HomeARC ML 1825
MEMORIES! DO 1825 1/84
"Remember Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth!"--Ecc.12:1--A Family History!
1. I REALLY THINK WE SHOULD NOT ONLY HAVE RECOGNITION OF BIRTHDAYS, BUT I THINK THE 12TH BIRTHDAY IS VERY IMPORTANT! That's the birthday I had just before I started keeping that Diary that you read when I was 13. You're becoming fairly mature at that age if you're fairly serious & sober-minded as I was, & you really are spiritual & love the Lord. I think particularly in our Family that our young people are almost extremely precocious, they're unusually mature at an early age, even the little ones. So I think birthdays are important to recognise & remember.
2. ... GODAHFI ... DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHEN HE WAS BORN, not even what year he was born, much less what day or month. I always had a feeling he was an Aquarian. ...
3. SO ANYHOW, POOR GODAHFI DOESN'T REALLY KNOW EXACTLY HOW OLD HE IS NOR WHEN TO CELEBRATE HIS BIRTHDAY & THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT KNOWN WHEN THEY WERE BORN. Just why, I don't know. The Arabs, Nomads & Bedouins have ways of keeping time by the moon, the years, etc., but somehow or another they slipped-up on him & didn't pinpoint the day, not even the year. He said he could only guess within about four years of his birth due to some event or something that was going on that they remembered happened after his birth, so he knew he was born before that. He never did find out that I know of. ...
4. SO I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS RATHER SAD WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T REMEMBER THEIR BIRTHDAY OR IT WASN'T RECOGNISED or they weren't told, so that they don't even know how old they are. I think birthdays are very important events.--I'm sure your mother thought so! I understand they're not quite as emphasised by the Chinese, they go more by the time of conception rather than the time of birth. They say you started living & became a person when you were first conceived, so they consider that they're actually nine months older than the way we figure our age, & they judge their astrological signs according to the date of conception. But I'm sure that they're the equivalent of ours because people are the same, if they're born about the same time. Whether they're born or conceived nine months earlier, their characteristics are pretty reliable. PTL?
5. SO THANK GOD FOR BIRTHDAYS! If there hadn't been a lot of birthdays you wouldn't even be here, would you? And the Lord must believe in nudity because you're born with nothing but a "birthday suit" on. Do you know what your birthday suit is, Techi? (Techi: When you're naked.) That's right, your skin. That's your birthday suit. As the Apostle says, "We came into this World with nothing & it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1Tim.6:7) Everything else will be left behind except our Salvation, thank the Lord, & eventually our immortal bodies. That's something to look forward to. I keep getting more & more things about Heaven. The Lord really must want us to be thinking about how wonderful Heaven is! TTL! But if you would never have been born, you'd never get to go to Heaven, would you?
6. I WAS SURE GLAD TO HEAR ABOUT THAT "RIGHT TO LIFE" MARCH AGAINST ABORTION, THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THEY STARTED TOO LATE. Congress or the Supreme Court already declared abortion legal. Well, that's too bad a subject to even think about. Imagine people who would do that sort of thing to their own children! It's a selfishness, cruelty, the horror of this generation, worse in this time than ever before in history, & those parents are going to pay for it! They say, "Well, you really pay for having children."--But I'd say the kids are the pay-off! They're worth it all. One of the most wonderful things we have in this life are children!
7. YOU CAN NEVER SAY ENOUGH ABOUT BIRTHDAYS, REALLY. AFTER ALL, THAT'S ONE OF THE MOST WONDERFUL EVENTS IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE, OTHERWISE YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE! And the next most wonderful event, of course, is when you're born again. PTL? Can you remember both? Well, maybe you can't remember the first one, but at least you can remember when because you were told. I presume all of you here know when you were born, either that or you probably wouldn't have a passport! So birthdays are important & I think it's good to give them a little recognition & a little help to remember them.
8. THERE ARE USUALLY TWO DAYS IN THE YEAR THAT I CAN GO BACK THROUGH THE YEARS & REMEMBER WHERE I WAS ON THAT DAY, EITHER MY BIRTHDAY OR CHRISTMAS, & I THINK YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER SOME THINGS LIKE THAT. You guys always go to the extreme. I said, "Forget the Past" (No.1598) so you want to forget the whole thing! I meant some kinds of that ancient history that is irrelevant to the present & that we don't have time to go into detail on today. But there are some things you need to remember. God's Word says many times in the Bible to remember. You say, "Well, we're supposed to forget the Bible."--I never said that!
9. I NEVER REALLY SAID TO FORGET THE BIBLE, & if I did I was exaggerating. I'm talking mostly about that ancient Old Testament Jewish Bible History, that sort of thing which we can be thankful is over. There's not much you'd want to remember about that anyhow except the fact that it's something you can be thankful is done for & past. Most of it is pretty gruesome anyhow. There are a few good stories there that you can tell children, but it's a little hard even to find Bible stories in the Old Testament that are suitable for children. Some of the most famous & popular Bible stories for children are actually some of the most gruesome with the most violence, & I don't think that some of them are really suitable for children.
10. BUT ANYHOW, THERE'RE SOME THINGS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER: "REMEMBER THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH ERE THE EVIL DAYS COME." (Ecc.12:1) Can you think of some more Scriptures about things you're supposed to remember? (Fam: Remember the landmarks.) Yes, "Destroy not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set up." (Pro.22:28) The Lord talks many times about remembering His Word, He even says to wear it on your forehead! (Deut.6:8) In the old days the Scribes & the Pharisees took it literally & they would actually wear a scroll in a little box. Every good faithful Orthodox Jewish home has a little scroll with the Ten Commandments written on it inside of a little box just inside the door, because the Lord said to even post His Word on the doorpost of thy house, etc. (Deut.6:9) And that's where the blood was put for Passover too. (Ex.12:7)
11. SO THERE ARE MANY THINGS THE BIBLE SAYS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER. Maybe we ought to have a special study on remembering. Since I already told you to forget, now I've got to remind you to remember! That's what you do every New Year, you remember the past year. You can be thankful that you had so many wonderful accomplishments & victories--& we usually have & do--& you can also be thankful it's over. I'm thankful for every year of my life, I'm thankful for all I've accomplished, but I'm also thankful they're over. I don't particularly want to re-live'm.
12. SOME OF THESE PEOPLE THINK BACK OVER THEIR LOST YOUTH, ETC., & THEY WISH THEY COULD BE BACK THERE AGAIN. They must be some kind of miserable people that are unhappy today, the Devil's unhappy old folks or some folks who have little to be thankful for or be happy about now who want to go back & be young again. I sure don't want to be young again, I'm sorry! I almost feel sorry for you, except that you have the Lord so He's going to make your youth happy. But one thing about reading that Diary that I can really enjoy is that it's over with, that I don't have to do it again. Praise God! I'm glad I graduated from that year & it's done!
13. I'M NOT LIKE THE GUY WHO WROTE, "TURN BACKWARD, TURN BACKWARD, O TIME, IN YOUR FLIGHT & LET ME BE A CHILD ONCE AGAIN FOR TONIGHT!" Well, I can think of very happy memories from when I was a child. I have lots of good memories. You have a natural inclination to remember the good things & to forget the bad things, to "choose the good & eschew the evil." (1Pet.3:11) I can think of a lot of happy things, & as I read my Diaries I run across a lot of things that I really enjoyed & very happy moments of life & accomplishments. But most of it was pretty hard work & a lot of it was devoted just to plain survival & the everyday, humdrum, sometimes boring, sometimes exciting, sometimes plain drudgery of everyday existence in life.
14. WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH LIFE DOING A LOT OF THE SAME THINGS OVER & OVER & OVER AGAIN--sleep, wake up, wash your face, brush your teeth, get dressed, eat your breakfast--day after day, day-in-&-day-out you do so many of the same things. So I used to ask people, & I think I've done that at the table sometimes, "What did you do today that you won't have to do again tomorrow?" Well, actually I won't have to give my face the washing I gave it yesterday, I did that already. So you could say, "Well, I have to wash my face again, but that's not the time I washed it yesterday, so that one's over!"
15. BUT WHAT ACTUAL PROGRESS HAVE YOU MADE IN LIFE TODAY? Can you think of anything you've accomplished today of real progress that you will not have to repeat tomorrow or the next day? You cooks cooked a delicious meal tonight, you can be thankful you won't have to cook that same meal again tomorrow, but you may have to cook another one. It's nice here, we sort of take turns cooking! GBY!
16. WHAT OTHER VERSES CAN YOU THINK OF ON REMEMBERING? (Fam: "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.") (Heb.2:1) That means to remember--it doesn't have to have the word "remember" in it. (Fam: The Holy Spirit brings things back to our remembrance.) (John 14:26) Right! (Fam: In Communion He says, "This do in remembrance of Me.") (1Cor.11:24) Right, there's a common one we use all the time. (Fam: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, & forget not all His benefits.") (Psa.103:2) "Forget not," that means remember, too. (Fam: "Forget not to entertain strangers.") (Heb.13:2) Right. And the Lord said, "He that considereth the poor in his affliction, him will the Lord remember in his hour of distress." (Psa.41:1) (Fam: Jesus told His disciples, "When these things come upon you, remember that I have told you.") (John 16:4) Amen. So the Lord wants you to remember some things. (Fam: He also said to remember about the Abomination of Desolation.) Right, "When ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the end is nigh." (Mat.24:33) (Fam: "And a book of remembrance was written.") (Mal.3:16) The Book of Remembrance! That's the title of one of our Books.
17. IF WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER ANYTHING, WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WRITING ALL THESE LETTERS ALL THESE YEARS, ANYHOW? Some of you guys carry things to the extreme! I say, "Forget the Past" so you want to forget the whole works! I'm trying to make you remember a lot of things. One of our most important courses in the early days was memory work, & it's still supposed to be. We used to really memorise a lot of Bible verses in those days & I hope you still do, or at least some verses, whatever they are. Maria's cooked up two whole books of new verses to remember, her Quotebook, The MOP, & it's quite a book! I think there are lots of things in there you'll want to remember. So there are some things we need to remember. Anybody else?
18. (FAM: THE WOMAN WHO BROKE THE OIL FOR JESUS, HE SAID, "THIS SHALL BE TOLD FOR A MEMORIAL OF HER.") (Mat.26:13) Right!--And I never heard a preacher or a pastor yet that didn't preach that sermon sometime or another in memory of that woman! (Fam: "The things that thou hast heard of Me, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.") (2Tim.2:2) Right! How are you going to do that if you don't remember? (Fam: "Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.") (Psa.119:11) Amen. To hide it in your heart means to remember it. (Fam: Jesus often quoted the Old Testament, showing that He remembered it.) Oh, time & time & time again He quoted & quoted!
19. THE WRITERS OF THE GOSPELS & THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WERE CONTINUALLY QUOTING THE OLD TESTAMENT, remembering it & using it to authenticate what they were saying, to prove that it was the Truth.--Because, of course, the Jews were supposed to respect the Old Testament, the Bible, the Law & the Prophets, so they would quote it to'm. But as Jesus said, "They have Moses & the Prophets, if they will not hear them, neither will they believe though one should come back from the dead." (Luke 16:31) So it doesn't do some people any good to remember if they don't want to believe. Anybody else? (Fam: "My Son, forget not My Law, but let thine heart keep My commandments." (Pro.3:1) Amen!
20. AND SPEAKING OF A SON REMEMBERING SOMETHING, THERE'S A VERY FAMOUS SON WHO REMEMBERED SOMETHING IN HIS DISTRESS, WHO WAS THAT? (Fam: "I have been young & now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken.") Well, that's a good thing to remember, yes, David said that. "I have been young & now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." (Psa.37:25)
21. (FAM: WHEN JESUS WAS ON THE CROSS ONE OF THE THIEVES SAID, "REMEMBER ME THIS DAY WHEN THOU COMEST INTO THY KINGDOM!") (Luke 23:42) Yes! He must have believed, he must have known something about Jesus, because that was quite a deep thing for him to say--"Remember me today when You come into Your Kingdom"--knowing He was going into the spiritual Kingdom of God that day in death. He must have had some deep understanding. The other man was only thinking about his carnal suffering, etc., but that man must have really had faith, & that's why the Lord gave him such a marvellous promise: "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!" (Luke 23:43) Hallelujah! Isn't that beautiful? Just think, there was a man who went with the Lord when He died & went into the spiritual World! PTL!
22. (FAM: PSALM 112:6 SAYS, "THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE IN EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE.") Amen, you'll be remembered--forever! Think of that! (Fam: "He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.") (Psa.103:14) That's a good one! Anyone else? (Fam: I cracked open my Diary & my eyes just hit this quote: "Lord help me each hour to remember & every step of the way, that today is the golden tomorrow that we dreamed of yesterday.") Amen! That's a beautiful little verse. (Fam: "And when these things come to pass, then shall they know that a Prophet has been among them.") (Eze.33:33) Amen, they'll remember it then, right? That's what it means. It doesn't always use the word "remember," so to look up all these remembrances you wouldn't necessarily just look in your concordance under the word "remember," because they're stated in many many different ways.
23. (FAM: "REMEMBER THE WORD THAT I SAID UNTO YOU, THE SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS LORD.") (John 15:20) (Fam: Psalm 98:3 says, "He hath remembered His mercy & His truth toward the house of Israel.") The Lord remembers His mercy, He remembers to have mercy. (Fam: "Forget not all His benefits.") (Psa.103:2) It's expressed in a lot of different ways. (Fam: "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: & they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the World are come.") (ICor.10:11) Amen! In other words, remember them! Even sometimes remember some of the bad ones so that you don't let it happen to you.
24. (FAM: PSALM 132:1 SAYS, "LORD, REMEMBER DAVID, & ALL HIS AFFLICTIONS.") Amen, Lord, please! No joke. Thank the Lord He did, I was really really sick. I think that's the sickest I have been, & the longest I've ever been sick in my whole life. I had that bad cold, flu, pneumonia, TB or whatever it was for about three months. So thank the Lord I'm over it. Just once in a great while I cough up a little phlegm, so I must have been full of it. Like my Mama used to say when I had a pimple or something: "It's just the meanness coming out of you!" The funny part about it was I hardly ever had a pimple! They used to rave about my complexion when I was a kid, I guess because I ate mostly fairly clean food.
25. --ALTHOUGH I'M ASHAMED TO HAVE TO PUBLISH SOME OF THE THINGS YOU'LL READ ABOUT IN MY DIARIES THAT I ATE! Our dear editor put "Ha!" beside one paragraph where I said I went out & ate three candy bars! Well, in the army you ate at five o'clock & by the time you went to bed at 11 it was six hours & you were starving hungry again! The only place in the World to get anything to eat around anywhere was the candy bar machine--that's why I was always eating candy bars! In fact, I actually got fat in the army. You'll notice in that picture of me I look almost a little chubby. My face filled out compared to the way I used to be.
26. THEN IF YOU READ SOME OF THOSE DIARIES OF HOW I RAN AROUND WITH MY MOTHER, drove thousands of miles, ate very little, worked hard & got very little sleep, it's a wonder I survived at all, there you learn how I lost it! Some of those things I'd just like to forget, but some of them I'm glad I remembered to jot'm down, because as you run through the Diary you'll run into a few things that are really something to thank the Lord for!
27. ONE OF OUR POOR SECRETARIES HAD THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY OF HAVING TO TYPE ALL THAT, & I'll tell you, she must have the gift of interpretation, because some of it I could hardly read myself! So the Lord must have really helped her, God bless her, she did a beautiful job! Of course she made a lot of mistakes too, I don't want her to get too puffed-up now! But I don't blame her because it was pretty hard to read & I used an awful lot of abbreviations that most people never even heard of, so it's not surprising. At least I got a good laugh out of some of her interpretations. It's a good thing I'm reading'm over so we'll really get it straight. But that was a lot of hard work, let me tell you!
28. YOU'VE NOW HAD THE 1933, '34 & '35 DIARIES, HAVEN'T YOU? You haven't had '36 because I'm ashamed to say I only made about half-a-dozen to a dozen entries in '36! A dozen entries for one year, that doesn't say much! A lot of it was just more of the same thing like you've already read, because that was my job, working for my Mother in the Lord's Work & our work, just like your job is pretty much the same thing every day. After all, most of us do pretty much the same work nearly every day. Thank God it isn't exactly the same, there's some variety. You don't always have to type the same thing, proofread the same thing or cook the same meal.--And children are different & something new every day! Talk about variety, they never ever get boring or old! They get a little annoying sometimes & a little wearisome maybe, they try your patience, but it helps keep you humble.
29. SO YOU'LL FIND SOME THINGS IN THERE, AT LEAST, THAT I THINK ARE WORTH REMEMBERING. I was encouraged to hear the good report from Peter that he really enjoyed reading my old Diaries! Now you know how bad I was, sometimes how foolish I was, sometimes how serious & sober I was--I took the Lord's work & His will seriously--& then there was a lot of what sounds to me like a waste of time! So much of this life, the way the World & the System wants you to live it, the educational system in particular, is really a lot of wasted time. But in a sense, nothing is ever wasted, you even learn from your mistakes, you learn from the System's mistakes, you learn lessons from everything you do, whether good or bad. Amen?
30. I WANT YOU TEENAGERS TO GET THIS, I WAS MORE CONSISTENT, MORE FAITHFUL, MORE DILIGENT & IN SOME WAYS MORE IDEALISTIC, MORE OPTIMISTIC, MORE HOPEFUL & apparently had more faith that something would come of those Diaries that I kept so faithfully for those three years, '33, '34 & '35 when I was 13, 14 & 15 & also over to 16. I was just a young teenager. These youngsters here are already starting their Diaries, even earlier than I did mine.--David at 9! How about that? And I've given Davida a Diary to try to encourage her to keep hers. Are you putting anything in your Diary? (Davida: Just to write my days.) Well, that's what a Diary's for, just to write your days. That's exactly right! Don't try to write your months, that's too hard, & years are even worse.
31. I MIGHT BE ABLE TO REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY, A FEW OUTSTANDING THINGS, BUT THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, THEN I HAVE TO ASK MARIA TO HELP ME, SHE NEVER FORGETS ANYTHING! If it happened a week ago, I might as well kiss it goodbye forever if I didn't write it down, it's forgotten & gone forever!--Unless it was something very outstanding like I made love to you or something like that! Actually, the scientists say you never really forget anything, it's all there somewhere, if not in your conscious mind or memory, it's in your subconscious. That's why when you appear before the Reckoning Angel there "to give an account of the deeds done in the flesh & of every idle word" (2Cor.5:10, Mat.12:36) & are held responsible for everything you ever did & ever said, you're going to remember it someday! And if you don't remember it, the Lord certainly will!
32. MAYBE IF YOU'VE RUN OUT OF VERSES ABOUT REMEMBERING THINGS, THERE ARE A LOT OF VERSES ABOUT "FORGET NOT" & some things which the Lord tells you to forget. (Fam: He says He won't remember our sins.) (Heb.10:17, Jer.31:34, Psa.79:8) That's a good one. Thank the Lord He doesn't remember your sins against you any more. He doesn't say He doesn't remember them, He says He doesn't remember them against you. The Lord knows & remembers everything, but He doesn't remember them against you.
33. IF HE'S GOING TO WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM OUR EYES OVER THERE, I'M SURE HE'S GOING TO HELP US WIPE AWAY THE BAD MEMORIES TOO, UNLESS WE NEED TO REMEMBER THEM. I think some Christians & some Church people are going to need to remember some of their failures for Eternity, & think of the unsaved that are not there because the Christians didn't do their job! Think what a disgrace that will be, what a shame, what contempt they'll be in for all that they didn't do!--And you & me too. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll remember a few things we're going to be sorry for. Amen?
34. (FAM: "FORGETTING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND.") (Phil.3:13) Yes! Now some of you are going to grab that one right away quick & say, "See, there it says forget everything behind."--No it doesn't! He means a certain thing. You say, "There it shows the Bible contradicts itself!"--No! "Forgetting those things which are behind, press forward to the things that are before." This is the kind of forgetting I was trying to tell you to do--forget the things you don't need to remember. Forget the things that are just a nuisance & just a waste of time to remember, especially the bad things, the things you can't undo, the things you can't do anything about, the things it doesn't do you any good to remember & it's better for you to forget. He says, "Press forward unto the things which are before, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus!"
35. SO IT'S GOOD FOR YOU TO FORGET SOME THINGS & IT'S GOOD FOR YOU NOT TO FORGET SOME THINGS, AS I GAVE YOU THAT FIRST VERSE: "REMEMBER THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH." (Ecc.12:1) I'll never forget the first time I heard that verse quoted to me by my drunken Uncle John, my Mother's youngest brother. Her older brother & her younger brother both became alcoholics through the years. The younger brother, Uncle John, died fairly young, I think he was about in his 50s, something like that, practically in a bums' flop house! His family wouldn't have anything to do with him any more, but my Mother loved him & she went to see him & took me along with her. She was witnessing to him & trying to encourage him & make sure that he was saved, etc., & that made a tremendous impression on me because my Mother was reading to him out of the Bible, giving him verses to try to give him the assurance of his Salvation.
36. THEN HE SAID, "GIVE ME THAT A MINUTE!"--GRABBED HER BIBLE, THUMBED THROUGH IT & SAID, "I WANT TO READ SOMETHING TO DAVID". He knew the Word. He said, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."--And he burst into tears! He said, "I want to give you that verse, David." That touched my heart, I cried too, that he was concerned about this young man. I was very young, probably almost as young as David here, & he wanted to make sure I remembered the Lord & I didn't get into those evil years which he had now entered & in which he had no pleasure because he'd strayed so far from the Lord & become such a backslider, or whatever you want to call it, & was living in such misery--in which he died, sad to say.
37. MY MOTHER'S OLDER BROTHER MARK CAME BACK TO THE LORD IN HIS LATTER DAYS, IN THE TABERNACLE. He'd been gone for many years & they hadn't the faintest idea where he was or anything. On my Grandmother's deathbed she said to my Mother: "Nina Virginia, don't come without him!"--But immediately after my Grandmother died he ran away from home & they never saw him again for something like 20 or 30 years! He was just a teenager when he ran away. My Mother was 17 when her mother died & Uncle Mark was only a couple of years older, 19 or 20 at the most, & he was gone for 20 or almost 30 years, they hadn't the faintest idea of whatever became of him.
38. BUT MY MOTHER CLAIMED HER MOTHER'S PRAYERS, that God was going to answer her prayers no matter whether they ever saw him again or not, that the Lord was going to save him & he was going to be Over There, never dreaming that she would be the instrument of his Salvation & his coming to the Lord!
39. AND ONE NIGHT HE SHOWED UP IN HER TABERNACLE IN MIAMI, THE FIRST TIME SHE'D SEEN HIM IN ALMOST 30 YEARS! She almost didn't recognise him because he was getting to be middle-aged, in his upper 40's at least, may have even been 50 by then. But he came back to the Lord wonderfully, we called it getting saved, but I'm sure he must have been saved before that because he'd heard the Gospel all his life. My Grandfather, his father, was a great evangelist & a great preacher of the Gospel of Salvation & had altar calls where people would come forward to accept the Lord & get saved. So I'm sure that my Uncle Mark had been saved, had faith, but like my Mother, got discouraged when my Grandmother died at such an early age, only in her early 40's, of this operational accident.
40. SHE & MY GRANDFATHER WERE GOING ON A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD & she had some little thing that the surgeon thought should be corrected before she went, to make sure she had a pleasant journey. I think maybe it was an appendectomy or something like that. All my family were subject to appendicitis, every single one of them that I know of had their appendix removed--my grandparents, parents, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, all of them except me! I'm the only one who lived through it without an appendectomy because of the Lord's healing, thank the Lord! I had appendicitis & it nearly killed me, but thank the Lord I don't think I ever had another severe attack after that great victory I had in Anaheim, California that you've read about. (See No.956:82-90)
41. WELL ANYHOW, MY GRANDMOTHER, LIKE THE REST OF THE FAMILY, HAD APPENDICITIS, & APPENDECTOMIES WERE VERY POPULAR IN THOSE DAYS, ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR FORMS OF OPERATIONS, especially popular with the surgeons. Whatever was wrong with you, they either recommended an appendectomy or a tonsilectomy--because of course they made a lot more money that way. I'm just that suspicious of doctors that I believe a lot of them do it for money.--Well, not Dr. Koger, thank the Lord! He & my father both believed the appendix was needed & it was there for a purpose. God created it. Of course, even things which He created & you need & are there for a purpose, if they've been abused & misused to the point that it's gotten infected or something's wrong with it & you don't have the faith for healing, you might have to have it removed, like a tooth.
42. WELL, MY GRANDFATHER'S CHURCH DIDN'T PREACH HEALING, I DON'T THINK THEY EVEN KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT IT.--He did later after my Mother got healed, that's for sure! But anyhow, because my Grandmother had had a little trouble with appendicitis, the doctor said she probably ought to have it removed before she went on this round-the-World journey, eating all these foreign foods in different foreign countries--even Japan & China! It would be their third trip around the World in the days when not everybody took trips around the World! Nowadays it's very common. Anyhow, he recommended that she should have this little operation--it was considered a minor operation--so she did. And sad to say, the knife slipped in the surgeon's hand & pierced the peritoneum, that sort of sack encasing the inside of the bowels, & peritonitis set in almost immediately & she died within a few hours!
43. SO BOTH MY UNCLE MARK & MY MOTHER WERE VERY BITTER ABOUT THAT. My Mother, of course, was not even saved yet & it's possible that my Uncle Mark wasn't either, & they both turned very bitterly against the Lord. Uncle Mark already hated his Father because his Father had been rather mean to him & had spoiled my Mother & favoured her a great deal because she was a young girl & the baby, etc., like Techi is with me. I kind of spoil her sometimes, but she's coming out pretty good. Thank the Lord she's got good teachers that don't spoil her!
44. BUT UNCLE MARK WAS THE OLDEST & THEY HAD REALLY TRIED TO DISCIPLINE HIM & TRAIN HIM RIGHT & THERE WERE QUITE A FEW TIMES WHEN HE'D BEEN UNJUSTLY PUNISHED.--Like that time when they were sitting on the front pew of the church when some speaker was speaking & my Grandfather let off a great big--what Techi, I notice, calls a "toot"! That's the first time I ever heard it called that! And my poor Grandfather, you can imagine his pride to do that to his son, he grabbed Uncle Mark by the ear & marched him down the aisle & out of the church!--Because it was considered a disgrace, a terrible thing to do, to let off gas like that in a public place, especially when it could be heard, particularly in church! Well, I guess I'm disgraced then, because sometimes I let off a lot quite often!
45. UNCLE MARK VIRTUALLY NEVER FORGAVE HIS FATHER FOR THAT, that he used him to get himself off the hook, & actually misused him & made him his alibi & his excuse by marching him out when he wasn't the one that even did it! But my Grandfather could be pretty severe about some things & he was a big famous proud man. The Lord later humbled him & he lost everything.
46. THE ONLY REASON MY UNCLE STUCK AROUND WAS BECAUSE HE LOVED MY GRANDMOTHER. I've told you about her, she was a sweet little humble French woman, partly English, quiet, demure, but strong in the Spirit! She's the one that had the class of 2,000 Chinamen, so she had something in there. I'm sure the Devil was angry at what she was accomplishing for the Lord with those Chinese! (See No. 1265) My Uncle ran away then & they never saw him again for 30 years! Mother didn't run away, but she was furious at God for letting her Mother die. She'd loved her very dearly, & she became very bitter, so they sent her to Europe.
47. THEN MY GRANDFATHER TURNED AROUND JUST A YEAR LATER & REMARRIED! In those days they really believed in mourning, you shouldn't marry too soon, you should mourn several years for your departed loved one before you remarry. Well, I guess my Grandfather was a lot like me, he had a lot of drive--& sex goes with it--so I think he did pretty well to stick it out for a year before he remarried. He married this ravishingly beautiful half-Mexican, half-Jewish young woman from Mexico half his age, very talented, who could just walk all over a piano & sing & play the guitar! He figured she'd be good for his work & his travels & good for him, so he married her.
48. BUT MY MOTHER WAS JUST FURIOUS AT HER FATHER FOR THAT! She couldn't understand how he could ever marry another woman after her Mother. Some children get like that. I'm glad our children are not like that. Our children believe in sharing & giving & not being jealous. My Mother was very jealous for her Mother, my Grandmother, & she was furious at my Grandfather for marrying this young woman, this "chit of a girl" as she used to call her. Imagine, she was less than half my Grandfather's age--she was my Mother's age! In fact, she was one of my Mother's girlfriends!
49. SO MOTHER WAS JUST FURIOUS AT HER FATHER FOR MARRYING THIS YOUNG GIRL & I think that my Grandfather saw that maybe she was going to run away too, so he decided to send her on a European tour with some other high society young people where she would have people along that knew her & would take care of her & she'd at least be in fairly so-called "decent company". So she went to Europe & you've heard the rest of the story. (See Nos.172; 292:76-80; 1265:64-68 & The Hem of His Garment, her own Life Story.)
50. SO MY GRANDMOTHER HAD SAID TO MY MOTHER, "NINA, DON'T COME WITHOUT HIM!"--AND SHE ALWAYS REMEMBERED THAT, ONE OF THE LAST THINGS HER MOTHER SAID TO HER. So Uncle Mark came to Miami, came to her meeting & got saved, re-saved or whatever. He was already married & had, I think, two or three children, but was separated from his wife at the time. He'd had all kinds of talent previously as a singer, musician & artist. He used to be the political cartoonist for the Globe-Democrat of St. Louis, the one who drew the political cartoon on the editorial page every day. He was a man of outstanding talent even as a young fellow--of course he came from a rather talented family.
51. BUT HE RAN AWAY, A PRODIGAL SON, & SPENT HIS DAYS IN RIOTOUS LIVING, THROWING HIS LIFE & TALENTS AWAY WHEN HE COULD HAVE BEEN SOMETHING MUCH MORE INFLUENTIAL.--Not that there's anything wrong with being a chef, but he wound up as a chef. He was a good chef, though, & he cooked for some of the best places. Mother finally got him a job in Miami at "The Coconuts," a fancy club, & he was a good chef when he didn't drink too much. She brought his family down, got them back together now that he wasn't drinking so much, & they got along fine for quite awhile till he got to drinking again. But thank the Lord, when he was taking care of me when I was David's age or younger I don't think he drank any then.
52. FOR SEVERAL YEARS THERE HE WAS OUR COOK & HELPED TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN. Can you imagine?--This old drunk! Well, I'll tell you, he was a good teacher. He taught us a lot of things, things I'd never heard of before, & language I'd never heard before! Maybe that's where I got some of it. But anyhow, I heard about another side of life I had never heard about before & I guess that was part of my education. But he came back, thank the Lord, & my Mother remembered & she was very thankful to get him back to the Lord. He had his ups & downs off & on.
53. (FAM: DID HE COME DOWN AT THE ALTAR CALL & GET SAVED?) I think my Mother said he came forward at the invitation. That comes back to me now, that when he came forward to the altar she was dumbfounded, because there came her brother she hadn't seen for nearly 30 years, & they wept in each others arms! So his family got back together, he got a good job, & when he couldn't hold that one he worked for us & that worked out pretty well. He lived to a fairly ripe old age, up in his 70's, that's not too bad. I'll be doing well if I live that long! I'm hoping to live to 70--I think that's what the Lord meant by something He showed us. So I've got a few more years to go, Lord willing, if I don't squander it in some way. You've gotta give the Lord a little cooperation, you know. PTL!
54. SO MY UNCLE JOHN GAVE ME THAT VERSE, "REMEMBER THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH!" I'll tell you, I never forgot that, that's for sure! I thought, "Boy, I don't ever want to be like him." I took his warning seriously, I really tried to remember my Creator in the days of my youth, & I believe I did & I think you'll find that's true in these Diaries. You've had '33, '34 & '35, & now you've had '41, the War Year, & '42, the Year of Deliverance, that makes five years of Diaries I kept! As I say, I had a few entries for '36 but then I really got busy travelling with Mother. That's a poor excuse, but when you read how busy she kept me you'll wonder how I ever had time to keep a Diary at all! I usually had to stay up at night when I could hardly hold my eyes open before I went to bed to try to keep it, because if I didn't do it right then, I didn't do it.
55. I'VE FOUND THE BEST WAY TO KEEP MY DIARY IS TO KEEP IT HOURLY. I've often set my watch with that little chime just to remind me, "What did I do this last hour?" It's not too hard to remember what you just got through doing for the past hour & to jot it down, & that's why our Diaries are set up that way, to keep them by the hour. But even if you wait till the end of the afternoon, I just challenge you to remember everything that happened that afternoon & what time it happened! You'd better keep it by the hour or every time you think about it. I keep it right there beside me when I'm working, right there by my pen, so that every time I have to reach for my pen to write something down or to correct something when proofreading, etc., there's my Diary & I'm reminded immediately, "Now let's see, have I made an entry for this past hour?"
56. SO KEEP YOUR DIARY HOURLY, THAT'S THE ONLY SAFE WAY TO KEEP IT & IT'S THE EASIEST WAY TO KEEP IT. It's not hard to keep it that way, that's the simplest, easiest way to do it because you can hardly forget what you've been doing for the past hour. I know some of your memories are a little poor & you can forget, like I do sometimes. I walk across the room & forget what I went over there for! I'm sure everybody's done that, of course. Then I have to go back to what I was doing because I'd forgotten it & then something will remind me what it was, something I didn't have that I went after or something. You know what I'm talking about, Son! Well I'll tell you, he carries a notebook & a pencil, & a short pencil's better than a long memory. So keep your Diary daily!
57. YOU MAY NOT THINK THAT IT'S ALL WORTH REMEMBERING & "OH WELL, WHY WRITE DOWN THAT SILLY THING, THAT RIDICULOUS INSIGNIFICANT UNIMPORTANT THING?" How do you know it's unimportant? How do you know that maybe someday it will be interesting & important to someone else? I never dreamed that my Diaries would be that important, & it just must have been the Lord that I kept them at all, I figured probably nobody would ever read'm but me, & I didn't even read'm! If I hadn't had to read'm for your sake, I probably never would have read'm again!
58. GOD BLESS THE DEAR GIRLS WHO FOUND MY DIARIES & BEGAN TO TYPE THEM. I don't know, maybe they just wanted to know what my secrets were or something! Girls are curious that way, you know, digging in boys' diaries to see what they've got to say about the girls! Well, you found plenty about a lot of girls in those Diaries!--Ha!
59. I THOUGHT, OF COURSE, THAT I HAD TO FIND THE PERFECT GIRL, THE IDEAL GIRL, THE ONE THAT FITTED THE MINISTRY & PLEASED MY MOTHER & ALL OF THAT! But to get a girl who would please me & my Mother & the Lord & the Ministry & the audience & everybody else too, I was just virtually looking for the impossible! So I gave up a lot of girls for the Lord & the Lord's work.--Really, it was nearly always for the Lord or His Work or for my Mother, because she was the Lord's Work to me. And the few that she ever approved of & would have allowed me to marry were very few & far between, really only about two girls that she was about ready to let me marry, & neither of them were Mother Eve!--She never liked her to begin with.
60. THERE WAS ONLY ONE GIRL SHE REALLY WANTED ME TO MARRY, BADLY WANTED ME TO MARRY, BECAUSE SHE HAD IT ALL! She was a gorgeous blonde who could walk all over the piano! When I say "she could walk all over the piano," Techi, I don't really mean that she got up on the piano stool, climbed up on the piano & walked all over it. Almost anybody could do that--you could do that, couldn't you?--Especially on a grand piano! It's an old expression that means she could just really play!
61. THIS GIRL HAD THE LOOKS, SHE COULD SING, SHE COULD PLAY, SHE WAS FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT, she had gifts of the Spirit, spoke in tongues, she was deeply spiritual, a wonderful girl! You'll find little mentions of her all the way through. Anybody know who that was? If you've read the Diaries you might have recognised her. It was Laralee Kemper, the blonde, the beautiful one. Loislee, her twin sister, was the plain, rather odd homely one. She had a little something wrong with her eyes, but actually she was an even better pianist than Laralee, & she had a gorgeous deep contralto voice which would have made beautiful duets with me, & she was the sweetest & humblest!
62. I WAS REALLY IN LOVE WITH LOISLEE, BECAUSE SHE WAS THE MOST DEEPLY SPIRITUAL. I don't know, I guess I'm always for the underdog, so because her sister was the one that was really her father's pet & had everything, Loislee appealed to me. I was shy, like her, & I didn't think I was good-looking. She just struck a chord with me & I really fell the most deeply in love with her & I really wanted to marry her, but my Mother wanted me to marry Laralee.
63. SO THE ONE TIME MY MOTHER FOUND THE GIRL SHE THOUGHT WAS REALLY THE ONE, THE GIRL'S FATHER INTERVENED! It's funny how people who never had any education just worship it & want to make sure their children get an education. It's only the people who have not had a college education who value it, those of you who have had it know how worthless it is! So because he'd been a farmboy & never had a college education, he wanted to make sure she got a college education, in fact that both of his girls did.
64. I'D JUST BROKEN UP WITH DELORIS SATER, YOU'VE READ A LOT ABOUT HER. She was the little 8-year-old girl that climbed the mountain with me when I was 14 or 15. She was around quite awhile. She was only 8 years old & of course I figured she was just nothing but a little girl, but she was fun to climb the mountain with because she knew the park & the mountain & all that. I didn't realise she was flipping out over me!--8-year-old girls can fall in love! Come on, girls, how many of you fell in love when you were eight? (Maria: Oh yes!)
65. AND OF COURSE I WAS A YOUNG TEENAGER & A SINGER & SOME OF THEM THOUGHT I WAS HANDSOME & THIS, THAT & THE OTHER. I was almost twice her age but she was flipping over me & I didn't even know it, I was that dumb about women! She looked at me with those moony goo-goo eyes, followed me around like a little puppy dog & I would hardly even give her a second look because she was just a little kid. (To Techi:) Not you dear, you're my sweetheart!--One of them. You're special, there's only one Techi, don't worry!
66. SO THIS LITTLE GIRL, DELORIS SATER, YOU'VE READ A LOT ABOUT HER IN MY DIARIES LATER, THAT GOT A LITTLE MORE SERIOUS AS SHE GREW UP & BLOSSOMED & BECAME QUITE A YOUNG LADY! She matured quite early. (Fam: Was she the one that you also called Dotty?) Yes, Dotty was her nickname. One of my sister's daughters was named Dorothy & they nicknamed her Dotty too--& she was a bit dotty like her mother! But anyway, you're right! You've been reading those Diaries, huh? How about that! Somebody must love me to be interested in my teenage years.
67. THIS MUST BE REMINISCING NIGHT TONIGHT! It's all your fault, David, for having a birthday! We're remembering things. I started out telling you there are some things you should remember, & it sort of fits in with what I was going to tell you about the Diary. There are some things that I did remember, thank the Lord, & I'm glad I did. I'm sure you'll wade through a lot of stuff you'll wonder why I remembered it at all, it wasn't really worth remembering, but that's life. Not everything in life that happens is of supreme importance & a monumental occasion of some kind, a lot of it is just everyday living. Like I say, you get up in the morning, you go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, comb your hair, throw on your clothes, eat your breakfast & go on & on & do that thousands of times during your life. But it's got to be done or you wouldn't live very long.
68. A LOT OF THINGS IN YOUR JOB, YOUR WORK, YOU DO OVER & OVER. Some of you dear girls sit at those typewriters all day long & actually like it! They like typing all that they type. Thank God they like it! They like it because they like the Lord & they love Him & they love me & they love you & they want you to get it. So you should be so thankful to these girls that do all this typing, it's a hard job, & those that do the cooking & fill your stomachs to keep you going, & the boys that do the maintenance work & the folks that do the shopping! There are so many different jobs around here I can't even go through them all every time I say thank you!
69. SO SOME OF THE STUFF IN THERE IS PROBABLY SILLY & RIDICULOUS & CHILDISH & FOOLISH, BECAUSE I WAS A TEENAGER TOO, I wasn't always high-minded & lofty-minded.--I was sometimes, which is more than I can say for some teenagers, I did think about the Lord. And I gave up nearly all those girls for the Lord & His Work because either they didn't suit me or my Mother or I felt they didn't suit the Lord.
70. BUT HERE WAS THE GIRL MY MOTHER FOUND THAT SHE THOUGHT WAS THE PERFECT ONE, & HER TWIN SISTER THAT I THOUGHT WAS THE PERFECT ONE! Too bad I didn't know then what I know now, & if my Mother had accepted it & her Father too, I could have married them both! But just imagine, if I had, I'd be married to two old ladies now! I just somehow can't imagine being married to an old lady! Like the guy said, "The part about being a grandfather, that's not what bothers me, it's the idea of being married to a grandmother!" (Davidito laughs!) I'm glad you have a sense of humour, Son! He listens, he really drinks it in.
71. I SAY THIS IN ALL DUE RESPECT TO MOTHER EVE, but when I looked at a picture of Mother Eve that she sent me recently, I looked at that old lady & wondered, "How could I ever have been married to that old woman? My goodness, she looks as old as a grandmother!"--She is a grandmother, she's a great grandmother!--So am I, I'm a grandfather & a great grandfather, but I don't feel like it. Well, some days I do, but most of the time I don't. I'm actually surprised sometimes when I look in the mirror & I see that old man in there.--Ha! Really! I feel like one of you, I really do.
72. I'M SORT OF A RETARDED TEENAGER, A SLOW RIPENER, A SLOW MATURER. You kids are going to get there faster than I did. I have often told Maria that I've sort of lived my life backwards. I looked & acted like an old man when I was a child--I was sober, serious, sour & sad a great deal of the time, very serious-minded. My brother used to call me "the little old man" & make fun of me because I was so serious about things. He used to josh me when he came back from college, "Oh Dave, you shouldn't be so serious about everything!" But I was serious about things--serious about school, the Lord, my folks, my work, all those things. I took things pretty seriously.
73. AND WE LIVED A PRETTY SERIOUS, SOBER LIFE, LET ME TELL YOU, ON THE VERGE OF POVERTY ALL THE TIME, a hand-to-mouth existence, hardly knowing where we were going to lay our head or where our next meal was coming from! That's enough to make anybody think about the Lord & be pretty serious & prayerful. So it was a serious life. I didn't get to go off to college & have a high old time like my brother, with his rich Aunt paying for everything! He was her darling, her little spoiled rascal. After all, she'd reared him from the time he was born till he was five years of age, when my Mother was healed & he came back to live with us. We were virtually strangers to him & he was a stranger to my folks.
74. ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL AFTER HAVING HIM WAS WHEN MY MOTHER'S BACK WAS BROKEN, so she was never able to hold that child in her arms, never able to take care of him. He had to be sent off to my father's older sister, who was by this time rich, had a string of millinery shops, hat shops in San Francisco & Oakland, & she offered to take care of him. They were a middle-aged couple who had never had any children & she wanted a child, so she offered to take my brother. She really copped onto him after that & was really very possessive about him, & when my Mother & Father wanted to have him back, she was very upset about it. She'd had him for five years, so you can imagine, she was more like a mother to him & he was more like her child than ours!
75. SO MY BROTHER WAS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT HORSE OF ANOTHER COLOUR YOU MIGHT SAY, BORN BEFORE MY MOTHER WAS SAVED. And there's something about that--the child of saved or unsaved parents--even the Bible makes a distinction. (ICor.7:14) Of course if the child's saved like you are, it makes no difference. I really am remembering a lot of things tonight! Am I talking too long? I really started to tell you this to explain something about my Diary!
76. SO MY BROTHER WAS REARED BY MY AUNT & SHE USED TO PAY FOR EVERYTHING & sent him expensive gifts, expensive clothes, etc., things we couldn't even afford. She'd take him out when we'd visit & get him all dressed up, & to Hell with the rest of us! She hated my Mother, said she was a Gospel Gypsy, a Gospel bum & we were just nothing but sponges & leeches, hangers-on coming around for a free bed & a free meal! Well, we were, & were very thankful for it even if we had to take it from my Aunt. But she sure rubbed it in, I'll tell you! There's nothing like those in-laws to rub it in to the out-laws!
77. SO MY BROTHER WAS KIND OF HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, GOOD-LOOKING, BIG, STRONG, HANDSOME & THE GALS ALL FLIPPED OVER HIM! I don't think any gal even tripped over me when I was young, I was skinny, scrawny & ugly. You've seen some of those pictures from when I was a little kid. (Fam: They're beautiful!) Oh come on now, when I was a kid David's age I was skinny as a rail, homely & ugly, but I was sober & serious anyhow. My brother was happy-go-lucky. He did work for part of his living at the college, mostly I think because he wanted extra money to spend. When you have a lot of girlfriends it really costs a lot of money. So he was the happy boy & the guy who had everything, "popular man on campus" & all that stuff, & I was nobody & nothing. He had everything, my Aunt just showered him with everything. Finally when he got married she gave him a big beautiful mansion in Oakland, gave him a car, gave him this, gave him that & was always giving him things.
78. EVERYTHING CAME SO EASY FOR HIM, BUT FOR ME, I GOT MINE THE HARD WAY! We really worked hard for it & we suffered for it, but I'm glad, because I think I turned out a little bit better than he did. He really went the wrong direction, backslid, became very Worldly, married a rather Worldly girl, went into education & almost completely forgot about the Lord till finally he practically wrecked his life, ended in divorce, lost his high-salary job, lost his home & lost his car! Creditors are still coming around to his shop every now & then, cleaning off the shelves & taking it with them in lieu of payment of debts, because he never could live within his income, he always borrowed money. He used to borrow money from me when I was David's age, because with all those gals he had to take out, he never had any money! But I was always working hard & selling stuff or doing something to earn money, & I didn't have any gals to waste it on, thank the Lord! So I earned it & he spent it.
79. ANYHOW, THANK THE LORD HE'S COME BACK TO THE LORD NOW & REMEMBER HIM IN YOUR PRAYERS because he's had a stroke & probably hasn't got much longer to live. Thank the Lord he came back & has tried to live for the Lord the best he could, but his was really a wasted life, squandered on higher education, big jobs, lots of money, fancy living, a high-falutin' wife, society & all that junk!--Just wasted for popularity & the opinions of men & women!
80. I THINK I CAME OUT A LITTLE BIT BETTER THAN HE DID BECAUSE AT LEAST I SERVED THE LORD, & YOU'LL SEE THAT IN THE DIARIES. He made fun of me when I was in the Lord's service & working with Mother, etc. My relatives used to ridicule me & say, "Aren't you ever going to become a man? Aren't you ever going to do anything on your own? Are you always going to be tied to your Mother's apron strings?--Always going to be working for a woman, a woman supporting you the rest of your life?" I mean, that hurt! I had a little bit of pride. (Fam: A verse came to me, "Despise not the days of thy youth, for thy latter shall be greater than thy former.") (ITi.4:12) PTL! That's a good one.
81. WELL, AS I LOOK BACK NOW I CAN SEE THE LORD'S HAND IN IT ALL. Tonight we're remembering. I told you to forget the past, but there are some times you need to remember it, & you're remembering a lot of my past as you read these Diaries. At least I kept Diaries pretty faithfully for about five years, & then one more year that you have yet to get. You've gotten '33, '34 & you got '35 first in the Book of Remembrance. Now that you've read the others you might want to read that one over again to get the connection. Oh you did? Bless your heart! It's sort of a continuous story until that time.--Then '41 & '42.
82. SO I GAVE UP ALL THOSE GIRLS FOR THE LORD--EXCEPT LARALEE & LOISLEE, & THEIR FATHER MADE ME GIVE THEM UP! My Mother even tried to persuade Laralee to run away with us & elope with me: "Don't worry, we'll run away & get you married & there's nothing your Father can do about it after that!" I'd have hated to have him for a 10:36er though, he was a tough old character! But Laralee refused because she loved her Father dearly & said he'd been father & mother to her. Her Mother died when the twins were born & he had raised them both, so they loved him very much.
83. NOW ODDLY ENOUGH--IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE SPIRIT--LOISLEE WOULD HAVE GONE WITH ME & VOLUNTEERED TO GO! She said, "I'd rather serve the Lord, I'd rather be with you!" I'll never forget when we were praying one night & she said, "Lord, Thy will be done, but O God, let it be David!" I'll never forget that! I was embarrassed. But God bless her, I liked to hear it, I must admit. She meant it! She had a beautiful character, I really liked her the best, but Mother thought Laralee would look better & have a better appearance on the platform & that sort of thing.
84. LOISLEE WAS A LITTLE ODD, BUT I LIKED HER THAT WAY! She was just herself, she didn't care what people thought. Laralee was sort of conscious of others because she was beautiful, she was this & that & she'd always been praised the most, lauded the most, petted the most, pampered the most & everything. Whereas Loislee was a little ugly duckling so she didn't really have to worry about how she looked or anything else. She was just herself & she really loved the Lord--& me!
85. SHE WOULD HAVE GONE WITH ME, SHE SAID SO, & WHEN LARALEE TURNED ME DOWN, I TURNED TO LOISLEE FOR SURE! The only reason I was interested in Laralee was because my Mother was. But then I thought, "Well, now Mother has no excuse, she'll have to accept Loislee!" But it didn't work that way, Loislee was not the one for my Mother. So I had to go off & forsake them both, in fact their Father hustled them off to college as fast as he could to get them out of sight! He even sent back the letters that I sent to them so that I couldn't even contact them! Finally I did find a way of getting through to them at Asbury College by mail. Even though I didn't know their address, just the college, I wrote & they got my letters & we corresponded for a few years after that, as you can read.
86. BUT I GAVE THEM ALL UP FOR THE LORD, HONESTLY & SINCERELY & SERIOUSLY I DID. Because with each one I was thinking, "Is this the best one for the Lord's Work? Would she do the Lord's Work the most good & be best for my Ministry & also my Mother?"--Because I was working with her. So I think you'll find that I did a few noble things, a few good things amongst all that foolishness & boredom & drudgery & monotony, & you're going to get a Diary now that you're going to really enjoy! You've gotten at least five good solid years of Diaries--if you can do that well, Son, you'll be doing pretty good--& there's one more to come which I kept fairly faithfully.
87. THIS IS THE ONE THAT I REALLY ENJOYED READING AGAIN THE MOST, BECAUSE IT'S THE YEAR 1967!--But I'm ashamed to confess that they jumped from '42 to '67, about 25 years! Actually I made one entry in '44, I think it was just after I'd met Mother Eve. I'll tell you, once you get married you don't have very much time to keep a Diary, especially when you start having children & pretty soon you've got four! Let me tell you, you're doing pretty well to keep up with the kids, much less your Diary! But that's no excuse for you! If you take time & do a little bit every hour you'll keep it up.
88. THERE MAY BE SOMETHING THERE YOU NEED TO REMEMBER SOME DAY! You may have to be a witness in court or you may have to give your testimony or life story some day. A Thousand Years is a long time & you're going to have an awful lot of use for a lot that you've learned & a lot that you've experienced & a lot you'll be telling other people & training & teaching them in the Millennium! Maybe they'll be reading your diary one of these days!
89. BUT I'M ASHAMED TO SAY I WENT FROM 1942 TO 1967 BEFORE I RESUMED KEEPING A DIARY, & I think the only reason I did then is because somebody gave it to me for a Christmas present. I never believed in wasting anything, of course, & here I had this Diary, "What am I going to do with it?" So I decided, "Well, I guess I'll just have to keep it!" I think my Mother even encouraged me to keep it.
90. THINK OF ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THOSE YEARS OF MINISTERING WITH MOTHER--THE MIRACLES, THE ANSWERS TO PRAYER, THE MARVELLOUS SALVATIONS! You talk about the Acts of the Apostles, if we had those Diaries to read today you would be thrilled with the marvellous things that happened in Mother's ministry! You've read a few in some of the worst years. But those things were wonderful & I often felt very guilty & conscience-stricken because I had not kept a Diary. Day after day the Lord's Spirit would speak to me & remind me that I ought to keep a Diary, but pretty soon if you harden your heart, truth resisted loses its power over your conscience. I just sort of used the excuse, "Well, I'm too busy, I'm too tired, it's too much trouble." I'd keep it a few days & then I'd quit.
91. BUT ANYWAY, I DID FAIRLY CONSISTENTLY KEEP THE 1967 DIARY. And you know what year that was? Well, that was the year before 1968, & 1968 was the year that we went to California to help the Hippies!--In fact, the end of 1967. 1967 was the year of the "Thousands of Miles of Miracles," in fact two long round-trips, almost all of them during 1967, from TSC to Canada to Florida & back! The second one, or the last one was with my Mother, Grandmother, & all those marvellous, miraculous, supernatural happenings that happened with her, the messages we got & all those things!
92. I'M SORRY I DIDN'T KEEP A VERY FULL DIARY, I WAS TRYING TO BE SAVING, YOU KNOW! Since it was a five-year Diary & I was going to have to keep it for five years, I only had enough room for about one little paragraph for each day on each page, the outstanding facts or places we went or little things that happened. If I had kept as full a Diary as I did for some of those other years you would have learned a lot more, but there's enough there to give you the setting & the background for you, because that's what it was!
93. THAT WAS THE YEAR OF THE "THOUSANDS OF MILES OF MIRACLES" WITH GRANDMOTHER & WITHOUT GRANDMOTHER, & THE BEGINNING OF THE "TEENS FOR CHRIST," WHICH WAS THE BEGINNING OF YOU, THE FAMILY! Because it was at the end of 1967 that we went to California at my Mother & the Lord's invitation--my Mother's invitation & the Lord's commandment--& the Lord said, "There it will be told you what you shall do." And we got there & we floundered around & couldn't find out what we were supposed to do for months until we went broke & had all kinds of trouble! Finally we were about to pick up & give up & leave when the Lord really came through & spoke wonderfully & warned us to stay just a little longer, be a little more patient, it was coming. The fog would clear away & we'd soon see the road ahead!
94. AND ABOUT THAT TIME HO WAS THE FIRST ONE TO GET INVOLVED WITH THE HIPPIES, WHICH IS THE THING THAT MY MOTHER REALLY WANTED US TO DO. We were all Texas rednecks, & hippies were something you had open hunting season for! The Texas cowboys went out making targets out of'm! If the police caught'm on the streets they'd throw'm in jail & trim their hair & beat'm up & turn'm out. Hippies were considered the worst kind of characters in the World! But my Mother always had a great influence on Ho & he loved his Grandmother very very much, so she finally persuaded him to go out on the beach & witness to the hippies.
95. OUR KIDS WERE ALL TRAINED TO WITNESS, ALL GOOD WITNESSES, SOUL-WINNERS, KNEW THE SCRIPTURE, SANG, EVERYTHING! They were going full tilt as far as witnessing was concerned & winning souls & gathering in disciples, but hippies, that was asking too much! Actually, we'd never met an actual hippie ourselves, we didn't even know what a hippie was, but we'd heard the worst kind of tales & stories about'm that you could possibly imagine: "They're all Communists, drug-addicts, vice-ridden & flea-bitten"--& we found out they had more than fleas when we finally got acquainted with them! "They're the worst kind of people on Earth, all those long-haired, strange-clothed people! They're worse than the heathen on the mission field!" No decent self-respecting, flag-waving, hard-hat, conservative American citizen like we were would have anything to do with hippies!
96. WE WERE STILL PRETTY SYSTEM! Even with my Mother & all those years in the Lord's Work, it was church work & we were still in church & we were like church people, so to us, hippies were the scum of the Earth, the lowest of the low, the dregs of society! They were worse than the bums & the drunks & the harlots on Skid Row! Even the bums & the drunks & the harlots knew what was right & the way things ought to be, but these hippies, they were really screwed up! They were turned upside-down, inside-out & nothing was the way it ought to be! I mean, they had no respect for society, for the System, for the church, for laws, rules, nothing! They were absolutely like Peter over there, I mean the way he used to be!--Smugglers, criminals!
97. SO IT WAS HARD TO PERSUADE US TO EVEN LOOK AT THOSE HORRIBLE CREATURES! And out in California there were lots of'm & they were pretty dirty & a lot of them were the scum of the Earth! Even though many of them came from fine families, they had sunk to the gutter, worse than the bums & the drunks! But Mother finally persuaded Ho to go & witness to them & he got all fired-up about it & was really going great guns winning souls right & left! He took Faithy along, she was always his little buddy. They always got along great together, almost like two little peas in a pod. Considering the kind of big sister they had, they had to stick together to hold their own! Of course Aaron was in Outer Space someplace & wasn't really in their realm, but they got interested & finally persuaded Aaron to come down & play for'm & pray for'm & they all got to working with the hippies & you've heard the rest of the story. (See No.83, 897, 1353, 1358, etc.!)
98. THEY FINALLY EVEN PERSUADED ME TO COME DOWN & YOU'VE HEARD THE STORY OF HOW THE LORD TOUCHED MY HEART. Up to that time I just practically abhorred'm! I didn't see how my Mother could waste her precious time spending a couple hours every day making peanut-butter-&-jelly sandwiches & then taking'm in her little electric car that she had that she drove along the sidewalks, sort of a little invalid's car like a lot of California old folks had. She'd go out to the Huntington Beach pier & they'd line up for her peanut-butter-&-jelly sandwiches until they were all gone, & she witnessed to them, talked to them about the Lord. A few times she wanted to bring some of them home with her but her house was too small--till we got there, then it was even smaller!
99. SO THAT WAS THE STORY & THAT WAS THE YEAR!--1967!--THE YEAR THAT "TEENS FOR CHRIST" REALLY GOT TO ROLLING & FINALLY ROLLED TO CALIFORNIA, & IF WE HADN'T, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE TONIGHT! I think we actually arrived on Christmas Day of 1967. I'll never forget, we were parked in some supermarket parking lot & everything was closed because it was Christmas. We were eating some kind of a snack in the Cruiser while everybody else was eating Christmas dinner, but praise God, we soon got to Grandmother's, I think by that night, & my Mother was as Christmasy as you can get! You never saw anybody that could cook like my Mother!
100. SO WE FINALLY DID GET TO GRANDMOTHER'S, SHE KNEW WE WERE ON OUR WAY, WE'D PHONED HER & SHE'D SAVED CHRISTMAS DINNER FOR US. I think we ate it there at her house that night, & we were sure thankful to get there. We thought God was really going to do great things for us, but at first we just literally fizzled-out in California. We couldn't get any bookings, no meetings, no offerings, there wasn't anything left but the hippies!
101. THE LORD JUST SHUT US OUT OF THE CHURCHES & SHUT US INTO THE HIPPIES TO WHERE THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE WE COULD DO! And my Mother finally got the answer to her prayer, we finally got the burden for the hippies! GBH! That was her final good deed, besides taking us into her tiny one-bedroom cottage that actually wasn't much bigger than this room! It was right on an alley. It had a little back porch, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room/dining room & one bedroom. I don't believe it was much bigger than this room, & we landed there with about a dozen people! Thank God most of us could sleep in the Ark & the rest of them were scattered around on my Mother's living room floor.
102. BUT THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT YOU BEGAN! Maybe you weren't there, maybe you never even saw California, but it was still your beginning because you wouldn't be here & I wouldn't be here tonight if it hadn't been for that year of 1967!--Which was when we arrived there & was our preparation for it, followed by 1968 when we really began working with the hippies & took over the Light Club, & all the rest you know.
103. SO IF YOU REALLY SORT OF DRAGGED THROUGH SOME OF THOSE OTHER DIARIES & FOUND THEM QUITE A STRUGGLE TO WADE THROUGH, I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO ENJOY THIS ONE! I'm getting a little freer, a little sexier & I have a few more, not girlfriends--well, I had a few girlfriends too--but mostly lady friends. I'd been out on the road for several years by that time, in fact 12 years on the road for Fred Jordan & television, so I'd had a chance to meet a lot of girls in those days. It seems like the older you get & the more substantial you look & as long as you have a little money to spend, it's not hard to find girls to spend it on! It's funny, for some reason or other it doesn't seem to matter how old a man gets, women still sort of like him for some reason. I found that true in my case, anyway, I don't know about the rest of you.--Even the young ones, God bless'm! So I was a man of a little more experience by the 25 years after this 1942 Diary you just read, & I had a few lovers & you'll read a few things maybe you'll find interesting!
104. BUT I WAS STILL VERY SERIOUS FOR THE LORD, IF ANYTHING, MORE SERIOUS THAN EVER! I had all these teenagers to teach & I taught them faithfully every day. We had classes every morning right there in our Camper, a dozen kids gathered around, my kids & all the kids they'd picked up, & we were sleeping them all over the place! We sometimes slept 12 in that Camper! I built a double bunk in the back--two double beds, one double bed over the other one--& then we had two bed divans in the front room. It was designed to sleep four in the back & four in the front room comfortably, eight altogether, & later when I added a few girls & wives we used to sleep six in the back, three in each bed, & sometimes almost that many in the front plus some on the floor, & sometimes we even slept somebody across the engine & the two front seats! We could sleep 12 people inside & about that many outside under the awning.
105. SO WE HAD OUR ROLLING LITTLE "CHURCH IN THE HOME" & WE HAD QUITE A FEW DISCIPLES & HANGERS-ON & PEOPLE WE TOOK ALONG WITH US. I think we arrived in California with about a dozen of us altogether. We also had a couple of cars, Ho had his Volkswagen rigged up to sleep in, & we could lay the seats down in the Rambler to sleep. Everything was full, every seat was full! We slept people everywhere there was any place to sleep! We had'm practically sleeping on top of each other.--At least they were on top of each other sometimes, & me quite frequently in those days! Sorry girls, but I'm sort of worn-out & at my age I'm not able to get around as much as I used to.
106. ANYWAY, IT WAS A GREAT YEAR & I HOPE YOU'LL ENJOY READING IT & I THINK IT WAS WORTH REMEMBERING! If you want to look back at your beginnings, your roots, your foundation, this is really where you came from & that is one of the greatest years of our training! It was actually the final year before the beginning of our greater Family, & we were already accumulating quite a few. We had Josh & Caleb & Lydia & some of the old-timers that you're familiar with. Caleb we called Artie, Josh we called Arnie, Lydia was Claudia. I hope I remembered to put all those alternate names in there so you'll recognise who they are! So I think you'll find it interesting.
107. WELL, THAT'S ENOUGH, MAYBE TOO MUCH TO REMEMBER TONIGHT. It's poor David's birthday, but he wanted a nice quiet birthday with not too much attention attracted to him. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied with this kind of birthday? Is that the kind of birthday you wanted? (David: Yes!) Bless his heart! Isn't that sweet? I feel like I'm having my birthday--I'm having all the fun!
108. SO PRAISE THE LORD, THERE'RE A LOT OF MEMORIES & I'VE BEEN SORT OF RAMBLING AROUND IN THE THINGS I'VE REMEMBERED, TO SHOW YOU THAT YOU SHOULD REMEMBER SOME THINGS & IT PAYS TO REMEMBER SOME THINGS! I think you'll be thankful that I did remember some of those things & put'm down in my Diaries so that you could read'm. That's your beginning, the beginnings of the Family, & if it hadn't been for what happened in those Diaries, I wouldn't be here today, & probably neither would you! I'm sure you might've found the Lord, or the Lord would have found you somehow, but perhaps under different circumstances, under someone else, somehow else. But He didn't & you didn't & I didn't--we're here! PTL?
109. SO THIS IS THE WAY IT HAPPENED & THAT'S THE WAY THE LORD DESIGNED IT & THAT'S THE WAY HE APPARENTLY WANTED IT & HERE WE ARE, THANK THE LORD!--All largely as a result, not of my keeping my Diaries, but keeping on with the Lord, of which the Diaries are a mere record. So I think you will find them somewhat interesting. I hope you've enjoyed them & haven't been too bored or found them too hard to struggle through--I think you'll find a few little lessons in there you'll appreciate. PTL? (Fam: Amen!)
110. WELL, THAT WAS THE THING MOST ON MY MIND TODAY BESIDES DAVID'S BIRTHDAY, & THAT WAS THAT 1967 DIARY WHICH I READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH TODAY, & I hope you'll be able to read it soon. I regret to say the following year, '68, we kept no diary, but we did write some Prayer Letters. And if you will read the Old Goldies which we published once-upon-a-time, they're actually a compilation of our Prayer Letters which tell the story month-by-month, the things that happened that month, so it's almost like a Diary. So if you want to get the Story of '68, there were several Prayer Letters we published at that time describing our activities & about my Mother's death, etc. (See "Dad's Own Story of the Revolution," No.42, pg.94-95.)
111. MOTHER REALLY HAD TO DIE--THERE REALLY WASN'T ROOM FOR HER! POOR MOTHER, SHE HAD TO GET OUT OF THE WAY!--BUT SHE DIED HAPPY, HAD ACCOMPLISHED HER PURPOSE & HAD LIVED A FULL, RICH, FRUITFUL LIFE! She went on to a glorious crown & I'm sure there were thousands to greet her! She made room for us & got us busy at what she thought was most important. The Lord had showed her that there was "gold in them thar' hippies"!--Real gold, the kind that's eternal, praise God! She finally got us interested & died happy because we were doing what she wanted us to do, which is what the Lord wanted us to do, because He wanted us to get interested in those young people, most of them well-educated, from some of the best families in California, in the richest County in the richest State in the richest Country in the World!
112. HUNTINGTON BEACH HAD THE REPUTATION OF BEING THE RICHEST CITY, AT LEAST IN THE WEST, PER CAPITA, & if you've ever been to Huntington Beach, you see nothing but one long string of oil wells for miles! Almost everybody's got oil wells in their back yard! That's no joke! I mean everywhere in Huntington Beach, oil wells, oil wells!--Back yards, yard of the supermarket, everywhere oil wells!--One of the richest towns in the U.S.A. The people were rich, the kids were rich, well-educated, smart, but wild!--Fed-up with their folks, fed-up with the System, fed-up with education, fed-up with things, fed-up with church, fed-up with everything! They'd had it all & they were looking for something real, looking for Love & the Lord really. They may not have always known it, but that's Who they were looking for, & we showed'm that that's what they were looking for. They were looking for Jesus, praise the Lord, & His Love, & they found Him through our Love!
113. SO THE NEXT YEAR, '68, IS THE YEAR OF THE LIGHT CLUB, THEN '69 IS THE YEAR THAT WE LEFT, WHEN THEY PRACTICALLY DROVE US OUT OF TOWN, & that whole story is also in the Letters, that year on the road in a great caravan. You know the rest of the story so I don't have to tell you & I've already kept you too late again. I don't know why, but the time just seems to fly! I hope you found it interesting, anyway, & maybe I told a few stories tonight you hadn't heard before. Anyhow, I hope you'll enjoy the '67 Diary. I think I called it "The Family Begins" because it was the year of the teenagers, the year of "Teens for Christ". PTL! We'd better quit & pray. It's 11:30, Lord help us! Oh well, you never go to bed before this anyhow. You just didn't get your GNs read, that's all, but at least you got another Letter & maybe the Family will find something in this worthwhile.
114. SO I'M GLAD THAT YEAR HAPPENED & I'M GLAD ALL THE YEARS HAPPENED! Just think, it was nearly 50 years before I found my life's work, what the Lord wanted me to do! Well, of course I knew all those years what the Lord wanted me to do--He wanted me to serve Him, love Him, love others, witness, win souls & preach the Gospel! In general terms I knew what the Lord wanted me to do & I was doing my best to do it the only way I knew how, with my Mother in evangelistic work & in churches & one pastorate.
115. BUT I DIDN'T REALLY FIND MY LIFE'S WORK, I DIDN'T REALLY SUCCEED AT ANYTHING UNTIL I FOUND YOU! YOU WERE A HUGE SUCCESS! That's what the Lord was preparing me 50 years for, He had to give me 50 years of training to be ready & able to educate you. Really! After all, He knew you hippies would need a guru!--An old sage that would teach you wisdom & real knowledge & useful things like how to fix the light fixture & how to fix the toilet, but most of all how to love others, win souls, preach the Gospel, go into all the World & be a missionary! PTL? So here we are!
116. IT'S SUCH A MIRACLE TO ME, I NEVER GET OVER IT, WHEN I REALISE HOW LITTLE I HAD TO DO WITH IT! All I did was do what the Lord told me to do & you just came, that's all. I just said what the Lord told me to say & you loved it. And thank the Lord, they came, they flocked, they packed into the Light Club--it wasn't even big enough--& we really had a time! Amen? PTL? That was one of the things the City finally got onto us about, they said it was a fire hazard & we had too many people in the place. So they put up a big sign: "Only so many people allowed in this room!" Well, they would have had a hard time counting them! Mostly it was pretty dark in there because it was a kind of a clandestine hippie club, dark & romantic with nice music & lots of love-ins, etc., but mostly we were loving the Lord! Amen! PTL! Hallelujah! TYJ!
117. THANK YOU LORD FOR ALL THOSE YEARS THAT MADE US READY FOR THIS YEAR, THIS NEW YEAR. EVERY YEAR HAS BEEN PREPARATION, LORD, FOR THE NEXT! TYJ! PTL! Hallelujah! And thank You for this new birthday You've brought to one of our children, Lord, precious David who has been so faithful & such a good boy, learned so much, Lord, has such a bright mind, reads so well & reads Thy Word, Lord, & is filling up his little mental computer with things You're going to use in the future & are even using now, Lord, as he helps with the other children, helps to teach & train them. Bless him, Lord!
118. GIVE HIM A GOOD YEAR THIS YEAR, LORD, THE BEST YEAR OF HIS LIFE SO FAR, that he may be very thankful & happy for this year, even more than for last year & the many things he'll accomplish, the many things he'll do for You & others. We thank You for him, Lord, he's such a blessing, & we know You're going to bless him & make him a blessing to many others. Thank You for bringing him through these nine years. It's a long time, Lord, almost as long as our Family & the Revolution. Thank You for it, Lord! Thank You for him & the blessing that he has been.
119. THANK YOU FOR ALL THOSE WHO'VE HAD A SHARE IN HIS UPBRINGING & HIS TRAINING, Lord, when we have been so busy, those who have trained him so well, taught him so well, prayed through so well, Lord, loved him so well, to make him do so well as he's doing today. TYJ! PYL! Hallelujah! Amen! Hallelujah! (Sings "Happy Birthday Dear David!") PTL! And many happy returns of the day of your birth! PTL! May you have many more happy birthdays & I'm sure you will! Whatever you don't have here we'll have in Heaven, thank the Lord?
120. YOU DON'T THINK WE'RE GOING TO REMEMBER BIRTHDAYS IN HEAVEN? You say, "There's not going to be time there, how can we remember birthdays?" Well, there's no time in one sense, but I think we're going to remember a lot of things & we're going to be thankful even for the past, but much more thankful for the present, as we should be now. I'm thankful for that past but I'm glad it's over, I'm much more thankful for the present. I'm happier now here today with you than I have ever been in my whole life. Every day gets better, every day is happier, life is just getting better all the time! I guess I'm going to be like the old lady, one of these days I'm going to die of improvements! PTL! Hallelujah! TYL! Amen Lord, help us to mean this Thy Prayer with all of our hearts as we pray it: (Prays the Lord's Prayer, Psalm 19:14 & "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep".)
121. DO BLESS & KEEP US ALL SAFELY IN THY CARE AS YOU HAVE, THANK YOU FOR IT! Give us a good night's rest, Lord. Heal these bodies that have been sick, strengthen the tired & weary bodies, Lord, who worked long & hard today & are tired & sleepy now & wish I'd quit, God bless'm for being so patient. Help'm, Lord, to get a good night's sleep. Bless us all with our work, Thy work, & may it all be in Thy will. Have Thy way. Thy will be done, that's the best we can possibly pray, in Jesus' name. TYL! PTL!
122. THANK YOU FOR THE PAST YEARS, LORD, THANK YOU FOR THIS YEAR, & THANK YOU FOR THE YEARS YET TO COME WHICH WE KNOW ARE COMING! TYJ! PTL! Thank You for everything! TYL! God bless you all! You're dismissed! Good night! God bless & keep you! ILY! I had a lot of things to remember. That's about all old men have is memories! May you have many happy memories Forever!--In Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1997 by The Family
