© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

I’ve had 1 cochlear implant and I’m about to have the 2nd. It’s rather scary for me. The surgery completely destroys all residual hearing in the affected ear. But the return is fabulous!!!! Right now, I can hear better than I have in a long, long time. But still drop to 25% or so when there’s any background noise, and I have to have closed captions on TV. Next Thursday’s surgery means I will never-ever hear any sound naturally again till I’m with Christ. Hopefully, prayerfully, the implant will be successful and I’ll hear even more than now. (Stepped in front of a car this week, because all sound comes through my left ear. So I looked towards the sound…. it was coming from the other way. Person driving probably thought I was an idiot

Over the last few years constantly trying to talk on a normal phone has gotten so difficult for me I’ve given up. That’s NOT going to ever improve, the cochlear implants can’t help me with that. But last night my husband, my God-given, blessed husband got me a CapTel 800i. Every day at work I’ve seen this phone, and oh, I’ve wanted one. But there are incredibly expensive. I never, ever even mentioned it to him. Yet, in his love for me, and his understanding, he got me one. WOW! Today, I talked with one son and my mom and was able to NOT have to ask them to repeat (except when their words were unclear to the operator anything, because I could read their words.

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

• http://WilderBaubles.etsy.com/
• http://www.WilderBaubles.com/
• http://www.facebook.com/WilderBaubles
• http://www.twitter.com/LuciWilder

We’d love to hear from you on any of them! Let us hear from you, after all YOU are the point! Without you there will be NO us!

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

There’s our Leap Year GIVEAWAY – one per month for 2012, starting Sadie Hawkin’s Day (February 29th)! You do NOT have to buy anything to win!

Check us out at http://WilderBaubles.etsy.com or http://www.WilderBaubles.com

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

These earrings get a lot of attention whenever I wear a pair similar. So you’ll really enjoy them! I’m constantly hearing “original” but even that doesn’t make it fun. It’s fun, simply because I think they’re cool and I get to play in all the pretty colors. I’m prayerfully hoping you’ll like them too. You can see all of them on Etsy at http://WilderBaubles.etsy.com

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

© 2012, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

I want to cry, yell, scream, and simply speak all at the very same time. Don’t we get it? Don’t we see? We’re losing not just the battle but we are losing the very war!

Why? Oh, that answer is so easy… because we choose to reject the very God that created, loved, and came to earth to BE … simply to BE for us!

We aren’t worth much, you and I. Either we are nothing at all or we’re made of clay… sand, dust… and water… yep! That’s about it! At the very minimum you and I are “created.”

Did you cause yourself to come into being? Wow! One day you opened your eyes and you were. What about before that moment? Where were you then? Did you have consciousness? Did you have being? Did you cause anything else to BE?

We think so highly of ourselves. We think we’re right, we’ve got the answers, we know the truth. What else? WE, the created beings, call God a liar. Let’s really contemplate that… YOU are bigger and better and more powerful than God?

Did your mom and dad exist before you existed? Yes, of course they did. They are the reason you are here, right?

Yes… and we can take this argument as far back as you’d like. To the very beginning… YOU did NOT create yourself! And, even if you do go back to the very first “self”, you didn’t create it, neither did it (or who) create itself either. So who did?

The simple truth of the matter is, that no matter how far back we go, something or someone created something or someone else first.

If you choose to believe that there was no first cause, no first creation, that it was all by an accident, or by “chance”… go for it. Just please show me, just one example of that, and you only need one, then I’ll believe you.

You think I have “faith” because I believe that something or someone created it all to begin with. But, I have all the exemplary evidence from which to make such a statement and you don’t.

You are exceptionally brave. To call God All Mighty a liar. You want Him not to BE, because you do not want to be responsible for your actions. You do not want to find that you need someone else to step in and “save you from your sins.” Only because you don’t want to be punished for those self same sins. (Truth be told, neither do I.)

When I was in 4th grade (that would make me about 10 at the time.) I was going to go to St. Augustine on a school field trip. I “took” (as in stole, took without permission) $10 from my mom’s purse. When she accused me of it, I vehemently denied it. “No, Mom, I didn’t take it!”

I did not want to be found guilty of doing something so terrible as stealing from her. But I had! I had taken $10 from her purse and then lied to her swearing I had NOT done it. But I had. And then she proceeded to spank me for that! Good for her! Bad for me!

The point here is that whether or not I choose to admit it, she knew that I had taken that $10. And, she punished me for it. I think she spanked me as much for the lying as for the stealing. The final outcome of that punishment was that I never lied to, nor stole from her again. Do you think God will punish you for calling Him a liar or for stealing something from Him?

What about God? He’s so much bigger than my mom! It doesn’t matter whether you admit His existence or not. Because He isn’t dependent upon you. YOU are dependent upon Him. He loves you, so much that He already paid the price for any and all sins which you have committed or will commit at any point in the future.

You (nor I) are powerful enough to effect the outcome on this issue. He IS whether we like it or not. Think for just a minute… if He really IS then all this “life” thing is about the choice you and I make concerning His existence.

If He doesn’t exist… no problem… you’ll not be punished, nor do you need Him to have done anything on your behalf. Ah, but if He does exist… it’s a totally different story, isn’t it?

John 3:16 says, “For God SO loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have ever lasting life.”

Do you want to live forever? I do! Can you get there on your own? Not me! But I can get there by the God that created me and loved me so much, He just wanted me to accept Him because I chose to. And, I do!

© 2010, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

I remember the first “really unique” gift my mom gave me, which blew me away… it was Christmas 1991… that Christmas Eve I sat, patiently with a rather bulky gift on my lap awaiting my turn at opening… for some reason I thought it was sheets… I must have asked for sheets that year… but it was not sheets, nor anything else so mundane and every day… it was an ancestor photograph album… she’d made a very special quilted binding with my picture on the cover… it had names and dates of everyone’s pictures of great-grandparents on down, she included a family tree chart going back to a my 4th Great-Grandfather Clark CLAWSON (1807-1881) and his wife Hestor HALE (1818 – 1887)… through me (then 39)… including a ton of pictures of when I was a baby, young girl, teen, on to my own children… I felt like my mom gave me… “me”, that year… she gave me back my childhood… since then, year after year my mom continues to give me family treasures, revealing more and more of who I am, and how much I owe those who’ve walked before me… WOW!

Returning to Christmas 2006… a thin spiral bound notebook… a story… she transcribed hand-written papers she’d found in my grandmother’s things in 1987 after she passed away. My mom typed it and bound it with great love… “Created especially for my beloved daughter” (that’d be me ) … it was written by my grandmother sometime before 1955….

The Clay Pipe by Pearl DeGarmo

One day several weeks ago my husbands’ mother showed me a quaint, little brown clay pipe. This pipe looked very much as if it might have been originally intended to blow soap bubbles… and then she told me the story of the pipe.

But wait a moment! Please allow me to introduce my mother-in-law, Jennie Clarinda Brown, and she will tell you the story, for she knows it far better than I. And so she begins…

Over one hundred years ago my great-grandparents were living in Ohio. Many of the women smoked pipes in those days. The pioneers grew and cured their own tobacco and the business of using the finished product was a family affair.

One day when great-grandfather went to the country store to do his “trading” he bought two new clay pipes. One of these was for his wife and the other one for his daughter.

We can envy great-grandmother’s and her daughter’s companionship. Just how many hopes and thoughts they must have confided to each other in the twilight after their day’s work was done, we can only guess at. But time, sometimes a cruel wrecker of these fine camaraderie’s wrought a change in this one.

The daughter and a neighbor had fallen in love and in due time were married. Now these newly weds were not content to buy the adjoining farm and set up housekeeping. They had both inherited too much of the pioneer restlessness. Their idea of greener fields lie farther west than Ohio. They listened to tales told by traders and trappers and other folks that traveled about the country. They finally decided to go to what is now the southern part of Wisconsin.

Grandfather bought a team of horses and a wagon. He then proceeded to build a covering for the wagon and collecting the tools he would need in the new home. Grandmother was busy too, gathering seeds and all the articles that she could take with her. They could only take the most necessary tools and equipment. There were no stores, lumber yards, seed companies or factories in those days. And they could only take what could be moved in the covered wagon, so these articles were chosen with careful consideration.

The day finally came when the bride and groom were ready to leave their families and relatives and start for their new home. Now great-grandfather and great-grandmother realized that this may be the last time they would ever see their daughter again. In those days a trip from one state to another was a long tedious journey and was not undertaken very often. So on the morning of the young couple’s departure the old father and mother decided to travel with the young people until noon, in order that they might be with the daughter and her husband as long as possible.

At noon they found a nice place to stop and eat their dinner and to rest and chat awhile. After they had eaten their dinner and replaced the dishes and remaining food the little group sat down to smoke and visit. Great-grandmother drew her pipe and tobacco pouch from her apron pocket and proceeded to light up. Great-grandfather and grandfather did likewise. But when grandmother put her hand in her pocket she found only her tobacco pouch. The young woman looked in the wagon and about the the camp grounds but could not find her pipe. All at once she remembered that she had left it on the window sill at her parent’s home. Great-grandmother smoked her pipe then passed her pipe to her daughter to use.

Now the old mother was a happy good-natured old soul and almost always could find a bright side to every little annoyance. So she gaily remarked that her daughter could have her pipe and she would keep her daughter’s pipe. Then each would have something of the others’.

When grandmother finished smoking she carefully knocked the ashes from it and put it in her deep apron pocket. The cheap little clay pipe was now very valuable because it had been her mother’s.

The farewells were finally said and the old people started to walk back to their home. The young couple continued their journey to Wisconsin. After many weeks of travel and hardships which only these strong courageous pioneers could endure they reached their destination.

In the years that followed grandmother and grandfather built their home and reared a fine family of sons and daughters. These sons and daughters married and had families of their own.

When grandmother and grandfather died their possessions were divided among the remaining members. The clay pipe was given to my mother and when she died my sister gave it to me.

And this my friends is the true, true story of a little old brown clay pipe, just as my mother-in-law told it to me.

The Clay Pipe

Back to the present… 2009…

When Mom talked about this story she’d found with her brother (my uncle), he rummaged in a drawer and pulled out the pipe… it’s a true story…. it’s never been published… but in honor of my mom and her mom and the women before them and for my sisters and my daughter… for all of them …. I publish it here for the first time.

Thanks Mom! I love you too!

• The authoress Pearl Batten was my grandmother.
• Her mother-in-law – Jennie Clarinda BROWN (1876 – 1959) [my great-grandmother]
• Daughter / Bride – Elanor DUSENBERRY (1827 – 1865) [my 3rd great-grandmother]
• Neighbor / Groom – Philip AUMOCK (1827 – 1909) [my 3rd great-grandfather]
• Great-grandfather – Benjamin DUSENBERRY (1789 – 1867) [my 4th great-grandfather]
• Great-grandmother – Charlotte DENNIS (1806 – 1890) [my 4th great-grandmother]

© 2009, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.

The later (Our GENEALOGY) is very easy thanks to TNG. But the blog on the other hand… well that’s a different story. How do I make one blog… my blog… stand out from the over 112 million (Dec 2007) other blogs? I’ve been researching that question for a little while now….

In my research I’ve come across a truly wonderful little book… Designing for the Social Web (Voices That Matter) by Joshua Porter… great book!

Mr. Porter points out that he’s discovered that the most popular sites (e.g., Amazon, eBay, etc.) allow users to interact sociably with people, primarily in the search for…. drum roll… TRUTH… believe it or not. I was shocked at this, since that’s my #1 goal, that is to find and share TRUTH. In the book it’s emphasized that a person’s desire for the truth is evidenced by his/her use of recommendations made by real people as to the seller’s honesty and/or the product’s quality.

Personally, I think there’s a dichotomy in that while we want truth in the above respect, we do NOT want (for the most part) to hear TRUTH in regards to our personal decisions. My own thought on this is that we (a) do not want to be responsible for our decisions, and (b) do not want to admit – even to ourselves – that we are or can be wrong.

For the record… as all those who know me can attest… I can be and often am… W-R-O-N-G… but my rightness or wrongness has nothing whatsoever to do with the truthfulness about an action or thought of mine.

I’ve heard innumerable times over the last 10 years or so that “evangelical Christians are intolerant”… that’s absolutely not true… it’s actually a lie, because it is said with an intent to mislead people… How can I say it’s in error? … Easy… because by definition to be intolerant means to not allow another person to think, say, and/or do something in particular. I, on the other hand, completely (100%) support and applaud each and every person’s ability to make their own choices about anything! You, I, and every single other person on this planet have an innate right to make their/our own decisions.

It does not matter at all that we make different choices, not a bit! While in some cultures, countries, and/or societies a person’s right to choose is physically suppressed, I am personally willing  to fight to the death and to do everything I can to ensure we all maintain the right to choose, to think, believe, and behave differently. I respect YOU period! As a human being, the same “being” as I. You are valuable! You do not have to agree with me to have value as a human being; I did not create you… you come from the same source I did… for that reason I can respect you even if we make different choices… I can learn things from you, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, primarily from the differences that exist between us.

BUT… there still exists TRUTH… absolute TRUTH.. and my saying that does not impact your ability to make a choice at all. When one looks to Amazon customer recommendations or eBay seller ratings they are acknowledging that truth does indeed exist.

For one to say that I may not say something is right or wrong… is to strip me of my freedom of speech, that is to not allow me to say what I think… that is real intolerance!

© 2009, Luci Wilder. All rights reserved.