Thoughts and Jots--Blog Archives

Tribe of Taylor--June 2018 recycled pic There's a growing stack of Christmas photo cards that have been arriving daily in the mail. These have replaced the trend of the 90s: the "Christmas letter" (although I did get one of those). Not one picture has a grumpy face in it. That's how I know they're not real. Someone in at least one of those photos was not having a good time, but they put on the happy face to hide it. You can hide a lot of stuff behind a smile. Pictures are images of a moment in time when we posed for a camera. The moments immediately before are often chaotic, and the moments after are usually filled with relief. "I can't wait to have another family photo shoot," said one family out of 10,000. Have you ever wished you could see Jesus in His family photo? "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Ho...

Do you suffer from "too much month at the end of the money?" Being broke is often a result of habits that are kept like house pets. Working so hard and having no money in the wallet is self-inflicted bondage. How does this keep happening? You've done the Dave Ramsey School of Stop That. You receive notifications from your bank when your account balance is low. You know how to do basic math such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. So what keeps happening to your funds? You're subtracting faster than you're adding, multiplying debt and dividing your brain into stress-filled compartments that alternate between "Things are fine" and "This is such a mess." Is this right? No. Then what is it? Sin. Financial irresponsibility is sin. Is that the sound of your mind shutting down? Well, before you go, remember that the definition of sin is basically this: you know the right thing to do, but you're continuing to do the wr...

"Ah yeah ah...we have a woman down on the ground here at Pensacola Beach. Not sure what happened, but she fell and then she got up and then she went down..." I could hear a man's voice trying to describe what had happened, but I couldn't speak. I was fighting my way back to consciousness. All I was trying to do was go shelling at the beach. I was on my way from my car to the restroom, which is the custom before a long walk. Restroom first. If you're over 60, you don't need a translator. A little toddler on the sidewalk was trying to sweep the sand with her hand, and her effort made me smile but also distracted me. I wasn't looking ahead,  and the moment my sandal connected with the edge of that sidewalk (right where the sand and sidewalk met), I went flying through the air and skidded across the hot, sandy cement. Breaking a fall usually includes broken bones, so I am grateful to be typing this with no broken anything that I know of at the moment...

"Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."  Proverbs 27:1 You were waiting for this big event. It was going to change your life . Counting down to the big day was like watching paint dry. The moment you’d been waiting for finally arrived. But wait…it wasn't so special after all. What happened? You expected it to be better than that . Expectations are such a plague. My expectations are a Me-Problem. Your expectations are a You-Problem. You waited for your wedding day and when it finally arrived, you soon discovered that weddings come with marriages attached. Marriages are a work of heart. You waited to have a baby and then you finally gave birth to the most demanding little boss you’ve ever met. Parenting is a work of heart. You expected more of that person, but they disappointed you. Relationships are a workout for the heart. Expectations magnify events to epic proportions. No wonder they fail to please...

We pray. We wait. We repeat. We pray. We wait. We repeat... What's on your waiting list of prayers? I call this my list of  Not Yets.   The waiting period of prayer is labor, and this labor builds strength. We may think that we would prefer to just have our answers without the strength-training, but God loves us too much to give us whatever we want.  It is possible for an adult to be just as spoiled as a toddler. Parents know what happens when they let toddlers have their way. It's chaos and crabbiness. We are grown up toddlers if we are only happy when things are going our way. Waiting and praying through some very uncomfortable situations is "wait training" at its best. We wait. We grow. We learn how to patiently endure, and then the next waiting period doesn't seem as hard. "Wait on the L ORD : be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the L ORD ." (Psalm 27:14) The list of Not Yets ...

Tribe of Taylor--June 2018 On the first day of Christmas break I went to the car wash. At the end of the process where the attendant wipes down the car, I rolled down my window and said, "Merry Christmas! Here's an invitation to a beautiful Christmas service if you and your family would be interested." And of course, there was a generous tip sticking up out of the tract-invitation. The attendant smiled and said, "Thank you very much, ma'am!" And that was the beginning of Christmas vacation. People are gifts. I was up until 11:00pm on December 21st doing the gift-wrapping while music played. Norman used to be summoned to the dining room to help me with this task. Now I am learning to do it without his help, but I still have the funny memories of watching him wad up the ends of the wrapping paper in his signature "Norman H. Taylor" style. He used a lot of tape on the ends of those wads. The English language fails to describe how much I miss...