Archive of Memoir/Blog

So...if the Son sets you free, you will be Free indeed: John 8:36

2009-08-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

I never thought too much about what freedom meant to me until this past weekend. On Memorial Day, followed by a rain shower was this rainbow stretched across the sky. In Old Testament times, the rainbow was a promise of freedom from God. People would never have to worry about God flooding the entire Earth again. Never again would God pull out an eraser to start over.

But in the past few months, God has pressed His eraser across the front page of my life. He's smudged out a few people, and allowed some major changes to happen within my family. All these things have turned out to be some of the best things that have ever happened, but it didn't feel that way at the beginning.

First, God took away both of my Dad's, not physically, but removed them from my life in a way that I can only trust that He knows what He's doing. What I realize now is that I'm free to live my life without concern for validation. Every woman would probably love to say she's her daddy's princess, but the truth is---I will never be. Most importantly, I don't have to be. I don't need to strive for validation anymore. I have promises from God that I've collected for years and can now claim them for my own. It is who I am in Christ that matters. I'm not just some little girl that someone adopted, or a daughter that was originally rejected and abandoned by her father.

Secondly, God reduced my husband by allowing his 33 year job to be taken away. Again, the initial sting was difficult, but followed by relief from corporate abuse. There are no more late night phone calls or striving for perfection to a boss who can never find satisfaction. Daniel no longer hears the comments from the critical-spirited, but looks forward to a new future full of promises that arrive daily.

Memorial Day brings about promise because of those men and women that have sacrificed their lives for our country's freedom. Unfortunately the labor of their love is not recognized by everyone and goes unappreciated. The same is true for a God who loved us enough to sacrifice His own son for us to have eternal life. Eternal life that's a gift, and it's free. I am free!

Click here: I Am Free :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR7bBEBIC9g&feature=related

Mean Girls

2009-05-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

Most of us have probably had our fair share of mean girls in our life. In a recent broadcast of the Esther series by Beth Moore, Beth states: "Women do not often stand by their sisters, but compete with them." Specifically she speaks about how it's tough being a woman in a mean world.

"Some women are just plain mean. Mean girls will let you hang with them as long as it's all about them. Mean girls dig at other girls but they never do admit to it or take responsibility. Mean girls dress provocatively around other women's men! They can't keep their breasts to themselves. We don't dress by accident, we are very aware of what we're putting on before we leave the house. What I can't stand about a mean girl like that, is most of the time she doesn't even care about that guy, she just wants the power of knowing he would look and that he's your man but would still look at her. You know it, you have experienced it!"

Sometimes it's just a subtle glare, a cold shoulder, an obvious avoidance and other times it outright malicious behavior coming from the mean girls' deep rooted insecurity.

Whether you're a practicing mean girl or have a history of being one, (we've all been there at one time or another), it's important to know the good news: THERE IS A CURE ! For the mean girls of the world: deal with your mean spirit. Deal with this thing openly and honestly. Your meanness has a history, identify your threat. Start being aware of when you are the most likely to look around you and measuring yourself up to someone else. Who is your rival? Who do you consider to be your rival and how much energy are you wasting on it?

For the victims of mean girls: repay with kindness and love. Your response to meanness is what's important. The mean girls' response is up to her. Do not repay evil for evil. Live at peace with everyone and leave your wrath to God. Drive a mean girl crazy by being nice to her. No matter what, you do NOT bow down to her, but love her with the love of Christ until her heart sears with conviction.

We live in a harsh world, a place where life is not fair. Where hate threatens to devour hope. But God sees the plight of the oppressed, He hears the cry of injustice, and He takes every infringement of their liberty personally. And often, it's the weakest and most reluctant, He chooses to stand in His name, and to fight for what is right.

Yellow #5

2009-04-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

God speaks through His word, through others, circumstances, occasionally through dreams, and one day He spoke to me through a song. I know it was from Him because only He would have known the perfect moment for my ears to hear something that I desperately needed during the brink of a total breakdown.

As a child, my favorite color was (obviously) yellow. My favorite church dress was made of yellow cotton twill, bought from the basement of a clothing store in downtown Lordsburg New Mexico.

"Miss Katheryn" was an elderly sweetheart of a woman, whom Stephen King would describe her as a "smoker's widow" ---with dentures. She'd drive up most Sunday mornings in the same pea-green battle tank and tap her car horn.

After a single honk, I'd prance out in my recurrent yellow church dress. Miss Katheryn would have a cigarette dangling from her lips and she'd talk and smoke at the same time.

"Good morning Miss Yellow!" she'd say. She had two favorite dresses that she alternated between Sundays. But, always the same lace-hemmed slip that hung lower than the dress. Miss Katheryn's slip problem was embarrassing for me, but I never said anything to her.

As soon as the preacher started his sermon, Miss Katheryn would nod off with a soft snore. When she started sounding like a train, my job was to poke my elbow into her side.

I didn't really understand too much of what the preacher talked about, so I'd get lost in the little yellow furrows in the fabric of my dress. I guess you could say that in such a young mind, I was tranced out with yellow, listening for Katheryn's train and God was being talked about throughout. To me, He was a very bright Yellow God. He was all yellow.

Several years later, Miss Katheryn was long passed away, and I was no longer that little girl going to Baptist Church in Lordsburg. Instead, I was a mother of three daughters, freshly divorced and living outside Seattle.

It was Sunday morning and I was attempting to mill through last years piles of clothes that had laid on the floor for the past several months. Depression and loneliness had consumed my days and nights. I subverbally uttered a few words of prayer in request for some strength to just get through another day.

I picked up a heap of clothing and a music CD fell from the pile. It had the word C O L D P L A Y written across the front to feature the band. The CD was obviously not mine, I hadn't kept up with the names of bands in decades. I was still stuck on Patsy Cline and the Golden Oldies from the 60's.

Nevertheless, I put the CD in my stereo and pressed 'play'. That's when the voice of God spoke. "Number five, skip to number five," with goose bump clarity. I had never heard number 5 song before, but it was a gift to me that day from a very Yellow God.

Look at the stars; look how they shine for you--And everything you do

Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along; I wrote a song for you--And all the things you do

And it was called yellow

So then I took my turn--Oh what a thing to have done

And it was all yellow

And Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones

Turn into something beautiful

D'you know?

You know I love you so

Click here for Yellow on #5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAME8GDRTfI&NR=1

Love---Amor----Amour-----Love-----Meil

2009-03-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

My first grade Valentine's Party was a humiliating disaster. All the students were given sheets of red and pink construction paper for designing gigantic heart envelopes. On the day of the party we all exchanged Valentine's Day cards, each student taking turns placing their cards in one another's handmade mailbox.

I tore into my cards with excitement, in awe of all the hearts and little candies tucked into the envelopes. One by one I noticed a pattern of everyone's card addressed to me. In childlike writing was the same thing: a simple "to and from."

Little snickers, whispers and awkward glances darted towards me when each classmate arrived at my card and read my signature. On the back of every card I wrote: "I love you, Danna"

"You weren't supposed to write that!" the teacher snatched up my cards, "It's not appropriate."

Choking back the tears I ran to the bathroom and sat in the stall. After school I suffered more finger pointing and kids making faces at me.

That was my first "love disaster." The second one was my first marriage. You guessed it -- a Valentine's Day wedding, complete with a bouquet of red, pink and white silk roses and a headdress to match. A handsome husband who would betray me in the end.

The older I get, the easier it is to love my family and friends. Not a day goes by that I don't say or show love at least a hundred times or more.

However, ask me to love the unlovable and it's just not that easy. It seems virtually impossible to love someone that has caused severe devastation and pain, maliciously gossiped, or rejected me for someone or something better.

But Christ did just that. No greater love has any man than to lay his life down for a friend. In the Book of Mathew, questions get a little rough: For if you love only those who love you, what reward have you earned? Mathew 5:46

He's right of course. We are called to love the unlovable, even if we don't want to. We aren't commanded to enjoy it, but in the big picture the rewards are eternal.

Unconditional love is loving even when someone trespasses against you. It's forgiveness-- even when the stakes are so high that you think you'll never get past the humiliation of that first time you experienced rejection, loss or maybe even sanity.

If your unconditional love isn't good enough for the unlovable, I really want to be the first to say, "Who cares?" More than anything else, your dignity is safe with God.

You cannot out give or out love God, but it doesn't hurt to try. "Your Father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Click Here: Love you So Much! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqXAQgbZEog&feature=related

Squeeze Me I Cry

2009-02-13T07:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago, Daniel and I drove through a small community at the base of Sequoia National Park. Several homes lined the hilly countryside, most of them had well manicured lawns and expensive decorative yard art.
As we drove on the snaked road, we slowly passed the house in the picture above. Seconds later I told Daniel that there was something about that place back there that stirred something inside of me.
Daniel knows me pretty good. He pulled over to the side of the road, turned the car around and headed back. We stopped in front of the house and I took some pictures.
"What is it about that house?"he asked.
I didn't know at the time.
That was a few weeks ago and I'd overly studied the photographs that were taken that day. The house looked pretty junky with stuff all over the yard and lots of trinkets in the windows. I edited the pictures, zoomed in and out, changed them from color to black and white, increased and decreased the contrast-- searching for whatever it was that spoke to me days before. Nothing! There was nothing I could do to pinpoint the feeling the house had given me that day.
I closed the album up on my desktop for several days and opened it back up this morning. Then---I noticed something strikingly obvious and the feelings of that day vividly returned. In every picture, I had virtually made my focal point centered on the doll perched on the pink flamingo.
In the playground of my mind, the little girl that owns the doll in this picture---is me. She teaches her baby girl that nothing is impossible and shows her baby how to fly and to dream big.
Flooded with tears and memories, I could see the little girl in me, playing with Baby First Step, my favorite doll, the only doll I remember getting for Christmas one year. She was just as real to me as anything else. I would carry her around and at nighttime, rock her to sleep, and sing to her: "Shake me I rattle, squeeze me I cry, please take me home and love me."
After my first daughter was born, and I held her for the first time I thought about that song so long ago. Over the next 12 years, I would have three little girls and that song never wore out.

Click Here for Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROogzTnwGA8

A Life Without a Heaven

2009-01-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, Daniel and I were walking on a downtown street in a town on the coast of California and we heard a song coming from a boom box that was being carried in a baby stroller by some peace demonstrators. It was one of those songs that just the sound of the music makes you want to hang around and enjoy it. The song was called "Imagine" by John Lennon.

Long after we had left the downtown area, I couldn't get the song out of my head. All day long I was either humming the tune to myself or trying to remember the words. Eventually I got back to my computer and looked up online, the lyric to Imagine.

Part of the song went like this: Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No people below us, above it's only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today. To hear those words combined in a unique Beatle's tune was magical, but to actually read them was depressing. How fitting, I thought, that this song is in our generation and demonstrates much of the way many people view life. A life wrapped into a song of living life for today only --- and without a heaven.

It's dangerous to mock God, because some really bad things are going to happen. It's the cost of free will. A person can either obey God and leave the consequences up to Him, or they can reject God and suffer the consequences completely alone. Here are some men and women who mocked God:

John Lennon
Some years before, during his interview with an American Magazine, he said: Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, Today we are more famous than Him (1966). Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.

Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):
During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency. Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made President, then he died.

Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):
During a show in Canecoo ( Rio de Janeiro ), whilst smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said: God, that's for you. He died at the age of 32 of AIDS in a horrible manner.

The man who built the Titanic:
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be. With an ironic tone he said: Not even God can sink it; The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic.

Marilyn Monroe:
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show. He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her. After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said: I don't need your Jesus. A week later, she was found dead in her apartment.

Christine Hewitt:
A Jamaican Journalist and entertainer, said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written, in June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor vehicle.

Click here for some Imagination with eternal value:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxt5TsmEZaY

Life Principle #8--Fight every battle on your knees and you win everytime.

2009-01-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Whenever I read the 30 Life Principles by Charles Stanley, immediately my eyes are drawn to # 8. All the principles come together as being equally important, but for me, the eighth one is like a revolving door. If I'm not careful to exit out the other side of this door, I might find myself spinning out of control.

It's all about what God hates the most. Pride. Pride is essentially self-worship. There is nothing in this world that we could accomplish on our own if not for God sustaining and enabling us. Pride keeps many people spiritually bankrupt. It is God's promise that He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

A good example of self-worship gone bad is the story of six of the wealthiest men back in 1923. They were Charles Schwab, president of the largest independent steel company at the time. He lived on borrowed money the last five years of his life and died penniless. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange. He served time in Sing-Sing prison at the end of his life. Albert Fall, a member of the president's cabinet. He was pardoned from prison at the end of his life so he could go home to die. Jesse Livermore, the greatest bear on Wall Street. He committed suicide. Ivan Krueger, head of the world's greatest monopoly at the time. He also committed suicide. Leon Frasier, president of the Bank of International Settlement. He, too, committed suicide.

If any fight seems worth fighting for, try stripping the pride away first and if there is anything left after that, then do like Joshua did. The Battle of Jericho was a perfect example of fighting a battle on your knees. God spoke to Joshua telling him to march around the city once every day for six days with the seven priests carrying ram's horns in front of the ark. The walls of the city collapsed on the seventh day, and the Israelites were able to charge straight into the city. The city was completely destroyed. Only Rahab (yes the prostitute) and her family were spared, because she had hid the two spies sent by Joshua.

There are so many people's lives that are reflective of how humbleness is exalted. Christ could have been born in castle, but God chose a stable. He could have ridden into town clothed with fine linen and carried by servants, but he dressed simple with sandals and bridled a donkey.

He gave the best Christmas present over 2000 years ago. Eternal life -- a totally free gift. Sadly most people don't accept the gift because of pride. To think they may need a savior is perhaps too humiliating.Fighting a battle on your knees is probably the most humbling experience of all. In a worldly way, you are admitting defeat. But when God speaks, He speaks.

The Lord is a warrior, Exodus 15:3

The Morning

2008-12-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

I wish that you could smell this scene and feel the cool ocean breeze touch your face right now. I wish this photograph could jump off the monitor screen and I could walk along the shore again-- if only for a few minutes this morning.

Starting around the beginning of November I promise myself that I'm not going to overeat on Thanksgiving and every year I end up waddling away from the kitchen table. This year it was especially true because we went to my mom's house and you can't walk away from her cooking. It's that good. What's worse is that before the day is over, I've gone back to the refrigerator a handful of times for seconds and thirds and fourths.

I took the picture above, the morning after Thanksgiving. Daniel and I took the girls to a beach off the Oregon/Washington coast. Morgan and Ariel ran several miles and Daniel and I walked maybe one and a half miles. The Pacific Ocean was the perfect remedy to our turkey day food-hangover. It was in fact, somewhat magical, an experience of relationship with God.

I believe that God is a morning person. He's always doing important things and making stuff happen during morning time. All the way back into the early part of the Old Testament, He told Moses almost daily to do all of his confronting to Pharaoh in the morning. He said, "Get up in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, the God of Hebrews says, 'Let my people go so they may worship me'".

I got one of those forwarded emails the other day from a friend. It's one of those letters that you put your answers to some questions and forward on to another friend and they read your answers and email you back with theirs. One of the questions was, Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? I was going to say "No", but I told to truth to this cyberspace place. Yes, I've cried myself to sleep many many times. The night has lasted so long before that I thought it would never end.

But by morning..... things looked so different. In fact, they were so different that it was almost too embarrassing to look in the mirror. Whatever it was that triggered me to an emotional meltdown, diminished overnight--- down to almost nothing. I'm fueled back up to face the next guaranteed crisis. There's just something about the newness of the day that gives a completely new dimension to life.

Almost every writing class I take, students are advised to sleep on their material before submitting it. It's good advice, but not just for submitting written material. It's good advice for everything.

Psalm 30:5For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.The most important morning go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjVXrRKwsU

Finding A Place of Completeness

2008-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

How many times have I moved, only to find out that even one of the most beautiful places on Earth --- still does not perfectly fit?

I attended High School in Montana during the beginning months of my Sophomore year. Not having my drivers license at that age, I walked to school on the railroad tracks by my grandparents home. There were mornings during the Fall time that the air would be pure yellow. It was as if I could grab chunks of yellow with my bare hands and stuff them in my coat pockets.

Montana truly is big sky country and that's a ton of yellow. Once the sun came out, everything woke up to its original color. The railroad track today, is a symbol of a huge life marker for me. It leaves tracks that I was once here and walked along the western frontier with opportunity waiting around the bend.

As memorable as those days were, now they are mere memories. I'm still traveling the line by the rivers' edges and stopping in remote towns to visit with the locals. I can admit now, that I'll never be a local -- not even in my hometown.

Father Abraham is described in Genesis, attempting to leave his own railroad tracks in the form of a Tamerix tree. A symbol of sorts to mark his life legend. He was gently reminded by his fellow-man that he would always be a foreigner, even in the land that God had given to him.

After the call of God, we feel less at home even when we are at the center of God's will. Strangely when we are operating close to God's spirit, life hits us that we are nothing more than misfits on this planet; we are aliens. Constant conflict ends up being a divine spiritual setup. A continual restlessness is ever present, and thankfully, that makes me normal.

The Hebrew name for God in Genesis, is El Olam. This means, The Eternal God. Like Abraham, we are programmed for eternity. Based on the context in Genesis, when Abraham planted his tree, I imagine he felt like his time was running out and his life on earth was soon to end. He was showing his conflict with time by planting something that would hang out long after he was gone. It's in our nature to leave something behind when we go.

God has planted a tree of eternity in our hearts. Wherever your home is, there is and always will be a forwarding address. It was appointed for a man once to die and after that is an eternal place of completeness. A place where the divine train takes you to a place unkempt by time and space.

All Aboard!

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

A Season For Everything

2008-10-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

I don't know what it looks like in Alaska right now, but I'm sure to find out next week. For now, Daniel and I found this priceless place over the weekend in the Fourth of July Canyon, right here in New Mexico. Nothing could have made the scenic view feel more Fall-ish except perhaps a misplaced pumpkin balanced on the fence post or something.

The death of a Maple leaf gives birth to a new season with a burst of pinkish-red color mixed with yellow stars that carpet the ground. There's something about an afternoon chill combined with fall foliage that creates aliveness and a sense of new beginnings.

We walked a short path and took a ton of pictures, stopped and talked to people and watched them set up camp for the night. Dogs barked, children played, campfires roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Sections of sun speckled the ground but offered little warmth. It was a perfect day.

Without warning, the wind picked up so hard that it gusted up every square inch of stray leaf. They swirled in the air until the hail beat them back to the ground. Branches snapped, campfires sizzled and family's bundled in their vehicles for protection. Daniel and I drove away with the storm chasing us back to town.

When we got home, it was clearly evident that our yard had been ransacked by the same force that invaded the Fourth of July Canyon. A story I read many years ago was written by a woman from the pre-refrigeration era. Her husband had arrived home to the farm, fresh after a tonsillectomy. He started spitting up blood. After a couple of coughs, he was hemorrhaging. It was in the early Fall and she didn't have any ice to apply to the affected area. People from that era would preserve ice and snow from the Winter-time by packing it in cartons filled with sawdust. But it wouldn't keep a full year.All she had was prayer. She asked God to save her husband. Without warning, the wind picked up and large chunks of ice fell to the Earth. The wife gathered the ice and packed the hailstones around her husband's neck. The bleeding stopped.

When you have storms like that, they can take on an entire different meaning. They no longer rain on our parades, inconvenience us from doing something we wanted to do. They were put there on purpose and for a reason.

To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under the sun.

a time to be born and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill and a time to heal ...

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance ...

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to lose and a time to seek;

a time to rend and a time to sew;

a time to keep silent and a time to speak;

a time to love and a time to hate;

a time for war and a time for peace.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

What The World Needs Now

2008-10-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Gasoline prices are skyrocketing, foreclosures are on the rise, the threat of banks closing is near, and now they are talking about rationing food. Add to that the Iraq war. Things are forever changing. We live in a fallen world where many people respond to all the changes with anxiety, despair or perhaps just find someone to blame for all the trials and difficult times.

Revelations, the last book in the Bible, is scary to read. It appears to me that the whole world is going to be having a massive seizure. Maybe we are having several small ones right now. In Chapter 16, there is a terrifying passage that makes you wonder where the love of God is. But this is a statement of prophetic history given to us in advance.

The Apostle Paul lived in the day and time where most people on the earth were slaves.Most of their time was spent trying to make a living-- just to exist. A much different picture of the reality of life back then than the picture above displays. The picture above was actually taken in New York city on the side of the Chapel that Stood across from Ground Zero.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans about living in and through difficult times. There are four truths to be found concerning all our circumstances of daily living found in Romans, Chapters 7 & 8.

God controls our circumstances Romans 8:28 For we know that within all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose. If you don't believe that then you are the only one in control of your circumstances -- How is it working for you? There is no such thing as absolute free will, it would be unsafe to be alive if there was. No matter what is going on in your life, some- body is in control.
God will meet our needs: Romans 8:31--" What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us." We as believers have the privilege to live on a higher level. Our God knows our needs before we ask Him. He will freely give us all things that fit His purpose for our lives.
God is with us : Romans 8:38-39--For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He is with me, He is with us. We operate on a basis of feeling and because we don't always feel his presence, it has nothing to do with his presence. The cross covered the gap over 2000 years ago. He sealed us. You can go nowhere to hide from God.
God loves us with eternal love Romans 8:35: Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing we could ever do or say could ever match the knowledge of knowing that God's loves us eternally-- even when our conduct is out of control.

People, events, and governments are out of control for the most part. Look at the differences in the countries and how much the disaster they experience, actually parallels with the amount of Bible that country chooses to allow. Even in our own country, many people have chosen a path that is so far removed from God that they reject their own family members without remorse. More and more we are reaping the consequences of our own deliberate rebellion.But what about those of us who choose to take a stand despite the persecution as the Apostle Paul?

John 14: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.

We Retain What we Cannot Forgive

2008-09-08T15:38:00.001-07:00

We Retain What we Cannot Forgive

The eyes that held the numerous secrets of the past are full of compassion, love and pain. Behind the viewing window was a universal drive to survive. And I now understand why she hid the truth for the first eighteen years of my life.

A fragile little girl with black curls framing her face--the runt of the bunch from the back hills of Tennessee. Looking out for a family that suffered through the depression era, sometimes milling through dumpsters for something to eat, she'd sneak her sister's costume jewelry and pry the stones out with a fork. Anything that glittered would shine brighter than any of the days that darkened her life for so long.

My mother went on to high school where she blossomed into beauty queen, majorette and then married before graduation. A couple of years later and two children eighteen months apart -- she divorced . While living in Lordsburg New Mexico, she remarried and renamed her two babies to her new husband.

My older brother and I grew up never knowing the difference between a father and a dad or grandparents that felt they had to pretend. Words like adopted, half-brother and blood relative never entered into our minds much less our vocabulary.

Until 1978. That's when mother broke the silence. The years she'd spent protecting the buried truth were dug up in a seconds' time and my life was like a school girl repeating kindergarten for umpteen years in a row. How do I spell my real last name? Who am I for real?

I swore I'd never make the same mistake, but I did just that. I tried not to. All three girls had the same daddy and I made sure all three were born in the same town in the same hospital. I had this crazy idea that this would ensure my ability to break the crux I'd been born with.

Being unable to forgive my own mother's transgressions, I retained the very things I couldn't let go of. I wrestled them to the ground and couldn't get up. My mistakes were surpassed by anything my mother would have ever imagined to make. I repeated them over and over because I looked at my life as being an abandoned child. Consequently for years I lived out every day as an orphaned child might choose to live.

Over time, I learned to forgive and that forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. My eyes were opened. I learned that I was actually a child of prodigy because of the extraordinary situation.

God gave us two eyes to view situations from at least two different ways. Instead of being an abandoned child, I saw the realization of being a wanted child. There are probably not too many unwanted adopted children. My parents weren't perfect and I'm not a perfect parent. But God isn't looking for the perfect, He's looking for the faithful.

"For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that He may

strongly support those whose hearts are completely His." 2 Chronicles 16:9

Brainless and Beautiful

2008-08-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Never before have I seen such beautiful starfish than in the Pacific Northwest. They weren't your average thin and delicate coral colored starfish that you see washed up on the shores of the ocean. These were plump, soccer-ball size critters that were clinging to the pole of the boat dock on Annette Island Alaska. They were very much alive and feasting on a variety meal of marine life.

An interesting fact about starfish is that they have no brain. They're just a five spiked star with a central disc which acts as a water filter. Somehow all their parts can act independently of each other and even grow back a lost appendage. Within themselves they have the capacity to survive without thinking. They are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Can you imagine a species living for hundreds of thousands of years without a brain? No love, no fear, no attraction -- in fact they reproduce by free spawning. For the most part, they just glide around on the ocean floor and pig out.

One thing that both humans and starfish do have is laminin. Laminin is an adhesive protein in the cell membrane that holds everything together inside of us. Basically it's the glue that hold us all together. A scientific diagram of laminin looks exactly like the cross of Christ. To see the

video and exact picture click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e4zgJXPpI4

We are all fearfully and wonderfully made by God and in Colossians 1:17, itstates: "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together"How awesome is it that we are held together by supernatural glue that is unmistakably without any credit to our own thinking.

Almost as if it were totally brainless. It's just there, always has been and always will be.

Everything is Looking Cherry

2008-08-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

Clichés are so out of style, but this one has got to be resuscitated. While those bright red cherry's are sweet to eat and eye candy hanging on the vine, life is everything but a bowl full of cherries.

I'm such a jealous mother. There was no other mother that could take my place with my daughters. And yet as the time passed and my children grew, the intruders gradually took my place. Intruders are boyfriends, myspace.com, Facebook.com, cell phones, imposter parents (overnight heroes that claim paternal/maternal rights because they let your kid spend the night), cars and sometimes -- their own father. Obviously, he's the ex.

Life can be so unfair and while I hated being the first to humble myself by spitting out the pit, it's better than being the last person to strip away the pride. It's painful. I didn't know how to do it. I was terrified that any attempt would backfire like everything else in the past. Someone out there reading this can relate to what I'm saying. How could your children so easily forget seeing you wear the same shoes to work every day. Could they not put two and two together to understand your sacrifice for them to have new shoes? Perhaps you've worked diligently for years and raised your children by yourself. The bond you created was never supposed to be broken. But it broke and now things are different and there are parts of those precious children that you just can't understand. At one time they would listen to you and learn from you. But now you are competing with the intruders.

I took cherries for another spin. Perhaps there are some of them that are capable of bringing the blossom back to life -- despite the fact that children grow up and find life outside the bowl more attractive. I began looking at my daughters and the intruders in a different way. I began to meditate on these things: Finally, whatever things are true,

whatever things are noble,

whatever things are just,

whatever things are pure,

whatever things are lovely,

whatever things are of good report,

if there is any virtue

And if there is ANYTHING praiseworthy--

Meditate on these things. Philippians 4:8

It's clearly that simple if you think about it. You can find some really sweet things to think about in people that drive you absolutely crazy sometimes. The bitterness that clings to the vine has slowly been cut away along with the past mistakes.Think on these things about your children -- They are lovely if nothing else -- the fruit doesn't always fall so far from the tree.

The Wooden Potato Barrel

2008-08-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought

That at ten years old

I would treasure a barrel

Much more than gold...

It was back east

At the tip of Maine

The bitter cold mornings,

When potato season came.

I would walk through the field

With the other workers there,

Was given my section for picking;

Potatoes, more than my share.

My hands clothed with gloves

That were new from the store

Still held cold dried dirt

From the day before.

My fingers half around a handle

Held a basket big for my size,

I searched to the sky,

Praying for the sun to rise.

The digger came by

Exposing two fresh rows;

I prepared myself by stretching,

My palms to my toes.

When once the whistling wind

Possessed me inside,

I desperately started searching

For a sheltered place to hide.

I looked all around me,

Nothing but miles of field...

When I spotted my refuge..

My barrel......my shield.

I laid it on it's side,

The bottom against the wind,

Knelt down to the ground

And crawled safely in.

Savoring the moments

Of the comfort I'd found,

My boots turned to slippers,

My woolen cap to a crown.

My old faded coat

Became a gown of lace..

And the barrel around me...

Became God's embrace.