GROWING SEEDS: "Congregational Care"

 

 

Have you ever had a member of your family pass away and, as a bystander, watched their church family quietly and tenderly surround the family with hands of love?  Almost as if on cue, instantly a group of people are pulling together a meal prior to the funeral, standing quietly in the background, taking care of everyone's immediate needs.  

This is called Congregational Care. 

 

FUMC has what I would consider, one of the best Congregational Care volunteer groups I've ever experienced.  With a total of four luncheon groups on-call at a moments notice, each of these four groups consists of 8-10 volunteers.  Once the church notifies the Group Chair of a death, they spring into action putting together a beautiful luncheon, complete with china, silver and linens.  All but the main dish, which is paid for by the church, is provided by these same loving volunteers.

Won't you consider volunteering a little of your time to help someone who may be helping YOU during your difficult time?

Contact Marcy Yates at (903) 860-7756 or Linda Moore at (903) 632-5997 for more information.

GROWING SEEDS: "A Blessed Day....Indeed"

January 9, 2013

A Blessed Day

Last Sunday, I was invited to share my short video "Thankful" with a sweet little church called New West Hope Methodist Church in a tiny little community just north of where we live.

"Thankful" by Liz Etheridge

Click to View

It truly is a magnificant place.....As I sat in this humble, sweet little church; the smell of the old natural gas furnace....you know, the kind you can actually see the flames in.....I was magically taken back by the smell to a time when I was a child visiting "Grandma in the Woods" in Alabama and our good friends, the "Johnsons" in Dallas.

There was a little cat that strolled from pew to pew as the sermon was preached and the potluck lunch was already set up at the front of the church, so you had to see and smell it all through the sermon......

There was an amazing mural along the entire back wall of this little 2 room church and wood floors that creaked when you walked on them.

No large screens with words of the songs or scriptures...people actually had to open their hymnals and Bibles....

Truly......a Blessed Day....

Indeed.

My East Texas Home.....This Week.

January 8, 2013

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN EAST TEXAS.....

"His cage may still be turnin’ but his squirrel’s done died"

"That sweet boy’s purtier than my new tangerine metal flake bass boat"

"You boys took one pickup load to the dump an’ come back with two"

"You ain’t lookin’ like the tallest hog at the trough no more"

"Talk you inta sellin’ your mule so you could buy a plow"

I'm sorry guys....I just had to share some of my favorite East Texas quotes and pictures......
And this was just in the past week!!

Skin Cancer Cure = Duct Tape

January 5, 2013

For some reason, my big, smart hunk of a husband thinks putting duct tape on the top of his head will cure the skin cancer growing up there.....

.......So we had no choice but to sign it.......

Crazy Man

Life Is Not An Emergency........

 January 4, 2013


Do you find yourself this time of year, racing through your days, as if life is some type of an emergency or something?  I certainly do.....and I hate that I sometimes forget to downshift my life from 4th to 2nd gear.

 This is our first Christmas without Mom.  Our first snow without her telling me to drive careful on the slick roads and to quit taking pictures while I'm driving....

I think maybe sometimes I purposely keep my engine running in 4th gear to avoid the emotion that comes from thinking about reality.

I miss her.

When we were cleaning out Mom's room shortly after she died, I picked up a little music box with a blue bird on it that she loved.  I can remember her playing it and feeling how appropriate it was for her.  This Christmas, I decided her best friend of a zillion years, Jimmie Lou, needed it.  It would remind her of Mom every time she listened to it.....I'm glad she has it.

This morning, my sister called me and my niece so that we were on a 3-way conversation.  She told us she wanted us to hear something.....and she proceeded to play a song over the phone we had played at Mom's funeral....."From Here To The Moon and Back".......

And I knew she was missing Mom too.

http://youtu.be/qzmLmsokiIE

As I start this new year, I start with no new resolutions that I never keep.  What I do plan on doing, though, is being thankful....TRULY THANKFUL....and changing how my retina looks at the things around me.

I plan on living my life in 3rd gear.....not too fast...not too slow....but just the right speed to see the beauty in everything I pass.....even the things I never saw beauty in before.

Won't you join me?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 

MY FRIEND