Carolyn Tomlin

1 week ago | thealabamabaptist.org | Carolyn Tomlin

As a member of our church visitation team that contacts new families in our rural community, I went with our group to visit a family with four children who ranged in age from 10 to 18. We invited them to attend our Sunday School and worship services and gave them magazines from Lifeway Christian Resources that were appropriate for the age groups in the family and gave them information about the programs our church offered.

1 week ago | thebaptistpaper.org | Tennessee Baptist |Carolyn Tomlin

As a small child, my father and I often walked to the country store down the road, for an ice cream treat after supper. Just spending time with my father was so special. He held my hand and we talked about my day’s activities. It was perfect, except for our neighbor’s big black dogs that always came out and barked and sometimes nipped my heels. I would become tense when we had to pass that house. To protect me from any traffic, my father walked next to the cars passing by.

2 months ago | thealabamabaptist.org | Carolyn Tomlin

Are you aware that a recent study indicates that 70% to 80% of Americans consider their families to be dysfunctional? However, it has been proven that family connections are fundamental to our emotional and psychological well-being. In other words, we need each other. Several years ago, I invited a dear Christian woman and friend to my home for her 90th birthday celebration.

Feb 11, 2025 | grit.com | Carolyn Tomlin

Follow the Hockaday homemade broom makers family business to learn how they tie folk art and practicality together. When someone asks Jack Martin, the owner of Hockaday Handmade Brooms in Selmer, Tennessee, how long it takes to make a broom, he strokes his beard, grins, and replies, “Five months and 45 minutes.”Making brooms is in Martin’s blood. In the 1800s, his great-great-grandfather, Wick Hockaday, moved from the Carolinas to west Tennessee in search of a better place to raise his family.

Jan 26, 2025 | thealabamabaptist.org | Carolyn Tomlin

C. S. Lewis once wrote in a letter to a friend, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”These two writers give us insight into what God intended our lives to be — new beginnings, new goals, new challenges. Those things we planned to do last year are in the past. Maybe we accomplished some and some we did not. But God is a God of second chances.