We have intentionally set out to pray and to study and to laugh and to sight see and to pray some more. Life has not been easy the past years for Joanne, but miracles abound. From a son who was healed and is whole after a near fatal car wreck to battling melanoma herself…she is a prayer warrior and I am so grateful she’s here.

Today was one of those “sweat under the armpit days.” I know y’all are probably saying, “You don’t know what hot is!”

It has been in the 50′s and 60′s here, but tomorrow is going to be a scorcher as temps will soar into the 90′s….and yes, there is HIGH HUMIDITY…CAN’T ESCAPE THAT! Lots of folks don’t have air conditioning.

But today held a different kind of sweatin’ it out for me. I was asked to come down to the local paper and see about doing a blog for the Wareham Gatemen baseball team. Now, y’all know my blogging skills. So, I guess I am going to INTENTIONALLY ask for your prayers as this looks to be a challenge and a whole lot of opportunity for fun and getting to know people. Problem is I don’t totally get the baseball stats thing.

I am praying for you back home. I am so glad the ladie’s community wide bible study kicked off and is going good. Please know that God has His eye on you this day. May His sweet Holy Spirit fill you with peace and grace. Don’t forget to hug your loved ones and tell someone you’re thinking of them. Y’all sure are on my mind.

God bless you my friends! Miss you!

How can we ever forget? We can’t. We shouldn’t. I know the prayers we prayed and still pray. “Guard their coming in and their going out.” Thank You, Lord for giving us Psalm 91 and so many more words of faith that help us find our way while concern blankets lives of those who serve….Lord give us eyes to see how we can help those who wait at home as their loved one serves. Lord help us to remember to be so very thankful. Help us to honor them by walking worthy in the freedom they help bring…Help us to honor You by living out our faith boldly and well in a country that still allows that freedom.

“How blessed are the people who are so situated;
         How blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!”  Ps 144:15

When my mama died I found her pink Bible and on the front page was a prayer for Beverly .  Beverly was Cooper’s precious wife who died of cancer.  Also in that Bible was a picture of the softball team we had coached together along with Beverly’s sister Theresa.  On one side of the girls was Beverly, on the other side was me  and sandwiched in the middle were two of our girls, Kasie and Lauren.  It was a gift to me, a smile from heaven.

The night Lowry had his first and only chemo, he was nervous and wanted to be distracted.  His buddies and our boys came to the room with us and then there was a knock on the door. Cooper came not knowing that this was going on…God did and Lowry was so glad to have Cooper with us and his “boys” on this hard journey. 

Cooper is pretty private and my life is an open book.   I wanted to share the following about the changes in our lives and then move on to just talking about the Father.  Psalm 27 ends with these verses,  ^“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 
    Wait for the LORD;     Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.

Cooper Farris has been evidence of God’s goodness and I am so blessed be a part of his family and he mine.  God knew what our family would face in the loss of  Little Cooper (my five-year old grandson).  Our Father also knew the difficulty we’d have as last year found Cooper and I both saying goodbye to his dad and my mom as they ended their days this side of Glory.  So, I wrote this as a praise to the Father who blesses our broken roads……

Life’s a road.  Many of you have been on the road with me as I’ve written about my adventures, my joys and my heartaches.  The road has been broken in many ways the past few years, but God is faithful to carry us over, around and through the cracks and the gullies.

I want to share with you a road I’m travelling that is precious and new to me, but it cannot be walked on without looking back to those who have gone ahead.  There are two special and unforgettable people who travelled this road, Lowry and Beverly.  Both called home much too early, both leaving behind a legacy of family love and the worlds built with them.  Lowry,  my husband.  Beverly, Cooper’s wife.  Both cherished.  Both always loved. A road broken.

Cooper was one my Lowry’s heroes.  In fact, Lowry talked about what a great guy Cooper was so often that our oldest daughter Melanie named her only boy, Cooper. In one life’s terrible twists and turns Lil’ Cooper left us and is holding hands with Beverly and his Pappy Lowry in Heaven right now.  Another broken road.

Years past, big Cooper sat brokenhearted in a pew alongside his girls as Lowry spoke at Beverly’s funeral. A year and half later I would sit heartbroken for Lowry as Cooper helped carry his casket. There are broken roads. Roads that seem beyond repair.  Roads with holes too deep to maneuver.  It’s on this broken road that you either learn to rest in God’s care, allowing Him to carry you over the abyss of loss or you just stop living.  A broken road is impassable and impossible without God.

When He carries you, when He leads and guides you the road takes turns and twists, bringing you to a place you’d never thought you’d be again.  He brings you to a new starting point of what I believe He called, “a new thing.”  A new thing that doesn’t negate the past, but brings life to today and hope for tomorrow.  A road broken being reconstructed.

For me that road has led to a fellow named Cooper.  This fellow was new to my grandkids.  My seven-year-old Maddie thought over this whole meeting only to come up with something I will cherish always.  “I’m okay, mama.  I thought about this.  One time I was way away from the house. I fell off my bike and hurt myself.  No one was there but Little Cooper.  He helped me.  Mawmaw is all by herself.  She needs a “Big Cooper” to help her if she falls.”  A road made smoother.

I write this in hopes that you will understand that in all our lives tragedy, heartache and pain will break up the road we travel.  We will find ourselves on roads we thought we’d never go down.  It’s an inevitable part of living this side of heaven. We can choose to continue on or we can remain forever frozen, afraid or too angry or too sad to continue. 

Maybe you need to know that embracing and trusting God as He carries you over and through does not say goodbye to those gone on ahead.  That a broken road, in God’s care, becomes one that can bring us new hope and blessing….a hello to finding life and love and new purpose in today.  May God bless the broken road.