Growing Up with Prayer, Love, and the Red Dirt Road

By Cheryl Moffett

I slowly raised my hand when the visiting pastor asked who wants change in their life. He looked at me and told me, "I have nothing for you, you need to write, just write. Your story needs to be heard."

We were barely hitting top speed, flying down the hill, and the sound that blasted through the trees and above the pebbles scared us all. It was the blast of a horn from a log truck. This bellowing booming sound meant get out of the way! Our laughter turned into fear as we all turned back to see a large empty log truck barreling at us.

Growing up in the heart of the deep East Texas woods with three channels on TV, we could not help but take our adventures outside. These stories will take you down the red dirt road we called home. We raced log trucks in a makeshift buggy, nearly burnt down Granny's house, danced in her shoes, created clubhouses out of anything not tied down, plus so many more.

Looking back at these adventures, we laugh and wonder how we made it without broken bones or, worse, mishaps. We made it with prayer and a family's love for God and us. With each adventure you read, you will find a lesson learned I discovered along the way forty plus years later as I have grown into my faith. It's been there all along, all I needed was to slow down and be still.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638745020

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Growing Up with Prayer, Love, and the Red Dirt Road

Cheryl Moffett

Copyright © 2021 by Cheryl Moffett

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

To Shelly and Clayton. Thank you for a childhood of adventures and a lifetime of memories. You will always be sister and brother in my heart.

We were unsupervised when we explored and played in the Big Thicket on our red dirt road. Many life lessons, prayers, and gentle guidance were given without us knowing.

Why Did I Write this Book? A Note from Cheryl

As you grow up and look back at your childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, it can bring you laughter, smiles, anger, and sadness. One thing to remember is to not get lost in the anger or sadness. These two emotions keep you living in the past. Accepting and working through the emotions and understanding the lessons you learned helps create the person you are today.

Childhood life lessons take a while to sink in. You may not realize there are lessons to be learned until you are an adult. I started realizing my prayer life changing as my children began to grow up to be more independent. I was thinking back at some of the crazy, unsupervised, and not near-death but near-injury adventures we experienced growing up; this is how Growing Up on Prayer, Love, and the Red Dirt Road was created.

As the stories unfold, I hope you find the laughter, release, growth, and direction in your own journey of life. I pray the scriptures that God placed in my heart will show you the love, peace, kindness, and joy you can find when accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior. I pray you learn and let go of the past, not worry and stress over the future, and begin to live boldly in the present with the freedom you will find knowing you are a child of God, and He is with each step you take.

Looking back, moving from the city to the country was my parents’ choice. As a child, we did not understand their reasoning for moving us. As an adult, I am thankful for that place of my childhood. We created great memories and sometimes not-so-great memories. This is the place I learned of God, salvation, and prayer.

This is the place where my faith was built.

It is the family, school, community, and church in a small town that help mold you into the adult you become. As I sit here and reread this for the hundredth time, I am thankful for the love, support, guidance, and push from my parents, Granny, and my Red Dirt Road community. This made me the person I am today. For this, I am thankful.

I lived the Miranda Lambert song The House that Built Me for five years.

Living with my granny for five years while our house was being built taught me a strong work ethic and a love of the Lord. Mom went through all the magazines her sister would bring.

She would clip, draw houses, and create the home she wanted for us. While the house was being constructed, I shared a bedroom with my brother and sister in Granny’s house. It was tight, literally. There was room to walk around a double bed and a twin bed with a small dresser and a table, and that was it. There was no floor space to play, build, or lay down without some part of your body being under the bed.

This book is written to share with you the adventures we had living unsupervised in the great outdoors, deep in the heart of the Big Thicket. Thinking back to our childhood adventures, I treasure those memories, fight back tears, and crack up laughing at the things we got into, accomplished, built, and the lessons we learned without dying.

Learning self-acceptance and to just be is part of my empty-nest journey. I have been going ninety miles an hour for as long as I can remember, always planning, working, doing, caring for others and trying to improve.

Improve?

Improve what?

Appearance? Weight? Eyebrows? Hair?

My children? My house? My role as a wife? Neighbor? Friend? Or family?

Learning to say no as I have gotten older is becoming easier. I have always been the fixer, caregiver, and people pleaser.

To sit and just be still is the hardest thing I have ever done. Being still creates the presence of knowing my thoughts and accepting them. Knowing happiness is temporary, and knowing my joy is permanent with my faith in the Lord keeps me grounded.

Robert Holden, PhD, writes and speaks about this in Shift Happens! People who follow their joy discover a depth of creativity and talent that inspires the world.

I wrote chapter 1, Fireworks and Muumuus, before church one Sunday.

I then came back and wrote the introduction to what I was doing. Right here is where I stopped. I had to get dressed for church. Not that I had to go. I could have kept working on my paper and listened to my favorite podcast. But I chose to go to church that day.

Going to church does not make you more Christian or get you to heaven. It does allow for you to grow and pour into others as they can pour the word of God into you. Going to church helps me grow my relationship with God and strengthen my faith.

The word of choice I have been using since I left church that day has been crazy.

Crazy prophetic!

Crazy, this is crazy: Kenny told me to find a new word. It was a divine intervention, screaming, Here, lady, here is your path. Now start.

I had been four times to this new church. I did not know the guest speaker this day nor the preacher. The guest speaker asked if anyone was looking to see change in their life. I raised my hand. I was searching. He then asked us to stand, I did. He then proceeded to tell us to come down to the alter.

I have not been to the alter since I prayed for my mom during the beginning of her cancer treatment. My time at the alter for mom is a testimonial all by itself. I have prayed over and with many. I really was not wanting to go to the alter, but I got in line and then realized half the church was in line. But this time at the altar, it was for me.

I stood there, and thoughts kept popping in my head, I am ready to go sit down. I do not want to stand in the line in front of everyone. He is not ashamed of you, why are you ashamed or embarrassed of Him? Ugh, this is going to take forever. There are a lot of people ahead of me. Then peace, you have eternity. He loves you. He is your joy. He is your calmness. You will stand here.

My turn. He laid his hands on the side of my head, prayed, took my hands, and spoke. His words were simple, I don’t have anything for you. You must write. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. They need to hear this. Just write. Just write. That’s all I have for you.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, not sadness but more of a relief—God affirming His plans for me, knowing I am not jumping into something that He is not a part of. So here we are. This is where the book begins. Some you will love, others may leave you shaking your head, hopefully with a smile. The writing is not professional. It comes from my heart, my faith, and my memories.

xo Cheryl

Chapter 1

Fireworks and Muumuus

The three-bedroom, white wooden house sat about fifty yards off the red dirt road. You could smell the iron ore in the air from the dust that blew into the unsealed windows. This small house had wooden and laminate floors, wooden walls with peeling, cloth wallpaper, and paneling.

The living room and dining room were in the middle of the house. The kitchen and Mom and Dad’s bedroom were off to the right. The bathroom, Granny’s room, and our bedroom were off to the left. A Dearborne heater sat in the living room as you entered the house with an AC window unit in the dining room.

This wooden house sat on cinder blocks, was surrounded by towering cedar and oak trees, and one beautiful mimosa tree with a wisteria vine entwined through it. The cedar trees were so large their limbs touched the ground, creating a canopy of shade for hot summer days and cool dirt to play in since grass did not grow under these trees. One of the giant oak trees held a tire swing. This tire swing was held in place by a wire rope at least twenty feet up to the first branch. It felt like you were flying with the birds when you really got the tire swing going.

Summer days were hot on the red dirt road with the wind only blowing in the tops of the trees. If you laid still, you could hear the wind dancing far above your head, winding itself in and out of the pines and oaks. This red dirt road was a logging road, oil field road, and a shortcut to another small town when the creek flooded.

When log trucks drove by, you knew who was courteous and who was trying to get the logs delivered quickly by the billowing puff of red dust that rolled into our house. This was Granny’s house.

We moved here when I was entering the fourth grade. Granny’s house was home. The house was warm, inviting, and a great place to learn indoor baseball.

Granny’s house had a cement stoop for a front porch. The banisters were solid cement on both sides of the steps. Facing the house to your left was a beautiful purple hydrangea, and to the right was nothing but carpet stickers that could cover your foot with one step. Sometimes there would be stinging grass growing here too. Stinging grass was a weed that would make a whelp on your skin and burn if you touched it.

Dad worked in the city. On one of his trips home, he brought us fireworks: sparklers and Black Cats. He bought the entire kit. I am not even sure what all was in it. He put them away, and we were told, Do not touch them. We would do them later that night.

At this point in our lives, we were five, seven, and nine years old—we being my sister, my brother, and I. I am the oldest. My sister is the middle child, and my brother is the baby.

This hot, dry summer Saturday morning, Granny was the only adult home. I would say babysitting, but you really can’t call it babysitting. We could play outside all day without checking in. We could easily say I was in charge.

Saturdays were one of my favorite days of the week. These mornings, Granny would make us iron skillet, fluffy, homemade pancakes. Plus, it was cartoon day.

Today was like any other morning. Granny was drinking her coffee, smoking, and doing her crossword puzzle. She was sitting in her spot at the dining room table in her muumuu. A muumuu is a long, flowing, shapeless dress that comes in all colors with abstract designs or flowers and birds. The pancakes were gone, cartoons were ending, and we were bored.

Living out in the country, we did not have the luxury of calling up a neighborhood kid and walking over to have a playdate. Neighbors were five miles or more down the road. So this left us with opportunities to explore the woods, play outside (we did not have our Atari yet), and build state-of-the-art clubhouses. On this glorious morning, we chose the exploring.

Exploring the house for the fireworks, we found the bag of fireworks and a lighter. Granny and Dad both smoked, so there were always lighters lying around. We brought the bag to the front porch and sat the bag in a nice high place on the banister.

We started small—small being worms and smoke bombs. We placed these strategically in the front yard, which was mostly red dirt. Black worms were growing in a cloud of red, green, and blue smoke. It was a beautiful sight.

We were standing there, observing our creations when brother decided to start with the firecrackers. This little firecracker surprised us all. It took off with a buzzing sound and launched itself as high as the house. It was jumping and buzzing.

We realized this was not a firecracker. This was much more exciting and less noisy. He lit another one. This one did the same magical buzzing, jumping dance as the first one, except it landed wrong.

This crazy jumping jack jumped right into the bag of all our precious fireworks!

The sound of firecrackers exploding, sparklers spraying, and more jumping jacks taking off created a firework frenzy on the front porch. Then the bag fell over and hit the side of the house.

Brother jumped the banister. Sister ran inside, and I tried to close the bag—not smart!

Then out came Granny, flying