My First Pair of Jeans

Today looks and feels (atmosphere-wise) like the days i spent in Minnesota in September on the lakes with my dad and mom. a tad warmer (70) but still reminds me. i was 10, 1957 or so.

we drove up and we got all the way into Minnesota before my mom finally talked my dad into stopping and buying me my very first pair of jeans. i heard her say under her breath, "you can't expect her to go out on a boat in a dress in weather like this, Merril Johnson." (mom seldom, extremely seldom, talked back to my dad.) Next small town we came to he pulled into a parking place and i got a new pair of jeans. i'm not sure i was ever allowed to wear them again after we left the state.

Hope for Tomorrow

I've referenced Hebrews 11: 1 a couple of times this week, and my mind stayed on it a bit each time. It's almost 40 years ago, but i can still remember what my mind set and attitude was like before i accepted Christ. I thought about my kids, and then about me. My kids would leave home some day, and I was mortal. So, i had pretty much no hope for this life except to "get as much as I could for as long as I could". Still, I came up empty. Hebrews 11: 1 answers that, and when I had Christ, I learned that without that faith, without Him, I had no hope. That faith is the firm foundation upon which this life is worth living. Without it, life stinks. With Him, I have hope for tomorrow.