Thirty-three years and Counting

            “I always cry at weddings,” said the twenty-six-year-old visiting our home.

            “Me, too!” his friend immediately agreed. “How can you not weep at a wedding?”

            Had she been home, my daughter Victoria could have chimed in, “I sobbed throughout Monique’s wedding and used up all of the tissues I had stuffed in my bridesmaid’s bouquet.”

            “I used to cry at weddings before I was married,” I added. “Now I just sit there, smile and pray that the couple knows what they are doing and that they remember the vows they are taking.”

            This month will mark the thirty-third year Michael and I have been married. How can it seem like we’ve been married forever and also feel as though the years have quickly flown by? But back to the wedding vows.

            Michael and I wrote our own vows which I hope to have saved somewhere. It would be interesting to see if we’ve kept those promises. The only promise I know that he broke was one he made when we discussed whether or not we would wed. I had finished college, moved back home, was anticipating my first year of teaching, and unsure about marriage. When pressed on the subject, I summarized my hesitancy with, “I don’t like to cook.”

            His response should have been my clue that his future would not be in engineering, but sales. “If you marry me, I will cook every day.” To his credit, he has been faithful to a few things we didn’t think to put into our vows.

            Michael always heard our babies cry. Each and every time they woke up during the night, he would go to get them and bring them to bed for me to nurse.

            He took care of me, too. At the time I felt very old, but I was only thirty-three. Michael navigated my 117 pound, bald body through eleven months of chemotherapy. Let’s move on.

            My husband continues to encourage my dreams for the future and helps me in the present to prepare for the family and friends I love to welcome into our home. We never dreamed of all of the precious souls God would choose to enrich our lives.

            With regards to traditional vows, we’ve had better and worse, richer and poorer. We’ve endured sickness, and we’ve enjoyed health. And, thirty-three years later, we still encounter hurdles,  continue to ask God for help, and He faithfully meets us where we are and shows us how to get to where we need to be. I pray that it will be this way until death parts us.

Ronny may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com

Dr. Myles Munroe

            You may have heard about the death of Dr. Myles Munroe, a Bahamas pastor, author, lecturer, teacher, life coach, government consultant and leadership mentor. During his lifetime, he was invited to over 80 nations to address government bodies, business leaders, universities and religious organizations.

            What you may not know is that one of the many places he accepted a speaking engagement was Reserve Christian Church in Reserve, La. It was there that I was first introduced to Dr. Munroe and have never forgotten his message.

           “The wealthiest places in the world are not the gold mines of South America or the oil fields of Iraq or Iran. They are not the diamond mines of South Africa or the banks of the world.

The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. There lies buried companies that were never started, inventions that were never made, best-selling books that were never written, and masterpieces that were never painted. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential.”

            Whatever your gift is, use it, share it with your world and encourage others to do the same. I believe we greatly honor God when we put the gifts He’s given us to use.

            Dr. Munroe was once asked about his mission in life. He said that he wanted to help people to become all they were born to be and to discover who they were in Christ. Quoting Ephesians 3:20, he praised God “Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with us.” Munroe continued, “The power for you to be successful is not in your teachers, government or society. God put the power in you. I was born to transform followers into leaders and leaders into agents of change.”

            Dr. Munroe is also quoted as saying, “The value of life is not in its duration, but in its donation. You are not important because of how long you live, you are important because of how effective you live. And most people are concerned about growing old rather than being effective.” As the author or co-author of more than 100 books, study guides and audio tapes, Munroe’s life will continue to enrich our world.

Sweet Reminders

            Let me make one thing crystal clear – I don’t like to cook. It’s just not on my list of favorites, which is funny because ‘eating’ definitely made the cut. Also awarded a place in my priorities, even higher than eating and trying to invent new holidays for reasons to dine out, is helping my children. That explains why I offered to cook for my daughter Elise.

          She was invited to a potluck dinner and didn’t have time to prepare a dish. I quickly convinced her to let me cook something to bring. I thumbed through a rarely used recipe book, chose a shrimp and pasta dish, grabbed my car keys, and headed to the store.

          My mom will now have to stop reading for a moment to catch her breath. She never tries a new recipe on others until she has practiced it first. Only when it meets her approval, will she cook another batch to serve. I’d be lying if I said I don’t have time for that. I’d also be lying if I said I taste the food as I cook. None of this is my mom’s fault. She tried.

         Back to my shrimp dish. I assembled the ingredients and fired up the range. Shrimp, butter, seasonings, cream, and cheese were all getting along and blending to form an aromatic dish. The recipe also called for flour, so I grabbed a canister, and removed the pan from the heat before adding it (to avoid lumps). I hesitated for a moment, shrugged, scooped and stirred in the new ingredient. At this point I entertained the foreign-to-me idea to taste.

         It was so sweet! Adding powdered sugar to sauce does that. I tried liberal doses of salt, garlic powder and crab boil which helped, but never masked the sweetness. I started all over.

        Yes, the addition of sugar changes a dish just as the words we speak change situations. Proverbs 16:24 is as clear about that as I am about my feelings toward cooking. “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” A kind word can invigorate, strengthen and turn a person’s day around. It’s a practice I highly recommend and sincerely appreciate when I am on the receiving end.  My little powdered sugar/flour mix-up was a great reminder of the power of words.

        I learned a couple of other lessons that day. From now on, I will pay more attention to what I’m doing and I will always be prepared. I’ve already got a plan.

        The next time Elise asks me to cook for her, I’ll tell her that it’s National Order Your Kid A Meal for their Friend’s Potluck day.

Ronny may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com. 

Walking in My Own Steps

            If you think you’re read the following column before, you may be right. Although I wrote it a while back, it’s been stuck in my head for the past few days, especially when I sit and begin to write about something else. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should submit it again, and yes, I have thought that maybe I’m the person who needs to revisit this lesson. Anyway, here it is:

Growing up with two sisters had many advantages. Over the years, Kay, Ann, and I have shared numerous things including rooms, secrets, advice and clothes. It was great having someone to talk to and truthfully answer the question, “How do I look?”

I also enjoyed going into their closets and emerging with a whole new outfit. We even invaded my mom’s closet and proudly wore her things, too. But we most often wore each other’s shoes. The fact that we didn’t wear the same size never really bothered us. We were just happy to have such a variety of footwear. Life was pretty smooth until the day my Dad discovered we had been swapping shoes.

            “You’re not supposed to wear other people’s shoes. You’re just going to ruin your feet. Other shoes don’t fit right and you won’t be able to walk,” he said.

            “But Daddy,” we argued, “We’re saving you money. You won’t have to buy as many pairs if we just share.”

            “I don’t care,” he insisted. “I’ll buy all of you as many pairs of shoes as you want.  Just wear your own shoes.”

            I wish that I could remember if we stopped sharing shoes after that, but even as I’m typing this, I’m reminded that we still occasionally wear each other’s boots. (Clothes, too.) Sorry, Dad. But the older I get, the more I realize how wise my parents are. It does feel strange to wear someone else’s shoes. Even if they are the same size, they don’t fit as well as your own shoes fit. And think of how awkward little girls walk when they try to wear their mother’s high heels. Wearing your own shoes just feels better.

            The same is true when we try to be like someone else and attempt to walk in their steps. Have you ever thought that your life would be better if you just had your brother-in-law’s job, or your co-worker’s family, or your neighbor’s house? I think that if we were somehow allowed a minute of someone else’s life it would be as awkward as walking in someone else’s shoes. We’d probably wobble like a little girl in high heels, or trip like a little boy in his Dad’s boots. 

God often reminds me of Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.”  Not only does this give me peace about my future, it also encourages me to walk in the steps that my Father has laid out for me. My steps fit me. When I walk in my God-ordained steps I can walk confidently and securely. But I’ve noticed that if I try to walk outside of what God has called me to do, I wobble and I trip until I return to the steps that line my own path of life.

            May contentment, grace, and joy abound as we flow in God’s will for our lives.

Sweet Distractions

     This is not the column I intended to submit. It was supposed to be about cursive writing. Granted, first you would have had to get over the irony of me typing a column about the benefits of cursive writing, but after that I think it would have been an interesting topic. Y’all, I had research and everything. Then life happened.

     I was asked to watch my granddaughter Olivia and thought, “Olivia entertains herself. I can type while she plays.”  Ha!

     Whenever the two baby strollers Olivia insisted on using got stuck, she screamed. An ear-splitting, bolting from my chair, is there blood? sound I didn’t think possible from the sweet looking one-year-old who wore an “I love my papa” shirt. As soon as I helped her, she would smile and continue on her way until another bump in her road. Smile. Shriek. Smile. Screech.

     I longingly looked at my chair by the fireplace and thought, “Only a couple of hours ago, I sat there to read, pray and write in my journal while I sipped a cup of hot coffee. It seems so long ago.”

     When Olivia rubbed her eyes, I rocked her to the nap that took mere seconds for her to find and gently placed her down where she slept for almost an hour. When she stirred I ran to pick her up and rocked her for almost another hour during which I may or may not have dozed off.

     The next day I was asked to watch my other granddaughter Adeline and bring her to get a flu shot. “I can type while she plays,” I naively thought for the second consecutive day.

     I spent the morning reassuring Adeline that yes, I would bring her to her sitter, and yes, she would see her sitter soon. In the meantime, she abandoned her fruit to eat my yogurt, placed strips of scotch tape all over the house like it was her job, and didn’t stop talking.

     “I go outside,” she said.

     “I’m trying to write a column.”

     “I go outside,” she repeated, so we went outside to water plants and write with chalk on the patio.

     “That’s okay,” I thought. “I will still have time after her flu shot to read through the research on cursive writing and complete the column.”

     As soon as I dropped Adeline off at her beloved sitter, I sat at my desk and heard a key in the lock of the front door. Victoria, my college sophomore, had come home for a visit.

     “We can go to lunch as soon as I finish my column.” I offered.

     “I’ll go to the gym while you do that,” she said.

     “Trying to make me feel guilty about not going to the gym since last week?”

     “Not at all,” she said. “I just hate the sound of you typing.”

     Another point in favor of cursive writing - it’s quiet.

Ronny may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.