We have a young pastor in our Church named Nic. He and Doug, our senior pastor, take turns preaching at the 3 services we have each week.

Doug has been our pastor for about 10 years, but Nic has only been here about 3. He preaches really great sermons that make us think and use our brains in ways that we haven’t since we got out of school! And sometimes I have commented that he is just way over my head with some of his ideas.

Recently he came to our Bible Study class to share with us some of his vast knowledge about Islam and his wife, Alexi came another day to share with us her knowledge about Judaism. I found them to be very, very intelligent and also very, very nice.

In his sermon today Nic was talking about what a great and blessed life he has….a good job, a great wife and 2 beautiful little girls. And in the last month they discovered that the newest baby Alexi is carrying will be a boy. Also in the last month they discovered that this son of theirs, if he lives to be born, will be severely handicapped. Both his feet are clubbed and his arms have also been damaged. He will be mentally handicapped as well and will spend his life in a wheelchair.

I cannot imagine what they are going through. Most of us know that at some point, our children will become adults and leave home to make new lives for themselves out in the world. They now know that this child, if God allows him to live at all, will always be dependent on them for his most basic needs.

And yet, in his sermon, Nic talked strongly about the need to count the blessings in his life. Including this one. God doesn’t want us to suffer, but sometimes, when things like this happen, He will help us through and in then end we will be so much stronger, both in our selves and in our faith.

What a powerful message from a man with such a powerful faith in God.  Please keep Nic and Alexi in your prayers.

During my Bible study class this morning, one of the ladies wanted to know if she invited her neighbors to Church, did we think they would be welcome. They are a gay couple. Most of the women in the room said probably not. The pastor has made some anti-gay statements from the pulpit before. He doesn’t make a habit of it, but sometimes things are said. I would think that would make someone feel really unwanted and I don’t think that’s right.

It seems to me that most anti-gay comments stem from the idea that people are choosing to be gay. I have known people who chose to be bi-sexual, but the real gay people I’ve known didn’t choose to be gay any more than I chose to be heterosexual. So what are they supposed to do?

The Bible, as I read it, says pretty clearly that we aren’t to judge. That’s God’s job. It also says that homosexuality is wrong, but sin is sin and all sin is forgiven, right? So why is this such a hot issue? Maybe because it’s a constantly recurring sin as it is also a lifestyle, but again, it isn’t our job to make that judgement.

I don’t know the answer, except that I choose to let God do His job and I’ll continue to try to follow His commandment to love everyone….including people who may not have the same lifestyle as mine.

I want to warmly welcome my husband, Greg (MelFamy), to the world of xanga.

He has some very strong opinions about lots of things and is about the smartest man I know (even when I don’t agree with his opinions), so it could be fun to comment on some of his posts.

So, welcome Greg! Enjoy!

I spent last night and today at a women’s conference called “Hope for the Heart” that was started by our pastor’s wife about 10 years ago. This was my first time attending but I remember my mom taking about it when she went. It has grown into something really great. I don’t know the total count of how many women attending, but there were women from 100 different churches and at least 3 different states. If I had to guess I would say there were at least 400 of us there.

The guest speaker was Liz Curtis Higgs. Coincidentally, in my Bible study class we are doing one of her workbooks called “Loved By God”, which centers on the stories of Rebekah & Isaac and their sons, Jacob and Esau. What an interesting story and Liz just makes it all the more interesting with her wonderful insights.

She loved the story of these particular people so much that she actually started writing books about them, but moving the story to 1788 Scotland. She’s written 4 books about them in particular and also has written a couple of books about the bad girls of the Bible, among other things.

Plus she is just plain funny. The woman had us all just laughing until we cried.

If any of you ever get the chance to hear her speak, jump at it! You won’t regret it at all! And if you want to check her out, her website is www.lizcurtishiggs.com.

Ok, I’m bored, so now I’ll pass that along and bore anyone who looks at my page with a quiz….

                    http://www.testriffic.com/friendtest/2395682

Six people tried my little quiz. I really thought only 2 or 3 at most would do it, so it turned out to be more fun than I expected. Holley won…no surprise there, and my twin came in 2nd.

Here are the answers:

1. Harpo will be 14 in June.

2. My real hair color is brown. It hasn’t been naturally blonde since I hit puberty.

3. My favorite ethnic food is Indian….specifically Shrimp Korma…yummmmm!

4. My least favorite is Chinese.

5. So far I’ve only been to Mexico, but I’ll be going to Africa at the end of this year.

6. Sharon Lynn Holley and Carole Lynn Johnson both contributed to my daughter’s name.

7. Diet Pepsi, of course!

8. My twin and I will be 50 in June.

9. I love NY!!!

10. I’ve said “I do” 5 times. Once to what’shisname from when I was too young to know what I was doing, twice to Holley’s dad (what were we thinking???? ) and twice to Greg because of the whole tuition thing.

So, thanks to everyone who played along. I had fun!!

I’ve recently learned in my Bible study class that God had a lot to say about anger.

James 1:19 says in part “But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger.” Proverbs has some really good verses, like 14:29, “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.”

It made me start analyzing why I feel anger to begin with and I found that most of the time it’s not even anger. It’s another emotion that just comes out as anger. Like disappointment, frustration or jealousy or even envy. And the rest of the time it’s just plain being mad at myself for allowing whatever got to me to happen to begin with.

If it hadn’t been for anger, I think my relationship with my mom would have been 1000 times better those last 5 or 6 years. I was angry with so much when it came to her. And looking back on it now, it seems that if I had just taken the time to really think about it, so much of it could have been avoided. I had leftover anger because of childhood things. Well, not really. It seems now that most of that was anger at myself because I was too chicken to discuss those things with her. Even knowing that she would have probably claimed amnesia about some of it, just talking about it would have helped us both. And then there was the frustration of knowing that she was being taken advantage of by another person and she wouldn’t let me fix it. I should have just prayed about it and let God handle it, but back then I was too stubborn for that. (Have I mentioned that I’m somewhat of a control freak?)  I found myself a lot of times being angry because of her health issues, when most of that was just fear about losing her. So much wasted time being angry.

In the job that I do, taking care of a couple of ladies with handicaps, I find that if I allow it, I can stay quite angry with one of them. She tells lies almost daily, and is very manilulative and sometimes pretty darned defiant. But with what I’m now learning, I don’t react the way I used to with her. I know that if I let the things she does affect me on a personal level, I will react totally unprofessionally. But if I sit back and just be quiet and let God do the talking, we have a much happier home. He has helped me so much with my job.

I’ll be 50 this year and I can’t believe it took me this long to see something so simple. And I can only thank God that I finally have heard His word and that he has given me the ability to understand it so clearly and put it to use in my life. He is awesome! And I know that He has already forgiven me for being so foolish for so long.

For Christmas, my dear twin put together a cd photo album of old pictures. I hadn’t seen some of them in years, and some I had never seen. There are pics of my parents on their wedding day, pics of both of their parents and even one of my maternal grandmother’s parents.

I got bored last night so I uploaded some of those pics to xanga and decided to replace my profile pic with one of me as a baby. I could not figure out how to do that! I’m starting to feel old. Things that used to be easy to figure out now seem impossibly complicated. I have scary memories of my mom calling me because she couldn’t figure out how to change the log-in name on her AOL account after another grandchild had logged in on their name. And there was no talking her through it, either. I had to actually drive over to her house and do it for her. Numerous times, too. I have a fear of becoming that incompetent with things. But I’m sure that technology will eventually pass me by just like it did her. I see it happening already. Noooo!!!! 

Fortunately I have my own daughter! Unfortunately she lives many miles away. I guess if I get to the point of needing her to physically do things for me, I’ll have to move. I hope that doesn’t happen for another 20 years or so!

At any rate, I’m going to try to upload some of the more interesting photos here. No, not in this post…..I’d need Holley again for that! But I think I can put them in the photo folder.

By the way, I’m the blonde twin.

I have a flower bed in my front yard that was, until a couple of hours ago, completely full of weeds. Mostly dollar weeds. I haven’t done anything with it for a couple of years because we had a large sycamore tree nearby that was blocking all the sun from the flowers I had tried to plant there. Now we have had the tree removed, so I felt it was just begging to be re-planted. And you just can’t beat the sweet fragrance of freshly dug soil. Trust me, Holley, it’s almost better than perfume.

I’m not much of a gardener, but I truly admire those that are. I have 2 sisters that have yards full of plants, flowers, herbs and veggies, but I wasn’t born with the patience it takes to do all the required work involved. However, my absolutely favorite spring flower is the gladiola and my sister reminded my to go buy some while they still had some good ones at Lowes (by the end of February all that’s left are about 1/2 rotten bulbs). So I bought 5 bags, 12 bulbs in each bag, and planted all of them in this bed.

If they grow and bloom (it may take some prayer for this to happen for me!) I will take pics and post them. Or I may claim that the pic above was mine, even though I got it from someone else’s site!

 But even if they don’t, the last couple of hours spent outside in the 68 degree weather, digging in dirt, was well worth my time. I really should do it more often.

I started working for Southern Bell in 1976, the year after I graduated from high school. In 1984 the government broke up the company, saying that we were a monopoly (we were) and after many, many meetings and lots of anxiety on the parts of both the company and the employees, it was decided which jobs would be covered by the newly coined “baby bells” and which would be AT&T. My job went with AT&T. I was a directory assistance operator for 800 numbers.

I cannot even describe the stress that we all went through during this process. I do understand the government’s point in a way, although there have been other monopolies that weren’t forced to diversify. And the consumers were even more confused. It was a tough year.

I left AT&T about 6 years ago. I was ‘bought out’ because we were overstaffed, which was caused by computers taking over my job….but that’s another story.

What makes me bring all this up now 23 years later? I’m just now starting to see ads that say AT&T and BellSouth are re-uniting. They will once again be one company. Since there are so many local and long distance providers now I suppose that it’s not the same as it was back then, but I can’t help but think about all the stuff we went through to break up the companies. How funny.

Well, the holidays are over and now everyone can get back to normal. And Frances can stop making her lists of what she wants Santa to bring her (thread, material, tape player and country cd….she got them all!)

My sisters and I and our families had a very nice get together on the 30th and exchanged our gifts. I think it was one of the nicest times I’ve had with all of them. Trisha (youngest sis) has turned a part of her house into a game room with pool table and darts, so everyone had fun challanging each other to games. Maybe next year my brother will join us…..but I’m not holding my breath.

The food was good and the best part was my daughter, Holley, coming to stay for a few days!!!! And she brought Aunt Faye, who is spending her first Christmas without her husband, for the party. Aunt Faye was in a good mood and seemed to have a good time, so I’m very happy she was able to come.

I really enjoyed my visit with Holley. She brought with her the scrap book that her dad and future step-mom, Diana, gave her for Christmas when they visited her and it was really nice. Also Diana had played around with Holley’s hair, adding hi-lights and razor cutting, and it looked very good. She said she liked Diana a lot, so now I can’t wait to meet her, too.

We didn’t do a whole lot while Holley was here, went to a movie and ate out at the Indian place, but it was just such a pleasure to have her here. I miss her so much when she isn’t here, but she’s much better off where she is than here in Panama City. This is just a dead end city…no where to go but down.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful new year, and that we will all strive to be closer to God than ever before. He blesses us all so very much.