Everyone Has a Story

As my granddaughter Brooke and I sat in church one Sunday the preacher talked about Paul's story. He then mentioned the fact that everyone has a story.

One by one the preacher asked volunteers to tell their stories. As people were talking my granddaughter Brooke reached out and gave me a hug. She knew in her heart her grandma had a story to tell whether she got to tell it that Sunday or not.

As there was no time to share it at church I am sharing it now for Brooke and all my other grandchildren. So here we go kids, this is grandma's story:

At the age of twelve I accepted Christ into my life thanks to the fantastic witness and example my preacher Rev D L Penhollow (Penny) was as he displayed his love for Jesus daily. God was going to test that commitment I made as I was declared disabled twice in my life. The first time in my twenties when I had epilepsy and again in my fifties with my breast cancer.

What I learned during my first disability were things I was going to need to survive during my struggle with my cancer. Lessons on how to deal with stress and how to effectively lean on Jesus. Already out of the way was the battle with the "why me" struggle with my epilepsy that kept me from going there when I got cancer. I learned about forgiveness and the poison of bitterness and the short falls of self pity and giving up.

Jesus was and still is my strength thru it all. He was the guide I was going to need to lead me out of the darkness using His word, the Bible. When I wasn't taking well the test of life He was patient with me. He granted me grace when I needed it and mercy when I didn't deserve it. He has always made me feel loved and worthy of what He has to offer. He has walked me thru many trials and picked me up when I have fallen.

He has always been there for me. He has tickled me when I couldn't laugh or smile on my own. His hand has wiped away many a tears from my face. His arms hugged me when I was alone in the darkness. It was His angel He sent to comfort me outside my kitchen window. He has never let me down. He has disciplined me as a loving father does his daughter.

He has shown me again and again how much He cares. Therefore as my second disability carries on so will my love for Jesus. As He is there for me so will I be for Him. My holy reverent fear of Him makes it so I don't have to fear what is ahead of me.

Stick with Jesus my love ones and you too will have a fantastic story to tell. It may not include angels or disabilities but it will contain the same story of love Jesus has to offer you as He offers me and those who have gone on before me such as Penny Penhollow.

Seek God and be amazed at what you'll find.

Rules to Live By

A simple set of rules not only for our kids and grandkids to live by but rules for all of us to apply to our lives.

Rule #1 Pray Always

Rule #2 Be thankful

Rule #3 Take responsibility

Rule #4 Choose to be happy

Rule #5 Go to bed with a forgiving spirit

Remember: There are no giants, only mountains yet to climb, so take action!


Pray always. Praying always to God keeps us in touch with our Lord and Savior. Our purpose in life is to establish a good relationship with the Lord and we do that thru communication. If we tried talking to our parents or the teach at school only once a week for an hour or two they wouldn't like it. No relationship can be built on the lack of communication and our relationship with God is no different.

Be thankful. As human's we have the tendency to not be thankful. Tendency?! Wrong word we are flat out very ungrateful people. We can find an excuse to grumble about anything. Instead of looking at what we do have we would rather reflect on what we don't have. Instead of being thankful for the things other people are doing for us we would rather find fault in the things we think we could do better.

Take Responsibility. Too often we fail to take responsibility for our actions. We would rather blame our parents, our teacher, our siblings, the full moon, or the change in the atmosphere for our behavior instead of taking responsibility for it. When we do something whether its good or bad we need to take responsibility for our actions. Own up to what we have done. It's not that good of a thing we have to "own up to" then we need to use this moment to correct whatever it is inside of us that made us do what we did. Spouting off at the mouth and saying, "Well I own up to it, that is just the way I am" is not a good attitude to take. We need to step down off our high horses and our thinking that we are the ones that rule our lives and that everyone gets to do whatever they want in life, good or bad.

Choose to be happy. Daily we need to make the choice to "choose to be happy." Circumstances, people, money, or anything else is responsibility for making us happy. It's a choice we make for ourselves. Many relationships have broken up over the fact that one of the people in the union wasn't being made happy by the other person. That is our job to choose to be happy. It comes from our attitude, our choice to look at things in a positive manner. It's not something we can rely on others to supply us with. Indeed others can make us very happy but its not their responsibility. If our attitudes weren't correct in the first place whatever they did would never have worked. It comes from us.

Go to bed with a forgiving spirit. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to go to bed with a forgiving heart. Doing this forces to deal with things immediately like they should be done instead of sulking over them only to get madder and madder. It's best to take care of it and deal with your differences now instead of later. Hanging on to our anger and hatred for someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It just doesn't happen, we are the ones who wind up injured from our anger.

Remember, there are no giants, only mountains yet to climb, so take action. Too often we look at things and think they are too big for us to deal with. We get scared at the tasks ahead of us instead of stopping long enough to just move forward in faith, faith in our Lord and Savior that tells us he will never leave us nor forsake us. The only way we can access that promise is through faith. We need to be looking at the size of God not the size of the task in front of us. Instead of holding ourselves back from accomplishing great things we need to take action knowing we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Picture DEES #45 Cleaning up the mess

Before                                                                                         After

It sure doesn’t seem like it takes long to get a room dirty. My grandkids can do it quicker than quick. Perhaps they learned it from their grandma who is known as a “pack rat.” That is someone who likes to collect things and hold on to more.

What’s interesting is the fact that things pile up and pile up before we even realize it. It takes a great deal of effort on our part to clean it up and get it looking as it should. Perhaps if we would do that as we go along the task wouldn’t be that hard.


We do that with our personal lives and the junk we allow to pile up in it. Before we know it we have a mess because of the choices we have made, the attitudes we have held on to, and the emotions we’ve allowed to control us. At first glance it looks like it would be impossible to ever be able to straighten it all out but with time and effort we can.


With the help of the Lord we can clean up the messes we have made. It is to Him we need to run to and seek forgiveness and guidance going forward. If we stay strong before we know it we will find our way moving from the “before” picture to the “after” picture. A picture made perfect in Christ through our weaknesses.


To some it may take longer to get the job done but if we stay with Christ all things are possible. In other words, we need to make sure that we don’t give up until the job is done!

Picture Dees #25 Getting the Stains Out

“Do this in remembrance of Me,” Jesus instructed us.

Those words were one of the last instructions given to us to follow. We are told to use the bread and cup as a reminder of what Christ did for us when He died for us upon the cross. It was there that He took with Him our sins in exchange for His forgiveness.

Different churches do this time of remembrance differently but the meaning behind what is being done never changes. I remember when I was young I couldn’t wait to be a part of the communion service, have you ever felt that way? I was anxious to see what the little piece of bread tasted like plus it gave me a chance to drink the juice mom didn’t like me spilling on the carpet.

Time past and I learned it was more than a mid-morning snack. What mattered was remembering that Christ died for a reason. We needed a door to open in order for us to get to Heaven and Christ was it. His forgiveness is the door handle that opens that door.

The sins we commit in the form of our anger, telling lies, cheating at school, picking on other kids, bad attitudes, disobeying our parents, and other disobedience put Christ on the cross. His blood took the stain out of our sins. As your mom works hard to get the stains out of your clothes, she doesn’t do it just so you can purposely get them stained again I’m sure.

Well the same with the stain removal of Christ’s love for us. He didn’t die just so we can get the stains of sin removed so we can purposely go and get dirty again. He knows we are far from perfect but thanks to Him we are able to be better. His blood for our sins, Him for us, right there is something we need to remember.

If you are partaking of the communion cup, after you drink from it put in the empty cup a piece of paper with the sin written on it you may have been struggling with this week. As you do, watch the juice (representing the blood of Christ) soak up your sin as you ask for the forgiveness that comes with it removing the stain from your life to start anew.

The only thing that should be stained is the sin left at the cross. Our lives don’t have to be thanks to Jesus, do this in remembrance of Him who remembered you long before you were even born.

Copyright 2008 Karen J. Gillett at Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing