Category Archives: emotions

Aging, Blogroll, Creativity, emotions, love

My Earliest Childhood Memory!

I’ve been thinking for serveral days, trying to remember my earliest childhood memory. I remember when I was very young 1, 2 or 3 years old. I was riding a horse and every since then I have loved horses. I am not really sure if this is a memory of the actual event or a memory from a picture of the event, but I can still feel the excitement and fear that I felt sitting up on such a big animal.

I remember the church I grew up in and one man that would scare me to death when he would shout an “AMEN!” with his deep, loud voice. I remember sitting in church and rubbing the soft, cool fur on my Aunt Mag’s “Sunday Go To Church Coat”. I remember going back and standing right beside the preacher and shaking everyone’s hand as they left the Sunday morning service. I remember so many sweet people that taught me the stories of the Bible that would become the foundation for my life and living.

I also remember a lot of fun memories from K-5. I remember the playground and the giant sliding boards that would fry your legs and behind in the summer time. I remember the classroom centers and getting to pretend you were an adult. I remember the class next door had a hammock hanging in it and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I remember one of my good friends from 1st grade was an african american kid named Mark Coker and how some of the other kids made fun of him, because he would suck on his middle finger and pointer finger when he was nervous, which was pretty much all the time.

I remember when one of my school/church friends little brother Jeffery got cancer and lost all of his hair. Some of the other kids were bullying him and it hurt my heart so bad that I was ready to take them all on.

I remember Saturday trips to breakfast and yard sales with my Granny Earlene Davenport and hanging out at her flowershop during the week. I remember walking up the sidewalk to Jack Turner’s Barbershop and him pretending to give me a hair cut, just to make me feel like a big man. I remember Wilson’s Five & Dime Store and the neatest little toys and treasures we could find there.

I remember my Pa Albert Harvell and learning how to plant a garden, watch it grow and reap the benefits of hard work. I remember going in the house after snapping peas with my Grandma Sara Harvell and her teaching me how to make biscuits from scratch. One of my favorite memories from their house was the well house and the bucket you could run down and bring up with ice cold water. I especially remember my Pa’s “DIPPER” that hung above the sink, When ever he wanted a drink of water, he didn’t put it in a glass, insteead he ran it in the dipper and took a swig or two.

I have so many prescious memories. I could go on and on and on. That’s the funny thing about memories, once we take the time to start remembering, they come flooding back into our lives. And the beautiful thing is: As long as we are living, we still have the chance to keep making them and remembering them. Enjoy…

Blogroll, emotions, Growing, Healing, journey, life, Uncategorized

What To Do When Life Gets You Down!

I love alone time, just sitting by myself, having time to think through the things I am facing. Slowing down and being by myself takes time and is sometimes very hard work. It’s good work, because it grows me so that I may grow through whatever life happens to throw my way.

I’ve noticed that every now and then, life throws me a curve and no matter how many positive practices I’ve put into place, sometimes it all just tends to get to me. Those negative emotions begin to flow in and start taking up space in my head, heart and life.

The negative emotions of sadness, shame, guilt anger, fear, regret and hate come flooding in and battle for control. When the negativity begns to overwhelm me and I find that my mind by itself is not strong enough to overcome and give me my freedom, then I have to resort to other discipliines.

I can analize my depression all day long and if I am not careful, I will just dig the hole even deeper. Sometimes I need more than positive affirmations, encouraging words and “attaboys” to pick myself up off the floor and get back to this thing called life.

Sometimes I need God to pick me up, dust me off, hold me close and wisper in my ear that everything is going to be okay. I need God to brush my hair out of my eyes, wipe away my tears and breathe His courage and strength into me.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” -Isaiah 41:10

While I do my best to avoid these times of negativity, there are days that they cannot be avoided. They just have to be lived through faced, learned from and dealt with. I have discovered a few disciplines that assist me in getting my life into alignment with God’s Spirit and help me recover, learn and grow at a greater pace.

1. Take And Make Time To Write! When I write, I think through things, I look at things from different perspectives and I work my way through to the best place. Writing is release! Sometimes I write, draw, paint, craft or plant. All of these are forms of self expression which help me to get in touch with who and what I am. Release is a powerful and beautiful thing, but it does not happen my accident.

2. Serve Others! When I do something for someone else, it helps me to take my eyes off of myself, which actually helps me to see things from a much clearer perspective, which helps me to get real with myself and others. It may be writing a hand written note of encouragement, giving something special to someone to let them know I am thinking about them or just lending a helping hand…

3. Practice Gratitude! This one tends to end up on every list, because it really is a great big difference maker. Take time to make a list of all the things that you have to be grateful for. If you do this right, then you will have a very big list, because even when life is though, we are still a very blessed people. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves of how blessed we are…

You have a greater power than you realize and when life gets tough, you just have to take the steps to remind yourself of just how powerful you are. You’ve got this, because He’s got you…

Blogroll, Control, emotions, Gratitude, peace, responsibility, Uncategorized

Learning To Be Grateful For It All?

If we are not careful, we will waste a great deal of our lives getting caught up in and wasting time playing the blame game. The problem with playing the blame game, is just that – it’s a game and it really does not accomplish anything meaningful in our lives.

Instead of getting caught up in and distracted by the blame game, we need to see people for what they really are. Good people help us to experience happiness. Bad people provide us with experience. Ugly people teach us a lesson. And the Best people bless us with memories.

They say that a person is blessed if they can count on one hand thier good friends. Good friends give us someone to share life with and they help us enjoy the good and survive the bad. Good friends not only bring us happiness, they give us someone to share happiness with and that makes the gift of happiness even more special.

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Live long enough and we will encounter bad people, who do bad things to try and cause us to have a bad life, but we don’t have to empower them to call the shots in our lives, instead we can take the bad and let it remind us of what really matters, so that we don’t miss what is really important in life.

There are a group of people that come and go in our lives that can be considered ugly people and it is their desire to destroy us, kill our dreams and rob us of the beatiful gift of life, but if we choose, we can learn from the things they do and say to try and steal, kill and destroy all that is good and blessed. They key here is not to get defeated or distracted, but to learn whatever lesson life is teaching through this challenge and we will be so much better for it.

The best people are the ones that we get to share life. We take the good and the bad and walk through it all together. These people make life worth the living and enable us to face and take whatever comes our way. With these people, we are blessed with the beautiful gift of creating and sharing precious memories…

Good, bad or ugly – be grateful for it all and you will discover the best and the blessed you were created for…