Louder Than the Voices

When I was in about 6th grade, I decided I wanted to try to be in the McDonald's All-American band. Although it would have been neat to be in, my main reason was, they marched in the Rose Bowl Parade, the granddaddy of them all and I really wanted to march in the Rose Bowl parade. It just so happened that my junior year of high school, I did just that, with our own high school marching band. I never imagined such a thing could happen. Here's the deal, and something you need to remember. The thing I wanted was to be in that parade . I thought I saw the only way to do it.   God saw another way . Remember that. I still have a list in my head of things I would like to do before I die. One of those things is to play in a pit band for a musical. Last week, I get a message from one of my high school band directors asking if I would like to be in the pit band for Lincoln Trail College's production of Into the Woods. I was both honored and mortified. The funny thing was I was s...

It appears I have been on an "Attitude" theme and didn't even realize it. This past week has been chocked full of emotional events and I was trying to figure out what to write about when my computer completely refused to work for me this morning. And then it dawned on me, my favorite Beatitude that isn't written in the Bible, but there are plenty of verses to prove it. Blessed are the flexible, for they never get bent out of shape. I don't know who came up with it, but I sometimes remind myself of it multiple times daily. We know we are not the ones in control and that God is. There are days we might get upset because that stoplight stayed red too long, one too many people asked you to get something done right this minute, or you meant to mow the yard on your day off and it is pouring.  We are tempted to get upset about these things and the thing is, we don't see the big picture and we don't know what chain reaction any one of these things can be start...

It seems this week has caused a lot of turmoil for a lot of people. There are problems going on in our little community and I honestly don't know most of it, I just know people I love have been hurt and are hurting. One of my friends has taken it to task to point out the positives in things this week. She has used the hashtag #bethegood for most of the week. When she started it, I had no clue there was something in particular going on, but the fact is, this little hashtag made me look at something in my own life a little differently.  As most of you know, Andrew has a home repair/ improvement business. Tuesday evening, he texted me and told me he couldn't stand to be on his knees any longer and he was coming home. He had two more hours left to work and my first thought was, NO, you have GOT to keep working, this normally comes along with some anger on my part. Let me say, this is all easy for me when I'm not the one down on my knees. But, BECAUSE of the little hashtag, I ...

My Tale of Two Kitties If you know me at all, you probably know we share our house with two cats and a dog. Today, I'm sharing a bit about the two cats. Gibbs' story began on August 10th, 2014. Robert and a friend of his was out for a ride in the rain and saw a little mass laying in the road. Thinking it was a baby squirrel, and these boys being the fine young people they are, they stopped. Robert jumped out to get whatever was in the road, I believe the original intent was to see if they could get a baby squirrel back to its mom. When Robert grabbed the little ball, it was a kitten. The boys then took the time to look around for the momma or any other kittens and finally decided the little guy was all alone and that wouldn't do. Ever since that day, Gibbs has never seemed to forget where he came from, how he was rescued and the fact that Robert and our family gave him a very different life than what he could have had. Needless to say, we are all sure if he would have...