Birthday lunch, little blessings

Yesterday after teaching a half-day class, I met Mama and Victoria at church so we could leave from there to take Victoria out for her birthday lunch. The luncheon date with Mama and Victoria was an afterthought to the banking Mama and I had scheduled to do with her to get her help in opening a Navy Federal Credit Union account. Those accounts require a certain attachment to an existing member or having a member of immediate family in the armed services. Mama and I qualify on all counts but having Victoria there at the branch location to vouch for us in person was the easiest way to initiate the account, or accounts, as things turned out.

I have to admit that they were as gracious and easy to work with as Happy State Bank which is not common among banks. Mama and I were each required to join individually by starting separate savings accounts. The initial deposit requirement was $5. For that rich sum, we were able to set up the savings accounts, attach a free checking account to the savings accounts and be issued a debit card to access the individual savings accounts which are both linked to the checking account shared by me and Mama. It took a bit of time, but it was amazingly easy.  Our accounts are in limbo for the moment from the online perspective. We were told the initiation of online access may require a couple business days but everything else is in the system and active.

For Victoria’s birthday lunch we went to a Thai restaurant Victoria located near the Navy Fed branch we were planning to go to. The restaurant was named Thai Thip. The owners, the cooks and everyone else associated with the restaurant were all of Thai origins. Based on that we are assuming, the food was about as authentic as we could have gotten in our area. At any rate, it was amazing. We each ordered something different, and we each thoroughly enjoyed what we got. Plus, we got some appetizers and a dessert.

It was not cheap, but it was not overly costly either. Victoria has the site pinned in her phone because we are sure we will go back for more. It is a trip we will have to plan for because it is about an hour away from where we live, but so are many other places we frequent.

Mama and I were taking time one evening to recount the little blessings the Lord has continued to give us. None would be of great consequence when viewed separately but taken as a whole they serve to remind us of how intimately the Lord is involved in our daily lives. Things like the heat tracing wire we use on our spigots to prevent freezing. Those are made from wire I acquired during my time working at the Pilot Plant in South Charleston, WV. I relocated for that employer from West Virginia to Texas in 1999 and am now seeing why I kept that material. A simple expandable hose gotten as a White Elephant gift several years ago allows us to use a waterline in the well house to fill containers to transfer water to our thirsty animals when their dishes are frozen, and the outside spigots are not available because of the cold. A warm house to live in during these cold Winter days. Vehicles that start and run well. Though we may hurt in the exercise of fulfilling our daily chore and obligations to our animals, we are not hindered completely by the pain. Etc, etc, etc. God is good.

Last night I was waked by the pain in my gut. I could not get comfortable in bed, so I went to the living room, pulled a blanket over my back, and knelt at the couch and prayed for forty minutes or so. After which I crawled into my recliner and slept for the remainder of the night. It ended up being a good night. Just so it is said, I have found that any time we give to the Lord, especially in prayer, He repays us in kind and with His blessings attached as a bonus. So, while I may have “lost” forty minutes of sleep, I gained in my rest as the Lord made the time I had left to sleep more refreshing than it would have been had I not spent that time with Him.

Truly, God is good.