Because I used to consider myself an artist—before I realized that I was a “copyist,” not an artist—and because I’ve spent most of my adult life painting signs, I have a highly developed sense of colors.
For years I’ve been flummoxed by folks who call orange “yellow” or green “blue.” And how can anyone survey rows of lavender flowers and call them “blue,” instead of purple? Fortunately, I am learning. I am slowly realizing that I have no right to assign to others the task of seeing colors the same way I do. God created them. He created their eyes. Their cones—the part of our eyes that sees color—may be different than mine. My task is to allow them their sight.
With my husband hospitalized, my brother-in-law and I have been spending a large amount of time together. No matter what our conversation, he responds, “Oh, I see.” But clearly—he doesn’t. At least, he doesn’t see the way I see because he misses the point I was attempting to make entirely and draws a totally different conclusion. At first it irritated me because I was endeavoring to explain things so clearly and concisely, and he would respond, “Oh, I see,” and trot out an entirely different scenario.
I am gradually learning to allow him his sight. His life experiences have colored his understanding a different color than my life experiences have colored my understanding.
Some things are without question right and some things are without question wrong. These things are worth fighting for or against and upholding as a standard. God wants that. But God has no interest in which hue on the color chart becomes orange instead of yellow, or green instead of blue. He created all colors.
God created us and gave us free choice. If God allows us to experience life through the color chart that He assigns for us—why should we expect others to walk in our chart instead of the one that God destined for them?
Our task is to allow others their sight.
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7
I don’t think a single day passes that I don’t say at some point in the day, “I am blessed.”
When I share a Facebook post of someone rescuing a skunk and adding it to their family, I say to myself, “I am blessed that we had a skunk when we were kids.”
When a picture of Scotland’s Loch Ness pops up on the TV along with a report about searching for the Loch Ness Monster, I say to myself, “I am blessed that I’ve been to Loch Ness and searched for Nessie.”
When I walk Savannah and see a lovely flower, I say to myself, “I am blessed to have seen this flower today.”
God has poured out blessings into my life. He began pouring out blessings into my life even before I knew Him. He put me in places and engineered experiences in my life that infuse themselves into the cozy mysteries I write.
I am blessed to have lived in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Nevada, California, Idaho, and Scotland. I have walked to the end a Scottish road to take photos of leaping dolphins. I have explored the Great Basin Desert in Nevada and watched a mountain lion melt off a rock along the trail. I have panned and prospected for gold in California and Nevada. I know how to pan for gold in rivers and how to operate a wet washer and a dry washer on land.
I am blessed to have poured concrete slabs, built rock flowerbeds, rocked the sides of a house and garden center—and been hired as a landscaper for other jobs. I am blessed that I learned to touch type. I am blessed to have worked as a staff writer for newspapers and have met extraordinary and interesting people—including the governor of Texas who later became President.
I am blessed to have caught and released snakes and horned toads and rescued wildlife. When I see news about a wild raven that has adopted a person—I remember my son Luke rescuing and raising ravens in the Nevada desert including Rap who lived in our house with us, a cat and a dog, and integrated himself into the family. I remember Rap flying along behind Luke when Luke rode his bicycle or four-wheeler, riding on our shoulders when we took a walk, and chasing away any perceived “enemy” threat approaching our house. I am blessed.
I am blessed to have watched a Gila monster, picked olives, walked through citrus fruit orchards, learned to drive in snow, been caught in a tumbleweed circus in the desert, watched porcupines and coyotes trail through my yard, explored ghost towns, ridden horses, had a fox and a raccoon as pets, smelled out possums in the Georgia woods, and to have been raised with completely awesome sisters and brothers: Leslie, Gregory, Vicky, Jerry, Jeff, and Chris.
I am blessed that my grandmother taught me to make hot chocolate and yeast rolls from scratch and how to make gravy.
I am blessed that I survived the bad, painful, and horrific events in my life: constant rape and sexual abuse as a child; a horse kick in the face; getting impregnated twice by the abuser and having two backwoods abortions—nearly bleeding to death followed by hospitalization; an African lion bite on my stomach; a venomous water moccasin bite on my hand and a trip to the hospital in a taxi from another town because Grandmother was having a feud with the local taxi company; marrying a mentally unstable alcoholic to get away from home; contemplating suicide following the unfaithfulness of said alcoholic husband; nursing terminally ill husband number two through cancer and staying at his side until he left for heaven; back surgery, knee surgery, hip surgery followed by an infection which kept me in the hospital for three months and caused diabetes from the constant antibiotic drip; being the sole caregiver of husband number three who has cancer and Parkinson’s Disease…and the most painful experience of all, losing son Luke in a plane crash when he was only 49. I am blessed to have survived, to be able to encourage others, and to be able to dip into life experiences and splash them into the 48 Christian cozy mysteries which I’ve written. (Only 46 available at the moment.)
I am blessed to have lived under a bridge in the back of a pickup truck. I am blessed to have lived in an open-ended garden center with no running water and to have been gifted hay bales to stack up in the winter to cut off the wind and block the cold. I am blessed to have watched baby birds hatch from overhead hanging baskets in the garden center and have them flutter into my lap while I sat quietly in a chair.
I am blessed. Every flower that I see, every bird that I hear, every new place I visit makes me realize how blessed I am.
The greatest sorrow of my life: losing Luke and living so far away from granddaughter Dulcinea.
The greatest blessing of my life: discovering that God is real and that He loves me.
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You.” Isaiah 26:2
When I was a kid in school, the ultimate insult was to call someone a “bird brain.” Thankfully, I made it through school before the “F” word hit. I was in junior high school before I ever heard it. I went home and asked my mother what it meant.
Birds are admirable. When my son Luke and I lived in the Great Basin Desert in Nevada, we rescued a baby raven. Luke named it “Rap.” Rap followed Luke and our dog when Luke rode his bicycle or 4-wheeler. Rap chased strangers away from our house. We lived on an alfalfa farm. Rap flew into the barn everyday at noon and walked up and down the long table accepting offerings from farm workers who met to eat their lunches. When Luke’s stepfather worked on the truck, Rap brought him tools—but we soon learned that if he wasn’t watched—Rap would fly off with any tool he fancied. Also in the desert, Luke and I watched ravens drop rocks on marauders to protect their nests.
Striated herons in Asia catch fish by floating bait to lure them close enough to strike. The woodpecker finch from the Galapagos Island extracts insect larvae from tree crevices with a thorn. Egyptian vultures use stones to crack large eggs. Here in Dunoon, Scotland, seagulls drop shells down onto pavement to crack them open so they can extract the residents. Breakfast served.
Jesus said not even a sparrow drops to the ground without God knowing and caring. In Jesus’ day, birds were used as currency.
Old miners on the edge of the desert in Unionville, Nevada, keep magpies as pets and teach them to talk. My grandmother had a parrot who watched TV. The first thing he ever said—mimicking a commercial that was popular at the time—was, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” After that—he was unstoppable. When anything upset him, he would say “poor Popeye,” in a pathetic sounding voice. In the mornings he would call Grandmother and say, “Maybelle, coffee, toast. Popeye wants breakfast.”
All these things are indeed admirable—but none is the reason I admire birds and their intelligence so much. What I most love about birds is their understanding of and deep dependence on God’s will in their lives. Especially in nesting. At the right time each spring, birds nest. Gales can be alive with 80 mph winds, late snowfall can blanket the land, trees can remain bare-branched, flowers heads can linger under the soil—yet the birds nest. They make no excuse for hardship, inclement weather, or turbulence. God’s wisdom tells them it is time to nest…so they nest…regardless of adversity.
Sadly, some people quit nesting in the loving arms of Jesus as soon as trouble trips into their lives. They rehearse all the excuses: how can I believe in God when He let something bad happen to me? I’m living a good life. Why doesn’t God keep all these troubles away from me? I had more friends before I became a Christian. Following Jesus is too hard.
We live in a fallen world. That’s not God’s fault. He never planned for the world to be flawed. Sin entered into the world with Adam and Eve. Before sin entered, there was no death, no violence, no anger—the Garden of Eden was perfect. Animals and people were friends and God walked in the garden with His creation. But when sin slipped into the perfect world…blight replaced perfection.
Birds don’t argue politics. They don’t assume their way is the only way. They fly above contention and discord…and they keep on nesting.
Jesus said, “Do not worry…Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26.
Jesus has the credentials to declare value. He lifted up His arms and died on the cross to deliver us from our sins, and He rose again on the third day to live forever. With us if we nest with Him.
A news report showed up over here in Scotland. The headline: “Why Great White Sharks Won’t Enter the Gulf of Mexico.” Immediately after that—I learned that scientists are currently tracking five great white sharks in the Gulf of Mexico, and that great whites frequent Florida’s waters, especially in the winter.
Fortunately, I already knew not to trust the news media during the covid scare when those vulnerable to fear rushed to get vaccinated and are now suffering strokes, heart attacks, and brain injuries at an early age. The vaccine gave my husband Alan Parkinson’s Disease. He’s in the hospital now—again. I didn’t get the vaccine. I didn’t take the vaccine because I am immune to scare tactics, both because I read and believe the Bible which says, “do not fear,” and because I’m a Texan—and Texans tend to be immune to bullying tactics.
There is nothing new in pushing false information—even in schools. When I was in first grade in a Georgia school, we were given pages to color for “fun.” It wasn’t fun for me when the teacher made me color my picture over again because I had used the “wrong” colors. She told me sternly, “tree trunks are brown, the sky is blue, grass is green. She was pushing false information—teaching a lie.
Here in our part of Scotland, the sky is seldom blue. It is usually grey. As for tree trunks, oak and olive trees have grey bark. Madrona tree trunks are pink. Aspen trees have white bark. Young palm trees have green trunks. Rainbow eucalyptus trunks splash vividly with all the colors in a box of crayons—just like my first grade picture that the teacher made me recolor.
Not all reference books are accurate either. My parents bought me a book on herpetology when I was a kid. I read that book from cover to cover several times because of my interest in snakes. It stated that snakes do not come out at night. Therefore, when I got back to my birth state of Texas and heard Charley Pride singing, “The snakes crawl at night, that’s what they say, when the sun goes down. Oh, the snakes will play,” I made fun of that song. I told friends it was inaccurate because snakes don’t come out at night. Turns out my treasured snake guide was wrong; snakes are active both day and night, and I thank the Lord for protecting me all the times I bounded through wilderness after dark with no expectation of meeting a venomous snake. Some of the best photos of rattlesnakes on my Facebook feed are from Arizona—and were taken at night.
Safeguarding us from false information is the Bible. Critics like to claim that it is “full of contradictions.” It isn’t. People who make that claim have never read it for themselves and allowed their hearts and spirits to be amazed and abashed by how this Book—the Word of God that was written nearly 3,000 years ago—is still true and applicable today. Consider the prophet Isaiah. He accurately predicted the birth and death of Jesus in 700 BC. When Christopher Columbus read in Isaiah that “God sits above the circle of the earth,” it gave him courage to sail across the ocean and discover new worlds in an age when most believed the earth was flat and ships would fall off if they sailed too far.
There is simply no way to demonize the message of love and grace that came into the world with Jesus and pins the Bible together: love others and put them first. Forgive others and be forgiven. Believe in Jesus and gain everlasting life. That is a report that the news media can ignore and attempt to silence—but can never overcome, because love is stronger than hate, and lies are but for a moment. Truth is everlasting.
Because pushing my husband in a wheelchair and pulling him around the house in his potty chair since he can’t walk has increased the size of my knuckles, I can no longer wear my wedding ring. My husband lost so much weight over the five months he spent in the hospital that his wedding ring was too large—and he lost it. So neither of us wear our wedding rings—but the missing wedding rings do not mean that we are not still married. The rings were merely a symbol of our marriage. A label.
Changing labels does not change reality.
William Shakespeare perhaps said it best in 1595 when he wrote ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Changing the name of the flower does not change the rose.
Geologists often abandon BC—Before Christ, and AD—After Christ’s Death, for BP—Before the Present. Astrologists often replace BC and AD with CE for Common Era and BCE for Before Common Era. These new labels do not negate the fact that we celebrate Christmas as the time that Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, came to earth to live as a man and experience everything we experience so He could understand our trials and temptations and deliver us from them, and so that we could see our God in human flesh. It does not negate the fact that more than 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ died on a cross and was sealed away in a tomb that could not hold Him. He is Risen. Christians have no grave to visit and reverence. We have an empty tomb.
Labels are tricky things. Easy to change—but impossible to change.
God’s immutability: “It is impossible for God to lie. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.”
Don’t let human applied labels and criticism wear you down. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and God loves you and has a plan and purpose for you.
You can’t blame the hedgehog. He is small with short legs. The gate separating him from the garden is lengthy. Little steps mean that it takes a long time to get around the gate to the opening into the garden. So he looks for a shortcut.
Not every shortcut is bad. Some are excellent. But this hedgehog’s shortcut failed due to hedgehog thinking—a malfunction common to humans. As the hedgehog journeyed down the alarmingly elongated fence it poked its nose into every piece of metal scrollwork looking for a wider gap so it could get through. However, the factory manufactured fence was uniform and no gap was wider. So the hedgehog took the shortcut anyway—and got stuck. (Not to worry—he was rescued.)
We humans do that in life. Take shortcuts doomed to failure. We want to harvest success in our life, but without the planting, weeding, watering, and nurturing required to guarantee it. We just want it to happen.
We want to skip the training process and get right to the rewarding qualification. We just want it to happen.
We want to lose weight—but not exercise. We want to maintain our perfect body size and shape and still eat everything we enjoy regardless of calories. Perfect health? We just want it to happen.
We want joy, but without giving up resentment, anger, and criticism. We just want it to happen.
We want our lives to be stellar, our trials short, our hardships easy. And when we disagree with something in the Bible, we want to change the words to ones we prefer and reject verses that tell us to endure hardships as a good soldier of Christ, or that remind us that, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10.
When I was walking Savannah, a woman said, “What a beautiful dog. If you ever want to get rid of her, I’ll take her.”
Would she want to redeem the baggage claim ticket; expensive veterinarian-approved food for irritable bowel disease; the clean up after her vomiting and diarrhea episodes; the $65 a box enzymes to sprinkle on her food every time she eats, the vet bills. Savannah is a beautiful blue mere rough collie—but she comes with baggage.
Recently someone viewed my Amazon Author’s Page and scrolled through the 29 books listed there and said, “I wish I had that many books on my author’s page.” But would she want to redeem the baggage claim ticket; 55 years of time, money and energy spent sending manuscripts out only to have them rejected; 43 years of working two and three jobs to support writing; neither owning nor watching a TV; money spent on a cover illustrator, editor, and special promos, hours spent every single day doing what most writers hate—marketing.
Success, however small, comes with baggage.
Husbands throw away years of marriage and family and children to follow a new face; wives throw away years of marriage and family and children for their dream guy, people move great distances in their searches for a better life.
The new face—sometimes with expensive, demanding tastes—must be fed, clothed, and lavished with attention; the dream guy snores at night and can be selfish, demanding and lazy, the perfect life is acquired through years of hard work, struggle, and delayed gratification.
Life comes with baggage.
When I was married to Luke’s dad, I used to paint billboards and signs with him. He loved the money we made, but deplored my messy hair and the paint on my clothes and under my fingernails. He fell in love with Jackie who didn’t work at all, wore expensive name brand clothes, lavished money on her hair and makeup—and was psychotic about spiders. If she saw a wiggle in a corner of a room and thought it was a spider—she would tear out of the room and nearly take the door off the hinges.
One day Larry and I were painting a sign some twenty feet off the ground. We had very little equipment—and none that would reach the sign which hung out over the street in a perpendicular angle to the building. So…I sat on one end of a plank to hold it down while Larry inched across the other end painting the sign. As he scooted along the board with the paintbrush, Larry extolled the beauty and excellence of Jackie and asked why I couldn’t be more like her.
Abruptly, a huge spider plopped down on my end of the board from the tree overhead. Only God knows how tempted I was to be more like Jackie.
There are no free rides in life. Everything comes with a cost.
Small wonder the Bible warns: “Do not covet.” Small wonder 1Timothy 6:6 instructs us: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”
There are times I wish I had the memory of our rough collie. No matter how long it’s been since we last visited certain places on walks, she never forgets where she once found a bone; where people throw old bread out for the seagulls; where she once found discarded hotdogs, where she once found a hedgehog, or a cat. She unfailing returns to those places in search of what she thinks she’s lost.
Me? If I move something to a safe place—it’s lost. If I decide to relocate something—I can’t find it. If I go shopping and pride myself on remembering that we are almost out of something and buy it—I get home to discover that I remembered last time I was shopping.
One of the joys of the Bible is that there is something in it for every day, for every circumstance—for everything. Even remembering and forgetting.
“Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD; Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore; Remember His marvelous works which He has done.” 1 Chronicles 16:20.
“Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead…”Surely Philippians 3:13 is the secret pathway of peace.
Only God can make forgetting as good as remembering.
Happened upon a fascinating TV documentary about the Cape Romano Dome House along the Florida coast. What fascinated me was the aesthetic architecture with its dome shape and wide windows on all sides. I wanted to live there. Until I heard the rest of the story.
Sitting out in the water 300 feet from shore, the six self-sustaining white dome structures on stilts were constructed from sand and island shells in 1979 by retired oil producer Bob Lee. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom house was solar powered and gutters collected rainwater, which was filtered and stored in a cistern. The dome construction resisted hurricane damage—until Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Even Category 5 Hurricane Andrew with 175-mile-an-hour winds did not destroy Cape Romano Dome House. But erosion did. The house stood on the beach before Hurricane Andrew. Now it sits in the water, with only four of the six modules remaining. It was built on sand.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:24, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them, will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was the ruin.”
Bob Lee’s vision of his dream home was brilliant. Viewing it makes the spirit soar. But the house was built on sand.
We face decisions each day about building our lives. We can build on sand—then something like Covid-19 comes along and strips away all pretense and lets us know that nothing on this earth is eternal—except God.
Or we can build on the Rock of Jesus where not even Covid-19 can steal from us. This life is not the end—it’s just the beginning. If we have God, we have everything we need.
None of us has direct vision. We all see through a filter of past events and experiences.
When I was four, my mother took me to an optometrist because she thought I couldn’t see clearly. She explained to the doctor, “She doesn’t color between the lines.” I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s what those lines are for.” It wasn’t that I couldn’t see them—it was that I was in love with color and spread my favorites thickly across the pages of coloring books in my own patterns and designs. After I knew about the lines—I used them.
When I was four and boarded a bus with my mother for the first time, I saw black people getting on and exclaimed, “Mom, look at all those poor sunburned people.” My embarrassed mom shushed me for my rudeness, but she didn’t understand. It wasn’t rudeness, it was compassion. I had never seen a person with black skin before. I hurt for them because I thought they were badly burned.
What we see depends on what we’ve seen before. None of us has direct vision.
Recently our collie returned to our local vet time and again dehydrated because she would not eat. Time and again, she was hooked her to a drip and we were assured that she was not too thin, and that perhaps—because she’s a smart dog—she played us, refusing to eat until she got something she liked.
None of the vets understood that Savannah…Would. Not. Eat. They had never seen her walk to her food, sniff it, make a face of human disgust, and walk away.
We finally got an appointment for Savannah at a vet hospital that had the equipment to examine her, and the first thing I heard from the vet was the inevitable, “She’s not a bad weight. Maybe we just need to adjust her food.” Her food has been adjusted so many times that we’ve given away cases and bags of various brands and kinds and still have cases more.
Again the questions. Again the subtle suggestion that I might be the problem because I worried too much. Again, the failure to comprehend the fact that Savannah… Would. Not. Eat.
Then the phone call that made me cry for two reasons. One reason, we have a sick little girl whose condition is chronic with few treatment options. And I am not an obsessed doggy mom who worries to distraction. There are physical reasons for Savannah’s lack of appetite: pancreatitis and an inflamed bowel. A vet finally saw the lines.
I was reminded of a Bible story. When Samuel was ordered by God to ordain a king from Jesse’s family, Jesse brought his sons to Samuel one at a time and God rejected all of them. Samuel asked if Jesse had any more sons. He had one more. David, a young boy who was out in the field with his father’s sheep. David, who later killed a giant with a rock and a slingshot. David who wrote most of the Psalms in the Bible. David, who became King David. David whose earthly lineage leads to Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.
When God chose David out of Jesse’s sons, he told Samuel, “The LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Stephanie Parker McKean 