May 24

Sunday:  Emma and I worshiped via LiveStream at Calvary this morning. Pastor spoke from Titus once again. His message was about "Obedience" to God and to His Word. I love sharing these times with Emma. We are hoping to be able to return to the actual church building ... but Calvary is waiting for the governor to open up the State of Michigan first.

Immediately after the service was over, we heard a bunch of cars honking. It turns out that my neighbor down the street was celebrating his birthday and this was a "drive-by" birthday celebration. There was probably 20 cars that went around and around the block, blaring the horns and waving. So Emma and I went out on the porch and waved. Such is life under the COVID 19 social distancing reality. Everyone is pretty tired of the whole thing actually.

After we did our Bible study (this week we talked about King Manasseh) -- a very remarkable story from 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33. If you don't read both accounts, you miss the really GOOD stuff about the story, because although Manasseh was one of the most evil kings ever to reign in the history of Israel, and God punished him by him being taken away to Babylon with a chain through his nose (!!), Manasseh humbled himself, repented, and cried out to God in his exile. The amazing thing is that God heard him and answered his prayer for mercy. Manasseh was allowed to return to Jerusalem and PROVE his repentance by his obedience. I never ever heard this part of his story before. It really amazed me how DIFFERENT God is than we are. God is so KIND to forgive, and He does it over and over again.

May 24 is a significant date in my life for two reasons: (1) I married Jim on this date in 1975 while I was 21 and Jim had just turned 20; so it was 45 years ago; and (2) my mom died on this date in 2018. As I was sharing this information with Emma, she suggested that we go and visit my mom's grave site (something I haven't done even once). I looked in her file to find out the name of the graveyard, and I thought SURE I would be able to find the grave. However, not at all surprising is the fact that after searching for almost an hour, her grave was NOT found. Cookie and his first wife share a plot just down the aisle from my mom (although across a little driveway), but I couldn't find THEIR grave either. I guess I'm going to have to research the actual Lot # and go back to see it some time--perhaps next year? Anyway, it was nice to walk around a graveyard with Emma. We saw so many interesting grave markers ... and besides, I love doing anything at all with Emma.