Perspective

Thanks to the following conversation, I have somewhat of a new perspective as I gaze into the vast unknown that is my future. This conversation took place last Monday, November 13.

Mo: I don't think I want to live past graduation.
Michael: (hysterical laughter)
Mo: Seriously, I'm not at all excited about what life has to offer.
Michael: But what about what you have to offer life?

That kid knows how to get my attention!
As Henry Blackaby says, sometimes God speaks through His people.
-mo
Moville

Survival

Well, I survived today. Every "Happy Birthday" ripped a piece of my heart from my chest. I have a really, really hard time being happy when I am now working on my 23rd year of memories in which my mate will not share.

Now, I begin the miserable trek to 10/09/07.

On the bright side, I have two great Freshmen Families - my parents & siblings and my children & their dad.
-mo
Moville

22

Mama was 2 months away from marriage, 14 months away from motherhood.

Me? 22 and never been pursued.
Happy Birthday, you say? My best response is I'll try.
-mo
Moville

Going to Grandma's

I guess last weekend was pretty eventful. This is post #3 inspired by the two days.

I went to Grandma's house for the first time since somebody else has lived there. The new inhabitants have erected fences outside and walls inside. But to me, it's still Grandma's house. In my mind, I can still walk in from the carport, turn around the corner, and see her sitting in her chair, the ceiling fan whizzing above her. If I let my mind wander back almost ten years, the chair beside her is not empty. Granddaddy sits there. As I turn the corner, he says, "Hey, pretty girl! Whatcha know?" Their chairs are two of the four recliners in this one room. There's a couch along the wall - which is almost covered with pictures of Trussell children - between the door and Grandma, and there's a love seat on the wall across from the big screen TV and the little gas heater. A small bookshelf is below a window to outside, between the TV and the door. Between Granddaddy and the love seat is a hat (or coat) rack holding caps and gourds. Behind the two recliners on the far end of the room are a couple of bookshelves and the toys that have survived at least three generations of Trussells. On the wall with the love seat is a window into Grandma's kitchen. A small TV sits in the window so Grandma never has to choose between a meal and Wheel of Fortune.

I wish I were an artist and could paint the scenes of Grandma's house. So much of what is Grandma's house could never be conveyed on canvas, but I would like to try. I don't want to forget.

Unless you are one of the six (or 10, if you count the greats) who had the privilege of calling this place Grandma's house, you may not understand this post or the significance of what I have described. For us, I have described a picture of happy memories.
-mo

Moville

Holes

I also learned...

...dogs cannot fill person-sized holes in people's lives. A man whose dog is his best friend is a lonely man. Dogs make bad husband-substitues, and they make lousy children. Dogs are good for being dogs.

Dogs cannot replace people; people cannot replace dogs.
-mo

Moville

Home

Home is my favorite place on earth.

I learned this weekend that home is one of the loneliest places on earth. The people there love me; they care about what's going on in my life; they pay attention to what I have to say. But, they are all coupled. Everywhere I go, I am the odd one. When everybody's home, there's Mama&Daddy, April&Tim, Joy&Andrew (who is not part of the family but is too often around anyway), Granny&Popa, Uncle Earl&Aunt Patricia, Uncle Richard&Aunt Donna, etc. Then, there's Wissa. Just Wissa. Lonely Wissa.

Yet, home is my favorite place on earth.
-mo
Moville

Consecration and Dedication

1 Kings 8.62-66
(v. 63) Solomon sacrificed thousands of animals to "[dedicate] the temple of the LORD."

(v. 64) Solomon sacrificed grain and leftovers from the previous sacrifices to "[consecrate] the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the LORD."

If I am "God's temple" (1 Cor. 3.16), then sacrifices I am called to make in life are part of the process of my being consecrated, dedicated to God.
-mo

Moville

Notes on Forgiveness

1-Remember how God has forgiven you.

2-Remember vengenace is the Lord's

3-Determine to let nobody get between you and God.
-Unforgiveness gets between you and God. Don't let anybody have that kind of power over your spiritual life.

4-Remember that full forgiveness is based on repentence.
Q: Is God's forgiveness unconditional?
A: Potentially. He offers forgiveness to all, but we must respond with repentence. Full forgiveness is a transaction between 2 parties; one must forgive and one must receive forgiveness. (Luke 17 - "If he repents, forgive him.")
-Even if they won't repent, we have to get rid of bitterness, turn things over to God to deal with our hearts. -not called forgiveness, though.
-When they repent, the ball's in our court. We must be merciful.

F.O.P.; SBC; 5/1/05
Moville

Grandma's house

Sometimes, I just want to go to Grandma's house. I want a giant magnolia tree. A dirt driveway. Brown carpet. A dozen recliners. An abundance of food. Someone to ask, "What ya know, Miss Priss?" The soft hum of a refrigerator and/or a box fan. Her occasional snore. No computer. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on a weeknight or a Sunday afternoon nap during a Braves game. To wake up just in time for the last out. Quiet. Peace.

One year ago today, she was buried. Grandma's house will never know such peace again. Not sure I will, either. Only in sweet memories.
-mo
Moville

my wish

i really, really, really just wish i had a real friend, somebody to believe me and to believe in me, somebody to make loneliness not so lonely.

then again, i don't really know if that's what i want or not... i've never known what it's like to be part of a two-way friendship, one in which i am not the only one who cares. if i'd ever experienced friendship, maybe i'd have a better idea of what i want now.
-mo
Moville

Our second priority

Now that I am no longer in the youth department, I can write what I am about to write without being accused of self-centeredness.

How badly does a church need a minister of music? Out of tradition and habit, we have a tendency to believe that need is greater than it is. I love music. I believe it is an essential element of worship, the first purpose of the church. I love ministers of music (that’s you, Unc ;) ). But, having said those things, I believe a minister of music should be, at best, the third priority on a church’s list of paid staff. First, a church needs a pastor to shepherd the church in the direction of her Savior. After a pastor and before a minister of music, a church needs a man whose job is to minister to youth. In churches too small to hire three staff members, a youth minister is more important than a music minister. Moreover, the two jobs are too big in themselves to be combined into a single job description. The church as a whole benefits more from an on-fire youth group than from a perfectly tuned choir. A great choir special may have toes tapping or hearts worshipping for a moment, but a youth group sold out to Christ transforms a church and a community now and for generations to come.

The adults in my church do not seem to understand this concept as well as they should. My parents’ generation were some of the most fortunate youth in our church’s history. When they, themselves, were youth, they experienced the benefits that come with a minister wholly devoted to their discipleship. Their children, my generation, have seen the continued benefit; we have parents who were discipled. Unfortunately, we had to grow up only hearing about their youth minister. We heard about all the great experiences we were denied. Most of today’s youth, who are just a few years younger than I, have parents who are too young to be able to share those stories. Their parents were not discipled; therefore, the youth have not even known the second-generational benefits of a great youth minister. Why does my parents’ generation refuse to grant to their children the great opportunities for Christian growth that they themselves were afforded?

Our nominating committee is already seeing the results. We are growing whole generations of adults who have not been taught the joy of service. Even those who want to serve and/or who do serve, really do not know the Bible well enough to teach it to others. We are seeing the flipside of the statements I wrote above about the benefit to a church of a strong youth program. When we do not provide for the discipleship of our youth, our church dies.

So, my questions for small churches are as follows: what good is a music minister when a congregation is too dead to sing? What good is a music minister when a congregation fades away? Why are we willing to sit by and watch our youth fall victim to all the world’s enticing offers while we insist that we must hire someone to wave his arms behind a music stand?

Volunteer youth ministers certainly are blessings for which I am thankful, but I am sure those volunteers would be some of the first to admit that they simply cannot invest the time it takes to build a quality youth program. So, I say, let the volunteers pick the songs and wave their arms! If we rearrange our priorities such that youth come before music, I think there is a good chance that our church will grow enough that we will be able to afford a fabulous music program as well. We can sing with no one to lead, but in their most vital years of spiritual development, our youth need direction. Will we be faithful to see that their potential becomes reality? Will we teach them that whether or not we have a formal music program they have a real reason to sing? Will we fill in the cracks so they do not continue to fall through? Will we love them? What a difference we could make in our church, our community, our world if we would!
-mo
Moville

"A Biblical Response...

...to the Pro-Gay Movement"
http://www.exodus.to/content/view/129/35/
from the website of Exodus International

-mo
Moville

"The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done...

...is keep belivin' there's someone in this crazy world for me."
-Karen Carpenter, dittoed by mo
Moville

Vacation Pictures

Launch pictures: http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029283&l=b1018&id=12820171
Description: July 4, 2006. STS-121 Pre-launch and Post-launch pictures. During launch, all we have is video.
Location: Titusville, FL
Other vacation pictures: http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029160&l=4872c&id=12820171
Location: Florida

If you hold your mouse pointer over one of the names in the “In this photo” list, you will see a box around the person/thing you are pointing to. Enjoy!
-mo
Moville

Counting the Cost

"But the king replied to Araunah, 'No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.' So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them." (2 Samuel 24.24 NIV, emphasis added)

If it costs me nothing, is it a sacrifice?
The difference between an offering and a sacrifice: cost.
-mo
Moville

Swing with me

Today (actually, yesterday, according to the clock), I played. I visited the playground on which I spent countless recesses sitting on my "thinking rock" watching my classmates play. The rock is long gone, but the same wooden structure, as we called it, is there, the same swings, slide, tunnel, monkey bars, metal climby things, and wooden balance beam. I walked across the swinging bridge and slid down the fireman's pole. The trip down the pole was shorter than I remembered it. I walked across the balance beam, which was closer to the ground than I remembered it. I climbed to the top of the round, green, metal climby thing. We used to get in trouble for climbing to the top. A classmate of mine fell and broke his arm when he broke that rule. Today, I was safe. The climb was not as high as I remembered it. I walked under the monkey bars and grabbed them without having to jump. They were not as tall as I remembered them. I visited the cluster of trees that was so obviously a house to us, a fort to the boys. I was disappointed that it looked so much like trees today - not at all like I remembered it. The one redeeming factor of my trip to my childhood playground: whoever came along and changed all the rest of that stuff did not oil the swings. Those old, screechy swings were exactly as I remembered them. To the familiar tune of their screechy lullaby, I drifted into a nostalgic dreamland. Would that I could swing forever...
-mo
Moville

June 23, 1926

Eighty years ago today, Roy Everett Trussell breathed his first breath, nine months or so after his life began.

Many of my earliest memories are of being with him. He taught me that the best way to make a kid stop crying is to pretend to cry more loudly than the kid. (The kid - one of my sisters or I - is so confused that she just stops and stares.) On one of our many three-wheeler rides to feed the cows, he taught me to spit. (I am not sure he meant to teach that lesson, but I learned by modeling his tobacco-spitting.) He taught me to call the cows for feeding time: "Hey, cows, c'mon." (You can't really spell it like we said it... For a demo, call me or ask me to do it in person sometime.) He let me experience the tugging of a calf on the other end of a bottle I held. (He had to hold onto my hands to keep the calf from stealing the bottle.) He taught me that a ride in a pickup truck is not complete without some good, toe-tappin' southern gospel, and the rides were always better with a little dog named Tina. (After I demonstrate calling the cows, I can teach you how we asked Tina if she wanted to ride.) By his quiet example, he taught me that worship is appreciating the small stuff.

Thank You, God, for the life and legacy of Granddaddy.
-mo
Moville

Truthophobia --> name-calling

from www.webster.com:

Main Entry: -phobe
Function: noun combining formEtymology: Greek -phobos fearing: one fearing or averse to (something specified)

I am 100% tired of being called a homophobe because I believe what the Bible says about sin. I am neither afraid of nor averse to homosexual individuals, including my homosexual friends. On the contrary, I enjoy their company, and I am almost certain they would say the same about me.

So, don't call me a phobe simply because you do not agree with me or because you do not understand me. I am not afraid of name-callers, either.
-mo
Moville

???

Am I your best friend?
-mo
Moville

Citizens Betrayed

Once again, the US Senate has denied children the right to grow up in healthy homes. Thanks, though, to Johnny and Saxby for voting for the children.

See what Tony has to say about it (good stuff):
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR06F03&f=WA06F14
-mo
Moville

Sincerely,

I apologize for my reaction to the latest development in your relationship.

I still contend that my feelings on the subject are not wrong, but my angry actions certainly have been.

I also do not promise to keep my opinions always to myself in the future, for I believe we have a Biblical responsibility to speak truth loudly. The flipside of that responsibility, however, is to speak truth lovingly. While I will not promise to do less of the former, I will try to do more of the latter.
-mrt
Moville

Take my will, conform it...

I wish...




Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.
-mo
Moville

The Second Place Child

Everytime I think I may have a reason to feel special, my thunder is quickly stolen away. Thanks, world.

Oh, how I need to re-hear Big Fred's sermon "The Second Place Child of Christmas." The comfort brought by the reminder may not last long, but at least for a few minutes, I might get to feel a little self-worth.
-mo
Moville

Will the real Baptists please stand up!

Joy just got back from BCM (GBC's new name for BSU) leadership team retreat. Apparently, we are going to start advertising ourselves as "740" because the "leaders" think some people think Baptist is a cult.

That's the most ridiculous thing ever! Nobody thinks Baptist is a cult. People associate Baptist with the name of Jesus Christ. That is not an association of which we should be ashamed or from which we should hide. Why pretend we are not who we are? The Bible commands us to go tell the world who we are and Whom we serve. We are Baptists. As Baptists, we are followers of Christ. If people are scared away by that, let them run, but may we never be found hiding behind a facade, ashamed to be known as Baptists!
-mo
Moville

Don't Breathe

Something is dead in the attic or under the floor of this apt. I told the office people about it a couple of days ago, so since the smell is still here, I assume the dead thing is a person, and they can't move it because it's a crime scene.
-mo
Moville

Reckless Abandon

Well, maybe I won't post too much whininess here. I sat on the edge of my bed last night and looked over at my night stand. I began to feel guilty looking at my poor journal and pen. I will not abandon them. My journal is, after all, my best friend. I'll whine here only on special occasions or when my journal is not around.
-mo
Moville

We'll Work Till Jesus Comes...

I wish I could get a job without Daddy's help. I have a great resume, and I write great cover letters. I even make phone calls on occasion. Nobody ever calls back, though. That is, until Daddy makes the call. Then, they start calling him back and working through him to give me the job. Why won't they talk to me?
GRRR... I hate being a college student...

This blog thing could work out well. Since nobody reads it, I can just whine about whatever, and when it's all typed out, I'll feel at least a little better, and nobody else had to endure the whining.
-mo