The wind didn’t check my schedule. It didn’t ask permission. It didn’t care that I had already done enough for one week, much less one day.
It just came— hard, sudden, unapologetic— and ripped the cover right off my greenhouse.
Which, for a brief and dramatic moment, sent me spiraling into full bad plant mommy theology. I immediately calculated the money I’ve spent on soil, seeds, trays, covers, optimism, and audacity. I pictured myself explaining—again—how I tried one more time to grow food like a capable adult. And somewhere in that panic, I accepted my future fate: All this effort. All this chaos. And next spring… one carrot. Crooked. Probably bitter. Judging me.
That’s when my heart did that drop it does when something precious feels exposed. My babies. Tender things. Things still growing.
That’s the panic, really. Not the storm itself— but the fear of exposure.
But then grace slipped in quietly. My son found the cover. He put it back on. And it was secured before the temperature dropped. That timing matters.
Because sometimes life doesn’t destroy what we love— it just startles us long enough to remind us how vulnerable we are.
The wind will come. Covers will lift. Plans will flap wildly in directions we didn’t approve.
But here’s what this moment taught me: The roots were already stronger than I realized. Protection returned before the damage reached what mattered most. God doesn’t always stop the wind. Sometimes He just makes sure the cold doesn’t get to the roots.
And when I go out later today to check on my babies, I already know this truth will meet me there: They survived not because conditions were perfect— but because grace showed up in time. So if life feels a little exposed right now… If the wind rattled what you thought was secure… Take heart. The cover can be restored.
Help may already be on the way. And what God planted in you was made to survive more than you think. “The wind blew my cover, but it didn’t get my roots.” “The Lord will keep you from all harm— He will watch over your life.” — Psalms 121:7 Sometimes grace doesn’t look like calm skies— it looks like protection returning just in time.
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” — John 1:14 (NIV)
There are few places where patience is tested more than a medical waiting room. The chairs are uncomfortable. The clock is loud. And the results take exactly as long as they need to — never as long as I want.
Waiting is not my spiritual gift. I am a doer. A fixer. A let’s-handle-this-now kind of woman. So when all I can do is sit and wait for medical results, my faith feels exposed.
That’s where I picture Jesus.
Not standing with answers. Not hovering with a clipboard. But sitting beside me — mud on His hands, calm in His posture, completely unbothered by the clock.
I remember the story where He knelt in the dirt, mixed mud with His own saliva, and used it to heal a blind man. Healing didn’t come through cleanliness or speed — it came through touch, obedience, and trust in the process.
John tells us the Word became flesh. Jesus didn’t float above uncertainty — He stepped into it. He understood human time. Delays. Pauses. Moments when answers didn’t come right away.
The mud on His hands reminds me He’s been working long before I ever sat down in this chair. Even when I can’t see it. Especially when I can’t rush it.
And yes… I’d still prefer a fast answer. But there is something holy happening in the waiting — even if I grumble a little while it happens.
Reflecting Mud
If patience were a muscle, mine would need physical therapy.
But maybe reflecting Jesus isn’t about mastering patience. Maybe it’s about staying present long enough for healing to unfold.
We reflect the muddy Jesus when we: • sit with someone waiting for test results instead of filling the silence • admit we’re anxious without pretending we’re fine • trust that God can use imperfect moments for holy work
Sometimes faith isn’t tidy. Sometimes it looks like dirt and delay and trust.
The same hands that once held mud for healing are still at work today.
Jesus, You healed with mud and patience and presence. Sit with me while I wait for answers I can not control. Help me trust the work of Your hands — even when they are muddy and mine are empty. Teach me to stay. Amen.
My kitchen cabinet is full of mugs. Tall ones. Short ones. Skinny ones and fat ones. Plain white. Red ones (my fav).
Loud sayings. Funny ones. Spiritual ones that make visitors pause mid-sip.
Some are glass. Some ceramic. Some insulated steel meant to keep things hot long past my capacity to remember when I made its contents.
Every day—sometimes several times a day—I reach in and choose one. Not based on worth, but on need. Coffee when I need courage. Cocoa when I need comfort. Tea when I need calm.
Over the years, some of them have lost their tops. Okay… I lost their tops. And without those lids, the heat doesn’t last as long. But here’s what I noticed one quiet morning while waiting for the kettle to whistle: Almost every single one of them holds fourteen ounces. Despite the differences. Despite the wear. Despite the missing pieces. Same capacity. No mug holds more because it’s taller. No mug holds less because it’s chipped. No mug is disqualified because it doesn’t match the rest. They were all made to receive.
And I wondered when the Church forgot that. Somewhere along the way, we started ranking the mugs. Preferring certain shapes. Deciding which ones looked “right” on the shelf. We forgot that Jesus never measured vessels by appearance. He poured Himself out freely—into fishermen, skeptics, women with reputations, men with questions, people missing lids.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” — 2 Corinthians 4:7
That’s muddy ministry. Muddy ministry is faith that doesn’t stay clean. It’s Jesus kneeling in the dirt. Touching the untouchable. Lingering with grief. Showing up before fixing anything. Muddy ministry doesn’t inspect the vessel. It just pours. It understands that people—like mugs—come in different shapes, carry different scars, and hold warmth differently, yet bear the same image of God and the same capacity for grace.
Religion becomes abusive when it starts inspecting mugs instead of filling them. When it withholds the pour because the vessel doesn’t look familiar. When it mistakes uniformity for holiness. But Jesus? Jesus keeps pouring. Fourteen ounces of mercy. Fourteen ounces of patience. Fourteen ounces of love. Enough for each of us.
And the mugs without lids? They know to drink while it’s hot. They don’t waste the moment. Maybe that’s the real lesson. Not to become a “better mug.” Not to match the cabinet. Just to stay open… and let Him pour.
And maybe that’s why this truth found me so suddenly. Because once upon a time, fourteen ounces wasn’t just a measurement in my kitchen. It was my grandson, Emmanuel Langston Gillison. Barely more than fourteen ounces at birth, his life gathered hundreds into prayer—family, friends, strangers—hoping for a miracle. We prayed boldly. We hoped desperately. We trusted God with everything we had. And when the miracle didn’t come the way we longed for, Emmanuel’s life still poured out. His brief presence became muddy ministry in its purest form— a ministry of grief, honesty, and learning to trust God when faith doesn’t get what it hoped for.
Fourteen ounces was enough. Enough to draw people together. Enough to change us. Enough to teach us that capacity is not measured by size or by how long something lasts. Some vessels are filled fully… even if they are held only briefly.
Dedication In loving memory of my grandson, Emmanuel Langston Gillison— Fourteen ounces of life, and a lifetime of grace. Some children grow old in years. Some grow old in impact.
Finding God in unfinished rooms, half-lit trees, and early-morning grace
I told myself I wasn’t writing today. But grace has a way of interrupting plans.
For three mornings in a row, I noticed the time: 5:55 a.m. Not because I was looking for it. Not because I set an alarm. I just happened to glance up — again and again — and there it was.
Triple grace.
It found me in a cluttered living room that still smelled wrong. In a Christmas tree where the lights didn’t reach the bottom. In a body asking for gentler care that I had time to give it.
Nothing about the moment was polished. Nothing was finished. And yet, grace showed up anyway.
Grace for what I couldn’t fix. Grace for what was still uneven. Grace for the parts of my life that are bright in places and dim in others.
So I will add extra ornaments where the light falls short and call it enough. Because sometimes the bottom half isn’t broken — it’s just resting in grace.
And maybe that’s what grace does best. It doesn’t announce itself. It waits to be noticed.
“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” — Hebrews 4:16
So I took my own advice. I rested my bottom half in the grace of a recliner, wrapped my hands around a cup of fragrant peppermint tea, and closed my eyes long enough to ignore the uneven lights. I didn’t fix anything else. I didn’t prove anything. I just rested.
Sometimes grace doesn’t ask us to finish the job. Sometimes it invites us to sit down in the middle of it.
“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” — 1 Corinthians 12:22
Some of us move through life with the quiet sense that we’re slightly out of step — not broken, not rebellious, just never quite fitting the mold we were handed. We show up, we work hard, we love deeply… and still feel like we’re standing just off to the side of the picture.
I’ve been thinking about the quiet ones lately. The ones who don’t quite fit the mold. The ones who try to blend in, not because they lack light, but because standing out feels risky — or exhausting — or simply unnecessary.
Somewhere along the way, we were taught that faith, success, and even joy had to be loud. That if you weren’t noticed, applauded, or affirmed publicly, you must be doing something wrong. But that’s not how God works. And that’s not how growth usually happens.
There’s an old song that keeps playing in my head: “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” It isn’t an upbeat song. It isn’t even particularly spiritual. It’s about a man walking through life wondering why things don’t seem to line up for him the way they do for everyone else. No matter how hard he tries, the rain keeps falling — and there’s a moment where he admits, almost with a shrug, that nothing seems to fit quite right.
That feeling isn’t failure. It’s often the first sign that you were never meant to squeeze yourself into someone else’s shape.
Scripture is full of people who didn’t stand out at first glance. Shepherds. Younger siblings. Widows. Servants. People whose names were whispered before they were ever written down. God didn’t choose them because they were impressive. He chose them because they were available — willing to show up, willing to listen, willing to stay.
Sometimes the calling isn’t to stand out — it’s to stand firm. To keep doing good when no one is clapping. To keep loving when you’re taken for granted. To keep believing when you feel like a misfit in the room.
If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite belong — not in your family, not at work, not even in church — hear this gently: You are not overlooked. You are being shaped.
Raindrops may keep falling. Life may feel a little off-key. But God has a way of using the steady, the faithful, and the quietly obedient to water the very ground where others will one day find shelter.
You don’t have to force yourself to stand out. You were already set apart.
Prayer God, it’s me again — the one who sometimes trips over her own feet while trying to do the right thing. Help me remember that even when I feel out of place, I am not out of Your care. Let me stop auditioning for rooms I was never meant to impress. Teach me to walk faithfully, laugh freely, and rest in the truth that You see me — not as a joke, not as an afterthought, but as Your very worthy clown. Amen.
Now Breathe! Inhale grace. Exhale comparison. We may not fit every room — and that’s okay. We belong to God. Now, come walk forward with God and me as a cheerful misfit.
Funny how fears can rule you! All my life I have refused to eat any food that moves, jiggles, or looks like it might still be breathing. Jell-O? Absolutely not. Pudding? Hard pass. Runny eggs? Never. I don’t know why, but something about the texture has always made my stomach flip like an Olympic gymnast with no spotter.
This morning, I found myself in a situation at work where I either had to eat… or be rude and not eat at all. And tempted as I was to decline, I figured I’d at least try the little thing they called a *Croque*—thick toast, fancy cheeses, tomato jam, and right on top… a sunny side–up egg. You already know what part scared me.
To make matters worse, I had just talked in Bible study the night before about embracing all that life has to offer and not letting fear write the rules. After fighting cancer , everything else *should* seem easy, right? Right… Well I’ll be dern. It was delicious. Movement and all. I wanted another.
What I learned from this was as fattening as the menu; *Psalm 34:4 “I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.” → Fear looks small until you’re the one staring down a wiggly egg. Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you…” → Even at the breakfast table. 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear…” → Fear is borrowed—not owned. It’s time to return it John 10:10 “…I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” → Abundant life sometimes starts with a bite.
Sometimes, it isn’t the “big things” that grow us—sometimes it’s the tiny choices that stretch us beyond our comfort zones. Fear sneaks into the smallest corners: decisions, relationships, opportunities, and yes… even breakfast. But growth isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “Lord, help me try something new today.” And when we do, God gently proves—again and again—that He meets us in the smallest acts of courage.
Sometimes, the thing we feared ends up blessing us. Sometimes, it just ends up being a funny story. Either way, we survive… and grow. Here’s to trying new things. Here’s to facing old fears. And here’s to trusting God with both the big leaps and the wiggly eggs. P.s. I need more deliverance and prayer time for Jello. LOL With Love, Chelle
I will no longer take cuts with knives I sacrificed for and be hit with stones that I have the deed to. I must say so long to my “Job’s” friends (from the Bible, not work) who need to eclipse me in order to find shine. I will no longer fill voids and patch wounds while being left on battlefields alone. I can no longer be held hostage for my portion or my inheritance
I have never claimed to be perfect or to have all the answers. Life never gave me an easy button or a GPS. I never had the finer things but would give you the shirt off my back. Never had gold in my pocket but every penny you had access to. I did my best with the hand I was dealt. That’s all God requires of m, and in my matured year, I am learning that is a very good thing.
Lord, forgive me for hearing their voices over Yours. I return to the peace you purchased and the love you freely give. I am bruised but not broken. Cast down but not destroyed. Though I sometimes stumble, I will dance with the limp I got and to the song I write.
It was one of the oddest days of my life. Was sitting at my desk frozen when I got the call from my hometown, sherrif. My brain went into autopilot, and I kept trying to work with tears streaming down my face. My then boss had to force me to breathe and go home. The love my co-workers showed was unmatched. Could not have made it through the coming days and the funeral without them.
He was a complicated man that I did not get to know until he was an old man in need of redemption and forgiveness. In the beginning, I was an abandoned child, looking for answers, who only served him out of obedience to my God, and the Word said to honor thy father. In the end, I became the child thru whom he wanted to give answers and ask forgiveness from his other children thru.
We didn’t have time to become father/daughter in the traditional sense. What we did have was card games, sweet potato pies, road trips, old Navy stories, testaments of the grandparents I didn’t get to meet, and a soft spot for healing to begin. He became my Pop, and I became his church mother. LOL and inside joke between us.
I figure sometimes that I was the “Moses” baby. … shipped off with no knowledge of him…so I could return and become a path to his need for freedom. Though I 💯 validate it, I am blessed to never quite have known the anger my sisters and brothers felt for him. I suppose my heart was kept in reserve for the old man and young child of God he would become.
Still missing you, Pop. I thank you for the gift of the crazy brood of sisters and brothers I inherited 9 years ago.
I hope amongst the milk and honey that there is strong coffee and sweet potato pie!!
Edgar Jerome “Jerry” Franklin-Bradshaw March 1, 1944 – February 5, 2015
The last few months have been crazy busy with normal things and unusual situations. All resulting in a great rushing around town and telephones ringing incessantly while I wear my many hats as wife, mother, grandma, daughter, sister, employee, minister, caregiver, and advocate for the homeless.
In the midst of stress and exhaustion, there is one time I must pause every morning, typically at 4 a.m. During those wee hours, I don a compression garment that looks very much like a cross between the Micheline Tire Man and Robo Cop. I then connect it to a machine that forces a tight lymphatic massage from my feet up to my arms. Rotating in four zones.
Those one to two hours daily are not much fun. Confining and often sweaty. But nevertheless, a necessary evil to ward off any increasing lymphodema caused by the removal of 100s of lymph nodes during my cancer fight.
To make it less taxing, I typically light a scented candle, make a cup of herbal tea, pull up a sermon on YouTube and attempt to ignore phone calls from those who try to catch me while I am being held captive.
This particular morning was different. I had settled into my routine. Tired from a week of very little sleep, but content to have two hours of escape.
15 minutes in, I noticed that only one of the 4 compression zones was working. I kept changing positions, thinking I was laying on one of the 4 hoses. I shook my legs, hoping maybe kicking would jump start the machine. I am so glad no one could witness what a comical sight it must have been to see a robot dancing on a couch.
I looked at the machine’s monitor twice, and everything was cycling as it should, but I just wasn’t getting my prescribed treatment. I started to panic, wondering how I was going to replace a $5000 medical device. I then remembered I had a 10 year warranty on the thing, but nevertheless, I starting to fret over the process and expense it would take to pack about 10 lbs of equipment and mail back to the non-local service center.
However, as I reached over to the machine that I was expressing anger toward, I felt a puff of air and realized that in my haste and distraction, I had only plugged in one of the four hoses. My machine wasn’t broken, I just hadn’t connected to it.
Immediately, in my spirit, I heard “yeah, kinda like us.”
A painful wave came over me, realizing that my failure to connect had spread to my relationship with my all-encompassing healing Savior.
In my rush and haste to perform “the have to” things in life, my personal time with Him was suffering greatly. He promised to be with me always, but I hadn’t always been with Him. Prayer and praise had been replaced with to-do lists.
Far worse, I had been complaining and pondering over promises and prophetic words that didn’t seem like they were working in my favor. Tired, spent, and joy decreasing. Blaming everything on the “machine” life can be, instead of connecting to the “Power”
As I replugged in the natural, I could also feel the Holy Spirit nudging me get my 4 zones in order : alone time with Him in true worship, more time in the Word learning about Him, re-establishing Him as priority, and trusting in His promise warranties.
I stopped a moment to apologize to Flexitouch Plus for failing to connect to it and narcissisticly making “it” the problem. Once I reconnected, it fulfilled all I needed to get back on track, and I always look forward to the release of pressure at the end of every session.
And yes, of course, I apologized to Jesus, and that release after reconnecting and being forgiven is amazing .
The day my mother died is the day I really knew she loved me. A strange thing to say, I know, but my truth nevertheless. The understanding of all things from the beginning came with the ending.
I had crawled in bed with her waiting for her last organic breath in a sterile room. My nose irritated by the scents of alcohol and i.v. Her nose bloody from forcing oxygen. I tried to clean her face. Lotion even but tears would fall from her left eye. My strong mother didn’t cry. She “leaked” as we would call it. I didn’t want to take it away from her. Truth is, I didn’t want to lose them myself. If I wiped them, I would never again see the strength of her womanhood again.
She hadn’t spoken for 3 days. Not since she had given me some rather poetic instructions. Even now I laugh that she and I could never have a straight conversation. Always a movie script of some kind. Meaningful now, drama back then.
When the silence came, her heart monitor spoke for her. The number of beats would rise and fall as different voices entered the room and addressed her all with the same tone. “Sister?” “Ma’cia?” “Mama? Mama? MAMA!!”
I knew her 3 day rule. If she didn’t rise in the three days like Jesus did, then she didn’t want to be hooked to nothing that would change that. She was adamant about not being trapped in weakness.
But I punked out. I sang “He’s sweet I know” as if that were going to change her mind. She waved a few times. I never knew if she was raising her hands in worship or telling me to shut up.
I have always felt I failed my younger sister by allowing her to sign those dreaded papers. I remember the mix of sadness and anger in her eyes as she penned her name and then literally ran from the room. It would be days before I saw her again
I’m was not quite cognitive of where my older sister was in that moment. I knew she was there. I suspect she was no longer the Big Sister at that moment but too was again the child with the single pocahontas ponytail praying for Mama not to go. She, like Mama, would try hard to not show it, but vulnerability reveals itself even in stone.
I only found out today that they had their private moment at some point that I must have slipped away. There was a forgiveness time involved and a phone conversation with her best friend. I pray she will tell you all about that someday.
The youngest was barely a preteen. Sheltered in the room with the grandchildren. The “adults ” always feeling the need to protect them from the inevitable.
I too made that mistake. I had sent my two youngest kids to school that Monday. Not sure if I was shielding them from death or from seeing me in a child like desperation. Children need to know that their parents are human too.
The treatment of my eldest, I regret the most. I had him when I was 15. He was her baby. Her son that I birthed. She would laugh and say that I was just the “egg bearer.”
Through well meaning “it’s going to be okay” I neglected to talk to him about God’s Will and how a person’s will outweighs our tears. At the moment of her death, he comes flying in with a bouquet of get well balloons, not realizing that her version of getting well meant leaving us behind.
Let me correct that. She didn’t leave us behind. She left this world behind and we just happened to be still in it.
The room was full though. Sister’s sisters and Sister’s brothers (one on the phone was in New York). There were so many, 10 of them total. Being on the oldest end, she was a second caregiver to most of them. Missing completely was the youngest brother. He was her original baby boy and had been murdered by a robber a few short years before. Honestly, I believe that was the day she really died. Her broken heart never quite recovered and affected her body from that point forward.
Her mother, the rock of our family, had been in and out, wheeled in a chair. But I still can’t picture her in the room at that moment. I was told later how she drew close to her daughter and gently rubbed her forehead. A silent expression of love that is the hallmark for much of my family. This was the second child she had lost at too young of an age. The baby boy, Ronnie at 33 and my mom not quite 54. Her soul was hurting in ways I cannot and will not try to imagine.
Slowing beeps and tubes being removed, counting each deep draw and release. Five. The number of grace. A number I now have a love / hate relationship with. On Valentine’s Day no less. A day she has previously disliked and one I still avoid 21 years later.
I remember my pastor/godmother trying to pull me away and I screamed at her “she brought me in this world, I can go with her out.” I don’t think I ever apologized to Cat for that. Not sure I should, that pull almost took my mother’s love from me.
In that moment, holding fiercely to my mother’s arm, I felt her. Not just a shockingly strange amount of energy that only those who have held on to a transitioning person know.
But I felt her.
It should have been a peaceful moment. But I was 31 years old and wasn’t ready for her to go yet. I had questions only she could answer. I screamed. I cried. I prayed in tongues so strong and loud that Cat asked the nurse to give me a sedative.. Even now I believe my comical mother got a chuckle out of that.
But I felt her.
She was free. She was seeing her Savior. She saw that Ronnie was okay.. Everything that ever burdened her was being released.
But I felt her.
Though it was only mere minutes it felt like hours. Holding on to her arm, that ironically had no more strength or warmth, I believe I was selfishly trying to hold on to her. Hold on to her because I still needed her. I still wanted her.
But I felt her. And she was finally fierce.
Her love was intense. It was given. It was written. It was unspoken. It was taken for granted. It was appreciated. It was too much and not enough all at once. It hurt her. It hurt others. It healed her and she healed others.
And in that moment, I felt her. I felt her love and I didn’t cry for her again for one full year. My mother showed me she loved me when she let me feel her.
November 8, 2021. An excerpt from “My Mama’s Love Is Like …”
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