An excerpt from my memoir, Pools

This fall I had set a goal to finish the first three chapters of Pools of Blessing, my memoir, by the end of September. And today, Whoop! Whoop! I got ‘er done.

Below you’ll find a little excerpt from the newly finished Chapter Three; To Be or Not to Be—A  Daddy’s Girl. 

A little background here; Growing up I was a Daddy’s girl. I followed him everywhere—many times to my own detriment. This excerpt from Pools shares two memories I have of spending time with Dad. Hope you enjoy it. 

There are many good memories I have of working with Dad, though at the time, they seemed anything but good. One Saturday, Dad wanted help cleaning out our backyard shed.  This shed also served as a dog house , though no pampered dog of ours ever actually lived there. Since I was deathly afraid of spiders and mice, it took Dad awhile to convince me to help.  

“Nic, there’s no mice in there.  You’ll be fine,” he assured me.  

I trusted him, mostly.  So I set out to sweep the inside of the pen. Thirty seconds later I was screaming at the top of my lungs, “Dad it’s a mouse, it’s a mouse! Help!”  

The little rodent and I were trapped in the same small space. I panicked. Backing myself into a corner, I held the broom in front of my face—staring the little pest down. Hearing my scream, Dad came to my rescue. He chased the mouse out of our shed, and I begrudgingly continued sweeping.   

You’d think after awhile I would figure out that working on Dad’s projects wasn’t always in my best interest.  

 

I found other ways to spend time with Dad.  In fact, following him around became a full time past time. I even went so far as to go hunting with him. 

It was dove hunting season and, when Dad asked me to go, I decided it would be fun. Well, if you can call laying in a field at  five am in the morning; peeing behind trees every thirty minutes, (hey, I had to drink something to stay warm); and watching poor helpless birds fall from the sky then, yes, I had fun.

But my sensitive side couldn't take the carnage happening all around me. When I saw the soft, warm, fuzzy little things lying helplessly on the ground, I had this fleeting idea to try mouth to beak CPR. Needless to say, I never went hunting with my dad again.

It feels good to have reached a goal that I set for myself. I’m hoping to stay on track. My goal is to have the book ready in the spring--to be professionally edited. Wish me luck!

what to do when you don’t know what to do.

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I realized something very important. I didn’t have a clue as to what to write about for this week’s entry. Usually, something will come to me and I just get this feeling like, ‘Okay that’s what I need to write about.’ Well, as I said, nothing was coming to me. So I said a little prayer and went to bed deciding it wasn’t a big deal, I’d come up with something. God always provides.

You know how some people say, watch what you pray for. Yea, that’s pretty much true. In this case, I, indeed should have watched what I prayed for.

This morning, a dear friend asked if I would like to help prepare some freezer meals for both of our families. At the time, it sounded like such a good idea. But when I agreed, I failed to mention one small, kind of important thing; I’m not a very good cook. At all.

Regardless, my hope was that this would go smoothly. I mean I know how to cook for my family. Granted, cooking for me means baking a frozen pizza or whipping up a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Real cooking can’t be much harder than that, can it? So, I took a deep breath and got to it. 

My first recipe was for homemade chicken cordon bleu. Holy moly. Hoping against hope that this would go better than expected, I stared down at the chicken willing it to behave. It just stared back at me, so I figured we had a deal. But I was wrong. I pounded that chicken and topped it with all kinds of good stuff, but when it came time to roll the chicken up, yea not so much. Oh well. I figured I could move on to something easier, something I know how to make. 

Mashed potatoes. ‘This should be easy,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’ve made these before.’ Unfortunately, for me, I wasn’t paying attention—at least not enough. Long story short, I tripled the salt that was needed for one batch. I thought I had enough potatoes for three batches. The result was too much salt; not enough potato. 

At that point, I decided it would be better to leave rather than mess up another recipe. Thankfully, I have an understanding friend.

It reminded me of another debacle that happened to me a few weeks back. It involved an exercise class and a step. Need I say more? At first, things were going great, I was catching on to the moves, getting my groove on. All was well until, and I stress the word, until, the instructor began incorporating the step into our workout.


You know sometimes before something bad happens, you almost get a premonition that it’s going to happen? I kid you not, seconds before it transpired, I pictured myself falling off of that step. Unfortunately, my premonition was spot on; I lost my balance and in a not so graceful way fell to the floor. Thankfully, nothing but my pride was broken.

Perhaps, I should get to the point of all of this; I don’t like not knowing what I’m doing. It’s such a scary and vulnerable place to be. It reminds me of how I used to feel about praying. So inadequate, not knowing what to pray or how to pray. Then, one summer, someone told me a story that changed everything. 

There was a man who liked to play darts. In fact, he was amazingly good at it. Like hit-the bulls-eye-every-time kind of good. In fact, he was so good, that his neighbor came to visit him hoping to pick up a few pointers. 

When he asked his friend for some tips, his neighbor obligingly agreed to show him how it was done. Grasping the dart in his hand, he flung it against the side of the barn. Then, as his neighbor watched, mystified, he walked up to the barn and with a piece of chalk drew a perfect bulls-eye around the dart.

Seems like a silly story but for me it struck a chord in my heart. Praying is like that. We toss our "darts" up into the air, hoping against hope that we’ll hit the perfect prayer; the one God will accept and answer. Only, the thing is, it’s not our job to hit the bulls-eye. You know why? Because the Spirit intercedes for us, that’s why. He makes our prayers what they need to be. 

So even if it feels like you’re desperately tossing prayers at the side of a barn, take heart. The Spirit comes right along and draws a bulls-eye to make it the perfect prayer. Every time.  

 Romans 8:26

  ²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

crazy thoughts

Can I just start this entry by making something very clear? I am not, I repeat, not a theologian. Never have been and never will be. So if in this entry, I somehow insult you with my thoughts, please forgive and have grace. Okay, sigh; just feel better getting that off my chest.

How many of you have seen the movie, Avatar? Just the other night, I bought it off of Amazon and downloaded it to our Amazon account. Now, I realize that some of you may not be fans of the fantasy genre, so if you haven’t seen it allow me to give you a brief summary.

 

Oh.My. How does one succinctly go into the story line that is Avatar? 

The main character, Sully travels to a distant moon called Pandora as part of a military force whose sole goal is to mine for Unobtanium which is a highly valuable mineral found on this moon. The problem is that the native tribe, the Na’vi,  live directly over the richest mining field. Sully’s job is to become one of the Na’vi in order to gain their trust and convince them to move away from their sacred ground. 

Through his time spent with the Na’vi, Sully not only grows to love the people, but their land and sacred ways as well. In fact, the movie closes with Sully forever forsaking his human life to become a member of the Na’vi tribe. In the very last clip, Sully’s eyes open with a kind of excitement and joy reflected in them . End scene.  

You might be thinking to yourself, why all this talk about Avatar?  I don’t know about you, but I love a good story. For me, sometimes a story takes a complex idea, one that is above my pay-grade, and makes it understandable—in an everyday sort of way. After all, Jesus often told stories, parables, to teach us about the Kingdom of Heaven.

So why not use Avatar. A movie that seemingly has nothing to do with religious things. Or does it? You see as I watched Avatar and how the character Sully began to love being Na’vi over being human, and chose to become one of them to the very core of his being, something occurred to me. Maybe Sully’s joy over becoming Na’vi was the same for Jesus when he became fully human.

I may be on shaky ground here but stay with me. 

According to Wikipedia, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man 81 times. While in the epistles, Jesus is only called the Son of Man four times, in the Gospels Jesus is recorded as using it all the time. In fact, Son of Man, seemed to be his favorite self-designation.

The question is why? Why would Jesus choose that designation to identify himself? After all he had every right to call himself the Son of God because that’s exactly who he is. 

Maybe you feel the same way, but I never really understood why Jesus would call himself the Son of Man. I mean, I know the right Sunday school answer; Jesus called  himself Son of Man because he is both true God and true man. I don’t have a problem with that. I get that. But if I was both true God and true man, I would choose to call myself Son of God nine times out of ten. It just sounds better. More important. More lofty.

But maybe Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man so often because he was proud to be human. He loved humanity. After all, as humans we are God’s prized creation.

Before I close, I wanted to share a scripture with you that might illuminate what I’ve been making clear as mud. 

 After Jesus was arrested, he was taken to the court of the high priest to stand trial. While there he was questioned but remained silent; that is until there was one question he couldn’t help but answer. And what he had to say spoke volumes as to how Jesus really felt about becoming one of us.

Matthew 26:63-66 The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” 
   ⁶⁴ “You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”^[a]
 
When asked, Jesus acknowledged truthfully that he was the Son of God. But when he spoke about the day of judgment, Jesus once again choose his favorite self-designation; Son of Man. Just in case you missed it, here it is again.

“But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”^[a]

 

End Scene.

katie's prayer

Last night, I lay on the kitchen floor sobbing.

Great way to start an entry, right?  

Now, I know I’m revealing a very personal moment, but I do have a purpose in sharing this. Besides, I’ve shared much worse things on this blog, and from the very first post have determined to be honest about life—more the way I think we should be with each other. 

This feeling I was overcome with, it wasn’t depression, it was something much deeper. If I tried to explain it, it wouldn’t make sense. My grief is my own, just as it is for you. Let’s just say a pile of burdens was weighing me down, and I felt tired. Just tired of all of it. 

But here’s where the beautiful part begins. As I said, I was sobbing, overcome with all of these emotions and then as I was standing holding tightly to the counter a lovely thing happened, well two lovely things actually. My dog with whom I have a love/hate relationship came around the corner whining and whimpering. Now, he never does this with me, and, maybe, I’m reading too much into it, but I really think the little bugger was bothered by my crying, maybe even concerned for me. 

I felt so touched that I sat down on the kitchen floor. As he approached, my sobs began to subside. I was still crying, but it wasn’t a tormented cry, just a tears rolling down my cheeks kind of cry. 

Then, I heard the front door open. It was my daughter. She was looking for me. In that moment I had a choice to make, I could wipe my tears and pretend that nothing was wrong, or I could be honest with her, letting her know that parents are people too; that we hurt, feel pain, cry. I decided to choose honesty and with this decision, I took a deep breath waiting for her to come around the corner. 

As she entered the kitchen a look of surprise came over her. I could see the question in her eyes—why is Mommy crying? Katie approached and knelt down beside me and the questions began.

“Mommy, why are you crying?”

“I’m just really sad, Baby.”

 “Do you have an owie, Mommy?

 “Yes, I do.”

“Where does it hurt?”

All choked up, I responded, “My heart hurts, baby.”

The look of surprise now turned to tenderness, and Katie reached out to put her hand over my heart, comforting me as if I had fallen down and scraped my knee. 

“Mommy, can I pray for you?”

“Yes, baby I would like that.”

With that, she bowed her head and began one of the sweetest prayers I’ve ever heard—one that I will treasure forever: 

“Dear God, Please help Mommy to feel better. Help her heart to feel better and help her to know that you are always with her.”

Out of the mouths of babes, right? It was a magnificent prayer. Wiping my tears away, I embraced my daughter telling her that I loved her with all my heart, and that her prayer was working because my heart was already feeling better.

In this parenting endeavor, I sometimes wonder if I’m doing anything right. But watching my baby girl bow her head and pray for me got me to thinking, ‘Maybe I am doing some things right.’ By the way, her prayer really was answered; today, my heart doesn’t feel so burdened. All thanks to a little girl who just wanted to help her mommy feel better. Amen.