The Real Strength of Women

The following is a conversation which a friend and I had by email which began when she sent me this link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_my_immigration_story.html

She suggested I share it with my granddaughters and this is the best way I know how. I've separated the emails with ----------------. Enjoy.

Gran

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This woman's talk inspired me. I hope you willl find it worthy of a listen.

Love,

Lark

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:11-12 NIV

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Dear Lark,

Notice that she went to Australia as a refugee...not as an illegal. The differences are subtle but powerful. I have been blessed to know people who came here as refugees from Hungary, France, Austria, Germany, and Cuba. They have blessed my life by convincing me that "hardship is your friend." It is a "refiner's fire." They also taught me that "entitlements are slavery."

mla

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Entitlements are slavery is a huge statement and absolutely true from where I sit today having worked for the federal government and now working part-time at Wal-Mart as a cashier. I have seen entitlements from the perspective of the over-paid and pampered government employee who believes their position should be a guaranteed position simply because that is what they have come to expect and I see the entitlement of people in our communities who believe they must be supported by the government despite their obvious ability to work and care for themselves and their ability to care for their family members as they age and need the care. The prevalent belief system is that somone owes them something.

On the flip side I now work for a company that underpays their employees when there would be no harm to the company if they paid a living wage. This creates an environment in which many people at the Wal-Mart where I work are working two jobs to make ends meet. Interestingly enough they are not angry at Wal-Mart in particular. I think they are simply too busy and too tired to spend time discussing their plight. In fact, the women I know who are working two jobs are also raising families and often have handicapped and disabled family members yet do not even seem to have resentment. I just realized that when I started replying to your e-mail. They talk about their feet and legs hurting or their backs or how exhausted they are but they don't seem to connect that to the fault of anyone else. Believe me these are not saints. They just don't seem to be caught up in the blame game. Explain that one to me,please, Mary Lena!

Love,

Lark

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Dear Lark,

They have assumed responsibility for the choices they made earlier in life which brought them to this stage. I worked with ladies very like that in the shirt factory the first summer after high school. We were paid on production and they very generously taught me how to increase my pay knowing all the while that it would mean more "time studies" as more of us made minimum wage. After each time study, the number of bundles we had to inspect, fold and pin to make minimum wage ($1.00) was increased. BUT, we lived where just having a job at all was a blessing and they were too responsible to sit on their backsides and whine. I never heard a bitter word from them.

When they learned (the day I turned in my notice) that I was headed for college, they treated me (out of their meager salary) to a bought lunch and then each gave me a bundle of their shirts to claim pay for. Each Fri, we would go to a cafe nearby. They each would buy one of the $1.25 lunches (meat, two vegies, bread and dessert and tea). Each Fri, I took my brown bag and bought tea. Because I was the only one at a table for 8 who brown bagged, the cafe owner let me sit with them.

During the months we worked together, they taught me much more than how to increase my output. They taught me gratitude for my opportunities and the value of education. They taught me to be generous with others however little I had. They taught me to think carefully about the unintended consequences my decisions might have. They taught me to take responsibility for ALL the consequences of my decisions. (This is one of the traits I must admire in our youngest son.) They taught me to have a grateful heart and a generous spirit. One of them told me, "You're never too poor to help someone else. When you think you are, you teach yourself to be helpless." It reflected my Grannsy's philosophy.

The first ten minutes after we clocked out each day, we had to get down on hands and knees and pick up all the pins we had dropped. Because they were silk pins, we weren't allowed to use magnets to pick them up for fear we might scratch the surface (they were bought in 20 lb boxes) and then we had to sweep the floors. We let the older ladies sweep because it was so difficult for them to get down on their knees. To prevent overtime, the owner would have us work 39 1/2 hours in three or four days and then "lay us off" for the rest of the week.

One of the ladies was 19 (two years older than I was). She had three young sons and had worked there since she was 14. She had a Jim Walters' home and her goal was to pay it off so she could save for a screened porch along the backside. Her only extravagance was the Fri. lunch. Another was 21, had worked there since she was 16 and had had to have a hysterectomy the year before because of the damage to her uterus from standing on concrete floors. Her goal was to pay off her new car so she could (surprise, surprise) buy another. Another was in her sixties and was working to help her grandchildren finish high school. None thought they would ever be able to retire voluntarily.
Another lady (50-60) was paying off medical bills from her husband's final illness.

We were always laughing or singing as we worked. We had to keep our voices soft because the owner's son would come over to "encourage" us to work harder. The lady who hired me was threatened with being fired for having hired "an upstart who thinks she can go to college. She'll be back in six months wanting her job back."

mla

What I knew then and what I know now.

When I was in high school, it seemed that everyone wanted to "have a steady boyfriend." I was fortunate in that my immediate friends shared with me the desire to grow into the woman we believed God wanted us to be. But, many of our classmates looked down on us as not sophisticated. Still, with our group, it was not accepted to have a steady until we were at least seniors. Even then, we had our doubts. The two girls who had a steady boyfriend had known them for several years before they went on the first date. Single dating just wasn't something we were ready for.

Although many people would laugh at this today, I can remember my first date's parents went with us. We went to their family reunion up in the mountains of Northwest Georgia. Another fellow I dated several times took either my grandmother or my first cousins with us. Every date we had except for two were to go to church. One of the non church dates was to a basketball team with another couple. The other was to the preacher's home.

Every Friday night, our parents took turns hosting a party for us at the community center. The parents whose turn it was to chaperone provided refreshments and we played board or card games or danced. The dances were very sedate and the slow dances looked nothing like what passes for slow dancing now. It was great training for the requirements of living at Shorter College just a couple of years after it went co-ed. What is there now does not even resemble our experience.

The rules at Shorter did not allow holding hands while walking. You could not sit closer than six inches. You could get a peck on the cheek at the Town House door under the watchful eye of the Dean of Women or Assistant Dean. Slacks and shorts were allowed outside the dorm under only two conditions : participation in a sport or under a full length raincoat with the top button fastened.

If the sports event was not participatory, the raincoat was required and NEVER could we wear slacks in public transportation. Slacks could be worn in the dining hall for Saturday morning breakfast or Sunday night dinner but only with the raincoat. Monday through Saturday evenings, Saturday noon and Sunday noon were seated meals with "Sunday best" and stockings and heels.

Gloves were worn to church and to formal receptions of which there were many. "Eats" (beverages or snacks) were never consumed while walking. One was seated to "take eats." Curfews were strict as were study hours. Cars were for upper classman unless (a) one had a part time job in town or (b) one's parents lived more than 200 miles away.

I do not recall finding these restrictions ornerous. It taught discipline and respect. I rather enjoyed them though we all laughed at some of the more extreme expressions.

Later, when I joined the financial community, I found that small towns expected the same respect and discipline of ladies who worked with other people's money. I recall one Saturday afternoon running to the local quick market to get eggs when I was baking a cake. (I had dropped two on the floor and lacked enough to finish.) I wore walking shorts to my knees and a sleeveless t-shirt and sandals. On Monday morning, I was reminded by my employer that such attire could cause clients not to take me seriously as a person managing their assets. I never did that again. To this day, I do not leave the house in bare arms.

So, what I knew then was that the Lord lends His Authority to the persons He permits to have authority over us. That meant that honoring the authority over us, regardless of whether we thought their rules had no meaning, was a way of showing our respect for the Lord. Those authorities included parents, other adults (teachers, policeman, neighbors and the like). What I learned later was how much easier life is when one does not rebel against the Lord's Authority. I learned that from discipline grows confidence and self-respect.

The Difference in Families

I was reminded today of three generations of mothers in my family.

An ad on tv was urging people to contact their Congressmen to ask them not to reduce the amount of Medicare costs for hospital stays. The tone indicated that the government, not families, should care for aging parents.

When I was in third grade, my grandmother and great grandmother moved in with my mother and me. They lived with us until the very last months of Granny's life. She had had multiple strokes and, in her last months, wanted to move back onto her son's farm since, "I don't need doctors. There's nothing more they can do. I never lived in town before and I don't want to die here."

I missed her so much that I spent that last summer with them on the farm. Every Sunday night, we turned the lights off and turned the radio on. We propped Granny up in the bed, I took down her bun and brushed her long white hair and massaged her scalp. We both looked forward to listening to our favorite radio dramas together. It was a special time.

Another special time was breakfast. I have never liked breakfast so I spent breakfast "mushing up" her food and feeding it to her spoonful by spoonful, dabbing her chin when her lower lip drooped and spilled it out. I can still feel her chin under my fingertips.

During the day, I wandered the woods and the fields, bringing back leaves and small plants and berries to show her. I never found one she could not tell me about. She told me about home remedies and homekeeping (she never used the word housekeeping).

When she died, we rejoiced at her liberation even as we grieved our loss.

Her daughter moved in with us and, except for a couple of years when she wanted her "own place," she lived with Mother for the rest of her life.When Bebe became ill, my mother did the same thing for her that Bebe had done for Granny. When my other grandmother became ill, her daughter Katherine and husband Rueben took her into their home. Katherine was a nurse and no patient ever had better care.

As my mother's body failed her, her independence never did so we found ways to support that feeling of independence. She would allow no one to live with her and she would live with no one. So I traveled back and forth every four or five weeks to spend a week (sometimes more).

David and I had a system worked out that would allow me to be on the road to GA within a half hour of learning of the need. He was such a wonderful support for me and for her. It never occurred to him that she should go to a nursing home against her will. During our entire marriage, he did most of the maintenance on her home. He cojoled, scolded and teased her. He was the grown son she never had.

Mother and I talked everyday. I had two other people who either talked with her or went by everyday. If they questioned anything, they called me. I called Mother and headed down. One of them was available to check on her anytime I heard anything untoward in her voice or message. Everytime David and I took a trip anywhere south of the North Carolina line, we went by to see her. Some of our schedules got changed because she wanted us to do something before we left. We adapted.

We had errand runners who bought her groceries when she was not able. In the last year, they even took her to the hairdressers (one of Mother's lifelong treats for herself). Her church family "loved" her right into the gates of Heaven.

Mother kept every receipt and, if a check was written, she noted the number on the statement. Every month, I checked her receipt box, balanced her checkbook and wrote her checks for the next month, lacking only her signature and the amount. All the enveloped were addressed, stamped and ready to go.

On those trips, we sat up late at night in only the light from the streetlamp outside. And, we talked, flitting from one topic or another. We talked about the inconsequential, the essential and the important. Nothing was off limits.

She retained her independence and her spunk (sometimes more spunk than was necessary).

Then, one morning she called to inform me that she was going to hospice that afternoon. She was tired of taking "dozens of pills everyday just to push back the day." She was failing so quickly that she knew she would soon have to have twenty four hour care at home or elsewhere.

The home nurse had told her she should go to hospice for a few days to "get built back up." Mother informed me she did not intend to "bounce back." She proclaimed, "I'm no fool and I have no intention of coming back. As soon as the cleaner finishes here, we're on our way." She did not want me to have to clean the house. On all the prior trips, everytime she had caught me cleaning, she had sent me home.

She instructed me to get a good night's sleep and come the next day.

I left that afternoon and was at the hospice bright and early the next morning. We had some interesting talks. She asked me to pray for her and we prayed together.....all things we would have missed had she been consigned to a nursing home during those last months.

No government program can replace these multi-generational experiences. Someone needs to tell younger generations that old age is not contagious.

I am posting an article by our assistant pastor

"Life After Training Wheels

by Peter Weeks, Assistant Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church

The stewardship campaign for this year will be Life After Training Wheels. It compares the process of learning how to use God's Time, Talent and Treasures to learning how to ride without training wheels.

It is human nature to fear the unknown and few situations in life embody this as well as a child learning how to ride without training wheels. Int he first stage, the child totters along, both wheels firmly planted on the ground where the bike is a glorified tricycle. Then as their confidence grows they go into the next stage, where the wheels are slightly off the ground and they learn they can balance but they don't lean over far at all before the wheels touch the ground. Slowly the adult raises the training wheels until they get to the third stage when the wheels are as high up as they can go. The child is essentially riding without training wheels and has most of the balance skills required but still is holding onto the comfort of knowing they are there. Eventually time comes for the final stage--the big leap of removing the training wheels entirely.

That journey is much like our own journey of using God's time, talent and treasures. The first stage is when we are going along comfortably. We may use God's time, talent and treasure a little but in such a way that it doesn't "interfere" with any other area of life. As we find out about the Spiritual gifts, or devote time to an Advent devotion or take one step toward tithing it's like going to the second state where the training wheels are just barely off the ground. This is progress and should be celebrated but soon we learn that we really can use God's time for devotions and still have time for everything else, we can use the spiritual gifts God gave us and it actually makes life more fulfilling and we can give more but still make the budget work.

We want to grow in using God's gifts because of how much He loves us. God gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Greater love has no man than this that He lay down his life for His friends.

As God encourages us to grow, eventually we need to take that giant leap. We need to experience Life After Training Wheels. We regularly use our time to do devotions by ourselves or with our family. We regularly use our Spiritual gifts and we give a tenth of our income. This is when life really gets fun. Just like the big grin that spreads across the kids' face when they realize that they can balance their bike and it's even more fun than ever, when we experience Life After Training Wheels, we never go back. Let's follow God on this journey so we too can experience Life After Training Wheels."

I was so impressed with this article that I did not even think like an editor as I read it. I hope you are equally blessed. mla

Life After Training Wheels

Today we were discussing the upcoming stewardship "drive". The talk revolved around what Scriptures teach concerning that dreaded word, "the tithe" and our experiences with tithing. People who know us well remember that one of the first question we asked each other when we got engaged was whether the other tithed and for how long. It never occurred to us during the lean years (and there were quite a few) to "scale back our giving." We just ramped up our stewardship. Interestingly, those years taught us that we were hanging onto a lot of things we didn't need. It also taught us a lot of lessons about managing money we'd never dreamed of before.

Someone mentioned the verse that says, "Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also." It reminded me of a neighbor we once had. He was a computer guru on the night shift for some Fortune 500 company on the other side of town from our little bedroom community. One night while he was at work, his house caught fire. His wife grabbed the three boys and ran to a neighbor's home to call the fire department and her husband. When she reached her husband, "Our house is burning to the ground! Please come home!"

He asked, "Are you and the boys ok?" She assured him they were and he, in turn, assured her he was on his way.

He arrived almost an hour later as the whole neighborhood watched the last of their earthly goods smolder. After he had hugged his family and reassured them, he stood quietly hugging his boys and watched. I told him how sorry we were for his loss. He nodded mutely. I said something inane about how quickly he must have driven the distance from his work. His countenance glowed as he turned and said, "Oh, there was no need to endanger anyone. My wife had already told me all my treasures were safe." Then, he quoted the Scripture.

Within an hour, the neighborhood had put together two sets of clothes and two toys for each child plus one set of clothes for the parents. They had a place to stay and were grateful that the wife had not yet driven her car into the garage for the night. We shared together, his wife and he and David and, our common trust in the Lord to provide all our needs and got to meet a brother and sister in Christ we hadn't known before as they assured us of their confidence in the Lord Jesus to provide all our needs. He reminded us of Malachi 3:10.

After I had shared this story, the discussion then led to the fact that none of us had ever met a "reformed tither," that is someone who had once tried tithing for several months but then had quite. I compared that to putting training wheels back on a bicycle after you had mastered the art of balancing on just two wheels. The talk then shifted to people who start out "giving" two per cent with the intention of getting to a full tithe but don't quite make it there. One person likened that stage of giving to riding with training wheels....the longer you depend on them, the longer it will be before you remove them.

We talked about the Apostle Peter and how he stepped out of the boat to walk on water. He did just fine until he started to consider the circumstances his natural eyes beheld. As soon as he took his eyes off Jesus, he started to sink. The same is true of tithing. So long as we wait until our natural eyes can "see our way clear" to giving the whole tithe; the longer it will be before we give in faith. Peter gets bad rap for starting to sink, but remember the other eleven never even tried! They stayed in the boat and missed a blessing.

When I think of tithing, strangely enough I think of the Psalm which says,"Seek ye first the Lord and He will give you all the desires of your heart." What it doesn't specifically say is if we live for the Lord "without training wheels", the desires of our heart will so totally change that He will not have to violate His Holiness to give those desires to us.

Life without training wheels is sweet. Praise the Lord.

"Figures don't lie but liars figure."

An old saying by mathematicians and statisticians

Scripture says we should test for truth everything we are told. Thomas Sowell makes the same argument in his book "Economic Facts and Fallacies." A large segment of the book demonstrates how the mass media manipulates statistics in ways that misstate the true situation.

The example that most caught my eye was the one in which we are told that income for "average household" has declined during the past ten years. Here's a simple description of how that "statistic" can lead us away from the true state of affairs.

We must start with the reminder that an average is an artificial mathematical construct to explain the range between high and low within a given set. For the purposes of simplification, we'll illustrate by starting with a single household. In this household are four people: two parents and two teenagers. The two parents are employed full time, the teens each have part time jobs.

Dad earns $30,000 a year

Mom earns $30,000 a year

Teen 1 earns $ 6,000 a year

Teen 2 earns $ 6,000 a year

Total $72,000 a year

The total earnings are then divided by the number of households: 1. Thus the average household earnings for this set are $72,000.00.

Ten years pass by. Now, Mom and Dad have gotten increases in pay and both teens are grown up, fully employed and are on their own. Having gotten a place of their own, each of the teens now becomes a household of their own.

In household 1: Dad earns $40,000

Mom earns $40,000

Total $80,000

In household 2: T1 earns $30,000

In household 3: T2 earns $30,000

Total earnings for all three households is $140,000.

To find the average income of the three households, we divide $140,000 by 3.

Answer: $36,666.67.

Even though all four members of the original household are each earning more than they did ten years prior, the average household earnings are smaller because there are more households and thus a larger divisor when the average is calculated.

The more accurate and honest comparison would have been the average income for each of the individuals rather than comparing by households. BUT, to compare individual incomes would have revealed the fact that incomes within households have increased during the past ten years.

The same media that brought you this odious fraudulent comparison also told you that the "average worker" has not had a pay increase in ten years. That, too, is a fallacious statement. There is no single "average worker." Remember that an "average worker" is a mathematical construct. It's not a person.

Dr. Sowell also points out that when elitists talk about the differences between the poor and the rich, they use some subtlety there as well. Usually, they will compare the "income" of the poor to the "wealth" of the rich: like comparing eggs and onions and calling them eggions. The income of the poor does not take into account any government subsidies like food stamps, WICK programs, subsidized housing or Medicaid, all of which provide value to their daily lives. Certainly, there are differences between the incomes of each but if one group's cash income is being compared to the other's assets, we have eggions.

All this is to say we need to guard our minds against deceptions whether they deceiver intends to mislead or is simply too ignorant of basic mathematics to make mathematically correct comparisons.

Catching Up

This summer and fall have been very interesting.

Last summer we began an experiment in couponing. Our church offered a class in strategic couponing as part of our stewardship program. We originally enrolled because we wanted to encourage the teachers. The framework is to change the scheduling of purchase planning. Instead of buying what you need as you run out of something, we buy what we will need for the stores' six week merchandising schedules. Doing that allows us to combine buy-one-get-one-free offers with manufacturers' coupons and store coupons.

Neither of us was convinced we would really save money doing this so we saved all our tapes from the four stores we used during the three months' trial period. The first five weeks, we found we spent a little more than usual but we hung on for the full three months we had promised ourselves we would. Now, we are entering our seventeenth week. The first time I brought home $48.00 worth of merchandise for less than $5.00 made us think it might just work for us.

Taking all the tapes and entering the totals each of spent and savings, I entered them on a spreadsheet at the end of four months. Then, I averaged each column for the four months' period. We have actually reduced our household spending (groceries, cleaning, paper, grooming, dietary supplements and non-VA prescription drugs) by one-third. During that time, we actually had one week during which we spent zero, one we bought milk, yogurt and bananas, and one in which we spent $.68.

The hardest part was learning the rules each of the stores uses and the schedules. The next challenge was to organize the coupons an weekly ads. Figuring out how much we need to get us to the next sales' offers on that item was also interesting. David and I are agreed that it is worth the hour and a half a week it takes. We already had a system for making grocery lists (whoever uses the next to the last of any item writes it on the white board in the kitchen) so all we have to do is match the list to the best offer. If that week's best offer is not THE best, we simply work around that item until it's available at THE best price. It's actually quite a challenge....and fun.

The second interesting thing was the thirteen week Financial Peace University class. It's a money management/stewardship series by Dave Ramsey. Tomorrow is our last class. It, too, has been interesting. More than learning new "tricks", we learned why what we have been doing for years works so well. We did pick up some tips on investment strategies and learned the investment instruments we used in the past were quite well chosen. The small groups have given us the opportunity to get to know some people really well.

The third interesting thing is the series of things we've gotten involved in at our church (aside from the two stewardship activities). David has gotten involved in delivering flowers to and visiting with shut-ins (like he did previously when I had a cutting garden). He also takes people to doctors' appointments. His first time, he took a man "to a doctor's appointment" only to have it turn into a 7 hour experience.

The man got there and his doctor told him he needed chemotherapy. They (while David sat in the waiting room) called the son in St. Louis and got approval. No one thought to tell David. Finally, he asked the receptionist who told him he had plenty of time to get something to eat. The man was quite incoherent when they started home so David still didn't know the son had approved it.

David was worried that he had somehow taken him to the wrong doctor and obligated the man's family to an expense they weren't prepared for. The lady in charge of the program called him later and told him the so had approved. David, with his caring spirit, was still concerned so I started teasing him.

"Well, Sugie, just be glad he didn't have an ingrown toenail. You might have treated him to an amputation." We laughed until we had tears rolling down our cheeks and were choking. It got worse from there.

I'm still working at the church office one day a week though I've had a couple of projects which took much more time than that. In addition, I'm on the school board for our church's pre-school and the scholarship committee there. That, too, has allowed me to get to know some people a lot better.

The last interesting thing that happened this fall was a visit with Akira's oldest son and his family. When we went to Japan the last time, Chris and Aya scheduled their religious ceremony for the time during our visit. It meant having a much smaller ceremony (Aya's dad's family is very large so it was to e expected that they might have a very large wedding). The custom is for a couple to marry at City Hall in a civic ceremony like a business contract. Then, they live with parents until they can save enough money to have a religious ceremony. It's not unusual for them to have children by the time they have the religious ceremony.

Chris and Aya were in The States for two weeks. They brought their two babies (2 yrs and 5 months, respectively). They met us in Orlando where we spent two nights and three days or parts thereof. The babies were amazing! They had only seen or heard us on SKYPE and yet they were totally at home with us from the very first! Despite traveling for four or five days, they were relaxed and joyous. We kept the baby with us while they took the older one to Disney World. It was wonderful!!

So, we've had an interesting summer and fall and a busy one! We don't mind. We have the time.