Slow day, unexpected rain, church

Though I had plenty to do yesterday, the day seemed to drag on forever. I interrupted work several times to do things at the house – wash dished, put cloths away, replace a turn signal bub in the Sequoia – in an attempt to keep my mind clear enough get some actual work projects done. Through the morning, I was on standby for Red who was teaching a 4-hour online class. At the very last minute before the class was to start, I had to rescue him by giving him my sign in access to the program we use for those classes in order for him to connect to the class. Mama had to do the morning feeding because I was waiting to make sure Red got off to a good start. It was a problematic start but we got through it. There were only three in the class, so it was easy to move along once the proper connection was made. I was able to complete a project that came up as I presented a new class to some of my peers. I sent those updates off for review and reformatting this morning. By the time 4 pm rolled around I was ready to move on to something farm related.

As Mama and I were getting ready to go out to feed, I started to hear thunder in the distance. I called up a weather app on my phone and it showed a small storm just to our west – moving our direction. I did not think much of it because these storms seem to bypass our little farm, but it was nice to do the evening feeding in the shadow of the storm clouds. Mama and I had not been in the house too long before the storm broke over us. In about fifteen minutes we got about 1/3” of rain. The first rain we have gotten in a couple weeks. It was enough to get everything wet but not necessarily soaked. It was enough that I did not need to water when we got home from church. As Mama and I headed to church we could see where the rain had cut off as it moved away from us. It stopped about a mile from the farm. One of those local, scattered thunderstorms Chase seemed to love so much as a small child.

Speaking of Chase, we seem to have lost touch with him and Makaila. Our phone calls go unanswered and our texts are not responded to. Maybe they got new phones and we were not made aware of it. Maybe we offended them somehow. In today’s fractured society, that is easy to do. All you have to do is hold a differing opinion from someone and suddenly you are anathema to them. It is sad that we as a civilization have no more emotional fortitude than that. I do not know if that is the case with our youngest son, but I have seen relationships fractured recently for the slightest perceived offence. Mending those relationships can be emotionally draining because it requires humility instead of rage, so very few take the time or expend the energy to do so. Rage, anger is so much more fulfilling to the human psyche. That is especially sad. Hopefully, they will reach out to us soon and Mama’s motherly wounding can be salved. Time will tell.

Church was great last night although quite a few were missing. Several families are lying out for fear of the virus. Others are self-quarantining because of travel with possible exposure. Still others are self-quarantining due to known exposure to someone infected with the virus. At least we now can offer the services online. I hope we get past all this hype soon. We have had to suspend our bus ministry, our children’s Sunday School, our Toddler’s Class and our Nursery. Without the ability to have their smaller children in care during the service some families with young children as choosing not to come to church. In their opinion, it is not worth the effort to get everyone ready only to have to run herd over their children during an adult service. Pastor wants to get back to normal but there are still those who are terrified of this virus. So, we do the best we can until the facts actually matter and the truth gets out.

For our part, we thoroughly enjoyed church last night and are happy we have the chance to attend in person.

God is good!