Keep A Place For Us, Lila!

Our friend, Lila was buried yesterday on Labor Day, September 5, 2011.  Her celebration of life was held at Mt. Olive, C.M.E. Church in Lexington, SC.  What a wonderful celebration!  Lila R. Cook was born July 31, 1954 and transitioned on September 1, 2011. As long as I’ve known her, I have never heard her say anything harsh about anyone, no matter how bad she might have been treated.  You don’t meet many people in this world that are like that.  They turn the other cheek, pray for you, and give it to God.  Lila, Denise (Niecy), Vivian, Queen, Evelyn and I all ate together for lunch whenever we could.  Debra and Princess joined us much of the time.  Vanessa, Verne, and Mary would sit at the table next to us.  Lila will be missed but is deeply loved.  She was a good soul.

Happy Birthday, Teria!

I am getting a bit absent minded.  My niece, Teria, celebrated her 16^th birthday, August 31^st!  She celebrated her sweet-16 celebration with a new car from her mom!  God bless you, Teria, with wisdom, grace, and success!

Rest In Peace, Lila!

One of my lunch buddies, Lila Cook, passed unexpectedly last night, September 1st. She would always say after eating lunch, "Thank you God for that." We would answer "Amen." Well, thank you God for Lila! God bless her. We’ll talk about this later.

He’s Able – Deitrick Haddon

We All Have Crosses To Bear!

Look around you and feel with your heart. All of us living have some problem or other. When we think that our own problem is the heaviest, look at the person next to us, the person we live with, work with, and even go to church with. Our burdens are trivial compared the cross that they might be carrying. We’ve forgotten that God will never give us more than we can bear. Either we’ve forgotten our faith or it wasn’t strong enough. Some people crosses seem incomparable to our own. And they may be. But, it’s what we can bear. What a responsible burden our leaders must carry? And we are still never satisfied. “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” Psalms 55:22 (NIV). We still like to stay in control and that what causes us more problems because there are some things beyond our control! And even if our friends have our best interest they still can not help us. We have to look to the hills where our help really comes from.

Our paths in life are not always straight and smooth. We have to deal with curves, hills, weeds, and decisions. We don’t know what direction to take at times and then the way just seems so complicated that we won’t move from where we are because it’s comfortable and safe. I know, I’ve been there, too. I also know that it’s never too late to keep moving.

A Giant, Warm, Welcome To Young Ashton Thomas Johnson!

 

Growing fast!

Sleeping like a baby!

Baby Ashton Thomas Johnson was born to Kezia and Troy Johnson on August 11, 2011. He came into this world weighing 9lbs 8.8 ozs and 20 inches long!  He's going to be a tall young man.  Both sides of the males in their families are over 6'2".  Did I mention that his great, grandmother is my Godsister?  That's because her mother is my Godmother.  Yes, I'm proud, too!

Strife & Discord!

As the man of the house, he should confront the strife and discord in his household, and protect the love in his home. All the deceiver needs are hairline fractures where he can place small explosive darts to widen the gap between family members. Once started it takes more than miracle glue to put things back in place. Just as the tiny mustard seed grows large so will strife and discord if not addressed. We have all seen it destroy from within. We’ve seen churches, families, relationships, to name a few, come apart because of a small disagreement that elevated into uncontrollable and irrational decisions. The love once there now seemed that it never existed, envy took over. Falling in love is easy, staying in love takes a lot of work. Most of the time we fall in love for the wrong reasons. We like what we see and what we get. So we think we can fine tune what we have and instead of complying our new love becomes resentful. Or maybe they just got tired of playing make believe to please others and decided to please themselves. I don’t know, there are so many explanations. Maybe we’re not looking long term after the body changes and think about the mental compatibilities. Temptations are all around us. Disrespect is running rampant and is largely acceptable. Believe me, the devil is still unhappy even when chaos exists. He can never be happy. It is his goal to cause disruption with anything God has created. And we know that all things good are His creation. I’m not going to get into any religious debate because we all have different beliefs. I do know that if we don’t include God in our lives, strife and discord will abound. We will need Him to protect us from the enemy.