Thankful Thursdays ~ The Winds Have Shifted!

On this Thankful Thursday, I just returned from spending 10 wonderful days with The Miss Oklahoma contestants and The Miss Oklahoma Outstanding Teen contestants, their families and directors, pageant officials. And I got to see many wonderful dear friends.

If you follow me on any social media I am sure you are well of what I have been up too.

I will never forget this past week and all the wonderful people I met.  Each year it just seems to get better and better.

We started the week off with the chapel service Sunday morning.  Then each night of competiton I was able to pray with the girls and have a brief inspirational message.  These are truly lovely, smart, talented women inside and out!

I fit in some time with close friends who are like family.  They are a gift to me. We laughed, we cried, we shopped, we ate, we shopped a bit more and we prayed  tons.   It was great, really, great.  I hugged many necks  and even saw my vocal coach from many years ago too.  I am a blessed woman to have such powerful women of God in my life and incredible friends all over the country!

I prayed with friends, contestants and people I had never met before. I love doing that.

Some had lost everything in the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado and others  had been given devastating health news. One was surviving a brain tumor and one had knee surgery that was taking far too long to  heal.  There were others who were simply hanging onto life by a thread and they just needed more strength for the journey.

I know that place well. It’s like Egypt and you keep walking around that same mountain in the desert and you simply can’t seem to move past it.  Most all you are so ready to shake the sand off your feet.   We prayed for healing, hope, help and most of all, wisdom.

I also prayed for our new Miss Oklahoma just an hour after she was crowned.  It was an honor and privilege to pray for her and the year ahead.  She is lovely inside and out and will represent Oklahoma beautifully.  I love what she so eloquently said, “This crown in not an award but a symbol of hope!”

Amen, Kelsey Griswald and long may you reign!

I shed many a tear this past week.  June 8th was the fourth anniversary of my mom’s death.

The anniversary is always during the week of Miss Oklahoma.   I miss her.  Many friends said how much I looked more and more like her.  Others told me how proud  she and daddy would be of me.  Precious inspiring words of love that I greatly appreciate.  Dealing with death in the midst of a wonderful event is a funny thing.  I think some feel you should ignore it and others embrace it, but most of  it is difficult when the heart reminds you of it.

People act funny about death too. Some simply act as though the day is unimportant and nothing ever happened, while others celebrated her life with me with comments of support.

I think death simply makes some uncomfortable, but I love celebrating their lives and all they meant to me.  My parents’ unending support was a gift.  I am grateful beyond words to have known these amazing people and to carry on their legacy.

As the chaplain for Miss Oklahoma one of my greatest desires is to love these young women and impart that same  incredible encouragement my parents gave me.

Before heading out of Tulsa on Monday, we sent to church Sunday at First United Methodist Church.  It was the church I grew up in. My parents were married there, my brother and his wife and Winters and I married there too.  We had mom and dad’s memorials there as well.  I have a long-standing history with my church family there. It is a blessing to be with people who know your story and know it well.   I hugged necks, prayed with friends, sang to my heart’s content and knelt at the altar for communion with my maid of honor and we prayed for each other and our husbands, our families and God’s call on our lives.  We prayed for our purpose and passion – to do all Christ has called us to do.

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A friend recently posted on his Facebook page that,” The Winds have shifted.”

It so resonated in my heart!  I just loved that.

Yes, That is it!

It is a new season for Winters and I and “The Winds have indeed shifted.”  We are moving into a new stage of our life and feeling once again that we are in the epicenter of God’s will for our lives.  We are right where He wants us and where He is going to use us.  We aren’t perfect and we still struggle with some pesky thorns in the flesh and we are still seeking every day to be obedient to Him.  But we are shaking the sand off our feet and moving forward to the land of milk and honey.

As I explained to the contestants at the pageant Thursday night, Thankful Thursdays started as a way to pause in the week and give intentional gratitude for all God has done in our lives, even in the midst of all its craziness and difficulties.  This past week in Oklahoma I was overcome with a heart of gratitude and grateful for all God is doing for me and Winters.

So on this Thankful Thursday I want to give glory and honor to God that, “the Winds have shifted” for Winters, The Writer and The Little Black Dress and The SONs of Thunder!

1. Winters is officially the General Manager of The Newnan Times-Herald.  He has a wonderful staff and I am so grateful to Billy and Marianne for recognizing Winters’ talent and seeing that ink does run in this mans blood and most of all his passion to produce an incredible community paper every day.
2. I celebrate with Winters his passion for newspapers and that this wonderful opportunity came to him and for all the people who emailed him, called him and total strangers who let him know they were praying for him  Blessings to you, dear husband.
3. I am thrilled to have spent a week with such wonderful precious Miss Oklahoma contestants and Miss Oklahoma’s Outstanding Teens.
4. I am honored that Bill Sherman with The Tulsa World took the time out of his busy schedule to interview me for the newspaper and celebrate the role of the chaplain.
5. I am thankful for my amazing friends.  I am so blessed to have so many close, dear women of God in my life who love, pray and support me.
6. I spent the week with Carol who loves me like a daughter.  That is a indescribable gift.
7. I am so humbled that she would share her Sky Miles so I could fly free to Tulsa. Again, another beautiful act of a generous heart.
8. I am really thrilled  I could unload seven pounds from my suit case in front of many spectators and make them laugh and save $9o.00 for having  an overpacked suitcase.
9. I am so impressed that I can lift a suit case that weights almost 60 pounds.  I may be small but I am mighty someone once said to me, I now agree!
10. I am so thankful for my incredible seamstress, Miss Ann that Miss Jane introduced me to in Newnan!  This gal has a gift! Wow can she sew.
11. I am thankful to be shaking the sand of my sandles  once again and feel we are leaving the wilderness behind, for the land of milk and honey is right in sight.
12. I am so very thankful that indeed” The Winds have shifted” and I feel a fresh anointing from our Lord and Savior”
13. I am thrilled I came home renewed and refreshed to finish the Power Prayer Girls once and for all!
14. I am blessed to be with the SONs and Winters and my desperately need new faucets and new phones.
15. Life is good. Just look around you and give thanks with a grateful heart

Be blessed and encouraged abundantly today on this Thankful Thursday as we all stop and celebrate our many, many blessings!  I pray that the winds have shifted to for you my dear friends, if not now very, very soon.  In the mighty and holy name of Jesus!