MeeMaw’s Kitchen is the best place to share a meal, share some laughs, and leave feeling fully loved!
Along with walking away, carrying a full belly of homecooked goodness, the only cost for said meal is your time! And the beauty of it is, I’m always open!
Whether it’s a meal, or maybe just a cookie, you will know that you are loved unconditionally!
My journey is far from over. There are many directions my path may take me, but they all lead to the same place… home.
I’m so far from where I was just last year. There’s no telling where I’ll be this time next year, let alone in 10 years.
It would be lovely to be further along in my publishing journey, but who’s to say. Life doesn’t come with a playbook, as we discover early on in our lives. Just a good number of road signs, traffic lights, and fender benders.
One learns early in life that nothing is for certain, no path written out in stone, and no guarantees that we won’t come out on the other side, unscathed.
There is hope, there is faith, and there is love for one another. Aside from that, all bet’s are off. When you come to fully understand this, there is great peace in taking each day as it comes. One day at a time, moment by moment, so we don’t miss the beauty in the journey. It is there, you know, if you search it out!
The easiest way to describe how new hands were such a positive change for me, is to just show you…
The old hands held onto so many painful things from the past, but with new hands on board, I began to let go…
When this began happening, I noticed how much strength began to return to my body. With two new hands, now free of waste, I have the freedom to use these hands for so much more… so much good!
There is freedom to reach out in love now, more and more each day, without guilt, shame, bitterness, resentment, anger or poison from the past.
… and, that also leaves oodles of spare time for one of my favorite hobbies. Take a wild guess…
If you know me at all, in even the least of my writings, you already know the answer I offer this prompt! In truth, we are all in the very same story, book, tale, movie, script or song… we are all intricately woven into God’s tapestry. Many have written about it, sung about it, reenacted the story in a movie or play, but in truth… we are all in there!
Why? John 3:16 baby! For God so love the world, that he gave his one and only son, that who so ever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life! If I got any of those words wrong, it’s due to simply writing without looking at my source, but you get the truth of it!
Yesterday was the day that the temple veil was torn in two
Today was a day of sorrow and confusion
A day where women wept, while men spoke in fearful whispers of things to come
Tomorrow will represent that Sunday morning, so long ago, when the women found the stone removed, leaving an empty tomb…
Tomorrow represents the day He met them on the road…
The day that our creator gave us the most precious gift ever given… eternal life, without fear, shame, or condemnation. We were given the blood of God’s own precious son, to wash over our very souls, and cleansing us of all sin. We have been bought and paid for by Jesus, himself.
I praise God for such a perfect gift… oh so costly, but so very necessary! Without Jesus sacrifice, we would be condemned to death, claimed by Satan, himself. That’s a gift worth celebrating, wouldn’t you agree.
I wanted to share a very heartfelt, and sincere, Happy Easter! I send out my greetings today, as I won’t be online tomorrow. For the first time in nearly twenty years, I’ll be joining my sweet friend, Christine, for a sunrise service at her church. It’s time. No obligation, no signing of any contracts, just worship and fellowship. What better time to re-enter the whole church scene than an early Sunrise Easter Service. I’m looking forward to the music, the word, and if I’m truthful, some good human contact.
When the sun shines, in all it’s brilliance, I place my trust in Him
When the rain falls so heavily that I cannot see the path, I place my trust in Him
As I hold my granddaughter in my arms, I place her in His loving arms
As doors before me slam shut, I place myself in His loving arms
He is with me in the good…
and, with me in the bad…
Whether sun, rain, good, or bad
We are never alone… even when it feels that way.
How do I know these things? Why the bible, of course.
Look at what Jesus did for us, just to make a way to his Father
How must Jesus have felt as he hung upon that cross?
Alone
Betrayed
Abandoned
Rejected
Ridiculed
Despised
… and yet…
He stayed!
He could have called the angel’s down to assist… but he didn’t.
Hanging there, between two other criminals, both guilty.
How must He have felt?
Did he hurl insults and curses toward those who rejected him? No…
What must it have been like to discover at the moment the temple veil was torn, that you’d made a grievous error in your judgement of Him?
Whatever happened to those whom He’d healed while walking this earth? Where did they go? What did they do with the rest of their lives, in all that came after that Sunday Morning?
The stone removed…
The angel in the tomb…
The encounter on the road…
Where did all the people go that saw Jesus after the resurrection?
I find myself pondering these and other questions, at the approach of Easter Sunday. So much happened in Jesus earthly life, during his ministry. I can’t help but wonder what happened to those most impacted by their encounter with the Son of God.
It wasn’t as if there were only a handful of followers, with a lot of nasty government officials. It was quite the opposite, in fact. There were numerous believers, with only a handful of hateful leaders. It always amazed me what fear will cause people to do to each other. Jesus walked 30 years with humans, and He still walked all the way to that cross, willingly allowing himself to be impaled upon that post. He did it all out of love for us, His people. I’m always in awe of God’s willingness to sacrifice his own son’s life, just to save us from ourselves. We’re our own worst enemy, at times.
Whenever I write out my own struggles, and then compare them with His… I think I’m getting off rather lightly, compared to the path He walked. It really is a beautiful thing to accept a gift that you know you’ll never be able to repay… a sacrifice you can’t match!
I know it’s just a blogging site, Eustace, but I still believe that if we can imagine a thing that is good, healthy, and full of wonder, someone will believe in it!
If I believe in something wonderful, and you believe in it too, Eustace, then it will grow strong like a tree. It’s roots will spread powerfully beneath the soil. With the Son’s warmth, and the Father’s fertile ground, all we’ve left to do is water it with our faith.
If you’ve never watched The NeverEnding Story, you really should. That scene where the princess and Atrayu sit in the darkness together, holding onto the last spark of imagination left in the world, was my favorite part of the whole movie.
If we lose our childlike wonder and imagination, where would all those fantastical dreams and stories go? I’ll tell you where… gone! They would simply disappear, leaving us in a world that lacks all beauty… a world devoid of creativity.
I know today we’ve left you with some deep things to consider. Well, Eustace is a very deep thinking camel, you know, so it shouldn’t surprise you that we often have deep philosophical conversations. Just sayin…
There are no two people alike! Not even twins are identical, even though they call them identical twins.
Cloning won’t even work, due to a unique thing residing within each body… that would be the soul, if you hadn’t already guessed.
I was just talking to my husband about this today, in the car, on the way home from seeing our grandbaby. If you cookie stamped out a hundred identical bodies, and then placed a hundred different souls into those bodies, you’d end up with a hundred unique creatures. Each would have individual somethings that render them different than all the others.
I feel like peas in a pod whenever I spend time with either of my two closest friends, and yet there isn’t a drop of blood shared between us. Most of my flesh and blood are nothing like me, nor my daughter’s, for that matter.
My oldest daughter and I look nearly identical, and couldn’t be more different… or perhaps we’re too much alike, and we drive each other batty.
My point is, ladies and gents, that out of all the 8.3 billion plus humans on the planet, each is unique… individual.
That is the way God sees us, as well.
No two are alike to him, nor can one’s behavior and character effect another’s ability to walk through the pearly gates! If God created my inmost being, knitting me together in my mother’s womb, he did it for each and every one of you. God loves you, cherishes your uniqueness, and jealously protects his relationship with you… you, just as you are and not like anyone else.
Quite honestly, I’m not sure I was thinking in terms of my future career when I was five years old. Baby dolls, kittens, puppies, candy apples at the fair, and how much I hated liver and onions are mostly all that I was thinking about at that age.
Being born and raised on a farm, my early days were spent on the back of a horse or eating all of the strawberries that my mother was trying to pick for making jam.
Though I may not have thought of my future career when I was five, it’s funny that I ended up doing one or more of my childhood activities for adult pursuits, i.e. raising babies, baking, gardening, camping, hunting, fishing, breeding dogs, homeschooling my children, and now, becoming a writer.
The writer part is the result of the thousands of books I read from the time I was tiny… that and watching Willy Wonka, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Sound of Music, just for starters!
I think that maybe that’s what a five year old should be doing at that age… not dreaming of a career, but dreaming of magic, miracles and adventure, pure and wonderful!
Who knows, though, maybe I was just slow to develop in that regard. Maybe I just watched too many cartoons, and/or read too many silly adventure books. Oh well, I’m still glad I spent my childhood with Gene Wilder, Julie Andrews, Dick Vandyke, and Angela Lansbury, aren’t you? Why? Because, my imagination was born there…
Of all the species of feathered flyers out there, the one bird that describes me would be the Woodpecker! Why? Well, I read off of the Wikipedia site that these birds have very strong jaw muscles.
Word? Oh, I thought it said Bird. Oh well! It’s too late to go back now…
Anyone who knows much about me, should already be aware that I talk a whole lot! I mean A LOT! I always have… and I highly doubt that I will be slowing down any time soon.
Over the years I have been chided about it, counseled to slow it down, and/or even avoided because of it. For a time, I attempted to back away from my own chatty nature, in hopes of pleasing others. I soon learned that it was more my personality than my chattiness that pushed others away. Their loss!
When I discovered that I like myself just as I am, I stopped trying to be that which I was not, for others sake!
I refer to myself as a Woodpecker, because I wish to be incessantly hammering out the love of Christ, over and over and over again!
For anyone who is bothered by my noise, there are plenty of other trees in the forest! I am sure you’ll find another comfortable place to perch!
God made me this way, so I’ve no intention of changing something if God tells me it’s not broken!
Here, I’ve left you some seeds…
Just kidding, sillies! I wouldn’t feed you bird seed… well, not only…