Eastertide 4th Week: First Year

Do you have what it takes

   to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Dear Priscilla,

Finals week and then you come home. Your first year at Baylor University completed. Congratulation. I hear tell you are planning to come and see us. Can’t wait to see your face.

One more year, and you’ll be an upperclassman; or, is that “upperclasswoman.” Will your next year wiz by like this last? As the Apostle John wrote to one of his churches—he called her “The Chosen Lady.” The church is always a lady—the Bride of Christ. Let’s see, where were we? Oh, yes, as John wrote to his Chosen Lady: “I hope to see you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” (2Jn v12)

Eastertide 4th Week: Orientation.

The Lord created medicines

   out of the earth. (Sirach 38:4)

Dear Abby, 

Orientation for your near three years of studies in the Physician’s Assistant Program at the University of South Alabama begins in a few days. So, you moved from San Marcos, TX some ten hours east along Interstate Ten to Mobile, AL, where you move into a home of your very own—some three blocks from the university, I’m told. What is it like to be a homeowner?

We will be interested in your Orientation and your classes for the semester. I’ve had a lot of interaction with Physician’s Assistants lately. They are the ones I communicate with. The PAs tell me when I can take the bandages off my head, and the stitches out of my scalp, and activate my stimulator. I tell them, “My granddaughter is studying to be a PA.” They light up.

A few years back, we did a road trip with the Sjodahls along Interstate Ten from New Orleans to Tallahassee, FL. We passed right through Mobile, but it meant nothing to me then. But now, it’s a special place.