My Friend Bonnie

Bonnie is a neighbor that lives across the street. Several mornings a week she walks over bringing her cup of coffee. Her visit always puts a smile on my face because she always brings her own coffee, her own brand and strength. Sandra’s cup is filled with her own brand and her extra strong coffee. My cup is always filled with my favorite cappuccino, with a kicker. My mix is two scoops of cappuccino with an added spoonful of instant coffee, a real waker-upper.
Bonnie is a widow lady that lived her life in a small community just outside of New Orleans, a true Cajun lady. She lived there until she was wiped out by one of the hurricanes. After the storms that’s when she, her daughter and her two grandkids moved across from us.
I treasure her morning visits and enjoy hearing her stories of her family and the people “back home”.
Today when she came to visit I could tell she was in pain but Bonnie was upbeat and did not complain about her hurts.
During this visit there was a short discussion about the hurting people throughout the world. Then as she was leaving she turned to me and made this statement: “I give thanks to God every few minutes on how blessed I am”.
Think about that-she gave thanks every few minutes for her blessings! How many of us, after suffering so many hardships, could find any blessings to thank God for?
Bonnie has that spark of faith that many seek but few ever find. She knows that He is always by her side. She knows He is always there to talk to.
Bonnie makes my world a better place to live in.

I ask My Friend: Is it necessary to use formal prayer language each time I pray?
My answer was: When you are troubled or feel you want to give thanks, speak to me as a friend. No buildings or special places are needed. I am always by your side, special words are unnecessary, use the same words you would use when speaking to another frie

Bullying

All of my life I have had to contend with bullies all who have tried (in one way or another) to make my life miserable and difficult as they could.
Growing up in the Great Depression and having to live on the poorer side of town lead to my being beat-up regularly by gangs in that neighborhood.
In high-school I had one big kid that seemed like his only goal in life was to make me miserable as he could. At one time I even considered taking Dad’s gun from the dresser drawer and putting an end to his harassment.
After much thought I decided I would first try another way. This kid’s locker was next to mine so that put him nearby several times each day and each time he would hit push or call me bad names.
The day of my decision he started by name calling. I looked at him and smiled. Then: with every ounce of force I could muster I through that punch. I had intended to smack him between the eyes but my aim was low-I hit him on the end of the nose-breaking it-blood spurted all over his face and shirt. I took out my handkerchief and started helping him blot up his blood. He was still bleeding profusely when the principal came running up.
The bully explained to him that he had stumbled and hit an open locker door. My principal looked at me and winked.
My revenge was complete when the tape came off the broken nose.
The nose had healed with the outer half-inch pointing at about a forty-five degree angle from the other part! He would always look down, then think twice before calling anyone else names. He would always have to live with that kink on his nose and remember how it got there.
Throughout my school years my coaches were always some of the worst other bullies. They all wanted “to make a real man out of me”. It never worked and apparently they never understood that I was happy with the man I already was.
I ran into the same type of bullying when I “had words” with my drill sergeant in the military.
The very worst of the worst bullies I have run into are the ones that I call “Bible Bullies”, the priests, ministers, and lay persons that use their interpretation of the Bible to threaten the lives of people who trust them.
An example of this follows: I was sitting at a restaurant in Canada I had been with our group visiting a museum. I was tired so I went there ahead of the rest of the entourage. I was sitting at a table watching the waitresses prepare for our group. Suddenly one of the waitresses stopped at my table, she was a lady probably in her early to mid twenties. She looked at me with tearful eyes and then she said “My life is over, I’m going to Hell.” I sat there, shocked for an instant, I never had a stranger start a conversation that way before. Before long I learned that her minister had told her she was going to Hell with no recourse or repentance. Later (after I had explained that the Instruction Book I read would give her many ways to prevent just that from happening) she confided in me that she had married “out of her church” and that’s what brought her world tumbling down around her. As I walked away from that restaurant I could not envision what book her minister had been reading. I always believed the Bible I read to be the instruction book to heaven and it never was to be used as a threat to keep anyone from walking in their promised land.
I have witnessed both priests and ministers denying the sacrament to members of their churches. I ask My Friend about this.
This was His reply; “The sacrament should never be used as a tool of punishment either by the church or oneself. Everyone who partakes of the sacrament is worthy, for it is a tool of faith”.

Light Switch Christians

When I was told to start this blog one of my instructions was “While others teach using the scriptures, yours is to speak softly and use a tender touch”.
That sounded easy at first glance but I found it was necessary to use quite a bit of God Stuff to introduce this Bob to you.
Some would call it faith, call it what you want, I knew my Heavenly Father was always by my side as early as age four or five as I skipped home from Sunday school singing “Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know” at the top of my voice.
This part of my life has not changed. I still believe He is by my side awake and asleep. Yes-like each of us, I have taken Him places that later I was ashamed to have taken Him. Even then I still knew He was always there. I could never see Him, I could never reach out and touch Him, I guess that’s why they call it faith because I always knew He was there.
Because I knew He was always there, I never felt that I had to use special words to talk to my Friend. I never had to flip a switch and wait for Him to appear, then when I was through with Him, flip the off switch and He would be gone- kind of a out of sight out of touch switch.
Knowing of his all-time presence has had a major effect on my use of profanity in my speech. It’s kind of like, if I wouldn’t use those words in church why would I ever use them in front of Him?
Please don’t look upon me as a “Dudley Do Good”. I have desires and temptations like everyone else, I have messed up many many times and I’m sure I’ll mess up again but that changes nothing. I know He is still right there ALWAYS by my side.
If you feel I have gone a little heavy on the God Stuff please bear with me. I felt this blog was necessary to help you know this Bob.
I wanted you to meet my Unseen Friend, the One I never have to flip the switch to have Him appear and then flip the off switch so I can live my life as I choose.

God wants us to smile

I know you wonder how Bob comes up with some of his stuff. Before I start, I’m going to give you an idea of how I came up with this one.
I work many hours each day on the computer and all I see is that big square eye looking back at me. This morning I had been moving the mouse and pushing buttons for about an hour when Sandra asked me if I would like to get away from the computer for awhile and go with her to Walmart.
I agreed and we set off for the store. After I parked I decided to stay in the car while she shopped. I like to just sit and think and watch people. As I sat there several little things made me smile, then the thought broke through, ”God wants us to smile”. I consider a smile a blessing I can give and also a blessing I can receive. When I smile I believe My Heavenly Father is also smiling as I know He is always by my side.
God puts smiles there to make us feel good. I was setting in the car (on the sunny side) with the outside temperature at 88 degrees, the windows were down and there was a nice breeze. Then a thought came into my heart; how many times had I smiled in the short time I had been parked there?
I started reflecting; I had looked into the clouds and I saw the image of a dog-then I smiled. A familiar face passed my window-I smiled, they smiled back. An unfamiliar face passed my window-I smiled, they to smiled back. I looked toward the door of the store as a man walked out, he was talking on a cell phone, he was talking with his hands as well as his voice-I smiled. An elderly lady drove round and round the parking lot looking for a place near the door. She must have driven ten miles before finding a place across from me. She got out, locked her door and went into the store. A few minutes later out she came with only a frosty bottle of water in her shopping cart-I smiled.
It was while sitting in that parking lot, that while thinking back I could not begin to count the many times I had smiled or been smiled at. It was then I realized that God wanted me to smile because he had given me so many opportunities.

Introduction

This blog is from a different Bob than the one most of you know. Part of it will contain answers I have received to question I have ask.
My pastor tells me that all the answers to all of my questions can be found in the Bible, but if they are all there I have a hard time translating those scriptural answers to many of my everyday life questions. Early in life I learned if you wanted a correct answer to a question, you don’t go to someone for their ideas you go to the source. That is just what I have learned to do.
Now is a good time to click that mouse and go someplace else if you think you don’t like the direction this site is taking you.
I believe My Father In Heaven is always at my side. I talk to him as I would to any other good friend. When I have a question I ask it. Being Bob many of my questions may sound strange to you, but at the time they were ask they were important to me. I never expect an immediate answer, although sometimes I receive one, I have learned God’s time is much different than my time, after all I’m not the only acorn on the oak tree. I’ve also learned that sometimes no answer IS the answer.
I have been instructed to write each answer and if I don’t write it word for word as it comes into my heart, then into my head, and finally to my writing hand I can think no other thoughts until it is written just as it was given to me. After each answer is completed I’ve been instructed to date the answer.
For many years I was guilty of snap judging others. As I aged I realized it was difficult to judge others without having first walked in their shoes. It was only then I realized that I had been judging me and I had walked in my shoes all of my life! It became time to stop those judgments of both myself and others. I still have opinions, but I try to leave judging to my Father In Heaven.
I have had many lessons in humility throughout my life. The harshest was the nine or ten years I helped at a prison ministry. In that time I have held sobbing young men in my arms after they had been gang raped the night before. I have hugged middle aged men and later learned that my hug has the first hug they had ever received. The stories I have been told would make a book in themselves.
That’s about it for this first session. I’ll try to come up with the next installment in a short time. Thank you for not clicking that mouse. I hope to see you again real soon.