Comment from jenintorre

Excellent

Hi there Deniz2
I really enjoyed reading this flash fiction. I found it very uplifting. I love your layout and artwork. I wish you lots of luck in the competition. Best wishes. Jen.

 Comment Written 07-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Thank you, although I can't take any credit for the artwork. Best whishes to you as well...unless of course you are a contestant in this contest! :)

Comment from barkingdog

Excellent

I would suspect that Granny knew you two had broken it.
But in the long run, I hope you guys had learned a lesson.

Nice homespun story. Very visual.

Good luck in the contest.

 Comment Written 07-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Thanks...although it is a fictional piece. May I say your pseudonym is a bit visual as well? :)

Comment from giraffmang

Excellent

Hi there,

Some may say this is an amazing stroke of luck, others may say providence... an accident, only the hands of the instigator know the truth... such is the way of the world.

Nice, funny little piece
GMG

 Comment Written 07-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

I say fiction, but of course, very GOOD fiction! :) Thanks for reviewing and may I say, I hope you are not in this contest? :) You're too good!

Comment from Janet Foor

Exceptional

I loved your story Dennis. I had a similar incident with my granddaughter who broke a figurine of mine. I knew her mama would punish her severely for breaking it so together we glued it back together and we didn't tell anyone

A few months ago, the granddaughter got married and I gave her a little aside gift of the figuring. A reminder of our secret and our bond.

Love does conquer.

Blessings
Janet

 Comment Written 06-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Wow! My story was fiction, but your true one is way above it. How sweet. Grandmothers and granddaughters share a special bond for sure. Thanks for reviewing and God bless you, Dennis

Comment from pbomar1115

Excellent

When a person grows to a certain level of maturity, they reflect on experiences. This one is a legitimate demonstration that most of us with a comparable experience can identify with as we continue to live. Good luck in the contest.

Phillip

 Comment Written 06-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Thank you very much for reading and commenting. Very much appreciated.

reply by pbomar1115 on 08-Sep-2018

You're welcome.

Comment from Hugh McDowell

Excellent

Great story. I have a brother who is a year younger than me and I could really relate to this. I can just see the two gluing the vase together. Love the last line that makes the reader use his/her imagination. For me, I think a Grandmom's love will overlook many things. Excellent. Hugh

 Comment Written 06-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Thank you, Hugh. One reviewer told of a similar story with her granddaughter where they glued a picture back together lest the mother find out and punish her daughter. Sweet! Grandmoms and granddaughters do seem to share a special bond.

Comment from Thomas Bowling

Excellent

Lightning really does strike twice. I guess you could say you boys had a lucky break. Your story is excellent. You will do well in the contest with this entry. Good luck.

 Comment Written 05-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 08-Sep-2018

Thank you very much for reviewing. Your kind comments are appreciated!

Comment from Spitfire

Good

Not the best written (You know what I think of exclamation points. Also, overuse of passive voice)but the story makes a good point.
As we glued the pieces together, a bonding as crude as that of the vase pieces began with my brother and me.

Maybe fear does have a place in life.

The ending does get one to thinking.

Good luck in the contest, John Boy. Fix the error I mentioned for an update to five. :-)

This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.

 Comment Written 05-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 05-Sep-2018

Do I get any points for suffering(thanks to you) punctuation-anxiety every time I think of using an exclamation point? Do you realize what those !!!!!!!! cost me emotionally? :)


ThanksRomans 8 The Message (MSG)

The Solution Is Life on God?s Terms

8 1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ?s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn?t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn?t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God?s action in them find that God?s Spirit is in them?living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn?t pleased at being ignored.

9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won?t know what we?re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells?even though you still experience all the limitations of sin?you yourself experience life on God?s terms. It stands to reason, doesn?t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he?ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ?s!

12-14 So don?t you see that we don?t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There?s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God?s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It?s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ?What?s next, Papa?? God?s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what?s coming to us?an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we?re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

18-21 That?s why I don?t think there?s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what?s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it?s not only around us; it?s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We?re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don?t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God?s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don?t know how or what to pray, it doesn?t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That?s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn?t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn?t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God?s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us?who was raised to life for us!?is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ?s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:


They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We?re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I?m absolutely convinced that nothing?nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable?absolutely nothing can get between us and God?s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

reply by Spitfire on 05-Sep-2018

Sitting here, laughing at you. :-)

Comment from Sally Law

Excellent

This is great! It brings back such fond memories for me with my sons and three grandboys. They call me "Grammy" as well. This article was delightful and made me smile. Thank you. Gorilla glue is my good friend.
Kindest regards to you and your family,
Sally

 Comment Written 04-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 05-Sep-2018

Thank you Sally Law for reading and commenting so kindly. More than your generous stars to me is you liking the story and getting a smile from it. Best regards to you and yours as well, Dennis

Comment from Sandra du Plessis

Excellent

A very well-written flash fiction about love that covers for many things in our lives that are not alway acceptable in other's eyes can still be acceptable for God when we have remorse, repent and be born again.

 Comment Written 04-Sep-2018

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reply by the author on 04-Sep-2018

Thanks!