Mother's Day 2025

Today is the day set aside to celebrate mothers. Both parents have the important task of raising children in the knowledge of the Lord, but it especially falls to moms. God gave men and women complimentary traits and women tend to be more gentle and able to help children, just as God designed. My mother especially uses her God given talents.

For the last two nights, I have not had any help at night. We knew this was coming, but it still means 53 hours straight without outside help. Dad goes to bed around 9:00 in the evening and it's just mom and I until he gets up again at 1:30 in the morning. During this time, I go up and down in bed and start some of my night routine.

Despite being tired and having pain from a day of activity, mom still does what's needed. I wish I could make the time easier for her, but don't have another way to help. Mom also keeps track of everything for the house as well as helping with our family.

Above all, I'm thankful for the Godly instruction mom gave me. As a young boy, I remember sitting on mom's lap, vent tubes and all, as she read to me from a children's Bible. She also always encouraged me to keep up in school and not run over classmates.

We never know how long I will be able to continue living at home. However, mom has worked very hard for 40 years to allow me to live at home and be active. All the decades have accumulated much stress and many long nights, and I'm thankful for everything God has done through my mother.

Remember to cherish parents and look for their guidance while you can. We never know when life will change and someone will be taken from us. Let us celebrate mothers not only today, but every day.

Three Cold Days

For the past several years, I have volunteered with the gospel outreach group at Tulip Time in Pella. The last three days saw this year's event, and I'm thankful they're finished.

As I posted last week, my dad has been on vacation and I had an extra caregiver to help while he was away. Thankfully, this allowed me to continue volunteering all three days of the festival instead of just two. Since I am one of team leaders, I think it is best to be available the entire time to allow consistency for outreach teams. Unfortunately, that didn't quite work this year.

Spring has been reluctant to come this year and temperatures have been quite cool compared to previous years. Initial predictions for May 1-3 were for low 70's, but that continued to decrease as the days came closer. As it turned out, actual temps were at least ten degrees cooler with scant amount of sun and plenty of rain.

Each morning started with two one-hour training sessions at a church near downtown. They were all well done and great for learning how to share your faith and navigate current events. One session dealt with Marxism and covered several topics, such as climate change. My thoughts went to previous alarmist propaganda of the earth getting hotter. More warmth would have been welcome these days, but it seems to go more the opposite.

After training sessions, we then broke into teams and went out to designated areas to talk with people and give out gospel tracts. On Thursday, I was stationed at the prayer booth. We didn't receive any prayer requests, but did hand out gospel tracts and information on the town's Christian foundation. Friday saw an abundance of rain, which meant I reluctantly headed home after training and left my group with another leader. I felt bad for ducking out, but everyone seemed to understand that electric medical equipment and rain don't mix well. Finally, yesterday, my one team member and I parked ourselves on a very busy sidewalk corner and handed out gospel tracts as throngs of people walked passed. This final day did result in some short conversations, but nothing substantial or argumentative.

Despite wearing insulated jeans, sweatshirt, and coat, I returned home very cold each day. Saturday evening, I also felt quite tired after three days of activity and getting up early. I don't like to admit it, but leading an active quad life is getting harder, especially in non-ideal weather conditions. I'm looking forward to this week of staying home, and hopefully warmer temps as well.