Even heroes need naps.🐝😴🥰

After my first husband passed away in 2006, finances were very tight. Once a month, when we received a financial assistance check, we would drive to town for basic groceries and I would treat our 6 year old with a kids meal and play time at local fast food restaurant. I would watch and just talk with him. There were days when he would give me his fries because he knew I was hungry and we couldn’t afford for both of us to order food. Or the afternoons when I would make him a sandwich and take a bite… again I made sure he had enough to eat. He would laugh and say “Mommy takes a bite so I know its made with love”. This is my child who has held my hand as we would cry in grief, would say he didn’t want big toys for Christmas/birthday and celebrated with me when I graduated from nursing school-knowing it was for his benefit. As he turned 18 this year, I get teary knowing how his life was harder than it will be for his brothers who have been born since I remarried. I cry knowing he remembers the month of 1 packet of rice, 1 can of veggies, and 1 4 oz pork chop diced up, was dinner for the 2 of us-for 2 nights. He jokes with me, each winter we no longer get our gas turned off, about no more keeping the house warm with the oven or placing blankets in front of the doors and windows, or boiling his bath water.

Last year the both of us had the opportunity to spread his Dad’s ashes in a state away from our own. The sight of my tall, handsome young man spreading his dad’s ashes with his bare hands, spreading them in water, on trees and along the ground and talking to his dad the whole time, dropped me to my knees. I can not tell you how much this young man means to me, knowing how strong he is and what a survivor he has had to be.

~Kris K.

UNTIL THESE TEARS ARE GONE
(ft. Harvest) - Young Oceans

Gm frens. Have a beautiful day. <3

“In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.”

~W. H. Auden

Andrew Wyeth - Artist

Hissing baby seal was so mad at this guy for rescuing him — watch him go to “fish school” and get big enough to go back to the wild 💙😍

‘When you love an ancient soul’
There is a special kind of person in this world who is often misunderstood. These people tend to be the loners, the free spirits, the innocent lovers. They see the world for all they can – and should be – although the world rarely sees them.
They are the old souls, the dreamers, the people in tune with life, so intuitive of emotions that they frighten us. They frighten us not because of who they are, but because of who we are not, what we lack.
Ancient souls reach depths we cannot understand. They have a connection with God, with the Universe, with Nature, and that's why they are the people who will change the world.
We often feel inferior, as if we have to strive to stay remotely close to their level, to be worthy of their love.
It takes a confident person to love an old soul. But it's worth it. It will change your life.
They are romantic, they are loyal, they help us grow, they are not materialistic, they understand the deep connections in life, they are grateful, they are examples of bravery.
They walk the most painful roads of this life, and yet somehow they find the courage to smile, often selfless. Supporting others.
Loving an old soul and being loved by one is a gift from the Universe!

~Luiza Fletcher

Art: Painting by Jan van Eyck

THE RICH FAMILY IN OUR CHURCH
I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was like to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.
A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.
That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in our church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.
The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet, but we sat in church proudly, despite how we looked. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.
When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!
Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, but instead, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.
We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter Day I found out we were poor. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.

I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.
We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor.
We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?"
We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering plate. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."
Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary just said so?
From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

~Eddie Ogan

1 Thessalonians 5:18 "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

❤️June is strawberry season!

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