Quiet Encounters

"Fruit of righteousness will be peace, its effect will be quietness and confidence forever!" Isaiah 32:17   "When the women saw that the fruit of the tree was good and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." Gen. 3:6 Ugh....that first bite......it is always taken because we are desiring something........ I have eaten my share of bad fruit.  Just like Eve, it looked similar to the good fruit around me, but it was subtlely different.  The enemy is truely an evil schemer.  He offers that one piece, and if you take it....your lens begin to shift ever so slightly.  Then each piece of fruit that you continue to eat, over time, continues to skew your lens of reality...It is so subtle....if it wasn't we could recognize it right from the start.  By the time we have finished the fruit, we have such a warped view of our relationships, our self worth and our relationship with God....Am I the only one that has ev

~ A Grandmother's Stitches~ In honor of Clara Beaty, who entered the pearly gates on 11-28-2012. Years ago I sat as an excited girl with carefully selected fabric, thimble and thread eager to master the art of quilting. I will never forget sitting on that floral couch and intently listening to Granny as she handed down her knowledge one stitch at a time. I watched her delicate, soft hands with years of sewing captured in her swollen joints make each stitch with ease and perfection. "Make every stitch small" she would say as she handed the fabric to me. She would carefully monitor my stitches, stressing "your quilt should be as pretty on the bottom as it is on the top." For hours, we would share the needle and thread as we passed the fabric between our hands. As I reflect on my life, there are many stitches that are connected to the threads of my grandparents......countless fried apple pies, biscuits and strawberry freezer jam, and apple sta