A Remembrance Box

Remind me, Lord Jesus, of Your Goodness, new every morning. Remind me of how well you have taken care of me and my family and my extended family, Anita and Bible Study ladies. Remind me of love and joy. Remind me that Your hand is over all and in all and that all things are working together for good. Remind me that You are coming back for your bride.


For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

His ways are good even when we can't see for the darkness. His ways are good even when they aren’t our ways. His ways are good through the valley of the shadow of death. His ways are good when we are lonely because He will come to us. His ways are good when we are struggling because He can calm the struggle. His ways are good when our children have abandoned or forsaken us (and Him) or gone astray because He is the mighty shepherd who searches for the lost one. His ways are good in pain as He is the healer. His ways are good when the road is long and the journey seems too hard to travel for he travels with us.

His ways are good we will believe for this year. We can’t create, change or cure but His ways are good and He can. Think on your blessings, as that is the only way to overcome the darkness of this world. He is the light and His ways are good! Remind me, Lord Jesus, Remind me. (Donna Collins Tinsley)

Anita Smith Z88FM Woman of the Week

·    Thank you so much Z88FM for picking Anita Smith as your Woman of the Week! You did a great job of editing my thoughts (nervous that I was) for the program. Anita and all the women she has touched all these 25 years are very happy. What a blessing!

Here is what the winning submission looked like:

     Anita is an encouraging, enthusiastic, impassioned, motivating, spirited Southern woman who inspires us to have faith when things appears dark.

      Although she is now widowed, she regards the Lord as her husband and protector through the storms of life. She was not afraid although alone during hurricanes and continues to teach and mentor women even though an ocular stroke has taken away the vision from one eye.

     If you have ever sat in one of her Bible Studies you would be amazed at the wisdom God has given this woman; but don’t think she is all study and no fun. Even though Anita is in her 80’s, she can out-dance many a young woman at weddings and has even given her time to help elderly people at the assisted living centers get up and boogie to music for exercise.

·                                 One thing that Anita has done that really has encouraged me that a woman can accomplish big goals even in the later years is she recently completed a program to get a degree in Biblical Counseling at age 83. I would love for Anita to win this award to help commemorate her anniversary of teaching women for 25 years this month.

·                             

Donna Collins Tinsley                                  

http://zradio.org/listen/                                  

Would you want the Cross that is Tailor-made for you?

This morning at my prayer time, I was thinking about and praying for fractured families. I thought of others that I know in the writing communities that have painful issues with their children like Carol Kent and Eva Marie Everson. Carol learned a new kind of normal when her only son was sentenced to life in prison; Eva is presented with many challenges when emotional issues changed a daughter of her heart, overnight. I thought how we sometimes think that our own cross is too hard to bear and then the Lord reminds us of a sister, walking towards Him and with Him by faith. The happy ending hasn’t happened yet. The way at times is dark yet they press on and pay it forward, trying to bring help and hope to others in their journey.

I remember the story by Sarah Ban Breathnack that told of the crosses that others bore. The angel showed the person around and showed the behind the scenes stories that no one knew about and the woman decided to keep her own, personal tailor-made cross. It was the only one she was capable of carrying with the help of the Lord.

Lord, Jesus help us walk towards You today with joy that we can share in a small part of Your suffering and show us how to deny ourselves that we can follow Your path. It is unseen to many what we go through here and dark sometimes, but You are my bright light of Hope. You are dazzling in fact and the brightness that keeps me going.

Eva and Carole Kent’s books are available on Amazon.com and for more about Eva go: http://www.evamarieeversonssouthernvoice.blogspot.com/2012/02/fridays-southern-style-faith.html

Valentine's, Cool Day or a Painful Reminder?

Yesterday my friend, Lisa updated her facebook about the anniversary of her husband, Rick's accident leaving him a paraplegic. It was 27 years ago. I want to post this in honor of their love and the hard holiday that Valentine’s is for them. I have to say Rick has the best attitude of anyone I have ever met whose wheelchair is a main mode of transportation! I am blessed to have them in my life.


I nominated her in the Resilient category and of course, she won. Thanks, Debra West from the Women’s Lifestyle Magazine. You always honored women and affirmed them in so many ways. I sure miss that magazine!

Lisa Triplett, the adoptive mother of two of my grandchildren is one of the most resilient women I know.
Years ago, while working her way through college she worked at a church daycare center. There she connected with Brandi Triplett, the daughter of a boy she had dated in high school. Rick had been her first date but her Mom felt she was too young at that time for a relationship with someone two years older, so the romance was short-lived. Rick married someone else after High School and was divorced soon after, a single father with a little girl. Rick was now in the Navy out of state and his daughter was living with his Mom and Dad.

Rick and Lisa reconnected through Brandi, seeing each other, writing and by phone calls when he went back to the California base.

In 1985 he asked Lisa to marry him. Plans were made for a December wedding as he was being transferred from California to Jacksonville, Florida. One month after the engagement, Lisa received the devastating news; Rick had been in an automobile accident and was paralyzed from his chest down! It was Valentine’s Day.

Lisa and Rick’s Mom flew to Jacksonville and from that moment to this, Lisa has rarely left his side for more than a few days at a time. In the first days at the hospital his heart stopped four times with Lisa by his bed in the dark of night. As alarms went off on the life-support machines, she prayed, begging God for him to survive. After several weeks he was stabilized and was moved to Hines, VA Hospital in Chicago, where the hours of rehab were agonizing for him. As a young man he had to adjust to a totally new way of life. As he lay on his stomach in a striker frame which caused pain in his neck, head and shoulders, Lisa would sit under his bed so he could see her and read, talk, play his music, and do all she could to help pass the time and accommodating him in any way possible.

The biggest decision lay ahead; what about the marriage? Lisa was told that seven years was the average length for marriage to a paraplegic and she had to go through counseling, learning how to totally care for his personal needs and more.

Easter Sunday, 1985, in the hospital chapel they were married. Rick, still in pain, still unable to sit up in his chair, was in a partial reclining position in his black suit, gazing at his beautiful, radiant bride.

Lisa’s sense of humor is a trait that helps her be supportive to her husband; she joked about spending her wedding night in a motel room with her parents in one bed and she and her mother-in-law in the other. “I’ll bet I’m the only bride in history to spend her wedding night sleeping with her mother-in-law instead of her husband!”

There were years of outpatient treatment that still continue now; Rick is bedridden but with Lisa’s help and care he loves to get out and about in his wheelchair and specially adjusted van. He is a strong, vibrant Christian man who never complains and is a blessing to many.

Because Lisa is always supportive of Rick’s needs she left her family and roots and moved from their home in Indiana to Florida, as the cold weather is too hard on Rick. They had already visited the area when she took him to a fishing tournament on Lake Monroe in Florida for paraplegics. They found a handicapped accessible house for sale in Edgewater. Lisa continues to encourage Rick by taking him to church activities, football games, baseball games, music concerts and more.

Rick just turned 48 years old and has a full life because of the resilient, accommodating, adaptable, cheerful, flexible, rebounding, and unsinkable character of his wife.

A few years ago, Lisa went back to college and graduated with a degree in Health Information Management; she juggled the boy’s and Rick’s care while maintaining high grades. Her parents moved down to give Lisa some much-needed support. But she is a supportive daughter to them and their needs also, when she isn’t caring for, loving, doing field trips, shopping for or playing with the boys.

Lisa won the Women’s Lifestyle SPIRIT award with this story four years ago, so the ages are wrong but everything else is pretty current.

Donna Collins Tinsley

Another year without Mama, as we put on her gravestone, "You were the best!"

Reposting what I posted last year, a story I wrote a while back; I am posting in memory of my Mama, Linda Lee Wirth Reece Lewis who went home to be with the Lord, 14 years ago, today. Some of you may have already read this, but I hope it is a keeper!


Mama Said

I woke up from the dream weeping, "I want my Mama!" I am 58 years old and she has been dead nearly 12 years. Will the need to reconnect with the one who gave me life never end? Is the cry of grief endless?
I first experienced it on the day that she died. It is uncontrollable, inconsolable. Involuntarily, it came from my mouth. A piercing scream to match the piercing pain in my heart. But in my mind's eye, I flash back forty years. I heard that same scream coming out of my mother's mouth at the news of her mother's death. It is nearly a primitive sound.

I was assaulted with thoughts of things I felt I could have done or should have done. In previous months, Mama had stayed with us for a few weeks to recover from several surgeries. We were in close contact but the week before she passed away, my children had been sick and we didn’t get to see each other.

Our last conversation haunted me. We had always been close and I usually called to check on her every morning. It was about 8:10 AM. I was in the midst of Monday morning rush. “Hi Mom, I’m on my way to take the kids to school and thought I’d see how you are feeling and what you are up to.”
“I can’t talk now, the nurse is here,” Mama said. It was her routine house visit to check her post-surgery wound. How I wished I had said, "Call me when she leaves." Because of such a quick call I spoke no meaningful words and felt a lack of closure.

At her moment of death I thought I would be at her side. Although I reached the hospital before the ambulance got there with Mama she had already passed away at home in her own bed.
“Please let me go in,” I begged the nurse.

“A doctor has to check her first,” I was told. Assuming she was still alive, I waited; but Mama had died at home in her own bed the way she had wanted to go.

It was hard to accept not being with her at the end. I had always tried to be the "perfect daughter." As the oldest child wasn't that part of my job description? Yet I couldn't control the uncontrollable; there is a time to be born and a time to die.

Many times when I have a dream about her I wake up and try to think of all the happy times we had. Mama was raised in the Deep South and there was always an “old saying” coming out of her mouth. Mama used to say, "Men will go after anything in a skirt!" but I'm sure we don't want to go there. As a teenage mother, divorced two times, she was probably trying to keep me from repeating her mistakes.

It wasn't easy for Mama to raise four children under the age of nine alone when my stepfather was put in prison. Her own mother and father had already passed away, and she was left on her own when she bypassed advice to put us in a children's home until she could get her life together. Although, she was a high-school dropout she was smart enough to know it could take a long time, and she wasn't going to be without her children if she could help it. I will forever be grateful that we were kept together as a family. Just sixteen when I was born she was quite a survivor! She loved to dance and I remember thinking what a pretty Mom I had as she danced to "Be Bop A Lula;" she adored Elvis, Dick Clark and the American Bandstand, and Chubby Checker, "Everybody do the twist." And everybody did.
Even though we moved often, she always worked and made sure there was food on the table. She had a lot of common sense and was so generous you would think she was a rich woman. Her employers loved her because not only could she work circles around everyone else, she made them laugh while she did it.

She used to say "It's a great life if you don't weaken," "You have to laugh to keep from crying,” and "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

And Mama always said, "What goes around comes around." That is what I would like imitate. That is why I want to sow seeds of goodness, kindness and love because those are the types of things I want to come back to my family. Bless your children and they will bless you. Love your husband and see what a return you get. It is the principal of "sowing and reaping."
Mama also said, "Only the good die young." This must certainly be true. She died unexpectedly at age 62. Sometimes I try to imagine life with her still here. Many times I have gone over in my mind the things I wanted to do for her when she was alive. Whenever we have a family celebration or are eating at a restaurant, I am often wishing she were still alive and here enjoying herself. She loved to eat and used to say, "I'd rather die than not be able to eat what I want."
Diabetes helped that statement come true.
Mama, if I had you back for even one day, I would treat you like a queen. I would take you anywhere you wanted to go. I would make you whatever you liked for me to cook, carrot cake or the little fancy sandwiches for a picnic. We would find a “Po Folks” restaurant even if I had to drive you from Florida to Tennessee to do it. I would take you to a movie and to the flea market. I would rub your back with alcohol and then lotion and I would wash your tired feet with warm, scented water and my tears. I would pray a blessing upon you and show you how much I love you.
These are thoughts I have when I meditate on my mother. Our relationship had its ups and downs, but it is still the strongest bond on the earth, that mother-daughter connection. I will always remember the things my Mama said and it’s funny, but I seem to be saying a lot of them to my own daughters, now.



“Loving by Intervention”

I’m writing and encouraging others to write and help the Substance Abuse Task Force as they go to Tallahassee to speak about addictions and how it affects families. Trudy Duffy has mentioned a new website FAMM - Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org/ with important information.
For those who don’t know what The Marchman Act is, it is a legal procedure (free) that someone can be involuntarily held for about 72 hours in a detox facility. It puts your loved one on a priority list that bumps them ahead in the recovery system. It is named after a wonderful pastor in our area Hal Marchman whose church and reputation are big in Recovery in the Daytona Area and now all over. I’m sure Stewart/Marchman is named after him also; I looked up where it was at his request that the Stewart/Marchman foundation was formed.

But is isn’t as easy or as fast as we may think it will be.
If anyone wants a copy of my free copy of my story,
“Loving by Intervention” Please sign up as a follower of my blog: http://thornrose7.blogspot.com/ and then email me at ThornRose7@aol.com with the subject, “Loving by Intervention” with your email address and I will work on getting you a free copy (for your personal use only) this week.

These "Tidings" will make your heart glad:) book review of Glad Tidings

I have to admit the main reason I accepted the book review call by BookCrash for “Glad Tidings (The First Twenty-five Years of Flanders Family Christmas Letters) by Jennifer Flanders is a friend of mine had told me I needed to do a compilation myself along the same line. So although Christmas had passed I ordered the book that came surprisingly fast. The first thing I noticed when I finally got a chance to read it, (with Christmas clutter still abounding, I have to admit to losing it a few times) was this was not a one-page letter or poem as most of mine have been. This is a diary of a life well lived and a very large family.


Actually I see another book in the future not in Christmas letter form and more detailed. As I had been myself a homeschool mom for my youngest daughter, I also had some preconceived ideas of what this would be and was very happy to find that although this lady is definitely a “superwoman” mom, they were not an uptight family. She really did it in a way that I wish that I had been able to, but did not have the ability to take all those trips or have some of the resources that she had.
From the beginning of the book where it was just the two of them (and Jennifer’s husband is a real “superhero” himself) to the end you will fall in love with this family. It also seemed that Jennifer and Doug had found the Fountain of Youth, as they looked as wonderful in the last pictures as in the first ones. The pictures were a great addition to the book as well as some songs, scripture and a recipe. It is obvious that they all loved each other and loved spending time together. Should I say, “may their tribe increaseJ”?
They have extreme imaginations to do all that they set out to do and their children certainly have taken up the torch. You will “laugh out loud” at many of the antics of the children and although it was hard to keep track of them because there were so many, I loved each name and each little heart. It took me a bit to really get into to book but then I was won over and bowled over by their lives. The only thing that might need to be altered a bit was the perhaps overuse of italics, but that could just be me.
I don’t want to give away the story but these children were very well educated in the school of life and I love that. When they went to Jamestown in full costumes that their mother made, how cool is that? I see a sequel or better yet, let me know when the lifetime movie comes out!
Each letter ended with the love of the Lord and an invitation to follow him. That is the reason for the season and for the book and I know that each person who reads it will be blessed.

Donna Collins Tinsley

Naive Parents

I thank Beth Patch from CBN.com for posting this recently: http://blogs.cbn.com/battlingaddictions/archive/2012/01/20/naive-no-more.aspx

If you don't have time to go there, here it is:
Naive No More

Sometimes as a mother and grandmother I find that I am just too naive about drugs and addictions so I decided to do something about it.
"Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:4-7
It was my first time at the Substance Abuse Task Force Forum. I soon found out that around the table sat people from all walks of life. Doctors, workers from the school system, people from the local drug treatment centers and people representing the Faith based community were all there. Addictions breaks down the barriers we sometimes feel about those in different walks of life. I was grateful to see a friend that goes to a support group for families who have loved ones with addictions and went over to sit by her.

The meeting was very well organized and well run. It became evident who was there in the professional capacity and who had been hurt by addictions personally, although they seemed at times to overlap. The people whose stories and input moved my heart most were the parents who had lost loved ones. Full of pain, anger and frustration these parents not only wanted help and resources in the community, they demanded it.

One mother said the cost of housing and providing an attorney for the man who gave her young son a lethal dose of methadone was much more than the cost of bringing NOPE* to our county. She was there to get the word out, to make sure that her beautiful son did not die in vain. She was there to help save other middle school students, if at all possible.
I remember reading about this young teenager earlier in the year, whose body was found after dumpster diving for drugs. As I read the newspaper article my heart went out to this mother. She was in my prayers. The man responsible has been indicted on a charge of first-degree felony murder in connection with the death.

The perpetrator told the children how to retrieve discarded Methadone bottles from the dumpster. The boys went into the dumpster and retrieved two large bags full of plastic Methadone bottles. The trio returned to a home where small amounts of Methadone from each bottle was extracted and shared with the two boys.

The boys later became sick and passed out. The woman at the forum's son never awoke and was discovered dead the next morning. This man used teenagers to get his high from drugs and now one boy is not alive and there is another grieving mother because of drugs. What a horrible thing to happen to a young child at the hand of his neighbor.
How heartbreaking for this mother, yet she was there to try and make a difference for another family, so perhaps they can be spared the pain she has experienced.

We all need to become more educated concerning what is going on in our communities. As Forums are provided within the community, take advantage of the knowledge and education provided. And then pass it on to others in need. I think "naive no more" will be my motto as I strive to "get wisdom."

The Message says it this way:

Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding!

Don't forget one word! Don't deviate an inch!

Never walk away from Wisdom—she guards your life;

love her—she keeps her eye on you.

Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom!

Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding!

Throw your arms around her—believe me, you won't regret it;

never let her go—she'll make your life glorious.

She'll garland your life with grace,

she'll festoon your days with beauty."

Dear friend, take my advice;

it will add years to your life.

I'm writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way,

I'm drawing a map to Righteous Road.

I don't want you ending up in blind alleys,

or wasting time making wrong turns.

Hold tight to good advice; don't relax your grip.

Guard it well—your life is at stake. The Message Proverbs 4:5-9

Donna Collins Tinsley

Donna Collins Tinsley, wife, mother and grandmother, lives in Port Orange, Florida and has been included in several magazines and book compilations. Find her at Facebook, http://thornrose7.blogspot.com/ or join Somebody’s Mother Online Prayer Support Group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/119408188089314?id=244911885538943

Please email her at Thornrose7@aol.com /

*Narcotics Overdose Prevention and Education http://www.nopetaskforce.org/

I Have a Dream, too

An old poem revisited: A Mother who Dreams


Will I ever have the family

Of my dreams

Or will I forever be

As my friend called me

A mother who dreams?



I’ll never forget the day

I was discouraged.

She was cheering me up

She meant it in a special way, as if I was the mother of her dreams, a prayer warrior, faithful and kind.

Yet I, knowing myself as I do, struggling at times to just keep my sanity,

heard it as what I truly am,

a “mother who dreams.”



I dream of sanity in our lives instead of chaos.

I dream of peace and right standing with God for all my children and grandchildren.

I dream of testimonies given of overcoming by God’s grace and the mercy He lavishes upon us each day.

I dream of happiness, wholeness and health.

I dream of restored relationships.I dream of learning to go down a different path and being happy to stay on it, instead of falling in the dark pits of familiarity.

And I dream of the day that all my children will be taught of the Lord and great will be the peace of my children

Heal our hearts, Lord

And may my dreams come true.


Donna Collins Tinsley

I dream and yet every day I am also doing this:

“I emptied myself of all my old ideas of what my life should be.” (From the al-anon book Discovering Choices)
Click on the link to see Dr. Martin Luther King
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBx4vPr27fo&feature=related

Rewriting Your Story; Is There a Happy Ending Out There?

If you don’t have time to read it all, this is the main thought that I am feeling: “If it were up to me…” and then the words pound desperate and hard, “I’d write this story differently.” (Ann Voscamp)


"If it were up to me,” yet I know we have to yield to the Lord's hand and people's choices. The whispers of the enemy can be so strong that the love of family and the Lord are silenced. But it won’t be forever, hold on! This story isn’t over yet.
I’m reposting something that is so beautifully written that it may help someone today. Actually I am also someone who needs to read and believe. Drink this word deep into your soul. Ann Voscamp says, “God reveals himself in rearview mirrors.”

She also says, “When it gets dark, it is only because God has tucked me into a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected with His hand? In the pitch I feel like I’m falling, sense the bridge giving way, God long absent. In the dark, the bridge and my world shakes, cracking dreams.

But maybe this is true reality; It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite; God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect will. Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us, I-beam supporting in earthquake. Then He will remove His hand. Then we will look.

Then we will look back and see His hand.” (Ann Voscamp)

She also wrote at a time that they were burying the second baby son of her brother and sister-in-law’s within a span of a few years: “If it were up to me…” and then the words pound desperate and hard, “I’d write this story differently.” (Ann Voscamp)
My dear ones, that struck my heart today as I think upon the sorrows that so many are going through. Losses through death, mental illness, estrangement, unforgiveness, bad health, financial losses, and addictions the list is endless. How I wish I could write each of your stories differently so you all get that happy ending that we sometimes long for. Yet think on those we admire and what their story cost them. Think of Joan of Arc, and Corrie Ten Boom to just name two. Their stories and pain have prompted many to live holy for Jesus. The Lord is weaving with golden threads the love story He is writing about each family. The dark times and threads only serve to make the gold and diamond threads He is inserting stand out stronger. Love, Hope (whose name is Jesus ) and prayers, Donna
It is said as Joan was burning she said these things:

Joan asking for a crucifix to be held level with her eyes:
"Hold the crucifix up before my eyes so I may see it until I die."

Joan of Arc's last words.

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"