Tuesday morning I got up before the sun and the chickens for prayer and to get ready for Election Day.  Andy Baker, the mayor of Peaceful Valley, has had a nice little cult town for fifty years and it was time someone made him squirm a bit.  We figured he’s made some enemies along the way and hoped they were registered to vote.  We had a copy of the ballot made up with the write-in candidates that wanted change. His evil grandson, Dave, was running for councilman.  The fact that he’s going on trial for two counts of second degree rape didn’t seem to be an issue.  I guess he thinks grand-daddy is going to get him out of this too.

It was a full day for Mayor Andy Baker.  He had an appointment with social services for the molestation of an eleven year old.  He bought her a new horse and her daddy a nice horse trailer so her story has changed.  I don’t know how effective the interview will be.  It should make him uncomfortable though.

There is a teen-ager that has a baby, that looks an awful lot like Dave that lives in a basement apartment in his home.  Her “old man” drives a thirty thousand dollar Harley and hasn’t worked a job worth spit in three years.  He doesn’t have a pot to pee in, otherwise.  Seems they are the fall guys and they are paid well. The men get the prize and the women live with the rape.

Last July, there was an EMT call for a minor girl in an overdose situation, left for dead.  She was moved to this girl’s apartment, we suspect, from Dave’s ‘rape-chamber’ upstairs where the other girl was left for dead last October. He needs to weigh his victims or something so he knows how much “G” to give them.  I’m sure it complicates things to have them die.  Dogs were brought in since the case had drugs involved and none was found.  Then the EMT records disappeared.  The 911 call disappeared and no deputy knows about it. Everyone was paid off.  Sadly, the girl disappeared too.  We can’t find her and she was never taken to a hospital.  We don’t know if she made it.  We know other women are buried around here.

Then some information came trickling in…people telling me things that they have no idea are pieces of a puzzle that I have.  My pastors’ wife told me that last July she heard a girl screaming her lungs out at Dave’s….screaming for help at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night.  She said that she wished she’d call 911.  She never felt ‘peaceful’ about that girl and she sounded frightened for her life.  Now she has to live with not knowing. I think she should feel terrible. I would have called 911 and taken a gun and a friend to find out what happened. Weenie Christians just boggle my mind.

Well…that doesn’t add up.  Drug overdoses aren’t loud and screaming.  Then I found out that the day Dave was arrested, his truck went missing.  Gone.  No sign of it.  Hasn’t been seen since.  He drives a new truck.  My guess is that the girl did die and there was blood evidence in that truck.

So, I was at a wedding and talking to a lady and we’re having a nice friendly conversation about Peaceful Valley (nothing sinister…nothing about the rape and all the evil) and she says that Andy Baker scares her a bit.  Said that she used to work for Andy and all of those Aleister Crowley books just freaked her out.  I nearly dropped my fork full of potato salad!  EXCUSE ME!! ALEISTER CROWLEY?  Oh yes, says she…he’s really into that stuff…sure freaked her out.

For those of you that are not privy to Aleister Crowley, he’s a 130-something degree Mason that is one of the most powerful Warlocks known today.  Blood sacrifices are child’s play to him.  Satanism is a business to him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley
So, Andy Baker is into organized Satanism?  Well…I’m not surprised.  I just thought he was a satanic pawn.  I didn’t know he took lessons.

So, we got all prayed up and we did our homework.  We got a list of every registered voter in the municipal precinct.  We went over it with a fine tooth comb and we see that 22 out of the 40 voters has the same address. So that’s the way Andy does it.  He pays folks to come in….vote and drop by the hardware store that he owns and get their hundred bucks. They don’t even have to live in the area.  We asked the elections board what we can do about it and they tell us that any citizen that is a registered voter can protest the vote if the person comes in and votes.  Has to be done on the spot. She said it’s never done and she’d never known anyone to do it, but it’s the law and it’s there for a reason. God bless our forefathers and for our blood bought freedoms!! We highlighted every illegal voter and got our team ready at the Toxic Faith Methodist Church fellowship hall where the voting would take place.  We were there before the sun came up.  Thermos full of coffee and ready to wrestle principalities in high places.

Instead of just the standard one Democrat and one Republican judge at the precinct, there were three…the third being one of the grand poo-pahs of the county.  Around the time the polls opened, a sheriffs deputy came and parked his car in the parking lot.  He wasn’t there to vote.

As people trickled in, we spoke with them and asked them to vote for change. Many had chips on their shoulders and came from the hardware store where the anti-change movement was reaching a fevered pitch.  They were told we were going to outlaw all alcohol.  One of the write-in candidates owned a bar in town, so the accusation was ridiculous.  If my friend, Lisa, didn’t recognize someone I would approach them all friendly like and introduce myself and ask their name.  She would frantically seek the voter history list and find out who they were.  The first illegal voter had arrived.  She walked in after them and when they handed her a ballot, Lisa announced that she was a legal citizen of the state and a registered voter and she contested this voters right to vote. The judges and the grand-poo-pah and the old lady nearly dropped their teeth.  Lisa stood there all peaceful like and everyone scrambled for their notebooks and made phone calls and sure enough, she was fully in her right to contest the vote.  The lady got to fill in a ballot and it was put in a sealed envelope.  The elections board would investigate and had 48 hours to decide if the vote was legal.  Until the vote was cleared, it wasn’t counted.

Well…you can well image the buzz at the hardware store when that lady went and told Andy about it!!  It slowed down the election for him in a real way. When we see God’s home movies, I want to watch yesterday in the Spirit.  I want to see the angels and the demons and I want to hear the conversations at that hardware store.

One lady went in and Lisa went in with her to contest her vote.  The lady explained how she worked out of town and cared for an elderly lady and came home to where her son lived on week-ends to get her mail.  During the hoop-la, the lady asked Lisa “what if I came in here to vote for you?”  Lisa told her she didn’t want any illegal votes…not even if they were for her.  The judges gave her the vote and vetoed our protest.  The lady told us when she came out of the polls that we got her vote.  She said that she was relieved to finally have an honest election and she voted for our whole team.

Three days before the election, Lisa was refused service at one of the clubs in town.  Right there at the door she was told she wasn’t allowed to come in.  She had guests there and as you can well imagine she was embarrassed and angry.  She knew they were breaking the law and she knew Andy Baker told them not to do business with her.

Yesterday we timed each and every person as they went in.  We knew it would take longer to write names in than it would to fill in the oval.  We also wouldn’t allow a fellowship type of atmosphere to develop so people would be intimidated when they went in and saw Andy’s henchmen.  They were serving coffee and donuts so we knew it was going to happen.  We also knew why tradition in the area was a jolly time on election day.  This was not Andy’s party this year and we wanted the coffee and donuts and the bad-bubba’s out of there. Ten minutes into the first lurker, Lisa walked in there, called out the grand poo-pah and told him that she didn’t want anyone taking longer than it takes to vote and leave.  He agreed and asked the man to leave.  The man came out and said that he was glad he had time to finish his coffee before he was booted out.  It wasn’t until after he left that Lisa told me that was the man that owned the club that refused her service three nights before.

We never had to ask the judges to ask anyone else to leave.  The first one to loiter was that man and with a clear absence of malice and upholding the law, Lisa was vindicated.  He booted her out illegally with malice and the Lord gave her righteous boldness and got him booted out legally.  We couldn’t have planned it any sweeter.

Fifteen hours we sat there in that parking lot.  Fifteen long hours, on edge and finding peace and on edge again.  Each name being marked off one by one, hoping and praying and talking to folks.  The weather was beautiful.  Our view of the hills all burning with color was almost more than we could handle.  On several occasions, especially after personal attacks where people would actually say that her teenage daughter deserved being raped, the Lord would bring the sweetest cool breeze.  It was so peaceful and soft across our faces and we both knew it was Him, up close and personal.

We were down to an hour before the polls closed and several people who said they would vote our way didn’t show up.  We started making phone calls.

Debbie, the lady that owns that bar, who was running on our team, came by and said she’d go get them.  One of them was baby sitting her grandbaby and didn’t have a ride.  Debbie held the baby while I showed the grandmother how to vote.  She’d never done it before.  The irony of it was that this voter was the mother of the teenager who was with Lisa’s daughter when she was raped. She was so drugged with G, that she nearly died last October in Dave’s apartment when Lisa‘s own daughter was raped so violently that she had broken discs in her back.   The other girl went into convulsions and Dave didn’t even lift her head up so she wouldn’t drown in her own vomit.  The 14 year old that was raped waited until he was asleep and put blankets on her friend to keep her from going into shock.  Just one year later, this girl has a healthy baby and her mother was voting against the rapist at the polls.

The next call, we woke up a lady that told us she’d vote our way but had two epidurals and surgery that morning and her legs weren’t working very well. We begged and she said for us to come get her.  We helped her out of Debbie’s car and she was like Wesley on the Princess Bride after he was mostly dead.  I drug her limp body into the fellowship hall and she flopped onto the table and held her pencil.  The judges told us that they would be glad to take any ballots outside to a car if we had anyone else in that bad of shape. It was everything I could do to keep from laughing, it was all so terrible.

The next lady said that she was on her death bed and couldn’t get dressed. We promised to get her and she wouldn’t have to leave the car.  When Debbie showed up with her I was horrified at how bad the voter looked. We really had taken her off of her death bed.  She looked like the citizens in the movie Outbreak.  Her hair was greasy and hung stringy around her face.  She was white as a ghost and had black rings under her eyes.  She was in a pink bathrobe.  We showed her how to vote and Debbie left the car to give her privacy.

I moved close to Debbie to tell her, quietly, about the judges coming from another area who asked us what was going on in this election.  She said that she was in a beauty parlor in another county and everyone was talking about it and she was called in by the grand poo-pah for back up.  I told her the atrocities that some of the candidates had committed and she wished us luck and said that we were an answer to prayer.  I gave Debbie a moment to respond.  I expected her to say something deep and encouraging about how God was in this and we would prevail.  She looked at me and whispered, “Emma, pray I don’t catch what the hell that lady has.”  She tucked her mouth and chin into her sweater and went back to the car.  I laughed until I hurt.

So the polls closed and we went inside to watch the count.  Miss Kitty, the local bed and breakfast owner and Andy Baker’s groupee showed up for the results. It was fitting that a women named after an understanding whore on Gunsmoke represented Andy Bakers team.

We lost the mayors race by thirteen votes.  We lost four of the six counsel-man races by one or two votes each and we have one tie.  Debbie won a seat.  The tie is between Dave, the rapist, and our pastors wife.

Every single one of the contested ballots have been refused by the elections board.  The tie will be broken, believe it or not, by flipping a coin or picking a name out of the hat.  I’m ok with it.  The disciples of Christ drew straws to replace Judas.  It’s a sure fire way to find out Elohim’s will.  We’ll know Friday.

I hope Dave wins.  If a local man goes to trial for a rape, it won’t make the back page of the newspaper.  If a counsel man is tried, the press will eat it up. If an evil old man dies in Peaceful Valley, it might make the obituaries.  If the mayor dies of a broken heart because his only heir to his empire is handcuffed and taken off to prison for twenty-eight years… it will make great press.

A witness heard Drew pleading, as that girl last July was taken off to places unknown.  He kept crying, “Don’t let them arrest me grand-daddy!  Don’t let them arrest me!!”  I want to be in the court the day he’s convicted and taken off in handcuffs…I want to see him turn around and I want to see his grand-daddy’s broken heart as he reaps what he’s sowed.  I want to be there the day that God vindicates all of the broken women that have been left in the wake of Andy Bakers dynasty.  I want to be there when their blood cries up from the ground and God’s vengeance shakes Peaceful Valley to its knees.

This article may be reprinted or quoted in whole or part as long as Emma
Marlow remains the source credit. www.emmamarlow.org

We don’t do Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or even the Boogie man at our house. Along the path of de-frocking the pagan elements of holidays in our culture, I forgot to rid ourselves of the tooth fairy. I don’t know how she avoided the dogmatic exorcisms, but she did.

I don’t let the children put their dead teeth under their pillows. There are a number of reasons for that. First, I don’t want to have to find it in the middle of the night. Think about it. With twelve children, I’ve dealt with nearly three hundred teeth over the years. The scurrying around in the dark looking for teeth under a sleeping child would get very old. I also fear what I would run into in the mean time. Raising five boys has made me leery and wise.

That custom would also require me to go up a flight of stairs after bedtime. Two hundred and eighty-eight more trips up the stairs…….nope….not unless it’s an emergency.

Custom at our house is that the tooth is placed in a glass of water and put on the window sill in the kitchen. I put a drop of food coloring in the water so the magic of it includes what color the tooth fairy’s dress was when she went in to collect the tooth and leave her prize.

Every family has their traditions and customs surrounding the pulling of teeth and the tooth fairy. The string and slamming a door sounds horrible to me, pulling the tooth out instead of down….ripping the gum. The pliers sound just as awful…..I have to wonder how many teeth have been crushed in the grip of an anxious parent over the years.

I’m an expert at pulling teeth now. Practice makes perfect and all that. I’m a firm believer in having a tooth numbing gel close by for the children that have a hard time. I have the child loosen it until they are fully loony and at the end of their rope. Sometimes they actually pull it out themselves in the process. That’s a good thing. I like them to try to do the hard things in their lives….but I don’t mind helping either. At the point of pure hysteria, I numb the whole area and dry the tooth off with a washcloth. Then I tie a length of dental floss around the dangling incisor and put a granny knot in it. Thread may cut the gum…dental floss won’t. I dry the whole thing off again and keep the washcloth around the whole project with one hand. This way the tooth is never lost across the room. Then I pull down hard….firm….and pop….we have a tooth. I tell the child to bite gently on the cloth until I say stop. Not too hard…and to keep their tongue off of it for a day or so.

I’m simply amazed that some of my children require help and sympathy with each extraction and others do it all themselves and tell me about it later. It’s just whatever makeup they were born with, I guess. I could pull my own teeth, deliver my own babies and do amateur eyeball surgery in the mirror.

I am a picker and fiddler. When I was four I discovered that one of my teeth was wiggly and I fiddled with it until it literally fell out into my hand. I was horrified. I screamed in terror…the blood really freaked me out…..as if one of my arms had fallen off. I had no idea that teeth could come out. My mother assured me that it would grow back in and explained to me the whole tooth fairy scam. Money for teeth…..and they grow back. It sounded like a deal to me. In the next two weeks I systematically yanked seven more teeth out of my head. In my mind, they’d grow back quickly and I’d pull them again. I intended to make a living on my teeth. It took five years before all of those teeth grew back in. I spent the better portion of my childhood with no front teeth….an image of capitalism at its finest.

There are long blocks of time in my life that it seems all I did was pull teeth . It was a daily crisis around here….someone was loosing a tooth. I know it’s hard for some folks to believe but sometimes I didn’t have a dime or quarter for a tooth…..and the tooth fairy had to fit us into her busy schedule and wait until the next paycheck.

One time I heard six of my children chatting in the kitchen. One of them complained that the tooth fairy forgot his tooth again. Another child told him to give it up…that he had a tooth in the window for so long that his adult tooth grew in! One of them sighed and said that he just hated it when the tooth fairy is pregnant.

I realized there was a job that I was not able to do well so I delegated it to the kid that stayed up the latest. James (11) was asked to do the tooth fairy thing for me, since he went to bed after the kid with the gappy mouth did. I gave him the coins; four quarters, to put in the glass of water in the kitchen window, to replace the tooth. The next day I asked the child getting the fairy visit if she came and was told that indeed she did and she left 92 cents. I smiled a grimace and pulled James aside to find out where the four quarters were. He explained that it was reasonable to charge for a service and anything over inflation was usury. He’d asked Papa what the inflation rate was at the time and took eight cents from the amount and gave his brother the remainder. I was just stunned….HE CHEATED THE TOOTH FAIRY!! He didn’t see it that way….so we continued to groom him for congress.
Another custom for us is that a tooth with no cavities or fillings is worth more than one that has been damaged and repaired. It’s good business to teach kids that taking care of things gives it a higher resell value.

One time James, the Jr. miser and future congressman, approached me with an injustice. He was nine years old and said that the dentist had removed a tooth at his last appointment and he never got paid by the tooth fairy. It took him a few weeks to figure out that there was cash due him, but it solidified in his little mind and he wanted restitution. The fact that he didn’t have a tooth to leave the tooth fairy wasn’t an issue for him. He wanted me to call the dentist office and demand his tooth so he could collect on the deposit. I told him that I doubted the dentist actually had his tooth anymore. He walked away in deep thought. A few minutes later, he returned and asked if I could speak to the dentist and ask him to contact the tooth fairy…surely they know each other….and explain to her what happened and see if she’d make it right with him. I acted like I talked to the dentist on the phone and told James to put an empty glass into the window in faith that if she did agree….she’d have a place to put the coin. He did, and since the tooth fairy is a reasonable sort of lady….he found a shiny quarter in the morning.

One night, when Cayah was six years old and overly tired, she sobbed into my arms about a terrible injustice that had tormented her all day. She’d lost a tooth the day before and put it in a glass of water in the window. Her brothers had cleaned the kitchen and dumped the water down the drain and washed the glass. Her tooth was gone…..gone….lost to the great abyss….water, glass and all. There was nothing I could say or do to comfort her. She wasn’t going to buy the negotiating with the tooth fairy ploy. No tooth…..no money….that was the deal and she knew it.

James was thirteen at the time and heard the whole drama play out. He went to the kitchen…found the glass…filled it with water and put one of his own quarters into the glass. He rushed into where I was comforting Cayah and said that he’d found the glass….someone had moved it to the dining table and it was there with money in it. She ran to the dining room in a cloud of pure joy. James had forgotten to put food coloring in the water. Cayah sang, “She came!! The tooth fairy came!! And she was naked!!”

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Last week the girls and I went to a local green house to get some plants for the garden. I was kicking myself in the proverbial butt because I’ve been so busy, I didn’t get any nice organic seed into pots this spring to start the garden and I didn’t prepare the garden with the compost I’ve been feeding all winter. I had a very limited amount of money to spend at the green house and I was carefully checking off the plants on my garden list as the girls put them in the trays.

The flowers hanging and spread out in a sea of color were so pretty and we ooohed and ahhh’d and wished we could plant flowers in what we affectionately call ‘the moon’ which is our yard. Anything that actually grows on the rocky and difficult soil came from my pulling over when I see a rogue flower on the side of the road or in an abandoned field or yard. I keep a small shovel and box in my car for just such a treasure and I’ve been known to screech on the breaks and dodge the ditch to capture a clump of daffodils or iris. I’ve also knocked on doors and asked if I could thin boarder plants for people and keep the excess.

My first home, thirty five years ago, had a beautiful garden with flowers that I thinned and swapped bulbs with strangers. I even dug through dumpsters of local greenhouses and gleaned rose bushes. I gave flowers to the local nursing home and made potpourri from the petals. Every home since, I’ve watched what other folks have planted and left behind and enjoyed their gift of fruits and nuts and flowers. A house has a history and I appreciate and benefit from the care others have given the land.

This house is new with no history or character and it’s a been a difficult transition for me. The soil is poor and we’ve been poor and the combination has left me without much grass and a landscape nightmare. I’ve stopped to pick up rocks in the last five years so we have some way to separate what should be ‘beds’ from yard. With no truck or trailer, until recently, I’ve gone with the car filled with five gallon buckets that I gleaned from the deli department of our local grocery store and the girls and I have taken advantage of places giving away fill dirt and we filled the buckets and filled the car with the buckets and driven home and dumped them only to go back over and over again until we had dirt in our raised beds in the garden.

I told the girls that we couldn’t get flowers again this year and reminded them that poor people buy vegetables, not flowers, and we have way more blooming this year than we have in years past at this house. It’s a matter of stewardship. I believe in victory gardens and believe that even if a person lives in an apartment, they should have a tomato plant on the balcony.

While at the green house, there was one particular type of petunia that we all took notice of. It was light purple with dark purple stripes and we oooh’d and ahhh’d and took our zucchini plants and went home. Sometimes it’s a drag being a good steward.

The very next day, I had the opportunity to have a life lesson with the girls. I got a call a month ago to give end-of- year testing to a family with four home schooled students, that I scheduled for this week. I do the tests at a fraction of the rate other people charge because I know what a stupid and un necessary expense it is for families already living on one income so they can keep their kids at home and appease the state. I could easily charge more than a hundred dollars a student, but I charge thirty five, if the family can afford it. I have a large family discount and only charge for the first student in each test level, at twenty five dollars, so no family has to pay more than fifty dollars and only if they can afford it. I have a sliding scale; with a live chicken on one end and as much as I can get on the other. The lady that called last month said that her husband is in construction and he’s actually had to leave his own business and work for someone else because things are so hard. I offered her the discount and agreed to go to her home so she wouldn’t have to use her gas to meet me. I had scheduled several other tests to be done in her area for the same day but those appointments were rescheduled and now I ended up spending forty dollars in gas to make fifty dollars. Penny wise, pound foolish was the days headline for me.

We drove onto the property of the family to be tested and the paved driveway wove through their hundred acre horse farm and we pulled up to their million dollar home. We went up the beautiful brick steps, through the covered porch into the magnificent kitchen with two separate sinks, double dishwashers and marble counter tops. Even the fourteen foot ceilings were solid wood in artistic patterns. The tops of every window in the house was a work of art with stained glass and beveling. Every room of the three story home was decorated with impeccable taste and obviously expensive furniture.

The mother was grateful to have the testing done because the family was leaving the next day for a few weeks at the beach.

As the girls and I drove back through the country to the main road, they mentioned that it seemed wrong somehow that this family got a discount for my services when they obviously didn’t really need it. They’ve gone with me to ratty little trailers with five children jammed into one bedroom and seen how encouraging I am to young mom’s who are taking a very difficult road to keep their kids home. This situation was a stark contrast.

I shared with the girls that scripture clearly tells us that it’s okay to give the poor a discount but we cannot charge the rich more just because they can afford it. A large family discount is a large family discount. If they are rich or poor. If my other appointments had been in the area, it may have been a profitable day but it didn’t work out and we had a nice drive and ten dollars to boot.

On our way home, we got slightly lost and ended up in a grocery store parking lot, trying to turn around to get back to the main highway. I noticed a couple of men, pulling up pansies out of the flower beds in the parking lot. I stopped and asked what they were going to do with them and they said they were throwing them away. I asked if I could have them and they said yes. I started helping them pull them up and we ended up with three black lawn and leaf bags FULL of flowers that needed planting right away. While I was helping the fellows pull the last of the flowers up, the owner of the company was talking to the girls at the car. Before we left, he went to his truck and brought them each a tray of four petunias each. Out of all the beautiful flowers that he had in his truck, he picked up purple ones with dark purple stripes.

I reminded the girls the Lord isn’t obligated to show his hand and He’s entitled to be worshiped no matter if we get flowers or not but sometimes HE is pretty obvious about HIS blessings.

We filled every single pot we’d collected, knowing we don’t have dirt that will support flowers in the yard. It’s just so much fun to see those flowers lining the driveway!

At the end of the week, we were going to the food bank to pick up food for our family, and the family that is living with us right now and our friend that is a handicapped lady on disability. We passed a strawberry stand and I realized that strawberries were ready to be picked. I sometimes miss the whole strawberry crop all together. It comes so early and leaves so quickly. We eat a lot of strawberries at our house. We make smoothies and mix them with cream to put on pancakes and waffles. They make cheap meals fun. I have been so busy and feared I’d miss the whole crop this year. I said out loud, “LORD I need some strawberries.” I’m a day late and a dollar short and didn’t know when I would be able to afford or have time to go to the field and pick what we need.

We rushed into the food bank just as they were closing and they know me there and know I’ll take all their bulk food and can and dehydrate and store everything they give me if they have it. They asked if I wanted to take the strawberries that they were taking to the pigs. Some of them were a little fuzzy but if someone was willing to pick through them, much of it was still good. I had the trailer with me so we loaded up sixty one cases of strawberries. That’s over a hundred gallons. We took home four hundred, eighty eight pounds of strawberries.

We worked late into the night but we finished up with thirty two quarts of wonderful strawberry syrup. I had two canners on the stove and eighteen quarts in the oven. The compost got the lions share of them and it wasn’t pleasant digging through to find the good ones but thirty two quarts of free, dark purple goo for smoothies and pancakes this winter makes me want to do a snoopy dance.

Yesterday my sweet Cayah was out in the garden and she came in with a root bound pot of spearmint. The plant was massive. She said she found it in the woods and we had mint growing everywhere. I must have placed it in the shade a few years ago and forgotten about it. I pinched off all the tops to make it grow thicker and pulled off enough for a gallon of mint tea for dinner and she took it back to plant it where it is happy. Something is growing on the land.

SOMETHING IS GROWING ON THE LAND!

God is good. All of the time.

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org

Ian is like Marilyn on the Munsters. He looks normal in a strange family so Kelsey’s family had no idea what she was actually getting into. I tried so hard not to embarrass him.

As the mother of the groom, it was my place to throw the rehearsal dinner. I know that most folks just go to a restaurant or bring in pizza’s but it was my only part in the celebration and I wanted to give Ian and Kelsey a memory, surrounded by their favorite people. The wedding party had one thing in common. We all love Ian and Kelsey and we all had the privilege of being a part of their special celebration.

I’ve always wanted to have a big fondue party, inspired by the melting pot restaurants. I’ve collected eighteen fondue pots along the way. The room that was rented for the rehearsal dinner didn’t have a stove so I actually pulled together that party using a hot plate. Hot oil, hot broth, four different cheeses, four different chocolates, eight dips and sauces and nearly forty items to dip.

The girls and I decorated all day with lights and candles and ironing cloth napkins. I hauled all the dishes from home and after packing the car, we realized there was no room for the girls to ride.

Michael and I have had a running argument over the course of our marriage on how to pack a car. He is a bag person so he can stuff and I’m a box person so I can stack. After thirty five years, his left brain and my right brain are still at odds, so by the time we’d gotten all the party and wedding things loaded, it looked like the Ricardo’s and the Mertz’s car as they left for New York from California. Everything was packed but it wasn’t exactly safe or legal….and there was no room for the children.

I called a friend to borrow her trailer only to find out we couldn’t swap out the ball on our car. We frantically called a son who has a truck and he came to help haul the boxes and bags and siblings toward Charlotte.

Michael realized during the dinner that none of us had, in our hurry and busyness to prepare for the meal, put on our shoes. Like Ma and Pa Kettle’s brood, all the Marlow’s were barefooted. I can’t even imagine what the Yankee guests must of thought of the strange southern family their daughter was marrying into.

After the dinner, Michael and I worked for four hours cleaning up that room. We had to pack the dishes dirty since there was no kitchen. Fondue is one sticky mess….everything covered in cheeses and chocolates. There were 24 guests and they used three or four plates each, three or four dipping bowls each and two glasses each. Add it up. What the girls and I put together clean, Michael and I packed dirty. George Bernard Shaw said that youth is wasted on the young. I couldn’t agree more and it certainly applied with Michael and I dragging around after a very long day, un decorating that room and packing those sticky dishes. Neither of us could lift the boxes to the car in our exhausted state so we lined them up neatly and drove to the hotel.

Ian had gotten us a nice room with a king size bed and a flat screen TV and a fireplace. I wish we could have enjoyed it. Michael and I staggered into bed at one AM and slept in our clothes only to wake up in four hours to return to the church to get those sticky boxes loaded into the car before anyone needed that room.

The hotel had a beautiful free breakfast with several meats and Belgian waffles and pastries galore but we were in a hurry so I grabbed two banana’s and we were on our way.

We now had the opportunity to load the car with sleep deprivation, with sore, aching bodies AND with no coffee. I knew better than to even suggest a way to fit all the boxes in. Michael is the nicest person I know but I knew better than to even whisper a suggestion. Marriage is about compromise and acceptance and I learned thirty five years ago that it’s ok for him to do it wrong.

After loading the car, we each went to big, cold bathrooms for the high school at the church to change into our wedding attire. We used roll paper towels to wash off the sweat and chocolate and cheese and tried to put on our nice clothes without them touching the semi icky bathroom floor.

As I was doing my hair, I realized that I’d forgotten to tailor the two extra inches of slack out of my dress straps and the bodice of my outfit exposed two inches of my bra. I bellowed for Michael through the cavernous halls and he went to the car and got the packing tape to see if it could be used to pin up my straps. He criss-crossed my back with several layers and it held up fine for a while. It made a funny crinkly noise when I moved my arms. I went upstairs to see if anyone had any safety pins and not even the wedding planner had one. I guess the wedding planner with the coat that opens to a full pharmacy and walmart store is only on movies. I asked her if she could get me a stapler. She laughed. I didn’t. When she realized I was serious, she scurried to find me one.

I was ushered into the room where the bride and maids were preparing for the day. It was a beautiful lounge with carpet and couches and ambient lighting. It had flowers and breath mints and it smelled really nice. I was just stunned. I’d been down in the bowels of the building in a cold, semi icky, school bathroom and the other ladies were upstairs in style. Murphy again.

The wedding planner brought me the stapler and she asked again in disbelief if I was really going to use it on my dress. I told her I wasn’t going to staple my skin….for goodness sakes….it’s a dress. What I wanted to say is if she was anything like Jennifer Lopez and was doing her job, she’d have safety pins and I wouldn’t have to use a stapler! But alas, discretion is the better part of valor, so I handed the stapler to Cayah and she made my dress fit.

Michael and I were the first people to enter the sanctuary in the ceremony and my legs were so sore and tired and swollen from the night before that I really didn’t think I could make it up the steps to the stage in a pair of heels without help. Michael escorted me up the stairs and I lit the unity candle with the brides mother.

I sat down and Michael crossed his legs only to expose white diabetic socks with his dress shoes rather than the black dress socks that I’d packed for him. I nearly inhaled my tongue. The devil is in the details and I know I didn’t plan on him showing up like Goober Pile on a blind date for this event. He saw the horror on my face and he tried to cover his ankle with his hand in a nonchalant manner. He said he couldn’t find the black ones. I stifled the urge to scream that if he’d packed the car with the personal items in one place like I suggested, it wouldn’t be an issue.

The groomsmen wore black slacks and silver vests and Ian wore the same but with PF Flyer tenny-runners…the white rubber tips bright under the cuff of his pants. Kelsey wore white PF Flyers with her long white gown. I guess they’re called Converse or Chucks now. The father of the bride and Michael were suppose to wear matching vests but one of the groomsmen needed Michael’s so he just wore the tie I’d brought. The vest was suppose to cover the stains that he had on his only good shirt so he had to wear his jacket all day.

My girls were bridesmaids and they looked absolutely beautiful and we all breathed a sigh of relief that Nina didn’t freeze up.

They didn’t have the traditional wedding march music or the traditional flowers and bows. It’s said that women only think the groom is looking adoringly at how beautiful her dress is when she walks down the aisle, when in reality it’s the first time he’s seen her with her hair up and he’s shocked at how big her ears are. I don’t think that applied here. Kelsey looked like an angel and Ian beamed like a man in love. The theme to Star Wars played as they exited the sanctuary, as a very fitting victory march.

Nearly every wedding I’ve attended in the last thirty five years has been the legalization of a relationship already in place. The couple was shacking up or already had children or were involved sexually. Even in Christian circles. That’s a sad reflection of the condition of the Church.

Ian and Kelsey took the same stance on marriage as Michael and I did and waited for the wedding night to consummate their relationship. They learned to die to their flesh and to honor Elohim in their lives and they learned to be friends. It’s so hard to go back and become friends after being lovers. Then the wedding is more like a ceremony of legitimizing what the couple has already usurped from God, rather than a celebration of purity and commitment. Most weddings are a great party but it’s an attempt to muster up wonder where there is none.

Ian and Kelsey entered into the wonder that a wedding is suppose to be. I am so happy for them and they have so much to look forward to.

The reception was across the road and it was carefully orchestrated in the seating arrangements. Why Ian put me at the same table as his pastor, is a mystery. May-be he wanted him to straighten out my theology. He was obviously bored out of his mind and I’m sure there were plenty of folks there from his church and school that he’d have much rather been with. My friends and I talked about the church we went to when the boys were young that was right next to an auction house and how Dumpster Diving 101 was an after church sport each Sabbath. If his pastor didn’t have enough evidence that Ian came from an odd family, he left that reception with plenty.

Kelsey said that she couldn’t find anyone that had a good reason for a fancy cake and a cake cutting ceremony so she decided not to have one. The dinner was finished off with a variety of regular cakes and cheese cakes.

The center pieces on each table had a fish bowl with a gold fish in it with a posted name for the fish and a memo about the fish for the adopting family. We ate with Daphne who liked to gaze at the stars as she swam.

Friends decorated the get away car and Ian and Kelsey left to spend their first night as husband and wife in their new apartment. They are going to leave in the morning for a week at the beach as a honeymoon. They’ll get their first real test of their young marriage….The ULTIMATE test: They’ll have to pack the car!

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org

While the Hebrew children were lost and going in circles for forty years in the desert, the Father provided them with a source of food…manna….that arrived each day. It didn’t land in their tents where they could roll over each morning and munch down. They had to get dressed and go out and get it off of the bushes where it came with the dew.

GRACE is ours because of what Yeshua did on the cross. Grace is getting what we DON’T deserve; Salvation, healing, comfort, etc.

But MERCY is NOT getting what we DO deserve; Death, sickness, confusion, misery, unhappiness, depression, etc. Now, the Father provides us mercy….new every morning. It’s a limited portion…..just a one day supply.

I just wanted to remind you to pick up the mercy that is new today….it won’t land in your bedroom. Ya gotta go to the Father and get it….every single day. He did that because he wants to see your face and to say hey so you can be reminded that He loves you.

He’s waiting.

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org

Micheal saw one little Mom and Pop motel that didn’t have a “No Vacancy” sign and he stumbled into the lobby and asked if they had two rooms.  We knew they wouldn’t allow nine people in one room so he would be in one room with half of the kids and I’d take a room with the others and we’d spend our power payment money to get safely off of the road.  The lady was happy to rent us two rooms but when she found out there would be seven children she said no.  Just no.  Go out into the dangerous weather…..take your seven children back out on that dangerous road and go away.  Michael was nearly in tears when he came back to the van.  He dreaded going back out on the highway. I sobbed.

We limped along for twelve more miles before seeing another vacancy sign.  He went in and asked if they had two rooms.  It was a little motel owned by a Vietnamese family.  They weren’t concerned that there would be seven children and I can only speculate that Michael told them what had happened at the last motel because those people came out into the weather and helped us bring in our kids and our luggage.  They brought blankets and pillows to make pallets on the floor and they brought us snacks and hot chocolate from their own kitchen.

I will never forget how awful it felt to be shunned and rejected because of our large family and how much it hurt that those first motel owners didn’t care that my children were put in harms way.  On the other hand….I won’t soon forget the kindness that little family from Viet Nam showed us, either.

It reminds me that there was an Inn Keeper, a long time ago, that went beyond the call of good business and provided another family, with a hugely pregnant lady, a safe place.  I doubt Joseph had to clean out that barn for his family.  I believe that Inn keeper had someone clear out the animal poop and put in fresh hay and he called for his aunt and his mom to come be a midwife and doula for Mary.  At no other time in history was scripture more fulfilled than that night when “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Matt 25:  34-40

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I pray for one acquaintance when I put the hand made pillow case on my pillow and I pray for another mom when I use my luggage and I pray for another when I dust.  I actually pray for fifty people when I dust.  I have prayer objects all over my home and yard…to remind me to pray for that person.  I have prayer clothes and prayer movies and prayer music and prayer dishes.  There is no end to the things I surround myself with that remind me to pray.

I have recipes that I’ve collected from folks all over the country.  When I make that meal, I’ve written on the back of the card where I met the person and got the recipe and prayer requests.  One time, many years after staying with a family in Montgomery, Alabama, I met a lady at a women’s conference in Florida who knew me and reminded me that I’d been a guest in her home.  I didn’t recognize her but when she told me where she’d lived, I snapped my fingers and said, “HELEN!! SPINACH LASAGNA!!”  I asked her about her son Keith and asked if her mother had won her battle with cancer.  Her recipe was one of my family favorites and I’d prayed for her while I cooked that recipe….for years.

I love coffee and of all the things I’ve been convicted about giving up over the years, I am SO grateful that Elohim has never asked me to give up my coffee.  One time, many years ago, a lady sent me a beautiful tin with her name written in permanent marker on the bottom and the tin was filled with coffee.  She wrote a quick note and said that it was a perfectly selfish gift because she knew I would pray for her more than anyone else.  She was right.  Since then, in telling that story, I’ve received coffee mugs as gifts from people all over the world!  Smart!

When I first got saved, the memories of Egypt were so painful, I didn’t think I would survive.  In my remembrance, I’d pray….lifting up each person that wronged me or each person as Satan brought them to my mind to torment me, I’d turn it around and lift the memory and the person to the throne room.  Pray, pray…pray.  Mind renewal.

So much music, even secular music, triggers a prayer…a person, a place, a situation….to loose angels and bind devils and intercede on behave of those left in the wake of such misery and agony and slavery.  Now, after years of service to the Most High God, even the secular music brings me to a place of joy in knowing that I’ve kept a hedge around some folks that may not ever have had anyone to lift them up.  What an honor!!  What a privilege!

Music that touches the heart of the Creator of the Universe had to originate with HIM so it’s such a blessing to participate in the creation process through music. I don’t sing publicly, I don’t play an instrument, but I can still jump in and attach myself to something anointed….for free.  How cool is that?

There are only a few songs in my life that come back to me spontaneously.  The kind of song that has rested in my spirit and sometimes just bubbles out and brings me such joy.  One of those songs is The King is Coming.  That song reached down into a dark place that I lived in as a teenager. A traveling evangelist team out of Texas came to our little Baptist church and those handsome, anointed young men, sang and preached and played and that song brings them to mind and I lift them up and leave their names at the foot of the Most High God.

As a young mother in a two bedroom house with seven children jammed into it, I asked the Lord for a ministry.  I knew I was the hand that rocks the cradle and I know that is a ministry but I wanted something powerful and anointed and ‘outside’ the home.  Then I started waking up in the middle of the night with a clear urgency to pray.  I didn’t know what to pray so I’d pray in the spirit and allow my spirit to intercede.  Five to ten minutes later, every single time, the fire alarm at the top of the volunteer fire house three blocks away would spring to life and wake up the town.  I knew that HE was waking me up before anyone called for help and I was binding and loosing and lifting up strangers.  When we get to the other side, I hope to meet those that prayed for me along the way and I want to meet those that I prayed for.

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I had to remind myself WHY I kept them at home.  Is it because I wanted Ivy League universities to clamor for them or because I wanted to protect them from what I see as a dysfunctional and toxic system?  In obedience to Adonia and HIS will for my family, I also had to face a reality check along the way.  Did I come to conclusions about what home educating my children would actually be at a home school conference where I was emotionally hyped up on encouragement and the smell of new curricula? Or did I actually seek HIM and HIS kingdom first?  Many home school families set themselves up for failure.

I told a friend, a long time ago, that her son was better off in a classroom with a teacher that may like him than at home with a mother that didn’t.  In all honesty, if we can only love them and like them five hours a day, after school, than they are better off than gritting our teeth at them for 24-7 and feeling guilty at the end of the day.  In a perfect world, we’d let Yeshua help us be all we can be, but sometimes I put up the white flag and surrender and beg HIM to fill in the gaps.  I’m not saying that Yeshua isn’t enough, because HE is.  Don’t put them back into that system casually, though.

Too often we home schooling mom’s think because our kids are behind in the book work that we’re doing them an injustice, somehow.  There are worse things than being behind academically.  Remember that who they become in Elohim is far more important than higher math.  Home schooling is also about relationships.

When my older children were very young, I remember the overwhelming guilt that met me each evening.  I’d lay in bed and reflect on my day and realize that the basics of food in their mouths and clothes on their backs was all the time and energy I had and school books were idle .  All I could remember was that I barked orders and stomped out little nuisance fires and spoke harshly at the rotten little arsonists.

I know all about going into their rooms and crying next to their sleeping little bodies and wanting to wake them up and hug them and talk about what was important to them to appease my guilty and sleep deprivation.  That’s why I started keeping a notebook next to my bed.   When things quieted down and the Accuser came to remind me of how I failed my children, I could remember all the nice things I wanted to say to my kids and I could write them down and mention it tomorrow.  I would have NEVER remembered the next day, otherwise.   I wake up and hit the floor running. This way I had a date with my little dollar notebook at the same time each afternoon.  Back then, it was at three o’clock every single day.  Michael would be home by three thirty and I’d stop everything to brush my hair and my teeth and change my shirt with the spit up on it and then go around to each child….no matter where they were….and ask them what I’d thought about the night before: “how are you and sally doing?  still fussing at each other?”
“let me take a look at that rug burn…..yeow. that looks like it hurts.”
“did you have another nightmare?”

I touched them;  Patted their head, hugged them, whatever.  I found each of them….on the trampoline, out in the sand box, playing in the barn, watching TV or playing on the computer.  No matter where they were….and then everyone has quality mommy time for two or three minutes before Papa came home.  That night I had many more new and improved regrets but the night be fore’s regrets and guilt were resolved so nothing actually accumulated.  I kept up with my guilt!

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org

I used cloth diapers with my first eight children.  It was a great investment.  I didn’t have hot water in my laundry room so I had to get creative in getting them clean.  First, my diapers lasted longer than most of my earth mother friends’ diapers did.  I realized early that urine is ammonia and bleach and ammonia make acid, so washing with bleach the first time around was literally eating the fabric up.  Another thing I noticed is that clean diapers smelled sour as soon as they got warm on the baby.  Washing with pine oil rather than bleach took care of both problems.  Make sure you use a brand that disinfects.  Those that only ‘deodorize’ don’t kill the germs that cause the smell in the first place.  The products like Dreft were a waste of money.

If you don’t want to rinse your diapers twice in a large machine (once for the pine oil and then the bleach) you can use a bucket with the pine oil in water.  If you use a bucket of dirty diapers but don’t have them soak in anything, you’ll need to wash them first in pine oil and then rinse them again with bleach.

My pail of dirty diapers had pine oil in the water.  Some mom’s use T-tree oil but back then Tea tree oil was extremely expensive and could only be purchased in very small quantities.

The pine oil and water bucket takes me to the next issue with cloth diapers: Sloshing them out.

Now there are few things in my world as nasty as dealing with poop so I made a place in my bathroom for diapers.  The smell stayed where those kind of smells are suppose to be.  I had two five gallon buckets that I got free from a local deli department, (just ask). For a long time I only had one bucket.  I’d slosh out the poopie diapers in the toilet and put them in the pine oil water, with the urine diapers..  When we moved into a newer home, I had a newer toilet.  My old home had a ten gallon water tank on the toilet and the new toilet only had a six gallon tank. Sloshing was a lesson in futility.  There simply is not enough water to slosh in a more modern “green” toilet.  Therefore; two buckets.  One for urine diapers and one for poopie diapers that were sloshed daily and put into the urine bucket.  Then the poopie water was flushed and refilled in the tub and pine oil added fresh.  I washed a hundred diapers a week, one time a week and the smell was seldom an issue….even with the next pregnancy and morning sickness added to the mix.  I kept a pair of hard core rubber gloves clothes-pinned to the side of the bucket handle for the chore.  Most of the time the buckets were stored in the walk-in shower so pets and children were safe.  Lids were too much trouble.

I made a nice changing table for our first child out of an old desk and a covered piece of foam with a hanging caddy for diapers, hung from a plant ’L’ hook.  I wore that out and eventually had to make a diaper caddy to hang cloth diapers when disposable diapers were in vogue.  Cloth diapers were too heavy and large for the hanging caddies that were on the market.  I also ended up having to make my own diaper bags as well.  The market for diaper bags catered to disposable diapers and bottles.  Nursing mom’s that used cloth diapers were simply out of luck.  Throw in the need for supplies for a two year old and a four year old and nothing worked off the shelf.

The changing table eventually moved to a bathroom counter with a pad and easy access to water.  Then, as my older children helped with diapering and  with the changing, the dynamics and the place for diapering changed as well.  The couch, the floor, the bed…..anywhere was fair game for a diaper change.  That’s when I created a diaper caddy that was mobile.  I could have used a Rubbermaid product created for cleaning supplies with a handle but I’ve always been cash poor.  I collected flip top laundry detergent boxes from friends and used them as diaper caddies.  I wiped the dry detergent out and put supplies in them; diapers, baggie of wipes, bottom creams, special toy, etc.  I say ‘them’ because I made them for several places in the house.  Eventually I decorated them for whatever room they were in. It simply looked better in my living room to have a pretty box rather than a TIDE box hanging around.  I covered them with scrap wallpaper or boarders to match the room. You can paint the boxes as well.  Be sure to use Gesso on them first so the paint won’t flake off.

Now as my children are older, I use the same idea of laundry boxes for my teenagers that share a bathroom.  They each have their own boxes that keep their personal bathroom items separate from the public domain.

On the up side of cloth diapers, those that wear out, make great rags.  Ten years after  our youngest child was born, I was rag poor and realized why; no hand me down diapers.  That’s when I started cutting up tossed clothes for the rag  bag.  Another up side to cloth diapers is that many times I’d run out of diapers as I stayed longer than expected at friends.  They’d offer a hand towel to prolong our visit and needless to say they didn’t want it back after my child used it on their bottom.  I ended up with the most wonderful and eclectic collection of hand towels over the years.  Again, ten years down the road and I was hand towel poor as well.

In using pins next to the baby’s body, I put my fingers between the pin and the baby…..always.  I’ve been poked but none of my children have.  Keeping a squirmy baby still is important, especially if you are using pins and by the time they are three or four months old, they are old enough to lay still.  Have a few toys that they get to hold during diapering and use consistent words ‘lay still’ and follow up to insist on it.  I’m a believer of loving, consistent corporal punishment and an occasional pop on the leg to insist on a safe diapering environment simply worked better for me than diapering an octopus for two years.  Make diapering time for singing certain songs and face to face talking to the baby.

Another hint for pins, to make them slide smoothly through the fabric, run the sharp side through your hair before poking them through the cloth.  There is just enough oil in your hair to give it the ‘slide’ that it needs.

Store bought baby wipes are very cheap now.  Back then they all contained alcohol so I made my own. You can find many recipes on line.   This is how I made mine.

HOME MADE DIAPER WIPES

1 roll of paper towels (Bounty works best)
2 T. baby oil or light mineral oil (Johnson smells the best)
2 T. baby bath shampoo or 15 drops of Tea Tree oil.  Dr. Bonner’s castile soap works well too but avoid the peppermint kind.
2 cups boiled water, then cooled (or distilled water)
Old diaper wipe container, 3 lb margarine tub or zip bag

Cut the paper towels with a  knife with a small seriated edge. (I used my large bread cutting knife.)
Mix the  ingredients in two separate bowls, half in each. Stir carefully so it won’t suds.
Remove the cardboard from the middle of the roll.
Set the cut edge of the roll into the liquid and let it absorb.  Turn it over as necessary. After the towels have set for a short while, they will absorb the liquid more evenly and will keep fresh for several weeks.  Longer if you use T-tree oil.

I kept a ziplock bag of them in the glove box in the car and in the kitchen and next to my bed and in the center of the school room table, next to the toilet and of course my diaper bag.  Because they were so cheap, I used them without reservation.

I hope some of these ideas help.

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author. Emmamarlow.org