RUST ON MY SOUL (29th episode in series)

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RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)

*******************************************
INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

Morning

It wasn’t a dream. Connie did come home yesterday. And now the restoration of a family must begin.

Somehow I must find the right words at the right time and forget the reruns in the movie house of my mind.

“I hate you, dad! I hate you!” And the next day Connie was gone. And now she is back.

I have forgiven her, but I can’t forget. All the time she was out there I wavered between a father’s love and concern and a human being’s hurt and anger.

The angry words from both sides are at least temporarily defused by time and relief. I have no lectures ready.

That would be pointless.

Her leaving and returning is another chapter in our experience of living together. I know she needs love, and multiple kinds of caring. But can I supply my share?

Lord, put patience between us and our hurts. Tie anger down with a cord of love. Anger is such a superficial thing, so easily grabbed and flailed about. Let fear of the past lead us to walk softly into the future.

In a world where I learned that words can came back to haunt you. I have too long walked with emotional caution. Teach me to once again give verbal expression to the love I feel.
Early Evening

Today was crisp and filled with Christmas. The stores have been trying to get us in the festive spirit for months and it’s finally beginning to take. Having Connie home is all the presents I want, wrapped up in one.

Later in the Evening

“Don’t forget the axe.”

“I have it.”

“Look! It’s beginning to snow!”

There was no snow. It was 73 degrees and the palm trees outside our Miami condominium rustling in the perpetual southeasterly breeze was a close to a pine as we would get.

“We can tow it back on our sled.”

We stepped outside to bathe in the light of our large tropical moon.

It was a game. We understood the rules – there were none. Just imagine. Put dream-dust on your wings of thought. Laugh a little, sing some cards, hold hands and kick at the imaginary snow. When you’re young it’s fun to be a little crazy.

We haven’t done this in a long time? Why? Why did it become no fun anymore” Did all the realities of our yesterdays beat us down one time too many? Is that why such fantasies become just too much work? Just when we needed a little of that kind of craziness we found it impossible to manage.

 

And are we capturing a little of yesterday again? Are we finding some of the magic again? God, I hope so, and that is certainly a prayer.

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TO BE CONTINUED

GO BACK AND CATCH UP

******************************************

A New Series on

PAIN AND PROBLEMS

began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

To view an abundance of INSPIRING AND MOTIVATING stories by go to Neil’s other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
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PAIN AND PROBLEMS (7TH IN SERIES)

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For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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In Charles Reade’s book, “The Cloister and the Hearth,” he writes of two men walking through a troubled Europe.

 

One man continually turns to the other and says, “Courage my friend, the devil is dead.”

A better verbal tonic might have been, “Courage my friend, God is alive.”

That’s the gospel, my friends. It does not deny problems. It asserts faith.

It shouts “God is love.” It comes to you in your darkest moment of doubt and says, “Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heaven laden and I will give you peace.”

Yes, I know men kill - but I know they also heal.

I know there is pain - but there is also the pleasure of being comforted.

I know He put within us greed and graciousness…sin and sainthood…all kind of evil and all manner of good…and then He made us free to choose.

And with that freedom I flew airplanes and then did aerobatics and flew hang gliders and that final act of courage and foolishness almost got me killed.

It did paralyze my left arm and even after the paralysis left, it would never work quite the same way again.

But it did give me a new insight into gratitude I had never had before. You never appreciate an arm so much as when you can look back and remember how it hung useless and immovable.

And YES best of all, what did I gain, God took me to that emotional place where I was healed of the need to be completely healed.

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To view an abundance of thought provoking stories go to Neil's other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL
 
http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

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ANGERS THAT WILL NOT LET GO OF YOU

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Proverbs 16:32 “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

 

One individual with rare insight said, “I got so angry that I gave him a piece of my mind. And it was a piece that I couldn’t afford to lose.”

 

Anger.

 

There is of course sudden anger, those moments when someone has said something you didn’t like and instantly you wanted to strike back. That is not to be condoned but it can be understood.

 

However, if we seed this anger and let it grow it will wrap its vines around us and slowly strangle us to death.

 

Then it becomes a part of our very being and that is when it has become sinful anger.

 

For some now stubbornness takes over. “I am angry. I have a good reason to be angry and I am determined to stay angry.” And they do…stay angry…and grow angrier…and there is a death here…a death of the spirit.

 

What then…what to do when such an anger takes over and will not let go. Think on some of the following.

 

Don’t blame your DNA or red hair.

 

Do you control your anger with some people and not with others?

 

When you are about to lose your temper try harder to let God help you find your patience. It is at that moment a child saying to a heavenly Father help me to temper my temper rather than be on the way to a temper tantrum.

 

Are you angry at a person or a sin? There is a difference…a rather big difference.

 

Do you want to hurt the person who made you angry rather than help the two of you to reconcile?

 

Do you enjoy your anger? This may at first seem a strange question…but think about it.

 

Are you always on the edge of anger, a collection of hurt feelings just waiting for the opportunity to come alive again? Is this like carrying around a key to open the door and let the Devil come walking in?

 

Fall to your knees and stay there.

 

Pray without ceasing. Patella perseverance is another way of putting it.

 

Wear your anger out with an assault from the Lord and you on this sickness of the soul.

 

Do this over and over and over again…and yes…maybe keep on doing it for the rest of your life…for after all it is your life and mine we are talking about it…and it is too great a gift to fill it with this leprosy of the soul and spirit.

 

Romans 12:19 Paul says, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenger; I will repay,’ says the Lord.

*********************************

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS

began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

 

Click on the following URL

 

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

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RUST ON MY SOUL (28th episode in series)

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TO SEND THIS DAYS BLOG
TO A FRIEND

JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM

OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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*******************************************
RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)
*******************************************
INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

Evening
I haven’t put in my order for sackcloth and ashes but neither am I comfortable mumbling a twentieth century version of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.”

I know some people want something for nothing. I’ve often suffered from the same malaise. But setting up a table only for me, myself and I has put my life somewhat out of sync.

Later in the evening

I’ve come to the point where I actually look forward to my musings. My seventh inning stretches. It was painful in the beginning but I need this overview.

I need a map for this jigsaw puzzle of life scattered across my table of time. If I am to understand and improve I must look well at what has passed.

Late night

“Hello dad.” Just like that, Connie walked back into our lives, “May I come home?”
Oh, thank you, God! Yes, yes, yes, you may indeed come back home, Connie. After all these weeks of not knowing if she was alive or dead, starving or selling her body for money to survive, sick or healthy, miserable or happy. Yes, Connie, you may most certainly come home.

All my fettered emotions still held me captive. I longed to rush over and hug her and shout “Hallelujah” but instead I sat there, pinned in the chair by my own paralyzing restraint.

Nancy suffered from no such problem. She had just walked into the room and in a moment they were in each other’s arms.
Finally I made myself join them, but the sweet release that my arms and emotions cried out for did not come. Damn my frozen exterior!

Why can I write of love and caring on these pages so easily and find it nearly impossible to express it out there?
There has been no serious talk of what happened during those weeks. We have settled none of the problems that still exist, but for right now this is enough.
Tomorrow, or next week, we’ll talk. We’ll try to put into words all that should have been discussed before. But right now it is enough to have Connie safely back.

I’m exhausted from today’s emotional kaleidoscope; anger, shock, relief, love (overwhelming relief and love). Perhaps I will sleep the whole night through again. Maybe now the nightmares will stop.
Thank you, God.
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TO BE CONTINUED

GO BACK AND CATCH UP
***********************************
A New Series on
PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL
http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
*****************************************

PAIN AND PROBLEMS (6TH IN SERIES)

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JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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***********************************************

There was a man in a wheelchair and he was entertaining and invigorating and inspiriting my soul.

As he placed his hands on his useless limbs, he said, “Certainly I want to be able to walk again, but since I can’t rearrange my muscles to make that happen, I have rearranged my thinking. I daily remind myself of how many who can walk, walk as little as possible. Today all ages are obsessed with wheels; skateboards, bicycles, automobiles… And I, too, have my wheels, and they give me mobility, and because it is motorized, I can go faster than most people walk, and further without having to stop to rest.

But even when I could walk, I remember that I actually spent most of my time sitting. I worked at a desk, I watched television, I read books, I looked up at the stars or out at Mother Nature. I did a lot of living while seated, and I still can do all of that.
Sure I’d like to walk again…but my positive thinking has taught me to concentrate on what I can do, rather than what I can’t.”

With a chuckle he added, “I guess you could say about such thinking, I’m on a roll.” And we both knew how right he was.


Instead of asking Why? He had found his answer in asking How?

 
God will take us from the pit to the palace if we give Him a patient, persistent, prayerful person to work with. He really will.

***********************************************************

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”
and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

Each Tuesday there is a continuation of the Serialization of his Internationally distributed novel RUST ON MY SOUL.

To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
*******************************************

WHEN?

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JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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*****************************************

In this great adventure and opportunity called living…when will you practice overwhelming love, forgiveness, empathy, concern and understanding, but when?

When will you forgive that parent or mate who has wronged you more times than you would like to remember?

When will you try to really understand that person who was once your friend and is now a verbally declared enemy?

When will you work hard at ridding yourself of any such disruptive thoughts or actions?

Did someone do something you didn’t like yesterday?

Or say something that hurt you?

How long have you been angry about it?

How long will you stay angry about it?

Are you about to win the pouting award of the year? When will you start loving people like you love yourself?

When will you ask the question When in such a way that your answer becomes NOW!!!
***********************************

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMSbegan on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”
and will continue Each SUNDAY until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..
There is a continuation of the Serialization of his Internationally distributed novel RUST ON MY SOUL.
To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

***********************************

RUST ON MY SOUL (27th episode in series)

***********************************

TO SEND THIS DAYS BLOG TO A FRIEND

JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com

***********************************

RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally) 

***********************************

INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

***********************************
Afternoon

We’re a nation in love with love. Everyone knows it isn’t gravity or the laws of the universe but love that makes the world go ‘round.
But what is love?

That it is; wonderful, captivating, exciting few will disagree.
But what is it:

The person who finally explains it rationally so it can be understood should have a statue raised in his (or her) honor. We think about nothing as much as this.
If I believed the water cooler gossip I guess the commercial that read “I’d rather than switch,” should be changed to “I’d rather switch than fight.”

Afternoon

We had a sales meeting this morning. We plugged in our mental and emotional intravenous tubes and waited for the surge. It’s Cheer Leading 101 for a group of adults who, without it stand around in their polyester pinstripes talking about what they’re going to do without ever doing it.Orchestrated asininity was the theme of this morning’s meeting. George, forty-three years old and with us now for over half those years, is a great salesman and you’d think he should be able to teach what he able does.

However, the Peter Principle is alive and well. He really can’t cut it.

One-on-one, George may be a tiger. In front of a room full of other salespersons he acts like a tiger looking for a tank- to hide in.

Don’t let it bother you.” That’s what my assistant says and does, but then he doesn’t have my thinking machine. The cables in my own personal cranial computer don’t have pull-out plussea like most people’s.

They’re welded in and they’re always on glow and go.

 

My mental wiring system never gets a rest.

Even going in circles you always see something new the next time around.

It’s agony and ecstasy all at the same time. Cognitive conclusions tumbling over each other, interacting some living no longer than a moment, others rooting in to stay. 

 It’s eleven hours now since I sat in for an hour’s wasted time, but then, what is waste to me is another man’s feast. I in-grow, out-grow and dare not never-grow.

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TO BE CONTINUED

**************************

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”
and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

***************************

PAIN AND PROBLEMS (5TH IN SERIES)

*************************

TO SEND THIS DAYS BLOG TO A FRIEND JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”
For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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One thing is for sure, in this the midst of our pains and problems, big problems are not usually solved by suppertime, rather they are solved in stages.And what we all have to learn, and often relearn, is to stop asking “Why?” and start asking “How?”

Since big problems are usually made up of many smaller problems, part of the answer to how is to face them in bits and snatches. I can climb stairs one at a time. I can never leap all the way to a second floor in one gigantic journey.

A simple example; a farmer plowing a field that seems to go on forever is much better off if he just deals with it one row and at time.

My first cross country race could have been my last. The course was five miles long and part of it ran through the city of Lynchburg. I felt as if I running up and down all of this city’s famous 7 hills, not just the three that were actually included. But I made it, and didn’t do too badly, because at the beginning of each hill I mentally broke up the distance to the top into fifty steps, followed by fifty steps, followed by fifty steps.

Actually, I was following advice given in 1st Corinthians 9:24, “Therefore I do not run as a man aimlessly, I do not fight like a man beating the air.”

And with my paralyzed arm, gained from my hang glider crash, when after the wreck I would start to list in my head the gigantic negative that hovered over me... I broke it up into little pieces…(the pain, the paralysis, what the future held, etc.) and trained myself to deal with only one of them at a time. Otherwise, I would have been completely overwhelmed.

First and foremost, I had to deal with fear because it tried to paint some gruesome pictures for my future. I handled that by praying, “Lord, make my arm well or teach me to live with a paralyzed arm.”

That lessened all the problems for I had approached both possibilities. I had admitted things could get better. I had admitted that they could get worse. Now I didn’t have to play games with myself.

****************************

This New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings” and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

Each week there is a continuation of the Serialization of his Internationally distributed novel RUST ON MY SOUL.
To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

 http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
*****************************

TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD

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TO SEND THIS DAYS BLOG TO A FRIEND JUST CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com

***********************************
“Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have
lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
I no longer remember who wrote this but I often remind myself not to forget these lines for they lead me to think on yet another cliché/…”You can be too smart for your own good.”
***********************************
A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS

began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

 and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
****************************************************************

RUST ON MY SOUL (26th episode in series)

***************************************************************

TO SEND THIS DAYS BLOG TO A FRIEND JUST

CLICK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG ON “TELL A FRIeND”

For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com

******************************************************
RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)

*******************************************************
INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

*******************************************************

Evening

Nancy announced at the dinner table tonight that she had found a job and would start work Monday. I was shocked. I knew she hadn’t given u the idea but I wasn’t sure she had been trying to find anything since Connie ran away.

She had a list of rational arguments; if something happened to me our finances would fold inward and self-destruct; she had too much time to think and worry about Connie; and it isn’t as if she’d spent that much more time away from home, just an exchange of club and committee obligations for job requirements.

“I need to be fulfilled,” she argued in conclusion.’

“I don’t want my wife working,” I said. I feel impotent. I am the sole breadwinner in this family. I know there are plenty of women who work these days, but that’s not the point. I try to burnish up the old proofs, but there never was much shine to them anyway. So it’s a waste of time.

It is an emotional tennis match. If I work at it long enough I guess I’ll be able to put side my male ego and come to grips with the situation. I really do see Nancy’s point o view.

I think that in the long run it’ll do her good to get away from the house and its painful memories. The problem is I’m afraid that once she’s out there in the business world she may really like it.

Now why should that threaten me? I’ve always known she was smart and been proud of it. I’ve always been pleased that she’d kept her figure and didn’t look her age. Why can’t I be proud of this accomplishment , too?

If she has other things to think about, maybe she won’t spend so much time nagging about our disintegrating marriage. That’s not fair. Her verbalizing is minimal but what I read in her eyes and posture is eloquent enough.

 

Isn’t it strange? I find it a positive attribute that I spend time and I thought poring over yesterday, today and tomorrow, but don’t really care for it in Nancy. Strange…

*************************************************

TO BE CONTINUED

GO BACK AND CATCH UP

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

the 2nd in series..........

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

********************************************************

To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

 

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

********************************************************