I had started another blog at one point that I did not follow though on.. (Imagine that!) and I decided to take the 2 postings that I loved the most and share here. I hope you enjoy! IN THE RUINS OF MY HISTORY Tonight I stood in the ruins of my grandfathers shop. He had built this building himself from the ground up. It was a mysterious place, that had a MASTER lock on both doors, the small door to walk though, the the extra wide door that he parked Betsy in. Betsy was his riding lawn mower. Lord, you did NOT go in there and expect to mess with anything! It was clean, orderly, and according to him, extremely dangerous!!!! After all, he had hammers, saws, hoes, poison that he would mix up to dip the dogs in, his tiller, you name it, and us kids...would be half dead if we dared go in there and touched a thing! He tried to tell us it was because he had all that "dangerous stuff" in there, but we knew we would be half dead because he would beat us within an inch of our lives! My Paw Paw (as we called him) passed away in 1983. His shop stood as a proud reminder of how he kept things. My Nannie kept his things in place, and would have no one get to far away from her with those keys to the MASTER lock. We lost my Nannie in 1988, and not long after my parents moved into their house. My Paw Paws shop then became my daddy's shop. Now, my daddy was a good man, but orderly he was not. He probably had all his lures lined up according to size, but that shop... that was another story. He had stuff EVERYWHERE! But....that was how daddy did it. He knew where everything was! I lost my daddy in 2000. He dropped dead at work just 2 months shy of retiring. Since 2000. no one has really used the shop for anything. His fishing things long gone, and the lawn mower long since stopped running, it just existed there, holding all kinds of left over things from my dad and my Paw Paws tenure as owners of the shop. I knew the shop was in bad shape, I knew that the ceiling had a leak, and one side was sorta rotted out... and to be honest, I knew it should probably be torn down, but I haven't been ready to face it. I had to go up there tonight and get some things out of there. It wont be long now until it will be pushed over and all hauled away. I looked at how the ceiling didn't only have a leak, half of it was missing.. The entire back half had begun to collapse onto itself.. Everything in it was dirty, dusty, and covered in leafs. I got the stuff I needed, and then try as I might, the one thing I wanted more than anything else I couldn't find. I stood still and took in deep breaths...but it was gone. The scent of the shop had gone by the way of the holes from top to bottom. That scent said my Paw Paw had worked hard in his garden, or my daddy had just come back from fishing. The scent that I could step out there and breathe in, and close my eyes and just know they were standing beside me.. it was there no longer... All there was left was the ruin of what was. No order, no fishing gear, no shop smell.. just dirt and damp. Another chapter closed in my memories of what once was. --MB | 1 c |
THE DEFINITION OF FAITH
Tonight on Facebook, I asked again about any information on Jamie Bowden, who is fighting for his life against cancer. (I had posted the same thing earlier this morning but wanted to put it back up top of the news feed.) I had not heard anything new, but I got an instant message from a very wonderful lady asking who Jamie was and what was wrong with him. I explained who he was, and what I knew about his condition, which isn't much, and I asked her to just keep him in her prayers. She told me that she would, and that she would have her boys pray, that they were prayer warriors. Suddenly I had an epiphany. Just as she typed those words out to me, I could see her children as little angels, before they were born.... You see... According to Dictionary.com, Faith is the following: Faith- (Noun) [feyth] confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof; belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion; belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc; the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.. OK, there's more, but you get the picture. Faith. I can not tell you how many times faith has brought me though.. My faith in God, my faith in myself, my faith in my family... Maybe its the odd way my brain works, I don't really know, but I tend to rationalize things to make myself feel better about them. Especially when there is no reason at all to explain away what has happened, or what is about to happen, or what might happen. You see, no matter what you believe in...be it Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, or maybe you are the Starbucksism with a pack of Cigaretteism and think that this world and this life is all you have and that's that-ism.... Regardless... I bet you have faith. In some shape form or fashion. When she told me that her boys were prayer warriors, I knew just what she meant. And all I could think of was to only once again have the blind faith of a child... and why is it that children have such blind faith? And my epiphany was this.... And this my friends, is MY epiphany, you don't have to agree with it, but its how I do look at things..... Before those boys were born, they were some of Gods Angels...They were born with blind faith in God. Their parents have raised them in church, with prayer, love, teaching and guidance... And everyday those boys have "blind faith" that is becoming "Seeing faith!" It is because they have never known anything other than God that they have pure faith in Him, and therefore, they have seen their prayers answered because they have prayed the way God has told all of us to pray, (Mark 11:24; (NIV) Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.) Faith. What a wonderful thing. No matter who or what you believe in, if you have no faith... well I just cannot imagine... what a cold and sad thing to even try to imagine. I fear that Jamie's chapter in this world is about to come to an end. I hardly know Jamie, but I did go to school with his sweet sister Shari, and a lot of his friends... Tonight, like last night and tomorrow and beyond, I have the faith that MY GOD is a caring and loving God. In my faith....I believe that even though we are seeing Jamie suffer, that Jamie is not truly suffering because his angel has taken over. The pain we see, will never be remembered by Jamie. He will soar with the Eagles and the Angels! That is my faith, blind and all seeing! To have that to hold on to, keeps me grounded, and gives me the strength to get up in the morning. "Go rest high upon that mountain, son your work on Earth is done, go to Heaven a shoutin'. love for The Father, and The Son". --Vince Gill |
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