If you’re a baby boomer, you’ll remember The Byrds. If you’re a Bible-reading Christian, you’ll remember Ecclesiastes 3. What a comparison, heh? I sorta worried about copyright infringement when I thought about using this particular set of words, and then I realized, I’m not infringing on God. He had the words first before He handed them down to the Psalmist, who then allowed songwriter Pete Seeger to use the words for a song he wrote using God’s Word in 1958ish…who eventually worked its way to The Byrds, who recorded it in the 60s and had millions of folks hear it. Can we see just how God uses odds and ends to spread His Word? That said, copyright infringement went out the door since God allows us to share HIS words freely. So, read the words of the Psalmist from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV):

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build, a to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

I guess you wonder why, by this time, I had you read that. It’s not unusual for me to chuckle when I read Ecclesiastes 3. It’s easy to chuckle over. I mean, when the book opens, the Psalmist is whining, “Meaningless, meaningless…” I’ve often teased that the writer needed a stiff dose of Prozac. How depressing can you be?

BUT, then I studied Ecclesiastes. I mean…really studied it, and I learned something meaningFUL. That there is nothing worth a flip without Christ. Wow. (slap to the forehead). Truth be known, I already knew that, but I never really understood what the Psalmist was getting at.

Through the years, theologians have debated who actually penned the book of Ecclesiastes. I just wanted to know who came up with the spelling of Ecclesiastes? But I digress. Many give credit to King Solomon, while others say it was probably written by a teacher of the time. I’m not sure it really matters in the greater scheme of things since we know all scripture is God-breathed. Anywho, let’s face it. At first read, Ecclesiastes comes across as sadly depressing and hopeless.

You know me. I’m always looking for the life lessons that God is giving me and so, I suppose I need to be fully honest here. It’s been a rough five years. I mean, Tim ended up with cancer, then with surgery and gifted doctors, he was healed. Covid hit, life came to a screeching halt. I retired in 2020 after 21 years in the eldercare business with not one but three dear, dear people I grew to love immensely. My writing career was taking root (that was a good thing), then the Prince decided he might ought to look death in the face not once but twice more —because, even if they can fix cancer by some chance, the trade-off can often be equally as harsh. Even with good things sprinkled into the hard, I found myself slipping into a crisis of faith. Now, don’t panic, I never decided I didn’t believe. Heavenly day, NO! But, I did find myself searching, trying to understand exactly what God was doing in my life. And when I couldn’t figure it out, I began to see what the Psalmist of Ecclesiastes was getting at. It all seemed meaningless.

My prayers became simpler—“God, help me understand this confusion.” And through that prayer, God began to work a greater thing in me. We know that His timing is nothing like we think it should be, but it is most certainly perfect. Even if I wished it would have hurried along. Five years is a long time and well…I’m still seeking. Though I’ve learned that seeking is exactly the right place God prefers I be.

Still, me being me, I asked continually, what, when, why and where? And God, whispered, “Wait.”

Aarrggh. Who likes to wait? Since I don’t have the ability to skirt through time like God, my only choice was to do just that—wait.

God taught me a few pretty good life lessons. Things that I could drop into a novel that would hopefully help others see His way is best, even when it’s hard. But like I said, I’m still seeking Him, still learning, still trying to figure out what His plan is for me.

That said, sleep comes and goes. Sometimes I sleep in my bed, and other times, I pace the hallway, eventually ending up on the couch. If you aren’t one who doesn’t miss sleep, then you need to know that when you don’t sleep, you get tired. When you’re tired, you get sluggish. When you get sluggish, you get frustrated. And when you get frustrated, you get a teensy bit cranky. I’ve been all those over the last five years. No pun intended, but I’m tired of being tired. I want to go to bed and sleep a full seven hours. Oh, my. Rabbit trail.

Okay, back to the point and the life lesson. I’m still waiting for it. (You thought there’d be a quick answer, didn’t you? Welcome to my world.)

So, on to the next kick in the shins. I don’t know if you’re an animal lover, but I am. Always have been, and I suppose, I always will be. After 18 years working as a vet technician, asthma shoved me out the clinic door, never to return again to the one job I really loved.

Anyway, our pets began growing old, and with age comes illness, and then loss. Though I was brokenhearted when our pets died, I could live with it because, well…it’s the circle of life. Our family was down to two pets: our Yorkie mix, Daisy, who was 9, and our cat, Dobby, who was 10.

On March 20, 2026, the Prince let Daisy outside in our back yard. Now, our yard is fenced solely to keep our pets safe. When we moved into this house 40 years ago, our boys were 3 and 4 years old. We immediately fenced the yard to not only protect our pets but to put a barrier up that would offer some protection to little boys who loved to romp and play outside. Daisy was outside for maybe five minutes when Chase hollered and told Tim, “Something’s going on outside.” Chase opened the door, and Daisy hobbled in. Tim looked at her and yelled, “I think she’s injured.” That kicked me into action. When I knelt down to her kennel, blood poured from her mouth. She was blue and gasping. We rushed her to the closest vet, but to no avail. Daisy died.

Now, I said earlier, our pets were older and losing them to age and illness is, though hard, a bit easier than what happened on March 20. A Pitt Bull yanked its owner down, broke her glasses, and scratched her up, but that tank of an animal plowed under our chain link fence and in one snap, crushed Daisy’s lungs.

I wasn’t good with loosing Daisy like that. In fact, a week and three days later, I still can’t get the picture out of my head. Where’s the life lesson, God? I’m waiting. And honestly, I’ll continue to wait because this was senseless.

I don’t want mail about how Pitts are horrible and that you hope the owners are sued. Stop before you start, because these owners were good pet owners. The dog was never turned out to roam the streets. It was always walked on a leash. This was a terrible accident.

I’ve always been of the school of thought that dogs are what their owners make them and I do still believe that, but there are some dogs that bear the burden of blood sport. They were bred to kill, and for every wonderful Pitty out there, I would say, you are fortunate that the switch has never been flipped to cause this instinct to kick in. I pray it never happens to you.

These owners surrendered that dog to animal control by their own choice, knowing that once that instinct kicked in, it would never UNflip. They paid our vet bill, too. We didn’t, and wouldn’t, have asked them to do what they did to try to make things as right as possible. Their actions were completely their own choice.

So, here, I think, is the life lesson. Gracious is the Lord, God Almighty. I think of the Nazirite blessing in Numbers 6:21-29 (NIV):

“The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face shine on you

    and be gracious to you;

 the Lord turn his face toward you

    and give you peace.”

It’s hard to be gracious when you hurt, suffer loss, even grow angry. Gracious is something God shows us peons all the time. Who are we to be anything other than this?

My heart is broken. But so is the heart of the family who also lost their pet. This was a lose-lose situation. It was a terrible accident. And yet, through our loss of the sweetest little pup friend in the world, God continues to whisper, “Be gracious for you had her for a time and the time she was yours, she brought you joy. She brought you healing.” And then I saw it.

The life lesson. The one that showed me, just how God got inside our lives and slogged through our muddy mess to give us a symbol of His unconditional love. He allowed us to see through Daisy, faithfulness, laughter, comfort, and deep abiding love. And now, through her loss, we are learning to be gracious.

I have a hard time talking about little Daisy right now. Writing, this gift from God, allows me to pen the sadness. I wrapped my arms around the owner, and we both cried. Graciousness has many meanings—compassion, forgiveness, understanding, even kindness. This is a hard life lesson. One that’s gonna take a spell as we say in the mountains.

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

    a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

    a to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance…

How do you say thank you to a companion, a friend, a pet who has loved you like only God can love you? I can only agree with Billy Graham who said:

“God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.” 

This is what I think too.

To Daisy – May the grass smell its sweetest, and the breeze brush your fur in the gentlest of ways as you play in the green fields of heaven. We will always love you. May your soul rest sweetly in the arms of the Creator and King of Kings. I feel sure when He pats your head, that you will hear the words we all hope to hear…

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

As you well know, if you read these posts at all. There is never a dull moment at the Sproles House. It’s fine. Those little hiccups make us laugh, and we all know laughter is the cure-all, as my Mamaw used to say. Well, actually, Mamaw used to say, “Might as well smile. You got the same ole dirty britches to glad in that you got mad in.” What a woman of wisdom. Perhaps that’s where I captured my dry sense of humor.

At any rate, calamity seems to be the norm here, so we just roll with it. My biggest laugh of the week was before Bible Study. It seems my Bible study ladies always get the “best” of my antics. Anywho, I had asked our sweet Administrative Assistant at the church if she would make copies for me. She agreed, so when I had everything laid out on the table for Bible Study, I headed to the elevator and the church office.

I pushed the button. The door opened, and I walked in. It closed, and I stood there. And stood there. And stood there before I realized…duhh, push the button. The darn thing won’t elevate if you don’t push the button.

It’s a good thing we don’t have cameras inside the elevator. They would have captured me, throwing my hands up, then lying my head against the door, laughing hysterically. (So embarrassing.) Like a champ, I pushed the button, and when I got off the elevator and went into the office, I took a Peter Pan stance.

“I think we need a new elevator. Can they add that to our building campaign?” Poor Ruth’s mouth dropped open.

“Is there something wrong with the elevator?”

“Oh, yeah! For sure. It can’t read my mind. I walked in and stood there for five minutes, and it never moved. It can’t read my mind.”

Well, we both had a good chuckle, and I had to wonder where my mind had gone since I rolled over the 65 mark and hit a few after that. I mean, seriously, my head used to work great. Somewhere along the line, God must have thought, “It’s Cindy. Let’s mess with her. It could be fun.” Okay, not really, but people blame Him for far worse. Let Him have a little fun, right?

I’m continually coming in contact with my aging conflicts. It’s like I went to bed a-okay one night and woke up the next morning, decrepit and in a time warp. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m in great health, but it’s those little things.

For example, I’ve dealt with a learning disability all my life. School was horrible for me. I hated it. Back in my day, there was no special education or Americans with Disabilities Act. There was no peer-tutoring or additional help. No additional time given for reading or test taking. You took a test and did what you could do, pass or fail. Thank goodness I managed to maintain a solid B average, but let me tell you. School was tough.

By the time I got to high school, I’d learned some workarounds that helped me. I had a few teachers I could go to privately and ask if I could come to class early to start the test. I was willing to sit by the teacher's desk. Some said yes, others said no.

Writing was always the place I could let my imagination fly. The disability wasn’t a problem. It didn’t matter what hit the page, just so it made some sort of sense. So, I did that. A lot. I had notebooks full of things I’d written. For the record, I was lousy at poetry. I tried. Really wanted to do it, but nope. However, I excelled at parody. I was the best at rewriting songs. I suppose that’s where my humor could shine. My head always seemed to function well in the writing world. To that end, I probably shouldn’t be able to write a novel, but God’s sneaky little way of proving me worthy allowed me the creativity and ability to pen a novel and to pen it with excellence.

There were friends I went to school with who always took first place. I was a consistent 2^nd place. If they made an A in English, I made a B. In the band, if my friend achieved first clarinet, I got second. In fact, in track, my coach nick-named me Consistently Second Cindy. Yet despite that title, he felt the need to assign me to the last leg of the mile relay. Why would you assign a consistently second-place person, the last leg, the supposedly fastest leg, of the mile relay? Maybe he saw potential. Or maybe he just wanted me to hold true to the name.

Our track team qualified for the regional finals in my senior year. Once again, the coach assigned me the last leg of the mile relay. We needed that race to break the tie we were in with another school. I wanted to throw up, but the coach grabbed me by the arm, slung me onto the track, and said, “Don’t you drop that baton. Oh, and run like hell!”

I got lucky to draw lane two on the inside, but right next to me was the girl who always made me SECOND PLACE. Allison.

Allison had it all. She was beautiful, a cheerleader, with long black hair that looked like a horse’s mane when she zipped past me (every single time). The thing was, she was super sweet off the track, but once she stepped on the track, the girl turned into a monster. Her goal was college track. Mine was simply survival. So, as we took our stance to wait on the oncoming runners, she flung her hair over her shoulder, winked, and blew a massive bubble. Double Bubble was the gum of choice in those days, and her mouth was loaded with a wad the size of my fist. (Okay, maybe not that big, but you get what I mean.)

Our third leg runners came in neck and neck, and I stepped off, getting a start, arm extended behind me, wishing that wad of gum Allison had in her mouth was in my palm to stick the baton tight. The coach’s words/threat, “Don’t drop the baton,” echoed in my head. My runner slapped the metal stick tight into my hand, and I took hold, then ran with all I had.

As usual, Allison breezed past me, hair flowing like some slow-motion movie actress running on a beach. I don’t know what it was about that night, but my head was playing the Hokey-Pokey song. Go figure. It couldn’t have been something like, “We are the Champions…” Oh, no, it was, “Do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around…” Who seriously thinks of that song in the midst of a mile relay? Apparently, me. Anyway, for some reason, there was no pressure on me. Even though I knew we needed to win this race, I was like, “Okee doakee. Do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around…”

We rounded the fourth turn, and into the home stretch, and when I glanced to my side, the coach was running like a wildman along the fence. “You got it, Cindy. You got it. Run your guts out.”

I remember smiling and thinking, “You put your right foot in. You put your right foot out.” And I do recall my chest aching for air. Who knows where I was, but when I came back into reality, I heard the coach screaming, “Lean. Lean.” So, I did. The next thing I knew, my teammates were yelling and slapping me on the back. I had to ask, “What’s the deal?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and Allison walked slowly off the track. Now, either she got cocky and overconfident, or God gave me wings on my feet. But for once in my life, Consistently Second Cindy, was first. It was the one and only time, but it was a sweet revenge.

There were friends who could write amazing, heartfelt poetry, and now, as adults, they have self-published their work. Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s a self-made success, but I chose not to self-publish. I turned to God and said, “Look, I have the ideas, but I don’t have the skill.” His response to me was, “Then learn. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit. Besides, I’ll walk the path with you.”

Ten years later, the girl with the learning disability’s first novel hit the stands. Traditionally published and available in bookstores across the country, the book is still in the top 25 of the publisher’s backlist. Not only did God walk with me through the process, but He also blessed the outcome. Who could ask for more?

I guess as my knees creak and crack and I get a little ditzy, it doesn’t change the fact that in God’s eyes, I’m still perfect. I do occasionally want to ask Him if He’s sure, but He continually reminds me that I am His daughter and every child is beautiful and perfect to their parents.

There’s something to be said for God’s gift of humor. I do think He thought it would be fun to make mine a little wacky, but then He introduced a few friends into my life who share that same odd sense of humor. So, life is good. Balanced.

The key to this aging thing is keeping a joyful attitude. It’s still telling silly jokes, still singing loud and off-key. It’s still standing in the elevator waiting for the thing to just telepathically read my mind and take me to the second floor. There are definitely a few good belly laughs in my antics for my Heavenly Father. I’m sure He enjoys my goofs as much as I enjoy my sons when they’re silly.

For those times when I grow frustrated because my joints ache or I forget what I walked into a room for, I know that my Abba Father walks with me. He probably turns the heating pad on during the night when I’m sleeping restlessly because of that knee. After all, we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. That means, despite our aging moments, we are all worthy. All accepted and adopted into His household. And isn’t that a wonderful thing?

As for my writing. Well, how blessed am I that God has gifted me with a strong talent, and how proud He must be when I use it to His glory. Oh, and about that win on the track that night. It was a fluke. To that, I press my fingers on my forehead, concentrate really hard, and say, “Elevator. Second Floor, please!” And then I wait.

Photo 1 – Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay ||  Photo 2 – Image by Kai Sender from Pixabay || Photo 3 – cindysproles.com  ||Photo 4 – Microsoft CoPilot AI  ||Photo 5 – cindysproles.com