Fry Count vs. A Life That Counts

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

You know your marriage is strong when one of you gets home with the drive-thru order and the fries are missing but you still stay together. I’m not saying no one checks for fry-breath or anything, but still.

Sometimes you have to look at what counts. Because there are a couple of burgers left in there, right? No wait. What I mean to say is…healthy marriage. Important. That.

Mount Up with Wings as Horseflies?

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Unbelievable. First of all, it was the biggest horsefly-looking thing I’d ever seen. Was it a bird? A pterodactyl maybe? More horse than fly, really. I think I could’ve saddled it. We’re talking about a horrifyingly large horsefly here. 

Walking Through the Storms of Life

by Edie Melson @EdieMelson

Nothing can ruffle our feathers like a storm. And some seasons of life bring a series of storms. With all that’s going on around us with Covid19, we’re in the middle of a big one. 

However storms don’t have to be hurricane size to be exhausting. Sometimes it’s the tiny, ongoing circumstances that sap us the most. Like single drops of water in series have the ability to wear away solid rock, so these recurring events deplete our energy and—in the process—draw our focus away from God. 

Qualities vs. Symptoms

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think I have some very unique and useful character qualities. Granted, most better psychoanalysts might not refer to them as “character qualities” as much as they refer to them as “symptoms,” but still.  

I think writers acquire an exclusive symptom or two…make that a “quality” or two…that others don’t necessarily encounter. Maybe it’s the inordinate amount of rejection we’re called to deal with, but insecurity is so often the order of the day. Not to mention that when fiction writers hear new little voices in their heads, they never medicate. No, they actually encourage the little voices. And then publish them. 

Now That’s Alarming

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

I keep trying to find a friendly-sounding alarm clock. Do you have one of those alarms that shrieks at the decibel level of a tornado siren? The alarm goes off, you jolt up in a panic, heart pounding, barely catching yourself before you sprint to the nearest storm shelter. Ever find those fingernail marks in the ceiling over your bed? And my alarm doesn’t blast and then stop. No, it just keeps on shrieking. Smashing it with a fist does nothing—except cause major fist pain. Throwing it across the room doesn’t faze it. Stomping on it doesn’t do much either. Maybe you can guess why I never keep a sledgehammer beside my bed. Or C-4.

Unselfish Love—the Beat Goes On

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Now that all my children are adults, I can tell you that raising the five of them was very often like a game of full-contact musical chairs. Without the chairs.

            

It wasn’t so much about the wrestling—though believe me, there was plenty of that. But it was more about the music. Always even more of that. All three of my sons are in music ministries now and the two daughters are musical too. 

Don’t I Wish—Thoughts on more PRESENCE not Presents

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Ah, Christmas shopping. When you can find yourself completely enveloped in the smell of evergreen. And sometimes pepper spray.

Persona Non Au Gratin

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Do you know how glorious it is to speak at an event that’s directed by a thoughtful and gracious event coordinator? Near-heaven. Chauffeured about, fed the best meals from the finest restaurants, then transported to a posh hotel with a gorgeous gift basket already waiting. Mint-on-the-pillow kind of stuff. Oh how I like being treated like a queen. No one knows better than I do that I don’t deserve it. But I still like it.  

Less Burden—More Joy

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Coffee and donuts. They go together like love and marriage. Someday I’d like to write a poem and I’d like to start it with the line, “Coffee and donuts, sittin’ in a tree.” I’m not sure where to go from there. I get that far and all I know is that I want to be in that tree.

I confess I’ve had a few too many donuts. Sad to say, the bough on that tree would be bending pretty low about now. That’s why I decided to go on yet another diet recently. Also sad to say, I’ve already fallen off the wagon.

A book Launch & a New Facebook Live Study

by Edie Melson @EdieMelson

Many of you have heard that I have a new book coming out. It's my first experience collaborating with another author and it's been so much fun! The book is unRuffled, Thriving in Chaos. I had the honor and pleasure of writing it with the amazing Rhonda Rhea for Bold Vision Books.

Verti-coming and Verti-going

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Have you ever had one of those world-tipping inner ear things? It’s about the worst kind of imbalance. It started small when it happened to me. My body kept trying to lean to one side. I felt like any minute somebody might come up behind me and try to stick a couple of sugar packets under my left foot. 

Then, as inner-ear malfunctions are wont to do, the thing accelerated and suddenly the world was very…how can I describe it? Very “Star Ship Enterprise.” The kind of Enterprise where some space anomaly has the ship flailing back and forth. I felt fine as long as I was lying down. But it was a busy season. I’d been meeting myself coming and going and lying down made me remember everything I needed to do.

Scratching Where It Itches

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

I confess I don’t have the greenest thumb on the block. As a matter of fact, I was thinking it might be easier to just give up on all other greenery and grow a poison ivy garden instead. Except that at this point I’d have to start from scratch. 

Scratch? Get it? Anyway, I decided it would probably be better not do anything that “rash.”

No Other Name

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

I said I’d never do it. But I did it. And actually, I’ve been somewhere near the worst of them all. I said I’d never be one of those moms who went through the whole list of her kids’ names before hitting on the right one. But at least once a week the entire time my kids were growing up, I would want to say something to one of them and…there it was: roll call. I’d hit every name on my five-kid list, and sometimes even throw in a couple of my own siblings and a stray cousin or two. 

Teach a Mom to List

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Teach a man to fish, it’s all good. But teach a kid a card trick and be prepared to watch it nonstop for like 12 years. 

“Is this your card?”—‘til college.

Understand, you have to make time for that. It’s one of the reasons schedule-juggling is trickier with kids. I’m not a structured person by nature, so in those years of raising mine, to-do lists became my friends. And enemies.

Awash in Grace

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

You can tell a lot about people by the way they do their laundry. I have friends who have certain days they designate as “laundry days.” I confess, I’m probably much more impressed by that than any grown woman should be. My laundry days? They usually happen on whatever days I realize I have to make a choice:  I have to wash a load, or I have to be one of those people who goes to Walmart in pajama pants.

Cut and Dry

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

I confess, I’ve done a bad thing. Logic warned me not to do it, but I did it anyway. I cut my own bangs. Every time I take the scissors into my own hands, I promise myself I’ll never do it again. That’s because I never fail to end up looking at little like Spock, minus the ears. And yet this is definitely no way to live long and prosper.

When am I going to get it? I’m just not a skilled bang-cutter. When I try, I’m operating miles outside my area of expertise. 

Bank on It

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

It’s getting embarrassing. I am embarrassingly dependent on my debit card. 

One day not too long ago I couldn’t find it. I looked everywhere all afternoon. Even by the next morning, still no trace. I searched high and low, near and far. I even searched under the sofa cushions. I have to be desperate to do that because it’s scary under there. I found 37 cents, three marbles, a T shirt (how had we ignored that lump?), seven M&M’s, a screwdriver, my favorite sunglasses, and the TV remote (hey, we’d been looking for that thing). But no card.

Judgment Call

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Distances, depths—I confess it, I just can’t judge them. I think I go a little mental. Judge-mental, maybe? There’s a shelf in the deepest part of our garage. I know the car is in far enough when the WD40 crashes onto the hood. That’s when I think, “Okay. Perfect.”

Of course, “perfect” to me looks more like hail damage to my husband.

God Is in Control Even When Life Feels Sketchy—Or Etch-a-Sketchy

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

I was working on a book in a wild fury. My fingers had been flying across the keyboard for the better part of an afternoon. I was in the zone, man. The. Zone. Which was great since the deadline was inching nearer. I say inching. More like barreling. Like a locomotive.

If we’ve met, you know that procrastination is how I roll. Or inch. Or loco…mote? Heavy on the loco. I lean into that panic-driven rush of adrenaline. I’m pretty sure I do my best writing when I’m just this side of hyperventilation.

Finishing Well - And the Gravity of the Situation

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

There are several reasons I’ll never skydive. I’ll give you my top two. First, I’ve seen videos of people skydiving. Skydiver’s faces? They…flutter.Sometimes wildly. I’m telling you now, I do not need to see my face crazy-flapping over my ears, thank you. That kind of wind velocity is just not meant for faces over 40. You can end up looking like a basset hound pup. One with its head out a car window. Multiplied by how ever many years you are over 40.

I’m not daring enough to sass the math. Gravity plus wind velocity times the number of years over 40. It’s an equation that equals: ew.