Remembering my grandparents reminded me of a couple who were good friends of my parents.  They were at least 15 to 20 years older, but they immediately bonded together.

Wendell (Scotty) and Doris Scott.  When I first met them they lived in Alfalfa, Oregon; a very small community a few miles east of Bend.  It was an unincorporated area with a combination gas station and small grocery store like a lot of other little communities spread out across our state.  

They were in walking distance of the store, but back then that could mean a couple of miles.

Now, it is almost included in the town of Bend since Bend has extended so much in that direction.  The store is gone.

I used to love going out there.  They didn’t have running water; the only water in the house was a hand pump over the kitchen sink.  They did have electricity and phone, but if I recall right they had a wood kitchen stove and heated their house with a wood stove.

No matter when we walked into that home, it smelled of fresh baked bread and pastries.  Even today, when I smell bread baking I am transported back to Doris’s kitchen.

I can remember going to the outhouse (had never seen outdoor toilets) and one week I spent a few days with them, that’s the first time I learned that people bathed in the irrigation ponds, in fact first time I ever saw one.

Scotty was an outdoorsman.  He hunted in all the seasons, fished in season and filled his freezer with wild game.  I know he and dad spent a lot of time together on the Deschutes River fishing for steelhead.

Scotty was a mechanic, but a farmer at heart.  They had cows, horses and turkeys – probably some chickens but I only remember the one.

My grandmother, the one that raised chickens for eggs and meat to sell, sent me a full grown hen for my 2^nd or 3^rd birthday.

We lived in the center of Redmond, in a converted garage and the only place we could keep it was the storage shed the landlords let my folks use.  So, it had to go.

We took it out to Scotty and Doris’s place.  I can remember every visit I had to see ‘my chicken,’ now who knows if it was the same one or not, but they always had her there for me.

One time an animal had taken down one of the turkey hens and killed it.  My hen sat on the eggs and when they hatched she raised them as her own.  It was a funny sight as they followed here around the barn yard, several sizes larger than her.

I remember the time we visited them and Scotty was so proud of the new pasteurizing machine (for milk) he had in his kitchen.  He showed it off to my Dad like it was a luxury car.  Can’t remember just what he said, but I ‘think’ it had to do with getting more money for his milk.  I just remember the pride he felt in showing it.

They had one son in the Air Force and another in high school.  If the son was sent out to get the cows I was always elated – he would saddle up a horse and I got to ride with him to get them.  If was just Scotty we walked through the pastures to get them, not as much fun.

They moved over to the Willamette Valley so we didn’t get to see them as often.  They actually worked with my grandparents on harvesting their crops.

The first time we visited them it was like I was once again back in Alfalfa, similar type house and acreage AND that wonderful smell of bed baking.

I lost touch with them over the years.  Then one day I was in Hood River on the road towards Odell, when I walked into a gas station/mini-mart and there was Scotty coming out.  They had moved to a small orchard in Hood River.

I told my folks where they were and my mom told me to tell them to come down, my dad would serve them fresh salmon from the ocean.

I relayed that to Scotty.  He said he would do it but only if my dad caught the fish himself, “understand?”  Don’t know if they ever connected.

We visited them a few times after that, I wanted Carla to meet them.

Loved those two!

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2 Samuel 22:47 The Lord liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.

We are so fortunate that we can claim this verse as our own.  He IS the rock of our salvation.  He is able to support my fears, my concerns, my questions, and most importantly my deliverance from a life of eternal damnation.

But to claim such a verse, we must understand that God IS God.  That His Word is written so that we shall know the truth, so we shall not only understand and learn about the history of the Jewish nation, but how their response to Him either lifted them up or put them in grave danger.

We learn the nature of God and His demands on His people AND the compassion, the mercy and the forgiveness He provides. 

We can rest on such promises because, through Christ, we have become one of His children.  An inheritance that is far greater than any other.

One of the greatest gifts, outside of salvation, is His desire to provide us with the wisdom we need in sharing His love, working and serving Him and countering the attacks of satan.

I lack His wisdom in so many ways.  But James helps make it clear that we can go on from fearing God as the beginning of wisdom to gaining the wisdom and knowledge He has to offer.

James 1:5-8  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

⁶ But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

⁷ For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

⁸ A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

⁸ A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

We ask for things, but forget that in order to receive them we must trust Him, believe in Him and follow Him. 

The promises are there for us to claim, but only under the conditions God puts down, not what our opinion of what He should do, but what He tells us to do.

So many times in my life, I have forgotten that fact.

I need to focus on my obligations to Him, not just to the benefits I receive by accepting him.

Later, Art (-: