Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

There are so many people who say, "If he/she were a true Christian, this/that or the other wouldn't happen", or "They wouldn't be experiencing this/that or the other". How about this one...."A true Christian doesn't dance, do drugs, smoke, drink, have sex, wear anything that exposes the legs or chest. A true Christian goes to church every time the doors are open, tithes ten percent and helps in soup kitchens". "The true Christian doesn't eat this/that or the other...doesn't do this or that, yadda, yadda, yadda". Really? Let me tell you about a true Christian. A "true Christian" is one who has called on the name of Jesus to forgive him/her of their sins. Ephesians 2:8-9 says:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. And in Romans 10:1-13:   1  Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may...

I like fluff. I like things that are whipped and sweet. I like the extra gravy. I like the extras that life brings my way. Sometimes fluff is all there is and there's nothing more to it than a pretty sight and air. As a person with what the world calls a disability, fluff is a bonus on days that you think that fluff doesn't exist. When my back is not going to cooperate with me in the mornings, I have to look for my fluff. Sometimes what I find is Snickers, who actually is good for the back when she walks on it (she runs about 10-11 pounds), sometimes all I get is a pup who can't control her licker. Sometimes that pulls the kink out, more times than not it makes it worse and I gimp through-out the day, but the love of my animals makes me smile and adds to my fluff pile! =o) On days that my hips and legs are not my friends, the fluff isn't as easy to find. Those are the days that I want to lay in bed, cry and have an enormous pity party. Fluff avoids me like the plagu...

You know, sometimes I wonder about God's sense of humor, especially when it comes to me. More than once in my life, when I have said something tongue in cheek, He thought it was a stellar idea and it came to pass. Andrea is one of those times. Not in the "she's a joke" type thing, no, hers was the Down Syndrome thing. I was a Special Needs teaching assistant when I became pregnant with her and the teacher I was paired with had just gotten back from an in service class about Downs kids. Jokingly I mentioned wouldn't it be cool if the baby had Downs and we discussed the ways that I wouldn't have to deal with the peer pressure that "normal" kids had to deal with. Yeah, you guessed it, perfect pregnancy, perfect labor and delivery, perfect kid with Downs. Gotta love His sense of humor, and I have to tell you, I wouldn't have it any other way because she has taught me a great deal about life and God. You can't buy that in the stores or from a tele...

So, there is this site that gives you like seven hundred different classes that you can take online for free ( 700 Free Online Courses ). I checked them out, perused the different subjects that would likely appeal to me and settled so far on five different classes. Now, mind you, I graduated high school in 1978 and have not been back to school since, with the small exception of beginning a course in counseling, which I never completed, so this will prove to be a pretty interesting venture on my horizon. To get back to the courses that I decided on. I chose to take classes on both the Old and New Testament, Food Sustainability; Sustainable Healthy Diets and Nutrition for Health Promotion and Disease prevention, all areas that I am interested in. Imagine my surprise when the first class, Food Sustainability bombarded me with Chemistry. The monoglycerides, diglycerides, triglycerides and lipids made my head spin and the breakdown of hydrogen and oxygen to make up H2O gave me a bit of a ...

It's true, you just never know when God will intervene. It is so important to pray for those who don't know Christ, or even those who do know Him, and to pray for their safety. I experienced that lesson yesterday. Twice. This summer, I determined, was going to be different from all of the previous summers. Since I have been home, our summers have been pretty boring, I've not wanted to do anything. This summer is going to be different. I have a lot of things that I think that Andrea would enjoy doing on my agenda, going to the local water park is one of them. Yesterday, we did just that. I learned quite a bit yesterday, just by accident. My first lesson was: Five stories up is a long way to go on stairs. Yeah. I was only slightly winded, Andrea was pretty winded. I forget that she has stage 3 lung disease from when she was a baby. Before she had her heart surgeries, the pediatric cardiologist warned me that she would never have full lung access because of the damage from...

There comes a time in everyone's life that they have to step back from the hustle and bustle and take stock of how things are going for them. For me, I seem to do this often, although in my opinion, probably not often enough. For the next few days I plan on taking a sabbatical from facebook, my blog, t.v. (although the family isn't joining me on this one), pretty much anything that takes away from quiet time with God, quite similar to a fast, I suppose. I'll be doing a lot of reading, not only my Bible, but I have some Christian counselling books that I need to get back into. There are some things that are going on, extra-familial, that those skills will be needed on some scale, and I wish to be prepared for that. I have friends that are going through events in their lives that they never in their wildest dreams thought that they would experience. I want to be prepared to pray and counsel as needed. God placed me on this path some years back, but I chose to move off of it...

In the world that we live in, it is said that there are many paths to God. I suppose for the uneducated in the Scriptures that may be true. According to www.pewforum.org , and 35,000 Americans that were polled, a full 70% of evangelicals believe that there are many paths to God; while only 68% believe that there is only one way. Looking at these numbers, one might conclude that these numbers are pretty good, but remember, we’re talking about evangelicals , that is, main-stream Christian denominations. Of the Protestant denomination, 66% believe in many paths, while 64% believe only one; Evangelicals, 57% many, 53% one; Mainline, 83% and 82%; Historically Black, 59% and 57%. Out of the religion of Mormon, 39% and 43%; Jehovah’s Witnesses, 16% and 18%.  These are troubling numbers, especially from the Protestant, Evangelicals, Mainline and Historically Black churches. Because the Mormon religion and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own doctrines and versions of the Bible, thei...