My Gift is in His Hands.

I made the statement years ago, “My Gift was in his hands.” I was talking about my father-in-law, who was a wonderful artist. He was egotistical, an angry man and hard to like. I watched him paint and believed I could do it. He was definitely the one who introduced me to oil painting. With an old canvas and brushes, he showed me how to paint. I don’t know if I could have discovered painting without him.

I used that example in a Bible Study. I told the students that sometimes the person who is the hardest to love is carrying our gift. Grant it, I know the gift is within us, but it might be another person who has what we need in order to develop our full potential and have better lives.

Those people have been “Holy Ghost Setups” along our journey. The people around us are vital and important. We can’t do it without their help and we need to recognize it.

This is how it works. While I was learning to paint, my friends were learning to write. I’ve got a lot of smart friends around me. I need to know what they know and what I didn’t learn along the way.

This week I thanked two of my friends for knowing more than I knew. They were taken back by surprise. “No,” I said, “It’s true. You have disciplined yourself over the years. You were willing to learn beyond the ordinary writers. You’ve honed and invested in your craft of writing. Now that I’m writing, I need what you have. My gift is in your hands.”

I asked a friend if she would please edit my final draft before I send it to the agent. I told her there were just a few minor corrections.

“Of course, I’d be glad to do that for you.” My friend is an avid reader and reads with a red pen in her hand.  She said, “It’s funny I lost my red pen, but when I was hiking, there was a red ink pen lying on the path.”

I told her it must have fallen out of heaven. She needed it to read my book. Ha Ha.  Oh, my gosh, I wasn’t ready for some of her comments. When I picked up my edited manuscript, she had written two pages apologizing for having made all the corrections. She wrote, “I LOVE YOU, BUT I’M GOING TO BE BRUTAL. If you weren’t my very good friend, I wouldn’t be so honest.”

I thanked her for being honest and I meant it.  I was glad she was honest rather than me being embarrassed later and losing a possible agent and editor because of my lack of knowledge.

Page after page, the red ink bled with groanings that couldn’t be uttered. She wrote, “That was the stupidest sentence I’ve ever read.” Then there were places where she wrote, “Lalalalala and BORING. You need more passion with that scene. I can’t tell if he’s angry or sad.” Other places where my friend was totally invested, she penned,  “I wanted to slap him, but then I wanted to slap her.” Now, that’s good news. She was into the story and that’s the way it needs to be written.

She said, “When the girl has the baby, you wrote,  ‘It hurts’, and then the baby comes. You’ve got to write more on that scene.”

I told her I didn’t want to go through all that crying and kicking the wall with that birth scene. She said, “It’s necessary and you have to write it.”

After I read through her comments and made the corrections, she asked me if I was still talking to her. I reassured her that I was thankful for the great critique and I loved her even more for taking time to make my book better.  I wouldn’t have caught those things on my own. I was too close to it. Also, I’ve put two years into this book I don’t want it to be just a so-so book. I want it to be really, really good.

I went for my weekly visit to my editor friend and read her my other friend’s comments. I asked her if that was the stupidest sentence she ever heard. She said, yes. As I was reading aloud where she had made corrections and where the red blood was dripping, her dog started crying and moaning. I said, “Listen to your dog, she’s in pain. Even the dog knows my agony.”

As I worked with my editor friend on this novel over the last year, she’d say, “You haven’t set up that scene, you can’t introduce it now. Let’s go back and set it up.” Or she’d say, “You didn’t show that trait in the character. It’s foreign to how you’ve set him up. You have to set that up before he can do it at the end of the story.”

I started thinking about our lives, how the beginning and the end of our stories line up. If those things aren’t set up in us along the way, we don’t have the goods to give out what we’ve been asked to do. Also, as we live our lives and invest into what we love, it might be possible that someone’s gift lies in our hands and they need what we have to fulfill their life’s potential.

Final Brushstroke! I thought of Christmas and what this season really means. God has freely given His Son to us. His Gift is in our hands. As my friend writes, “I love you, but I’m going to be brutal. If you weren’t my very good friend, I wouldn’t be so honest.”  Jesus was born to die for our sins. The red blood of Jesus flows in order that we can have Life. It is our job to recognize how much we need His Gift. Don’t let the bright lights and mistletoe divert you from the real reason for Christmas. I’m just being honest.

Living Our Dream in Pueblo

My Sweet Al is eye candy on my arm. We’re decked out in red Thunder wolves’ tee-shirts and blue windbreakers. We have Team Wylie Blankets, game bags, red sparkling pompoms, red and blue Mardi Gras beads, and red megaphones. We have I-phones ready to take pictures for our Facebook friends.

The four of us, Sweet Al, myself, Allison and Al are looking like the circus has come to town. We are only missing the bearded lady and the sword swallower. We are sitting in our red and blue seats at the playoffs in Pueblo ready to cheer on our grandson’s football team, CSU Pueblo. They’ve had a four-year winning streak with only one loss.

During the Playoff game we were winning big, I leaned over to My Sweet Al and said, “I think we are living our dream.”

He responded, “I didn’t know this was our dream.”

I said, “I didn’t know our dream was going to be in Pueblo, either. It’s kinda like crusin’ Espanola. When we’re with the kids, we’re having fun and laughing a lot.

We were enjoying listening to some of the Mamas and Papas of these hugh football players. The parents could’ve been out on the field and played with the same fierceness of their sons. One Mama was singing, “Sack that quarterback. Hey sack that quarterback.” Then others started adding rhythm and smack. It was a new beat of music. One of the Mamas was yelling like a mad woman, “Jackson, get me the ball. Make your Mama proud. Jackson, bring me a quarterback. Hit someone and play nice, Jackson.”

My daughter leaned over and said, “Apparently she’s living her dream, too.”

Local fans come to the games and fill the stadium. I asked My Sweet Al if he was getting cold. He assured me he wasn’t, and if he did he’d snuggle up to the Hottie who had been sneaking in hot toddies in her bra all afternoon. She was passing them back and forth among her friends. Living her dream?

The expert in back of us had ten empty beer bottles in front of him when the game was over, and he insisted we do the victory dance. We all had to sing with him.  Na, na, na, Hey-Hey Goodbye and Turn out the lights, the party’s over. I don’t know if he’ll remember his dream tomorrow.

My Sweet Al counted the empty beer bottles and said, “He spent a lot of money. Do you know how much money he drank up?”

“No, honey, how much?”

“I don’t know, but it must be a lot.”

One of the mothers, a redhead hot mama, must have been a cheerleader in her day. She yelled, did the car wash dance and high fived everyone in reach or out of reach. Every boy was her son on the field.

I pictured her on top of the table with a lampshade on her head. She could’ve pulled it off. After that win, and the way I was feeling, I could’ve been up on the table with her. Victory makes a person feel different.

I am getting good at HOWLING like a wolf and My Sweetie is yelling, “Get me the ball.” I’m not sure what he would’ve done with the ball. We’ve learned the “Get me the money” sign and Beep, Beep, Beep.

As soon as we had won, we were planning for the next trip to the next game. We made hotel reservations, secured tickets and had our bags partially packed for the next playoff weekend. We hadn’t even left the stadium. I am hooked! For five days we talk football, players, winning and the next playoff game. We are ready to hop in the car and chase the next thrill of Victory.

Our grandson is red shirting this year, he’s not even on the field, and we’re acting like Jackson’s mother. Our grandson was picked to replace Tony Campton, Number 92, nose guard.

The coach says Creede moves quick like him and his mannerisms are the same. He’s athletic, built like Tony, and they want him ready for the defense line. He will be Tony’s replacement after he graduates. Of course that makes us feel proud, tickles us and keeps us buying more red and blue memorabilia.

It makes us totally invested in this team, the coaches, the teammates and the program. Will it happen? Who knows, but it’s living in a dream today. Does it mean a future professional league? Probably not, it’s just the dream of the moment.

Final Brushstroke: My Sweet Al would rather be home on his Kubota, digging holes and having Whiskey, his dog, next to his chair at night. For me, it would be easier to write a book or study Greek and stay home. But, I wouldn’t be doing the victory dance and singing Na, na, na, na, Hey-Hey, Goodbye. And I would’ve missed hearing my grandson say,  “Grandma, I’m glad you’re here.”

Memories - Different and Precious

Time changes, things change, and memories change, also.

We enjoyed our family for Thanksgiving, but a week early and on a Saturday. We’ve always had Thanksgivings on Thanksgiving, but not this year. What’s with that? We would be on the road to a playoff game for CSU Pueblo during the Thanksgiving weekend.

The day was different but the smells of Thanksgiving got the mood set. Sitting around the turkey and dressing a week early, the house was filled with an unusual mix this year. The grandsons came home, brought a friend, and our son-in-law made sure that the neighbors and his niece from California who drove all night had an invite.

One grandson invited another good friend, with his new family. It was fun to have a baby in the house. It wasn't the traditional group but even better and the tradition of family/food and fellowship was still in our hearts.

After the meal, a conversation was prompted by an e-mail I received from a young man who grew up in Pagosa with our children. He had found an article, which appeared in the SUN Newspaper in November, 1978. It read, “YOUNG PEOPLE, Don’t forget this Friday is the Ice Skating Party at the Al Slades, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Tis’ an ‘Old Fashion Party.’ Girls and ladies wear your long dresses and men and boys wear your knickers. There’ll be music down by the pond played on an old Victrola. He signed the E-mail, “Good times and wonderful memories of you both? God bless, Jace.”

There were fifty kids who came that night and some of those kids are still here in Pagosa. Along the way, a few of them have reached back and told us how they enjoyed that night. My Sweet Al and I were making memories for these kids and we didn’t even know it.

I made the comment to the family that I was touched that he took the time to send this article to us. His thoughtful note brought back a precious memory. We reminisced about how things used to be.

I said, “Our grandchildren are missing out on the memories that we enjoyed when we were growing up and raising our children.”

Then our daughter, said, “The grandchildren will have their memories. They will be different memories, but precious to them.”

“Oh, but not like our memories. We had such fun.”

But would this next generation really want to step back and live our memories? I don’t think so. They wouldn’t know how to act. They would be totally bored with how it used to be. How could this next generation possibly know a Holiday without television, CD’s, I-Phones, videos, computers, and texting? They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.

Our son-in-law said his family spent the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s Day visiting friends and family. They called it “Christmasing.” His family would go as a family and take a small gift like a plate of cookies or fruitcake to other families. That was Christmas to him.

Today, with texting, the kids know in seconds what is going on and making plans for a quick escape. Although, they kept saying we have to go but they still hung around longer than we ever thought they would. They wouldn’t go with their family to other families’ homes and visit for anything. Talk about BORING!

Our Christmas will be different this year. For the last twenty years, our twelve family members convened at our house for two weeks during the Christmas holiday in Pagosa.  No matter if we had four feet of snow or it was twenty below, no water, no electricity, our family came together as family.

Even when our California children broke down in Mohave, and had to buy another car in transient, they came.

Last year, when our son came from the Philippines and was mad about the ugly sweaters, he was still with the family. It was our Ugly Sweater Christmas, every one had to wear ugly sweaters the whole time. We had our family portrait taken in them. Everyone was in the picture except our son. He wouldn’t be a part. We had to photo shoot him in later and we dressed him in even an uglier sweater.

We have made a few memories for our grandchildren over the years. When our grandson heard that we weren’t having Christmas as usual, he said, “What’s with that? What do you mean Grandma and Granddad won’t be having Christmas here?  We always have Christmas at their house.”

I said to him, “We had to change the plans, everyone is doing something different this year. Our one grandson is in China with YWAM, our granddaughter is in Southern California and has a job, the other one has to work and you have to be in training over the holidays. It’s going to have to be different this year. We want it to be the same, but it won’t be.”

Over the years, things have changed. We had to make sure we had Wi Fi for the grandchildren and do other things. We still were family and were making traditions along the way. This year, we will all be in different places, but we are still family.

Final Brushstroke! I think it’s up to grandparents and parents to keep the tradition and memories going for their children. It takes a lot of work to keep them going and keep them together. Even though times have changed, families still want to be family and do family things. It just has to be on their terms now.