Tiny Dancer...

Nice.

At one time I thought I might be the "Seamtress for the Band"...

Until my sister, quite ironically, living next door...

Caught them drying marijuana leaves on their clothesline.

Yes, people.

True story.

She lurks.

She never comments.

Perhaps this ONE TIME, she'll confirm.

At the time, I didn't realize people GREW the stuff!

I didn't realize people BOUGHT the stuff!

I just thought we SMOKED the stuff.

Never thought of it being illegal...

Because, I would NEVER intentionally break the law.

I was 17.

What I would trade for that innocense again.

But I digress.

In fact, I DID sew on a button on someone's shirt.

And, at this point, my sister should be laughing.

I sew NOTHING, (but bad seed) and ONLY my sister would actually know this.

Just as only my sister would know what REALLY hurts me...

And, what I LET people think hurts me.

Seventeen.

I was seventeen.

The world was stupid, and I was smart, and I knew everything.

The world, quite simply, knew nothing.

Thank God I had my sister (who just happened to live next door), watching out for me.

She had lived a couple years longer than me...

Had walked a couple of roads before I got there...

She had seen the danger.

She refused to let it get me.

At the age of 17, my sister protected me.

I hated her for it...

Because, let's be honest.

I did NOT KNOW what a marijuana leaf looked like.

My sister, miraculously, did...

And, she SAVED ME FROM IT.

She saved me from so much back then.

What we didn't know is that the one that she "saved me" from...

Has ended up being a MIGHTY instrument for God...

And orphans...

All across the south.

Yes.

The boy that once dried pot leaves on his clothesline is now a DEVOTED minister to the Word of God.

He was 17.

I was 17.

Who knows what we may turn out to be at 17?

"Judge not, lest Ye be judged.", right?

We think we know, and to be honest, short of a miracle, we're right.

Right?

I can assure you that, at 17, it never occurred to that I would be twice divorced.

It never occurred to me that I would be entrusted with two precious lives and love them so much it would threaten to take the very breath from me.

At 17, I knew nothing.

Except that he was tall...

That he had his "own place"...

He was "in a band"...

And, that he wrote me a song...

Of my very own...

"Pam, Pam, you ain't worth a damn...

I call you on the phone, you say you're taking to your friend...

Where did your lies start...

And where will they end?"

The thought of lying to him, at the age of 17, had never occurred to me.

The song, I thought, was funny...

And, yet, it MUST have impressed me.

Because I have NEVER forgotten what he sang to me...

As he strummed his guitar...

In the back of his 72' Ford Pickup...

That was navy blue...

Except for the driver's door...

It was Army Green.

I was 17.

He was 17.

I was but a tiny dancer.

He was but a tiny dancer.

With our ENTIRE lives before us, and, yet...

We didn't see that part.

We were too busy dancing in the sand...

Two tiny dancers, in His hands...