The Best Prizes Aren’t Found on a Stage

Dear Reader:

Like most people growing up I would dream about what it must feel like to win a National or international award or prize.

Every year I watched them come and go… getting no closer to that coveted dream in my imagination. Like the Pulitzer, Heisman, Oscars, or Nobel Prize.

Then last year I watched the sun filtering through my largest moonflower to date and I suddenly realized I had won a prize for bringing beauty to this earth-with the sun rising -the brilliant moonflower’s time was almost up but wow was it going out in all its glory!

Now it is time to plant the seeds again … opening up new possibilities for more prized moonflower surprises!

This got me thinking… don’t we all get our fair share of God’s coveted prizes in the simple pleasures of everyday life? We all certainly qualify for life’s small pleasures by being children of God.

Archibald Rutledge defined it as ” Life’s Extras. ” Rutledge observes … Creation supplies with only two kinds of things: necessities and extras.

Sunlight, air, water, food, shelter-these are among the bare necessities-with them we can exist.

But moonlight and starlight are distinctly extras; so are music, the perfumes, and flowers. The wind is perhaps a necessity but the song it croons through the morning pines is a different thing.

I decided to recognize many of the tiny delights in my life-extras that far surpass a cold trophy!

Winter fireplaces, my recliner with a book and heating lap blanket, births of my grandchildren-especially Jake’s since it landed on my birthday, the rare snowstorm when Eloise was born, full moons and sunrises/sunsets, Saint Jude’s Chapel of Hope, YaYa retreat on Edisto, friends-past and present… flower gifts from friends

The list is endless-God is so good to us! Let me share a few photos of my favorites

So until tomorrow…

Remember yesterday when I showed you my two containers of hostas that wintered in the woods… how beautiful they were? Look what I discovered yesterday morning…

A ” wacky wabbit” ate my hostas! Talk about losses!

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

About Becky Dingle

I was born a Tarheel but ended up a Sandlapper. My grandparents were cotton farmers in Laurens, South Carolina and it was in my grandmother’s house that my love of storytelling began beside an old Franklin stove. When I graduated from Laurens High School, I attended Erskine College (Due West of what?) and would later get my Masters Degree in Education/Social Studies from Charleston Southern. I am presently an adjunct professor/clinical supervisor at CSU and have also taught at the College of Charleston. For 28 years I taught Social Studies through storytelling. My philosophy matched Rudyard Kipling’s quote: “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” Today I still spread this message through workshops and presentations throughout the state. The secret of success in teaching social studies is always in the story. I want to keep learning and being surprised by life…it is the greatest teacher. Like Kermit said, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”

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