Overrated Secrets

Secrets are overrated. This is how I know that is true!

The story goes that when I was a little girl, I helped Mother pick out new gloves for Daddy. Too excited to hold back but having been warned about not giving away the secret, I blurted out, “I not going to tell you what it is, but it sure will feel warm on your hands!” That has been a family joke ever since.

My Daddy worked shift work. We never had set times to celebrate the holidays. It may have been several days before or the day after. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were all together. Knowing that we would have to wait to open gifts until his day off work, Daddy sometimes asked, “Mama, don’t you think we need to open a present or two today?” Of course, we kids never argued about that! Sometimes, hints were given along the way to keep us guessing and anticipating the gifts. By the time our actual celebration arrived, usually only the biggest or most important gifts were left to be opened.

Those traditions were continued through our family’s growing years. One year, Stephanie wasn’t in school yet, so we figured the hint we gave was safe enough. Ronald said if she could read the word, she could have the gift early. She carefully sounded out, “Re-fr-ig-er-a-tor.” It took her a time or two before she replaced the hard g she had been saying with a soft g sound. She realized what her gift was, and Ronald realized he would have to become a little more clever in his hints.

These days, Ronald and I can’t keep secrets to save our lives! That is probably a good thing. If we tell things now, we’ll not be the only ones who know, and maybe someone else can remember better than we can!

We have been teased so much about not being able to keep secrets, we’ve come up with some cagey and inventive ways to give hints. Missy has learned our cunning tricks and recently told her daddy, “I’m not going to tell you what I got for you, but it rhymes with graves booded metflirt.” (We get very creative with our rhyming). Ronald is now sporting – you guessed it! A Braves hooded sweatshirt.

We are so silly.

I am dying to tell what I am giving for the New Year’s Day Object Lesson! They’ve already got or know most of their Christmas gifts.

Hah! I think I’ll play a trick on them! Since maybe one of the three girls faithfully reads my blogs, I’ll tell all y’all, then the one who reads this can say to the other two, “I know a secret!” and see how long it lasts!

But maybe I won’t worry about that for another week or two.

Maybe this is a Preaching Alert or maybe just a Thinking Alert.

As we look anew at the Christmas story, I realize that God didn’t keep secrets very well either! The Old Testament is teeming with prophecies about the arrival, life, and purpose of God Incarnate – Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Try to find as many prophecies as you can. See? It doesn’t hurt to know ahead of time – especially when Jesus was the best gift ever given to mankind!

Blessings

KB

Romans 6:23

The free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!!!