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It is real…

17 Apr

A few years ago, we spent 10 days touring Israel with our church group. It was an amazing, life changing experience. I’ve been a Christian as long as I can remember. Surrendering my spirit with every alter call, more times than I could count, until I learned that you only needed to do it once.

I tell you this because I have always been a believer. I don’t have all the answers and I can’t quote every scripture at the right time, but I’ve always believed in a God that is greater than I. I’ve witnessed “only God” moments and have seen Him work things out in my own life that seem unexplainable. I also know that bad things happen to good people and I don’t know why. I can’t explain it beyond the fact that sin is in the world. I know one day I’ll crawl up on God’s lap and ask him all about the things I don’t understand. Until then, I hold my faith tightly in a world where it seems so easy to just let it go.

The trip to Israel was a whirlwind. I intended to journal every night…and I failed most nights as I fell into bed exhausted and a bit overwhelmed. Several times during the trip, my husband and looked at each other and said “This is real. The Bible is REAL.”

I’m not sure what we expected. Neither one of us can really answer that question in hindsight. Maybe we thought we’d see artifacts in a museum….or stories in front buildings where your imagination had to be sparked to see what was there so many years ago. Maybe we thought it would be a bit like Disney…over commercialized.

What we saw though were the actual buildings and landmarks described in the Bible. Still standing…still exactly as described.

Skull Mountain (Golgotha) from my camera
From a google search

The garden tomb is nearly at the feet of Golgotha.

John 19:41: “At the place where Jesus is crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had been laid.”
My husband and I near a mock stone that would have been rolled in front of the tomb at the Garden.

In addition to these landmarks, we saw the Temple Mount, the pool of Bethesda, The Garden of Gethsemane, The Mount of Olives, Herod’s palace (it was indeed a palace)…and so much more. We sat on the steps where Jesus would have walked to access the temple…this stuff is real. It’s real…and it’s still there for you to see too.

If I can touch it, walk on it, see it…it’s not a hard leap to believe the rest of the Bible is real too. I’ve always been a believer but this trip cemented faith into my soul and grounded me there. It is real. He has risen!

Happy Easter friends!

Love

Lady Chats A lot.

XoXo

The entrance to the Garden of Gethsemane
The Garden of Gethsemane with olive trees.

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Magnolias and Memories

17 May

It’s the beginning of summer. When the air is still cool enough to enjoy being outside even when the sun is at its peak and high overhead. The wisteria and honey suckle are long since gone, but the magnolias are blooming.

Magnolias are not our state flower, but I have no idea why. They embody our great southern state of South Carolina. They represent us…Just go to any tourist jaunt and you’ll find something magnolia….a candle, a plate…a sign. They pepper our back yards and line the parking lots of nearly every place I can think of.

Magnolias = a southern state of mind.

magnolia

When my grand-precious and I take our bike rides,  her on her beloved frozen bike with silver tassels swaying from the handle bars and a fuzzy pink troll helmet a top her head, me walking briskly behind, we make a pit stop by the grand magnolia trees lining our neighborhood to drink in the fragrance. Burying our noses into the blossoms deeply, until the dream like fragrance fills our lungs and reaches our toes. They always bring a smile and a bit of amazement. Giant, bold blooms. Stark white petals, unfolding one by one to reveal the cone. The cone is a wonder all its own to be honest. Dancing with the branches, it releases the seeds (or carpels according to google) as the bloom begins to die. A last ditch effort for survival, I suppose. Hoping one of the seeds returns to ground to become a new. My grand-precious collects the seeds in her pockets as if they were treasure. “Look at this one Gigi” as she points to a new bloom. Scooping out the seeds of another to add to her collection.

I watch her and the corners of my smile nearly touches my eyes. When we first started this routine, I just wanted to point out new things for her to wonder about and to stretch her imagination. To ride around (and not over) the centipede crossing the sidewalk. To notice the way the stream moves and winds under the bridge. To see new wild flowers that were not there yesterday and wonder where they came from.

Today as I was watching her, I thought…when I’m long since gone, I hope she smells a magnolia bloom drifting through the early summer air and thinks about me.
The way I do when I think about my Gram….I can’t see a Burger King commercial without thinking about her. The lady loved her a whopper! Or the way my son does – my grand-precious’ father, when he sees a Sonic….because she equally loved a banana split and often used his visits to indulge in one with him! It’s funny the way the mind works and triggers memories.

Yesterday we were in Gram’s “neck of the woods” over on Folly Beach. We passed a Sonic and my 28 year old said “I think I had my first banana split over there.” We talked for a few minutes about Gram, banana splits and whoppers until the air fell heavy with the sadness that rises from losing someone you loved. My son said, “I miss Grandma Cox.”

“Yeah, me too buddy. But man did she love us. She loved us so hard.”
‘Yeah, she did.” He replied softly.

And so when I saw my little, beautiful, grand precious breathing in that big, bold magnolia blossom, I thought – I hope these memories get etched in her magnificent mind. When she is grown and I’m long since gone, it will serve as a reminder that she was loved. Loved so hard, and so deep, with every ounce of my being. Down to her toes and to the very tip of head. She is loved.

The way I do when I think of my Gram.

lina

 

XoXo,

Lady Chats A lot 

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Image

You can’t always get what you want…

31 Mar

Veryjane

From my IG feed: Photo Credit Very Jane.com

Ya’ll….We are living in crazy times…CR.AAA.ZY  times.

I’ve been on the search for toilet paper for the last week. We are not dangerously low yet, but we are creeping up on it!

I’ve gone to SEVEN…SEVEN  stores over the last week and have yet to find a single roll. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve google searched it to no avail. Even AMAZON.Freakin’.PRIME is out of toilet paper. FOR REAL YA’LL….WHY can’t I find toilet paper? Why is this a thing? Like a  real  thing?

I already feel like I’m taking my life into my hands when I enter Walmart. I try not to breathe the entire time. I have my sanitizer wipe in my hand. I wipe down the surface of the cart and nearly everything else. By the time I’m through, my wipe is shriveled and dry.  I’ve pre-mapped out my game plan in my mind based upon my shopping list and the store layout.  I’m half exhausted before I even walk in the door….I secretly curse anyone who comes within my six foot radius. There has been at least once that it was not so secretly ….

Now, I’m out there going in and out of SEVEN different stores looking for something I clearly took for granted just weeks ago.

My husband, who is already very picky about his TP, thinks he has an idea. When I say picky – I mean to say, we have to pack toilet tissue on any over night trip because he doesn’t want to risk using whatever they may have there, picky….SOOOO he says “well, we will just use wipes”….Nope…Those ARE ALL OUT TOO! Someone already had that idea, Fred. (That’s not his real name, it’s just what I call him from time to time.)

So I mention this  rant  to a few friends.  They have some they will share with me they say.   No, no, not yet. But I leave the door open in case I do get desperate.
Oh my geezee…

And then…then ya’ll

My coworker calls me. She is at the store shopping for her elderly parent and has found the holy grail! She asks me if I still need it, to which I practically leap through the phone – YES! And, then – she offers to deliver it… To do a drive by and toss it on my porch. (Six foot Corona virus rules.)  I mean…How freakin’ great is that.

I have tears.

TP Delivery

Text between my husband and I after our delivery

You guys – I love my coworkers. I really, really do. I count myself so blessed that I get to go to work and spend time with these fantastic people. Over the years we have been through so much together. They are my work family! Today, one of them rescued me in more ways than one.

I’ve been trying so hard to find the positive in this Corona Virus mess. But truthfully, it is wearing thin. I. WANT. TO GO. BACK. TO WORK….Like physically, go into my office. Chat with my work friends at the coffee pot, argue with my work friends in the conference room, and have “ah-ha”, breakthrough, fantastic ideas to “fix” or “resolve” a seemingly impossible problem. It’s what we do. It’s my favorite work thing in the world – to make hard things simple…I want to go back to work (in the office).

I also want to go to the beach…I want to hang out with my girlfriends…I want my kid to go back to school…I want to go to the park…to the store without holding my breath….I want to stop worrying if my family and friends will get this damn thing…to stop worrying if the economy will ever recover and if my friends who have lost their jobs or those who run a small businesses will find their way back again… I want this virus thing to be over with already. The thought of it lasting eight more weeks makes my insides hurt.

And yet, with a deep sigh and adult understanding (I get it…I really do)  I will stay home – and I be grateful that I still get to work with these awesome people from my make shift desk in my home “office”.

If you don’t have people like this in your life – people who will hunt for toilet paper for you and throw it on your porch in the middle of a pandemic – get some! Get on it pronto! Seriously! It’s not to late…Because when you are stuck and a friend rescues you – it puts your world back together again, if only for the day.

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need.” ~ The Rolling Stones

Today, I didn’t get what I wanted…but I got what I needed.  I’m so thankful for my TP Angel and for drive by deliveries.

xoxo,

Lady Chats A Lot 

 

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Shutting down the world

21 Mar

Sometimes I dabble at writing a blog. Frankly, if you follow me, it’s been a minute… I honestly don’t pick the topics. They roll around on my heart and stay on repeat in my mind until the only way I can get them out is to put them on paper. That is the case with the writing below. I am not a super Christian, nor do I play one on t.v..

The world is a crazy place right now. Legit, crazy. We are living in unprecedented times. No one really knows what they are doing… What we should be doing….I find it difficult to follow those in leadership because while we are supposed to be “flatting the curve” we have no way of really knowing if it is working due to the lack of tests available… In a matter of just a few weeks, we’ve seen huge layoffs, school closures and a shortage of toilet paper. If you would have told me at the start of 2020 that a virus would shut down the world, I would have thought that was an impossibility. Yet here we are in the middle of a pandemic, and the Corona Virus is doing just that – shutting down the world.

It’s a scary time, no doubt. Worry and anxiety are at it’s peak. (At least it feels like it is at it’s peak – but let the chicken nuggets my kids eat run out at the grocery and I’m at a whole new level of anxiety!)

To deal with it all, I find myself diving deeper into prayer, into scripture, into places that I can latch on to other Christians to find hope before the curtain of darkness (which feels all to close) falls around us.

In my quest, I landed on a video where our church worship leader said something that just resonated deep within me. He said something to the effect of “We are all social distancing to keep the virus at bay. But social distancing is just unhuman.”

WOW!!! 

Yes….as Christians we are taught that we are created for relationship. Wayyyyy back in Genesis 2:18 we read  “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (NIV). We were not meant to be alone. Men, certainly were not meant to be alone. (I kid, I kid…)

Quote

Here is where I know I’ll lose some of you…but stay with me, ok!

Say what you will but I believe in the spiritual battle between good and evil. I know there will be some people rolling their eyes at this point, and maybe you’ll even stop reading. I get it.

I didn’t always know about this spiritual battle nor did I believe in it. But it is actually in scripture. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of the evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:10.12, NIV)

Could it be then that this virus is a spiritual attack meant to divide our relationships? To cause distance between “them” and “us”? I’m not disputing that this is a REAL virus. I’m saying, could there be more to it? If you believe in scripture, this is not to much of a stretch.

So what do we do? How can we prevent the darkness from taking hold, from gaining ground?

1)  Spend time with the Lord. Let him lead you; calm you. My prayer is that you hear his voice. Dive deep into your Bible. There are so many resources out there if you are not a reader or find the Bible difficult to navigate. (I was there too – a good study Bible is everything!) I love watching Joyce Meyer, or Pastor TD Jakes. Find something that brings you closer to God. Pray on your walks around your neighborhood. Look for his beauty – and you will find it. Those are some of my sweetest moments….when I’m just walking outside, looking for something good – and God sends a special moment or ah-ha thought. Try it.

2) Be kind. Look for ways to help others. Don’t allow ‘me versus them’ mentality to take root. During a crisis, we will see the worst and the best of humanity. Be part of the best. If you have a few extra bucks, donate to a blessing box or food pantry. Offer to pick up groceries for someone who is high risk. Protect yourself but do what you can.

3) Spend time with your family. The ones that live in your house. Call or face time the people who don’t! Stay connected! Don’t let this time in quarantine be sucked up with hours of social media scrolling!

My grand-precious and I have a routine that she calls “relaxing”. It’s where I decide I’ve had enough of the day – and I go upstairs to the quiet of my room. I turn on the tv or read, but essentially all of my mom, work, and wife duties are over. I’ve clocked out. At some point during her five years on the planet, she has decided that she should join me in “relaxing”. This means that I’m not officially off the clock, but it does provide one-on-one time with my girl, and that is not lost on me.

Last night I said, “I think I’m going upstairs.” Her green eyes widened, and she said “I want to go with you! To relax! I can relax with you!”

Of course I said okay and before long she was snuggled under the covers with me on her Poppa’s side of the bed. She loves to learn (a child after my own heart), and we buy her these big learning books. She already sailed through the K5 book so we are onto the first grade book. This makes her sit up a little taller, as she says, “I can do first grade, Gigi!”. We get started on the first few pages, with me reading the directions and her doing the work. She has her blue crayon in her right hand, and she is giving it her all. Sounding out the letters “kkk aaa ttt …Cat!” and learning new words. At some point, ten-ish minutes or so in to “relaxing”, and she purrs, “I looove you Gigi”.

WorkThat’s it. That’s all it took to fill up my heart and wash away the day. We are created for relationship. We need it. I need it. Baby girl needs it. Hold on to your people and to God during this crazy time.

Join me in prayer:

Dear Lord,
I don’t even know how to deal with this Corona Virus. I don’t understand its presence in our world. What I do know is that you are not caught by surprise. Lord, help us through this. Strengthen our hearts and our immune systems as we put on the

“full armor of God…standing firm…with the readiness that comes form the gospel of peace.” We “take up the shield of faith..to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one”…and we carry ”the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:13-17).

Just like you did Lord during Passover this very time of year so long ago, please allow the virus to pass over this house. Over our friend’s and family’s houses. For you are not a God of favorites. If you’ve done it once before, you will do it again. Lord I ask for your peace that surpasses all understanding. I pray for your guidance, your protection and your wisdom during this trying time.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

xoxo – Lady Chats A Lot 

 

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Without a net

4 Oct

image

Writing gives a voice to the words I’m afraid to speak. Sitting at my keyboard, I press out the wrinkles of confusion.

Baring my soul with every stroke, exposing the spidery blue-green veins lying just beneath the surface of my skin…. Hoping you won’t slit my wrists with your tongue.

It is a vulnerable response to the interpretation of my world and those living in it. Yet, one I willingly chose, without the safety of a net or protection from the elements.

On one hand it is extremely risky. On the other, deeply satisfying.

Words tumble out…and down the page, head over foot. Thoughts scattered like a game of pick up sticks. They are looking for the softest place to land, restless until it is found.

The text doesn’t look for congruency. THAT is not their intention.  Frankly, it isn’t needed.

They simply sit on the page wanting to be acknowledged. Neatly organized in their freshly pressed uniform of choice. Relaxed hands folded in their lap, feet crossing at the ankles. They wait.

See me.

Hear me.

Understand me.

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Chats A Lot

21 Aug

"There's always something to write about. If there's not, then you need to live life more aggressively." - Min Kim #writing #quotes #inspiration

My then seven year old, energetic, bouncing ball of energy wasn’t himself when I picked him up from school that day. Head hung low, shoulders slouched, he avoided my eyes as we talked. When he finally gathered enough courage, he passed  a folded sheet of lined paper from his teacher into my hand.  It required my signature. Scanning quickly, I sighed.

Pausing between sentences, I said “T, why are you talking so much? …..   Is it because you are bored ? …..    Do you really have things on your mind that you need to say?….  Do you just want to hear noise?” My hands on my knees, I bent over to peer into those saucer sized green eyes that housed his spirit.

Sheepishly he responded, “I’ve got stuff on my mind. I need to get it out.”

Nodding knowingly, my shoulders and eyebrows rise with my inhalation.

I get that.  I respect it.

Growing up I was told that I talked to much…ALL the time. It was written on every single report card.  So much so, it made me question if I was worthy…worthy of having an opinion on any and everything, and all things in-between. My mind never stops analyzing, tweaking, working…Should I keep quiet until I’m an expert?

What followed were years where I consciously chose to temper my voice.  Internally, I was miserable, feeling severely misunderstood.

Fast forward a few years…(More like 25)….

Putzing around my home, doing absolutely nothing important, I distinctly heard in my spirit :

“I created you to speak.”

It was simplistic voice. A simple sentence. No emotion. Direct…without explanation to the meaning or the why….And, it wasn’t my own, the bossy voice I hear regularly who tells me what I should be doing.  It resonated from the pit of my soul and echoed in my ears. It was so strange that I twisted around quickly to see if someone snuck in my home and was about to attack me.

Nope. Just me. In my pajamas.

Whaaaattt???

MAJOR CONFUSION.

Whether you chose to believe in “those things” or not, is yours entirely to ponder. This is my truth. I heard what I believe is the voice of God from deep within my spirit.  Honestly, it left me more confused than comforted…and yet it was strangely freeing in that I knew, that I knew, THAT I KNEW, I needed to speak. My voice was and is important.

So what am I to speak about? Who knows. Certainly not me….not yet.

I do know that I have constant chatter in my head. In an effort to get the hamster off the wheel, I birthed this blog and named it Chats A Lot. Appropriate, I thought. This has become a place where my thoughts and my voice can run wild.

Life is complicated and wonderful. It is a culmination of all the things you decide it will be.  Sometimes who you think you are and the actions you take, are in conflict.I blog to explore those things that are complex.  To celebrate, to dissect and construct my future days. To become the person I want to be.

I blog because I secretly hope it inspires you to find your own true self. Whatever that means to YOU.  I don’t hold the definition but I hope this blog provides a window that will leave with the desire to search.

I blog because I  when it all boils down to it,  we all go through the same types of issues,  with different people and unfamiliar faces.  People tend to shy away from exposing their crazy.  I am decidedly the opposite.  I fling back the curtain in the name of growth. I hope you find encouragement here in knowing you are not alone. I, in turn, find strength when you ‘like’ or comment. It reminds ME that I’m not on a solitary journey.

I blog to find peace, for change, for growth.

I blog because I can…and…I have stuff to say.
writing quote from Joan Didion. Amen to that, I totally do this.

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