Author: gettingofftheinterstate

by Donna Poole

The patient sits next to me working on his physical therapy exercises.

“I just might get this blog written and posted this week by the skin of my teeth,” I say to John.

He answers with a groan. Even the heavy-duty medications can’t erase the pain of his exercises today.

“Now it’s time to get back on your CPM machine.” (Controlled passive motion machine)

My kind, loving, normally cheerful Valentine glares at me. “I just got off it.”

“You still have four hours to go.”

People warned us that total knee replacement surgery wasn’t easy. John’s surgery was Monday; he came home Thursday, and he had his first home physical therapy session yesterday. He’s hurting today. But he’s glad to be home, and I’m happy he’s here. He’s home for Valentine’s Day, home by the skin of his teeth.

John had a painful, weak day near the end of his hospital stay. When it took three nurses to get him adjusted on his CPM machine, we both wondered if he should consider inpatient rehab. It wasn’t our first choice, but we weren’t sure he could handle coming home. We prayed about it, and John told me to call our local rehab center to see if they had room for him.

“I’m sorry; we don’t. We’re only taking Covid patients this week.”

We were relieved, and John felt like he’d escaped going to rehab by the skin of his teeth.

“By the skin of my teeth.”

Isn’t language fascinating? I love exploring the history of old sayings. “By the skin of my teeth” means “I managed it but only by a narrow margin.” People use the ancient phrase to express an escape or an achievement that barely happened. It’s a distance too small to measure.

The Geneva Bible of 1559 was the first to use the expression in Job 19:20 “I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe.”

I avoided being fired once by the skin of my teeth. I sold flight insurance at the Broome County Airport in Binghamton, New York. Joy, my boss, flew in occasionally from New York City. I always heard her coming by the brisk click click of her high heels on the terminal’s tile. She was tall and lovely with perfect make up, and she made me want to throw up. Not because she was so perfect, but because I knew she was going to yell at me.

In training I learned the tricks of selling flight insurance, how to subtly play on the fear of first-time flyers, how to appeal to a senior citizen’s love of a grandchild, how to “sell up.” Our policies cost from twenty-five cents to five-hundred dollars, but Joy warned us to never sell a twenty-five-cent policy.

“What if someone asks what our cheapest policy is?” another trainee asked.

Joy said, “Start out selling high. Come down to twenty-five dollars only if you must. If a customer asks for the cheapest say, “Well, we also have ones for ten and five dollars. I will fire anyone who sells a twenty-five-cent insurance policy!”

Day after day I sold twenty-five-cent policies. Many of them. When someone asked for our cheapest, I sold our cheapest.

“Joy is going to be furious,” the long-time employees warned me.

And Joy was furious. Every time she came, she hollered at me and warned me it better never happen again, but she didn’t fire me. She often threatened to. She demanded my reasons. I explained my ethics. She looked puzzled and shook her head.

“I think you have potential to be one of my top salespeople. Try to sell a lifetime five-hundred-dollar policy before I come back. It doesn’t matter if the person will never fly again. I’ll feel good about you selling it.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it, and she knew it. She sighed. “I’m going to have to fire you one of these days, Donna Piarulli. You know that don’t you?”

I loved every job I ever had except that one. I was so relieved to give my notice when John and I were going to get married and move out of state.

On my last day, Joy gave me a wedding shower. The decorations were beautiful, the food delicious, and the cake amazing. I was overwhelmed by the generous gifts, especially the lavish ones from Joy.

Joy had to leave the shower early to catch her flight to New York City. I walked her to her gate and thanked her. She bent down and hugged me.

“You do know, Donna Piarulli, that I would have had to fire you eventually, don’t you?”

“I know.”

Then we looked at each other and laughed. Joy flew off to New York City and I never saw her again. I ended up on a dirt road in Michigan happy not to be a big city boss who only escaped by the skin of her teeth having to fire someone she really liked.

 We knew a man who only made heaven by the skin of his teeth. He was dying in the hospital, and his family asked John to go see him. John asked him if he’d ever repented of his sin and accepted God’s gift of salvation.

“Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment we deserve for sin,” John explained. “We just need to believe He died in our place and accept His gift of eternal life.”

The man replied, “I did that when I was a kid.”

John looked troubled when he told me about it. “He was lying, honey; I know it.”

John was preaching Sunday when the man’s son-in-law burst into the auditorium. “Can you come quick, Pastor? Dad’s dying and asking for you.”

A deacon finished the service and John raced to the hospital. The man could barely talk. He managed only two words, his last. “I lied.”

“You lied when you told me you had asked Jesus to save you from sin and give you eternal life?”

The man nodded, looking terrified and miserable.

“Squeeze my hand if you are praying this with me. Dear Father, I know I’m a sinner and I’m sorry. I don’t deserve heaven.”

The man gripped John’s hand.

“I believe Jesus took my punishment for sin when He died on the cross. I accept what He did in my place. I thank You for the gift of eternal life.”

The man squeezed John’s hand again. John looked at his peaceful, smiling face. “Do you know where you’re going when you die?”

The man nodded and squeezed John’s hand one last time. He died peacefully a few hours later and opened his eyes in heaven. He made it by the skin of his teeth.

by Donna Poole

Have you been to the Father’s Backyard? Some scoff and say it’s an imaginary place, but I’ve been there myself and assure you it’s more real than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

It’s a more beautiful backyard than you can imagine in your best dreams; the sun always smiles, and the grass makes a year-around carpet for bare feet. People say there’s a house just over the hill called “The Father’s House,” but none of us have ever seen the house or the Father, just the Father’s mailbox, and his backyard, perfect for adults who haven’t forgotten how to play.

 Artists gather daily in the Father’s Backyard to play at their work. Phyllis perfects her photography. Patrick paints with oils and watercolors. Weston weaves lovely patterns from lamb’s wool. Grace grows lovely flowers and vegetables in her garden. Archie designs architectural marvels. Bella practices ballet as Orville leads an orchestra. Sarah sculpts statues that decorate the garden while Wilson writes beautiful stories. Caleb makes masterpieces with his carpentry skills. Catherine creates meals that feed body and soul.

Newest to the group and greatly loved is young Paul whose poetry captures dreams and turns them into words. He often reads them aloud, and creativity being contagious, the work of the others becomes even more beautiful.

In groups and in solitude artists use the gifts the Father has given them to enrich the lives of the rest. Every evening, as the magic hour of twilight falls, each artist stops creating and admires the work of the others. There is no envy. The one who sings like an angel doesn’t wish to be the ornithologist cataloging the beautiful birds. The writer in the wheelchair never envies the ballerina.

The artists end each day relaxing around a campfire, contented with their own work and proud of each other. They talk softly, draw warmth from the crackling flames and from friendship, and watch the first stars appear. Then they stop by the Father’s mailbox, go home to sleep, and return refreshed to the Father’s Backyard to play at their work again the next day.

I remember the day things changed.

Paul’s poems had always been a bit melancholy, but no one minded. Sorrow and tears added beauty to all our work and reminded us we were only in the Father’s Backyard, not yet at his house. But Paul’s poems began to take on an eerie darkness. It seemed he’d forgotten what Helen Keller often said when she’d played in the Father’s Backyard in her day, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”

Paul’s poems had sometimes reminded me of the beautiful face of a baby who smiles through tears on his cheeks, or of a rainbow after a storm when the sun breaks through the clouds. Now there was no smile, no sun, just tears and storm clouds.

There was no overcoming left in Paul’s poetry. When he read it aloud, the other artists’ hands and minds grew heavy.

Then Paul stopped writing. Day after day he sat with his chin in his hands and refused to talk or be comforted. Not even the warmth of the evening campfire helped.

I wasn’t the only one who caught my breath in horror when Paul came to say goodbye. His face looked like an ancient oak; he shuffled slowly, and he bent from the waist and could no longer stand upright. His entire back looked like it was covered with lumps.

“I can’t come to the Father’s Backyard anymore,” Paul said. “It’s too painful. I have nothing left to give, and your beautiful work makes me bitter.”

And then Paul pitched face forward. He was still breathing, but barely.

Our own Doctor Dan rushed to help. “I’ve seen this only once before here in the Father’s Backyard, but I think I recognize this poison.”

“Poison?” I stared at him. “Someone is poisoning Paul?”

“Not someone, something,” Doctor Dan said as he removed Paul’s shirt.

Paul’s back was covered with layers of sticky notes.

“Quickly, please help me,” Doctor Dan said to those of us standing closest to Paul as he began pulling off the sticky notes.

“What are these?” I asked as I yanked them off by the handfuls.

“Something too heavy for any artist to carry. Something the rest of us leave in the Father’s mailbox every night before we go home.”

I glanced at the notes in my hands. I recognized the words on one of them; they were my own. “Paul, your poetry captures dreams and turns them into words.”

I read a few more, all of them praise, most in prose far more eloquent than my own.

“A man is tested by his praise,” Doctor Dan muttered grimly as he kept working. “Who was responsible for this man’s orientation?”

We looked at each other. No one had told Paul about the mailbox? The poor man had been hoarding praise, keeping all those compliments for himself?

Doctor Dan pulled the last of the notes from Paul’s back. Paul stirred and began to cry. The sun shone through his tears and made a rainbow.

We drifted off to our work-play as Doctor Dan quietly told Paul about the Father’s mailbox and how each night before we went home we whispered Psalm 115:1 and put into the mailbox all the praise given to us that day.

Paul was weak, content to sit in the sun, feel the grass carpet under his bare feet, and eat the nourishing soup Catherine created for him.

That night we began a new tradition around the campfire. As the flames died down to embers, we stood, hands clasped over our hearts, and chanted together, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.”

I was young then, and now I am old. I haven’t seen another case of praise poison and almost destroy an artist, but just in case someone else misses orientation, we still recite our fireside chant. Paul, our beautiful old poet laureate, reminds us to stop by the Father’s mailbox before we leave each night.

And that is how our souls stay young and light enough to laugh and create. Our bodies slow and sag, but we are still joyful children, playing in the Father’s Backyard. Come join us!

by Donna Poole

It was a Very Dark Year.

The round, plump Grandma who loved to laugh and talked a lot, got sick and slept a lot. Grandma had cancer.

She lost all her hair; she wasn’t so round and plump anymore, and she wore a funny little hat to keep her head warm.

“I look like a lawn ornament!” Grandma laughed. “A yard gnome.”

Grandma got quieter. On her hardest days, Grandma didn’t have enough strength to say many words.

But inside, Grandma was still the Grandma who laughed. And she talked a lot to herself and to God.

“Please, God,” she whispered, “let me have Family Christmas.”

She wanted to have Family Christmas like she always had for her four kids, her four in-law kids, and for her thirteen grandkids. Grandma was never too sick to smile when she thought of her grandchildren.

Family Christmas was going to happen, a week after Christmas Day! This would be their oldest grandchild’s twenty-second Family Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma’s, and it would be the youngest one’s first. Grandma wanted it to be the perfect Family Christmas. Just in case, it had to be the best Family Christmas ever.

When she could stay awake long enough Grandma had fun thinking of each family member and ordering gifts. Packages she’d ordered came in the mail. On her good days, Grandma couldn’t wait to open them. On her bad days, the boxes and envelopes sat neglected until she felt strong enough to look at them.

But, good days or bad days, Grandma thought about the Christmas tree. Grandma loved Christmas trees, especially ones with lots of lights. They reminded her that Jesus is the Light of the world. Grandma loved Christmas lights. On this Very Dark Year, she wanted more lights on the tree than ever before.

Grandma couldn’t wait until the day after Thanksgiving, the day they always got the tree. Youngest Daughter always picked out the tree; it was part of the tradition.

Every year Grandma told Youngest Daughter, “I love this tree. It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had!”

This Very Dark Year, because of Covid, Youngest Daughter couldn’t pick out the tree. Grandpa paid for a tree over the phone and a man at the Christmas tree farm chose a tree and put it in the truck when Grandpa drove up.

Grandma didn’t ride along to get the tree like she usually did; she stayed home and took a long nap. But when Grandpa brought the tree in the house, she was as excited as a little girl. That’s what Grandmas are, you know, just very old little girls.

“It’s beautiful!” she said. “I love it.”

Grandma didn’t say, “It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had,” because Youngest Daughter hadn’t picked it out.

As soon as Grandpa put the tall, lovely tree into the tree stand, it began to drop its needles.

“Maybe the man at the tree farm forgot to shake the tree before he put it into the truck,” Grandpa said.

“Maybe,” the family agreed.

But they doubted that was the problem. Too many needles were falling.

Grandpa put on many, many lights, perfect for the Very Dark Year. Grandma smiled and remembered Jesus is the Light of the world.

Grandpa put the lighted star on the top of the tree, but it fell to the floor and broke.

Grandma looked at the fifty-year old star as it lay in pieces. It was a rotating star that flashed colored lights on the ceiling and walls. She was sad, but she didn’t want Grandpa to feel bad. It had already been hard enough for him this Very Dark Year.

“It’s okay, honey,” Grandma said. “We can put something else on top of the tree.”

Grandpa, famous for fixing things, just smiled. “I can fix it,” he said. “I can glue it back together.”

And he did. Grandma smiled at him.

“I wish I could fix you,” he whispered in her ear.

“God can fix me if He wants to,” she whispered back.

“I know, honey.” He hugged her. And the Very Dark Year was not so Dark.

Grandpa, Youngest Daughter, Youngest Son-in-Law, and Grandma decorated the tall, beautiful tree. Grandma didn’t do as much as the rest. She got tired and watched, but it was a wonderful day.

Grandma loved looking at the tree and all the beautiful decorations Youngest Daughter had put around the house. Had any Christmas been so lovely? She didn’t think so.

But she felt uneasy when every day Youngest Daughter swept up the growing pile of needles under the tree.

“You’re sick like I am, aren’t you?” Grandma asked the tree when no one could hear her. “I feel sad for you. Can you try to stay for Family Christmas? I know we don’t need a tree, but I love your lights. You remind me that Jesus is the Light of the world. And my grandchildren are used to seeing their gifts under a tree. I want this to be the perfect family Christmas, one for them to remember, you know, Just in Case.”

Grandma didn’t have to tell the tree what she meant by “Just in Case.” He knew.

Another of the lovely branches dipped toward the floor. “I want you to have the best Family Christmas ever, and you will, if I am here or not. But I will try my best to stay. That’s all any of us can do, is try.”

Grandma heard Grandpa tell Youngest Daughter the tree was starting to be a fire hazard and they needed to throw it out.

“Not yet, please not yet,” Grandma begged. “I need him for Family Christmas. Could we just not light the tree again until then and light it one more time that day?”

Grandpa looked at her sadly. “Not unless you want to burn the house down and have no Family Christmas at all.”

One day Grandma got up from a long nap. Youngest Daughter had undecorated the tree and she and Grandpa were taking him out the door.

“I tried to stay for you,” the tree whispered to her, “but I got too old and sick. It’s okay. You don’t need me to light the Very Dark Year. You will have a wonderful Family Christmas.”

Grandma knew the tree had to leave, but her eyes filled with tears. Thank you for trying your best, beautiful tree. That’s all any of us can do, is try.

Now there would be no tree for Family Christmas.

Grandma didn’t know Youngest Daughter had a plan.

Youngest Daughter had contacted the Christmas tree farms and had explained about the cancer and the Family Christmas and how much the Grandma wanted a tree.

“Do you have any trees left for sale?” Youngest Daughter had asked.

Christmas Day had passed. “I am sorry, we don’t.”

A lady who worked at one Christmas tree farm had said, “I am done with my tree, and it is still very much alive. You can have it if you want it.”

Youngest Daughter and Grandpa went and got the tree. It was a lot shorter than the first tree. The lights that had been enough for the first tree were dazzling on the smaller one. It almost made Grandma forget the Very Dark Year.

Grandma was having one of her good days. She and Youngest Daughter decorated the second tree.

Youngest Daughter smiled at her. “I know how much it meant to you to have a tree here for the grandkids. I had to get you a tree. So, in a way, I guess you could say I picked this one out. Do you like it?”

“I love it!” Grandma said. “It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had!”

And it was true, even though it was short and a little crooked. Grandma laughed when she and the tree were alone.

“You’re just like me,” she said to the tree, “short and leaning to one side, like I do when I walk. You look like a gnome yard ornament too.”

The little tree smiled back at her, glowing with light.

Finally, the day Grandma had waited for all year came. It was Family Christmas. The house was full of light, love, and laughter. Grandma tried to memorize every smile. She watched each family member open a stocking or a gift. She cried happy tears when a grandson read Luke 2, the most beautiful, and the truest of all stories.

Grandma listened to the kind words her family said to her and to each other. The Very Dark Year slunk out the door; it couldn’t live in so much light.

It was the best Family Christmas ever, one to remember, Just in Case.

The little tree lived on and on. Grandma didn’t want to take it down. She sat alone in the dark living room, several nights after Family Christmas, enjoying the lights on the tree and thinking.

What an unusual year. It wasn’t all dark. We had so many blessings. We even had two Christmas trees! I bet that won’t happen next year.

Suddenly, Grandma realized she was planning next year’s Family Christmas. It would be the best one ever.

by Donna Poole

Danny finished second grade with excellent grades in every subject, so we were surprised when he flunked his first test in third grade, then his second, and then his third. When he’d failed his first test in every subject his dad talked to him.

“Danny, you were getting really good grades when school ended a few months ago. Now you’re flunking everything. What happened?”

Our golden-haired, fun-loving boy with the charming dimples flashed his dad a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think something must have happened to my brain over the summer!”

When his dad told Danny what was going to happen to him if he didn’t start studying, he failed no more tests. His brain made a sudden and remarkable recovery.

My first bright red “F” on my report card devastated me. I was in second grade and couldn’t even read the word “cat”, so I’m not sure why the F in reading surprised me, but it did. I kept looking at it, hoping it would disappear before I got home and had to show it to Mom, but no such luck.

Mom taught me to read by methods I don’t recommend, but I did quite well in school after that. I didn’t flunk anything else until high school. After breezing through Latin I with all A’s, I started Latin II with confidence.

Before long I was muttering with the rest of the students who were struggling, “Latin is a dead language, dead as it can be; first it killed Julius Caesar, and now it’s killing me.”

When Mom learned I was failing not only Latin but also chemistry, she ordered me to quit every “unnecessary” activity and class, including band.

I loved band. I played third clarinet last chair, and our band director, Mr. Pinto, often told me, “Piarulli, it’s a good thing for you I don’t need one less clarinet.”

Even though the band would be better off without me, Mr. Pinto felt bad for me when I told him I had to quit. He didn’t agree that music was “unnecessary.”

“Give me your phone number. I’ll call your mom. I never yet met a mom I couldn’t reason with.”

“That’s because you haven’t met my mom.”

Mom didn’t mention the call, and I was afraid to ask, so I showed up at band the next day at the usual time, hoping against hope.

Mr. Pinto shook his head. “I’m sorry, Piarulli. Now I’ve met a mom I can’t reason with.”

Despite Mom’s best efforts, I flunked Latin and Chemistry and had to repeat them the next year. I still graduated with a good grade point average because of high grades in the classes I liked. I hadn’t yet learned life doesn’t just give us classes we like.

I worked hard for my college education; one semester I worked sixty hours between three jobs and took nineteen credit hours at school. I couldn’t keep that pace for long, but I always worked full time and took a full load of classes. I enjoyed learning.

I started my college missions’ class with anticipation. I’m fascinated with biography and expected to learn about heroic lives. Instead, I found long lists of facts and figures to memorize: how long had this and that mission been in this and that country and how many missionaries did they have here and there?

“It’s a sin!” I complained to John. “That class should motivate people to go into missions not bore them to death!”

I dropped missions with a WF—withdraw failing. Twice.

In our last year of college John said, “You do know that missions is a required class, right? You can’t graduate without it.”

“What?!”

Back I went to missions’ class, this time expecting our first baby, but my attitude hadn’t improved. Looking back, I’m sure the problem was me, not the class. Many fine missionaries came out of that class.

I barely passed missions, but our first baby and I got our diploma two months before she was born.

Recently I flunked something else, R-chop chemotherapy. R-chop is an acronym for a combination of chemo drugs given to fight cancer. I put up with all the nasty chemo side effects, confident it would work. I’d never heard of it not working.

Sometimes chemotherapy doesn’t work, and it didn’t work on me. Morticia, the name I’ve given my lymphoma lung tumor, had the nerve to grow during those brutal treatments. Like a giant Pac-Man, she gobbled up that chemo for lunch.

Another big red F for me, I failed chemotherapy!

Next came radiation treatments, but my doctor stopped those early when they affected my esophagus. So, I flunked radiation too!

I love the crafty sign at the radiation check in desk at the University of Michigan Hospital. It says “hope.”

John and I have been quoting a college acquaintance of ours who recently died of lymphoma: “Now is the time to practice our theology.”

What theology? We believe God loves us and we can trust Him in the dark, and that gives us hope.

Darkness is a test of faith, and one I don’t want to flunk, but sometimes I do, for a minute or two.

In the middle of the night I sometimes whisper, “God, are you even here?”

The answer comes, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” –Hebrews 13:5

God is with me while I wait for the doctors to decide what to try now.

I don’t know what comes next for me; you don’t know what comes next for you. But the big test is coming for all of us, you know, the one we can’t afford to flunk because our eternity depends on it.

That test has just one question: Why should God let me into heaven?

I can never be enough or do enough to meet God’s standards, and I’m glad I don’t even have to try. As my substitute, Jesus lived the life I should have lived and died the death I deserved. Good news! That’s true for you too.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9

I’ve flunked a few things in my time; reading, Latin, chemistry, missions, chemotherapy, and radiation. I passed my driver’s test only because an angel with a golden trumpet tucked under his arm swooped out of the sky and parallel parked the car for me. Don’t laugh; it’s the one and only time I ever managed that feat. If it wasn’t an angel with a golden trumpet, what was it?

I don’t know how soon I’ll knock on heaven’s gate, but if Peter or someone asks me, “Why should we let the likes of you into a place like this?” I know the answer; I’m jumping up and down like a kid because I know the answer, and I pray you do too!

Let me in because Jesus paid it all! Eternal life, joy, and happiness are mine because I repented of my sin, turned to God, and accepted His gift of salvation!

Then, that beautiful gate will swing wide, and I’ll find all the love and joy I’ve ever lost and more than I can imagine besides!

Maybe the angel with the golden trumpet will proclaim, “Here she is, the girl who flunked a few too many tests on earth, but she passed life’s final exam!”

Please, be ready to pass life’s final exam! I really want to spend eternity with all the people I love, no one missing from the joyful circle.

by Donna Poole

Media, especially social media, is gloomier than Michigan in January, and that’s saying a lot.

Michigan has many superlatives. For one thing we have the longest freshwater coastline in the world, 3,288 miles of it. We’re a big old peninsula surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes, and that’s wonderful, but all that water causes gloomy, cloudy days in November, December, and January.

If Michiganders aren’t careful, gloom seeps right into our bones and turns us all into Eeyores, the dismal donkey of Winnie the Pooh fame.

Media, especially social media, is gloomier than Eeyore, and that’s saying a lot.

I saw a meme—we Boomers used to call them cartoons—that made me feel like laughing and crying. A woman jumped out of a window in a burning building labeled 2020, landed on a fireman’s trampoline, and catapulted into another window in a burning building tagged 2021.

We get that; don’t we? Are we, perhaps, a bit jaded and gloomy after the year we just finished?

And yet, hope remains. It might peek out for just a minute a day, like the Michigan sunshine did on a recent morning; it might be tattered and jagged, but it’s there.

I saw bright sunshine amidst Facebook gloom today. A friend posted a Tigger minute: “Addicted to hope.”  

“Me too!” I commented. It’s poor grammar; I know I should say, “I am also,” but “me too!” seemed more cheerful and Tiggerish.

I am addicted to hope.

Hope is why we read mystery books, put together puzzles, or play Spider Solitaire. We like to see complicated, hopeless things come together in a satisfactory conclusion. We long for all the things we aren’t finding in current events or perhaps even in our own lives: peace, answers, and everything in its proper place. We’re desperate to find that one puzzle piece missing under the table.

Hope sneaks up on us when we smell a trailer load of new lumber, or open a new notebook, or turn the first page of a book. Hope and anticipation are almost inseparable. Many new things inspire hope; there’s a reason a new year is often depicted as a baby.

It’s hope that makes us try that exercise program in one more effort to rid ourselves of the SpongeBob SquarePants silhouette.

It’s hope that makes me pick up my tiny, two-pound weights. I want to regain a little of the strength cancer is stealing. And I want to do something about this skin that kind of just lies here next to me in a puddle. I’m sorry about that word picture; blame my niece, Sheri.

Years ago, when she was still in school, Sheri worked at a nursing home. “I like my patients, but their skin! It just lies there next to them.”

Now I’m one of those people; cancer caused weight loss too fast. I hope to do something about that skin. What, I don’t know, except laugh and remember Sheri!

Laughter aside, I do have serious hopes for 2021, and I’m sure you do too. I know we’re all beyond tired of the fighting and the violence. We hope for many things to change in the world and in our lives.

We could easily give into hopelessness when dreams not only shatter around us but almost crush the life out of us when they fall.

Sin and suffering are a creeping darkness enfolding our planet, but even for that, there is hope.

I looked but can’t find the George MacDonald quote where he wrote that sin and her children; sorrow and suffering, are sickly and dying, but joy and her children are strong and will live forever. That’s hope!

Faith, hope, and love entwine in a strong three-fold cord in the Christian’s heart (I Corinthians 12:13). The King James Bible uses the word “hope” 129 times!

Hope is the one thing we can’t live without.

My heart paraphrases Psalm 43:5, “Why are you sad and upset, oh my soul? Hope in God!”

Unlike politics, health, exercise programs, or dreams, hope in God is a sure thing. God never fails. For those who know Him, far, far better things are coming than we have the imagination to even begin to hope for.

So, here we go again! So far, 2021 looks as bleak or bleaker than 2020, but only if we leave God and hope out of the equation. That I don’t intend to do. I’ve had enough of cloudy, gloomy days. I’m ready to sit in the sunshine of hope. Anyone want to sit with me?

by Donna Poole

“Why couldn’t I have sent them to my family?” I worried to John after his mom called me.

“Donna, the birth announcements you sent us and our family and friends?”

“Yes?”

I waited, expecting John’s mom to praise the patriotic announcements John had chosen, red, white, and blue, with the words, “Our First Lady.” Praise wasn’t her response.

“You forgot to fill them out. They are empty. No name, no birth weight, Nothing.”

I apologized profusely. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t know I was that tired. Back then I didn’t even have the excuse of brain surgery to offer! In my exhaustion, I thought I’d completed all the announcements, but I’d only filled out half of them. My family got the half with the information; John’s family got the blank ones.

Two boys and another girl followed “Our First Lady”, and I double checked to be sure the announcements had the pertinent information before we took them to the post office!

There’s nothing like having a new baby, unless it’s having a book baby!

Having a baby and writing a book have a few things in common.

Babies and books both arrive with pain. Both keep you awake at night. Both capture your hopes and dreams. Both have minds of their own; there’s no pouring them into your mold. You send both off into the world with prayers they will help and bless others.

If the Creek Don’t Rise is my newest book baby. It’s a stand-alone read, but it’s also book two in the Corners Church series.

The characters in If the Creek Don’t Rise are fiction, but they seem real to me. They captured my heart with their brokenness because I too have been broken, body, soul, and spirit. The glorious, redeeming truth is that God delights to use broken people.

The Pharisee who pounded his chest with pride and thanked God that he was not like “this publican” doesn’t capture my heart. I cry with the broken publican who heard him and wept, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

The elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son is a bit too perfect to be one of my people. I love the younger son who comes trudging up the dusty road, weary in body and spirit, only able to frame the words, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

I love the broken people in the Bible because I am broken people. Aren’t we all? How wonderful for us, how beautiful, that we have a loving Father who runs to welcome us when we repent and turn toward home!

So, here is the birth announcement for my new book baby, a story of broken people:

If the Creek Don’t Rise

Publication date: December 27, 2020

Print length: 254 pages

Readers: wanted

Available: on Amazon; paperback, and Kindle

Fireside Thoughts

by Donna Poole

He, Yahweh, the Name too sacred to speak, had given her a task.
She wasn’t sorry she’d said yes to Him. But she was tired.

She hadn’t known before people could be this tired, too tired to cry.

But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.

On and on she plodded through the darkness with Joseph. Surely, after all these days of travel, Bethlehem must be close.
Yes! There it was, just ahead.
And then the first labor pain hit. A moan escaped her lips.

“Mary?”

She nodded mutely, and Joseph looked worried, this gentle, quiet man who trusted her and God against all reason.

Mary loved her husband, but as the second labor pain tightened she felt lonely. She wanted her mother, her cousin Elisabeth, any woman family member. Mary had never birthed a baby; she had no idea what to do. Joseph was a carpenter, not even a farmer whose knowledge of livestock birthing might have helped.

She hadn’t known before people could feel this lonely.

But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.

A fear she could taste replaced loneliness as one after another turned Joseph away. Must she give birth in this street crowded with pushing, gawking strangers? Was this how God took care of those who said yes to Him?

She hadn’t known before people could feel this terror.

But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.

Finally, a resting place! The stable looked crude, but at least she’d have some privacy and not a minute too soon. Now there was nothing left in the world but pain; no yesterday, no tomorrow, only this unbearable agony.

She hadn’t known before people could suffer like this.

But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.

Then it was over. Joseph placed the baby in her arms. She gazed into His tiny face and cried with joy.

She hadn’t known before people could love like this.

How could this be? She was seeing the God-man,

the

invisible

made

visible.

She hadn’t known before people could worship like this.

“Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” —Matthew 1:21

Glory! Glory to God in the highest!

by Donna Poole

Ellie Porter trudged home from work through the dirty city snow. The wind chill was a bitter minus twenty and her worn coat barely cut the chill, but she wasn’t about to spend money on bus fare, especially now.

“Well, Grandma,” she muttered, teeth chattering, “at least I won’t have to make this freezing walk for the next six weeks. How’s that for playing your Glad Game? But I won’t get a paycheck for six weeks either.”

Ellie’s grandma had raised her after her mom had died when Ellie had been a toddler. The paramedics who’d responded to calls from worried neighbors had found Ellie lying next to her mother, crying. They estimated she’d been there for two days. Ellie had no memory of it or her mother. Her childhood memories were of happy, carefree summer days on the farm with Grandma, of decorated cedar trees, church music, and turkey dinners at Christmas. There were always gifts under the tree from Santa, a doll, clothes, a new book.

Grandma loved books and told Ellie her mom had too.

“Your mom named you for Eleanor Porter. She was the author who wrote Pollyanna in 1913.”

“Is Pollyanna your favorite book, Grandma? Is that why you read it to me all the time?”

Grandma had smiled. “The Bible is my favorite book, but I do love Pollyanna. We’re going to have to buy a new copy soon. This one is worn out from all the times I read it to your mother and now to you.”

Whenever Ellie was sick or sad, Grandma said, “Play Pollyanna’s Glad Game. Let’s find something to be glad about.”

Ellie didn’t like the book nearly as well as Grandma did, and she strongly disliked the Glad Game, but the year she turned ten she found a beautifully illustrated copy of Pollyanna under the cedar tree. The book’s inscription said, “Never get too old for the Glad Game. Love, Santa.”

Ellie had already been suspicious about Santa and almost asked Grandma why Santa’s handwriting looked so much like hers, but she didn’t.

Grandma died suddenly before New Year’s Day, and Santa died too. Ellie spent the next eight years in foster homes. She seldom spoke of those years. Her twelve-year old daughter, Roxie, was the result of living in one of those homes, and the foster father was in jail.

Ellie adored her daughter.

If only Roxie could have a Christmas like the ones I had with Grandma, with a cedar tree, turkey dinner, and a new book.

That thought had become an obsession this year. Ellie had laughingly even voiced it to a “Santa” who had passed through her line where she worked in a booth as a parking lot attendant at the hospital.

“And what do you want for Christmas, ma’am?”

“Goodbye, Santa.” She had laughed at him. “I don’t believe in you.”

“That doesn’t matter; I believe in you.”

He was so young and looked so serious in his red Santa suit. He must have a good heart; he was volunteering his time to cheer up children in the hospital. Why make him feel bad?

“Okay, Santa. I want a cedar tree, a turkey dinner, and a new book for my daughter.”

“A cedar tree? Not one of the beautiful Fraser Firs they sell in the lots near here?”

She shook her head. “Nope. A scraggly cedar like the kind that grew on Grandma’s farm.”

The driver behind “Santa” honked his horn.

Santa chuckled an authentic ho ho ho. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Right. Goodbye, Santa.”

That had been two weeks ago. Now, two weeks before Christmas, the hospital laid off all the parking lot attendants for at least six weeks. Because of COVID 19 they decided to use the kiosk only system to help prevent the spread of the virus.  

“Wonderful timing, just great,” Ellie muttered as she continued plodding through the dirty snow. She stopped to catch her breath, pulled her collar up under her chin, and noticed a church sign and a manger scene. The three kings were close to baby Jesus, but the shepherds were outside the enclosure and had been splattered with salt and dirt from tires.

“This is all wrong,” Ellie said to the shepherds. “You’re supposed to be close to baby Jesus. Those kings didn’t even show up until sometime later when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were in a rented house. You’re getting a raw deal. And now I’m talking to wood carved nativity figures.”

Ellie started laughing. She looked closely at the shepherds. The artist had done a beautiful job. The years of hard work and suffering lined their faces, but so did their awe and joy as they looked at the Christ Child.

Ellie looked at baby Jesus herself. She knew the story was the truest ever told, the one that offered hope in the mess of life. Ellie remembered baby Jesus had become a man who’d willingly suffered and died on a cross to take the punishment for the sin of the world.

“You never stepped out of the mess of my life, Jesus,” she whispered, “but I said goodbye to you too. Roxie doesn’t know a thing about you.”

The church sign advertised a Christmas Eve Candlelight service.

Ellie didn’t have Grandma’s cedar tree, turkey dinner, or a new book to offer Roxie, but she could share Grandma’s faith. She’d bring Roxie to this candlelight service, just like Grandma had taken her to one at a little country church.

Ellie kept walking. It was still too cold; her coat was still too thin, and her life was still a mess. But strangely, she felt stirrings of hope and joy despite everything.

As Ellie walked up the flight of stairs to her apartment, she caught a scent of cedar and laughed at herself. “First I talk to nativity figures; now I smell invisible trees.”

She pulled her key from her bag, looked up, and almost rubbed her eyes. It couldn’t be, but it was. She saw a small cedar tree with scraggly branches propped against her door. Next to it sat a box with a turkey and everything she needed to make Christmas dinner. Could there be a book too? She looked, no book. Well, it was still a Christmas miracle. She’d give Roxie the beautiful copy of Pollyanna Grandma had given her and teach her the Glad Game.

This was the real world, not a make believe one. Where exactly had these gifts come from? They couldn’t have been here long, not in this apartment building; someone would have walked off with them. Ellie looked down the hallway. Was she imagining that flash of red disappearing around the corner?

She chuckled. “Goodbye, Santa!”

by Donna Poole

“We’re taking Potters and going to Adrian. You guys want to come?”

“Are you crazy? In this snowstorm?”

“Well, Meijer has an awesome sale on BB guns with a coupon, one per customer, until they run out of the guns.”

“No thanks, we’ll stay here! Unless you need us?”

“No, Potters have a coupon, and we do, so we can get guns for Johnnie and Danny. We don’t need you; we just want you!”

Kathy La-Follette laughed. “We love you, but we aren’t crazy. We’ll see you when it isn’t a blizzard.”

We picked up Pastor Potter and Audrey in our old Dodge Aspen station wagon. Off we went through drifting snow on beautiful but treacherous roads, laughing all the way. We got the coveted BB guns and made it home safely, sure La-Follettes would regret not going with us when they heard how much fun we’d had. La-Follettes didn’t regret it. Like I said, they weren’t crazy.

Oh, the crazy stories that old Dodge Aspen could tell! One winter I kept complaining my feet were cold.

“I don’t understand why your feet are cold, honey. I have the heat all the way up, and I’m too warm,” John said.

Then he crawled under the car to change the oil and found the floor on my side was almost gone; there was just a wet, frozen carpet. He pop-riveted a piece of metal to make a floor on my side. The third seat of the car, where the boys sat, faced backward. There was no heat back there, and their shoes froze to the floor.

But what fun we had in that old car! It served us well for a long time. One year the boys bought a set of battery Christmas lights for our annual trip to New York to visit family. They strung them in the window and felt as festive as two of Santa’s elves, even though they had no feeling in their feet.

We took that old car to pick up many of our Christmas trees, cedar trees Bud Smith let us cut in one of his fields. Some years the trees were more brown than green, but they always smelled wonderful.

Bud always said we could cut any tree we wanted. I remember one year, walking through the field, my hands frozen inside my mittens, while John looked at every tree. Finally, he found one he liked. He cut it; it fell with a satisfying thud, and separated into two trees, both quite ugly. We laughed, chose the lesser of two evils, and took it home—home where in winter it got so cold John’s books on the end of the shelves froze to the walls.

The kids didn’t think the cedars looked much like “real” Christmas trees. They sang, “Oh, Christmas bush, oh, Christmas bush, how lovely are thy branches.”

Decked out with our homemade ornaments, the cedar trees looked perfect in the little house we lived in then. We enjoyed mostly homemade Christmases back then. We always managed a few store-bought gifts, thanks to the generosity of our church family who gave their pastor an envelope of cash every Christmas, money they could little afford to give! We filled in with handmade gifts those years.

I can still see the kids in their blanket sleepers with holes in the knees on Christmas morning, holding their hands over the kerosene heater to get warm, and looking at the tree with its few gifts with stars in their eyes.

Before we opened gifts, John always read Luke 2:1-14:

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

² (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

³ And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

⁵ To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

⁶ And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

⁸ And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

⁹ And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

¹⁰ And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

¹² And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

And then, even before anyone opened a gift, it was Christmas!

Danny was about eight years old the year of the BB guns; Johnnie ten, and Angie thirteen. She opened a beautiful pair of white ice skates. Kimmee wasn’t born yet.

Now we celebrate Christmas in a bigger home with a Fraser Fir tree. When the whole family can gather there are twenty-three of us. No one stands around a kerosene heater to keep warm; we get too warm with the gas fireplace.

Some things stay the same. Thirteen grandchildren look at wrapped gifts with starry eyes, and before we begin, John hands the Bible to our oldest grandson. Reece, thirteen-years old this year, reads Luke 2:1-14, and then, before anyone pulls wrapping paper from the first gift, it is already Christmas.

by Donna Poole

John locked the church door the Wednesday night before our first Thanksgiving at our little country church. We didn’t have any outside lighting at the church yet, so we held on each other and two-year-old Angie, laughing our way in the dark, trying to get to the car without falling. Johnnie was due to arrive in less than a month and my balance was precarious at best.

Our old car didn’t have a chance to warm up on the short drive home on the dirt roads. We were still shivering when we pulled into the driveway of the little farm tenant house the church rented for us to use as a parsonage.

“Honey, look at all the cars!” I said.

“Looks like everyone who was at prayer meeting and lots of people who weren’t,” John answered.

Prayer meeting didn’t start until 8 p.m. back in those days to give the farmers a chance to finish chores. By now it was well after nine o’clock. We were puzzled by the unexpected company so late. Many of them had to be up well before dawn to begin milking.

We were even more surprised when they all followed us in the house carrying boxes and paper sacks. They piled the packages on our table and on the floor around it.

They smiled at us. “Well, aren’t you going to unpack everything?” someone asked.

Our wonderful church people watched as we unpacked more groceries than our little house had room to hold: flour, sugar, soups, pasta, potatoes, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, jelly, coffee, home canned goods, milk, butter, eggs, apples, and bags and bags of meat; turkey, chicken, hamburger, roasts, and steaks. They hadn’t forgotten Angie either; she squealed with joy when she found treats they had packed just for her.

John and I looked at each other trying to hold back tears. How many times had we stood in the aisle at the grocery store trying to decide whether to put back the coffee or the toilet paper? We knew the coffee had to go, but oh it was hard putting it back on the shelf. Bills came first; food came last. Now we had so much food we didn’t know where to put it all. Our church people couldn’t pay us much back in those days, but we weren’t going to go hungry that winter.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” they said. They hugged us and left. Then we cried.

There were many lean years like that at our country church, years when we saw God’s hand in a visible way meeting our needs week by week. Finally, the congregation grew large enough to give John raises. I began getting regular assignments to write curriculum, and finances weren’t so lean.

Then came 2020. John lost some income. The company that had hired me on a regular basis for many years declared a one-year freeze on hiring. New bills tucked themselves into the mailbox with the old ones we were used to seeing each month.

But our faith never wavered, right? We know God far better now than those two kids who unpacked all that Thanksgiving food forty-seven years ago, right? When the fuel bills came, I never asked John how we were going to pay them, did I? When vehicles broke down again, when we had to make yet another trip to a doctor, hospital, or pharmacy, we trusted without a shadow of doubt, didn’t we?

Why do we sometimes act like orphans when we have such a loving heavenly Father?

I wish I could tell you all the wonderful, unexpected ways God has met our needs this year. If I start, I know I’ll leave someone out. But I’ll share just a few. One vehicle died, and someone gave us another one. Who does that? Twice a neighbor knocked on our door with a large gift of cash that he said came from him and “others.” We don’t know who the others are; but we thank them and God. Once he brought the gift right after someone had just asked John how we were going to pay the LP gas bill. That someone wasn’t me, was it?

In big and little ways, God has met our needs through the years. This 2020 year was a lean year, and yet, it wasn’t. We got to see God at work in a way we haven’t seen Him since we were much younger.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving John showed me two envelopes from our church people. “Happy Holidays” was written on the envelopes, and they were stuffed with cash. Most of our church family doesn’t have much to give, and we were overwhelmed when we counted the money. We also got a gift certificate to a local meat market.

John put that money right in the bank. We know another LP gas bill will come soon, and we’re sure that gift from our loving church family will more than cover it.

We were so blessed our first Thanksgiving, and we are so blessed now. We’re ending the year with all we need and then some.

We might not have the pay and retirement packages pastors of larger churches have, but we have something far better. We get to see the hand of God at work in our lives, up close and personal.

Life doesn’t get much better than that.