Dear Brenda by Brenda J Wood

Dear Brenda,

There she is! The same name as me! The same colour 
hair as me!

The same middle initial as me! The same weight as me
and even the same birthday month as me.

She must be me! We both write and we both
publish.

We both read the same type of books! We both want to
lose twenty pounds!

She must be me! We are both widows. We lived in the
same area! Surely, she is me!

But she is not me.

She is the me who fantasied about losing twenty pounds
and living

with perfect children and a doting husband. Those days
are past…well except for the

warm climate which never did. (Oops, and that twenty-
pound thing!)

Instead, my husband died and the children have flown the
coop.

That Brenda has to make it on her own now and she does.

But that other elusive Brenda? She lives in the Azores.
She found me

because of something I wrote twenty-five or thirty years
ago. Everything I said about

her is true! We are like twins in so many ways. And this is
how she found me.

Like many others, I wrote for the devotional page
PresbyCan.ca, from May 25, 1996, to March 31, 2025.

Eventually editor Robin Ross organized those 10,441
devotionals into a low-maintenance project.

Now five writings appear daily in our mail boxes.

We still comment, enter our prayers and more but the
writings are all oldies, but goodies.

My other Brenda found me because of a certain
devotional.

I searched it by my name and date of the piece.
Immediately it popped up.

I am writing all this to tell you to be careful what you put
out online. It never goes away.

It is still there. Make it a good one! Nothing lasts forever?
Don’t kid yourself.

from Brenda

(Top) Image by Ron Lach on Pexels

Brenda J Wood has authored more than fifty books. She is a seasoned motivational speaker, who declares the Word of God with wisdom, humour, and common sense.