Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

 I wrote this some years back, not sure about the date. Hope you enjoy it. I asked the Lord a question this morning; "Why is it so hard to have faith? Perhaps being born to a different family in say, South America, Columbia, Africa...there it may be different. Evil is obvious there, maintaining faith, even in the face of evil has to be easier." The answer was enlightening and astounding to me. "My Child, sometimes it's hard to see the most magnificent forest when all around you are gnarled and knotted trees. The same is true in each of the countries that you mentioned; when that One tree is spotted, the One that stands out from all the rest, the One whose smell is pleasant to the nose, the One who is pleasing to the sight, then the ugliness of the trees that surround you are suddenly obvious and the yearning to be close to the One tree is overwhelming. In America, the One tree is difficult to find because Satan has put artificial trees everywhere. They may be beautif

                                            Credit: Bjoern Wylezich / shutterstock.com  Do you know how diamonds are made? They are the product of compressed carbon, which over time creates the beautiful stone we call a diamond, but not all diamonds are natural. Lab created diamonds are made the same way, compression of carbon, but in a way that is much faster, that's why LGB diamonds are less expensive than natural ones. I was reading that the the amount of natural diamonds recovered peaked in 2005, but have decreased ever since. The number recovered now can fit in an exercise ball. While that's a pretty big ball, in the grand scheme of things, that's relatively few diamonds. So this got me thinking. I was talking to a dear friend this morning who is recovering from COVID. She is at home and her husband is in a hospital receiving treatment quite a number of miles away. I called her to check on her to make sure she was doing okay, and we talked for quite a while. During our