Saturday Morning

Saturday morning, 5^th of December, and I was making Oreo Cookie Balls for a Christmas party that night! I began to giggle as my mind traveled back in time about 46 years. This is always an interesting past time, remembering an age of innocence where kids could roam and play without worries!

In this current memory, my brothers and I were down on our knees beside Hwy 1416, encouraging our very own doodle bugs to "move it buster!" The bugs were each rolling their own little ball of 'cow paddy,' and we kids wanted our beetle to win. The cookie balls looked exactly like the doodle bug balls!

Glenn walked into the kitchen and asked, "What's so funny!"

Laughingly I told him where my mind had gone, and we begin to reminisce about those days of innocence!

Behind our home place there was a 'patch' of woods where we were allowed to play for hours. Under the cool shade of tall pines, huge oaks, and around a few squatty bushes we had created a fairy tale play ground! We had houses with wall divisions made of pine-straw, furniture created from fallen branches, and enough kids to people each house with moms, dads, and kids.

We built caves, cooked mud pies, squabbled, had prayer meetings, and played church. At any given moment we could shout, talk in tongues, and sing as good as any saint in our home church. We could do the two-step like Adeline Dougharty, Glenn's Grandmother, or we could mock to a tee, Sis. Bertie Rashall's obeisance dance (I do not know any other way to describe it!). We would kneel down and pray like Sis. Florene Brown (sort of machine-gun style), or stand to testify and break out in song like Sis. Linnie Stivender as she waved her hanky in her left hand!

This was not mockery in a hurtful sense, rather, as children we had learned to worship God from the examples set before us; sometime our play was so real that we would be crying for real. Looking back now, I realize that there were times that we felt God's presence. I can remember Delbert, my brother preaching under the anointing, and at that time we did not even know what anointing meant.

Isn't it amazing how we forget the simple things of life when we get so caught up in everyday living. I am glad for the cookie ball reminders!

Precious Memories, how they linger!

Life Lessons

I received an e-mail the other day with a lesson about a carrot, an egg, and a coffee bean. In this short lesson, the problems of life were compared to boiling water, and the person experiencing them was compared to a carrot, an egg, and a coffee bean. The carrot entered the boiling water hard and unbending, and exited soft and weak. The egg when placed in the water had a thin hard shell, and
a soft fluid inside. When removed from the water the thin shell was cracked and the tender inside had become hard and rubbery. However, the coffee bean went into the water in it's natural state, and although the water boiled with extreme heat around it, the water did not change the coffee bean. Instead, the bean changed the color and the taste of the water. The question was then asked, "Which would you rather be, the carrot, the egg, or the coffee bean?"

I have contemplated on this lesson for several days, and I have come to the conclusion that most of us would rather be the coffee bean. I am thoroughly convinced, however, that always changing your circumstance is not possible. Invariably, things will happen in our lives that change us, and sometimes, this is a good thing! There are times when the hardness we build, as we experience the trials and test of life, must be softened. It is appropriate that God put us on the potters wheel, that He add water to the clay, and that He shape us according to his design. He must soften the flint like conditions of our souls and renew a tenderness of spirit within us.

Then there are periods when we can be so fluid on the inside that if our outer shell should become cracked or broken, our soft inside would pour out to be devoured by the enemy of our soul. That's hen God must turn up the heat, toughen our bonds, and solidify our walk with Him. Possibly, this is when he must thrust us into the heat of His Klein.

After God has used his loving hands to mold and shape us it is now possible for Him to trust us. Can he place us into places and situations that need change and know that we will let him work through us to bring about the needed change? Will it be possible for Him to remove the protective fences from our lives and know that we will, like Job of the Old Testament, be true to Him? Will we trust God to give
and to take away and still bless His name? I believe that like the coffee bean, there will be times when we can change our situation. It is the strength of the coffee bean that causes such wonderful change in the boiling water, and it will be the strength gained through the trials that will allow us to change the perilous waters that surround us.

It is great that we can know a God who knows when we need the hardness softened, a God who understands when we need the soft places in our lives toughened. He is preparing us to walk through fiery darts of the enemy and not be fatally injured, and He is the God who knows when we are ready to bring about changes.