Count It All Joy... James1:2

 All I have to say is Imperial Margarine, for some of my readers to understand the name of this blog. I would encourage the rest of you to Google Imperial Margarine commercial some time. Especially the 1970’s commercial with both the little girl and little boy trying the margarine. They are really cute.  When I was little, my grandma had a box of old jewelry in her dresser that we were allowed to play with. I loved layering on necklaces, clip earrings, and rings while making believe I was a princess (this is probably where I got my love of bling). The only thing missing was the tiara. But I have a great imagination, so the tiara was there too. I even tried eating Imperial Margarine. Unfortunately, Da dada DAH… doesn't  really put a crown on your head. 🤣 My mom and dad never permitted “princess” behavior. However, I must admit I have had my share of princess attitudes. Wanting what I want when I want. Of course, there were consequences when these little “princess” fits ha...

When we think of the parable of the seeds, we think of the story of seed placement.  You know. Some fell by the wayside, some fell on stony ground, some fell among the weeds, some fell on good ground… And on and on. We all know that story   I, personally, am a gardener and I get all that.  I like the other parable of the seed, singular.  “What one is that?” you say. Read on… Here is The Parable of The Seed. Jesus also told them this parable: “God’s kingdom realm is like someone spreading seed on the ground. He goes to bed and gets up, day after day, and the seed sprouts and grows tall, though he knows not how. All by itself it sprouts, and the soil produces a crop; first the green stem, then the head on the stalk, and then the fully developed grain in the head. Then, when the grain is ripe, he immediately puts the sickle to the grain, because harvest time has come.                Mark‬ ‭4‬:‭26‬-‭29‬ ‭TPT‬‬ I know the basics of ...

 In this microwave, instant, face paced world you would think everything would be done quickly. We have fast food to ease our hunger. We have movies on demand to entertain us. We have the internet at our fingertips at all time to look up information, to find something we just can’t live without, to get money and give money (if anyone is itching to do this, let me know), to do so many thing we don’t even need to get out of our chair. We live in a world of “I want it now!”  And we get it now! Herein lies the dilemma. These things are not life saving or even life changing. But the things that are… We wait.  I recently saw on social media where people were excited because someone they knew wanted baptized. Thank you Jesus. This is so wonderful! As I read on it was stated the baptism would be at the end of the month baptism service. Why not now!  I have heard people ask someone to pray for them and that person tells them “I’ll request prayer for you at church!” Or someone...

 Doors. Doors! DOORS!  We all look for that one door that will catapult our lives, whether spiritual or natural, to pinnacles of superiority and knowledge. So we look closely at the doors before us… - One is a common wooden door with a shiny doorknob. Nothing special. Just a door.  - One is a door made of thatch and mud. The only doorknob is a piece of string.   - One is a stain glass leaded door. It sparkles and shines. It has a crystal door knob.  Which one to choose? Which one to choose? We want splash. We want importance, so we walk determinedly up to the stain glass leaded door and knock.  We wait… we knock again… we pound just in case whoever is inside didn’t hear us. Aaaannnndddd nothing! We stand for a while waiting. We sit down and wait some more. We look around for a window to peer into to see who’s home. Still waiting. NO. ONE. ANSWERS.  Okay. So why are you still knocking on THAT door?  Let’s go back a step. Which one to choose? T...

I started this blog, not to be trendy, but to give a voice to my thoughts. Now giving voice to my thoughts doesn’t mean I have voices in my head. Though it has been said that I have them and sometimes I even listen to and answer them.  Giving voice to my thoughts is a way for me to help others find their way back to themselves. As a child PT (pre-Tim), I was the youngest and smallest of three children. There was my brother Keith who was the oldest. Outgoing, bigger than life in personality and 4 years ahead of me. I was in awe! Then the other girl in the family, my big sister Cyndi. She was smart, responsible, looked out for me, and was 2 years ahead of me. I was a small girl in a loud family, so sometimes I had to be loud to be heard. The saving grace was I was the baby. Then just about when I found my nitch as the baby girl, enters Tim!  My voice was even harder to hear.  But in our family, mom always found a way to make time for each of us kids. Even if it meant lett...

”Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape . “ Anonymous I am quite sure this is one of the lost beatitudes. If not, it should be! I have finally😁 reached middle aged and have found that when I get up in the morning my muscles and bones groan at me. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I’ve heard my body say “what were you thinking!”, after a hard day at work unloading a truck.  We know that the less we move the more our bodies lose mobility and the closer we are to being O L D! Shiver! So we keep moving to keep our muscles flexible and our bones moving. So what about our attitude and spiritual flexibility?  Hmmmm. How often does someone we know (sometimes the person in the mirror that we know intimately) get  totally bent out of shape by a relatively small event?  Instead of flexing to meet the situation or flexing around someone else’s attitude, we add a big helping of our own attitude. Our spirituality starts cracking and WE break ...

During a recent trip to our local Christian bookstore I found books on all the stages of "womanhood".   1 Growing up 2 Dating 3 Finding true love 4 Getting married 5 Raising your children 6 Growing old with your spouse   With a couple of extra stages for the difficult times.  7 Back on the market 8 Dealing with loss It struck me as a single woman (from birth I might add) that there weren't many books about single and loving it. Or it's okay to be single for life. Not that we need that affirmation. But... It appears by the book titles that we (unclaimed treasures) are missing out on something somewhere in our lives. We've been left behind somehow.  While traveling with my family, we were preaching at a church in Arkansas. One young girl was upset because she was still unmarried at the "old and advanced" age of 16!  If you weren't married by 16 you were considered an old maid. To my chagrin, I was 19 or 20 at the time...