Saddleback Snow

 

I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? 

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

~ Psalm 121:1-2

A Way Of Life

Sometimes I think God puts certain people in our lives for a very good reason. The older I get, the more I believe that, and on Saturday something happened that really “drove” that point home for me.

But let me start by saying that throughout most of my life, patience has not been one of my better traits. Seems like I’ve always been in a hurry, starting with being born at 8 months, and it’s been really hard for me to slow down ever since. That is, until about 10 years ago when I met an elderly Chinese woman, named Pao Chi Chen, who taught me that patience is not only a virtue, it can also help you lead a longer, happier life.

So back to what happened Saturday. I had a huge contract to inspect all of the Light Poles throughout The Irvine Spectrum Center. There are hundreds of Light Poles at that iconic Shopping Center, so it was definitely a challenging project. To make it even harder, I needed to complete it within one week. So I worked hard all week hoping to complete the project on Saturday, but I still had two of the hardest parking lots left to do. It was a busy Saturday, the parking lots were overflowing with cars, and people were fighting over parking spaces. Plus, I nearly got ran over several times as I maneuvered my equipment between cars and along driveways. I was tired, frustrated, and getting upset that people were carelessly driving so close to me. I was getting angry and definitely losing my patience. I hate to admit it, but I was actually cussing people out under my breath.

Then it happened! As I completed a pole and turned around to squeeze out from in front of a car, there she was. A tiny, elderly Chinese woman staring at me. I could see she was waiting for me to move so that she could get in her car, and although I was tired and frustrated, I immediately apologized for being in her way. But she didn’t appear upset at all, In fact she was smiling and said, “That’s okay, I see you working, so better for me to wait.” Her clothing, her face, her smile instantly brought back memories of my friend Pao Chi Chen and her lessons about patience and compassion. As the lady got into her car, she smiled one more time and nodded her head at me and I swear I saw a wink in her eye! The only response I could think of was to bow and say “Syeh, Syeh, Nee.” (Mandarin Chinese for thank you!)

And that got me thinking… We learn lessons in life that are extremely valuable, but over time it’s easy to forget and fall back into bad habits. Maybe God put Pao Chi Chen in my life to teach me about patience… and maybe yesterday was just God’s way of reminding me.

Interesting side bar – Pao Chi Chen was a very patient woman, which helped her to live to be 95 years old, despite me running her over with my truck and nearly killing her when she was 88. Patience should be a way of life for all of us! 

The secret of nature is patience.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful

You’ve all heard the expression, “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” right? Well let me tell you how it applies to my wife. (Not the ugly part, she is totally beautiful!) But there is good and bad to her. Now I know she is going to read this, so let me get to explaining right away!

I will address the “Bad” first. What’s bad is that this poor girl has more health issues than you can shake a bent stick at. Besides breathing issues, multiple lung surgeries that included a compound fracture of her 5^th rib, and severe asthma at times… she also has lower back pain, intermittent hip pain, a bout with plantar fasciitis, constant migraine headaches, and a plethora of other problems too numerous to mention. And oh yeah, two weeks ago she fell and fractured her 6^th rib.

But fortunately, the “Good” greatly outweighs the “Bad”. First off, she never complains about her health issues and instead, goes about her day with a super sweet smile and heart so huge I think it sometimes affects her balance. (Maybe that’s why she gets hurt so often??) Anyway, instead of complaining she spends her time figuring out how she can help needy people. After 10 years on the Board of the South County Outreach, she has now started her own specialized charity drive to support foster kids. Hard to believe, but there are over 3400 kids in the foster system in Orange County alone. They don’t own anything and what little they have they carry with them in green trash bags. So my wife started a drive to obtain small suitcases (meaning beg, borrow, or buy) and fill them with age appropriate clothing and toiletry items for kids in foster care. She started with four suitcases and had four of our grandchildren do the shopping for kids their own ages of 9, 11, 14, and 16. Her goal is to create suitcase goody bags for at least 10% of all the kids in foster care. That’s 340 suitcases!

I guess if there’s an “Ugly”, it would be that any kid ends up in Foster Care at all. But my wife understands the world can be a dark and cruel place, so she is determined to brighten it up one kid at a time. I am proud of her and love her very much, so I decided to take her on a short vacation this weekend since we haven’t been on a real vacation since Covid started. Except there’s one small problem. Despite the fact that our garage is filled with suitcases, my wife and I don’t own a suitcase at the moment. Dang! About midway through Covid, we threw our personal suitcases away because they were old and Covid was killing our vacation plans. But I know for a fact that we have some extra-large trash bags in the garage, so it’s all good…even if the bags are ugly!

P.S. - For Men Only - Valentine’s Day is coming up so if you love your wife like I do mine, start buying her a Valentine’s Card tomorrow and keep it up every single day all the way through Feb 14^th. I started several days ago because our lucky number is 24 and I want her to end up with 24 Valentine’s Cards and realize that no matter whether the world is good, bad, or ugly, having a heart for helping is beautiful!

Where there is love there is life.

 ~ Mahtma Ghandi