Not always as it appears...

Last Monday we made a trip to Kansas City to the eye doctor again. Thank God Stan does not have to go back for 6 months. For a change of scenery we took a different way home. We love an adventure; you can see pictures by clicking on the photographer in the sidebar.

As many of you may know, if you have looked at my pictures, I am a barn nut. I love barns, all different kinds, old or new. Barns have a lot of character, if the walls could only talk, what stories they could tell.

When I was young we lived on a farm in Illinois. The farmers grew acres and acres of sweet corn. We leased the house from them; and there was a big barn.
I think at one time it was a dairy barn; there were two levels and the hayloft. On the one end they called it the corncrib, which is where they would put the dried corn stalks, then they would feed them to the cows. In that room there was a ladder against the wall that you could climb into the loft, where the hay was stored. It was a good ways up. My older brother Tom and my cousin Butch would climb up there and jump off into the corn shucks. And when I was tagging along they would let me jump also, even though Dad had told them it was too dangerous for me. Oh it was so much fun, we laughed a lot, it was such a rush jumping. Until one day…

I was around six years old; Tom was nine years older than me. Butch was spending the weekend with Tom and they decided to go play in the barn, and of course they let me tag along. I might mention I was the youngest in the family and the only girl… spoiled maybe a little…lol. Out in the barn they decided to do some jumping, it must have been in the fall because the room had a lot of corn shucks in there. All three of us climbed up to the loft, and Butch went off first, then Tom and I followed right behind him. It scared him and he turned quickly and caught me in the mouth with his elbow. You guessed it out came both front teeth, in the shucks, the room full of shucks. Of course, I started bleeding a little; I think it scared Tom to death. He wanted to take me to the house, but I refused. I had to have my teeth to put under my pillow, the teeth that were lost in the corn shucks. He said, there was no way they could find them, and I replied you better or I will tell daddy you were letting me jump. Was I a brat or what? lol Needless to say, they did find my teeth, after searching for a long time, and all was well in my world again. Dad never found out about them letting me jump, and Tom felt so bad he put money under my pillow too. Memories…

You know, so many times things are not always as they appear. We ran across this barn on our adventure and I had to take a picture of it. From the front side it appeared to be in pretty good shape. It was old and a little weathered, missing a board or two. But it still stood strong, it had character, and if it could talk I bet it could tell us the stories. As you can see though when you moved to the side, it was a different case. The whole backside was rotten, boards partially missing.
The thought that came to me was how many of us are like that barn? On the outside, we seem to have it all together, going to church on Sundays, living the good life, doing what is right, but on the inside it is a different story. We have our secrets, things that no one knows about, things that we hide from others, our closets. But the thing about it is He knows... He knows everything about us...

" For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." Luke 12:2

until next time... nel