Here’s to 2010

To God

Who holds me,

Keeps me,

Loves me,

And gives me a seat at His table

To old friends who stay true

And new ones who “salt” the earth

To lives just beginning :)

And to ones lost

To those who give more than they ever have to

(...humbled)

And those who bring laughter in the middle of pain

To the ride called life 

And every day given

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Random Reflections (some ranting) on Winter and Christmas

I live in Michigan. Yep. Cold-and-gray-for-the-better-part-of-the-year (or so it feels), state-map-literally-in-the-palm-of-your-hand, Michigan. Seriously, this map always on the ready is something we all get pretty jazzed about. Just watch a Michigander’s face when they point out on their hand either where they live or where someone they know lives. Some of us could probably even get some style points for the draw...but I digress... Anyway, we just had our first major snow storm Sunday with some frigid cold temperatures to add to the challenge, er... excitement. That combined with the fact that Christmas is a’coming left me to ponder some of the finer points of both. WARNING: some of this could be considered ranting. If you want all saccharin, I would suggest watching your kids’ favorite Christmas cartoon instead.

ON STAYING WARM:

 Please don’t worry about the babies. The best stuff they make for staying warm is made for babies. My daughter is currently at the stage where she can wear a layette-the wearable sleeping bag, or as I like to refer to it, a baby straitjacket. When we get inside our location and I take her out of it,  there is so much heat released from inside of it that people begin standing over her to warm their hands.

ON DRIVING:

My first order of business today was winterizing the Mustang. Yes, that’s right. This process involves loading the trunk with Slate landscape stones, salt bags, and whatever other heavy object can be found in the garage, followed by a laying-on-of-hands and a very anointed prayer that God will put a force field around it and keep it on the road. Consider yourself “schooled.”

I HATE when people tell me that Mustangs are not good cars for winter conditions. Thanks, Sherlock. Or Mr. Goodwrench. Or whoever you THINK you are.  You have been most helpful. And when I strike it ridiculously rich, I will have myself a summer car and a winter car.

Okay, Trucks and Sport Utes, we get it! You can go fast. Just remember when it comes to stopping, we are all equal. Yep, that’s my little, rear-wheel drive car still on the road and pointed in the correct direction. No bigger fail than seeing a large, impenetrable, beast of a vehicle in a ditch. (*My smugness only comes after it is revealed all parties involved are suffering from stupidity only and not injuries.)

On a related note~if you are driving what amounts to a city block on wheels, do everyone a courtesy and clean the snow off your hood and roof in addition to your windows. When the snow starts to free itself from said roof and hood, to you it may only seem like snow blowing onto your windshield, but to those of us driving cars behind you, it is more like suddenly finding yourself driving through an avalanche. Just sayin’.

ON CHRISTMAS DECORATING:

You know those lights you bought last year? Yeah, they are not going to work. And the more expensive they were, the less likely. Mystifying, since they worked when you packed them up last year and especially considering they have done nothing more than sit in a box since. Even more mystifying is the fact that the light string you still have from your high school days, twenty years ago, still works. I swear it is a conspiracy to make us all switch to LED lights, which if you squint, you may even see.

ON CHRISTMAS SHOPPING:

Do not under any circumstances decide to go to Target on what ends up being a snow day for all the children in your state. Do not go to the mall, either. You will thank me for this. Since I do not have a school age child, I was left out of the huddle where EVERY mother with school-aged children decided that this would be a great way to spend the day. When you are a stay-at-home mother you kind of get used to having the world to yourself a little bit. Even at Christmas time.

Ho! Ho! Ho! ‘Tis the Season for the mall parking lot stalkers. C’mon you know what I’m talking about... That car that follows slowly behind you, a “respectable” distance away,  as you search for your car, giving you the feeling that a felony is about to be visited upon you. At any other time of the year all those prickly feelings that the body gets when it senses impending danger would be active. Ever see the look of anger on the face of the stalker, er...driver when they see you change course abruptly because you realize you have been walking in the wrong aisle? As if you were plotting against them... Nope, sorry I am just the “idiot of the moment” who can’t remember where I parked my car. If you are not familiar with the stalker concept, it is because you are a stalker. Go ahead, admit it. It is the first step to healing, after all. Me? I have sworn off this practice on sheer principle.

ON SANTA:

Being only six months into this whole parenting thing, I had no idea what a huge deal the whole Santa thing is. I mean, yeah, I know a lot of families do it as a point of tradition and I have seen the lines, but what I did not know was that you could get shut out of Santa. Yes, it’s true! The mall where we chose to visit Santa is a very popular one. If there is such a thing as a Chi-Chi Santa, he can be found at the Somerset Collection. My friend had gone there and told me about all the extras you get (the announcement of your child’s name as they enter the very elaborate Santa Castle, photos processed for free at Ritz Camera in the mall, and three magic coins that can be redeemed at participating stores for toys/small goodies) Another big selling point was that you don’t have to wait in line. After registering, you are assigned a time at which your child will see Santa. My friend warned that the weekends are usually crazy and that there might be a longer lag between registration and assigned time. But my thinking was “hey, it’s a mall at Christmas time, I have plenty to do to kill time since I am chained to a time instead of a line.” Had I talked to parents with more senior Santa experience they probably would have said, “I was like you once, dreamer.” So we arrived at the mall Sunday around 1pm. Santa is there on Sundays until 7pm. Should be no problem, right? There were no appointments left!   I spoke with a mother who informed me that it took her four years to get her kids to Santa. You could almost see the tears in her eyes, at this, the triumphant fifth year! She told me about the moms and dads that camp out at the mall in order to procure a spot. Isn’t it crazy the things we find ourselves doing where our kids are concerned? I am not this crazy...yet... (Although, we did go first thing (8am!) Monday morning so daddy could join us before he went to work. An event that a year ago that would have seemed far outside our potential reality) But my child is only six months old and for her this was more of a challenge to face her fears rather than a celebration of Christmas. This brings me to my next point....

It is tragic irony the way we teach our children to not talk to strangers or take candy from them, but then place them in the laps of burly men with a questionable amount of facial hair or (even scarier) over-sized bunnies with large heads and what can only be described as sinister smiles then expect them not to cry or be even a little “weirded” out.




FA-LA-LA-LA-LA.


Now that I have filled your mind with the warmth and reality of the season....

Trials and Other Things Involving Fire

Funny thing about God...

There are things you can pray a long time for, and for whatever reason God doesn’t grant your request. (Of course as we all must learn~continuously~it is always for our best.) But if you have even a passing thought while sitting in a drive-thru or a barely whispered utterance about how you need more patience, strength, faith, etc... in your life, God will most surely get right on it!  It is also worth noting that no matter how long you have been following God, you still can forget that such requests are accomplished through trial. Because it sure would be nicer to ask, sleep on it, and wake up a new you.

And so it is, ever since my daughter came into the world, that I have been telling God that I would like to learn how to “roll with whatever life brings.” I am truly not good at this. I am a natural worrier. I have actually been known to say, “there’s something I am supposed to be worrying about, but I can’t remember what it is.” Yep, you guessed it, I worry about what to worry about. I have met other chronic worriers, and I assure you I cannot claim sole ownership of this quirky, distorted way of thinking. But now that I have someone I must teach how to navigate the world, I feel even more of an impetus to clean this up in my life. I don’t want her to think like me. I also don’t wish to compromise my health by filling my life with stress needlessly, since I would like to be around to share her life. So, you can see God couldn’t be God and ignore this request. :)

So the last two weeks have held a lot of bad news, culminating (I hope) in today’s fire. Yep, fire.

I had a local company scheduled to install desperately needed insulation in the exterior walls of our house today. I was sitting inside with the baby while the house shook from all the drilling....okay, so far nothing unexpected...

Then silence.

Followed by swarming workers in a panic.

I thought, “oh no, they hit a pipe in the house.”

They began yelling something about water and swarming around the hose.

I thought, “ great...there must be water gushing everywhere.”

{Wrong element.}

It was at this point, I looked out the front window to see their work trailer up in flames.

After calling 911, I called my dad. Because even at my age, my dad still makes everything seem okay.  

Me: Dad, the guys that are here to put the insulation in have a burning trailer in front of my house. It’s attached to a pickup truck I am afraid is going to blow up. I am concerned the house, the baby, and the whole of the earth (okay, this is added for humorous impact...) are going to be destroyed.

Dad: Why don’t they just take the trailer off the hitch and drive the pickup away from the fire? That’s what I would be doing.

Me: Uhh, I don’t know, dad... I am too busy planning on running down the street MacGyver style, sheltering your granddaughter from what will surely be the apocalyptic debris field...

Dad: And where did you find these guys anyway; are you sure they are reputable?

Me: Yeah, dad. They are  Glenn Haege recommended...

I love dads. They always bring a certain practicality to situations.

Thankfully, no people were hurt and no property was damaged. The company even assured me the job would still be finished today. And it was.

Me? I feel like I have been sitting in God’s classroom waiting for the dismissal bell to ring. But it is all good because...

John 16:33; 14:16-19, 26-27

³³These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

¹⁶And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

 ¹⁷Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 ¹⁸I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

 ¹⁹Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

²⁶But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

 ²⁷Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Wouldn’t it be nice...

If everyone were as glad to see you as your baby?

If life could stay on a baby's trajectory-where every day you discover something new your body can do- rather than the trajectory we are currently on-where some days you discover your body can’t do what it did before?

If the system of praise and rewards from childhood followed you into the workplace- where simply knowing your name or asserting that you can say your ABC’s excited multitudes of people? (This one’s stolen from one of my FB status updates)

If the times you are running late (or heading to something really important) would not also coincide with the times you spill breakfast on yourself, lose power, realize you left the house without a critical item, or hit every single traffic light?

If it were as easy to lose weight as it seems to be to gain it?

If time were a commodity you could store up for the times you really needed it?

If the days where the phone never rings could borrow from the days where everybody calls at the same time, so that no day ever feels too lonely or too busy?

When a moment for which you have looked forward (and one which by it’s very nature can never happen again) starts to go wrong, everyone involved will realize the full magnitude for you and intervene on your behalf?

If gas tanks never needed to be filled? 

If money never ran out, leaving desire as the only consideration?

If the people you love never had to be hurt, move away, or die?  

If every good plan you ever made came to fruition and Plan H never became necessary?

I suppose if all those things (+ many others I didn’t mention) came true, we would be a character-less bunch. But I swear, some days I would be okay with that. :)

What would you add?

Here, There, and all Points in Between (September Word Celebration)

 Here is where I am. 

There is where all my great plans are.

There is where I am hoping to go; 

yet often when I do, I find myself wishing again for here. 

Here is waiting. I am not so good at that.  

Here is where God teaches me trust.

Here time stands still. Here is certain.  

There often is a lane in two directions, paved with fear and regret.

Here is where joy can be found if only I could let my mind stay.

Here is oxygen.

Here is contentment.

One of these days I may learn how to appreciate here.

I may even stop worrying about getting there and realize here is not bad at all.

Here counts blessings.

Here exhales.

There can only truly be enjoyed when it is reached by stepping and standing on the rungs of here.

Opportunity with a Side Salad (September Word Celebration)

Before I had a cat of my own, I had no idea that they begged for food like dogs. Had no idea that they would eat beef. Or spaghetti. 

My cat will come of hiding at the mere sound of tin foil or plastic bags, certain that food is the usual companion to those sounds.

When I prepare dinner, she waits on the table, sure she is that a place will be set for her.

 I will not lie. Before the baby came, my cat was the baby. So she is no stranger to being spoiled.

Now that you understand her background, you may fully appreciate her crime.

Last Week my husband and I had sat down to a dinner of Pecan Encrusted Trout (mmm!), when the baby began to scream without ceasing. 

Failed attempts at calming her and a call to the Pediatrician's office later, we were abandoning dinner and heading out the door to the ER.

And. that’s. when. I. saw. her.  

*Brazen*. 

Oblivious to the situation before us, my cat was eating the fish off our plates, drinking the milk out of our glasses, and licking the pan still sitting on the oven.

So opportunity greeted her like an old friend.
She saw it. 
Welcomed it.
And seized it.

What is Love, Then? (September Word Celebration)

I wrote this for my husband, 

who was gracious enough to let me share it here. 

Call it a summary...

 What is Love, then?

It is moments, both quiet and loud. 

Whispers and screams. 

Mountains peaks and endless valleys.

The heartiest of laughter.

The bitterest of grief.

God in my pocket... God in my questions.

Beginnings and endings.

Holidays and everydays.

Bills and blessings.

In and out of control.

The fire of new challenge, the ashes of past hope.

Nose to the grindstone, head to the floor. 

Bounding and falling.

Times of Jesus.

Times of me.

Sprinting, crawling, Exhaling, gasping...

Sacrifice, bounty, projects, car accidents, vacations, cups of tea, mocha highs, career lows...

Trusting God.

Where is God?

Truth.

Shoulder taps from God.

Falling Christmas trees.

Desks as room dividers (my husband's first and last decorating suggestion).

Obsession, neurosis...

Sighing, laughing, breathing, walking, running....

A million moments weaved together by God, to be the most tremendous gift, sharing all of it with you.

They Leave All Kinds of Prints (September Word Celebration)

These are some of the beautiful shoes my daughter will probably never wear.

Her feet are long enough, but have not yet become fat enough to keep them on. 

So every day she sets a new record for how fast she can kick them off. 

By the time her feet are chunky enough to hold them, they will be too small.

So they stay beautiful but serve no purpose and see no life.


But it will not always be so...

Some day, they will protect her, give people an impression of who she is and where she is going...

Will she live in these like her mother? 

  Or will she climb the corporate ladder in these?

Will she step into someone else’s shoes when their time is over?

Or will she wear her own where nobody has yet tread?

Will she lead or be content to follow?

Will she walk among the sick and the sorrowful? 

Will she prefer to skip, run, or walk? 

Will she walk with grace, and compassion?

Whatever shoes she wears, I pray they will leave behind footprints that are following Jesus.

The Running Rx (September Word Celebration)

 

I love to run...

 

It is the place that my mind is the most quiet. 

It is my prayer time. 

 

My grateful time.

 

I run to find God...

 

It is a spiritual metaphor. The mind willing the body into submission, much like the war between the flesh and the spirit. (Galatians 5:17) 

 

Each step, a shedding of the day's griefs and struggles.

 

Every bead of sweat hitting the ground, telling a tale of determination, persistence, and triumph.

 

It is Victory.

 

It is Freedom.

 

It is *Peace*.

 

It is another mile when you think you can’t go on... *Life*

 

It changes the body.

 

And the mind.

 

It reveals what you are made of.

 

And what you can be.

 

It is raw Strength.

 

It is your heart thanking you.

It is...

...the stride pounding the pavement, perfect to the beat of the rhythm, against the will of the body, in the company of the Almighty

 

Bliss!

The Ten Cow Wife (September Word Celebration)

Years ago my Pastor included in one of his sermons the story of a man negotiating the procurement of a wife. The story originally ran in Readers Digest. Following is an excerpt:

...Five months ago, at festival time, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father ten cows!

He spoke the last words with great solemnity and I knew enough about island customs to be thoroughly impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.
 

“Ten cows!” I said. “She must have been a beauty that takes your breath away.”

“That's why they laugh,” my guest said. “It would be kindness to call her plain. She was little and skinny with no--ah--endowments. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked, as if she was trying to hide behind herself. Her cheeks had no color, her eyes never opened beyond a slit and her hair was a tangled mop half over her face. She was scared of her own shadow, frightened by her own voice. She was afraid to laugh in public. She never romped with the girls, so how could she attract the boys?”

“But she attracted Johnny?”

“This is the story [told to me,” he said]:

All the way to the council tent the cousins were urging Sam to try for a good settlement. Ask for three cows, they told him, and hold out for two until you're sure he'll pay one. But Sam was in such a stew and so afraid there would be some slip in this marriage chance for Sarita that they knew he wouldn't hold out for anything. So while they waited they resigned themselves to accepting one cow, and thought, instead, of their luck in getting such a good husband for Sarita. Then Johnny came into the tent and, without waiting for a word from any of them, went straight up to Sam Karoo, grasped his hand and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer ten cows for your daughter.’ And he delivered the cows.
 

As soon as it was over Johnny took Sarita to the island of Cho for the first week of marriage. Then they went home to Narabundi and we haven't seen them since. Except at festival time, there's not much travel between the islands.

This story interested me so I decided to investigate.

The next day I reached the island where Johnny lived. When I met the slim, serious man, he welcomed me to his home with a grace that made me feel like the owner. I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery.

I told him that his people had told me about him.
 

‘They speak much of me on that island? What do they say?’

They say you are a sharp trader, I said. They also say the marriage settlement that you made for your wife was ten cows. I paused, then went on, coming as close to a direct question as I could. They wonder why.

‘They say that?’ His eyes lighted with pleasure. He seemed not to have noticed the question. ‘Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the ten cows?’

I nodded.

And in Narabundi everyone knows it, too. His chest expanded with satisfaction. Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid ten cows for Sarita.

So that's the answer, I thought with disappointment. All this mystery and wonder and the explanation's only vanity. It's not enough for his ego to be known as the smartest, the strongest, the quickest. He had to make himself famous for his way of buying a wife. I was tempted to deflate him by reporting that in Kiniwata he was laughed at for a fool.

And then I saw her. Through the glass-beaded portieres that simmered in the archway, I watched her enter the adjoining room to place a bowl of blossoms on the dining table. She stood still a moment to smile with sweet gravity at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Not with the beauty of the girl who carries fruit. That now seemed cheap, common, earthbound. This girl had an ethereal loveliness that was at the same time from the heart of nature. The dew-fresh flowers with which she'd pinned back her lustrous black hair accented the glow of her cheeks. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. And as she turned to leave she moved with the grace that made her look like a queen who might, with enchantment, turn into a kitten.

When she was out of sight I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me with eyes that reflected the pride of the girl's.

‘You admire her?’ he murmured.

She--she's glorious. Who is she?

‘My wife.’

I stared at him blankly. Was this some custom I had not heard about? Do they practice polygamy here? He, for his ten cows, bought both Sarita and this other? Before I could form a question he spoke again.

‘This is only one Sarita.’ His way of saying the words gave them a special significance. ‘Perhaps you wish to say she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.’

She doesn't. The impact of the girl's appearance made me forget tact. I heard she was homely, or at least nondescript. They all make fun of you because you let yourself by cheated by Sam Karoo.

‘You think he cheated me? You think ten cows were too many?’ A slow smile slid over his lips as I shook my head. ‘She can see her father and her friends again. And they can see her. Do you think anyone will make fun of us then? Much has happened to change her. Much in particular happened the day she went away.’

You mean she married you?

‘That, yes. But most of all, I mean the arrangements for the marriage.’

Arrangements?

‘Do you ever think,’ he asked reflectively, ‘what it does to a woman when she knows that the price her husband has paid is the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when all the women talk, as women do, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel--the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.’

Then you paid that unprecedented number of cows just to make your wife happy?

“Happy?’ He seemed to turn the word over on his tongue, as if to test its meaning. ‘I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes, but I wanted more than that. You say she's different from the way they remember her in Kiniwata. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows that she is worth more than any other woman on the islands.’

Then you wanted...

‘I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.’

‘But--’ I was close to understanding.

‘But,’ he finished softly, ‘I wanted a ten-cow wife.’

I was in the midst of major healing in my life at the time of this sermon, so I knew before he even finished the story, the straight line my Pastor was drawing to the Cross. 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ”

So while we may not be ten cow wives, we are children of God, purchased with the blood of Jesus. There could be no greater worth than that.