Don’t forget about MATER…. www.mater.jensenqualityhomes.com

Made this night light for MJ

Below are two pictures of a scale model of a Jensen Quality Home.

Looks like an actual jobsite, but this opening is only about 5 inches wide.

The "Bed"
I write this down, not because I might forget, but simply to record.
While Shirley was gone for the 49 days at the cancer clinic in Washington state, we did a number of things around the house as a surprise for her homecoming. The first thing I did was paint our bedroom. Jeff finished putting up the trim and then I painted. It turned out nice.
We also built a nice split rail fence with stone pillars and a white picket gate in the front of the house. Jonathan and Joshua painted the gate. Chris built the pillars, and we split cedar rails. This too turned out nice.

We also finished the back stairs, they were still the original 2×10 framed temporary steps from when we built the house. Open risers. We finished them with oak treads. I didn’t paint the risers or skirt boards, as I wanted Shirley’s input on color. They look like stairs. It is good.
Lastly, The Bed. When we lived in Michigan, I bought some rough cut walnut from a widow whose husband did woodworking. We carted the walnut from home to home, state to state, waiting for the right project. About 15 years ago, we saw a beautiful curved bed frame in a newspaper circular. I ripped it out and said “I’m gonna make this some day.” For years I kept the picture, but it didn’t have the furniture store name, or even the manufactures name on it, and it was long since misplaced. While Shirley was away, I went to every furniture store in town, and looked through every one of their catalogs. If I found the bed, I had made up my mind I would buy it, no matter the cost, as a gift for Shirley. I couldn’t find it. So I decided I would attempt to build it. After many, many hours in the shop, just before she was scheduled to come home, I finished it. It turned out good.
But what good is good? I looked at the bed in our room, and it was a bed, just a bed. Made with love, yes, but still just a bed. Meaningless, in the larger scope of life and death.
When Shirley came home, she was struggling much more than I had been prepared for. She liked the fence and gate, the stairs, the color of our bed room, and the bed.
But the real story, the story of the bed was not about the bed at all. Because of her severe edema, I had to help her to the bathroom.
Friday night, when we went to the ‘healing’ service in Nashville, and the saints there prayed for Shirley’s healing for three hours straight, one gentleman at the end of the evening commented to Shirley that he could tell ‘your husband has a servants heart’. Shirley beamed and bragged on me a little, and in her small voice, struggling to speak, she said, ‘he loves me so much he even wipes my butt’. This was probably more than the man wanted to know, not knowing the full scope of what she was referring. But to me, the hours and hours I spent on the bed, paled in comparison to the simple act of caring for my wife. Shirley knew the heart of things, and as she so simply focused, it had nothing to do with things. How much my love for her!
I’m sure there is a lesson in there somewhere for us men. I want to build something, create, do! But in my wife’s heart, it was her impression of tenderness and compassion shown in a caring act, which I thought nothing of. I was just doing. I would have done anything. And now there is nothing I can do. So I guess I am glad that I did do what I could do, when it could be done. I was not prepared for how permanent death is.I pray that should God bless me again with a Godly wife, that I would love her with more words, more actions, and more of just me. Agape, unconditional love, the way Jesus loves His bride, may I always aspire to be His ambassador.