In the Company of My Peeps

 Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I had no idea how much my life was going to change last April. I stumbled into the Titus 2:1 Conference not knowing what to expect and wondering what I’d gotten myself into.

Little did I know I had become part of a vibrant community of friends whose influence would impact me every single day for the rest of my life. It’s hard to believe we will gather again in less than 6 weeks.

This week, the 2013 attendees are linking up in an effort to foster new and rekindle existing relationships. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and get to know my friends because they are sure to inspire you as well! (Click here to meet my posse.)

One of our fearless leaders suggested a few questions to get the conversations started. So, here’s a peek into my world. I wonder if I’ll surprise you?

I've been homeschooling since Methuselah was born. Well, there are days it seems that way. In reality, this is my 15^th year of homeschooling. I have two more to go and am already wondering what I’ll do and who I’ll be without my community of homeschooling friends.

New Mexico - 2011

Given my above transparency, it may not surprise you that my homeschooling super power (if I suddenly sprouted a cape and phone booth) would have to be determination/perseverance. I never believed I’d homeschool my sons all twelve years, but here we are. I can’t believe the end is in sight!

If I could have a dream ‘mom-cation’ and money/time were no object, I would have to divide my time between:  Kiawah Island, SC and Santa Fe, NM. I told God I'd appreciate it if he could make my piece of Heaven exactly like those two places!

Here are a few more quick facts:

Courtesy B. Creasy - Kiawah Is 2010

In my previous life (aka before homeschooling), I taught K5-3^rd grade, worked in a psych hospital (as a teacher/therapist), completed management training with a national chain of bookstores, and adjudicated disability claims for the Social Security Administration.

I really wanted to be a doctor or Occupational Therapist when I grew up. We’ve moved so many times that realtors say I need to be a realtor.

I have sewn 2 wedding dressings and made 3 cathedral length veils back in the day. Just typing that fact nearly gives me heart failure.

Future Doctor/Seamstress ??

I do my best thinking in the shower. Unfortunately, as soon as I pull back the shower curtain and reach for the towel, I can’t remember a single one of my braniac-storms.

I am looking forward to this year’s conference with less fraidy cat anxiety and more unbridled excitement because I know what to expect now. And, I expect lots of laughter - as in laugh until you snort laughter. I can’t wait to see my IRL friends again and make new ones. 

Amid all the laughter and hugs, I know I will learn a lot. And this year . . . I’ll actually understand what I’m learning because this group didn’t stop teaching me when the conference was over last year. They have patiently kept answering questions and breaking down technical information for me all year long. 

In the last year, I have often said:

  

     Titus 2:1 is a gift that keeps on giving!

2010

If you are a homeschooler who blogs about anything at all and have been thinking about going but just can’t quite make up your mind, let me knock you off the fence. You don’t just find friends at the conference, you find your people. They get you. You don’t have to explain a thing! See you there?

Wanna know what I was thinking just after the conference last year? Click here!

Links to this post http://2to1conference.com/

Monday Meet Up – Weeks 3 and 4

Courtesy L. Richardson

The mom was maybe twenty-two at most. Intense concentration pushed the tip of her tongue to the corner of her mouth while she filled out the medical forms.

Rocking a car seat with her foot, she reached to pat first one child and then the other sitting in seats next to her. The five-month-old was wheezing.

As the dad strode in with a freshly mixed bottle, the calm evaporated. He set the room a-buzz barking orders at the eighteen-month-old and five-year-old.

The kids became more fretful as he strutted back and forth. The mom’s precise control began to slip as the dad’s nervous energy sucked the air out of the room.

As annoying as he was, it was plain to see how hard he was trying. Even plainer to see how afraid he was of someone else becoming impatient if the children grew too restless.

Courtesy  A. Squires

I was the only other person in the room, but he cared desperately about my opinion. That much was plain to see.

Where were the folks on whom this couple relied to speak a calming word, offer a quiet moment of respite, and reassure them in their journey?

I reached in my bag only to realize my copy of Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe was on the table in my living room. 

I thought of how Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson take turns speaking about the seasons of parenting. I twisted and turned in my seat. If I said anything, I could overstep my boundaries.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

If I said the right thing, this young couple might stop and take a breath. The ache in my heart grew sharper as I saw the older two children begin to crumble under the chaos the dad was creating.

He was unaware that the children were causing far less commotion than was he. Finally, he came close enough to meet my eye by accident. It was then or never:

Young man, you are working so hard. It is plain to see that you are both working so hard to be good parents. Shhh . . . it’s o.k. Take a deep breath and calm down. Those are sweet little children who’ve barely made a peep since you came in. It’s obvious that you are doing the best you can by them. Relax. It’s going to be o.k. Just breathe.

I looked over at the mom. Her eyes were full of tears. She mouthed, “Thank you. Thank you!”

Too many young women (and men) are navigating the parenting maze alone. Indeed, they mount heroic efforts despite coming from fractured families where no one knew how to teach the gentle art of either friendship, marriage, or mothering.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

As Sarah Mae and Sally take turns speaking about the heartbreak and beauty of parenting, I see the seasons of my own life. I see the need for women in my age bracket to embrace the book as well as the young women around us.

I see the need for each of us, younger and older, to look for ways to build community. I need your vigor and enthusiasm as my body and mind begin to slow a bit. You need to be able to ask me if it will always be this hard, and a million other things, I’m sure.

Do you understand the situation I described above because I have described your life experience? Perhaps you have also observed a young couple or single parent adrift and alone - desperate with the need to breathe - and wondered what to say.

Have you felt ill-equipped to speak an encouraging word to a struggling young mom? Do you wonder if you are all alone in your parenting struggles?

Courtesy M. Horrocks

Won’t you join me in reading Desperate? Whether you are a young mom with lots of littles or a mom in the scrunched season of life launching young adults while caring for elders, we will find common ground in these pages.

Consider Sally’s words:

In this individualistic culture where everyone is too busy and overwhelmed with life, the groups in which we find community will inevitably be the groups we start ourselves. (p. 22)

Are you looking for ways to build community? Won’t you join me for in(RL) on April 26^th and 27^th? This worldwide event is free. On Friday the 26^th, we will watch a computer webcast from the comfort of our own homes. On Saturday the 27^th, we will meet with a small group of other women and begin to build community.

Come on now. Don’t be a friady cat. Go watch the trailer, register, and find a group close to you by clicking here:

in(RL) hosted by (in)courage

To order your copy of Desperate, click on the book link at the top right of this page. 

To read another story of a desperate young couple and how our paths crossed, read:

Fear and Loathing at the Grocery Store

Courtesy B. Creasy - 2010

Micah 6: 8 (NIV)

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 

Spreading a Little Sunshine

It is almost the end of two arduous weeks with an even more arduous one looming ahead. The heat wave undulating over the earth has left me feeling like I have been through a pasta maker. Picture Flat Stanley's grandmother. My heart and soul feel even flatter. I know friends, faithful friends, far and near are praying for me.

I messaged a friend about the prayers going up and how I needed to hear from God. Even as we typed back and forth, a note was landing in my email inbox. A note from a stranger. I'll tell you more about that note later. I have to percolate on it a while longer.

As I was absorbing the message from the stranger, I saw a friend's name pop up on my sidebar. Oh! She had a new blog post up on her site, Journeying Sue. I hit on it faster than a fly on watermelon at a picnic. 

A friend had nominated her for a Sunshine Award which is awarded to “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”. My friend Sue and I met at the conference I mention so often (Titus 2:1). I mention it frequently because it has been pivotal in my life. Sue is one of those pivots. Meeting her was to experience instantaneous and permanent friendship. She is the definition of sunshine, and I smiled thinking how fitting for another friend to label her just so.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Award winners are asked to nominate ten other bloggers who inspire others. It's a fun way to create a blog roll when you get right down to it. I was excited to see who would inspire my inspiring friend. Are you laughing already? Yes. There was my blog listed among her top 10 faves. I just LOL'd. Not to be cliché.

You see, she is an army nurse practitioner that has served 'in theater'. That's fancy talk for in a combat zone. She has 6 kiddos and a spouse still on active duty. She homeschools, and she blogs. She is in triathlons for goodness sakes! She is an iron woman to my fraidy cat. How in the world I inspire her is anybody's guess, especially mine! But, I love her to pieces and can't thank her enough for being the 1-2 punch of encouragement in my life today.

Let me introduce you to MY favorite blogs worthy of the Sunshine Award in their own rights. The weekend is coming. Stay in out of the heat, and peruse my little neighborhood of the blogging universe?

1. Learning Table is presently nominated by Circle of Moms as one of the top 25 Teacher Moms of 2012. (Drop by and vote for her?) She is my IRL friend and sister of the heart.
2. Eternal Instants is one of the sweetest blogs I've seen. One look at her photography and companion blog posts and you'll be hooked! 
    
3. The Daisyhead is one of my blogging mentors. You won't want to miss her series, Our Sick Babies. She blogs about crocheting, green living, homeschooling and more. She's like the Target of blogs - so much under one roof! She taught me how to compost the lazy way!
   
   
4. 

   Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

    Deeper With Jesus in Rhode Island is the reason I nearly quit blogging. Lori's words are so compelling I feel there is simply nothing left to say. If you need to drink deeply from the well of living water, she has the cup.
5. The Budget Maven is a young lady who ignored the differences in our ages and adopted me as her friend. Her blog has won awards two years in a row at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. For good reason, I'm sure you'll see.
   
   
6. Beth Pensinger is another young lady who stole my heart when she compared me to her beloved aunt. She has a heart for young 20/30-somethings and is working on a book that will speak to many. 
    
7. Amber Howard Massey has a heart for horses and the people who ride them. She is working on a devotional book, derived from her blog. I love her concept of teaching spiritual lessons via her riding experiences. 
    

8. 

   Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

   Meet Penny is another of my blogging mentors. She is a tour de force of homsechooling info, couponing info, freebies, ebooks and too many more projects to name. She is both a Pinterest and blogging award winner. 
    
9.   Lovin My Crazy Life details the ups and downs of life as a mom. She maintains a vibrant sense of humor despite the challenges of  her son's autism and related learning struggles. 
   
   

   1. 
      

      Jennifer A. James is one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I've met. Her blog echos hear heart as she encourages homeschooling moms.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Now for 10 things about me: My favorite color is blue. My favorite animal is the leafy sea horse. I have no favorite number. (Who makes up these Q's???) If you know me, you know my favorite drink is hot chocolate...even when it is 107F in the shade. Facebook over twitter any day. Good movie vs good book unless I have downtime. My passion – to be God's head cheerleader. Getting vs giving gifts bcz I find it hard to receive. Favorite day is any day I do something out of the ordinary and get out of the house. Hey, I homeschool. I don't get out much! ;-) Favorite flowers are hydrangeas, calla lilies, and zinnias.

Courtesy B. Creasy 2010

I am so grateful for you, my fraidy cat friends. I am equally grateful for my blogging community. Every time this fraidy cat gets ready to throw in the towel, one of these bloggers comes to my rescue. I hope you'll thank them for encouraging me to keep doing what I do . . . even when I'm not sure you are out there! Love you long and strong. See you soon?

Words to Live By

Courtesy M. Horrocks

We met by happenstance. Looking back, I felt robbed because our paths crossed for so short a time. I saved her business card. Over the next year, I sometimes picked it up and turned it over and over in my hand. Oh, if only we could have been friends.

The calendar did what it does and carried me along. The connection began to fade. I prepared to return to the writers conference where we met. The morning before I left, I thumbed through last year's business card collection. Who would I see again? Who had moved on to greener pastures? Would anyone care that I was back again?

There she was on that little square of paper. I was almost afraid to hope. Since it was not a photo card, I closed my eyes and tried to recall her face. Nada. Nothing. If she came again, would I even know her? I breathed a prayer. Truth be told, it was fleeting and without much hope.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

This year, I managed not to lock my keys in the car upon arriving. I was patting myself on the back as I returned the luggage carrier to the lobby. An energetic young couple was heading for the elevator, so I held the door. They tumbled in a little breathless from the heat and effort of the day. Her eyebrows lifted as if in excited recognition. “Hey!” Her husband's reaction affirmed that he thought she was greeting an old friend.

“Hi! How are you?” The greetings flowed like sweet tea and soothed like water in the desert. Then, we each looked a bit taken aback. Why such a heartfelt greeting as if we knew each other? We shied away. Probably just the contagion of excitement in the air. Polite and more restrained mouth noise followed as we cast nervous and puzzled glances back and forth.

Was it another happenstance of life? Our rooms were right next door to one another. We saw each other coming and going, but warm greetings did not slow our paces. Until they did. The elevator doors closed against the frenzy of the conference. “I have this weird feeling every time we see each other. Like I should know you. Did you come last year?”

She agreed that our connection seemed oddly familiar, and, yes, she was an attendee last year as well. So, I asked, “May I have your card? Here's mine.”

Courtesy D. R. Ahola

In my palm lay a replica of the card I had pulled out and turned over and over so many times the preceding year. I tried not to cry. Recognition dawned on her face as well. We stood amazed. It all made sense now. We did know each other for those few, fleeting moments in time.

All I needed was to prove I was an unbalanced stalker while we were in an elevator with closed doors. Geez. I tried to keep my voice from wavering as I told her that the last thing I did before I left home was hold her card and ask God to cause our paths to cross. 

God did what I feel he so rarely does in my life. (Note: I said it's what I 'feel'. I am hoping I am just a slow learner with poorly corrected spiritual vision. I hope I will one day look back and see many things I cannot see about his work in my life right now.) He heard the cry of my heart and answered. In that instant of recognition, I rejoiced in his provision, uniquely designed for me.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

We spent breakfast together. Before we knew it, the cafeteria had grown quiet. In our absorption with the commonalities of our lives, the world had fallen away. We laughed and ran. Life. Always, always moving us along at a hurtle. This year, we made a promise. No more losing each other. And, we've kept it. More visits are in our future. Truthfully, time drags between visits. 

I received a note from her a few days ago. The news was not unexpected given what was transpiring in her life. She is leaving a career of twenty-two years to become a full-time writer and speaker. But, oh, her words. How they pierced my heart and still do. With her permission, I share a portion of them tonight:

Courtesy H. Wills

I am extremely sad to walk away from a profession that I love, yet I am deeply joyful and humbled that the God of the universe has spoken to me so intimately and so clearly. He has been holding my hand confirming this next step over and over again. He is too good, and I trust Him too much to resist His leading. 

I jotted her a note tonight. Last year, I turned her business card over and over in my heart. This year, I turn this paragraph over and over, again and again. He is too good, and I trust Him too much to resist His leading. Oh, the agony of soul. When last we sat face-to-face, I grasped her hand and said, “I want to know him like you do. I want to know God the way you do. I want to be able to say exactly what you've said.

How do you spell Providence?

I sit here tonight in the quiet and wee hours of the morning. My soul cries out to Jackie's God. Please. And thank-you. She is iron sharpening my iron. Help me live with that much faith. Help me to know you and declare you as she does: too good and too trustworthy to resist your leading. Here I am, Lord. Pick me?

For Jackie: the gift of iron to a rusty soul.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

A Broken Heart Even the BeeGees Can't Mend

If you've been visiting me for a while, you've heard a thing or 2 about how 'dangerous' I am on anesthesia.  IV morphine apparently has as impressive an effect as well. I remember little of the next 2 weeks.  Quick snatches here and there emerge from time to time.  Before I was loaded onto the EMS van, I made sure that my sister would take my then 6th grader and see to it that he finished his schoolwork for that day.  I remember telling Son #1 that he should go on to classes as there was nothing else he could to for me. What a hero he and his brother had been that morning.  He finally relented and tried to collect himself enough to be a college freshman the rest of that day.  I will always fear that I destroyed what was left of his 1st semester of college. Maybe my inner fraidy cat rules the roost on that one?

 Once the IV took effect, I began to shake violently and continued to do so for several hours. The paramedic apologetically asked could he do anything for me when I cried out in pain. I asked him to hold my hand.  I remember I kept saying, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." to no one in particular.  I guess I had said it a bazillion times because he finally asked me why.  I told him that we couldn't afford the expense or inconvenience of what I had just done and that I couldn't believe I had been that careless. I know I managed to see to Son #2's school work in the days between the fall and the surgery that would put enough hardware  in my leg to guarantee my reserved spot in a TSA body scanner.  I guess the rest was like labor. I forgot it as soon as it was over.  I am sure that drug induced ignorance is bliss in this case.


They patched me up and sent me home to await surgery on October 30th. The otherworldly sobbing began.  I remember sleeping.  I was vaguely aware that my husband got home from Tennessee, but it was as if he was a dream. I remember knowing he was there. I remember knowing he took me home from the hospital after surgery and headed back to our new, never to be home, in Tennessee. Other than that, I'm clueless.


A few weeks ago, Son #1 and I were reflecting back over that day and that week.  He said, "Mamma, I've never seen you cry like that. You cried and you cried and you cried. I don't just mean you cried. I mean you BABY cried....just like a little baby. You'd doze off for a while and then wake to insist you had to call Becca. We'd tell you that she had been there, and you'd talked to her. You'd dose off and wake again only to have to be reassured again."

 It's been almost 2 years.  I can look back at those early days with a little objectivity now. Not much, but some.  I'll tell you about that 'baby cry'.  I think the IV pain killers, and the oral ones that followed, opened the flood gates of my wounded soul.  All the stress that I had held back between 1999 and 2009 finally had a way of escape. I wasn't crying out of the pain of a broken leg as much as I was crying out of the pain of a broken heart and spirit. When I could finally get to a window to look out at the scene of the 'crime', I couldn't. It was months before I could bring myself to stare out at the spot because I knew my broken heart was out there still waiting to be reclaimed.


The Becca I had asked for over and over again had rushed dinner over to my family that night.  She was the 1st of an army of friends who put food on our table 3-4 times a week for 7.5 weeks.  Their thoughtfulness extended to Jeff even tho' he was 6 hrs away. When he came home every 2 weeks, we had frozen 'TV dinner' type meals for him to take back to his new home. It wasn't a fresh out of our own oven home cooked meal, but it would have to do for a family living in 2 states. And, it was beyond what we deserved or could have hoped for.

One of my BFF's, Sally, came 2-3 mornings a week to bring breakfast and coffee from our 2nd level down to the 1st where I lived for most of a month.  She has Rheumatoid Arthritis and came even when her condition flared and damp, cold weather heightened the flare. My sister was there every single weekday from October 27th until Dec 22nd. She helped me make the arduous trip up 2 flights of stairs so that I could shower.  When I could joke a little bit again, we'd laugh about me having bat wings of steel that could be registered as lethal weapons before my ordeal was over. Another group of friends came twice and cleaned a bit. My boys were doing ok in that regard, but you know how it is....kids don't clean like a mom does. My brother helped keep Son #2 occupied as did another BFF, Anne and her boys. Our next door neighbor mowed our lawn when she mowed hers.  All in all, it took an army to make up for my careless, hasty decision to go where I had told everyman not to go.

Looking back, the faithfulness of those folks still amazes me.  My head knows they were God's hands extended and that their blessing upon my family was incalculable.  I often told myself my situation was temporary. I would walk again.  It would be 6 months before I stood alone on my own 2 feet, but I would walk again. Maybe, just maybe I'd run up the stairs again.  Funny, after I had mowed our 3/4 of an acre the day before I fell, I had spent a lot of time patting myself on the back for being such a tough old broad.  Son #1 said, "Mom...you know what they say...pride go-eth before a fall." Sigh...apparently, the saying, "From your lips to God's ears" also applies when we least expect or want.

Even tho' my head knew all these lovely and true things about my friends being God's hands extended, my heart...was not in the game anymore. I looked at my bookcase full of treasured books by Elizabeth George, Kay Arthur, Beth Moore, Donna Partow and all the others.  I looked at my multiple translations of the Bible.  I couldn't bear to look for long. I could no more make my way to that bookcase using my walker than I could get out of the house without help. I have never, never felt so lonely, forlorn, and abandoned in all my life.

The cheerleader in me was scathing.  She poked. She prodded. She cajoled. She sermonized.  She berated. I was numb, and her words had no effect.  I had lost my heart and my good God, and I not only didn't know where or how to look for them, I couldn't even work up the gumption to try.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

"God, we had just started over. We were finally free of the monster that had hidden in the shadows of our marriage all these years.  We had a home to call our own again. For the 1st time in our marriage, we had the ability to work together as a team to fix it up. Now he lives there, and I live here.  How can we recreate a marriage that never was living in 2 states? What are you doing to me? To us? What have WE done to you to deserve this? What are we too stubborn to learn?  Why do we need a post-test? I'm so tired of being the flannel board story of faith in everyone else's life. Do you hear me? I'm tired.  If you are out there, you are going to have to come find me. I've looked and looked and looked for you, but you won't let me find you. Have I ever been anyone to you? I wanted to be your chiefest cheerleader -- the one that could tell everyone you would restore all that you had taken away when your time was right. Why can't THAT be the story I tell instead of this sorry tale?"

What about you, fraidy cat?  Where is/was your breaking point? Everyone has one, I think.  I used to think my life was so weird that no one could understand. Then, I went to the writer's conference and heard stories that make mine pale.  In fact, a former runner up to Miss America told how her own brother-in-law had shot at her only a short while before the conference in 2010.  Hah! I didn't get the chance to meet her, but I didn't have to. I knew she'd 'get me' in a skinny minute. Another keynote speaker told us, "As a writer, I don't have crises, I have anecdotes."  Lord knows, I've got a million of  'em, I feel like.  I am humbled that you keep coming back to share them.  Some days you come in droves. Some days you come in a trickle. But come, you do. And, I thank you for it.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I'm writing my way back to God.  I hope before I'm done, we will all know something about him that we can't even imagine now.  In fact, I'm desperately depending on it.  I want my heart back.....so...I'll keep writing. See you tomorrow?

Ezekiel 36:26  (KJV c. 1769)
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

A Fraidy Asks, "What Do Oprah and a Clothesline Have in Common?"

A clothesline will soon be a curious anthropological artifact. That simple, almost forgotten solar dryer whispers of a simpler time and place where neighbors knew each other by name. Shoot! In some towns, your neighbors were your cousins and grammaw! Today, your neighbor is just a waving hand behind a passing steering wheel. In those bygone days, yards backed up to each other in an expanse uninterrupted by privacy fences. Clotheslines peppered back property lines. Toddlers chased butterflies, and moms gathered for a quick chat while wrangling clothes drying in the wind. Those days slipped away bit by bit till no one even has a clothesline anymore.


As I watched the Oprah departure effect wash back and forth across facebook, my mind wandered back to those almost forgotten images. I thought about how the world has changed and how those changes set the stage for a hero like Oprah to emerge. I confess, I watched her debut show. Over the years, I enjoyed quite a few more of them. The last few years, her appeal waned as her philosophical bent diverged from mine. As I've pondered her departure, I realized what drew me, and probably many others, to the show.

Didn't she have the power to make you feel like you had gathered at the clothesline with a few of your best girlfriends? The chores of the day were less tedious because you had her. Every day, she came into your home and diverted your attention from the wearisome details of life. Oprah reassured you that you were not alone in this big scary world. No matter what pain you hid behind your scairdy cat mask, she and her guests eventually met you where you lived. Oprah had the power to instruct, reassure, chide, encourage, rebuke, amuse, challenge, entertain, and comfort all of us from the safe and antiseptic distance of her studio.

It may be the ultimate oxymoron that the more we become interconnected via technology, the less we feel intimately networked to those around us. Families are spread across the globe with Skype to connect them. Friends stopped calling and moved on to email. Now facebook and email are going the way of twitter. Text messages masquerade as conversations. Cards and letters are museum pieces.

Oprah stepped into the void and became a candidate to be our best friend by proxy. A best friend that most of us will never meet. We know Oprah, and she knows us. Life is a mess, and she could be our friend without getting messy in the process. Now that Oprah's gone, who will fill her void? Maybe we could take a chance on each other. Why wait until an F5 tornado wipes out our community to realize we need each other and have something in common behind our fences and masks and fears?

So, for today think of life as a clothesline. Find a friend and encourage her with this thought:

Hebrews 10:24- "...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."  (NIV)

If we do, the world will be a better place even tho' Oprah is no longer there to fill her time slot in our lives.