Have I kept it a secret that I was a wreck for the first several months we lived here? Okay, good. Well, the foreman for the guy who built this house saw right through that secret. His name is Dicky. Apparently there are a lot of guys in Texas named Dicky. I just don’t get that. There is Dicky’s BBQ, Dicky’s Golf Shop, Dicky’s Dry Cleaning, etc. If you were named Dicky by your parents, why wouldn’t you just change your name? Why would anyone keep the name Dicky? What does “Dicky” conjure up in your brain?

Anyway, shortly after we moved in I was meeting with Dicky on various repairs needed in the house while the dogs were throwing up, toxic plaster was being blasted around the back yard by enthusiastic pool builders, god knows who was knocking on the door, the land line was ringing, the cell phone was buzzing, UPS was delivering something, someone on the roof was pounding and I was close to tears.

Dicky looked at me sadly and said, “Can I pray for you?”
I said, “Well, why?”
He said, “Because I can see you need to be prayed for and I am a conduit of Jesus and I’ll tell you why I know that.” (Fast forward 20 minutes here, please.)
I finally interrupted him and said, “Okay, whatever, go for it” mostly just to shut him up which of course had the opposite effect.

We were standing in my formal dining room and he put his hands on my shoulders, closed his eyes, bowed his head and began. Boy, did he know how to talk and pray.

I was dazzled for the first 7 minutes because he was so intuitive; he was nailing how bad thing were for me and he was praying for things I was really hoping for like balance, peace, meaning and maybe even joy in the not so distant future. After 17 minutes I was getting agitated, bored, annoyed and ready to have Dicky out of my house. He finally finished with a resounding something or other, which actually made me cry. I think I was crying because I was so happy he was finished but he, of course, thought it was because he was a conduit of Jesus and that I’d had a breakthrough. And in all honesty I do believe in the power of prayer and he was good at it, if a little long winded, and it was nice to have someone’s complete attention when I was in such bad shape.

So, I thanked him, he gave me a referral for a handyman about whom he said, “I’m sure he’s Christian, he’s sooo happy!” We hugged, he said God bless you, he left and I haven’t seen him since.

Toto, we’re not in Scottsdale anymore.