Category: Daily Thoughts

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A Blonde Moment

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This post is being done out of duress. When Randy and I were grocery shopping today the sweet little lady checking us out began putting one item in each bag. With each item being put into a bag before swirling the little bag holder around to put another item in another bag, I became more and more frustrated. Why don’t they teach the checkers to fill the bags? Before you fuss at me for not having my own bags that should be always in the trunk of our car so we don’t need to even had plastic bags, we do have an excuse this time. Our trunk was full of items which we were taking to Goodwill. On most trips to the store, we have been remembering to take our own bags.

But today, we were at the mercy of the grocery store. As I picked up the bags and would try to fill them before the checker would start with another bag, I just kept thinking about all the waste. But we checked out and began walking out to the car with all of our groceries, I told Randy, “it just makes me so mad that they use so many bags. Imagine how many trees must have been cut down to make all these bags.” He just looked at me and stopped loading the car. He shook his head and said, “well, I really don’t think that too many trees were cut down to make these plastic bags, so you don’t need to worry. Unless there are plastic bag trees.” When I realized what I had just said, we started laughing and I told him that he couldn’t tell anyone what I had just said. His response, “after all the things you blog about me, you can be sure that if you don’t post your blonde moment, I will start my own blog tonight and write about you.” So I really didn’t have a choice but to admit defeat and post my blonde moment. Now I just need to go back and buy a blonde kit so I have an excuse for saying that.

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Little Debbie Intervention

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OK, I admit, I am now addicted to Little Debbie Snowballs, Peanut Butter Creams, Gingerbread Cookies & last, because I just haven’t had the chance to try any of the others, the Oatmeal Cream Sandwiches Cookies. Honestly, you would think that any lady who always keeps a minimum of 6 lbs of butter in the fridge just in case she wakes up with a goal to bake  chocolate chip cookies before 8 a.m., would have a little higher standards than to pop open a box of cellophane wrapped baked goods that have enough preservatives in them to keep them fresh for 3 months. But no, I am totally addicted to the Peanut Butter Creams and the Gingerbread cookies. Since the gingerbread cookies aren’t available again until next Christmas I am resorting to making my own. Two days ago, I woke up determined to bake some gingerbread cookies to have with my morning Dr Pepper. When I went to the fridge to take out butter to allow it to soften to room temperature, I just stood there in totally disbelief. There was no butter in the house. I ran to the fridge in the garage, thinking that surely I just had not brought in another lb of the butter I had just bough at Costco. After all, could I have really gone through 8 lbs of butter in the last month? But as I opened the garage, my heart sank. It too, was void of any cholesterol laden butter that flows through our veins.

When Randy woke up that same morning and walked through the kitchen, with his hand held out for his morning cup of melted butter (just to be sure he gets his daily quota), I had to tell him that he was just going to have to get dressed and head to the store because our home was in a state of crisis. No butter anywhere to be found. It is now clear to me how coffee drinkers feel when they wake up and discover that there is no coffee in the house. Just to calm our nerves we both went to the pantry and grabbed the first box of Little Debbie cookies we could get our hands on.

Randy just informed me that since we now have butter in the house, I have to go back to cooking dinner as he is finally getting tired of having Snowballs for dinner. So if the dinner I cook tonight turns out half as good as a LD, I will post my recipe for it tomorrow, in between bites of Peanut Butter Creams!

Little Debbie cookies are the best that can be found, our pantry is loaded with them from the ceiling to the ground.

The variety is amazing and the cream filled are so grand, it seems that every few hours, we have one in our hand.

So grab a box and get your coffee brewing, you’ll be addicted before you know what your doing! So start your day with a cream filled delight, but be oh so careful to save some for watching tv at night.

I’m a writer, not a poet!

 

Cookies · Daily Thoughts · Desserts · Uncategorized

Little Debbie & Little Trudy

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2016 is starting off with a bang! We have discovered some very important facts:

  1. We are now the old people that we use to laugh at. This morning while making Randy some toast, my phone binged with a text. I went to respond and Randy ask me who was texting me so early in the morning. I told him that it was Mandy (our daughter-in-law) and she ask me to take her to Costco so she could get a few things. He looked at me kind of funny and I ask him why. He said (and I quote) “why are you taking Mandy to the hospital?” My response was, (and I quote, in a very loud voice) “you old geezer,  I’m not taking her to the hospital, I’m taking her to COSTCO!” We both just died laughing, realizing that we were now the people that we use to laugh about when we would see a cartoon about 2 old people who totally misunderstood the conversation. Hospital-Costco, not really seeing how those two words are even remotely mistaken for the other. His excuse was that he wasn’t able to fall asleep until about 4 a.m. and that he was not deaf, just tired. Yeah, sure….that’s why the TV volume is turned up to 45.
  2. Now to the second new years finding. I am hooked on Little Debbie anything. At 65 years of age, I had never tried any of the  Little Debbie cookies or baked items. I always just thought all those cookies, brownies and little miniature cakes were for folks who never baked or just had them around the house to throw in their kids lunch boxes. Well, during Christmas, Frosty went shopping and brought home a box of Little Debbie Gingerbread cookies. We went through about 5 boxes. Admitting that we even went as far as him dropping me off at a couple of stores for me to run in to see if they had any boxes of them left, we savored the few we had and hid them from the grandkids so they we wouldn’t have to share the few we had left. Are we just the best grandparents or what?
Well, today, we are out running from store to store to buy items for gift bags for a ladies tea on Sunday. We walked down the Little Debbie cookie aisle and Randy begins to tell me how good the oatmeal cream filled cookies are. He reminds me that our friend Gary (to keep your reputation safe, Gary I won’t say your last name as anyone who comes into your courtroom might make fun of you for being in love with Little Debbie Oatmeal Creams) was also talking at dinner the other night about how good those little gems were, so Randy isn’t the only one our age that was in love with Little Debbie. So we put 8 boxes in the basket (we only needed 7 for the gift baskets, but he wanted to be sure we had some for us as it makes watching re-runs on TV not so bad.)  When I told him I had homemade chocolate chip cookies and homemade ginger cookies in the freezer that we could take out, he replied, “oh let’s save those for company and just eat these tonight.” I’m keeping the other 7 boxes in the trunk to keep them safe from us.
So my new found fact is that it’s impossible to stay a little size and eat Little Debbie cookies. Just not possible! How can something that comes in a box with an expiration date of February 2016 wrapped in cellophane be so good?  My cookies taste stale after 3 days. I hope one day to meet Little Debbie and ask her how she does it.
Would people buy them if they were called, BIG FAT Debbie Oatmeal Creams? Maybe that’s why we only see Little Debbie’s face, who knows what the bottom half looks like?
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Christmas Clocks & Car Decor

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To everyone who has read Chocolate Castles in 2021 I just want to thank you. The Annual Report from Word press arrived today and it was exciting to see that over 18,000 people from over 90 countries read my blog this past year. So just wanted to thank each of you who have stopped by at one time or another to check out recipes or stories. Chocolate Castles began in 2009 as a result of friends calling to ask me a recipe. When Jason, my son was with me one day and I received a couple of phone calls requesting a certain recipe, he suggested that I start a blog. When I told him I didn’t have a clue what a blog was, he sat down and showed me. From that point on, I was hooked. It is so exciting to see comments or hear from friends that they found a recipe which was a hit with their family or a story had made them laugh.
Which brings me to what happened as Randy and I were driving home today from buying black eyed peas for tomorrow. . We were stopped at a red light and a young man in a pick up pulled up beside us. I glanced over and saw something that made me perk right up. There hanging in his windows were Christmas lights strung all across the back window of his pick up. When I began to grab Randy’s arm to get him to look over at them, he was already for me. I turned with a huge grin to say, “OH my gosh, look what we can do next year! We can line the dashboard of our car with garland and put those little battery operated Christmas lights all over it” when he gave me the most glaring look and said, “you have got to be kidding me. No lights will be inside or outside our car.” Visions of going to see if I could find another Christmas clock that plays Christmas carols at Walgreens (yes that is where I have found them in years past) which play a different carol on the hour was already going through my mind for next year. I could just see our new Christmas clock sitting proudly on the dashboard right in the middle of the lit garland. We would be the first Friscoians I bet to display our Christmas spirit this way. Just this year I was finally able to talk him into buying the reindeer antlers for the car, but never got him to actually put them on the car. Maybe Christmas 2022 will be the year that I can talk him into driving around with antlers and the red nose on the front of our car. AND…install my new garland with lights!
But next year, the day after Thanksgiving, if you see a little white car with lit garland inside their car, please take the time to wave at us. Maybe you will get to stop at a red light beside us and we will display our holiday spirit by rolling down our car window so you can enjoy the sounds of our new Christmas Clock in the car. Am headed to Walgreens now to see if they still have any before all their Christmas stuff is put away for the year.
So here is to 2022and the continuing of sharing a few of my passions, cooking and writing. Happy New Year to one and all!

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A Different Type of Christmas Carol

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It’s the dream of every (well almost every) grandmother to have a houseful of family over Christmas, and I am no exception. When our kids from Phoenix decided to come here for Christmas week, we were elated. Oh I could just imagine the sights and sounds we would get to have all around us. The grandkids are now 14, 6 and 3. Our 2 adult kids that live here have one child each, one 18 months, the other family 11 years. We have a granddaughter, 5 which lives in Orlando but was not blessed to see them this Christmas so one less to bake for.  So we have quite a span in ages. About a week ago, I began making cookie dough to put in the freezer so that all I had to do was unthaw and bake.  I made sure that I knew how to find the Christmas music stations on the TV so the house would be filled with “Ring The Bells, Joy to the World and Silent Night while we snacked on homemade cookies, made just for the precious angels that would be running in and out all week. Making sure to have just everyone’s favorite cookie made, I had my checklist all checked twice and made sure that everyone’s favorite was made and on the platter the minute they walked in the house. Isn’t it amazing how we conjure up what we feel like would be the perfect way to begin Christmas. Visions of a pretty platter of peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip and sugar cookies sitting out, while listening to It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas playing in the background. The little ones would bring us the book,  Twas The Night Before Christmas while wiping sleepies from their eyes the first morning here. We would have the fireplace going with Frosty The Snowman movie on the TV while they cuddled on our laps. IS THERE A FAMILY THAT GETS TO ACTUALLY PLAY THIS SCENE OUT? If there is, please send me to them so I can see what that is really like!

So far, the visit has gone like this:

The 14 year old arrives, gives us a hug, disappeared to the bedroom and worked on his hair for 30 minutes. Then left to go spend the night with his cousin. Haven’t seen or heard from him since. But we still have the 6 and 3 year old right?

Well, after having the 6 year old in our bedroom on a makeshift bed, he awoke this morning asking every 10 minutes, “can I open a present”! Literally, when we finally had to tell him that every time he ask that, we would take one of the presents out from under the tree and give it to someone else. So he rephrased the question to, “can I NOT open a present” telling us that he wasn’t asking “can I open a present now”, so it didin’t count so we couldn’t take any of his presents away since he wasn’t asking that question. After we got that settled and thought, “ok, we won that battle” he begins to stomp around the house singing,  “What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, so early in the morning?”

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know what I would like to do with a little 6 year old that sings that song over and over 15 times.

Maybe if I offer them some homemade goodies, they will be more in the Christmas spirit. So I bring out all the homemade cookies, that are sure to put a sparkle in their eye. They look at them and say, “Nana, do you have any of those Little Debbie Christmas trees you gave us when you came to visit us?” What? They are choosing Little Debbie over Nana?

Everyone is gone for a couple of hours, even Frosty left (probably is sitting in the car at a park someplace to get some peace and quiet) so I am sitting here, listening to Christmas Bells Are Ringing. At least I can have visions in my head of what some magical family out there is experiencing with family. And I wonder why our kids gave us a CD of Christmas Vacation with Clark Griswald. Maybe because our family much more resembles that family that the families inside the pages of Southern Living.

Do we really think it was an accident that Grandma stepped in front of the reindeer? Hum….maybe she just couldn’t take listening to “what do you do with a drunken sailor” one more time!

Merry Christmas to one and all! May you and your family make some precious memories this year as you celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord! Because of Him, we can have life eternal, peace on Earth and Joy….we give Him thanks for the laughter and joy that fills our home this Christmas!

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Not That God

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The other evening a sweet friend, Janet, gave me a book which was written by her son– in- law, Ryan Smith. The name of the book was Not That God. This morning I again woke up around 4 am and could not go back to sleep so found myself coming downstairs once again to drink hot tea and read. I began to read Not That God. It made me realize that my perception of God is quite often a result of how I as it should be. In my desire to love God and trust Him I seem to fall into the thinking that if I am good enough, pray more and spend time in His Word, I will have a blessed life. (talk about “earning” your salvation) I was raised to fear God with a Holy type of fear. Not to be afraid of Him but to have a Holy respect which would make me realize that He is the Holy One! That He should be honored above all else and to obey His Word in complete trust. As I have grown in years and hopefully in my faith, it seems that I am doing just what I read. That my expectations of who I think God should be is a little off. At times, I think we all feel that if we walk according to His will and simply obey what we know we are suppose to be doing, that it will “get us something”! We begin to treat God like a genie. We obey, He grants our wishes! But as I continued to read, I realized that God is much more interested in our character than our comforts. He allows things to fall on us in order that our love, dependency, and faith in Him will grow. Those valleys that He brings us through are allowed so that we will grow our faith and begin to see that these times of sorrow, sickness or stress can be times of opportunity for us to reach out more to our Heavenly Father. We have a way of keeping God in our own little box of what we feel He should be and expect Him to do. We make our decisions and then expect Him to bless them. We pray and give Him our desires and our requests and then expect Him to answer in the way that we feel is best. So when He doesn’t answer in the way we feel He should, we become angry and wonder ‘where God is”? Not That God is a book that challenges us to rethink what we have always felt about God.

In this Christmas season, it is a great time to begin a new approach to how I really feel about God and His great love for all of us! We always hear that “He is the reason for the season” but as we heard in church last week, “we are the reason for the season” Jesus came to earth as a baby to save us from our sin. God was the first gift giver. We have Christmas because He came as a baby that we might have life eternal. He gave His Son willingly for us. He did it out of a great love for us. After His giving of His most precious Son, how can we not love Him enough to trust Him for the circumstances, the trials or valleys, which He allows to come into our lives? This season, may my heart be open to accepting that “His ways are not my ways, nor His thoughts, my thoughts”. That I will always remember that God is love, but maybe I need to learn to redefine ‘love” in order to understand a little more of what God is trying to do in my life.

*Not That God, written by Ryan Smith

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Dashing Through the Snow

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OK, maybe I wasn’t dashing through the snow, maybe it was more like “dashing around the parking lot trying to find where my husband was waiting for me to come out of Walmart”! But it really was “dashing” at least.

We had been out running errands when I realized that we were in a different area than where we tend to stop for some of  our Christmas goodies at our (that’s right, “our” Walmart), when I told Frosty to just pull in to this new Walmart and drop me off at the door to see if they have any of the Christmas spatulas that I have been buying up at all the Walmarts around us. He let me off at the door, as the wind was gusting up to 40 mph and told me that as soon as he saw me walk out, he would pull up to the door and I could jump in. He is just so sweet and thoughtful.

FIrst of all, I have to tell you that these spatulas are just so cute and sell for $1.96. I have bought some from high end kitchen stores for about $12/ea and these are just as cute. I collect spatulas and so am always on the lookout for cute ones. They are my signature little gift for hostess gifts and I attach them with Christmas ribbon to packages or Easter or Valentine…you get the picture, right? So when I had bought all that Walmart had in our area, I went looking on Walmart’s web site and thought I would just go ahead and order some to be delivered but to my wondering eye should appear but “3 spatulas for $18.00?” you have got to be kidding me!!! Do the Walmart people realize that they sell them in their own stores for $1.96? And that is why I decided to just hop out of the car, risk ruining my hair being blown to younder and head in to this new unchartered Walmart. Now back to the story.

I wondered over to the baking aisle and there as big and bright as Rudolfs Red nose, were more Christmas spatulas. So I bought all my arms could carry and started out the door. I did notice that there were carts blowing around the parking lot due to the hurricane force winds. (maybe I am exaggerating just a bit, but I knew that maybe I should have used just a bit more hairspray that morning as mine was only stiff enough to hold in winds up to 20 mph). So before I walk out the automatic glass doors I look down a couple of aisles looking to see if I see Frosty, waiting for me when low and behold, I see him straight ahead down the aisle all the way at the end, about 20 cars down. Clear shot. Knowing that as soon as he sees me, he will hurry to pick me up seeing that I have my hands full and whisk me away to Starbucks to celebrate my new addition to my Christmas Spatula collection. Well, I stood there for just a minute and thought, maybe he is on the phone and just hasn’t seen me walk out the door. So I begin to wave furiously at him, waving both white Walmart bags over my head to get his attention. Nothing…so I begin to walk down the aisle, all the while continuing to GLARE and wave as I continue walking out to meet my darling husband, who in my mind is not so darling right at that moment. When I am about 3 cars away from finally getting to our car, he puts the car in drive and begins to creep toward me. By now, my hair is totally gone, my arms are sore from trying to wave him down and my attitude is not very jolly. When I am seated inside the car I look over to him and give him a “what in the world were you doing that you didn’t see me walking toward you with my purchases” look, he smiled at me and said, “it was you, I didn’t recognize you since  your hair looked different and you had on a jogging suit. I’m not use to you wearing a jogging suit or seeing your hair like that!”

WHAT? I have been in the car with you all morning and you just realized that  I had on the new jogging suit that I bought 3 days ago? All I could say was I was glad I did have on my new jogging suit as at least I was prepared for the “jog” out to the car. And the different hair style? It wasn’t different before I had to walk the 3 miles from the Walmart door to the car? But in hurricane force winds, the hair is always the first to go. We rode in silence to Starbucks! Maybe paying the $18 for 3 might have been worth the money. I would have got my Christmas spatulas, not had to come home and re roll my hair and would not have had to pay for marriage counseling that week. Christmas….it’s the most wonderful time of the year, as long as you keep your marriage counselor on speed dial!

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A Time of Thankfulness

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Eight days and counting. Counting down to the day when most people across the land will be sitting in a home, surrounded by people they love and some that are a little harder than others to love. Of course none of us reading this are “the hard ones to love”! Right? Or are we? After a dinner conversation last evening with three other couples who we love so dearly, I began to question how easy or hard I am to love.  One of our table-mates began telling us of a family member who had not spoken to anyone in their family in 4 years.  They were preparing to have a early Thanksgiving dinner with Mr Unlovable and the entire family next week.  An event they were not looking forward to. As I sat there and listened and laughed at some of the conversation regarding how that dinner might end, I reflected on some of my past Thanksgivings.  I remember some years feeling angry that the people coming to our house for Thanksgiving weren’t the ones I would have chosen to be with. That let down feeling when I would uncover a casserole and wasn’t up to my standards of what I thought a sweet potato casserole should be. The time one person refused to be in the family photo because they didn’t like to have their picture taken.  Or maybe certain folks didn’t stay as long or too long. Why didn’t some friends make their kids behave around the table?

All these memories began to flood my mind last night. It was then that I remembered how I reacted to what now seeks so petty. I certainly am not proud of some of my reactions and probably made me one of those “hard to love” types!

We are now years down the road and hopefully have matured in that the things that seemed, at the time so important , just doesn’t seem important anymore. What is important to me now is making memories with people, family and friends that make up our world.  We have learned that sometimes the memories that used to cause tension or stress are sometimes the memories that give us laughter down the road.

So bring on the canned green beans, or the burned sweet potato casserole. Stay till midnight…whatever! We are ready and just so grateful to the Lord for His blessings and goodness. That He has blessed us with a family who we truly love and enjoy being with. Friends who fill our lives with so much joy that we are a very blessed people.

Have a very blessed and memorable Thanksgiving…

 

 

Daily Thoughts

Retirement & Insurance

Chocolate Castles3 Comments

As the weekend approaches and we are getting excited about going to AZ for Thanksgiving to visit, we have had a “to do” list that we are checking off little by little. One of the items was to get a RX refilled before leaving town, so today we went to pick it up. As I walked up to the pick up window inside the store, the young man ask for id and for insurance. He quickly informed me that if I didn’t have insurance my medication would cost $140.00. And they wonder why we have headaches. Anyway, since I did have insurance the medicine cost $ .39. Yep, that’s right 39 cents. The only catch was that with the insurance card, instead of getting the 50 which the prescription was for, they could only give you 9 pills and you would have to come back every 3 days if you needed more. So let’s see. I can get all 50 of them for $140 now, if I don’t use insurance or get 9 at a time, every 3 days for 39 cents. This just does not make sense to me, but we took my 9 pills and left.

On the way home, I began to tell Frosty that I just couldn’t sleep last night. I was up half the night thinking about my new book that will be coming out soon! . I know it will include different trials that we go through along with great dessert recipes. Well, you know women, that made me think of the season which we went through the year. 2015 and Randys retirement. I had this thought that just won’t leave my mind. Why don’t people start out retiring? Think about this. Remember when you were first married and you couldn’t keep your hands off your new mate? You walked them to the door when they left for work in the mornings, after making anything they wanted for breakfast. During the day, I just couldn’t want until hubby walked in the door at 5, throwing my arms around his neck and smothering him with kisses before leading him to the dining table where his favorite meal would be waiting. I cried when he had to leave town for 2 days. Anything he wanted to watch, of course, I “wanted” to watch. It was important to learn all about the people at the office so I could feel like I was apart of his daily world when he was at work.  If I made his lunch, I put little love notes in the sack. We called back and forth during the day just to say hi and ask what was going on. He would call me on his way home every day and talk to me until the car pulled into the garage.

So my thoughts are this. Why not have retirement at the beginning of marriage when we are so in love we want to be with them 24/7? We wouldn’t mind them standing right in the middle of the kitchen blocking us from opening the dishwasher. We wouldn’t mind them falling asleep in the lazy boy as they are watching the 5th football game of the day. It would just give us more of a chance to wait on those precious young men that we couldn’t wait to attach their last names to our first name.

That way, they would be at home with us when we are needing help raising children. They would be around to take out the dirty diapers, take the kids for a walk so we could take naps, entertain the little darlings outside while we cooked dinner.

After the kids are grown, and we really are empty nesters; THEN send our hubbies to work. Why this might even cut down on office romances. I just bet that those cute little office girls wouldn’t be as quick to grab on to the “oldies with the hair growing out their ears. Their bellies that shakes now like a bowl full of jelly, just isn’t as appealing as the tight chested hunks that they use to be.   Did I mention that we would then have the house to ourselves. That because they worked all day, when they got home, they would be so tired that they wouldn’t even be able to stay awake to watch every football game, so we would still be able to watch  House Hunters or Castle. Am I the only one that this sounds like a great plan?   That instead of having to dodge the yellow tape that divides our house to keep us from killing each other during these “golden years”; I would be thrilled when he drove into the garage, knowing that he might be even to tired to think about wanting dinner and go straight to bed. Not having to share the remote or the recliner again tonight. And that would be true “golden years”.

Daily Thoughts

Behind Prison Walls

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Saturday I had the privilege  of going with a group of women to minister to the Crain Unit, Women’s Prison in Gatesville, TX.

There were about 25 of us and as we arrived, we went through the routine of normal checking in when entering as a visitor going into a prison. Because this was a Federal prison, the rules were a little more strict than when we had gone to a prison in East Texas. As we walked in, looking across the barbed wire topped fence encircling the acres of buildings and land, we saw huge trash collectors being poked with long metal poles to ensure that no inmates were hiding under the trash before taking it outside the walls. We were led by a guard to a building where we entered into the world of cages which were inside the concrete buildings, that would have only 1 door to enter or exit the corridor of the concrete building. Permission had to be granted before the ladies could leave the “cage” even to go to the restroom. We were expecting about 500 inmates to come hear our speakers and Bible teaching, but because 2 of the guards refused to come to our service, many of the inmates which had lined up, waiting outside their cells did not get to come. Our team walked around the chairs and shook hands and thanked the ladies for coming. Some already had tears in their eyes. One young lady was crying as she had just received a letter from her mother-in-law saying that she was working with an attorney to try to not allow the children to have any contact with her,their mom. Her heart was breaking. The conversations that we began to have with these ladies allowed us to see that sometimes, “there but by the grace of God, go I.” Yes bad actions and decisions had been made in their lives, and they were now living with the consequences of those decisions, which is how it should be.  But all of a sudden I began to think about some of my actions, though at this time in my life, have not been any that would land me in jail, but had actually placed me in a prison of my own making. It was such a message to my heart that how many times, had I allowed my circumstances to control my joy or my peace & was actually creating my own “prison wall” around my heart?  Just because I was not surrounded literally by a wall keeping me imprisoned, didn’t mean that I wasn’t living my life as such. But because of God’s grace and mercy, He is able to break any chain,  As the ladies from our team spoke, tears would begin to flow down some of the lady inmates’ cheeks. Some of the inmates would begin to clap and encourage each other. As we lined up to hand out a bit of literature, with the exception of only about 5 of the ladies, all the rest either hugged us, or shook our hands and thanked us over and over, telling us to please come back. Some of them commented saying “I can’t believe ya’ll drove all the way down just to see us.” It meant so much that we had spent a Saturday just to come see them. We saw women there that looked so hopeless and so forlorn, while others had a precious spirit about them. It was such a blessing to see what God had been allowed to do in the hearts of some of the women who had surrendered their hearts to the Lord and was allowing Him to shine His light through them in a very dark place. They truly were being a lighthouse for Him in the place where they were.

It really was a blessing to see so many women, held captive behind the barbed wire fence, the light of God shining through them. They had determined in their hearts that just because they were a prisoner didn’t mean that they had to live their life with no hope or peace.

We all left that afternoon, feeling so blessed that we had watched a group of women that loved the Lord and were determined to shine His light behind even a prison wall. God can and is still in the business of changed lives, if we just allow Him to do so!