Random

At Church on Sundays, it seems the list of prayer requests gets longer and scarier every week.  The word "cancer" comes up a lot, and in many cases all you can do is pray for peace of mind for the family and a minimum of suffering for the person involved.  I realize this is where the atheists want to say, "Then what good does it do to pray?"  
Well, it does me a great deal of good, and it can't hurt for people to know they are in somebody's thoughts, and that they are being mentioned to God, by name, from time to time.  These days I pray for a relative whose cancer has returned.  I pray for a baby not yet born and her mother, who is having some problems with the pregnancy.  I pray for a local elderly person with heart failure who went to the hospital.  
And I pray for our daughter, who has hit a bump in the road in her recovery.  You can read about it HERE.  It could be so much worse, but I know she is discouraged.  You expect everything to go along smoothly and then out of left field, something unexpected happens.
That's how it was with Cliff's recent illness:  It was going to be so simple, a one-hour-long surgery, perhaps a night in the hospital, and he'd be home.  That turned into an eight-day hospital stay, with times when I honestly wondered if I was going to lose my husband and times, he says, when he didn't care if he died.  I logged on to our Medicare Plus website yesterday and noticed the total bills are over $200,000 now.  So far all the bills I've received have been small ones and I have paid them as they came.  I really wish I had already received every one of the bills, because I like to know what I'm dealing with.  I hate not knowing.  

Life goes on, throwing us a curve ball once in awhile.  Cliff is in the process of mowing the  whole place, just a little every day because he gets a stiff neck from looking back over his shoulder.  He has to do that because of our hills and hollers and timber:  Much of his mowing is done backing up.  
This is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year, and it's going to be a hot one with temperatures in the 90's.  I have been enjoying the weather, including the regular rains we've been receiving... although the weather-guessers say it's going to be dry now.  Thoughts of last years drought come to mind.  Orscheln's reduced the price on their six-packs of annual flowers and I bought some yesterday, even though they had seen better days, and put them in random empty spots in the flower beds.  In the garden, some things thrive and some don't.  I do have small tomatoes on the vines.  The peach crop this year will be small, thanks to a late snow we had when they were fully in bloom.  The strawberries are done.  
These are the thoughts on my mind this morning, as I take another step toward the grave.  Every day is a gift, and I pray my eyes will be open to see the blessings in front of me.