Write Your Way Up; Grudges Can Keep Us Sane

I was just thinking about how I’ve never been the kind of writer that teachers love, and that still kind of continues today. I’ve never been a children’s book writer darling of the awesome teachers and librarians out there.

I mean, even growing up, I was not the writer that teachers praised. I was the writer that the other kids thought was funny.

Except for one teacher, but he didn’t happen until high school.

I still became a writer.

When I was in middle school, we had these Author of the Month contests. Every month, we’d read our stories in front of the class, and there would be two Authors of the Month.

One would be the teacher’s choice. That was Kathy A. It was Kathy A. pretty much every single month. The other author of the month would be the kids’ choice.

That would be me.

Even before fifth grade, I wanted to be Kathy.

She had a house with two floors. Our house had one and it was sort of tilted.

She had two parents. I had one at a time. Sometimes two, but then he died.

She had a mom who made Swedish meatballs and was a nurse and then an actual librarian and she did arts and crafts and took me to Pioneer Girls at the Calvary Baptist Church every Friday and this is where I would hope really hard that Jesus had come into my heart finally.

We’d sit around in a circle, close our eyes and silently ask Jesus into our heart. We’d raise our hands if we wanted help. I was really concerned about Jesus coming into my heart and forgetting to close the door behind him and all the blood rushing out of my heart and into my chest, which is probably what a heart attack was maybe.

Maybe?

I didn’t know, but I also didn’t ask for help because that seemed scary.

But I would always silently ask, “Dear Jesus. If you are not in my heart already, could you please come in and also could you please shut the door behind you?”

I figured that it was a good idea to be polite to Jesus.

Then I’d ask Jesus to come into my mom’s heart, too, because everyone seemed to think she was…