Clean Up on Aisle El Paso

 

Picture courtesy of Pixabay

I did a good thing yesterday.

I cleaned two rooms in my house; they looked beautiful and smelled fresh. As the day wore on, they lost that sweet, clean aroma. It’s our fault.  We left stuff lying about as my husband and I dressed to go to dinner with friends. So, if I fail to start over today, the piles of clothes, makeup mail, medicines, and other odds and ends will grow. If I stop working in the bedroom and bath, I’ll look like I’ve hoarded mountains of stuff.

Kind of like the streets of El Paso, TX do. Did you see on the news where those unfortunate migrants are cluttering the street? They sleep and eat there because they have no place to go. I saw one fellow trying to brush teeth with a bottle of water as he hung over a trashcan.

The clean-up crew sanitized the area before the President of the United States arrived.

When he left, the area resumed its previous condition.  Kinda like my two rooms. Messed up again.

The migrants are looking for a better country to live in, and I get that, however, as soon as they cross over into our country, they cease being migrants and become illegal immigrants.  We have laws for entering, but these laws are ignored. They may be under the impression coming in as they do is okay.

My heart breaks for them. The Texas weather is often brutal. Hellacious in summer and bitter in winter. Many of these seekers are abused physically and mentally as they place their lives into the hands of criminals who promise to get them to America. These crooks wish to make a quick buck and assure the migrants the moon. The illegals soon end up on our sidewalks.

When do our lawmakers clean up this chaos?

 

This is a photograph of someone's garage. How would you like to clean this up?

Fortunately, it's not mine, but I know the person who

made this clutter.

Like the two rooms in my house I cleaned, if debris isn’t sorted and organized, it becomes unsurmountable and becomes overwhelming. It's best to keep a room orderly. 

I like to give—personally, and as a nation.

Three Sundays ago, a homeless lady asked us for money for a hotel room. We took her to the motel and paid for the night.  The same day, another lady asked us for money to pay for medication.  We gave that, too. But now we must work and earn a bit before we have any more to give.

We take care of others by taking care of ourselves first. Our nation welcomes others, but we need to make sure we can afford to do so. Can we help the whole world? No, but we can help a few at a time.

I don't usually post anything political, but I thought about those homeless people as I cleaned up my home. Our lawmakers need to respond to these homeless illegals.

An Angel Suddenly Appears

An angel appeared to Mary.  

Now this angel wasn’t the one I write about. My Sarah is fiction, the Angel Gabriel is real.

And Gabriel would scare the daylights out of me if he came out of nowhere. Like most of us would be, Mary was astonished, fearful and anxious.

Now, this nice angel, Gabriel told Mary not to be afraid.  Just because he said it, didn’t mean her fear disappeared, I don’t think mine would. However, I think it helped.

Gabriel continued, “Mary, you have found favor with God.”

Whoa!  The angel knew her name! If I’d been Mary, I would have been overwhelmed with fear.  To Mary, a super-natural being knew her name and appeared out of the blue.

Oh, but there’s more scary stuff. He said to Mary, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.”

Wow!  At this moment, this teenager became, pregnant and unmarried.

But the Scripture says she found favor with God.  Favor with God doesn’t always mean favor with man. It’s such an irony. Favor with God brought her shame with man.

She’s now an unwed mother. But she’d found favor with God.

Joseph, her fiancé, had a visit from Gabriel, and that helped. I’m sure glad Gabriel gets around to fix things. He eased a lot of the brewing trouble.  Joseph, like everyone else, assumed Mary had done the sleeping thing with another man.  Gabriel assured Joseph this child is from God. Wow! Joseph believed the message. He didn’t think he was hallucinating, and he knew he wasn’t on drugs.

When Mary was 9 months pregnant, she had to travel 93 miles on the back of a donkey with Joseph to Bethlehem. She was uncomfortable and scared. But she’d found favor with God.

She loved and mothered Jesus. When He began His ministry, she didn’t understand. But she’d found favor with God.

When He was 33 years old, He was strung up on a cross. Mary stood at His feet and gazed up at Him. Indescribable pain filled her heart. Her innocent son was nailed to wooden beams and was dying.

But she’d found favor with God.

All of her life, she carried the stigma of “unwed mother.” She bore the pain of watching her son die.

But she’d found favor with God.

Life can be difficult even though we find favor with God.

Read about my angel.

Amazon

Job Performance for an Author

 

How does life’s challenges affect your job performance?

Some might say, “Not at all.”  If that’s your response, my hat is off to you!  My hubby is one of those people who doesn’t allow emotional trauma to get in the way of what needs to be done.

Me?

Well, that’s another story.

We are all different, right?  Sometimes we must listen to our bodies and rest. On the other hand, if we stop working entirely, what happens?

Poverty.  Without doubt, poverty would be on the horizon. Jobs bring income.

Depression. Oh my, don’t you know? When you can’t discipline yourself to meet obligations, despair enters.

Frustration. Hmmm. Happens to me daily when I achieve so little.

Guilt.  Argh! Here we go again.

The list could go on, couldn’t it?

When I had a boss, I performed when I didn’t feel like it, and in spite of an emotional state, I did a good job. Now that I’m self-employed, it’s like this: Put off to tomorrow what you don’t want to do today.

If one writes for a living, one must produce. I have author friends who support themselves, and regardless of how they feel, they must supply copy.  These friends, like me, don’t earn enough to pay bills with the novels they create, but they earn by supplying magazine articles and other print sources. If you scroll down this blog, you’ll read how two author friends write in spite of hardship.

When I wrote for Texas Hill Country, I had to finish an assignment to meet a deadline. The forth coming check was nice. Contributing to my blog, Facebook page, or building my book is difficult these days. I’m not obligated by someone else to produce an article, but as a small business owner, I need to do it.

I face a lot of grief these days. Our daughter with dementia is a sad situation, and we’ve been dealing with it for years. I come home from an afternoon with her, and I’m completely drained.

Writing is a creative process, and it’s usually fun, but during challenging times, inspiration and desire can be tough.

When you read a book or an article, pause to think about the author.  We appreciate feedback and reviews. You never know when a kind word will motivate and inspire. You might be the reason for the next, great article or book.

Gay N. Lewis on Amazon