Making a List

Good morning! I hope that things are going well in your life. You know what I am about,  don't you? Yes, getting ready for the retreat. I have made my list, and now, I have to check off the final things that are on it and add a few last minute things that are crucial.
     I don't know about you, but I tend to do things by a list. This is not something that I have started to do now that I have become a grandmother; this is something that I have always done. I started it when I was a child and here's why. During the summer when school was out my Momma would ask me what I had done during the day. And often, I would say, "Hm-m, nothing." While she accepted that answer, my mother would look a little disappointed that I did not have much to say on the subject. So, as to not disappoint her, I took to making a list so that I could run down my activities for the day. If she seemed interested in a particular event, then I would embellish that one. I was always careful to use my best little girl storytelling voice that I had learned to use by listening to her when she told us stories.
     Years later when I became a teacher, I used lists and my storytelling voice that I had learned from my mother to keep my students interested in what I had to say. I didn't know that I was being honed to be a writer and a speaker at the time. And now, what do I find myself doing in my retirement years, making lists as I publish books and travel to various places as a motivational speaker using the skills that the Lord developed in me when I was young.
     As I prepare to go to a writer's retreat that will have many successful writers there, I don't mind telling you that I am a little intimidated because I know that I will be among the least of them. But one thing that I have a plenty of is faith in my God, and I will be making use of the list making skills, storytelling skills, and the listening skills that He has endowed me with.
    I am traveling on this journey that I have been placed on, and am ever sharpening my skills for whatever the Lord may have for me next.  We do not realize what we are being prepared for as we make the next step on our journey. And, as you will hear me develop in my new book, Chopping My Row, "I am Doing What I Can, While I Can because I don't know what He saved me for."

Doing What I Can, While I Can Because I Care,
Alma L. Stepping On Jones

For Pondering

1. Can you think of a spiritual applicatiion to, "Making a List?" Well, give it a try and I will be back tomorrow to share with you what I came up with.