Beverly Joy Roberts

Things they are a changing.    I'll let you decide just what those things might be in your life.  In mine--it happened 5 days ago.  I had a birthday--a big one.  I'm 60.  I say it with pride--I've earned every minute, hour, day, week, month and year.  I wouldn't go back--not ever.  A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook a funny thing that happened while I was watching my five year old granddaughter.  She was looking at my wedding album. (The pictures are 41 years old.) When I told her that those two young people in the pictures were Grandma and Puppa, I could see the confusion on her face.  She studied the images.  ...And--nope--she was not a believer.  She flat out said, "No.  That's not you."  She would not believe that these two people were her Grandma and Puppa.  She studied the photo while I tried to convinced her.  Then after much debate she conceded with this exception.  "Grandma, I like you better now." Did I mention

Most adults have heard or said these three powerful words... "Say Thank-you!"   When we were children we were taught to be thankful--and when we became parents we taught our children to be thankful.  Round and round we go...   I've heard the words "Thank-You"...   spoken through tears yelled in sarcastic anger whispered in breathless surprise politely repeated by a child and expressed with heartfelt gratitude I've heard toddlers struggle to put the sounds together in a sweet baby voice, "ank-ou."  And I've seen the words mouthed by an elderly person without the strength to speak. YES--those are two very powerful words! Tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving.  It's America's official day of thankfulness.  It may be a tradition at your Thanksgiving table to say something you're thankful for this year.  Most of us can come up with our "Thankfuls" around the table once a year.  But how can we limit it to just

I'm busy--at least I think I am. This morning, I stood in front of the microwave and set the timer for 1-minute.  I placed my 1/2 cup of coffee on the rotating plate and watched it go round and round as the microwave  tried to do its work, but after 34 seconds, I popped the door open, grabbed my cup of coffee and headed for the computer. I took a sip.  The temperature wasn't quite what I was expecting--it was warm at best.  It must be because my microwave is too slow! My husband and pastor, has said on many occasions that we live in a microwave society.  We want things now --the way we want them or "heads will roll." When our children were young, whenever I found the service of others to be unsatisfactory--I could see my children sink into there seats as they pleaded, "No, mom...it's okay.  It doesn't matter that my food order didn't come--I'm not hungry."  Or... "I really want that shirt with the missing button."  They

The hand-print on the glass door caught my attention.  I've seen hand prints on these doors before, but this time as I walked down the church hallway my eyes were drawn to the glistening imprint on the exterior church doors. On closer examination, the door was spotted with fingerprints of all sizes.  Above the door bar there were adult hand-prints and under the door bar, there were tiny hand-prints. I thought of all the little people who had been at church that day and left behind their calling cards. When our first grandchild was 15 months old, she came for a visit.  On this particular visit, she was old enough to explore about every inch of the house.  She left her tiny calling card on the doors, windows, the bathroom mirror and various walls.  But one place she touched became precious to me.  In the dinning room there was a perfect little hand-print on the glass door of the grandfather clock.  That day in the church hallway, the memory of my granddaughter's hand-prin

I mowed the grass about five times over a ten week period this summer.  (2016) I'm not sharing that bit of information because I'm lazy but because it was so dry and hot that the grass just didn't seem to grow much.  That was fine with me because in my yard it's survival of the fittest .  Now that fall has arrived, it is obvious which plants were able to survive my neglect and which ones weren't. There are five---five dead a rborvitae trees in my back yard.  They are a beautiful fall rust color, but they should be green.  It's a stark reminder that what you water will grow--what you neglect will die.  I knew that they needed more water.  It was an extremely hot and dry summer, but I didn't want to put in the discipline needed to keep them alive.  The result--5-dead trees. Confession:  This isn't my first attempt at growing these trees--it's my second year trying to grow trees in the very same spot.  Twice I hauled trees to our yard.  Twice I