Confetti, Streamers, Yarn and Glitter

A word Picture....

Imagine with me, you have a ball of yarn and you hold the end and throw it across the room to someone else and they throw it to someone else holding the piece that came to them.  As it goes from person to person you soon have a spiderweb of yarn all over the place.  Now imagine doing the same  exercise with a streamer, you know the kind from a birthday party.  Now imagine a whole room full of the streamers and all kinds of pretty yarn suspended in mid air.  It is so thick with your favorite colors of yarn and streamers and someone has thrown in some glitter and some confetti.  At first the dazzle and shine, the attractiveness of your fav colors being there is so cool but than you realize, you can't move.  The room is so FULL of the pretty strings, the shiny glitter, the suspender confetti  that you are like a fly in the spider's trap.  You can't move!  No matter which way you turn.  You are immobilized!

This is the word picture that came to me while contemplating vain imaginations.  In the Bible it says this:

  Romans 1:21

King James Version (KJV)

²¹ Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Some other versions say:  futile in their minds, foolish in their thinking, thoughts that were pointless and misguided..

As I said this was what I was thinking about.  I don't know about you but I'm a dreamer.  I think of lots and lots of ideas.  Things to do.  Projects to make.  Parties or dinners to have.  Fun times to have.  Family get togethers to do. Projects for the home.  

But this word picture came to me.  I am like the person caught in that room.  Though pretty and full of promise.  I mean, streamers scream: A Party!!! Fun!  And yarn...the things you can make with yarn and now a days there are so many types.  Traditional yarn in a variety of beautiful colors and styles.  Fuzzy ones ones with other yarns or strings mixed in.  We could make sweaters and baby things and blankets and all kinds of things.  But alas, I don't knit or crochet.  Oh and don't forget the glitter.  So shiny, so pretty.  Or the confetti Every party needs confetti!   So we have this room that we have added the ability for it all to be suspended mid air.  The elements seem to offer great promise.  BUT they are futile items, foolish, pointless and misguided.  It would be awful trying to untangle our mess.  The strings would get tangled.  The streamers would tear.  It wouldn't be worth our efforts.  We would want to pull it all down and start over, right?

That is how my thoughts are.  I dream of writing a book but not just any book.  One that is a best seller one that is desired by the masses.  Nothing wrong with that except if I daydream and don't even show up at my blog or come to the computer and start typing...it is a vain, futile useless thought.  Pointless.  

If I only collect scrapbook supplies and never start making pages.  It is rather pointless. The papers and the stickers and the borders just gathering dust....

If I dream of selling a quilt I've made but I never even sit down at the sewing machine.  My thoughts are futile, useless...

So, yesterday as I pondered these thoughts I got out my imaginary broom and I swept down all those vain imaginations,  I swept down the pointless thoughts.  I put them in a big black bag.  I got out my dusters and got every piece.  I took all those futile ideas and took them captive.into the bag.  I than said a prayer that God would let only the God breathed ideas, thoughts, dreams, imaginations be left.   That only they would remain. I than took the bag and since these were light vain things, with very little weight, I blew that bag up to the Lord.  

And, you know, I felt lighter.  I felt like now I will be able to focus and do.  Not just vainly imagine or dream but actually put feet to my ideas and make them a reality.  Because if they are inspired by God won't He help me to accomplish them?  They will have a point.  They will be useful.  They will become things of substance. I 'm excited to see what God and I can do!  I'm excited to be free and not trapped in that room any more

 Do you have a room like this?

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Tennessee, Sweet Home

Sometimes it is surreal living here in Tennessee.  When I was a child Tennessee was the destination of most of our vacations. Okay, all of them but one. And it was the place "we"  my Mom, my Dad, my brother, No he got married.  Just Mom, Dad and me. It was the place we would move some day.  The family dream.  Someday Tennessee.   Someday moving back to the "farm".

Well, 18 1/2 years ago.  Paul, the girls, my Mom and I moved here.  Dad was already gone.  Charles got married and moved to Indiana. But we made it here.  Made it to the "farm".  It's really just land.  The barns and outbuildings long gone.
As I travel roads that I traveled as a child I sometimes have a flashback to riding down this road or flying around that curve.  And I am happy to be living out Dad's dream.
Tennessee is where my family came from.  Tennessee has our history here.  It's nice.  It could have more shopping.  It could have more diversity.  But it has quiet.  It has a sense of independence  and self reliance that you don't find everywhere.  And nature and beauty unending.  Trees.  Hills.  Rivers.  Blue skys.  Flowers.  All kind of animals.  And that's not even mentioning the people.  I love people.  And Tennessee has awesome people.  Paul and Mandi call my friends, my peeps.  I love the variety of peeps here.  I have my lifelong friends aka cousins.  I have a slew of them.  And than the friends at church, the co-workers who are now friends and the ones that have come into our family because of my girls.  School and than along with marriage has come more peeps to love.  They all add depth to my life.

Down the road on land that used to be part of the farm, is a tree that held my childhood swing.  I can still see in my minds eye:  the house and outbuildings that were once there.   Christmas stockings with oranges.  The time Charles brought home Teddy, my teddy bear home.  My 5th birthday with a cake with homemade chocolate frosting Mom had made.  The wild squirrel Charles had on the back porch.  Running and playing with Dennis.  And that stubborn Mule Joe that kept running back to his old owner.  And the day Dad and Charles brought home a toy riding tractor.  It was red and so much fun.
I live on the road I went down when I wanted to go to Uncle Carlis' and Aunt Thelma's house about 3 miles away.  Also the road that Mom spanked me on for scaring her and "running away".  She caught up with me right by where I saw my first snake.  Scared me to death until mom said it was just a little garter snake.  No big deal!

Yes Tennessee is my home.It holds memories new and old.  And after all the moving we've done.  It is nice to be in one place.  Tennessee, I love it!