My San Antonio trip for TSHA included a visit with a good friend I grew up with!

 Wednesday Bill and I headed to San Antonio, Texas for the Annual Texas Speech & Hearing Association Convention.  I attend this annually to get my CEU's needed to keep up my Speech Pathologist's license. I always get revived and fired up again about my profession at this event.  I love when Bill can go with me.  Since it was in San Antonio this year I was able to also fit in a visit with my cherished childhood friend, Mary Trotter Kelly and her wonderful husband John!  I also got to meet her smart and beautiful daughters!

Mary and I attended Travis Elementary, John Glen Jr. High, and Central High School together. We both grew up attending First Baptist Church of San Angelo where our father's were both deacons and both our families very active members!  Mary is very smart and always did well in school as I remember.  She has a delightful and quick wit!  I so enjoy her humor and her father, Dr. Trotter was cheerful, friendly and very humorous too!  Our parents were all four very good friends so I have fond memories of playing at one another's homes while our parents visited many evenings.  Dr. Trotter signed Bill and my blood test at Shannon Memorial Hospital so we could get our marriage license back in 1981!  (Yes, years ago it was required to have a blood test before you could get a marriage license!)  My mom and Mary's loved to read and then discuss their favorite books.  Both our families had a particular fondness for Siamese Cats so Mary and I both grew up with the family pet being a personable Siamese!  

Mary knew I was a huge fan of author and pastor Max Lucado and she was so thoughtful to arrange a time for Bill and I to meet him and visit with him in her home!  Max and his wife just happen to be Mary and John's next door neighbors!  It was truly a thrill to meet him and have time to chat and get acquainted with this man who has such a heart for God and at the same time is a real and approachable man!  Mary and John say they are great neighbors!  This get together was the highlight of my trip!

Scout is the cutest dog ever!  She is a Beagle mix and she entertained us endlessly as she played with Mary and John's cats!  I especially enjoyed getting to know John better and having the chance to ask him more about his time doing civil engineer work in Libya before the fall of their former dictator.  It was just fascinating and funny hearing about how John sneaked bacon into that country one time!  During his 6 months there he was able to help them with major road construction and updating.  It was so entertaining hearing the details about his side trip driving through Italy with a Garmin he had arranged for his rental car to be equipped with in English but forget to request an instruction manual in English so his was in Italian!  Lol!  He doesn't speak or read Italian!  His adventures afar were so interesting!  

 I shared briefly with Max how this particular devotion he wrote had a profound impact on me.  On July 5th several years back I read this page about FORGIVENESS in the book "Grace For the Moment".  At that time I was guilty of harboring bitterness and choosing to not forgive.  This day's devotion hit me hard.  Then that evening at church choir rehearsal our Music Minister shared a devotion and guess what it was about?  Yes, forgiveness!  Colossians 3:13 "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord Forgave you."  "Ok", I was silently saying to myself and to the Lord, "Ok, I hear you."  Max's devotion said "you can choose, like many, to chain yourself to your hurt... Or you can choose, like some, to put away your hurts before they become hates..."  I got down on my knees that night and prayed an intentional prayer asking God to help me forgive those I was angry toward and hurt by.  It was a process and they hadn't asked for nor deserved forgiveness but I was choosing to intentionally issue forgiveness, lay it down at God's feet, let it go, and stop harboring bitterness.  I was choosing to stop wishing them evil and actually hurting myself, raising my blood pressure, and putting energy into negative and self destructive thinking.  I was choosing to forgive.  After time and daily laying it down, it was finally gone!  All bitterness was gone and I had, in my heart, truly forgiven!  I was free!  They were no longer controlling me and I wasn't letting them!  I had forgiven them!  I learned to also not ever be vulnerable to others who could wound but yet I could move on and even love because I had chosen to forgive!

                                          This is my favorite devotion book ever and I have many!

                                    I am so thrilled to now have it signed by the author, Max Lucado!
What a wonderful time we had in the Alamo City!  It is good to be home now and I can't wait to go out tomorrow and buy one of Bill's and my favorite Disney Movies, "Up" and send it to Mary , John, and Scout!  John said they cannot say the word "SQUIRREL" around Scout or she goes crazy!  Bill and I both simultaneously said, "Up!"  They HAVE to see the movie "Up!"   If you are a Dog lover, you must see "Up!"