The other day Terry asked me to hand him one of the new Magic Erasers we bought at the hardware store. These things are amazing. Small, white erasers. I asked Terry, “What exactly do these do?” Terry grinned at me and said, “Well, they basically clean up all my messes. They erase any mistakes or messes, magically.”
I just stared at him and said, “Wow. Wish we could have one of those to magically erase life mistakes!”
Both of us have made some really big messes from mistakes we made and they are costing us, to this day. We trusted the wrong people. We believed those people would come around and do the right thing. We believed they would tell the truth. When these people showed up in life to be villains rather t
Read moreI was cleared of any “wrongdoing” as nothing offensive was found.
I’m not sure if it was my love for Jesus, my love for Terry, or my love food/wine that deemed me, “offensive,” but nevertheless, I had been flagged. Overnight, I lost over 100 followers to my page and every single FB message I had ever received, vanished. Completely erased and gone. One lady wrote to me she had an “alert” that asked if she wanted to mark my devotion as offensive. Her email was how we started putting two and two together.
I had no intention of sharing this publicly, because I think the person who reported me as offensive is a coward who desperately needs Jesus, and I truly pity them.
Read moreI am going to have a new scar right under my jawline. But like most scars do, this one is going to have an awesome story to accompany it. I’m going to call it my Ninja scar.
A couple of weeks ago, I woke up with horrific ear pain. It was so bad, I was fighting back tears. Not wanting to wake Terry, I decided to sneak quietly out of bed and slip down the hall to Michala’s room. My goal was to be stealth-like; to move quickly and without noise, like a ninja, out of our room.
As soon as my feet hit the floor, I knew things were about to go terribly, terribly wrong. The ringing in my ears became so loud; the few times in my life I have fainted, my ears rang before I hit the floor. I felt like I was on a ship that had capsized and I could not get my bearings. The last thing I wanted to do was make any noise getting out of bed and wake up Terry.
The crash of my fall in the pitch black darkness made plenty of noise, so that took care of that.
Read moreYears ago, one of my directors walked into the studio where I was getting set up for my shoot and told me, “Hey, I read something yesterday that made me think of you.” He went on to tell me about the word, “Kintsukuroi.” Kintsukuroi translated means, “golden repair.” I wrote down the word and decided to do my own research on it.
Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. You can see the repairs, yet the Japanese still find the pieces to be beautiful. Their belief is the Kintsukuroi repair is part of the history of the object, rather than something to hide/cover/disguise.
I don’t know about you, but I, myself, am a Kintsukuroi piece. You cannot necessarily see the gold, silver or platinum, but if you look closely at my heart, you can certainly see where the brokenness was and the new repairs. The broken pieces are part of my history, and
Read moreIt’s 9:48, Wednesday night. January 23, 2019. And I didn’t want to write this. In fact, I wanted to go to bed early tonight. But it has been a terrible day.
Earlier today, I had a breaking news alert on my phone. Another shooting. But this one took place in Sebring, Florida. Sebring is a sleepy, quiet community. I know this because one of my daughter’s sweetest and closest friends from college is from Sebring.
As I read the breaking news, I felt sick. I immediately thought of her sweet friends’ parents. We met them and had dinner with them over parent weekend back in the fall. I texted Michala and asked her to ask her friend if her parents were okay. I told Michala what happened but didn’t want her to
Read moreMy pastor in Franklin, Tennessee; Jamie George, during a message years ago explained how men and women think differently. He told us, “Men’s thoughts are like compartments. It’s one thought at a time. We go to a shelf, pull a box off the shelf, open it, and think about that. When we need to think about something else, we put the lid back on the box, put it back on the shelf and open another box.”
I remember being truly mesmerized by this image. I would absolutely *love* to think about only one thing at a time. Instead, I usually have 10 to 15 thoughts running through my mind, simultaneously. I think about what I need to thaw out for dinner; I think about the last thing I wrote and the four things I still need to write, and did I mail the check for the man who cuts the grass, and where did I leave the checkbook if I did write it, and what date is the credit card statement paid online, and I need to sit down and look at the statement again; (ever since someone stole our credit card information and we had so many fraudulent charges, we check our accounts daily) and how did Jesus forgive Peter when Peter promised he would never deny knowing Him, and I need to find a box for all the stuff we
Read moreToday is my brother’s birthday. Ken is one of those guys who could have nearly every adjective used to describe him, yet you really wouldn’t have a full understanding of who and what he is. Have you ever had someone give you an Indian Burn? My brother used to be the best giver of those. Growing up with a big brother taught me to be tougher in many situations. I’m pretty sensitive, by nature, but Ken taught me how to be stronger … an interesting characteristic that would serve me quite well, later in life.
When we were growing up, Ken could beat the tar out of me, like big brothers do, but you better pity anyone else who ever laid a hand on me, or threatened me. Back in the day when you could do things like this; it is one of my favorite stories to tell about my brother. When I was in the first grade, I would ride the bus home in the afternoons. My big brother is six years older than I am, so he was in middle school (7th grade) when I was in first. Anyway, there was this boy who was bullying my friend and me, both. He was a much bigger kid than I was, and he would plop down on the seat next to me, not letting my friend sit next to me, and would shove me back down if I tried to get up.
One day when I got home and was telling my mom about this boy, my brother’s ears perked up.
Read moreOne of the wonderful things about our marriage is the depth of conversations we have. One Saturday morning, Terry got up before me and had already had his quiet time when I came to the kitchen for coffee.
When I sat down on the couch he told me, “While I was praying this morning, God revealed something to me about magicians, and how much like the world they are.”
Believe me. If you have ever seen the t-shirts and mugs that say, “No coffee, no talkie,” that pretty much sums me up in the mornings. I need a few sips of caffeine to recharge my brain, so I had no idea what in the world (pun intended) Terry meant by magicians were like the world.
He went further and asked me, “Have you ever watched a magician?”
I said no, but of course I have seen magicians. I love watching them; especially when I’m watching shows like, “America’s Got Talent,” where the best of the best are entertaining us. But I knew what Terry meant …
Read moreI not only like the word, “wonderful,” I enjoy it. You know why? Because it makes me think of the way I should live. “Full of wonder.”
Pastor Steve has taught us about, “illuminated reading.” He says we need to pray each day, “Holy Spirit, will you please show me what you want me to read today?” In other words, we are to pray for the Spirit to highlight the message for us.
I don’t know about you, but I can read a scripture 50 or 60 times, but until my heart is open to God’s Holy Spirit guiding me, it is like words falling on deaf ears. Suddenly when I have submitted myself wholeheartedly to Papa, the message makes sense. It is more, “illuminated” for me, if you will.
Anyway, several months ago when Terry and I were struggling with a legal decision we needed to make,
Read moreDr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was such a visionary. The older I get, the more I appreciate not only his wisdom, but his love for God.
You see, the greatest commandment Jesus gave us was to love His Father, and love others. “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
We are supposed to love God and love others, period.
I wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would think of the way we, as a society,
Read moreTerry and I recently made a decision about a major ordeal we endured, and I have to tell you … I wasn’t consumed with a peace over our decision. In fact, I kind of questioned it. I don’t want to go so far to say I doubted Terry’s role as leader, but I somewhat doubted this decision. I felt like it was a mistake to make the decision he wanted to make.
Once we agreed to move forward with the decision, Terry said he had a tremendous peace. He wanted to be done with the ordeal. Me? I wanted justice. I wanted revenge. I wanted bolts of lightning to strike down the people who were so wrong and caused so much trouble for us. So I asked a couple of my prayer warriors to pray alongside me and ask God to help me with my attitude.
Never doubt the mighty power of prayer.
A couple of days, and I mean that
Read moreSome things have really been bothering us. For the past year or so, we have really struggled with some shocking events to fall in our laps and Terry and I look at each other without words over most of it.
How some people can be so evil and manipulative saddens and angers me, quite frankly.
I have been praying and asking Papa to change my heart. To soften my heart so I am not so angry and bitter about these events/people.
My prayer has been, “Sweet Papa. Please work on me. Change my heart. Remove the bitterness and anger
Read more“What other people think of you is none of your business.” - Paolo Coelho
Terry and I have learned some people we know were fed a story about us. Mind you, there is no truth to the story they were told, but they believed the story. When we learned about this, we were both really angry, not to mention hurt and shocked.
Part of me wanted to put on my Sassy Southern Girl Socks and go straight over
Read moreMichala finished her first semester in college with a 4.0 and learned she is actually a sophomore. We are amazed by this sweet, intelligent girl of ours. Michala and Terry together are so funny. He tells her we have a, “Rusty plan.” You see, we tell Michala not to put so much pressure on herself; we only care she does her best. She does not have to maintain a 4.0. But what her sweet Dad tells her is, “I want you to get great grades and a great education so you will get a great job with a great income so you can buy a house with a yard and take Rusty for us.”
That’s the, “Rusty plan.” Every note or card he sends
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