To which I replied, “I have changed a lot. I tried very hard to work on myself and change the things that were “too much” back then.”

After another pause they began to speak, this time quieter, “You were never too much. You were perfectly the way God created you to make it through the trials laid out before you.”

Those words hit hard. I had curated a life around not being that person anymore. Praying nearly every night to be softer, meeker, gentler, LESS. Praying to be a submissive wife, a tender mother and meek soft spoken friend.

I mulled these words over for a minute. Coming from a friend whom I had once shared everything with. I thought about how different our lives had been, how the paths we had taken had led us down two very different roads. I thought about all the years between two friends who knew everything about each other and two people who were nearly unrecognizable catching up over a quick chat. I thought about how it took someone who I hadn’t had more than a handful of conversations with over the last two decades to see that I had gotten lost, and have the courage to point it out.

I thought about who I was the last time they really knew me. About all I had faced since then, and overcame because of that very fire that I prayed so hard to quench.

I thought about how over the last few years I felt I was finally able to conquer it. I had become meek, I didn’t sweat the big things anymore, I never yelled or raised my voice, I bit my tongue, prayed and held it in until one day the reactions stopped altogether.

I was a submissive wife, letting my husband lead, even though he was falling away from the church, and God, because that’s what a good wife does. I protected his image, because good wives don’t put their husbands down.

I was no longer “too much” I stopped asking for things, dreaming for things because I wanted to be easily satisfied.

I thought I had finally calmed the flames that always seemed to threaten to spread.

But standing there, hearing a voice I hadn’t in two decades, knowing they daw theough the life I hid behind, I could finally see clearly.

I hadn’t achieved some great feat by changing into who God wanted me to be

I was already that so long ago

What I had done was allow a cruel and sinful world to break the soul God breathed life into

I had allowed things that I never would have because I thought that at the end of all the breaking, I would be blessed to finally be happy when I was someone who pleased God by being all the things the biblical woman should be.

I sat there and thought, How many biblical women were also Too Much? And if they would have allowed the world to break them would they have been able to accomplish the things God set before them?

What if Esther hadn’t remained Bold?

What it Shiphrah and Puah hadn’t been defiant?

What if Jochebed hadn’t been cunning?

What if Miraim hadn’t been witty?

What if Jael hadn’t been brave?

What if they had lost the fire that God instilled in them early on, to please man?

Would history have been changed?

Would the Bible be the same?

I mulled these thoughts over for a few weeks until today when the thought struck me that that friend knew exactly what they were saying. They saw the broken spirit in me and began to truly worry.

And today I vow to do something everyday to remind myself just who God made me, and just how far that had gotten me, until I forgot for a little while.

For the past week I've noticed a change in the morning air. It's cool and crisp. The smells are slightly changing, and the sky has a clearness that only comes with Fall.

By noon the heat of summer is here in full force, but there are telltale signs everywhere that a change is on the winds if you look.

Some fight these changes, but with age I've learned to embrace them. The Lord knows what we need, He knows when we need it, and He works all things for good, even the seasons. When we want to hang onto the summer days, He knows we need to move on to the next, and He slowly makes the subtle changes without us noticing most days. Before long we are anticipating the changes, just as every season before.

Our lives are much like that. He knows our days, He wrote our story, and He works all things for good in our lives, even when we can't see it.

He subtly changes our hearts in preparation of what's to come. We lose interest in things we once loved, things we thought would bring us joy or complete our lives. He knows the importance of preparing our hearts before big changes. He brings small ideas or desires like the winds, and we may question how this fits into our life when it's so far from the plans we have held tight to for so many years.

The unknown is scary to us, and we try to hold tight to the old life we have grown comfortable in. Just like the seasons, we need to remember that He knows our days and He desires joy for us. He removes things that may hurt us. He brings things we can't understand at the time but that will bring joy later. He holds us when we cry because the days are hard, even though we know He is molding us into something new and worthy of the days He's shaping for us.

I write these words for myself mostly. The days are hard. Many times I question what is the right path. I ask Him to show me how to stay along the road He has for me, and He shows me time and time again what He's got in store. Then I have to ask for courage, because the things that are changing hurt.

But I can feel the change in my soul, even though it feels like life as I know it is falling apart. In all honesty, it is. But so did all the greats from the Bible before a breakthrough.

Names were changed, because a new person was made, a new life so different from the old that it was unrecognizable. I hold onto those truths within the pages of God's word.

If you're walking out a new, scary path, know you are not alone. He is carrying you through the hardest days and creating a new person who will jump for joy after they learn to stand again.

To be honest the days aren’t easier, maybe harder. Family emergencies, early bedtimes just to sleep so it’s quite in my head, rest that won’t come, but amidst it all there is hope. Hope that fear threatens to dim some days, but deep inside I pull a strength out that I haven’t had to use in years, and take another step into another day. My soul is tired, but God promises better days, he holds me and I know I have to get up and move through even when it’s hard.

Are you struggling? Are you the one who was loving an addict, but now you share a home with a stranger? Are your children wayward? Do you hide your disconnect notices from your children?

Whatever the struggles, Mama I see you today. I’m beside you, carrying my very own burdens that sometimes threaten to drown me, but everyday I choose to swim.

What are you carrying today that’s threatening to take you under?

Hiding it in silence is only sinking us deeper.

But now those words have a somewhat different meaning. There are days it seems to hard to bear.The workload is too hard, the choices seem impossible, better days with sunshine and less stomach ache seems like a fairy tale, but hindsight.

I remember days much like this, but for different reasons and now I see God’s hand was on me those days. It was him strong arms that carried me and I came out a better person.

Today I remind myself of those days.

Things are unknown. My life seems like someone else’s yet so painfully my own. I walk out days I never imagined. I worry over things out of my control and I seem to forget he is working it all for good.

His story will be wonderful and point others to him when I’m on the other side.

If your struggling I urde to take a step back into 2020 hindsight and see what dark days he pulled you through! He will do it again!

❤️❤️

How can I pray for you today

Sometimes I find myself praying for things to be revealed, things my children are doing that need intervention or extra prayers, things my husband might be too afraid to say. I pray for secrets to be brought to light, but I make sure my closet doors are shut tight when it comes to myself and my secrets.

I strategically post things in a way that hides the parts I don’t want you to know. Avoiding videos certain times, or taking photos that the backgrounds might be too revealing.

But the sad part

I get messages everyday from women who are living in the same situation as me. They feel so alone, but also don’t want to share the hard parts that make them vulnerable.

Last night I decided that you may need to hear this, and if you don’t and no one ever reads this, I can say it for myself! I can bring my hard things to light for me and that’s he first step!

Hi, my name is Andrea and my husband is an alcoholic.

If you are walking this same path or a similar one, today let’s take back a little of our strength by saying the things we hide!

You get to be part of these days that are forming the men they are becoming. You get to see their opinions form and their ideas about the world around them take shape. You get to see them become when God made them to be when he knitted them together in your womb before you even knew of their existence. And let me assure you that those opinions and that personality will be nothing like you imagined, and that’s OK!

If your lucky there will be a moment in your children’s life when something they do or say or even like, that will remind you of yourself at that very same age and you will stop fighting so hard for the idea of who you thought they would be and embrace who they are becoming.

One day while riding along in the car, my son put on some music and as I was singing along with the very same lyrics that I had when I was his age it dawned on me. He is very much the same as I once was, and that’s ok.

The new ideas and the opinions that differ from mine are what makes him, him and he is oh so special. Those ideas that could change the world are already changing me. The things that he thinks are shaping the way I think.

That’s part of the design, if we were all the same no one would ever change the world. So today make the time to find out how awesome your kids are becoming and see if they can shed a little light on your heart too ❤️

But what about when it takes all of us. When it takes us away from our original post at our homes, when our parents demand more from us than we have to give.

Friends I don’t have the answer, if you saw the title and came for that, I’m sorry. You picked the wrong door. What I can offer, a chair to sit in beside me as we walk it out together. I can offer encouragement and point you to your Father. That’s about all I got these days.

I’m about too tired to think, both mentally and physically. Like most mothers and daughters my age, my relationship with my mother was rocky to say the least. I am the generation of tv dinners and don’t come in until dark. Mothers with a cold Pepsi and a plastic lawn chair, snacks outside because it was time for days of our lives. Then when I got older she went to work. Most of my own motherhood journey was shaped by older relatives, Mamaw’s, aunt and whatnot.

This is why us 90s kids grew up different. Independent, with a lot of alone time. Able to conquer the world all by ourselves.

It formed us.

I was chatting with a friend at her dads funeral the other day and she said “I don’t know how we will make it with Mom, those men spoiled their women” and I never have heard truer words.

My husband spoils me, but because of an independent childhood, I formed a fierce independence, I don’t rely on him nearly the way my mother did my father.

When my father passed it left a gaping hole in her heart but also her life. One I cannot fill, but she expects it.

I pray that when I am aging my children will be able to help without feeling the need to sacrifice so much. I pray they can set boundaries of how much time they are able to give and it will be enough. I pray that I can continue to be enough both in my home and in caring for those in my care.

Sister if you are walking this same path with an aging parent, I’m praying for you. I don’t have the answers, I don’t even have advice if you want me to be honest.

But I can say if you are feeling beat, then you are not alone. He called us and he will equip us❤️

We hold such a close knit extended family that we care for those members just as the ones inside our homes, and sometimes that’s exhausting. Our hands willingly go where they are needed, yet there are times I would love for them to get to focus on the work inside my home, or my garden.

Yet I am thankful for each and every member of my family and community that it outweighs the want to be home.

I often think about how the world functions these days. Kids move far away from their families, babies go to daycare, parents go into nursing homes and that’s a successful life. I see people on social media whose days belong to only them, and for just a moment it looks so good that the longing begins, then I begin to see the unseen things. The children off at daycare of school, spending their most precious early years with strangers, parents in nursing facilities or retirement homes, spending their last days with strangers playing bingo instead of passing down family history to the children at their feet. Dad’s working so many hours away from home to buy the new cars that his kids are asleep before he gets home every night.

I suppose they would see the problems I’m my life they could never imagine also, so little money that cars can’t be repaired, no vacations possible because aging grandparents need daily care, and so on.

I guess we all just live how we were raised. It gets to us all every now and again. We all need respite, but here in the mountains, in times such as the ones we have been walking through there doesn’t seem to be any in sight for the next little while.

He will give me strength and he will provide as he always has. The point to my rambling I’m tired, and that’s ok. I’m still doing the work he indicated, caring for the widows, feeding the hungry, caring for the littles. There are just days I need to go a little slower and remind myself my hands are purposed for building up his kingdom most days.

I looked at this girl, no older than my own daughter and her little baby, and I felt sorry for her. Not because she was a young mom, not because she had little to no help, but because I knew the feelings she was walking through.

No matter how scared I was all those years ago, I was elated to hold that beauty little baby with that addictive smell. All the months of drs appointments alone, the embarrassment gone. The months of working 8 hours a day the falling asleep before I could shower were erased from my memory. This little baby was here, and she was perfect, and the last name on that tiny little bracelet matched mine.

The nights were long, the days were hard but something far more dark was happening that I scarcely took notice of.

Feelings were forming that I would carry with me forever. Every time I dressed her in all the ruffles and took her out in our little town to show her off, thoughts were forming that I wasn’t aware of until they would settle hard.

I was building a wall that was wrong and hard because I had to. I was doing the hard things, working and raising my baby, and the sleepless nights as a single parent. I was filling all the gaps in her life, but I was leaving bigger ones in mine.

I’m not sure I fully understood those gaps and feelings and thoughts until today, over two decades later, when I looked at that photo of a mom much like myself.

I was so busy pouring into my motherhood, that I didn’t realize the void that was being created in my own life, in my own soul.

Every unreasoning appointment, there was no one to share the joy of hearing her little heartbeat. There was no one holding my hand in the waiting room as my nerves threatened to be my undoing, so I built a wall to hold me up.

When she came into this world I was surrounded by family but there was no one special to hold my hand, to cry when their child breathed their first breath or to dream about a life together.

With each day that I became stronger in my motherhood, I became a little weaker as a woman. I walked the hardest path alone, leaving my heart to take the beating of not having anyone by my side.

No one to lean on, no one to take care of me when the load got too heavy, and I began to tell myself I wasn’t worthy of that kind of life.

Without even knowing my self worth became less and less. I was strong and independent and could do all the hard things, but deep inside I told myself that this was just how life was, I’d be strong and do the things I had to do for myself and it would be ok. I didn’t feel worthy of the life that was possible. If I’m being honest, when I see young families today, I’m not sure I even knew that was a possibility for me. I never felt worthy of my dreams.

Those feelings still follow me today. It’s hard to shake the independence, or the longing for those days back to undo what was done. I still don’t feel worthy to sit at a lot of tables, and I still don’t feel like the life I would like to have will ever be mine to hold. I still sometimes catch myself thinking that things other have are so far out of reach for me I dare not dream of them.

I saw that young girl in those photos and for the first time in my life I realized all the feelings I carried for so long and failed to unpack!

Here’s to unpacking them! Appreciating what we have! Knowing it’s ok to dream of bigger and better things! Knowing we are worthy of our dreams! Here’s to us strong moms who also need someone to hold our hands and let us lean on them for a while!

Sometime last year the thought occurred to me “I wonder how many people go through life not knowing what it smells like when spring in in the air, or notice the leaves turning over in the wind before a rain?” Then I wondered, “What is it like to live a life like that?”

I didn’t grow up, see the world going to heck in a hand basket, and then begin to notice all the wonder around me as I grasped at the simple life to carry me through the hard times. I grew up fully immersed in the world around me. I grew up beside nature, and today know it as an old friend.

It’s just part of life here. You spend more time outside than in. Evenings when the sun is hit are for porch sitting, cool nights are for camp fires, early morning dew is cool on the feet. I raised my kids the same way, not to give them a simple childhood, just because that’s how it is. Babies nap in the fresh air and shade, or the sunshine when the air is a bit tempting. Toddlers play underfoot on the porch as we rock and chat about the days. Kids play in the yard.

You grow up absorbing it all, taking it in and listening to those around you. The tales about nature aren’t lore, they are things you hear from the mouth of family, and see with your own eyes. You smell the change in the air and see the leaves turn on their backs, then shortly after you see the rain coming up the holler and you try to outrun it, only to slow down and play in it’s cool drops.

Sometimes when I record in the evenings I don’t notice the night bugs or the frogs peeping in the background, but someone always comments on it. I hope it reminds them of simpler days, a time lost to so many. I hope just for a moment it reminds them to give their children or grandchildren just a little bit of the life they were privileged to live, or if they weren’t I hope it reminds them to stop and take in the nature around them before it’s quite again.

There was a time I could not imagine these days. A time there was so much worry in my heart about what would happen to me when my children no longer needed me all the time. Time is a funny thing. There seems tO be so little of it and we spend our days trying to add more, that we don’t see it slipping away.

Monday my youngest goes to take his drivers test. Lord willing, soon he will drive off to pick up his prom date. That little baby that cling to his Mama so tightly is fly away, just like nature intended.

I’ve spent each driving lesson, and each evening I eat dinner alone thinking about how perfectly God arranges these days. He lets them need you less and less, while needing more of your time that even those newborn years. There are driving lessons every evening, competitions and events in hat you have to help them prepare for, and so many other things that you are forced to look at them with new eyes. Forced to see the person they are becoming, still so much like the little child you held, but so much like the adult God knew when he formed them. It’s a bittersweet thing, to look into those same eyes and see someone ready to live their own life staring back at you.

There are days I don’t feel old enough to have a college, or one finishing up high school. There are days I want to fight and hold onto anything I can of the previous days, the comfortable days, the days when they were safe under my roof. Then there are days I am so proud of the person they are becoming that I am more excited to see the next big thing in their lives.

All the we are changing our relationship, from a mother/child to friends. Many times in my life I heard you are not your child’s friend. There will come a day when your child will need just that. A friend who has been there, whom they can trust their advice and know it’s free of judgement, and know is still a safe place to land should they need to fall.

I have to admit, like most things, I failed the first time around. There was so much fear in my heart when my oldest grew up and found her wings, that I fear I may have clipped them. I thought if I could just keep control, then I could hang onto what I was so afraid of losing. But alas, children grow up, like they always do, and I had to let go, and the takeoff was rougher that it should have been because I failed to let her soar on her own. I’m trying to mend those tears, and things are so much better now, but only when I realized, she is in fact and adult, who is allowed to make her own decisions about her own life, and I’m blessed to get to walk alongside when she asks.

It took a lot of praying and a lot of seeking the Lords peace, but this time around I find myself doing much better, even find myself feeling a change, an independence and purpose settling into my soul, maybe that’s how God designed it. Maybe he gives us a change of heart, a desire to do new things, hard things, so we can allow our kids to do the same, and we can cheer each other on.

I say it often and I will always, I’d take 1000 sleepless newborn nights over these teenage years, not because I love them any less, but because the safety is still there.

When the day comes that you have to hand their safety over to the Lord and pray you did the very best job to equip them for what’s coming, it’s a gut punch.

But his peace that surpasses all understanding is there sister!

It’s there when they are out driving, even though you are praying for their safe return endlessly.

It’s there when they pack their cars and head to a new home, even though you pray for their new life.

It’s there when they call you with trouble, and you feel a million miles away.

It’s always there, and so is his protection.

If anyone loves your children as much as you it’s God. They were his before they were yours. He knit them together in your womb.

He has perfect plans for them.

We just have to have faith and let them go.

But in Appalachia, it wasn’t distant at all.

In a time much closer to us than most realize, there were people among us with gifts. Gifts to help the sick. Gifts that came from God and were worked through willing hands. And many of them are still here, still quietly doing what they’ve always done.

You just have to know where to look.

A seventh son of a seventh son is said to be able to heal. A child born en caul, in the sack, is drawn to water and may carry the gift of sight. A baby born after the death of its father can cure thrush. Bible verses called out with faith so fierce it shakes gates stops a bleed, and whispers over a burn takes the pain away. Wrinkled hands laid over a baby in prayer, words uttered that’s only for the soul and Heaven.

The list goes on and on.

Today people are quick to call it witchcraft. Sorcery. Powers drawn from dark magic. Something to be afraid of.

But these healers worked alongside God’s gifts from the earth and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They knew who held the final say. They practiced with the understanding that it was never their will being done, always His. They kept their secrets not out of shame but out of reverence. The healing was done in private. A prayer spoken. A scripture said. Nothing dark, just the faith of people who had seen times when there was no help for the ailing but the Good Lord and a willing vessel.

They knew where their gifts came from. Not places for darkened, but of light.

From the one who had the final day of the number of our days.

They just filled the gap between birth and death.

I’ve been in those rooms. My family has been healers and healed for generations . And I’ve seen things that don’t have an explanation outside of God.

It was never strange to me, just gifts the Lord gave us.

I often wonder how many people still possess these gifts but are afraid to fully accept them.

I don’t need to wonder why so many were taught to be afraid.

I’ve hear stories all my life, connected them with faces of my people. I’ve felt the healing. My children have been treated. I’ve seen what I’ve seen and I know what I know.

This is the first in a series. The rest goes deeper.

Every spring they come back without being asked.

No planting. No tending. No permission needed. They just push up through whatever the winter left behind and open yellow in the yard like they never heard the word weed.

Papaw never used that word for them.

He’d stop midstride on the hillside, crouch down, and tell me what he was looking at like he was introducing me to someone worth knowing. The dandelion was my favorite. Root to flower, every part had a purpose and he knew all of it from the early years gathering beside his mother in the holler, books he taught himself to read, magazines he collected for decades, and knowledge handed to him on the farms where he worked as a boy of fourteen, hundreds of miles from home, after his father died and left him no other choice.

He only completed third grade. But there was not a plant on this mountain he couldn’t name, couldn’t use, couldn’t tell you when to pick and when to leave alone.

I’m still learning from him. In the margins of the books he left behind. In notes written in words spelled how they sounded.

Most people see a weed. Papaw saw a pharmacy the Lord planted free of charge. Root to flower, every part had a use. Here’s all of it.

WHEN TO HARVEST

Timing is everything with dandelion.

Leaves come first in the early spring, before the plant flowers. That’s when they’re tender and the bitterness is manageable. Once the flowers open the leaves get sharp. Still useful, just stronger.

Flowers should be picked in the morning, before noon if you can, when they are fully open and full of goodness. Pick on a dry day, away from roadsides and any ground that’s been sprayed.

Roots are a fall harvest, September through November, after the plant has pulled its energy back underground. That’s when they’re fattest and most potent. You can dig spring roots too, but fall roots are what you want for medicine.

Only harvest from ground you know and trust. Take no more than a third of what’s growing in any spot. Leave the rest for the bees, the land, and next year.

THE ROOT

This is the most medicinal part of the plant and the most overlooked.

The root is a bitter. It supports the liver and gallbladder, moves sluggish digestion, and feeds your gut with inulin, a prebiotic fiber that nourishes the good bacteria your body depends on. It’s been used traditionally to support the kidneys and clear congested skin from the inside out. When your liver is working right, your skin shows it.

How to harvest:

Use a long narrow spade and go straight down the root runs deep, any left in the ground will return a plant next year so don’t worry of you don’t get it all. Shake off the dirt, rinse well, slice in thin sections.

How to dry:

Lay on a drying screen or dehydrate at 95°F until completely dry and brittle. Properly dried root keeps for a year in a sealed jar out of light. Papaw dried his herbs on bedsheets spread out on the porch in the sun, turning them often, or he laid them on an old window screen.

How to use:

Root tea — Simmer one teaspoon dried root in two cups water for twenty minutes. Strain and drink. One cup a day as a gentle daily tonic.

Tincture — Pack dried root in a jar, cover with moonshine or at least 80-proof vodka, lid tight, six weeks shaking daily. Strain and bottle. Twenty to thirty drops in water up to three times a day.

THE LEAVES

First greens of spring and one of the most nutritious things you can put on a plate.

Dandelion greens have more iron than spinach and more calcium than milk. They’re bitter, but early harvest can deal with some of that. Bitters stimulate bile and get digestion moving.

How to use:

Heat bacon grease in a skillet until sizzling. Wash greens and pat dry, place in a glass bowl. Drizzle the hot bacon grease over them while stirring! It should pop and sizzle. Salt and pepper. Eat them before the plant flowers for the mildest flavor. Add young raw leaves to salads in early spring.

Dandelion infused oil:

Fill a clean dry jar loosely with flowers. Cover completely with oil of your choice, I use Jojoba. Set in a sunny window for four to six weeks, shaking daily. Strain through cheesecloth. Store in a dark jar.

Use it straight on dry skin and sore joints. Or melt it down with beeswax into a simple salve, or add tallow for a balm which is exactly what I’m making with it for Holler & Herb.

Flower tea:

Steep a small handful of fresh or dried flowers in hot water for ten minutes. Mild, slightly sweet. Good for low mood and restlessness.

Dandelion Jelly

• 4 cups dandelion petals, or 2 cups packed petals

• 4 cups sugar

• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, or 1/2 tsp citric acid

• 1 box powdered pectin, 1.75 ounces, such as Sure Jel

• Boiling Water

Pick flowers and remove all green parts. Place yellow flowers in a jar until you have four cups loosely packed. Pour over 4 cups boiling water and allow to steep 24 hours. Strain the petals, you should have 3 ½ to 4 cups tea. Pour into heavy bottomed saucepan and add pectin and a dash of lemon juice. Once boiling rapidly, pour in sugar and stir. Allow to come back to a rolling boil and boil for 2 minutes. Ladle into hot jars and place lids on. Waterbath for 10 minutes.

If you don’t have a canner a pot with a lid will work just fine, cover the bottom with jar rings to keep your jars off the bottom of the pot. Cover at least half way with water.

Let sit 48 hours to set.

THE SEEDS

You don’t harvest these. You let them go.

Every puff that floats off is next year’s medicine planting itself across the hill.

Share the knowledge with your little Ones as you teach them to make a wish and plant a seed for tomorrow.

If you have been to my Mom’s house, one thing you can be sure of is you won’t go away hungry.

Read more

Some of my fondest memories are of Easter Sunday at Mamaw’s. There was no plastic eggs filled with candy. Maybe a chocolate rabbit bought by a relative but I don’t remember them if there were.

Everyone gathered at Mamaw’s after church, dressed in their Easter dresses and bonnets, complete with dyed fingers from coloring eggs the night before.

After dinner, all of us kids huddled up in a bedroom, trying to steal peeks out the window at the adults hiding eggs.

We lined up with our baskets, if you remembered to bring one, egg cartons or grocery bags and waiting to be told to go!

Off we were on a hunt, so excited to find nothing more than hard boiled eggs, but somewhere out there was one lucky eggs.

It wasn’t a “everyone’s a winner” egg hunt! There was one egg and if you were lucky enough to find it you were in for a treat. All the men would gather round the finder and empty their pockets of change and ones and that collection was your prize! You walked away with your head held high and a dream in your heart about what you could buy the next time you got to go to store.

As I got older I realized that everyone was hunting eggs with us, even Mamaw. My uncle Charlie hunted eggs with his salt shaker so he could eat what he found along the way.

The day was filled with so much love and joy, maybe because everyone had spent the weekend pondering on the Lord’s sacrifice for us, the lowly sinners. Maybe it was that all us kids were free to run in the head of the holler for the day with cousins we didn’t see very often. Maybe it was just a simpler time.

However you celebrate this weekend take the time say “Thank You Jesus” for his unending love and grace.

Here’s a link to a printable recipe card for my favorite Easter dessert. Mom has made it every Easter for as long as I can remember.

Mom’s Resurrection Cake

Recently a situation came up that cause me to spend more time in prayer. The opportunity to purchase a used car presented itself. I prayed over it as usual, asking God to open doors if it was for us and close them if not so we wouldn’t take a path thag wasn’t meant for us. I didn’t have a clear answer and the stress was building up since we were on a limited time frame.

When the morning came to where a decision had to be made no clear path was in sight, leaving me still quite confused.

I did what I always do, went to the shower, where I pray the best. Maybe it’s because there is no interruption, or maybe it’s because the water reminds me of being reborn in Baptism. I’m not really sure but it’s were I seek when I need answers, and where they come.

So there I was praying my heart out, the same prayers I had for the last few days when the answer came, but it wasn’t what I had been listening for.

“Let your husband lead this one”

But what if he isn’t listening to you? Was the first thing that popped into my head.

Then he answered even more prayers. He pointed out the real problem,

My Heart Posture!

“You spend hours in prayer asking for him to step up and lead your family and you can’t allow him to lead in the small parts of your life?

How can he lead your family?”

Ouch 😖

Then even more came

“You ask me to lead your life but you can’t even step back and let your husband lead on the small things and he is standing in front of you, how will you then step back to me when I am not there with you in the flesh?”

Y’all! It’s all true because he knows us! He knows what we asked and when we are stepping in the way.

I, like most of you, pray for husband to step up and take the lead, to grow closer to God and live the life he has laid out for us. I also know myself, I am strong willed and like to have control, of everything, even the parts I should have over to my husband and the Lord.

Sometimes we ask them to lead, then we hen peck them to make sure we have a little say because we cannot trust that they will make a decision that takes the family’s best interest into account like we would. The truth is we can’t let go, to him or to God, not truly.

I’m stepping out to change that starting this week. I allowed my husband to make the decision on the car and the peace that washed over me was amazing.

I’m also seeing the answers to prayers I have prayed for months, not in big elaborate ways, but subtle pointers to let me see what the future needs to hold for us for the prayers to be fully answered.

Think about your life today? Are you stepping in front of your blessings? Are you able to loose the reins of control over your household to let your husband lead, or are you waiting for him to make some miraculous declaration that he is ready? I assume he won’t, just like we don’t on things in our life. I assume if we step back and hand the reins over without being the little voice on their should, we may just see that they are able and willing to take them over.

Andrea

Mamaw’s Chicken an…

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Mamaw’s days there wasn’t a grocery store like we have today. There was a local store, miles down the road. It sold necessities, but most of the time there wasn’t a car to take them, and even if there would have been there wasn’t money to spend. By the time that changed a way of life was already established so it wasn’t changed.

My parents had more access but my dad worked the coal mines, so there was always risk of lay offs and strikes. 7 years of feast, 7 years of famine. A full pantry of staples ensured that we wouldn’t go hungry no matter what came.

It wasn’t called prepping. It was just life as we knew it, and it worked so they passed it down to the next generation.

I remember when I first got married. No groceries in the house. We spent a night or two visiting my in-laws. When we came back and started normal life I went to the store to stock up the house. My Mamaw didn’t ever drive so I always took her along so she could get her supplies for the month too.

I left the store with a full buggy, to the stop and spilling over into hers a little bit, the total $220. How I’d like to be able to do that now for that price. Mamaw told me on the ride home how when her and Papaw set up housekeeping she spend $28 to stock her cabinets.

I didn’t need her help to know what to buy. I’d been cooking meals out of her kitchen and my mom’s for years. I knew the thing ns that were essential, just second nature at this point.

I didn’t stock the pantry that day, just the things for the month and a little longer.

I started slowly adding extra everytime I went to the store, and I still do that today.

If I have to be honest I try to live in a way that I don’t buy groceries, just what’s on sale or what will only keep a short time.

For one, I absolutely despise grocery shopping, so the less I go the better. I know everyone gets pick up orders or delivery to combat that today, but I don’t have delivery options where I live, and I don’t like someone else picking out my groceries. I’m weird like that.

I keep the things on hand to make meals without trips to the store.

Flour, meal, dry beans, potatoes, butter, lard, meat in the freezer, canned veggies from the garden. I try to be intentional with our eating, seasonal for fruits and raw veggies, as local as I can get for meats, eggs come from the yard. I purchase dairy once a week and snacks for lunches and teens.

I keep canned fish, salmon and tuna for every now and then.

The golden rule I follow is I don’t grow it or buy it if no one eats it. I try to plan our pantry around the foods my family eats, but to be honest, when you grow up on home cooking there isn’t a lot you don’t eat. Picky kids aren’t really a thin in our family.

Whether you are prepping or just being prepared for whatever may come this month, keep it simple. Remember that Mamaw didn’t have it all but the family still sat down to supper every evening.

Andrea

I pull out those seed packets and dream of the days when the garden rows will be filled with color and security that my table will be full.

I’ve worked my hands in the garden and walked the rows, feeling the cool spring dirt under my bare feet for as long as I can remember. I pushed seeds in the ground alongside Papaw, gathered Tommy toes in my shirt with Aunt Mary, and strung beans for drying on a blanket with my Great Grandma before I ever attended my first day of school.

I didn’t know the rarity of a childhood like that until much later in life.

Uncertain Days

You can’t escape the news, no matter how hard one may try, and believe me I try most days.

Events of late have got me thinking about my Mamaw’s garden. She was my GreatGrandmother. Living through two world wars, and growing the famous “Victory Gardens”, even though I’m sure she never said those words.

During WWI the government reached out to the people and asked them to grow gardens and purchase less, so food could be sent to Europe where food scarcity was a problem. I cant imagine my family even had much idea was was going on living remotely in the Appalachian Mountains, they just gardened the same way they did every year because that’s how the food cot on the table.

The next call for “Victory Gardens” hit closer to home.

Mamaw would have been working the garden alongside her daughter to feed her children and grandchildren, while her three sons were on foreign soil fighting for a world they had never seen before the draft took them out of the holler, where they had spent their whole life. She knew nothing of Victory gardens or the world beyond Appalachia, but she knew her boys were gone off to war, to a place she couldn’t even imagine, and she still had a family to feed at home. So she did what she always did, Papaw broke out the old mule, and turned over the ground, just as he had every spring before. They laid off the rows, planted the seeds and sent up a prayer that the garden would feed them for another year.

I don’t know the whole story but I have always imagined she spent many a day in that very garden after the news came that two of her boys would never return to her, praying and puttin her hands to work so the pain didn’t consume her.

That’s the thing about gardens, they busy your hands with providing and free your soul from the burdens you have been carrying.

In the last few years more and more gardens have popped in in a “Victory Garden” fashion. People are finding security in knowing they can grow their own food and know what goes into it.

With the news as of late, I think more people should make the move to at least add a few raised beds to their yard. Knowing you can at least put some greens on the table if you’re in a situation of scarcity brings a little peace to a troubled soul.

I never abandoned gardening, even with grocery stores on every corner, because gardening is a way of life for us. It always has been, because you never know what might happen and feeding your family is most important.

There wasn’t even an option of not puttin one in every year. For that I am extremely thankful.

We have battled several situations that kept us from getting the normal harvest in the last couple years.

Illness, biblical flooding, death, devastating flooding again, poor soil and bad summer weather have threatened our food stock so this year I’m changing to beat the challenges and ensure we have food on the table because you just never know.

Mamaw wouldn’t have laid down in the springtime if her garden hadn’t been planted no matter what.

This is the year to plant your very own “Victory Garden” even if it’s just a planter full of lettuce and spinach!

This year I’m gonna be a little more like Mamaw and I think you should be too

To Mamaw’s Victory Garden

Andrea

There’s a saying I heard growing up that I didn’t understand until I got older

“It’ll keep.”

I used to think that meant leftovers in the fridge or something tucked away in a cabinet.

But the older I get, the more I realize it wasn’t about things at all.

It was about life.

This morning I stood in my kitchen, looking around at everything that needed done.

Dishes stacked in the sink. Laundry waiting in quiet little piles. A floor that could stand a good sweeping if I’m being honest.

And for a minute, I felt that familiar pull

You need to get this done.

But just as quick, there was something else.

An adult child that needs my companionship today as she tackled a day of appointments,

An opportunity to visit with family that I don’t get to see as often,

And I thought to myself…

The dishes will keep.

The laundry will keep.

That floor will be right there waiting on me later.

But this?

This won’t.

I think somewhere along the way we were taught that everything has to be done right now.

That a good home is one where nothing is ever left undone.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

I think a good home is one that’s been lived in.

One where sometimes the work waits…

So the moment doesn’t have to.

There will always be something asking for your hands.

But not everything deserves your time the same way.

So if you’re standing in your kitchen this morning, feeling pulled in ten different directions

Maybe this is your reminder:

Some things can wait.

And they will.

Listen for Mamaw’s sweet voice telling you

“It‘ll Keep”

🤍