Memorizing scripture, Seth’s first check

Mama, Maggie, Chase, Seth and I are in a soul winning training class at the church. This Sunday we have the second of two tests over the verses we are memorizing for the class. Everyone did fairly well on the first test. We had to write out the verses for Part One of the course. All of them were familiar; 1John 5:13, Rom. 3:23, Rom. 5:12, Rom. 6:23, Rom.5:8, Rom. 10:9-10, Rom. 10:13 – The Roman Road.


The verses for Part Two are not so familiar. I usually do not struggle in memorizing scripture but these verses have been a challenge. From the beginning of the course our pastor warned us that these verses were much more difficult to learn than the verses for Part One. He was right. It is not that they are totally unfamiliar, they are however, very similar in content and that makes them difficult to separate in memory. The verses are, Jn. 3:16, Jn. 3:18, Jn. 3:36, Jn. 5:24, Jn. 10:27-29. These are the verses of assurance of salvation. Added to these are two additional verses encouraging making a public profession of salvation, Rom.10:11 and Matt. 10:32.

Where I saw an effort on the part of Mama and Seth on the verses for Part One, I have not seen the same effort on Part Two; and it is crunch time. Mama really hates to be tested and it is sort of fun to see her struggle with the idea of having her work graded. She’ll do fine. So will Seth, but it is Thursday and the test is Sunday night and they are both squirming. I can’t wait to see what anxiety the final test brings.

Seth went and picked up his first check yesterday. He was pretty excited. Chase is so ready to get a job and he had better hurry because in his mind he has already spent the first two or three thousand dollars of his earnings. Seth is working on two big projects, the first of which is to repair his car. I could have paid for it myself but I am already maintaining three vehicles while keeping gas in four vehicles total. It just made more sense to let his car sit until he had a job and could pay for the repairs to put it on the road and the gas to keep it on the road.

When Mama asked Seth how he was doing on the job – at What-a-Burger – he said he really didn’t know but he was not going to quit. He was going to work until they fired him if it came to that. I appreciate that resolve. The biggest hurdle for him is the cryptic text used to communicate the orders to the cooks. I am not sure how it looks on the monitor as Seth sees it, but when he struggles with reading in the first place, I can only imagine the confusion he has to wrestle through in making whole thoughts out of abbreviated text.

He has been staying with us mostly since his classes are right around the corner and his work is less than one hundred yards from the house. I think the fact that we have food available has motivated him to stay close also. Add to that the video systems, cable TV, and the internet and we have a winning package.

Gas jumped almost twenty cents overnight. Scary!