"Mencha"

 Tony scrambled from bed to dress for the day. 

 

Today they were going to the library to read. 

 

When he climbed up into his favorite chair, his mom asked him, "Dry cereal? Or with milk?"

He pointed to the milk and said, "Milk, milk, smo-o-o-oth as silk."

His mother chuckled and poured the milk into his cereal bowl. 

 

After breakfast, while Mom was putting away the clean towels, Tony hurried into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He admired them in the mirror and ran his fingers across them, whispering loud enough for Mom to hear, "Smooth as silk."

 

With their morning chores finished, Mommy and Tony headed to the library. 

 

After looking at almost every book on the shelf, his mother asked him, "Well Tony, which one will you choose?"

He smiled at a big one with a cover the color of a brand-new penny. 

He pointed up at it and said, "That one, Mommy. It's shiny as can!"

Mom laughed quietly and shook her head. "Silly boy," she said as she grabbed the book. 

Climbing up onto her lap to hear her read the story, her wedding ring caught his eye. He pulled her hand close, as if to inspect it and sighed, saying, "Shiny as can be."

He smiled up at her pretty face. "It's shiny as can be, Mom!"

Puzzled but amused, Mom began to read to him. She shared enthusiasm and excitement as the story unfolded. 

 

After another story, Tony asked if they could play on the playground outside before heading home. 

Mom nodded and they made their way through the big glass doors that led to the playground. 

Tony ran his fingers across the clean glass and declared, "Smooth as silk!"

Mom laughed out loud this time. 

 

Tony ran to the slide and climbed to the top calling to his mom, "Watch me, Mom." As he slid down faster than ever before, he yelled, "Smooooooth as silk!"

Before landing at the bottom, he shielded his eyes from the sun and giggled as he tumbled off the end of the slide. 

"Mom! Look at that sunshine! It's shiny as can be!" He squealed with delight. 

 

Chasing him to the swings, his mom asked, "Tony, why do you keep saying that?"

"Saying what?" he asked. 

"This is shiny as can be and that's as smooth as silk. Where did you even learn that?"

 

"Oh," he said, "that's what Grandpa said to Grandma when he was brushing her hair yesterday. She smiled so big and was so happy 'bout it, I figured it must be fun to hear."

His mom smiled and nodded her head. 

"Okay, that makes sense. I guess," she responded. 

Tony looked up at her with happy eyes and he said, "Grandma smiled like she used to, like before she got the mencha. Remember, Mom?"

 

She got a few shiny tears in her eyes and scooped him up into her arms and hugged him tight. 

"Oh yes, I remember, Tony."

After twirling him around, she put him down and said it again. "Yes. I remember."

 

Tony ran off to the swings calling back to her, "Don't cry, Mom. It's a good thing. And - I'm going to beat you to the swings."

He laughed all the way to the swings and yelled, "Come push me, Mom!"

Mom wiped the wet tears from her eyes and hurried over to push him. 

 

"Mom?"

She waited for him to finish, "Did you know your tears are shiny as can be?"

Then he screamed with excitement as she pushed him high up into the sky. 

 

Children notice. God made them that way.

They see more than they can understand and sometimes they share the good stuff!

 

 

Helpful articles about how to talk with your child about Alzheimer’s and dementia:

 Link here.

 Link two.

 Link three.

 Link four.

 ‘For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.’- Psalm 116:8

 

 ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’ – Psalm 126:5

 

 ‘He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.’ - Isaiah 25:8

 

 ‘For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’                        – Revelation 7:17

 

 ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ – Revelation 21:4

 

 

Holding on Tightly

Sometimes we hold things so closely that we don’t see them change over time. Maybe it’s a painful childhood or a bitter divorce or angry words spoken at some distant place in the past. Maybe it’s how wonderful Christmas was as a child, despite the fact that you grew up pitifully poor. Or maybe even something as simple as how much greener the grass was or how much bluer the sky was when we were younger.

Holding on to something so tightly and holding them so close to your heart can hide the corners or the details of the memories of the event.

That’s how it is when we’re carrying a burden we need to forgive so we can let go of it. Even when the burden is something you need to forgive yourself for – as time passes, the burden gets heavier and becomes more destructive.

Today, are you able to take that bundle that you’re holding onto with a death grip and pull it away from our heart long enough to take a look at it? How clearly could you even see it, if you did?

Often, a mother will snuggle her newborn so closely – she’s used to that child being inside of her; now she holds them in her arms. What felt like a part of her for 40 weeks is now a more independent little person she can snuggle and love in a very different way. Eventually she pulls them up in front of her to admire and take delight in.

With treasures and burdens that we carry around like that, we don’t always make the time to pull them away from our heart long enough to look at them, whether to admire or to curse them.

We just carry them, never allowing them to evolve or change though feeling the weight grow heavier over time. Imagine the damage to both that mother and her child, if 10 years later she insisted on carrying them everywhere, all the time.

Today, if we sit down with God in prayer and ask Him to help us take a look at our burdens, we can discover great and wonderful things, and we may have to take a look at hard, painful things.

But knowing we’re not alone for that big reveal, and every time we dare to peek, will bring healing to us and lighten the burden. We may have to look at it little by little, or we may be able to take it in all at once. We’re all different, and every bundle we carry is different.

We may see that it’s uglier than we remember, or that it’s not nearly as scary as we remember. We may see that a beautiful memory is hiding something behind it that we’d rather not see, so we cling to that good thought – but it still becomes a burden; a hiding place.

My whole point today is to tell you that you don’t have to do it alone.

God is ALWAYS with you. He has ALWAYS been with you. He’ll walk through this with you. He’ll lighten the burden, He’ll heal the wounds, and He’ll bring His joy into your heart…if you let Him.

He will bring the right people at the right time to sit with you and pray with you and cry with you and laugh with you. And as crazy as it may sound to some, that person might not even be a Christian. God can and will use any of us.

And He’ll always forgive first. He won’t ask you to do what He won’t do.

Our first step is inviting Him into the situation. He’ll take the next step.

Pride may come before a fall, but humility comes before healing.

 

Legally Speaking....

 

“Satan is very legalistic. Once you believe that Jesus is your Savior, Satan legally has ZERO authority over our lives, but if he can gain one little inch (through sin, curses, witchcraft, or unforgiveness) he will use that to his advantage every single time.” – Amy Wadlington, “Into the Deep”

Our enemy is legalistic because he must be, he’s bound by spiritual laws. He cannot cross the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Where have we let down our guard and how do we force him back once he’s found an inroad; a crack in our shield of faith? Where have we come into agreement with him without even realizing it?

I recently discovered that I had given something over to the enemy decades ago and have been living with a chain around me, holding me back from freedom God has for me. I’m praying for God to reveal any more chains disguised as mere words I haven’t considered harmful.

“I just meant……” Satan doesn’t care what you meant by your words. You spewed them out and he’ll run with them as far and as fast as he can. God teaches us how powerful our words are. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” – Proverbs 18:21a

In Amy Wadlington’s book “Into the Deep” she points out several (of many) things we might have said that Satan snatched up and ran with, compromising the abundant life God promised us here and in Heaven. I’ll suggest:

·      “No one could love me…”

·      “I’ll never get a good job…”

·      “Obesity runs in my family…”

·      “I’ll never live in a nice house…”

·      “I don’t deserve good things in my life…”

I could give you a long list of my own. If you hang out with me much, you might catch me criticizing and condemning myself in ridiculous ways, concluding that I may have a poor self-image. What lies have I locked myself into?

You may ask yourself the same question. The good news is that God will reveal them to us if we ask Him to, and He’ll walk with us through breaking them off and forcing them out of our lives. I’d love to quote this whole chapter from Amy’s book here, but I’d rather you buy the book and grow through every single chapter she shares with us. I can’t tell you how powerful it’s been in my life.

You may already recognize your own voice in your head, remembering negative things you’ve said about yourself or things others have said to you that you believed. They need to be dealt with. Satan doesn’t get to hold the upper hand. God has given us the keys to His kingdom and shares His glory with us. We are joint heirs with Jesus! Hallelujah!

Take a few minutes to ask God what you’ve said that lines up with what Satan wants you think – versus what God Himself wants you to know, His Truth – about you and about Him and everything else.

He’ll speak to your heart; He’ll reveal everything you need to know.

And as we heard in our childhood, “knowing is half the battle!”

As you pray, break off the chains those words created, let God (and the enemy) hear you declare out loud that you no longer agree with them. Let God show you a scripture that speaks His truth to the situation, agree with HIM and declare that!

Living in God’s freedom isn’t rocket science. But you need to be in His Word regularly to learn about your authority in the spirit realm.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” – Hosea 4:6a

Seriously – life is an open book test. There’s no need to flounder or fail.

 

One-sided Conversations

 

One-sided conversations: we don’t usually find them pleasant unless we’re the ones doing all the talking. And for you non-talkers, they must be agony to endure.

While I’m confident God loves it when we come to Him chattering with excitement, or when we come to Him asking for help with a problem, I think He’s equally if not more excited when He sees us listening for His voice.

So, this post may be mostly for all the people out there that are members of the Chatty Club; those of us who talk more than we listen. I prefer to call myself loquacious instead of verbose, it just sounds sexier and more flattering. We’re a pretty big club. You’ve probably run into more of us than you thought you would.

We sometimes interrupt what you’re saying to get in our two cents. We sometimes let our minds wander while you’re talking so we’re prepared with something when it’s our turn, if you have a chance to interject at all. Yes, we can be incredibly rude. For that, I apologize in the pithiest way possible: Sorry.

We don’t mean to do it. We wish we could stop ourselves, and sometimes we can – till we hear our own voice again and realize, “Oops – no, I didn’t shut up yet”.

We need to quiet our mind long enough to adopt some method of listening.

Some suggestions include writing out all that’s on our mind first thing in the morning; a “morning dump” if you will.

Perhaps we could wait until evening for important conversations, because, surely by then we’ll be all talked out. (Ha! Can that even happen?)

Snap that rubberband on our wrist every time we hear our own voice?

Ah, we need a sidekick who can motion to us to shut-up when we’ve droned on for too long! Or someone who will pull us aside repeatedly to remind us that yes, we’re talking too much again.

Whether we like it or not, we chase away friendships (or potential friendships) because people will turn and walk the other way when they see us coming.

We can lose out on a lot of valuable information when we’re the one doing all the talking. Believe it or not, the other people in the conversation have valuable input, too! Maybe even more worthy of being spoken than what we’re spouting off about.

Listening. It’s not a hard concept. Some of us just seem genetically predisposed to find it difficult to process into something we routinely do.

I’m no psychologist, but I’d venture to guess that our constant chatter is attempting to fill some need in our lives.

Maybe as a child we were told that ‘children should be seen and not heard’, so now we’re making up for lost time.

All of that rambling to say ---- we need to practice listening. To become good at anything, it usually requires practice. This is no different. Even when talking with our heavenly Father.

Practice listening. God can work with a good listener.

The following verses bring up anger, too. We’ll get to that at another time.

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak [and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires].” – James 1:19-20 NIV

Or – check out the wordier, more poetic version in the Message Bible: “Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, [and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger].”  – James 1:19-20 MSG

Untied Relationships

 

If I was the enemy of mankind, what might be one strategy I would use against them to bring about their defeat?

Satan uses many tactics against us, like fear and intimidation, lies about God, lies about us, our worth.…

But let’s face it, if he could take us out, he would have already.

Then this thought crossed my mind.

“I’d untie their relationships!”

When one enters a relationship with an abusive, controlling significant other, one thing they’ll do is try to cut off the other relationships in your life. They don’t want you to have someone else to turn to.

Though we don’t consider ourselves to be in a relationship with Satan, he’s constantly trying to forge his way into one with us. Those especially susceptible are those who don’t believe he’s real.

He must laugh at the way we think we’re the ones in control.

He’s been around longer than we have. He’s seen you grow up, he knows your likes and dislikes, your fears and insecurities, your areas of special pride. In short, he knows how to tempt and influence you and what snares to put in your path.

Look at all the broken relationships around you. There’s brokenness between parents and their children or grandchildren, between husbands and wives, between childhood friends, between business associates who could’ve done great things together.

When walking and holding hands with a small child who cannot yet appreciate the dangers of this world, we can guide them around the potholes of life, tugging them gently (or wildly if necessary) away from the shifting ground.

But Satan doesn’t want that child to hold your hand. He doesn’t want them to be safely guided by someone who knows the ropes.

He doesn’t want you to hold on to your heavenly Father’s hand, either.

He wants you to fall into the pitfalls and traps he’s set for you.

He wants you to listen to his lies and to hear his voice above the others in your life.

He wants to sabotage and untie the relationships in your life.

You may think you self-sabotage; but who planted the lies in front of you to affect your thinking and influence your choices?

I’m not saying we should blame the enemy for all the failures in our lives. At some point, we need to take responsibility for our decisions and suffer the consequences.

But there are reasons we chose the choices we’ve made; not excuses, but reasons.

Satan loves to dip his finger into every pot of soup we make. And his fingers are DIRTY! He’s coated them with the poison of his lies.

God created us. He created us to need Him – and to need each other.

Satan seeks to untie your good relationships, especially your relationship with God.

Once the knot is untied, where does that leave you? What does it leave you thinking and believing about yourself and others? Does it make you trust yourself and others less? Does it make you trust God less? Might it even make you angry with God?

That’s his goal.

If Satan leaves your relationships alone, perhaps they’re unhealthy relationships that he can use to your destruction.

Jesus Himself said, Satan, our common enemy, comes to steal, kill and destroy. While He [Jesus] comes that you may have life and live it to the fullest! (John 10:10)

What good relationships in your life have been unraveled?

Even if you think they can’t be restored, God’s thoughts are greater than ours. (Isaiah 55:9)

Align yourself with God’s ways of thinking, with His written Word.

It’s time to forge new, strong, healthy relationships with the people we love – and new people God is bringing into our lives. This might require a lot of forgiveness toward others, and even toward ourselves. We’ll ponder forgiveness another day…

 

Truth Seeking

 

Has it occurred to you that some of the things you believe are simply not true?

It’s easy to listen to others and pick out where they’re wrong. (I’m not talking about opinions.)

Look at a moral topic where you’re hearing opposing views, one (or more) can clearly be wrong.

I’m writing today to ask you to CONSIDER that there are things you believe today that are not true.

We have an enemy, and yes – he lies to us. We believe those lies because we don’t recognize them. As a matter of fact, Jesus calls Satan the father of lies! (John 8:44 NIV)

I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but God is tugging at my heart to write about it again.

It might be something easily dismissed because we think we know better; pride might tell us we would never fall for a lie.

But we all do!

Satan is very convincing. It’s his self-appointed job to tear us down, to plant seeds of doubt in our mind, and to convince us that God is not good. He revels in telling us that we aren’t lovable and watches our eyes fall when we believe it’s true. Then he piles on more self-debasing thoughts.

He’s subtle and sneaks in “little lies” that don’t seem to matter. But they begin to pile up in our mind and before you know it, we’re believing some seriously big lies.

The Bible tells us, “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; [but Jesus says] I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” – John 10:10 NIV

We’re warned!

But most of us don’t understand just how sneaky and treacherous he is. He hates you simply because God loves you. And that’s the biggest truth he tries to hide from you - that God truly DOES love you. Satan cannot stand it that God loves you and he fights to keep you from believing it.

He doesn’t want us to believe that God is good. We can come up with too many evil things in the world – and Satan wants us to attribute them to God, not him.

God. Is. Good.

How can we recognize these lies?

The ONLY way is to talk with our heavenly Father and ask Him to show us the lies we’re believing.

He wants to show us. He won’t show you everything at once, that would overwhelm us.

He’ll reveal them to us as He walks us through them, showing us in His Word, HIS truth, the absolute truth. Jesus said, “I AM the Truth.” (John 14:6 NIV)

Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to this world (don’t believe the lies of this world), but to renew our minds. Our minds NEED renewing!

When we become His child, we turn from the lies of this world and wash our minds with the Word of God.

NOTE: We won’t recognize lies if we don’t know the truth.

The Blue Dress Ball

Today - a story!

Maria had just found the perfect dress at the new consignment store in town. It was more like a gown than a mere dress, but it was the perfect shade of blue and fit like a glove. She giggled with glee as she looked at herself in the mirror.

She had moved to town little more than a year ago and quickly fell in love with the enchantment that filled the views from Main Street. Everything from the architecture of the old homes to the manicured lawns made her feel like she’d moved to the set of a cozy old movie. Everyone seemed friendly and welcoming.

Being forced to move from her old place a thousand miles away, she felt like her life was over. But here she could reinvent herself.

“Could life here really be this perfect?” she asked herself every morning as the sun came through her bedroom window.

But she was challenged to become an accepted member of her new community within the first few months of living there in paradise.

When the posters went up inviting the whole town to the annual “Blue Dress Ball” she knew it would be the perfect opportunity to show these folks what she was made of and how creative she could be when helping out. Staring at the poster, she imagined designing decorations and showing off her charcuterie board magic to pitch in with the catering.

The first day the planning committee met, she found herself sitting in the middle of a room filled with women who already knew their role; women who made it clear that they had things all wrapped up before she even moved to town. The meeting was just a social event that aimed to bring grand attention to the ones who always made it a huge sensation.

Saddened, but not defeated, Maria eased into the idea of attending without being taxed by securing party perfection. What a novel idea. In her old town she was the one who pulled everything together, constantly overwhelmed and exhausted after each community event.

“This might be a good thing,” she mused to herself with a chuckle, knowing she’d soon become frustrated with the notion of not being needed.

She did her best to be available should someone ask for her help with something, but when the big day dawned, it turned out that she wasn’t needed at all.

“I’ll just enjoy myself and get to know everyone,” she concluded.

Entering the park that surrounded the town center pavilion, she marveled at the lights and decorations the women had contrived. It was truly beautiful. Half the town was already there by the time she waltzed up front smiling from ear to ear, ready to introduce herself to everyone she hadn’t yet met.

Before perusing the heavenly smelling delicacies on the beautifully adorned tables and before the music swept her off her feet, she realized that no one was smiling back at her. As a matter of fact, they all seemed to be scowling at her.

One pretty teenager sashayed past her and spoke quite loudly, to be heard over the music and to make sure she embarrassed the newcomer. She said, “It’s called the Blue Dress Ball” for a reason, ma’am.”

She tossed her curls over her shoulder and joined arms with her friends without missing a beat. They all laughed at her like she was a freak.

“My dress has blue on it!” she insisted to herself, trying to keep the smile from falling off her face.

Her short dress was white with small blue flowers coming up from the hem. As she peered around at all the other women, she saw them lower their faces and shake their heads.

She quickly made her exit and ran home.

Sitting at her table in tears she promised she’d never speak to a single woman in this mean-spirited little town.

Then, no. She realized that wasn’t true. She’d have to speak to them. She lived there now. “What happened to the enchantment?” she whimpered.

She changed into her pajamas and slid into bed early, forcing her thoughts to avoid her feelings of humiliation.

Facing the townsfolk in the following days proved easier than she’d thought and before long, she began to feel like maybe she did belong there after all, noting that NEXT year, her dress for the ball would be completely blue.

Now she stared at the beautiful blue dress she’d found and bought before anyone else had a chance to snatch it up.

By the time the posters went up publicizing the ball this year, she was ready. She’d dropped her dress at the cleaners to make sure it was clean and pressed before the big night.

No, she didn’t get to help much this year either, but she pushed her way in where she could. Working from home didn’t give her the opportunities to make friends in the workplace. But she overzealously tried to find common ground with most every woman in the grocery store or the other shops on Main Street.

She was reluctantly invited to help put the posters up. “They don’t know what they’re missing,” she comforted herself. “I can do so much more, we could work together, my ideas would complement theirs, not challenge them. Maybe next year.”

This year, she would again try to enjoy being a mere participant, properly dressed this time!

The day before the ball she walked all the way to the dry cleaners, hoping to strike up conversation with anyone who looked her way. She wasn’t all that successful but talked the ears off the girl behind the counter at the cleaners.

When the girl retrieved the dress for her, she reached out with joy, knowing she’d fit in this year.

But the air left her lungs as she beheld her beautiful GREEN dress.

“How could this have happened?” she whispered to herself, trying to hide her panic.

She nodded at the girl and quickly left, clutching the dress close so no one would ask to see it. Not that anyone did.

She hurried home, forcing her tears to wait till she was behind closed doors.

She hung the dress in the hallway and stepped back to look at it again. She choked on her own spit. How had her beautiful blue gown turned green? Was this some cruel joke conjured up by someone who knew how embarrassed she’d been last year? She stared at it for at least ten minutes before she tossed it in the closet, letting it fall to the floor and slammed the door shut.

“The ball is tomorrow night. There’s no time to find something else that will work, surely every blue dress in town had been bought up by now,” she spoke down to herself. Even the few friends she’d made wouldn’t be able to help.

“It is what it is. I just won’t go,” she said with a stiff upper lip. “Maybe I’ll drive to the next town over and see a movie. By myself.”

After a deep breath and a promise to herself not to cry, she headed to the kitchen for ice cream.

A week later, disappointment still covering every place on her face, she was searching for a missing sneaker. “I live alone!” she muttered, “How can it not be with the other one?”

Crawling on her bedroom floor, she looked under the bed on both sides, then reached up to turn the knob on her closet door. Pulling it open, she grumbled a curse on herself if it wasn’t hiding somewhere in there.

Sitting crossed legged on the floor in front of the closet, her eyes wandered over to the new dress she’d refused to look at all week, still covered in the dry cleaners plastic.

Before she could even begin to search for her sneaker, her eyes widened and she gasped, holding her hands over her mouth.

In slow motion, she reached forward to grab at the dress.

The plastic wrap protecting it was – yellow!

How had she not seen that the day she picked it up?

She frantically ripped off the plastic to see that yes; her dress was still – blue.

She had no one to blame. She had no words to hurl at her own baffled brain. She felt tears gather in the corner of her eyes. She rocked back and forth for a few minutes, holding the dress to her chest. Then she wept.

 

What illusions are we falling for?

What color is the veil that hides God’s truth from us, keeping us from fulfilling His purposes in our lives?

What color veil has satan hung between our eyes and our reflection, hiding our beauty from us?

Our heavenly Father is the only One Who sees us as we truly are, because He sees the new creation we became when we first trusted in His Son.

I’m praying we begin to recognize the “protective plastic” that obscures truth and fools us into believing lies about ourselves AND lies about God, Himself.