Texas is home, trials are some of the most precious blessings.

Texas got out of the hospital yesterday, just after Church, she was a trooper, a brave girl and came to evening services later.  She looked like a raccoon, like a baseball slugger had hit her with a baseball bat.  Her spirits were up, she was glad to be home and among the living.  She was truly blessed to have had the Lord riding shotgun with her in her vehicle.  The Lord be praised for his mercies. Poppie took us to see the vehicle and it is really miraculous that she survived the wreck.  The pickup did not, though when we were viewing it Bug mentioned that the fenders and hood were not even dented, the cab totally destroyed.  We later were told that the airbags did not deploy.  The Lord sure gave the Preachers family a trial on Thanksgiving morning, and the most blessed one they will ever have.

I can not imagine the loss of a child, I am glad the Lord saw fit to spare Texas and leave her with us.  I do know how close they came to losing their beloved daughter.  I was amazed at the similarities in the head injures she sustained and the ones that Poppie endured.  He still has residual effects from his accident.  I have recently found that Poppies trial was a true blessing.  You might say that the tree that hit Poppie was his altar.  He has of late spoke about his long road to salvation and it seems that the beginning, more so than all my years of nagging, was that tree.  He came so close to his mortality that he began to think of his after live.  He found that he was not saved and the road to salvation was the result of the Lord literally hit him over the head.  The Lord does work in mysterious ways, and a small little voice from God can become a boom sound that we can no longer ignore.  The Lord be praised that he sent a tree to help Poppie see his need for God, in a real way, in his life. 

A trial can be an altar that the Lord gives us.  I think sometimes I look back at my life and find that the trials are much more the true blessing of God than not.  I know that I rarely remember the happy and joyous and seemingly mundane times in my life, but oh do I remember the hard fought trials that caused such pain in the moment, in hindsight some of the most blessed times I have ever endured.  God loves us and corrects us and in correction brings us untold blessing.  Think about the child that is never disciplined, they are brats of horrendous dimension, you know one admit it.  But think of the children you know that are disciplined and corrected, given structure, they are almost always the most well behaved, the most pleasant and in the end the most happy children you know.  I believe in training up a child in the way you want them to go.  I don't believe in beating a child but abhor the people who tell you that beating and spanking are the same thing,  they are most likely the ones to have that child who had never been disciplined, that are spoiled beyond compare and on to the failures of an adult who doesn't understand that all that participate in life don't get trophies for just being, as they did in childhood.  If you love your child you discipline them in an appropriate manner, and yes, sometimes that does mean a spanking.  I am amazed at how many of the kids I have been around that are never disciplined that seek it out.They literally become naughtier and naughtier trying to receive it, to do something just to get their parents to even know they exist.....

I hope you have trials in you life, I hope the Lord loves and discipline's you, and I hope you love your child enough to discipline it.  I hope that God sends you an altar and a way to salvation.... tomorrow.