ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

Today I am going to write about endings and beginnings. I am an Oprah fan and have been glued to my TV at 4:0o PM each afternoon since she announced her retirement from daytime television. Yesterday, was the end of her show as we know it. I was delighted at the dignified, professional way that she ended 25 years of interviewing and teaching (as she called it) about life and how to live it without letting it get you down and making you feel like a failure. Sometimes in my life I have felt like a failure. I did not know how to be a wife when I married. I did not know how to be a mother when I had my first child or, for that matter, any of them. Each day was a learning experience for me. Some days I passed the test and some days I failed. Be that as it may, the days of raising children came to an end and the new beginning was the grandchildren and now the great-grandchildren. One thing that Oprah taught me along this line is that you never quit learning and you can always help someone else that is beginning where I have ended.

Well, on the subject of TV endings and beginnings - I was a fanatical watcher of Dancing With the Stars. My choice came in second but I had a soft spot in my heart for the man that won and I am happy that the show ended on a happy note. I hope that the people that participated on that show learned a lot and as their part ended they went on to a new beginning with wherever their life takes them. The same thing is true of American Idol which was another TV show I became quite enamored with. I loved the young man that won and I was so happy to see him with the title of American Idol last night as the show ended. His life will be changed from now on and his new beginning will include lots of singing, recording, entertaining and, hopefully, making lots of money.

I was invited by my daughter, Corinne, to accompany her to Dyersburg, TN to my granddaughter's home to attend the Kindergarten Graduation of my great-grandson, Connor Cline Pigg. We arrived there and had a nice visit, a delicious supper and then left in a flurry of gathering up the other two boys and their shoes and things and hopping in the car for the ride to the school where Connor attends, Christ Classical Academy. The program was delightful. The children in caps and gowns marched in to the playing of Pomp and Circumstance and each one had something to say - a Bible verse or telling their favorite part of Kindergarten. They sang their class song which was Trust and Obey and that, I thought, was so special. Each child walked across the stage to receive their diploma, pause for a picture with their teacher and then another picture as they moved the gold tassel to the other side of their cap. Connor did everything that he had been prompted to do with much seriousness and determination. Oh my goodness, what a beautiful, special, precious child he is. After he, with great patience, allowed his picture to be taken many times we went home where my granddaughter, Leslie, had prepared a beautiful celebration table of balloons, pictures, cookies and cup cakes with Connor's school colors and the initials of the school. She also had made little roll up sandwiches to look like a diploma plus strawberries stuffed with a cream cheese filling and topped to look like a mortar board. Connor graciously received his gifts and expressed his appreciation and the party was over. He had ended his life as a little boy student and will begin in the fall to be a part of the real school world as he grows up very fast, completing each grade. I do hope that I am able to celebrate his graduation party when he ends his schooling before beginning his higher education life. You see when one door closes another one truly opens.

There will always be endings and there will always be beginnings because this is the plan that God has set in motion from the time of our birth. Sometimes we have to search for our new beginnings because we did not plan the endings but we will always find our way because we know that God is good - all the time.