One-word Challenge | ETERNALLY PLANTED

Copyright Barry Hatch All rights reserved — Copyright Barry Hatch
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Memories are powerful things. My mother-in-love demanded that we not use our chosen girl’s name because of bad memories of a childhood not-friend. (Good thing we had a boy!) I refuse to even consider trying liver because of the clear memory of my stepmother trying to make me eat it as a kid. (Good thing Mother showed up!) Depending on their nature, memories can either hold us prisoner or free us – and they can be triggered by the simplest things.

The above photo took me instantly back to the best place on earth, my grandparents’ house on a country road halfway between Teague and Mexia (Texas). Granny always had this very plant and the hummingbirds that frequented it were her delight – mine too. In truth, I can hardly think about hummingbirds without thinking of her.

Memories of Granny lead me through rows of clean sheets hanging on the lines, past her in her sunbonnet picking peas, on to Grandaddy striding across the pasture with a faithful dog at his side. Then the dogs come out of memory’s hiding places. First there’s Shep, who I’m sure was named after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s dog; he was old, deaf, mostly blind, but such a lover. Then there come other dogs, not as distinct, until you get to Bouncer. Grandaddy considered naming him Battle Ax; thank God he listed to reason and accepted that any dog inclined to bounce on and off the porch like this one deserved only one name.

Bouncer is the last dog I remember. Grandaddy passed away and later, the very day I finished a leather collar for him in art class, we learned that Bouncer had been killed by a car. Granny never got another dog…I don’t think? I remember a conversation about how much traffic had increased on her road and what a danger it was to dogs. I don’t know… I was older then, and didn’t have as much time to spend up country, so I really don’t remember.

Even that thought triggers memories, though. When I was a child, you heard more wolves howling in the fields than cars driving down the road. I wonder…as much as the area has grown up…if those who live there now even hear the wolves anymore.

Memories are wonderful things. With them, we can get as close to time travel as we ever will in this life, stepping backwards in an instant to relive all we thought we’d left behind.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

One of the responses I received to a One-word Challenge I offered on Facebook, “trust” is a word I couldn’t resist blogging about. I recently finished reading The Complete Jewish Bible, and it tends to use “trust” where most other translations use “faith.” It took me a while to notice it, but there is almost an easier feel when you read “trust God” as opposed to “have faith in God.” Perhaps it’s ridiculous, since they mean the same thing, but it’s true for me. “Trust God” seems easier somehow.

When I think of the word “trust,” I also go pretty directly to my life verse: Prov 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord…” I have broken this passage down repeatedly, looking at it from various angles, yet interestingly enough I’ve never looked up the literal definition of trust before. So today I pulled out my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible to learn more about the Hebrew word.

#982 – batach – a primary root; prop. to hie for refuge [but not so precipitately as 2620]; fig. to trust, be confident or sure:–be bold (confident, secure, sure), careless (one, woman), put confidence, (made to) hope, (put, made to) trust

It’s interesting that it says this trust is not quite like “chacah” (2620), in that the latter word indicates fleeing to protection. Instead, this trust is more about finding our permanent refuge in God, knowing that in His presence we are as safe as a child in his father’s arms. A child riding securely in his father’s arms is confident and sure; he’s bold, secure, and free from care. Having put his trust, as well as his self, in his father’s arms, he has hope that all will be well.

This, then, is the trust our Father wants us to have in Him. He not only wants us to come as little children (Luke 18:17), He wants us to live with Him as little children in this sense, trusting Him so implicitly that we do what He tells us to, all He tells us to, when He tells us to…knowing that, when we do, everything will be all right.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C