Year: 2011

I don’t remember saying my wedding vows. I only remember the pain of those beautiful wedding shoes.

Expensive, satin off-white peep-toe 2-inch pumps, with a heart-shaped vamp. As I stood at the altar, exchanging vows with my future husband, in that most sacred moment all I could think of was how bad my feet hurt. I shifted from one foot to the other to ease the pain. As the soloist sang “The Lord’s Prayer,” I wondered how long I could stand it. When the song was finished, the preacher pronounced us man and wife, and we marched down the aisle, out of the sanctuary toward the fellowship hall, where I kicked off those shoes and went barefoot the rest of the evening.

During my wedding the most impressive feeling I had was not love, not joy, but pain. My body was in pain from ill-fitting shoes, so my body’s impressions over-rode the emotions I would normally be feeling on my wedding day.

I knew when I bought those shoes that they didn’t fit me well, but I was caught up in the fashion of the moment, wanting to look beautiful for my wedding day, right down to my feet, even though they were hidden by my long wedding gown.

As I look back, I can see what I did wrong. Surely there were cute shoes out there that I could have worn that wouldn’t have hurt my feet.  I needed to find what is right for me, not what everyone else was wearing.

 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Romans 12:2 NKJV. I am not to be fitted into the mold, but to adapt the fashions to work for me; not to squeeze my foot into an ill-fitting shoe, but to find the right size and style for me.

Now I dress my feet first, maybe not as fashionably as some, but still stylishly. I want to have my mind on God and not on how bad my feet hurt.

 

Weeks of high temperatures over 90 and high pollen count kept me inside, gazing at my flower garden through my dining room picture window.

The Hibiscus bed is overgrown with weeds and asparagus. The 6-foot-tall plant growing beside my bright red hibiscus in the west flower bed looks nice but is really a weed that got away from me.

Hibiscus thrive in hot weather, as apparently this weed does, so they have kept pace with each other in height, all summer long. The ground was so hard from the drought and heat, and the weeds so tough and well-rooted, that I couldn’t pull them out.

Pulling the weeds brings up the adjacent plants and the soil around them, so the bed will need to be worked, the soil broken up, and the perennial plants that the weeds killed will have to be replaced.

I should have put on a doctor’s mask for allergies, got down on my knees on the garden kneeler, and pulled those weeds when they were small and easy to pull. The weather was nicer in the spring, and I could have enjoyed working in the garden before the heat set in. If I had only pulled the weeds when they were small.

Sin in like that. If I had taken the time to get down on my knees and pulled out the “little weeds,” those little aggravating sins, I wouldn’t have to contend with the 6-foot-tall weeds in my heart now.

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us…” Hebrews 12:1 NKJV

What is the little sin that has wrapped itself around you? Is it just a tiny cute plant? “Oh, it’s nothing. I can quit that any time.” Is it crowding out the good plants in your heart? Does it take the place of your Bible study time? Or your prayer time? Are you skipping church and fellowship of believers? Is it taking over your life?

Now while it is small, pull it out. Sure, it might hurt a little. It might pull out a little dirt with it, but I promise, it won’t hurt anything like it will if you let it grow and take over the garden of your life.

When I want to remember something important, I write it on my hand. If I don’t do that to remind myself, I might not remember for days. The palm of your hand is an important part of you. It is always right there in front of you, where it can be seen. You use your hands for everything, so if something is written on your hand, it would be hard to forget.

God has a tattoo of you on the palm of His hands.

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 N IV

You are important to God. He wants to constantly be reminded of you. Every time He stretches out His hand to do something, He sees you. What a comfort! If God be for us, who can be against us? The very one who gave His only begotten Son thinks about you every time He looks at the palm of His hand.

Sometimes it might seem like you are all alone in the world, but Jesus will never leave you. You may have lost your last friend, but you have a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Jesus Himself said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I will go with you even to the end of the world.” I am never alone. He has promised never to leave me.

It is a permanent reminder to God since it is engraved, tattooed onto God’s hand. He couldn’t even forget me if He tried.

 

1. Put a smile on your face. Proverbs 15:13, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful.”

2. Treat everyone equally well. James 2:9 nkjv “If you show partiality, you commit sin.”

3. Watch what you say. Ephesians 3:29 “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.”

4. Look everyone in the eye and have a firm handshake. Keep your word. A deal is a deal. You can’t buy integrity. Proverbs 19:1, “Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.”

5. Give a lot of hugs and kisses. II Corinthians 13:12 “Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

6. Act loving to everyone. Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love.”

7. Quit worrying about everything. Philippians 4:6 niv, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

8. Stop thinking about the bad things that are happening in the world, and start thinking about good things. Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

9. Practice contentment with what you have. Paul said in Philippians 4:11-12, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”

10. Recognize that you can’t do any of these things consistently without Jesus Christ as your Savior. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phil. 4:13.

Your body is going to grow older, but your spirit, the real you on the inside, is young and beautiful. The more you live the life of love, the younger you will look until you will be young enough for God to call you to your heavenly home.

75^th Annual Will Rogers Memorial Rodeo. By the time you read this it will all be over, it will be history. The story is that Will Rogers came to Vinita, Ok., to visit some ranchers and when the subject of a rodeo came up, he said, “Hold a rodeo next year and I’ll come back.” But before the year was up, he and Wiley Post had met their Maker in a plane crash.

I love rodeo week, the absolute highlight of the Vinita calendar, but I haven’t been to the rodeo itself in several years, and as it looks right now, I probably won’t make it tonight, the last night of the rodeo.

The rodeo parade takes place on Wednesday at 11 a.m. during rodeo week, to start the week’s festivities and it shuts down most of the town. Downtown Vinita streets are closed off to through traffic, which might not sound unusual, except it is Route 66, or Highway 60/69 through town, the main truck route, besides I-44. Trucks are backed up for miles as they are routed down the side streets around the parade.

Trucks give way to horse-drawn hearses, 1930’s tractors, and a long line of Rodeo Queens from the 1940s through present days. The Vinita High School band showed up as well as the Pom Squad and the high school and middle school cheerleaders. Many businesses drove the parade throwing candy to the little kids who lined the streets dressed in cowboy boots and hats.

Towns need to celebrated their heritage and their uniqueness. The towns who no longer celebrate no longer know who they are, and the townspeople find their town drying up around them, turning into a ghost town.

Jeremiah 29:7   “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Celebrate and pray for your town.