Texas Watchtower

Where the ancient Orthodox tradition intersects with the very real, very human story of Texas, her people, and this nation.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

About that time. I need confession badly right now.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

@MrsMagdaBeard What is insane to me is how triggered everyone is on this, not thinking about what they don’t want us to see while focused on this. Same shit. Different day.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

@MrsMagdaBeard What is insane to me is how triggered everyone is on this, not thinking about what they don’t want us to see while focused on this. Same shit. Different day.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

Somehow I have been talked into moving forward with the city manager position in New Mexico; however, I am proposing it start as an interim 90-day role to ensure it is a fit for both parties.

Also allows room for my life changing direction in the interim too, while already having a 90-day plan and long-term plan drafted to implement for better hand off to a permanent city manager, should we decide that I do not go permanent. Focusing on economic revitalization.

Would not do it if were not for the fact rebuilding that local NM economy would also help the economy in TX. For Texas, Amarillo, Adrian and Shamrock would see the most benefit.

Had a long talk with the mayor a few days ago. Let’s see where it leads.

[Doc Pete Chambers @DocPeteChambers]

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7:14

[Al Jazeera Breaking News @AJENews]

BREAKING: Ambassador Huckabee: Israel must guarantee safety, security of West Bank population

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/J3KFKbQ7Hn

[Al Jazeera Breaking News @AJENews]

BREAKING: US ambassador Huckabee visits families of Palestinians killed by settlers in occupied West Bank

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/fKSqiyO6K1

[R A W S A L E R T S @rawsalerts]

🚨#BREAKING: Lindsay Clancy murder trial ends in a mistrial after the defense loses its emergency appeal to Massachusetts’ highest court.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

@MrsMagdaBeard This last part. 💯

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

I believe God will use the Lindsay Clancy case to convict a lot of souls.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

Sitting here over coffee this morning, reflecting.

I'm watching one of my daughters walk through something right now that feels very familiar to me, and it has me thinking about the kind of women we are and the kind of women these little granddaughters of mine may one day become.

My daughters carry many of the same qualities I do. We are intense women. Strong-willed. Outspoken. Highly intuitive. Extremely protective. We tend to step back and see the bigger picture while everyone else is focused on what's directly in front of them.

We notice patterns. We remember inconsistencies. We hear what is being said, but we pay just as much attention to what isn't.

And sometimes there is simply that inner knowing. That quiet sense that something beneath the surface doesn't match what we're being led to believe.

That doesn't mean we're always right. None of us are. But I've learned not to automatically dismiss discernment simply because I can't immediately explain where it's coming from.

And lately, I've had to admit something that makes me smile. My daughters have become better at it than I am.

They connect dots faster. They recognize patterns sooner. They can read a room, a situation, or a person and sense that something is off long before everything finally comes to the surface.

Over this past year especially, they've been right far more often than I wanted them to be. There were people I continued to have hope in when my daughters were already seeing things I wasn't ready, or perhaps didn't want, to see.

There is something deeply humbling about watching your children inherit qualities from you and then develop them beyond where you ever did. And when I look at my granddaughters, I have a feeling the pattern will continue.

But there is another side to being this kind of woman. Sometimes, you are too much for people.

Too intense. Too direct. Too observant. Too difficult to fool. Too willing to ask the uncomfortable question. Too unwilling to pretend you don't see what you see just to keep everyone else comfortable.

Watching my daughter experience some of that now has made me think about something I've noticed throughout my own life.

The very qualities that make some people uncomfortable are often the qualities that make vulnerable people feel incredibly safe.

My grandbabies clap when I walk through the door. They cry when I leave. They want to be close. They curl up beside me and fall completely asleep, without a care in the world.

And I think about that when someone suggests these qualities are a problem to be managed or softened. Babies cannot be charmed or convinced. They have no social script, no reason to perform comfort they don't feel. They simply respond to what is true. And what they respond to in me is the same thing that makes certain adults uneasy. The same source. So when I'm told I'm too much, I look at these little ones asleep on my chest and I find it hard to agree.

There is something about being trusted like that that humbles you. And it isn't only children.

Throughout my life, I've noticed that wounded people often gravitate toward women like us.

The guarded talk to us. The broken trust us. People who normally keep their walls high somehow find themselves telling us the parts of their stories they don't tell everyone else.

And I think there may be a reason for that.

People who have been hurt deeply often become very sensitive to the difference between someone who looks safe and someone who feels safe.

I hear so many women speak softly of hope, healing, grace, and love. There is genuine beauty and strength in that kind of gentleness. But I've also learned that, for some of the most wounded among us, a soft voice alone doesn't always feel safe.

Sometimes it can even awaken an old alarm. Because for some people, sweetness and meekness were once attached to someone who hurt them.

A soft voice concealed manipulation. Kind words came with conditions. Gentleness was followed by betrayal. And the person who appeared the safest was sometimes the person who caused the deepest wound.

So they learned to look beyond presentation. They learned to watch for consistency. They notice whether your actions match your words. They notice whether you tell them the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable. They notice whether your strength is something they need to fear or something that will stand between them and what once hurt them.

And sometimes the woman others call too much becomes the first person around whom they finally feel safe enough to become soft.

I suspect many of us became protectors because we know what it felt like when no one was.

The harder truth is that it is often other women who will reject them first. Not always out of cruelty. Sometimes because a woman who sees clearly and refuses to pretend otherwise makes the performance visible. And some people cannot afford to have that in the room.

What feels like too much to one person may feel like safety to another. And that is something I want my daughter to hold onto during this season of her life.

You don't need everyone to understand you. You don't need everyone to like the way you see the world. And you don't owe anyone a smaller version of yourself as the price of their approval.

But never let discernment become arrogance. Stay humble enough to question yourself. Stay wise enough to listen when someone you trust sees something you don't. Keep your heart soft enough to admit when you're wrong. And never allow seeing the darkness in people to convince you that darkness is all there is to see.

Let discernment make you wiser. Not harder. Because the greatest strength isn't simply being able to see through people. It is being able to see deeply and still choose love.

Maybe that's what strong women eventually learn. Strength and tenderness were never opposites.

You can be difficult to deceive and still easy to trust. You can have strong boundaries and a soft heart. You can see what others miss without needing to prove that you saw it first. You can recognize darkness without allowing it to extinguish your hope.

And you can be powerful enough to protect while remaining gentle enough to be a place where someone else can finally rest.

So I'm sitting here with my coffee, thinking about my daughters and watching these little granddaughters grow, and I find myself smiling.

Because another generation of strong, intuitive, observant women is coming behind us. And I hope they see farther than we did.

Discern sooner.
Learn faster.

Trust themselves while remaining humble enough to question themselves.

Love just as fiercely.
Protect what is vulnerable.

And become even wiser, and softer in all the right places, than the women who came before them.

That would be a legacy worth leaving. ❤️

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

Been awhile since alerts have gone off in #Israel. Something is going on. #IranWar‌

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

There is only ONE man I trust to have the courage, intelligence, discernment and moral integrity to save Texas.

And it’s nobody on this platform.

[MERICA MEMED @Mericamemed]

Probably the best explanation I have heard about this trial if she is found not guilty.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

Peacemaking requires neither an appetite for conflict nor an aversion to it, but discernment; the wisdom to know when confrontation is necessary, when restraint is stronger, when walking away is the only path left to peace, and when duty itself requires the courage to refuse.

[Texas Watchtower @texaswatchtower]

Stop and pray for our troops. Lord have mercy. Standing in the gap wherever I go, baby. 🫡❤️☦️