Influence

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It has been a long while since I have posted anything here. I have been busy completing three years toward my B.A. in English and my senior year is underway. My current class (Creative Writing) has finally given me the space to take off the tight harness of academic writing rules, and it feels SO GOOD!! After reading my first assignment, Mom and Daddy gave it their thumbs up and suggested I make it a blog post, so here it is. It is my story and their story. It's a little longer than my usual posts, but as with everything I have ever posted here, I pray it encourages you to run "up the sunbeam to the sun" (C. S. Lewis). "Follow my example,  as I follow the example of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV I sat above them on the stairs. Looking down through the window-like openings in the partition between the living room and the stairway, I listened to the basketball players, football players, baseball players, wrestlers, track athletes, both the lettermen

Deep Water Dividends

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I started September with the story of My Tony's crape myrtle tree, so I thought it fitting to end September with a status update.

Crape Myrtle began the month producing hope out of despair, life out of apparent death. I was inspired, my heart uplifted by the little tree's TRY.

30 days later, after many quenching drinks, the progress is obvious! Slurping up the desperately needed water, the tree's vitality was steadily renewed.

Tiny round buds.

Lots of them!

Autumn's sunrise broke on Crape Myrtle from behind Mount Diablo, revealing profusions of raspberry pink, frilly, flouncy FLOWERS!! What a comeback!! Here I thought it hadn't bloomed and wouldn't bloom--I thought it was too late, but there it was, bursting forth like the shout of joy when morning chases away the darkness of night. What a beautiful response, all because of a frequent and steady trickle of cool, deep, life-giving water.

I love it! What was a sorry, sad, hopeless twig of a tree, has, in one month shown me what it looks like to praise God in extravagant style, that I can demonstrate joy profusely even when I know I don't have it all together, and how to throw my energy into blooming right where I'm planted, right now! That's what Crape Myrtle is doing, and it's what I am trying to do too.

Crape Myrtle didn't compare itself to other trees, nor did it wait until it was big enough to impress anyone--it just got busy blooming! It just did what it was made to do!

"let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; " Psalm 96:12 NIV
Is living water producing extravagant joy in your heart? If it is, does anybody know? If it isn't, I pray that you will tap into the deep water of the knowledge of God and drink of the water that will allow you to thirst no more.

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