Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

  We decided to visit my daughter this weekend. She lives in a gated apartment complex, so she told us to push the numeral code and hashtag. This is the moment it occurred to me that I might be getting old. At what point did people start referring to the pound sign as hashtag instead of pound sign? This got me thinking of other signs that I've aged that I noticed while on our trip. See if any land on your radar. 1) When you shop for clothes, you recognize the clothes on the racks have been in your closet multiple decades before. Yes, I saw parachute pants at a well-known retailer while shopping with my daughter. 2) You use the seat warmer for back pain, instead of keeping warm. I've found it much more pleasant to turn the air conditioner down and turn on the seat warmer. 3) You  find yourself craving dinner at four in the afternoon. The idea of getting home early and getting cozy sounds amazing. 4) You forget what you were saying mid-sentence. Then suddenly, two days later...

  My oldest son decided to get a dog, Ruger. He is a big, goofy boxer. I wasn't sure about bringing another big dog in the house, but I do love animals, so I okayed it. This dog has been in the middle of everything! We learned that you can't leave him unattended for long, or he will get into something. This was brought home a few weeks ago. My youngest son was trying to eat healthier, so he bought a bag of chicken breasts and asked my husband to grill them for him for the upcoming week. My husband marinated them and carefully grilled them to perfection. While he was grilling, I went into the restroom. While in the restroom, I heard the front door open and close. I assumed it was my youngest getting off of work. A few minutes later my oldest called me, asking about the fire call that had just gone out. Both my oldest and my husband are on the volunteer fire department. I told him that I didn't realize a call had gone out and didn't think anything else about it until Ru...

  I have been joking with my coworkers that this perimenopause thing has been turning me into an an idiot. I've always laughed at women who lose their glasses while wearing them,  Now, I've found myself in the same lost boat. What, you may ask, caused this admission? A few days ago, I noticed a strange smell in my car. It wasn't a bad smell, just odd. My car smelled like a delicious Italian dinner. I assumed that since I eat on the go with my job, that I had thrown some leftovers in my backseat. For the next two days, the smell evolved into a rotting Italian dinner. Imagine boiling cabbage with a slight skunk smell. On Friday, I needed to pick up someone in my church for a ladies' retreat, so I decided it was time to clean my car. I couldn't have her holding her breath for an hour. My mother asked if I had checked my trunk, to which I responded nothing would be in my trunk. I cleaned the backseat to find nothing, except a few empty food wrappers. As I put an umbrel...

  With the beautiful weather we've had lately, I've enjoyed walking in my backyard. Because we live on the border to a wooded area, we enjoy all kinds of wildlife. As the afternoon sun shown and a light breeze blew, I watched the birds  settle around my backyard. I walked the parameter of my property and noticed an area my husband is clearing. He pushed a lot of brush in a pile to burn. With the crazy amount of rain we've had lately, part of the brush has burned, but part has not. In the section that hadn't fully burned, there was this beautiful flower growing. As I saw this, I thought about how trauma and struggles affect our lives. When it feels like everything is in ashes, we stand on the fact that God is the same God in the good and the bad. The Bible mentions He will turn our mourning into dancing in Psalms 30:11. It also says in Isaiah 61:3 that God gives beauty for ashes and oil of gladness for mourning. If you've felt like your dreams have burned to the grou...

 I wanted to keep the message simple this Easter. For those who feel alone, you are not. You are loved more than you could ever think or imagine. Jesus loved you so much that as He died on the cross, He thought of you. If you were the only person on this planet, He would still have died for you. You have a choice. You can accept that love and let Him be the center of your life and have a future with Him, or you can reject that love and be separated eternally from Him. At some point, you will make that choice. The question is which one you will choose. I pray you choose the one who gave everything for you. A family member lost a dear friend today. The good news is he made the choice to choose Jesus. He now spends Easter with Jesus celebrating His resurrection. We will all meet Jesus. May you get to stay with Him for eternity. Have a great week high-heeled warriors!

My husband and I decided to take a little break from our busy Spring break. Since my children were little, we have taken long drives. We did this mostly because we could take turns going into stores when our four children were little, and we had no babysitters. We would drive until they all would fall asleep, then we would get a to-go meal and have our car date. Even though our children are grown, we still find ourselves doing car dates. As we hopped in the car and headed for adventure, we visited a little place called Beaver, Arkansas. It is an island that can only be accessed by the oldest suspension bridge in Arkansas, a wooden bridge that moves as your car drives across it. We could feel the wavy movement both going and coming. After we crossed the bridge, my husband told me about a loaded tour bus that made a trek across the bridge. There is a weight limit, and the bus exceeded the weight limit enough that the bridge had to be shut down for inspection after the bus passing. If...

 When I first started my blog, I wrote about my peach tree in my front yard. It bore one peach the first couple of years, so there was the thought that it was going to be a useless tree that bore no fruit. However, when given time, it ended up bearing several bushels of peaches for multiple years. The fruit was so great that it was weighing down the branches. In the last few years, however, our weather has become rather unpredictable. One moment, it's eighty degrees. Flowers are blooming; trees are blossoming; bees are buzzing. Then you go to sleep and wake up to frost coating everything. By afternoon, you need to turn on the air conditioner. My peach tree has become confused. It blossoms, then the blossoms die due to frost. Because of this, my tree has not produced much fruit., maybe one or two peaches. This year, I wait to see how my tree holds against the crazy weather conditions. Has your spiritual life become like my peach tree? You may be the one that is just starting to b...