Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker.
Turn them out, knaves all three.   (James Orchard Halliwell)

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When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I remember wanting to be an astronaut when I was about 10. I think I held onto that aspiration for about a month or so.

By the time I reached my teens I knew I should plan to go to college and get a degree, but deep down inside I really just wanted to be a wife and mother.

(Wait a minute while I go lock my doors before the feminist police hunt me down with their clubs…)

I also remember wanting to be a teacher or a nurse, and after graduating from high school I was enrolled in a local college’s RN program.

When I was in my thirties, aside from being a wife and a homeschooling mother, I sort of wanted to be three other things.

A midwife.

A mortician.

And a window painter.

I’ll talk about my midwife apprenticing another time…it was something I loved but eventually saw that it wasn’t meant to be.

I’ll talk about why I wanted to be a mortician another time too.

When I was in high school I was one of the student sign painters. Every football or basketball game, we always hung long banner-like signs with huge block letters that said inspiring directives like, “Go COLTS!” and “Tromp the Trojans!” and “Hammer the Huskies!” After a couple of years, I could pencil in the 2-foot high letters and have them painted in just a few minutes, and I liked doing it.

When I returned from living in Germany in the early 1980s, I got my first window painting job at a business in Orange County, California, painting a comic-like Christmas scene on their large front windows. I painted a long-nosed and cranky looking Ebenezer Scrooge with a top hat, a scarf wrapped around his neck and blowing in the wind, and he held two bulging bags of money in each hand. Snowflakes fell around him and above his hat in those huge, high-schoolish letters were the words “Merry Christmas.” A word bubble came from his mouth to show he was muttering, “Bah. Humbug.”

After Christmas I washed the paint off the windows as part of the window painting package, and thought about having business cards made up so I could have a little business on the side. I was an office supervisor for a large private investigating company back then. Thirty years ago it was quite common for seasonal themes to be painted on business windows, and some places also painted their sale advertisements on windows too. I don’t see that so much anymore.

Anyway, my window painting days were rather short-lived, because I was swept off my feet by a Minnesota man who asked me to marry him before we ever met. I said yes and moved to American Siberia in 1981, and was thankfully able to be a wife and a mother again for my vocation, having given up private investigating stuff and Southern California altogether.

A few years later when various friends had babies, I picked up my paintbrush again. Sometimes I painted a welcome sign or a birth announcement on their house windows, so something unique and memorable would be waiting for them when they arrived home after giving birth in the hospital.

Here is one example below. My good friend Bob King (who also worked for our local newspaper) took this photo of me as I was standing on a ladder and painting in pink and white, “Howdy Holly! Welcome!” on the front window of friends Sue and Dave’s house. Holly was their third child and first girl, and that was something to celebrate in a big way.

Holly is all grown up now, is married and has a little girl of her own, and I’m too old to climb ladders and paint windows anymore.

I don’t really want to be a midwife or a mortician at this age, either.

I like what I’m doing now, and am so thankful for my job. (Most of you know we are adult foster care providers in our home.)

How about you? When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Awhile back Michael had an all-day appointment at The Struthers Parkinson’s Center in the Minneapolis area. It had been a few years since he’d gone through the many hour-long appointments they schedule at an all-day assessment. Beginning at 9:00 a.m. and lasting until 3:30 p.m., he had appointments with a Speech Therapist, an Occupational Therapist, a Physical Therapist, a Nurse Practitioner, a Social Worker, and at the end of the day, his neurologist. They all specialize in Parkinson’s, so each professional is always compassionate and a fount of helpful information. The sessions can be intense because they fit all they can into the hour slots, but each time we’ve gone (during different stages of Michael’s PD journey), we’ve come back with something helpful to try.

Since Michael is a good-natured man, he’s willing to go to something like this, which is usually quite tiring and often not very heartening for him. He would rather watch the Minnesota Twins play baseball on TV, or pick up Schnauzer poop in the yard than concentrate on all the things Parkinson’s is doing to him.

So when we drive the few hours to Minneapolis for these appointments, we try to stay in a hotel, go out for a nice meal, see a sight or two. It would be too grueling to get up at 4:00 a.m., drive down, go through the many assessment appointments, and drive home in the dark.

This last trip I was feeling like we should stay in a place outside of our regular hotel box. I surfed around online and found a place in downtown Minneapolis called Le Meridien. It’s an artsy, hip, young and edgy sort of place — the very things we are not. That’s just the reason I booked a room (that and the incredible middle-of-the-week deal they had going), and told Michael we’d be trying something different with this trip.

We had also received two recent recommendations for a place we’d never tried — Punch Pizza. Punch Pizza happened to be down the street from our hotel, so voila! our evening was planned.

When we reached our hotel I scolded myself for not having read the fine print well enough — it cost $28 to park. Ahem. Oh well, we rolled with it and handed Jason our keys to the Highlander and pretended we did not look like Jed Clampett and Granny rolling their suitcase into the lobby. (I used to say Jethro and Elly May when I’d employ this witticism, but clearly Michael does not look like Jethro and not even a person with double cataracts would mistake me for Elly May).

I’m not sure how to describe our room. What would you say? Spartan? Minimalist? Modern? Plain?

The bed was divinely comfortable, which is all that really matters when you are over 55, which I almost am. In fact, I will be over 55 in 20 days, now that I think about it. Other things matter regarding hotel rooms too, like the absence of cockroaches, quietude, and a non-smoking room.

There was a huge television on a swiveling wall mount that was a bonus for a man who wanted to watch the Minnesota Twins that afternoon, who happened to be playing at the new Target Field, which was about one mile from where we lounged in the divinely comfortable bed.

There was also a television on the wall in the bathroom. This is a man thing. I don’t know any women who take so long in the bathroom that they need a television to help them pass the time. Do you? Do you think it’s a man thing? Are men just constipated because they don’t like their vegetables or what?

I thought the sink was photoworthy.

And the shower too.

We are early to bedders, early risers, and early diners. So we headed to Punch Pizza for an early dinner, ordered our personal pizzas and a salad each, walked over to our table to set our napkins and iced teas down when they man behind the counter shouted, “NUMBER 188! ORDER NUMBER 188!” Well, our number was 188 and it hadn’t been three minutes since we’d ordered it. Sara told us the pizza there is baked at over 1000 degrees in a huge, hive-shaped brick oven, but I had no idea it would be so fast. I suppose in our internet age, people want things now. But having our pizzas ready before we could walk across the room? Hmmm.

The pizza was fantastic, my Walnut-Gorgonzola Salad unique and delicious, and Michael was ready for a nap. He knew he had about a hundred people to see the next day at Struthers, so we returned to our hotel.

I’ve been looking for some art to hang above the new mantel over our new fireplace in our new dining room in our new house. Do you think something like this should be considered? Does this canvas in the hotel lobby vibe Juliejuliejulie or Michaelmichaelmichael to you?

I’m not sure that we’ll stay at the Le Meridien again, but it was a fine experience. I think we might try Punch Pizza again someday, but maybe we’ll sit down in our booth for a while before we order so we can not have a conversation but look into each others’ eyes and smile knowingly, which is what we do a lot across dinner tables these days.

What do you look for in a hotel?

What are some of your favorite places to dine?

…..make it this:

How To Really Live

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Yes!

All summer long we haven’t seen a fruit fly, until this week. I try to be careful about our fruit because I know all it takes is one bunch of bananas with the right hitchhikers on them and in no time those little brown flies will be taking over the kitchen.

I saw the first fruit fly a couple of days ago, and immediately wrapped up all the fruit. Some of it stayed out and some went in the fridge, but all of it was washed and/or wrapped. The fruit bowl was washed and dried before returning the (wrapped) fruit to it.

I was able to swat a fly or two that first day, but yesterday I saw at least five buzzing around. Sara noticed that I had my head down on the counter weeping (well, not quite), and she trotted off to the computer for a few minutes, then returned with a remedy she’d found.

“Put a small glass or bowl of apple cider vinegar out on the counter,” she instructed, “and add a few drops of dishwashing liquid to it. It should attract the flies and kill them.”

I am sorry that I’m admitting to killing flies in such a cruel way, for those of you who ponder such things. I would have preferred their quick demises with a merciful swat, but that wasn’t working for me. I did what Sara suggested, and within two minutes the first fly had succumbed.

Michael and I went grocery shopping and when we returned an hour and a half later, there were at least 10 fruit flies at the bottom of the little bowl with apple cider vinegar and Dawn dishwashing liquid in it.

I put out a fresh batch last night before I went to bed and lo, this morning there are none in the dish. The fruit flies are gone.

Perhaps all of you already know this information. I might be decades behind in the household hints department and 8 out of 10 homes in America (and England and Australia and Canada and Switzerland and Ireland) have already been employing this method for battling fruit flies for years now.

But just in case you have a fruit fly or two and you hadn’t heard of this strategy, I thought I would pass it on. There’s a teeny part of me that feels bad for the kind of end the flies are meeting in my home, but oh well.

The Georgia peaches, Pink Lady apples, Anjou pears and the Hawaiian bananas and pineapples take priority.

How do you deal with fruit flies?

A few nights ago Michael and I apparently had a short conversation while I was sleeping. He told me the next morning what had happened and I couldn’t remember one bit of it, not even the shadow of a dream I might have had. 

Michael said that in the middle of the night he woke up to me next to him saying whispery and plaintively (he didn’t use those adjectives, but he did an impression of me and they apply), “Jesus…. Jeeesus…. Jeeesus…. Jesus.” He saw that I was sound asleep as I was quietly pleading the Savior’s name over and over.

Instead of waking me up and asking me to turn over because I was having a dream (which is what I would probably have done to him), he listened for a while. Then, when I paused, Michael said to me slowly and soothingly (and he demonstrated how he spoke), “Just call upon His name.”

“I said the name of Jesus over and over in a wispy, earnest voice?” I asked, a bit incredulous.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And you listened for a while and then answered me?”

“Yes.”

“Then what happened?” I asked him.

“Nothing. You stopped and I think I went back to sleep.”

Being married to a Parkinson’s patient with profound speech difficulties isn’t always easy. But evidently the Lord is helping us to have short but very meaningful conversations in the middle of the night.

Blessings on you all today,

“He is the happiest, be king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.”

~~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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For the last eleven years, save one, I’ve held a summer Bible study in my home. This year we’re studying the book of James, and we’re also learning about the man who wrote the epistle that bears his name, James, the half-brother of Jesus.

Every week has been a blessing. Every day of study a welcome challenge. My life needs confronting, and I would rather be confronted by the velvet hammer of scripture than by the wreckage of a rebellious or selfish life gone unchecked.

A few weeks ago, part of the day’s assignment in our workbooks was to presently consider “What are you going to do with all you’re going through?” 

The passage in James we were studying that week was at the very beginning of the book, where he commands,

Count it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  (James 1:2-4)

And here’s how The Message Bible gives us the words of James 1:2-4:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

We were to honestly record something difficult we’re going through in our lives right now. (Guess what? Every woman in my living room could think of something; I don’t know anyone who isn’t going through a hard situation, do you?) Then, we were asked to write down three ways we could respond to that difficulty. One of the responses we were encouraged to seriously consider is James’ admonition above, to count it all joy when we face our trials, knowing that this kind of attitude would always bring good fruit in our lives even in the midst of our struggles.

I have more than a few difficulties in my life. They may not be World Class Difficulties, like paralysis, bankruptcy, drug addiction — heart breakers like that. But they are still my own troubles, and some days they seem a tad much. I know you can relate. You may be wondering how you’re going to pay your mortgage in September, what is going to happen with your health, or if your husband is being completely faithful. Your mind might wander into the quicksand of thoughts like this: is this all I have to look forward to for the rest of my life?…how in the world are we going to pay for this?…will my heart ever heal from that horrible betrayal?…and just fill in your own toxic blank in your mind. If we play these words in our head over and over and over, these kinds of thoughts never help. Never.

The challenge in my life I chose to ponder is my husband Michael’s Parkinson’s disease, and the way it increasingly affects our everyday lives. The way it has slowly robbed him of pieces of his personality, his physical strength, his ability to do things automatically, to figure out simple things like the TV remote or a cell phone, or to make decisions. The way it has stolen his clear speech and our ability to communicate well as a couple.

“So, what are you going to do with all you’re going through?” 

We were asked to consider three possible responses, even if they’re choices we know we’d never make.  I wrote:

1. Walk away.

2. Stay, and be selfish and crabby.

3. Consider it all joy as I walk out this life, knowing God is developing perseverance in me, and eventually, maturity.

Next, we were asked to consider the fruit of these three choices, what we believed would be the five-year ramifications for each of these courses of action.

I sat on my bed as I quietly looked ahead in my mind, five years down the road. In five years I will be almost sixty years old. I know that our lives hold no guarantees and that I might not live another five years, but for the sake of this part of the study, we were asked to look at what kind of fruit would come from the three different kinds of seeds we could potentially sow each day.

And to say that a light bulb came on over my head would be too much of an understatement. It was more like the large window near my bed suddenly flew open and the sun streamed in and a fresh wind blew over me, and I could see.

Here’s what I wrote that the fruit of my possible choices could be, five years down the road:

1. Devastation for my husband, alienation from my family, no peace for me. (If you know me, you know that this choice would never be my choice. I love my husband and made a vow to him and to God. Not in a million years would I choose this kind of destructive path. But I wanted to look at it, because it is a viable choice, and many people make it. If I decided things were just too hard and I wanted to leave to do things I wanted to do, it’s clear to me that many people would be crushed, not to mention what this would do to my own soul.) This choice would bring rotten, maggot-infested fruit that would nourish no one.

2. Wasted years with many regrets. If I choose #2 above, staying where I am and being selfish and crabby, at the end of five years, what do I have? A desert of waste and regret. A barren, squandered life. That’s the kind of landscape I saw ahead of me as I sat and pondered all of this.

If you asked my family, I don’t think they would say that I’m frequently selfish and crabby. But a woman knows her own heart, and there are some days when my clipped responses and my quiet sighs and my stares that silently say seriously? are we going to go through this again today? you’re kidding me, right? are fueled by selfishness and crabbiness. And I’m pretty sure that pride is at the bottom of all of it. Because it would be pride that would make me think I shouldn’t have to do this day in and day out. It would be pride that would help me choose impatient sighs instead of loving affirmations. It would be pride that would even introduce the niggling thought that whispers, this isn’t making me happy.

But so what? So it’s hard, so each day doesn’t find me skipping down a lovely garden path tra-la-la-ing? I still have a choice, and the choices I make each hour end up forming a day. And the days end up forming a lifetime. And at the end of my lifetime, much less at the end of five years, I don’t want to be filled with regret. Do you?

3. Beauty, peace, exhaustion, joy. This is what I saw as I surveyed my life ahead, if I take James seriously and count it all joy. If I remind myself thirty-seven times a day that this all means something, that a good hidden work is being done, and I can trust God in this. If I thank Him for all these things, and write them down in my gratitude journal. If I take it seriously that Jesus wants me to treat everyone kindly and show His love. Counting it all joy doesn’t mean there won’t be exhaustion and really hard and disappointing times. But as clearly as I can see the words on this computer screen, I could see that this choice would bring beauty. Peace. Joy. And possibly some other good fruits. 🙂

So that means that if we know what we should do, we just do it, right? I wish it were that easy. So did the apostle Paul. Some of you very good-natured, easy-going and patient people are already consistently choosing Five Year Plan #3. And the gorgeous fruits are already weighing down the branches of your life. But some of us have been born into families where pride and selfishness seem to be produced in the marrow of our bones. It’s so much a part of us we can’t get free of it. I know of no other solution for people like me than to put my face down before God (the floor is good, but a pillow or even the arm of a chair will do) and tell Him I know. I agree. I need your help. I need your power, your perspective, your mercy, your everything. And then submit myself to Him and walk out the next few minutes trusting that He has answered, whether lightning flashed when I prayed or not.

I think Anne Lamott’s prayer advice applies beautifully here. As I go through my day and cry out to God “Help me help me!” or “Thank you thank you!” somehow He does, and I can be grateful. And how wonderful it is when night falls and I can see that He has kept me on the #3 Five-Year Plan today. I might stumble back onto the #2 plan tomorrow, but God has a way of setting us on the right path again when we humbly ask Him to do this, even several times a day.

I’m off now, to get dressed, to clean the kitchen, and to pick up my sweet granddaughter Mrs. Nisky. She and I have a special day planned, to celebrate her recent 8th birthday. We’re going out to lunch, to a movie, and on The Timber Twister, and I can’t wait to spend time with her.

Thank you for stopping by today, friends. As I close, I hope you don’t mind that I’ll repeat the question our James study asked the twelve women in our group to consider (and perhaps some friends from our James study might want to comment about this too?):

So, what are you going to do with all you’re going through?

May Jesus give us all the grace and strength to choose the most fruitful, beautiful, live-giving paths…

Just the other morning
While reading from a book
Michael pointed at our bed
So I would take a look

At first I just saw pillows
I then began to peer
And there behind the cardinal
Was a little Schnauzer ear

When Mildred heard us chuckle
Up popped her silky head
From the comfy den of pillows
She’d made on our big bed

When she saw we wouldn’t move her
She lowered her brown eyes
And then she plopped her head right down
And heaved her doggy sighs

Encircled by nine pillows
To ward away her fear
You’d never know she’s snoozing
But for that telltale ear.

Addendum: this final verse was offered in the comments by my friend Kay in England, and it was so apt and delightfully written, I asked her permission to include it here:

So Mildred returned to her snoozing
Dreaming fondly of rabbits to chase
But always keeping an ear on alert
Whilst concealing the rest of her face!

I hope that makes you smile today….it made me grin from “ear to ear.”

That’s my motto for the month, and it applies to families.

A big and crazy family who loves each other even though they’re sometimes a little nuts, is so much better than a small family who seems to be more outwardly composed (and perhaps “normal”) but hasn’t spoken to each other in years.

Profound, isn’t it?

My husband has a large extended family. His mother Bernadine (Bernie) was the oldest of seven children, and each of those seven had their own children. And now all those children have had their own little ones, so there are probably close to a hundred just on this one side of Michael’s family.

Bernie’s parents (Michael’s maternal grandparents) owned a small cabin on a lovely, tranquil lake, and that cabin became a family gathering place over the next several decades, especially on the 4th of July. Now out of the seven children, only three remain: Rosemary, Donna and Yvonne, who are in their sixties and seventies. Bernadine, Bertine “Dude,” Dick and Keith have all gone home to be with the Lord.

After Bernie’s parents died, Rosemary’s family bought the cabin, and the family get-together on July 4th continued. We drove out to the cabin this year and did what the family always does: sat and chatted, hugged, laughed, ate good food, rejoiced in the beauty and privilege of such a gorgeous setting, and marveled at how quickly the years pass.

Pictured from left, Michael’s sister Pat, his Uncle Frank, his Aunt Yvonne, our Foster Betsy, and Michael:

The day was a little cooler than the 90-degree weather we’ve been having, and a little overcast. Sara took a long swim in the lake, and if Michael’s family had all been blind, I would have joined her.

Sara…

Michael’s only sibling Pat, on the left. She and her husband Joe just sold their house in the Twin Cities area, moved back north, and are building their retirement home on some beautiful land in Knife River, MN.

We have a cabin culture in Minnesota. In other parts of the country, when people gain some financial margin and can afford to purchase something extra, some buy fancy cars and others begin to travel extensively. I remember my last trip to Southern California, where I grew up. I had never seen so many BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, Porsches and Corvettes on the roads in my life. It was like the whole culture had changed to an expensive car culture. You won’t see that in northern Minnesota, even if people do have money. Here, if people have extra, they buy a cabin on a lake.

I wish I had taken more pictures of Michael’s big and wacky family. I say wacky because they laugh and joke and boss each other around good-naturedly. Like any family, they have disagreements and frustrations between members. But they never let it sever their relationships. They keep on loving, keep on getting together, keep on hugging and praying for each other. If there are hurt feelings, they forgive and get over it. The family bond of love is never cut.

Below, Pat, Michael, and Sara.

I, on the other hand, come from a composed, accomplished and highly regarded family. (Ha.) If any craziness surfaced in us, the unspoken rule of steel was that it was to be squashed, because we didn’t want people to know we had problems.

When I was fourteen years old, that composure cracked and our family of five blew apart. Then the anger and pride and bitterness that had been undealt with all those years, took root and has had its pervasive, decaying way for the last forty years.

There have been no 4th of July family gatherings on my side of the family. No disagreements that end in hugs and stronger bonds. No goofy laughter and compassionate conversations. No humility. When I think of going to a family gathering at a cabin for my side of the family, I can’t figure out whether to laugh hysterically at the idea, or to flee. It would be tense, surfacey, “religious” and sad. It might even end with anger and accusations and more bitterness than before.

I don’t know how my extended family’s situation will ever change, except that the God we all believe in is a resurrecting God. He knows how to bring life where there has been death. And He’s been known to shine brilliant light where there has been suffocating darkness. I don’t know what to do except to ask Him again to have His way with our small, needy and estranged family.

And to please make us more like Michael’s big and crazy family.

I would not be a blessed member of Michael’s big and crazy family if not for this beautiful woman:

Her name is Yvonne, and she’s Michael’s youngest aunt. Do you see how loving, accepting and nurturing she looks? She’s all those things, and more.

In 1976 I was married to my first husband and living on Beale AFB in Northern California. I met Yvonne there when I was 19 and she was 32, because her sweet daughters Celeste and Kathleen (then 9 and 7) came to my back door and we got to know each other. Yvonne took me under her wing and became a patient friend and example to me. It was at this time and because of Yvonne that I first heard about and desired the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

As military families do, we each eventually moved on. My husband, little daughter and I moved to Germany, and I believe Yvonne’s husband Frank got orders to North Dakota. But we continued to exchange letters and call once in a while. Little did I know in 1976 that in a few short years my marriage would suddenly end, and that Yvonne was one of the friends I would turn to for prayer.

It’s a long story, and if you’re interested you can read the poem I wrote about it by clicking here.

Now Yvonne and I are in the same family. Three days ago on July 4th, I looked into her lovely eyes and it hit me afresh. I am married to her nephew and have been for 31 years. I live in Minnesota because of her.

I have experienced life with a small, composed and ultimately estranged family, and life with a big, crazy and loving family. I love them both so much.

But only one has made me feel like I can breathe, be myself, and experience unconditional acceptance and love. God surely knew that I would need a place to heal and grow, and I thank Him for planting me here. When I reach the end of my earthly life, if I could be half as kind and loving as so many in Michael’s extended family are, I would die a happy woman. I’m not there yet, but spending time with folks like these keeps me moving in the right direction.

After having lived in this new house for one month now, we rearranged our living room furniture. Just a few little changes make everything work so much better, and it seems like a larger space too.

There were a few extra chairs set out this morning, because I was expecting guests. Or fellow studiers. Definitely friends.

What I really see when I look at these pictures, aside from the living room, is expectancy. A hopeful, quiet waiting.

Eleven empty seats, set out in anticipation of eleven hopeful, expectant women.

The DVD for Session 2 from this study was cued up, ready to play.

My sweet granddaughter Mrs. Nisky, who will be eight years old this month, helped me get things ready.

She spent the night in our closet last night.

That might not sound right to some of you, but try not to gasp in judgment and just wait a few days, and I’ll post a picture of our closet. The grandkids want  to sleep in there. Heck, with our super-comfortable queen-sized air mattress, I wouldn’t mind sleeping in there. Except we have a heavenly new king-sized mattress, so I think I’m supposed to sleep by my husband in our bedroom, not in our closet.

This morning eleven women (one was missing and also dearly missed) gathered together, and we brought our hopes, needs and our expectancy with us. There wasn’t one who doesn’t have a thing or eight she’s asking the Lord to do.

I think we were all awed by how timely this study on James, Jesus’ half-brother, and on the book he penned, already seems to be.

We don’t really know yet what God plans to do in our hearts and lives. But I believe each one of us is expectant.

We are waiting on Him. Hoping. Trusting.

Edwin Louis Coles said,

“Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles.”

When He walked this earth, Jesus opened blind eyes, caused paralyzed people to walk, and set bound people free. Those were miracles.

Today I ask Him to open my eyes, to help me walk closer to Him, and that I would be a slave to no one but Him.

Those would be miracles too.