I Am Blessed

Elisha was home from school on Friday. I was sitting in my office with the window open listening to him play outside when there was a knock on my office door. There he stood, grimy-faced, with his beautiful smile clutching a bouquet of dandelions, "Here, Nana, I picked these for you."

It doesn't get any better than this.

Ride, Terri, Ride

My parents specialized in outside toys. Outside toys meant we weren't playing inside. When you have five kids in eight years, outside is a good idea.

When I graduated from kindergarten, I got my first bicycle. It was 1967 and like all other transportation at the time, bicycles were cool. I got a purple banana seat bike. I was cool. The only problem was, my dad didn't believe in training wheels — throughout my entire childhood my dad didn't believe in safety nets, but that's another story.

So I had to learn to ride without training wheels. Oh, and my dad believed I should teach myself. All of those comfy, cozy images of a parent running along with a kid on a bike and letting go … yeah, that didn't happen.

I couldn't ride in the street, either until I learned to ride. This was interesting. I had to learn to ride in the driveway and many times the car was in the driveway. Are there any other fascinating elements we can add to this scenario? Oh, yes, the rose bushes beside the driveway … you get the picture.

But, this little 6-year-old girl was determined, and despite the bumps and bruises from cracking into the car, and the lacerations provided by thorny rose bushes, I learned to ride. I lived on that bike for most of my childhood.

There were other outside toys, too. We had a swing set and a jungle gym in our backyard. (And we actually had hard dirt under our play equipment.) Yep, the little girl with the fashionable pearl necklace is me. You will notice that I had on a blouse while the boys had on t-shirts. I was feminine. The grumpy boy in the dark blue t-shirt is my brother. The other two boys were our best friends, Cliff and Rusty.

When I was ten, my brother got a pogo stick for Christmas. I could tell you how cruel this was since my brother's disabilities made it hard for him to even walk a straight line, but I'm sure my parents had a reason.

Jimmy didn't see the reason though and he gave the pogo stick to me … after it got left in the driveway and run over by the car and the handle was broken off. But, again, determined, I learned to pogo without a handle. I could pogo a mile without stopping. Looking back it probably shook something loose in my little brain and that would explain some things.

Ah, yes … the magic of childhood. Honestly, it was a rough and tumble childhood, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I learned to improvise. I learned to take a fall and get up and go on. I learned to avoid the thorns. And I learned to savor the sunshine on my head and the wind through my hair as I rode a purple banana-seat bicycle across the West Texas desert.

A Tribute to My Mom

My Mother Is Fixed

“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” Psalm 34:18

You know the funny things kids say that then become family sayings? Most kids do it. When Wendy was little, and her dad would joke with her, she would say, “Daddy, you pulling my leg off!” When she was a little older, maybe four, she was laying in the floor at my Mom’s house coloring while Mom and I were bemoaning the current state of affairs. A little voice from the floor said, “What’s coming to this world?” (Instead of “what’s this world coming to?”) Bryan, my nephew, when he was little, would bring me broken toys and say “Tay, fik it!” To this day when something is broken, I say to my honey, “Fik it, Mark, fik it!” Until I was five, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a “bearm-boo fin-soo.” Don’t ask me what I was thinking! My brother called the Sno-Cone man who drove through our neighborhood selling sno-cones, the “Gitchie McGotchie.”

Then there was my sister, Lesli. You know when your kids ask for money and you don’t want to give them any, you tell them you are broke. Well, Les didn’t take this answer for long. By the time she was 2 1/2 she would bring Mom’s wallet, open, with the shiny coins, maybe just pennies and nickels, showing and say just as sweet as honey, “Mommy, you fixed!” In other words, “Don’t tell me you’re broke–I see the money!”

However, the truth is, at that time in her life, my Mom was broken. Mom grew up in church. She sang in a gospel trio with her sisters in churches all over Southern Missouri. She knew the gospel inside out. But my mom wasn’t the good sister. She was the “wild child” and she knew it. She felt like God loved the world and sent His Son to die for the world and anyone who called upon Him would be saved … except her. She was “too bad” for God’s salvation to reach her.

She had five kids by the time she was 26 years old. After the last baby, postpartum depression set in. The doctors didn’t know what it was then — or what was causing it. They medicated the symptoms, but didn’t address the problem. She got worse. I grew up with a mother who was broken — mentally ill they called it.

When I was 13, she made a profession of faith, but I was very skeptical. I was right. Nothing changed. She still had it in her head that God couldn’t save her.

As a teenager, to say that my relationship with my mother was strained would be an understatement. We rarely spoke to each other. We lived in the same house but we were strangers. She was lost in the darkness of her world. I was angry with her for leaving me behind to find my own way through my world. I was a know-it-all teenage girl. She despaired in a world where she knew nothing.

In her brokenness, she tried to end her life multiple times. When I was 18 and at Bible College, she almost succeeded. She was in the hospital and the doctors gave her a 5% chance of surviving the night. My family didn’t call me to tell me because it was during midterms and they didn’t want my grades to suffer. In the dark night of the hospital, my mom decided that she needed to find out if God was big enough to save even her. She called a preacher and he came and introduced her to that Mighty God who can save even the vilest of sinners. God saw the shiny coins, maybe just pennies and nickels, and God saw worth.

Mom, who had been broken for so long, was fixed. She didn’t heal overnight. However, a loving, patient, and long suffering God made my Mom over again, fixed.

In addition, we found each other. We were fixed: Mother and daughter. She became more than my best friend–she became my mom.

Because of Mom, I know that no matter how black the darkness becomes, God can fix it. Because of Mom, I know that God always sees the faint sparkles of the few coins and to Him we are all worth it. And because of Mom, heaven is a very real place where not only my Savior waits, but my mom is there waiting for me. Fixed.

A brook would lose its song
if God removed the rocks.

The Stranger

Author unknown

A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family.

The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. adventures, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family.

He took Dad, my brother, and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up - while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places-go to her room, read Bible, and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them.

Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house - not from us, from our friends, or from adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge, neither of my parents ever confronted the stranger.

My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I know now that the stranger influenced my early concepts of the man/woman relationship. As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet my father seldom rebuked him and never asked him to leave.

More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with us. But if I were to walk into my parent's home today, I would still see him sitting there waiting for someone to listen to his stories and watch him draw his pictures.

His name? We always just called him..................TV

I am so excited!

At about 5 o'clock I finished my last assignment for my last class!!!
I was able to pack these books away for the last time this year! This semester was a little harder for me because I took 16 hours. That may not seem too steep, but when you are in the midst of menopause, expecting to get 16 minutes a week of productive brain power can be a stretch!

Having packed the books away, I grabbed my camera and headed outside. The lilac bush in the yard behind me is finally blooming. My mother loved lilacs and they always remind me of her. Their fragrance filled the afternoon air.





Even this weed was beautiful.



My patriotic red, white and blue tulip was displaying its glory for one more day at least before it fades and makes way for the summer flowers.



The ants were busy preening the peonies in anticipation of their blooming later this month.



The few remaining apple blossoms were basking in the sunlight.


And this little daffodil was preparing to release its seeds to the wind.

It was a beautiful day, made that much more glorious by the fact that I finished the semester!!! I have only 12 hours to take this fall and I shall graduate with my BA in English.

You might be in a Texas Church

You might be in a Texas church if.....

• The doors are never locked.
• The call to worship is "Ya'll come on in!"
• People grumble about Noah letting coyotes on the Ark.
• The preacher says, "I'd like to ask Bubba to help take up the offering" and five guys stand up.
• A member requests to be buried in his 4-wheel drive truck because, "I ain't never been in a hole it couldn't get me out of."
• In the annual stewardship drive there is at least one pledge of "two calves".
• Never in its 100-year history has one of its pastors had to buy any meat or vegetables.
• When it rains, everybody's smiling.
• Prayers regarding the weather are a standard part of every worship service.
• The church directory doesn't have last names.
• The pastor wears boots.
• Four generations of one family sit together in worship every Sunday.
• The only time people lock their cars in the parking lot is during the summer and then only so their neighbors can't leave them a bag of squash.
• There is no such thing as a "secret" sin.
• There is a special fund-raiser for a new septic tank.
• Finding and returning lost sheep is not just a parable.
• You miss worship one Sunday morning and by 2 o'clock that afternoon you have had a dozen phone calls inquiring about your health.
• High notes on the organ set dogs in the parking lot in the back of pickups to howling.
• People wonder when Jesus fed the 5000 whether the two fish were bass or catfish.
• It's not Heaven but you can see Heaven from here.
• The final words of the benediction are, "Ya'll come on back now, ya hear!"