Blogmas 2016 – Returning The 12 Days

Day 10

Most of my life I was known for my bad aim and clumsiness. I was lousy at most sports, couldn’t play pool or darts very well, and don’t even mention baseball. I did make the basketball team but it wasn’t for my scoring abilities – I was tall and ambidextrous so very good for jump balls. I believe all of this was related to my low self-esteem and depression.

My hubby and I joined the drama ministry at our church though we were both there mainly behind the scenes doing tech. I also directed a couple of plays. One year our group was planning something for the Christmas banquet and we came up with a short play about a guy who wants to return the 12 days of Christmas.

It was an awesome little skit that was hilarious. We started it with me playing an angry shopper trying to return something and Hubby played, well, my Hubby, who was desperately trying to calm me down and get me out of there. As we finished, I went stage right to wait for a few cues I had for props and he went down to the soundboard at the back. The skit went on with this poor man showing five golden rings and stating the rest was in the parking lot. A guy in a piper’s costume comes from stage right yelling that somebody better do something because it is chaos back there. This is my cue to throw bird feathers in the air and a plastic pear that is to hit the piper.

No matter how many times I practiced that I could not hit him anywhere on his body. We finally gave up and I was just to through the pear in that general direction. It wasn’t as effective, but the best I could do. As usual, I was pretty disgusted with myself that I couldn’t do something so easy.

When it came time to actually do it at the banquet, I was quite surprised at how nervous I was. I had been in several school productions and this was such a little part, but I had butterflies. Our little opening went fine and I got back to my post. The scene continued and the “piper” went out to say his line. I was a little distracted and realized I was supposed to throw my props.

I threw the feathers up in the air, barely getting them out far enough for people to see and I just randomly threw the pear without really looking. Just like you see in movies and TV where someone you don’t expect to hit the winning run knocks it out of the park, that pear hit the piper square in the back of the head. Of course, he wasn’t expecting it so apparently his expression was priceless!

The director looked over at me and gave me a huge thumbs up while I pointed toward heaven. I fully believed that God aimed the pear because I sure didn’t.

It seems that this is the norm in my life. If I try too hard on my own I don’t get anywhere. But if I leave things in God’s hands they go the way they are supposed to (whether or not that is the way I want them to go). Also since giving control to Him, I have found more self-confidence and I am not as clumsy or bad at aiming.

When the banquet was over, the mother of the young guy who played the piper came over to me and said “thanks for hitting my son over the head, he has needed it for a long time.” I laughed and said, “I wasn’t me, it must have been God, I have terrible aim”.

Lydia!