Columns & Editorials

Have your retirement plans changed because of COVID-19? If so, you have plenty of company.

My Daddy is Coming Home

I’m in worship on a Sunday night and I can barely sit still with anticipation. Tonight, is the night my daddy is coming home.

The current state of education in Texas suggests COVID19 and student achievement should be the number one priority of district administrators.

Our battle between those two lifestyles is still raging. The temptations we face seem to increase daily in our day and time. The good comes from GOD through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the bad is formed in our minds. Actually the battle between good and evil is fought in the minds of true Christians. One thing that is hard to understand is that the battle is between GOD and Satan. When we try to fight our own battle we fail every time. The reason for that is that we don’t have any power against the devil and his demons. My own pride and ego make me want to win the battle myself, but when I get out of the way GOD just has to speak a word and Satan will flee from me. That leaves us with a decision to make. Can GOD be trusted to fight and win all of our battles here on earth? That leaves us with only one choice really. We can trust GOD and let Him fight our battles, or we can continue fighting and failing. The choice is ours to make.

Dear Aunt B,

Here. We. Go. Again. This is the way millennials write things in social media posts when they want to seem exasperated and they need you to imagine them rolling their eyes and taking a micro-pause in between each staccato embellished word. I know this because I have spent SO MUCH of my quarantime on social media. There are only so many ways I can attempt to teach myself to crochet, after all. Turns out, there’s not a big market out there for yarn knotted in the shape of a trapezoid. But, seriously, here we go…again. Cali has shut it down hard. Governor Cuomo is back with semi-regular briefings. And, unlike the spring influx of Covid, Kaufman County is currently being ravaged this time around. You may not agree with me. You also may not live with a septuagenarian with COPD. We lock up tight around here. With a shiny vaccine at the end of our tunnel, we just need to Wilson Phillips it for a little while longer. But, what is even left to do in this world? Like a mighty mouse carrying an extra Covid 15, I’m here in my too tight suit to save the day. Y’all like murder?

It was decided that they would all spend Christmas on the farm. The best news for Jett was that his Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim would be there too with his three cousins Emily, Russ and Sarah. They brought their travel trailer and parked it under the big Elm tree beside the house.

Educators are working diligently to provide instruction in-person or remotely with the hopes of returning to our normal pre-COVID 19 routines. It feels like a patchwork effort to make sure we are providing some type of education services to our students while we bide our time waiting for our return to “normal.” Outcomes are not likely to be what we want them to be, but we are providing something…or are we?

I asked my friends to explain the following proverb: “The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered” (Proverbs 11:9).

It may not be easy for Christians to praise GOD in this time of trouble, but I think this is this time we should praise Him the most. GOD told us long ago that these times were coming and we should not be amazed or fear. Think about the time when Jesus will call all true Christians up to meet Him in the air. It may be a long time off, but I can’t help but believe it is coming soon. I may not have lived a perfect life for GOD but His promise to us is that we are saved and safe forever. How could any promise be better than that? I can praise GOD because He always seems to be at His best when I am at my worst. That does not mean that we get by with our sins, but it means that GOD has given us forgiveness as long as we live in these bodies. I should say that we still pay for the sin we commit here in this life, that is if we do something to ruin our health GOD will forgive us for the sin, but He will “not” restore health to our bodies. If I eat enough sweet stuff to rot my teeth out, GOD will forgive me for eating wrong, but He will not make us new teeth,. The dentist has to do that. I praise GOD because He is totally just and perfect and does not deal with us according to our sins, but according to His perfect love for us. I can’t understand that but I know it is true.

Dear Aunt B,

Victorian dresses. Hats with large brims. Men with 3 piece suits and handlebar mustaches. Lots of stopwatches. The Statue of Liberty. Valets as placeholders in an Ellis Island line. This is how I imagined my ancestors arriving in the United States. It’s a very “the china had never been used” Titanic sort of imagining, which makes zero sense, seeing that my ancestors, as far as I can tell, would’ve been in the cargo area with their farm animals. I know more about the German and the French relatives than any others, since those are the genealogy arms that have best been painstakingly researched and recorded by each of my parents’ cousins. If you’re the family genealogist, you’re akin to royalty at family reunions. They may as well carry you in on a Cleopatra chair and feed you peeled grapes. People parade their children by and say things like, “Cousin Betty, look! Doesn’t James Jr. have the Stilwell ears?” The genealogist has the pictures you’ve never seen, can tell the stories you’ve never heard, and provides a tether to the past. Recently, my tether snapped like an old, rotten rubber band. I’m not who I thought I was and it applies to so many of my life’s avenues.

2020 had been a tough year for the Swift family. Megyn had just gotten her Master’s Degree in Education and taken a job as a Substitute Teacher until the new school year brought the promise of a career in the profession she loved. She had worked waiting tables for the better part of a decade putting her husband Camden through College until he got his degree in Law Enforcement. As soon as he was hired, they decided start a family. In character, Megan put her career dreams on the back burner and their precious little boy, Jett, was born. Camden was good, and rose in the ranks of the local police force and was one of the youngest to ever be awarded an investigator’s gold badge. With the position came more money and but also more demands for his time. Even with the increased demands of the job, when Jett was about five, the young couple decided it was Megyn’s turn to go back to college. So, she waited tables and went to college while Camden spent long hours solving crimes. Jett got to spend a lot of time on his grandparents farm just outside town during the day, but most nights he got to spend in his own bed in town. It became a ritual to pack up and move his beloved Xbox whenever he moved from his house in town to the farm.