“Snatched Minutes”

I love to read.

Words come easy for me. Sometimes writing them. Always reading them.

I started young.

My Granny Carlisle held school for me and my cousins before we were old enough for Kindergarten. I can recall, but just barely, sitting around her kitchen table completing workbooks. One day when I was 4 years old my mom arrived to take me home, and Granny told her I was reading.

“She’s not reading,” Mom said. “She has that memorized.”

“She is reading,” Granny insisted.

I was, as Bernard Malamud might say, a “Natural.”

My proficiency for words grew as I did. When I was in the first grade (Mrs. Bellamy’s class), I joined a third-grade room (Mrs. Gaston’s class) for reading.

Saturdays and summer days included trips to the Wylam Public Library. I sat on a stool or in the floor and ran my fingers along the spines of books arranged meticulously and alphabetically by author, carefully choosing which stories I wanted to take home.

I borrowed every Bobbsey Twins book on the shelves. Other favorites included anything by Judy Blume (Freckle Juice!) or Beverly Cleary. I checked out the stories of Ramona and Beezus regularly. I had my own copy of Runaway Ralph.

My personal library also included Sweet Valley Twins and The Babysitters Club series. Those paperbacks still take up a shelf on a bookcase at my childhood home.

I was a ravenous reader in high school, carrying a book for pleasure on top of my textbooks. (The Natural by Bernard Malamud was one. Naturally.) I would bury my head in the pages until the teacher began class.

My guilty pleasure growing up was to tuck a book under my pillow at bedtime. As soon as mom and daddy went to bed (directly across the hallway from my room) I retrieved it and read into the night. If I heard one of them stir, I would slip the book back into its hiding place and pretend to be asleep.

The lamp in my room, a bright red decoration shaped to look like a pencil, stayed on all night even throughout my teenage years. I was never afraid of the dark. I just wanted to read.

I still do.

The bottom drawer of my nightstand is filled with books. I do not have to hide them under my pillow anymore or covertly read by nightlight.

Lately, my reading has felt like a retreat to my childhood. The stories I have read most recently are written for elementary readers, as I share my favorite pastime with my daughters.

Abby Kate and I are working her way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Lily devoured the Harry Potter books in 2^nd grade and is now sampling new series. She and I have sailed with Peter and the Starcatchers (we are continuing this adventure into book two) and slipped into Ballet Shoes with Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil.

Ballet Shoes is my inspiration for this writing.

In the book, the Fossil girls are discovering their talents, or in Petrova’s case, lack thereof, on the stage. To acquire paid roles so they can help support their household, Pauline and Petrova plot to write a letter asking to be hired for a production of Shakespeare’s Richard the Third.

Time is scarce between their academic and extra-curricular lessons but recognizing a critical need for money, the girls determine to deliver their written request.

Author Noel Streatfeild writes:

“The letter which they finally took to the theater next day was the result of snatched minutes.”

Snatched minutes.

The words stung as I read them.

They are, unfortunately, my story.

Meetings. Laundry. Phone calls. Meals. Appointments. Errands. They add up to a never-ending story. I never liked that movie. Perhaps I should read the book.

Snatched minutes are how the Fossil girls produced a letter. They are how I produce life, or at least a semblance of it. But snatched minutes leave me tired, frustrated, and unfulfilled.

That is not the life God planned for me. Or for you.

Jesus assures us that He came so that we “may have life and have it in abundance.”

Google returned nearly 23,000,000 results related to that Bible verse. So, I went to a different source.

My daddy hinted at the key to an abundant life in a letter he wrote to me, postmarked November 3,1998:

            “Hope that you are using all of your potential in your seeking to achieve your goals. Usually what is left behind or not use does nobody any good. So be happy – enjoy everyday – be satisfied with what progress you have made and prepare yourself for what tomorrow may bring.”

He wrote similar words in a separate, undated letter:

            “You have a talent that can put you in places to Glorify God and give you Peace in your life if you would just apply yourself to the challenges that are before you. When in doubt, PRAY, and then wait on God to lead you.”

I found those two letters two years ago. I set them aside from the others he wrote, believing one day his words would help me step into the potential he was talking about.

I have struggled to manage my snatched minutes. They are inevitable, at least for now, to get things done in between the necessary and frivolous demands of two kids.

But the pursuit of my potential, even into snatched minutes late at night, does not leave me frustrated or unfulfilled. I’m still tired, but I’m satisfied.

I believe God put my daddy’s words in front of me again this week to give me renewed perspective.

An abundant life is not about what I have. It is about who I am becoming, and I am called to become like Christ.

I am not a “Natural” at that. But studying daddy’s letters and Jesus’ words are getting me in the game.

It’s a good thing I love to read.

“… I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance.”

(John 10:10)