Lots of people like to enrich their lives by reading. Some people enjoying thrillers, romance novels, mysteries, inspirational books and historical books. Some people read for pleasure, some read for escape and some read to learn. My Grandma called herself “book poor,” suggesting that she bought so many books she was poor. She spent her whole life surrounded by books. She sat on her lazy boy chair with wicker baskets of books within reach. Bookshelves full of books lined the walls on both sides of the television in the living room. Books in closets, in bedrooms, in baskets on the floor; she could have very easily opened a book store.…

 I consider myself to be a resilient person who is almost always friendly, even when life may not be so smooth. In fact, when I was in college my best friend’s roommate was a depressed girl; that came from a broken home resulting in a strained relationship with her Dad. She almost never smiled, tried to control others, talked down to friends and her moodiness was cancerous. One night at a party on UT campus, her tough walls were down and with tears in her eyes, she asked,   “Why are you always so happy?” I had known this girl since kindergarten, and even at 5 years old I can remember…

Spiritual Courage The day after praying for the accident victim on the road, I was still at my sales meeting and not myself. In a large conference room, we stared blankly facing a big screen and stage, listening to boring departmental speakers sprinkled with some speakers that actually had pertinent sales content. Traditionally, our company hires a motivational speaker to speak at the end of the most tortuous day of the meeting. Upper management surprises us with a secret guest speaker, probably hoping to re-energize us, wake us up or to end a long tiresome day on a high note. We weren’t sure who the guest speaker was this year.…

The other day I was mad at myself because I was in a funk.  The weather at the beach was terrible. The skies were dark, water calm and the beach didn’t look pretty at all. I was sulking about something I couldn’t control and wasting precious time at the beach being bummed. I sat in my lawn chair, thinking about how much it would cost to jump on a plane to St. John Virgin’s Island from Orlando. Then, wondering if the other side of Florida was clear skies and sun, should we drive to Clearwater Beach, only 2 ½ hours away? All I kept thinking was I’ve waited over 8…

Walking along the sandy beaches of Cocoa Beach, Florida, there are thousands of footprints in the sand going in all directions. There are tiny children’s footprints, adult foot prints, dog foot prints and bird footprints. There are so many footprints that most people don’t notice them at all, they seem to blend into the beach landscape. That is until they are washed away by the tide to start a clean slate for the next fun filled day in  the sun. One day this week, a particular footprint caught my eye, one of the most disturbing footprints I’ve ever seen. So much that I turned around to show my husband.  We both…

N.A.G Now Ask God! All of us are guilty of nagging, wheither we nag our spouses, our kids, friends or family. Most of the time, nagging gets you nowhere!  I’m not saying to stop communicating, but  start praying about how to communicate your needs in a loving way. Then, back off and let God do the transforming.  The bible tells us that the tongue is ” a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” I know from personal experience that I can definitely have a sharp tongue especially when I am passionate on a subject and feel like I’m not being heard. Many times when we nag our husbands or wives or kids, it becomes a source…

  Living  Life Through God’s Perspective Yesterday was a long day of flight delays due to bad weather in Florida. Not sure why hanging out at an airport makes you so tired and drained, but it does. You know when your tired, sometimes your not quite yourself.  After we got our rental car, we went stopped into a gas station before we got on the toll road to get some change.  The guy at the rental car counter warned us not to run any tolls or anything because there was a fine of $50.00 per incident. We hadn’t planned on running any tolls, but we don’t know the toll roads. We were afraid that we would get to a…

God places people In Your Path at Just the Right Time Between my freshman and sophomore year in college, I worked as a dispatcher for job orders for turning on and off electrical service. Not the most exciting job in the world, but I worked with a man named Hayden who made it fun. He was a quirky, silly man who kept me laughing with his weird jokes like, “Do you know no matter how hard a fish swims he never sweats?”Or telling me stories of how he used to crank call pizza places by asking them, “Can you cut the pizza in 4 slices because I can’t eat 10?”…

Flying High or Flying Low? This morning I woke up to a sky filled with beautiful hot air balloons. There were at least 10 scattered all over the sky, gliding in a background of rolling hills, fluffy clouds and a light blue sky.  From my window, I had a thought,  the driver of each of these balloons has a choice on how high they fly or how low they fly. Some of them were so high in the clouds that they seemed to be touching heaven, while others were so close to the ground or hills ; it looked as if they could crash.    

 Is HE Getting Your Attention? Moving to Austin: Years ago, I moved to Austin because of a new job.  I was in a strange city with no family.  After a long weekend of moving  into a new apartment, my   family and boyfriend had to leave.  After I shut the door behind them, a saddness came over me and a fear of the unknown. I began to cry pretty hard, feeling all alone and unsure of what would come. I went into my bedroom and plugged in my alarm clock. To my amazement, the alarm clock was on a Christian station with a beautiful song about HIM being with me. I began to cry even harder and remember saying, ” I…