Author: Ramona Levacy Billingslea

I am a 50-something Texan with a feisty cat and a supportive husband of 25+ years. With a Master's degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing, I have taught creative writing at Texas Tech, won awards for my writing and been blessed to be mentored by Horn Professor and poet Dr. Walt McDonald. I earn a living by helping my husband's family run a health food store, but my avocation is writing. I hope you enjoy reading about some of my triumphs and tragedies as I continue to work on figuring out what life is all about and on growing my ability to share my writing. May your own journey be a blessed one.

Christian Living

Four Lessons From My Cat

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Lesson One: If You Want Something, Ask For It

If you have never had a cat, then you might find the concept of being in the house with your pet for an entire day without ever interacting with him a bit jarring. But, in the feline world, such days are business as usual.

However, whenever my cat is ready to need me, he has no problem making his needs known. He might meow loudly and arch his back at you. He also loves to plant his front legs squarely and heavily on the middle of your sleeping chest. If you are bald like my husband, he may even use the method of licking your forehead with his sandpaper tongue.

The bottom line is, the cat lets you know he means business. And the business he is always about, or at least mostly about, is being fed. In addition to his three squares, he also likes fish flakes, treats, and even carrots! Getting food and water for my indoor cat is the only essential need he cannot achieve for himself.

Lesson Two: Be Careful What You Ask For

Mastering the manipulative art of begging for his supper has an unwanted side effect for my isolationist feline. He often has to suffer my unwanted attentions.

Sometimes, despite his desire to be out of my arms, my cat’s body responds seemingly against his own will. A deep, melodious purr emits from his belly, a calming balm to me that seems at odds with the semi-wild look in his eye as he gauges when best to wiggle out of my grip.

Like so many of us, he seems at times like this, almost double-minded. He wants to be near me, but not so near that my person comes in contact with his catness. He has yet to master the actually comfortable position of being loved and free at one and the same time. Instead, he mistakes my affection for a cage he is all too eager to escape, even if he purrs while doing the escaping!

Lesson Three: Be Still

No one sleeps more peacefully than a cat. We humans toss and turn. Even dogs chase rabbits in their dreams. But cats know how to curl in a ball or stretch upside down and breathe in perfect peace for hours on end.

It is not uncommon to leave the house and come back several hours later to find my cat in the same sleepy position in which I left him. Just watching his fur slowly rise and fall can make me feel less stressed.

The rain may pour outside, the electricity may flash on and off in the house, and the television may blare away the hours, but my cat sleeps through all of it in perfect harmony with himself and the world around him, all he knows of reality.

Lesson Four: Go With The Flow

When I brought home a second cat many years ago, my tomcat’s first response was to run into the bedroom and hide under the bed! As I hauled him out by his back legs and carried him through the house to show him the new member of the family had been isolated for the time being, he even had the temerity to hiss at me.

After I told him he was being silly, he didn’t take long to figure out he still had reign over his domain. Within a few hours, he was sniffing at the door where the new cat was staying. In just a few days, he was so determined to meet the newest member of our family that we decided to take our chances, forget the two week isolation rule for new pets, and opened the bedroom door.

My tomcat didn’t take long to adjust to his new reality. He happily shared his food bowl and water dish, took turns at the bathroom faucet, and even slept within inches of his new buddy.

Despite the seeming closeness of my two pets, when I had to put the second cat to sleep, my tomcat also took this in stride. I never noticed that he even looked for his former housemate. If anything, I might go so far as to say that he is happier being the only cat in the house.

No matter if his household changes or he has to spend a few days at the vet’s, this cat manages to go with the flow. Because he knows that he has very limited control over what happens to him, he takes his situation at face value. He adjusts moment to moment. What else, after all, can he do?

I often think that if I were more like my cat, I would be a better servant of my God. God encourages me to ask for anything I desire that would please Him, assuring me that He will answer my request. He tells me that He will take care of my every need for the basics of this life. He makes Himself known to me best when I am still enough to listen for Him. And my relationship with Him is strongest when I face the challenges of this life in full knowledge of His promise to always have my back.

Most importantly, my God loves me enough to let me go, to give me the free will to choose Him. In the end, my devotion to my God is all the stronger because I long to know Him, not because He has made me follow.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a virtual slave to my cat, but I love him all the more because, in his own way, he draws me closer to the Creator who gives us the freedom to choose Him as our Saviour.

May the peace of the cat, and of our awesome God, be with you today and always.

In Christ,
Ramona

Christian Living, Faith

Get Off the Political Bandwagon

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

In these past weeks of Supreme Court rulings and inexcusable church burnings, I have been disappointed but not astounded, disenchanted but not disenfranchised. Like many, I have purposely refrained from a knee-jerk reaction and have instead taken these days to reflect and pray.

As one who longs to live a life worthy of the me Christ’s grace has already made possible, I am obligated to approach all the craziness of this world with two overriding principles:

To make God the first and greatest priority in my life. Everything else comes second.
To love everyone else the way I too want to be loved.

If I make God the first priority in my life, that means I spend time in His Word, and that time means that I will be able to test what others say against what the Bible actually proclaims. I will not agree with whatever the media says is OK or all my “friends” think is right without first testing the correctness of a stance against what God’s Word actually has to say about it.

In order to do that well, I have to be regularly and often in the Word. I also have to understand that Word in its totality, not just pick and choose the verses that best serve my own interests. For example, I need to understand that many of the verses that speak out against homosexuality also are against any form of sexual immorality. That includes sex outside of marriage and people who are married to spouses who were not Biblically divorced. In other words, the Bible is against a slew of activities no one has been too riled up about for far too long.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul gives a focus for what the Christian church should concentrate on not doing as well as doing:

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Galatians 5:19-23 NLT)

Notice that, to God, any and all of this comprehensive list of “don’ts” are on equal footing. We humans want to put sin on a sliding scale, but God does not. In other words, if I really take Christ’s admonition to take care of the moat in my own eye before worrying about the speck in anybody else’s, I have much too much to worry about improving in my own behavior to get into the business of anybody else’s.

This concept doesn’t mean I consider any behavior by someone else OK. From a truly Christian perspective, there is no “live and let live.” If I am not acting in alignment with the Word of God, I want my fellow Christians to gently point this out to me. I want them to go so far as to shut me out of the community for a time if that is necessary in order to potentially bring me back into alignment with God’s Word. I want them to pray for me unceasingly.

For those who do not walk with Christ, I can disagree without condemning. I can hold to the Truth without leaving a feeling of hatred in the hearer. But I can only do these things if I am actively seeking to see the non-believers around me through the eyes of my loving God. Just as Jesus held those around Him to God’s truth through compassion and a firmness for that truth, I too can seek to do the same.

If Christ is our Savior, then we strive to be loving, patient, joyful, kind, good, faithful. We also strive to stay away from the behaviors that displease God, from lying and being jealous to hating and being sexually immoral. These times we live in are challenging, which means that now, more than ever, we Christians must live our faith. And if we are really doing that, we will be much too busy to get caught up in the political machinations of this world that detract us from what is truly important–the potential relationship with the Savior of the world each one of us has the right to claim.

Christianity, Faith

Enough Foolishness Already

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

(I hope you enjoy this “reading” of the first half of Paul’s letter to the Romans. The verses quoted are from the New Living Translation.)

If the only record of our culture for the future to see were limited to what they show on television, what kind of people would we appear to be? Almost every show has “lowered the morality bar.” Sex is casual. Language is vulgar. Reality TV makes us all appear to be gossips who don’t mind talking behind other people’s backs, but also embrace a “live and let live” philosophy that is diametrically opposed to a life that leans on God. As my grandparents would have said, “It’s all just a bunch of foolishness.”

Paul wrote about the same kind of foolishness in his letter to the church in Rome:

Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. . . . They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too (Romans 1:28, 32).

Just because we exist in a culture that wants to say everything is OK because that culture doesn’t have any solid base on which to stand does not mean that we as Christians should back down from the truths of living a life in the Spirit. Paul makes it clear that we are meant to follow the law of God’s Spirit, especially because we have that Spirit to guide us as part of the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice for us:

“For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight” (Romans 2:13). “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are” (Romans 3:20). “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith” (Romans 3:27). “Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law” (Romans 3:31). “Now [that you have accepted Christ as your Savior] you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life” (Romans 6:22b). “Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit” (Romans 7:6b).

As sinners, if we received from God what we actually deserve for our behavior, we would have no hope. Instead, as Paul writes, “Can’t you see that His kindness [in giving us the opportunity to accept the grace of Christ] is intended to turn you from your sin?” (Romans 2:4b) The discipline to choose the Spirit over the flesh every day of our lives is tantamount to a life, not of foolishness, but of faith:

“Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?” (Romans 6:16a) “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit” (Romans 8: 5). “And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people” (Romans 2:29b).

What kind of world would it be if we Christians determined to really live the law of the Spirit and not just read about it? Would we have such a high divorce rate? Would we have so many single parents or abandoned children? Would our headlines be filled with information people could really use, or with political agendas that try to convince us that what is true is actually contrary to what is found in the word of God?

Maybe the world isn’t any better or worse than it has ever been. Maybe in a world where we exist in information overload, we just know too much about everything, including what was once kept secret–except no life is secret from the eyes of an omnipresent God:

“And this is the message I proclaim–that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life” (Romans 2:16).

We can live a life that needs no secrets if we will only embrace the promise of our living God. My goal is to live the Word and not just read it. And to stop my foolishness!

Christian Living, Christianity

Christianity Is A Verb

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:8)

When I was around 8, my 15-year-old uncle went around singing the lyrics to a song he really liked. I can still remember walking on the sidewalks of the open-air elementary school near my grandparents’ house that summer, feeling the dry, West Texas wind tickle across the back of my neck as my uncle belted out:

Only the good die young, bum, bum, bum. Yeah, only the good die yo-o-o-ung.

Being 8 and a hypochondriac, I took the lyrics at their literal level, and I wondered why my uncle would like a song that seemed to say that if I were good, I would certainly ensure my premature demise. I found the familiar swings on the playground and concentrated on the clear, blue sky, trying hard to forget about the tune floating somewhere in the air above us.

Only years later, hearing that song again, did it dawn on me that what the lyrics really meant was that being good was somehow like a living death. This concept of goodness is typical of a world view governed by the ruler of the dark. But God is the ruler of the Light, and everything about a life following the Light is far from the world’s concept of a living death.

Everything about the Christian life involves action. James reminds us that “. . . faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (2:17). If you truly believe in Christ as your Savior, then your walk by faith is not just a statement of feeling but a way of being. You do things for others because of what Christ did for you.

Sometimes, your greatest action as a Christian is to keep yourself from acting. In Charles Martin’s book, Wrapped in Rain, one of the main characters symbolizes this kind of Christianity. Rather than taking the revenge that is human nature to desire, Miss Ella Rain instead chooses to hold onto the Light that is the Holy Spirit in us. She warns one of her charges:

“”Tucker, I want to tell you a secret.” Miss Ella curled my hand into a fist and showed it to me.”

“”Life is a battle, but you can’t fight it with your fists. You got to fight it with your heart.””

A heart actively in the heart of Christ truly practices forgiving what seems unforgivable, giving when your first instinct is to take, and using the gifts of the Spirit to show others the truth about our loving God.

When we make Christianity a verb in our lives, surely Christ will ensure that our efforts bear fruit for His Kingdom. A life lived in the Light of Christ is so active, how could anyone really think that the “good die young?”

I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)

Christian Living, Christianity, Love

Even as He Loved Me

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Do you ever read a verse you may have seen a hundred times before and suddenly see it in a different, clearer light?

Besides underscoring the importance of continual Bible study, these moments always take me one step closer to understanding the Spirit in me. As I become more knowledgeable about my relationship with that Spirit, I find myself more comfortable in my own skin. The “peace that surpasses understanding” is always there, these ah-ha moments remind me, we just have to push away the cares of this world that keep us from seeing and feeling our connectedness to the One and Only.

I grew up in the ’70s in the Bible belt. My first Bibles were hard core King James Versions. When I read the Bible through for the first time, it was with a King James version book. It took me until well into my twenties to “trust” any other version of the Lord’s Word. Besides, the poet in me loved the lyricism, the alliteration, the rhythm and the language of the King James Word, even when the phrasing that I loved sometimes made the meaning in a modern world more difficult to comprehend.

For example, even though, “When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17) has a rhythm and parallelism that any writer can truly appreciate, when I read the New Living Translation version of these words, I see an even fuller picture:

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

When Jesus came to sacrifice Himself for us, ALL of the people around Him needed it. Always before, when I would read the KJV of this verse, I would think to myself that the verses meant Jesus came to call those who had not already been following the Word of God, those who weren’t going to believe what Jesus was saying at that time. But the NLT version of these words makes it clear that this verse speaks to all of us. Jesus came to heal those of us who are willing to admit that we are sinners and thus are in need of Him.

Knowing I am a sinner as opposed to thinking I am righteous is also a daily reminder of my need to be on my knees in humility before the God who made me. In that position, I cannot judge others or think I am better than a task I have been called upon to do. On my knees, I know my sin and have a chance to repent of it, be healed daily if necessary by the cleansing power of Jesus, and keep moving forward in my relationship with the Holy Spirit that became a part of me the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior.

Because of the power of the salvation of Christ, I am not only delivered from a damned eternity, I am delivered from the vise grip of a life filled with sin. This is the freedom that Paul writes so frequently about. This is the element of the salvation story that we tend to spend the least time on, but that we need the most on a day-to-day basis. We need Jesus every day to help us not step into the darkness but rather to shine His light.

But, I still haven’t shared my verse in a new light for this week, and it is a doozy! Turn to John 13:34 and read a verse I am sure you may already know by heart. Jesus is speaking to His disciples as His coming crucifixion approaches. One of the things He tells them is this:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (NASB).

In the past, I have read this verse and assumed it to be another way to say the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But the footnotes in my Ryrie Study Bible helped me to see that this commandment takes the Golden Rule to a completely different level.

Think about the implications of the phrase, “even as I have loved you.” How did Jesus love His disciples and all of us, for that matter? He, being God, was willing to be abused, mocked, and even slain for sins He didn’t commit. He loved us so much, He died for us!

How many times do we turn the other cheek, not in the way that Christ turned His cheek, but to keep ourselves from seeing another person in need? I live in a big city where people make a living by holding a cardboard sign asking for money at every other corner. I have gotten good at turning another cheek, justifying my action by deciding that a con artist doesn’t deserve a quarter.

Jesus, on the other hand, took the servants’ role and washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, the disciple Jesus knew was going to betray Him, even as the Lord knelt at Judas’ feet at the Last Supper.

From us humans, blanket statements are dangerous, so don’t think I am trying to interpret this one verse to mean that women who are in abusive relationships are just supposed to keep getting hit or anything like that. We always have to take the Bible in its totality, not just in the one or two verses that seem to serve our purpose. It is the veracity and consistency of the Word that is part of the reason that we KNOW that we worship the one, true God.

Besides reminding me just how much God loves me, my ah-ha moment in the Word this week also has me thinking about ways I can up my game in the loving others department. I am a far cry from achieving Christ’s level of love, but He promised that the great Helper, the Holy Spirit, is in me to guide me on this narrow path that leads to the Light. I may stumble; I may fall; but Christ will always pick me up.

Through true repentance, I can continue to grow in God. Because of how He loved me, I may fall, but I will rise again.

Christian Living, Faith

These “Short” Verses Say Everything

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The shortest verse in the English translation of the Bible is found in John 11:35, which reads, “Jesus wept.”

The weeping of this verse is not bawling, but the gentle rolling of uncontrolled tears as Jesus encounters the pain Mary and Martha feel over the loss of their brother Lazarus. Even though Jesus knows He is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He still feels and empathizes with the pain of death that is part of the fallen world He has come to save.

The implications of the concept of a God who weeps should not be underestimated. Naysayers and non-believers like to say that a God who truly loved us would not let anything bad happen to us. But we who believe understand that because we are born into sin, bad things are going to happen. “Healthy people don’t need a doctor,” Jesus tells His followers. “Sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (Mark 2:17 NLT–emphasis added). The difference between the bad that happens to those in Christ as opposed to those who do not believe is that we know that God has our back in every situation we face.

Jesus wept. God cares for us. He loves us enough to die for us, and His sacrifice was not something He did easily. In my New Living Translation Bible, Jesus explains it this way:

“I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished” (Luke 12:49-50).

Thankfully for us, Christ lay down His life so that we have the promise of eternal life. That truth brings us to the shortest verse in the original Greek of the Bible, which is 1 Thessalonians 5:16–Rejoice always. No matter how many bad things happen to us, we still have reason to rejoice, to be thankful that we have God to lean on.

God’s love is unconditional. Even though we are sinners, He died for us. We can repent of our sins against Him, and He will forgive us. We have every reason to rejoice, even through our tears.

Because we have a God who wept, we rejoice! The two shortest verses in the Bible encompass the entire message of the truth of Christ.

No wonder gratitude journals are so popular. When we face each day with an attitude of rejoicing, we find that smiles come more easily, being forgiving of others becomes second nature, and loving God first and others as we ourselves wish to be loved defines our days.

Poetry

Mesquite Bend: Endings

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The Writer

Observers, those who see
beneath the surface but stand
outside of things, the world

made real only on pages
filled with right words, these few
believers find what inspires
in tractors up on cinder blocks

and the musty scent of sand
floating on the ever-present wind.
The gaps between the rose pin Mrs. Penny

wears to church every Sunday
and the ’57 Chevy she drives once
each month, the writer fills

with details gleaned from sunsets
where the clouds turn purple
and ground hog cities more
active than any Mesquite Bend weekday.

The great American novel lies
in moments spent outside the DQ,
propped against the hail-dented hood
of the only car the family owns,

licking ice cream as it dribbles down cones
in the West Texas heat, the waves
of warmth hazy in the midst of friends
you have known since diapers,

those few who are the only ones
to understand the meaning
of a coyote howl on the darkest night,
the stars twinkling in a black sky,
the wind stealing your very breath,
drying your tears.

Ramona Levacy
April 30, 2015

Poet’s Note: Thus endeth 30 poems in 30 days for 2015. For those of you more used to seeing my thoughts on Christian living, thanks for your patience as I participated in this April challenge. My Mesquite Bend was no Spoon River Anthology, but writing about one town in poetry is something I have always wanted to do. These poem drafts might just be a good place to start on that project at some future date. Thanks again for reading. Have a blessed day! ~ramona

Poetry

Mesquite Bend: Mamas

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The Quilters

These women cook three squares
from scratch, from before the sun
peaks over the long horizon
until it sends its last daily blaze
setting west. They grasp

gleaming counters despite the glint
of dust hanging ever-present
in the air around them. Kids

home from classes start chores
as constant as the clock
ticking away the days over the sink
in every kitchen. Bingo

and bake sales, simple pleasures,
like potluck dinners Sundays
and the sound of husbands
tinkering with tractor or car engines
mean more to these than the trend

for short skirts or platinum hair.
Saturday afternoons, they circle
in the basement of the Baptist church,
a round of quilters making memories
for the town’s babies and newlyweds,

these patterns, more than swatches of cloth,
but fibers of blood and tears
that pulse in their very cells.

Ramona Levacy
April 29, 2015

Poetry

Mesquite Bend: Revival

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Salvation and Dust

Each summer since 1920, the white tent
rises from the dust, its gleaming poles
polished smooth by sand carried
across a thousand miles.

For five nights, Mesquite Bend swells
with hymns and brimstone, whispered
promises of forgiveness, and Spirit-filled
prayers. Faith brings most who sit

in the stiff, folding chairs for hours
each night to listen to Reverend Grady
ebb and flow the Gospel for them,
sweat trickling down his bulbous nose

as he points in all directions, his words
full of holiness and damnation. Others
bring stubbornness with them,
the need to hold on to the self

outdoing the call to step out,
childlike, into the abyss where reason
gives way to belief. These few mock
the courage of those who freely fall

into the arms of the dry, hot air
that builds to a mighty crescendo
of cicada song and amens. The time
fifty souls returned to Jesus

even the mockers felt goose bumps
crawling up arms that raised heavenward.
In a landscape of darkness, these nights
shine between fields filled with cotton and coyotes.

Ramona Levacy
April 28, 2015

Poetry

Mesquite Bend: Readers

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The Library

This building has stood since 1922,
a two-story brick with fuzzy glass
that first served as the home

to the richest family in 50 miles.
When the last Bailey boy died
on Normandy sand so like

his West Texas grit, the house
went to the town, who watched
the dust blast the brick through

two more decades before a girl,
just ten, longed for a library.
Mesquite Bend baked pecan pies

and frosted cupcakes until Twain,
Hemingway and Jack London filled
shelves hand-built by the Carpenters’

Union League, who sacrificed three
weekends of baseball-playing to pound
nails into pine and polish mahogany.

Mondays, the tall English lady who once
acted on the stage in Salisbury read
Shakespeare and Seuss to anyone who gathered.

Friday nights brought the sounds
of violins and guitars trilling through pages
about farming and ranch history

as musicians and bands came
into the usually quiet walls to share
word-love of a different variety.

Summer reading contests encourage
discovery, take FFA students to jungles
in the Amazon and on adventures

where the good guys don’t always win,
and the sunsets compete with the sky
that turns orange and blue outside their windows,

rainy afternoons spent curled up
on Mama’s favorite sofa, the scent
of her lavender mixing with the dramas

about love, war and rites of passage
that help all who crave stories
face a world where joy meets pain.

Ramona Levacy
April 27, 2015

Author: Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Four Lessons From My Cat