Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

It was a beautiful morning, it really was. The sky, a brilliant blue, I had one dog, Izzy, snuggled up against my back, snoring. Another dog on the floor, blissfully sleeping, and a puppy, who really isn't a puppy anymore, pawing at my blankets, snuffling at my neck, encouraging me to get up because he had to pee. Typical morning. As is my routine, I began my morning thanking God for His protection through the night, His new mercies, and the Lord's Prayer...then I continued with my intercession for the day. Because I do not say 'amen' at the end of the Lord's Prayer, for me, it means that my prayers are ongoing throughout the day. I came to find out last week, that I am not the only one to do that...a man who is a wonderful music minister does so as well. As I continued my morning routine, let the dogs out, fed the cats and fish, and made my coffee, I continued in intercession, praying for a dear friend who is fighting to get well. She was in a horrific car accid...

...And as much as I'd like to say, "good riddance," I just can't bring myself to do so. Why? Because, despite the many things that were troublesome, had gone wrong, that were heart-wrenching, there were so many good things that happened. First, my oldest turned 35. Mouse, in all of her glory, had a special dinner at the restaurant of her choice (Red Robin...mmkay), and a birthday cake with a pink  tardis on the top! What a hoot that was, and our server made that night even more special! It was a wonderful time had by our family. Our springtime brought a new sewer pipe system to our home. Goodbye tree roots through the pipe, and hello free-moving waste. LOL! Okay, that's a little weird to celebrate a new sewer pipe, but I'll tell you, it was indeed a cause for celebration! LOL! March brought birthdays 6 & 7 for my Granddaughters, and a wonderful birthday party for them. They had so much fun, complete with a bounce house and water fights. May brought...

I'm here to tell you, that 2018 brought some pretty tough stuff. To me, if I hadn't had the assurance that Jesus was right by my side, I think I would have had some pretty horrendous emotional issues. Pretty much, I think of myself as a fairly strong person, emotionally and physically. In my hey-day, I could pack a 757 airplane pit so tight you couldn't see any space, and the carton of eggs in the middle would still have every egg whole. That example, and yes, it was something that I once did, just serves to say that physically I was pretty strong. My deduction skills, as far as doing something like that, were really good. No, I'm not tooting my own horn, I really am going somewhere with this. I used to be able to walk for hours, hike, ride a bike, roller skate. I used to be able to sit down and read more than one paragraph in a book. Now? Not so much. I don't know if it's age or the fibro, I suspect its a bit of both, along with my weight, which I'm m...

There was a movie, and later a television series a few decades back called M*A*S*H. Some of you may be familiar with it, or the music that introduced it to our living rooms every week. The theme song was Suicide is Painless (written by Johnny Mandell and Mike Altman), and it was written for a specific scene in the movie M*A*S*H, in which Walter "Painless Pole" Waldowski was depressed and felt hopeless. His friends and colleagues set up a faux "Last Supper" and "suicide" in the effort to help. The result was a "better" Painless Pole, but that is just the movies. In the United States alone, suicide is one of 3 leading causes of death. According to the CDC ( https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0607-suicide-prevention.html ), it is the 3rd leading cause of death among 10-14 year olds; 2nd cause among 15-24, and 25-34 year olds; 4th among 35-44 year olds; 5th among the 45-54 year age bracket; and 8th among those ages 55-64. Half of those who we...

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...