Behold, I have set the land before you:go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers…….Deuteronomy 1:8 KJV

 Across the county road from where I live today is an old farm house where I was born. My mother was born on the farm and in the house most of my aunts and uncles were born. The house is over a hundred and twenty-five years old and around 1900 was moved from a site two miles down the creek. The original house was just two rooms and an attic. It was moved by horses who pulled it as it rolled along on logs. The people lived in the house as they moved it up the creek, probably took several days and maybe even weeks to get moved. My great grandfather bought the farm sometime in the early 1900’s, my grandfather then bought the farm around the early 1930’s. 

I have many memories from all through my life that took place on the farm, the house, the barn, the chicken house, and the shops. I was able to own 43 acres in 1985 and moved from Kansas City to Wright County. Later in 2003 I was able to purchase from my aunts and uncles the farm house, 6 acres and the surrounding out buildings. 

 My grandmother started measuring the grand kids on the door post and walls sometime in the early 1960’s. The measurements  are still there, as a matter of fact when I moved in the house in 1998 I started measuring anyone who visited on a large 4x8 sheet of asbestos that used to hang behind a wood stove in the middle bedroom. I have no idea how many measurements are on it, maybe 400 or more. My grandkids are measured all the way from babies to grown adults, many cousins, aunts and uncles and my friends who have happened by in the last 28 years. In that same bedroom there is an old set of steel box springs and bed frame (different mattress) of the bed that I was born on. 

 I was measured in the barn on a post as granny milked the cows. She would notch a post with a pearing knife when I would visit. My father was in the military and so we moved often, from an early age I lived in Idaho, then Texas, Germany, Washington DC, France, San Antonio, and then Kansas City. I am measured on the post at the age of three before we went to Germany, then when we got back and I was seven, when we left for France at 9 years old, when we got back at eleven, when I moved to KC at 14 years old, before I went to Vietnam at 20 and when I returned from Vietnam at 21 years old. Today I can still go in the barn and look at the post and go back in time.

Thanks for letting me share this with you, in my life I can truly say that God has done for me what I could not do for myself………Jerry

“Not that I speak in respect to want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Philippians 4:11 KJV

  The apostle Paul when he wrote this had been through many hard times, and it makes me think about how he could feel and say this. He surely was drawing from an inner strength that came only from God. He had been beaten, stoned, and left for dead. He encountered trouble and strife everywhere he went, but after having a personal experience with Jesus he could see beyond what was going on in his life at the moment.

 The spiritual principle I see in this is Peace, and can be also found in the Serenity Prayer “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change”. I have come to understand that change is the only thing constant. Of course this does not apply to God who is never changing and always the same.

I have been discontented many times in my life and still experience it today, but I am learning like Paul who learned, to be content. The early years of my life were spent in cities, Kansas City, San Antonio, Paris, Washington DC, and many others. I moved to the country forty-one years ago living a dream to some day live in the country. When I moved here I bought some land from my grandmother which was part of the family farm. I was in high heaven. I bought a little trailer and moved it as far back in the woods that I could, cleared for the power lines and had a well drilled. I thought that I was content. Little did I know how homesick I would become for people and the city life that I was used to. I used to go and drive down by the highway and just sit and watch the cars go by. Living in the woods didn’t turn out like I expected. 

 Today I find it just the opposite, when I travel to a major city I long to get back to the solitude of rural life, I have become content living in the country. Being content or discontent I find is not about my circumstances but about my attitude and acceptance. When I realize that whatever is going on in my life is the way it is, and I accept it as being that way, then possibly I can have some peace and contentment. I learned this from the Apostle Paul whose life was much harder than anything that I have to go through today. God is doing for me what I could not do for myself, Thanks for letting me share……..Jerry

“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.”

                          James 4:14 KJV

 My father in law Clifford Campbell told me that when he turned 80 years old that everything changed. He lived several years after that, and I often wondered about his statement. As I have approached 80 yrs I too think about what he told me. For years I looked at it in the physical sense but today I think about it in a different light. As I get older I realize that the sand in my hour glass is in the final phase. By the grace of God I feel good physically but Spiritually my mind is in a different place. Because of my selfishness and self-centeredness that ran rampant in my earlier years I was led to a life of pain and misery by hurting others and thinking only of myself. Many times I’ve been told “It ain’t all about you Jerry”. I am starting to realize that! For years now I have come to realize that service towards others is more rewarding than anything material that I have gained. I can look at examples like Moses who at 80 years old led the children of God away from bondage. I look at Joshua who at 80 led the same children into the promise land, and then I look at Caleb who at 80 or more conquered the hardest and most dangerous mountain in the promise land. There are many more examples in scripture and out of scripture of people in their 80’s who are accomplishing amazing things. Today I look forward to the years ahead if I am so blessed, and to remember as my wife who I love dearly has told me “ It ain’t all about you Jerry”. God is doing for me what I could not do for myself…….Jerry

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away.”

Psalm 90:10 KJV 

On August 2nd I celebrated 80 years of age, it is truly a blessing to have reached this milestone in my life. It is actually what I would call a miracle that has happened only because of the Grace and Mercy of Almighty God.   My life has been turned around from the way that I was headed 28 years ago. Because of alcohol and drugs I had become physically ill, morally wrong and spiritually bankrupt. September 12, 1998 I gave up and surrendered to alcohol and most of all I surrendered to God. I had nowhere to turn. 

 I found myself single with family moved away, and very few friends. I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior in 1984 while I was in jail for one of my many DWI’s and here it was 14 years later and the one true friend I had was my Savior and I turned unto Him. He loved me back like I had never left Him. I started going to church and attending AA meetings. The last DWI that I received in 1996 cost me my drivers license for ten years and I found myself at 52 years old having to ride a bicycle to get around and take care of my needs. I thought it was a curse to have to ride a bike at my age, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It required exercise to get around and because of the exercise I became healthier and my depression was lifted. I had to quit smoking which was an added benefit to not have a drivers license.

 As part of my daily routine I started writing a small daily page that I shared with others through email, it dealt mainly with Scripture and my daily recovery from drugs and alcohol. I wrote most mornings for six years of so and then my life changed when I got my drivers license back. My whole routine changed. Today I hope to start writing again, it has been a twenty year void in my Life. God has done for me what I could not do for myself.