I have just finished writing a speech I’m going to give at the Ozark Christian College annual Preaching/Teaching Convention this week. I look forward to giving it.

This is in direct contrast to the first speeches I gave when I started teaching thirty years ago.

I distinctly remember the prayer I prayed every time I left the house to give a speech that first spring. It began “Dear Father” and closed “In Jesus’ name.“ In between I put my head down on the bed I knelt beside and sobbed.

Then I got up, fixed my makeup, and walked out of the house to do what God had called or at least allowed me to do. Scared? You have no idea. But I was able to do it—for one reason, and one reason only.

Our VBS one year centered around the theme, “Animals of the Kingdom.“ Thus, the children, 2 years old up through the sixth grade, came to a classroom or area to listen to a story teller, that is animal, tell about a very significant event.

I remember when the director came to me more than six months before with a list of animals to choose from. I scanned the list, intrigued to find a whale, a raven, a cow, a snake, and a rooster among the animals to chose from. Then I saw it, the animal that made me glad the dear woman had assumed I would be one of the storytellers.