A Matter of Perspective

As a three-year-old, I made an amazing discovery. The old, worn, torn, smelly couch on the debris pile next to my house hid the most delicious, desirable treats; brightly colored orbs with chocolate inside. I didn’t know what chocolate was—I just knew I loved it. I didn’t know the name of the candies—M&Ms.

An adult would have been scandalized to see me digging the candy out of a couch on a trash pile and eating it. They would have screamed words at me that I wouldn’t have understood—nasty, germs, bacteria. To me the candies were delicious and delightful. A matter of perspective.

I worked at a Christian preschool with a woman named Norma. Norma was just over six-feet tall and weighed close to four-hundred pounds. Her daughter, 12, nearly hit the six-foot mark and weighed close to two-hundred pounds. Norma drove a little Ford Courier pickup truck. One day Norma pulled into the parking lot and the tire on the driver’s side exploded. Instead of being embarrassed by his severely overweight wife and daughter, Norma’s husband laughed gleefully. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “My wife and my daughter just popped a tire.” A matter of perspective.

When son Luke was eleven and we lived in the Nevada desert, I sat on the kitchen floor crying on Thanksgiving Day. People all around the country would celebrate the special holiday with turkey and all the trimmings. Thanksgiving was the only meal that Luke—a picky eater—really liked. He loved it. But as a single parent—I had no money for a Thanksgiving meal. We would have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

There was a knock on the door. Our next door neighbor, a woman in her eighties, invited us to share Thanksgiving Dinner with her family. I was ecstatic. So was Luke.

Luke and I helped Mrs. Merca set the table and put the finishing touches on the feast. Enter her family; parents swigging cans of beer and toting 12-packs because Mrs. Merca didn’t drink; their son and daughter with wildly colored hair and metal junk sticking out of unrealistic places. This was nearly 40 years ago. I had never seen “body jewelry” before. The boy had a row of safety pins in both ear lobes. Luke couldn’t quit staring at him.

However, it wasn’t the outward appearance of Mrs. Merca’s family that was so shattering—it was their actions and attitudes. They barely bothered to greet their mother/grandmother. They piled onto the couch and turned on a football game. No effort or offer to help the 85-year-old carry heavy dishes to the table. And when the food was on the table, they converged on it like starving wildlife—no prayer, no mention of things for which to be thankful. They filled their plates, and plopped back down on the couch to watch the ballgame leaving Mrs. Merca at the table with Luke and me.

When we got home after helping clean up after the meal, Luke was sad and pensive. I asked what was wrong. “Well, Mom. It was nice for Mrs. Merca to invite us to Thanksgiving and everything, but I wish we had stayed home and had our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so we could have prayed and thanked God.” A matter of perspective.

“Make a joyful shout to the LORD…Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Come into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.” Psalm 100.

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Dysfunctional Memories

With the buzz word “dysfunctional families” so popular, nearly everyone can either claim to have come from a dysfunctional family or to know someone who has. With the childhood sexual abuse we girls suffered, my family was not dysfunctional—it was dystopian. It’s my memories that are dysfunctional.

As I walk Savannah and let my mind wander—it takes such strange, serpentine paths that I wonder why I remember those things. I can’t think of any way they have enriched my life or taught me valuable life lessons. So why do I remember them? Yet, I do, and somehow they have woven themselves together to form the fabric of Me.

For example, although I was born in Texas my earliest childhood memories begin in California. I remember my “pet” scorpion when I was about three. When my father realized what it was—he lobbed the can as far away as he could and until he explained how dangerous my “pet” was—I was shocked and heartbroken.

As a five-year-old child walking home from school I rushed into people’s yards and recovered drowned moles. Much to the distress of my grandmother who lived with us, I lugged the dead critters home and lined them up on the porch rail in the sunshine. I was convinced that when they dried out—they would wake up and live again.

One day I brought home the much run over carcass of a black cat. It was dry and nearly paper thin, but I couldn’t bear to leave it in the street to be run over by more cars. Grandmother came unglued. She lectured me about the danger of rabies and described the horrible disease to me. For weeks after that when my younger sister Leslie (brilliant and talented author Leslie P Garcia) and I were alone in a room, I ran around on my hands and knees growling and barking and telling her that I would bite her and she would get rabies. She was terrified. I hope she has since forgiven me.

I remember the boy my age who let bees land on his hands, the boy slightly older than me who ate broken glass to show off, the boy with the bloodied nose that I took home for Grandmother to help after he was attacked walking home from school, the way the Santa Anna winds blew dirt into our faces and blew the girls dresses up over their heads.

I remember the burro we had that hated women and terrorized Mom, Grandmother, and me. The olive grove we had and how many hours it took to prepare the olives and fill jars with them. Chasing down rabbits with our Great Dane. She would chase them into metal culverts and I would tip the culverts up into a wooden box and keep the wild rabbits as pets. I remember climbing the mountain in back of the house and bringing down cactus to plant in my cactus garden.

For some reason—which I now realize must have had to do with some major crime he had committed that was never discovered, my father loaded up a U-Haul trailer full of chickens and jars of olives behind a Ford wooden paneled station wagon and drove my grandmother, me, two cats, and one Great Dane dog from California to the Florida Everglades where lovely birds lined up around the lagoon morning and evening, and wild animals including bear, boars, Key deer, raccoons, lizards, alligators, and snakes filled the wild places. It was an idyllic location—albeit dangerous—for an adventurous child who loved animals. However, we were so poor that all we had to eat every day was peanut butter sandwiches or pancakes. Every. Single. Day. Every. Single. Meal. To this day—I do not eat pancakes.

Then on to Splendora, Texas, where we continued to live out of the station wagon while my father built a log house in the pine woods. Grandmother continued cooking pancakes over an open fire and helped with the construction. My job was to mix mud and fill the cracks between the logs. When I finished filling the day’s cracks I mixed different colors of clay and fed my stick dolls. I didn’t have even one real toy, but I spent many blissful hours feeding my pretend stick family.

Mom finally arrived to join us and brought my sister Leslie, brother Gregory, and sister Vicky with her. Vicky was just a baby and doctors had given her penicillin not knowing she was allergic to it. Grandmother spent the rest of the day and the night holding Vicky in her arms and walking with her to keep her alive.

The cabin had no door or windows. It was only roofed halfway and when a hurricane roared up the coast and hit close to Splendora, our chickens and three goats sought shelter inside with us. Water rose up to the level of the bed. Our parents had gone somewhere and left us with Grandmother. All of us were on top of the bed to stay dry. Grandmother stood on a chair cooking pancakes over an old gas stove—we had no electricity. Grandmother was deathly afraid of snakes, but when a cottonmouth (poisonous) snake floated in on top of the water, Grandmother jumped down from the chair and went after the snake with a broom.

So many more memories—but I don’t live in the past and I don’t re-live the horrific ones like the childhood sexual abuse. Long ago I crammed it into a closet and locked the door. It can’t get out unless I unlock it…and I seldom do.

Dysfunctional, disjointed memories. Yet, somehow God collected them and wove them into the fabric that is me. Reminds me of Psalm 139, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Somehow God drew all the dysfunction into a working order. Except for math. God is perfect. I’m not.Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update

I Don’t Want To Go Back

Often I hear folks say, “Oh, to be twenty again.” “If only I could go back and live my life again—I’d do it differently. I’d get it right this time.”

I don’t want to go back.

For the first time in my almost 74 years of life—I like myself. For the first time in almost 74 years I even like my fly-away baby-fine hair that is immune to attempts to style or “fix” it. For the first time in nearly 74 years of life I can look into a mirror and not be disappointed by the reflected image.

Because now I know—now I understand the truth of Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

It’s been a long hard road. For those of us who were sexually abused as children it is difficult to navigate the self-blame and self-loathing because we feel somehow guilty for what happened to us. Especially me since the perpetrator who had no medical training performed two backwoods abortions on me to hide his crime and I nearly bled to death both times. I survived. The babies didn’t. Abortion is murder.

I took my one and only writing course when I was 23. It only lasted a few weeks, but I never forgot the teacher’s advice on the first day: write about what you know. Hard advice for me at twenty-three—I didn’t know anything. I had only been a Christian for a few days, but that was long enough to know that I should pray about things so I asked God to give me something to write about.

God answers prayer. Now I know.

I know what it’s like to live with an alcoholic, abusive spouse. I know what it’s like to live with a drug-addicted spouse and attempt to help him. I know what it’s like to go through divorce when you don’t believe in divorce and don’t want it. I know what it’s like to be a single mom and work two and three jobs to support myself and my child. I know what it’s like to help a new spouse battle cancer, to take care of him until he died, and then speak at his memorial service.

I know what it’s like to bury my child.

I know what it’s like to undergo back surgery, knee replacement, and a hip replacement, and to spend three months in the hospital after the hip replacement became infected. I wrote and published three books while I was in the hospital.

Now I know. Now I have things to write about. My life experiences are sprinkled through my 48 published books, some sprinkled more liberally than others. The book I’m working on right now draws from the painful chapter of childhood sex abuse.

Go back to another time and a younger age? I don’t want to go back. I’ve lived through it once. Once is enough.

I’m ready to go forward to heaven where there is no sin, sadness, illness, sorrow, pain, or parting.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve loved my life. I wouldn’t exchange even one day of it for someone else’s. Even the hardest places and the most disappointing moments have been spun into the greatest blessings by the hand of the God who spun the stars into the universe and spins the earth upon nothing.

I’ve lived in and visited states all over the U.S. and lived in two different countries. I’ve lived in Bandera, Texas, home of my heart—and cowboy capital of the world. I’ve spent years working on several different newspapers as a staff writer. I’ve cuddled wild animals; a fox, raccoon, jaguarondi, African lion, raven, snakes, skunk, possums, dogs, cats, horses. I’ve been bitten on my stomach by an African lion.

I’m ready for the unending chapter in my life—heaven. The Bible describes it as having streets of gold, but all I want in heaven is a rock wall with flowers growing over it and animals coming to visit me. And to be with my son Luke again.

I’ve lived in the desert with Luke, who taught me to see—really see—the wind. I’ve danced through tumbleweed circuses and followed porcupines and coyotes to see where they were going. I’ve panned for gold, wet-washed for gold, metal detected for gold. With Luke’s help I’ve rescued possums and ravens and had remarkable dogs.

I’ve had a blast. And it’s given me something to write about. Now I’m a caregiver for my husband who is dying of cancer. I’ve got silver strands mixed into the brown of my hair. I’ve got puffy circles under my eyes from fatigue. I frequently pull muscles moving Alan about since he can’t weight-bear and must be pulled up and moved with equipment. But the joy of the Lord is my strength and nothing can steal my joy.

That’s why I can look at myself in the mirror and like what I see. I can see myself through God’s eyes. He loves me. He loves you also. So when you look into a mirror, like what you see and repeat, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:14

No one in the world can be you. God created you for a plan and a purpose that only you can fulfill. You are a poor imitation of anyone else. You are a true you.

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Memories are Strange Critters

One of my earliest memories is playing around a garbage heap outside our house in Kansas City, Missouri, where my sister (and brilliant author) Leslie P. Garcia was born. Since Leslie was just a baby, I must have been around two-and-a-half at the time. I discovered a delicious mystery—an old piece of furniture that hid colorful delights.

These amazing brightly colored sweet things had a brown center. I didn’t know at the time that the center was called chocolate. I couldn’t read the letter on the brightly colored shell—I wasn’t even three yet. I found these things stuck in the sofa that was sitting on the pile of trash waiting for removal. Day after day, I rushed outside to play as quickly as possible in the morning. While Mom looked after my baby sister, I explored that old couch searching for remaining mystery treats in the crevasses and eating them with relish.

Mom didn’t have a sweet tooth. To her, children ate fruit—not candy or cookies. She never bought candy. When she bought cookies they were vanilla wafers or graham crackers. Mom didn’t like chocolate, so they were never chocolate.

When the trash heap—including the sofa—was scooped up and taken away, I was inconsolable and Mom couldn’t understand why. “But why should you be upset about them taking away that old couch?” she scolded. “I told you to stay away from that rubbish heap and to quit playing on broken furniture.”

Memories are strange critters. Often, an image of that old brown couch with its hidden candy stash creeps into my mind and I can even smell that garbage pile smell of rotten oranges. Without realizing it, that memory must have been partly responsible for the main character in my first book, “Bridge to Nowhere.” Texas Miz Mike plays a secret M&M game where she separates Mike and Marty M&Ms out of the bowl she keeps on her office desk, and in idle moments—she marches them down the church aisle to get married.

“Bridge to Nowhere” now has 36 ratings and an average of 4.3. One of its first reviewers enjoyed the book so much that she sent a box of chocolate—including M&Ms—to me at Christmas.

The success of Bridge to Nowhere galvanized my writing. I now have 46 published titles, one at the editor’s waiting for final approval, and another that is nearly finished. And to think that hidden mystery candy in the crevasses of an old sofa may have ignited the process.

There is another reason the memory of those stashed M&Ms tickles my memory. The sofa was on a trash heap. It was old, dirty, and smelly. Yet I dug the candy out of it and ate it because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know about germs. I didn’t know that what I was doing could hurt me. The candy was delicious, so I ate it.

Whenever I see another person doing something wrong or foolish—I remember the candy I ate because I didn’t know any better. Sometimes folks don’t want to follow after sin or foolishness—they just don’t know any better, and what they are doing is delicious. They don’t need judgment. They need grace. They need love and a good example. At some point and time in our lives we have all been untaught.

“The excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.” Ecclesiastes 7:12.

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When…

When can be a dangerous word. I will start eating less when… I will start exercising more when… I will get that done when…

As a child, “when” was scary. When my father was in a bad mood he donned a white glove and gave the deteriorating antebellum house which was more than a hundred years old and falling apart around us from age and neglect (bees lived in the walls upstairs and the roof was missing from one of the downstairs rooms) the “white glove test.” He would run the tips of his fingers over the top of the mantel where none of us could reach except for him and then blast all of us—including my petite, overworked mother—for our slovenly housekeeping.

Then he employed a deplorable method of punishment for us children who ranged in age from teenage me down to about four. He ordered us into a straight line and made us stand on that line until one of us would confess to whatever other infractions he imagined we had committed. Being the oldest and strongest, I was fairly immune to the belting that targeted the first child to become too tired to stand any longer.

The adult me looks back on those marathons of abuse and deplores my apathy. I wish had been stronger and possessed more integrity; that I had stood in the gap for my younger siblings and had taken the punishment for them or defended them from the injustice. Unfortunately, I did neither. Instead, I was relieved to have escaped the belt welts…this time. It was a short-lived relief. “When” came again and again.

“When” still challenges me. Sometimes it frustrates me. When spring comes again—but it’s so slow. When it’s summer—but it never is summer here in Scotland. When it warms up—which it doesn’t here in Scotland. But “when” no longer frightens me, because I know God now and I trust Him as the good and kind Heavenly Father He is; a Father who does not abuse and whose timing is always perfect.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted…a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has put eternity in their hearts.” Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three.

While I am alive, God is with me. He lives in my heart. When I die, I will be with God. That takes the danger and fear out of the word “when.”

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Lost & Found

When friends of ours from Texas came to visit us here in Scotland they rented a B&B that they were somehow able to find. We, on the other hand, got lost.

Ironic that friends who had never been to Scotland before found the idyllic guest house, and we—with our six-year background of living in Dunoon—got lost. Our poor little car survived the experience of falling into such deep potholes in the road that it bottomed out and stalled. We survived the experience of being lost on a winding, wooded wilderness dirt road in the dark. And—out of that experience was born Christian cozy mystery-romance-suspense book number 43, “Lost for Murder,” which has found its way to 32 ratings and a 4.5 rating.

Often in my life, circumstances that seemed difficult or impossible have actually been God’s hidden blessings. When son Luke was four, we were walking around Carson City, Nevada, and an ugly black dog started following Luke. When we went into a restaurant to eat and came back out again, the dog followed Luke. When we started to drive away—the dog ran down the street after the truck. My impulse was to gun the engine and outrun the irritating critter, but Luke became hysterical. “Mom, stop! A car will hit him.”

We stopped and took him with us. I put up posters and ran an ad in the paper to let his owner know we had the dog. I penned the ad something like: Found: ugly short long-bodied male black dog with white star on chest and bat ears…Call…

No response. Carson was one of the stupidest dogs ever. He couldn’t learn anything. He got loose one day, ran down the street, tackled a Doberman, and came home dragging a back leg. The vet set the broken bone, but it didn’t heal and subsequently, the vet removed it. When we were driving home from the vet with our three-legged dog, Luke suddenly burst into tears. “Mom, we have to get another dog. There isn’t much left of Carson.”

About a year later, I moved to Great Falls, Montana. The area had such a depressed economy that even college professors who went to our church and taught in Luke’s Christian school worked two to three jobs to support their family. As a single parent—I had three jobs, one of them an all-nighter in a restaurant. It was nearly impossible to rent a place that allowed dogs. But one duplex owner looked at our three-legged dog and said, “Well, I guess I’ll make an exception for that one—no one else would want it.”

I didn’t want Carson either, but I couldn’t get rid of him. Praise the Lord for that. I had to leave Luke alone at night while I waitressed. I couldn’t afford a babysitter. The people on the other side of the duplex opened the connecting door when I left for work in case anything bad happened—but they wouldn’t watch Luke. Carson accepted the role of babysitter. Even though he was a small, totally worthless dog who wouldn’t have attacked any danger—except a Doberman (or buffalo—he chased a herd of buffalo once causing a stampede and sending tourists fleeing for the safety of their cars)—he made Luke feel safe enough to stay alone.

Sometimes lost becomes found.

A couple of years after our brief stint in Montana, I moved back to Lovelock, Nevada, during a blizzard to help friends of mine who owned a gold mine in the desert 40 miles from town. One day they sent me into town to pick up the mail. I parked in front of the post office and the gear shift fell through the floorboard and landed on the pavement. The truck wouldn’t move. A man from the church we attended came and fixed the truck. Some weeks later we were married. When Luke, Carson, and I moved into my new husband’s home, his large grey cat streaked down the hall and tackled Carson, sending him rolling across the floor. Four years later, Carson still would not venture any further in the house than the front room where the cat blitzed him. Two years after the cat died, Carson still refused to leave the front room.

We moved home to Bandera, Texas, Carson still in tow. When that stupid little dog died—it messed with my eyes and they watered for hours.

Many times in my life what I thought was loss and lost have actually been God’s hidden blessings. One reason my favorite Bible verse is: “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord.” Romans 8:28

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Never the Best

Before you begin to read this, please know that I am not throwing a pity party and I am not seeking accolades; merely writing about my epiphany at the grocery store today when the output at the cashier’s stand shriveled what was left in the bank account.

My entire life, I have never been the best at anything. As a child, I was physically strong, but my lack of coordination and clumsiness precluded me from sports. I did tryout for basketball. I failed to make the team. Perhaps because the one basket I made was on the wrong side of the court and counted for the opposing team.

During my entire school career (if you could call it a career), my grade point average and I sat in the middle of my class and never climbed. I was poor at spelling. It took me years to memorize how to spell “pilot.” I depended on my brilliant sister Leslie (writer Leslie P. Garcia) to spell words for me when I was writing. I was too mentally lazy to look them up in the dictionary; besides—in all fairness to myself—my spelling was so convoluted that I couldn’t find the words in the dictionary anyway because my attempts were too far-out. I mean, really…why should an “f” word like physician start with ph? And why should a word like psychiatrist that sounds like it starts with “s” begin with a “ph”?

Math? I was the ultimate disaster in math. It took a student tutor to make me understand that after 100, the numbers start all over again. Even now, figuring out how many months have passed confuses me because it depends on where you start counting. Numbers are used for arithmetic. Letters are used for writing. So why mix numbers and letters and call it a branch of math? Needless to say, I flunked algebra. Twice. When I was painting signs, I would mark the metal yardstick I used to measure lines because I didn’t know how to read the little marks in between in between the inches. Other folks are not the best with math, but I think I must be the most un-best of all.

Singing? I love singing, but we won’t go there. I can’t sing, yet I love to think that I can. It took a college music professor to convince me that for whatever reason—I actually can’t sing.

My joy is writing and I have 45 Christian mystery-romance books to my credit, yet I am not the best writer. Nor are my books bestsellers, although most of them have made the bestselling list briefly at some time. As for making money from writing…that hasn’t happened. Many authors have better sales than I do. Many make more money.

Finances? I have never been the best at finances. I’ve always struggled to make ends meet. Sometimes…they have never met.

I’ve done many things since childhood; painted signs, worked on newspapers, waitressed in restaurants, tamed wild animals, trained domestic animals, done landscaping and rockwork…but I’ve never been the best.

I’ve learned many things, traveled to many states in the U.S.—and now to Scotland—married and divorced, married and buried, married and become a care giver…but I’ve never been the best at any of these pursuits and I’ve never made the best decisions.

Having son Luke was almost the best decision in my life. Asking Jesus into my life and heart is the best decision anyone can ever make and it guarantees that I will be in heaven with Luke when it’s my time to travel to my final destination. So perhaps I have been the best at least once in my life. For some things, once is enough.

“Earnestly desire the best gifts.” I Corinthians 12:31. Jesus is the best gift ever—and He is for all eternity.

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The Colors of Memory

The color of one of my memories from the ninth grade was watching the door to our classroom to see what color Gemma’s hair would be this time. She was a natural blonde with beautiful long, wavy hair. I couldn’t imagine anyone having prettier, more desirable hair—but apparently—Gemma could.

Gemma’s first change was to brown, which amazed me. Brown? Plain brown? My hair was plain brown. Why would anyone who was born with gorgeous blonde hair want to change it to plain brown? Gemma’s next change was to red. I approved of red. I had always dreamed of having red hair myself. Then it was black. With her fair coloring and light blue eyes—black hair looked terrible on her. The next change was powder-puff blue. That was a lovely color on Gemma. It nearly matched her eyes and it was stunning. This was back in the 1960s, before changing hair color constantly and adding tattoos, etc. was commonplace. I envied Gemma at the time, but looking back, I wonder what insecurity in her life caused her to run from one color and hairstyle to another so desperately.

Another colorful memory was watching our classroom door for Latrelle’s entrance to see what she was wearing. She never wore the same outfit twice. All her skirts, dresses, and matching jackets were lovely and expensive. At the time, I envied Latrelle and her endless closet. I had a mere three outfits to wear all week. Looking back, I wonder if her parents showered her with money rather than love.

I was born in Texas, but I grew up in the rolling hills and piney woods of Georgia. Most people in our rural area were desperately poor. One old lady I used to visit on my bicycle was thrilled to have a sweet potato for her Christmas dinner. One sweet potato.

An old man at the end of our road ate a tin of sardines every day. One tin.

A family I used to sneak through the woods to visit because I had been forbidden to befriend them ate cakes of flour and water cooked on an open fire at every meal. The children were thrilled when their father made enough money to purchase a small bag of sugar to add to the flour and water mixture.

A girl about my age met me one day when I was riding my bicycle. She crossed the road in front of me holding a double handful of powdered laundry detergent. She was thrilled that she had enough soap to wash her clothes and her hair.

A girl in my class named Kathy lived in a chicken coop with her family. Kids made fun of her because she smelled bad. Her parents couldn’t afford to buy a bra for her. That was before the bra-burning craze hit. Kids made fun of Kathy for not wearing a bra.

The colors of memory. They find their way into the pages of my books. How could they not?

God engraves us on the palms of His hands and carries us with Him. My childhood memories are carried in my heart and spill out into my books, one memory at a time, one character at a time.

Fiction is seldom all fiction.

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I Can Smell Possums

I can smell opossums.

This lifted me to high standing with childhood friends Billy and Bobby. One of their chores was to traipse through the woods and set traps to catch possums for dinner. I would tag along and tell them where to place the traps. After they caught the critters, I would get money from home, buy the possums from their dad, and then release them in our woods. This made everyone happy—especially the opossums.

Being alert to strong smells comes in handy for more than setting possum traps. Recently, I received a Facebook friendship request which I almost accepted—because the person was reportedly from Bandera, Texas—Cowboy Capital of the World, and home of my heart.

Something about the request emitted a foul odor, but I couldn’t figure out what.

When I get a FB request I always check to see: that the person has posted personal information like place of residence, education, etc.; that at least some of the posts are recent; that the posts do not include profanity or other objectionable content, and that the profile picture is not followed by pictures reportedly of the person who made the request—but pictures that do not match the profile picture and are “flirty,” or self-aggrandizing. This FB request passed all those checks—but I smelled possum.

Finally I found the critter hiding in the woods. The person was a Wicca. A hidden post endorsed witchcraft. At first I was insulted. A Wicca in Bandera, home of my heart? That couldn’t be true! However, good and bad can be found everywhere, and Bandera—as wonderful as it is—is not perfect…because people live there…and people are not perfect.

I am not perfect. I am saved. I will be going to heaven when I leave this earth. But I am not perfect. If people on FB or other media deleted everyone who was not perfect—I would be one of the first deleted.

The ability to smell possums is a valuable skill. Everyone can develop it. We just need to allow God’s Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and work through us.

“Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil.” Proverbs 2:11.Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update

A Few Borrowed Pans

He was an alcoholic. One could find him nearly any time day or night stumbling out of a bar and thumbing a ride home. One of his best friends had just lost his life in a drunk driving encounter with a tree. Eddie was only 21.

My personal dislike of this disgusting waste of humanity was his treatment of his girlfriend. He was so indifferent to her and her feelings that I saw him reach across the front seat of his car and slip his hand under a girl’s skirt while his girlfriend was in the backseat. I despised him.

Then just like the Bible story of Paul on the road to Damascus when Jesus smote him with temporary blindness and told him to quit persecuting Christians—Jesus zapped him. When he quit traveling the bar route, his friends laughed at him. “He’ll be back.” “He’ll fall off the wagon.” “It won’t stick. He’s one of us.”

But it stuck. Instead of circulating around the bars, he circulated around his friends’ houses asking to borrow pans and utensils. He set up a rickety wooden counter on a vacant gravel lot in town and smoked meat in a 55-gallon barrel. He borrowed the barrel. Someone bought the beef brisket for him. He started selling barbecue.

People mocked him. “It’s just a passing thing.” “He’ll never make it. He’s too lazy.” “Have you ever seen such a mess?” “He’ll be out of business within a week.”

He stayed in business. The barbecue was outstanding. The rickety wooden counter became a handsome sturdy counter. The 55-gallon barrel became a professional barbecue pit. A building grew up around the counter on the empty lot, then expanded. He married a woman a few years older than he was. She had a son. It was a church wedding.

His wedding caused new speculation among the old friends he had left behind. “It will never last. She has a kid. He doesn’t even like kids.” “He’ll get tired of all that church muckety-muck.” “Him? He’ll never be faithful to a wife.”

But he stuck with church. He stuck with his wife. He watched their son graduate from high school. When his wife became ill with a rare blood condition he sold his business and moved to Kerrville so she would be close to the hospital.

And he stuck with Jesus. Always, he stuck with Jesus.

I’ve lost track of Donald Busbee over the years. But the business he built on a gravel lot in Bandera, Texas, stands as a testimony—not to Donald—but to his Jesus. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

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