2016 | Real Life on Rocky Top

The Summer of No Regrets!

Jun 08 2016

It is summer up here on Rocky Top! For many families that means VACATION!!!

Our family is no exception to that! We just returned from our first extended family vacation in four years! Between a move from the Bayou state, two grandbabies being born, a wedding, graduations, unexpected deaths, elderly parents, new jobs and just life, it has just been hard to get away. We have gotten together several times a year up here on Rocky Top, but it is different when four separate families choose to take off work and drive and/or fly to a separate location to spend a week together. Coordinating everyone’s schedule is almost an impossible task.

As I sat under a canopy on a beautiful white sandy beach watching my two adorable grandchildren creating sand castles, my son attempting paddle boarding, my husband casting his rod in hopes of a fish, I realized all the work to get here was worth it. However, it wasn’t just about having fun together as a family, there were some other lessons the Lord taught me this past week about the importance of a family vacation.

Laughter……..nothing like laughing together and sometimes even at the expense of one another to bond you together as a family. Most nights after small children were in bed we played games. We won’t talk about the night we played Catch Phrase and my job was to describe “Skip to My Lou”. I jumped up from my chair to act out skipping. Bad idea. My knee decided not to cooperate and I almost fell on the floor. My mind and body were in two different places. We all laughed until we cried. Proverbs 17:22
Memories……..things happen on these trips that are forever etched in our minds and bind us together. One night a storm was raging at 5 am. I looked out the window to see our rented tandem kayak floating in the ocean. I ran up and down the hall screaming “Wake up! Everyone go help dad rescue the kayak.” The son and the son-in-loves all threw on clothes and rushed out to the beach while lightening was striking the shore to rescue the kayak and whatever could be salvaged. Of course the night before, it was “the mom” who suggested a storm was coming and it might be best to take down the canopy and move the kayak up even closer to the house. But who is remembering??? Philippians 1:3
Grace……….spending a week together with four families at various stages of life, various personalities, various strengths and weaknesses gives us all a chance to give grace to one another. Some of us are neat freaks; some leave all their belongings everywhere; some drink coconut water; some eat one gallon of ice cream daily; some take long walks; some like to just sit and read; some are competitive and some just don’t care about winning or losing. Many people want their vacations to just be all about themselves. Yet, what better way to learn grace than by practicing it by accepting each other’s differences. Taking a multi-generation vacation is such a great way to not only build bonds but to learn how to extend grace to one another. II Timothy 2:1
Prayer.……..of course there was prayer at every meal together. BUT this is not what I am referring to. Toward the end of our time together, we gathered in the big family room after the children were put to bed. John (Preacher), Dad, or Papa John as those in our family call him, asked all of us to be prepared to share toward the end of the week the answers to the following questions: What is your family thankful for this year? What in the coming year will require your dependence on the Lord? How can we as a family pray for your family? As we shared the answers to these questions, some of us were a bit emotional (me, in particular). Doing family this way was foreign to me growing up. This time of family prayer was so special to me personally. James 5:13-16
Intentionality…………none of the above just happened, the week didn’t just happen, our family didn’t just happen. It was all “intentional”! Many years ago, an older women challenged me to live my life without regrets. Don’t just live your life. Live your life on purpose. Decide what is important to you, to your family and do “it”! Whatever “it” is, do it! Preacher and I decided years ago when the children were young that we might not drive fancy cars, own a fancy house, jewelry or the latest designer clothes, but we wanted to use what money we did have to build our family by taking vacations. In the early years, it was simply driving 20+ hours to spend time with his family at the beach. One year we had a garage sale to raise funds to go to Disney world together. A vacation for your family might be a few days in the mountains or exploring a new city. The point is to get away from your normal routine and spend uninterrupted time together as a family! This trip happened by our family sitting together over a year ago talking about how we all needed to get away to a beach house. Dates seemed to elude us. However, my precious daughter-in-love worked on dates until we could see a possible window. It took persistent intentionality! Galatians 2:20, I Timothy 6:11-12

Sitting on the back porch of Rocky Top today soaking in the sun of the summer, my prayer for your family is to live this summer INTENTIONALLY as you laugh together, make memories together, give one another grace and pray together as a family.

May the Summer of 2016 be the Summer of NO REGRETS!

The One Thing My Mom Did

May 07 2016

This time of the year always brings mixed emotions in my heart. I see many pictures and tributes on social media of women with their moms. It just makes me sad. However, it is not because my mom isn’t here on this earth. She is alive but she isn’t. Mom has Alzheimer’s. This horrible disease has robbed her of her memory and is beginning to shut down her basic bodily functions. As I sit on the back porch of Rocky Top today, I want to be totally transparent. Even if my mom did not have this awful sickness, she was just not a good mom. Ouch, kind of cruel to say on Mother’s Day weekend. Please know my Mom is receiving flowers today, beautiful red roses in a gorgeous vase, along with a card that expresses my love to her. I will also travel this week hundreds of miles to sit with her as I listen to her tell me the same thing over and over. My hope is that as I walk in the door she will smile as she recognizes my face.

But I’m not one to play games and pretend. I have no memories of her brushing my hair, showing me how to apply makeup or giving me wise counsel concerning boys. There are no bedtime stories, songs of Jesus, or times we just acted silly in the back of my mind. She wasn’t even present at any of my children’s graduations or weddings by her own choice.

I do not share this to cause you to feel sorry for me or to dishonor my mom in anyway. I share it because there is ONE THING my mom did that changed the course of my life!

This ONE THING changed my life forever. It is a gift any mom can give her child. As I have grown older I realize how blessed I am that my mom did this ONE THING.

My mom took me to church. Notice I didn’t say she brought me to church. That would imply that she always came with me, which she didn’t. Mom took me nearly every Sunday to a church where God’s word was taught passionately, preached with authority and Jesus was worshipped as if He really was alive.

So, MOM, thank you for taking me to a place where I heard about Jesus. Every good gift I have is because of one decision you made. You might have failed at many things as a mom but at least you were wise enough to know that there was a place you could take me every week that would introduce me to the ONE who is perfect and has blessed me with a life that is above and beyond anything I could have daydreamed about as a child.

So on this Mother’s Day weekend as I reflect on being a mom, I also celebrate the three children He has blessed me with. They are all adults now, married to three wonderful spouses and I now have two grandkids and one on the way! Please know I failed my children many, many times. I was not the perfect mom. I yelled way too much and placed too much emphasis on things that really didn’t matter like perfectly cleaned rooms and perfect grades. However, I did repeat the ONE THING and hopefully improved on it a little: I BROUGHT them to church and wanted them to meet Jesus. He was and is a REAL person in our home. I see them now BRINGING their children to church and Jesus is a very REAL person in their homes.

Mom, you were not a perfect mom. I am not a perfect mom. But I did learn from you there is ONE who is perfect and HE will enable me to live the life He has called me to live. Thank you MOM for taking me to church!

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for HE who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:23-25

Why Are You Crying?

Apr 24 2016

I stood on a beautiful white sand beach just a few days ago with tears streaming down my face. It started as a few tears welling up in my eyes but turned into an uncontrollable sob. You know the kind of cry that when you try to talk, you sound like a blubbering idiot.

No one was around. It was just me, the crashing waves against the shore, my Jesus, and my tears.

I could almost hear Him say, “Why are you crying?”

Well, Lord……….my dishwasher at home is broken, the microwave still isn’t fixed, and the air conditioner just went out.

Really?? You are standing on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and you are crying because your appliances aren’t working?

So, Donna, why are you crying? I heard Him whisper my name and my soul began to calm.

I’m overwhelmed with life, Lord. My eyes are off YOU! I thought coming to the beach, hearing the waves, smelling the salt air would somehow magically make it all better. Running to the beach doesn’t make it all better. It just makes you at the beach.

What does make it better? What will enable me to stay the course, deal with the stuff of life…….the appliances, the circumstances and people that are causing me to sob uncontrollably?

I remembered someone else who had been asked the question, Why are you crying?

Mary Magdalene stood in front of an empty tomb crying. Jesus was gone. Jesus had been her everything. He had rescued her and had given her new life. Her world was falling apart because of His death. Jesus came to her outside the empty tomb and said, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?” Mary thought the answer was to just find His dead body. Then, Jesus called her by name, “Mary”. She immediately recognized His voice when He spoke her name. She replied, “Rabboni!” It is the Aramaic word for “Teacher”. She immediately put herself under His authority and responded with “teach me, Lord”. (John 20:10-16) She didn’t respond with “fix it, Lord” or “make it all better”!

A hurting heart, an anxious spirit, uncontrollable tears, an overwhelmed life will not be fixed by a trip to the beach or to any place. It is the Person of Jesus who calms our fears, holds us when we do cry, teaches us how to handle life and is our peace and joy.

So as the old hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

I did choose that day to “turn my eyes upon Jesus”. As I turned my eyes to Him and put myself under His authority, the aggravating people just didn’t seem to aggravate me as much. The appliances aren’t fixed yet, but they are just appliances. The other circumstances and people are still there but so is my JESUS and He is just so much bigger. He is my Teacher! He will teach me how to navigate life, choose joy and be victorious. I just have to turn to Him and choose Him and His ways.

Twenty Years

Mar 31 2016

It is a pleasure to welcome Kristi Nolan to Rocky Top’s back porch once again. She is a young woman who continues to bless me by allowing herself to be open, honest and just flat out real! Her story shouts of the grace and forgiveness we just celebrated on Easter.

It took more than 10 years for me to walk through a March 30^th without struggling with the date – and then, all of a sudden, I would find myself on April 1^st and it would hit me – I made it through! So as we celebrate Passion week, I am celebrating His love, grace and forgiveness.

It’s been 20 years since I saw a line on a stick in a Wendy’s restroom – since I sat in disbelief and wondered what it meant.

20 years since I hesitated to make a phone call to a clinic and set an appointment for a consultation.

20 years since they told me I was making the right decision.

20 years since they told me it was safer to terminate the pregnancy than to try to carry to term and deliver a baby – safer for me anyway.

20 years since they performed an ultrasound and told me I was lucky I came in when I did because it was going to cost me $250 less than it would have in another week.

20 years since they handed me a valium and sat me in a dark room with other women, wait, other girls, who sat in silence and tried not to think about what was to come.

20 years since they positioned me on a table and told me it was my last chance to change my mind.

20 years since I didn’t.

20 years since I laid upon a table and read the serenity prayer taped to the ceiling above me and pondered the irony.

20 years since the sound of life being sucked from my body brought me to the reality of what exactly it was I was doing in that moment.

20 years since I couldn’t get out fast enough to throw up in the parking lot.

20 years since the enemy began an assault on my mind that would convince me I didn’t deserve a loving husband or children.

20 years since I felt my sin was too deep for the Blood of Christ to cover it.

20 years since I took the innocent life of what was formed by the Lord in my womb.

But in those 20 years, though the enemy tried to win – he has lost.

Christ’s Blood has won.

In those 20 years I met a man who would love and cherish and serve me – who calls me his “bride” every single day.

In those 20 years God showed that the enemy had no power over my womb, but He did – He has given me three beautiful children.

In those 20 years God has replaced my guilt and shame with FORGIVENESS and JOY.

In those 20 years God has used my darkest sin for His greatest glory.

In those 20 years every time the enemy tried to whisper “you’re not worthy”, God would shout “MY GRACE IS ENOUGH”

“Not that I have already obtain all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

I’m In the Lord’s Army!!!

Feb 19 2016

Up on Rocky Top my grandchildren and I love to sing and act out a song. It’s the old children’s bible song “I’m in the Lord’s Army!” When William and Addy come over and we sing, they will ask me “Nonna, let’s sing the “march song”. So we will sing at the top of our lungs while acting out all the motions of marching in the infantry, riding in the cavalry and zooming over the enemy. It is such fun but it became reality for me these last few weeks.

I left Rocky Top a few weeks ago to visit South Asia for the first time. This area of our world was new to me. It is a land where there are many, many gods. It is a land where cows, water buffalo, pigs and monkeys freely roam the streets due to their “holy” status. And yet it is a land where many children are malnourished, sick and barefoot. I was able to walk dirt roads where they had never seen a “white woman” nor had ever heard the name of Jesus. I sat and drank chai in dirt paved courtyards as laundry hung out on lines nearby and flies swarmed all around my face.

Darkness seemed to prevail everywhere around me even though the sun shone brightly in the sky.

Our leader asked if a team member would be willing to separate from the rest of the group to accompany one of the workers to some new areas. I volunteered not because I was brave but because I really wanted some special time with this worker. I wanted to encourage her. She has lived in this country for over 10 years and birthed all her children here. She is the brave one!

To be honest the experience of those two days away from the group and the night away were some of the most difficult of my life. Yet, I saw the Lord at work. I saw a woman who passionately poured herself out to a people who are living in such darkness that truly there are not words adequate enough to describe it. And yet the light of Christ is moving in this country. Men, women and children are coming to know the Light and are being trained by this worker how to share this Light among their own people.

When I returned to the group, I shared my “night time away experience” with our group. The next morning I once again had no hot water to wash my hair. My precious roommate, Joy, who truly lives up to her name, said a familiar truth that became reality for me at that moment.

Joy said, “Mrs. Donna, we are soldiers! Soldiers do not complain that they do not have hot water. Soldiers do not care about the bed they sleep in or the food they eat. They are soldiers. We are soldiers, Mrs. Donna. We are at war!”

My mind quickly went to my favorite song I sing with my grandchildren. “I’m in the Lord’s army.”

And it was no coincidence on our first night in this very dark country that we visited an orphanage and the song was sung in their language and acted out just as I do with grandkids…”I’m in the Lord’s army.”!

So I am back from that far away land, readjusting to our American luxuries of clean water, hot water in an instant, electricity 24 hours a day and fresh fruits and veggies in abundance. I sat around a table last night with eleven women who are soldiers in the Lord’s army and we all shared battle stories, war stories. They are different than the ones in Asia but nonetheless there is a battle here too.

I reminded them of the truth that children’s song is based on. “You then, my daughter, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” II Timothy 2:1-3

You do not have to visit South Asia to experience war. Our enemy’s job is to steal, kill and destroy according to John 10:10. Our job is to endure and to choose His life, His peace and His joy in the face of hardship. Whatever battle you are experiencing today, I encourage you to remember that the same power that conquered death and hell now lives inside you according to God’s word. Choose to live in that power……….You are in the Lord’s army! And as I shout at the end of that song with my grandchildren saluting to the Lord…….YES, SIR!

Archive - 2016