As I reflected on Gaggie and her good heart and how she allowed her intimate relationship with the Lord to flow naturally out of her heart to all those with whom she came in contact, I began to express my thanksgiving to Him for Gaggie, and so many others in my life, for whom I am so grateful for directing me to what is really important. Jesus was asked by one of the teachers in the law in the account in Matthew 22: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.' And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " Please pray that I will love the Lord with ALL my heart so that I can then allow that to flow out of my life with those "neighbors" who are in my life each day! May I encourage you to spend some time this Thanksgiving, and every day, to be thankful for all that God has shared with you through wonderful people and your intimate time spent with Him. Especially in today's world, I trust that each of us will let Jesus shine out of us in our responses to those we meet.
At the end of my post this week I am going to place the little piece that my sister, Julee, wrote on January 19, 1990. It's there if you care to read what it was that triggered my reflection on my heart and all it is so easy to allow spiritual atrophy to set in if not guarded!
One of my favorite pictures of Gaggie! I am sitting on her lap. I loved sitting on her lap!! My oldest sister, Gae, is on Gaggie's right; my cousin, Jimmy, is on her left and next to Jimmy is my sister, Julee, the author of Gaggie's Good Heart!
This was at Gaggie and Pappa's 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration. My younger brother, Jared, is on my right followed by Julee and then Gae. On my left are four of my cousins and some of the great grandchildren. We all LOVED Gaggie and Pappa!
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It has been a busy week! One of my special times each week is during our Chapel and OASIS assemblies on Tuesday morning. The past two weeks I had the privilege of celebrating those students who were highlighted by their teachers as examples of our Guardian Way - those character qualities that God desires each of us to exemplify in our lives. I recognized a number of children, but one, in particular, stands out. Felicia is in Grade 1A was highlighted by her teacher for sharing her wisdom with others in her class to make them feel better. "Felicia told the class, 'Mistakes make us better because they help us to learn,' and 'If you're making mistakes, that means you're really smart.'" I thought this was very insightful from a first grader! Thanks, Felicia!
Felicia is the wise cherub in the white shirt at the Fall Book Fair!
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Yes, it was time for our Fall Book Fair! I love these times! Many parents will visit the school and assist their children in purchasing good books at great prices. This year's Book Fair was very well attended and many books were purchased. The two bookstores who bring books to sell give great prices and then give a % of the sales to our PTO for use in providing additional resources to our Library/Media Center. One of the things I love about our students at YISS is that they LOVE to read! It is so fun to watch them browse books and choose some to purchase and read. So thankful for a school and for parents who continue to promote the reading of good literature.
This only shows part of the main reception/lobby area where the Book Fair is set up. This picture was taken at a less busy time so you don't see how crowded it was - especially on the first day.
Some girls browsing and chatting about the books they would like.
This little lady is intent on reading while browsing!
Some more children reading alone and some with a parent asking
questions about the books!
One of my favorite pictures at the Fair; showing a group of fifth grade boys very excited about finding some books that were on their list!
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In the middle of this busy week, teachers prepared Progress Reports of students in Quarter 2. It was hard to believe that we were already half way through Quarter 2. The technology has worked through most of the bugs of the reporting system so this time we were very thankful that everything went much smoother as we read through teachers' comments and Progress Reports and distributed them to parents!
I had two special surprises in my office this week! The first one was a surprise visit from my colleague and friend, Sylvain Vachon. Mr. Vachon teaches French at YISS. His wife is also a teacher at YISS. Three weeks ago Mrs. Vachon gave birth to a wonderful son! When he was born, he began to have numerous seizures. Doctors were having trouble finding the source of the problem. The Vachons asked all of us at YISS to pray and Sylvain told me that once the flood of prayers began, their son, J.D., began to improve! My surprise was that J. D. and his Daddy came to my office on Thursday! What a wonderful surprise! I am so thankful for the great medical report that Daddy gave me. Please continue to pray for the J. D. and his Mommy and Daddy.
Proud Daddy and J. D. in my office!!
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Thursday after school I went for my appointment with Dr. Park, the doctor who has been working on my corns and callouses on my toes. I still have a lot of pain in the left two toes, but Dr. Park is not giving up. Thursday he continued slicing away at the big callous/corn. He had done some laser treatment the week before and the toe was still in great pain. He took a surgical knife this time and in the midst of my very strange and loud noises, he sliced and sliced. When he finished, he said, "I need to see you next Friday. I think I will give you an injection to ease the pain as I slice." I think my peculiar noises scared the good doctor! :-) Thanks for continuing to pray.
After my visit to Dr. Park, I thought I should have a treat for dinner. I stopped at Pizzarium, a little pizza place near my apartment. I enjoyed my favorite pizza, Rucola Ranch. So delicious!!
My very yummy Rucola Ranch Pizza at Pizzarium!
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The second surprise came on Friday morning in the elementary office. Grade 5D's teacher, Mr. Benedict, brought his class of cherubs to the elementary office to share their Memory Work Assessment. Mr. Benedict had arranged their memory verses from their Bible study during the last several weeks into a song. He was using this song as their assessment for this particular study. The kids did a fantastic job! I was so impressed and all of the elementary office staff were greatly encouraged by their assessment! I continue to believe that music is a great key to memory and remembering important things for a long time! Here is the link to the video clip that I took of the Grade 5D cherubs singing their Bible assessment: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByMZY_Yz73C8S0tDLWkySlVGaU0 If it does not show, you can find it on Facebook. Here is a picture of the group. Sorry, it is a bit blurry.
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I want to wish you a very special Thanksgiving this next week. I am very grateful for each one of you and value your love, encouragement, prayers, and support. This week I will be preparing for the wonderful wedding of my dear friend, Gunmo Kim and his beautiful lady, Su Jin! I am very excited for this delightful couple as they become one and serve the Lord together as one. Thursday evening a number of us will be gathering with Gunmo and Su Jin along with my friend and former colleague at SYME, Joy Carl, to celebrate with Gunmo and Su Jin prior to the special wedding on Saturday, November 28. I know they would appreciate your prayers for this special day.
Again, Happy Thanksgiving! Remember - "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it!" ... Proverbs 4:23
Love, Gregg
Below is my sister's piece entitled Gaggie's Good Heart. I hope you will be encouraged and challenged!
Gaggie's Good Heart!
Gaggie is 92. She lives in a nursing home and she's special to me for two reasons. One, I'm a registered nurse at the home, and two, she's my grandmother.
Last night at work I noticed that her doctor had written two words under his assessment of her for yearly goal planning. "Good heart," he wrote.
He doesn't know how accurate his assessment is.
Gaggie never heard of "cholesterol" or "partially hydrogenated fats" or "lecithin." She didn't know it, but she loved the taste of "cholesterol." And she taught us, her grandchildren, to love it, too. We didn't know that fudge sickles, peanut butter and marshmallow crackers and chunks of chocolate from People's Drugstore were possible medical disasters. WE thought they were Gaggie's love.
Gaggie planned her time, her house and her freezer for the pleasure of others. The time and thought she put into making me an egg sandwich or slicing a fresh peach from the orchard she lived in made me feel as though I were eating a banquet at a queen's table.
For her, living was serving others.
Gaggie had time for us. She spent hours at Newberry's Five and Dime Store every Christmas to get "just the right thing" for all nine of her grandchildren. Then she took more time to arrange all the little gifts in brown shopping bags with handles so they would be removed in "just the right order." To us, those brown bags were gold.
Because all of us were either too fat, too thin or just plain odd-shaped, Gaggie knitted and sewed to make us look as good as she could. I remember telling her exactly what kind of material I wanted for a dress to wear the first day of school. She hunted until she found it.
All holidays, including "Children's Day" (I never WAS sure if that holiday really existed) and "May Day." were prepared for with more care than the Macy's Parade. Gaggie would talk about each celebration for weeks ahead and help us make appropriate decorations out of construction paper, glue, ribbon and whatever she found on sale. Money was not abundant, but we didn't know it. We did know that holidays, according to Gaggie, were a perfect time to make people happy. We took yellow paper baskets full of wonderful kleenex flowers to handicapped people and shut-ins. We decorated eggs at Easter with Gaggie and then gave ost of them away.
In Gaggie's philosophy, the generation gap was made to be bridged. For years one of the grandest traditions Gaggie engineered was our "Old Hen Parties." Eight or so of her friends - really OLD people we thought at the time - would come together with Gaggie's grandchildren on the occasion of the birthday of each person in the group. We dined on foods usually reserved for Sunday dinner with desserts being the highlight. And the rest of the evening - the best part of all - we played Bingo. There was an enormous revolving tray in the middle of the table that Gaggie filled with candy and gum of all kinds. Every time you won a game, you could take a piece off the tray. At the end of the evening, there would be a wild and crazy game when we filled our cards to use up all the candy. We left with a big bag of cholesterol-laden candy, but we had learned that OLD people weren't much different from us.
Gaggie saw beauty or good in everything, especially the little things. It took her forever to open gifts because the "paper was too pretty to be torn." Her house was always cluttered with cards, papers, drawings, poems or photographs of her grandchildren taped to walls and the refrigerator because, to her, they represented the beautiful in life. She hoarded everything because she couldn't bear to throw away beauty.
A few years ago, we thought Gaggie was dying. She was bleeding excessively from an ulcer and finally, with great ambivalence, the family agreed to emergency surgery. We had little hope that she'd pull through the operation but once again the doctor said she had a good heart. She fought her way to recovery - feisty, I think is the word the nurses used.
Gaggie's blood cholesterol level is a low 175. But she doesn't know or care.
Gaggie would say her good heart has little to do with cholesterol. Her "good heart" is a gift from God, she told me when I was a little girl - without Him her heart was "deceitful and desperately wicked." *
Yes, Doctor, Gaggie does have a good heart!
Written January 19, 1990 by Julee Huss
* Holy Bible, Jeremiah 17:9
Gaggie (Ruth Ruttler) passed away in November, 1991, 22 months after this was written, at the age of 94 - and her cholesterol was 162.
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I love this! I'm so thankful Aunt Julee took the time to write this down. how old was she at the time - 30 something? I think a lot of Gaggie's good heart comes through in her grandchildren because I have the best aunts and uncles and can very clearly see how you were influenced by her good heart. Love you!
ReplyDeletePS- i knew that group of boys would be at a minecraft table before I even saw the books. boys will be boys.