Archive for the ‘marriage’ category
October 23, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. October 23, 2014
Our family recently spent five days at Disney World. Seven of us trudged to the airport at 4:30 in the morning to catch a flight towards Goofy and his friends. For five days we side-stepped strollers and motorized wheelchairs to make our way through the Magic Kingdom and its side-kicks…Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. It was a family trip to remember!
The last time we had been to Disney World was twenty years ago when our oldest daughter, Kecia, was turning 13. It was evident that she was as excited to return again this time as she had been in 1994. Her excitement this time, however, was not due to her own anticipation of riding on the “It’s A Small World” attraction once again, but rather to watch the reactions of her kids to the Disney mystique.
They were enthralled by the experience. Riding on Dumbo…having lunch at the Sci-Fi restaurant…meeting Donald Duck at the over-priced character breakfast…taking the mono-rail…wearing Mickey Mouse ears…and seeing the wild animals on their safari ride.
Massive amounts of energy! Wide-eyed wonder!
For me, the best part of the trip was simply being with the family and watching them experience things. Sometimes I enjoyed watching Kecia as she watched her kids!
The magical moments for me weren’t the Disney attractions, but rather things that don’t cost money…like our granddaughter Reagan making up songs in the van on the drive back to the hotel at night…or our grandson Jesse’s open mouth as he went through the Buzz Lightyear ride…or riding “Rockin’ Roller Coaster” with my son…twice! Or eating funnel cakes with Kecia…or seeing the delight on Carol’s face as she saw the enjoyment her family was having.
Although the Magic Kingdom does a magic trick on your bank account…it makes it disappear just like that…our family will always remember the time we had together on this trip.
Interestingly enough, my Aunt Irene paid for our 1994 Disney trip. She was battling cancer. Having no children of her own she gave a sum of money to each of our twelve nieces and nephews while she was still living. Her request was that we use it on something that we would enjoy…while she was still alive to see it! Six months after we went to Disney World she passed away, but she was thrilled that we had taken the family vacation to Florida.
When we look back on our lives most of us will realize that there were those rare opportunities of family memories that we took advantage of…that we didn’t let them slip away. They don’t necessarily have to be trips to magic kingdoms or foreign countries, but they do need to be experiences where, as family, we are together…laughing, singing, telling stories and creating new stories.
Spending time with a three year old is magic in motion!
Categories: children, Community, love, marriage, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: Disney World, Donald Duck, family vacation, Goofy, It's a Small World, Magic Kingdom, memories, mono-rail, Rockin' Roller Coaster. Sci-Fi drive-in, three year olds
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September 23, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. September 23, 2014
One of my unanswered questions got answered today. I had been wondering what eternity smells like…like in heaven, that is! In today’s mail I got the answer. Of all places, it came in the middle of the Kohl’s ad. To my surprise a sniff sample with the title “ETERNITY” was included in the ad.
I slowly raised one of the flaps on the sample to experience eternity. Would it be close to the tantalizing smell rising from a bucket of fried chicken, or the aroma one’s nose breathes in when the fresh bag of ground coffee is opened?
What does eternity smell like?
I was a little taken back by the fact that the scent sample of Eternity was coming from Calvin Klein, and to further confuse my theology a beachfront picture of a woman laying on top of a man, who is kissing her forehead, splashed across the cover of the scent experience.
Calvin Klein had evidently done a lot of study and research on Eternity, because one lift up flap presented a masculine eternal smell, but the flap on the other side of the sample was the feminine version of what Eternity smells like. Neither, in my opinion, smelled as spiritual and persevering as my grandfather’s Old Spice did many years ago, but I’m biased.
I’m going to sneak out and go to Kohl’s tonight, but some Eternity, and see if Carol says, “Wow! You smell heavenly!”
If she wrinkles up her nose and says with a grimace, “What’s that smell?”, I’m going to talk to her about her eternal destination. Not recognizing the smell of Eternity is reason to question where she is in her ability to smell what is of God.
Of course, our sanctuary right now has a musty smell to it. Carol has noticed that. Perhaps if I canvas the neighbors I can collect some additional Eternity scent samples and string them up like fly strips around the worship area. Is it possible that people would start thinking about Eternity more if they smelled it every Sunday?
Obviously, Calvin Klein has some funds invested in this project. They even carefully worded the description of the product. It is “ETERNITY: timeless, intimate, romantic. The perfect scents for him and her inspired by the ideal of lasting love and intimacy.”
There you know! I’m still a little skeptical, so for right now I’m going to just put the smell of eternity in my car. Perhaps it will help it last forever!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Humor, love, marriage, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Calvin Klein, cologne, Eternity, fly strips, heaven, Kohl's, Old Spice, perfume, sanctuary, scents, smell
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June 30, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 30, 2014
There are some things that stay with you even though they don’t make sense. Kind of like that old TV that is sitting in the family room. It’s been a part of the family. You don’t just take a part of the family to the dump!
My “blankie” falls even more securely into this category. My blankie is my blanket. It’s been my blanket since…about August of 1979. I say “about” because I married my wife on July 28, 1979. She brought the blanket into the marriage relationship. It was hers. You know that saying, “What’s hers is his!” I actually don’t know if that is a saying or not, but it should be.
Soon after July 28 “the blankie” transferred partial ownership to me. That means, it crept to my side of the bed at night.
There’s gold, and then there are those few things that are more valuable than gold. My “blankie” is threaded gold.
When we go on driving vacations I take it with me. I don’t take it places if I’s flying. I don’t trust the airlines that much.
I took it on a mission trip to British Columbia…three days drive away! I took it to Park City, Utah last summer.
I took it to camp where I was being the camp pastor. I needed some form of comfort in the midst of a multitude of middle school students, many whom were discovering that there was an opposite sex that could offer them a different kind of comfort.
I took it to Arizona and South Dakota. For thirty-five years it has just felt…right!
Now it is beginning to look pitiful, like the family dog that just lays around and whimpers. My blanket has a few holes in it, frayed ends, faded patterns, and stuffing that is settling in the same spot, like a middle-aged man whose body has decided to most gather around the waist and stomach.
The other thing that makes this unique…and weird, is that my grandmother made incredible quilts. Sixty years after the fact they are in almost-mint condition. They are warm and comfortable, memories for me of my Mamaw Helton who had “settler skills.” That means that she could have survived on the frontier is she wanted. Quilt-making was just one of her gifts. She could kill a chicken, clean it, and fry it up for dinner almost as fast as my Papaw could drive to the grocery and buy a chicken from the butcher. She kept the eastern Kentucky farm going that she and my Papaw owned.
I slept with those quilts as I was growing up. Somewhere along the line after July 28, 1979 I switched over to the “blankie.”
My wife sometimes thinks I love my blanket more than her. That’s not true! Although my blankie doesn’t kick me at night when I snore. She reminds me that the blanket was hers first, but I remind her that possession is nine-tenths of the law.
When I die I hope my blankie is still around. If so I want to it to be buried with me. I don’t want to have to worry about wearing a suit as I’m all laid out in the casket. When do I ever wear a suit while I’m laying down in this lifetime? My mom would never permit such a thing. I can hear her say, “It’s going to get all wrinkled!”
So just cover me with my blankie. Throw a tee shirt on me just in case chest hair is upsetting to some, but drape my tired perishing physique in my tired perishing blanket and let me rest in comfortable.
I know I’ll be walking the streets of gold in heaven, but if I get to nap in paradise I hope I can have my threadbare gold wrapped around me. It only makes sense. It fits…comfortably!…in my picture of perfection!
Categories: children, Death, Humor, love, marriage, Story
Tags: blanket, comfort, gold, paradise, quilt, quilt-making, sleep, treasured possessions
Comments: 2 Comments
June 26, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 26, 2014
My home study is populated with pictures. Pictures tell of what was, and provide sweet remembrances of times gone by.
Sitting on my desk in front of me is a framed picture of my granddaughter when she was two, dressed in the same red dress with white lace that her mom wore when she was also two. Reagan is staring at my when a smile on her face. If her picture came alive right now she could get whatever she wanted from her granddad!
Above her on the wall is a picture of the Mason High School Girl’s Junior Varsity basketball team that I helped coach in 1997. I’m wearing a sweet looking pair of khaki shorts and eye glasses that cover about two-thirds of my face. Eleven girls separate me from Coach Don Fackler, who is on the other side of the picture. Don taught me so much about coaching, and I miss him terribly. I find his voice coming out of my mouth so often in practice and at games. The girls in the picture have gone on to be moms, coach other teams, and develop callings and careers that we would never have imagined.
When I turn around the wall behind me is covered with team pictures of other teams I’ve coached through the years. Each picture is now still life, but my mind is flooded with memories when I gaze at each one of them. I remember the goofballs, the boys who would make me laugh hysterically, and the head cases that kept me awake at night.
Good teams! Bad teams! Teams that worked hard, and teams that didn’t know how to work.
At the top of the rows of pictures is my youngest daughter’s college cheer squad from University of Sioux Falls. She cheered for the Cougars all four years she was there and only experienced one defeat in football, that being one year in the NAIA championship game. The other three years they won the NAIA. She looks so fit and pretty in the squad picture. I’m a little reluctant to remind myself that she is my baby.
There are no wedding pictures in my study. For some reason those are confined to the guest bedroom, like a different exhibit in the museum.
Pictures tell a thousand stories and cause my soul to chuckle in delight.
Categories: children, Community, Humor, marriage, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: big glasses, cheer squad, coach, Coach Fackler, coaching, Mason High School, memories, remembering, team pictures, University of Sioux Falls
Comments: 1 Comment
June 20, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 19, 2014
(I’m doing a month-long writing test with WordPress.Com. Each day we are given a different assignment. Today’s was to open a book to page 29 and write a blog about the first words you see. In fact, we were to write it in letter form.)
Pops!
I know it’s weird, but Your name came up in my reading today. Who would have thought your name would be on page 29 of the novel Divergent!
Crazy!
Actually it was “our father” in the second paragraph that got me thinking about you. Since you celebrated your eighty-sixth birthday yesterday perhaps my eyes focused more on finding those words.
I thought I lot about you. The Omaha Steaks should arrive in a couple of days. Living in Colorado so far away from your place within a stone’s throw of the Ohio River makes me a little sad. I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you. Omaha Steaks are about as fitting a tribute as I can find.
Your hamburgers are still the best IN THE WORLD! I have not found any one who can contest that claim. It’s a family memory. My kids miss them just as much as I do.
My sister and brother will always remember special things about you when we say those words: Our father!
We will always remember your tendency to think before you spoke. It was as if you were sorting the words in your head like Scrabble letters, looking for the right combination that would be clear and wise.
Let’s be honest! Mom used up most of the words that were spoken in our household each day, but, Dad, when you spoke it was listened to. Not that we didn’t listen to Mom…just maybe a little less attentively.
That’s another thing that we will always remember about you, Dad! How you honored Mom, especially in the last few years of her life when she was uncomfortable, confused, and sometimes demanding. You sat by her bedside, fed her dinner, changed her when she soiled herself, and listened carefully to the mumbled words she would speak. Your love for 65 years was evident.
Continue to know that your children and grandchildren love you deeply. I wish I was sitting on the couch with you today watching the Reds on TV, talking about Kentucky basketball, and stories that have been told and retold.
We love you, Pops! Your the best!
Fed Ex me a hamburger, would you?
Your Son,
Bill Wolfe
Categories: children, love, marriage, Parenting, Story
Tags: anniversary, best hamburgers, Dad, Divergent, father, honored, Our father, Pops
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June 18, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 18, 2014
In my youthful years I lost a lot of young ladies. They would disappear as a result of my cluelessness, being clumsy, and uncertain as to what it meant to court a young lady. One of my friends, who was a bit of a Casanova, gave me some “lines” to use that he was sure would work.
One night I pulled one of them out of the hat. I looked at the attractive eighteen year old brown-haired blonde and asked her, “If I told you that you have a beautiful body would you hold it against me?”
She gave me a confused look that quickly cooled the temperature. If you’re going to use a line on someone make sure they are perceptive enough to understand it.
And then my friend, Jeff Slaga, invited me to a gathering of Young Life kids from Hinsdale Central. He added, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
The night of the gathering we gathered in the living room of Bud Bylsma’s house to meet and greet the number of high school students who showed up. As we stood around in conversational groups I noticed a young woman with long brown hair arriving, and being instantly greeted by Jeff. She looked very young, and yet I could tell she was not just another one of the high school girls.
To this day I swear that she was scanning the room trying to figure out which one I was. I know…I’m certain…that she had been briefed on the prospective male who would be there that evening.
With all my “lost romances” that night was the beginning of a found relationship as I met Carol Louise Faletti for the first time. She was funny and welcoming. We chatted for most of the evening after that, lost in the new finding.
The funny thing is that we dated for a couple of weeks, decided to date other people, became good friends, and then about a year and a half later found each other again in a new way. The second time around in our dating relationship resulted in an engagement two months after we started dating again, and marriage four months later.
Now our thirty-fifth anniversary is coming up in another month. Three children, two grandkids, and two son-in-laws have come along.
Now two sixty year olds continue to find each other each day, as we walk in the evening together and discover who each of us is, the ideas we think up, the moments of laughter.
Sometimes it is necessary that we lose some people, some young ladies who don’t pick up on our pick-up lines, in order to find the one to walk the journey with.
Categories: children, Humor, love, marriage, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Casanova, Courtship, dating, Hinsdale Central, pick-up lines, romance, Young Life
Comments: 4 Comments
June 13, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 12, 2014
(Today’s writing assignment in WordPress.com’s “Writing 101” challenge for June was to write a post involving three people- a man, a woman, and an older woman knitting a sweater sitting on a park bench. The story was to offer three different perspectives of what was happening, beginning with the man and ending with the elderly lady. Tough task!)
He thought of things past, points of reference in a life that had taken several turns. As he walked with Sue along the park path they had journeyed several hundred times he remembered the conversation they had shared about Johnny.
“He’s no longer a boy, Sue. He’s a young man dressed up like a boy. It’s time to let him go, to let him be.” He felt her hand tighten on his in anxious disagreement. Ever since Johnny had received his high school diploma at the football stadium adjacent to the park he had become more and more determined to join the military forces. Bob understood. He had wrestled with the same decision when he turned eighteen almost three decades ago.
They walked in silence. Most of their walks these past two years had been in silence. He often got lost in his thoughts as he viewed the white rocked cliffs to his right, thinking about when their son left home for basic training. His face was still not much of a threat to the electric shaver he had received for a graduation present, but he saluted his father as he departed that day.
Sue unconsciously clamped down hard on Bob’s hand as they walked. She saw an elderly lady up ahead knitting something red. Red was the color of their son’s hair, but it also the color of his blood that spilled out at a roadside bombing in Afghanistan. She knew that when Bob saw the red garment he would breakdown emotionally. It was still so painful. She didn’t fault him for encouraging their son’s decision for military service, but she knew he blamed himself. No words could lessen the pain…so they walked in silence…grieved and bereaved…empty shells whose lives would never be the same.
Mrs. Jones didn’t know this as she knitted. The sweater was for her great grandson who was yet to be born, still tucked away in his mother’s womb. Her grandson was coming home on leave in a month, just about the time that the baby was due to be born. She wanted to make sure it was ready. Her grandson was her hero, fighting in harm’s way for his country’s freedom.
She noticed the couple drawing close. They looked like the walking dead, and then she noticed tears running down the cheeks of the man’s face, and she knew they had lost someone dear. The woman gave her a nod that seemed to carry a blessing with it. It was as if the passing lady who looked so sad was wishing only good things for Mrs. Jones.
Categories: Community, Death, Freedom, love, marriage, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: memories, park bench, park trail, walking
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May 11, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 11, 2014
“Mother’s Day Without Mom”
This is the first Mother’s Day I’ve ever experienced without a mom on this side of Glory. Mom passed to the other side last September, the day after Labor Day. So today I’m in a new place just as she is. I’m walking through it with a mixture of grief and gratitude, a strange mixture…kind of like putting ketchup on top of your peanut butter, you’re not sure if it’s good or bad!
The last two Mother’s Day with Mom were grief in process. Her health had declined to the point that she wasn’t able to carry on a conversation. Calling here on the phone was a painful experience with me being in Colorado and her in Ohio. Her health difficulties had reduced her verbal capabilities to a bare minimum…and my mom was always one to be vocal!
I would send her flowers for Mother’s Day. It was the best I could do for her. She loved the floral arrangements and foliage plants that FTD would deliver…once they were able to find the house! That’s another story for another day!
I remember my mom for who she was before her afflictions took her health away. On this Mother’s Day I remember with a grateful heart the stories, the influence, and even “the look!”
“The look” could stop a freight train. It was convicting! I remember that look one afternoon when I was about ten. Mom had told me that I could go to the park in Williamstown, West Virginia where we lived, but that I could not cross the main street in town to go to the little grocery store. Back in those days before aluminum soda cans a kid could find empty pop bottles and return them to the store for three cents a piece. Two pop bottles could net me a Pay Day or Mallo Cup. But on this day my mom had explicitly forbidden me to cross that main street.
“No problem!”, I thought! What she doesn’t know won’t hurt…me! I made the journey and was munching on my Pay Day on the way back across the street when in the distance I saw a car coming that looked like our family car. I sprinted back into the park and hid behind a trash can until I was sure she had passed. Finally I raised up…and there she was…sitting there, and giving me “the look!” I was toast!
Besides the look, however, my mom would care for us. My brother and I always got new underwear for Christmas, just in case we were in an accident and they had to cut away our blue jeans. It was important to have intact pairs of “Towncraft tighty whities” on.
She could cook! And the thing is, she would cook dinner each night after working a full day at J.C. Penney’s. Not packaged meals, mind you! Home-cooked masterpieces…skillet cornbread… green beans that I didn’t appreciate back then, but now miss greatly…fried chicken…squash casserole…need I go on?
My mom had a certain scent. It’s hard to explain that, but it stayed in the nostrils of your memory. Recently I traveled back to Ohio to help my dad get some things taken care of in preparation for his move to a new senior adult independent living complex he’s moving into. Going from his three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment has made these past few months a time of sorting for him. What will he take? What will he leave behind? What will he give away? My oldest daughter, Kecia, asked me to bring back a few specific items that she remembers about my parents’ house. A couple of the things she requested were some of MaMaw Wolfe’s dish towels and hot pads. Why? Because they have MaMaw’s scent that is special. When we would travel home to see my parents “the scent” would be a comfort, a welcoming, almost like entering a room with bread baking in the oven.
I’m grateful for “the look”, “the caring”, “the smells”, and “the scent.” Although Mom is gone, those things will stay with me…and on this different kind of Mother’s Day they make me happy!
Categories: children, Death, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: grateful, gratitude, grief, grieving, home-cooking, J.C. Penney's, memories, Mom, Mother's Day, mothering, scent, smells, tight whities, Towncraft
Comments: 2 Comments
April 24, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. April 24, 2014
My dad is moving. He’s under a month now. The house sold in less than two weeks after he listed it with a realtor…a happening that caught him a little off-guard…kind of like when a young lady I went to college with said yes to a date proposal!
“You will?”
The quickness of the house selling suddenly changed the game plan. It’s the difference between reading War and Peace versus reading the Cliff Notes of War and Peace.
Yesterday we were going through boxes of family photos. It was entertaining and amusing. To see my dad as a curly red-haired two year old (Although his red hair doesn’t really stand out in the black-and-white photo. You rarely think of your parents as kids, especially when they are just shy of 86!
And then there was the picture of my mom in a swimsuit when she was about twenty. That’s another picture I’m not sure about. Mom looked great in a swimsuit…is that okay? A son kind of wants his mom just to look okay for some reason. Call it generational unrest.
Another box had old Christmas card pictures. My parents would put a picture of the three kids on a Christmas postcard each year. You can see the progression each year as we grew and became less cute. The growing attitudes of “This is no longer cool!” can be slightly seen as each year passed by.
There was a few pictures of my Helton grandparents- Mamaw and Papaw Helton. Papaw was a stoic-type Eastern Kentucky farmer, who measured success on the basis on crops, chickens, and good-looking hogs. Seeing the pictures brought back the echo of his voice.
“Loooorrrdddd, have mercy!”
It look him longer to say “Lord” than it did for Jesus to say “holy, holy, holy!”
There was pictures of Feds Creek School where my dad went to school, and Oil Springs High School where both he and my mom attended. It made me realize that I failed to take pictures of the schools I attended, most that no longer are standing! Years from now my kids will think I was home-schooled since there will be an absence of brick and mortar shots to tell stories about.
Pictures of my aunts and uncles through the years were revealing. Each of them shows the ticking of time on their faces, the sagging of their jaws, and gray in, or loss of, their hair. For some of my uncles age was not kind. Most of my aunts, however, had “good skin.”
There was a picture of our Siamese cat “Caesar.” He ruled the roost until he started urinating in the entryway of our house. Mom did not take kindly to a cat who got confused. “Cat dementia” led to an absence of cat.
Finally, there were pictures of former pastors, all with stories attached to the film. Pastor Zachary at Central Baptist Church in Winchester, Kentucky…a great pastor and, I’m assuming, preacher…although I was too young to know what a good preacher was. That was during the period when I was a little envious of the Methodist children. Baptists had Sunday night church, but the Methodist took care of all the spiritual hunger on Sunday morning. Bottom line! They got to watch Walt Disney on Sunday night while we were going at it for a second time at Central Baptist.
There was Pastor Gale Baldridge who was a great pastor with a servant’s heart. He wore brightly colored suits that someday will come back into style…shortly after leisure suits arrive again.
The boxes are full of memories and history. Since cell phones are now cameras I;m not sure how things will be years from now. Will the history be evident? Will there be a richness in that time when our kids help us pack up for the move?
I don’t know. No one talks about “Kodak Moments” much any more.
Categories: children, Community, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Aging, aunts, aunts and uncles, black-and-white photos, Christmas postcard, Cliff Notes, Eastern Kentucky, Helton, Kodak, Kodak Moments, Mamaw, memories, moving, Oil Springs, Papaw, parents, pictures, red-haired, uncles
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March 18, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. March 18, 2014
“Saying Dumb Things”
I am a man!
That means that I often don’t think about what I say until the verbage has left my lips. I wonder if James had just said a dumb thing right before he wrote “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19) Had he just made a comment to his wife…if he was married…about the chicken being too dry or the rice not cooked enough?
I notice he addressed the words to a bunch of guys. There were probably some heading that were nodding in agreement as they read it.
I remember one time in college I had a first date with a fine young lady. I was trying to impress her with flattery about her physical features (never a good thing to do on a first date…especially at a Christian college!), so I made the comment that she was lean in some places and not as lean in others. I can still remember saying that dumb thing outside of Volkman Hall on campus. James was not speaking quick enough to my inner hearing. I didn’t hear him saying “Be slow to speak” quick enough. In the Amplified First Date Version that verse says “Better sometimes not to speak at all..especially when talking about physical features!”
Needles to say my date thought I was saying she was lean in the wrong places and not lean also in the wrong places. My hope of a second date was about as possible as Weber State’s running the NCAA basketball tournament table.
We all say dumb things, but really dumb things stay in our memory storage facility for a long time. For me in that situation, that means…40 years now!
Some might say that God led my lips to say such idiotic words in order to guide me to my future wife as a result of closed doors in other directions.
That’s almost as dumb!
Last Sunday in church I told the congregation that Carol ands I were going to vacation, but I didn’t want to say where we were going. My reason was that it was a warm spot with beaches and I didn’t want to look to uppity!
Dumb!
And then in my message I was talking about the teachers of the law questioning the authority of Jesus because he didn’t have the credentials. I equated it to what the church will have to decide on what is important the next time they do a pastoral search. How important are credentials? I was focused on the questioning of Jesus.
The congregation, however, was questioning where i was going on vacation and what I would be doing. They were thinking there was a reason I was talking about the next search for a pastor and not telling them where I would be vacating to!
Wow! James was whispering too slow to me again!
Dumb.
I think dumb words stay with us longer than words of wisdom. One of our young guys was telling me about something I said in a message a few months ago and how it impacted him. I can’t remember the message and the words. Evidently I had a fit of wisdom that invaded lack of forethought comments.
I wish those times would rise back to the surface more often than they do. They are like the cream. Dumb things said are like the sour milk. Open a refrigerator and it’s the sour milk that hits your nose a lot sooner than the cream.
Last week I was coaching a basketball game and I was pretty critical of one of my players. He made a couple of mistakes that cost us baskets in the midst of a tight game. My words defeated his spirit more than awaken his intensity. Yesterday I intentionally found ways to affirm him in the midst of the game…his defensive intensity…his decisions…and his level of play went way up.
Sometimes dumb things said cause damage in ways that are hard to recover from.
Since I’m six weeks shy of sixty I’m a little better at saying things now than I was as a pimply-faced college student…but I still have those moments when things exit my mouth and head directly towards “Trouble!”
Before Carol and I leave on vacation I’ll be able to tell our senior’s Bible study group, appropriately named “The Ageless Wonders”, that we’re going to a resort located on a beach. They will get the word out that the pastor of the past fifteen years is not being interviewed in another town by another church.
Most will be relieved. Perhaps a few will mumble “Shucks!”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: critical, criticism, dumb things, dumb things to say, hurting words, James, listening, Shucks, stupidity, Weber State
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Words from WW Blog 