheeked at christmas because the wood stove was stoked and it was 90 degrees inside even though it might have been 6 degrees out. this past year i had the opportunity to stop by for supper at g & g hoyts while on my way through for business. we had gotten slowed by snow and by the time we got there it was 8 in the evening. you would have thought we were right on time and supper had just been taken from the oven. there is no other place that i feel as welcomed as at g&g's house. from the cookies, to pudding on a cloud, to the secret stash of marshmallows or an orange juice jar that never runs out. to the creak of the old aluminum screen doors whose sound has been permanently etched into my mind, to the pictures on the wall of the hallway, where each year my latest school picture would be proudly displayed among several other siblings and cousins. i wish i could live closer to g&g they arent getting younger and it seems as the days draw to an ever speeding close one wants to hold on ever tighter. i miss grampa and grandma. i miss running over to their house and barging in to show grandma the snake i just found in the back yard or sitting up in the maple tree looking across the field with grampa's binoculars till it was time for supper. i miss the smell of the sandy ohio soil littered with acorns along the trail back to the shed. i miss ringing the bell as i walked in the door only to be met with a hug and a hearty "well hello there david" as if i hadn't been there for years. i wish i could have coffee more often with grampa and have him tell me stories of years gone by and of solutions to todays ailments. i wish i could hug grandma at least once a week and let her bustle about the kitchen preparing a snack or a feast as if it were just for me. i would love to be young once more to lay in the living room and listen to the time life record company's classic western collection as i did in my youth. I can still hear the words of tex ritter "do not forsake me oh my darlin" i have no idea why, but i would lay on the floor and listen to those records all the way through. when i hear paul harvey i am instantly transported to g&g's house where grandma would tune in every afternoon to hear "the rest of the story" I remember when i carefully hid a tinker toy contraption on grampa's side of the bed under the covers and him asking me with a smile the next day if i knew anything about the pokey contraption he layed down on the night before. i started wearing a cap the other day, i think it looks good on me and is unique it happens to be an old style golf hat. the same kind that grampa never left the house without one on his head. i dont know if i like it because i think it looks good or because i think it makes me a little like grampa. ive been thinking about interjecting "well fiddle" and "whatchamacallit" into my daily vocabulary because i love the sound of it when grampa says it. some kids grow up and don't have such fond memories of their grandparents or don't have any memories at all and i am sad for them. i have so many great memories it fills my heart with warmth as i think on them. i hope some day i am a grampa like my grampa hoyt it is a goal that i aspire to. he didnt have to take me to the juggling barber, but he did. he didn't have to put the hoop up but he did. he didn't have to do any number of the countless things he did for this guy in his early years but he chose to. i am so lucky, more than most even. i remember when grampa asked dad to cut his wedding ring off, not because he had given up on grandma but because it had been years since he had even been able to get it off and he was worried it was cutting off circulation and he woul lose his finger. That is how my wedding ring will be when i am 70. i love whenever i would exclaim about some new discovery or creation "thats awesome!" grandma would chime in "no, God is awesome" grandma thank you for always having a hug for me and for creating the most welcoming place i know, a place where no matter how infrequently i visit, always feels like home.

grampa, thanks for being an example, thanks for being available, thanks for teaching me so many things, thanks for hauling me all over with you when i was young. i can think of no greater display of love and care than to let a preschooler tag along and be with his grampa.

I didnt really realize it till i started writing my thoughts but i miss you both so much. I wish i could visit more and i wish i would have done all my growing up closer. I wish i could be there to celebrate with you. I love you both very much

Dirty

sometimes i feel like i can't get clean.  not that there is too much mud or a stain that wont wash off my hands its just me. that if i were to be able to get clean then this stain would come and dump its residue all over me and leave me dirty again until time wears it off.  god says though my sins were as scarlet they will be washed whiter than snow.  its hard to believe when you feel dirty and cant seem to get clean.  problem is i dont believe that he would actually wash me off, again, for the thousandth time.  so then that leaves me feeling dirty, unable to be cleaned and without much hope for becoming clean or even less likely, staying clean.  what is this potion called jesus' blood that would clean me forever.  I cant believe it, but i must, but it is so utterly disgusting to me. and yet i must have it. even still can it be true?  please be true, and if so why dont i believe it much less feel it.  Jesus I need your truth to fill me that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus.  but god, me? really, me? how can it be true, me? ME?

help me believe jesus, help me know you are true help me believe i am clean

cleanse me and i will be clean wash me and i will be whiter than snow.

hope?

have you ever sworn off something, that it will never happen again? then it happens again, so you set your resolve that this was the last time?
thats me i fall in and out of sin each time vowing next time will be different or at least hoping it will be but figuring it will probably be about the same. i wonder what keeps me going when i could just accept the seeming truth about who i am and what struggles i have i could resign myself to the fact that nothing will ever change and i will be stuck to deal with this, because it is the unjumpable hurdle in my life. i am sitting here in that spot right now mad at myself, hating the fact that i cant seem to shake my addictions. what do i do? i've been here many times. i realize i have 2 choices: despair or hope. it isnt uncommon for me to despair however no matter how deep the despair i always seem to migrate to hope. i cant explain it i just know (hope) that god's promises are real and that he has freedom for me not only freedom in the literal sense but freedom in the fact that it is for freedom that jesus set me free. there is no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus. i have told myself those verses a thousand times and i only partially believe them even though i totally want to believe its only 50% most of the time. jesus i need hope
you promise that hope does not dissapoint us so i will keep hoping........

grumpy

sometimes i realize i am grumpy and i dont know what to do about it
tonite i am grumpy, one could call it angry, nothing has really happened
to put me out of sorts i just am... or did something happen?
when my 1 1/2 yr old doesnt get something he wants he screams and throw
a fit until he gets it or till i send him to his room till he looses the attitude
i am realizing i am not much different than a 1 year old in this regard
my flesh is crying out for satisfaction of some sort and if it doesnt get it
the supernatural leaks over into the emotional and i am angry
it seems there is nothing i can do about it i just have to deal until it goes away
if only the enemy inside would die, but i keep feeding it

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Galatians 5

Starving

the other day i had the realization that i was starving.
i didnt notice it for a long time because i was so stuffed.
yep thats what i meant to say.
i realized that i fill myself so full of food, and work, and
family, and internet and TV, and lists and whatever else
i can think of to try to cram into my "stomach" that i dont
notice that i am still extremely hungry.
Jesus says that we dont live by bread alone and i wonder
if this is what he was talking about, that maybe my hunger
is for something less phsyical and more spiritual. maybe it
is something that only he can satisfy. i assume that is true
but it doesnt make it any easier to adhere to that belief
i will continue to be hungry and continue to stuff myself
with things that keep me from the good food until i choose to
believe jesus when he told his friends that he had food they
didnt know about.
"God increase my hunger for you, may my hunger for you
grow to be more that the hunger of my flesh"

"blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled"-Jesus
dh