Tag Archives: Lord

GRACE

Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, Faith, GOD, humor, hope, LIFE, love, , , , , , , , , , ,

What is GRACE?

It is something I can not earn, I have no possibilities of containing or holding or even controlling, hence my fears. It is not a commodity but a gift.

Maybe I am the only one who has difficulty with gifts? I love to give them but it is hard to receive them! Is it false humility or real humility or what?

I have come to the conclusion it is a born-in-us feeling of unworthiness. As if, I haven’t earned it so why would anyone give me a gift? It is a skill to learn, to be a receiver of gifts. I still have a hard time with it but after many “awe shucks, you shouldn’t haves …” I am able to at least graciously accept it. It is rude to not, actually, and it is offensive to the giver.

The giver is a candidate for a blessing, that is what the Bible says — give and it shall be given to you, pressed down and running over (paraphrased). That sounds to me like it is pretty good. I can always take some running over of blessings.

In our life we have been receivers of many great blessings. We have been blessed to know many great people who have loved us unconditionally and have helped to make our lives a bit easier. Many times I have guilt because I feel like I want to be the giver — more. But one precious woman told me one day, “your family does give, everyday with your service.” In a way she kinda rebuked me but in kindness. She wanted me to know we were important and not to sell ourselves short. What we do does make a difference!

AHHH GRACE!

This life we have been called to live is an important one. Most days I feel less than worthy to even claim I am a follower of Christ. Bad press for Jesus I think and that he doesn’t need the headache of me dragging along taking up space. But NO, he loves me and allows me to stand for HIM in every day of my life.He is a big GOD and he can take even my worst days. It is all about HIM and making sure I don’t come to the end of my life without the knowledge that I have shown someone the way to truth.

Argue all you want — don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!

First page of the Gospel of Mark, by Sargis Pi...

People are lined up saying the Bible is just a nice book written by men, mortal men (emphasis on men (not women)) but you show me someone who says that and I would bet that they have never read it in full! That is one thing I would wager to say is truth!

It is alive with a theme that runs from the table of contents to the maps — God is real, God is LOVE, Jesus is HIS SON, and salvation is through Jesus.

We can put whatever denominational name we want on GOD. It is all rubbish. I could care less if someone is a “kind” of Christian denomination. What I care about is, do you follow Jesus? Have you given HIM your whole heart? Do you make decisions based on your walk with the Lord?

The only way to do this is through GRACE.

I am unable to be a good person and I have proved that. Only through the GRACE of GOD can I be what HE has for me to be. And that is all I ever want.

Okay finished with my rant!

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TOO SWEET

art, children, enjoyment, encouragement, Family, GOD, humor, hope, kids, LIFE, pie, Tennessee, , , , , , , ,

20120324-194025.jpg

A beautiful sign of spring is the blooming of apple trees. I have never seen the blooming trees in Washington, D.C. (in person) but I would guess it is a sight to see. I will have to settle for the blooming apple trees at The Apple Barn in Pigeon Forge, TN.

This quaint but impressive orchard has been a family favorite with the “world of all things apple” — apple pie, caramel apples, apple cider, plus a candy kitchen with tons of different kinds, including: dark chocolate almond clusters (my personal favorite) and taffy (my daughters one-and-only want, peppermint!) so need I say more — apple Mecca!

candied apple

Our visit today was short, our usual on the way out-of-town stop. We never go back home without our treats for the kids. No matter how old they get, it is still expected. But we spoiled them with that one! As a parent, it is comforting to know they still want that small treat. My boys love caramel apples the most, nuts and without or both, they are happy and easy to please.

As time ticks away the kids get older, mature, finally begin to show signs of what awesome people are to come. I knew they would tun out winners. We raised them right, no matter what propaganda they have tried to fabricate! It is their job to try every way in the world to defy us. Kids will be kids ya know. But I see the edge of the rainbow. I see a glimpse of what is to come and it is so much fun!

Just as the apple blossoms return every year, kids eventually get a clue, begin to evolve into the people we know they can be.
Whew!!!

Thanks Lord for allowing me to see the day it happens. Too sweet. Sweet as apple pie!

Soothes MY Soul

Alzheimers, Cancer, children, Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, Faith, Family, GOD, LIFE, love, Old Age, Parents, , , ,

Today I spent some time at my Mom’s. It was later in the afternoon and I was getting a feeling for nap time! Mostly because her house is always warm, well to be honest it is HOT! But that is to be expected, she is elderly. I can’t believe I just called her that. Never in all my born days have I thought of my mom as elderly. She never has been until now. Truth be known, if she knew I called her that she would probably skin me alive!

I wish that she could know. I wish she was the same, quick to set things straight, lady I have always known. She is but a shadow of her former self. Her mind has retreated in so many ways and her momentary memory is all that is left. Thankfully she is in good health otherwise, for which I am so thankful, it would be more sorrowful if not. Even so, she is sweet and kindhearted now, two adjectives I would have thought of her in the past, just not as obvious. She was always a good woman, strong and forthright. But she wasn’t much drama, pretty much just a straight shooter. “Just the facts!” (I must be more like my Dad…all drama!)

The time I spend with her now is hard and taxing. The crazy part is that it has gotten hard for me just in the last few months. Before I was able to take it in stride, dealt with it pretty good before, and I even felt pretty proud of myself and felt the need to help my sisters wrap their heads around this disease. Pretty smug considering now it is a struggle for me. I am not sure why, maybe because the amount of loss we have had lately. Losing my sister-in-law to cancer last year took a toll on me I know.

Daily I miss her. Daily I search my mind for remnants of her. I still have the last four voice mails on my cell phone she sent me. I listen to them often as well as the last stream of texts. She was reminding me to be careful on the cruise we were about to board with all the mishaps, husbands and wives falling overboard and all. I think she had an over and under bet on me and her brother and if you knew her and us that would be believable. We constantly ragged her poor brother about everything — not that he ever knew it! It was our own little world. Her being his OLDER sister made for plenty of wars. He was pretty obnoxious I am sure as any little brother can be. I think their mom would make her take him on dates with her and her boyfriends! Recipe for murder I say!! SO who could blame them for their lack of warm fuzzies about each other! She would describe the little boy and I would defend the grown up man — a never-ending test of wills. I eventually won that battle and she agreed. She loved him despite herself which is the best ending of all.

I often remember the crazy conversations we had. One minute we would be deciding on what to cook our crews for supper and then without skipping a beat go into a story of our many yard sale adventures and my search EVERY TIME for a bathroom. YES, I did ask people to use theirs. She would go hide in the car, humiliated yet laughing her a#& off! (only word that can be used there, it is a Bible word, by the way! Just in case, forgive me Lord!) It would almost be a dare and the funny thing was people would let me. She would say she couldn’t believe I had the nerve to ask and I would say I couldn’t believe they would be so dumb to let me!! Me a stranger, though my only agenda was to potty and not have to leave such a good sale to drive a gazillion miles to a gas station. As a side bonus I did get to see some pretty cool houses! We were also famous for dragging home old furniture from the curbs….good times! The best of times and had I known they would be over so soon….whew makes me tear up again.

So when I go to my Mom’s house I guess I am realizing that the time will come when I will have to say good-bye to her. It is all so “in your face” this slow death. It is a fact of life that is a bitter pill. Not for the one who dies but for those of us left behind. I know where my sister-in-law is and I know she wouldn’t come back if given the choice but, still so very hard. Today her son made a funny (to me) comment on Facebook about a driver in front of him and I belly laughed because it was HER spit out! She, like me, was a verbal driver and had no patience for ignoramuses who pretend to know how to drive and when I read his comment it was hysterical.

Things like that give me comfort…maybe I am the only one, but when I hear or see something that reminds me of someone I love it is soothing to my soul. Her children do arise and call her blessed and every time I see a red bird — Cardinal — I am reminded of my Mom, though she doesn’t remember know that she used to love to see them. I do and it soothes my soul. I too will arise and call her blessed.

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Payin’ it forward…

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About the time ya start to think the days of pondering the next dreary moment is going to be the high lite of your day, out of the blue (code for GOD) something happens to reveal how much HE really does love you and has the ability to refresh even the worst of days.

This has been the turn of events for me these past few days when my hopes were dashed in the joyous times of a new appliance. Silly of course for most folks, something breaks, go buy a new one. For me it has never been that simple and not blaming anyone but myself, actually not even blaming myself. I make no apologies for the life choices I have made. I promise when it is all said and done — I won!

There is no replacing the moments and days and years of joys and the sorrows (she says with a grimace!) that I have enjoyed over the past many years. That fancy career I am still waiting for hasn’t shown up yet….hmmm maybe it has?

But anyways, a big item like an appliance is BIG in our house. Only to be compared to the time long ago when our family, I was probably about four or five years old, got a phone in our home (on the farm). Not sure if the cool part was the big black telephone or the South Central Bell worker man who came to install it.

We didn’t have many strangers back then show up at the farm. Interesting for a bunch of kids who hovered around waiting for this link to the outside world or at least the latest party line. Jeez this really dates me….ugh!

So after my current dilemma with the three revolving fridges, I felt comforted by the fact I did end up with a brand new one at the same price as the “open-boxed” (code for used junk) one.

I had to channel my inner Ramona for that one. Ramona is my sis in law who passed a few short months ago at a too young age, but only after many years of teaching me how to get things done — and boy could she! By now she would have already been given stock in that large retail outlet. Relentless was her name and getting satisfaction was her game, or mission in life! When she was ever done wrong by a store. She is my new alter ego in my Sybil-esque life I lead. This was a common joke between us two, our Sybil-esque lives. We had to have a “getaway” in our life of raising kids and husbands!

Back to the point, I now have a new fridge and it is glorious, and given to us by a great friend. A new (used from a new home, way newer than mine, stainless steel) Dishwasher!!! It was installed by another great man and friend and bless his heart it took him a while. The old one wasn’t even grounded, which means, um, I don’t really know except he said we should have been electrocuted by now! Good to know!

So it was a process and he was so sweet and patient and would not take a dime for his labor. People really do stuff like that these days? Wow! BUT — drum roll please — get this news!!! This kind man who installed the beautiful dishwasher, which I love as much as the new fridge, who by the way works for a fancy appliance place in a fancy part of town here in Nashville, who I know he is not wealthy (in financial riches, well I think?) but is very wealthy in godly riches as well as his wife, had a BRAND NEW STAINLESS STEEL OVEN DELIVERED TODAY!!!!!!!!!! O.M.G. Can anyone out give GOD?20120214-140807.jpg

Nope and I am humbled and a little embarrassed about the kindness and generosity of this family to us. This was a random act of kindness on top of the already done kindness and it just blows me away!!! No words are grand enough to express my thankfulness and the crazy part is we got two more words of great news from two of our kids that will totally change the future of one of them which is a direct gift from GOD! Proof, as if I needed it, that HE does take care of his servants. And I can not even fathom the extent of what this miracle will do for my child. Praise the Lord!

Now for all the people who are under the covers afraid to even lift their heads out, I feel the pain, that is me. I have a knee jerk reaction most days to do the same thing. And it wasn’t a week or so ago I was there? I am not a woman of extraordinary faith. I am frail and weak when it comes to that gifting. I am the mother of four kids (that alone can kill you!) and a wife (strike two) and a preacher’s wife (bullseye!) so I should’ve been dead a long time ago. I am as whiny and crybaby as the next guy. I fail myself and God daily and I get as frustrated and bored and defeated and anyone else. BUT I do know from where my redemption comes.At the end of the day, I have a true sense of freedom in the knowledge that I am not the one running this pop stand. That is all I need.

My need to control everything around me falls to the ground in the light of HIS love for me. And sometimes hearing of other people’s blessings can be offensive and hurts even worse, even when I put on my big girl pants and not let it make me envy. Yep, sometimes I do envy — for a minute — I am human to the MAX!

I have to testify to the fact that even when I may not be the best at handling life, HE is the best at handling me and my life and for that I will always be HIS. I thank God for my life, my husband, my kids and for the people who HE has out there to love me back.

You know who you are and I pray blessings back to you. You have paid it forward, as I will continue to also.

 

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My fridge hates me!

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Norma Rae
Norma Rae (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

I put buying a new appliance up there in the category with buying a car. The only better thing about it is the dickering of the price part is more simple, it is what it is!

Not much going back to the great and powerful OZ for the salesman to lower the price by a few dollars. The stress level is nearly as bad though, at least to me. Besides the high cost which should be enough anguish it is also the making of the decision. Maybe I am weird …. ( don’t answer that!) but I find it mortally impossible to choose which one….to cypher the price in comparison to the style and quality, AUGH! More than my little brain and heart can deduce!

There I am looking and hoping one will be exactly right, we find an “open box!” translation I now know means….broken and sent back! The one we found was shiny and very modern, in the budget. I didn’t know this particular brand built fridges which gave me a pause… The TV‘s are okay so I felt safe. Considering my frozen foods were home melting as we pondered our future fridge, we needed it today…..”twenty dollars extra ma’am” and here we go… Home to wait. How exciting it is, makes a girl feel special, new appliances and all. (…hey lady, your life called and said it needs you back!) sad times when this is what does it for me! Oh geeeez! It arrived, so nice and just fits… Cool ice maker in the door, I loves it!

Thus was Monday but, zip ahead five days and no more ice… A day of sadness. War in the Middle East, so what! My brand new fridge is broken!!! Back to buying a bag if ice and calling for service. At that point I am hurt, why would such a sleek impressive thing of beauty turn on me that way? “Call the MAN ” as Andy once told Aunt Bee(Andy Griffith episode)sometimes getting a good deal is not always so good….so I did the deed, only to be asked, “why aren’t you returning it?” oh well I didn’t think of that! Embarrassed by a service person, where was that thinking cap? Hello Monday morning, again at the big named electronics store, “find me another one please, just like the broken one!” tick toc, it will be there on Wednesday, I did think about whether I should choose a different brand but nope it’s a fluke! The jokes on me!!!! The second one has yet to make one cube of ice…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrrrrr,rrrrrrrrr!

Here I go again, first thing this morning, after checking four other stores just in case I have a person give me grief and I walk. As I walked in the store and rounded the corner by the washing machines the semi patronizing salesman begins to smile then chuckle… Uh oh! Don’t tell me he said….. For which I reply, ” you don’t make enough to hear what I am about to say!” (totally stole that line from my husband, who says it better than me, much more intimidating!) manager please! Mr manager says pick one out I will see what I can do, he didn’t even fight me…..no fair I was all geared up for it. They did give me a few to pick from so I found a comparable one in the more known brand and after several calls to said husband who couldn’t be here, since he is out of town, fighting my anxiousness with decision making and this time ALONE, it was done… It will show up tomorrow.

Forgive me Lord for needing to be taught patience or whatever I did to cause such toiling. I had to channel the strength from my dear sis in law who was the best at this Norma Rae-esque standing up for the little guy! I hope she us proud of me…. Time will tell if the new one, brand new still in the box, don’t even think of opening it till I watch you; refrigerator gets to my door. Life’s too short for this kind of drama over an appliance, no matter how good of a new car smell it has! To be continued………….

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Big Fat Fake

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It has been a turmoil within my head and heart — this life I have, attempting to live pure of heart in the eyes of God as well as live pure in my own eyes. Purity being a relative word, not attempting to be free from all sin or failure. I am a realist for heaven’s sake so the ability to remain that kind of pure would be a failure looking for a place. The purity that I have so desired is a purity of heart — to live without regret or untruths; to be real, if to no one else at least to myself.

I tend to think I am a rule follower. What a ridiculous assumption for me to make — only to find myself following the rules that I myself create. Standards and practices of my own making, not out of any malice but mostly out of necessity. There are things you do and decisions you make sometimes just to get along. We all make life changes and moment by moment judgments that tend to stick, then become a way of life. These are the things which are causing pain and bring me to a place of questions and second guessing.

I was a girl who was lost, wandering without a sense of purpose and not knowing what to do next. Now I am old, not a girl anymore with childish wishes upon stars far away, still hoping against hope there will be a purpose to my life once more. I have become lost in my life, assuming I was living but only to find out I am dying. The very things I hold dear, the people who I have given my heart and trust can’t even be alone with me anymore. Have I changed that much? Am I the shrew I have been made out to be?

I have a bad habit of expecting the best out of people….not judging them but cheering them on to be who they can be. Is this wrong or is it unrealistic? When did the game plan change? Who moved, me or God? What happened to what we had? Life happened.

Life comes and goes, an ebb and flow of rights and wrongs challenging me what will I choose. What kind of excuses do I make to fit, to be like all the other kids. When did the merry-go-round stop and tell me to get off? This must be why I have the reoccurring dream about being lost, left back from my group, wandering around trying to see something I recognize. Being abandoned is probably my greatest fear, a knee jerk reaction from growing up with a family split apart, something I have never been able to stomach. This would be my ultimate failure and yet I wake up each day feeling like a big fat fake. Could this be my thorn in the flesh, the fakeness of my life? The need to be pure in spirit and heart is a need that I feel I have to satisfy.

How long do I go on with the constant pain of lost love and a loss of hope? My big fat fake life is one that is killing my heart and my prayer now is to have the courage to do something about it — help me Lord.

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Big Fat Fake

LIFE, , , , , , , , , , ,

It has been a turmoil within my head and heart — this life I have, attempting to live pure of heart in the eyes of God as well as live pure in my own eyes. Purity being a relative word, not attempting to be free from all sin or failure. I am a realist for heaven’s sake so the ability to remain that kind of pure would be a failure looking for a place. The purity that I have so desired is a purity of heart — to live without regret or untruths; to be real, if to no one else at least to myself.

I tend to think I am a rule follower. What a ridiculous assumption for me to make — only to find myself following the rules that I myself create. Standards and practices of my own making, not out of any malice but mostly out of necessity. There are things you do and decisions you make sometimes just to get along. We all make life changes and moment by moment judgments that tend to stick, then become a way of life. These are the things which are causing pain and bring me to a place of questions and second guessing.

I was a girl who was lost, wandering without a sense of purpose and not knowing what to do next. Now I am old, not a girl anymore with childish wishes upon stars far away, still hoping against hope there will be a purpose to my life once more. I have become lost in my life, assuming I was living but only to find out I am dying. The very things I hold dear, the people who I have given my heart and trust can’t even be alone with me anymore. Have I changed that much? Am I the shrew I have been made out to be?

I have a bad habit of expecting the best out of people….not judging them but cheering them on to be who they can be. Is this wrong or is it unrealistic? When did the game plan change? Who moved, me or God? What happened to what we had? Life happened.

Life comes and goes, an ebb and flow of rights and wrongs challenging me what will I choose. What kind of excuses do I make to fit, to be like all the other kids. When did the merry-go-round stop and tell me to get off? This must be why I have the reoccurring dream about being lost, left back from my group, wandering around trying to see something I recognize. Being abandoned is probably my greatest fear, a knee jerk reaction from growing up with a family split apart, something I have never been able to stomach. This would be my ultimate failure and yet I wake up each day feeling like a big fat fake. Could this be my thorn in the flesh, the fakeness of my life? The need to be pure in spirit and heart is a need that I feel I have to satisfy.

How long do I go on with the constant pain of lost love and a loss of hope? My big fat fake life is one that is killing my heart and my prayer now is to have the courage to do something about it — help me Lord.

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Amazing Love

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As I write my thoughts today, I am reminded of the most memorable day of my life with the exception of my Wedding Day, which was of course the day that changed my destiny forever.

But the memories that I have today are of the most amazing event that could ever happen. At the time I had only known about God for a few short months, I had only snip its of the awe inducing world of God and they weren’t much. I do attribute any knowledge of Biblical matters to my sister who is right above me in the birth order. There would be times when I would have questions, I would hear about it in school; this was back when it was normal to hear about God and the baby JESUS at school, and I would ask my sister. She being an avid reader, to the point of that’s all she did when she had the time after farm and house chores, she would ALWAYS find the event in the BIBLE and make me read about it. NEVER would she just cut to the chase and tell me, I would have to work for it and of course this would full fill her need to make me read more, for which I now thank her, I finally like to read, it is a delicacy in the world of four kids.

But back then I really only knew the high points, Christmas, Easter blah, blah, blah! At the time of my first pregnancy I had only given my heart to this God I speak of about a year earlier and being a new christian I was in the baby steps myself. I did have a good teacher thou, my new husband was raised in the “way” of the Lord. He had not always been all fired up about it but as the scripture states (paraphrased a lot) teach them and when they are old they will always return to it! It worked…He came back to it or should I say the Lord and he did it in a big way, all in that one was.. I was glad but he really got sold out and here I am twenty eight years later a preachers wife…..geez!

This brings me to this amazing event that was about to happen, how can after all the new events that had happened to me in the past nearly two years, married to my best friend (love of my life, funniest guy I ever met and loves me more than I deserve), salvation (getting to live in heaven someday and dodging the impending doom I was headed for) and now this…..the greatest miracle ever done. People say that it is a great thing but even a dog can do it and a lot more at one time ( I assume a man said that not that I am male bashing but really?) This momentous event is the birth of my first child. This is even more of a miracle than the obvious and anyone who ever knew me could attest to that fact. I was reminded recently that I had written in my High School Annual(Go Patriots ’77) that I thought then I would probably become a teacher and at a last resort get married. My hopes were not high at that time, I was a scrawny high school senior who had not yet crossed over to the maturity level of my peers at least physically.

Needless to say I didn’t get asked out much, I had lots of big brothers though which was actually more fun! The idea of marriage and kids were ridiculous and I am not exactly sure how it happened, maybe I was sold into white slavery, ambushed by a masked man who kidnapped me and brainwashed me? HaHa Nope, just saw a boy who was scary……..(Robert Redford-like) beautiful and blonde….that’s all she wrote…I was bitten..the love bug won…yeah for love bugs! This brings me to the birth…that event that made time stand still, on this day I became a mommie, I fell in love in a way that is only understood by those that have had the same event happen to them…wow it is amazing, the amazing love! How could this squishy little punk have such an impact on a reasonably smart woman. First of all, how in this world did all that happen inside of ME! Seriously, who thought that up? And how did he figure all that out? Never did I ever realize the existence of GOD as I did at that moment…wowza! did that really happen? I was awake, although I had a C-section….surprise! scary and totally foreign….I had never been in the hospital before and it was freaky and a bit unexpected, I was secretly happy, the thought of screaming my guts out and pushing that almost ten pounder through that Holy of Holies….well, that was an awful part of the event, Gods little gotcha….stupid apple, Eve what in the heck were you thinkin’, thanks for causing all of eternity to suffer well, the girls, typical! Not me sista..I got a pass, and boy o’ boy was I happy…five days of bed rest and pampering by my scared to death husband. He was as flipped out by the rush into surgery as I was. Worked in my favor though so cool. I never looked back, that’s the way to go, I say.
 
So I was alert and I still say…how did that all happen, God is so smart, he is God for pete’s sake. This is an undeniable fact….HE really does know what he is doing, that is awesome, building a whole person inside one young girls body. Totally terrific and amazing, that is the only word for it….AMAZING!
 
God gave me a little boy, we named him after his daddy, a junior, and it was the incredible thing that made me know how tender and precious life is. It all went well, he was strong and perfect and I was in love..immediately. How could God allow this to happen within Mary’s womb and allow his only son to be slaughtered by his own people, the chosen ones. Why would HE go through the pain He must have had and give up the only real and precious person he created only to know he would suffer?
 
Amazing love, that is why. I get it…He loves me that much, we are all His children and He loves us all that much. I can’t see it and it must be why He is God. I know I couldn’t do it but HE did..thank you my sweet Lord. And now on the eve of my own first borns birth, twenty seven years ago, I am still in awe of the miracle of birth. I am thankful for that child of mine and the three others that followed but, I must say the first time is amazing…Happy Birthday to my first born.
 
The amazing love that I have for you, is pale in comparison to how much the Lord loves you. You have blessed my life and I am comforted in the fact that HE loves you even more than me and HE will always keep his hand on your life, choose Him everyday, HE picked you out especially for me and I am honored to be your mom. Even if you are a “pill” most days!
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HERO

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2011
HERO
How do you measure the life of a man?

Is it by the great wealth that he managed to accumulate or the land or homes or vehicles?

Is it by his position in business or his standing in the community?

The only way any man can be measured is by the fruit of his labor, the life he has lived on this earth and the lives that were changed by his love and the only real definition of success is how he was loved. This world is filled with complaints and negative thoughts that ride on the back of negative people. You can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who is complaining about something, no matter how trivial, we continue to be bothered and letting anyone who may be in our path know of our great plight in life.

I must admit I am the first whiner that I can think of. Honestly, I get sick of my own self, some days. I spend precious moments attempting to figure out why the world seems to pick on little old me! Good grief! Get over it! Come to find out, as I have grown very much older and wiser (well, the jury is still out on that one) It’s not all about me….as hard to believe as that is, I am not the center of the universe. How’d that happen? I never got the memo….was there a meeting, was there a quorum?

Did we vote? Yep they voted and I lost…..shocking how that happens.

Well actually not so much, I humbly say I have always known it wasn’t all about me. I am thankful I wasn’t given that burden to carry by my parents. But I know now that it is all about one person, that was on this earth for only thirty three short years, who gave it all so that we might have life everlasting and I have watched that same sacrifice and humility play out in the life of a man who without any fan fair or parade, lived everyday like it was his last. I have never known anyone that lived so completely complain free, even when he struggled for every breath in his last days on this earth. He would always have a smile and a kind word for anyone he met. He encouraged every person he knew and on those few occasions when I dared to be a complainer in front of him, he would say…..”ahh Rosa (he called me that from the first time I met him!)the Lord will help you, just stay close to him. Augh!

Why did he always have to hit me with that one, seriously!! does it always go back to that? can I not have five minutes of feeling sorry for myself. Does he even remember that I am married to his son and gave him four( I outta get the prize) grandkids and am a preachers wife and and…and….NOPE!

Stopped in my tracks with the harsh reality of Jesus suffering an awful punishment just so I can stand here and whine about, in my overly dramatic fashion, my bad day. This man who never complains about anything…ever… stands there and basically strips me down to myself and reminds me …it’s not the end of the world.

This guy I speak of is probably the sweetest and kindest gentleman anyone who reads this would ever know. Thirty years ago, I met a boy who had a father who from the first time I met him, made me one of his own. Without any question or judgement or hesitation, he welcomed me into his family and gave me a name. I was a part of him and not one time did I ever NOT feel accepted by him. I was never an “in-law”, I was a daughter and isn’t that just like Jesus.

This man is Curtis Fritts and he breathed his last breath holding the hand of his beloved wife and his one and only grand daughter, Bethany….his son and my only precious daughter. I know she will never forget the honor of being there with him, she saw the best man in this world enter into his reward for a life lived fully and without any reservation for where he was going.

As he took that last breath, he left behind all the pain of this world….not that we ever heard him complain about it!

Thank you Dad for loving us all. There is your measuring stick…..they will know HIM by our great love. Amen!
Posted by Rosemary Mcknight Fritts at 2:38 AM

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The time is NOW

Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, GOD, humor, hope, LIFE, , , , , , , , , , , ,

The beginning of a new year is always somewhat daunting …..with that “fresh new page” feeling and at the same time it seems as if the days zip past me and before I know it half the year will be gone. Time is something that we can’t put in a bottle, as the song goes, and the slippery slope of it is that the harder you try, the more fleeting it is to capture.

It was only a few days ago ……..I was riding my bicycle around my home town(Murfreesboro, TN), at ten years old, up around the square down Main Street during the fall, with all the leaves floating around me…. Those were the days! My town was a great place to live, small but growing; beautiful and classic, a college town full of eager scrubbed young people on the verge of entering the Vietnam War. Sadly many went, some kicking and screaming because of the draft, but some chose to go. For some it was a choice of freedom, a way to get away and save themselves.

As crazy as that sounds many kids didn’t grow up in the television show homes…Father didn’t always know best… and leaving was the only way to rise above their raisin’! I can remember those days and it was a time when the whole country was scared and the sadness that we all had come through after the two big wars and loss of presidents and leaders and then we find the world in the ’60’s for heavens sake….that was an example of something’s gotta give….that top was spinning and had to get free and it sure did… Bumping and sliding all over the place, it’s no wonder sometimes the choice was made to run away from the “safety” of home.

How safe was it….we parents are to be responsible citizens of the world yet our own parents dumped their hard raising on us and like a top sent us bouncing off the chart, escaping to anywhere but here. The tragedy of it all is that these lives lost either thru death in the physical sense or emotionally, are lost in time. If only to get those precious years back! But without that possibility, I find myself looking forward with an eagerness to stop wasting time.

Geez….I have been so guilty and I am impatiently waiting for my next post…the option for a new job seems slim, frustration overcomes me daily so I lean on the Lord and remember that HE orders my steps. I do hope he gives me the time to do all that he wants me to do and maybe and this is a huge maybe….I will be able to ride a bike down Main Street one more time during the fall to remember a better time, or at least a time before reality was way to real! There is always hope, at least that our children will get it right, they are smarter than us..of course!

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