A Simple Life
It is 7:08 AM early Saturday morning and I wasted. Last night we went to bed around 9 o’clock and woke up at Midnight because I felt weird and my hands were numb. When I got up Beth had just gotten home and Josiah was watching television. I ate something and sat waiting to get tired enough to go back to bed. Carol got up at 1 o’clock in the morning to eat something. We went back to bed at 1:30 AM. I laid in the dark next to my wife listening to music. Finally I fell asleep and woke up at 5 o’clock to go to the bathroom. Carol was awake and I was now awake so we got up together to face existence in a sin cursed world. This afternoon we are having a lunch birthday get together for Carol’ mother. Carol’s mother’s birthday in this coming Monday, she will be 79 years old. Carol’s younger brother is coming over with his wife for the lunch get together. Right now the house smells like meat because Carol is preparing barbecue for the Noon meal. I feel sick tired but I have a headache and do not want to go back to bed with my head pounding. I have been sitting in the living room in the dark drinking tea and waiting for existence to go by. Soon it will be time to eat breakfast and look through the morning paper. I need to go to an office supply store later this morning and buy ink for my fountain pen. Carol also needs office supplies. My day Off will go by like it did last Saturday. Carol just said the paper is here and it is going to be a pretty sunrise.
Last night I looked through my diaries of 1978 and 1979 to see where I was at before I married Carol. Carol and I got married in May 1979. I did not write anything from January 1979 till May 1979. I started writing in my diary in June 1979 after Carol and I got back from our honeymoon. I did write off and on during the year 1978 when I lived in Richmond, Calif. I left California around the end of August 1978 to attend Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids Michigan. I had made arrangement to work at Mel Trotter’s Mission in Grand Rapids Mich. as a Night Supervisor while attending college. In the past I had worked in a rescue mission in California as a young Christian for a couple of years, so I had experience in rescue mission work. The plan was to get room and board at Mel Trotter’s while attending college. I received I think $60.00 dollars a week for being a Night Supervisor at Mel Trotter’s Mission. I also had to preach and teach once in awhile while living and working at the mission. I found those sermon messages last night in my diaries for 1978 and 1979. I have on cassette tape some of those sermons preached at Mel Trotter’s Mission. So I do not have any diaries during the months Carol and I was dating. I met Carol in September of 1978 and we decided to get married around the end of March 1979. We got married in May because my first year of Bible College was over and we could then go on our honeymoon without worrying about school.
I think back in December of 1978 I had planned to stop writing in my diary, but changed my mind in June 1979. I was starting a new life as a married man and wanted to keep track of my life with Carol. So I must have started writing again that month June 1979 and I have not stopped writing since. I have mountains of diaries from June 1979 till January 2002. Where has time gone? We are here for such a short period of time and then eternity. Yesterday was Caleb’s birthday he was 21 years old; he was born in 1981. Time just keeps going by. Josiah was born in 1982 and Bethany in 1984. In my diaries I have recorded the history of my children up to this moment. Josiah has started writing a diary since starting college this year. Maybe Joe will keep a diary till the Lord calls him home?
During the year 1978 I was living in California in the town of Richmond which is in the San Francisco Bay Area. As I look back to those days all I can say was that I was a wild young backslide Christian. But the Lord had mercy on me and here I sit today seeking to live a holy life for the glory of God. I am thankful for the Lord’s goodness shown to me over the last 49 years. I am thankful for the Lord giving me a godly wife and three fine young adult children. It is a blessing to wake up this morning to a warm house and a loving wife. All I have always wanted in life was a Simple Life. Well I am going to close to eat breakfast and look through the morning paper.
8:18 a.m. - 2002-01-26
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