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    Faces
    Faces
    Faces
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    Faces

    By Donna David

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    About this ebook

    Do you feel as if life is moving too fast?

    Have you ever felt flustered, fearful, like a fool?

    Perhaps you want to live frivolously or struggle with forgiving someone. You are not alone.

    The faces we wear in public may make others think we have it all together. But in reality, most of us are simply trying to make sense of the complex, sometimes confusing, and strangely wonderful moments of our lives.

    Open this book and find a word that you are drawn toand read one of the reflections. You might discover how your own experiences have lifted you to new places and expanded your view of yourself and the world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateSep 21, 2012
    ISBN9781449762858
    Faces
    Author

    Donna David

    Donna David grew up in the West Midlands in a house full of noisy siblings, fun parents, mad aunties and maggots (her dad is a fisherman). She’d often be found reading by torchlight way after bedtime and this love of reading has never left her. Donna has a degree in English from Loughborough University and currently works as an English coach at the local secondary school. She is the author of Trains Trains Trains! and Farmer Llama, published by Macmillan Children's Books.

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      Book preview

      Faces - Donna David

      Copyright © 2013 Donna David

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1-(866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Author photo courtesy of Lizabeth Photography.

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-6286-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-6287-2 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4497-6285-8 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012914287

      WestBow Press rev. date: 01/16/2013

      Contents

      Faces

      Facts

      Faith

      Faithfulness

      Fake

      Family

      Fan

      Fast

      Fathers

      Faulty

      Favor

      Fear

      Feast

      Feelings

      Females

      Fender-bender

      Fierce

      Find

      Fine

      Fingertips

      First

      Fish

      Fit

      Five

      Flair

      Flawed

      Flock

      Flourish

      Flow

      Flustered

      Flyer

      Focus

      Follow

      Fool

      Footing

      Foreign

      Foresee

      Forever

      Forget

      Forgiveness

      Fortitude

      Forward

      Foundation

      Fountain

      Four

      Fracture

      Fragment

      Fragrant

      Free

      Fresh

      Fret

      Friendship

      Fringe

      Frivolous

      From

      Frontier

      Fruit Cocktail

      Frustrated

      Fun

      Fundamental

      Funeral

      Funk

      Furnishings

      Future

      Faces

      Appendix

      40976.jpg

      To my family, seeing your faces always makes me smile.

      41205.jpg

      Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

      1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)

      Faces

      41324.jpg

      As I turned around, sat down, and brought the guitar to my lap, I saw them.

      Their faces, blank faces, all staring back at me. I tried to look away. Glance around the room. Look at anything, at everything, except their faces.

      Who could blame me? After all, it wasn’t easy to see them there in that place. A place filled with musty smells, the faint odor of urine, and an aura of death.

      I thought back to the drive there with my mom. The twenty minutes spent spouting off to her about how unfair it was that she signed me up for this. The terrible, ugly words I had spoken.

      And rather than explain or rebut or calm down me down, she returned to me silence. She allowed her fifteen-year-old daughter to vent. She trusted that she had made the right decision to bring me here.

      As I strummed the first chords and began singing, I struggled with the words. Something was blocking the flow of the song. I kept my head down and focused on the door, my escape route.

      But somewhere in the second verse, something changed. My eyes were drawn to a face. The first face that I truly saw, whose eyes met with mine.

      It was a woman, a little, round lady with unkempt hair. She wore a faded lavender dress with some buttons missing.

      She had her hands, her wrinkly, crippled hands, held high above her head. Her face was lit up with a radiance I had never seen before. She couldn’t move her legs. They were strapped to her wheelchair. But oh, her hands were waving.

      She looked into my eyes and smiled. Not a faint smile. A smile so full of joy I couldn’t look away.

      As I continued to strum, I allowed myself to look further around the room. Really look. And I finally saw each face. All the individual faces turned in my direction.

      I saw a man bring his handkerchief to the corners of his damp eyes. I saw a woman holding her Bible tight and singing along. I saw my mother in the back of the room, watching.

      In that moment, I realized the reason she brought me here. It wasn’t to take me away from my friends on a nonschool day that could have been reserved for fun. It wasn’t to entertain some old people.

      It was to change me. To change my heart. To help me understand that I had been given an opportunity to use my God-given gifts to bring joy to other people, even if only for the time it takes to play a couple of songs. That it was me, in fact, who was blessed to be here.

      Tears streamed down my face, and I couldn’t stop them. The experience broke my pride, battled my selfishness. I kept singing. I kept singing because I saw the faces. And I finally knew they were the faces of God.

      Questions for reflection:

      1.   When have you found yourself in a situation that you were not happy to be in?

      2.   How did you fight it or run from it?

      3.   How did you change as a result of the experience?

      Facts

      41326.jpg

      I was interested in knowing the facts about married life. That’s why I listened in on a conversation my older brother was having with my parents.

      I was in my teens, and at the time, marriage was simply a dream of a white wedding dress and a knight in a shining armor who would carry me off to live happily ever after.

      My brother was asking my parents how many years of their marriage had been happy ones. I waited as my mother took a deep breath and smiled.

      Oh, I would guess about a third of them.

      I suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yet I waited to hear her explanation.

      She went on to say, "Son, think about a time period of three days. Say that the first day he may do something that irritates you, say something that gets on your last nerve, express an opinion that is entirely different from yours, and you think to yourself, ‘Why, in heaven’s name did I marry that man?’

      "The second day, the two of you are like ships passing in the night. You are so busy, you hardly glance at each other except to ask, ‘Did you stop and get the mail?’ or ‘Are you picking up Johnny from school today, or should I?’

      And then the third day, you look at your husband and think he is handsome, he is smart. He may have done something sweet that day to make your heart spin, and you remember that you are lucky to have a man like him.

      My father nodded in agreement and smirked.

      At the time, I was rather annoyed and disappointed in my parents. Surely they were mistaken. They just didn’t understand what marriage could be all about. They hadn’t read the right books. They hadn’t taken the right classes.

      It was only later, when I had been married many years myself, that I truly understood what a gift I had been given at that age to hear a realistic view of marriage instead of a fairy tale. My parents’ version of marriage was right on target.

      Yes, I had premarital classes and read the books assigned. But remembering the truth of what my mother said has helped keep my husband and me together for twenty-five years. (As for my parents, they just celebrated their sixtieth anniversary.)

      The fact is we don’t live happily ever after. Happiness in marriage—or any relationship, for that matter—is fleeting.

      You just have to remember that the third day is on the horizon. Hang in there through the first two, like the Israelites in Jesus’ day. The third day takes you by surprise, but it is always well worth the wait.

      That’s the facts.

      Questions for reflection:

      1.   Do you think the 1/2/3 model is a valid picture of marriage? Why or why not?

      2.   What kind of picture do you think our culture, our movies, and our magazines provide about marriage?

      3.   Who do you know who might have unrealistic expectations about marriage? What can you do to encourage them to understand the facts?

      Faith

      41328.jpg

      There are times I have felt like my life was at a standstill. Doors seemed to be closing, opportunities fading and I was caught in a cycle

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