Rebecca H. Cooper's Blog, page 7

Let the children come

Our little church hosted Vacation Bible School last week. I hope you have warm memories of VBS fromyour childhood. We had that perfect weather (thanks God :) and wonderful children. Fully 40% of ourSunday church attendees contributed in some physical way to the success of the week and I’m betting ifyou count the prayers, it’s a hundred.Another home run was the program itself. During each day of our five day run, a daily lesson wastaught. When I tell you the themes, I can quit writing because,

Heroes among us

There was terrible news in a neighboring county last week when a Blue Angels pilot crashed while practicing for an upcoming air show at the local base. By all accounts, he died a hero, using his precious last few seconds to pilot his jet away from a residential area instead of using that time to eject safely. He was a young man and left behind a young wife and children and, undoubtedly, many other family members and hosts of friends. I know they will forever mourn his death and celebrate his

Bowling for birthdays, old bones and bygones

It was important recently to show a couple of teenagers a thing or two about bowling. At least that was my shtick as the three of us got a birthday celebration underway. The atmosphere was fun even though each of us saw the gutter six times during our initial three frames! Over the full three games, I think I bowled my age once, a tad over once, and half my age another time. If I could have changed the score card to a golf one, I would have been in business. Of course that would be problematic

Turning toward

June makes us think of young love and weddings. But I’ve recently been fortunate enough to spend some extra up close time with happily married couples in my not-so-young age group, and I can tell you old love can do just fine. As much as I miss having a partner, it thrills me to see others happy with theirs. There’s something incredible about a man who LOVES his wife and vice versa. Being privy to the interactions, both the mundane and the out of the ordinary, is truly a gift.  Thoughts of these

May days

May is always a full month for both my head and my heart. It houses my sweet mother’s birthday, Memorial Day which honors my veteran dad, and our anniversary. Those three markers, which occur within four days of each other, could be killer dates and could make me want to wipe May off the calendar map. But they don’t because May is also the blessed month of something else. It holds another birthday, that of our first grandchild, who is named after my mother, and who is a reminder of the good that

Payback sorta is

I did an interview this week with Lighthouse Media. One of the questions that the interviewer asked was if I could share something personal, something funny about Charles. I willingly threw my husband under the bus and, and even though it’s already outed in a conversation in “Hey, God? Yes, Charles.”, I reminded the world about his reputation for losing things – glasses, umbrellas, gloves, anything really.  As I told the interviewer, one of the best examples was when he was shopping for a new

An Elvis sighting

Elvis came back in the building Saturday night. A dear friend threw herself a 70th birthday party, and she did it by taking us back to the 50's. A wop bom a loo bop a lomp bam boom! In addition to Elvis himself, there were soda jerks and milkshakes and hula hoops and vintage cars. Poodle skirts and bobby socks were in abundance, along with the greasers and the bad boys. The music never stopped and neither did the bop, the rock, and the stroll. But the best thing were the guests. Making

A safe place

If you’ve read “Hey, God? Yes, Charles.”, you know that I became a vegetarian years ago. Over time, I also learned to check labels to see if products were tested on animals and, if at all possible, to avoid those items. Once, Charles and I were traveling (he was working; I was playing!) and, since it was a business trip and travel expenses were covered, I thought I might splurge at the hotel spa one morning. I called that desk and I guess “Buffy” answered the phone. I explained that I didn’t spa

Act II

Closure? Really? Is that always a requirement for grief recovery? I love live theater, on both sides of the stage. If you’ve ever worked backstage, you know that, once the curtain opens for a live performance, the stage manager runs the show. And if you’ve ever been a stage manager, you know that every performance is different – both on stage and behind the scenes. One of my fondest memories is stage managing a sweet play in a beautiful, historic structure that was being rescued and renovated to

Apologies unnecessary

More than once, a reader has told me almost apologetically how he or she is sharing instead of buying a copy of “Hey, God? Yes, Charles.”. Thank you, but, with a nod to my publisher :), I promise you I don’t care about books SOLD.  Sales are, in fact, just fine, but even if they weren’t, what matters to me are books READ, and the opportunity for a reader to benefit from that reading. And I’m learning lots of ways that books are being shared. They’re neat really, through book clubs or Bible