Just a little dirt

Today i had the wonderful opportunity to see fields of flowers, so many colors, so incredibly breath taking.  Our beautiful grand daughter loved touching the flowers and watching the butterflies going from flower to flower.   I was taking pictures of all the beautiful flowers, of beautiful Skylar, the beauty all around me....and then suddenly i looked down and saw a flower that wasn’t perfect....it was dirty, it was withered, it was close to the ground, probably stepped on a few times....but in the center...there was color, bright and beautiful orange....just barely peeping out, but there it was....and it reminded me of myself.  

I am not perfect, oh far from it.   I have been dirty, I have been stepped on, but wow, by the grace of God, i am still showing my pretty colors. 

No one is perfect, everyone has dirt on their petals, been stepped on a few times.  

But, we are loved, unconditionally, by our Father, by our Creator.   He doesn’t seen the dirt, he doesn’t seen the withered petals.  He sees the color in the center....our beauty.  

He loves us, and i love you.

The Joy of Writing....

 I used to take such joy in writing, after accepting Christ and starting Higher Power, i felt filled with HIM as i wrote. I will never forget the first time i was filled with the spirit, i wrote a full time skit for Higher Power and we used it line by line by line.....it was an amazing feeling. 

The past two years, life has been insane.  Marching Band, college choices, son looking to work, daughters having babies, taking over a crochet/knitting club, gosh, where did all the time go?  

Today Christine Calhoun asked “What Do You Wish You Had More Time To Do?” And i immediately wrote “write.”  I didn’t realize how much i missed writing until just that moment.....and not having a computer made it difficult....let’s face it, writing long paragraphs on an iPhone can get....tedious.   But, i have an iPad, along with a keypad (thanks handsome!) and Christine reminded me i used to have a blog....so.....?

So first i had to find the blog.....yeah....that took some time, but i did find it and was amazed it has been two years since i wrote my thoughts, my prayers, my hopes and my fears.  

No, i don’t think my thoughts are mind blowing, life altering, but i have discovered that my friends appreciate me praying for them and when He gives me a word, it often affects several people.   There are times He puts a name on my heart, and i will reach out to that person.  Or He will give me a message to write down.

Not everyone believes as i do, several might call me a “Jesus Freak,” and i am okay with that.   Others may call me foolish, stupid, or out of my mind.  Others will say they know exactly what i am talking about...i am not trying to change anyone’s mind, or force people to think as i do.   My mind is crazy, i can’t imagine everyone thinking the way i do....it would be a dangerous world.

But the world is a mess right now, and i spend a lot of time praying, a lot of time watching the news (yes, i watch CNN....and MSNBC....and FOX....I want to hear it all.   I want opinions and thoughts, because i believe that makes me a better person.  I won’t tell you who i am voting for, that is private....and i won’t ask you who you voted for.   Honestly, I don’t care.  

I won’t have you bashing my friends opinions either....i ended up ending a long time friendship after a person i thought as a friend bashed someone i had known since first grade and expected me to take their side since we had been friends for so long.   No, again, no bashing.  I am blessed to have friends with s many different opinions, and that makes me a better person.  It isn’t my job to ram my views down anyone’s throat and i won’t have anyone alienating my friends with insults and opinions. 

So yeah, there you have it....let the fun begin.   

Oh boy. 

Will that help?

 How is that going to change history?  That is the question i am posing to all the people joyfully tearing down statues of people who died long ago and were heroes of their time....how is that going to change a damn thing to what happened to people that you never even knew?  Just, some one, explain this to me.  

Will it change anything?   Will it return the slaves to Africa?   Will it right a wrong?  

There is - no, sorry, there WAS a slave block in Fredericksburg, Virginia.   I took my kids there, and i told them everything i knew about what it represented.   We looked up information in the library.   My kids learned that people were treated like animals.   I explained that the block was there as a reminder to never let it happen again.  

I took my kids to the Holocaust Memorial in Miami.  There, they saw the horrific things done to Jews, and in fact, their family.  My daughters were part of helping gather the information needed to put my grandfather’s name on a wall there.  Yes, we went to the Holocaust Museum in DC.  We were there in 2018, the 75th anniversary of the murder of my grandfather and his family at Sobibor, and brought our close friends with us, to learn what had happened, to make sure it never happened again.  

I remember trying to teach my daughters about the “I Am A Man March” and the sanitation strike of 1968, and i couldn’t find anything about it in books at the library, so i started reaching out to MLK Jr museums across the country, only to discover that there were people WORKING at the museum didn’t even know what it was about.   What is it you ask?   Look it up, its tragic...and it’s the reason Martin Luther King, Jr was in Memphis when he got shot.  The reason i remember it so well, is because i was with my grandmother, watching news about it in Holland, and my Oma was crying.  I was 4 years old, and i had never seen her cry, and when i asked her why she was crying, she said “they promised it would never happen again.”   

“It” was the Holocaust, only i was too young to understand back then.   But i do know my grandmother made sure i treated everyone with respect and dignity.  No one deserved to be treated any differently for any reason.   I was taught to be grateful the garbage men came faithfully each week to pick up the garbage, and be thankful for the people who worked at any job, because could i imagine the world if that person wasn’t there?   If the trash men didn’t pick up the trash, if the bus driver didn’t drive me to my uncles house?  If the baker didn’t make the bread i so loved to have every morning?  

I got off track, I was talking about the Holocaust.   Do you know, when the Jews were liberated from the horrors they survived, they didn’t tear the walls down, they didn’t vandalize the towns nearby, they didn’t demand money that was taken from them......they got together and worked to keep the memories alive.  To honor their families by not letting history be forgotten.   No, you won’t see any statues of Hitler....no...but there are statues of Anne Frank, a girl who wrote a diary to teach us about survival.  Her father found it, the ONLY survivor from the attic, he found it and he had it published to teach us all.   

Steven Spielberg, the famous director of Jaws, ET, Schindlers List and other amazing movies, founded the USC Shoah Foundation.  He is interviewing survivors of the Holocaust, putting the horrors they witnessed on record, so we never forget what happened.  

Yet, we are now tearing down everything America stood for.   Everything.   Did anyone else stare in disbelief when they saw BLM all over the monument honoring the African Americans that fought in the Civil War?   REALLY?!?!?!?   Those men were so proud to fight, and the monument to them was spray painted?   I would love to talk to the people who did that and “Excuse me?  Do you even know what this represents?”

Taking down the statue of Christopher Columbus and changing the name of the cities named after him because he started the process of stealing land from the Indians?   Roughly 2.7 million Americans live in 54 counties, districts, cities, incorporated towns, boroughs, villages and census designated places named after Columbus.  

Where does it end?

Well, let’s think....Michelle Obama reminded us that she woke up every day for 8 years in a house built by slaves.   So, let’s start by tearing down the White House. 

And, yes, it is nice that the US Capitol now has a plaque to remind the world it was built by slaves...but...no, let’s get rid of that while we are at it.

And the Smithsonian building, and that lovely old building on Wall Street, that needs to go....Trinity Church in NYC.....those slaves were rented out....but the owners got paid, not the slaves...so TEAR IT DOWN!!!   Faneuil Hall in Boston...find a box of tnt. Oh, and while we are in Boston....see ya later Harvard, yes, you were built from slave labor.   And while we are discussing colleges, I do believe...yes, i do believe Georgetown and UNC need to go.   Monticello, Mountpelier, Mount Vernon...the list keeps growing. 

You know, while we are discussing slaves.....let’s not stop here.   Anyone want to join me on a trip to Egypt?   Yeah.....slavery....pyramids....they need to go.  Sorry, but we can’t just stop now...let’s be real.

I remember a sign in a history class “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  We can’t change history.  We can’t right what was wrong 200 years ago...we can’t tear down and remove it from our history books.   Instead of destroying everything, correct it.   A statue of Lee, don’t destroy it, fix it.   If he had slaves, if he had illegitimate kids with slaves, put that on it....We can’t change what Lee, Stonewall, heck LINCOLN HAD SLAVES!!!!!  NOTHING, NOTHING will ever change that.  It’s not going to put those families back on a ship and home to Africa. It’s too late for that....but...it’s not to late to stop the destruction of our history.   We may not like all that is there, but it is what made America today.  

Do you think MLKJr would support this?   The man that had such hopes for the Promise Land?  I was looking up articles about MLK and found Jacobin Magazine, never heard of it before this month...but it had an really good article. 

“When ruling elites call for peace, they are demanding docility. When they cynically cite decontextualized Martin Luther King Jr quotes and invoke the rights of “peaceful protesters” while denouncing actually existing protests, they announce that no effective protest will ever be peaceful enough to meet their approval. Ruling elites, pundits, and police use the rhetoric of nonviolence to discipline protesters and shift responsibility for state violence onto its victims.

We shouldn’t fall into their trap. There’s nothing peaceful about nonviolence if you’re doing it right.

Nonviolence is not about playing by the rules, working within existing institutions, or keeping protests unthreatening. Nonviolent direct action is direct action. It’s not saintly self-sacrifice or high-minded moralizing but a theory of power and a repertoire of tactics for using it. Effective nonviolence is about wielding collective action to disrupt the normal workings of society.”  Martin Luther King Jr knew that better than most.

It’s true that King thought nonviolent direct action, militantly pursued, was morally superior to rioting — but more important, he thought it represented a more promising path to directly confronting the American state. Nonviolence as he came to conceptualize it by the end of his life, was a means of channeling popular rage into a fighting force that could pose a more direct threat to the Johnson administration.  

 (JacobinMag.com 6.10.2020)

The uprising that started with a man being murdered on the streets has now become....what.....?   George Floyd’s murder has now become a side note....it’s no longer what happened....it’s now “well, see it started with...but then....”

Where does it end?   Can anyone tell me that?  Where does it end?

Or does it?

The Talk About Walking Out

Yesterday, I picked Ben up from school and he immediately started talking about the "Walk Out", students walking out for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 students and teachers killed a few weeks ago in Florida.  I asked him about it, he didn't have too much to say (normal with him), but then i started thinking about it and finally i said "If you want to, i'll back you up.  But i have some problems with it."

So we started talking.

I'm all for the walkout, if it honors the victims of gun violence, but then, what?

What is it going to do?  It's not going to get any gun laws passed.   It's been tried and tried, it just doesn't seem to get anywhere once it hits washington, does it?  We can spend time and money and efforts to get laws passed, but if someone wants desperately to get a gun, they will.

Instead of walking out...how about walking TO? 

To the kid sitting by him/herself in the lunch room, no friends to talk to.

To the kid in the classroom that is picked on for being different.

To the kid in gym that isn't as good as others, so is always picked last and then shunned.

To the classmate that hides in their book, trying to make sure no one notices, to avoid being picked on.

To the student who did something in first grade that everyone made fun of, and since then, has never had a true friend, but no one remembers why.

The pupil who doesn't dress in the latest clothes, wears handme downs because the parents are barely making ends meet, so classmates look down on them.

Walking out, do the kids that are hurting get invited?  If they walk with classmates, will anyone link arms with them and given the encouraging words and invite them to sit at the lunch table with them?

If they go stand in the gym in honor of the students who died, will anyone stand with them and hand a tissue if they start to cry?

Instead of walking out, walk to.....and try to make school a better place for everyone.  Everyone deserves to have a friend.  Everyone deserves to feel safe walking in the hallways and not worry about being pushed around and laughed at.  No one deserves to be laughed at if they aren't athletic
or can't read as well as others.

So Ben knows my thoughts and i hope he takes my words to heart.  There was a time he was the kid sitting all by himself and i would go to school and take lunch with him, because it broke me to know he was alone.  I hope he looks around and sees the kids alone and invites them to his table.

I love you.

Judging the Flood

So, recently on facebook, someone I thought I knew said that God was wiping Houston off the map because of the sins they had committed.   This person followed it up by making comments about homosexuality and a few other sins she felt the people there had committed.

Seriously?

First, let me remind you of Genesis 9:11, where HE promises that “never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Second, this person, among others, also said that God was punishing DC by hitting it with an earthquake.   Mind you, the earthquake was miles away from DC, so either God has a really bad aim and hit Mineral, VA by mistake or…..yeah, the earthquake was just that.  An earthquake not meant to punish anyone, it was just some plates shifting causing a quake.

Third, when God flooded the earth, he saved the sinless by having Noah and his family build an ark.  So either you’re saying that every single person down south, men, women, children are full of sin or …oh wait, I got it…God sent all those rafts and canoes to save the innocent, right?

I don’t believe God is trying to wipe anyone out.  Do I understand the flooding and the hurricanes and the tsunami’s and fires that wipe out homes and kill people?  No, but I don’t believe God is doing it to punish people. 

Disasters happen, they have since He created the earth. 

I don’t feel I have the right to tell anyone they are a sinner, since I am a sinner myself.   I don’t want people pointing out my sins, and I don’t want to be pointing out others sins.  Any sins made are between the sinner and God. 

And I have enough I have to confess to HIM without adding i spent my time judging my neighbors.

Matthew 7:1-5

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 

2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 

4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 

5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

I love you.

Nope, no trash here.

This morning, I spent time doing my hair, dressing in my VBS shirt and decided to forgo the make-up,  then looked in the mirror smiled and said “Still not trailer trash.”

Then my smile faded away and I thought, “How sad is that?”

Remember that incredibly stupid saying “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” 

Well, yeah they do.

And they leave forever scars in your mind.

I was recently talking to a friend who said her husbands comments about her arms has prevented her from wearing sleeveless shirts for over 30 years.

Another friend told me she doesn’t wear open toed shoes after a lady in the next bathroom stall told her she had ugly feet when she was about 16 years old.

I met a lady in the make-up aisle who said she never wore lipstick after being told she had ugly fat lips by a classmate in elementary school.

To this day, I wear bangs because I was told I had an ugly forehead and struggle to wear short skirts and shorts because I was told I had ugly knees. 

But it was two assistant principals that let me know that they wouldn’t waste their time with me because I was never going to amount to anything and I would be a drunk piece of trailer trash when I grew up.

I had gone to them asking for help for a situation at home.

Instead they turned me away after telling me I was a nothing.

I wish I could say I turned out the way I am because I said “Well I’ll SHOW YOU!” and became determined to show them wrong.   No, that’s not what happened.  Their words almost destroyed me.

And now, 37 years later, I still hear it.  I look in the mirror and mentally pat myself on the back for rising above their predictions.

Woohoo, I’m not trailer trash…yea!  Let’s go on with my day. 

Gosh, that’s pitiful.

So, as of this morning, I’m stopping it.  No more listening to what others say about me in a negative way.   Words from over 30 years ago have nothing to do with the person I am today. 

And I’m going to go a step farther.  I’m going to make sure I’m not responsible for anyone feeling less than good about themselves.   I will only see the good, I will constantly remind myself that every single person on this earth was hand drawn by God and deserve to hear how perfect HE made them.

I’m going to stop focusing on what hurts and hold on to what heals.

Stop looking for the bad, in me and in others, and focus on the amazing.

To my friends who are feeling bad or need a lift me up, I’m going to be the person they call on for a pick me up.

Because I’m not trailer trash.

I am precious in HIS site.

I love you.

I'm a missionary

The past week, I've been hearing a lot of being a missionary.  My pastor talked about it, another church is having missions week, seems to be the theme.  

Most people, when you talk about being a missionary, they think of some of the darkest corners of the globe, starving children, people who have never heard of God, no electricity.   Some might consider parts the united states, up in the mountains, or on the back roads....

I have never had the desire to go anywhere, ever.  I have never felt the need to pick up my passport and go off and spread the world of Jesus in Zuid Africa or Bombay, or anywhere.....  

I have always felt very strong about my mission field being right here.  Right where i am, right where i'm standing.

Because I'm doing what He wants me to do in my own backyard.

I pray, i post my prayers for all to see, and because of that, people come to me and ask me to pray with them.

Everything i crochet is filled with prayer, my etsy store is MadeWithPrayer, and that's a promise.

I open my heart and my ears to HIM, when He tells me to pray for someone, i do, and i'll let the person know that He has heard their prayers.   I'll never forget crocheting a rainbow because HE told me to...only to discover a friend was asking Him for an answer...and my rainbow showed her He was listening.

I live by example, and am not ashamed of the gospel, and shout it from the rooftops for all to hear.   I'll tell anyone about my faith, i live it for all to see.

Do i make mistakes..yup.   Do i sin...yup.  Does He forgive me....oh Praise Jesus, yup.

And i'll keep being a missionary right here in my backyard.

I love you.