Hello It’s Me

Hello, It’s Me

By Steven Stoops, January 31, 2024

With Apologies to Todd Rundgren.

I placed this into the incorrect spot when I put it onto my site, so here it is in the correct place:

Wow, it has been 158 weeks since my last post here on An OK Boomer. No one asked if I was OK, so I may not be reaching anyone. I may have become discouraged; you can see why. But I realized that I am not doing this for anyone. I would hope that God would be pleased, and perhaps He may be; if I remember to keep my rants and raves to a minimum and write to His glory.

On New Years Eve at church, we held a prayer service. We nailed prayer requests to a cross and each will be prayed for in 2024 by a team of people who could best be described as Prayer Warriors. My prayer was, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” At the time I was dealing with camera angles, so the people watching the church live stream could get a sense of the reverence that was filling the room, so I handed my request to an Elder and after asking him to take it to the cross I said, “I figured if it was good enough for David.”

You may ask, “What has happened since your last post?” 

A lot. We were still dealing with COVID in 2021, which meant that we could not hold in person church services, I still could not find many of the supplies we needed at the hospital. It also meant that my wife and I had to take a COVID test so we could visit our daughter in the hospital in June when she had our first grandchild. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

Five weeks later the Dixie Fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire see the map above, all the red is where the fire burned pretty much everything in its path) was getting close to our town and we had to evacuate. We drove two vehicles containing anything that was irreplaceable northeast from town, then west, then south and east again to Chico, CA. Usually a drive of of one and a half hours, it took four because the more direct route was through the fire. We finally arrived with three adults, a five-week-old baby, two large dogs and a cat at our son’s and his wife’s two plus bedroom townhouse. We were there for six weeks.

Our son and his wife had lost everything in the Camp Fire in 2018, they had only been seeing each other for a few months at the time, but his home, her family’s home, her aunt’s homes (two aunts and their families) and her grandparents on both sides lost homes. They may have been dealing with some PTSD as they hosted us (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018).

Thankfully, our homes survived, about all that happened to our home was a bear knocked down part of our fence trying to get to the garbage that hadn’t been hauled away. Many other people were not so blessed, most of the nearby town of Greenville was leveled and people we knew lost everything in the fire. One such couple had lost their business in the Camp Fire, then lost their home in the Dixie Fire. Makes you wonder if there truly is a “forever home” on this side of Heaven.

I take great comfort in the Word, and am reminded in the “Faith Chapter” Hebrews eleven that Abraham “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (ESV) No “forever home” on this earth is a true forever home. God has led me to write a novel, and this blog, if His purpose was merely so I could draw closer to Him and no one but He and I see it, then so be it.

Hebrews 11:8–10

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Next week, I will be sharing the covers that I designed using Leonardo.AI for my novel The Conversion Factor. Perhaps, if someone other than the Lord and I see this, you can let me know what you think.