The Whole Picture...

*Dedicated to my best friend for the last 25 years, since the age of 10, Lady Tee...

Serenity 23 has been in a b-girl gangsta stance…she’s had me on the ground, with my grill in the grass and dirt, her high heel pressed deep into my neck, wanting me to get to writing something substantial… DJ Diva has been riding shotgun, willingly supplying the transformer scratch for S23’s painkiller induced threats!!!

You don’t like my happy fluff, S23?

Don’t like my nice pictures of food, hunh?

I like skipping along like a Smurf, you know…

The thing is, I have personal posts…

…some I choose to post, MANY I choose not to…

But I do sneak over to post a lil’ sumthin’, sumthin’ on the Sundown Gospel of Serenity 23, along with a few others.

I like to post personal thoughts on things they write….Oh how I wish I had their foresight when I was their age... I would be sooo much further along... Be where I would hope to have been at this time of my life...

Now they wanna know what makes Ladylee tick… What's really on Ladylee's ticking mind?

Here’s a little excerpt from a personal entry that I’ve edited waaaaay down to one post…
Something strongly related to what I’ve been going through spiritually on a personal basis in mid-December…



I came across Psalms 73 a few years ago….

No… no preacher used it as his scripture of reference for a particular sermon or anything. As a matter of fact, I’ve never heard anyone speak on it before, anywhere at anytime. I just happen to be reading my Bible one day, and there it was.

I happened to be going through some craziness at the time I first read this, where I was dealing with a bit of envy, and didn’t really know it, or know why, for that matter. I put this particular chapter on a diskette, and when I’m feeling a little, I don’t know, envious (with me these past few years, it’s more of an indirect type of envy), I pull it up and read it and meditate on it for awhile. I find it is always a good idea, if I may borrow a verse from a couple of popular rap songs, to “check myself before I wreck myself.”

Back in June, I sent this passage to a dear friend of mine in New Orleans... She'd been wailing on the phone to me about things going on at my old job, and trying to figure out the "Why?" of it all... More specifically why people got over the way they did...

Didn't really have an answer for her, for I too, do my fair share of wailing about such things...

But I'm always pointed back in the direction of this passage...

Sorry, but this isn’t the King James version. I can’t get with the “thee’s” and “thou’s” too tough. However, I still read from the King James version, along with my Amplified, Living, and Message Bibles. This chapter of Psalms happens to be from the Message Bible, a version which is translated primarily from the Greek, and written in today’s vernacular. This particular version socks me between the eyes, and that’s what I like about it. Heck, sometimes that's just what I need...

I’m particularly affected, these days, by the parts that I have italicized.

Psalms 73 (Message Version)…

No doubt about it! God is good—good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it, missed seeing His goodness.
I was looking the other way, looking up to people at the top, envying the wicked who have it made, who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world.

Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions of violence,
Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill; they bully their way with words.
They’re full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—Can you believe it?
Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything; they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.

If I’d given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache…
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.
Then I saw the whole picture.
The slippery road you’ve put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.
In the blink of an eye, disaster!
A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare!

When I was beleaguered and bitter, totally consumed with envy,
I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox in your presence.
I’m still in your presence, but you’ve taken my hand.
You wisely and tenderly lead me, and then bless me.
You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want to earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserter, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God , I’m telling the world what you do!


This is just a piece of scripture that I find… interesting and fully loaded. I see a little something different every time I read it, depending on what's irking me at the time. There have been a few times that I’ve wondered out loud if God was “out to lunch”. But more interestingly, I have found that I have missed out on seeing God’s goodness at times, because I focus on what people around me are doing and getting away with instead of concentrating on doing what's right and asking for God's help…

And that’s not a good. It’s probably one of my worst habits.

The big picture is what’s important in the total scheme of things. The whole picture. All I know, even though it seems that taking the easy road is what looks to be best and the most fun, in the long run…

…it isn’t.

What’s heavy on my mind as we leave 2005 and enter 2006?

At the end of my career, life etc… do I want to be able to say, “Yeah (smirk) I got over, I used people, I stepped on people to get where I needed to be. I wasn’t smart enough, but hell, I found a way to get over and I did it”.

…Or do I want to be able to say…. “I prayed. I trusted you, God. I depended on you. I was a person of character, and did what was right in your sight. And you saw me through…”

Shoot…

When I look at the whole picture, things look easy, and the answers to my questions and prayers are quite simple…

It’s just the day-to-day grind that is oh so hard to take at times…

I’m a work in progress, and with your help Lord, I’ll get to where I’m heading, where you're trying to get me to focus on going...

...soon enough.