Happy 10th Birthday Brayden!

As  I look at this picture it really has become one of my favorite I have taken.  It really shows me how much Brayden has accomplished in his ten years of life.  He finally crossed the bridge of 10 years of life.

I cryed the moment he arrived to this life. For 9 months he relied upon God to develop him in his mothers womb.  To make him perfect and  enable him to go from complete darkness to a direct light he had never seen before.  I often wonder if God had one last word to him as he came to be.  Did he say,  "Go on, come and meet life and don't worry I will be there with you all the way."

 Having children truly amazes me all the time.  We really don't know what we're going to get until their arrival.  I was hoping Brayden had all his parts and that he was going to be healthy.  Birth is God's fantastic show in life, it is a process that truly is awesome.  I have enjoyed the ten years we have had with Brayden.  He's a funny kid who likes to laugh a lot, especially when I do stupid things to make him laugh.  We have had some good laughs so far in life, and hope we will always laugh together no matter what life brings us.   God has truly blessed us, and to Him I will be enernally grateful.  Thank you God for your precious gift of Brayden.

The Magical Feeling Of Christmas.

I remember when I was young and how exciting it was to be Christmas eve.  I remember my Papaw and Aunt Monna coming over and all of us just enjoying one anothers visit.   They would stay the night and they would both get my sister and I excited about Santa coming during the night. 

My mother would go all out and make a good Christmas eve meal and we would indulge ourselves and then eat all the cookies she had made until we were sick.  It would be cold outside (unlike here in Arkansas)  and we would be huddled up by the fireplace and try to get warm.  I have always enjoyed those many Christmas eve's and still enjoy the memories of them all.  Christmas Eve is a magical time of year.  I miss them!

For some reason I have lost that magical feeling and I don't know why.  I guess because Christmas here in Arkansas just doeosn't feel very Christmas like. 

As the evening progresses I can feel a little of the magic left, but it just doesn't feel like it once did.  Maybe it's because I have grown older and the magical feeling I once had is slowly disappearing somewhat.  I hope it comes back one day, but for now I will always have the precious memories of past Christmases in my mind and heart.  I'm thankful to God for memories like these.  Thankful for two hard working parents who went all out to give me the best Christmases ever.  I'm thankful for the memories of a loving Grandfather who made my life and Christmas very special.  With all the presents I have received through the years nothing is more important than these special memories. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  

We're Not Lucky, But Blessed

All my life I have always said I am lucky.  I recently had a thought run through my mind that found that to be untrue. We all say we have had some kind of luck come into our lives, but it wasn't luck was it?  It was something else.  I believe everything was set in place a long time ago to happen in our lives.  It's a story and that I believe is what were are living.  Reasons behind everything that happens in our lives each day.  So, the thought that ran through my mind is all part of the process that God Almighty is putting into my life as a story.  Nothing is luck it's a blessing from  Him. 

I try to put into perspective why so many are given to greatness and many are put into poverty and loneliness.  Why others are given much and others are given so little.  I remember when Jesus healed a man and his disciples asked him who sinned his parents or him.  And Jesus said to them neither, but it was for the glory of God to shine through.  It was a blessing for him to be blind so that he could see the gift of healing and praise God for his blessing that has been put in his story of life.

Last week we were driving back from Little Rock and as we were headed home we stopped off at some stores.  As we approached the on ramp, it stopped suddenly and I veered off to the side of the highway.  I just happened to be looking in the rearview mirror and saw two cars slam into each other.  I said I was lucky, but then realized I was blessed by God to have not been invovled. 

What we think as luck is not, but is a contiuned chapter of our life that God has planned to happen in our lifes story.  I thought about my past life and thought my life could be read as a book.  It may be boring, but my life reads like a story.  If you think about all the predicaments we have gotten ourselves into there has always been a way or a blessing from God to get us out and over such things.  We think it is luck, but it is a blessing from the author of our storied lives. 

How do we use these blessings?  If you win the lottery how do you use that blessing?  God gave it to you for a reason.  Not to consume it all for yourself, but to use to help those who are in rough shape.  Blessings are a test from God, he wants to see how we use it for his good.  When I lost my job a couple of years ago, I lurked in my own fears on how I was going to be able to get out of this mess.  God wanted me to pray for his help.  I did for a long time, he gave me a new job and taught me the lesson through His blessing to be faithful and not to take  anything for granted that He has blessed me with.  A friend of mine had recently lost his job, and now I am telling him my story of that hard time in my life.  I told him to pray and not take anything for granted that God had blessed him with.  My hardship had happened to bring God his glory.

Were not lucky, but blessed with great blessings from God above.  Our cup overflows more than we know.  We live in His grace everyday, and through his grace we shall tell others about our great story.  So that His glory may be praised.  Merry Christmas!

Recession Christmas Cards 2

Christmas Recession Cards

Do You Live To Impress Others?

I'm sitting here really trying to figure out why we live to impress others.  I remember back in my early years of life that is all I remember life being about.  I'm sure during our school years we remember having to have what everbody else had.  Whether it was clothes or any other type of material possession.  We had to get it because we wanted to fit in.  We didn't want to be the only one on the outside of the ring of popularity. 

When I was little I had this neighbor kid right next door to us.  He had every Star Wars thing you could imagine.  I would get jealous because I didn't have that specific toy, yet I did have every Star Wars toy there was except this one thing.  So I would get over it because he said I could play with it as much as I wanted.  I remember in the sixth grade everybody had to have a pair of "parachute pants" to be cool.  There were all kinds of things in those days that we all had to have so we wouldn't be the misfit. I remember one winter back home I had passed by this Catholic elementary school.  All the kids had the same coat.  Almost every child had a certain type of Notre Dame coat on, they all looked like an advertisement picture for the university.  I thought in my mind how stupid is that?   Then I realized kids in my school were just the same, we all had the same clothing to impress someone.  I have a lot of friends from high school on Facebook. If I asked them about the stupid fashions we all went through to impress each other they would probably think it was all silly.  Where did  all this lead us, nowhere really! Were all still friends to this day and actually the clothes are forgotten and it really didn't matter one bit.

Living in the adult world fashion is not really a factor anymore.  It seemed we grew out of all that nonsense, but have we?  How do we do it now?  If you take a look at yourself, how are you today as an adult living to impress someone?  Obviously, it's with material possessions, but a little higher priced possessions.  Our possessions now are the cars we drive, and the house and neighborhood we live in.  To many, it states a sign of wealth and states a certain stature in life.  Don't get me wrong it's ok to have possessions that you have worked hard for, it's the flauting part of it that is wrong.  Possessions can signal to those who don't have things like this that we are untouchable, that we are better than everybody else.  It's true, it communicates to people that they are unworthy to communicate with us.  It makes others fearful of us.  When I watch the movie stars on TV and I think all the time I would never be able to talk to them or have a real conversation with them.  Because they are really untouchable,  I don't really live where they live, plus they are protected by a dozen security guards.  But then they really are real people.  That's the life they chose, we didn't choose a life of being untouchable we live in the real world.  Trust me there are people who want to talk to  people who have great wealth.  They want to feel they matter to them,  and they want to know that the "real world" is not full of untouchable rich snotty people.

Our world is a crazy one.  Satan is a demon working us hard, but in many different ways.  He makes us all feel like we are important in this world that we have a right to impress sombody and the right to pull others under our dirty rug of popularity.  It doesn't really matter to me if I impress somebody, I chose years ago to not live my life to impress others.  With me you get what you see.  I would rather get to know somebody and help those who think they are unworthy to talk to anybody feel special. I'm not saying that to impress anybody either, it's just the way I am programmed. 

I would like to see one President go and walk the streets in the roughest neighborhoods of America and shake hands with those who think they don't count.  I know Jimmy Carter has built houses for the poor through Habitat for Humanity and that is impressive.  Today I ask you to do something that is out of your comfort zone.  Go to somebody who you think might think may feel inferior to you.  A person who you think you would never speak to, maybe it's an employee that is afraid of you because you holder a higher postition.  We as the human race need to remember we are all human and God wants us all to be friends with each other. 

I write this because when I sit in Walmart and sell Medicare insurance I don't usually talk to the wealthiest people in the area.  My plans I sell are a $0 premium, so if people have money they usually don't discuss these plans with me because they can afford to not have them.  I usually get some pretty rough people talking with me and it really doesn't matter who I talk to, as long as I can meet their finacial need for affordable healthcare. This topic just kind of came to my mind today and I felt it needed to be written.  Impress somebody with your kindness and not with our wealth or power.