Talents
Well my
dear ones,
I
believe we all have God-given talents,
although
some of us
may just
have yet to develop them;
even if
you don’t think you have any,
I’d be
willing to be you do. =>
Years
ago,
my wife
and I met a young woman
whose
opening line to us was,
“Hi! I’m
Lydia; I have no talents.”
In
context, that line was in
response
to my wife’s and my review
of her
friend Madi’s talents.
Yet as
the years passed,
it
became evident that Lydia
(just
like her namesake in the Bible)
has
many God-given talents. =D
Now some
may worry about
having
the time to work on things,
as in,
they see now that they
may just
have a talent,
yet
might it not be too late?
They
learned about it later in life;
so can
God restore the time
they
could have used on their talents
yet
spent on other things?
A good
question; to answer it,
I’ll
have to dial the clock back
about
2800 years,
back to
the year 835 BC,
to the
time of the prophet Joel:
“So I
[God] will restore to you
the years
that the swarming locust has eaten.”
---
Joel 2:25
There’s
a lot of hope there,
like
that it’s never too late,
and
that our best days
are
still ahead of us
... I
love that!
In
honor of all who have
sacrificed
for us,
have a
blessed Memorial Day! =>
grace,
peace, and love to you,
dave
“For I
know the plans I have for you,”
says the Lord.
“They
are plans for good
and not for disaster,
to give you a future and a hope.”
--- Jeremiah 29:11
The Legend of the Jimbo Leg Stabber
Well my
dear ones,
This
morning, as I was washing some dishes,
I
noticed a knife on the windowsill.
It used
to be mine, but I gifted it to my wife;
it is now
one of her favorites,
used
for opening boxes and such;
however,
it has a bloody history.
Yes, I
have many knives,
even
several on which I cut myself
as I
learned the trick of opening them;
but I
only ever owned one knife
that
has the distinction
of
having stabbed someone.
Well,
like the Bible says,
“A
joyful heart is good medicine”
(Psalm
17:22)
and
even the guy who got stabbed
is able
to laugh about it now;
he also
gave me approval to tell the story;
so I
will tell you how this ordinary knife,
known
as the [discontinued] Buck model 506,
came to
be known as “the Jimbo Leg Stabber.”
See it
here:
http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2017/05/jimbo-leg-stabber.html
A long
time ago,
nigh
well more than 30 years ago,
my
brother, Jimmy (aka JimBro, aka Jimbo),
and I
went for a ski trip up in Maine;
in
order to avoid the crowds,
we went
to Mount Abram; at the time,
it was
a place used mostly by Maine locals.
The
night we arrived, we were in our room,
and
Jimmy asked me if I had a nail clipper.
I said,
no, all I had was a knife.
He said
that would have to do,
so I
handed him the knife.
Jimbo
put his hand of the night table,
and
went to work
with
his modified “nail clipper.”
A few
seconds later I hear...
Jimbo: “Oooooh!”
me: “What?”
Jimbo: *holding
his leg*
“I
think I just stabbed myself in the leg.”
*takes hand
away from his upper thigh & looks*
“Yep;
the knife slipped off the tabletop
and I stabbed myself...”
me: “How
deep?”
Jimbo: “Right
down to the bone.”
me: “We’ve
got to go to the emergency room,
or get
you to a doctor!”
Jimbo: “No;
no need for that.”
Yep; my
brother is pretty tough;
showing
that he was destined to
become
a Marine in the future,
he used
some alcohol to clean the wound,
put
some antibiotic ointment on it,
and was
able to bandage it enough
to [mostly]
stop the bleeding.
Not
only did he refuse medical treatment,
but he
also insisted that we had to ski,
since
we had already spent the money
and
that’s what we had come up there to do;
hence, despite
the pain in his leg,
we skied
for four hours the next day.
He did
give me the knife back,
as he
said he really didn’t want to
see it
for a while.
Years
later, when he asked about it,
I told
him I gave the knife to my wife.
However,
this year, for his birthday,
I gave
my Bro the current version
of this
knife, and told him it
had the
identical blade to the old
“Jimbo
Leg Stabber.”
And he
laughed; so that’s cool;
and
that’s the story...
Wait...I
was just reading last night
about
the medieval bards,
the
storytellers from whom we got the
“histories”
of King Arthur and Robin Hood.
Any
bard worth his salt had to add to the tale,
to tell
more than just the bare bones facts,
even
embellish it a bit...
OK;
forget everything I just said...
*thinks
for a bit*
This is
how things “really” went down.
My Bro
and I were in the parking lot
at the Mount
Abram ski lodge
when a
bunch of local toughs walked by.
The
leader of this gang thought my Bro
looked
at his girlfriend,
so he
had 4 of his guys grab my brother
while
he proceeded to stab him in the leg,
right
down to the bone,
and
left the knife sticking there
while
he laughed.
But my
brother got the last laugh!
He
slapped the living crud
out of
all 5 of those guys,
then
pulled the knife from his own leg
and
used it to slice their pants off.
So,
when the cops showed up,
there’s
my Bro holding a knife,
while
these 5 lou-sas are
stumbling
around in their underwear. #_#
The two
cops, both former Marines,
thought
this was so funny
that
they suggested my Bro
keep the
knife as a memento;
they
further suggested that he
might
want to join the Corps,
as they
could see he had Marine potential.
Yep;
that’s it; that’s how it went down;
that is...
“The
Legend of the Jimbo Leg Stabber 2.0”
That’s
how I plan to start remembering it
...in
the future. Hahaha! =)~
Remember,
God has a sense of humor
so we
should, too! =D
“This
is the day the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
--- Psalm 118:24
If you
enjoyed this story,
you can
leave a comment on my brother’s
Facebook
page here:
https://www.facebook.com/jim.macfadyen.7
Thank
you. =>
grace,
peace, and love to you,
dave
