April, 11, 2021

Yesterday was Diane's birthday. I was thinking today that I met her just before her eighteenth one. I don't think I gave her anything then, which was only a couple of weeks or so after our "chance" encounter in a high school study hall. Yesterday, however, I pampered her. I made her steak and egg (yes just one) for breakfast, did the dishes, made her dinner as well. I gave her a card the evening before, a new kindle book she wanted, and took her out to early dinner with friends. She had a warm piece of pineapple upside down cake while there. All in all I think it was a good day for her. She deserved it.

I have lived thru many birthdays with Diane, and she like all of us is getting older, but she, not like everyone else, is improving as a person. I know why that is. She has a big, kind, and good heart. Her heart is turned and tuned towards God. She seeks Him out first thing in the morning. She turns towards Him and talks to Him when something good or bad happens and she doesn't wait to do that. Her relationship with God is as natural to her as breathing. Sometimes but only on rare occasion, she may have a cough, a hiccup, but I can count the times that has happened over the last fifity years on one hand. She has had some tough things happen to her, been close to death on occasion, and she turned to Him then. Her love for God only grows. She absolutely knows where her strength and her salvation comes from. She receives God's love and she gives her love back.

At times I have been a bit jealous of how she gives herself to her Lord. I can remember back when she was in college and one night we were talking on the phone. She told me that she had gone to a student Bible study and learned about being filled with the Holy Spirit and Presence of God. She wasn't sure what that meant or how it worked, but she knew she wanted it. I realized then that she had more of a desire to have a very close relationship with God than I did, at the time. Her words made me think hard. Good thing it did because we needed to be equally yoked, as the Bible puts it, in order to have a good marriage which was soon to take place.

I love her, and I love how she loves the Lord God and his Son. My life is better for it. There is no doubt about that.

I think that this psalm written by King David describes how he felt about his Lord, and it fits how Diane feels about hers.

Pdalm 63

1 O God, You are my God;

Early will I seek You;

My soul thirsts for You;

My flesh longs for You

In a dry and thirsty land

Where there is no water.

2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,

To see Your power and Your glory.

3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,

My lips shall praise You.

4 Thus I will bless You while I live;

I will lift up my hands in Your name.

5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,

And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.

6 When I remember You on my bed,

I meditate on You in the night watches.

7 Because You have been my help,

Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.

8 My soul follows close behind You;

Your right hand upholds me.

9 But those who seek my life, to destroy it,

Shall go into the lower parts of the earth.

10 They shall fall by the sword;

They shall be a portion for jackals.

11 But the king shall rejoice in God;

Everyone who swears by Him shall glory;

But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.