Desperately Doodling Debbie: Random Musings on Life, Faith and Other Brain Boggles

By Debra Kuss

Desperately Doodling Debbie is a collection of columns originally written for a church newsletter over the course of seven years while the author was raising her own three daughters, working in an office, and then nannying triplets. This book is about mining for nuggets of faith in the midst of the craziness of life—and sometimes simply going with the craziness until those nuggets smack you in the head!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973621706

Debra Kuss

When Debra Kuss, the writer, is not doodling in desperation, or penning perspicacious poetry, her other sort-of-normal self, retired nanny Debbie, knits in spurts, reads great and not so great novels, teaches Sunday School, and hangs out with whatever part of her family (biology professor Bret, three grown daughters, three grandchildren, one bloodhound, and random fish) is available.

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Copyright © 2019 Debra Kuss.

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.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2169-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2168-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2170-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902456

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/21/2019

Contents

Introduction

It All Began with a Tightly Wound Christian

For the Entangled Christian

For the Squirrelly Christian

For the Spaced-Out Christian

For the Christian in Waiting

For the Christian with Random Thoughts of Weirdness

For the Peretti-Spooked Christian

For Pilgrims in a Strange Land

For the Traditional Christian

For the Terminally Odd—More Random Thoughts of Weirdness

For My Fellow Groundhogs

For A Few Brave Souls

For the Exhausted

For the Commotion Concussed

For Searching Souls

For the Parentally Disturbed

For the More Desperate Than Ever

For the Thankful

For the Christmas Crazed

For the Dizzy of Brain

For Valentines and Other Mushy Creatures

For the Winter Weary

For Spinning Racers

For the Randomly and Systematically Weird

For the Tizzified Traveler

For the Intensely Thrilled Traveler

For World Traveling Home Improvers

For the Parched Christian

For Those with No Desire to Read a Column

With a Little Help from My Friends

For People Who Enjoy Non-Existent Words and Really Long Sentences

For Nellie and Lulu Fans

For Brrrr Chilly Shivering Winter Weary Souls

For the Lentless Among Us

For Faith Wanderers

For Commencing Parents

For Women with Men to Appreciate

For Those Who Insist on Continuity of Thought

For Wantonly Weepy Wordsmiths

For Spiritual Cooks

For Those Who Have Waited Patiently to Read Something Spiritual in this Space

For God’s Works in Progress

For the Musically Challenged Christmas Frenzied

For the Enlarged and Stretched

For the Thoughtishly Challenged

For the Regressing Progressing Christian

For Everyone Who Has Ever Lived

For Anyone Who Has Ever Had a Mother

For the Unconformed Confirmed

For Doodleheads

For Everyone Who Needs a Smack in the Head

For Potential Guest Columnists

For the Not So Intensely Clean

For Rerun Fans

For the Newly Challenged, or the Oldly Challenged in a New Way, or the Constantly Challenged in Every Way—Take Your Pick

For Birthday Inspired Poetry Lovers—and Others

For God’s Purposeful Poems

For Three-Year-Old Christians

For Tired Inspiration Seekers

For Sojourners

For the Sentimental

For Quietly Insane Parents

For Hurricane Survivors and their Friends

For Those Who Can Stand Another Poem

For Christmas Ponderers

For the Anticipating Masses

For the Holey Minded

For the Four-Year-Old in All of Us

For Satan Kickers

For All School-Weary Souls

For Fellow Former Night Owls

For Anyone in Search of a Brain

For the Overanxious Types

For Mud Wallowers

For Holy Thanksgiving, Batman! Types

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

This book is dedicated

to Rev. Tim Thompson

the pastor of Grace on the Hill United Methodist Church

in Corbin, Kentucky during the years covered in this book.

Without his invitation for writers for the church newsletter

Desperately Doodling Debbie would have never come into being.

It’s all his fault!

In Memory of

my sister

Barbara Violett

and my son-in law’s grandmother

Lois Bender

who were my biggest fans.

The art of writing is the art

of discovering

what you believe.

-Gustave Flaubert

Writing has laws of perspective,

of light and shade

just as painting does, or music.

If you are born knowing them, fine.

If not, learn them.

Then rearrange the rules

to suit yourself.

-Truman Capote

The difference between

the almost right word

and the right word

is really a large matter.

‘Tis the difference

between the lightning bug

and the lightning.

-Mark Twain

For we are God’s workmanship

created in Christ Jesus

to do good works,

which God prepared in

advance for us to do.

-Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

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INTRODUCTION

I’ve been a book nerd from the time I learned to read. As an introverted child, books were my best friends. I discovered the power of the written word when I read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White in the fourth or fifth grade. Until I burst into sobs when Charlotte died and her babies crawled out of their spidery sack, I had never felt the power of a story. I hated spiders and there I was blubbering uncontrollably over the death of one in a book! After that I was forever searching for the next book that would send me into a new world of emotional wonderment.

As I continued through school, I discovered the joy in writing my own tales. English class was the best part of my day, especially when we were given writing assignments. My shy little self enjoyed surprising teachers with the amount of verbiage lurking in my head. As long as I didn’t have to speak all those words I was blissfully happy.

In adulthood I’ve taken whatever opportunities have come my way to write, most of them in church and for poetry contests sponsored by state poetry societies. When Pastor Tim put out the call for people to write for the church newsletter back in 1999, I volunteered. I asked him what he wanted me to write. He said, Anything you want. So that’s what I did! Desperately Doodling Debbie was a column in the church newsletter for seven years. During that time my three daughters grew from ages 15, 11 and 6 to 22, 18 and 13, so most of my writings were about the joys and agonies of parenting. I was working as a secretary for the first couple of years, then moved on to nannying newborn triplets until they were 5-year-olds, so some of that is covered as well.

My grandest dream, other than being a wife and mother, has been to be a published author. KaChing!!

It All Began with a Tightly Wound Christian

April 2000

You may be wondering why in the world this bit of oddness is cluttering up your beloved newsletter. Well, it’s simple. Our pastor put out a call for columnists for this new and improved publication, and I, being the tightly wound Christian that I am, said yes! Another opportunity to drive myself insane!

Those of you who are of the same tight persuasion know what I mean. It’s just hard to say no sometimes. Especially when there’s an element of spirituality to the assignment. And those of us who are tight can find a spiritual significance to just about anything, even nervous breakdowns. (It is so comforting to know we have given our all for the cause of Christ.)

Since we’ve adopted the theme of Yes to God! this year, you may be wondering why I’m not being more encouraging about the Yes! thing. Actually I am, in my own convoluted way. The key is to be sure you are saying yes to God, not to the pastor or to a desperate VBS director (although she is praying fervently that God will ask you to volunteer), and certainly not to your own uptight sense of spiritual duty. God has a place for each of us to minister in our church and community. Just be ready with the right answer when He calls.

Here’s a promise from God for all of us—for the tight as well as for the loose as a goose. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9 NIV).

And for the tight (and those near and dear to them) a special word from me: watch out for the rebound effect when the elastic snaps!

For the Entangled Christian

May 2000

Yes, dear readers, it’s time again for your monthly dose of Doodledom. This episode finds me thrashing about in the briar patch with Br’er Rabbit. The only problem is I’m not a rabbit! The more I try to pull myself out of the thorny mesh, the more entangled I become. God calls this being choked by the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth (Matthew 13:22 NIV). I’m not too sure the deceitfulness of wealth has much to do with my problem, but I certainly spend a lot of time yanking at the throttlehold that the worries of this life have on me.

As we learned in last month’s column, I’m a tightly wound kind of gal. Everything seems of earth-shattering importance to me, even the daily household chores,