Coconut Pie Blessing

I LOVE Coconut pie.  From the flaky crust to the sweet filling,  rich with goodness, that makes your mouth smile, to the piled high light brown meringue to the toasted coconut on top.   I love every bite of it.  Makes my mouth water to think about it. YUMMY !!!

Today I pray that God will bless your life that way.  A delicious foundation (crust) with many layers of goodness.  Filled with sweetnesswith a taste you love  (filling).  Covered with richness of blessings and fun (Meringue).  And even more topped off with glimpses of his great love for you  surprising you with the deepness of flavor that knowing He loves you adds (toasted coconut pieces) .

And it's not a diet pie.  No deprivation in God's blessings.  Whole goodness.  No fake flavors or ingredients.  That is what the enemy gives.  Actually he deprives.  God blesses fully, abundantly.

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). John 10: 10 (Amplified version)

Be blessed dear reader.  Be Coconut Pie Blessed!

Dreams and White Picket Fences

When I was younger I had a dream.  A naive dream perhaps, but a dream neither the less.  And it was my dream!   My dream  was:   I wanted a house with a white picket fence.  

I was thinking about dreams the other day.  Someone had challeged me to dream, to resurect old dreams, to remember unbirthed dreams.  I pondered on this turning it over in my mind.  I had a dream to write.  But I'm doing that here.  I had a dream to sing but I laughed about that.  I'm not really much of a singer.  But my husband reminded me of my Uncle who couldn't carry a tune in the proverbial bucket but he sang anyway.  He sang for the Lord and his pure love for God and  deep sincerity blessed many.  I would love to hear him sing again.  I'm sure he's singing in heaven.  But I think I will only sing for my grand baby and my children on my bus for now.  Well, maybe in my prayer time I will sing in worship and of course at church with the congregation.  But this didn't seem to be the dream that I could settle on.  That one dream that was really in need of being resurected.  

Then I hit on it!  I remembered my dream for a house with a white pickett fence.  As I thought about it I realized that it wasn't necessarily a literal picket  fence.  Oh, it may have been originally.  But with the advantage of age I can look back on it now and see it was a symbolic thing, this picket fence.  So I dug deeper and explored my memories.  Why?  What? Where? How?  Just what did this fence represent.  I was unprepared for the answer but very touched.  You see my Grandma died when I was 10 and as it would, it had a profound effect on me.  She was the most loving person I've ever known.  I remember after traveling the long 10-12 hour trip from Michigan back home to Tennessee.  There at the end waiting for me was Grandma Loftis' arms ready to embrace me into her soft tummy with a squeeze of love.  Undconditional love.  Love that came just because you were hers.  Belonging, Safety, Joy, Peace, Fun, Warmth,  all these and more were in that embrace.  And as I thought of the picket fence I realized that the fence embraced the home like Grandma Loftis' arms embraced me.  In my young mind her arms were welcoming, safe, warm and inviting.  Love was there.  It was a safe place.  Sanctuary.  

I explored the dream.  My mind goes to two different places here.  Home as a sanctuary and a person as a sanctuary.  And I'm not talking about a church sanctuary here but a safe place, a taking sanctuary from the wild and woolly world kind of place.  

 First let's look at a home with a picket fence.  A picket fence is sort of protective object.  Even though you can come in easily.  It is symbolic.  You have to pause a moment to decide to enter... to find the gate and enter.  You have to question.  Am I invited here?  or not?  Do I belong here?  It is a boundary.  It says this is "our" little piece of the world enter if invited.  I want my home to be warm, inviting, loving.  I'm working on it.  

But in the meantime.  My mind has wondered to the other place.  A person as a sanctuary.  My Grandma was this.  I long to be this.  I want to be a safe place with unconditional love and warmth.  I want to bring joy and peace and be fun.  I want to have a listening ear.  I want you to leave me feeling better than when you came.  I want you to feel you belong.. no rejection.  This is how I want to be.  Sometimes I am often I'm not.  I find the more time I spend with the Lord learning who I am in Him the more often I'm able to be more like I want to be even though I have a way to go.    But remember we are talking about a dream.  I'm dreaming and praying that I can be a white picket fence kind of woman and that my home can be a white picket fence kind of home.  It is my dream and I'm resurrecting  it.  And with God's help I know it will be a dream come true.  

I Heart You!

What shape is your face?  When I was a teen it was very important to know what shape your face was.  Or so the magazines said.  
Was your face oval?  
Was your face round?  
Was your face square?  
Was your face rectangle?  and the best one.. 
Was your face heart-shaped?  


I pondered this for hours.  I studied my face in the mirror, pondering square?  round?  rectangle?  I couldn't tell.  But I knew what I wanted.  


Heart-Shaped!!! 


That's what I wanted.  It sounded so sweet, so romantic.  I would be loved by all!  I would fit in!  I would be liked!  If only.  If only.  I would be beautiful if my face was declared heart-shaped!  I sort of believed like that.  Never considering that my face was the shape it already was.  Declaring it any shape didn't change anything.  I wanted perfection.  I knew there was one shape that was THE best shape.   I thought it was the heart-shape.  I didn't know a heart-shaped face has a pointed chin.  Not perfect.  I didn't know that all shapes had good things and bad things.  And that all were beautiful.  


If I could go back and talk to that young Donna I would get her started on memorizing Psalms 139.  Especially verses 13 and 14. 


¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.


My soul didn't know anything than.  I didn't know I was beautiful.  I didn't know I was loved so much by my Father God.  I didn't know that we are all beautiful to God.   I didn't know that real beauty is from the inside out and that God's love flowing out of us brings a glow.


Do you know you are beautiful?  Do ugly words jump up to argue with that as you read it?  God loves you and as you let that soak in and you begin to comprehend that, you can begin to know who you are in Him.  And when you know who you are in Him  the beauty that is in you can start to shine out.  Even if your face isn't  heart shaped.   
  

I Saw a Coyote, Yesterday

I saw a coyote, yesterday.  In town.  Yes, in town.  I was on my way to take back the little itty bitty rental car.  I had just went up the last little hill and was on Willow just in town.  I noticed everyone was slowing down.  The cars in front of me and the cars coming at me were going slowly, and ahead I could see people pulled over and standing outside their cars.  I thought "there's been a wreck".   But I noticed a couple of dogs on my right.  One was trying to "talk" to the other but the other one was growling at him.  Then I did a double take.  What a scroungy looking dog.  He looked like a stray.  What messy hair. Ugly! All this passed through my thoughts in mere seconds.  All of a sudden it dawned on me.  A coyote!  In town!  Wow!  I took a second look.  I slowed down and looked back as I passed.  How strange, right in town.  Poor thing looked so out of it's element.  It looked like it wanted to be anywhere but there in the proverbial spotlight.  People staring.

Isn't that just like life?  When you make a mistake and find yourself in the wrong place or find yourself doing something dumb, everyone is looking.  Or so we think.  We try so hard to be strong and be right.  We try to not care what others think.  But when we do dumb things or make mistakes, we feel the criticism.

I propose the loudest voice we hear is our own.  We beat ourselves up long after God has forgiven us of things.  We have asked for his forgiveness.  He has given it to us.  He has blotted out our transgressions.  Yet we remember them, over and over.  No wonder we feel wounded and ugly and dumb or whatever ugly word you apply to your soul.  Inside we look like that poor coyote.  Scroungy, lost, like a stray.  We are none of those if we have accepted the savior.  But we believe we are.

Last week I was in a home where two Scottie dogs lived.  They were beautiful.  Well groomed.  Scottie haircuts.  Shiny. Happy.  Loved.  When you compare the picture of them with the picture of the wild coyote.  You have a picture of an animal unloved and two animals loved.   The coyote didn't belong.  the Scotties belonged.  The coyote was lost.  The Scotties had a home.
  
If you have accepted the Lord, you are loved.  You belong.  You are clean through Him.  You have someone to turn to, someone who loves you so much.  I have found as I press into the Lord and I think on his love.  I no longer feel like the coyote but like the Scotties.  Loved. Joyful, Shiny. On my way to my heavenly home. As I press in and talk to him I am able to forget too and forgive myself and be kind to myself.   I wish that for everyone.



I saw a coyote, yesterday......

Oh the Places I have Seen

I went to a ladies night at church the other night.  They were playing a game to get to know more about each other and I won a journal.  Which if you know me is normal.  I'm very blessed I win things all the time.  My friend Sheri is amazed by it.  I always tell people the secret is to actually enter contests and give aways and such.  If you don't enter you can't win.  Also you have to start believing you could win.  Someone has to win.  Why not you?  I'll write another time about all the fun things we have won.  


Anyway, I digress.  I was telling about the other night.  I won but I was blushing  because I won for living in the most cities.  We have moved so often that it is kind of embarrassing.  A lot of people still live in the same town or city they were born in.  They look at you weirdly if you tell them you have moved a lot.    


On the fun side.  I have lived in a high rise, a few duplexes, an  apartment complex in the beauty of Tennessee, an apartment above a gym (the wall of living room was the other side of the basketball hoop, a house with 4 bedrooms when I had one baby daughter,  an apartment  with 2 bedrooms with 3 daughters, behind a house built to have a store in the front, a flat-upstairs and than downstairs, 3 trailers before they were called mobile homes, other apartment complexes in Michigan, range style houses, a house in the city with a rose arbor, a house in the suburbs etc.  It's been quite the adventure.  Since I like to write I have a wealth of places to draw from.   I have lived in North Dakota, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.  I've lived in cities like Hamtramck, MI.  Which is the polish part of Detroit.   Grand Rapids, Michigan, which has lots of book publishers with lots of sales.  And we love books.    The suburbs of Detroit, which each had it's own personality.  Minot ND., where the line: Why not?  Minot? Freezin is the Reason. Could be heard.   So very, very cold there  Indianapolis or Indy as those who live there say it.   Just 5 minutes from the then Brand new state of the art zoo.    Kokomo, IN which I like the sound of 
K O K O M O.  It rolls off the tongue.  Walton, IN which was like the tiniest place ever.  In the country, in the city, in the metro cities,  in a tiny tiny town, in college towns, in suburbs.   I like to say variety is the spice of life.  But I've had enough variety and I have now lived in the country on the land my family has owned since the 50's.  I'm full circle back where I belong and I've lived here since my birthday in June of '93.  I never want to move again unless I win the HGTV dream house.  Because remember I'm very blessed and win stuff all the time.  It may happen!  I just have to believe it's possible.