God's Precious GIft

I was invited to attend Phase II of Rutherford County's Writers' Academy. What an "ILLUMINATING" experience! Surrounded by amazing writers and teachers... we shared strategies, techniques and life stories. My piece, inspired by the book The Most Important Thing is a continuation about the women in my life.

The most important thing about my step-mom, Janice, is that she is God's precious gift to me.

Janice fills my soul with inspirational glimpses of her "hard-knock" lessons of life.

Her love for my dad was a swiftly flowing river, gently smoothing and reshaping the sharp edges and deep crevices of his hardened soul.

From that blessed day, when Janice and my dad "found love in the K-Mart parking lot", God's grandest plan was being revealed.

No one had an inkling that cancer was invading this most wonderful love story. Janice promised "... in sickness and health, in poverty or wealth, 'til death do us part..."

Promises she kept.

Seven years earlier, God took my gentle and kind mom form this earth. Three years later, my dad gave up his battle with cancer... independent, tough-skinned, stubborn... the characteristics I had learned to respect and cherish... gone.

Janice and Daddy's three year love story was to come to an abrupt halt when the nemesis took him away. However, God blessed me with this precious lady--independent, yet loving; tough-skinned, yet compassionate; stubborn, yet giving.

But the most important thing about my step-mom, Janice, is that she is God's precious gift to me.