A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

  How will you remember 2020?     Some people are ready for the year to simply “be over.”    I get it. It has certainly been a strange one. I don’t want to downplay the horrific death toll due to COVID-19. I am not insensitive to the racial injustices weighing on our citizens of color. I have been frustrated by the politicizing of anything and everything in sight.    My family has been gravely impacted by the novel COVID virus. I have many friends of differing racial backgrounds and ethnicities who walk an unbelievable tightrope in their everyday lives. And politics? I am fully aware that even though the election is over, there are those still stoking the fire.   Yet as I look back on 2020, I also see some good coming out of it.   Quarantine mandates were rough on many. For some, it brought out the worst side of dysfunctional family life. From others, however, I’ve heard testimony of people  enjoying the unexpected time with family ....

  A Thrill of Hope…The Weary World Rejoices   You probably thought this would be a post about the COVID-19 vaccine.  No. It is far more serious. More serious than death you ask? I know the virus is life threatening. A vaccine is celebrated. I totally agree. COVID-19 makes people ill. And it kills.   The promise of a vaccine fills us with hope that this awful virus will be eradicated. Okay, at least slowed down. And weary world? Definitely. We are all weary of 2020. They call it quarantine fatigue. I get it. But that is not the weary world of which I speak.    “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” comes from a Christmas carol called  O Holy Night . The song was penned in 1847. It is about a lost world. A world condemned. A world that is sick. Tired. Weary. A world without hope.    A world without Jesus.   I’ve discovered so many people, despite what they think or believe, celebrate Christmas. They sing the songs and display nativit...

Dance   We met at a dance in the school cafeteria. I was a junior, he a senior. A mutual friend named Anthony introduced us. We shared a dance. One.   After that, for the entire school year, Tommy Waters asked me out. Every Friday.  He would call on Friday and want me to go out with him that evening. I told him no. I told him he couldn’t ask me out at the last minute. It wasn’t respectful. I had no way of knowing at the time that he never knew until Friday evening if he would be allowed to use the family car or not.   Tommy graduated. I managed to run into him in late July. (Another story for another time.) I had moved. He asked for my new phone number.  He called. This time he called on a Tuesday and asked if I would go out with him on Friday.    That Friday night proved to be my last “first date.” Homecoming Chamberlain HS   I was now a senior in high school. When it came time for homecoming, Tom took me. It was our second time to dance. But not...

  Anything But Quiet   Every year I choose a “word of the year.” I started doing this several years ago after reading an article in the Guidepost Magazine by author Debbie Macomber. I wanted to be an author so I paid attention to what she said.    I chose a word for that year and one ever since. I generally spend time in December thinking it over. I pray for the word God wants to reveal to me. In January, I often share my word with others. In fact, the last couple of years, I have shared my word for the year on my blog. Then I wait. I watch. I listen.  Over the course of the year, I generally see unexpected ways the word plays out. Sometimes I am challenged to do more. Other times, my choices and actions are affirmed by that one simple word. My ears perk up when I hear that word or read it in a book or article. As a writer, the significance of one single word is not lost on me.   Then there was the year 2020.  I chose the word  Quiet . I based it ...

Sometimes Moving Ahead, Means Putting Behind  These past two months have been like most of 2020. Different.   It’s bad enough to have the pandemic hanging over our heads like an umbrella blocking the sunshine we seek. Add to that Thanksgiving and Christmas and even the most Pollyannaish of us can struggle. (Tom always considered me the ultimate Pollyanna.)    I did not want this year to get the better of me. And it could have. The final quarter of 2020 dawned poised to do just that.     Long ago I learned that the things you leave undone are the things that make you tired. I wrote about that in a post called "A Good  Kind  of Tired" a few weeks ago. You can  read  that post by clicking HERE . I had “things left undone” on my proverbial to-do list. Things left undone for six years. And the effect was far more than “tiring.”    It was draining.  Finish the Race I shared a few weeks ago that I set out to complete  ...