Straight From The Hart

#STANDINGSOMEWHEREINTHESHADOWS By Joan Rowden Hart (A Daily Devotional) Yesterday I was sorting through some family pictures, cutting and cropping to make up a new picture album. As I began carving out the good pictures of my little granddaughters to use later, I noticed that their "Papa", my husband, was always somewhere in the photo. Sometimes you could see his legs or his hands, maybe the back of his head, but I realized he was always somewhere in the background, always close to these precious little girls. He never let them out of his sight when they come to visit. Isn't that just like our Heavenly Father? No matter where we are or what we are doing, we know He is always there, and if you look real closely you will catch a glimpse of Him. He loves us and stands ready to guard us and keep us safe from harm. Do you remember singing this old song years ago? Standing somewhere in the shadows you'll find Jesus He's the only One who cares and understands Standing s...

  It was September 14, 1957, a beautiful early fall Saturday night.  I was so excited.  This would be my first date with Milan Hart.   My Grandma Dame was an active member of the local Rebekah Lodge and at this point in time, the Lodge had organized a  chapter of Theta Rho which was a girls’ club affiliated with the Independent Order of Oddfellows and our first big event was a hayride and I had invited Milan, whom I knew only from church, to go with me.   He was very handsome, with dark brown hair and beautiful chocolate brown eyes, and we were so young.  I had turned 14 in August and he was still a month away from his 14th birthday in October.  His mother was having a hard time with this.  He was the oldest of her five children, but was always her “little boy” and she was not happy with the thought of sharing him with me.  But she had known my family for years.  The two families of “Hawks” and “Jennings” all grew up in th...

  WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT LAWYERS I worked 23 years as a legal secretary except when I was sick. (When I was sick, I was an illegal secretary.) I know, that’s a groaner! Just couldn’t resist it though. But from here on out, the rest of this essay is very serious and I hope it will provoke some serious reflection on your part. At one time, one of the attorneys I worked for had a client who was always coming in because he got a lot of DWIs and his license would be taken away from him and he would come in to get a hardship drivers license from the Court. (Let me digress from my main point here for a moment. My brother was killed by a drunken driver and I have no patience with them and I believe hardship driving privileges should never be allowed. But this was years ago and unfortunately this was a very common practice back then.) So back to the point of this column. The client had plenty of money and paying for the legal representation was no problem to him. However, event...