Ooooh, more stresssssssss! But that’s okay, because I know how to get to my “Happy Place.” Just pick up one of my delightful books by Miss Read, add a fresh-brewed cup of coffee, and I’m there! 🙂
photo courtesy of dream-wallpaper.com
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 7
This whole past week of posting mostly nonsense about coffee has been so relaxing I just may do it for another week. I might even throw in a cup of tea for my British friends. I do enjoy a cup of hot tea frequently too.
Whatever your drink of preference, I hope you enjoy your day.
photo courtesy of Luiz Jorge Artista @ pixabay.com
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 6
JOE ON THE GO
Carry-out coffee is one of the greatest inventions of the human race. Okay, maybe that’s a little over-the-top where praise is concerned, but for people in the 21st century who have to be on the move for 12 to 15 hours of every 24, it’s a genuine blessing.
Note of interest: I’ve often wondered why coffee is sometimes referred to by the nickname “Joe.” There are several theories out there, but the one that seems to me to be the best substantiated is the one concerning former Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels. Here’s the link to that story: “Why Coffee Is Called ‘Joe.'”
graphic courtesy of Verbera @ pixabay.com
Why I Wrote ‘The Smoky Mountain Novel Series’
My love affair with the Smoky Mountains began when I was still a very young child. Except for a two-year stint in Fort Wayne, IN, my years between infancy and first grade were spent in Southern Illinois. And all of our family travels took us into the northeastern sections of the country. But when I was six, my family traveled south for the first time. On our way to South Carolina, we passed through Tennessee, and I came face to face with the homeland of my Cherokee ancestors: the Appalachian Mountains – and specifically the area known by that time as The Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
I remember two specific things about those mountains. In one sense they were a little frightening to a six-year old. Highways were not what they are now, and the less developed highways ran in among those mountains with a little more drama than they do today. The inclines were exceptionally steep in places, with warning signs everywhere about making sure autos were in lowest gear and with stories rampant about “runaway” semis going down those inclines. I remember coming around curves more than once where the road looked as though it would literally lead straight into the mountain. It was a little overwhelming in one way, but it was also tremendously exciting as well. The second thing that struck me was that within these mountains and their foothill regions dwelt people of a different culture and attitude toward life. It wasn’t just the Cherokee people who exhibited that difference. It was virtually all the people who called that place home.
That particular trip touched, not just me, but also my parents. They fell in love with Tennessee and decided that they wanted to live there. When an opportunity came to do so – through a job opening in Nashville, TN – my parents jumped at it. Nashville wasn’t in the mountains, of course, but it was a lot closer. I can honestly say that I have never lived any place that was so special to me as Nashville, Tennessee. I fell in love again – with the city of Nashville and the whole state of Tennessee.
In the years following, my family and I made many trips into the Smoky Mountains. We saw the Park and the surrounding towns change considerably during that time, but the area never lost its unique culture. And having a strong Cherokee heritage in my own life, the older I got the more I wanted to know and be known by the people who had given me my great grandmother. My immediate family and I eventually moved back to Illinois, but we have never stopped visiting the Smoky Mountains.
I’ve wondered sometimes if there’s something in my own blood that calls me home to the Smokies. I don’t recall ever visiting any other place – or even living in any other place – that kept pulling me to come back to it the way the Smokies do — or where I felt so much as if I were “home” each time I visited. Over more recent decades, I’ve tried to maneuver some things in my live and work out a way to have my work and my everyday life in the midst of that area of the country. But the Lord has kept opening doors to the ministry He wants me to do in other areas instead. So those other areas remain my world of everyday life. And, alas, I am still relegated to making visits to my mountains.
But those visits, over the years, have gleaned me an entire family of wonderful characters who do get to live and love and work and play right in the midst of the Smokies. So I’ll have to settle for that. When writing the books in The Smoky Mountain Series, I’ve lived there with them and enjoyed being “home” for all those months. There’s one more book to come, so I’ll continue that enjoyment as I write Book 5: This Fire In My Heart. I’m grateful that, through these books, I can truly live in two worlds at the same time.
My heart’s telling me that it’s time I worked things out in my schedule to make another trip to that place that’s the next best thing to Heaven. In fact, on my most recent trip to the Smokies, I picked up a little magnet for my refrigerator door that says, “Heaven’s a little closer in the mountains.” Ahhh, YES, INDEED, IT IS!
If you’d like to read the series, you’ll find the first 4 books in paperback and digital HERE.
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 5
The heroes and heroines in all my novels love coffee. It’s a given because intelligent, fascinating, delightful people always do. 🙂
photo courtesy of Fernando Zhiminalcela @ pixabay.com
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 4
I need a bigger cup. In fact, I don’t think there’s enough coffee in this whole world to deal with all the stress of this day!!!
Tomorrow just has to be better.
photo courtesy of StockSnap @ pixabay.com
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 3
~ COFFEE BREAK IN PROGRESS ~
~ PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB ~
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Listening To God’s Voice
Matthew 11:15
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Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 2
CHECKLIST FOR THE PERFECT HUSBAND
1. Must love coffee
2. Must be able to brew a great pot of coffee
3. Who cares? If he’s nailed the first two, he’s bound to get everything else right.
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photo courtesy of Nathan Dumlao at Unsplash
Happy May Day!
Hey,
Today is the first of May!
That means that Spring is here to stay!
Hooray!
Let’s Talk Coffee – Day 1
I’m trying to take a week off from all serious work — including serious posting. I might be able to stick with it, and I might not. But I’m at least beginning. And what better way to relax than with a few great cups of coffee????? Join me.
Every day is a new adventure. When you begin with a great cup of coffee, you just know that adventure is going to lead to something good.
photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash
Scarlet Sunset
Jonah: Lessons From a Deep-Sea Diver
My most recent teaching video. Hope it inspires you.
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Old Ladies Get to Sit in Rocking Chairs and Sing Hymns
Old ladies get to sit in rocking chairs and sing hymns. I just figured that out. I can almost hear some readers asking, “Why would you think that?” My answer: Because I’m sitting here right now in the early morning, rocking contentedly and singing one of my favorite hymns:
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh what a foretaste of glory divine.
Heir of salvation, purchase of God.
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.”
It’s one of my favorite ways to start my day — this rocking and singing and reading God’s Word. I have some of my best chats with the Father in this old rocking chair. And a few days ago it suddenly hit me that I was doing exactly what other women of God have done for generations — particularly in their senior years.
I remember vividly staying overnight with my grandparents on my dad’s side of the family and waking every morning to the sound of my grandmother Daisy singing hyms quietly as she sat rocking in the living room. The bed where I slept was positioned so that I could see far enough into the living room to see her sitting there with a cup of coffee and enjoying that quiet time wiht the songs about the Lord on her lips.
But it was my great-grandmother on my mon’s side of the family who made the greatest impression on me. He name was Rosie, and she was a little woman, but strong and sturdy inside and out. She was a strong Spirit-filled Christian. She prayed in tongues, twirled and danced before the Lord in church services and generally lived her life as something of a fanatic for Jesus. She and her husband farmed, but even after she became a widow, she planed her own huge garden every year, tilled it, harvested it, and walked down hot, dusty country roads to take the bounty to other families.
She was also a no-nonsense person with great common sense. Grandma Rosie never sat waiting for her cup of coffee to get cool enough to drink. She simply poured some into her saucer so it cooled instantly, and she slurped it from that saucer.
She really believed what she read in God’s Word. She trusted the Lord for good health all her life and never even saw a doctor until she broke her arm when she was in her nineties.
Grandma Rosie had a rocking chair as well. A place where she rested and prayed and worshiped the Lord in her own heart. And I’ve often thought she must have spent at least a few hours sitting in that chair praying for her children and grandchildren.
The most important thing to me about her rocking chair is that I now sit in it every single day. It isn’t just a family heirloom to me. It means so much more. I know for sure that the generations of believers who have gone before us have prayed for us and opened doors to God’s involvement in our lives in more ways than we will ever know until we meet those people in Heaven. Their faithfulness in times of struggle and their prayers of faith on our behalf have helped forge who we are and what we’ve accomplished.
Every time I sit in this rocker, I think of my Grandma Rosie, and my heart overflows with gratitude for her and her life. But even more, my heart overflows with gratitude and worship to the Lord for all He’s done for me — and all He’s still doing.
This quiet time in my rocking hair with the Word is unique.The Lord draws close to me — or perhaps I should say I draw close to Him, for He’s always as close as I’ll allow Him to be. But I’m very aware of His closeness as I sit here meditating on His Word and the words of faith that flow with the melody of the hymns I sing.
Am I an “old lady”? I don’t feel like one at all. I’m only 71. But I’ve decided that just for this one purpose — having he right to sit rocking and singing to the Lord for a while each day — I think I do want to be an “old lady.” Because it’s true: old ladies get to sit in rocking chairs and sing hymns.
“This is my story; this is my song:
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story; this is my song:
Praising my Savior all the day long.”
Hymn lyrics by Fanny J. Crosby
Lenten Poems — week 6
THE PRICE IS PAID
How deep and dark the grave in which they laid the Lord.
And naught to give Him hope except the Father’s Word.
But ’twas enough, for God had said, “When day three comes,
You’ll rise with life anew and come again to Home.”
Throughout the vigil, silence reigned and men did mourn.
And in the halls of Hell, the demons, they did groan:
This man from off the cross had stormed their barriers staid.
Hell panicked at the word from Heaven: “The price is paid!”
Then Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, stepped forth
And grasped the keys of Death and Hell with violent force.
Then rose through realms beneath to burst from earth and grave.
His shout of victory rang abroad: “Mankind is saved!”
