I was at the dinner table the other night with my wife, daughter and granddaughter and the ladies were discussing some remodeling ideas. My granddaughter wants her room to be black but we are not going to let her paint it black because it is too hard to paint over in the future.   But we have agreed to let her hang black fabric on the wall. My wife has an embroidery machine and she offered to teach granddaughter how to use the machine so that she could embroider various images on the cloth before it gets hung. I thought it was kind of a nifty idea but my granddaughter said no, she was not willing to learn to use the machine because she would never have a need to know how to embroider. That answer left me confused and I had to explain to her that anytime anyone was willing to teach someone a skillset it is foolhardy to refuse to learn that skillset. You never know when that skillset might come in handy. There may come a time when you need it to make a living and feed yourself. Knowledge is power. Skills reign supreme when you are job seeking.

I have a lot of skills. Some I learned on my own but many were taught to me by others. I am grateful for the opportunities that have been presented to me so that I can learn and expand on my skills. Our parents are probably our greatest teachers. My dad taught me life skills as well as how to use tools, repair the house, paint, work on cars, mow the lawn and drive a tractor. Mom taught me about perseverance, dedication and the importance of household chores. Lois Cook taught me to play the piano. June Sexton and June Kelly taught me to sing. My Uncle Wesley taught me preach and my Uncle Rolla and Aunt Genevieve taught me about service.  Mrs. Barnett, my first grade teacher, tried to teach me to read. My mother kept pushing until the lessons sunk in. My wife has taught me love, understanding and acceptance. Jim Lewis, Jim Brown, Mike Meece, Joe Konjevick and Charles Harrell taught me about design and implementation. My children taught me patience and God continues to teach me about unconditional love and the glories of the universe.

Although no one has taught me orchestration, a good friend from church, Jon Bell, has loaned me a wonderful book on orchestration. I am always learning new things and open to learning new things. It broadens my world and helps bring excitement to each and every day. I am so very grateful to all of the relatives, teachers, friends, acquaintances and strangers that have shared their amazing skills with me. I am humbled by it.

These days I do my best to pass these skills on to others. Sometimes I am more successful than others. The point here is that we all have skills; skills that have been graciously shared with us throughout our lives. We have a choice on what we do with those skills. We can hoard them and keep them to ourselves, our secret little cache of tools to get us through life, or we can choose to share them with others to help them improve their lives and fortunes. I choose the latter and I pray others continue to share their skills with me because, quite frankly, I don’t think I will ever know enough.