This past Sunday our Community Hour Class began its summer session; “Proverbs; Making the Wise Wiser”.

During the introduction, we were each asked to answer a couple of questions around our table.

These questions were meant as kind of an ice breaker, and a lead right in to the topic we are studying.

Well they were ice breakers to be sure, but to me one of these questions was so much more.  It sent me on another journey, into the background that makes me who I am.

All of the time I have spent on introspection, I would like to think that it is all finished.

As we have spoken of in a previous post, it will not be finished as long as we are here on this earth.

However, our Merciful Father in Heaven will allow no more than we can handle at any one time.

Each journey into our background and back out again, carries with it another piece of healing, filling in the puzzle that is us.

Have you ever been putting a puzzle together and many pieces go together quickly?

Have you noted that in the very same puzzle, some can take a long time to place?

Each of these remaining pieces needs to be inspected.

They perhaps need to be held in your hand, and placed and replaced until the proper

place is found.

If you do not enjoy the process, you probably will never finish the puzzle.

The question we were asked, seemed very innocuous at the time it was asked, but the more I reflected on it, the more I could sense that this would not be over, just because the class was.

This piece would have to be investigated closely.

Here are the questions;

* How many lived in your home when you were seven?

* Who was the warmest person in your life at that time?

Harmless questions right?

Well as the others spoke their answers, I sought my own answer to the question “Who was the warmest person in your life at that time?”

What I soon realized, was that I could not remember even one “warm” person in my life.

Were people supposed to be warm?

The only thing that came to my mind was that during my very young life, we used to travel every Sunday to my Grampas house in the country.

While there, I would climb the apple trees in his orchard and visit the hay mow in the barn.

Life was peaceful if only for a short time.

After dinner, I can recall clearly, sitting on my Grampas lap in his big comfy chair, eating popcorn out of an enamel roasting pan and watching Lawrence Welk.

I believe that was the safest, coziest, warmest spot I ever knew.

When the show was over, it was time to load up and go home.

My heart longed for our return the following week.

Those visits came to an abrupt end, when there was a misunderstanding between my Father and my Grandpa that got me a beating that today would have landed me in the hospital and my Father in jail.

Father never apologized and Grandpa would not let him return until he did.

I never got over the fact that it was my fault that we could not visit any more.

My warm person/spot was gone.

Grampa came to town to live with us several years later, after my Grandma died, and my Mother and Father divorced, but our relationship was never the same.

I knew it was my fault.

I didn’t find out until much later why it had changed so drastically, and that was that I had grown up, and he didn’t feel that hugging or snuggling with a girl my age was proper.

So NOT my fault.

But the damage was already done.

So.  After class, I was compelled to come and go through the family photos left here by my Mom.

There I found snapshots of brief moments of family life.  Brief shots.  Brief smiles.

I also, sadly, noticed that in nearly all of the photos of that time period, the smile never went to the eyes.

That sounds strange maybe, but it was there.  I saw it.

Here are two photos I found of myself.  In one of them, my favorite one, I was four.  See the light in the eyes?  They twinkled.

I think this may have been before I found out I was defective.

See the second photo?  Age seven.  Sad smile.  No twinkle.

I’m still processing what I see.

I’m still examining every piece.

With God’s help, and His alone, I will be able to fully place the truth, and go on to another piece.

Ladies and Gentlemen; here is the truth;

YOU ARE NOT DEFECTIVE!

AND NEITHER WAS I!

Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV1984)

¹³ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, ¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Do not be afraid of the process.

Join me in placing the pieces where they rightly fit.

Let us hold God’s hands together,

And believe the truth.

John 8:32 (KJV)

³² And ye shall know the truth, and (He) the truth shall make you free.

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