Picket Fences

 A writer is often met with a very hard decision, when to delete words, they have written. For me, a thought goes round and round in my head, I sit down, type it out, and it is fulfilling to watch the words fall into place. After receiving critiqued or edited work back, I sometimes have discovered a red line with the words “delete” alongside a part that I love. I don’t like it when that happens. It goes both ways. I have handed work back to other writers and I know they don’t always like what I suggest. The final say is the writer’s decision. It is the writer’s story after all. I often wish deleted moments in my life would only pertain to my writing alone, but sadly, I have had to “delete” many times in my own personal life. The “delete” word can show up at times that are very unexpected, or in a place in life that I don’t want to delete something. Recently we had to put down one of our animals. It was a horrible experience. I held her until they said she was gone. It was very

  Since the day I turned 64, life has been filled with quite a few emotional storms. F5 tornado’s have ripped around in my brain and heart. Blessings, conflicts, hurt, and pain fly around all at once making it hard to focus on something. It has not been easy. All my energy just seeps out of me and washes away like puddles of rain down sewer drains. It leaves me tired, and my knees feel weak. When things seem to be as peaceful as a beautiful day after a fresh rain in the spring, the winds start blowing, and something sweeps in playing chaos with the peace. At the beginning of June this year, we had the surprising announcement that the month would start with RAIN showers. Lots of rains showers. Startling news , especially for those who have lived here for a decent amount of time, and usually don’t even bother with an umbrella, due to rain being a normal part of life. A lot of times it may rain for an hour, or a minute, then the sun comes out, then it rains again, then it is

 I thought it was dead.  I bought this pretty hydrangea tree last year. Over the winter we had a horrible ice storm. Most of my plants made it through okay, but the hydrangea didn't look so good. I did some investigating on the internet. I found a Gardner who showed how to prune the dead limbs and cross limbs off the hydrangea.  I followed the direction of the Gardner very carefully. I ended up with a awkward looking bare limbed looking tree. I even heard the question, what happened to it? I waited. I checked to see if there were any buds periodically. Nothing. Then one day I saw what appeared to be buds down on the lower branches.  I became excited about the tree possibly being alive. I planned to cut the branches down to what appeared to be buds.  First, I prayed over each branch to have life and to bloom.  I checked on it again to see if the little buds were blooming. Not much appeared to be happening.  Would the tree bloom? Would the beautiful flowers of the tree show it's

  Have you ever finished cleaning a room and someone comes behind you and messes it up? Or have you ever completed a project and somehow the project is destroyed? I have. It can be frustrating. While reading the book of Genesis, it looks to me as though God has experienced this too.   At the end of each day of creation, God would look at His creation and say, "it is good." He created two incredible people who hung out with Him in His beautiful garden.   Imagine how beautiful it all looked at the beginning of time. Imagine a garden without weeds.   Then a day came when it all went downhill, Adam and Eve took a bite of the fruit from the forbidden tree.   The downhill roll has been going and going ever since. I can only imagine God having to watch the work of His creation as the choices people make messes it up or destroys it. My husband worked on our yard to make it a wonderful oasis. He made a part of this oasis where I can have a beautiful garden and there

  Pretty much every morning I open my eyes to a cute little cat staring at me waiting for me to wake up. My other cat is prowling around the bed meowing trying to get me up, usually way before I want to wake up. I say good morning to them, pet them, and they follow me around the room. Then I go into my office where my dogs sleep and let them out of their kennels. Those two dogs get so excited. Their tails wag, and their little bodies wiggle crazily about me while I pet them. Then they greet each other by panting in each other’s faces, chewing at each other, and wagging their tails more. It is truly an ordeal to get down the stairs safely, they are so excited. Once they go outside and eat, as soon as I sit down, they wiggle their way to me and rub their excited little bodies up against me and just want to be talked to and petted. They get so excited as I talk to them and get full of energy, rolling on the floor, jumping, and ending up wrestling with one another. Each of these 4 animals

  WHAT IF? “What are you going to do if God doesn’t answer your prayer?” My neighbor’s question left me stunned. Surely God would answer my prayer. I could see no reason at all for God to not answer my prayer. I spent quite a while praying that night, in my backyard, looking at the moon. It looked huge and seemed so close to earth that I felt as though I could reach out and touch it or even step right onto it. I knew God created that moon. He spoke it into existence. As a new believer I had not even considered God would not answer my prayer.  He spoke the entire world into existence.  He can answer my prayer. It has been over 30 years since the night my neighbor asked me that question. Did God answer my prayer? Not the way I wanted the prayer to be answered. It was a season of grieving and growing for me. Since then though, there have been many answered prayers. And – My dad’s friend did not heal. My friends did not heal. Some family members did not heal. My husband’