To Watch A Tree Grow

 This past Friday the electric bill arrived.  Hesitant to see the “damage” due, I barely opened it, tearing open only the corner nearest amount Due, bravely peeking in. If you remember right, I just closed my side business in obedience to the Lord.  Just the Day before, Master checked me. When speaking of the closure of HSC, I had frequently said, “I don’t like it, but I’m doing it.” He checked me through the provision of His Word in James 1:2, “Consider it all Joy, dear brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials.” OUCH!  I definitely wasn’t being joyful in my obedience. And why wouldn’t I be joyful to do something I knew God said to do?!!! Like stupid.   It’s God!!!! So ya know everything is gonna be all right, even when it’s rough He’s there, and the outcome is better than good, it’s God!!! With a repentant heart, I laid down this grievance with obedience and thanked Him for this refining moment.  It wasn’t enough to just do it, but rather to do it joyfully, knowing that

Harriet Tubman once said, “I grew up like a neglected weed- ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented.”  FELT. LIVED. Felt again and again. Then came the liberating freedom when I surrendered it all to Jesus.  Maybe I should start at the beginning.  By the age of 5, I was subject to every kind of abuse known to man. Weekdays were spent at home, living at poverty level with my 2 brothers, our Mom when she wasn’t at work or taking care of someone else, and our pedophile Step Father. Weekends were at our Grandparents with our Dad, a home of many comforts and luxury, as well as volatile eruptions. By the age of 11, 2 Grandfather’s had passed, our Mom was divorced, and we moved for the 15th time. I’ve never lived anywhere long enough to watch a tree grow. Back to low income apartments and now our Mom was suddenly a lesbian. Enter step child and alcoholic, pill addicted step mom. At Grandma’s, Dad had moved in his young baby momma and our baby sister.

 I’m a day late getting this blog out. My laundry is piled high and our small apartment looks lived in. For an obsessive like me when things are out of sorts, off schedule, and not in order I feel like everything is out of control. How quickly I can unravel and suddenly feel overwhelmed by it all over just a few dirty dishes.  I’ve been neat, orderly, and scheduled ever since I can remember. When things are out of order. Everything becomes so loud. So loud, in fact, I don’t even know where I’m going with this weeks blog.   So I stop. I pause. I breathe in Holy Spirit *deep breath in* and I exhale all of the everything. *long exasperating exhale* I breathe in. I breathe out. I ask God, “what is it you want me to share in this moment, for such a time as this?”  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing.  Not only in this blog, but also in my daily walk with the Lord.  I’m doing all I can to be obedient to His leading even when I don’t know the outcome, even when I don’t know the time ta

 It’s Teacher Appreciation Week so it’s only fitting, as I put paper to pen, that I appreciate a couple of my own. Throughout my high school career and even into my first college course, W131, I was blessed to have Mr. Brantley Blythe for Lit and Language Arts.  He challenged me as a reader and inspired me as a writer. He also possessed a spectacular vinyl collection often challenging us to a game of  “Name that tune.” I can still feel the familiar catch of a KitKat bar as it’s difficult to stump this human jukebox. The inscription in my Senior Yearbook reads, “From one great writer to another. Keep writing. - Mr. Blythe.”  So here I am, writing still. As influential as Mr Blythe may have been in my life, the Greatest Teacher ever there was and will always be is Jesus Christ.  When he sat on a mountainside near Capernaum, He taught us the Beatitudes. “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for the