Flight of The Gypsy Bird

  Storm Damage. I think video footage of massive storm damage is among the most heart-wrenching things to watch. Video footage of people's lives, well-being, dreams, hopes....just....leveled. It's been 6 years since a tornado ripped through our small town and the lives and hearts of many were permanently affected .  6 years since hopes and dreams were crushed and life as many knew it changed forever. Every day we drive past the scars...although houses have been rebuilt and lives have slowly moved on, the land has yet to recover.  Once majestic trees now stand as ghostly reminders that something terrible happened. We pass one of the paths that the tornado took, everyday on the way to and from school...to and from town...to and from anywhere. At first, it was a solemn reminder of lives lost, a beacon of hope that humanity was not lost, and for our family, a grateful prayer was said every time we passed it for the sparing of...

Ever noticed how a gardenia flower smells so sweet that you can't help but inhale deeply as you walk by?  And it's completely unmistakeable. You KNOW when you walk by that it's definitely a gardenia blossom that you are smelling. But did you know that that unmistakable aroma gets even more potent as the flower begins to wilt? I thought about all this as I walked past a bouquet of gardenias that I had brought in yesterday after I had unceremoniously snapped them from the unsuspecting bush outside my front door. I LOVE a gardenia. And yesterday, to really smell them, I had to be no more than a foot away from them. Today...they are wilting a bit and I walked past them about 4 feet away from the vase and caught a whiff of their pungent sweetness on the way past. Got me to thinking. Thinking about life and death. Thinking about Spirit and Flesh. People are, ultimately, drawn to the Truth from the fragrance we emit as believers. When our flesh is alive and w...

So.....yeah. I've been kinda quiet for a bit. Not really, but web-wise..well...you know what I mean. It's been a little on the nuts-ish side ever since Pop passed...Passing on that Wednesday, back and forth to Brooks to comfort "Momma", help sort and and find pictures and figure out all the details involved with an unexpected death on Thursday and Friday, nephew's first birthday party (at which I almost lost my cool and jumped a heffa...thank you JESUS for a little girl who KNOWS her momma..."Mommy? Come walk with me?"), Church on Sunday (which my Abba is so precious...had me scheduled to sing a song about peace and resting in his arms a month before Pop even passed... <3 ), Veiwing that night, Funeral on Monday, and somewhere in between, 5 out of 6 kids AND myself managed to pick up STREP (I had blisters and lacerations in my throat..ACK!) which pretty much wiped us out for the rest of that week and the beginning of the next....SHEESH!  O...

Yesterday began like normal. The usual 'double snooze', yawn and stretch, "Good Morning, Daddy...etc", wish I had gone to sleep earlier, roll out of bed-careful of new ink(tender tender...oosh), tip-toe into the girls room to wake Maddie Rose, get caught by two big blue eyes, cuddle a baby girl and get ALL kinds of squeezes(complete with precious grunts) and slobbery kisses(complete with new teeth..O_o), set out clothing for the oldest princess, open the door to the teenage sanctuary and flip on the stairwell light and tap the wall, "Tucker..."(wait for response) "Time to get up, dude." (wait until I hear the appropriate responding grunt), make my way to the kitchen with baby on the hip to make her bottle and then plop her on a pillow in the floor with it while I make my way into the little boys room,  and I as pass the Tweenager's cave, I flip on the light, tapping the wall, "Up and at-em, bud...let's go." Turn on the lig...