Jake

Did you ever have something happen to you that was so sad that you were sure your heart would never recover? That maybe you would never laugh or be lighthearted again? Mama's cancer has made my heart heavy.

When Trevor laughs, it is innocent and care free. I smile and wonder if the wounded places in my heart will ever heal enough to laugh like that? Or maybe just be forgotten for for a minute. It happened that day on the mountain when I saw the iris garden. I was ready for it to happen again. I needed it to happen again. I said to God, " I just want to laugh, can I please just laugh."

We were on our way to Mobile to see Whitney in a play. We stopped at Priesters Pecans, a shop kinda like Cracker Barrel but the main thing is the pecans. They even have free samples. I always go and look at the Life Is Good stuff and see if they have just the right shirt for me. Then I saw it, and my heart relaxed and I went to a sweet place of summer fun and belly laughs, of sunburned cheeks and swimsuit that I looked just fine in. A place where sleep came easy as I whispered secrets in the night to my best friend, my sister.

The shirt is blue, of course, and it has a stick figure of Jake jumping off a dock. All my young summers were spent near or in water. It was me. $25 for a T-shirt hurt my feelings a little so I left it there, but I thought about it several times over the weekend and every time I smiled all the way to my toes. On the way home we stopped at the same store again. The shirt was still there and the cotton pickin' thing was still $25. I left it there again.

I kept thinking about that shirt and what I felt when I saw Jake sailing off that dock. My skinny, mischievous little Debbi, of way back then, smiled every time and suddenly I had an idea. Trevor and I had an art project the next day.




Now I see Jake every time I take a shower, or sometimes I go in there just to look. Maybe I should have painted "him" in a bikini.

Here is another thing that makes me smile. My hidden bag of Oreos. So if I need just one after a meal or something like that, there is always one there. You might wonder how I keep it secret in a house of lots of people. We'll I can't tell you, cause then it wouldn't be a secret.

I'm gonna go now. I'm gonna go put some finishing touches on my art project. I think there needs to be some friendly rays on the sun, just like little Debbi used to draw when summers were long and fireflies were everywhere. When she played mermaid underwater at the lake and sometimes....she flew, like Jake.

Flower Beds

Hi everybody,

The weather here in the mountains  of North Carolina has just gotten warm enough to really get in the yard, so in case you've missed me, that's where I have been. I have been weeding flower beds, spreading mulch, fertilizing, pruning, and planting flowers that I brought home frome Daddy's He gave me zinnas, marigolds, mexican petunias, a trumpet flower and some other kind that I can't remember the name of. So far they are still alive. I have dirt under my fingernails and in my shoes and, the day Allison "helped" me, I had dirt ground in from head to toe. She thought that we should look like we had been working. We did.

I would love to send you pics of me in the dirt but there are some things  that need to remain a secret, like how I look one work days.

Free Again!!

I am cancer free!!

I promise to write more later. Right now I have to get out in the yard and do some diggin' in the dirt.

This has been a long road. Thanks for traveling with me.

I Have Loved You

Last week I was " just not right". I knew I needed a walk up the mountain to challenge my body and lift my spirits. Besides, I knew where there were wild iris blooming. They bloom in a secret hiding place every year. I walked up kinda dragging my heart behind me. I passed my mother-in-laws house, went off Chinquapin Trail and onto a little used path the goes right on up the mountain . I crossed the stream getting my toes just a little bit wet. I didn't even care.Up the path a ways a tree had fallen across the path. I crawled over it and walked on. I was on a quest for wild iris' and Jesus.

I got to the place where the iris bed is. It is a wild bed planted by the One who plants all woodland beds. It wasn't there. I walked onward and upward because, even without the flowers, God speaks peace to me in this wood. As I walked I cried out, "My password to all my accounts is soaring (now clearly I have to change it). My heart has now soared in a very long time. Please, speak truth to me."

Immediately a voice inside my heart said, "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

My response was. " I know that but...."

That was as far as I got because at that second my gaze dropped and there was a whole garden of wild iris.


He really does love....me.

I am speechless,

and soaring!

Resting

cancer

Mama

spinning

falling

telling

crying

grasping

knowing

Daddy

plan

sisters

sharing

love

resting

Jesus I am resting, resting,

In the joy of what thou art.

I am finding out he greatness

Of thy loving heart.