A repairman needed in our attic today and, when he came down, he let me know (because Keith wasn’t home) that we’d probably want to change out the mouse trap. I said, “Oh, no! There’s a mouse in it?” “No, ma’am,” he said, “but there’s a snake in it.” Fabulous.

When I was 16, I had a part-time job at JCPenney’s at a mall 20 minutes from our home. Mind you, until we’d moved to Houston a year earlier, I’d never seen a mall and the only context for the word in my house would have been my mom’s Pall Malls. I was the switchboard operator 2 afternoons & evenings a week and every other Saturday which meant I also made announcements over the intercom. That I was assigned this position is a mystery to me since most of the time when I answered the phone, “Good afternoon, this is JCPenney, how may I help you?” the person invariably blurted, “where are you from???” Small town Arkansas with an accent thicker than sorghum molasses but I was — and continue to be despite the efforts of many a Theo Bro — interminably cheerful. I proved valuable to JCPenney. According to my superior, I could talk people out of a customer service complaint like no other even though, with my drawl, it took a while. I never knew why we moved from all our people and true native soil to Houston. I’ve never been entirely at home here. My heart still belongs in the hills. I always wondered if we moved over a scandal, my dad the way he was. But that’s beside the point. What’s not beside the point is that we were in debt up to our eyebrows. Bill paying was a constant stress left to my mom to sort and, if the thought of smoking two cigarettes at once had ever occurred to her, she would have done it every time she was on the phone with a collector. My mother wanted me to dress cute for school in Houston because I was brand new and I wouldn’t be such an outsider. After I got the job, she told me any money I made was mine. I could spend it as I pleased. I got a discount at JCPenney’s even on sale items so I became adept at putting outfits together, this from one rack and that from another, stretching that dollar an Arkansas mile wide. I dressed myself through the rest of high school just that way except for prom dresses which were above my discount budget and my mother sewed to perfection. I loved my job and cried when I said goodbye and headed to college. Among strictly superficial things, I still love nothing better than putting cheap pieces together - this from one rack, that from another - and making it work. Not saying all my clothes are cheap. They’re not. I’m saying 100% the ones that give me the most satisfaction are. Making it work makes it work for me. Admittedly, sometimes it does not. Well, maybe more than sometimes particularly since now, with online ordering, the world my oyster, I can’t even check the fabric. “80% of customers returned this item” does nothing to dissuade me because, all I know is, I can get 4 sweaters for $19.99 and that switchboard operator at JCPenney’s now grown old and out of debt thinks by golly she can make it work. Which brings me to why I’m telling this story. Just this morning, while I was confessing sin, I had to tell the Lord that I had a stronghold. Why, I inquired of the Lord, do I feel the need to get 4 sweaters instead of one? Then I asked him to help me stop getting more than I need just because it’s a good deal. And he heard my confession. And I believe he will help me because I meant it and genuinely need to stop it. But when I stepped outside and started on my walk, my mind flashed back to that girl at the sale racks whose mama said she could spend whatever she made anyway she liked. And I smiled. And I had the strangest feeling God did, too.

Donk only felt like sending her head to the fence today. It was just too hot to drag the rest of her along.

Well I’ve been awake most of the night on account of my husband’s cpap machine becoming a messenger of Satan sent to torment me with inexpressible sounds calling to mind a 5th grade boy blowing aimlessly yea endlessly into his big sister’s flute.

Whomever just told me it’s only 99 days till Christmas may as well have cussed me.

Dear Sisters, Please only love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and leave your mind out of it. You are upsetting some of your brothers. With Love, Sister Beth

I feel sorry for people who don’t live near a Dairy Queen. Don’t think God can’t help you with a dip cone.

Some of the relationships I appreciate most are those made and sustained despite significant differences. I believe our insistence on surrounding ourselves with people of like ilk is a form of narcissism. We don’t want relationships that require much. We want a hall of mirrors.

Oh man, I love how multicultural Houston is. It’s my favorite thing. That alone makes this pathetic climate worth it.

What I appreciate about y’all is how you accept that I’m always gonna be as cheesy as a block of Tillamook cheddar.

I’m perplexed by leaders who grow harsher, more legalistic and less compassionate in their older years. It seems, at least to my understanding, to go against the grain of aging for a person walking with the Lord. Unless there is hardness of heart caused by resentment, bitterness, jealousy, perversity or the like, the aging grow in holiness marked by humility and gentleness. Fact is, we’ve seen too much sin, weakness and failure in ourselves and received too much grace and mercy to be otherwise. Think, for example, of the scene in John 8 where people are ready to stone the adulterous woman. Jesus says, OK, let the one without sin cast the first stone. And you know how the story goes. They drop those stones, one by one, and walk away starting with the older ones. Why? Because they know the length, breadth and depth of their own sins and failures. Think of James 3:13 where he draws a direct connection between wisdom and gentleness, the latter indicating not powerlessness or eroding convictions but power and conviction submitted to the control and wise restraint of the Holy Spirit. Gentleness is also fruit of the Holy Spirit. Jesus described himself as gentle. Though he was utterly sinless, he was deeply compassionate, having been tempted in all ways. Harshness, extremism and a condemning spirit are ill-fitting to the aging in Christ. I have no desire to name names or cast stones or I’m no different from those I find baffling. I just want to say we’re greatly helped by an honest and frequent examination of our own hearts to see if they are growing in tenderness and compassion or in the hardness of unresolved character issues.

About a month ago one of the does that lives in our woods got nearly eaten alive by a coyote that was after her fawn. Gaping wounds. One on her shoulder that was the size of my palm. Several down her side and hip. They got gruesomely infected. She grew so sick and weak. Looked bleak. She started hiding behind some shrubs tucked against our house right outside my library. I couldn’t believe it. We started putting deer corn near it so she & her fawn didn’t have to go far if she didn’t want to. Keith also got some corn with a non-toxic antibiotic additive. We’d go several days without seeing her and I’d walk through the woods thinking I might find her body. She and her fawn have slowly rejoined the herd that lives in our woods. We’ve seen her regularly for the last week. We study her wounds with binoculars and they’re closing and the infection is gone. She’s thin but eating and putting on a little weight. Keith thinks she’s going to be just fine. As for her fawn, it’s thriving. Sweetest little creature ever. Nature’s rough and these things don’t always have happy endings. Feels like a little miracle out in these woods.

Top 10 things I’ve done this week on my vacation: 1. Slept in. Oh hallelujah and all the amens. 2. Listened to one novel, one non-fiction book and a true crime podcast. 3. Worked a particularly fab puzzle. 4. Fiddled with my freshly painted house. Moved some stuff around. 5. Drove 3 hours round trip to a restaurant Keith declared had the best chicken fried steak in Texas. (JW’s in Carmine) I think it’s possible he was right. Also fried okra. I make better mashed potatoes and gravy but, frankly, I make better mashed potatoes and gravy than anyone. I’m just speaking truth to y’all. 6. Hung two new hummingbird feeders because we’re having a migration. 7. Paused at some trees I hadn’t noticed before and told them good job. 8. Made homemade caramel yesterday and drizzled it over salted buttered popcorn for lunch. Once you make homemade caramel, which is ridiculously easy, there’s no going back. Also ate it with an apple. 9. Spent time with Keith, took 1 million walks with Pecos & chauffeured her for as many pup cups. 10. Slowed down and let my overactive brain rest. Did not open my laptop, solve any problems or cook when I didn’t want to. And I still have till Tuesday morning!

I love a whole host of songs. Some that remind me of the early days of adulthood when Jesus first began to captivate me through the scriptures. Some recent and some current. But this is the most played song on my playlists. Oh, how he has heard my cry. music.apple.com/us/album/i-l…

A few paragraphs on love. Having had my head in the Gospel of Matthew for months, so many statements of Jesus he put to ink are on my mind. I keep thinking about Jesus saying the hearts of many will grow cold. Note the verb “grow.” We could be totally unaware it’s even happening. It’s the natural response to a world increasingly infiltrated by meanness, lawlessness, violence, hate, betrayal and deception. Peruse the beginning verses of 2 Tim 3, for example. If that were a checklist, we’d be able to check every one of those as characteristic of our culture. When I recite those verses from memory, the description in 3:3(CSB) “irreconcilable” always gives me pause. Some relationships can’t be reconciled. I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the ease with which we simply cut people off. Generally speaking, we’ve become so easily offended and self-serving, I don’t know how marriages — let alone friendships — indoctrinated by this mentality are going to make it for the long haul. They require constant forgiveness and reconciliation. Part of cold-heartedness “growing”will be owed to pure rationalization: why it makes perfect sense for us to turn away or turn on people. I ask you to please resist hunting this down because I don’t want people to harass or draw attention to the person (which is what they’re often seeking). Sometimes people are hateful on my behalf to my haters when I’d never talk to them that way. I don’t ever want that. But I saw someone who has had a near fixation of disdain for me for years say to a person the other day that he or she doesn’t know why God doesn’t kill me. It didn’t hurt my feelings. It made me sad. Something’s wrong there. Oh I get the dislike and disapproval. Sometimes I don’t like myself. But why on earth would you think a world would be better off if the person you disagree with doctrinally was dead? And if you’re already rationalizing that, I also feel for you. Love God. Love others as yourself. Love your enemies. That’s what Jesus said. And he said, “The hearts of many will grow cold.” This has me checking my own heart in this season. And here’s what I’m thinking. If we don’t want to be one of the many, we can’t leave it to accident. We’ll have to be deliberate about loving. We’ll have to fight to love. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul prayed our love would grow more and more (not less and less) in knowledge (not blindly) and all insight (with discernment) so that we may be blameless (“Jesus surely wouldn’t blame me for hating them! Surely he hates them too!”) on the day of Christ’s coming. Natural love will naturally deplete. But we who are in Jesus are not left to our human capacity… “… because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5 We’ve gotta love. And love one another whether we like one another or not. This is how the world will know we are Jesus’s disciples. And when all is said and done, that’s all in the world that will matter.

You guys prayed me through a huge week and I’m so so grateful! I owe you a debt of love I will gladly pay. Here’s an IG post about it. I now have a much-needed week off but I will also feel a bit lost. This project has preoccupied me a long time. So I need a fabulous audiobook novel recommendation! A few titles to give you an idea of my taste: I loved the Dutch House, covenant of water, project Hail Mary, the round house, we shall not all sleep, the women of Tehran. That kind of thing. Also maybe a dramatic series recommendation. Y’all are my go-to people! instagram.com/p/DclrpQHFl30/…