THE BIGGER PICTURE By Jessica Breazeale | Wesson News This past Sunday at Decell Memorial United Methodist Church in Wesson, the pastor was reading the Beatitudes, and she said something that has stuck with me ever since: Are you the conduit or the blockade? Friends, that question fits a whole lot of situations. When it comes to peace in your family, are you the conduit or the blockade? When it comes to kindness in our community, are you the conduit or the blockade? And wha

THE BIGGER PICTURE By Jessica Breazeale | Wesson News I get that there are plenty of times we don’t feel very saint-like. Maybe even never. But every one of us is called to be a saint. So what do we do with that? Seems like too tall an order. When you hear the word “saint,” who do you picture? Maybe somebody in a stained-glass window. But some of the most extraordinary people I know are common, ordinary people. They aren’t famous. Nobody is putting their name on a building.

By Jessica Breazeale When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you like what you see, or do your eyes go straight to the imperfections and stay there? Now try a harder question. What about the mirror to your heart? What do you see when you look inside, at the part no one else can see? Do you like what's there, or do you dislike that too? Where Our Self-Image Comes From How we see ourselves is multidimensional. Our self-image doesn't come from one place. It's pieced tog

By Jessica Breazeale If someone doesn't value your presence, let them feel your absence. You were never meant to be anyone's afterthought. We all know someone who shows up for everyone. They remember the birthdays, answer the late-night calls, and say yes when they're already stretched thin. Sometimes that person is us. Giving is a beautiful thing. But there's a difference between being appreciated and being available. When people only notice you when they need something, or

by Jessica Breazeale I heard something recently that I haven't been able to shake. A man said he stopped complaining about the very things he prayed for. Y'all. I had to sit down. Think about it. Remember when you begged God for that job? You promised you'd never take it for granted. You'd show up early and give it your best. Now it's Monday morning, and you're griping about the workload before you've finished your coffee. Remember that house? You drove by it, dreamed about i

By Jessica Breazeale As if she needs a caption! (The late but great Dolly Parton herself!) I have two hanging baskets on my front porch, and I've started calling them my Dolly Parton wig plants. That's genuinely the only way I know how to describe them — big, full, bouncy, bursting with life. I don't even know what kind of plant they are. I think I picked them up at Buds and Blooms, and one of these days I need to actually ask somebody what I'm growing. For now I just know th

By Jessica Breazeale When I was little, I wanted to be a Broadway star. Name in lights, singing and dancing well into my 90s, probably still doing eight shows a week when I needed a walker to get to the wings. That was the plan. These days, if you stopped me on the street and offered me the lead in the next big musical, I’ll admit I’d pause. Old dreams don’t die easily. But I wouldn’t take it — because somewhere between then and now, my definition of “growing up” quietly rear

By Jessica Breazeale Look at this picture. What do you see? Imagine a man walking along with a cloud hanging directly above his head. He walks into town. The cloud follows. He goes home. The cloud follows. He travels across the country. The cloud still follows. Now, what do you see? One person might say, “That man is depressed. Darkness is following him everywhere he goes.” Another might say, “No, he’s a thinker. That cloud is filled with ideas, imagination and creativi

By Jessica Breazeale Most evenings, you can find me outside, chair tilted back, eyes on the sky. It's my place of peace — the one part of the day where nothing is asking anything of me. And almost every evening, around the same time, the same thing happens: a line of what looks like ducks flies overhead in a perfect V. Every single time, without fail, my brain does the same thing — it flashes straight back to childhood, to The Mighty Ducks, Emilio Estevez wrangling a rag-tag

By Jessica Breazeale You've heard it a hundred times. Probably from your mama, maybe from a frustrated coworker, definitely from a friend talking you down off a ledge of self-pity: “The world doesn’t revolve around you.” Usually it comes with a little side-eye attached. But stick with me, because there’s something genuinely wonderful hiding inside that old saying — and part of it isn’t even a metaphor. It's Not Just a Saying. It's Literally True. Here’s a fun one: for most of

By Jessica Breazeale Pair of modern dice You know the phrase. Somebody's staring down a decision — a job offer, a first date, whether to say yes to the thing that scares them — and they shrug and say, "Well, I guess I'll just roll the dice." It's a phrase we use for recklessness. For giving up on strategy and letting luck take the wheel. It's the opposite of a plan. I got curious about where that phrase actually comes from, so I went down a rabbit hole. My first guess was tha

By Jessica Breazeale There's something about seeing that covered wagon roll across the screen again that just does my heart good. That nostalgia that is like chicken soup when you’re sick. Netflix brought back Little House on the Prairie this month, and I'll admit, I skipped it a few times before giving it a watch. I was skeptical at first because I thought, “we’re so past that in society.” And reboots don't always get it right. But watching the Ingalls family settle into a