Faith | Real Life on Rocky Top

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!

Happy New Year from Rocky Top

Jan 01 2016

It is quiet this first morning of 2016 up here on Rocky Top! The fireworks were launched without incident, the crab bites made and eaten, sparkling grape juice toasted with, loud conversations of politics, Alabama vs. Clemson, the bar and boards to be passed, and listening to Carrie Underwood sing while awaiting the clock to tick into 2016.

2015 left loudly and 2016 has begun with silence. So I listen closely for His voice.

“There remains very much land to be possessed.” Joshua 13:1 is what the Lord said to me on the last day of 2015 and this morning He said, “But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

There is land to be possessed…….chains to be broken; dark places that need to be shattered with light, and the unloved to be loved.

In order to possess the land, I must walk forward and forget what is behind me……..the poor choices, the hurts, the sin. I can’t change the past. I must look to the future and press toward “the goal”.

Every New Year is famous for goals…….losing that weight, being in God’s word, getting out of debt, spending more time with family, keeping the house cleaner, controlling that temper, …….and the list could go on and on. These kinds of goals are not bad or wrong. However, they typically are just about trying harder and doing better. These goals will fail every time if they are not done with the ultimate goal being pursued………..the “goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

This goal is about HIM succeeding. Remember according to preacher the definition of success is “making Him famous “. The prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” is Christ being known in us and through us. It is Jesus Christ being elevated and exalted in every area of my life.

So as I sit in the quiet newness of 2016, the Lord whispers to my heart………Donna, exalt Me, pursue Me in every area of your life. Allow Me to break those chains, shine the light in the dark, love the unloved through you. It is not about trying harder and checking off each goal that you accomplish this year.

If you will set ME before you, above all; if you will hit your knees every morning and look toward me and allow me to fill you with my Holy Spirit then I will be famous and you will succeed in 2016.

The family awakens now…….stomachs to fill; a New Year’s feast to be made.

Happy New Year from Rocky Top and may HE be famous in your life and the life of your family in 2016!

Category - Faith