If you have looked at the news today, you have seen pictures of Enterprise, AL. I live about 30 miles from there. Yesterday was a terrifying day for all of us in this area. Once we got the warning, we rushed to get our little preschoolers home and the teachers as well. The skies were ominous. And they kept telling us it was going to get worse. The tornado struck in Enterprise around 1 p.m. What a tragedy. They only had around 25 minutes warning and made the decision to keep the kids at school until it passed, rather than have them on the roads of home alone. A wise decision, I think. Many more would have been killed if they had been in the parking lot or on the roads. My town was spared that wave, in fact it never really rained too bad. Then last night , it got ugly again. We had a warning here. There was tremendous lightning and rain, but short-lived. Nothing ever struck here. Thank God! Please keep the people in Enterprise,AL in your prayers. It is a nice little town, full of fine people. Their high school is totally demolished and 8 of their classmates dead. One was still missing as of last night. God is a God of awesome power and through His grace, more lives were not lost.

O.K. on to the next thing that scratches my blackboard, the proper use of language. Now there are many words that are used incorrectly, but today I am going to talk about the two that are most annoying to me. First the word ‘seen’. How many times have you heard an intelligent looking and otherwise, sounding person suddenly ruin it by using ‘seen’ improperly? As in: “I seen her come in the room.” Oh! My! That is just not right. It’s basic grammar. Did these folks never go to school? And it just SOUNDS wrong, even if you do not know grammar rules. I am constantly surprised by the people who say it, too. Don’t they have someone in their life who will tell them that is wrong? Obviously not. Because I believe most people would want to speak correctly, if they knew they were wrong. So here is the correct usage:
PRESENT: “I SEE her come in.”
PAST: “I SAW her come in.”
FUTURE: “I WILL SEE her come in.”
PRESENT PERFECT: “I HAVE SEEN her come in.”
PAST PERFECT: “I HAD SEEN her come in.”
FUTURE PERFECT: “I WILL HAVE SEEN her come in.

BUT NEVER: “I seen her come in.” WRONG…WRONG…WRONG !!!!!

Now…the second one is ‘YOUR’ and ‘YOU’RE’. ‘YOUR’ is a possessive pronoun. “YOU’RE is the contraction for “you are’. “YOU’RE so silly,” means “YOU ARE so silly”. “YOUR jokes are funny,” means “the jokes that YOU told are so funny.” The way I see this misused the most is on an invitation or sign inviting someone to attend. Such as: “YOUR invited to the party.” NO! NO! NO! “YOU’RE invited to the party.” It is amazing where I have seen this used incorrectly. In newspapers, on public billboards, in magazines. Someone is not proofreading. Any time you can substitute ‘YOU ARE’…you should use ‘YOU’RE.’

Allright…I feel better. Now, if all offenders will please clean up YOUR act, I and millions of other sesitive ears, will be grateful. I could go on and talk about ‘LAY,LIE’, ‘SIT,SET’, or ‘GOOD,WELL’. But not today. I’ve ranted enough.
Thank you very much.

Good judgement comes from experience….
Experience comes from bad judgement.

I’ve heard it said that it helps to “talk about what’s bugging you”. And it’s “best to get it all out in the open”. Well,I have decided that I am going to try it…I’m going to ‘talk’ about some of the things that make me mad (as in crazy).

First, let’s talk about gum. Now I love a good wad of gum as much as anyone…and I certainly would never want to infringe upon your right to exercise your jaws on that delectable goo. However, I do not want to hear about it. Your gum is your business. And I have no right to know about it. Just keep your mouth shut. When you smack your gum, it is just gross. I don’t want to hear you eating your food and I don’t want to hear you chew your gum. We teach our kids to “chew with your mouth closed”, but gum doesn’t seem to count. Well, here’s news for you: it does count! And popping your gum…..totally inappropriate. It seems everywhere you go there is someone having a popping party in their mouth. And I think they don’t even realize it. I think they are totally oblivious to the fact that they are annoying the goodness out of others. It IS possible to chew gum without popping it incessantly. Popping does not make the flavor last longer or delay the inevitable hardening of your sticky treat. I tend to think those who “smack” and “pop” in public have no other talents and just want others to know they can master some task. Do I sound mad? I am. The worst is when you are in a quiet meeting or even church and you hear that “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop…”. If you MUST pop…please do it in the privacy of your own home and don’t cause the rest of the good mannered public to go insane.
Thank you very much.

flowers
Originally uploaded by Perfection Photography.

“Look around you. Winter is over;
the winter rains are over–gone!
Spring flowers are in blossom all over,
The whole world’s a choir–and singing!
Song of Songs 2:11,12
The Message Bible