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 |    I will be adding stories & reflections as time marches on. Take a gander today! |
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Contest Entries: "The Contest Challenge"  Participant"I Write in 2018" Participant"I Write in 2019" Participant"I Write in 2020" Participant2021: Independent Writing 2122: "I Write: Enter the Second Decade" Participant2123: "Twenty-three in Eleven " ParticipantThis mixed collection contains fiction, non-fiction, prose, and poetry. Entries vary in length from very short to one that is over 3000 words. 53 entries written in 2018: ▼ 53 entries written in 2019: ▼ 43 entries written in 2020 ▼ 2 entries written in 2021 ▼ Entries written in 2022 ▼ NOTE: All Titles with ~ ~ are either non-fiction or based on a true story. |
~ Is This What The Future Holds? ~ In the Bible, in the book of James, it says: "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil." The bottom line is that we do not know what the future holds. This became painfully clear to me the year my mother died. In the last months of her life, she was living with my brother. He and I were estranged but she had let him know that it was important to her to stay in touch with me. I lived in Oklahoma and they were living in Georgia at that time. He had made a rule that I could talk to her on the phone while he was at work. We consistently followed his rule. It was December 23, 2014. Mommy and I were talking on the phone. I did not know what my brother's work schedule would be over the holidays so I decided this would be our last conversation for the year. I explained my decision to her. I did not want to upset my brother and risk losing the privilege of having regular phone conversations with my mother. I explained that since neither of us knew my brother's schedule for the next week, I would call her after the holidays. "After the holidays" would be after New Year's Day. I told Mommy, "I will talk to you next year!" I thought I was being clever but I was really being foolish. I did not know what the future held. I should have said, "Lord-willing, I will talk to you next year." My mother died on New Year's Eve. That phone conversation on December 23, 2014 would be not only our last conversation of the year, it was our last conversation this side of heaven. I have talked to her many times since then but it is no longer a two way conversation. These days, I am very mindful of the fact that I do not know what the future holds. Written for "Write An Essay About..." Prompt: Write an essay about what the future holds... Word Count: 405 Words ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
~Daddy's Tree~  He planted a twig. The tree grew wild and crazy. Daddy loved that tree. Click on the photo for: the rest of the story... ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
My number one goal as I enter the next chapter of my life is to regain the intimacy I've lost in my relationship with GOD. I hunger for that sense of intimacy I once had. I want to know God—to know Him as He knows me. Intimacy with God What is intimacy with God? The Bible tells us eternal life is knowing God and His Son Jesus Christ. How can we know Him? The Bible promises that we will find Him when we seek Him with our whole heart. Where do we start? Worship The psalmist said, "I will enter your gates with thanksgiving in my heart and come into your courts with praise." That's where we start. We worship Him by sincerely thanking Him for all He has done and praising Him for all that He is. A thankful heart—a heart filled with awe at the thought of God—is key to experiencing His Presence. Priority Is my relationship with God the most important thing in my life? Yes, it is. Do I always act like it is? No, sadly, other things crowd in. Life is full of distractions and there are times I feel too tired to do anything. If my relationship with God is not given priority, it can get lost in the shuffle we call life. Time Time, that's what life is, isn't it? It ticks by minute by minute, day by day, year by year. Before we know it, it's gone. One of the most important things we can give God is our time. For any relationship to flourish, we must invest our time in it—any relationship—even one with the Most High God. To know God, we must spend time with Him. Ask, Seek, Knock “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Worship, thanksgiving, priority, time, how do we give God what we need to give Him to have that intimacy we desire? We ask Him for it. He is the author and finisher of our faith. We can not do it in our own strength. Only He can do it for us. Our relationship with Him is a gift, a gift we can not earn but a gift we can receive. Ask. ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
| ~ Confidence Course ~ I am writing this for "HONORING OUR VETERANS " , a contest for stories or poems related to the military. My story is going to be one of my basic training memories.I entered the United States Air Force as a thirty year old woman. I tell a bit about it in an earlier entry: "~ Basic Training ~" .Today, I am going to share another tidbit: my experience with the Air Force "Confidence Course". As I prepared to write this entry, I found this: The original obstacle course, which was built in November 1942, was about a mile to a mile and a half long depending on what obstacles were open. Of the 14 obstacles, the two water obstacles would close seasonally affecting the course length.1 I could not remember how many total obstacles there were in the course and until reading this article, I did not know the two water obstacles were sometimes closed. They were open when I ran the course in 1982. They are the only two obstacles I clearly remember. They are ones I want to tell you about today. To graduate from Basic Training, we had to successfully complete this obstacle course. Passing meant making it through at least twelve of the fourteen challenges. The last two challenges of the day were our two "water challenges". As I approached the first water challenge, my body had already been pushed close to my limits. I stood on the edge of a small rectangular pool and the muscles in my legs were twitching from the exertions of the first twelve obstacles. Those twelve had taken everything I could muster but the good news was I had passed them all. The good news was that I had already passed the course. There were only two more obstacles and even if I failed them, I already had my 12/14. I stood on the side of the pool, legs trembling, and did NOT have confidence that I would be able to meet this first water challenge. The leaders were at the far end of this pool. They would swing a rope to me and I had to grab the rope and swing across to the other side. One problem: the rope did not reach all the way to my side. They would swing the rope to me and I would have to jump out and catch the rope in the air. If I missed, I would fall into the pool below and fail the challenge. If I managed to catch the rope, I had to quickly jump off on the other side. I did not expect to be able to catch the rope but I was wrong. I sprung through the air and successfully had that rope tightly grasped. I was half-way to success. One problem: I was so surprised, I neglected to jump off on the other side. I missed the one opportunity I had to successfully disembark and, as the rope and I swung back, I found myself hanging over the middle of the pool with no where to go but into the water: splash. One down and one to go. I walked through the sparkling clean water and climbed out on the other side. I was drenched. The only thing dry was the top of my head as I approached the final obstacle. I was confident I would easily pass this one—or so I thought. This last challenge was like a very long ladder that went over a dirty, slimy, nasty, yucky waterway. Our task was simply to go rung over rung to the other side. My grandfather had built us a swing set when I was young. The sides and top of the swing set were like ladders. I had gone rung to rung across that swing set many, many times. I was prepared for the piece-of-cake challenge. As we approached this obstacle, there was an airman standing there offering a towel to dry our hands with. Sadly, most of the flight had, like me, fallen into the crystal clear pool and, like me, they were drenched. There was only one towel. By the time it was my turn to dry my hand, the towel was dripping wet. The thought of trying to move rung to rung with wet hands was a bit disconcerting. Then I had an idea. The hair on the top of my head was dry. As I prepared to grab a rung and step off, I dried my palms the best I could by rubbing them on that bit of dry hair. Yay! It worked. I began easily moving forward. I got all the way to this center when I encountered an unexpected difficulty. The girl in front of me had STOPPED. I had no choice but to stop and wait for her. Everyone was yelling at her to move on or drop. Everybody but me. I was focusing on holding on for dear life but it seems that her ability to hold on was greater than mine. I made a decision to try and pass her. Unfortunately, the side rails were too big around for me to grasp and that led to another splash—into the dirty, slimy, nasty, yucky water. Suddenly, everyone was yelling at me—I was swimming in the wrong direction! When I got closer to the bank I realized my mistake and my flight was glad when I turned around. I actually think there was applause when I finally climbed up on the bank. I had dramatically failed the second water challenge but, thankfully, I had passed the Confidence Course. I didn't feel a burst of confidence though. All I felt was relief it was over.  Word Count: 966 words ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ Footnotes |
Jesus, be with me today. In this world, I will have tribulations But I can rejoice Because YOU have overcome This world. Let me be mindful of that today. Let me be mindful of YOU today. Jesus be with me today. Let me rest in Your peace. Let me rest in You. I will rest in You today. I will rest... Written for: "Shadows and Light Poetry Contest" Prompt: A Freestyle Poem on any subject. Line Count: 13 Lines ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
| ~ The Golden Years ~ Whoever said that these are our "Golden Years"? They certainly don't feel very golden to most of us. Old age has brought aches and pains galore. We get knees and hips replaced—shoulder surgery—cataract surgery. Are these golden? Many of us leak urine. Some of us leak stool. None of this fits in with my idea of "Golden Years". Who started this expression? Where did it come from? I turn to Google for answers and discover the phrase was first put forth to advertise Sun City! What is Sun City? "Sun City is an entire community dedicated to leisure and recreation for the active, retired adult." How many older adults get to stay active? Most of the folks around here either sit home alone or join us for cards and a hot meal at the Senior Center. What is the Senior Center? Well, it's the place where we are fighting lonely and wondering where the gold is as we wander into our sunset years... A golden sunset, perhaps, as we fight loneliness... Contest: "Invalid Item" Prompt: "We are fighting lonely." Word Count: 173 Words ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
| Haggai Jezebel in Kings Daniel Lions Den Joseph Esther Jeremiah 22 ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ |
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Have you seen this trinket:   John Wick invites you 2324582 created that trinket for me in 2018. She created a bunch of trinkets for that party—one for each suspect. Then, if I remember correctly, the trinkets were hidden throughout the site. Well, you know me:   I found all those trinkets!  She made one of my character as my prize for that significant accomplishment! The words inside were my suggestion. I stayed in character and referenced a comment made on one of the episodes of Murder She Wrote. The bolded words at the end can be recognized by any die-hard Murder She Wrote fan. (If you are reading this and recognize2 the words in bold at the end of the message inside that trinket, drop me a line and I will toss some gift points your way...) Anyways, all those trinkets John Wick invites you 2324582 created in 2018 are visible in my item: "Jessica Fletcher (a.k.a. ruwth)" . They are visible but I don't think they are collectible there and I am not sure if they can still be found hidden around WdC. If you find out, please let me know and I will update this entry.Now on to tell you more about me and the Masquerade Parties over the years... My first experience was in 2013: "Wdc 13th Birthday Masquerade Ball" . I had not yet created this image of my character and I had no signature. I did have fun though. In fact, that first year, I killed someone.You can read about it here: "  No longer a party. A guest is dead!" .I don't think I asked John Wick invites you 2324582's permission ahead of time. I did ask Jeffrey Maine if it was okay if I killed him off in my narrative. Not sure why I decided I wanted to do it, I just got really caught up in the mystery. I chose Paul Bunyon (a.k.a. Jeffrey Maine) because he had totally stopped participating in the activity. I think " No longer a party. A guest is dead!" might be the most creative thing I wrote for any of the parties I attended. I sat out the next few parties and then decided to come back to "Wdc 18th Birthday Masquerade Party" in a big way: I created this image: Initially, the image had a border at the bottom that said something like "Jessica is attending the 18th Masquerade Party". When I decided to join folks at "Wdc 19th Birthday Masquerade Party" , I edited that part out of the image. Now, the image works for any of the Masquerade Parties. During the party, clicking on the Jessica Fletcher image will take you to the current party. Now that the party is over for the year, clicking on the image takes you to "Jessica Fletcher (a.k.a. ruwth)" .In 2019 I created a popnote list for folks to use:  What's This Popnote List? from Wdc 19th Birthday Masquerade Party . I actually created it for me to use and shared it with everyone. I have done something like this a few times. In 2013, it was just the suspect list: "Jessica takes a second look at her invitation..." . These two listed all party participants: Jessica finally arrives... from Wdc 20th Birthday Masquerade Party! and  Jessica gets prepared for sleuthing... from Wdc 22nd Birthday Masquerade Party In 2020, I struggled to participate because of having to work during the party. My best post from 2020 was probably my sum-up post: " Jessica reviews her notes..." . I actually created this post to try and help me (a.k.a. Jessica Fletcher) solve the mystery. It didn't work but I was impressed with my summation. I liked it enough that I tried to do it this year—and failed! At least I did not fail as badly as I did last year. "Re: Some Delicate Detective Work" was my ONLY post for the WdC 21st Birthday Masquerade Party.  My lack of participation last year had prompted me to plan to take time off work this year. I had intended to at least take the first week of September off but I did not get to do that because of the mess with my license and my lack of work in July. I did my best to post this year but a horrible thing happened... Actually, it wasn't a horrible thing. It was a wonderful thing but it had a disastrous affect on my own participation. The guest were writing, writing, writing—storylines galore. I could not keep up with the suspects much less everyone else! Then I made my most serious mistake: I thought the party lasted THREE WEEKS. I was planning on coming back after my nights working and catch up on my reading and interacting. I came back and discovered "Congratulations!" by John Wick invites you 2324582  . Brooke was announcing the winner—and it wasn't me.  What did I do? I (Jessica) called Seth: "Jessica missed the end of the party this year..." and then closed with "Re: just wait til next year..." .What am I doing now? Well, I am waiting for next year's party. Hopefully, I will have more time and energy next year. I also need to ramp up my creativity if I am to keep up with the clever folks who write, write, write with such amazing imaginations! For the moment, I have moved on to "I Write: Enter the Second Decade" . I needed to have two green entries. This entry might be a bit odd but it was all I could muster right now.If you are my "I Write" reviewer, I have sympathy for you. You can see how Sum1's At Home! handled reviewing a similar entry: Review of "ruwth is writing..."  . If you visit the many links, let me know—that would definitely earn you a merit badge! ~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~ Footnotes |
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