A graveside service for Carrie Lou Britton Ardis, 91, will be held at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, March 20, 2012, in Greenlawn Memorial Park Woodbury , Tenn. Born October 22, 1920 in Lee County
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
I Just Want To Thank You, Lord!
We get so busy and caught up in our problems sometimes that the most important thing for us to do is get control over them and handle our business. Our main focus is what can we do to resolve this mess? I’m not talking about the small things, I’m talking about losses, health, relationships, financial, employment problems and other life-changing events that put our lives in a tailspin that will make us forever different. In the midst of these body aches and headaches, we tend to forget God, who is our stabilizer, and concentrate on what is immediately in front of us. We’ve all been through some type of pain and trouble and managed to get through it. Looking back we wondered how did we survive it all? But, we did. Lord knows it hurt but we made it. I just want to take this time to thank God for being there with me in the middle of the fire. I also need to apologize that I didn’t mean to ignore Him because I didn’t see Him when all along He was with me. An elderly friend of mine, Momma Bennett, says she doesn’t worry, God wouldn’t have brought her this for to leave her now. I’ll always remember that. We all have a testimony because we were found worthy to testify. As soap, cleans; fire, purifies; and faith, heals; we are all thankful that we made it this far in our lives with what we have. Thank you, Lord!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. Isaiah 11:1
Internet email on relationships: Beautiful and profound.
Some of my midlife suffering came from tensions within my marriage. While (my husband) Sandy and I were away for a weekend at a lakeside cabin, the internal wrestling became intense. Growth versus fallowness. Old wounds versus new healing. Freedom versus commitment. Choosing versus settling for. Leveling versus starting over. Hope versus despair. They were all there.
Early one morning we took a walk, moving through the shadows and listening to the crunch of pine cones beneath our shoes. The path wound uphill, getting steeper. I couldn't help but think how appropriate that was. Marriage has its own steep hills.
On the pinnacle of the hill, I paused to catch my breath. Sandy wandered ahead, "Look!" he called. Standing twenty yards ahead he was pointing to a scarred tree stump. "Come closer." I came closer. And there, growing in the center of the stump, was the green shoot of a new oak tree.
I don't know how long we stood side by side gazing at the new tree "hatching" from the old stump. All I know is that it seemed to me God was speaking eloquently once again about rebirth . . . a simple message about how life comes out of death and healing comes out of scars and wounds. The message said that rebuilding can happen after leveling. It said that hope is bigger than despair.
I looked at Sandy. Could we heal the wounds?
As we continued on the trail in the woods, I reached a "combustion point." I felt a firming inside me of the truth, as if the knowing had begun to congeal in my soul. And not just the knowing but the desire to unfold it, the strength to follow it. A little act of creation happened right then. A little birth. An "eastering."
I slipped my hand into Sandy's. "I love you," I whispered. It was the first time in so long that I had said the words. I felt his fingers tighten around mine. "I know. I love you too," he said.
By: Sue Monk Kidd
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