"longsuffering with joyfulness"

I had a thought during my scripture study today. Right now I am doing a topical study on "light" or "Light" as it is used in the scriptures. It is slow going because I am looking up all the scriptures and going through the TG links found in the footnotes. I have been studying John 1: 1-11 today. Well, actually, just the foot notes for verse 3. I started going through all the scriptures in the Topical Guide topic "Jesus Christ, Power of" which lead me to Colossians 1:11 where Paul is telling the Colossians what he is asking for them in his prayers.

"That ye might walk ..., being ... Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;"

Now there's a thought "longsuffering with joyfulness". That's what I need. It acknowledges the fact that there is suffering involved and it has been long, but there can still be joyfulness and it needs to be prayed for.

I think I will make it my new theme for the year, make it a matter of daily prayer and find ways to remind myself of it, often. Any suggestions on how to remind myself of it often would be appreciated. I won't wait until January 2008, I shall start now, today, November 7, 2007.

Those of you who are my friends, which includes all you who help me at night, are invited to gently remind me to remember my theme when you see me obviously suffering, and not doing it with "longsuffering with joyfulness".

One has to be willing to let the pain not matter. Once I've done everything I can and the pain is still there I need to let go of trying to fix it and go on and ask the Lord to make me "Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;" It will be a daily, even hourly effort until the end or whenever joyfulness becomes part of who I am. It will be like learning to knit a complicated pattern. But that's another discussion.

Okay, now I'm done with my scripture study for today, not much reading today but a lot of thinking and writing.

I love studying the scriptures this way. It takes me all over the scriptures in a single study period and I frequently see old familiar scriptures in a totally different light.

Hanford, Not Hampton and Making "Ducks Work"

Thanks Jack. In his comment on my Oct 31 post my older brother, Jack, points out it was "Hanford" not "Hampton" He is right. I did a google search to check it out. They were still building it. I don't know why I have always remembered it as Hampton. I remember it wasn't supposed to be talked about.

I had visions of little ducks being forced to slave away at whatever you can make a duck do. Mom told me they were metal ducts and he made them out of metal. Then I thought he was making toy ducks and wanted him to bring me one to play with. When I was seven years old we moved to a house with a basement. One time when I talked about Dad making "ducks work", he spelled out the two words and took me down in the basement and showed me the very little bit of "duct work" that was down there. I was relieved he wasn't making "ducks work".

And Jack, your sixty year old mind still thinks I'm an idiot half the time.

PS This post has been amended to correct a spelling error. While I'm amending I would like to point out that back then I had never heard of television and hadn't been to a movie yet. My ideas of making people work came from bible story books Mom read to us. Some had wonderful pictures. So I had visions of long lines of ducks chained together like the pictures of the children of Israel before Moses lead them out of Egypt.