Not an Hair of Your Head Shall Perish

A lot of hair fell off of my boys' heads last weekend as a result of long overdue haircuts!

I was reminiscing that I had bought this child's hair clippers about 10 years ago, when Danny was still a wee boy. It still works on his fine hair, though I have to use regular clippers for the other men in the family.

A lot of patches of hair piled up on the floor around the chair, which I swept up and threw away.

We don't pay too much attention to our lost hairs. They aren't worth a whole lot--

especially when they are no longer attached to our head!

Or when you find one in your bite of mulberry peach cobbler like I did tonight when I got up from bed and had a (shhh!)  midnight snack complete with a hair that I pulled out of one bite.

 We had company this evening, Tim and Candy, Jonathan's parents, and the Frenches.

We figure if we are going to have company, we might as well have three sets of them at once.

That way, Danny announced at the table, "we only have to clean up once!"

Why do little boys have to say things like that in front of company???

Don't they know our house is always in perfect order at all times???

 It's okay! This batch of friends feel at home where things aren't quite perfect.

We sat at table talking and listening to everything from talk of the dollar value being in trouble

to how this mass shooter in Texas used to live in a trailer park right here in Colorado Springs only blocks from Foothills Missionary Church.

Then conversation switched to stories about the deep underground salt mines in Kansas, stories about how Tim helped come to the rescue years ago when his oil drilling crew in Montana was pulling a pipe from the ground and ended up with boiling hot water from underground spouting yards high into the air,

to talk of my nephew's 100% grade on a history test in college class causing problems about simply curving the grade!

There was discussion about GMO foods and how American farmers spray routinely with Roundup, and how the honeybee population is being destroyed and American people are being fed very unhealthy, genetically modified, pesticide-laced, refined foods devoid of the trace minerals that used to be in food our grandparents ate.

So we are grateful for the  wild elk meat we had in meatballs tonight, and the grass-feed beef we have in our freezer, and the milk from a goat.

Our Timmy has been raising honeybees and was sad to see that the wind had blown a hive over and the cover off another just a few days ago.

Here Rose is holding a big board as windbreak while Timmy tries to rescue as many bees as he can,

getting stung in the process this time.

We also shared some jokes tonight, because laughter is good medicine.

And lots of hugs.

Because hugs are medicine, too.

"Those hugs mean a lot today," said one of our company as she headed out the door

after bundling her little dog into its sweater!

"Have another one!" I said, giving a second hug.
Sometimes hugs are all that keep a person going when they must bundle up against the cold of the world.

 And when hugs are scarce--real, true-blue hugs that aren't just shallow and formal--
you have to reach out to God for His.

Jonathan and I snuggled up close in bed tonight after all the excitement was over and the house calmed down and the children were in bed.

We realized what a blessing it was to have each other.

To have each other in the middle of the world's bleak cold, with the dollar devaluing and mass shooters on the rampage over and over,

and relationships all around us crumbling.

We need the warmth of each other's love, and the assurance of our Father's faithfulness.

All these things will happen, Jesus told us long ago, so that we would not be surprised. 

And "you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."

"But not an hair of your head shall perish."

So even though we may face hardship and trials, our heavenly Father has a beautiful warmth

that we can huddle up into, like the cozy blaze of our woodstove on cold November nights.

"Don't be afraid," He told us. 

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you.

Not as the world gives give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid."