OK, one thing I forgot to say is, after much, much prayer about my tendency to help someone down the street who isn't ready to go...



When we became Christians, in my twenties, my brother called one day to apologize. I was very obese, had lost, truly!!!! 400 lb., thirty-five to eighty lb. at a time, and gained it back each time. I was in agony. My brother was a changed man when he became a Christian, and apologies were not is long suit, so to speak, so it was a, uhhh, surprise, to say the least...



He apologized for my obesity. Huh? He apologized because he had heard on TV that children live up to their family's expectations of them, and he was always telling me I'd be buried in a piano case, when we were kids, but he was only trying to "help" me down the street, right? He said he had thought it would help me stay on a diet if he pointed out my fat, like my dad said, regularly.



He was my only (living) brother, my older brother, Doug! Anything he said was gospel to me! I told John, when I met him, that Doug had made up a song: "Kindergarten baby born in the gravy." He told me they said that at his gradeschool too, and I was shocked!! I thought Doug had invented the wheel!



So, why wouldn't I believe that I should be buried in a piano case, that it was my DESTINY?!!



Well, Doug didn't force the twinkies down my throat, or the M&M's. But what an amazing apology that was!!!! God in Heaven, thank you for the years I had with my Doug!!

OK, I could quit blaming Doug for the hurts. I forgave people for their words, but their hurts still stuck to me, like velcro. Words have so much power!!! Or, at least they did, when I then thought everyone else's words were reality, facts, not just their own (cruel) THOUGHTS.

(How many people wake up thinking that some hideous thing I said, in high school, is true about them? Oh, God, forgive me for the mean things I said to at least two people I can remember!!!)



Doug recently visited me in a dream, by the way, completely restored to his peak of youthful manhood, to absolute perfection, no scars, no wrinkles, no moles, and in a body that shone like the moon! I wasn't even sure, at first, if it was Doug or an angel...wow...amazing...



But that's too wierd, so I don't want to tell you all about that, lol. LOVE, Mary Lou