My Annual Commencement Address to College Graduates - Class of 2010

Well, once again, since no one has invited me to be the keynote speaker for their college's commencement address, here is what I would say in my speech to the Class of 2010:

As you leave college and go out into the 'Real World,' remember humility. You are the blessed ones that had the privilege of college. You are the ones that didn't flunk out or drop out. You persevered. And you will most likely have to keep on persevering. Yes, college is a lot of studying but it's not on-the-job training. Never be haughty about your degree because somewhere out there is another person your age who may not have had the money to go to college but might be 'hungrier' than you are and be willing to work twice as hard and twice as long to get the job.

I'm not going to lie to you. In today's depressed economy in the U.S. and the world, it is harder to find a job than any other time in my lifetime. You may have to live with your parents, have several roomates or rough it for a few years.

Your future employers need to see a twinkle in your eye. What you don't have in experience, you can make up with in enthusiasm. Your younger age equals energy, something many need in jobs these days since most are doing two or three people's jobs as opposed to ten years ago. You need a 'can-do' attitude. You don't have the burn-out of those who are already working.

You will be like my grandparents' and parents' generations who remember the last Great Depression and told stories for the rest of their lives. Stories like feeding hobos their leftovers at the back door. They were more frugal and harder workers because of it. And they never forgot to be thankful for what they had because they knew what it was like to live without.

GO BOLDLY INTO THE FUTURE. Don't be afraid. God will be with you - just ask Him. He said He will never leave you or forsake you and He always means what He says. His word also says, "For God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind."

If you're not afraid to work, then you WILL find a job. Where there's a will, there's a way. You may have to get creative. You will definitely have to be patient. And you will have to be positive. Henry Ford said, "If you think you can, you can."

Here are some of my favorite quotes to live by from some wise people:

"The trouble with the rat race, is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

"When it's dark enough, you can see the stars."

"Courage is fear that has said it's prayers."

"To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."

"Bad is never good 'til worse happens."

"You can do anything but not everything."

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."'

"Those who wish to sing, always find a song."

"The best way out is always through."

"4 things you can't recover,

the stone, after the throw,

the word, after it's said,

the occasion, after it's missed,

the time, after it's gone."

"You can't run away from trouble, there ain't no place that far."

"We should give meaning to life, and not wait for life to give us meaning."

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

"If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have the chance at being a prophet."

And finally, the best words to live by in The Word:

"Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all other things shall you then be added."

Go boldly into the world.

May God be with you...

"All you can do is the best you can do." - my mom

I seem to be saying this a lot lately.

It seems like, for me and many others I know, that 'blood is trying to be squeezed from a turnip.' I think since the economy has gone sour, many of us are doing more than one person's job, and are getting weary. Most people I know in sales are being told that they will be fired if they are not reaching numbers from '07 and '08 (before the economy tanked.) At many places of employment, they have a hiring freeze or when someone leaves, they are not replaced. The others then have to make up for that position. I have this visual from 'Gone With the Wind' where they kept whipping that horse until it collapsed and died.

So, my word for you, is hold on. Pray that God will give you the energy to finish the task. And remember what my mother used to say, 'All you can do is the best you can do.'

It's all in God's hands.

Trash(y) Day at Fiesta Texas

I guess there are ups and downs on how I view America, and today was a downer... We went on our annual field trip for my youngest's schools band & choir to Six Flags theme park. I've never seen so many scantily clad skanks with abundant tattoos. Women and girls with their teets hanging out for all the world to see. And it looks like my 7th grader got a crash course in sex education, just by watching some couples in the wave pool. It wasn't that people were terribly rude? but just terribly crass. Lots of vulgar language - not a surprise there. Several young men that definitely must have been in gangs with tattoos all over their bodies and heads... People vomiting on rides and in the waterpark water rides. Children grabbing for floats and not caring who had been waiting. Children cutting in front of us several times in food lines. People cutting in front of you for pretty much everything. (Oh and most people were either obese or borderline.) Maybe it was the extreme high heat and extremely high humidity that made everyone temporarily insane?

But it was anarchy... too many rats in too small of a cage. Ugh!!!!!!!!!

Too tired to blog!!!

Hi Bubbito, I'm sorry you had such a hard week. Next week will be better!

Hi Alex, Welcome to your new home! Your first new home! I can't wait to see it! It has a great vibe and reminds me of Mimi's too!

Hi DD, Whew! It's been way too busy lately! You did a great job at Maifest tonight!

I love each of you!!

"The trouble with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat." - Lily Tomlin

I need to remember this. I like to win... Isn't that what we're taught in America? To be the best. To beat everyone else? To make the most money?

The Bible says we're supposed to be content with what we have. And the 10th commandment says we're not supposed to covet. Hmmm... that's a lot of people's favorite past time.

So many people are trying so hard to beat everyone else at something, that they are forgetting to help other people. We're SUPPOSED to put others before ourselves. Hmmm, most people don't do that either....

I'll admit it. I'm competitive by nature. And I'm in sales, so I'm trying to always beat last year's numbers.

But I've got to be careful which races I choose to be in because in the big scheme of things, a lot of them just don't matter.

And really, when it's all said and done, the only race that really matters is the race to heaven...

And the winner is........ who cares?

Yes, I watched the American Idol Finale tonight. This season just couldn't keep my interest though, so I would tape it, and then not watch it. Paula Abdul evidently made the show. Her chemistry with 'the boys' was what made it cute, like you were watching a family. When they added Cara last year, it lost some of that, but then this year, they lost Paula and added Ellen. Huh? She's not a singer. She's a comedian who now has a talk show. And likes to dance. Big deal... And NO one had chemistry with Simon, and he looked incredibly bored all season.

The contestants seemed like many of the years, but after the last two, they just didn't seem as good? I can't quite put my finger on it....

Anyway, tonight's finale was very entertaining. Lots of old Baby Boomer singers passing the torch to the next generation. And it was the last Idol for Simon Cowell, so they did some cute tributes, but it wasn't overdone. Paula actually kind of stole the show in my opinion, but then I really liked her contribution. Then at the end, it was TERRIBLY unclimactic. I had already seen on the internet that Lee was going to win, and yes, sure enough, that was right. His voice is good, not excellent. And he seems like the guy next door, but no star power. The runnerup was a gal with dreadlocks and a great voice, but she almost quit months ago, and didn't really seem to want it anyway. I think America picked up on that.

Next year will just be even weirder...(sigh)

Season Finales........must be May

Ok, the end-of-the-year slam has now surpassed Christmas for craziness. Everything culminates in, like, two weeks of sheer wall-to-wall events. In the last two weeks of school, we've had 2 dance recitals, decorating for 8th grade graduation (prom-like pressure) dance, huge awards ceremony, choir concert, band concert, finals (that count 40% of her grade in 7th grade - this week), end of the year party for her class, end of the year field trip for band/choir, field trip for student council to Austin, field trip for class to Alamo, and Maifest (biggest school fundraiser.) Oh, and I was the crazier one that had a big garage sale in the midst of all of that....

It's also the season finales for all of the television shows, so every night is the big cliffhanger, to see if they will get picked up for next year. And tonight was the final performances for American Idol, the last Idol for Simon Cowell, and the Finale for Dancing With the Stars. Of course, it's also ratings month for TV so they pull out all the stops. I know when it's ratings with the San Antonio news stations without looking at the calendar, because if they do stories most weeknights on the strip clubs, we're definitely in ratings.

Yes, it's definitely time for summer and a break from all this. Maybe I'll get bored....

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt

I love living in a small town except for one BIG drawback. The gossiping. It's incessant. I left the city because it is so anonymous. You never know your neighbors. The traffic is soul-sucking. And constantly meeting new people opens people up to being rude, knowing they probably won't see them again. All of the reverse is true for a small town, except that everybody's in your business non-stop. You can't have an affair in a small town, which is good, so it doesn't attract those that might. But it does attract gossiping. At my old job, they used to have the decoy of prayer chain. That was really not to pray for someone, but just to have it quickly pass to the next with commentary. And now with social networking, Facebook, I found out a high school girl died in a wreck before her mother did...

The girls here start gossiping early. My youngest is in junior high, and the 'native' girls are always starting rumors, and often either complete lies, or partial lies. It's extremely irritating. I am trying so hard to rise above, which I can do on my better days, but then there are weekends like this past one, where I am having to count to 10 a LOT. Or 100. It helps that I work in a different town, because when I worked here, it was much, much worse. They even drive by your house to see where you live. And then tell you they did. It's kind of comical really. As soon as I move, they are all driving by, and checking it out. It's strange that someone cares... but then I always liked to have a lot of guy friends because they are so simple and easy to figure out, and honest. Most women will not be honest with you, and then stab you in the back. It's tiring. My mother used to say that if you end up with 5 loyal female friends as an adult, you should count yourself lucky.

Amen, mom...

"Being defeated is only a temporary condition, giving up is what makes it permanent."

I think I like this quote because it inspires me. My father committed suicide. I try not to think about it, but it hits me pretty often. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Time would have helped him with the death of my mother. And we, his children, had looked forward to getting to know him better, as my mother always ran interference.
It's also how you view money. When you're broke, it's temporary. When you're poor, it's permanent. One has hope and the other doesn't. When you have God in your life, you will always have hope. It's His promise. And it doesn't end with this life. No, the hope is for eternity, which really is what counts. We are on this earth for a tiny blip of time compared to all of eternity. That's where we need to invest for our future.
I read recently that when an interviewer asked Brad Pitt if he believed in God, he said, "No.... no.... NO!" He acted like it was a ridiculous question, like he was way too smart to believe in God. Here's a guy who has all that the world has to offer, great looks, great career, great money, a companion, beautiful children... and he doesn't credit God. He doesn't give thanks to the One who gave him all of that. And he was raised in church in Missouri... I cannot understand how someone can just invest for this life only.

If you're feeling defeated today, hold on. Don't give up... Eternity is forever. Jesus will hold your hand, and He will give you hope. For this life and the next.
Hold on...

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again..."

Just a quick post since I had my garage sale today. Ugh, Ugh, UGH!!! It's exhausting, but successful to make some extra bucks for bills...

My thought today is the oil spill. I have a really bad feeling about this. The media doesn't know what to say, but it's been weeks, and TONS and TONS of oil is now in the Gulf of Mexico.... My total disbelief is that BP didn't have a contingency plan. No plan B. No plan C. Nothing???? They NEVER anticipated that something could go wrong with the cutoff valve? And now they are having meetings with engineers and scratching their heads, and trying experimental domes? And will try to 'throw a bunch of tires on it?' And today, they said the next EXPERIMENTAL project may actually make it WORSE if it doesn't work. Oh my GOSH!!!!!!! Meanwhile the oil is washing up and soaking wetlands, and ruining the fishing in the Gulf, and tourism for the Gulf as summer is ready to start... Wow... I am usually pro Big Business, but these companies are all at fault. It seems a 'vein' has been hit, and the oil is gushing at a much higher speed than EVER anticipated...

God help us...

How Low Can You Go?

Well, a story in this week's news will show you. A man in Philadelphia that has cerebral palsy, left his motorized wheelchair and his dog, Benji, outside while he went in to pay for a sandwich for lunch. Someone stole both. In broad daylight. It was his only form of transportation.

How low can you go?? Evidently these days, lows keep getting lower and lower...

I know there have always been bad people but doesn't it seem like there are more these days? People are losing their moral compass... they don't care about others.

It's just dog-eat-dog non-stop.

(Yes, I'm really tired. I'm having a garage sale tomorrow. Why, I don't know. I will sell really nice things, and everyone will want to buy a sofa for $10. Aaaaaaaaah. I need a vacation...)

Girl Power

I have a LOT of respect for the Arizona governor. She's got guts. In the continuing saga of the world gone crazy, it's now controversial to pass a law in Arizona since the federal government won't enforce the laws on the books. Go figure. In all of the polls, most Americans want our border enforced. Duh. Even the Atlanta paper went into Arizona and did an expose that proved that TONS of Middle Easterners have gone into Mexico, tried to blend in with them, and then disguised themselves as Mexicans as they crossed into Arizona.

We drove to Disneyland two years ago from Texas and drove along the border, and it was barren. I found out later from people I know that drive to Las Vegas for trade shows, who said they never spent the night and drove straight through because it is really dangerous, and cars are stolen and vandalized all the time... You see the border control all the time, and it felt like we were in a war zone. And I guess, in essence, we were.

It's amazing to me that it takes a WOMAN to have the cajones to sign a law that protects Arizonians, is the best thing for Americans, but it's not politically correct with the liberals. Democrats who don't care about our safety but only about the next election, and passing amnesty before November so that the current illegal immigrants would then be legal and be able to re-elect them. They don't seem concerned that passing amnesty would then allow Social Security to these millions of people and break the country. And that these folks can then get health care (further breaking our country.) And would get free school lunch programs, unemployment, and every other thing that our citizens qualify for. It erases our border. Do we allow everyone in, and make them immediate citizens? And what about the muslims coming over who do not want to assimilate? What are their motives? Why would they want to come to a predominantly Judeo-Christian country? Why do they want to enforce their Sharia law in their areas of our country?

You gotta love Governor Jan Brewer. A true woman to admire...

To Alex

From an early age, you have always had such a good head on your shoulders... I always likened it to the shopping cart that just flowed down the aisle instead of the one that you had to manhandle to not run off into the shelves. You always took pride in yourself, and tried as hard as you could. All the time. On tests. On friends. On family. On your appearance. You are beautiful, intelligent, wise, witty, and classy, and have always stayed on the right path.

You have always been a huge help to me, and a wonderful daughter. We've been through a lot...

You're a survivor. Mimi used to say, 'We have pioneer stock in us,' and it's true. All of your ancestors came to Texas with a dream and hard work, and life wasn't easy, but they made it. And you will too. It must be where the expressions, 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' and 'bite the bullet' came from, because life was hard then, and might even be harder now.

In the Bible, it says, "for I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope." And He has a purpose for you and a plan for you. It says He will never leave you or forsake you. God takes care of His children; it's a promise. "For my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." And He cannot lie... 

I truly believe that if you can find something that you enjoy doing, then you WILL make money from it. I heard Oprah say that one day. She said she never, ever pursued money. She pursued her dreams, her desires, her loves. The money just followed. When you're content with what you do, the money will be enough. The 10th commandment is not to covet. That's a hard one. And not just other people's stuff, their situation as well. Everyone can look good on Facebook. Everyone can spin their life to look fabulous, but in truth, we all have our crosses to bear. No one ever said life is easy, and it isn't easy for anyone. Remember, 'seek first the kingdom of God, and all other things will you then be added.' I know I need to practice what I preach too, and I am preaching to myself first of all. But if we follow these things, it will all fall into place.

It has to, it's God's law.

"Those who wish to sing always find a song"

Well, our end of year slam continues with the End of Year Junior High Choir Concert... you can certainly hear and see the 'Glee' influence (in case you don't watch it, Fox has a great new show with great singing and dancing that is all the rage.) Looks like somebody noticed that Disney's 'High School Musical' was a huge surprise hit, and now many are trying to create similar shows....

And yes, most of the songs tonight were from previous generations...

And winning the silver medal is...

Yes, that's right, DD won the silver medal at the end of the year Awards Ceremony at her junior high. It's 2nd place overall academically for her grade based on GPA. This time of year is crazy, like Christmas, where we have something every night that lasts really late. whew! She also won awards in cheerleading and band. Go DD!!

"The hand that rocks the cradle..."

Since I'm not young anymore, I do have the advantage of being able to look back when I was younger and compare it to now. I live within an hour of where I grew up, and still have family in my old neighborhood, so the comparison is apples to apples. I guess I can put it in a nutshell to say that people are losing their morals in every facet of life. Democracy can ONLY work if the vast majority of people can be trusted. If they cannot, then it will all collapse, and it seems to be what is happening now. When I was young, most doctors got in that business as a calling, not for the huge money. They didn't make the money they make now. They made house calls when I was young (how's THAT for sounding old!) The majority of doctors really CARED what happened to their patients. And yes, many still do, but it is nothing like it was years ago. It's why we have a problem with 'healthcare.' We used to be able to trust the insurance companies. Now, many of them don't hire enough employees to answer the phone, so that we will lose our patience after holding for over 30 minutes, and give up. They find loopholes so they don't have to pay. It's greed. It's lack of morals. It's people not caring about people...

I could go through most businesses, and you would know what I'm talking about. Teachers don't care about their students like they used to. (And they are paid much, much better than years ago.) Nurses used to be 'Florence Nightingale's' but sadly now, most are not. Even many pastors now are choosing the profession to milk money from their flocks... The list goes on and on.

The World War II generation raised the Baby Boomers but something was lost in the switch. And now the Boomers have raised Generations X and Y, and more has been lost. This group for the most part, does not go to church. They take longer to get through college, and put off being an adult until they're thirty. They watched 'Friends' and now the twenties are an extension of college and growing up. They've put off having children and responsibilities until their 30's. I guess they watched their Boomer parents and decided none of that looked very fun. But I digress... the Boomers did not instill the ethics they were supposed to in their children. Maybe because mothers worked away from home so much, there was no time to instill them. And America is suffering in the worst way. Everybody is mostly out for themselves these days. We've become a spoiled nation who've become accustomed to fast food, fast internet and fast lives.

Unless this nation returns to God, then it will continue to deteriorate...

8th grade graduation dance

Finally, all of our hard work payed off - after days of decorating - success!!

"To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world."

I just saw the saddest story on News 8 in Austin. It was an African American guy, Jarod Smith, who has been featured every year for the past several years in their adoption coalition. He is the nicest looking kid who is now 19 and still wants to be adopted. Last year he aged out of foster care after having been through 35 foster homes and became homeless. He now lives in community housing and works at Wendy's. He doesn't have his drivers license, but wants one, it all costs too much money. He has no one to love him. He's been in foster homes since he was 10... He has dreamed of being adopted for nine years, and still wants a family. Still wants someone to love and to love him.

If there was any way I could do it, I would... I really would. I cannot give this young man what he needs, but PRAY that he can find it... SOON! It's heart breaking....

"In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." - Andy Warhol

Ok I'm really tired after decorating for 5 straight hours for an 8th grade graduation party, but here are my thoughts today... My mother used to tell me that when she was young, she would go to the circus, and they would have 'freak shows.' There would be the two-headed man or the gynormous fat lady, and everyone would stare at them... Well, hello, we just have a new name for it now. Reality shows, and everyone is trying to be the freak to be noticed. We've got the Gosselins, who took fertility pills and had sextuplets (after having 2 other children.) And now they're addicted to fame and starting their second reality show. We've got the Duggar family show, where they have a child every year for 20 years and name them something that starts with 'J,' until the most recent premature baby.... We had 'Balloon boy' that ratted on his dishonest parents sending up a weather balloon, trying to get a reality show, but landed in jail instead. And we have the young mom who is digging her grave with a fork in front of her young daughter. She's trying to win the Guiness Book of World records? or something similar, and is blogging about it and she eats massive amounts and gains massive amounts of weight, to the detriment of her health..... And the list goes on... ad nauseum... It's just sick.... totally sick... And this is what we've become.

Everyone is looking for their fifteen minutes of fame...

Travesty.......

The more I'm reading about this oil spill, the angrier I am becoming...

Why weren't these companies more careful? I have always been pro-drilling in the Gulf, but am starting to reconsider.

I love the ocean and it is so disconcerting to see these poor sea creatures dying. The South may not get to enjoy an ocean swim for a long time, and the tourism business will suffer greatly.

And now the three corporations involved are playing the blame game, of course, because we are now talking BILLIONS of dollars to clean this mess up. And even then, it will not be back to the way it was before. And of course, the oil is still leaking today.... a LOT.

If there were a Republican as president, that's all we'd be hearing about.

I'm just saying........

"Stand by your man" (song by Tammy Wynette)

I'm disappointed in the First Lady... I didn't vote for the current president, but now they are in the White House, and are my representatives for the U.S.A. 

A First Lady has such wonderful opportunities to really do some neat things. She could pick some really cool charities, and with her name on it, they could really soar.

What have we heard about her? She has a garden on the White House grounds. She buys organic.  She changed the waitstaff's clothes.  She loves designer clothes (with sleeveless dresses to show off her toned arms.) It's reported that she loves expensive cuisine like caviar and champagne. I know her mother lives at the White House and helps with her daughters. They go to Hawaii for Christmas. But I haven't really heard much else, and I'm in the news business. I follow news very closely.

We've had so many great First Ladies over the years. And we've had some strong-willed ones. But very few that didn't use their platform to advance their personal causes.

Laura Bush advanced women's causes, but the mainstream media didn't ever report much on her (except at Christmas to tour the White House decorations.) And Hillary isn't much of a girly-girl that liked to redecorate. She was more like the real Vice President during Bill's tenure. Nancy Reagan was known for talking to psychics. Lady Bird Johnson started the wildflower push in Texas. Eleanor Roosevelt was a pistol, and Abraham Lincoln's wife was, well, kind of crazy.

But Michelle? Quien sabe?

"You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far." - Uncle Remus

Am I the only person upset about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Why does no one seem to care? THIS IS HUGE PEOPLE!! HUGE!! It's ruining fishing in the Gulf. It's killing tons of marine life. It's ruining tourism. It is damaging the beaches for years in the Gulf states. It is hurting our environment. Our ocean.
Maybe it's so big that we are just looking the other way... because it's too big to think about. Like a bad dream. We stick our head in the sand.
Why isn't the government doing anything but flying over it and saying, "Wow, this is bad..." Why isn't the media covering it more than sticking it on page 15 of the newspaper? I know we all can't really do anything, except pray. But we can keep it on page 1, so that their 'feet are held to the fire' and something will get done.
When the Exxon tanker spilled years ago in Alaska, it was huge and took years and years to get back to some normalcy. But most of us were so far removed from Alaska, that it seemed like a different country. They already know that this situation is much, much worse. And this is in my backyard. Growing up, we went to the Texas coast every weekend, six months out of the year. It's my home away from home. I've fished often in the Gulf of Mexico, when we left at 5:30 am and didn't get to our destination until noon. I still know people who make their living off of fishing. And tourism. And here we are in the worst economy since the 1930's.... this will make things much worse. It's going to drive up the cost of gas. A lot.
I've watched the Texas beach go from acceptable to unacceptable, and that was before the oil spill. This is just the last nail in the coffin...
We need to pray, hard...

Mother's Day 2010

My three greatest gifts are my three children. I cannot imagine life without them... they are such a blessing to me. It's strange but after my own dear mother passed away, it hit me that one of the people who loved me most on this planet was gone. We go through this life and we have the family we grew up with, a spouse (possibly), children (possibly), and friends. If we don't have any of those groups as a blessing in our lives, then life is a LOT harder.
In the movie, "The Blind Side," the true story that Sandra Bullock just won an Oscar for, the young man she took in, didn't have anyone. Can you imagine that? No father. A crackhead mother with 12 children with different fathers. Siblings he didn't know. A friend who helped him in the beginning but later on did not. He had nowhere to go... He didn't have a mother that read childrens books to him as a child - his mother let him down. Then God brought him his 'angel' to step in and be his mother. We ALL need someone to love us. And mothers are at the top of that list.
And you see, it's mutual. We need a mother's love and mothers get to be loved back. It's an awesome experience. It's the most fulfilling 'job' and challenge you can take on. But you get the benefits in return that are far better, and for the rest of your life. And when you're older, next to God, they are all you have.
On Mother's Day, they honor me but it's ME that is honored to have them.
I love you Bubba, Alex and DD - you are my treasures....

"Memories, like the corners of my mind..."

To Bubba

I once heard a story of a man who was very poor and starving, and after he passed, the next owners found out his house was sitting on one of the largest deposits on oil in the country. And so it is with you. You are blessed with good looks, high intelligence, great sense of humor, great social skills and you live in the best state in the best country in the world. You have all the ingredients to 'make the cake.' Yes, life has given you some hurdles, but eventually you have gotten over them. It hasn't been easy for you, I understand... The best thing you can do now is to believe that you can achieve your dreams, with God's help.
There are those out there that excel who have come out of much worse situations; kids from the ghetto who decide that they will not be another statistic like their peers. At my last job, there was a guy in his early 30's who had a liver transplant, and after going through the terrible hell with that, his body rejected it a year later. Being that he was so young, with a young child, they found him a new liver (right before he was going to die) and he got a new one. He then stayed in the hospital and had surgery, after surgery... His wife was told that he had less than a 10% chance to live. At the area they had worked on, his body was like ground meat, and the doctors said they couldn't operate anymore. They got to where they could only tape him together. He had thousands praying for him... I emailed his wife at the transplant hospital in Dallas. I told her to tell her husband Michael to decide and decree that he will LIVE and he will be in that less than 10% of people that makes it. And he will be healthy and fine. She told him. And that's when he started to finally start healing. When he eventually walked out of that hospital, all of the nurses were crying. They knew how fortunate he really was. And that was only a few years ago. He still has to be checked often, but I see him jogging around town, and he competes in the Olympics for transplant recipients - a rare breed.
Bubba, you must decide. You must believe. Declare it to be so.
In Jesus' name.

"Everybody loves a clown, so why don't you?" (song by Gary Lewis)

Ok, I just watched 'The Mentalist' where the killer was in a clown suit, and it got me thinking... When I was pregnant with my middle child, I was sure it was going to be a boy. (I got it exactly wrong on all three children.) And, at that time, the most popular baby lamp that everyone had, was a lighted clown lamp. Being the intelligent gal that I am, I had studied that babies love bright, primary colors, and that they love to see smiling faces. You're probably seeing that I deduced the clown theme for the nursery. And alas, Alex has had a hatred for clowns ever since. (As a matter of fact, she's the one that was scared of Santa too, and sobbed if she got near him, but then some of the fake mall Santa's are pretty scary...)

So, this one's for you, Alex!

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

"If you get the chance, I hope you dance."

If you haven't noticed, dancing is back!!