Writings from Richard T.

  I am a mountain builder. There. I said it. Not the good kind of mountains, either. I am talking about those mountains that can exist entirely inside my own mind. Give me one unanswered question, one strange interaction, one conversation I don't completely understand, or one situation where I don't know what is going to happen next, and apparently my mind knows exactly what to do. Go get the shovel! One little scoop of dirt becomes another. Then another. Before long, I have taken a molehill and built myself a mountain. Recently, I discovered there is actually a psychological term for some of this. Catastrophizing. That's when our thinking takes something uncertain, difficult, or even relatively small and starts running toward the worst possible conclusion. When I read about it, something clicked. Oh. I do that. The Mental Mountain Just yesterday, something I had been dealing with felt enormous to me. Today? The mountain isn't there. Nothing outside of me dramatically c...

This song below always hits me in a special way.  It played on my Alexa, out of the blue, touching my spirit with a very dear and close memory to my heart... I felt the Presence of the Holy Spirit within me and as well, around me this morning as I listen and worshiped God. I had to be 3 or even 4 years old at the time. It was such a good and clean, humble memory of my childhood before my mother and dad separated and divorced. From what I remember on the weekend's, we would drive to my Aunt Helen and Uncle Robert's house on Haynesville Highway, on the Arkansas/Louisiana line.   Presently, the small community is known as Dodge City.  The road beside the state-line is called Baileytown Rd. On Sunday mornings, we would travel up the gravelroad at that time, to my great-grand parent's Bailey's house for Sunday lunch.  Everyone called them Daddy Doc, and MaElla (Mills) Bailey.  All the uncles and aunt's and cousins were there!   Samuel Elmore and Ella L...

When life shakes us, what’s inside will come out. Does it carry the flavor of Christ? Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.” He also said, “You are the light of the world”  ( Matthew 5:13–16).  "I was thinking about that one day, and a picture came to mind: a salt shaker." What happens when you shake it? Whatever is inside comes out. If there is salt in there, salt comes out. If it is filled with something else, that is what people are going to get. When life shakes us, people can see what we are seasoned with. They can hear it in what we say and see it in how we walk. The salt that comes out can become our testimony, and the light lets others see whom that testimony points to... I am not saying I have responded perfectly every time I have been shaken. I am saying we need to pay attention to what comes out. And you better bet certain people do take note on their mental clipboard and hold you to it. In my case, since I profess to be a devout follower of Jesus Christ, if ...

  Please read before sprinting off to Walmart!!! 😂🥛 For the past several days, I’ve been looking at the same number in my checking account: $1.63. That’s it. Normally, I don’t think anyone would get excited about having $1.63 in their checking account. But every morning lately, I’ve checked my balance, and there it is. Still $1.63. And strangely enough, I’m proud of that little amount. Not because $1.63 can buy very much. It can’t. I’m proud of it because I haven’t spent it. I've been trying to become more disciplined with my finances. There have been times when I've spent money too quickly, made purchases without thinking far enough ahead, or relied on overdraft when the money ran out. This month, I've been trying something different. I've been checking my available balance every day. I've been looking at pending transactions. I've been checking my wall calendar to see which bills are coming next. Before spending money on something I don't really need, I...

A friend recently shared that she had spent time with Jesus in the morning, as she always does, but that morning her heart just wasn’t in it. She told the Lord in all honesty how she felt. Even though she was still feeling down, she chose to count her blessings and remember that she is loved. In my own way, I knew what she meant. There have been rare mornings when I pray aloud, read my daily Scriptures, worship with music, and write, yet it seems as if all that time spent in my prayer closet is hitting the ceiling. I could relate to her heart not being in it, because I’ve felt that way too. But I never caved in and quit. My friend’s honesty made me stop and think about my own time with the Lord—and why I had felt that way, since it seems so unlike where I am now. Since November 2025, I’ve made a commitment to spend time with Jesus each morning. I love getting up early to meet with my Heavenly Father. I read the Bible aloud, speak Scripture aloud, journal, pray, worship, and work on my ...

There are times when writing a memoir stops feeling like writing and begins feeling more like excavation. Petals on the Pavement has reached that place. For a while, I wondered why it had become so difficult to pick the manuscript back up. The desire to write was still there. The story had not disappeared. In fact, it seemed to be constantly running somewhere in the background of my mind. Maybe that was part of the problem. There were too many things being juggled at once—childhood, family, faith, mental health, recovery, relationships, experiences in treatment, and the question of what belongs in a book and what should remain private. A juggler can keep several balls in the air for only so long before his arms become tired. Eventually, something falls. I am beginning to understand that this book has become more than the task of putting memories into chapters. Some portions have required digging into places that were buried a long time ago. That kind of writing takes something out of ...