Still Waters Cowboy Church celebrates one year anniversary

Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

I am reading a book by Robin Norwood that came out in 1985 and was #1 on the New York Times best seller list.  Here are some excerpts from the book that I found to be especially insightful when dealing with the subjects of addictions, depression, and codependency.


“Loving too much does not mean loving too many men, or falling in love too often, or having too great a depth of genuine love for another.  It means, in truth, obsessing about a man and calling that obsession love, allowing it to control your emotions and much of your behavior, realizing that it negatively influences your health and well-being, and yet finding yourself unable to let go.  It means measuring the degree of your love by the depth of your torment.”

Listening to that 'lil voice ....

This post is from a very special friend of mine by the name of Shon Belcher who gave me permission to share this:


I have learned that if you ever ignore God...you will regret it! I always follow his commands via "that lil voice in my head"...but one time I did not..I can't remember much about all the good I have done by obeying him and listening to the "lil voice"...but I can remember the one time that I did not listen to the lil voice...and it eats me up when I think about it...trust in GOD...even if you do not understand it!

Ohh.those of you who want to know what I did not do....God put it on me to give a family $100...a family that I did not know...the thought just flew in my mind and I was wondering where that came from...then he gave me opporunity by putting them along my path two times (right in front of my face they stood)....then my Nanny mentioned that family out of the blue during the same week because we were talking about how people have changed and she was talking about how there are a lot of good people in the world still...she went on to describe a time long ago when they had helped her when she had car troubles...and I still didnt do it...why not??? I was scared that I would offend them by presuming that they needed help.

You see, I dont like help...I am a private person..and I thought they would be offened if I showed up and said...hey here is $100 I thought you needed it...cause they were not well off...how stupid of me...this happened about 8 years ago...and it bothers me that I was selfish and did not listen to God...I have not made the same mistake again!

The day before my Nanny passed last month...the Lord put it on me to go see her NOW!!! I was at work an hour away...with no leave time...and he keep telling me to leave NOW!! Man, I tried tried to fight it by saying that I could go after work...but he shut me down and would not allow me to think of anything but her...and I went to her as he commanded. That night she fell asleep and never woke up again. I got to spend the whole day before with her and when I showed up she said "Oh thank God you are here". (Okay, that makes me cry) She needed me for comfort...I needed her for the same. I got to talk with her and get another kiss....had I ignored that voice I would of missed all that....PRAISE GOD I listened!!!

I just wanted to share that...God has forgiven me for not obeying him...and he knows that I will not make that mistake again!!! God will not forsake us or lead us into danger if we just trust him...just trust him!!!! ~That was hard to admit and hard to share because I really dont want to...but God put it on me to do so~ Guess you needed to hear it. It may be a "little voice" but it comes from a BIG GOD!

Shon Belcher

Thank you Lord for the strength to share that...I know you have a reason! Please be with all those reading this and keep them safe and well...Amen

Life is too short ....

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Love the ones who don't just because you can.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.
If it changes your life, let it.
God never said life would be easy.
He just promised it would be worth it.

Reflections on Online Learning

The course I am about to complete this week, Instructional Technology, we were required to create and design an online course using a program called Schoology.  The design concept that we learned to use was called "backward design" where basically you "begin with the end in mind".  You start with determining the needs of your student, then focus on the standard or goal you want to achieve.  Next, you state what you want your desired results to be or what enduring understandings you want students to gain, and then you focus on how you will determine that there is evidence of their understanding. Lastly, you begin to develop the learning activities and teaching that will promote student understanding, interest, and excellence.

One of the major benefits that I see in knowing how to design and implement online learning is that “research shows that online learning provides the interactive, collaborative and self-paced learning environments where students can gain the skills needed to succeed.” (Watson, 2007) Online learning offers a new way to reach students who may not be successful in traditional schools or courses. This type of education offers students increased opportunities, flexibility, and convenience. Schools that are in poorer or rural districts often find it difficult to recruit highly qualified teachers and online courses could provide the answers to these challenges. Online courses also allow school districts to offer courses that might not otherwise be available or courses that meet specific needs, such as Advanced Placement, accelerated learning, or homebound students. Providing professional development opportunities through online learning to educators is an effective way to encourage and facilitate self-directed learning, and technology literacy skills that will ultimately impact student learning.

Professionally, I see myself using the course that I designed to assist the students in the retention program where I work. Many of them are economically disadvantaged or are first generation college students. A few are older or non-traditional students who have not had the benefits of using technology. The course I designed is entitled “Building Collaboration Skills using Web 2.0 Tools” and this is a subject that would be very beneficial to college students. They are often faced with challenges in working in groups and using technology to collaborate with their classmates could help them get better grades. Many of our students do not have computers so they need to be able to effectively communicate with their instructors and classmates and store their documents online. Using Web 2.0 tools will also help them practice their reading and writing skills which will enable them to be successful in their academic courses.

I have plans to integrate online learning in my role as an academic advisor. I can envision using it to offer training to students in the areas of financial literacy, career exploration, job search, or study skills. Students need to understand these life skills in order to be successful in college and beyond when they get ready to look for employment or enter the workplace. Students would benefit from having an orientation that outlines the services we provide as they are enrolled into the program. An online course also could be created to offer cross-training of program staff or professional development to other academic advisors. University policies and procedures, FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) training, special populations, as well as advising techniques would be good topics to ensure that staff is knowledgeable when working with students. Having a good understanding of university procedures and the resources available is vitally important to the students who trust us to guide them through their academic career.

I think my biggest question about online learning is how it will change the way education looks in the future. Watson states that one major change will be “Greater use of Internet technology in the classroom, and a blended model of online learning. More teachers will use Internet resources and course management systems for their traditional classroom classes, following the path of post-secondary institutions.” (Watson, 2007) It appears that secondary education will be more like college which could alleviate some of difficulties that many students have in transitioning to college life. Another question I have concerns the potential isolation and lack of socialization of students who are not interacting with peers in a traditional classroom. With the increasing use of technology for communication (email, web conferencing, text, voice, and video chats), students may find there is a lack of extracurricular activities that enrich their experiences beyond the learning that takes place in the classroom.

What I intend to do with this new learning is to use it as another medium to reach and educate the students in our program. Online learning is an exciting tool that can be used to assist in reaching our goals of retaining students until graduation, and helping them achieve success in the workplace. Most of the students in our program have some type of learning barrier and I feel that it is important that we vary our teaching methods to ensure that students experience many opportunities to gain new skills in the way that they learn best. This belief coincides with Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning which states that “people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone”. (Mayer, 2010) Designing online courses that are intended to meet the needs of students will enable us to help them set achievable goals, to measure their levels of understanding, and to accomplish the overall mission and goal of our program.
Watson, J. (207). A national primer on k-12 online learning. North American Council for Online Learaning. Retrieved May 10th, 2010 from http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/national_report.pdf


Learning Theories Knowledge Base (2010, March). At Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved April 15, 2010 from http://www.learning-theories.com

For All You've Done

by Clint Lagerberg
Oh cleanser of the mess I've made
Upon the hill our places trade
Stretched on a cross Your body crushed
By human hands You formed from dust

Chorus
How wonderful Your mercy is
How awesome are Your ways
I come, I come
To worship You
For all You've done

Oh cleanser of the mess I've made
Your boundless love for me portrayed
With patience for my learning curve
By holding back what I deserve

Chorus
How wonderful Your mercy is
How awesome are Your ways
I come, I come
To worship You
For all You've done

Oh cleanser of the mess I've made
With everything at Your feet laid
I watch as all my cares erode
And from my soul these words explode

How wonderful Your mercy is
How awesome are Your ways
I come, I come
To worship You
For all You've done

Bella's puppies

We went to Teague this past weekend to celebrate Jack’s dad’s 80th birthday. It was quite a reception with probably over 150 people in attendance. Lawren drove to Matt and Shelbea’s on Friday night to stay with them and drive over to the birthday party in Teague.

One of the reasons she wanted to go see Matt and Shelbea is because the dog that she adopted from Wal-Mart, Bella, had puppies. Lawren brought Bella home from Wal-Mart where she had been with Catie Snow. Bella is a border collie / lab mix and has a precious personality. I immediately said “No, we can’t keep her, but Lawren’s dad, being the softy that he is, agreed to let her stay. Well, when Bella outgrew her ability to stay indoors and then spent her days tearing up anything and everything that wasn’t nailed down in the back yard, we finally had to put our foot down and say “This dog has got to go!”

So, when Matt and Shelbea were down they agreed that Bella could come and enjoy the country life with them. Lawren had taken Bella in her car to Carthage to live and was really sad about having to leave her. She even said “If something happens to her, don’t even bother to tell me” because she couldn't bear the thought. Matt made the statement when she arrived that it wouldn’t be long before they would be having a litter of pups, since Matt has two other dogs that live on his place.

Well, sure enough, the week before the birthday party, we get a call saying that Bella has indeed had puppies. Nine of them! But only five lived. So when Lawren made the trip this past weekend to Matt and Shelbea’s, she was anxious to see Bella’s pups. Now, Bella had dug a deep hole in the barn and the pups were way back in the hole, so when Eli took Lawren out to see them, she couldn’t get a peek at them. But lo and behold! Here comes Bella who crawls into the hole and scootches (is that a word?) way back in the hole and pushes the puppies out to the front of the hole so Lawren can see them. She looks up at Lawren like, “See what I did? Didn’t I do good?” Lawren said she had tears in her eyes because she was so happy. Don’t let anyone tell you that animals cannot communicate. A picture is worth a thousand words!

Googlios: A 21st - Century Approach to Teaching, Learning, & Assessment

The importance of family connectedness

Here is an excerpt from a book I am reading called "The Dance of Intimacy" by Harriet G. Lerner, Ph.D. I have found the book to be very enlightening and helpful in my journey toward improving my levels of "connectedness".

“The ability to stay responsibly connected to family members, and to define a solid self in this arena, helps us to bring a more solid self to other intimate relationships. When family relationships have been especially painful and when there are cutoffs in the previous generations, maintaining connectedness is not easy. But distance or cutoff from family members is always a trade-off. The plus is that we avoid the strong uncomfortable feelings that contact with certain family members inevitably evokes. The costs are less tangible but no less dear. Family connectedness, even when these relationships are anxious and difficult, is a necessary prerequisite to conducting one’s own intimate relationships free from serious symptoms over time and free from excessive anxiety and reactivity. The more we manage intensity by cutting off from members of our own kinship group (extended family included), the more we bring that intensity into other relationships, especially into those with children, if we have them. In some situations it can take years to figure out how to reconnect with a particular family member, but if we can slowly move in this direction rather than in the direction of more cutoff, there are benefits to the self and the generations to come.” (Learner, 1989) p.98
Learner, H.G., & (1989). The Dance of intimacy. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

The importance of attitude by Chuck Swindoll

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill ... The remarkable thing is you have a choice every day regarding the attitude you will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.  (Amen!) And so it is with you. You are in charge of your attitude."

Chuck Swindoll

I'm Speechless by Avalon

Some can write a sonnet to describe the silvery words
The rising and the setting of the sun
Some can paint a picture in shades of vibrant color
It almost looks like heaven when they’re done

Lord when I try to speak from my heart
I don’t know where to start

When it comes to You I’m speechless
Nothing holds a candle to the wonder of Your love
I’m amazed by Your grace, Your forgiving embrace
And I’m finding words could never be enough
I’m speechless

I’ve tried to write the song
I’ve searched my heart for phrases
But they only catch a glimpse of all You are
If I lived a thousand lifetimes
I’d never come close to saying
Enough about the hope that I found in Your arms

Cause when I try to speak from my heart
I don’t know where to start

When it comes to You I’m speechless
Nothing holds a candle to the wonder of Your love
I’m amazed by Your grace, Your forgiving embrace
And I’m finding words could never be enough
I’m speechless

And when I see the setting of the sun
I can’t find the words, there’ll never be enough
I’m speechless, speechless at the wonders of Your love

When it comes to You I’m speechless
Nothing holds a candle to the wonder of Your love
I’m amazed by Your grace, Your forgiving embrace
And I’m finding words could never be enough
I’m speechless

When it comes to You, I’m speechless
Nothing, no one, compares to Your love
I’m amazed by Your grace, Your forgiving embrace
Ooh, I’m finding words could never be enough
I’m finding words could never be enough
I’m speechless, I’m speechless

CDBC Dedication Video

Before the Morning by Josh Wilson

Do you wonder why you have to
Feel the things that hurt you
If there’s a God who loves you where is He now

Maybe there are things you can’t see
And all those things are happening
To bring a better ending

Someday somehow you’ll see you’ll see

Would you dare would you dare to believe
That you still have a reason to sing
Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling
It can’t compare to the joy that’s coming
So hold on you gotta wait for the light
Press on and just fight the good fight
Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling
It’s just the dark before the morning

My friend you know how this all ends
You know where you’re going
You just don’t know how you’ll get there
So say a prayer

And hold on cause there’s good for those who love God
But life is not a snapshot
It might take a little time but you’ll see the bigger picture

Once you feel the weight of glory
All your pain will fade to memory

It’s just the hurt before the healing
Oh the pain that you’ve been feeling
It’s just the dark before the morning

Lord I'm Amazed by You ...

YOU ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS ... I know I still can't! This is just further proof that God has a purpose in everything that happens in our lives. I was totally blown away today by God's goodness in my life.

The story begins the day, with the help of our family, we cleaned out our house from the flood. Everyone was throwing things away that were soaked by the flood waters or that could not be salvaged. I remember our son Andy looking at me with a metal box and saying "This looks like some keepsakes but all these letters are ruined anyway, you want to keep it?" And I specifically recall saying, "No, throw it out."

Later, as I looked at the huge pile of furniture and household belongings on our front lawn, I remember thinking, I hope that wasn't our love letters from before we married that we threw out in the pile. I could not bear to think of them being so exposed to the world, even if the ink on each page was smeared beyond recognition. Well, as we sorted through the items that were salvaged over the next few months and after finally moving into our new house, I still kept thinking ... "God, you know what happened to those love letters and if you wanted to, you could keep them safe and return them to me one day." I prayed that the "one day" would come but it never did and I eventually lost all hope.

Now, I used to keep lots of prayer journals and Bible study journals and saved everything I had written over the years. Often I wondered what my children would think if I died and they were to read the personal things I had written. But I could never bear to part with them. When the flood came, God took care of most of it for me. Most of what I had written was destroyed. I did keep a journal during Hurricane Rita and took it with me when we evacuated for Hurricane Ike and read it along the way and was reminded of God's goodness in our lives after Rita. I remember thinking, it will never be like that this time. Little did I know that we would end up losing our home, church, everything and have to start all over again.

Then after the fire, I started my blog and started writing again. I found it to be very "theraputic" for me during one of the lowest points in my life. It was as if I thought, this is somewhere safe to put my thoughts where no flood or fire can touch them. I realized over time that losing the things I had recorded and written and the family pictures that meant so much to me, felt like losing a part of myself. I even wrote about this very subject a couple of weeks ago on my blog on March 23 in a post entitled "Accept the Good".

Over the past few months I have been seeking to reconnect with my extended family and you will never believe what happened. I was able to visit by phone with my aunt and one of my cousins this past week. My cousin asked me about a Bible that belonged to our grandmother that she thought that I had. I told her that I did not remember having it but my memory is not that good and with the flood and the fire, I really had no idea if the Bible had been destroyed or not. But I agreed that I would look for it.

So after looking everywhere last night here at the house, I asked Jack to take me over to the storage buildings that are at the old house and we start looking through boxes for the Bible. We didn't find the Bible, but I did find a box full of pictures and said "Let's take that back home with us." When we got home I started rummaging through the pictures, and was SO SURPRISED to find every letter that I had written to Jack before we married !!! I did not find the ones he wrote to me, they must have been in the box that Andy threw away. But, it was very significant to me that the letters God returned to me were the very letters that I (capital I!) had written. For me, it was like finding a piece of myself that had been lost.

Besides the letters, I also found a framed 8x10 of our wedding picture and newspaper clippings from 1945 - 1946 of my parent's wedding announcement and an account of when my dad was wounded in Germany during WWII !!

I cannot begin to tell you how good it felt and the tears came pouring! No one, not even Jack can understand just how much it meant to me. Of course I sat down and read every one. God is so awesome!

And then the way it all happened and God's timing is so perfect too! The letters were there all along, but God knew that I needed to work through some things and He needed to prepare my heart so that He could remind me of just how much He really loves me. He really does want to give us the desires of our heart, but He first wants us to desire Him above all. Psalm 37:4 says "Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Isn't God good !!!

As the song goes ... Lord I'm amazed by You and how you love me.

More Like Fallin' in Love by Jason Gray

Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

Give me words
I'll misuse them
Obligations
I'll misplace them
'Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It's gotta be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

...It's like I'm falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me