Elwayne’s Exhortations
by
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Hands Are So Handy!
(“It is good thing to give thanks unto the LORD” – Psalm 92:1)
So wise and so good
Are You, that You would
Give us hands! They’re so handy!
They work fine and dandy
For doing some things that we should ---
We use them to make things and break things, to give and to take things,
To hold things and fold things, and for tying our shoestrings.
Sometimes we use them for turning the pages,
Sometimes we use them for spending our wages.
We use them for writing, when brushing our teeth,
When lifting a lid to put things underneath,
When ringing doorbells and when knocking on doors,
When putting Band-Aids on our scratches and sores,
When eating our food and when planting our seeds,
When hoeing the garden and pulling the weeds.
We clap with them, tap with them; some people snap with them.
We use them for scratching a place when it itches,
For mowing our lawns, and when digging our ditches,
When fishing and swimming, when cleaning and sewing
For waving at friends as we watch while they’re going,
For throwing and catching and batting a ball,
And back in the days when our children were small ---
Our hands came in handy and worked fine and dandy
For changing the baby, and washing kids’ faces,
For steering the auto when taking them places,
For wiping their noses and scrubbing their clothes-es,
For fastening buttons and pulling up zippers,
And for cutting their hair with our scissors or clippers.
All of those things, and a multitude more ---
Our hands come in handy
And work fine and dandy
And we heartily thank You, God, for.
Perfect Apples
(“Be perfect” – 2 Corinthians 13:11. “We are His workmanship...” -- Ephesians 2:10.)
Apples are perfect, though still green, in June –
Perfect June apples. It is too soon
For me to have ripened; Christ asks no more
Than to be His own apple clear through to the core.
Yes, I’m a bit green, as perhaps you can see,
But be patient, my Owner’s not finished with me.
And you’ll not remember
How sour I was
At my June stage, because
I will be oh so sweet in September!
“Sing unto God...”
(Psalm 68:32)
God desires from you a song.
Sing songs right or sing songs wrong,
Sing alone or sing along,
But sing.
When you’re young, then sing with gusto
‘Cuz you want to, not you must-o.
When you’re old, well, just continue;
Don’t die with those songs still in you,
SING!
Septicemia
A very sick lad, perhaps 11 or 12, was brought to us. As I drew blood for lab tests I thought, “I don’t think he’s going to make it.” When I focused the microscope on the spread of wbcs on the counting chamber, I could hardly believe my eyes; the cells were far too numerous to be counted accurately in the usual place. I had to count them where rbcs were usually counted and with the high-dry objective of the microscope. It came to 140,000 -- and nearly all the cells were segmented. I’d seen a few 50,000 counts (adults usually have between 5,000 and 10,000) but never higher except in cases of leukemia. The doctor changed the treatment, and in a few days the count began to come down; in a week it was at 31,000. We had no bacteriology capabilities at that health center, but the doctor believed the Shigella organism was the causative agent and it had invaded the blood stream of the boy.
It was Friday, the Muslim holy day, and therefore the day of the week when our medical team wasn’t as busy as other days. Two of our midwives, both from Germany, were going out of town to visit in the homes of former patients. I went along.
As we approached a small village we encountered a group of children. Rose, the youngest of the midwives, recognized a teenage lad on crutches; and she got out of the car to accompany him and the other children into the village. We followed them in the car. A small, very unkempt girl – perhaps 6-8 years old – recognized Rose and came running. Rose promptly dropped to her knees in the filthy sand of the village “courtyard,” and held out her arms to receive her. As she held that little girl tightly, Gudrun and I had a beautiful view of the kind of love that makes the Christian faith so appealing to those of other faiths -- love that puts the happiness of others above one’s own.
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About the Book
In Elwayne’s Exhortations, the author, now ninety-three years old, places a generous serving of original poems, stories (stateside and overseas, Peace Corps and missionary), Bill-isms and online exhortations on the reader’s plate.
Everything has a definite “owned by the Lord Jesus” flavor. But it is believed that the Christian bias will not spoil the meal for those of other persuasions who have an appetite for stories of growing up in America’s Great Depression and/ or of working in the Civilian Public Service program during World War II and/ or of serving overseas as a Peace Corps Volunteer (and later as a member of a Christian medical team in the same Islamic country) and/or of working as night and weekend manager in a small-city homeless shelter in America’s Midwest.
Of his poems, the author says, “Probably sometimes I stretch the boundaries of poetic license, but it’s fun. And I think I’m getting the point across to the reader.”
Of his book, he says, “My various writings represented here are about the only things of value that I’ve accrued for bequeathing to anyone. The good news is: this bequest has, I believe, a lot more prayer accompanying it than usually accompanies bequests of material possessions.
About the Author
Born in 1924, Elwayne - nicknamed Bill at an early age - grew up in a Christian home during America’s Great Depression. A crisis of commitment and spiritual rebirth at the age of 18 set him on a course which – 75 years later – leaves him with a paucity of earthly possessions to pass on to his posterity, but with virtually reams of poems, stories (stateside and overseas), “Bill-isms” and online exhortations. The possibility of some of those writings being read and appreciated by a wider readership than his own family and personal friends is, as he says, “frosting on my little old cake.”