To Watch A Tree Grow

 It has been awhile. It's been awhile since I have blogged. It's been awhile since I have been still. Other than a 2 day stomach bug I don't believe I've stopped since our weekend vacay to Tennessee. I do apologize for my absence. One friend asked if I had writer's block, eh, maybe to an extent. I just want to be certain what I'm putting out here is from the Lord and in His timing. Maybe I was a little intimitidated from the "success" of the two previous blogs. Mostly, because I felt the annointing go forth.  Without a doubt, they were straight from the Lord to the screen. That's pressure. Or at least I let it be. First things first, I GOTTA make a confession.  I need to repent of something and until I do, God can't bless this.  Last week, I was vicious with the truth. I know it hurt someone that I love and care about.  It doesn't matter what pushed me to my break. All that matters is that when I was hurt/offended/taken back, I did not resp...

 Recently, my family and I took my first trip to The Great Smokey Mountains to celebrate 3 years living free from the grips of meth addiction.  Our mountaintop cabin for the weekend was recently re-established in 2020 after having been destroyed in a forest fire. The entire mountain climb previous devastation was evident both in the plethora of newly built vacation rentals and in scenery.  Everywhere you turned the previous fires path was evident. While there was plenty of dense forest remaining, there was also patches of new growth amongst still standing charred remains of once thriving vegetation and trees.  I couldn’t help but relate to God’s handiwork amongst the growth and the devastation, and it got me to thinking and researching what it takes for proper regeneration after a roaring fire.  A forest CANNOT regenerate in a drought. It needs moisture. In fact, slower growth in younger trees due to a drought create a lack of carbon dioxide which, in turn, ...

 I’ve written AND deleted this blog umpteen times this week, umpteen 1000 and 1, if you were to count file 13 piled up inside my head.  There’s so much to talk about. Picture a film room in disarray, reels on shelves, the floor,  out of their cases.  A nearly dangerous web of unraveled tape strewn about.  Aimlessly leading to nothing yet pointing to something.  So let’s do some unraveling.  - I had $9.24 left in my bank account this week after paying my tithe and the rent. My only $8 in cash had went to someone else the day before. (They needed it more than me.) The girls are home from school for the summer, sending food cost through the roof, gas prices just topped $5/gal for regular,  in Smalltown USA, the phone bill is due, and I have $9.24 left in the bank. All pay day long, as I went about cleaning the church, I thanked Jireh for this opportunity to be stretched and not stressed.  Faith it till you make it.  The next day, I received...

 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...

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 ou...

 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 ...

 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 ...