Feeling Lucky

By Diane Stark

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.
~Swedish Proverb

"Oh, honey, come here," a friend of mine said, pulling me into a hug. "Last night, when I went to pick up my daughter from softball practice, I drove right by your husband's office. His truck was still there and it was almost 8:30. You poor thing," she added, patting my shoulder.

I nodded. "He finally rolled in a few minutes after nine."

"I feel so bad for you," she said. "Being home by yourself with all of those kids. It must be so hard on you."

I nodded again. Poor me.

It was the same story the next time I ran into this woman. And the time after that too. Every time I saw her, she was quick to offer her sympathy for my terrible circumstances.

My friend's heart was in the right place. Her own husband traveled frequently for his job, so she knew what it was like to miss her man, as well as carry most of the childcare and household responsibilities by herself.

We were in the same boat, so why shouldn't we play the woe-is-me game together?

One reason: I hated the way it made me feel.

I'd head into my local Walmart with a shopping list and a spring in my step, but after bumping into my misery-loves-company friend, I'd leave the store with a heavy heart and resentment simmering toward my husband. (As well as an ample supply of chocolate and Cheez-It crackers — comfort food at its best.)

These little pity parties were not good for my marriage. Or the size of my backside.

So I decided to change the way I thought about my situation.

The next time I bumped into my friend and she launched into poor-baby mode, I tried to look on the bright side. I shrugged and said, "Yes, Eric got home late last night, but he was working on a new project. If this deal comes through, his company may be able to hire someone else and then Eric's job will be easier." I shrugged and added, "So a year from now, he might be able to be home a lot more."

She nodded. "That's nice, but what about right now?"

"Right now, I'll admit that things are tough, but they're not nearly as bad as they could be," I said. "Our husbands both have jobs, and in this economy, that's a blessing."

"But they're both gone all the time," she said, scowling.

She was right, but I wasn't ready to start the pity party. "Yes, but our husbands' jobs allow us to stay at home with our children and still manage to pay our bills," I reasoned.

She nodded. "I never thought about it that way. I do like being at home with my kids."

"Our husbands love us enough to work hard so that we don't have to work," I shrugged and added, "well, at least not outside of our homes."

She nodded again, more thoughtfully this time. "I used to work at a bank. The job was all right, but I missed my kids and I hated being away from them."

"I know what you mean," I said. "I was a teacher, and I loved my summers home with them. Now I get to enjoy being with them year-round."

"Yeah," she said, "but now, instead of missing my kids, I miss my husband."

I shrugged. "Didn't you miss him when you worked at the bank too?"

She chuckled. "Good point."

Score one for me, but I wasn't done yet. "And think about this. At least our husbands are at work. A lot of men are gone at least as long as our guys are, but they aren't working. They're in bars and bowling alleys."

"And the really bad ones are at other women's houses," she added with raised eyebrows.

I smiled. "So I guess that makes us some of the lucky ones."

"Hmm, I'm one of the lucky ones," she murmured and then she grinned at me. "I'm really glad I bumped into you this morning. I feel better than I have in months."

I felt pretty good too. And why shouldn't I feel good? I have a husband who works too much.

But he does it because he loves me. He does it so I can be a stay-at-home mom, which for me is a dream come true. He does it so I can live in a comfortable home and drive a reliable car. He does it to provide for our family and even take me on the occasional vacation.

I won't be attending any more pity parties because as it turns out, my hard-working husband has given me plenty of reasons to feel really, really lucky.

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My First Ebenezer

By Amanda Arbia

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the LORD has helped us."
~1 Samuel 7:12

There are moments in my life that I remember with perfect clarity: the moment my boyfriend proposed, holding the ring out in the front seat of his Trans Am; the snowy afternoon I pulled a letter out of the mailbox and viewed my acceptance into my first-choice college; and that snowless, dreary February day when I reached the first real turning point in my faith.

February 12, 2000 was an unseasonably warm Saturday in the suburbs of Chicago. I sat on the couch, probably doodling as I was wont to do. The phone rang. I looked out the window to the sleepy neighborhood. The grass was brown, with the snow long melted but spring still far off. I suspected I knew who was calling. Then Dad came in and told me in a mercifully direct way that Tim had died. I let him wrap me in a hug while I cried, my tears dampening his shoulder.

Later, upstairs in my bedroom, I turned on my late-nineties Christian music and leaned against my tall dresser, allowing myself to mourn. I opened up my journal — a spiral-bound notebook that still bore the colorful traces of girlhood — and wrote what had happened. My mascara-tinted tears stained the page.

In May 1998, I was about to graduate from the eighth grade, leaving the friends with whom I'd spent nine years of my life. I was to enroll in a new high school, full of beautiful, tall, blond, images of near-perfection — and I didn't know a soul. As if that weren't frightening enough for a fourteen-year-old, my parents had dropped a bomb on me: We were leaving the church in which I'd grown up. This was the church where I'd met my closest friends, been involved in a children's group for years, and created countless memories. We were leaving, and I didn't understand. My whole world capsized, and to a fourteen-year-old, this was unbearable.

We started church hunting one Sunday, beginning at a local church... and we never left. Immediately, I was welcomed into the youth group. Smiles, laughter, warmth — they showed me the love of Christ. This youth group and its leader ignited something in me that would change the rest of my life. Tim Yetter was a young grad from the Moody Bible Institute with a wacky sense of humor and a deep love for the Lord. I'd never seen someone so young be so on fire for the Lord. He inspired the whole youth group to be "fully devoted followers of Christ." The lessons I learned as I entered high school were the building blocks of my true faith, and little did I expect that I would soon need to rest on those blocks when the storm came.

One day, we sat on sweltering, peeling vinyl seats in a bus that was falling apart. We were at a youth retreat in Minnesota, and Tim mentioned some fleeting health concerns. We made fun of him, put Anbesol in his fake Billy Bob buckteeth to make his mouth go numb, and forgot about it on the eight-hour ride home in an un-air-conditioned bus. But just a couple of months later, he was yellow — jaundiced because of a rare liver disease. By winter, we knew he had liver cancer. He was twenty-seven. His ministry was thriving. How could this be happening?

His name went on the transplant list. One night around Christmas, youth group was canceled because Tim was on his way to potentially get a transplant. We gathered anyway in the sanctuary that was lit with twinkling Christmas candles. We prayed and we sang. We made the choice to trust God rather than blame Him.

The transplant didn't pan out. A month or so later, we had an all-night church lock-in. Tim fed us words we'd heard him say before: "'He must become greater; I must become less'" (John 3:30). He was weak, yellow, dying. But words of praise, not words of pain were coming from his mouth. Two weeks later came the day that Tim's faith became sight, and he went to be with Jesus.

And that's where you meet that girl, crying in her room on a dreary February day. I say "that girl" because I am no longer "that girl." Through my tears, I knew I had a decision to make: I could choose to not trust this God who had allowed something so terrible to happen to such a wonderful leader and teacher... or I could choose to trust that this God was sovereign and good, with a purpose so beyond me that I could not understand. And here I raise my Ebenezer: I trusted Him. And that test of my faith grew me more than I could ever have imagined because I (and the rest of the youth group) was forced to depend on the Lord, and trust and hope that good would come from this painful situation.

It wasn't easy. I remember going to bed each night, fighting tears and praying that God would make me not miss Tim as much the next day, that it would hurt a little less. I thought I'd never heal. But I did. Years passed, and the series of events that have played out in my life are sovereignly connected to Tim's impact on my life. I attended Moody Bible Institute, which forever changed my relationship with the Lord. That education led me to move to Florida where I now have my own ministry to young girls whom I teach to be fully devoted followers of Christ.

I pray that as you read this, you will think about your spiritual legacy. I pray that you will remember that God is sovereign and good. And I pray that you will strive to be a fully devoted follower of Christ, as Tim so wanted us to be.

And God, the next time you see him, please tell Tim "thanks" for me, and let him know that "I'm keeping the main thing the main thing."

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The J-Mac Attack

By Jim Johnson with Mike Latona

Some pursue happiness. Others create it.
~Ann Landers

All the students in the bleachers rose to their feet, cheering wildly and jumping up and down. All I could do was sit down and start crying.

Never had I felt such emotion in my career. It wasn't a buzzer-beating basket; it wasn't a heave from half court; in fact, it wasn't even a play. All I had done was turn toward the player with uniform number 52, point my index finger at him, and say "J-Mac."

Up bounced seventeen-year-old Jason McElwain. My team manager's dream finally came true on February 15, 2006, the last home game of his senior year. Jason — or J-Mac, a tag I had hung on him early in his sophomore year — was about to see his first varsity action ever.

He was small, skinny, autistic, and learning-disabled. He'd been cut three straight years from his teams. But he lived and breathed basketball, and was so dedicated that I had planned for months to give him a special treat on Senior Night — suiting him up in uniform, and perhaps even finding him some playing time.

Jason had taken substantial grief over the years because of his disability. Go to any high school and the kid who's a little different gets singled out for ridicule. In Jason's case, he was an easy target with his unusually loud voice, tendency to laugh at inappropriate times, and habit of repeating things he heard other people say.

Basketball was his salvation, a constant bright light. It kept him enthusiastic and filled his mind with pleasant thoughts. He was a bona fide hoops junkie — loved watching the game on television, loved Kobe Bryant, memorized Final Four rosters, scouted our high school opponents, you name it. Above all, he burned with passion for Greece Athena, the high school for which I'm head coach and he proudly served as manager. I saw how, gradually, the kids on the team started to develop an appreciation for Jason's infectious attitude. As much as some of his autistic tendencies would drive them nuts, he was one of us.

I held to my promise and gave Jason his uniform for our regular-season finale against Spencerport. We moved out to a big lead in that game, and with just over four minutes remaining I felt, "I think it's the right time now." All the players started clapping for Jason as he checked in, and shrieking fans began furiously waving placards with blown-up photos of J-Mac attached. Some students also held oversized letters, forming a row to spell "J M A C." That just blew me away. I got so choked up that I had to sit down, even though I never sit down during games.

Jason's varsity career began with an air-ball and missed short jumper. All I could do was put my head in my hands and say "Please God, let him make just one basket."

Fortunately, God is a basketball fan.

It began with Jason rattling home a three-point basket, creating complete bedlam. From there he went on a hot streak beyond imagination, unless you've seen the game video that's still available on the Internet.

With his teammates looking to feed him the ball at every opportunity, Jason launched thirteen shots in all and made seven — including six three-pointers. That's twenty points in half a quarter, making him the game's high scorer as we won 79-43.

I remember very little about those crazy moments because I was in too much shock. I do recall that in the game's final seconds, Jason's mother, Debbie, came up to me with tears in her eyes, gave me a kiss and thanked me for giving her son this opportunity.

For a grand finale, J-Mac swished in his last shot at the buzzer from NBA range. Then he was mobbed by hundreds of joyous teammates and fans who stormed our court, hoisting him on their shoulders.

News of his feat spread like wildfire and, before you knew it, Jason and I were being pelted with countless media requests and movie offers. It was almost a bit of a side note that our Greece Athena team went on to win the Section Five championship, the first in my twenty-five-year coaching career.

Since then J-Mac and I have made numerous radio and TV appearances, my public-speaking schedule continues to take me all over the country, and a major motion picture is in the works on Jason's life. We've both met celebrities ranging from President Bush to Oprah Winfrey. Some of the top figures in sports — from Billy Donovan to John Calipari, from Dick Vitale to Jim Nantz — have told me how awed and moved they were by J-Mac's accomplishment. In fact, Coach Donovan predicts that thirty years from now, the general public will remember that better than his University of Florida teams having won back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007.

I've especially enjoyed feedback from strangers — the hundreds and hundreds of letters, e-mails and phone calls with heartwarming messages. Many have come from folks who have a loved one affected by autism or some other disability, saying how the J-Mac story provided such a vital dose of hope.

I've retold the story probably thousands of times by now, and don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I just feel like I was so blessed to be a part of something that special, that powerful. It almost defies being put into perspective.

Maybe the best way is to view it as a part of God's plan. I absolutely believe this was a miracle — maybe not like Moses parting the Red Sea, but God was definitely smiling on us. You wonder why terrible things happen like September eleventh and Hurricane Katrina. I think God's message with J-Mac is that he just wanted to give people a breath of hope.

There's also a strong message in there about goal-setting and perseverance. What people don't realize is how hard Jason worked for that one opportunity, all the hours and hours he spent working on his game.

Finally, this tale offers a huge life lesson about teamwork. Consider that on his big night J-Mac's teammates kept feeding him the ball, even though I hadn't instructed them to do so. Meanwhile, Jason will tell you to this day that his top thrill was not scoring twenty points in a game, but that our team won a sectional title.

I had always thought winning sectionals would be my own end of the rainbow. But now, it will always be the evening that J-Mac made history. Knowing I played a part in somebody's dream coming true — that's about the most satisfying accomplishment I could ever imagine.

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Looking Out a Window

By Jane McBride Choate

You cannot fully understand your own life without knowing and thinking beyond your life, your own neighborhood, and even your own nation.
~Johnnetta Cole

Following my mother's death after a long battle with breast cancer, my grief was so overwhelming that I stopped functioning for a while. At the same time, my husband's engineering business was struggling, and money was scarce. Christmas was approaching, and I wondered how we were going to buy gifts for our five children.

Two weeks before Christmas, my two walking buddies, Tami and Marian, showed up one morning with a beautifully decorated box. They urged me to open it right then. With trembling fingers, I did so. Inside I found treasure after treasure: exquisite handmade cards complete with stamps, a variety of fine chocolates, and two angel pins.

My eyes filled with tears as I took in the very personal gifts. Each was chosen with care, thought, and love.

The love my friends showed me during what had promised to be a dismal season reminded me that angels were watching over me. These angels appeared in the guise of friends.

Their loving gesture turned my attitude around. I found myself once again excited about Christmas, excited at the possibilities.

For the first time in months, I started looking outward rather than inward. My thoughts turned to others. What could I do to turn around the attitude of someone who was struggling just as I had been?

As my husband said, "You need to look out a window instead of in a mirror."

His words startled me. Was that what I had been doing? Staring in a mirror? Had I become so self-absorbed, so self-involved, that I had forgotten that others had problems?

The unfortunate answer was "Yes."

I resolved then and there to find what was positive in my life and to share that with others. I didn't have much money, but I did have time. I started to share that. I volunteered to take a seventyish widow in our church to doctor appointments and to the grocery store. I wrote cards to people who I knew were lonely and needed an extra dose of love.

My prayers were full of thanksgiving. I consciously counted my blessings and found them overwhelming. A husband who loved me. Sweet children who tried their best to help whenever they could. A group of devoted friends who were always there for me.

And then I did something that appeared to have nothing to do with building a positive attitude: I cleaned house. No, I don't mean scrubbing toilets (though I did that as well). I cleared out the clutter.

The clothes that no longer fit were sent to a charity thrift store. Books that had been read and re-read were donated to the local library for its yearly sale. Toys that the children no longer played with were given to a family with young children.

There was something freeing in cleaning out the clutter that had collected over the years.

Even as I was getting rid of unwanted items, I questioned my actions. Our family was struggling financially. Could we really afford to give things away? Should I save them for the garage sale I was always planning to hold? Shouldn't I be trying to make money?

The quiet peace in my heart was answer enough.

Cleaning out the physical clutter in my life prompted me to clean out the clutter in my heart. I made an effort to let go of old grudges and hurts. I worked to banish the obstacles that were holding me back from being the kind of person I wanted to be.

Can helping others and cleaning out clutter work for everyone in their quest of a positive attitude? Maybe. Maybe not.

But they, along with a pair of angels in sneakers and sweats, helped me find my way back to looking out a window rather than staring in a mirror.

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Puppy Playdates

By Lynn Hartz

Dogs love company. They place it first in their short list of needs.
~J.R. Ackerley

A white Poodle with beige ears showed up the night before Christmas on our doorstep. We advertised and put up notices so that the rightful owners could claim their dog. When no one claimed him, we kept him. My daughters were sure that Santa must have brought him to us. After all, it was Christmas Eve and they wanted a dog! The first night he was in our house he went directly upstairs to the bedroom where my two daughters slept and jumped onto one of their beds. Since it had been snowing outside, the dog was wet.

"He looks just like a wet noodle!" said Nell, laughing as she petted him. "Noodles" was his name from that moment on.

Noodles adjusted well to his new home. He had many health problems but we learned to care for him. He loved the girls, and Hope, my younger daughter, claimed him as "her dog." He also adjusted well to the female dog, Wendy, who lived two doors away. Wendy and Noodles had a love affair, which resulted in Pepper, who ended up being adopted by some neighbors.

Noodles, Wendy, and Pepper weren't the only dogs in the neighborhood, and it wasn't long before Noodles met them all and became friends. They would go on daily jaunts around the neighborhood. There were at least six of them that went walking together every day, and, no, they didn't take a human with them. Every morning at 10 o'clock, Pepper would come and knock on our door. Noodles would come prancing to the door. He could not wait to go outside with his son. The two of them sniffed each other and started walking off toward Wendy's house. She left her yard and went with them as they started up the hill to pick up other neighbor dogs.

When Noodles got older, he would be the last to be picked up by the "gang." Pepper and his friends would come to the door for Noodles almost every day at ten o'clock in the morning, and it was always Pepper who knocked on the door.

Over time, Noodles' early health problems caught up with him, and he was also hit by a car. His neighborhood buddies still came around and we still let him go out because we knew Pepper and the other dog pals would watch over Noodles. Wendy wasn't around anymore, which was sad, but the others still came. Pepper knocked on the door at 10 o'clock every morning.

After thirteen wonderful years with Noodles, he finally passed on one day. The next day there was a knock on the door. I knew who it was and didn't know if I could handle it or not. I opened the door and began to cry. It was Pepper, of course.

I went outside and sat down on the stoop. I petted Pepper and told him what had happened and that Noodles wasn't here anymore. I told him how much Noodles loved him and cried into his big shaggy body. Pepper looked sad and I am sure he knew what I was telling him. He didn't leave until I got up, brushed myself off, wiped my eyes, and went back inside the house.

The next morning at 10 o'clock, the silence was louder than any knock I had ever heard.

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Throw-Away Dog

By Joyce Laird

The gift which I am sending you is called a dog, and is in fact the most precious and valuable possession of mankind.
~Theodorus Gaza

Five years ago I had to do what every dog lover dreads the most, bring peace to a suffering friend and companion who had been at my side for eighteen years. My Lady Bear, a white Husky, could no longer walk, and at my age and with my arthritis I could no longer lift the large girl to carry her outside. I decided that after fifty years of dogs in my life, their lives were too short and mine was too long. Even though I figure I have about twenty years left, maybe more, and that would be about two dog lives, I was not going to get another and go through the pain of losing one again. But as the weeks turned into months, and even though I love my cats, I missed a dog around the house. My heart ached for Lady Bear. I missed the walks, the playing outside, the look of love in a dog's eyes when she looks up at you.

I started looking online and in the papers to see what a new pup would cost. I wanted either a Husky like Lady or maybe a Collie like my first two dogs. I'd always had big dogs. When I saw that breeders were asking three times my mortgage payment for a pup, it ended my search. I definitely could not afford it and even though my heart goes out to rescuing pets, I was loathe to try the animal shelter because any dog at my house had to get along with cats. I didn't want to bring one home, have a drama ensue, and then have to return the poor thing. So I simply stopped looking.

One morning, two years after Lady died, I heard a neighbor calling for help. There was a dog bothering her cat. I came out to help and found a Terrier-size dog sitting in her bushes with her cat. But the cat was not the one having the problem, the dog was. The dog was dancing around the cat and trying to lick the old Tom, who was not interested in being kissed by a dog. I grabbed the little dog to prevent him from losing an eye to the claws of the Tom, and took him to my yard until she could get the cat inside.

The neighbor suggested I turn the dog loose so he would find his way home. I hesitated but gave in. The dog seemed to be confused by his surroundings and started wandering in the street, obviously not used to traffic. He went from door to door in the neighborhood, scratching to be let in. People chased him away, and after I saw him almost hit by a UPS truck, I couldn't stand it and ran out and scooped him up. I brought him to the safety of my house and fenced-in yard.

The little dog was friendly and had obviously been raised with cats because he liked the neighbor's cat and wanted to snuggle up with mine when he came inside. I assumed he was a pet that had escaped from a local house because he was neutered and looked well fed, but he had no collar or ID. He found the cache of Lady's old toys immediately, pulled out several and started playing with them. It was as if he knew they were there waiting for him. I dismissed the thought that a greater force was at work.

I made signs and put them on the front fence and then proceeded to post them all around the neighborhood. I found an old puppy collar from one of my past dogs that fit him, hooked him up to a leash and started walking him for miles in different directions, asking everyone I saw if they knew the dog or his owners. No luck. This was no small task because the dog had no training and walking him was work. It was second nature for me to start training him as we walked, and I was surprised at how quickly he learned. At the park two blocks from my house a bunch of kids told me that they had seen a car pull up and toss the dog into the parking lot, and then drive away. Still I figured there was a chance that it was a mistake. The kids could be wrong. It might not be the same dog. It was summer and perhaps someone was on vacation and the dog got away. Maybe someone was dog sitting and the dog had accidentally slipped out through an open gate.

I took the dog to the vet and learned that he was a Puggle — half Pug and half Beagle — and about two years old. He had the coloring and was the size of a Beagle, but had the stocky build and the big round eyes of a Pug. He was a handsome little guy. I ran ads in both local and county newspapers in the "found" section, and posted online just in case he was lost by someone from another area. I had a few inquiries, but none was the right dog.

One day when I was talking about the dog with my neighbor from across the street, he said that I had done all that was humanly possible to find the dog's owners. He knew that I missed my Lady, and he said that God sent this little dog to me. The dog needed someone to love and I needed to mend a broken heart. By then, I had come to love the little guy. I named him Sparky because he came to me the week of the Fourth of July. That was three years ago. Today, he is my constant companion. He sleeps on my bed at night and only leaves my side to go out in the backyard. I have had great dogs in my life, dogs that I loved deeply and still miss, but my little "throw-away" dog has been the greatest gift I could ever receive at this stage of my life. I think we both found a way to heal our broken hearts when we came together.

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A Simple, Lasting Legacy

By Pamela Underhill Altendorf

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.
~James Bryce

Sometimes, I think my mother and I are still connected by way of a highlighter pen. As her way of reminding me to embrace the written word, the highlighter was one of the things she left me when she died. All these years later, I feel like she is with me whenever I read and highlight something that surges into my heart and mind.

She was a timid highlighter — a dot at the beginning of an idea and a dot at the end of the phrase. I highlight boldly!

My mother loved to read, and she taught me to look for words that demanded my attention and words that required careful thought. My earliest recollection of written words came from a large collection of the Oz books written by L. Frank Baum. I must have been a toddler when my mother began reading chapters to my sister and me every day. Through those early books, she gently led us into a world of imagination and wonder. While my mother's joy of reading and her curiosity about the world led her in many literary directions, it also helped to instill in her children the need and necessity of following our interests and appreciating the variety of books available to us.

She read wherever she could and whenever she could. I do too. I read for the friendship. I read for the mental conversation. I read for that invisible, intangible connection to a kindred spirit. Along the way, I have found that the reading becomes a safe place where both new and familiar thoughts can circle my mind and keep me company. I read because I love to, but I highlight because I have to.

Recently, when I was going through a box of my mother's papers, I found a cartoon she cut out of the newspaper years ago. It shows a man and woman sitting in bed reading books. The man says, "You've been staring at that book every night for a year and a half!" She replies, "If I read the next page it will be the end of the best book I've ever read, and I just can't bear to say goodbye." The cartoon makes me smile. I've read books like that. It is one of the reasons I highlight. I finish the book, but my highlighting helps the characters shine through and gives me easy access to the words I love.

If I could highlight an entire character, sometimes I think I would. There have been some so memorable that every now and then the circumstances in my life call them to mind. I have lived with them through confrontation, shared their joy and heartache, and, hopefully, learned a thing or two along the way.

Like my mother, my passion to highlight along with my inability to "deface" a book that does not belong to me, however, make me a stranger to the public library, a preferred customer at bookstores, and a recognizable face at rummage sales. Some of my highlighted books eventually find their way to second-hand bookstores. Their phrases have found their place, the track from mind to heart complete. They are now part of me, and although years later I may not be able to quote them verbatim, I know their message. So, I will not apologize to the person who ultimately receives my used books. At issue is not that the book has been defaced, but that it has been appreciated.

Perhaps it is the simple things that shape us. The original Oz books from my childhood remain on my bookshelves today, and although the highlighter pen my mother gave me was used up long ago, I will always be thankful that the simple legacy of her joy of reading and her reverence for the written word remains.

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