Beth Durham's Blog, page 19

A Suggested New Year’s Resolution

Happy New Year!  This is the time of year that many of us look at our lives, consider our goals and make an ambitious plan for a happy and productive year.  We used to have a pastor whose first sermon almost every year was on the same topic, “Read your Bible”.  It’s a great topic, one I need to hear at least once a year, and one that never grows old.  Well I don’t know what topic the good Lord is urging for this Sunday but as luck would have it, my undated devotional gave me the same reminde...

National Fast Day

I’ve been reading a journal written by a Confederate nurse (Kate:  The Journal of a Confederate Nurse, Louisiana State University Press, 1987) and she mentions a date as “following the last fast day”.  Well that was a term I had to research a little and what I learned was eye opening in so many ways.

During The Civil War both President Lincoln and President Davis declared days for their nation to fast  and pray for peace.  Nurse Cumming mentions the day the same way she would say “last Thurs...

The Purposes of Fruit Jars

My husband and I each drink a protein shake most mornings and after trying whisks, shaker bottles and blenders, the best way I’ve found to mix and drink them is in a good ole’ Mason jar.  Well my Ruthie saw me mixing it today and asked “Are you gonna’ drink out of that jar?”  I’m not sure what about the upbringing I’m giving her would ever make her incredulous to drinking from a fruit jar but she found it so curious that she asked to try it herself. 

Now, we’ve talked here before about us...

A Letter from Beth about The Next Book

Good evening Friends and Readers,

I write you a few hours later than I normally publish the weekly blog but I hope you will forgive my tardiness when I tell you that I’ve spent this day - in fact the last few days - frantically working to get Margaret’s Faith to press. I’ve got a proof copy on its way and by next week I hope to be able to report the book is available on Amazon with copies at retail locations shortly thereafter!

There is always a long list of people who ought to be thanked for...

Southern Humor

If you can’t laugh at yourself you will miss an awful lot of fun and I have always appreciated that my Plateau neighbors can in fact laugh at themselves.  Well we got to listening to some old Ray Stevens songs the other day and I remembered how much I could always relate to those songs. 

When I hear “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” I naturally picture the little church I grew up in.  And when he tells about going on a retreat with his wife in the mountains of East Tennessee in “Smokey Mou...

One Big Family

Clarkrange Baptist Church, 1949
From Remembrances by Luther Atkinson, 1992

This week I got a call from my Mama that Daddy was having pain in his chest and across his arms.  We headed to the ER and I started praying.  On that drive I also started reaching out to my church family and my circle of beloved Christian sisters with a familiar request, “I need some prayer support.”

It’s safe to say I may have been a little emotional not knowing what the situation would be when I got to the hospital,...

Thanksgiving 2018

“Charlie, it ain’t right for a poor man to eat as much as I’ve had today.”  Preston Langford stretched his long torso and rubbed his stomach. Years ago, Preston had built a big wooden table for Emma to use on her flat rock and it had often served this growing family. He kept it in good repair and today it was filled with fried fish, boiled potatoes, sweet corn, fried apples and the last of the cantaloupe and watermelons.  

Charlie chuckled and grasped his friend’s shoulder, “Who’s poor here P...

Trading Knives

My knife collection - the top 2 belonged to my Grandfathers and the bottom 2 were my Great-Grandfathers’

I got to thinking about pocket knives after talking with a cousin who remembered my Grandpa coming to her mother’s house and saying, “Alright boys, throw your knife up here and let’s see who’s got the best ‘un.”  They’d all pull out their pocket knives and have a big time comparing and trading.

While they’re forbidden in schools and airplanes and frowned upon in lots of other places, a kni...

Changing Time

The time changed this past weekend and we are supposed to be enjoying an extra hour of sleep each night.  Instead, my body refuses to adjust and I’m just up early.  Every time the clocks have to change to accommodate Daylight Savings Time I have to adjust – well we all do, don’t we?

As I began to think of Daylight Savings Time from an historical perspective I did a little research and found that I really did not know the history at all.  “Fast Time” was implemented during World War I to sav...

The Great Night Sky

It seems to me that we are increasingly an indoor society.  We drive inside our cars which we park in garages which we access with a remote.  We pick up our food at drive through windows, have goods delivered to our door – it makes me wonder how long could you really go without your foot actually touching earth.

Now I’m a farm girl and somehow that means I gotta touch grass occasionally.  When I was in college – my first experience in the big city and surrounded by asphalt – I would get homes...