Swimming Upstream: “Don’t Forget The Geezers!”

“I’m going to shoot your mom,” I said to Honey as we slipped into bed at the end of a long day.

“Sweetheart, what?” she replied, her eyes blinking in unbelief.

“After, I shoot her, I’m going to hang her by her neck, and then, drop her off a cliff,” I continued on, dredging in the same cesspool of thoughts.

“Dear – that’s not like you at all,” she said. “You wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially not mom.”

“After today, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things; and I’m going to shoot your mom right between the eyes,” I said.

Then, we fell to sleep.

This conversation actually took place in Glidden, Iowa, when Honey and I were staying with her mom on Fern’s five-acre farm. At the time, Fern was seventy-eight years old, but don’t go thinking she was a weak link, not pulling her own weight around the farm. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everything had been great between Fern and me up until that week. She was bright and fun to be around. But all the warm fuzzies ended when sweetcorn season arrived.

Now, let me set the stage. It was late July. The temperatures were in the upper-90’s. Humidity was somewhere in a tropical rain forest range. No air conditioning. Ten zillion, pesty, ornery farm flies. Three acres of sweetcorn.

At the time, Honey worked for a company in Carroll, Iowa, and I had just finished detasseling seed corn. So, when Fern asked, “Larry, would you like to help harvest some sweetcorn?”

“Sure, of course,” I said.

The four days were an absolute  “Hell on Earth” for me. The heat, humidity and flies took their tolls, but what pushed me over the edge was Fern constantly saying, “Do this. Don’t do that. Be careful. Watch out. Grab this. Let go. What’s wrong with You?”

Now, I’m not silly; I knew I had a problem. So, long before sunup the next morning, I crept out of bed and went down to the family room. There I dropped to my knees. “Lord, what’s my problem? Why do I want to kill a sweet, seventy-eight year old woman?” I prayed.

A long time later, the Lord spoke to my heart. “You’ve given up on senior citizens. You think they just want to collect their social security and sit on a porch, taking it easy until they die. You don’t believe I will use them in a move of My Spirit in America,” He said.

Then, He added, “I haven’t given up on them; and neither should you. So, repent of your attitudes.”

Once again, I’m not silly. I repented right then and there.

So, when I read where believers are asking the Lord to move on young people here in America and wherever, I want to shout aloud: “Don’t forget the geezers! God wants to use them, too.”

Fern Fielder, a great mother-in-law (1920 – 2008)

Swimming Upstream appears at this blog site on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s  a little of this and a little of that, all written  to encourage and exhort believers in their Christian journeys.