Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

How many of you out there read instructions? Whether its a new toaster, a new tool, or something the kids got for Christmas, how many of us actually read  the instructions instead of just scanning them, or tossing the instruction sheet aside? Let's be honest here...show of hands. Okay, I have to be honest, I don't read the instructions until I have  to. When I get to the point that I'm stuck, or a part doesn't fit, then I read the instructions. A tool or appliance? When I need to troubleshoot or in the case of my new microwave, I actually did read the instructions, and they helped, but I still had to go back because I kind of only scanned the last part of the booklet, and I got stuck as to how to get it to do something. Most of the time, I'm golden. I can put something together using common sense, or I can use a tool or appliance that I just got because I've used one before and know how to use it safely. I'll toss aside instructions that make no sense an...

Have you ever worked a puzzle? I'd say most of us have, if not as an adult, certainly in school when we were kids. You know what I hated the most about puzzles that other people had worked before? Missing pieces, or worse yet, pieces that don't even belong with the puzzle you're working. As some of you might know, my Dad had a stroke three weeks ago. Praise God it wasn't one that caused a brain bleed, but because of the delay in getting him into the hospital, he was unable to receive the medicine that busts clots within four hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. So what he has is a clot in a micro-artery in the middle of his left brain somewhere. That aside, the stroke did its usual damage. There is memory loss, both long term and short term, although that's hit or miss, and what we call "filters" are now missing...filters that made him who he was, controlled his temperament, and speech, and parts of his brain were damaged...the parts that control some ...

All of that, but there is always Hope. This past week has been probably one of the hardest of my life, unfortunately, lately, there have been many scenarios where I was taken aback and blindsided by situations beyond my control and sadly part of life. The last two years I have faced the deaths of my closest cousin, an uncle, and an aunt. There have been days where I have had frustration with day to day living, as we all do, but these three events left my nerves raw and my mind just a bit numb. But nothing could have prepared me for this last month, or even more specifically, this last week. First, off, we had been seeing signs of settling in our house lately. Nothing major, just some doors that didn't shut right, and just signs of general settling. Pretty soon, we saw more signs, cracks in the drywall, tape that is beginning to separate, a fascia that is moving away from the wall. Peachy. So, I began to look at our options and began a plan of action to work on getting things f...

As I've been praying for the folks in the path of Florence since we found out its path, something came to me today, and I'll get to that in a minute. One year ago, Houston, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Rockport, Port Aransas, Victoria, Conroe, Katy, and Port Arthur, were the hardest hit. After Harvey left the area, Addicks had floodgates opened, which flooded the surrounding area. The devastation was monumental, but what we saw from that was people helping people. Entire volunteer crews came with boats, jet skis, rafts, inner tubes, whatever floated, they were used to evacuate those who could not or would not leave before the flood waters hit. When the waters receded, again, volunteer crews came in and mudded out homes, helped folks recover what they could, treated homes for mold, or helped in the removal of what was left of the home. There were churches and organizations who stepped up to offer meals, shelter, clothing, goods...whatever was needed, no questions asked. There wa...

As we begin Revelation 12, we see that the Apostle John gets to the history lesson portion of the Book. Actually, he also kind of gets back to the future, too. Verses 1-6 introduces the characters. The woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of twelve stars. The great fiery red dragon with seven heads , ten horns and seven crowns or diadems who, with his tail, swept one third of the stars from heaven and threw them down to the earth. And finally, the Male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. Let's start with the woman. Many Biblical scholars point to this woman as the Universal Church, and in fact incorrectly connect her to the Whore Babylon or even the Bride Church. A select few feel that the association is with the Nation of Israel itself and back up the association with Genesis 37:9-10 (Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, "Look, I have drea...

I recently watched a video of a young woman, probably in England, who was dancing to the tune of Dancing Queen*. While she did slow down on occasion for passers-by and the random vehicle that tooled past her, she did what I would like to do. She danced like no one was watching. Problem is, I’m not much of a dancer and with some balance problems as of late, I’d look more like the Weeble that wobbles. But that free spirit that over-took her, to move with the music, well, that moved me and got me to thinking…we need to be that way when it comes to worshipping God. Then there’s the subject of singing like no one is listening. I have to admit, there are times that a song during the worship service is out of my range, which, for me is a little difficult. If it’s high soprano, bass or baritone, I can’t hit it but I can hit everything in between. Sometimes a key change can throw me off then forget it, I end up singing something between a harmony and “what the heck is that”. That’s when I...

Have you ever looked at the back of a beautiful, handmade tapestry? I have, and what I saw on the back side was vastly different from the front. The back was a cacophony of colors, not one of them made a whole lot of sense where they were. There were long threads, and short ones. There were knots everywhere. Nothing on the back of the canvas even was close to what was on the front. On the front of the canvas, the colors were woven in such a way as to depict a beautiful piece to display on one's wall, so contrary to what I saw on the back. Many, many hours were put into that piece by it's creator, and the person who purchased the tapestry certainly had a wonderful addition to their home decor.  Today, I attended a funeral for the husband of a friend of mine, Joey, and it got me to thinking. I didn't know Joey very well, mostly what I knew of him was from my friend, but I had spoken to him when I saw him at church, and thought of him often during his battle with so many h...