Notes From A Broken Heart

  I met God one morning, my soul feeling bad Heart heavy laden, I had a bowed down head Well, He lifted all my burdens Yeah, right now I'm feeling glad All things are possible,   If you'll only believe." If only belief happened with the desire to believe! Rather, why is it easier for me to believe bad things  will ha ppen with clockwork precision?    I read Mark 11: 24 aloud today for what seems like the millionth time, but purposefully inserted "I" and "me" for the third person singular pronoun.  Then I read it again and again and still again.  Hmm. The lightbulb in my brain glared like a klieg light! I felt like Professor Higgins ( My Fair Lady) as he exulted about Eliza, the Cockney girl-protege, "She's got it! By God, she's got it!"  I declared, "I'll do it! I'll believe" I do believe!" And like my Evangelist friend advised years ago, "Say it! Say it! Say it! Until you see it! See it! See it!" Inwar

(The words of this prayer do not pertain to my birth family, who indeed brought my siblings and me up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  No, this prayer happened on my watch  with my nuclear and extended family, not in that of  Mother Velma and  Daddy Jimmie Taylor). "Merciful, Gracious, and Mighty Father God, for too many years my family and I have been ensnared and entangled in the cares of this world.  We did not know You, although we knew of You.  We neither knew Scripture nor how to pray Your Word.  Unwittingly, we carried a picture of You as the greatest magician ever.  We did not know You in the pardon of our sins, nor that when asked, You threw our sins into the sea of forgetfulness.  we lived in fear and thought we could bargain with You as if You were a vendor at the flea market. When we asked and did not receive the answer we wanted in the way we assumed we'd get it, we became disappointed, then disjointed, and finally angry at You.  We did not blame the real,

  Dear Mike and Mimi: When you called last week to tell me about this day, unbidden, these lyrics lifted from the recess of stored memory: "You're once, twice Three times a lady Yes, you're once, twice Three times a lady And I love you." Thus, when you asked me if as one of the sisters from Jamie's family and me from Jimmie's; I felt honored, Mike and Mimi.  My next response reflexively mirrored the sentiment that Lionel Richie and the Commodores memorialized. Jamesena Hall Taylor, ever known as "Jamie," gives as a lady  and gentlewoman,  for the two descriptors aren't mutually exclusive.  Rare, I acknowledge, when used to describe one person, as if we live in a bifurcated, "either-or" universe.  The prevailing wisdom seemed to mandate that you could be one,  not both.  Well, Jamie defied that axiom, for she walked and talked, lived and loved, laughed and cried as both and more.  Much more.  Jamie was also prim and precise.  Jimmie'