A fresh start.

It isn’t often we get that in life, but the dream is still there, isn’t it? The best laid plans for the day, month, and year can get muddled with unexpected shifts in priorities and disappointments. I know my world has been tilted off its axis more than once this year. It’s enough to make you dizzy. It can take your breath away.

Today, teachers use white boards and markers. Some boards, like the one I use at home, get stained and or the marker dries, and the residue doesn’t clean off well. As a child, I found it a pleasure to clean the chalkboards with a wet towel. I loved the bright black and fresh, clean look. But I didn’t care much for cleaning the erasers. You had to bang them together outside where it powdered the grass, your shoes, arms, and legs and your hair with chalk dust. It took my breath away.

As we start a new school year, let’s take advantage of a new, fresh page. Take a deep cleansing breath and let go of past failures and disappointments. Our own and those of others who’ve hurt or disappointed us.

God’s forgiveness and mercy are never changing, always available, and provide a clean slate like the old, washed chalkboards in my elementary school. Thankfully, God cleans the boards and erasers without leaving any residue behind.

Wherever you are, you are at the right place when you come to my website and read my blog. Come on back and share a slice of life with me.

The post WHEN LIFE IS A SCRIBBLED MESS appeared first on Shelia Shook.

Struggle is part of our growth; our maturity comes from what we’ve been through and what we learned going through it. Let me tell you an incredible, but true story. The names have been changed to protect my friend’s privacy.

BUTTERFLY WINGS

As a newlywed, Patsy struggled. Her single-mother, Suzie Homemaker, also known as Wonder Woman, worked forty hours a week in a law office, came home and baked, cleaned, sewed Patsy’s clothes, and did everything needed to create the perfect home. Patsy was a privileged only child, her mother made her bed for her every day, washed and ironed her clothes, cleaned her room, and picked up after her. When she did ask Patsy to help, Patsy didn’t understand what to do. So, her mother just did it for her. She never took the time to teach Patsy to do anything around the house. Patsy was free to play, watch television, spend time with friends, join every sport, and go to every party (all to which her mother taxied her). Patsy excelled in sports, school, piano and social media. She felt no motivation to attend college and didn’t imagine herself with a job or a career. When she married Charles, he treated her like the Princess she thought she was. He worked hard as a construction engineer, took on extra jobs so Patsy didn’t have to work outside the home. Then he came home to cook, clean house, and do laundry. Soon his job moved them to another state. When Charles began to complain he needed help, Patsy was clueless. She’d never even learned to buy groceries and cook.

Far away from her mother and old friends, she reached out to her new friends at the weekly Bible Study group she attended. “I don’t know what else to do,” Patsy cried. “Nothing I do is good enough.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Lana asked.

“Chuck. He doesn’t seem happy with anything I do.” Patsy put her head in her hands and sobbed.

Lana shook her head. “Trouble in paradise already? You’ve only been married a few months?”

“Over a year,” Patsy corrected.

“How can we help?” Mary asked.

Patsy brightened. “Help? Will you help me?”

“Well, of course,” Mary assured her.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“What can we do for you?” Lana asked.

Her new friends knew she was spoiled but had no idea what they were offering to do.

 “Chuck refuses to do anything at the house anymore. He said for me to start buying groceries and cooking. I’ve never cooked.”

“We can teach you,” Mary suggested.

Patsy made a face.

“I always have leftovers. Plenty for two,” Lana offered. “And my daughter loves to help with housework. She’s only six but can run the vacuum and dust.”

Patsy grinned. “I’d gladly pay her.”

“You should take Chuck’s clothes to the dry cleaner’s,” Lana added. “They will starch and iron them for you.”

Mary frowned and Lana leaned forward. “What’s wrong, Mary? Surely you don’t want to do Chuck’s laundry for her.”

“Of course not. The dry cleaner’s is a good idea for now, but how long will Chelsea want to help her with the housework? And when will you tire of cooking for her? What happens then?”

Lana made a face and leaned back in her chair. “By then she’ll catch on and be able to do it herself.”

“Will she?” Mary turned to Patsy. “Will you?”

Patsy sighed and slumped like a deflated balloon.

Mary repeated her offer. “We can teach you, but only if you are willing to learn—learn to help yourself.”

Patsy cried again. “I’m ashamed.”

“No need to be ashamed. You just weren’t taught. The shame would come if you never try to learn.”

Lana offered her a tissue. Patsy blew her nose and sniffed. “Okay. But where do I start? There’s so much to do.”

Mary stood. “Let’s start with lunch and a meal planning lesson. Then we can go shopping—grocery shopping.”

Lana stood and took Patsy’s hand, pulling her to her feet. “Sounds like fun. We can then have a cooking lesson, and Chuck will be pleased with your first home-cooked casserole.”

“While the casserole is in the oven,” Mary said, “I’ll show you how to multitask. Together, we can throw some towels in the wash and pick up around the house before he gets home.”

Patsy clapped her hands and hugged her new friends. The gift of help they offered was more than just helping for the day or the week. They were going to teach her to help herself.

Like the fisherman who taught his friend to fish instead of just giving him a fish, they gave Patsy a lasting gift.

Patsy’s learning didn’t stop with homemaking. Instead of turning to her mother the next year when her son was born, she turned to her two friends. Not so much for help, but to learn.

Are you teaching your children to become adults? Will they be ready when they are eighteen? We all want our children to have better than we had growing up. We don’t want them to struggle or have to work hard, but in today’s culture, there is a generation of children who are grown and yet not prepared for life as an adult. Recognizing a need in your adult child’s life and not knowing how to help them is a painful time for parents. Thankfully, unlike the butterfly, we can still grow wings.

No matter how old your children are, you are still their parent. You can still teach them. Stop doing for your children and start working with them. Stand alongside them, as they troubleshoot their problems. Be there for them. Be a good listener. Reassure them. But don’t bail them out. Allow them to struggle a bit to overcome obstacles and strengthen their wings. Remember it’s not sink or swim—don’t let your children drown! Offer them a lifeline, but don’t do everything, and don’t pay for everything. Teach them it’s okay to struggle, and as they struggle to find freedom from their troubles, they will fly.

Do you know someone who needs friends and mentors like Mary and Lana? Can you be that friend, that mentor. Maybe you are struggling to find your own wings. Let this blog community be your friend, and let’s mentor one another. Have questions? GO to my Banter. Have a story to share? Send me an Email.

Remember, wherever you are in life, you are at the right place when you visit my website and read my blog. Come on back and share a slice of life with me.

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The post Butterfly Wings appeared first on Shelia Shook.

Remember times when you thought life wasn’t sweet enough, but, once you’d gotten past the difficulty, the times were sweeter in hindsight?

When I was fourteen, my parents bought acreage in the backwoods of East Texas near the Big Thicket. We cleared briars and underbrush to build our home and make it into a little farm.

I hated the hot, physical labor of cutting, dragging and burning the tangled, prickly scrub. We wore jeans and long sleeves in the summer heat to protect our arms and legs, yet still the thorns and dead branches scratched and scrapped our skin. Not to mention the poison ivy and mosquitos that found their way around our protective gear. Well, you get the picture. And just so you know, clearing scrub is an ongoing chore. (When I graduated high school, our place looked like a park.) 

We built our own home and since Dad was a carpenter—like the plumber whose faucets always leak, and the mechanic whose car doesn’t run well—our house was never completed. I thought life was hard. We always had work to do. My older sister, Wanda, and I carried shingles up the ladder to the roof where Dad took them off our shoulders and laid them on the black tar. Wanda and I soon tired of trekking up and down the ladder and made a game of how many we each could carry. It turned our work into fun. By the time we hoisted the last of the shingles, we were each proud to proclaim we had carried a full bundle up the ladder. We had learned to turn work into fun.

When our only milk cow, Granny, started producing bitter milk, Dad said it was the “bitter weeds” she ate. What he called bitterweed were scattered across five acres and had to be pulled up by the roots, which meant by hand—our hand. My siblings and I spent many a Saturday afternoon racing each other across our designated area to the finish line and the one who was able to pull the most won. Won what, you ask. Bragging rights. But more than that. With each chore we completed, came the prize of perseverance, teamwork, and pride in a job well done. I wonder if Dad knew that.

More than once in those four years of living on the farm, Dad sat on the front porch drinking coffee and smoking his hand rolled Bugler cigarette while I changed a flat tire on his truck. It infuriated me. How dare he sit and watch me without offering any help. Oh, he helped, alright. He yelled across the yard, “Be sure that jack is level before you start jacking it up.” And, “Put your back into it.” Or “Don’t carry it, roll it.” The audacity of his sitting there telling me what to do instead of doing it himself, made me so angry it gave me strength to pop the lug nuts and jack up the old blue ‘57 with a bumper jack. I might have struggled with the heavy tire, but soon lifted it and slammed it onto the wheel. It was years later, when I was stranded on the side of the road with a car full of groceries and a two-year old, that I understood the value of what my Daddy had done for me. He had taught me to be self-sufficient and determined. I thanked him.

My last summer at home, the county cleaned out the ditches up and down our road and Dad saw it as free fill dirt. He received truckloads of clay dirt filled with roots and dead limbs, chunks of glass and aluminum cans. By this time, my older sister had graduated, and left home. While Dad was at work, and my younger sisters helped in the house and watched our baby brother, Mom and I tackled piles of hard clay and rubbish with a pick axe and shovel. Not a teenager’s idea of a fun summer. It was hard work but became a great time of bonding for me and my mother. As we dug up gnarled roots and long crooked tree limbs that resembled legs and arms, I showed her how my siblings and I had learned to turn work into a game. Together we named the “body” Old Tom Walker. We found Old Tom’s pirate treasure of broken glass “jewels” and fine aluminum “silver” buried along with his body parts. Of course, he had more than four limbs, but we didn’t care. We laughed and nudged each other on as we looked for something akin to a head. I don’t think we ever did find Old Tom Walker’s head, but by the time we separated “jewels” and “silver,” from “limbs” and dirt, we had become more than mother and daughter, we had become friends.

Today, my Daddy has gone on to be with the Lord and my Momma has Alzheimer’s. But if I bring up Old Tom Walker, Mom knows the whole story. My childhood was fraught with hard lessons, some of which I used in parenting my own children. Try to find fun and laughter. They are sweet nuggets that will help you make it through.

Life is hard, but hang in there, it’s worth it. Click on my Banter and ask any questions you have. Let’s start a discussion.

Wherever you are in life, you are at the right place when you visit my website and read my blog. Come on back and share a slice of life with me. 1

The post SWEET NUGGETS appeared first on Shelia Shook.