Where Are the Scriptures?

It is (I hope) obvious that I’m a believer and, specifically, a Christian.  So why don’t I seed my blog posts with Bible verses?

  • Not everyone on earth is a believer, and I want to talk to everyone who will listen, not just to those who believe.  I think I have a better chance of gaining—not to mention holding—the attention of non-believers if I don’t beat them about the head with my religious views. 
  • Even among believers, a thicket of Biblical quotes is sometimes an eye-glazer.  Not the effect I’m going for.
  • Although—or, perhaps, because—I’m the granddaughter of a fire-and-brimstone preacher and a graduate of a Christian high school where Bible was a mandatory daily course, I can’t remember book/chapter/verse citations—or any citation—to save my soul.  If it weren’t for Google, I couldn’t write this blog at all.  I constantly have to look up sources.
  • Personally, I’ve never responded particularly well to “Thou Shouldst’s”.  People who want me to do something are much more likely to get what they want from me if they tell me—honestly and directly—why they want it and if their “why” makes sense to me.  I assume I’m not unique.  I assume other people would rather hear how a certain behavior or mindset might benefit them than hear that they’re going to hell if they don’t do or believe what I say or quote.

But since my favorite book of all time is Proverbs, I imagine I will sneak a verse in here and there along the way.

Image courtesy of VitalMinistries.org

Y’all okay with this approach?

In faith, hope & love,

Debo

} Date Posted: 10 months ago

Nice to Meet You

My name is Deborah Katherine Lovett, Debo for short.  I’m a wife, mother, and grandmother, and I live with my husband and our two Jack Russells.

We all have a story, and I’m no different.  This is what my life looks like now.

Or at least this is what it looked like in July 2002 when my family sat for this portrait.  The story behind this particular photograph, though, is about as grim as stories get without everybody actually dying.  And the road from 2002 to 2012 has continued to have its ups and downs—including one particularly precipitous cliff and one truly glorious mountaintop—but we still look like this.  Two kids have ditched their orthodontia, my youngest son is taller, and I have more grey hair and more padding but we all look pretty much the same.  My husband looks exactly the same eleven years later which, as all women know, is most unfair.

The moral of my story is that no matter where you start, even if it’s in one of Dante’s Circles of Hell, faith, hope, and love—and forgiveness, grace, grit, honesty, humor, sacrifice, and service—will yield a life abounding in…more of the same.

In faith, hope & love,

Debo

} Date Posted: 11 months ago