Watching A Sunset Makes You Long For Home.....With God

 November 27, 2024

LizSekerke

About 15 years ago, Chuck and I were traveling through Thermopolis, Wyoming on our motorcycle when we looked up and saw the sun setting just behind this church steeple.

This picture has always reminded me of something my friend, the late Sandee Casey, once shared with me:

"My mom used to tell me that watching a sunset will make you cry because in the perfection that God displays, you long for home with God. Perfection is the evidence that God exists and your soul yearns for that."

When we not only give thanks for the gifts in our own lives....but we desire.....yes DESIRE... to become that gift in other people's lives, just as Sandee so easily was in mine, well....that's when Thanksgiving becomes Thanks-Living. When we are able to tweak the focus of the lens on our own tired eyes onto someone other than ourselves...well, then you have arrived at Thanksgiving. Everything that truly matters in living......comes down to giving.

Thanksgiving....is more than a holiday, friends....it's meant to be ALL our days.

Rest In Peace, my sweet Sandee, and thanks for reminding me to Live Thanks.

Tuesdays With Pappo

 November 18, 2024

TUESDAYS WITH PAPPO

LizSekerke

#tuesdayswithpappo

DAD: “Softie, can you teach me how to remember names. There just has to be a good way to do this. Check on that for me, would you.....and get back to me on it.”

Liz: “Pappo...I can’t even remember to remind myself to check on how to remember. You're on your own on this one."

Nothing Is Hopeless

November 19, 2024

"A rattlesnake bit one of my sheep in the face about a week ago. Deadliest snake that lives around here. The sheep's face swelled up and hurt her terribly.

But the old rattlesnake didn't know the kind of blood that flows through the sheep. Anti-venom is most often made from sheep's blood. The sheep swelled for about 2 days but the blood of the lamo destroyed the venom of the serpent.

I was worried but the sheep didn't care. She kept on eating, kept on drinking and kept on climbing because she knew she was alright.

Often the serpents of this life will reach out and bite us. They inject their poison into us but they cannot overcome the Blood of the Lamb of God that washes away the sin of the world and the sting of death. Don't worry about the serpent or his bite, just make sure that the Lamb's Blood is flowing through your veins."

Kelly Kupiec

When life takes you on a journey down a road you never planned or agreed to walk down, this is a good reminder that nothing is hopeless....and that you are going to be just fine.....if you carry the antidote of HOPE in your bloodstream......the Blood of Jesus.

Liz

Be Thankful

 November 13, 2024

Be Thankful

LizSekerke

Twelve years ago, I sat in a church classroom with 10 other women for four Tuesdays in November. It had been a particularly difficult year....a lot of death....a lot of pain....and together, we explored how to be "Thankful" in our circumstances through a book titled, "One Thousand Gifts".

I had just finished studying the book of James.....and who can't think of the book of James without thinking about his first chapter, second verse:

"Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials."

Nothing like getting straight to this bizarre point, James. But that's where we are....right now....giving thanks in our circumstances. It's impossible to talk about giving thanks without talking about the pain. We would find no purpose in giving thanks if not for the thousands of gut-wrenching trials we face each day......

"You defeat your dark when Thanksgiving is your default.

It is in the dark that God is passing by." *

What I discovered those four weeks in November was that by breaking down the tunnel-vision walls of our pain and broken hearts.....and choosing instead to count, WRITE DOWN, search throughout each day for all the blessings God has hidden just for you to find....we begin living the full experience of these blessings.....and our lives start changing.

So go on a Scavenger Hunt today and find those nuggets of blessings God has placed in your day ahead! They're there; you just have to open your eyes and see them!

When we receive a life with thanksgiving and ask for nothing to change......"Life Change" begins.

Tuesdays With Pappo: No Tipping Please.....

 Tuesdays With Pappo

November 9, 2024

This man.....Pappo....a man who enjoys giving to others.....celebrating people who do a good job....who leaves little notes of "Thanks" on napkins at restaurants and "Tips" at his Independent Living Center Dining Room, was feeling a little down this week when I arrived.

This notice was staring back at him when he sat down to eat today....No Tipping.

He knew it was meant for him.....as he's the only one he knew of that tipped the staff.

A disappointing day for my Pappo.....

#tuesdayswithpappo

We Talk About Them Because They Were Ours

 November 5, 2024

LIZ PRAYER JOURNAL - November 5, 2018

6:00 am

Father God, I checked to make sure Chuck was still breathing before coming in to journal to You. Lightly. Not gasping as he has so often been lately. Father, I don't know what lies ahead...I truly don't....but I know Your plan is mightier than mine....and I know You placed me here at this very time for this very moment.

10:36 pm.

Right after writing the words above to You, I went to wake Chuck up. He was gone. He was Healed. It was 6:30 am. A wheelchair will never be a part of his life ever again. You handed this man I married a Gift....a beautiful Gift of Mercy today...Please walk me through the next few weeks when I can't see through the tears of my selfish grief.

Your Grateful but Sad Daughter

Liz

2024

As I write this, it was 6 years ago almost to this minute God called him Home ...yet Chuck's presence is still felt here next to me.

We see evidence of him from the first step through our front door where we see his tanned-smiling-face standing proudly on his "Keepin' It Cool" boat in a frame next to Wayne's late wife, Cyndi's. His leather hat hangs boldly on the wall of the most used room in the house....the 1/2 bath. His Luxury Edition Monopoly game he just "had" to have many years ago that the granddaughters (and their boyfriends) still play on when they're in town, sits smack dab in the middle of the dining room table, and His beloved tools still hang proudly in the garage.

Chuck is very present in our home.

Today, as we visit him and Cyndi at their final resting place at the National Cemetary....both sharing the same death date.....we will pull out Cyndi's lawn chairs, laugh and remember....as we toast them throughout the day by eating breakfast at Chuck's favorite IHOP ...then stopping at Cyndi's favorite, Torchey's, grabbing her beloved Hillbilly Queso and heading to Chuck's son, Troy's house tonight for some delicious smoked ribs....made on Chuck's old smoker.

They may not be physically with us today....but thank God....they are very much ALIVE!

"It is right for us to weep, but there is no need for us to despair. Chuck and Cyndi had pain here. They have no pain there. They struggled here. They have no struggles there.

You and I might wonder why God took them home. But they don't. They understand. They are, at this very moment, at peace in the presence of God."

Tuesdays With Pappo: "Family Foundation"

TUESDAYS WITH PAPPO

liz etheridge sekerke

Yesterday Pappo asked me, as he does most every week, whether I thought he and Mom did a decent job of raising us three kids and what I thought he should have done differently.

As we sat there in the Braums Ice Cream booth, I thought about his question.....about how I could provide an answer that would satisfy this need he has to know he didn’t fail as a Father.

I looked down and saw a square white napkin laying on the table. It reminded me of a slab of fresh concrete. I placed it in the middle of the table.....grabbed a few french fries and told him to pretend this was a concrete foundation for a house and these french fries were his family (enter a sweet giggle from him ). I explained this slab was the foundation he and Mom had built by pouring into us about a God who loves and cares deeply for us. And that if we just put our trust in God instead of ourselves and allowed Him to guide our lives and steps.....our foundation would never crack.

I reminded Dad that all three of his kids had built their own lives on this very foundation he and Mom had poured for us. Even though our lives all looked radically different....and we had all suffered damage from winds of hardships and storms of struggles in our lives, and yes, could have chosen to build our lives on a different foundation than the one he and Mom built for us....we didn't. Our foundation was sound.

I saw tears in his eyes as he looked at the napkin with the family of french fries before him. I hope and pray those tears were tears of realization that he had, indeed, not failed as a Dad.....as my Pappo.

Tuesdays With Pappo: Toilet Paper Origami

TUESDAYS WITH PAPPO

#tuesdayswithpappo                                                                                         8-29-2024

Every - Single - Week....while visiting my Pappo, he asks me the same question: "Softie, what new thing can I learn?"

If you've been reading Tuesdays With Pappo for any amount of time, you know Dad has a constant need to "learn" new things. It's built into him...it's in his DNA...he's always had a hankering to learn new things. He's tried most everything including the piano, the sewing machine, the mandolin, Youtube, repairing walkers, writing stories, knitting and yes, reluctantly...embroidering, And that's just in the last 12 months!

As we ate our burger and grilled cheese sandwiches this past week at a little hole-in-the-wall diner near his home, he once again asked me the weekly question:

"What new thing do you think I could learn to do?"

Truth is, he's searching for his "purpose" at the ripe old age of 96.  His body isn't able to move like it used to.....his pace is slower....there's a limp that didn't used to be there, and his mind.... well....his mind is still 26.

But this week, I arrived with the perfect answer to the weekly question:

Toilet-Paper-Origami

As I tried selling him on the idea that there was beauty in having fetching toilet paper folds on the role, he looked up from his burger with a scowl. "Just hear me out", I said. We emprovised by tearing off a long role of paper towels that were serving as napkins on our table and started folding. Before we knew it, we had a faux-toilet-paper-origami masterpiece made out of paper towels. Admittedly, he wasn't nearly as excited about it as I was, but it didn't matter! We showed it to everyone we met and they were WOWED and AMAZED....and I'm pretty sure I saw a small satisfied smile on his face.

SUCCESS......until next week!

Tuesdays With Pappo - Illegal Ties

 TUESDAYS WITH PAPPO

#tuesdayswithpappo

As Pappo and I returned to his Independent Living Center from our regular Cotton Patch lunch a few weeks ago, he informed me they had outlawed wearing a tie where he lived.

After a quick shake-of-my-head in disbelief, I asked him "Why??". He "claimed" he didn't know why but he thought someone died from wearing a tie there or something. But he wasn't sure.

We talked a little longer on this bizarre-illegal-tie-wearing-law when it suddenly came to me how he could get around it. I told him I needed to measure his neck first and, after digging through my purse and puling out my trusty always-with-me tape measure, I turned around to see this: His hands wrapped tightly around his neck to keep me away.

Seriously, all I wanted to do was measure him for a clergy collar as a tie-substitute. I thought it was a brilliant idea and a real knee-slapper if he wore it to his non-Catholic church.

He disagreed.

Tuesdays With Pappo - "I Have An Addiction"

 TUESDAYS WITH PAPPO

#tuesdayswithpappo

I received a voice message from my Pappo earlier this week asking me to call him as he had something very important to discuss with me. Now, please understand, with Pappo, that could be anything from “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” to “I’m really thinking I need to learn how to play the mandolin”.

So as I was heading home from HEB, I gave him a call back. Here’s how that conversation went:

PAPPO: ”Softie, I’ve discovered something. I have an addiction.”

LIZ: “An addiction? To what?”

PAPPO: “My walker”.

LIZ: “How do you have an addiction to your walker, Pappo?”

PAPPO: “I use it too much. But thats not what I want to ask you. I want to know where I can get a treadmill?”

LIZ: (Cleaning off the steering wheel where coffee just spit out her nose) Pappo, I think that’s a bad idea.

Between my sister and I, we convinced him he HAS a treadmill....it was the long, long Highway-to-Houston-Hallway just outside his independent living apartment door he might want to try walking instead.

PAPPO: “Oh....that’s a good idea!”