Is It True?

 A friend of mine and I were discussing the previous blog about Noah’s wife, and she expressed some doubt that such an occurrence (great flood) even took place.

“Do you really believe that happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“It’s really kind of farfetched. I mean, what kind of loving God would do that to all the people on the earth? And besides, they’ve never really found evidence of the ark around the mountains of Arafat.”

I told her that it didn’t matter to me whether scientists had found remnants of the ark or not. In fact, it doesn’t matter to me whether the whole story was a complete fabrication. What I do know is that it’s in the Bible and in the Quran and that we can learn some important lessons from it.

• Be obedient to the commandments of God. Treat people fairly and be a just and kindly person.

• If God tells you to do something, do it. This is true even if it seems preposterous and even if other people laugh at you. Don’t you just know that Noah’s neighbors and friends had many a guffaw at their weird neighbor who persisted in building an ark when there was no rain in sight?
• While you’re following His instructions, realize that there is plenty of preparation in planning for a rainy day. While we don’t anticipate another such divine deluge, I know that some rain will fall in everyone’s life, and we need to be prepared. Whether it’s job loss, hurricane, illness, fire, or injury, now is the day to get ready.

• Be grateful for the sunny days in your life, and even though there are storms and wind and rain, just know that they never last. Storms always pass; it’s nature’s way. When the floods recede, you might find yourself with a whole new set of circumstances, probably better ones.

• Whenever you start feeling sorry for yourself, think of how “uncomfortable” Noah’s wife must have been. I get cranky when the dishwasher needs unloading or I have to run to Wal-Mart for laundry detergent. She worked like crazy getting everything ready for the time aboard, taking care of animals, and tending to human needs like food preparation (at least I think she must have). And yet, we don’t even know her name.

So was there really a man named Noah who took his wife, sons, and their wives aboard an ark thousands of years ago? Did that same ark land on Mt. Arafat after months of floating on the rains that covered the earth? I don’t know. Neither do the scientists. Still, it’s a great story with many good lessons. Just wish Mrs. Noah had a name.

What's Her Name??

I spent a lot of time with my oldest daughter Carrie this past weekend, and we had some good conversations, especially when my daughter-in-law Amanda joined in our chats. At one point, Carrie was reminiscing about the days when her 7-year-old was a toddler suffering from acid reflux. Nothing seemed to soothe him, and on top of the demands of a crying baby, she had a big dog to take care of. The dog, Sandy, lived inside the house and was forever shedding hair and bumping into things.


At another time during the weekend, Carrie talked about what a breeze it was to pack for only one person for the weekend trip: herself. Anyone who’s ever had a family knows that taking a vacation with them can be stressful, especially when it comes to purchasing the appropriate clothes and making sure everything is laundered and packed. If the vacation involves camping, well then there’s the additional challenge of meal planning and food purchasing.

What has all of this to do with one of Eve’s sisters? Plenty! Although this woman in the Bible goes unnamed, I’ve lately begun to think a lot about her. What was Noah’s wife’s name, and how in the world did she do the planning, packing, and preparation needed for the time on the ark? It rained for 40 days, right? And then they were on the ark an additional 150 days waiting for the water to recede enough for them to leave the ship. In my wildest dreams (or nightmares), I cannot imagine such an ordeal.

For starters, what did Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives eat for 40 days? And how did they prepare it? There were no microwaves! Would cooking over a fire be too dangerous? Did they bathe? Did Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law wash clothes? If so, how? What did the animals eat? Incidentally, I read a guesstimate that suggested as many as 45,000 animals were aboard the ark! Geez Louise! Can you imagine the stench?! When Carrie was talking about her dog Sandy, we both talked about the “dog smell.” Although he was frequently bathed, Sandy smelled like the dog he was, and as mentioned above, he shed all over the place. He didn’t have many “accidents” since he was trained, but what if he’d been living on an ark and unable to go outside for a walk?

To add to the 45,000 animals on the ship with you for months, think about what you’d do all day everyday. It’s not as though they were reading or watching television or playing with a Wii. I suspect that everyone aboard was working to take care of the animals. How did they even know night from day? I think I read that there was a window, but still….but still. For 40 days and 40 nights, it’s raining like crazy, and you can’t really see outside. Plus, it’s probably pretty smelly inside, and all you get to do is work.

Before I get too carried away with this, I’ll just say that my lifestyle is one of incredible ease compared to that of this unnamed woman who probably worked just as hard as he did  to make the whole “Noah’s Ark” experience successful. While there are millions of women who care for animals, live in areas where there are monsoons, and live lives of drudgery, I can think of nowhere in the world where they endured what Noah’s wife and her daughters-in-law did.

2000 Years and Cultures Apart

There have been times in my life when I wasn’t able to make it to church. It could have been a sick child that kept me at home, or perhaps I was ailing. Then too, there were Sundays when we were traveling, actually enroute to or from somewhere. I’d often feel a little twinge of guilt about missing church, and to assuage it, my mother would often say, “The church is not going to fall down if you miss one Sunday, Jaynie.” I knew that. What I also knew was that I’d fall down without church, not vice versa. Without the consistent drops of oil, I’d be lost. Plus, I know how easy it is to miss the second Sunday and then the third and fourth once you’ve missed one.


Recently I read a statement about the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Christ’s garment. The author indicated that she didn’t come with the intention of merely looking at this man who could cause the lame to walk and the blind to see. She came to be healed, not to gawk and look. She had faith and KNEW her life would be changed. As I pondered that comment, I realized that she and I have something in common. Two thousand years and cultures apart, she and I both follow Him to be healed.

I go to church to learn and to be edified and uplifted by my fellow worshippers. I don’t go to gawk or look or show off…but to learn of Him. It happens every week. Guess I’d better get off the computer, pack the car, and head for home and church. I need some spiritual oil, and I know where to find it.

Lisa and Others

I’m a lucky gal to have so many wonderful friends who encourage, uplift, and inspire me. Most of them enlighten and teach me something every time I see them. And then some are quite entertaining and fun to be with. While they’re all different, they all have something in common: they’re good people trying hard to lead the best kind of life they can. We all slip and fall from time to time, and we all have our little weaknesses and soft spots, but when we fall, we get up, brush ourselves off, and get going. About those soft spots, well, we try not to let them get the better of us.

This post could be written about one of my friends, but tonight I have Lisa, one of my sisters-in-law, on my mind. It’s probably because I recently spent some time with her in Beaufort, NC where six of us had the opportunity to go on a sailing excursion. Becky, another sister-in-law was there too. Lisa, however, is the one who planned the trip and paid for the expedition itself. Sweet, huh? She’s like that. She wanted to do something special to celebrate my brother Mike’s 60th birthday, so the weekend was her brainchild. She even picked up the tab for dinner at the Front Street Restaurant that evening. That's her in the center of the picture above.

Here’s something I wrote about her five or six years ago that describes her to a tee.
“How fortunate we are to have Lisa in our family. My brother Mike’s wife,  Lisa, has always been stalwart and persevering in teaching Christian principles by both word and deed. Her spirit is sweet, and all within her sphere can sense her serene nature. Not only does Lisa work as a nurse at a large hospital, but she also performs all of the tasks involved in the so-called “second shift” described by sociologists. She plans and prepares healthy meals, decorates their home with taste and style, cleans and tidies their surroundings, shops wisely for bargains, takes care of everyone’s laundry, and rarely becomes ruffled.

"A good mother, Lisa has raised two responsible, mannerly sons who know of the presence of God in their lives and seek his guidance regularly. She and my brother have Sarah Beth, a young teenager who daily enters a war zone as she goes to high school, the mall, or social activities. Armed with years of her parents’ teachings and continuing immersion in church activities, she is helped in battling the adversary. My brother is blessed to have such a wife, someone who lovingly performs the duties of the virtuous woman spoken of in Proverbs.”

Proverbs 19:14
“She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children ariseu p, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

The Hundred Dresses

It’s hard not to enjoy yourself at a meeting when you’re surrounded with like-minded people who are supportive, encouraging, and caring. When the meeting itself is focused on individual growth and service to others, the enjoyment factor is moved up a notch.


Here’s what happened at Relief Society the other night. Three women took turns reading from a children’s book entitled The Hundred Dresses, a book about a little girl named Wanda who claimed to have one hundred dresses hanging in her closet. As far as the other girls could see, however, she only had one faded blue one that she wore day after day after day. They began to tease her about it, and then one day her father wrote a letter to the school announcing that he was moving his little family away from a place where his children were made fun of. To make a long story short, the other girls felt remorse at their behavior, but it was too late to make amends. One of them, Maddie, felt especially ashamed because although she had been feeling uneasy about the taunting, she had remained quiet.

You can guess the underlying themes in this book, and our leaders took the opportunity to remind us to show kindness to everyone regardless of social class, accent, race, appearance, or occupation. Everyone had been asked to bring a dress to donate to Sister Care, an organization for abused and battered women and their children. It was awesome to look around the room and look at the lovely dresses that had been donated.

After listening to the book and discussing its several themes, then several women shared stories about their favorite dresses. Some of them brought pictures of themselves wearing the dresses, and a couple actually wore them that night. Kitty wore an outfit that had cost a pretty penny a couple of decades ago, and the story about its purchase entertained us big time. I loved all the stories, but I think my favorite was Vickie’s because she brought pictures of her wedding that took place in June, 1971. Not only did she tell the interesting tale about how she found just the perfect dress for the right price, but she also told of how many things she and Joe had experienced in the nearly four decades since that June afternoon.

Since Thursday, I’ve been thinking of my favorite dresses. There are too many to write about! One I’m thinking of tonight, however, is an Easter dress that my mother made for me when I was a junior in college. It was made of some pink floral material with a little slinkiness about it. My sister had one too; hers was green. I’m not sure why this particular dress was so special unless it’s because we corresponded back and forth about it, and my sister and I knew how hard our mother was working on the dresses.

Dresses can make you feel beautiful…or kind of dowdy. I try to stay away from the latter. I thinking right now of some special little girls who LOVE to dress up in princess dresses. In fact, Brooke and Emma wore their pink princess dresses to see Toy Story last night. Lauren says that as soon as Sallie gets home every day, she changes into her Tinker Bell dress. Can you blame them for wanting to look like the princesses they are?

I probably should end this post with a serious note that reminds us to give to those less fortunate, to take up for those who are teased or mistreated, and to give to those less fortunate. But I’m not. You already know that, right? I’m going to end by asking about your favorite dress. Do you have a favorite one? What’s the story that goes with it?

Serving Apple Pancakes

This post isn’t about one of the women in the Bible but rather a talk I heard a woman give in church Sunday. One of the things I enjoy about listening to people speak in church is that they often add another twist to a familiar story or scripture that I hadn’t considered before. This past Sunday one of my daughters and I had the good fortune to attend Sacrament meeting in an Atlanta, GA ward, and every speaker gave me food for thought, especially a simple comment by the last speaker. And the goodies in the picture above? You'll have to read the post to see how they relate.

We’re all familiar with the verse in Joshua in which he tells the Israelites that for him and his house, “We will serve the Lord.” He has admonished them to choose “this day” whom they will serve, not tomorrow or next week but THIS DAY. I’ve read and heard this verse about a hundred times or more. Really, I have. I’ve seen it cross stitched and placed on display. I’ve seen plaques and framed art with Joshua’s words hung on walls or sitting on small easels, words to remind “believers” of their choice.

Here’s my confession. I’ve always focused on the choosing part and not so much on the serving part. It’s a fact that tomorrow’s blessings, both temporal and spiritual, depend on the choices we make today. While the verbs seem to go together, I’ve been guilty of choosing more than serving; it’s easier and really requires no effort on my part. However, it makes perfect sense that if you choose Him, you would want to serve Him.

Since Sunday, I’ve been thinking more about the last section of Joshua 24:15 “…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” More specifically, I’ve been thinking about what serving actually means and what I could be doing. It doesn’t mean I have to serve a full-time mission or do volunteer work at the local hospital…although those are certainly worthy means of providing service. In my little corner of the world, I could feed the missionaries more often, treat a friend to lunch, send someone a note or card, watch a young mother’s child so that she could have a little free time, take a neighbor some cookies, advise a student on career choice, lend someone a book, and so forth. The list of little ways to follow Joshua’s instruction are numerous and varied.

I absolutely have to share a recent example of serving that I witnessed yesterday. It’s about my friend Connie who just came back from a mountain getaway with her husband. She took lots of beautiful pictures and posted them all on the internet for other people to enjoy. Then she started a little contest, and the winner is going to get a basket of goodies that Connie purchased while on her trip. I see that as serving. She could have kept everything (memories, pictures, and treats) all to herself. But she didn’t. She knows choosing means loving and sharing and serving, and that’s what she’s doing. Check out her blog at http://fogle143.blogspot.com/
and throw your name in the hat. (I couldn't get this link to work, but you can use the one to Loose Lemons in the sidebar).

I’m curious about the thoughts of any readers that might be reading this. Have you, like yours truly, focused more on the choosing than the serving part? Can you think of some little acts of service you’ve seen around you lately?

Aunt Doc, a.k.a. Dorcas

It started with a conversation about Aunt Doc, a.k.a. Dorcas. I was telling Paul and Amanda a little bit about her, my grandmother’s oldest sister. A seamstress and smart lady, she lived to be mid-90 (not sure of the exact age). Her husband died at a relatively young age leaving her with a daughter to raise, and she never remarried. I used to go to North Carolina with my grandparents often as a child, and we’d always stay at her house. From my youthful vantage point, it seemed that my grandmother and her sisters all looked up to Aunt Doc and admired her greatly. A sharp business woman, she was a seamstress who owned her own shop downtown.

Anyway, as I was telling Paul and Amanda about her, they looked at each other with that “aha” expression, and he said, “Yeah, we did some genealogy work about her and wondered what kind of name that was. We weren’t even sure how to pronounce it.”

“I don’t know how to pronounce her name either,” I admitted. “I always called her Aunt Doc.”

“But Dorcas…what kind of name is that?” Paul persisted.

“Well, I don’t know what her parents were thinking, but I do know that Dorcas was a pretty well-respected woman in the New Testament.” I replied. “She was even called a disciple.”

Naturally, I couldn’t think of the exact scripture at that moment, but later I looked it up. Acts 9: 36 – 43 tells her story.

The Dorcas in Acts was a seamstress like Aunt Doc, and she evidently did a lot of good for other people and was greatly loved. I’m saying that based on the weeping and wailing that went on in her room after her death. Her friends sent for Peter, who upon his arrival, asked the widows and grief stricken friends to leave the room. After praying, he then brought her back to life, and although that’s the last time we read about Dorcas, I like to think that she spent several more years “doing good” and sewing for others.

Last week, our ward’s Relief Society tied quilts for the Ronald McDonald house, and when I saw the pictures, I thought, “Wow! We have at least a dozen Dorcases in our ward.” I wasn’t there that night, and I can’t sew well enough to make clothing or quilts. I can, however, support those who do, including my daughter Carrie who has caught the sewing bug and has created many articles of clothing for her children. Above is a photo of Braden and Brooke sporting their new pajama pants.

The world has need of more Dorcases. Just because she’s only given two verses in the New Testament, it doesn’t mean that she wasn’t important. I think her life had great significance and that we could all learn a lesson or two from her.