129- Busy Days and Bleak Moods

August – November, 1984

Every room in the solar house had large windows. It was open and bright and full of light. Even on gray days, we could watch the configurations of the clouds moving across the great expanse of sky.

In contrast, the Grandview house was not grand at all. It was in a subdivision and had only a few skimpy windows. My friends Jan and Susan volunteered and pitched in to help me clean, but the landlord would not allow us to paint. The house was north facing and the walls were gray and dreary and the natural light was dim. It became a depressing place for me.

My saved calendars showed that we kept up our active life. Three days after we moved, I packed up the boys and drove Tim to a church in Sparks where he enthusiastically went to Vacation Bible School every morning for a week. Then we visited my parents and family in southern California for a week.

We were a few blocks from the city park which hosted the annual hot air balloon races.

We took a 24-hour family vacation at River Rest Resort in ___. PICTURE

Dan worked long hours at the church building project, like 50, and later 60. We went to Sunday morning, Sunday night church, and joined a class and Wed Bible study in friends’ homes.

In October, 1984, Mark was hospitalized for possible thyroid pills overdose. I had gone into the bathroom and found that Dan’s pill bottle was open, the contents spilled (there were no pharmacy child locks then). We could not determine how many had fallen down the heater vent and how many Mark might have ingested. He acted normal. Dan rushed our 2 1/2 year old to the ER and I called the church prayer chain. I wish I could remember the man’s name who prayed with me. He professed with perfect confidence that Jesus is the healer, prayed Bible verses, and affirmed that Mark would suffer no ill effects. He proclaimed that Jesus had intervened and that it would be as if the event had never happened. Mark never exhibited any adverse symptoms and was released after three days. I truly believe the Lord stepped in through the man’s faith-filled dynamic prayers.

Nancy sent perfect little red capes that she had sown for the boys so they could play Superman, and we used them for their Halloween costumes over their long underwear.

My calendar notes show that we had the family Christmas dinner at our place. That meant eight extra people–and I’m sure that brought a lot of stress!

My journaling appears to have decreased sharply soon after we moved to Grandview. I am missing almost three months of devotional pages. That journal/binder is old and the rings are wobbly and some pages may have fallen out. OR it could be that I was feeling old and tired and wobbly and overwhelmed, and did not pursue the Lord with diligence. When the dated pages resume, they have skimpy notes and there is no record of any interaction with the Lord, just scattered verses and quotes from books. Another notebook has notes from sermons, so I was getting to church. Besides recovering from the great disappointment of not moving into what we felt was the next phase of our calling to Japan, my hormones were probably drastically depleted and going crazy because of six years of pregnancies and nursing babies. I was worn down and my moods were bleak.

Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.