The Graphics of Life

Is there a difference between knowing something and believing it? I mean, when it comes to the price of gas, I know it is $3.60 a gallon, but I can’t hardly believe it. I know that a giant redwood tree grows from a seed about the same size as that of a tomato seed, but I have a hard tyme believing that it is possible. I know that I was made special, and I am loved, but do I believe it? Well… It’s probable that 95% of what we “know” is because someone told us. 4% we figure out by experimentation and that lingering one percent, well, that is reserved for the stuff we find out by sheer dumb stupidity. Dumb stupidity might sound a bit redundant, but really, it is a classification reserved for those things you just didn’t think through but made perfect sense after you suffered the consequences of them. Come to think of it, that one percent might be a little low for some of us, but I digress. The truth is a lot of what we know are things we accept as fact. We don’t question it because people...

Have you ever heard or seen something that made you stop in your tracks and self-evaluate? Let’s be honest, looking inward for the purpose of self-reflection and self-evaluation is not easy and the results can often be a little hard to handle. We are all growing and changing every day and if we don’t take the tyme to check up on ourselves, that change and growth, over tyme, can be more negative than positive. Well, today I saw something that made me stop, look inward and go, “hmmmmm”. It was a video of a little girl that was visually upset, not in that she was crying, but rather in that she was visually vexed by something. The video had subtitles, so I chose to read it first. Shortly into the video, the little girl said something that made me decide to restart the video and listen to it because it seemed to me that she had a message I needed to hear. Now, it turns out that the video was actually of this girl (probably 3 or 4 years old) having a conversation with her dad and the d...

My Lovely Aunt Ruth posted this and it got me thinking... God knows what we're going through, but we often forget, that if we love Him and are called according to His purpose (which we are if we love Him) then, He is working good in our lives. It can be really difficult to believe that when we can't even begin to see a way out of our current set of circumstances. The truth of the matter is, some of us were not geared to forge our own path through life. Some of us are helpers, followers, supporters and cheerleaders of others, but we have no ability to do those things for ourselves. We might not know why that is, but it's just how it is. It is just so much easier and much more fun to help someone else. When you are geared in such a manner, making life-altering decisions can seem overwhelming and crippling. Because of that, we tend to stand still and appear to do nothing and get or go nowhere. It's really hard to imagine that God understands that. Another truth is that whe...

Last night while reading a devotional about seeing God in America, the writer wrote about the San Diego Zoo and how the zoo has over 4,000 species of animals. The writer also mentioned how as humans, we are not so diverse in our approach to life. We stick to our patterns, routines, and the like, never really branching out from what seems comfortable. God, however, is not The God of patterns and routines. While His love and presence are steadfast and will not change while we are on this earth, His methods for answering our prayers and providing our needs do not follow a pattern. He is The God of diversity and variety, just look at His creation. He made the honey bee and the elephant, the goldfish and the dinosaur, the inch worm and the grizzly bear. He made the desert and rain forest, the plains and the mountains. Not only did He create things with such diversity, but His methods for doing so do not follow what we would think. He made the giant Redwood tree to reproduce from a seed ...

I didn't know how mentally and emotionally messed up I really was. The year was 2018 and I had been searching for a job for a long tyme; that in itself can mess a person up emotionally and mentally, but that is a story for another day. Then at the end of January, I saw an ad for a job that seemed perfect for me. Of course, God had said no to every other job that seemed perfect for me, so, honestly, I had very little hope that this job would pan out either. I interviewed on a Monday and then heard nothing. Finally, on the following Friday I got the call that they wanted to hire me. Shock. I started the following Tuesday and the next week I found myself hiding under my desk. The owner of the company was screaming at and threatening people at a volume and degree that you cannot imagine. I, however, didn't have to imagine it. I had already lived it for my entire childhood and the first several years of my adult life. The owner of the company was exactly like my dad, and it was ho...

A few months ago, I saw a social media post that concerned me. So, me being me, I messaged the friend who posted it. I referred to the post and asked if everything was okay. My friend quickly confided in me, telling me that her husband had done something incredibly hurtful and had damaged their relationship to its core. I was heartbroken for her. As we chatted, she offered details and talked about the hurt, a hurt she hadn’t shared with anyone until I asked. I offered an empathetic shoulder for her to lean against, proverbially, seeing as how we were hundreds of miles apart. Truth be told, it was a heart wrenching experience, especially since I’d known her husband my entire life, or so I thought. I wanted to offer her some encouragement, but shock and devastation left me speechless. All I could really manage was to tell her I would be praying for her. As the days and weeks went on, I checked in on my friend. I asked how she was doing, but generally did not ask about the situation...

Several months ago, the key fob to my car wore out. The plastic covering that made it possible to push the buttons had worn through and I couldn’t use it anymore. Since I seemed to be easily annoyed by not being able to conveniently lock or unlock my car as I approached or departed from it, I decided it would be a good idea to replace the key fob. So, armed with the basic knowledge that it would not be cheap, I set out to research what I needed to do to get a replacement. After several minutes of research, I sat back in my office chair, my expression changing back and forth from disbelief to indignation. How could a key fob replacement cost over $200?! Now, you have to understand, I am a frugal person. I’ve always understood the value of a dollar, but after going through some long, difficult tymes of being out of work, I really learned to conserve and basically talk myself out of buying anything, even if I kind of needed it or not. I found that most tymes I could do without whatever it...