sweet baby princess

I don't recall what prompted me to download and watch "Coal Miner's Daughter" last week. It's a biography of Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek and the first time that I saw it was in 1980. It was my first airplane ride and I was not allowed to rent the headphones because Teen Missions did not allow it's participants to watch movies or listen to rock music. It was a 5 hour flight and I could see the screen and if I put my ear down on the armrest, I could hear the dialogue, but I couldn't do both at once. I think that I watched an edited for TV version with my parents the next time that I watched it and I don't know what it's rated. There were a few swear words and a couple of fist fights. The development of Loretta as a songwriter is shown when she writes "You Ain't Woman Enough (to take my man)" and a few other biographical tunes that climax with "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Loretta sang about being proud of her roots and of her father. He was an honest hard working man from the heart of the appalachians and he loved his daughter. The morning after I watched this movie, I sat with my coffee and thought about the scene in which Loretta's father was giving good gifts to his children. They all had new shoes and his daughter got a new dress.

"How come she get's something extra?" said one of her brothers.

"Because she's becoming a young woman and women need pretty things" said her father.

My own father never understood this, but my grandmother, who went to school in dresses made from flour sacks did. When I was very little, she bought me a pair of baby shoes and when I'd outgrown them, she asked my mother to give them back to her. Then she saved those shoes until, when I was 40 years old, she gifted them to me. She also made many of the clothes that I wore to school over the years. I will never forget her kindnesses. She was 96 when she died two weeks ago.

Gramma never liked my father and I'm sure that she felt some satisfaction in outliving him. Still, he was the only father that I had. He loved me as best he could. Unfortunately, he hadn't experienced much love in his own life. The way he treated my mother at times, and the way that she stood by him for so many years taught me some unfortunate things about relationships. Then for a long time, it took a self-destructive turn. Now, slowly I have been healing and making a turn-around. My faith in God has been the primary element in this and the morning after I watched a film that some fundamentalist Christians once forbid me from watching, I had the most amazing "God moment."
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I sat in my favorite chair, drinking my morning cuppa Joe thinking about the story of Loretta Lynne and I felt impressed by her relationship with her father. Then I heard God whisper to me "you are my sweet baby princess" This is an endearment that I made up last year for my little cat Tootsie. I'm her mommy and my Daddy is a living God who longs to give good gifts to his children. Lately, I have been experiencing a "boyfriend issue" and while the jury is still out on the matter, I imagine that God wants me to have someone who loves God and treats me like His sweet baby princess. I look forward to treating that guy like a king.



"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”