2025 WORD OF THE YEAR - FELLOWSHIP

Word Studies & Favorite Verses

F = Faith (the activity of believing) Faith hears the promise, hears the command, believes both, and acts in obedience. (Alistair Begg Truth For Life: 365 Daily Devotions)

E = Endurance (Rom 15:4)

L = Love (1Cor 13)

L = Light (Psalm 119:30) (1 John 1:5)

O = Obedience (John 14:15&15:10 (1Pet1:22)

W = Worship  (1Tim 3:14-16) (psalms)  We are made to worship.

S = Sincerity (1Cor 5:8)

H = Humility (Prov 15:33)

I =  Insight/instruction/wisdom (Prov xx)   

P = Prayer (2 Cor 1:11)

Read: Jesus The Messiah by Alfred Edersheim

Journal:  Experiencing the Heart of Jesus by Max Lucado

Listen:  Music Album Fortress God by Praise and Harmony

Additional Inspiration from: 

Chas Spurgeon sermon delivered 15 Sept 1861

Fellowship with God (concord of heart)

Fellowship (1John1:3) (Acts 2:42) (Phil 3:10) 

Ian Hamilton "What to do when you dont know what to do"

2 Chronicles 20:1-12  delivered 12 Jan 2025

Gary Elliott "Greatest Mystery ever Told" 

1 Tim 3:14-16 worship = godliness. 19 Jan 2025

Rom 12:1-9  Liturgy of Living Sacrifice 26 Jan 2025

Genealogy Trivia

 Meet the youngest child of a youngest child of a youngest child:

 My brother, Will, St Simons Island, GA 1968

 

who is the youngest child of 

my father  Wm.   Dan   1934 - 2021

 

who was the youngest child of his mother

my grandmother   Gustie      1896 - 1959

who was the youngest child of  her mother

my great grandmother   Amanda Missouri Noel      1853 - 1918

who died on 27 January 1918 

one week before her daughter married

 on her in-laws' 37th anniversary

 3 February 1918 - a Sunday afternoon

in the living room of the family home in

Albertville, Alabama ~

John Cabell Breckinridge Jordan & Mary Elizabeth Morris

Chocolate Sauce

Combine in a saucepan over medium heat:

 

3/4 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 oz bakers chocolate

2 Tbs Karo syrup

1/4 tsp salt

 

Stir until blended cooking all the while until smooth. I use a whisk. Add 1/3 Cup milk.  Stir constantly until sauce thickens somewhat.  Remove from heat.  Add 2 tsp vanilla extract.

 

Stores well in refrigerator.  Heat on medium low heat in microwave, if you have any leftover from the initial serving J

 

 PS  I have been known to use Vanilla Delight Coffee Creamer or whipping cream or whatever milk  (like) substance I have in the 'fridge.

 

PPS  I think this makes a delightful teacher's gift or gift to another family at Christmas.

PPPS  Favorite ways to serve:  1) drizzled over vanilla ice cream, really any flavor, but especially peppermint around the holidays  2) Cherry Pie a la mode (chocolate ice cream & chocolate sauce)  3) for dipping leftover cubes of vanilla pound cake  4)  coat the  rim of chilled cocktail glass before pouring in the prepared chocolate or coffee martini 5) sneak a refrigerated spoonful just to get my "chocolate fix"

LITTLE GUSTAVA

Little Gustava sits in the sun,
Safe in the porch, and the little drops run
From the icicles under the eaves so fast.
For the bright spring sun shines warm at last,
And glad is little Gustava.

She wears a quaint little scarlet cap.
And a little green bowl she holds in her lap.
Filled with bread and milk to the brim,
And a wreath of marigolds round the rim:
" Ha, ha ! " laughs little Gustava.

Up comes her little gray, coaxing cat,
With her little pink nose, and she mews,
 "What's that ? "
Gustava feeds her, — she begs for more ;
And a little brown hen walks in at the door;
"Good-day!" cries little Gustava.

She scatters crumbs for the little brown hen.
There comes a rush and a flutter, and then
Down fly her little white doves so sweet.
With their snowy wings and their crimson feet:
" Welcome ! " cries little Gustava.


So dainty and eager they pick up the crumbs;
But who is this through the doorway comes ?
Little Scotch terrier, little "dog Rags,
Looks in her face, and his funny tail wags:
"Ha, ha!" laughs little Gustava.

"You want some breakfast, too? " and down
She sets her bowl on the brick floor brown;
And little dog Rags drinks up her milk.
While she strokes his shaggy locks, like silk:
"Dear Rags!" says little Gustava.

Waiting without stood sparrow and crow,
Cooling their feet in the melting snow :
"Won't you come in, good folk? " she cried.
But they were too bashful, and stayed outside,
Though " Pray come in ! " cried Gustava.

So the last she threw them, and knelt on the mat
With doves and biddy and dog and cat.
And her mother came to the open house-door:
" Dear little daughter, I bring you some more.
My merry little Gustava ! "

Kitty and terrier, biddy and doves,
All things harmless Gustava loves.
The shy, kind creatures 'tis joy to feed,
And oh, her breakfast is sweet indeed
To happy little Gustava!


Celia Thaxter
American writer/poet
1835 - 1894

WHY A POEM—OR A CAT?

“It’s what kids once learned a long time ago. . .what this nation

was founded on--morality, memorization of poetry, learning to read aloud, to do arithmetic, and to do what literate people do in society.”
—Marva Collins**

“I still don’t see why anyone would ever
read a poem,”
the young man, student, told us on TV.
Answers came lame, and all the wrong
protesting ones.

I would have said, why, one would read a poem
for the reason you might watch a cat—
its grace notes curling, stretching, those
little hairs, sunburst
on haunches, stone-lion-crouched,
the quivering intelligent tail, the eyes,
marble-miraculous gleaming.

“But what’s the use of it?”

No use. No use in tapping your foot in time
to tunes,
or driving along, car windows down, wind in your
hair,
and the smell of river bottoms and plowed fields,
or even fertilizer.

You’d read a poem to delight the ear and eye,
for something to wonder about,
to take a moment out, to touch what’s real
that you don’t have to; watching flocks
of small birds wheeling
on sluices of the air we breathe,
or hawk or eagle, plummeting,
or motionless aloft on that same air.

To put a frame around this moment, tape it down
and get a handle on it.

Like stroking that sweet feline in your lap.

— Harriet Stovall Kelley

1933 - 2022

** protégé of Eugene Lang, who promised college to ghetto kids finishing high school


Note from poet ~
My mother, Evelyn Linch Stovall (1904-1962) wrote a textbook, You and your Reading for Ginn & Co, 1940, as an outgrowth of her Master’s work at Emory. In it my father has a poem, “Mr. Propaganda.” But my two younger sisters turned out to be musicians, so bookish is not inherited, necessarily, just “bent.”

PS This entry is illustrated by my newest art acquisition:  Oil (9"x12") by Sally Mitchell, soon to be framed and displayed ~

WHEN YOU SAY GOODBYE TO A PARENT

 

You are suddenly living in a whole new world.

You are no longer ‘the child’ and regardless of how long you have officially been ‘grown up’ for, you realise you actually never were until this moment. The shock of this adjustment will shake your very core.

When you have finally said goodbye to both your parents, assuming you were lucky enough to have had two. You are an orphan on this earth and that never, ever gets easier to take no matter how old and gray you are yourself and no matter how many children of your own you have.

You see, a part of your body is physically connected to the people that made it and also a part of your soul. When they no longer live, it is as if you are missing something practical that you need – like a finger or an arm. Because really, you are. You are missing your parent and that is something far more necessary than any limb.

And yet the connection is so strong it carries on somehow, no-one knows how exactly. But they are there. In some way, shape or form they are still guiding you if you listen closely enough. You can hear the words they would choose to say to you.

You can feel the warmth of their approval, their smile when a goal is achieved, their all-consuming love filling the air around you when a baby is born they haven’t met.

If you watch your children very closely you will see that they too have a connection with your parents long after they are gone. They will say things that resonate with you because it brings so many memories of the parent you are missing. They will carry on traits, thoughts and sometimes they will even see them in their dreams.

This is not something we can explain.

Love is a very mystical and wondrous entity.

It is far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and grief, grief is the price of that love. The deeper the love the stronger the grief.

When you say goodbye to a parent, do not forget to connect with that little girl who still lives inside you somewhere.

Take very good care of her, for she, she will be alone and scared.

When you say goodbye to your parents, you lose an identity, a place in the world. When the people who put you on this earth are no longer here, it changes everything.

Look after yourself the way they looked after you and listen out for them when you need it the most.

They never really leave.

Donna Ashworth

From her poetry collection ‘to the women’

Photo Selfie taken 7 June 2015 as we were leaving Jekyll Island GA after our first beach getaway together.

Church History

Where I've attended church over the years....

 

1958 - St Luke Episcopal, Atlanta, GA (baptized)

1965 - St Anne's Episcopal, Atlanta, GA

1966 - Mtn Home AFB 

1967 - St James Anglican-Episcopal, Atlanta, GA (confirmed)

1978 - Chalcedon Presbyterian, Atlanta, GA

1979 - Harvester Presbyterian, Springfield, VA

1980 - McLean Presbyterian, McLean, VA

1981 - Church Creek Presbyterian, Charleston, SC

1985 - Rainbow City Presbyterian, Rainbow City, AL

1987 - First Presbyterian, Rome, GA

1988 - Chalcedon Presbyterian, GA