It was Christmas Eve morning, I don’t know, about 12 years ago, I guess. I got up way ahead of everybody else, and for some reason had to go to the grocery store. And for some other reason I can’t remember, it wasn’t our regular grocery store.
When I walked in, I noticed that the supermarket had a case of 24 Christmas gel candles marked down to a buck apiece. On a whim, I bought an entire case of them and hauled them home.
I was inspired.
(By the way, completely irrelevant side note, but that’s just one more reason to do your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Black Friday’s got nuthin’ on the bargains you can find the day before Christmas. More here.)
I got back home and everybody was still settled in to their long winter’s nap. So I went to work. I sat down at the computer, grabbed a sheet of labels, and printed 24 that read, “Thanks for the light you bring to our lives every day. Merry Christmas, The Wood Family.”
Boy, was I inspired. Click here to see what happened
Davidson High School, Mobile, Alabama. Circa 1974. My freshman year. I’m standing in the cafeteria line, waiting to decide whether I was going with the hamburger or whatever today’s chef’s choice was. It was there I spotted her, headed toward the faculty dining room. This was worth losing my spot in line for.
She was our school guidance counselor, and also an experienced English teacher. She was wise about things I was ignorant of.
She also happened to be my great aunt.
“Aunt Helen!” said I. “I wanted to ask your advice about something.”
“What’s that,” she replied.
“Well, see, I’m writing a book – a novel – and I wanted to get some advice from you about how to get it published.”
(I should pause here to interpret what “novel” meant. I probably had about five chapters, about five notebook pages hand-written each, about a tough-guy high school kid who winds up dying for the girl he loves, who happened to have the same name as the girl I was fixated on in the ninth grade. Anyway…)
Her advice was sage – way wiser than my 14 years. She didn’t write off my dreams and tell me that 14-year-olds don’t get published as novelists. She didn’t boggle my mind about query letters, agents or publishing houses either. She offered me words of encouraging truth. [click to continue…]
Albuquerque. Sunday morning, 4:30 a.m. MST.
I think I had an encounter with a prophet.
Or maybe it was one of those times when the Lord Himself wanted to pay somebody a personal visit and get their attention. He definitely got mine and for the briefest of moments it wasn’t pleasant. [click to continue…]
When I was studying for my doctorate, I was required in one class to write a literature review. I had never done that before, but we had a guidebook for writing lit reviews as one of our textbooks for this particular course.
I’m not sure what inspired me, or even where I got the idea. It was a bit outside my standard operating procedure. But I did it anyway: I opened the book and followed the instructions.
Step by-step.
No creative re-engineering.
No rethinking, reinventing, or re-anything.
My professor, who was Regent’s answer to Simon Cowell, raved. Talked about how refreshing it was to read my review after enduring a string of mediocre-to-bad papers.
While his feedback was amazing, what was more amazing was that all I had done was follow the instructions. [click to continue…]
Heh heh heh… You’re gonna know I’m not smart enough to make this up…
They’re trailblazers, I tell ya’. They’re not about to let a coupla’ Johnny-Come-Lately’s (or Shepherd or Cason or Fischer-Come-Lately’s either) get the drop on them. No sir. They’re the first-born, by George, and they’re assuming their rightful place on the family frontier.
Um… except that maybe that family frontier may have a few unexpected twists and turns. [click to continue…]
On Sage Avenue, just north of Airport Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama, you’ll find the still-proud structure of St. Pius X Catholic church, built in 1968. I’ve never been inside of it for any reason. But I’ve bragged on it a lot. Especially to my friends at Mrs. Cobb’s Day Care that met at the Methodist church across the street back in the summer of ’69.
In between using tennis racquets as air guitars to tunes like “Proud Mary” and “Daydream Believer,” and acting out our own living music videos to “Seven Little Girls, Sittin’ in the Back Seat, Kissin’ and a Huggin’ with Fred,” we’d hang out on the playground and I’d brag about “My Daddy’s Company.”
Actually it wasn’t his, but he worked for one of Mobile’s premier construction firms during the time when a boy most wants to be proud of his dad.
Martin Builders had just finished the beautiful sanctuary at St. Pius. They also built such local landmarks as the Spanish Plaza and Malaga Inn downtown, parts of Bel Air Mall, and the Mobile Greyhound Park (not to proud of that one). And oh, how I would brag – obnoxiously – about “my Daddy’s company” and what they had done.
My first paycheck came from Martin Builders – a whopping $8.00 for cutting the grass. That evolved into summer work for a couple of hot, humid summers, where I learned what builders actually do and what they need to get the job done. [click to continue…]
I grew up wishing I could sing like Steve Green. From his early days in “Truth” to his days in the Gaither Vocal Band to his sterling solo career and ministry, Steve had the pipes. He would melt my heart with “People Need the Lord” and “Wounded Soldier.” He would inspire me with “The Mission” and “Carry On.” He would blow me away with “No Other Name but Jesus” and his Truth duet with Art Ortiz of “It is Well With My Soul.”
I would buy his accompaniment tapes (if you have to ask what a tape is, never mind), grab a mic and belt his stuff out with gusto.
But Steve’s biggest impact on my life took place after Robin made a run to the Baptist Book Store (now Lifeway) and came home with “Hide ‘em In Your Heart, Vol. 1.” [click to continue…]
“Where you wanna go?”
“I don’t know. Where do you wanna go?
“I don’t care. Whatcha hungry for?”
“Don’ matter to me.”
Ever get stuck in those conversations? Well, friends, I have the cure – especially if you still have kids at the house. Once you’ve played The Restaurant Game, you’ll never go back to “Oh, you just decide.”
I’ve always lived in one of two kinds of towns – either the kind where you pretty much could cover all the restaurants in a week, or the kinds that were so large, it was hard to make up your mind with so many choices. Add to that the vein-popping frustration of trying to please five different people – all of whom have opinions about where they don’t want to eat – and you have frustration long before you ever even see a menu or a bill.
Then came the restaurant game, and our lives were changed forever. [click to continue…]
Jackie Mays was a legend. Maybe not everywhere, but certainly in some of the circles we roamed in when our kids were small. And to a couple of four-year-old twin girls, Mrs. Mays was larger than life.
Sending your kids off to school for the first time is a big adjustment. Especially when they’re your oldest, and they’re the ripe old age of four. Enter Mrs. Mays. Not only was she a faithful member of our church in Birmingham, she was one of the K-4 teachers at Grace Christian School. And a legendary gift she was, to both parents and their little darlings.
“Daddy, Mrs. Mays says…”
“Daddy, that’s not how Mrs. Mays…”
In Mrs. Mays’ class they learned the basics of reading and writing and that other “r.” They learned the pledges and the Star-Spangled Banner. (Cassie used to come home with that wistful, “I just love America.”) They learned to love God’s word, and learned the gospel and about heaven and hell and the price Jesus paid to snatch us from the one to take us to the other. And they had fun learning it all.
There were no assistants, aides, or volunteers. Just one amazing woman and a room full of four-year-olds, who most days sat mesmerized or did what was expected.
I want to tell you one of her not-so-secret secrets. [click to continue…]
The other day I turned left out of a parking lot and started heading south on Avenue Q, between 19th and 34th Streets in Lubbock, where I live. If you’re not familiar with that stretch of road, it’s a seven-lane thoroughfare, with three lanes each heading south and north, and a turn lane. Big. Wide. Sprawling. Busy.
It was in the afternoon, around 3:00 or so. I was talking on the phone with Joel, my son. Traffic was busy enough, but not nuts. I was in the middle lane, with cars pretty much all around me – left and right, front and back. I was probably about a quarter mile from the 34th Street intersection when the strangest thing began to happen.
I went blind. [click to continue…]
It was Christmas Eve morning, I don’t know, about 12 years ago, I guess. I got up way ahead of everybody else, and for some reason had to go to the grocery store. And for some other reason I can’t remember, it wasn’t our regular grocery store.
