I was born two weeks before the official end of World War II. I grew up with WWII planes flying over our house from the Smyrna, TN base. My father didn’t serve because he had an essential job working in a dairy, but many of his friends and co-workers had served. As a little kid, I would listen to them sharing their stories with each other.

As things seem to settle down, Korea began to heat up in the early 1950s. As a seven year old, my favorite uncle went to serve in the Army. He was injured in a non-combat event and came back home safely.

Once again, things seemed to calm down during the latter half of the 1950s. However, in the early 60s we began to hear about an unknown, far away country called Vietnam. It got hotter and hotter during the 60s and by 1968 it became ‘my’ war and I served four years in the Navy with our ship serving two deployments to Vietnam. After I was discharged, going through graduate school, and starting my career, things began to calm down again.

Over all these years since the end of World War II, another ‘war’ was going on – the Cold War. President Reagan, Prime Minister Thatcher, and Pope John Paul helped end that war.

From 1980 until the early 2000s things seemed to calm down again until. September 11, 2001. The Middle East came to the fore and we’re still there today with the uncertainty of war hanging over us again.

This war may be the most significant war of all as I believe it’s a war between the world and Islam.

So, what’s the point of this long post? Just a few thoughts from my 80 year perspective.

(1) Throughout all these ‘ups and downs’, peace and war, God has remained sovereign.

(2) God has used war to fulfill his overarching plan since creation. He will continue to do so.

(3) I know from reading the Book of Revelation that war with beast will be part of his plan for the end times when Jesus will return. If I understand it correctly it will be the final war.

So, I’m not sure where I’m heading with these thoughts other than to reinforce my thoughts about the Circles of Control I posted about awhile back.

My perspective of 80 years tells me that our current situation is still under the sovereignty of God. I choose to trust Him and his sovereignty rather than worrying about things I can neither control nor influence.

More importantly, I’m trying to be obedient to Jesus’ words:

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? (Matthew 6:27)

After spending two long weeks in Egypt with his lovely wife, Deborah, Chris was only home for a couple of days before taking another long flight, this time to Sydney, Australia. This was a work trip for him.

He’ll be home this weekend and with all that’s going on now in the world we want to see him home with Deborah, safe and sound.

You got to love kids and dogs when they’re asleep and dreaming. Once again my favorite model.

This is Chocodogger. I’ve seen other videos where humans use dogs as the ‘character’ while they work the hands. However, Choco here has the best and most appropriate expressions I’ve ever seen. Enjoy.

We have a subscription to Britbox, a British streaming service with a lot of mysteries that we like. We’re watching now a series called ‘Hope Street.’ It’s about a team of police officers in a small Northern Ireland town.

The episode we just watched had a ‘Worm Charming Competition.’ I looked it up and it’s a real thing with annual competitions. Each team has a square of grass land. The one thing you can’t do is disturb the grass, or dig into the soil.

The earthworms are ‘charmed’ by sounds and vibrations which causes them to rise up out of the soil. In the picture above one woman is hammering on a pitchfork. The kids are tapping on a wash board like playing a drum. In the middle background there is a big black drum. Some people blow horns. Anything that makes noise or vibrations is allowed.

The weird part is it works. After the time is up, the team with the most earthworms is the winner. Sounds like fun to me.

Got to love our UK, Scottish and Irish ancestors.