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  ...

A Story of Gratitude. And  Forgiveness   We often speak words of thanksgiving this time of year. Even those who seldom make those sort of remarks sit at the table with loved ones and friends and voice something for which they are thankful. Many of those are words of gratitude for a big Thanksgiving dinner. I realize some of that may take place virtually this year. But we are people of tradition. Traditions bring us as much comfort as turkey and dressing.    So this week I want to share a story of gratitude.    My maternal grandmother lived a hard life. By anyone’s standards. Both of her parents died when she was young, leaving her, along with her brothers and sisters to fend for themselves. An uncle was supposed to care for them, but he didn’t.   At my grandmother’s funeral a man told me a story his own father told him. The neighbors—we’re talking farms here with neighbors often living miles away—took turns checking in on the orphaned children. Early o...

  When I was a little girl, I lived for a time in Tucson, Arizona. My parents treated it as an adventure, though they moved there for my health. I had asthma. My strongest memories of our time living “out west” are of my best friend, Moey. She had another name, but her nickname was Moey. I remember playing dolls with her and climbing on the fence in her back yard. I have fond memories of watching her mother make tortillas on the hot flat iron skillet, turning them with her fingers. Moey taught me my first Spanish words. Moey was Mexican.   And she was my neighbor.   In the middle of first grade, we returned to Ohio. I supposedly had outgrown my asthma by then and my grandfather had a heart attack. We moved to the “little farm” tucked in behind Grandma and Grandpa’s big farm so my dad could help Grandpa. My parents had dear friends who had three boys. The Hubbard boys took turns spending time with us at the farm. The boys were basically city kids. I was basically a country...

  If you think you're "All That," you sometimes need a reminder of your limitations and frailties. Some would call it a rude awakening. I call it a blessing; A way of keeping me focused and grounded. Here is an example. I offer it because I think we can all use a good laugh. The year is 1998. I was thrilled to be hired as a professor at  Cincinnati Bible College & Seminary shortly after graduating from my doctoral program. My first week of school, I managed the small education classes I was hired to teach without incident.  .  However, I was also asked to participate in a team taught class on human development and learning. It was a large class representing a wide range of students in programs other than teacher education. I was a bit nervous. The other two teachers were far more experienced and well prepared after years of teaching the course.   I worked hard to get my lessons ready. This was during a time before we had access to Power Point or on...

  That “Good Kind of Tired”   I’ve always said, “The things that make you tired are the things you leave undone.”    I must have read it somewhere. I’m not that brilliant.   But it’s true. When you don’t complete a task, it hangs over you like a dark cloud. A cloud that grows bigger and darker and more daunting with the passage of time. That’s why time management folks say to put the big projects first on your “to do” list.    “Getting stuff done” breeds energy to do more. Getting it done, no matter the task, is what my mom calls, “a good kind of tired.”   My first novel,  Breathing on Her Own  was released in March 2014. It was fun. An accomplishment. In October of that same year, I started outlining another story set in Indiana. I was playing with the idea for that story when several friends in an online writing community started talking about NaNoWriMo.    It stands for  Na tional No vel  Wri ting  Mo nth. I d...