Tag: faith and religion

Many years ago, my sweet daughter Susanne and my hubby Bob got their heads together and made a video for one of Bob’s Sunday sermons. It was called, “Boiled Alive.” And yes, they actually boiled a frog at our kitchen stove - pretend! It’s amazing what you can do when you edit a video these days. The frog was not boiled, as it appeared to be - but you didn’t know that until the out-take where it showed Bob with frog in hand headed back to the pet store. Nevertheless, we got a ton of nasty emails slamming us for boiling Mr. Green Frog in the Beckett kitchen. (This video can still be viewed on youtube.com.)

Age seems to be a tricky thing here in America and interesting enough, it starts at a very young age. When I was just five years old, if you would have asked me how old I was, I would have told you “five and a half.” If you had asked me at fourteen how old I was, I probably would have told you “almost sixteen.” But then things started to change somewhere in my thirties, and if you would have asked me at thirty-six how old I was, I would have no doubt answered “twenty-nine.” And twenty-nine it is!

There’s an ultra mini expression which packs a big punch - it’s been around for quite a while, but many may not have a clue as to its origin - after all - it’s pretty novel and a tad bit scary. Hold onto your seat - here tis: “Run to the roar!” Pretty ear-catching! So - is this “running to the roar” the sound of a souped-up muscle car, or “running to the roar” of a mad crazy person, or “running to the roar” of a jet engine? Surprisingly, none of the above. It’s truly scarier than those - it’s running to the roar of a enormous lion!

Can you remember back to a time in your life where you did something so illogical that friends and family thought you were a little "off?" Perhaps they even went to you in private and counseled you to rethink your actions? My biggest "illogical living" season occurred just a few years ago - 2016, to be exact. I was diagnosed with stage 4, metastatic kidney cancer - terminal. The cancer was everywhere. My doctor gave me 3 to 6 months to live. He advised me just to go home and enjoy my family - no chemo, no treatment - just go home and die.

Update - the Beckett's have a new baby in the house. She weighs in at 6 lbs, 4 oz, mostly sleeps through the night and has yet to regularly use her pee pad. Yes, we have a new puppy and 13 weeks old Missy is both a sweet delight and a little terror. We arrived home recently only to find that she had broken into our pantry, found a potato and chewed it into a million little bits, which of course, were strewn all over our front room. Her pee pads are regularly torn up into a thousand pieces and scattered all over our kitchen floor — our house looks like a tornado has gone through it, and Bob is constantly having to remind me that "It will be worth it." I'm sure he's right, but it's a grueling trek for now.