Imagine my surprise when I opened my freezer and found a frozen plastic toy donkey. Maybe I shouldn’t have been because I’d been visited by a six-year-old prankster great-grandson. He loves coming to my house as does his older sister. That’s mostly because they can drive my golf cart (adult supervised), swim in the lake and enjoy sweets at local farmer’s markets. Later I learned I wasn’t the only one finding frozen inedibles in their freezers. This kid gets around. Growing old has its downsides, but living long enough to enjoy your great-grandchildren is a blessing from God!

Sometimes when I can’t get to sleep at night, negative thoughts come to mind. Did I spend my time today as God would want me to? Did I do enough for him today? Bad decisions I made even decades ago come up and cause a sense of shame and guilt. God doesn’t need anything from me and my sins were taken care of on the cross, so where does this come from. I think I know. Remember in Genesis when God asked Adam who told him he was naked? God is on our side. We are his beloved! Our sins are forgiven and forgotten! It’s done! When we have these negative thoughts, it’s not God who is telling us we’re still guilty.

On a road trip with my daughter and son-in-law he noticed the low-tire pressure light was on. We stopped at the next Discount Tire to have it checked out. Lots of people were ahead of us. We waited for several hours until they could get to us, but sure enough when they did they found a screw in the tire. My son-in-law complained that this was the third time this same tire had had either a nail or a screw in it. The tire repair guy said, with a little smile, “I’ve removed the magnet this time.” I love living in Texas!

While reading through the sermon on the mount in the book of Matthew, I noticed Matthew, the former tax collector, wrote that Jesus placed both tax collectors and gentiles in the same boat (Matthew 5:46-48). If you love only those who love you back, you’re no better than tax collectors and pagans. They can show love like that. Did Jesus say this with a little smile and look at Matthew when he said it? We can’t know, but if so it shows Jesus’ sense of humor, and Matthew did include it in his collections of Jesus sayings. We have a Savior, a human Savior, who is not only the wisest and best person we could ever know, but also fun to be around.

When you hear about someone being hacked on Facebook, you feel sorry for them because you’ve probably been there too. It’s frustrating to say the least. But when you get a letter warning you one of your financial institutions has been hacked, that’s when it gets beyond frustrating. It’s happened to me and now I’ve got to carefully check to be sure no one is using my personal information to open a new account or use my existing accounts. What a world we live in! Technology is like the tree of good and evil in Genesis. We’ve already eaten the apple, now we have to live with both the bad and the good.

My daughters love the ’70s song, “We Are Family.” And when they’re together and hear it played they sing along. (There might be a little dancing involved too.) Their favorite line of the song, “I got all my sisters with me!” My girls love being together. They are family. Someone once told Jesus his family was asking for him and he had a surprising response. He looked at his followers and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12). Jesus’ family extends much further than a physical family. Those who trust in him are all included. We are family!

As I left town after grocery shopping, I avoided an animal run over in the street. Did it move or was that my imagination? I had to check. I drove back to find a little dog looking up at me. I parked my car so no one else would hit it and knocked on a couple of doors trying to find its owner. No luck, but then a neighbor across the street drove out and I called to him. He parked and came over. He didn’t recognize the animal either and called the city’s animal control. As we waited for them to come, the man went back to his house and brought a bowl of water for the panting dog. The temperature was in the high 90s. What a kindhearted thing to do. I don’t know this man but I do know kindness when I see it.

He’s not his full height now but it won’t be long. One of my neighbors’ sons is still young enough to appreciate jobs I have for him. Sometimes, if it’s a small request, he won’t accept pay. When he’s older, he will find more lucrative work, I’m sure, but right now he’s available. When I was gone for a few days last week, I asked him to water my outdoor plants and to pick up my mail. When I returned he had forgotten to pick up my mail. He was so ashamed he didn’t want to take any money from me. I insisted he take some for watering, but it was less than half what I had promised to give him for both jobs. I asked him what he was going to do so he didn’t forget the next time. He said he was going to write it down. Lesson learned.

“You mean you don’t wash and iron all these clothes before you sell them?” I teased the women checking us out. My daughter and I found some treasures at a church resale shop and were advised to wash the items before we wore them. They laughed, but the older woman said years before they had a washer and dryer there and she did just that. Now the store is so full of clothes and many other donated items, they can’t offer that service anymore. It made me wonder how long that elderly woman had volunteered there. How much of her time and her life had she sacrificed to not only provide for others but also to serve her church. Not every servant of the Lord has an official title, but he values them no less.

Though I kept hoping to see him out nibbling bits of grass, after several days I’ve had to face reality. Someone ran over my rabbit. I call him mine because he lived in the flowerbed in front of my house. He was not quite full grown but I saw him face off and jump at a squirrel who came too close. He was quite territorial about his garden. I worried about him being caught by a coyote, but a car or truck ended his short life. He wasn’t really my rabbit, of course. He was wild. He wasn’t bothered about me walking in his yard though, and I respected his space. He was just one of many of God’s little creatures, but I miss him.