11 YEARS

Today marks eleven years ago I woke with a myriad of emotions.  It was the day The Girl would be marrying her prince.  I guess one of the first memories of the day was when I went early to have my hair done, The Girl and The Husband went to the basketball court to shoot baskets.  I remember thinking and even saying to The Girl, "You are going to shoot baskets with your wedding manicure?"  To which she replied, "Yep!"  And that is just how The Girl is....not letting the things that matter fall to the wayside of life.  Do I mean the manicure?  No, I mean the time with her daddy.  We must prioritize the things that REALLY matter.  That's a sermon for another day.

When I think of The Girl and The Son-In-Law and the life they share, I don't really think much now of that May 5 eleven years ago.  I think of REAL life now.  I think of the times of joy and the times of fear.  I think of the times of smiles and the times of uncertainty.  Yep, REAL life.  And the common factor of all of these is the fact that the life of The Girl and The Son-In-Law has began and continued with their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the very center.  To HIM be the honor and glory for everything.  You blog readers know that HE is at the top of my priority list and you may tire of knowing that, but hey, it is what it is and thankfully, HE is what HE is and it's because of HIM that we all can rejoice in ALL things....be it eleven years or more or less.

If you want photos from eleven years ago, there are plenty on other posts for this day on other years.  Everybody looked pretty nice on May 5, 2012.  Today, though, I want to give you descriptions of them now...in real life.   They are:

The Waffle House

Marshmallows in the fire pit

A Sunday School teacher deacon and a musician

Dusty and Cody Rhodes (at least one of them plus the half-pint who lives with them)

Fabulous, caring parents to that half-pint above

Dollywood

Collinsville Trade Day

Toyotas

Grass and flowers

Hot Dogs and Brussel Sprouts (not on the same plate)

And most of all, they are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

It's as a coffee cup of mine says, "The days are long, but the years are short."

Happy Eleven Years!

A HEART THAT SINGS

A heart that can sing?  Yep.

I didn't realize until this morning that it has been a good three weeks since a post.  There would be good reason for that delay.  My favorite holiday was celebrated and we continued to rejoice; however, The Husband's heart continued to fault.  He had heart ablation on April 20, has made it to three days after his designated week's recovery period and only had two heart rates since ablation over 99 and they weren't much over 99 so I continue to rejoice.  I will spare you the not so fun part of this heart episode.  

Yesterday at church the choir sang what is right now my favorite medley song.  It had those old Southern gospel songs of "When The Roll is Called up Yonder", "Do Lord", "I'll Fly Away", "What a Day That will Be", "Until Then", and "The King is Coming".  I love all those songs, some more than others.  They remind me of heaven and that's a very happy thought.   

My favorite song in the group is "Until Then".  It says, "...but until then my heart will go on singing.  Until then with JOY, I'll carry on.  Until the day my eyes behold that city, until the day God calls me home."  That song gets me teary every time.  Every. Single. Time.  

It made me consider that I've been so bogged down with worry and fear (which I talk about on this blog regularly and yes, I say there's no need for it, but alas I admit my sin), that singing just hadn't been going on in my heart.  Then the other day I caught myself humming along as I did stuff here at home.  And more than that, I noticed I was humming.  It somehow gave me energy and peace that the cares of this life are not only handled by me, but noticed and handled by my heavenly Father.  As I have said this, He's got this.  Shucks, He's got everything.   

I think the best one to appreciate a singing heart is that same heavenly Father.  He loves to hear us sing in the good times, in the bad times, and all the time.  He doesn't even care if we are in tune or not.  Just sing. 

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and humans and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."   Colossians 3:16

Consider....and hum a little tune.