Today I have experienced a bit of sensory overload. I've been reading about a delightful young man named Rex. More specifically, I've been reading the book his mother, Cathleen Lewis wrote about her journey into the world of an autistic musical savant. Her book, Rex, is both profound and beautiful. The only child she would ever mother on this earth came to her broken with little promise that he would ever really live. How much greater God's ways are than our own! How far beyond our understanding!
God used the gift of this little boy to draw Cathleen Lewis into His love and grace and forever change her life - her very purpose for living. If I had read nothing today but the precious Reflections chapter, I would have been abundantly blessed! However, this book contains so many wonderful examples of how first one challenge, then another were overcome as Rex's mind reached a point at which it wanted to move forward. Once his musical "voice" was discovered it was as if his entire world came alive.
All along the way, Cathleen Lewis was pouring out her love and her every breath over this precious gift from God. She had to learn to trust God when it was terrifying. She had to learn to let go when she really wanted to hang on. She had to push her son in ways she never dreamed. The result? A beautiful mother/son relationship that has indeed blessed thousands around the globe. Rex's music and laughter have brightened many lives and given Cathleen a purpose far beyond anything she ever dreamed or imagined.
I want to close with a couple of thoughts from the book that sort of encapsulate the message I received upon its reading. These are life-lessons that can encourage all of us regardless of our circumstances.
Living in a constant state of uncertainty for so long grows new trusting muscles, helping to pry loose old agendas and conditioning. You either let go and trust or your body and mind fall apart over time. ( p. 233)
It was like He (God) was telling me to look past my own mind, and just trust. Hear My voice in the music. Hear each note. Don't worry about where it's going. Just hear the sound and know that it's beautiful...and know that I am God. (p 234)
What a blessing! I highly recommend this book, and hope you will pick up your copy today! I am also adding a link to the latest 60 Minutes interview that was done this past November. Watch and be blessed!
It is time to play a Wild Card!Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Tim Sanford is a licensed professional counselor with Focus on the Family and in private practice. An author, speaker, ordained minister, and former youth worker, he has more than 30 years of experience with teenagers. Tim and his wife, Becky, have two adult daughters and reside in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Focus (December 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1589974816
ISBN-13: 978-1589974814
MY REVIEW:
Parenting is such an individual, personal issue. No parent is perfect, yet we all seem to feel free to dispense parenting advice to others. Well, Losing Control and Liking It is a terrific resource that doesn’t dispense opinions, but instead offers sound biblical advice to parents guiding teens into adulthood. As hard as it is, we parents have to let go and allow our children to make their own choices and reap the consequences of those choices be they smart ones or stupid ones. This book puts a lot of this in perspective while reminding the parent of the difference in controlling and influencing.
My husband and I committed to teaching our children at home from the very beginning. Now, with one child in 8th grade and the other in 9th, we are beginning to see some of the fruit of our labor. Tim Sanford’s book, for me anyway, was a confirmation of some of the parenting choices we’ve made as a family. However, I realize that the next 4-5 years will be critical to my child’s ability to function successfully as an adult once he leaves home. I pray that the Lord will give me wisdom and strength to let go in such a way that my child will be happy and the Lord will be honored. This book gave many practical suggestions to guide me through this process.
Tim Sanford deals with the entire range of parenting situations, from single parenting to two-parent homes where things are just out of hand. He offers practical suggestions in each situation. My favorite was the “bullseye” explanation of decision making found on page 52 with Biblical commands as the center, specific Biblical principles as the next ring and general Biblical principles as the last ring. Parents have to use discernment in the boundaries they set for their children, and the children have to have clear consequences to face if they break those boundaries. The book continues through a natural progression and even includes suggestions of places to turn for help when intervention becomes necessary – a reminder that we do not exercise total control.
I think we learned a very graphic lesson in control when my oldest son began to suffer from epilepsy some four years ago. Now that we have reached the age that he is able to get his driver’s license we face particular challenges. We cannot control his health although we have provided the best health care we could give him. We are going to have to let him drive knowing that there is a huge element – a potentially fatal element – that is simply out of our control. Scary?You bet! But all of parenting is an exercise in trust, mercy and grace. Without God’s guiding principles, we’re shooting in the dark anyway.
If you have teens at home, or will soon have teens at home, pick up a copy ofLosing Control and Liking It. It’s not a guarantee for perfect parenting, but it is a statement of practical, sound advice that will help you navigate the teen years more successfully. This book bears the Focus on the Family seal, and I heartily agree – Tim Sanford’s focus in on Biblical parenting!
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Getting Too
Much of
a Grip
Control: It’s Not Your Department
As a therapist working with teenagers and their families, I’ve heard many a story from parents. Some of them go like these.
• Denise’s daughter is overweight, and the two constantly battle over junk food. While Denise serves low-calorie dinners and packs healthy lunches, she frequently finds her daughter sneaking between-meal cookies and chips. The 14-year-old spends her babysitting money at the nearby convenience store, loading up on snack cakes and soft drinks. Angry, Denise strikes back by withholding allowance and repeatedly warning of the consequences of unhealthy eating habits. Nothing seems to work.
•Mac’s blood pressure skyrockets when he thinks of his 15-year old son getting his driver’s license in a few short months. The boy has completed an expensive, private driver-training course and seems cautious and responsible. But Mac can’t stop remembering his son’s kamikaze approach to theme-park bumper cars five years ago. This hapless father’s knuckles turn white when his teenager is at the wheel; his right foot presses an invisible brake pedal while his heart races like crazy. He wonders if he should make his son wait to get his license until he’s 17 . . . or 18 . . . or 20.
• Joe wonders where his little boy and girl have gone. His sweet, bright-eyed grade-schoolers suddenly have been replaced by a shaggy, lanky 15-year-old boy who appears unaware of his own overwhelming body odor—and a 13-year-old girl who favors tight tank tops and too much eye makeup. Joe’s wife has had some loud conversations with their daughter about her tastes in clothes and cosmetics, but neither parent has confronted their son about his pungent smell. Joe knows it’s probably up to him, but he hates to destroy the boy’s self-esteem. He wonders whether he’s just being a control freak. He looks on his bookshelf for help, but finds nothing. They never deal with anything practical in those parenting books, he thinks.
Like Denise, Mac, and Joe, you probably face plenty of situations in which a book called The Complete Guide to Controlling Your Teenager would seem helpful. It wouldn’t be, though. The idea of being your son’s or daughter’s puppeteer might sound appealing, but the results would
be disastrous for both of you. This book takes a different approach. And when it comes to control,
many of us parents need to as well.
Are You Out of Control?
Parenting is a daunting task when you consider the consequences of major decisions like these:
• how your teen spends his free time
• which friends she spends time with
• how he makes and spends money
• how she approaches her schoolwork
• when he starts driving
• what she eats, where she eats, and how much
• whether he goes to church or youth group
• what she looks like
• what level of personal hygiene he attains
• whether or not she uses foul language
• what parties and other social events he attends
• whether she smokes, drinks, or uses illegal drugs
It’s no wonder so many parents would like to control those decisions until the last possible second. But is that wise, not to mention doable? Here are some questions you may be asking about control as you try to set boundaries with your teenager:
•Which parts of a situation belong to me and which belong to my teen?
•What’s mine to decide and what’s not?
•How much “rope” can I give my daughter before she “hangs” herself?
•What does my son get to choose, and what do I choose for him?
• Should I make my teenager go to church with the family?
•What about rules?
•What about freedom?
•What about being responsible?
•What about respect?
•What about his hair?
• How do I get her to do her homework?
•What if my daughter is already 18 years old?
Over and over I’ve heard parents ask questions like these. Control is one of the biggest issues they encounter, and one of the most misunderstood.
Illusions of Control
I try to base all my counseling on what Jesus said in John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus was talking about a particular truth—who He is as the Son of God. But I believe His observation applies to all reality. Knowing and understanding the truth—what reality actually is, like it or not—can set you free from the problems that come with lies and mistaken perceptions.
Error, wrong thinking, skewed beliefs, and misconceptions lie at the root of many, if not most, conflicts. That’s certainly true of control. The more accurately you think about something, the healthier your life will be. The converse is also true. The more inaccurate your thinking, the
more dysfunctional your relationship with your teen will be—even if you assume your thinking is fine, which we all usually do.
So here’s a good place to start: thinking more accurately about control, in order to undo common confusion about its role in relationships.
Many tensions between parents and teens boil down to the issue of control. Sometimes it’s not visible on the surface, but lurks below. For instance, you may think you’re pressuring your son or daughter to work harder in school to have a better chance at college scholarships. But the deeper issue may be how you feel about the way your teen spends time—texting from that iPhone or hanging with friends instead of doing homework. The two of you are battling for the right to decide.
There are as many myths about control as there are days of the year.
Our culture doesn’t make it any easier; an alien visiting our society might think we’re all a bunch of control freaks. Consider the phrases we use that have the word control in them. Here’s a starter list:
• remote control
• quality control
• cruise control
• climate control
• traffic control
• crowd control
• master control
• weight control
• arms control
We talk about controlling our destinies, our lives; we study ways to control the aging process; we attend expensive seminars in an effort to control our eating habits, anger, financial future, thinking, moods . . . and children.
Self-help books and workshops—in the Christian arena as well as the general market—promise control. Much of the psychology practiced in the U.S.—cognitive behavioral therapy—focuses on control, too.
Don’t get me wrong. The idea of having control is not bad in itself.
Therapy that focuses on what you can legitimately control, as well as what you can’t, is a healing and helpful tool.
But a person’s fixation on needing control, which I often observe as a therapist, and the illusion that you need or have more control than you actually do, turn healthy ownership into a control-freak thing.
Most of us want control, plain and simple—and the more the better, thank you very much! That’s because when we have control, we can make things turn out the way we want. We can be happy and avoid pain or displeasure.
If only it were that easy.
High-control people believe the best way to avoid pain is to keep a tight rein on the things around them—including key people, especially their children. After all, there can be a whole lot of hurt when children go astray.
I met such an over-controlling parent many years ago when I worked at a psychiatric hospital. I was the primary therapist for a teenage girl from a military family. She was rebelling, skipping school, experimenting with alcohol. Her family diagnosed her as a “behavior problem.”
In our second weekly family therapy session, the girl’s father—a high-ranking officer—stated emphatically that the only reason something goes wrong is because somebody didn’t do his or her job correctly. Therefore, that somebody is at fault. He was referring to his teenage daughter, of course; everything else was under his control.
This father had an exaggerated sense of control, and a huge misconception about it. He’d carried his “systems checklist” mentality home from the office, refusing to see that there were some things he
couldn’t control. He also refused to see that his campaign to over control his daughter was partially—though not completely—to blame for her rebellion. Her behavior was an attempt to escape his over control.
When you think of control, you might have visions of someone like this father—or a power-mad villain from an old James Bond movie.
While I’ve met a few who could have been cast for such a part, the vast majority of us parents are much more “normal” in our desire for control.
But because our culture encourages us to seek control—and because some Christians overemphasize its role in parenting—it’s important to look at the way you think about the topic.
Everyone Has “Control Issues”
Most parents don’t behave as extremely as the aforementioned dad. But that doesn’t mean they have no problems with control. It’s not an “all or nothing” proposition.
Take, for example, the issue of trying to “guarantee” what will happen to our children.
My early years were spent as a missionary’s kid in Ecuador. In that culture there was a life philosophy that could be summarized as “Quesera, sera”—“What will be, will be.” There was no “I am the captain of my fate and the master of my soul” quoted at graduation ceremonies.
As a result, I’ve come to see the truth in the following observation:
• You can drive the safest car built in the world (control).
• You can place your infant in the safest car seat manufactured (control).
• You can be the safest driver in your state, with all the necessary skills for every possible situation (control).
• Yet a drunk driver can still cross the double yellow line, hit you head-on, and take the life of your baby.
“Que sera, sera.”
Where is your control now?
You were very wise and responsible. You did everything correctly. You controlled the things that were yours to control. But after all was said and done, there was no guarantee that you could keep your child safe. There were a lot of elements—including people—you couldn’t control, yet which could have a huge impact on you.
“But I want a guarantee!” you may plead.
You’re not alone. As parents, we want certainty that we can keep our children safe and raise them so they’ll turn out well, following scriptural guidance.
But there is no guarantee.
“That kind of thinking is negative and scary! I don’t like that.”
Yes, it is scary.
“But what about the verse that says, ‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it’?”
Proverbs 22:6 communicates a very wise principle. But it’s not a guarantee that magically or spiritually overrides your teenager’s free will—which, by the way, was given to him or her by God Himself. This biblical principle does not obligate God to you or force Him to make your teenager turn out the way you think he or she should.
“But—”
I hear you.
We parents want control so badly because we think that if we do the right things, our kids will turn out the way we want them to. It doesn’t matter whether we’re Christians, or whether we’re “high-control” people or think we have no control at all. We still want it.
We want to be able to lay our heads on our pillows at night, with our teenagers snugly tucked into their clean beds, and know we did it “right.”
Since there aren’t any guarantees, many parents settle for illusions of control. An illusion often is more comforting than the truth. That may sound harsh, but I’ve found in my years as a therapist that most people have a hard time with the truth.
Reality can be a hard pill to swallow. But last time I checked, whenever you fight reality you lose.
That’s just the way life is. Reality wins.
The only absolute assurance, for those who have a relationship with God through Christ, is that eventually they’ll enjoy life forever with the One who made and redeemed them. That’s guaranteed.
The rest of life isn’t. Ask parents who’ve lost a son or daughter to an automobile accident on the way home from a church meeting, or in a rock climbing fall, or to the sudden onset of cancer, or in a school shooting incident, about guarantees. See what they have to say about control.
I know parents like these. I’ve looked into their tear-filled eyes and attempted to field the “Why?” questions. Maybe you are one. If so, I’m truly sorry.
No Control?
Does this mean our lives are careening, like cars with the brake lines cut, toward the edge of a cliff? Should we just take our hands off the wheel and brace for the crash? Why try to guide our teenagers at all?
Keep in mind that there are degrees of control. While you can’t guarantee the outcome, you can make a baby safer with a good car seat.
There are also different kinds of control: the kind that is actually yours to exercise and the kind that isn’t. The key in parenting is knowing which is which—and knowing what to do with each.
You need to keep and use the control you’re entitled to—or take hold of it if you’ve lost it.
And you want to lose the control you really don’t have in the first place—and give up illusions you may have about it.
It’s not easy to figure out! But that’s why you have this book. It explains what’s truly yours to control—and helps you quit trying to grasp control that doesn’t belong to you.
Believe it or not, when it comes to raising teenagers, losing control can be a wonderful and freeing thing!
Your Brain and Control
To understand your assumptions about control, it helps to understand what you’ve been telling yourself about it. Your need to control grows out of your experiences, and how they affect your thinking and decision making.
The neurology of your brain is complex, but for the moment let’s compare it to a jukebox.
I mean a real jukebox, not a digital one—the old kind with vinyl 45s inside and a panel of buttons, each corresponding to a hit single. You watch as the record drops onto the turntable, the arm swings over, and the needle slips into the grooves to play your selection. If you have teenagers, maybe you can remember when these weren’t called antiques!
That’s what your brain is like. Each “record” has etched on it a simple, short phrase known as a belief. A belief is a statement of what you think is fact. Most of your beliefs were recorded, catalogued, and filed in your jukebox during the first seven to ten years of your life.
When you hear the word belief, you may think first of religious beliefs. But you have beliefs about every subject under the sun. You use them every day as you try to make sense of life. They’re your worldview— all on a bunch of 45s!
So your thought process plays out (no pun intended) in the following sequence:
1. A new experience happens, or a series of similar experiences. Perhaps a bully trips you in the school cafeteria, and you land in the middle of your own mashed potatoes. Or you feel guilty while reading a “how to raise a teenager” book.
2. You attempt to understand this situation as best you can.
3. You draw a conclusion from the experience. It may be based on
incomplete information available at that moment, but you
assume your conclusion is true.
4. A recording of your conclusion is made into a belief statement
and filed in your jukebox. The new record is polished, catalogued,
and ready for future reference.
5. Every time a similar situation arises, that record plays. You
respond according to the belief it contains.
We all have one record that sounds pretty much the same. It says, “All my records, all my beliefs, are true. I can even validate them with life experiences if I have to!”
We’re quite defensive about our record collections. If you disagree with me, my defenses shout, “What do you think I am? Stupid? I wouldn’t believe a lie! I’m intelligent! I know what’s right and true, and I can back it up!”
If you’re willing to drop those defenses, you may find some of your records are a bit warped. Some conclusions you’ve drawn about walking in the school cafeteria may have been based on incomplete information. What you read in that parenting book may be partly true, but may not be the best advice for you and your situation.
Remember, most of your records were forged in your first seven to ten years—long before you ever thought of raising a teenager. Your beliefs about things like love and discipline—and control—may not be totally accurate.
There are plenty of books for Christians that tell you what you should have on your records. But I want to encourage you to think deeply about the “control songs” your jukebox is already playing and whether they’re true.
It matters because those records remain in the slots of your jukebox, some of them warped and misleading, waiting to be activated when life “pushes your buttons.”When one of them plays, it may sound funny to everyone but you. To you, it sounds true. Most of us, after all, never stop to question our beliefs; we just believe them.
Some of your records may need to be remixed, updated, even tossed. This book will help you do that with records that revolve (so to speak) around the subject of control.
Many of us have whole albums on that subject. One of yours probably features the hit single about how every parent’s job is to make sure his or her children turn out “right.” Even though most of us don’t quite know what that standard means, we feel obliged to meet it.
Oh, how wrong that record is.
If it were true, it would mean God messed up.
Control: A Reality Check
In Genesis we read about a place called the Garden of Eden. It was a perfect environment, a perfect “home.”
In this perfect place there were two perfect people—God’s children, Adam and Eve. Wouldn’t that be nice to have perfect children?
And there was a perfect God—the perfect parent.
There was also a rule: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).
You’ve probably heard the rest of the story.
Adam and Eve chose foolishly, defying what God had told them.
Our human decay and ultimate death are stark reminders of that wrong choice—made by perfect people in a perfect environment with a perfect parent.
So what did God do wrong? If He “trained them in the way they should go,” why did Adam and Eve choose the other option? If Proverbs 22:6 is a guarantee of success for parents, why wasn’t it a guarantee for the Author of the Book?
Enter free will.
I’m talking about a God-given freedom to choose—part of being created in His image. Adam and Eve exercised it, and your teenagers exercise it today.
“But I want them to turn out right,” you say.
Yes. I agree with you. But that’s not your job.
“But I want the best for them, for their sakes.”
I won’t argue with that. But it’s still not your job to make sure they do.
“But—”
I know. I’m a parent, too.
You do have a job, which I’ll get to in the next chapter; it’s just not that one. You could do everything exactly “right” all 18 years of your child’s life under your roof—assuming you could know what “exactly right” was—and he or she could still choose “wrong.”
God has given our children the option to be foolish, even to sin.
He doesn’t want them to be foolish or to sin. But they’re free moral agents to pick right or wrong, wisdom or folly, truth or lies, righteousness or evil.
To a parent, that’s scary news. There really is a whole lot more that you can’t control than you can control.
But before you get too discouraged, rest assured that we’ll get to the topic of influence—of which you have a great amount with your children. You are not powerless as the parent of a teenager.
For now, though, I want you to go back and read the fine print on the bottom of that contract—the one you signed when you became a parent, the one that includes the possibility of having your heart broken.
“I never signed up for that,” you might say.
But that’s exactly what you did. You opened your heart to the possibility that it would be broken by the very child you love and want the best for.
You signed up to raise a little person—one for whom you’re responsible but are not able to control.
So before we go on, take time right now (yes, I mean right now, or you probably won’t do it at all) to contemplate the powerful words of “The Serenity Prayer.”
It may be familiar. You even may have it memorized. But as you reflect on it this time, don’t do it as an abstraction or for somebody else’s benefit. Do it practically, for yourself as the parent of a teenager. Make it a personal prayer from your heart to God.
Susan grew up in Wayzata, a suburb of Minneapolis, and became an avid camper from an early age. Her favorite fir-lined spot is the north shore of Minnesota is where she met her husband, honeymooned and dreamed of living.
The north woods easily became the foundation for her first series, The Deep Haven series, based on a little tourist town along the shores of Lake Superior. Her first full-length book, Happily Ever After, became a Christy Award Finalist published in 2004 with Tyndale/Heartquest.
As an award winning author, Susan returned home in 2004, to her native Minnesota after serving for eight years with her husband and four children as missionaries with SEND International in Far East Russia. She now writes full time from Minnesota's north woods and the beautiful town that she always dreamed of living in.
You can sample a chapter of each and every one of Susan's novels, on her website, HERE.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Ellie Karlson is new to Deep Haven. As the town’s interim fire chief, she is determined to lead the local macho fire crew in spite of their misconceptions about her. But when someone begins setting deadly fires, Ellie faces the biggest challenge of her life. Especially when sparks fly with one of the volunteers on her crew: Pastor Dan Matthews. As Ellie battles to do her job and win the respect of her crew, she finds that there is one fire she can’t fight—the one Dan has set in her heart.
(This book is the repackaged edition published in 2004)
2004 American Christian Fiction Writer's Book of the Year
A Romantic Times Magazine TOP PICK – 4½ stars
MY REVIEW:
“God is enough.” (p. 315)
Why is it so hard for us to understand how precious we are to God? Why do we try so hard, in our own strength, to overcome life’s obstacles and overcompensate for our failures? These are the things that Ellie Karlson asks herself – without realizing she’s asking or even wants to know.
Susan May Warrens latest novel in the Deep Haven Series – The Perfect Match – contains a truth that all Christians struggle against at some point in their faith walk; realizing how precious we are to God and accepting how much He loves us. Ellie Karlson is a talented, knowledgeable woman who has come to Deep Haven as an interim fire chief. The problem? She’s female. When she tries to lead a group of rough an tumble volunteer fire fighters, her heart and mind aren’t quite prepared for what she discovers among them…primarily who she discovers in the pastor Dan Matthews!
Folks, if you love romance, this is your story. If you love suspense, this is your story. If you love a novel that shines the truth of God’s love so brightly that you can’t possibly miss its beauty and be changed by it, this is your story. I’m going to close this review by quoting a passage that spoke very deeply to me. I hope it touches you as well.
“The thought swept through him like a hot breath. Love like God loved him. Sacrificially. With passion and mind-blowing dedication. Love enough to risk becoming a baby to a teen mother. Love enough to weep for Lazarus, enough to raise the son of the widow of Nain.Love enough to sweat blood in the garden of Gethsemane wrestling with His painful purpose. Fully wise. Fully self-controlled. Fully emotional. Fully God, reaching out with perfect love.” (p. 221-222)
I want to live every moment secure in the knowledge that God is enough, and I want to love others with the same selfless love with which I am loved. Oh, Father…thank You for Your love. Thank you for your Son. And thank you for Susan May Warren’s faithfulness to share the stories you give her to write! A-men!
Review:
Romantic Times Magazine: Vibrant characters and vivid language zoom this action-packed romance to the top of the charts. This is a one-sitting read –once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.
It is time to play a Wild Card!Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Jennifer Erin Valent is the winner of the Christian Writers Guild’s 2007 Operation First Novel contest for Fireflies in December, her first published novel. When she’s not penning novels, Jennifer works as a nanny and freelance writer in Richmond, VA.
List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (December 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414324324
ISBN-13: 978-1414324326
MY REVIEW:
“Jessilyn, ain’t no man can’t get someplace he never thought he’d get to.You let enough bad thoughts into your head, you can end up doin’ all sorts of things you never thought possible...We best be on our guard and keep our minds on what’s right and true so we don’t become things we’ll regret.”(p. 339)
Fireflies in December is a story told in the deliberate, slow and easy way that makes living in the South unique.Jennifer Valent has captured the essence of rural Southern life during the early 1930’s when racism was at its worst and many families found themselves in the crosshairs of the Klan.
Despite the danger, Jessie Lassiter and her family reach beyond the boundaries wrongly defined by skin color, and become family to Gemma when her parents are killed during a house fire.The Lassiter’s becomes the target of escalating Klan violence as they try to live out their faith in a very real way throughout their community.Jessie’s thirteenth summer is filled with shocking surprises, and by the time school starts in the Fall, she is quite certain there is no one she can trust and that she and her family will be forever endangered by the small minds of those around them.The reader experiences many unexpected twists and turns as the story progresses, and the tension keeps you reading at an almost frantic pace to find out what is really going on!
Jennifer Valent’s ending to Fireflies in December is sort of like those honey biscuits and strong coffee that grace the Lassiter’s breakfast table – warm and satisfying.This is an outstanding debut novel, and I am certain we can look forward to more great stories from this very talented author!
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The summer I turned thirteen, I thought I’d killed a man.
That’s a heavy burden for a girl to hang on to, but it didn’t surprise me so much to have that trouble come in the summertime. Every bad thing that ever happened to me seemed to happen in those long months.
The summer I turned five, Granny Rose died of a heart attack during the Independence Day fireworks. The summer I turned seven, my dog Skippy ran away with a tramp who jumped the train to Baltimore. And the summer I turned eleven, a drought took the corn crop and we couldn’t have any corn for my birthday, which is what I’d always done because my favorite food was corn from Daddy’s field, boiled in a big pot.
To top it off, here in the South, summers are long and hot and sticky. They drag on and on, making slow things seem slower and bad things seem worse.
The fear and guilt of the summer of 1932 still clings to my memory like the wet heat of southern Virginia. That year we had unbearable temperatures, and we had trouble, just that it was trouble of a different kind. It was the beginning of a time that taught me bad things can turn into good things, even though sometimes it takes a while for the good to come out.
The day I turned thirteen was one of those summer days when the air is so thick, you can see wavy lines above the tar on the rooftops. The kind of day when the sound of cicadas vibrates in your ears and everything smells like grass.
On that day, as Momma got ready for my birthday party, I told her that I wanted nothing to do with watermelon this year.
“We have some fine ones,” she told me. “Just don’t eat any.”
“But the boys will spit the seeds at us like they do all the time,” I said. “And they’ll hit me extra hard today since it’s my birthday.”
“I’ll tell them not to,” she said absentmindedly as she checked her recipe again with that squinched-up look she always got when trying to concentrate.
I knew I was only another argument or two from being scolded, but I tried again. “Those boys won’t listen to you.”
“Those boys will listen to me if they want to eat,” she replied before muttering something about needing a cup of oleo.
“They don’t even listen to Teacher at school, Momma.”
That last reply had done it, and I stepped back a ways as Momma picked up her wooden spoon and peered at me angrily, her free hand on her apron-covered hip. “Jessilyn Lassiter, I won’t have you arguin’ with me. Now get on out of this house before your jabberin’ makes me mess up my biscuits.”
I knew better than to take another chance with her, and I went outside to sit on my tree swing. If God wasn’t going to send us any breeze for my birthday, I was bound and determined to make my own, so I started pumping my legs to work up some speed. The breeze was slight but enough to give me a little relief.
I saw Gemma come out of the house carrying a big watermelon and a long knife, and I knew she had been sent out by her momma to cut it up. Gemma’s momma helped mine with chores, and her daddy worked in the fields. Sometimes Gemma would help her momma with things, and it always made me feel guilty to see her doing chores that I should have been doing. So I dug my feet into the dry dirt below me to slow down and hopped off the swing with a long leap, puffing dust up all around me.
I wandered to the picnic table where Gemma was rolling the green melon around to find just the right spot to cut into. “I guess this is for my party.”
“That’s what your momma says.”
“Are you comin’?”
“My momma never lets me come to your parties.”
“So? Ain’t never a time you can’t start somethin’ new. It’s my party, anyways.”
“It ain’t proper for the help to socialize with the family’s friends, Momma says.”
“Your momma and daddy have been workin’ here for as long as I can remember. You’re as close to family as we got around here, as I see it. I ain’t got no grandparents or nothin’.”
Gemma scoffed at me with a sarcastic laugh. “When was the last time you saw one brown girl and one white girl in the same family?”
I shrugged and watched her slice through the watermelon, both of us backing away to avoid the squirting juices.
“Looks like a good one,” Gemma said as the fragrant smell floated by on the first bit of a breeze we’d seen all day.
“All I see are seeds for the boys to hit me with.”
“Why do you let them boys pick on you?”
“I don’t let ’em. I always push ’em or somethin’. But they’re all bigger than me. What do you want me to do? Pick a fight?”
“Guess not.” A piece of the melon’s flesh flopped onto the table as Gemma cut it, and she popped it into her mouth thoughtfully. “I’ll never know why boys got to be so mean.”
“It’s part of their recipe, I guess.” I helped by piling the slices on a big platter, and I strategically picked as many seeds as I could find off the pieces before I stacked them. Never mind my dirty hands. “You come by around two o’clock,” I told her adamantly. “I’ll get you some cake and lemonade. You’re my best friend. You should be at my party.”
Gemma shushed me and shoved an elbow into my ribs as her momma went walking by us.
“Gemma Teague,” her momma said, “you girls gettin’ your chores done?”
“Ain’t got no chores of my own, Miss Opal,” I told her. “I figured on helpin’ Gemma instead.”
“Then you two make certain you keep your minds on your work, ya hear?”
“Yes’m,” we both mumbled.
Gemma’s momma walked past, but she looked back at us a couple times with a funny look on her face like she figured we were planning something.
In a way we were, but I didn’t see it as being a big caper or anything, so I continued by saying, “You know, I ain’t seein’ any sense in you not at least askin’ your momma if you can come by for cake. She’s usually understandin’ about things.”
“Every year it’s the same thing from you, Jessie. She won’t let me come, and besides, I’ll bet your momma don’t want me here no more than my momma does. It just ain’t done.”
“‘It just ain’t done’!” I huffed. “Who makes up these rules, anyhow?”
Gemma kept her eyes on her work and said nothing, but I knew her well enough to see that she didn’t understand her words anymore than I did.
Momma called me from the open kitchen window, but I ignored it and kept after Gemma. “Now listen. You just come on by after we’ve cut the cake and pretend to clean up somethin’, and I’ll be sure you get some.”
“Ain’t no way I’m gettin’ in trouble for some cake and lemonade that I’ll get after the party anyhow,” she argued. “You’re just bein’ stubborn.”
I sighed when Momma called me again. “She’s gonna tell me to take a bath, I bet. You’d think at thirteen I’d be old enough to stop havin’ my momma order me to take baths.”
“You’d never take one otherwise,” Gemma said. “Ain’t nobody wants to smell you then.”
“I hate takin’ baths on days this sticky. My hair never dries.”
“Takin’ a bath on a hot day ain’t never bad.”
“It is when the water’s hot as the air is.”
Gemma shook her head at me like she always did when I was being hardheaded. “Water’s water. Cools you off any which way.”
I didn’t believe her, but I headed off to the kitchen, where Momma had filled the big metal tub we’d had to take baths in ever since the bathroom faucets broke. The sheet she’d hung across the doorway into the next room flapped as the breeze I’d prayed for began to pick up.
I hopped out of my dungarees in one quick leap and crawled into the tub. “It’s hot as boiled water,” I complained.
“Well then, we’ll have you for supper,” Momma replied as she measured out flour, obviously undisturbed by my discomfort. “Your guests will start gettin’ here in a half hour, so don’t dawdle unless you want everyone findin’ you in the tub.”
“Yes’m.”
“And don’t forget to clean behind your ears.”
“Yes’m.”
Water splashed as I washed with my usual lack of grace, landing droplets about the kitchen floor. It didn’t really matter since Momma always made a mess when she cooked and the floor would need cleaning after she was done. No doubt the flour and water would mix into a fine paste, though, and she’d have a few words to mutter as she tried to scrub it up. As she measured sugar, I could hear her praying, “Oh, dear Jesus, let me have enough.” Momma prayed about anything anytime, anywhere.
By the time I’d scrubbed and dried, the smell of biscuits was drifting through the house and Momma was putting the oil on for the chicken. She was a good cook, no matter the mess, and she always put on quite a show for these birthday parties.
As I walked up to my room, wrapped in a ragged blue towel, I heard Momma call after me not to forget to put on my dress. Then she added, “Please, Lord, let the girl look presentable.” I think Momma often wondered why, if she was to be blessed with a girl, she had to get one that mostly acted like a boy.
“No dungarees!” she added. “And put on your church shoes.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing she was nowhere near me. I would never have dared to do it in front of her. I hated dressing up, but for every birthday, holiday, church day, and trip into town, I had to wear one of the three dresses that Momma had made me. She was as fine with a needle as she was with a frying pan, but I hated dresses nonetheless. Mostly because when I wore them, I had to sit all proper in my chair, and I couldn’t do cartwheels, at least not without getting yelled at. But I put on the dress because I had to and buckled up my church shoes.
I could hear Daddy’s footsteps coming down the hall, and I turned to smile at him as he stopped at my doorway.
“Lookin’ pretty, dumplin’,” Daddy said.
“That’s too bad.”
“Now, now. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a girl lookin’ like a girl.”
“Who says wearin’ dresses is the only way to look like a girl?”
Coming into the room, his dirty boots leaving marks that Momma would complain about later, Daddy tossed his hat onto a chair and helped me finish tying the bow on the back of the dress. “We don’t make the rules; we just follow ’em.”
“Well, someone had to make the rules in the first place. We should just make new ones.”
“No doubt you will one day, Jessilyn,” he said with a sigh. “But for now, you’d best follow your momma’s instructions. She ain’t one to be disobeyed.”
“Are you gonna be at the party?” I asked hopefully, knowing full well that he’d been in the fields all morning and looked in need of a nap.
“Wouldn’t miss it, you know that. I got the corn on already.” Daddy rubbed his tired eyes, picked up his hat, and walked out, whacking the hat against his leg to loosen the dust.
He worked hard, especially this time of year, and no matter how many men were willing to work the fields, he would always put in his fair share alongside them. I had suspected of late, however, that he was working harder more out of necessity than a sense of duty. We’d had fewer men to help than in years past, and it wasn’t due to lack of interest, I was sure. I’d seen my daddy turn three men away just the day before.
Things were poor, especially in our parts, and for having a working farm and a good truck, we were fortunate. We even had some conveniences that other people envied, like a fancy icebox and a telephone, and Momma was pretty proud of that. We weren’t rich like Mayor Tuttle and his wife, with their big columned house and fancy motor car, but we were thought to be well-off just the same. Momma and Daddy never talked money in front of me, and I decided not to fuss with it. It caused too many problems for adults from what I could see. What did I want to do with it?
I made my way downstairs and stepped out onto the porch, disappointed to see Buddy Pernell was the first to arrive. I didn’t like Buddy very much. But then, I didn’t like many kids very much. I thanked him for coming—mainly because Momma’s glare told me to—and received the plate of cookies his momma handed me. In those days, we didn’t give gifts at parties; it was too extravagant. But every momma felt it only proper to bring some sort of favor along.
By the time we had a full crowd, one side of the food table was filled with jars of jelly, bowls of sugared strawberries, a couple pies, and even one tub of pickled pigs’ feet. I promptly removed those, but Momma stopped me cold.
“We accept all gifts with thanks, Jessilyn,” she hissed in my ear as she replaced the tub on the table.
“Even pigs’ feet?” I argued.
“Yes ma’am! Even pigs’ feet.”
It took only ten minutes before the first watermelon seed landed in my hair. All the other girls started screaming and ran for cover, but I fought back at the boys out of sheer pride. I did a little shoving, Momma did some yelling, but I got pummeled anyhow.
After we finished eating lunch, I spotted Gemma hanging laundry on the line and ran over to get her help brushing all those sticky seeds out of my hair.
“You ought to not let ’em do this to you,” she said.
“I told you before,” I said with my eyes shut tight to stand the pain of Gemma’s brushing, “they’re all bigger than me.”
“I think they’re too big for their britches. That’s the problem.”
“Maybe so, but that don’t change nothin’. I still can’t whip ’em.”
“Well, I did the best I could.” Gemma peered closely at my sun-streaked hair. “I can’t see no more.”
“Just wait till we go swimmin’,” I told her. “I’ll find some critter to stick down Buddy Pernell’s knickers. He’s the one leadin’ the boys in the spittin’.”
“You best be careful. Them boys might do somethin’ to hurt you back.”
“I ain’t scared of them,” I lied. “Besides, they got it comin’.”
Gemma shook her head and grabbed a pair of Daddy’s socks to hang on the line. “You’re stubborn as a mule, Jessie.”
I figured she was right, but I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of hearing me say it. Instead, I rejoined the party, grabbed a piece of cake, and stood by watching the boys scuff about with each other, playing some kind of roughhouse tag. The other girls stood around watching the boys, giggling over how cute this one was and how strong that one was. I couldn’t figure them out.
“All that fussin’ over boys,” I said through a mouthful of frosting. “If you girls had any smarts, you’d be playin’ tag right along with ’em.”
“Why don’t you?” Ginny Lee Kidrey asked.
“I’m eatin’. Ain’t no reason to stuff down cake when I can play tag anytime I want.”
“You’re just a tomboy, Jessie Lassiter,” said Dolly Watson, who always wore dresses and perfume that smelled like dead roses. “What do you know about boys?”
“Enough to know that they ain’t worth wastin’ time on.”
The girls turned their noses up at me—all but Ginny Lee, who was the only real friend I had outside of Gemma, and even she had started to become more like the other girls of late.
The only reason I even had those other children at the party was because Momma insisted on it. She liked entertaining guests, but in our parts we didn’t have much chance to entertain, and she took every chance she got. So every year I had to invite the kids from school to interrupt my summer vacation and celebrate my June birthday with a party. The only thing I ever liked about those parties was the food. I would have been satisfied to spend my birthday having boiled corn with Gemma.
Buddy Pernell stopped in front of me and tugged at my braid. “Still stuffin’ your face?” he asked with a smirk. “Don’t you like to do nothin’ but eat?”
Knowing my short temper, all the boys loved to tease me just to see how much they could rile me. I responded to Buddy in my usual way. “I just like standin’ here watchin’ you boys beat each other up. And besides, ain’t nothin’ wrong with eatin’.”
“There is if it makes you fat.”
“I ain’t fat!”
“You keep eatin’ like that and you’ll be fat as your momma.”
Now, my momma wasn’t fat. I knew that as well as I knew that Buddy Pernell’s momma was. But it didn’t matter. True or not, he’d insulted my momma, and it took me no time at all to react by shoving what was left of my cake right into Buddy’s face, making extra sure to push upward so the frosting would fill his freckled nose.
Buddy wasn’t so brave then. He began clawing at his face like I’d thrown acid on it, crying something fierce about not being able to breathe.
Momma ran over, hysterical, simultaneously scolding me and coddling Buddy. I responded to her by saying I’d never heard of anyone suffocating on cake before, but she didn’t appreciate my rationalizing. I got a whack from her left hand and Buddy got a wipe across his face from her right.
The other boys were laughing, throwing insults at Buddy about how he’d gotten shown up by a girl, but he was too worried about not being able to breathe through his nose to hear them.
I watched with a smile as Buddy’s momma grabbed a cloth and ordered him to blow his nose into it. Buddy blew like his brains needed to come out, and eventually he found that he was able to breathe right again, although his momma insisted on getting a good look up his nose to be certain that it was clear of frosting.
The boys loved the picture of Buddy having his nose inspected by his momma, and they couldn’t get enough of the jokes about it.
I got hauled into the house for a scolding and a whipping. I tried telling Momma that thirteen was too old for whippings, but she said if I was acting like a child, I should be punished like one. Every time I got another whack with that wooden spoon, I thought of a new way to make Buddy pay for the walloping. After all, if he hadn’t made fun of my momma, I wouldn’t have made him snort up that cake.
I took my punishment without explaining because I didn’t want to hurt Momma’s feelings by telling her what Buddy had said, and I made my way slowly and sorely back out to the party with revenge in my mind.
Gemma saw the silent tears that I’d been biting my lip to keep from letting out, and she came over to wipe them with her apron.
I smiled at her halfway. “I’m okay. At least I will be once I get back at Buddy.”
“Get back at him? He’s the one who’ll be wantin’ to get back at you.”
“Just let him try. I wouldn’t have gotten that whippin’ if he hadn’t made fun of my momma in the first place.”
“Don’t you go talkin’ like that. He’s already got it in for you, and if you do anythin’ else, he’ll go and do somethin’ awful.”
“I ain’t afraid of him!”
Gemma shook her braided head at me. “You talk tough, but you won’t be so tough if Buddy Pernell hurts you bad.”
I sniffed at her like she was worrying over nothing, but I knew deep down that I could have been asking for trouble by playing with Buddy. Boys with no sense can be dangerous, my momma had told me a few times, but my stubbornness didn’t leave any room for being cautious. I was determined to hold a grudge against Buddy, and that was that. But I could see that Buddy was keeping his eye out for his first chance to get back at me, and I watched him with a little worry in my heart as he and the other boys stood together in whispers.
I tried to pretend I wasn’t nervous, and when Gemma got called into the house, I joined the other girls, who’d gone back to twirling their hair and talking about the boys.
With the boys standing around making plans and the girls standing around watching them, my mother got irritated and told us to find something active to do. “Go on down to the swimmin’ hole. Get some exercise, for land’s sake.”
All of us girls went to my bedroom to put on our swimming suits, but with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat, I changed slower than them all. Gemma had been right, I figured. I’d be paying, and good, and the perfect place for Buddy to get me would be at the secluded swimming hole.
After I’d changed, I went downstairs to find my momma. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to the swimmin’ hole,” I told her while she was making up another batch of sweet tea.
“It’s hot as hades out there. It’ll do you all good.”
“It’s not that hot.”
Momma stopped scrubbing and looked at me strangely. “Were you in the same air I’ve been in today? It’s thick as molasses.”
“But swimmin’ ain’t no fun.”
“You love swimmin’.”
“Not today, I don’t.”
By now, Momma was curious, and she wiped her hands on her apron before placing them on her hips. “Why don’t you just up and tell me what’s got you so ornery?”
“I ain’t ornery!”
“Don’t argue with me, girl. If I say you’re ornery, then you’re ornery.”
I looked down at my toes and sighed. I couldn’t tell Momma that Buddy had called her fat, and I didn’t want to show her I was afraid, anyway.
“Tell me one reason why you shouldn’t go to the swimmin’ hole.”
I continued staring at my dusty feet and shrugged.
“You don’t know, I guess you’re sayin’. Well, if you ain’t got a reason, you best be headin’ out to that swimmin’ hole. I’m too busy to wonder what’s goin’ on in that silly head of yours.”
I could feel Momma watching me as I scuffed out of the kitchen without another word, letting the screen door slam behind me. I took several steps before glancing back at Momma through the window, where she stood humming some hymn I remembered hearing in church. I took a deep breath. In my dramatic mind, it was as if I were saying a final good-bye. Who knew if I’d come back from that swimming hole alive? Momma would feel pretty bad if I ended up dying, and she’d have to live the rest of her life knowing she’d sent me to my death.
It is time to play a Wild Card!Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Mel Odomis a best-selling author with many published works to his credit. Mel has been inducted into the Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame and received the Alex Award for his fantasy novel The Rover. Paid in Blood was the first book in Mel’s three-book Military NCIS series. He has also published four military thrillers with Tyndale House; Apocalypse Dawn, Apocalypse Crucible, Apocalypse Burning and Apocalypse Unleashed. Mel teaches courses in forensic investigation, crime-scene investigation, profiling, and cold-case investigation. Mel and his family reside in Oklahoma City.
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (December 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414316356
ISBN-13: 978-1414316352
MY REVIEW:
If Mel Odom isn’t writing the scripts for every NCIS and CSI episode on television, he should be. Blood Lines is the most visceral, over-the-top suspense novel I have read in a long time! Mel Odom can create a scene so real, you can experience his story with every one of your senses. It is truly an unbelievable experience. It goes beyond just being drawn into a story – you LIVE Mel Odom’s stories! By the time you reach the end of Blood Lines your heart and mind will be completely satisfied!
This story blends some pretty amazing and diverse story lines that range from father-son relationships to drug lords shipping heroin into the U.S.Shel McHenry is the primary focus of the story, but his dad, Tyrel and brother Don also have key roles to play. As an NCIS officer, Shel is helping bring down a really nasty man who tried to kill a marine and his wife during a car-jacking. When things go wrong, an even greater evil is unearthed – Victor Gant. Along with Victor come ties to a past secret that has haunted the McHenry family for four decades.
As the story unfolds, Mel Odom weaves the story lines so seamlessly that it all becomes one haunting tale that moves at a break-neck pace to reach an even more haunting conclusion. And, what I loved most about this? Odom has characters with real faith woven within the story. It is not an in-your-face type of faith, but a realistic life lived before others with a solid faith taking them through the pain and heartache of living in this world. Yes, they reach out to those around them, but ultimately God is the one who comes shining through in all of His glory.
This is everything a Christian suspense/thriller should be. I am just discovering Mel Odom, and you better believe I’ll be looking for more of his books immediately! Mr. Odom is a prolific writer with a huge variety of work to choose from. I’m so very glad to have been introduced to his writing. Visit his website today and learn more about this very talented man!
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Gymnasium
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
1203 Hours
“Did you come here to play basketball or wage war?”
Shelton McHenry, gunnery sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, shook the sweat out of his eyes and ignored the question. After long minutes of hard exertion, his breath echoed inside his head and chest. His throat burned. Despite the air-conditioning, the gym felt hot. He put his hands on his head and sucked in a deep breath of air. It didn’t help. He still felt mean.
There was no other word for it. He wanted the workout provided by the game, but he wanted it for the physical confrontation rather than the exercise. He had hoped it would burn through the restless anger that rattled within him.
Normally when he got like this, he tried to stay away from other people. He would gather up Max, the black Labrador retriever that was his military canine partner, and go for a run along a secluded beach until he exhausted the emotion. Sometimes it took hours.
That anger had been part of him since he was a kid. He had never truly understood it, but he’d learned to master it—for the most part—a long time ago. But now and again, there were bad days when it got away from him. Usually those bad days were holidays.
Today was Father’s Day. It was the worst of all of them. Even Christmas, a time when families got together, wasn’t as bad as Father’s Day. During the heady rush of Christmas—muted by the sheer effort and logistics of getting from one place to another after another, of making sure presents for his brother’s kids were intact and wrapped and not forgotten, of preparing and consuming the endless supply of food—he could concentrate on something other than his father.
But not today. Never on Father’s Day.
The anger was bad enough, but the thing that totally wrecked him and kicked his butt was the guilt. Even though he didn’t know what to do, there was no escaping the fact that he should be doing something. He was supposed to be back home.
Usually he was stationed somewhere and could escape the guilt by making a quick phone call, offering up an apology, and losing himself back in the field. But after taking the MOS change to Naval Criminal Investigative Service, he was free on weekends unless the team was working a hot case.
At present, there were no hot cases on the horizon. There wasn’t even follow-up to anything else they’d been working on. He’d had no excuse for not going. Don, his brother, had called a few days ago to find out if Shel was coming. Shel had told him no but had offered no reason. Don had been kind enough not to ask why. So Shel was stuck with the anger, guilt, and frustration.
“You hearing me, gunney?”
Shel restrained the anger a step before it got loose. Over on the sidelines of the gym, Max gave a tentative bark. The Labrador paced uneasily, and Shel knew the dog sensed his mood.
Dial it down, he told himself. Just finish up here. Be glad you’re able to work through it.
He just wished it helped more.
“Yeah,” Shel said. “I hear you.”
“Good. ’Cause for a second there I thought you’d checked out on me.” Remy Gautreau mopped his face with his shirt.
He was young and black, hard-bodied but lean, where Shel looked like he’d been put together with four-by-fours. Gang tattoos in blue ink showed on Remy’s chest and abdomen when he’d lifted his shirt. Shel had noticed the tattoos before, but he hadn’t asked about them. Even after working together for more than a year, it wasn’t something soldiers talked about.
Before he’d entered the Navy and trained as a Navy SEAL, Remy Gautreau had been someone else. Most enlisted had. Then whatever branch of military service they signed on for changed them into someone else. The past was shed as easily as a snake lost its skin. Men and women were given a different present for that time and usually ended up with a different future than they would have had.
But they don’t take away the past, do they? Shel asked himself. They just pretend it never happened.
“Where you been?” Remy asked.
“Right here.” Shel broke eye contact with the other man. He could lie out in the field when it was necessary, but he had trouble lying to friends. “Playing center.”
Remy was part of the NCIS team that Shel was currently assigned to. His rank was chief petty officer. He wore bright orange knee-length basketball shorts and a white Tar Heels basketball jersey. Shel wore Marine-issue black shorts and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked off. Both men bore bullet and knife scars from previous battles.
The other group of players stood at their end of the basketball court. Other groups of men were waiting their turn.
Shel and Remy were playing iron man pickup basketball. The winning team got to stay on the court, but they had to keep winning. While they were getting more tired, each successive team rested up. Evading fatigue, learning to play four hard and let the fifth man rest on his feet, was a big part of staying on top. It was a lot like playing chess.
“You’ve been here,” Remy agreed in a soft voice. “But this ain’t where your head’s been. You just been visiting this game.”
“Guy’s good, Remy. I’m doing my best.”
The other team’s center was Del Greene, a giant at six feet eight inches tall—four inches taller than Shel. But he was more slender than Shel, turned better in the tight corners, and could get up higher on the boards. Rebounding the ball after each shot was an immense struggle, but once in position Shel was hard to move. He’d come down with his fair share of rebounds.
Basketball wasn’t Shel’s game. He’d played it all through high school, but football was his chosen gladiator’s field in the world of sports. He had played linebacker and had been offered a full-ride scholarship to a dozen different colleges. He had opted for the Marines instead. Anything to shake the dust of his father’s cattle ranch from his boots. None of the colleges had been far enough away for what he had wanted at the time. After all those years of misunderstandings on the ranch, Shel had just wanted to be gone.
“You’re doing great against that guy,” Remy said. “Better than I thought you would. He’s a better basketball player, but you’re a better thinker. You’re shutting him down. Which is part of the problem. You’re taking his game away from him and it’s making him mad. Problem is, you got no finesse. He’s wearing you like a cheap shirt. If we had a referee for this game, you’d already have been tossed for personal fouls.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t play like a homecoming queen himself.” Shel wiped his mouth on his shirt. The material came away bloody. He had caught an elbow in the face last time that had split the inside of his cheek. “He’s not afraid of dishing it out.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say that fool didn’t have it coming, but I am saying that this isn’t the time or the place for a grudge match.” Remy wiped his face with his shirt again. “The last thing we need is for Will to have to come down and get us out of the hoosegow over a basketball game. He’s already stressed over Father’s Day because he’s having to share his time with his kids’ new stepfather.”
Shel knew United States Navy Commander Will Coburn to be a fine man and officer. He had followed Will into several firefights during their years together on the NCIS team.
The marriage of Will’s ex-wife was only months old. Everyone on the team knew that Will had taken the marriage in stride as best as he could, but the change was still a lot to deal with. Having his kids involved only made things worse. Before, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day had been mutually exclusive. This year the kids’ mother had insisted that the day be shared between households.
One of the other players stepped forward. “Are we going to play ball? Or are you two just going to stand over there and hold hands?”
Shel felt that old smile—the one that didn’t belong and didn’t reflect anything that was going on inside him—curve his lips. That smile had gotten him into a lot of trouble with his daddy and had been a definite warning to his brother, Don.
The other team didn’t have a clue.
“The way you guys are playing,” Shel said as he stepped toward the other team, “I think we’ve got time to do both.”
Behind him, Shel heard Remy curse.
* * *
1229 Hours
At the offensive goal, Shel worked hard to break free of the other player’s defense. But every move he made, every step he took, Greene was on top of him. Shel knew basketball, but the other guy knew it better.
A small Hispanic guy named Melendez played point guard for Shel and Remy’s team. He flipped the ball around the perimeter with quick, short passes back and forth to the wings. Unable to get a shot off, Remy and the other wing kept passing the ball back.
Shel knew they wanted to get the ball inside to him if they could. They needed the basket to tie up the game. They were too tired to go back down the court and end up two buckets behind.
Melendez snuck a quick pass by the guard and got the ball to Shel. With a fast spin, Shel turned and tried to put the ball up. But as soon as it left his fingers, Greene slapped the shot away. Thankfully Melendez managed to recover the loose ball.
“Don’t you try to bring that trash in here,” Greene taunted. “This is my house. Nobody comes into my house.” Sweat dappled his dark features and his mocking smile showed white and clean. “You may be big, gunney, but you ain’t big enough. You hear what I’m saying?”
Shel tried to ignore the mocking voice and the fact that Greene was now bumping up against him even harder than before. The man wasn’t just taunting anymore. He was going for an all-out assault.
Melendez caught a screen from Remy and rolled out with the basketball before the other defensive player could pick him up. One of the key elements to their whole game was the fact that most of them had played ball before. Greene was a good player—maybe even a great player—but one man didn’t make a team. Special forces training taught a man that.
Free and open, Melendez put up a twenty-foot jump shot. Shel rolled around Greene to get the inside position for the rebound. Greene had gone up in an effort to deflect the basketball. He was out of position when he came back down.
Shel timed his jump as the basketball ran around the ring and fell off. He went up and intercepted the ball cleanly. He was trying to bring the ball in close when Greene stepped around him and punched the basketball with a closed fist.
The blow knocked the ball back into Shel’s face. It slammed against his nose and teeth hard enough to snap his head back. He tasted blood immediately and his eyes watered. The sudden onslaught of pain chipped away at the control that Shel had maintained. He turned instantly, and Greene stood ready and waiting. Two of the guys on his team fell in behind him.
“You don’t want none of this,” Greene crowed. “I promise you don’t want none of this.” He had his hands raised in front of him and stood in what Shel recognized as a martial arts stance.
Shel wasn’t big on martial arts. Most of his hand-to-hand combat ability had been picked up in the field and from men he had sparred with to increase his knowledge.
“You’re a big man,” Greene snarled, “but I’m badder.”
Despite the tension that had suddenly filled the gymnasium and the odds against him, Shel grinned. This was more along the lines of what he needed. He took a step forward.
Remy darted between them and put his hands up. “That’s it. Game’s over. We’re done here.”
“Then who wins the game?” another man asked.
“We win the game,” one of the men on Shel’s team said.
“Your big man fouled intentionally,” Melendez said. “That’s a forfeit in my book.”
“Good thing you ain’t keepin’ the book,” Greene said. He never broke eye contact with Shel. “Is that how you gonna call it, dawg? Gonna curl up like a little girl and cry? Or are you gonna man up and play ball?”
Remy turned to face the heckler. “Back off, clown. You don’t even know the trouble you’re trying to buy into.”
Greene was faster than Shel expected even after playing against the man. Before Remy could raise his hands to defend himself, Greene hit him in the face.
I just wanted to state clearly here on my blog that the books I review are provided to me in exchange for my opinion and thoughts. I am a member of two blog alliances and I work directly with publicists and publishers at their request to review a variety of Christian fiction and non-fiction books. I receive no compensation other than free copies of the books to read, and when a give away is offered, that copy of the book is also provided by the publisher for that exact purpose.
I give my opinions both positively and negatively and will continue to do so as time permits and as I am able. I do this because I love to read and I love to share my thoughts with others who love good books and Christian stories.
Today I have experienced a bit of sensory overload. I've been reading about a delightful young man named Rex. More specifically, I've been reading the book his mother, Cathleen Lewis wrote about her journey into the world of an autistic musical savant. Her book, Rex, is both profound and beautiful. The only child she would ever mother on this earth came to her broken with little promise that he would ever really live. How much greater God's ways are than our own! How far beyond our understanding!
