Soup and Prayze Go Well Together

See that funny looking stuff in the jar? It is a combination of collard greens from our community garden along with chunks of beets and beet juice and "other stuff" including something called miso ( pronounced MEE-SO) which has no taste. At least to my knowledge.

It is good soup. Believe me!

When my neighbor made a batch and brought it to me week before last, I was wary to say the least, but I took it in and actually wrote a little blurb about it. She brought more yesterday so I took a photo and decided to share it with many.

Nibbles In The Night
July 19 2010
" Drink It All Gone"

Hello My Friends

Last night my downstairs neighbor knocked and when I opened the door I saw that she was holding a mason jar through which I could see an ominous looking concoction and she was smiling like Ruth Gordon, the actress who played Mrs Castavet in the movie
"Rosemary's Baby". I smiled back and took a cautious look at the liquid in the jar. I
could detect roots and herbs floating in a mixture that was murky and strange. I gave
her a look and she just kept smiling with the jar extended to me. I kept my hands
and arms at half mast. I was thinking, "What the WHAT"?

Now, you have to know that my neighbor is one of those who helps me in the garden
and helps me figure out the "what next" of my planting and weeding and other stuff.
She is also a health nut, so I could only guess what might be floating around in that jar.
This woman experiments with herbs and roots and all sorts of healthy equivalents
to regular food and I am often one of her guinea pigs. Most of her stuff is good.
Others are deplorable. Right then, I was picturing her with a black outfit with a
pointy cap, and could almost hear her mumbling something about
"Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble" but she was actually saying something to me about
the stuff in the jar...ummmm....is all that I could think at the time.

Her smile was genuine as she offered this soup made from her own collard greens with a little wild rice, this and that and something called miso. It is pronounced MEE-SO.
You can bet that as I took it from her and promised to try it, I was already looking it up in the encyclopedia of my mind. As soon as I closed the door, I went to the computer to
find out what it is. As nearly as I can tell, it is a soy product and plenty good for you! I had also gone straight to the fridge with the miso stuff and plunked it down on a shelf
where it looked back at me in a threatening manner. I checked out miso thoroughly...
You can too if you like...

WHFoods: Miso

However, I still had not tasted it. I kept going to the fridge and giving it the once over.
I even picked it up and shook it around like a jar filled pickled eggs or something I needed to shake well before use. I closed the fridge then re-opened it. I eye- balled the processed luncheon meat that really belongs to my grandson for his lunch. Wow! Just a sandwich with rich Miracle Whip and a glass of soda would hit the spot. The healthy part
would be the 12 grain bread, I surmised and was about to drag it out when I saw the
jar watching me ( I kid you not!) with it's healthy ingredients farely shouting!
The special soup glared at me but ( thankfully) said nothing! "Well FINE then, I guess if I promised to try you I better do it and get it over with" I said and snatched it off the shelf. It sloshed happily in response as I set it down hard on the counter.

I took out a shallow bowl ( so as not to waste too much or become greedy) and poured it in. It made a sound like "GLOP". You know, the jellied cranberry sauce sound, then it sat and shivered as if it was waiting for me to put it into the microwave. It was done in less than the three minutes I set it for and I removed it and got a spoon.

Somehow it had taken on a kind of glow..you know...less lethal and more food like.
I sniffed it again and discovered that miso was hidden and un-smell able. Beets, however have a life and smell of their own, so their aroma happily ran into my scent-zone as
the only recognizable odor in the bowl. I took a spoon to it and brought it to my lips.
a silly rhyme played in my head. "Past the lips and over the gums, look out stomach, here it comes"!! And I sipped and swallowed thinking of all the movies where people ate or drank something that jacked them up for good. I thought of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and wondered if my neighbor had found some way to force me to work twice as hard in the garden...but only under a full moon. Perhaps I would fall into a deep sleep and lie someplace until the prince came to give me the magic kiss. I scrapped that idea.
You have to start out by living with seven little dudes and sing in a trembling soprano. I used to be a soprano, but early morning finds me sounding a little like Barry White...so another idea bit the dust). I thought briefly of the Nutty Professor and his potion but my thoughts were put on ice when I discovered that the concoction was actually good and there was no after shock.

In fact, I repeated the spoon-to-mouth rendition many times and then got seconds.
I waited for sudden changes. I saw no hair growing from my palms, and I could
not detect the sounds of little people singing, "Hi-Ho" as they came home from work
and I certainly knew that my neighbor was not trying to get me to join a coven of
witches. I thought about how hard it was to get my children to try new foods.
When they were small I used to say, "Drink ( or eat) it ALL GONE" and they would
announce this accomplishment with high and satisfied voices, happy to be done with
whatever wretched thing they didn't like but had to "try" in order to get to either
dessert or something they really liked. Sometimes, they had to admit that the liver
and onions or the brussel sprouts were not all that bad after all!
( Tomorrow I am adding tofu!) Stop making this face... I SEE YOU!
LOL LOL

BUT LOOK AT THIS....

I thought also about the way we stay away from God, for fear that the thing He will reveal to us will not be something that we want to or would like to hear. We try to avoid the chastisement or the reprimand, or even sometimes the "call" on our life. We run and hide from the very thing that is good for us. Oh, forget GOOD...what about the BEST thing for us! You know what? God is only GOOD. Even when we think the way is going to be hard...we must remember that He is GOOD!
Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. See that? That is GOD's TRUTH and cannot be denied!

Once you get a taste of the goodness of our Lord, you will want to keep drinking that living water until it's all gone, but the thing about that is...the well of God's goodness and GRACE...His LOVE and MERCY....never runs dry! Now, how about that?
Go ahead and praise Him for His GOODNESS! You know you want to!
Check out the Chicago Mass Choir ( My HOME TOWN FOLKS!)




You Tube - Chicago Mass Choir: Oh, Taste & See

Write to me and tell me how you like the blogs.

Order Jessie's House for yourself, your church library

and the books make fine gifts for friends.

Order from-

www.Zenobiasbooks.com

OR

Jessie'sHouse@amazon.com

COLLEGE GREENS!

Hee-Hee! My first home grown collard greens. I am so excited to be a farmer

lady! Wish I had a MR FARMER to share

my joy with, but I believe that might

be coming along soon. At least I hope

and pray!

My COLLEGE GREENS LOOK GOOD!

( yes, I know I said college...as in

Madea!)

Summer Memories Revisited

Summer Memories Revisited
June 25 2010


Hello Everyone!

I would be willing to wager that if you asked seven people of seven different generations to share their summer memories, the results would be book worthy. The reason for that is that just about everyone on every social and economic level would give a wonderful visual of summer in their period of time.

Folks from the 1920's would give you a rendition of their home made and simple games, and people from the 1930's and forties would share their decades, filled with stories of the depression and the war overseas, but the summer would still have it's moments of mindless and carefree pleasure.
A child can find happiness with the smallest amount of money because summer carries with it, a magic of it's own that no other season can top.

I grew up in the 1950's and sixties, in a friendly, multi cultured community where the vegetable man still used a horse and buggy to deliver the goods. There were actually horses and buggies that delivered fruit, and there was the call of the rag man, who went from door to door, collecting rags. I never knew what he did with them, but there you have it.
Summer meant not only freedom from school, which didn't mean much to me, as by age eight I had my own library card, and could easily read twenty or more books during summer and still find time to jump rope, skate a short distance in front of our building and hang out in Franklin Park across the street from our dwelling, careful not to allow the street light to "catch" me.

As I became older, summer meant Christian camp and a family visit to Meridian Mississippi where my grandparents and all of our first cousins lived. We actually gained a few pounds eating my grandmothers ongoing good cooking and I learned to churn butter, chew sugar cane ( I remember the "Country" cousins, as we called them, laughing at my brother and I who were known to them ( I later found out) as their stupid city cousins, and spit it out ( the sugar cane) instead of trying to chew and digest it. We got them back by swearing that in the streets of Chicago, you didn't have to walk anyplace. We made up stories about moving sidewalks. They didn't believe that any more than they believed that there were actual trains that were called "els" and moved above the city at lightening speed.

Still, summer was wonderful! At camp I made a thousand lanyards, or so it seemed, and stayed afloat in the water because my straight pressed hair would turn into a buckwheat look if I went under. Cultural differences had not been explored in those days and there were no perms for black folks. So, my counterparts with long blonde and brunette hair wondered why I shied away from water, with the exception of showers where I could easily dodge the stream and not have another reason to feel like an outcast. STILL, we had fun and enjoyed the sweltering days and nights.

On Wednesday night of this week, I was reminded of another summer ritual, and that is the summer date with your favorite beau. You hold hands and sigh and have an ice cream cone after the movie. At least that's what used to happen, but things have changed drastically and I had just about given up on the simplicity of dating, when my grandson and his girl invited me to a movie. I thought I might feel like a third wheel, but they invited another guy, in fact...he was a guy a little younger than myself, but we agreed on the movie, "How to Train Your Dragon". We went to this place called The Cinema Cafe and in this place, you do not sit in rows like a regular theater, you sit at little tables with really cool chairs and you order your food. Pizza, appetizers, nachos and cheese, pitchers of iced tea or soda, so anyway I had a lot to do on Wednesday, but I was just delighted that I had been asked on their "date".

We drove to the theater, my first time in a car with my grandson driving and it was so absolutely COOL. He has been practicing driving and wanted to impress me with his careful maneuvering of the car. It was a borrowed car, but he handled it well. Yes, he is twenty one and no, we do not yet have a car, but he will be ready when he gets one.
So, we get there and sit down and the guy, whose name is Roger, orders our food and treats us to a pizza feast with iced tea. The movie is not only cute but thought provoking. I would recommend it as a family movie, but for me, the experience was one that I am adding to my repertoire of summer memories. I remember when my parents divorced and my mother was dating a man who had two children and they took the four of us to a drive in theater. I do not remember if any of us were embarrassed by the fact that our parents were dating. I remember how happy I was to hear my mother laugh again and Mr George was a big and handsome man, who looked like a giant next to our tiny mother. I took his bigness as protectiveness and he was kind and gentle.

I remember the movie which was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and I remember that they sent us all to the concession stand with LOTS of money and told us to get anything we wanted. It took me years to figure out that they wanted to steam up the windows like some of the teenagers were doing as we bobbed our way between other parked cars.

So, sitting in the dark, watching a young cartoon hero on the screen, I thought about my own dates. In fact, similar dates with the grandfather of our new young driver. I stole a glance at the two of them, and he had his arm comfortably around her shoulder and she had a look of complete joy on her face. I sighed. Young love! How sweet! And how many young people would invite the old folks on a date with them?
Well, young folks who love the Lord, and if they get married, they will have plenty of time to be alone and grown up. Right now, they are sharing their love and their testimonies with many, so I was not shocked by their involving us. "We have to do this again"! Said my grandson's intended. She has already invited me to a spa day with her mother and herself. I think it will be fun!

So, to that new summer memory I have added a song that I picked out for my grandson's betrothed long before he met or knew her. I was watching a commercial one afternoon and he was sitting on the love seat, sketching and cartooning as he does sometimes for leisure. I heard the song I am about to share with you and I said, "The girl that God brings to you will be worthy of this song". He smiled and said indulgently, "Grandma"!!!
Last night I played it for them! My grand-daughter in law to be, was all smiles. "I LOVE this song" she said.
Was I right or was I right?

What are some of YOUR favorite summer memories? The arrival of the ice cream man? COOL watermelon and cantaloupe treats? Popsicles?
Wearing lighter clothing? Or just feeling free? Remember summer love
songs? Or just plain summer songs that made you feel good and thankful
to be alive!

Maybe listening will make you recall a wonderful summer moment, or perhaps you will make more of your own.
Summer, enjoy it and be BLESSED!

Joy and LOVE!
Zenobia

YEP, I am a little square and REAL sentimental!


Click here: YouTube - Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop by Landon

Heading Towards Sixty Three..With God's Help!

Whoo-hoo....I think of this girl, this image...this woman, beaten and raped and battered in her twenties, maligned and talked about, sleeping in hallways and on the couches of strangers. I think of this girl that you see before you...the mother of eleven ( counting ALL pregnancies) grandmother to thirteen ( that I know of) having buried two children, my parents and know of the deaths of many dear friends, raised some grandchildren, got hooked on alcohol, been into street walking if you know what I mean. Shot at, hit over and over in the face, and hey, what does God do? Well, He

BLESSES His little girl. He watched sadly as I made one wrong decision after another, but He also remembered the little girl who talked to birds and read storybooks to her dolls and teddy bears. Through the platinum blonde wigs, false eyelashes, hot pants too hot to bend over in, the drunken stupors and alley fights, He saw His little girl, and when she cried out to Him, He came running and RESTORED what the locusts tried to DESTROY..God put back what had been stolen. He gave me a new song, a new outlook, a new feminine walk, He cleaned up my language, syphened the toxins from my body, caused me to walk again when the doctors said, "You will never walk again" in 2002! Whoo-hoo! Hallelujah!

Victory in Jesus is not just an idle saying to me, it is what I live and breathe. He gave me a new attitude, put a glide in my stride and a dip in my hip! AND SISTERS, it is never too late...never, never, never, never, too late. I ama living witness...and yes, there are aches and pains and forgetfulness from time to time, but I know my REDEEMER LIVES!

Don't get me started!

Love and Blessings!

Zee

Good Goobety Goop!

Remember this guy? This is Whitman Mayo...better known as Grady on the hit show Sanford and Son. "Good Goobety-Goop" was his trademark saying and usually followed some profound happening or everyday occurence that got him really excited!



Like Grady, I am kinda in that place right now. I have so many confirmations and revelations from God that I can hardly contain myself, but in the Land of Goobety-Goo, there is always some kind of twist or turn that seeks to put a damper on the fire of excitement and turn it into

major anxiety and nerve wracking second thoughts.



We consistently ask God, "Who me"? and even follow it with a more

cautious, "why me"? and I am ever happy that God does not give us

a quick-fix answer because I am sure He has heard it all before. In

fact, He had to listen to the long and drawn out prayers and questions

from Noah and Jonah and Abraham and more than likely, Joseph who

was getting ready to marry the already pregnant Mary, mother of

Jesus and you KNOW there was talk in the neighborhood! Come on

now! So, when God shoots an "impossible to man" vision at us, we

put on a brave face and tell a few trusted people and we seem to

be able to take on the new assignment with all of our faith and all of our

might, but inside...we are trembling and begging, "Does it have to be me"?



At this place in my life, I think and say out loud...."Lord, do you have

any idea how old I am"? and of course, He does not have to reply

because we have covered this ground before, and He is tired of my

"age" reminders. He will not take excuses and He will not allow me

to back down, no matter what. I am, as the kids say, "In it to win it"

but not for myself alone. I am moving forward into ministry and I

have no idea where this will all go. Stay with me, people..in prayer and

in friendship. God is leading and I am following and all I can say is

"Good Goobety Goop"!!!

Zee Is Alright

I am moving at my own pace. God is my God. I do not need to rename Him and claim anything but Who He is in MY life!
Wow! the world is turning fast and some people have reason to
believe that they have power over or influence over the lives of
others in a most unhealthy way.

I have lots of games that I play online and one of them is Burger
Shop One and Two. In Burger Shop Two, you get to serve some of the same characters as in the first game, but there are some that are new. One of them is a mime, who simply orders the same thing that the person in front of him ordered. He will even order the
same thing that he ordered as long as it is the same thing. He
never has an original order, no matter what.

I am laughing tonight because I see a similar thing happening
in my life, played out by the same played out individual. I should
start doing erratic things and see if the individual will follow me.
I must be doing something wrong if this "thing" keeps following
me! ( I am remembering something that Cody said, "It keeps
following me, Jean" when we lived on 82nd Place. I know how
he felt! LOL

I am Zee and I am so cool that I have an Imitation Zee!

Mother's Day Approacheth

Once Upon A Time....

I could see my children sneaking about, whispering and giving each other conspiratorial looks. I pretended not to see, and smiled to myself, remembering the way I felt as a child when we made cards and other goodies for our mothers at school. I always hoped that the paste would dry correctly on my construction
paper masterpiece that passed itself off as a card for this special occasion.
Of course, my daddy would buy the real gifts and cards and have me sign the
one that he picked for me to give to Mother and he would nearly always buy
a box of handkerchiefs as my gift, while his was more elaborate and personal.

One year, he bought Mother a big baby doll for Mother's Day and she cried
and resented it for all time. I was puzzled, because Mother loved dolls and
stuffed animals. "This time, she later told me, it was as if your father was
trying to get me to have another baby, just at the time I wanted to return to
school". Much later, I remembered their argument in the bedroom about
"We should have just one more child before you get busy in school" ( that
was my father's voice of course) and Mother answering, "We have one boy
and one girl, there is no other kind of child I can give you". I can tell you, life
got pretty grim in our house after that, and in a few years mother and daddy
divorced. The third child never materialized and mother went back to school.

I always wished that I could cook because it seemed wrong that mother always
had to cook a huge dinner in honor of her own day. When I became a mother
I did the same thing. My husband Lester always gave me something special
for Mother's Day! Although I cannot remember specifics, I do remember that
he would bring me special chocolates with cherries inside, like when we were
courting, and some kind of trinket and we would more than likely go for a
walk with the children. In my memory, all Mother's Day Sundays were sunny
and bright.

As a child, we went to church of course, and everyone who had a living mother
wore a red flower, provided either by the church or bought from someplace
the night before. My younger brother Raymond, and I always were proud to
wear our red flowers. Mother wore a red one too, because our maternal grandmother was very much alive, and would stay that way until she turned
103 years old. My poor daddy always had the white flower, having lost his
mother at age eight and his grandmother while serving in the war. I wanted
so much to take his hand and tell him that it was okay. We would love him
enough to make up for all the love that he missed!

Well, those days are gone. I have four of my six children left. Some of them do
not even speak to me. I have raised and helped to raise grandchildren, and one
son recently died. He was the orchestrator of many of those secretive meetings
prior to Mother's Day. They would have put together their allowances and bought a cake, made home made cards and tried to cook breakfast.

Aaaahhh..sweet times, gone too soon, but remembered forever.
I have no idea what will happen this Sunday, but if nothing happens, I have
my memories and God has blessed me with many happy moments in my
life. This should be enough to get me through!

All Worked Up

Hello World!

I wish that I knew what comes over a Christian like myself, every now and then that makes me want to place a head lock or a full Nelson on somebody who has done me wrong. I mean, at age sixty two and a half, one would think that I would have mastered these "urges to kill" at some former part of my life and would now be wandering happily along in the world of sixty-ish females, concerned with needlepoint and a cat collection, but no! I seem to be in some kind of limbo between twenty-something and infinity, and just when I think I have it under control, God reminds me that I am human!

Oh Darn it! There's that "H" word again. The one that grounds us Christians and reminds us that we are not angels or super folks but just plain people, trying to walk the right road, but sometimes, we take a u-turn and have the nerve to be amazed at our actions.

In the past week, I have had to deal with a couple of difficult and probably ongoing situations.

I navigated in and out of them, chewed on them, presented them to others who chewed on them with me ( makes it more edible when others chew on it too, like softening leather or something) and we all came to the conclusion that my hand is temporarily in the mouth of the proverbial lion and to snatch it out at this point, might mean losing a couple of fingers, or worse yet, the entire hand, elbow and forearm. Well, OUCH!

I am finding also that life is an eternal learning experience and you just never get away from the student's desk. No matter how big we grow, the desk ( sometimes) gets bigger, but the teachers remain the same. Some of the teachers are slow and easy, while others are task masters and mistresses from hell, and they are bent on teaching you the harder lessons. When you do not "get it" they hit you upside the head with a ruler, and if you still do not get it, they add tacks, nails, and other flailing materials to the ruler, until you are bloody and on the floor. Then they stand over you with a bucket of water in order that you are revived and begin to prepare you for the next lesson.

Sounds harsh, but there are no separate rules for older folks. I was silly enough to believe that life got easier so that we could skip into our twilight years with not a care in the world, having learned all that we could learn in those other, supposedly easier and younger years.

When I look back, those years have all been played out from the student's point of view. Sometimes I got to be the teacher, but most often, I have spent the time in learning, and none of the lessons were bad. Some harder than others, but all valuable.

I am thankful that my Christianity does not get in the way of my human self. From time to time, I lead myself to believe that living for Christ will exempt me from pain and toils, but a quick look at the scriptures reminds me that Jesus Himself was not spared the torture of the world's nasty attitudes and slick little plots.

From his earliest life, someone was always after Him and He had to deal with the Herod's and the Pharisees and the folks who were simply "out to get him".

So, back to my desk I go, thankful and prayerful, as I await the next in a long line of lessons!

"Lessons bitter learned, are sweet to know"

-anonymous

Yea Though I Walk.....

Warm From the Dryer
April 22 2010
Yea Though I Walk
*Scripture References



Good Afternoon Children Of God!

When I was a child, less than twelve years old , I loved attending church more than
most children. I didnt find it to be a chore or boring, because I loved the lessons, the preaching, the teaching and the atmosphere. Sometimes, I wished that church would never end and that the whole world was like our congregation, singing praises to God and feeling safe and secure among those who were like-minded and filled with love and peace! Of course, that was my little world.

It was about then that my mother began reminding me of an incident that had happened when I was eight years of age, that for some of you is a repeated story.
We were living in a lovely apartment on the west side of Chicago. I had already
been double promoted and I was a straight "E" student, which in those days was
the equivalent of straight "A"s because E stood for EXCELLENT~ You would think
that just about everyone might be proud of me and happy for my success!

My parents, especially my mother, never tired of bragging about how well I was
doing in school, and sometimes I caught the bored expressions on the faces of
her friends. They had heard it all before, and were sick and tired of hearing about
how Zenobia had aced the local spelling bee, or was doing "so well" in her piano
lessons because as I learned later, everyone is not happy for you at the same time.

To this day, I cannot understand this but I guess it has something to do with
the shortcomings of the other person. The smile pasted on the lips of those who
congratulate and pat you on the back, often hides a dislike so strong that if you
could see it uncovered and in it's real state, you would run away as quickly as
you can! In fact, when I was younger, I would go to the trouble of taking a real
quick look at those who were smiling one moment and when I walked away could
no longer hold their happy expression and the "real" face would be un-masked.
Nothing they could do would re-build that nasty look as they tried to pick the false
face up off the floor. I wanted to holler, "Too late, already saw your REAL face".

Let's go back to that memory that mother gave to me first, because I expressed
to her that I wished the whole world was like our church and by then, she had
slowed down on telling people how great I was! She said, "No you don't want
everything to be like church, because it can be one of the craziest places in the
world if you are not careful to go to seek God, and not the love of people.
"You will find some love, but everybody is not in love with you". I wondered
how she had come to that conclusion and why she had not known it when she
was going on about how smart I was, some years before.

The incident happened as I was leaving our apartment and heading for my walk
to school. I had two "best" friends who lived up the block, so I always joined
them and we had such fun talking and giggling our way along the four or five
blocks to school. We lived in Chicago, so the spaces between the buildings were
known as gangways, supposedly because the mafia guys used them to duck from
each other and the police. Whether this was reality or legend, you could see
between the brick buildings and most of the time, it was just alley activities.
Kids learning to smoke or kiss, or some one "relieving themselves" against the
garbage cans that were lined against the wall of the alley.

One particular day, I was walking along and I can tell you that it was God
Himself who brought my attention to the gangways, and I know it even more
because He didn't allow me to call out to Beverly and Edwina, two straight E
girls like myself, who lived in pretty apartments like me, and who were impeccably
clean and proper, like me. So, what were they digging into a garbage can for?
I watched them, without their knowledge, and a dread came over me such as I
had never known, as they fished something out of the garbage, wrapped it up
and headed towards an area where they would catch up to me.

When the girls caught up to me, they exchanged the usual pleasantries, and I still
didn't ask what they were up to. Along our walk, they kept taking sidelong glances
at each other and seemed ready to burst with laughter. Finally, one of them, I
do not remember which, asked in a guileless voice, "Zenobia, do you want a donut"?
As she said this, the other one produced a wrinkled wax papered piece of pastry
that had been bitten into. As I looked at it, unable to answer, the other one assured
me that she had only taken one bite out of it, and it was perfectly good! Something
in me knew right away that this was the item they had taken from the garbage.
"No thank you" I said, and my throat tightened with the horrid realization that
the two girls I loved the most, had invited and been invited to birthday parties
and who made sherbet with me and jumped Double-Dutch rope and shared
whispered secrets, had been setting me up to eat something from the garbage!

You are probably asking yourself, why would they do that? Was I hungry? Had I
asked them for food in the past? The answer to both of these questions is no.
Were they just mean and evil girls? Well, I guess they were, which is why my mother
reminded me that no matter how much someone smiles at you and pumps you up,
they can be as the bible says, "Wolves in sheep's clothing...ravening and seeking your
destruction". Again, the "why" of it comes to even my sixty two year old mind.

Speaking of that church thing, I used to love playing scripture games with other children in the time spent between Sunday School and 11:00 AM service. Sometimes the grown ups would line us up in front of the church and ask simple questions like, "What is the shortest verse in the bible" or they would play Bible tag with us. I played along until
near the time when my mother began writing a column for the Chicago Crusader and
she became more visible in our church as a speaker and leader. The scriptures remained
the same for the other children, but mine usually began with these words, "We know you're smart, because you are Sister Williams' daughter" and I kid you not, I have had to recite The Beatitudes, the Lord's prayer and the Ten Commandments in order to win the little prize for Bible Tag, which was usually a juicy fruit gum, that you couldn't
chew until you left church anyway! I soon gave up and began to sniff the air for
tricks and traps, but I realized that these old folks were not jealous of me. They
were jealous of my mother, and I paid a dear price.

Right now I am facing a betrayal of monumental status, but I am moving
along in spite of it. I know what God says will happen to evil-doers and those who
seek to "do me in". I serve a BIG, BIG God who will not allow my foot to stumble and He that keepeth Israel, (and me) will not sleep or slumber. He is covering my going out and my coming in, because He SEES little Zenobia, duped and done wrong so many times, that He simply tells me to "be still" and know that He is God~

How will I tie this in with the beginning of this devotional? I will put the crepe paper and bow on it right now.

Allow God to fight your battles. He already sees the scenario and knows how to
handle anyone who would try to do you harm. I am, as always...praying for all of
you in sincerity and asking that you would keep on the whole armor of God. We
may never uncover the reasoning behind the things that people do against us, but
we know that God will never leave or forsake us. That's enough to make us shout
to His glory all the more! Humans will always fail, disappoint and misdirect us.
It is part of human nature, as unfortunate as that may seem. Pray continuously
for you enemies. If your enemy is a professed Christian, pray for them all the more
that they would remember their motivation and their promise to God before any
other ulterior and "back alley" activities that they might want to practice. Knowing
God and doing anything against Him is something I would not want to involve
myself with.

Whatever you are going through right now, where the enemy is showing you that
you have been wronged once again, or been made to feel stupid, please do not buy
it for ONE MOMENT! You are not stupid, you are a child of THE MOST HIGH!
God is ironing it out, fixing it up and if it remains unresolved, will expose the
plot. He has done it in the Bible, and He has not forgotten how!

Love and Blessings to you!

*Psalm 23:4
Psalm 121:4




The gift of writing is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to formulate thoughts and ideas into interesting and meaningful written forms so that the reader will find courage, guidance, knowledge, or edification through the words shared with them.



Amazon.com: Jessie's House (9780982490914): Zenobia L Silas-Carson, Sharon Sun

The Sucker Punch

A Morning Moment With Zee
April 23 2010
A Serving Of The Sucker Punch

Howdy Friends!

Hope your morning is going well! I am feeling even better today than I felt yesterday.
Many of you know me very well, and yesterdays "Warm From the Dryer" was a direct
result of having been dealt a surprising and particularly nasty blow to my spirit by
the enemy, all decked out in Christian clothing, wearing a smile and carrying the bible.

I tell you, these days you just cannot trust anyone, but look what I learned from
receiving my sucker punch. I learned ( should have known this already) that everyone
with Jesus on their lips, an olive branch in their mouth and who seem situated in
high places in the community, can be just as deceptive and worm-ridden as the
someone that we might deem to be of lesser status.

God has given me new breath and revelation,and I can do nothing this morning but
carry out my responsibility to pray for this misguided, avarice-led person.
God's word cautions us against ill gotten gains, and also cautions us not to mess with
His little ones. So, I release this situation to God and continue to do what I am doing.

Sucker punches are ones that take us by surprise and seek to damage us permanently.
Sometimes they can, but holding onto God's hand as the sucker punch comes our
way and after the blow has landed, prevents the devourer from knocking us down
and at the end we get to see victory! Hallelujah!

God is good everyone!
Have a wonderful, victorious day in Him!



The gift of writing is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to formulate thoughts and ideas into interesting and meaningful written forms so that the reader will find courage, guidance, knowledge, or edification through the words shared with them.

What God is Doing....

I am telling you! God is all over this Jessie business. A sister who ordered from us last week didn't leave her lobby before beginning to read Miss Jessie. She started right down on the mailbox level and just sent this message to me.

Your book arrivedbut do not quote me on the date because it got to me beforeI got to it.I don't go to my mailbox everyday and honestly with Amazon their books take a minimum of 2 weeks to arrive. So imagine my surprise when your book arriived before the week was up.I went today (Sunday) and received it but we both know the Lord didn't make a special delivery today, (or perhaps he did) but more than likely it came Thursday.I was sitting at the mailboxes with my mailbox hanging open reading it.Girl, you found your place and mission and purpose in life with your writing.Praise GOD. Trish-aaah

Is that a blessing or what? Then I got another order on the Amazon site and an invitation to partner with Sundie Morning Sistas and Reverend Fran A. Times-Mack. I will be doing a lot in the future with many people, but when I say we, I mean GOD is doing this for me and with me. I look forward to hearing from

Art Cunningham about appearing on his program and then I have not heard yet from Ann Sandell. Praying still about the Oprah program! Lord, if anyone from that show should call me, I am going to faint. Well, I will get up and get myself together, but first, I plan on fainting like I nearly did when I spoke with Maya Angelou!

Lord, I just thank you so much for blessing me! Thank you for blessing my life!

Thank You JESUS! Life is so different and will "never be the same".

I remember that a woman minister said to me ( At the Secret Place gathering) that I would "write" my blessing! That was back in 1998! I joined the Writer's Guild in the same year and I began signing my name: Zenobia L Silas-Carson.

There was revelation in that. I know it now.

PRAISE GOD! PRAISE GOD!

Preparing For The Retreat

From June 24th to June 27th, I am scheduled to be in attendance at a women's retreat in Janesville Minnesota. The place is called the Holy Spirit Retreat and the group I will be joining

is the Non-compromising Women of Faith, better known as the NWOF.

Now, there will be many women of all denominations present, so we are believing God for

something beautiful to happen and we are told that no one will leave with their hearts unchanged. Wowsers! I am looking forward to that!

I have not been on a women's retreat in over ten years. It will be wonderful to congregate with like minded sisters and go off into the woods and commune with the Lord! I am so pumped!

A sister friend of mine has recently gone to her retreat and though she is able to share some

of what happens, it is impossible to share all of what God gives you at one of these gaterhings.

That's because it is just you and He and even if you are among a throng of others, He still

speaks to YOU alone. I need to be spoken to during these dark days. My heart is longing to

hear from the Lord and to know He is speaking only to me.

I will not give the enemy any air time on this blog, so I will just say, "I know that I have done

my best" I could have done nothing further.

God is good. That is all that I have to say.

My Leah Blog

Last night, I played around on this blog site and found so many dressed up and beautiful blogs that when I came back to my own, I felt as if I should throw on something a little better.

The pictures and captions and backgrounds of the other bloggers intimidated me more than

a little, and as usual I began comparing what I can do to the capabilities of others.

It's a long story, beginning in childhood, when I felt beautiful and according to my parents, I was

beautiful, inside and out..until I got to grade school and perhaps the fourth or fifth grade, when like Adam and Eve, everyone's eyes seemed to open and being smart and witty no longer counted. You had to be beautiful. There was something about the upturned nose and long silky hair of some girls that caused boys who had little experience in judging between attractive and

"not so" suddenly became experts at casting the so called "ugly" girls into a sea of "make her play, eat and do everything else with her "own kind" and so it went.

For all of my precociousness, my ability to sing, write, draw and play the piano, I was cast into the double sea of nerd and unattractive. I cursed the day that my mother met my daddy because I deemed it to be his fault that I had the nose, that awful shnozzola placed in the center of my face, and though my hair was moderately long, I felt that my features were on backwards, with no earlobes to speak of, and thin, un-enticing lips.

I lurched my way through adolescence, being a little too free with my "behind the auditorium" favors and it occurs to me now, that the boys who thought I was so unattractive had no problem taking me someplace in the high school gymnasium, when nobody was looking and doing little nasty boy things.

Anyway, when our pastor told the story of Jacob and Leah, I sat there and wept. I figured that Leah had gotten the short end of the stick. Jacob, a trickster in his own right, had the nerve to protest that he had been tricked. As much as the bible goes on to tell us how beautiful Rachel was, we never hear if Jacob was a catch or not, but we do read about the trials and tribulations of Leah, who just wanted to fit in, to feel loved if not beautiful. We know how that story ends. Leah has a slew of babies for the thankless Jacob, who worked for his father in law seven more years so that he could get his mitts on the ravishing Rachel, who stole some of her father's treasures on the way out, and had Laban hoofing it up the road, in hot pursuit of Jacob, believing that he had stolen his golden treasures. Wow! What a story.

So, when I looked at my plain and simple blog and compared it to others, I thought, "Here you go again, Zee.....and I had to stop right there.

My blog is about progress and moving on. It is about triumph and happiness!

Jessie Mae is a blessing to me. Through all that I have suffered in life and all of the suffering I have seen, God has brought me to a place of beauty and light. Double for my trouble.

I can do nothing but rejoice in His favor, because like Leah who was shown favor by God and given many sons, whom no doubt loved their mother and gave her great pleasure, God has given me plenty to rejoice about and if this site never gets decorated, I am thankful to have it to share with others.

Thank You Lord, for allowing us to see beauty in the little things.

Thank you for my Leah Blog.

Making Things Happen

Since childhood, I have always tried to push the issues and force things to happen. I could barely wait for Christmas, and kept trying to orchestrate the thoughts of my parents to get them to yield to giving me something they probably were going to give me anyway.
I was sort of like that kid in the movie "The Christmas Story", yammering about my wants during the season as if I could hypnotize my folks into getting me that much coveted doll or book.

Most times I got my way, because Christmas and birthdays were big with my parents.
They had grown up poor and my daddy especially wanted his two children to have every single
thing their hearts desired. So, when we woke up on Christmas morning, the space beneath the tree was generally loaded with our listed items and it was time, for me at least, to begin working on the next holiday or day of giving, so I could be sure that we got what we wanted. After all, as the oldest child, six years above my brother, I felt it my duty to think for the both of us.

Unfortunately, that attitude went straight into adulthood. I tried to coerce my friends, family and love interests into doing my bidding. I would drop a hint, or blatantly announce something that I wanted, then sit back and pretend to be surprised or in awe when it happened, when in fact I had nearly brow-beaten them into their so called decision.

You might say, "Well, it's okay to drop a hint from time to time, so we receive the right gift" and I guess that's okay. I have no objection to that, but there are many like me who believe that the gift or idea or whatever, will not be the same unless we push it. Especially when it comes to asking God for something. We say it over and over in prayer and make a mantra of it as if God is deaf. We use the tactics that we use on humans so that we can get our way, and often the object or focus of our prayer is not what God wants for us, or what He wants for us "right now".

I have prayed for years for one thing and God has blessed me big time with every thing BUT that thing. Most likely, He knows that I am not ready for the thing, or that I would spend all of my time and energy nurturing or paying attention to that thing, and right now, He wants my full attention and total dedication, so I still do not have that thing.

Besides, remember what I said about getting my way. Very often, when I attained the thing I wanted most as a child, I would play with it for a while, make it bigger than the other things that I already had, then it was discarded as the "big thing" as I made plans to get the "next best thing". When the "new" wore off of my coveted belongings, I would tire of them and move on.

God does not want this kind of half attention from us, and most of all, He does not want us to use prayer as a means of swaying Him in one direction or another. Prayer is about asking, of course, but it is also about adoration and humility. We ask God to bless us, but it is His business to give the blessing in His own timing and in His own way.
It might not be the new house right away, or it might be the new house, job or even a spouse, but not in our timing. We are flawed in our intentions, and we want what we want when we want it. God does not work that way.

Keep praying. Never cease in your belief that God is going to bring it to you. Whatever your heart desires, but we must understand also, that God is not to be played with. He knows when we are pushing the buttons to make the event or happening fit our agenda instead of His.
Let go and let God says a lot, and I am learning each day of my life, to give it to Him and allow Him to make things happen!

Right now, I am going back to bed! Thats one thing that I can make happen. I was up late, sharing the news of the book sale. I am bushed!
Love and Blessings!
Sister Zee

First Amazing Amazon Sale!

Today is such a wonderful day! God is doing extraordinary things in my life and I can only be grateful and thankful and sing His praises forever!
Jessie's House has and continues to be a surprising success, and I have sold many copies. All of the copies were sold strictly from my house, and I never told my readers how it felt to get a taxi to the post office, take the books to be weighed, etc and I didnt want these precious friends to believe they were being a burden or a nuisance.

After all, they were purchasing a book from a brand new ( at least to them) author. I had a little bit of a track record through my online devotionals and
writing on the Internet, but they were taking a great chance to pay for a book
by a woman who was not yet listed on Amazon.

You know, for some people, Amazon is the cat's pajamas and if you are not listed there, you remain a nobody as far as the literary world is concerned!
I had no idea how I would get on there but finally, nine months after the book was published, I figured it out, and tonight..which really is LAST night, now...I got my first sale on Amazon and read my first official Amazon review!

whoo-hoo!

Also sent out an excerpt of my manuscript entitled "Minnie's Gift" to Oprah. Yes I did! I have sent out books to Art Cunningham who gave me my first start on local television, to Reverend Fran Times-Mack of Sundie Morning Sistas, to Pastor Ann Sandell of Love Power Ministries, and have more to send, but God is blessing this work, and many have been encouraged.

I have a lot of reviews from the private sector and they are all good! Thank you, Lord! My life is turning around daily and I thank You for the insight, the wisdom and the strength to go on! Hallelujah!

This is my first blog under this title. I hope to keep it going!
In Him Sister Zee