Beverly Joy Roberts

I have a problem.    I’m right 97% of the time.   I’m not bragging.  One of my kids told me this so it must be true.   He said, “Mom, you know how things should be done and the order they should be done in.   You are right 97% of the time.”   Then he added, “It’s the 3% of the time, when you’re not right, when we have a problem.”    Really!  This is not hanging at my house--maybe! I laughed so hard when he told me this because first of all, I was very pleased that in his eyes I was right 97% of the time!     I was also equally aware of my own short comings—with such a high percentage of rightness it was super hard for me to believe I could be wrong…ever!   True! The word “wrong” it’s barely part of my vocabulary.     A few years back, I went through a nightmare experience of thinking I was right—and in reality I was so far from right that I’d have to say…wait for it…I was “wrong.”    It was a battle of epic degree as I stood my ground unmovable, unbendable

Have you ever been bit by red fire ants ?   It’s a miserable experience.   If it was just one ant, no problem, a simple brush of the hand and the ant is gone.   But that’s not how red fire ants work.   You are unaware that they are crawling up your leg until the signal is sent to the troops to attack, and oh boy that’s when the dancing and yelping begins.    The first time this happened to me, I’d never even heard of red fire ants , but once we crossed paths, I’ve never forgotten.   Now I have a healthy respect for their territory, and a can of bug spray handy to do battle.  Sometimes we can position ourselves in a place knowingly or unknowingly that we don’t belong.   Then we find ourselves prey to the attack.   No one would knowingly step in the path of red fire ants , but we knowingly step in other places we know we don’t belong; it may be as simple as what we watch, where we go, or how we speak.     Here’s a few verses from the Message Bible.   It’s plain and

Many years ago when my husband was in Bible College in Lakeland, Florida, we decided to venture out to the Strawberry Festival in the neighboring town.   This was a real splurge on our limited college income.       Upon arriving at the festival the entrance was lined with carnival-style games.   We stopped to watch the one where you throw a ping pong ball, and if it lands in any of the small fish bowls you win a goldfish.    My husband, Bob, insisted I try.    I am the worst at games of chance.   I rarely—but usually never—win anything.   However, this time on my first throw the carnival guy yelled, “We have a winner!”   I won the goldfish.   A motherly instinct immediately rose up within me, and that fish was in for all the love I could gush on it.  This is not the actual goldfish. But did I really win?    First, I had to carry the fish around with me all day.   I worried about the heat, and if it was okay in that plastic bag.   Then we stopped on the w

Baby Abi in Grandma's arms.   When my children were young, I can recall hearing them cry in the night.  I'd bolt out of bed and rush to the side of the one who was sick or frighten.   Instinctively I'd try to bring comfort by placing a cool hand on a fevered brow or rub a sore belly.   I would hold my child close until the emergency had passed and peaceful sleep returned.     Other nights I remember waking to the touch of a little hand on my arm.  Then I'd feel  a tug on the blankets signifying the need to crawl into bed with mommy and daddy—to a child this is the safest place on earth . I remember two occasions in my adult life when I was that scared and hurting child , desperately in need of my Heavenly Father. February 1975, when I was eighteen years old--my mother suddenly died. M y dearest friend was gone.   Never had I felt such loneliness.   That night I cried.   I cried out in pain to my Heavenly Father and he came to me in my sorrow.   Tha