Turkey Tale: A Thanksgiving Memory

I remember the thanksgiving my parents came down ( or is that up?) to Wyoming from California. I had not been able to spend a holiday with them in many years and I was excited to have my family around once again. The fixings prepared in a small kitchen caused us to bustle and bump into one another in non stop fashion, and my mom's ability to still " Mother me" in how to cook various recipes was getting a little, well, unnerving.

Mind you I had cooked everything for many years without her but now that she was here I needed to clip my thoughts and just be happy I had family to fuss at. I opted to give her the pumpkin pie, it is for sure not my specialty and a good way to keep her busy in something she professed to be good at. Ok, mission accomplished!

I began to season the turkey to put it in the oven when my mother peered over and just happened to mention, "Well, are you going to put it in a basting bag or anything?" I shrugged and told her no, I didn't have any and that I had always just cooked my turkeys in tinfoil.

"Oh No! You can even cook turkey in a paper bag, it keeps the moisture in." A paper bag mom? I don' t know... "Yes, I always have." Something about this boded ill.

My mother is a curious woman so I cautiously listen to her at times. Cooking has long been a thing we have (my sister and I) teased her on, Saying she would put hot sauce in vanilla pudding etc. In truth, that just might happen. But one thing she is not, in her wiry little 5 foot 2 frame, is someone easily argued with.

I watched worriedly as she put my beautiful Bird in a brown paper sack and sealed its doom.

I hurried about the house picking up, cleaning china, cutting vegi's. Mom mixed her pumpkin goo and moaned from the kitchen,"hmm, this is not solidifying, it always has before." I eyed the liquid substance in a ginormous bowl, knowing we weren't going to be having pumpkin pie this year. " We'll maybe if I put it in the crust , and stick it in the fridge..." I left the room , poor pumpkin soup pie.
Suddenly I heard a scream from the kitchen, " OH NO!!!!" I entered just in time to see my mom running from the stove, hopping back and forth with a flaming turkey mitted between her baking gloves" Oh ! Oh! Oh! she kept saying, not knowing what to do as she shifted the pan away from here and bounced back and forth trying to avoid heat and flame. I opened the back porch meaning for her to set it down, so that we could throw water on it, but instead she tossed it pan and all across the deck where it slid across the iced porch and dangled precariously near the edge. I ran over and threw snow on it and wafts of smoke poured from the remaining fragments of paper bag. I looked at mom, she looked at me, eyes as big as saucers.

" Paper bag mom" I said. " well I have done it a million times, that's never happened. "mmmm."

Peeling the charred bag off the turkey, I was amazed to see a still edible bird hiding within..Thank GOD!

Many times in our lives, disaster strikes,and hard times hit. stuff happens, and we forget that through all the stress and all the trouble, the moments we oft times remember the most, and are even fondest of are those times when we thought we were in the absolute worst possible situation. Mom and I had been so stressed worrying and fussing over the thanksgiving meal that the crazy inferno reprieve hit us both at the same time. And we began to laugh so hardily tears streamed down our eyes... we laughed until are stomachs hurt and we were babbling out what had happened our husbands shaking their heads and shrugging when they left the room still blissfully unaware of the bag basted bird now simmering in tinfoil in the oven.

Listen lovies, these are the moments to cherish those where families gather, memories are made, enjoy them, don't forget your blessings! Learn how to laugh a little in the stress, find the humor in the craziness of life it has always been there, God has it stored in the crevices of your heart. Find them, enjoy them, cherish them.

And the turkey by the way was fabulous, and had a lovely smoked flavor you just couldn't put your finger on. We went pumpkin pie less that year, turkey tax apparently.

Be blessed and have a wonderful Thank filled holiday!

I have felt that to.....

Today was a hard day, but to be honest it has been one of many hard days in  the past few months or for that matter the past few years. I have brought many things on my heart before the lap of my father, with no little weight behind them.
Work has been scarce.Ministry has been sparse and in my thinking, shallow in terms of limiting my ability.
  I had thought the doors would open wide when I moved to Tennessee, God had showed me a vision, and because of it, I had thought the receiving hearts would be vast and that in some way God would use me through Him to inspire and to touch peoples lives .. Instead I have ministered in odd situations and in limited ways, either being asked to sing, or asked to testify, but not so much to preach.
 Disappointment and discouragement are not a good trade in for leaving family and friends I loved  nor for struggling greatly in finances, and nither are battling disaproval or being treated poorly by loved peers and lost friends.
Ever been so hurt by words said about you inflicted by those you love and trust that you just want to let go,give up, and leave them to the wreckage their verbal battery has caused?......" Yeah, I know I have felt that to."
Ever felt so tired of being verbally crushed, stepped on, walked over, treated abusively by those you loved and trusted, that you just want to give up on folks and call it quits in believing there is any worth in trusting another living soul?...."' Yeah, I know, I have felt that to".
Ever  been cast aside, rejected, ignored, or treated  as "less than" By your peers? "Yeah,  I know I have felt that to."
 There are times when this stuff hits you like a ton of bricks, and no matter how sturdy this Ole girls hide is, its not by any means, impenetrable. I have a heart and those shards of mean nasty do poke through and get to me.    If I could count the times  this past year I have wanted to just completely walk away, lick my wounds and head back to California, or even Wyoming( which I don't particularly care for its so ccccold!). it might just be shocking..lol, yet here I am.
 I have already given all I can think to give for ministry, leaving my family in Wyoming, traveling to new territory, being rejected, feeling many many times like an outcast and one with a fatal catchy disease ( womapreacheritus, be careful not to get any on you!)
 When I hear stories of my kids having  birthday parties or events,  and  missing the expressions of my little grandchildren while experiencing them, my heart aches tremendously, and I shake in these boots, and ask God again, WHY am I Here? When my son goes through heartbreaking circumstances, and I haven't the funds to get home to comfort him, I am devistated, and all my motherly instincts to protect and comfort, have to be shut down or self destruct... its a high Cost.
 I can fathom my Savior thinking along those lines while he prayed " Father,if its is your will let this cup pass from me"  This cup, a cup of bitterness, a cup of pain,  loss, and rejection, a cup of tears and great cost, a cup of death.
I can fathom his loneliness at not having a single friend who would pray with him in an hour he desperately needed that comfort,that peace, that good  counsel..and encountering silence.Tears so deep felt and  hurt so unfathomable that it ran down his cheeks in blood. I have wept very hard at the rejection I have felt, very deeply hurt at the rumors I have encountered,the unchangeable opinions that I endured, the abuse and the loneliness since setting my feet on Tennessee soil,, but not a single drop tinged red.
I can fathom walking lonely roads, to face a certain end, and looking side to side for those you love, and seeing no one. Yes, I can fathom that. But I cannot count it on my cross the same. because Jesus., my beautiful, beautiful Jesus, bore it unto death. Not because of loss, because of Love.
That is harder for me to get...  That even while those dear friends he has spent countless hours with left him to a lonely Golgathan road. Even while he pulled the last wisps of air from his lungs to tell a thief he would see heaven, Love saw past the crosses weight, past those hurts, past those disappointments, and saw me- and because of that kind of love I serve in a place where I am not well received- because HE is Amazing to me, I stay.
You see, It is not so much the cost of familiarity and family and friends, those things I knew would be hard-, its the struggle of all the stuff that disappoints, hurts, crushes, and maligns you, that I had not expected.. and yet he responds, " Yeah, I know I have felt that to"... When I run to him, weeping with this incredible heart break inside, and I say Jesus, it hurts, it aches, it has used me, abused me, crushed me, struck me down, sought my ruin, He  again answers,  " Yeah, I know I have felt that to"
Not once does the Lord say the cross of sacrifice will be lifted from those who have chosen to carry it, no rather you have a better understanding of the weight of souls because of sacrifice.. a better glimpse of love than some have it is this pivotal place, this compelling love, that makes you stay, when you want to run..but the arms of your comforter are still there to enfold you, and the words of his love still surround you in His grasp, soothing your soul and speaking, "Yes baby, I know,I  have felt that to...

No Greater Love has any man than this, to Give HIS life, for a friend...Amen.