Fractions, Equations and Algebra! OH MY!

Well, I have been studying up for my THEA test in July. Lord help me! I have forgotten so much math that I'm getting a headache just trying to remember fractions and algebraic equations!! I'm soooo not smarter than a 5th grader when it comes to math!

My goals are to get my ADN in nursing. I've been mulling it over for weeks now and I truly believe that God is leading me in this direction. I've always loved working with the elderly and I want to work in gerontology. I would like to go on and get my PhD in nursing. I just want to do what God's will is for my life and I have been praying about this for a long time.

Since I no longer have marijuana in my life I feel like I can do ANYTHING! I sure wish I had quit sooner, but I believe that maybe I will be able to use my experience to help others too. I know that during the clinical rotations we will be doing psychiatric nursing and I hope to be a witness to anyone who needs it. It's going to be a long, hard road but with God I can do anything! That is such a comfort to me. He knows how scared I am taking this big step in my life. He knows that it's going to take everything I have to get through this. I am so thankful that I have Him in my corner. No matter how tough it gets He will be walking right along beside me! Hallelujah!! Praise His wonderful name!!!

You're never to young to have dreams and goals and I pray that God allows me to fulfill this dream. I've always wanted to go into nursing after I obtained my CNA but I just never got around to it and I was too busy doing things I shouldn't have been doing. I'm really excited about this but I'm really nervous about that THEA test. I'm going to have to get my boys to help their 'ol mom out with the math. My husband is a total brain and he's offered to help too but I can see it now...let's just say he's not the most patient person in the world. Hehehe.

Well, off to study more fractions and algebraic equations....UGH! I know there is a God because otherwise I would never in a million years even try to attempt something like this. I just pray God helps me retain all this information and that I do well enough I don't have to take the remedial algebra course. That would save me so much time. Oh well, what happens is in His hands and I'm happy with whatever He has in store. I'm just excited about this new chapter in my life.

God bless you all and please say a little prayer for me as I study for this test.

Your sister in Jesus Christ,
Tishira

Oh Ye Jigs and Juleps

If you looked at my profile you noticed that my favorite book is Oh Ye Jigs and Juleps. It's written at the turn of the 20th century by a 10 year-old girl, Virginia Cary Hudson. It's so delightfully funny and I thought I would share the part on Sacraments. It's just laugh out loud funny! My mother loved the part about Baptists, she said it described us to a tee! Hope this brings you a smile and a chuckle. You can find the book on amazon.

God bless you all,
Tishira


~Sacraments~

Sacraments are what you do in church. What you do at home is something else. Cooking and sewing and running the Bissels sweeper and eating and sleeping and praying and scrubbing yourself are not sacraments.

When you are little and ugly somebody carries you in church on a pillow, and you come out a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven. They pour water on your head and that's a sacrament. When you are twelve you walk back in yourself with your best dress and shoes on, and your new prayer book your mother buys you, and you walk up to the Bishop, and he stands up, and you kneel down, and he mashes on your head, and you are an Episcopal. Then you are supposed to increase in the spirit. Then everybody kisses you and that's a sacrament. Only I left out the bread and the wine. That's a sacrament too. I tasted some of that bread in the choir room and it tasted just like my gold fish wafers.

Then when you are married, you go back to church dressed up like you never were before in all your days. Somebody sings "Oh Promise Me" and your sweetheart is waiting up by the preacher, if he doesn't forget to come, and you get a new shiny gold band on your finger and leave town. And that's a sacrament.

Miss Molly Anderson got all ready to get married and she let me see all of her lovely clothes all spread out on the bed in the spare room. Only she didn't get married. The bridegroom forgot to come back. He traveled. And I guess he took the wrong train or something. Mrs. Anderson shut the shutters, and nobody would come to the door, and when I went around to the kitchen door to take Miss Molly some cinnamon drops, the cook says to me, she said, "Go away, scat." But Miss Molly didn't care if he did forget to come. She bought her a new bath suit with a big sailor collar, and ruffles around the knees, and she married Dr. Thomwood, and I like him. He is handsome. That old absent-minded bridegroom was always saying to me, "Little girl, isn't it time you were going home?" And I had only just got, I mean gotten there. And I barely had sat myself down in the parlor.

And then you get carried back in the Church again. But you are dead and it takes six people to lift you. And everybody cries and that's the last sacrament you are going to get. Mrs. Park was old and so sick she didn't even know her own children. Maybe she was tired of fooling with them all those years and just acted like she didn't know them. When Mrs. Park died I sure didn't cry because I bet when she waked up and found she was dead she was just tickled to death.

One day we got tired of playing hop-scotch and skin the cat, so Edna Briggs said, "Let's play Baptizing." I said to Mrs. Williams, "Can we, I mean may we play Baptizing in your rain barrel?" And she said to me, she said "Yes, indeed" and she just went on tatting. So I put on my father's hunting breeches and got Judge Williams' hat off the moose horn rack, and I dressed up like the Baptist preacher. That was when Edna ran to get all the kids. And I said to them, I said, "The Lord is in his Holy Temple, keep silent and shut up." And then I said, "All you sinners come forward and hence." And nobody came but Melvin Dawson. He is just two years old. Poor little Melvin. He is so unlucky. I got him by the back of his diaper and dipped him in the rain barrel once for the Father, and once for the Son, and when it came time for the Holy Ghost, poor little Melvin's safety pin broke and he dropped in the bottom of the rain barrel, and everybody ran, and nobody would help me, and I had to turn the rain barrel over to get him out, and then I galloped him on his stomach on my pony to get the water out of him, and then I sat him inside his house, and then I went out to Mrs. Harris' house and got under her bed, and when she looked under there and saw me, all soaking wet, Mrs. Harris said, she said, "Rain and hail in Beulah land, what has happened now?" And when I told her what had happened she just patted her foot and sat, and sat, and then she said, "You know what?" and I said, "What" and Mrs. Harris said, "The Bishop sure needs just such a barrel in the church yard to give some members I know just what little Melvin got." And then Mrs. Harris said, "Let's talk about fishing." And we did.

Thank God for fishing. Thank God for Mrs. Harris and God bless poor little Melvin. Amen.

Praise The Lord!

God is so good!!! When I got up this morning I had a horrible toothache! I mean I was ready to take some pliers and yank that thing out myself! I'm so glad I didn't though. That would have been really stupid. But, just to show you how God works, after I took some Tylenol and the antibiotic (3rd day of taking it) my tooth started to ease up. Then by noon, the feeling of my heart pounding in it was gone! Thank you Jesus! I was about to throw a wall-eyed hissyfit!

I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow and I'm ready for them to do whatever they need to. I have this phobia of going to the dentist. I freak out when they start up that little torture device of a drill. The smell of burning tooth is none to appealing either! I just hope they give me the "Happy Gas" and get it over with quickly. Before I have time to change my mind.

The icing on the cake for me today is my oldest son aced his THEA test. It's for his entrance into the local community college this fall. I'm so proud of him! We prayed and prayed for him to pass it and God did us one even better! He won't have to take any remedial courses because he did so well! Praise the Lord from who all blessing flow!!! God is so good! I'm amazed at how He continually shows us His loving grace on a daily basis. I'm so proud of Stephen because he really put his heart and soul into preparing for this test. Way to go sweetie!!! You did it!!!!!! I love you so much! Thank you dear Heavenly Father for such a wonderful young Christian man who is following Your will for his life!

His younger brother (only by 18 months) is taking his THEA test the 27th. Harold is another one of God's warriors. God has great things planned for these kids and I could not be more grateful. Please pray for Harold as he prepares for his turn at taking this test. I know that God will be watching over him, just as He has always has. What an awesome God we serve!!

Well, that sums me up for today! I have so much to be thankful for and it all started out with the verse on Living Proof Ministries. If you haven't checked out LPM, it's a must! Beth Moore is such a wonderful Christian woman who is like a mother hen to all her "siestas"(sisters). God bless her and her wonderful daughters for they good works they do. The LPM blog will lift you up and turn your day completely around.

Psalm 94:18-19
If I say, "My foot is slipping," Your loyal love, O Lord, supports me. When worries threaten to overwhelm me, Your soothing touch makes me HAPPY."

Isn't that awesome! Thank you to Beth for sharing that and lifting me up!

I hope all have a blessed day!
Your sister in Jesus Christ,

Mothers

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I think of my dear mother daily. I have missed her so much since she passed away in 2002. As my post before mentioned, she had Alzheimer's Disease and in her last days she was hardly conscious enough to open her beautiful brown eyes. She still managed to tell me, "I love you too baby," when I would kiss her on the cheek and tell her I loved her. That was for sure a God thing! She could hardly speak at that time.

My mother was truly an amazing woman. She was 41 years-old when I came into this world. I've always said that I was my parents mid-life crisis. I cannot even imagine having a child at this age. I can barely get out of bed some mornings, let alone keeping up with an infant!

When my mother was 18, she had a sports injury to her leg from playing basketball and they discovered she had a tumor that was growing in the muscle in the calf of her leg. They performed surgery to remove it. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of her problems. Over the next 30 years she had over 20 operations to remove the tumors that kept coming back. The tumors moved down into her foot and grew at alarming rates. She even had part of her right foot removed and a skin graft put in place. Although she was in a great deal of pain most of the time, she still sewed me new dresses to wear to church, made the most outrageous sour-dough bread EVER, cooked wonderful nourishing meals for her family and supported my Dad in his ministry. She was also a very talented artist who painted lovely oil paintings of the Texas landscapes and of the Native Americans that she loved so dearly.

My mother was my best friend. When I was 4 years-old she taught me how to read. She had to stay in bed a lot during that time because blood poisoning had settled into her leg. She would hold me by my ankle to keep me on the bed with her and also to keep me from tearing up the house. To keep me from being bored she taught me to read and I still have a passion for reading.

She also had some mad skills at throwing her crutches. I would test her patience and if I tried to run away from her she could lob that crutch like a javelin and trip me up long enough for her to reach me.

Most of all, my mother was one of the finest Christian women I have ever known. She never complained about her situation or asked why. She took what God gave her and made it into something positive. Her foot was even studied by doctors at Baylor Medical because hers was the only case they had ever seen or heard about. She felt that if it could help someone else in the future it was all worth it. She always said that God never gives us any more than we can handle and as long as she had Him on her side she could get through it. God did a miracle for her though, even though she was in the last stages of her Alzheimer's, He healed her foot completely during that last year. I know He knew she would not be able to care and bandage it herself as she had done everyday, so he took the sores and infections away. I'm still in awe of His amazing grace.

My mother taught me many things but the most important thing she taught me was that family is important to a healthy, spiritual life. Everyone needs to have that connection with people who love you unconditionally and she was that to me. I'm so thankful I had her in my life and I'm blessed to know that she is whole again and no longer in any kind of pain. She is at home with her Heavenly Father that she loved so much. She always said that, "God is so good! I have my family and my painting. I want for nothing." What a sweet spirit. I can only hope that I can be half the mother to my boys that she was to me.

Here's what God says about Christian mothers:
Titus 2:4-5 “Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”

Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?”

God bless you all today and know that God loves you! You are more precious to Him than you could ever know!

Your sister in Jesus Christ,
Tishira

Cats!

I love cats. They have that "catitude" that is unmistakable. I found some really cute pictures on the net and wanted to post a few. You know, you don't own a cat, they own you! Hope this brings a little grin to you and I hope that all mothers out there have a wonderfully blessed Mother's Day. I lost my mother to Alzheimer's in 2002. I miss her terribly and I pray daily that a cure is found to wipe out this horrible disease. I know that she is looking down on me and smiling because she is no longer under the umbrella of such a cruel disease. She is whole again and with her heavenly Father. I look forward to the day that she greets me on the other side and we can share a loving embrace.

God bless you all and may you have a wonderful weekend.
Your sister in Christ,
Tishira

A Long Road

This is my first blog. I feel at this time I should give a little backgound about myself. I hope that through my blog that others can find something uplifting and useful for their daily lives.

First, let me say that I'm not perfect. I'm so far from perfect that it would take a million light years of any kind of perfectness to reach me! I'm just a happily married mom of 2 wonderful teenage boys who are the lights of my life. I don't know what I have done to deserve these fine young Christian men, but I'm eternally thankful for them and I'm truly blessed to have them in my life.

I'm a PK (preacher's kid). It was trial and error for me growing up and going to school. Everyone thought I should be this perfect little angel. Boy! Were they ever mistaken!! I did everything I could to prove I was not an angel. I began smoking at the age of 15 and then began experimenting with drugs at 18. Only until a month ago did I actually quit smoking marijuana. I know, I know! I'm 41 years-old and still was acting like I was 18. I thought I couldn't live without it. I've been physically ill for many years and I thought that pot was the only thing that could make me feel better. Guess what? You got it! I was WRONG!!!!!! Marijuana doesn't make you feel better. It just masks the underlying problems that are really the issue.

My husband and I got together in the summer of '88. Marijuana was something that we enjoyed and we smoked it regularly. We had known each other since high school and one day, I will never forget, while we were talking he just leaned over and kissed me. I had never felt a spark like that before and I was in love instantly. We've been together ever since. My whole issue with it was that I was afraid that since we had smoked pot for so long that he would sober up and realize he didn't love me. How stupid is that?!? He had been wanting to quit for some time but I was so resistant because of my insecurity and fear of losing him. I should have given him a lot more credit but I couldn't see past my addiction. If it were not for my boys praying and my attempted suicide in February I would never have realized how much it was ruining my life. God had to get my attention and He did in the only way God does, by loving me and showing me how important I am to my family.

I know many people out there are facing addictions and I am here to tell you that YOU CAN overcome them! I promise you can! God can and will take those addictions away from you. All you have to do is ask! I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Philippians 4:13. God promises us and God keeps His promises.

I know there are many who think that God is just a myth. You know what? I thought that too for some time. Even being raised as a PK I grew away from God for some time after I started using drugs. I didn't just smoke pot at that time. I dropped acid and thought that I could find enlightenment and did other drugs because I "knew" that if God was real He would punish me. I never got that punishment so I thought God was something that people made up to make themselves feel better. How dumb is that?!? God love us so much He gave us free will to learn from our mistakes. He doesn't punish us, He loves us and wants us to come to Him so He can show us how much we are loved. He delights in making us happy and helping us overcome those things in our lives which are holding us back from being the best person we can be. All we have to do is ask! Jesus wants you to come to Him and lay all those things at the cross. He died for our sins so we can have a fulfilling life here on earth and so we can rejoice with Him when we make our journey to our real home with Him. Nothing is to big for God to handle. Trust me, I know from experience. God is still working miracles in my life and He wants more than anything to do that for you too. God delights in our happiness. He's not a God that delights in our pain and suffering. We bring those things upon ourselves.

If you are reading this and want a personal relationship with Him just ask Him. Pray for Jesus to come into your life and make you whole. I knew that something was missing in my life and when I finally opened my heart and eyes, Jesus was waiting there patiently to love me and save me from myself and give me a new sense of direction. We all need that. We all need to know that there's something better out there for us and I have found that Jesus is the answer. Even being a PK, it took me 20 years to figure that out. The only regret that I have is that I didn't realize it sooner. Those years of wandering could have been years of fulfillment that I now have.

If you want a personal relationship with Christ and want to know more, just message me. I'm here for anyone who needs a friend to help them on a journey to a new and better life. God bless you!

Philippians 3:7-10

“Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and (the) sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death.”

Your sister in Jesus Christ,

Tishira