Caterpillar Toes and Butterfly Wings: Memoirs, Miracles and Mayhem

By Dee Coffman

From the hills of Missouri to the top of the Twin Towers, and from the Florida swamps to the Brazilian beaches, God has refused to let His daughter get bored. Through life, loss, dreams, and disasters, He has proven His love and faithfulness.

Her parents and grandparents taught her by example how to deal with life when it got difficulthow to laugh at the ridiculous and find joy in the simple things.

Motherhood brought immeasurable joy, lots of laughter, and pain beyond expression. She had to trust the Lord to give his angels charge over her children to keep them safe through their many escapades, exploits, and accidents, and to hold her faith strong in loss. Rather nave, she often innocently found herself caught up in embarrassing, and sometimes dangerous, situations. She learned to laugh at herself and the messes she got into because crying didnt help! Thanking the Lord for all things, good or bad, became a way of life as a matter of survival.

Her familys attempt to build a two-story home in the Florida boonies provided more adventure than she bargained for with alligators, wild hogs, floods, and firesbut also beauty, bounty, and butterflies.

Later finding herself essentially abandoned and emotionally lost, she also found she had lost her sense of direction, which led to wandering around in the wilderness until she received a call and life changed once more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512737646

Dee Coffman

Dee Coffman has been a business owner, secretary, sporadic college student, pastor’s assistant, home builder, actress, short-term missionary, writer, and caregiver, but her greatest joy has been motherhood. She has often found herself in surprising new circumstances—some fun, some frantic, and some fanning the fires of her faith. Out of all those experiences come the stories of Caterpillar Toes and Butterfly Wings.

Book preview

© 2016 .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/AdvancedSearch/Default.aspx

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3765-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3766-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3764-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905844

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/26/2016

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Little Stinkers

Chapter 2 Cowboys and Indians

Chapter 3 Baby Boom

Chapter 4 Happy Days

Chapter 5 Spiritual Stirrings

Chapter 6 Sand in My Shoes

Chapter 7 New Beginnings

Chapter 8 Hugs Are Better Than Bugs

Chapter 9 Roughin’ It

Chapter 10 Frontier Foibles

Chapter 11 Mission Impossible

Chapter 12 Wedding Bells and Scary Spells

Chapter 13 Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye

Chapter 14 To Go or Not to Go

Chapter 15 A Moving Experience

Chapter 16 Cheers!

Chapter 17 Wandering in the Wilderness

Chapter 18 Trials and Transitions

Chapter 19 His Mysterious Ways

Chapter 20 The Funny Farm

Chapter 21 Too Many Troubles

Chapter 22 Oh, That I Had Wings Like a Dove!

Chapter 23 Working Man Blues

Chapter 24 Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Thang

Chapter 25 Praise the Lord and Carry On

Epilogue

Appendix — How to Say Hello in Heaven

Dedicated to

God—Who gave me life

My Lord Jesus Christ—Who gave His life for mine

The Holy Spirit—Who guides and comforts me today

And to my loving parents

Lowell and Jennie Reid

527.png

Daddy and Mama

Introduction

I need wings! I do hope to fly someday. I mean really fly. Not in the private plane my brother took me up in for my first flight or the giant jets that I’ve flown in since, but I want my spirit to fly! I want to be light as a butterfly, unfettered by the weight of the w orld.

But for now, I’m like a caterpillar, tripping along on my caterpillar toes, meandering around this life, earthbound by the weight of my too-heavy body and my way-too-heavy burdens.

It seems my little caterpillar toes are never sufficient to keep up with the demands life throws at me. Somehow, though, the Lord gets me through each day. And He’s always there to comfort and encourage me when I remember to cast all my burdens on Him, as the apostle Peter said to do (I Peter 5:7).

Throughout this book, I’ll be referring to scriptures because there’s no way to tell my stories without them. Years ago, I saw a sign that said, Christians aren’t perfect—just forgiven! And another, with a picture of a caterpillar, implored, Please be patient. God’s not finished with me yet.

People sometimes think that if a person goes to church, they’re pretending to be holy. That logic is a little weird since we don’t think people go to the hospital pretending to be healthy. We know we need help. We know we’re God’s unfinished business! We need all the help we can get as we struggle through life. We fight battles, not because we want to, but because our Heavenly Father knows it’s necessary to our growth. Before we can fly, we have to develop our wings—our spiritual wings—and only the struggle will force strength into them.

A man was observing a chrysalis with the butterfly-to-be struggling to emerge. After a while, he felt sorry that it was seemingly so helpless, so he decided to assist its escape. Unfortunately, because of his help, it came out without having sufficiently forced the fluids into its wings. They were tiny and misshapen, and it couldn’t fly. It needed the struggle to make it strong.

And we, too, go through our wooly-worm stage and become bound up in a cocoon of worldly weights. We struggle with our sinful natures, looking for an easy escape. We try to wiggle out of any discomfort we can before we eventually emerge to soar upward on gossamer wings. The Father in His love lets us continue in the struggle for a while, knowing it’s the only way, as we learn to trust in Him, to develop our wings of faith.

When a friend lost her young daughter, I tried to comfort my children with the thought that the little girl was now free of the pain and struggles of this life. Like a butterfly, she was now unbound by physical confines.

I didn’t think much about that again until months later when my son Chris and I were driving down a highway and saw a picture of a butterfly on a billboard. He said that ever since I had used that illustration, he never saw a butterfly without thinking of the promise of new life after our earthly caterpillar stage. That was decades ago, but I still enjoy remembering that it gave him insight and comfort.

Through the following years, we saw way too many people go through the chrysalis stage of earthly life and then—it seemed all too early—take flight into Heaven. We can’t dictate at what point that will happen with the people we love. We feel the loss for ourselves but take comfort in the fact that our loved ones are now free. I’m thankful we have that hope of eternity, perfection, and peace. God promises us the free gift of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice, initiated and fulfilled by a love that we can’t even begin to understand.

In another sense, on an earthly level, we can reach the butterfly stage of freedom even in this life. Our cocoon of sin and trouble squeezes us tightly, but when we allow Jesus to become Master of our lives, we not only inherit eternal life, but we develop strength and new attributes. We emerge as brand new creatures, blessed by God’s grace. We’re also able to bless others and soar above these earthly trials.

These wings are symbolic, however, and they’re not angel wings. Some people refer to our loved ones who have died as becoming angels. We love sweet, funny, or sentimental stories about their struggle to get their wings by accomplishing certain feats through people still on earth. It’s fun to imagine, but we will never be angels. Angels are different created beings with diverse missions, and whole books have been written about them.

I underestimated the human fascination with angels years ago when we had a Christian bookstore in Oklahoma. When Billy Graham’s book on angels came out, I ordered a few and quickly sold out. I had to reorder again and again! People were fascinated, I think, and encouraged.

What a comfort it is, after reading about how powerful the angels are, then to read in Psalm 91:11, how special we are to the Father. It says, For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

The Bible says we are created a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5). But after we receive the redemptive work of Christ, we are children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ… (Romans 8:17).

Wow! Joint heirs? Everything that is His is ours? But of course, it goes on to say that if we also suffer with Him, we will be glorified together—and that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:17–18).

It gets really deep. The more we read of the Bible, the more we realize we hardly have a clue about reality. We barely scratch the surface with our puny diggings into the Word.

The whole eighth chapter of Romans is especially good, but for our purposes here, I love the twenty-first verse: Because the creature itself (that’s us) also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Wow! We get to go from our little wooly-worm-creature selves to glorious butterflies—or go from our sinful, inept, lost little selves, to being liberated children of God!

A butterfly is the culmination of God’s plan for that creature, but it doesn’t come about in a moment. It’s a process. God is infinitely patient. When our little caterpillar toes take us off the true trail, or we find ourselves out on a limb with no fruit, He gently guides us back onto the right path. He continues to nurture us through our stages until we’re complete in Him and display His glory in our new-found wings.

Well, anyway, people aren’t angels, and they’re not really caterpillars, either, but thanks for humoring me as I allegorize.

Those who just don’t get my wacky sense of humor won’t stay with me long, but those who get it will hopefully enjoy meandering with me back and forth through the decades, sharing my lifetime of trials, traumas, and triumphs.

Over the years, a large dose of humor and trust in a loving Savior have brought me through a clumsy childhood, business disasters, family traumas, accidents, and betrayal. I haven’t arrived yet, but I’m on my way. I’m tripping along on my caterpillar toes, sometimes tiptoeing to the end of all the limb I have, and then taking one more step. Oops!

But even when I fall, I don’t give up. God will use my wanderings, my missteps, and the confining cocoon of my circumstances to develop my strength. As I struggle, He’ll pump power into my wings, and perhaps someday I’ll miraculously emerge as a graceful butterfly. In the meantime, I’m still just a work in progress.

Chapter 1

Little Stinkers

I timidly walked down the aisle, spoke to the preacher, and knelt down at the front row pew in a little Baptist church in southwestern Missouri. I was nine years old, dark haired, long legged, and in that awkward stage between little and big. At the preacher’s invitation, I had come forward to give my life to J esus.

But what was that smell? It smelled like a skunk! The preacher knelt beside me and led me in the sinner’s prayer. Sure enough, he had been out hunting and got sprayed by a skunk—but revival meetings were already scheduled, so what could he do?

It was a bit of a paradox. I met Jesus, the sweetest thing I’ve ever known, surrounded by this rather unsweet, pungent aroma. Who knows? It may have made the moment more memorable for me. At least, I’ve never forgotten that night, and I’ve never doubted my salvation.

Actually, I learned about Jesus in the early years of my life, both by instruction and example. My parents, Lowell and Jennie Reid, loved the Lord and traveled back to their hometown of Wentworth, Missouri, every weekend—both to visit their parents and to take us to services at the little Presbyterian church. Wentworth was an old mining town whose many fascinating stories would require another book.

I was blessed to have all four grandparents living in the same area, and they were vital in forming my concept of love and life. I wish everyone could have the strong, stable family I had, but even when that’s not the case, we should celebrate those who have gone before us, because without them, we wouldn’t be here!

I love the adventurous stories of my ancestors. My paternal great-grandfather, Alexander Reid, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1840. When he was very young, he got his dad, George Reid, to sign permission for him to work for a shipbuilding company, and he sailed to Australia. I don’t know how long he stayed there, but he eventually came to America. Halfway across the country, he went to work for a widow with children. He later married her, and they added three more to their family.

One of those children—later to become my Grandpa Bill Reid—injured his knee while chopping corn when he was a child. It took months to heal, and his knee was permanently bent. Even so, he never let his up-and-down stride slow him down. He was even a high jumper in school, and he worked hard all his life. He was a well driller and farmer, and then worked in a general store for thirty years.

This was back in the day when the customer gave his order for coffee, sugar, beans, or whatever at the counter. The clerk got the product from the shelf, measured it out, weighed it on the scale, poured it in a little brown bag, and tied it up with string. So Grandpa—of course, he was just Bill at the time—would put a lot of miles on those uneven legs, waiting on customers, but he was always cheerful.

He married Annie Little, and Grandma loved to tell about the time they were at a barn dance, and she lost track of him. She finally found him up on the bandstand playing a fiddle. She didn’t even know he could play!

I always felt a little sorry for Grandma because she had no middle name. She was just Annie. It’s not like you can be too poor to give your child a middle name, but I never knew the reason.

Grandma’s adventurous father, William F. Little, and her mother, Sarah Johnston, who was part Cherokee, had married and moved to Nebraska from their birthplaces of Indiana and Kentucky. Annie was born in Nebraska where they lived in a dugout and burned buffalo chips for heat.

Later they settled back in Indiana where they bought property. Eventually, William went to Sarcoxie, Missouri, to work in the strawberry fields. He decided he’d like to live there, so he went home and tried to sell their house. When it didn’t sell, they just left it and moved. They traveled by wagon with their six children and a cow.

I’m not sure if it was on that trip or after they arrived, but Grandma’s baby brother Charles fell ill. I guess the cow wasn’t giving milk because their mother sent Grandma—then just little Annie, of course—to a neighbor’s house with a little brown jug to get some milk for him. Baby Charles was revived, and both the story and the little brown jug have lasted through generations.

Although Grandma Little looked Cherokee, I’m not sure what degree she was. She was not in the area when the tribal rolls were made up. Aunt Helen, Mama’s sister, recently told me that she remembers going to Bible studies at Grandma Little’s home. By the time I came along, Grandma didn’t get around much. I remember that she was a very pleasant, tiny lady and was always glad to see us.

As a child, I got to spend a week with my grandparents each summer. I enjoyed walking to town with Grandma Reid and Aunt Mae to visit Grandma Little in her pretty little white house. We would go by the grocery store to pick up any groceries she might need, and then we’d stop at the post office to get her mail.

The old brick post office had steel boxes with combination locks. Grandma was patient enough to let me stand on my tippy toes and reach up to move the two dials to the proper letters, and then slide the little knob to open it, which I thought was fun. It didn’t take much to entertain me!

Laden with groceries and mail, we’d then walk across the railroad tracks. Grandma let me enjoy balancing as I walked on the rails, but she cautioned me to never play on the rails without an adult along. One time we stopped at the train depot and visited with the stationmaster at the window. He showed me how to tap out Morse code on the telegraph. That must have been in the waning days of such things, because I don’t remember the depot ever being open after that.

Grandma Reid was a loving, hard-working, tenderhearted lady. Aunt Mae, their first child, had Down syndrome, so she always lived with them. In their early years, Grandpa had traded a team of mules for land and a house. Later, after Grandpa became wheelchair bound with arthritis, Grandma built a covered porch onto their house and also constructed a barn. Grandpa helped with what he could and coached her along from his wheelchair.

In their later years, Grandpa suffered terribly with arthritic pain and yet always retained his kind disposition. He enjoyed us kids standing beside his wheelchair, talking with him. We were fascinated with his books, little tins, marbles and other items he kept on the wooden library table beside him. Grandma took such loving care of him and never considered it a burden.

Grandma suffered for years with asthma, possibly from having worked in a sewing factory during World War II. We couldn’t take fresh flowers into the house, but in the spring, she would let me pick all the daffodils I wanted to take home with me. She showed me how to turn their edges red or green, by putting food coloring in the water.

She had huge rose bushes, which I helped Daddy trim. He transplanted a part of one, and as it grew, he shared new starts. So even after decades, we still enjoy our Grandma Reid roses.

My mother’s great-grandfather Hull came with his two brothers from England. Mama’s grandfather, Anthony Wayne Hull, married Jennie Lazenby, a school teacher. At some point, they moved to Indian Territory, which later became the state of Oklahoma, where Anthony worked in the oil fields. They both died young and unfortunately left Harlie, my grandfather, and his siblings orphans.

Harlie grew up and became a successful farmer, married to my grandmother, Blanche Robb. In the years that I knew him, he always seemed rather stern, although he would allow us kids and our cousins to play on the haystacks and walk through his corn and wheat fields, as long as we were careful not to damage the crop. I’m not sure we got permission, but we also enjoyed playing in the wheat bin in his big barn, sinking into the piles of harvested grain and struggling to climb out again.

Although Grandpa Hull seemed staid to me, Mama and Aunt Helen enjoyed remembering him in his younger days, laughing as he grabbed Grandma and danced her all around the kitchen. She would laugh and protest, Oh, Harlie!

I also remember him in later years, sitting in the rocker in their living room, listening attentively as I played the piano. His favorite hymns were Sweet Hour of Prayer and What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

When we sat in their sling-style lawn chairs in the front yard one evening, I heard a strange, mournful sound at the edge of the woods. I felt a little afraid. I stood up to listen and asked Grandpa what it was. He said it was a dove, and then he explained that the dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Grandma Hull was a no-nonsense lady who, I suspect, was not afraid of anything—not even potato bugs! I used to cringe, watching her pick the varmints off the plants with her bare hands. A lot of what I know about plants, I learned by working in her garden and helping water her flowers. She taught me how to cut the asparagus that grew along her fence row. In the kitchen, she was sometimes patient enough to let me help make noodles, although I’m sure I didn’t cut them just right! We always teased her about saying, "I do it this way!"

Actually, there was something Grandma feared in her early years—losing a child. Their firstborn, a darling fourteen-month-old baby boy, little Clyde, caught pneumonia and died.

It was only decades later, in her last days, that she told Aunt Helen about her fear of losing their next baby who arrived about a year later. Grandpa would be outside working, and Grandma said she would run out to get him, screaming, Oh, Harlie! Come help! He’s not breathing!

Grandpa would rush to the house, comfort her, and assure her the baby was fine. They went on to raise five healthy children, but only Grandma ever fully knew the depths of her despair at having lost her baby.

Mama and Aunt Helen were their last two children and were still at home after their brothers, George, Ralph, and Roy, went off to war. During harvest times, the girls helped their mother cook huge meals for the threshing crews. The farmers all gathered at each farm, in turn, to help thresh the wheat. The women at the farm being harvested prepared food for all the crew.

When it was time for the Hull’s harvest, Grandma, Mama, and Aunt Helen cooked a hearty breakfast and then started on the midday meal. They prepared several chickens early that morning, made great vats of tea, cooked mounds of hearty vegetables, and baked lots of pies to feed the hungry harvesters at dinnertime.

As we grandkids grew up, the Hull home was a haven for friends and relatives every weekend. Mama and others would take casseroles, meat dishes, or luscious desserts so there was plenty of food. They never knew who all might show up. Regardless of how many came, Grandma welcomed everyone.

Grandma was one of the eleven children of John Elliot and Sarah Isabel Jones Robb. They were gone by the time I came along, but I understand Grandma and Grandpa Robb were exceptional people who loved each other dearly and loved the Lord. I have a picture of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. It took three photographs to get the whole crowd in, which included the high school band. Friends and family had come from all around the country.

All my predecessors, with their trials and adventures, traveled down life’s road to the point that brought my parents together in a beautiful, life-long love story. A year after Mama and Daddy got married, my brother, Don, made his appearance. He was two when I was born, and because he couldn’t say Delores, I became Dee Dee. We lived in Joplin, and my childhood was secure and happy.

Don was the leader and the brave one. At about three, I was a little naïve and sometimes got roped into things he and the neighborhood kids dreamed up—like the time they decided to be firemen and hold a blanket for a net to catch the boy jumping out of the tree in our back yard. The instant the kid hit the blanket, he also hit the ground with a thud and a whimper. All the neighbor kids scattered in a hurry, and we were left to face Mama!

Those first few years were fun and secure, spent in what my mother called a little Tom Thumb house—like a small Cape Cod. When a stranger came to our back yard one day and asked for something to eat, we ran to the house to tell Mama. She served him a meal at the back steps. I didn’t understand at the time that there were many homeless soldiers after the war. I wasn’t afraid of him, but Mama made us go inside.

One thing I do remember fearing, besides the old devil, was the giraffe that came down our stairs. It was a cold evening, and Mama told Don to go close the upstairs door because there was a draft coming down the stairs.

My three-year-old ears heard giraffe coming down the stairs. Don evidently heard the same thing. He was hesitant, but at Mama’s insistence, he bravely went on up and closed the door. I followed him but stopped at the landing where the stairs turned. I peeked up there but never did see the giraffe. I just couldn’t imagine how a big ol’ d’raffe got up there!

I found more things to fear once I turned five and had to start first grade. I had never been away from my mother before! There were the standard stories about the mean old principal. And while my teacher never did anything mean, the fact that her smile disappeared too quickly made me think it wasn’t sincere. On the first day of school, one little girl ran screaming around the room, so I knew there was something to be afraid of! I felt reassured when Don peeked into my classroom window and waved to me while he was at recess.

I’m not sure which first-grade experience was worse—smallpox immunization day or the night I thought Daddy’s life was in jeopardy. He was in a comedy skit for the PTA, and while I was supposed to stay in my classroom, I convinced someone to take me to Mama in the auditorium. She pointed Daddy out onstage, but when I thought he was injured, Mama comforted me and finally convinced me he was only acting.

My parents were my heroes. They were my life. My whole world. My security. That never changed much. They both were adventurous and brave. When Mama was a child, she and her sister, Helen, in addition to helping their mother prepare meals for the threshing crews, often helped their dad work in the fields.

Their daddy, my Grandpa Hull, had a team of huge black horses that he used to plow the fields. The girls couldn’t ride Prince, but ol’ Florrie would let them ride her all over the place, even though she was blind. Maybe she enjoyed it because the reins let her know where it was safe to walk.

They also loved to ride the hay hook from the barn loft to the ground. Mama often said, It’s a wonder someone didn’t get killed! But at the time they didn’t worry about it. They were having fun!

My favorite episode of Daddy’s younger life is like an Old West story. Before he and Mama were married, he scraped up sixteen dollars and fifty cents and went on an adventure with Mama’s brother and a couple of other friends. They drove a 1929 Model A touring car from Missouri to New Mexico. They were going to pick peaches and make big money.

The first day, they drove to Hutchinson, Kansas, and stayed overnight with an uncle. He ran a pump station and filled their tank with casing head gas. They said it was better for going over the mountains.

They went on to Pueblo, Colorado, and over Wolf Creek Pass—almost to Durango—and then down to Farmington, New Mexico, where they picked peaches. After making their fortune, they went to work on a ranch, building fence.

Daddy and his buddies stayed at the line shack with the foreman, a young cowboy named Orville. In the evenings, Orville would fix dinner and then play his guitar and sing. There wasn’t much else to do way out on the range except listen to the cows and the coyotes.

They could see snow on the mountains, and in the mornings, the ground was frozen. By mid-morning, it was so hot they’d be working in their undershirts.

No Old West story would be complete without the rivalry between the sheep men and the cattlemen. One day, Daddy and his buddies were building fence and began hearing sheep bells. They went to the top of the rise and saw about a thousand sheep coming to spend the night by the watering hole. About that time, Orville rode up driving a herd of cattle. He told the man to move his sheep off their ranch.

The sheepherder protested, but when Orville rode up to where Daddy and the others were, the man saw them and decided to get his dog and move the sheep on out. They tore up the ground as they went, wiping out the roads that had wound their way through the sage.

When the ranch owner decided to wait until spring to finish the fence, the guys decided they’d better head home while they still had enough money to get there. Out of his earnings, Daddy had sent his mother money to buy a tire for their car. He also bought a pair of corduroy pants and a turquoise ring and bracelet for Mama.

Mama’s brother went on to California, and the rest of the guys headed home to Missouri, driving straight through. Daddy got home with sixty-five cents and a million dollars’ worth of memories.

I love the picture I have of him on horseback, in chaps and a cowboy hat, looking every bit like my other hero, Roy Rogers.

I not only admired Roy Rogers and Dale Evans—I was Dale Evans when we bought a farm near Seneca just before I started second grade. Our new neighbors came to welcome us. I was thrilled to get to ride bareback on their calm old pinto, even though I had to quickly duck when he trotted under a clothesline!

When we roamed our eighty acres playing cowboys and Indians, I was either Dale Evans or some romantically named Indian princess. I knew I was Irish, Scottish, and English but also loved knowing I had Cherokee heritage from Daddy’s side.

The years there were idyllic. We had wonderful times in the little country school. Every year we competed in a county-wide spelling bee and a music festival where we sang and wore costumes that our mothers made.

One year, during the lunch break between the performances and the awards ceremony, we went to the park. I had on my pretty dress and new patent-leather slippers but ran around the park like a deer anyway. I climbed a trail up a hill and then started running back down, feeling a great sense of adventure with the breeze in my face.

Suddenly, I realized the hill was too steep, and I couldn’t stop! There was a big oak tree at the bottom, so I did stop. Fast! When I hit the tree, I bounced off the embankment. Thud! I was stunned. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me now! Don’t you hate it when such good times end so abruptly? I was not proud to tell Mama that I ripped the side out of my new shoes!

Growing up on the farm was full of all kinds of adventures. At one time or another we had cows, pigs, and chickens. The pigs were mean, so I didn’t socialize with them much. Daddy had to put rings in their noses to keep them from digging under the fence. That was a little traumatic for me, but in retrospect, perhaps there’s a life lesson there. Sometimes God may have to put rings in our noses to keep us from getting into trouble, too.

We feel put upon by life’s circumstances, but we’re told to praise Him in all things (I Thessalonians 5:18) and that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28). So we have to know that even the hard times serve a purpose. Sometimes what seems like a hindrance is just keeping us out of somewhere we don’t need to be.

Steer riding taught us a few lessons, too! Like, don’t do it! Our rides didn’t last long. Tree climbing provided lots of exercise and hours of entertainment. My favorite was the mulberry tree down in the valley. I spent hours eating mulberries and swinging from a limb that was just the right height to grab onto and then drop to the ground.

I never fell out of a tree, but our neighbor wasn’t so lucky. He fell from our big oak tree in the valley by the pig pen. I had never seen a broken arm before, but his definitely had taken on a new shape. Then Don fell out of the mulberry tree onto the barbed wire fence. Ouch!

Barbed wire is very unforgiving. We got pretty adept at climbing over, under, or through, but I learned to treat it with great respect one day when I was crawling under and raised up too quickly. I still have a two-inch scar in my back as a reminder.

To the north, across the valley from the house, there was a pond which furnished unlimited entertainment. We caught frogs and tadpoles and occasionally saw a snake.

One day, Don and a friend were paddling the flat-bottomed boat in the pond, and it sprung a leak and sank. They managed to drag the boat out, but I waded in to retrieve the paddle floating in the middle of the pond.

Barefoot as usual, I could feel the mud at the bottom of the pond squishing between my toes as I waded toward the paddle. Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting in my foot. Thinking I’d been bitten by a snake, Don ran ahead—down through the valley and up the hill to the house—to tell Mom. Our friend walked with me as I hobbled along on my injured foot.

When I finally got to the house, Mama came out with a butcher knife, ready to make crisscross cuts in my foot. She was sure a water moccasin had bit me! Bless her heart! Thank goodness, I convinced her it was just a piece of glass or a sharp rock!

Daddy still worked in Joplin, so during the day, Mama had all our shenanigans to put up with!

There was timber on most of our eighty acres. We’d heard tales of a whip snake that supposedly had whipped the legs of the lady who lived on the adjoining property, so we always watched for it when we went hiking.

Deep in the magical woods, there was a big cave with a spring inside. It was damp and cool and ever so quiet. Someone had built a small dam, forming a pool which then flowed out through the woods in a tranquil little stream.

Farther into our deep dark forest, we found a sizable lake with a dam about six or eight feet high. The top of the dam was covered with green, slimy moss where the water continuously poured over and spilled into the pool below.

Don and a girlfriend of ours convinced me to walk across the dam—mainly because they were going to leave me if I didn’t! I just knew I was going to fall into the lake on the left or possibly get washed off the slippery walkway into the abyss below on the right. They were both braver than I, but I made it across and lived to tell about it!

It was with that friend that I agreed to read the Bible through. Every night we would read at home and then compare notes at school the next day. I don’t remember how far we got, but it was a meaningful time for me, as I learned more about the Lord and felt a new awareness of Him.

Little by little, the reality of pain in the world and the cost of discipleship crept into my carefree world. It was about that time that five missionaries were killed while trying to take the story of God’s love to the Auca Indians in South America.

I saw pictures in magazines of the aftermath on the sandbars by the river. That made it so real to me. I began to feel a new zeal for the Lord and felt that I should go as a missionary to the Indians. In my innocent little world, I was astonished that death—a word I was only vaguely acquainted with—could come from such a noble mission.

I was soon to learn another d word. A friend of my parents came to visit Mama one day. We kids were banished to play in the yard while they talked. I later learned that the lady—a Christian—could no longer stay with her unfaithful husband, and they were getting a divorce. That was the first time I ever heard that word.

Sometime later, I learned of another price to be paid for following Jesus. A handsome young Jewish man came to our church to preach, sing, and illustrate his sermons with beautiful chalk drawings. He and his son came to our farm to visit one day. As we walked through the fields, I laughed when he playfully rumpled his son’s hair and called him Hambone.

He was so pleasant, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him, and yet I learned that his own parents had disowned him when he’d accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

This old world was a little rougher than I liked. A little less caring. A little more hateful. But despite occasional lessons in death, divorce, and being disowned, life was good, and the farm provided me with plenty of adventure.

Little cotton-top sister, Jan, had a few adventures of her own. She was born when I was five, just before we moved to the farm. About three years later, Don and I were helping clean up the area around the barn while Jan played on the steps—or so we thought. Suddenly, Mama looked up and saw that little blonde head moving along the second story loft—on the outside of the building! Jan was stepping on the tops of the lower-story boards and putting her tiny fingers between the boards to hold on. She was having fun!

She later told me that she had seen me and Don climbing out there and then swinging off a beam that protruded from the side of the barn. Monkey see, monkey do. But that little monkey was a bit young for such antics!

Those Missouri hills provided lots of entertainment. In the summer, we raced bicycles up and down the roads, and in the winter, we rode the sled. I always jumped at the chance to imitate whatever feat Don performed, whether it was jumping off the top of the house or jumping onto the sled while running.

He would hold the sled in front of him, run across the snow as fast as he could, and then drop down on his belly and slide forever! It looked like so much fun, but when I jumped onto it headlong, I ended up with a bloody nose! My technique must have been off!

In the summer, we planted a big garden down in the valley. Morning glory vines threatened to strangle every plant, so we pulled them out by the thousands. When Mama wanted new ground turned up with the hand plow, it was too hard to push, so we looped a rope onto it. One would push the plow, and the other would get inside the rope and pull like a horse. Guess who got to be the horse!

Ah, but it was all worth it when harvest time came. We’d sit out in the yard and eat huge red tomatoes for a snack, trying to keep the juice from dripping all over us! Mama made gallons of lime pickles, which meant I helped scrub hundreds of cucumbers. Some of the cucumbers