I want to tell you about some answered prayer that were a very long time coming. On a day like Thanksgiving, I am overwhelmed with my countless reasons to be thankful. So often, I feel like we toss around the words, “blessed” and “blessings,” but I do not want to take my blessings for granted. If I were to list them, it would take me weeks to try and count them all. Even then, I would fail listing my many, many blessings. My precious Terry is my blessing. Michala is my blessing. My sister-friends are my blessings … you see where I’m going with this.

I am so fortunate to have been raised by parents who poured Jesus into us, and filled our hearts with total love and built us up with a foundation in the love and grace of Jesus.

Not everyone has that kind of background and upbringing

So many of y’all are thinking about last minute Thanksgiving preparations today, I’m sure. We get to go to my parents’ house, and after a few days of traveling, I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. For one thing, I don’t have to cook! I get to eat my mom’s delicious cooking. But for another, I didn’t know how I was going to be able to pull off anything for Thanksgiving. We made travel arrangements to go see my oldest bonus son graduate from Officer Candidate School. Our flight schedule had us flying back the night before Thanksgiving. How would I have time to cook, when we wouldn’t arrive back at the cabin until likely 2 or 3:00 in the morning? (I am obviously writing this before the trip!) Knowing we would be gone for three days meant I would not even be able to cook ahead. Because we were going to be traveling up to the cabin, I would have had to make everything and then freeze it; then pack it in coolers, and it was just too much thinking, quite frankly, to figure it all out, in addition to planning for the trip, itself. So I invited ourselves to my parents’ house.

And my Mom being her gracious self said absolutely, we could come. She would prepare a place for us at their table. And I know whatever she makes will be wonderful, and we will all enjoy eating it, together. As much as I love my mom’s cooking, it’s the togetherness part, I love the most. The memories we will all make laughing together will be what we think about, years from now. We likely won’t remember every single dish Mom makes, but we will remember the jokes

I have shared this story before. When we were freshmen at the University of Tennessee, the week we played Kentucky was always a canned food and blood drive. My roommate Rebecca and I saw the signs in our dorm (Hess Hall) you would receive a free T-shirt if you donated blood. You know college kids are all about anything free. So we decided we would go down to the lobby the day before the game, and give blood. 

I had never given blood, nor did I know anything about giving blood. Rebecca had much more of a scientific look to things, and she said, “I don’t know if you should do this.” To me, that was almost like a challenge. 

Challenge accepted.

The nurse who was taking the blood on our side was really harsh. I called her Nurse Ratched. She was no-nonsense. As she was finishing up drawing my blood, she told me, “I want you to sit up very slowly, you hear me?” When she turned around, I made a silly face and rolled my eyes at Rebecca. Little did my smart alecky self realize, she was looking out for me. I did not know I did not meet the weight requirements

One of the songs Michala sent to me several months ago that has been on our repeat playlist (and is even my morning alarm, some days) is Good Grace by Hillsong United. I love this song so much. I especially love the bridge of the song, “Swing wide all you heavens, let the praise go up as the walls come down, all creation, everything with breath repeat the sound. All His children, clean hands, pure hearts, good grace, good God, His name is Jesus.”

“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” - Hebrews 12:15 (NIV)

It is all about God’s grace. Pastor Steve was so precious recently when he told us, “It’s all about God’s grace and His goodness; not ours. God does not want your perfection, He wants you to be present and involved. Drink in His grace so it pours out of you.” While he was sharing his message, he walked over to where Terry and I were sitting and he stood on my toes. He put all of his weight, and then some, on my toes.

Okay, so that’s not true. But he did step on my toes … figuratively,

I am a little embarrassed to admit this to you, but for the longest time I did not believe I could truly call myself a writer until I had successfully been published and met one of the “best seller” lists, with a contract for my second and third book being negotiated. Surely I could not glorify God and do what I saw to be my calling, if I was not on every bookshelf in every bookstore in America, as well as every online store, such as Amazon, etc. 

But over the past year, I have finally realized my calling is to glorify God, not Aimee. My calling is to reach souls for Jesus, not sales for a publisher. My calling is to express the love, grace and goodness of God, not chart publishing contracts and quotas of book sales each week. I am sad it took me so long to realize I could do what God called me to do with twelve people and not wait to do it for twelve million. 

Once I let go of the notion I had to have my books published in order to do what God has called me to do, I realized it is far more important to do what I’m doing where I’m doing it, than to “dream” about doing it on a bigger scale.

What if we reach people for His Kingdom by loving the people right in front of us so hard, they want what we have? 

Chris Tomlin sings, “Jesus, the love song of God,” in his song, “Midnight Clear (Love Song).” Isn’t that the most perfect way to describe what Jesus is to us? Jesus is God’s love song to us.

On November 8, Michala and her three, precious roommates put up their Christmas tree in their apartment. The girls were so kind to send us texts of the progress of the tree going up and of the finished product. My heart was dancing. I was so excited to see them celebrating so early and loving Christmas the way I do!

More than the tree, I just love all of it. I love the lights and decorations. I love the baked goods and every smell associated with Christmas. I love the giddiness and excitement. I love the contagious joy associated with Christmas. I love the giving hearts of people.I love the generosity from faceless, anonymous people who don’t give for recognition, but they give to be helpful and kind.

I sent a little Christmas something to Michala and her roommates, as well as to my goddaughter and her brother. For my goddaughter and her precious brother, I said to their mom, “No godchild of mine is going to grow up not loving Christmas!”

Terry and I are celebrating a sweet memory/kind of anniversary for the two of us this weekend, so I made a coconut conch soup last night for dinner. And it was all kids of amazing.

Hi! Perhaps you have noticed not a lot of activity on my website in three months. Well, there has been a lot of activity but much of it has not yet been visible. I hope you are following my daily devotional posts on my Facebook page.

I have been working with a precious editor over the past few months who has challenged me to search not just my heart, but God’s heart. My years on television were a part of me, but they do not define me. I have been changing the website to reflect, just that very transformation.

While I still plan to share recipes in the future, I took down all of the recipes because they were eating up too much space. (See what I did there?) : )

Feeding hearts for Jesus is my greatest desire. Food falls further down the list.

I have been busy editing and working on my second draft of my book

Completing my manuscript was a feeling of both relief and pure elation. Little did I know, I was far from finished with this book. Let me explain.

One of my favorite professors in college was actually kind of a jerk. He was really a TA, but made us call him, “Professor.” Y’all, I thought he was so full of himself I almost went to Drop and Add the very first week to drop him and find another Writing Composition class to add. Because of my schedule, when I looked through the catalog (what we actually had to do back in the 90s prior to the internet and smart phones), I realized another course would not fit with my schedule, so I had to keep it.

Ugh. I kept telling my roommate what a jerk this guy was, and I dreaded going to his class. Not only was he so full of himself, but the class was way up on the hill. (If you aren’t familiar with the University of Tennessee Knoxville campus, google The Hill

I went to church by myself, because Terry had to stay home one Sunday so one of the contractors could do a few last minute things. People we don’t even know at church, noticed Terry wasn’t with me. This precious lady took my hands and asked me, “Where is your husband?” I told her he had to meet a contractor at the house, so he was at home. She said, “You are not you without him. You are not complete without him.”

Boy was she right. But I loved the way she said it. She is from one of the islands, so her accent is already beautiful; but to hear her say it the way she did, it was just so precious. And I agree. I am not me without Terry, and I am not complete without him.

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are

Terry and I were doing business with someone we both really like, a lot. We trust this person, we believe this person, we found this person to be extremely hard working and is an honorable, intelligent kind of person. We had such a peace about working with and being around him. Later on, this guy had to bring another person into the mix, and when we first met (I’ll refer to the second person as P#2) P#2, we had somewhat of a bad feeling. The timing, however, was in the middle of a ton of stress. That same day after we first met P#2, we looked at each other and said how surprised we were the person we liked and trusted was associated with these other people. We dismissed it, somewhat, thinking it was due to our own level of stress, and P#2 might not be that bad.

Fast forward a little more than a year and due to logistics and circumstances, we realized we had to deal with P#2, again. We tried, so hard, to like P#2, even giving the benefit of the doubt after

We have a spiral staircase outside. The stairs were damaged, terribly, after Irma. So much so, they had to be removed and later replaced. As I walk down them now, I am reminded of what they once looked like; impossible to walk on and crumpled. Now rebuilt, they are stronger and better than ever.

We are all so much like spiral staircases that have been damaged in a storm. I don’t know about you, but when I faced emotional storms, I felt like I had been crumpled and destroyed beyond repair. But Papa is in the restoration business, to this day. And He can take what is so crumpled and damaged and repair and restore what we believed to be irreparably broken.

I like to look at our staircase every day now, because I have a greater appreciation for all we endured. Not just damage from the hurricane, but the emotional storms. In 1997, Terry and I had been dating

I have created some really neat things, lately. One of Terry’s favorites has been the Chinese meal. I made shrimp spring rolls, Chinese orange chicken and spicy noodles. I have to admit, they were pretty darned tasty. So when we invited some dear friends over for dinner, I asked Terry, “What do you think I should make?” Terry replied, “Your new Chinese dishes. That’s my favorite of your creations.”

I created a Mexican casserole dish a couple of months ago Terry also really loves. I like to tweak, “the best” chocolate chip cookie recipes with my own additions. Like the famous Neiman Marcus recipe that went viral about 15 or so years ago. I double the vanilla and I use a Ghiradelli bittersweet baking bar instead of a candy bar, I use one and a half bags of chocolate chips and I add almond extract. But recipes and such … those are about the extent of my creations. I am not super crafty, as we all know and I don’t do gardening because I kill plants, herbs and a cactus.

I killed a freakin’ cactus. That’s supposed to be next to impossible

When Michala was a baby and a toddler, she would go into the campaign offices with me on long evenings or weekends. She was immersed in what I did, and picked up sayings along the way. One thing she always heard us say around the office was, “Let’s dig into that,” or, “We need more research on this.” So when she was two and three years old, it was always funny to listen to her playing with her baby dolls and Barbies, saying things like, “Let’s do more research.”

When I worked on my last campaign, it was a Presidential campaign. That summer I spoke to a group of college interns about opposition research. My role in that lecture was to teach those students what opposition research was, and the basic methods how to do it. In teaching them how to do it, I had to teach them why, and what we look for, etc.

One of the interns raised his hand and asked me, “Ms. Aimee, how

I have shared this before, but I am a deep truth-seeker. For years, when someone would send an email (you know the kind; the, “forward this to all your friends so they will know” email) filled with topics that were just too crazy to believe, I always dug deeper. I did research. “Trust but verify,” President Ronald Reagan once told us, so I do. I trust the person’s heart was in the right place, but I do my own research. Because let’s face it - forwarding an email takes two seconds. Looking into the subject to fact check takes longer.

Anyway, Terry and I were in bed reading the other night and he was growing more and more disgusted while reading an article by one of the news publications to which we subscribe. He forwarded the link to me, and we both decided to investigate a little further. This article just seemed too absurd. It’s 2019. No one could really do what this person was accused of doing and get away with it, I kept thinking.

But he did do the things and he did get away

I keep a thesaurus tab bookmarked on my computer. When I am struggling to find the right word or want to use a word I have not used twenty times already, I type in the word I do not want to use and search for a suitable synonym.

Restore is one of those words I find to be Spirit-breathed. In my heart, anyway. But when I was reading Psalms 69, 70 and 71 the other morning, I was drawn to certain words. Over and over, David used the words, “answer me,” “rescue me,” “deliver me,” “redeem me,” and “restore my life.”

Answer. Rescue. Deliver. Redeem. Restore.

Today is my sister-friend, Lindsey’s birthday. If ever a person deserved to have their birthday declared a national holiday, I would lobby it was Lindsey. She deserves to have this day celebrated on every calendar. But people don’t come to me for things like this. They don’t ask my opinion about national holidays, for some reason. So I write about it and offer, anyway.

Lindsey, as I have shared many times, is the epitome of love and grace. I’ll never forget the snowy day in December, 2008, when I drove over to Lindsey’s house and we talked, cried and just sat in silence. I dumped my heart onto Lindsey’s lap, and she told me, “This is going to get better. We are going to pray you through this.”

Those words still ring in my ears from time to time. I could not have walked through the heartache, the turmoil, the agony and the pain I endured for so long, without her.

Do you ever notice how often we all say, “Praise God,” or, “Hallelujah!” when something great happens? I love that. I love how we will immediately give God the glory and praise Him with wonderful news.

But what are we doing when life is hard? When we are hurting or under spiritual attack? Are we stomping our feet and complaining while shaking our fists in anger, or are we praising Him?

There is a beautiful, beautiful worship song called, “Even When It Hurts (Praise Song)” by Hillsong United. I love the part in parenthesis. “Praise Song.” In other words, even when it hurts, we will sing songs of praise.

I do not always do this very well. The lyrics to the song, “Even When It Hurts,” made me weep the first time I heard it. Look at this: “Even when the fight seems lost/I'll praise you/Even when it hurts like hell/I'll praise you/Even when it makes no sense to sing/Louder then I'll sing your praise…”

Oh my goodness, I was almost crippled with shame when I heard those words, because I fail more times than not, to praise God. When it hurts like hell, I’m usually the first one to cry and beg God to remove the burden from our plates. To make the people who have lied/stolen/cheated us, stop in their tracks

My sweet Terry cracks me up. Sometimes I find him to be exceptionally hilarious. Other times, even his dry wit will have me doubled over in laughter and pondering his sarcasm and humor. One morning while we were having our Bible study, he told me when talking to Travis (my oldest bonus son), Terry told him how he has been reading Isaiah. We both find Isaiah to be absolutely fascinating. But sometimes, it can be like a college literature course where you are forced to find the “parallel meanings” or the analogy for this must mean that. Terry told Travis, “So after reading Isaiah during Bible study, I flip over to read some of Paul’s letters, for dessert.”

Isn’t that so true of what we read in God’s word, anyway? I really do not know how I would get through my quiet times without having a study Bible. The study notes at the bottom tie it all together for me, or will reference another scripture that makes me understand what the author was saying.

I shared how Pastor Steve taught us about illuminated reading. He told us every morning we should pray, “Holy Spirit, will you please show me what you want me to read today?”

My girlfriends are fierce. They fight with me and I could not wage war against the enemy without them. I sure hope you have some precious friends because they are our fellow fighters on the spiritual battlefield against the enemy. You see, our friends (not just my girlfriends; our male friends, too) have been incredible prayer warriors for and with us during this spiritual battle we have had to fight.

One of my girlfriends, Betsy, sent a song to me one day and told me, “You need to listen to this.”

The song is, “Defender,” and it was written by John Paul Gentile, Rita Springer and Steffany Gretzinger.

A lot of times when someone sends a song for me to listen to or a verse for me to look up or a video to watch, I’ll make a, “mental note” and check it out later. That day, though, for some reason, I clicked on it and listened right away. I believe the reason was because Papa knew how desperately I needed the reminder. I was “sold” on the song with this opening verse, “You go before I know/That You’ve even gone to win my war/You come back with the head of my enemy/ You come back and You call it my victory…”