What are your biggest challenges?
ME
MYSELF
AND I
THE END
Month: January 2024
Bella! That’s Enough!
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
She barks at everything, chases anything, trips all over our feet, and nearly rips the skin off our legs while attempting to jump over them on the bed. She’s clumsy as a newborn calf, and stubborn as a mule, but, if I could make her understand one thing, it would be to STOP LICKING! The floors, the blankets, the furniture, the beds, me, my husband, Pepper, and herself! For once and for all, I wish I could make her understand that her licking is bad for my health!
The Red, White, and Blue
One Sunday afternoon, a few years ago, the family was sitting around the dinner table laughing, and just goofing off. Suddenly, our oldest grandchild, Brandon, marches through the front door with our flag across his shoulder, working up a sweat to keep it off the floor.
At first, I thought, what on earth is this silly boy doing now? Then it all made sense when he explained, “Gideon (his then six-year-old) accidentally pulled on the flag, and it fell across the bush. It didn’t touch the ground, papaw, I promise!”
Every family member knows how my husband feels about the American flag. He fought for it. He risked his life for it, and nearly died for it while fighting the fire for thirty-six tumultuous hours on board the USS Forestall. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjzvYWZk7ODAxUMTjABHfKtC3YQz40FegQIDBAK&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4CzS7gHLuLM&usg=AOvVaw2N9Sd_bnDMh1sODOzLV9Gz&opi=89978449
Now, more than fifty years later, he still cries for those he put into body bags, some of which only consisted of a wedding band, or a pair of glasses.
PTSD they call it. I call it a living hell. Blinded by grief, my husband can’t see that I’m on the receiving end of his rage, and grief, anger and frustration. That, like a vacuum, he sucks me on the ship with him, where we battle each other because we’re the only ones there. The only ones burning. The only ones trapped. Between the ghosts of yesterday, and stresses of today, our marriage of fifty-one years began to sink before we finally put it in God’s hands.
So, you can only imagine how explosive my husband becomes when he sees murderous mobs spitting, and stomping, and burning the American flag. It reminds him of how people spit and cursed in the faces of the men and women who went to hell and back to keep them safe and free. Instead of receiving a standing ovation of honor and respect, they were crucified, and crowned as women and, baby-killers.
Politics was my worst subject in school. Too complicated for my realistic, black and white thinking. I just trusted our leaders because I always felt they had America’s best interest at heart. But, today, I see a government consumed by recklessness, selfishness, and greed. And we, the people they promise to serve, are freezing to death in their cold-hearted lies.
Who can we trust when the government fails, when it sleeps with the enemy, when its main interest is in its own political gain? We can trust God. He alone has the world in His hands. He alone has our best interest at heart. He alone has the power to hold, to keep, and to save. He alone knows exactly how the story ends. So, I put my trust in Him.
John 16:33
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
The End
Straight From the Heart 