A WRITER WRITES
That's what they say.
I always wanted to be a writer.
But, I didn't write...except for that four page story about an invasion from Jupiter I started in the fourth grade...oh, and that attempt at writing in a journal one semester in college (Oh, to find those old spiral notebooks and read how wise I was at 19).
But, until recently, I haven't written much.
I found a journal app for my phone in 2011, and, I figured, that would be the impetus I need to write.
Yep.
One entry in 2011.
One entry in 2013.
Four in 2014.
In 2015, I began to write...not a lot, but more.
I also decided to write a blog in 2011.
From 2011 until 2015 I made exactly 5 entries.
I was on a roll.
You can find that one at http://myrainywindylife.blogspot.com
Last week, I decided to get serious, so I joined WordPress https://randyepps.blog.wordpress.com to set up a blog. I didn't just do the free one...I actually paid money.
Now, I need your help.
Apparently, writers like people to read their stuff.
They write because they think they have something to say.
If I want to ever do more than just get likes on Facebook, I need you guys to follow me on Blogspot and WordPress.
The way you do that: you scroll down past the blog to the comments section.
There is a place to follow, to enter your email address.
Do that, and you will get notified every time I put something on one of these blogs, you will receive an email.
Why is this important?
Well, I never know who Facebook is showing my stuff to these days.
I know I don't see everything you put on Facebook.
Understand, this is hard for me, this self-promotion, but I am being told that if I want to expand my readership, there is a need to promote myself.
Oh, and one more thing...if you think what I have written is interesting, thoughtful, funny, or inspiring, and you think someone that you know might enjoy it as well, then, maybe hit the share button.
Again, thank you for reading my ramblings, and all the encouragement you have offered.
I can't help myself but to do what thrills me...and this writing thing...
Well, I guess I'm a writer.
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Friday, August 25, 2017
A WALK IN THE GARDEN
A WALK IN THE GARDEN
Voice: Hey, whatcha doin'?
Girl: Oh, hi. I didn't know you were here. I'm gathering fruit for dinner.
Voice: Yeah? That looks good.
Girl: Oh, it is! All the fruit in the garden tastes wonderful!
Voice: Have you tasted all of the different kinds?
Girl: Oh, no, there are so many! Today was the first time I tasted this one, and it is incredibly sweet and juicy. And satisfying!
Voice: So, all these fruit trees are good to eat from?
Girl: Oh, yes. All of 'em are good.
Voice: What about that one?
Girl: Oh, I forgot....
Voice: Mmmm, this is REALLY good!
Girl: He told us not to eat that one. We believed Him. He is always good to us.
Voice: Now, I wonder why he would tell you not to eat THIS one? Surely, this is the best one of them all. You are very intelligent. I wonder why he doesn't want you to think for yourself.
Girl: He said we would die....
Voice: Die? You're not going to die! I feel great! I feel FANTASTIC!
Girl: But, He said....
Voice: Obviously, what he said is not true. Seriously, you have got to taste this.
Girl: Oh, that's okay. I've got enough for today. Maybe tomorrow.
Voice: One taste is not going to hurt, is it? You really have no idea how good this is. Just taste it!
It will change your life.
Girl: Okay... One taste...
Oooh, that IS good...
Oh? I feel different....kinda cold...exposed...
the taste in my mouth now...it's kinda bitter....
Voice: Oh, that will go away when you get used to it.
Girl: Give me some more. I want some more....
You're right... It is even better now, not so bitter...
I'll take these home instead of these other ones.
Girl: (leaving, yelling down the path) Adam, you've got to taste what the serpent gave me! It will change your life!
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
WORK THAT MEANS SOMETHING
I found the inscription on the concrete floor of the workshop.
L. B. Wright
R. T. Epps
5/3/98
Zoe Blair Epps
It still looks pretty professional, smooth. My first concrete job.
Me: Hey, Blair! Do you remember the time I helped you with that cement project?
Blair: (He laughs) Yeah, I remember you mumbling something, but I couldn't quite make it out.
May 3, 1998
It was a pretty hot day. We had come over to Blair and Mary Jane's house to lay a concrete pad for Blair to build a storage room onto his workshop.
Blair's daddy had been quite on accomplished cement contractor, back in the day (as well as a blacksmith, horse doctor, and tenant farmer). Blair's mom could do the figuring for his concrete jobs at the kitchen table. And Blair had learned what he knew from doing and watching and doing.
He still had his daddy's old gas powered cement mixer.
And he had me for a helper. (I had never done this before.)
Wendy, Chelsey, Mary Jane, and two year old Zoë had chairs in the area to see this grand project develop.
My job was to pick up the 80 lb bags of concrete, pour them in the mixer, add water, shovel mixed concrete into the wheelbarrow, wheel the barrow over to the prepared spot, dump it where Blair told me.
His job was to make it smooth.
"Hurry, Randy, we don't want it to set up before we get it ready."
I didn't see him wink and grin at his audience.
So I hurried.
Oh my gosh. I never even stopped for a drink of water. No time. I didn't want it to set up too soon.
Every bag seemed to weigh five more pounds than the one before.
The wheelbarrow seemed more and more difficult to control.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth....
When the job was completely poured, smoothed and we began to do the part where two people move one long stick across the surface to remove the excess cement, (No, I cannot remember what that is called and I really don't care at this point what it was called) I remember thinking how completely exhausted I was.
I may have mentioned this fact to Blair.
"Well, it's no wonder. You didn't have to work so fast. We had plenty of time."
I mumbled something almost under my breath.
Everybody laughed.
Well, almost everybody.
That day, I learned that I did not want to be a cement contractor.
I also learned that I learned more from my father-in-law than I learned from anybody else in the world.
And that was worth everything.
I found the inscription on the concrete floor of the workshop.
L. B. Wright
R. T. Epps
5/3/98
Zoe Blair Epps
It still looks pretty professional, smooth. My first concrete job.
Me: Hey, Blair! Do you remember the time I helped you with that cement project?
Blair: (He laughs) Yeah, I remember you mumbling something, but I couldn't quite make it out.
May 3, 1998
It was a pretty hot day. We had come over to Blair and Mary Jane's house to lay a concrete pad for Blair to build a storage room onto his workshop.
Blair's daddy had been quite on accomplished cement contractor, back in the day (as well as a blacksmith, horse doctor, and tenant farmer). Blair's mom could do the figuring for his concrete jobs at the kitchen table. And Blair had learned what he knew from doing and watching and doing.
He still had his daddy's old gas powered cement mixer.
And he had me for a helper. (I had never done this before.)
Wendy, Chelsey, Mary Jane, and two year old Zoë had chairs in the area to see this grand project develop.
My job was to pick up the 80 lb bags of concrete, pour them in the mixer, add water, shovel mixed concrete into the wheelbarrow, wheel the barrow over to the prepared spot, dump it where Blair told me.
His job was to make it smooth.
"Hurry, Randy, we don't want it to set up before we get it ready."
I didn't see him wink and grin at his audience.
So I hurried.
Oh my gosh. I never even stopped for a drink of water. No time. I didn't want it to set up too soon.
Every bag seemed to weigh five more pounds than the one before.
The wheelbarrow seemed more and more difficult to control.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth....
When the job was completely poured, smoothed and we began to do the part where two people move one long stick across the surface to remove the excess cement, (No, I cannot remember what that is called and I really don't care at this point what it was called) I remember thinking how completely exhausted I was.
I may have mentioned this fact to Blair.
"Well, it's no wonder. You didn't have to work so fast. We had plenty of time."
I mumbled something almost under my breath.
Everybody laughed.
Well, almost everybody.
That day, I learned that I did not want to be a cement contractor.
I also learned that I learned more from my father-in-law than I learned from anybody else in the world.
And that was worth everything.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Backseat conversations with my father-in-law
RIDING IN THE BACK SEAT WITH MY BEST FRIEND, BLAIR
My father-in-law-law.
I learned more history today, the East Texas kind.
Blair's dad, Brosure (Ambrose Davy Wright), when he was a young man, bought a new suit to wear on a date with a pretty young lady that he and his older brother, Hiram, knew.
He laid out the suit, then went outside to get the horse and wagon ready.
His brother, Hiram, went inside, put on the suit, and waited until the wagon was ready.
Brosure came in, Hiram went out a different door, got in the wagon, and had his own date.
With the same girl.
When he got home that night, Brosure was waiting in the dark, with a whip, and proceeded to tear the suit he had bought to shreds, tore the shirt off Hiram's back with the same whip.
Brosure went inside.
Years later, Uncle Hiram showed Blair the scars on the back from the "discipline" administered by his younger brother.
Hiram kinda chuckled, "Oh, I deserved what I got, but, if I'da had a gun, I'da probably shot him. But, you know, I knew I was wrong. An hour later, it was all over and done with. We were still brothers."
Brosure married a different girl, Bessie Alice Wren. He started a transport company that traveled between Dallas and Shreveport.
He told Blair about coming to Belzora Landing, (just south of Hawkins, on the Sabine river) and taking the ferry across.
When Blair was young, the family lived at "the old Taylor place" as sharecroppers. Blair remembered that they had some Elm trees in the yard, down near the creek, and he and his friend would pretend to be Tarzan, (Johnny Wiesmuller version) and they would bounce the elm branches down and leap to another branch.
"Hey, Tarzan, you see that?"
"Yeah, Tarzan, I sure did. Watch this!"
There used to be a dentist in Lindale whose office was above the drug store/soda shop. His office had a window that opened out onto a flat roof.
When he pulled someone's teeth, he would just drop 'em out the window onto the roof.
Blair said there was something intriguing about seeing teeth that way, and they used to go up on the roof to see them. Once, he counted over forty teeth.
Sometimes, someone would say,"It's been awhile since we all went down to the river," so the weekend would come, they'd hitch up their wagons and gather at the Sabine River, for fishing, talking, campfires, and stories. So many stories.
The ladies liked these outings, because, the distance between homes in the Lindale woods didn't give them much chance for conversation.
Whoever came, came. Whoever didn't come, didn't.
The men would unload their guns, lean them up against a tree, and they would stay there through the weekend until the owner picked it up to leave.
There was usually a brown jug of whiskey on a log, to share with whosoever will. Most just took an occasional sip, but occasionally someone would drink too much and would pass out.
They used to say, "Bad people pass out, but the good people go on."
Brosure had a younger brother, Emmett. Blair said he was a little bit tongue-tied.
Once he picked up a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker put the stuff he was carrying in the back. Emmett never looked back there.
The next day, the police came, told Emmett that they found a stolen tommy gun in his wagon, and arrested him.
The trial was questionable, but Emmett was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years at the Huntsville prison farm. He always claimed it belonged to the hitchhiker.
He escaped the farm three times, would travel from Huntsville back to the Lindale Mineola area, hiding when he heard a vehicle, hitching a ride with the people that would pass by in a wagon, offering his services as a farm hand. Everyone liked Emmett.
He would eventually make it back to his brother, Hiram's house, and he would live in the woods on his property. He had a homemade bow and arrows.
Brosure told Blair, "One time, we were all over at Hiram's house, and Emmett showed us how to shoot a bow. He drew back, we heard the whoosh of the arrow, and the thud, as the arrow went through Hiram's rooster's head, and pinned it to a tree. Hiram couldn't be mad at Emmett cuz, that was how he survived in the woods. Everybody liked old Emmett."
After Emmett escaped the third time, the authorities told him that they wouldn't take him back to prison if he would leave Texas and never come back.
So, Hiram moved to New Jersey.
He still came back for an occasional family reunion.
Blair told me, that he never planned ahead. I guess that is why he remembers all these wonderful stories. Everyday was a day to be lived. You lived, you saw, you listened, you learned, you remembered.
One day at a time.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
LINE UPON LINE....
🎶 can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue
For all my life🎶
Oh, how I hated that song!
If it plays on your clock radio at four in the morning, you will understand.
I had a Dallas Morning News paper route in Garland, Tx, and, at four o'clock, every morning ( EVERY MORNING, RAIN OR SHINE, HOT OR COLD) that stupid clock radio would disturb this young boy's treasured sleep.
I was in the ninth grade at Memorial Junior High in Garland, Texas. I had gotten this, my first real job, the previous summer. The truck would arrive from Dallas at Orchard Hills Shopping Center sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 most mornings, and, if you were one of the first paperboys there, Mr. Jack Roland, the district manager, would count out your papers first, you could get an early start, and, if things went well, crawl back in bed and grab a few winks before breakfast.
But, for me, getting up was the hard part. Once up and pedaling my bike to work, I always enjoyed the job.
That could probably be credited to my dad. He worked for Nabisco (did you know that stands for National Biscuit Company?) for over forty years as a route salesman, and I never knew him to miss a day of work, or grumble about his job. He used to take me to work with him occasionally in the summer time, and I saw how fast he worked, how he seemed to know everything to do, how businesses he called on liked him, respected him.
I wasn't new to the paper business. My older brother, David, had had a Dallas Times Herald route a couple of years earlier, (Dallas' afternoon paper back in those days) and my dad had put some saddle baskets on my red J.C. Higgins bicycle with chrome fenders so that I could help him sometimes. My brother had a heavy duty Schwinn that was made for stuff like carrying newspapers. It had a huge basket on front, and a rack on the back to keep the saddle bags from rubbing the wheels. I learned to fold the papers tight, triple fold, so they would fly true through the air and hit the porch, learned the classic side arm throw, and even learned to throw from a moving bicycle.
In the eighth grade, my best friend, David Hall, got a Garland Daily News route, and I would ride my bike home with him every day, help him roll the papers (roll, not fold. Garland was small back in those days) and deliver them in the neighborhood around his house. Afterward, we would play one on one basketball in his driveway. When basketball season at Memorial arrived, I talked him into trying out with me for the team. I had played in the Parks and Recreation Dept. League for a couple of years, but he had never played. I could see us playing side by side in our school uniforms, the crowd cheering our moves, our shots.
He made the team.
My name was not on the list.
I think I cried on the way home.
David's mom asked me if I would take over the paper route while he was playing, so I did.
I made a little money doing that, for a couple of months, but, the thing is, I enjoyed having a job.
Now, as a paperboy, you only get paid once a month.
And you have to collect the money yourself.
On my Morning News paper route, toward the end of the month, Mr. Roland would give me a bill for the papers I was given every day, plus the box of rubber bands I used, and I would have to take my collection book in the late afternoons and evenings up to each of my customers' homes and collect my 1.70 for 30 or 31 days of delivering their paper, every day, on time, to their front porch. (If I missed the porch with my throw, I would stop my bike, walk to the yard, or bushes and toss it onto the porch. I didn't miss much, but I do remember breaking a milk bottle, or two. I didn't stop then.)
Once, I knocked on a customer's door on a Monday night, I could hear the TV on, laughing in the back of the house. I knocked and knocked and knocked. Finally, Dick Nalley (the sports guy for the Garland News) came to the door, tears in his eyes, paid me and said,"Don't ever come here again on a Monday night during Laugh-In!"
Okay.
I had about 100 papers every day to deliver, ( a few extra on Sunday, because we had a Sunday only subscription for .85.)
I hated the Sunday papers.
You cannot throw a Sunday paper.
Sunday papers are heavy.
I had taken over my brother's heavy duty Schwinn, (he had a driver's license, now), but on Sundays, it was really easy to lose your balance, fall, and dump all your carefully loaded papers on the street.
Anyway, after I finished collections, (I had a nifty bank bag with a zipper to keep my money in.) I would take the money to Mr. Roland's office, pay my bill, and I would get to keep all the rest.
I made about 70.00 for the month.
I was rich! I remember occasions when my mom would ask me if they could borrow money from me until payday. I would go to my desk, pull out my nifty bank bag, and hand them 1.00 or 5.00 or whatever they needed to tide them over.
“For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."”
Isaiah 28:10 ESV
Now, the reason I am sharing this story is for what I see in our culture today. I am guilty as well.
We have become an instant society.
We want it quick, and we want it now.
If CNN is not given the chance to ask the president elect a question because of its record, the world is ending.
We forgot how to build relationships, restore trust.
Because it takes time.
It is easier to make enemies, keep enemies, find others who will share in your enemy making.
The things that are important, that build you into the man or woman of character, are those little things that you do over and over and over again, with little reward, or notice, but you just do them.
Because it is right.
I seldom was told that they appreciated my efforts to put the paper on the porch.
But, every once in a while, someone would thank me.
That feels good.
Occasionally, I even got a tip.
That feels good, too.
🎶 can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue
For all my life🎶
Oh, how I hated that song!
If it plays on your clock radio at four in the morning, you will understand.
I had a Dallas Morning News paper route in Garland, Tx, and, at four o'clock, every morning ( EVERY MORNING, RAIN OR SHINE, HOT OR COLD) that stupid clock radio would disturb this young boy's treasured sleep.
I was in the ninth grade at Memorial Junior High in Garland, Texas. I had gotten this, my first real job, the previous summer. The truck would arrive from Dallas at Orchard Hills Shopping Center sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 most mornings, and, if you were one of the first paperboys there, Mr. Jack Roland, the district manager, would count out your papers first, you could get an early start, and, if things went well, crawl back in bed and grab a few winks before breakfast.
But, for me, getting up was the hard part. Once up and pedaling my bike to work, I always enjoyed the job.
That could probably be credited to my dad. He worked for Nabisco (did you know that stands for National Biscuit Company?) for over forty years as a route salesman, and I never knew him to miss a day of work, or grumble about his job. He used to take me to work with him occasionally in the summer time, and I saw how fast he worked, how he seemed to know everything to do, how businesses he called on liked him, respected him.
I wasn't new to the paper business. My older brother, David, had had a Dallas Times Herald route a couple of years earlier, (Dallas' afternoon paper back in those days) and my dad had put some saddle baskets on my red J.C. Higgins bicycle with chrome fenders so that I could help him sometimes. My brother had a heavy duty Schwinn that was made for stuff like carrying newspapers. It had a huge basket on front, and a rack on the back to keep the saddle bags from rubbing the wheels. I learned to fold the papers tight, triple fold, so they would fly true through the air and hit the porch, learned the classic side arm throw, and even learned to throw from a moving bicycle.
In the eighth grade, my best friend, David Hall, got a Garland Daily News route, and I would ride my bike home with him every day, help him roll the papers (roll, not fold. Garland was small back in those days) and deliver them in the neighborhood around his house. Afterward, we would play one on one basketball in his driveway. When basketball season at Memorial arrived, I talked him into trying out with me for the team. I had played in the Parks and Recreation Dept. League for a couple of years, but he had never played. I could see us playing side by side in our school uniforms, the crowd cheering our moves, our shots.
He made the team.
My name was not on the list.
I think I cried on the way home.
David's mom asked me if I would take over the paper route while he was playing, so I did.
I made a little money doing that, for a couple of months, but, the thing is, I enjoyed having a job.
Now, as a paperboy, you only get paid once a month.
And you have to collect the money yourself.
On my Morning News paper route, toward the end of the month, Mr. Roland would give me a bill for the papers I was given every day, plus the box of rubber bands I used, and I would have to take my collection book in the late afternoons and evenings up to each of my customers' homes and collect my 1.70 for 30 or 31 days of delivering their paper, every day, on time, to their front porch. (If I missed the porch with my throw, I would stop my bike, walk to the yard, or bushes and toss it onto the porch. I didn't miss much, but I do remember breaking a milk bottle, or two. I didn't stop then.)
Once, I knocked on a customer's door on a Monday night, I could hear the TV on, laughing in the back of the house. I knocked and knocked and knocked. Finally, Dick Nalley (the sports guy for the Garland News) came to the door, tears in his eyes, paid me and said,"Don't ever come here again on a Monday night during Laugh-In!"
Okay.
I had about 100 papers every day to deliver, ( a few extra on Sunday, because we had a Sunday only subscription for .85.)
I hated the Sunday papers.
You cannot throw a Sunday paper.
Sunday papers are heavy.
I had taken over my brother's heavy duty Schwinn, (he had a driver's license, now), but on Sundays, it was really easy to lose your balance, fall, and dump all your carefully loaded papers on the street.
Anyway, after I finished collections, (I had a nifty bank bag with a zipper to keep my money in.) I would take the money to Mr. Roland's office, pay my bill, and I would get to keep all the rest.
I made about 70.00 for the month.
I was rich! I remember occasions when my mom would ask me if they could borrow money from me until payday. I would go to my desk, pull out my nifty bank bag, and hand them 1.00 or 5.00 or whatever they needed to tide them over.
“For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."”
Isaiah 28:10 ESV
Now, the reason I am sharing this story is for what I see in our culture today. I am guilty as well.
We have become an instant society.
We want it quick, and we want it now.
If CNN is not given the chance to ask the president elect a question because of its record, the world is ending.
We forgot how to build relationships, restore trust.
Because it takes time.
It is easier to make enemies, keep enemies, find others who will share in your enemy making.
The things that are important, that build you into the man or woman of character, are those little things that you do over and over and over again, with little reward, or notice, but you just do them.
Because it is right.
I seldom was told that they appreciated my efforts to put the paper on the porch.
But, every once in a while, someone would thank me.
That feels good.
Occasionally, I even got a tip.
That feels good, too.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
MAKING A WRONG TURN
MAKING A WRONG TURN
I have been a chimney sweep since 1982, a window cleaner since 1987. I love my job. The satisfaction of completing a job, earning a living.
But, my favorite part, I get to meet a wide range of different people, go into their houses, share a bit of my life, hear a bit of theirs.
I use GPS a lot (a lot!). When I began, before GPS, I would receive instructions on the way to the house when I talked to them on the phone.
Some instructions were good, easy to follow.
Some mentioned that old lonesome pine that used to be there,
Or where old Doc Simmons used to live,
Or just gave way too much information.
I needed to know the street I would come to, the direction to turn, the next street, the direction to turn.... An occasional landmark was okay, if it gave warning that I was almost to a turn.
Then came GPS, wonderful, wonderful global positioning system. I could put in an address, and this little map would appear, with, sometimes as many as three or four possible routes to get there. I got to choose which way I would go.
The choice was mine.
Except,
They all brought me to a common place, the last turn to get to the actual house.
I had to go that way, no matter how close I got with any of the other directions.
To get to the house, do what I was called to do, meet the owners, make a new friend, get paid...I had to make that one last move on the GPS, take the one way that would get me to my destination.
We all are walking on different paths in our own lives, moving toward some final destination.
I have heard it said, "All roads lead to God."
They may get you close, but you won't meet the owner of the house, make a friend, do what you were called to do, get paid....
Unless....
You make that one last important turn that is necessary to arrive.
You may drive past that turn a thousand times thinking you know a better way...
There is no other way.
That is why repentance is so crucial.
Repentance means to make a U-turn, to stop going the wrong way and turn around to go the right way.
When you come to the right road, turn. There is no other way.
Oh, in case you are looking for the name of that road....?
This is it.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Welcome to the house where God lives.
I have been a chimney sweep since 1982, a window cleaner since 1987. I love my job. The satisfaction of completing a job, earning a living.
But, my favorite part, I get to meet a wide range of different people, go into their houses, share a bit of my life, hear a bit of theirs.
I use GPS a lot (a lot!). When I began, before GPS, I would receive instructions on the way to the house when I talked to them on the phone.
Some instructions were good, easy to follow.
Some mentioned that old lonesome pine that used to be there,
Or where old Doc Simmons used to live,
Or just gave way too much information.
I needed to know the street I would come to, the direction to turn, the next street, the direction to turn.... An occasional landmark was okay, if it gave warning that I was almost to a turn.
Then came GPS, wonderful, wonderful global positioning system. I could put in an address, and this little map would appear, with, sometimes as many as three or four possible routes to get there. I got to choose which way I would go.
The choice was mine.
Except,
They all brought me to a common place, the last turn to get to the actual house.
I had to go that way, no matter how close I got with any of the other directions.
To get to the house, do what I was called to do, meet the owners, make a new friend, get paid...I had to make that one last move on the GPS, take the one way that would get me to my destination.
We all are walking on different paths in our own lives, moving toward some final destination.
I have heard it said, "All roads lead to God."
They may get you close, but you won't meet the owner of the house, make a friend, do what you were called to do, get paid....
Unless....
You make that one last important turn that is necessary to arrive.
You may drive past that turn a thousand times thinking you know a better way...
There is no other way.
That is why repentance is so crucial.
Repentance means to make a U-turn, to stop going the wrong way and turn around to go the right way.
When you come to the right road, turn. There is no other way.
Oh, in case you are looking for the name of that road....?
This is it.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Welcome to the house where God lives.
Friday, December 16, 2016
REMEMBER JOY?
REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE REALLY YOUNG...
And your life was pretty much a hop, a skip, and a jump from one joy to the next...
Born.
"Come into our world, little one."
"It's a boy!"
You left a tiny little world of quiet darkness, and entered a massive, terrifying, exhilarating world of light and sounds.
A world of discovery.
A new life of joy at every turn.
Smile.
Laugh.
Recognise.
Talk.
Crawl.
Walk.
Run.
Jump.
Leap.
Light, newness, joy everywhere.
First day of school,
First real baseball glove, a Rawlings, Roberto Clemente,
Skipping rocks in White Rock Lake
First time to Six Flags
The Sears on Ross Avenue Christmas window display
Sleepless nights of anticipation before Christmas morning, before vacation.
Christmas morning
Running with friends until your side hurt
Hide and seek at dusk
Roller skating on the sidewalk
Crawdad fishing
Catching tadpoles
Lightning bugs in a jar.
Ant farm.... (This is my list. You have to make your own.)
Sorrows, hurts all smoothed away and forgotten by the loving arms, hands and words of your parents.
Then junior high came, high school, college, marriage, life.
Darkness began to overtake the light.
Everything changed.
You settled for just finding what happiness you could find.
Anything to cover the pain of this ever darkening world.
UNTIL....
Second Birth.
"Come to me, into my world, little one."
"It's a son. My son."
You emerge from a world of darkness, noise, and pain into a new, massive, terrifying, exhilarating world of Light, a new voice.
Joy waits at every turn.
Everything is new
There is a purpose to every sorrow, every pain, every loss.
You are comforted by the loving arms, hands and voice of your Father.
The Joy and discovery begins again.
EPILOGUE
You may still be trapped inside this dark world, scratching and clawing for whatever tiny bits of happiness you can find, looking for ways to numb the pain and sorrow that seem to overwhelm you.
There is a way out.
It's simple, but not easy.
If you feel the desire for more, if you feel the pull toward the savior, then all you have to do is yield your life to Him.
You will find His ways to be much higher than your ways.
If you do not have this desire, then my prayer is that you will.
Light can overcome the darkness.
And your life was pretty much a hop, a skip, and a jump from one joy to the next...
Born.
"Come into our world, little one."
"It's a boy!"
You left a tiny little world of quiet darkness, and entered a massive, terrifying, exhilarating world of light and sounds.
A world of discovery.
A new life of joy at every turn.
Smile.
Laugh.
Recognise.
Talk.
Crawl.
Walk.
Run.
Jump.
Leap.
Light, newness, joy everywhere.
First day of school,
First real baseball glove, a Rawlings, Roberto Clemente,
Skipping rocks in White Rock Lake
First time to Six Flags
The Sears on Ross Avenue Christmas window display
Sleepless nights of anticipation before Christmas morning, before vacation.
Christmas morning
Running with friends until your side hurt
Hide and seek at dusk
Roller skating on the sidewalk
Crawdad fishing
Catching tadpoles
Lightning bugs in a jar.
Ant farm.... (This is my list. You have to make your own.)
Sorrows, hurts all smoothed away and forgotten by the loving arms, hands and words of your parents.
Then junior high came, high school, college, marriage, life.
Darkness began to overtake the light.
Everything changed.
You settled for just finding what happiness you could find.
Anything to cover the pain of this ever darkening world.
UNTIL....
Second Birth.
"Come to me, into my world, little one."
"It's a son. My son."
You emerge from a world of darkness, noise, and pain into a new, massive, terrifying, exhilarating world of Light, a new voice.
Joy waits at every turn.
Everything is new
There is a purpose to every sorrow, every pain, every loss.
You are comforted by the loving arms, hands and voice of your Father.
The Joy and discovery begins again.
EPILOGUE
You may still be trapped inside this dark world, scratching and clawing for whatever tiny bits of happiness you can find, looking for ways to numb the pain and sorrow that seem to overwhelm you.
There is a way out.
It's simple, but not easy.
If you feel the desire for more, if you feel the pull toward the savior, then all you have to do is yield your life to Him.
You will find His ways to be much higher than your ways.
If you do not have this desire, then my prayer is that you will.
Light can overcome the darkness.
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