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The Scrabble Lesson
Posted: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
by Beckie Stewart
God's Gracious Gems
nt-size: small; ">I've always been a little competitive in the academic field. Since I am not athletic, I thrive on competition regarding my mind and my own will power to accomplish it. No, I am not a good team player. Nothing frustrates me more than believing I can win, and losing because of the mistake of others. As long as I lose due to my own mistakes or sheer knowledge of someone doing something better than me, I am okay.
So as an only child of a single father, I enjoyed many weekends playing board games with him. He never let me win and so when I did, I knew I had truly accomplished that victory. I will never forget the valuable lesson learned during a competitive game of Scrabble.
This particular game began with a bang for me. I selected the letter closest to "a", and so had gained the advantage of placing the first word down. With my letters I formed the word "greedy" strategically placing the "y" on the double letter score. Because it was the first word of the game, my score doubled because it covered the pink star in the center of the board.
"Wow, thirty points, " my father told me. "That is a great start."
My father looked the board over carefully and played the word "draft" and received eighteen points for his word. No matter how well I did or did not play a word on each turn, I always remained at least five to ten points ahead of my father.
"I am ruling this game," I thought to myself as we were finally nearing the end. With only a few more letters to play, this game would be over and the win would be mine.
"There it is," I suddenly said to myself. With four letters remaining I placed an "r" in the spot that formed two words and gave me twenty more points.
"I believe you misspelled that word," my father challenged. We pulled out the dictionary, and indeed my father was correct. I removed my letter and lost my turn. With one sweeping blow, my father used his last three letters and I subtracted four points from my score. With my spelling error and my father's last word, I lost the game by two points. I should have known that first word was warning me about the traps of life.
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Top-level comments on this article: (10 total)
» left by Laury Hubrich
from Illinois 3 years 272 days ago.
Love this story! Good lesson to be learned. Great job, Beckie.
Laury H.
» left by Regina
from San Jose,Ill 3 years 272 days ago.
wow you know reading this makes a person think about the situation you get in are they sometimes scary at the end.Its amazing to me how you can write these articles.What a great gift from the Lord.In Christ Love Regina
» left by D Yoder
3 years 272 days ago.
How do we become grateful, not greedy; or content, and not grasping, even in the small things of life? These are issues we all struggle with, and your article is a good object lesson about dealing with these very human emotions. This is a well written message.
» left by Jennifer Maggio
from Baton Rouge, LA 3 years 272 days ago.
Awesome! I love how insightful this one is. What's amazing to me is our Heavenly Father uses every situation to teach a lesson, even when we are not looking for it. Aren't those the best ones?
» left by Sara Harricharan
3 years 272 days ago.
Heehee, sounds like a great scrabble game-though I love the lesson that's woven through this. Great job!
» left by Anonymous
3 years 272 days ago.
This was a wonderful story! It's amazing how we can learn big lessons doing the simple things in life! Great job!
» left by Jeanne Phillips
from Bellmawr, NJ 3 years 271 days ago.
Good Story Beckie. It's always good to hear and learn a little more about Uncle Bill. I wish I had known him better. Great Job telling about a lesson learned. Jeanne Phillips
» left by Patty
from Southern IL 3 years 271 days ago.
I love learning lessons from the simple, every day things that happen and this one is a gem. Thank you!!
» left by Teresa Ortiz
3 years 268 days ago.
Hi Beckie, great story, sad, true and funny all at once.
» left by Tina Picken
from San Jose, Illinois 3 years 266 days ago.
Great Story Beckie, you are a gifted story writer, keep up the good work!
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