Undo

Who doesn't have things they'd undo if they could?  For me with the two of you, I'd undo some of the things I said to you.  Some of the times I doubted you. Some of the times I took your word for something.  Some of the times I didn't stop what I was doing or had planned for your ideas.  I'd undo sometimes when I may should have stood up for you more.  But I can honestly say that overall I have no major regrets of how I raised either of you.  In the big scope of things I think my love and the values I tried to impart came through.  And for that I will ever be grateful to my Lord for getting my attention when Bubba was a just a toddler and turning me back to Him, rededicating my life and allowing Him to truly be Lord.

Now I See

"He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind,   now I see." - John 9:25 KJV

I was pondering the words "now I see" today.  Thinking what all things could prevent one from seeing.  I came up with only three:  blindness, absence of light, and obstacles.  With that introduction I give you the following.

now I see

Here the emphasis is on the word I, for there had been only blindness before and now I see.  Blind to the fact that I was a sinner.  Blind to the fact that God loved me anyway.  Blind to the saving grace through the sacrificial death of Jesus that he offers to every one of us.  But I saw my sin as God sees it.  I believed God's love and confessed my sin to him.  I accepted Christ's free gift of salvation.   Now I see because the Holy Spirit lives within me.

now I see

Emphasis on the word see.  There were dark corners in my world and in my mind that prevented me from seeing.  There were obstacles of anger, self will & indulgence, long standing attitudes of my own and others.  Slowly, through the Word of God and the Guidance of His Spirit, light began to illuminate the dark corners and I could see the things He wanted to clean up or remove from my life.  I could see the blessings and gifts He wanted to put in their stead.  The obstacles began to melt away and fade until I could see my way to forgiveness, see God's will for me, see the need of others and see my attitudes change even when others didn't change with me.  Now I see because the Holy Spirit has taught me.

Now I see

Emphasis on the word Now, because for the first time ever I really and truly see!!  See the deeper meaning in life.  See now what is truly precious.  See God's provision for me and others.  See God's will at work in my life and through my life.  Now I see ...and I'm never going back to the blindness and the darkness!  I know where to go to dissolve, remove, get over or around the obstacles!  Jesus sought me and bought me and now I see.

Now I see, won't you?

Trees

It might be strange to some that I have so many memories centered around trees.  Then again, why should it surprise me for anyone to find me strange?

My earliest tree memory involved the giant oak at the end of our walkway in an old rent house we lived in on Cooks Road when I was 7-11 years old.  My feelings had been hurt, or maybe I'd been scolded, but I packed the little tan overnight case and announced I was running away from home.   Daddy looked over his newspaper and wished me luck.  I marched out of the house and down that walkway sure they'd come running after me calling and begging me to stay.  But they didn't.  So I sat down in front of the oak on the side that faced the road and waited.  Waited for what seemed like ages.  The smells of supper wafted out the screened windows and after me.  Still, no one came.  Tears hot on my face and indignation raging in my soul, I meekly returned to the side door of the house as the crickets began to sing their song.  There was no big to-do, no lecture, just, "Oh, you're home and in time for supper."

My next big tree memory came just a few years later.  We had moved to 1122.  I was outside and Daddy had recently came in from work.  I was climbing in the chestnut tree in the back yard by the garage.  I teased my daddy I could climb higher than anyone.  He didn't seem impressed.  So I mocked him a little.  And soon he was climbing the tree in his work boots.  He had to be close to 50 at the time.  He went way beyond where I had gone.  Mama joined us outside calling up and telling Daddy, "Clayon, you're gonna kill yourself."  Suffice it to say, I never did manage to out climb my daddy.

Flash forward about fifteen years.  It's me and your daddy living on 1122 now.  I'm pregnant with Bubba and got a huge belly early.  And the pecans are ripe in our three trees.  I'm crawling around on the ground on my hands and knees to pick them up, as I just can't bear to bend over to do it.  Those pecans were the fullest, sweetest pecans I ever ate and I was not about to let them go to waste. 

Jump about 5 years down the road, and there is Bubba climbing every chance he had in the huge Buford Holly in front of the porch.  Going high!  Me wondering what it would cost to get a young arm set.  Daddy, you met your match in your namesake.

About the same time, when we were gathered with the rest of Daddy's family at Paw Paw's house, they started talking about the huge old oak....biggest ever, that they used to go play around when they were kids.  We all got up and went off into the baygall and soon enough they found it.  It was massive!  I have never seen such a thing before or since.  We all took pictures out there around it.  And they should still be around...somewhere!

Another six or eight years go by and we are living at Paw Paw's old place.  Bug is a preschooler.  If she goes missing, one of the first places to check, if the figs are ripe, is in, under or around the huge fig tree by the house, picking them and eating them as fast as she can.  It becomes her climbing tree for fun.  And her refuge to hide and sit and cry when her feelings are hurt.

I've enjoyed reminiscing about the important trees in my life...hope you have too.  Cherish these memories and keep them. 

Stories & Song

Stories have abounded in my life as a child, and I sought to pass them on to each of you.  Have a few common threads running through our childhoods.

Growing up myself, my daddy would often regale me with totally made up stories.  Tall tells of his own telling.  With over exaggeration abounding in his arm movements and facial expression.  Sometimes I'd ask for a standard tale, and suddenly Little Red Riding Hood was safe with the Three Bears.  I don't know if he couldn't keep them all straight or if it was just more fun to him to tell them that way.  

Mama on the other hand, sang me songs from her youth and read me story books.    Most of her songs came from a chorus book she kept as a teen.  Records being a luxury in the 30's and early 40's, her and friends would write down the words to popular songs in blue song books.  Then when they'd get together they'd sing the songs, just like they had heard on a radio or in a movie.  Mama sung me things like "Red Wing", "Won't You Come Over to My House?" and others.   I sang many of them I had memorized to you as babies and small children while I rocked you or lay in bed with you.  The old blue song book was getting frail and tattered.  Aunt Edna had it copied down and made copies for us.  In the mess we call this house, I have no clue where my copy is.  

I had story books as a youngster including "Wiggle Tail", "Sneezer", "Jolly Jingles" and "Mother Goose".  Mother would read these books to me over and over.  Not with as much inflection as daddy put into his stories, but it was always soothing to hear her low, light voice reading to me.  Later when I had first learned to read, I read them over and over to myself.  These same stories I read to each of you as babes, along with newer fair that we picked up along the way.  And today, for the first time I shared one with Baby Ruth that had been one of Bug's favorites.  

It's my hope that the love and warmth and time spent quietly together will transcend the generations and pass on to each of your children and even theirs.  It yields a continuity to each life along the way that connects even Baby Ruth to my mother she'll never know this side of Heaven. 

Recent Events

Well, recent history is more like it.  The two of you, your lifetimes in this world have included experiences that no one of my mother's or your grandparents generations had experienced.  I can mark history making events that coincided with each of your early years. 

Right before Bubba was born, we had President Reagan asking Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"  Through a behind the scenes letter writing campaign, the Russian Government did tear down the wall.  And for the first time in mine & your daddy's lifetime German's enjoyed a whole Germany.  Then the Soviet Union broke up into separate states and for the first time any living American could remember, The USSR was not our scariest enemy.

Bubba I held you and nursed you as the protests in Tien An Men Square in China played out before our eyes on evening news broadcasts.  Young Chinese students standing down tanks and demanding their voices be heard in Communist China.  You don't know what this means in a country where the population is controlled by forced abortions.  Where they have had the ability to field an army the size of what the Bible speaks of at Armageddon since my teens.

Then came the first Gulf War.  We took part as the nation for the first time ever held hands all the way across the mainland of America to pray for our troops and God's deliverance.  We stood in front of First Baptist Church in Silsbee to do this.  Then the war was over immediately and it was our "technology" that got the praise for it, instead of our God. 

Hannah Bug was a toddler running around our little house under my feet as the news came pouring across the TV screen as the American Mainland was attacked in the 9/11 suicide missions.  Bubba was at school, daddy was at Uncle Tommy's building cabinets.  Nothing ever felt as good as all of us back together under one roof that evening!  That's when I became obsessed by the news for the longest. 

Then 2005 rolls around.  We all watched as New Orleans was swamped by a hurricane.  I was so fearful that the Superdome would turn into the world's largest swimming pool and drown the victims it was trying to protect. 

Hardly any time passed and there we were under the gun for Rita.  On the one hand, no one living in our area could ever remember being affected by a hurricane.  By the tornadoes one spawned on the "bad" side yes.  But not by the actual storm.  On the other hand, there was New Orleans as proof something could happen for the first time.  Being on the highest piece of ground in Hardin County and being too broke to go away and stay anywhere we made plans to ride it out at home. 

Yet my blood still ran cold as I read the last minute warnings coming from the hurricane center, saying as many as 1/3rd of the trees could come down with her winds.  We took every safeguard we could think of.  I did more than I ever would have if it hadn't of been for New Orleans recent devastation.  As it came in we all sang together.  Cuddled.  Watched and listened.  And prayed.

We came through it in one piece.  And every detail is recorded in my Storm Stories.  What struck me the most was how it effected people like Polk, Jr.  One of the Greatest Generation.  That won WWII and built America into the land flowing with milk and honey.  It seemed to shake him to his core.  He never seemed the same after Rita.

I mention some of these things because they are part of you.  Part of what you should carry forward in your lives.  Milestones for Texas, America and the world. 

Quilts

Quilts.  The old timey kind of quilt is an amazing thing to sleep under.  They had cotton batting in the middle, not some new miracle fiber.  A good quilt had weight to it.  And they were stitched by hand, not on sewing machines. 

The pieces they were made of were actually just an accumulation of scraps of material leftover from dresses, curtains...anything the women who made the quilt had made in the past year or two.  It was a beautiful way to use the leftovers, what could of been waste.  Many things in bygone days were put to use that way.  Those who lived this way were the first & foremost recyclers.  They recycled not with an eye on the environment, they recycled out of need and to stretch a buck. 

Feed sacks and flour sacks became garments.  Jars were washed and saved for home canning.  This is the generation your grandmother, Jessie Ruth, came from.  I remember always being covered by a quilt or multiple quilts in the winter months.  I remember a quilt was taken along for picnics and other such outdoor activities. 

There should be a stack of quilts in the far left corner of the attic in our old house.  Most of those were used during my childhood.  They all became tattered and worn in different ways over the years of use.  Who made them?  I'm sorry I can't tell you so & so made this one or any other such thing.  I know mama and her sisters knew how to quilt.  I know that mama's first mother-in-law, Mama Epsie, was a quilter.  Did she or Mama make them all?  Did Mama Ruth, mother's mother, have a hand in any.  I don't know.

It has always been my dream to take them to a master quilter.  To have them restored and put back to use within  the family.  But funds for such an endeavor has always stood in my way.  I haven't given up.  Perhaps there is still a chance I can do that and divide them between you before I pass on.  Then again, I may never be able to.  But now you know the story behind them...as much of it as I know.  And perhaps it will be one of you who can breath life into these masterpieces once again.

Pages...why does your mother write in a blog?

I thought perhaps you might wonder why your mother writes and posts on a blog.  So, I'll answer that for you.

We had just gotten our first computer, a hand-me-down from daddy's job with Larry Parks.  We bought and installed a modem and picked up an AOL disc and suddenly, we were high-tech rednecks.  As I was poking around on it when I was home alone, I found an area of AOL called Journals (or J-Land).  I thought to myself, look any AOL member can start a journal.  That might be fun. 

As I mulled it over, I realized it would be a perfect avenue for me to share my experiences with and lessons from God with other women.  I had promised God I would.  And there was a burden in my heart to find new avenues to do so.  So, Life & Faith in Caneyhead was born.  If you go back and read from the beginning you can see me sharing these things.  Being faithful to His leadership.  Along the way, I met some amazing Christian women.  Some still follow me and blog themselves.  I've had two precious souls pass on to be with the Lord. 

As I did this, I realized how very much I missed writing.  I hadn't written for anyone but me since I left school.  I enjoy it.  It is no work at all for me.  I have a thought, I sit down and I type.  I just try my very best to capture and express what I am thinking and feeling at that time. 

And this avenue that I've found makes it so much more fun!  Others come by and read what I've wrote.  Some are touched.  Some cry, some laugh, some question. 

I probably will never be a super mega blogger.  I don't follow fads or trends.  My writing, all of it, if still for me or the Lord first....everyone else is just invited along to join us.  I may never earn any money of consequence from it.  But then, it's a hobby to me, not a business. 

But it has its rewards.  I have gained friends that I feel I know in flesh and blood.  I've found I'm not as strange as the meaning of my name suggests.  I've had the honor of recording history here (with my Storm Stories).  I've been able to lighten someones day.  I've moved people, connected with people.  I have a folder in my email titled Proof of His Faithfulness.  There I've saved aways comments or emails from readers whose lives were touched or troubles were helped by what I wrote.  That is something beyond anything I could imagine when I first started out here.

And it is also a labor of love to you.  Because even if my time in front of this screen seems silly to you now, I know all too well how precious what is recorded here can be one day down the road.