Intersections

I've known her for years.  I met her daughter first.  A beautiful little girl named India with huge hair and bright eyes.  "Can I come to Sunday School, too?"  I was out visiting and India had found me on my rounds.

"Sure!  I'll have to talk to your mom first, though."  So she brought me to her mom.  Mom welcomed me in and talked to me about the Sunday School.  She thought it was important if kids went to church, even if, like her, they one day realized they didn't need it any more.  "We don't just outgrow Jesus," I told her.  "No, no, of course not," she agreed, "I know God is important.  I just don't really think it's for me."

But her daughter came to Sunday School anyhow.  That wild hair and those bright eyes that were so intelligent.  When India's two little siblings--a girl and a boy--got a little older she'd bring them too, though she wasn't that excited about it.  "My mom said they have to come," she'd huff after taking forever to round herself and them up.

Not everything was smooth sailing in the home, of course.  "Me and their dad?  We never got married," mom told me, "there just wasn't a good time, and he's away now, of course."

Of course.  He'd stolen a car (call me jaded, but at this point in my life stealing a car is hardly the worst offense, as far as I'm concerned) and been locked up for a while.  The little boy hardly even knew his daddy, but that didn't stop him from talking about dad for weeks after their sporadic visits to the prison.  Father's day came and went, more than once, but at least they had a dad.  They were pretty stable, as far as families go.  "And we'll be getting married when he gets out," I would hear.

And then one day it happened.  I had gone to their house, just to see if the kids were coming to Sunday School the following morning.  "Miss Joanne?"  It wasn't surprising to hear a strange man know my name--this happens all the time, though "Miss Church Lady" is the common moniker.  "Yes, that's me!"  I brightly introduced myself to this strange man, only to have him introduce himself right back at me as the kids' dad.  "I've heard a lot about you, and I'm so glad you take my kids to church.  They really need it, you know?"

He'd heard about me from jail.  I think that was a scrapbookable first in my life.

I was happy to meet him, though.  I'd heard about him a lot, too.

He and she and the kids were so happy.  He was still on parole and couldn't live with them--the projects are not a place you're allowed to live right away, apparently.  They knew they'd have hiccups, of course, but they'd stayed together a long time and they'd be fine.  Their little family of five finally had a chance at a life together.

But they weren't.  They weren't really together, and they definitely weren't fine.  There were rifts that I didn't see for a while, but she confided in me one day that they weren't sure they could make it work.  "What if we can't do it?  I wanted my kids to have us both.  And he's out now.  They should have us both.  But we both changed so much when he was on the inside.  Neither of us realized how different things were going to be."

After that, it was really just a matter of time, a matter of all the pieces finally falling down.  His parole allowed him to move into a little place a little more towards the respectable side of town.  Sometimes they would all go to stay with him.  I'd go on a Saturday afternoon and she'd be alone in her little apartment.  "I'm sorry, Miss Joanne.  They're at they're dad's and I was going to go.  But we fought, so I came home.  I didn't want them to have to leave their dad's, though, so I let them stay over there.  I hate for the kids to know we're having troubles.  Try again next week."

She still had no use for God.  She put herself into this unraveling mess, she told me.  She'd take responsibility.  This didn't have to do with God.  This was just life.

"Maybe I shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place," she said, as if it might have fixed her issues.  "But we were going to get married!"

Time passed and things formally ended.  Now instead of working on the relationship, they worked on a schedule.

"You'll have the kids on weekends, and we'll do every other school holiday."  That sort of thing.

"We'll start seeing other people."  That sort of thing.

After all that time--and the beautiful, crazy-haired girl who'd wormed her way into my heart at age 6 was now a responsible young lady of 10--after all those years of promises to each other, things were changing.  All the commitment they had felt was easily dissolved, because all those promises had been inked only in words, so easily spoken, so conveniently put aside.

She spent a lot of weekends away, after that.  India and the two younger ones were at dad's, and she'd go to stay with her own mother, looking for stability and an understanding heart.  But then the time came when I noticed that she was around more, and I kept hearing from others in the neighborhood "Did you hear that she's together with Anton?"

I knew Anton, of course.  I know a lot of them.  Spend lazy Saturday afternoons anywhere and you become as much of a fixture as the next person, even if they mostly think your name is "Miss Church Lady."

Anton was solid.  He was kind.  All the neighborhood kids loved him, and he (respectfully and in a trustworthy manner, because it's 2016 and you have to specify) loved them back.  He was friendly and when the kids begged him to show off his standing backflip to me, he would.  I was impressed by him, because he had a job, because of his standing backflip, because he knew how to keep his language clean, because of his way with kids, because everyone thought highly of him.  We weren't friends, but we knew each other.

He's the one who told me.  "You knew I was with her, yeah?"

"Yeah,"

"We're having a baby, did you hear?"

No.  No, I hadn't heard.

She was in the process of moving.  A different life, a different place.  We'd talked about it before and she was trying hard to make things better for her little brood of three.  I'd see the kids, they'd come to Sunday School from time to time still (India was finally old enough to be in my class, but missed so many Sundays because of her dad's schedule that she never felt like she was fully a part of the goings-on, so her enthusiasm waned considerably), or I'd run into them at the park.  "Yeah, she's having a baby," they confirmed.

"I was so mad that I cried when she told me," the biggest-sister-to-be confided.  "I liked Anton, but not as my mom's boyfriend."

But still, I never talked to her.  I'd go to their place and ask to see her, but she'd be napping, or in the shower, or in the basement, or anywhere else but there at the front door.  The first time I met her I'd been invited in.  Not now, though.  Now she was like a ghost.

And finally they moved, and I had no forwarding address.

Then one day, by chance (except that I'm a Christian and I know it wasn't chance), I met them at the library.  The two younger (now middle-to-be) siblings came flying up to me, smothering me in hugs.  She was turned toward the counter and didn't angle her body towards me.  At all.  "Congratulations," I told her sincerely, understanding at once that after all this time she thought I didn't know.

"New life is always exciting, and wonderful!"  I went on to tell her that I knew she'd be such a great mom to this one, too.

"Oh, you've heard?"  She now turned fully towards me.  She was about seven months along, and there's no way I wouldn't have noticed, even if I hadn't been looking, even if she'd tried to use a counter and a stack of books to cover her belly.

"Of course!  Anton told me, and the kids have talked to me about it, too."

At that point she opened up a little bit.  "It's going to be a boy," she said.  "India--who's at her dad's today, I'm sure she'll be sorry she missed you--was so upset when she heard it was a boy.  She just thought I'd still be together with her dad, you know?  And if she had to have another sibling, she wanted a girl to make up for it."

She kept squirming, like she wanted to tell me something.  Something to make her feel better, or possibly make me feel better.  Finally, it came out.  "Maybe I shouldn't have gotten pregnant, Miss Joanne, but I really think it's going to work.  I can feel it.  Did I tell you?  It's not the right time for us now, but we're going to get married!"

One of my other Sunday School kids still goes to school with her daughter India.  I heard that she delivered a healthy baby boy at the end of October, though nobody has been able to tell me his name.  I don't tell this story for any reason--moral, social, spiritual, or otherwise.  I was just praying for her today, and her little brood of four.

Waiting & Watching

The story goes that there was a dude with some kids.  He would be at work, as dudes often are, but when it came time for him to come home from work, his kids would always be excited.  They would be waiting for him to come home, mostly for supper-eating purposes, I imagine.  Anyhow, one of his children, his little daughter, would stand at the front window.  She wasn't just waiting for him, she was watching.

Cue the tears.  I've heard this man tell this story enough times that I can't cue the tears, but it's a nice story and I hope you've been emotionally touched in a way I haven't been in the past ten years or so.

But the story brings to mind (obviously, as is the point) that we are not just to wait for the Lord's return, but also we ought to watch for Him.  Any one of us could think of a number of verses that echo such a sentiment.

But I'd like to pose another story.  It's about a girl, about my age, who works at a day care.  And about how at that daycare there started a young child, 2ish years of age, who really loved his mom.  Which is a good thing for a child to do, but it's rough when kids have never been away from their mom, and then their tossed into a daycare setting.  So this young boy (we shall call him henceforth Jay), every single day he's at the daycare, spends from 7:30 in the morning till 12:30 in the afternoon waiting for his mom to come and get him.  After all, she will be coming, he knows this for a fact.  And indeed, at 12:30, she comes to fetch him.  He was right all along--mommy loves him enough to remember to come and get him after lunch.  Heartwarming, yes?

No.  Not in the slightest.  You see, Jay doesn't just wait for his mom, he watches for his mom.  Every day, from 7:30 till 12:30, he stands with his face pressed against the window, looking for that first glimpse of her car.

Even more heartwarming?  No.  Not in the slightest.  You see, from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm Jay doesn't just wait and watch for his mother.  He SCREAMS HIS HEAD OFF because he's terrified that she's forgotten about him.  He won't play, he won't color, he won't paint, and if it's ever warm enough to go outside to play he just presses himself up against the fence in lieu of the window and screams there while waiting for his mother.

WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT.

Jay needs to cool his jets and realize that while he's waiting, he could be doing.  Really, he does.  And, frequently, between 7:30 and 12:30 I (being the featured girl in the story who works in sad earshot of this child) am reminded that you know what?  While I'm waiting for the Lord to return (which had better be soon, that's all I'm saying) I need to be doing as well.  Maybe it's just the Sunday School work, maybe it's reaching out to younger girls, maybe it's giving away copies of Get Lost (bless you, Dannah Gresh, for being the best), maybe it's just helping out around the house or with hobby class.  Whatever the case, let it never be said of me that I was waiting and watching for the Lord's coming at the expense of doing for His glory.

In which I meet the kid who is the anti-me

100s day at school was a real revelation

We celebrated 100s day at the daycare recently (which I don't understand.  Being homeschooled apparently left some pretty big gaps in my education.  Why is being 100 days into the school year a big deal?) and we questioned all the older kids about things that had to do with 100.  Some of the answers ended up being hilarious, some rather dull, and some made me question what they teach kids in school these days.

Like this kid, above, who is a dear soul, but upon gazing on his answers I realized that we were very different one from another.  (Well, I probably want to be the boss at my house when I'm 100, but, you know, the other stuff.)

Why we're so different: my corner of the attic has about a million books (or at least, way more than 100), and then day I have 100 cats will be a sad day (haha, or indicate that I am the most single human in the history of humans), and the day I choose to spend $100 buying a dog will be the day any one of you has permission to check me into a home for mentally disturbed individuals.

But that's okay.  It takes all kinds to make the world go round.  I just must confess, this child's polar opposite version of me cracked me up.

I see monsters

As I've mentioned before, I work at a daycare.  A job, I love by the way, but I just had to go through my annual learning certificates (which help me keep the job I love, but I don't love quite as much as the job itself).  Turns out, the state requires that I know certain things so I'm fully equipped to work with children.

Will I remember anything I learned?  Almost certainly not.  Sometimes I get panicked when I realize that I've been issued a CRP certificate and I might one day be called upon to perform actual CPR on an actual person.  I feel like I would be one of those people who just like start hyperventilating and don't accomplish anything helpful.  Though one time I was in a situation where someone's foot got run over by a car, and I was the only person who kept her cool and got the situation sorted out.  So... maybe I'd be okay?

But that's not what this is about.

In addition to superfun times in my Communicable Diseases class (sarcasm alert) I took a class on child abuse prevention.  I add the "prevention" because I kept referring to it as just "child abuse," but those conversations got awkward.  "What was that thing you had last night?"  "Oh, I had this child abuse thing I had to do.  I mean, I didn't abuse children.  I learned how not to.  Not that I ever did before.  Just...  prevention.  It was a prevention class."

Anyhow, it was sort of terrifying.  As we all know, I work with kids all the time.  During the week at my daycare, I work with fabulous children who have (from what I know, anyhow) solid homes and loving and nurturing families.  On the weekends with Sunday School I work with fabulous children who have slightly less happy homes.  I mean, they might be happy homes, but they're not stable.  They might be loving, but I can't help but think that they're probably not very nurturing.  It's a sad fact, but a lot of broken families are exactly that; broken.  I spend time with kids who have these unavoidably warped views on life, who mistrust men, authority figures, and basically everyone.  Kids who curse like sailors and stay up till four in the morning watching questionable movies because nobody ever tells them they shouldn't.  That's life for them.

Something else they have to deal with?  Abuse.  I won't go into the specifics, mostly because I take the mantle of trust that they've placed in me very seriously, but I know kids who have been abused.  In various ways and by different people.  But it's horrifying.  No child should have to worry about things like that.  But these kids, my kids, have to worry about this.  Nobody is there to protect them--mommy works two jobs to support them and her boyfriend (who is on disability, you know, because of his back, because I've learned it's always the back).  These are kids who are raised by sheer force of will, guidance from TV, and the occasional grandmother.

It shouldn't be like that.  In my child abuse class they talked about the different indicators and whatever of child abuse.  Kids you should keep your eyes open for because either they are showing indications of being abused, or their home life is such that would lend itself to abuse.

It made me upset at the world in which we live.  That we have to learn to look for the monsters in the closet.  That I work at a daycare, with only kids who are younger than school-age, and we are mandated by the state to keep our eyes open for kids who might be abused at home.  I'm not saying there's ever a good age to start abusing kids, but the little defenseless ones are especially not okay to abuse.

This is rambley and doesn't make much sense, but I just...  have been feeling sad about the whole thing.  That I know kids who have told me about being abused, that I live in a world where I have to look for it, that I live in a world where there really are monsters in the closet.

And it makes me hope that in my small corner of the world, I can maybe be another influence in these lives.  I can't pretend to be the changing force in anybody's life (that is, in fact, the Lord's job, I'm thankful to say, and not a burden on my shoulders), but I know that I can be there for the kids I do have.  These are kids who move a lot (which always makes me muchly sorrowful), but while they're here, living in "my" neighborhood, my prayer is that the Lord can use me in their lives in whatever way I can.  If that means waking up early on a Saturday morning and going to a track meet, I'll be there.  If it means helping with homework, I'll be there.  Hugs, the occasional birthday party, and basketball (some of my favorite memories from last summer are actually being coached in basketball by some of my older Sunday School boys--because secretly I love basketball), those are things I can be there for.  Some kids will never share the deeper parts of their lives with me.  But for the kids who do entrust parts of their lives to me, I want to be able to cope, and to share with them the only One Who could ever handle the pain they've been given in their short lives.  It's only through God's grace that my life is so together.  I can't reverse their lives and somehow change it to make sense.  But I so greatly desire to help them see that through God, their lives can make sense.  We so often mourn, at my house, the lives we see with so much potential to be something, yet equally with so much potential to go off-course and become one more statistic.  Not like we expect the worst, per se, we're just pretty practical about it.

And it's sad.  Sad that we live in a world where we have to be practical about kids who might one day become statistics.  Kids who know monsters personally and try to leave the ugly parts of live behind when they get older, but end up making a mess of their lives, because they don't know how to do differently.

So that's the rant of the week.  Life makes me sad.  I mean, I know there's so much more to life, and I'd like to think that the real and perfect power of God will make a difference right now, today, in some of these lives, but I know that a lot of these stories have a lot of twists and turns before surrendering to the Lord.  And I know I won't always be there for these parts of their lives.  As much as I want to somehow be there for them, always, I know life doesn't work like that.

But I'm so thankful for these days I have been given with them.  For the privilege of being able to be with them in these days, even if they're numbered.  That's okay--the message of hope never dims.  What they learn about the Lord now will never change.  When their lives have changed, when their circumstances aren't what they always dreamed of, Jesus Christ will be there, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

And that's a lot more than I say for myself, any day of the week.

Things I learned in 2013

This feels like deja vu.  I literally just did a "What I learned in 2012" post, but, as we all know, that was a whole year late, so...  I'll just do this, and maybe my "What I learned in 2014" post will seem normal, presuming I do it in 12 months instead of waiting till 2015 is over with.

Yikes.  2015 sounds frighteningly close.  It's a good thing I know the Lord is coming soon!  I won't have to worry about silly things like "What I learned" lists.  Especially when my lists are as subjective and vague as mine typically are.

As always, this list is in no particular order.

1)  Rice bags can catch on fire in the microwave.  In other news, microwaves still function even with holes melted into the side of them.  That is truly something I didn't used to know.
2)  People can still surprise you.  I'm not that old, but I have a habit of thinking that nothing is unexpected.  Well, it's not true.  Unexpected things can (and do) happen.
3)  God is a lot more gracious than I am.  I knew that, but I was reminded again this past year.
4)  I'm kind of emotional.  I used to mock my friends who teared up at the slightest provocation, but I'm not much better these days.  I don't know if it's age or event related, but I cry a lot more often than I want to.
5)  When I look around I realize that the Lord has a way of using substitution in my life.  In a good way.  For instance, there are things I think I want but instead of giving those to me, He gives to me things that feed the need perfectly for where I am in life.  That probably doesn't make sense, so I'll elaborate.  All I ever wanted to be from my youth up was to be a mom.  I never had career aspirations or even life aspirations, truth be told, outside of marriage and family.  And I still would love to be a mother, but at the current, that's not in the cards for me.  But what I do have is a passel of Sunday School kids, and a job at a daycare.  Almost every day of my life is filled with sticky smiles and heads of hair to braid.  So it might seem like a silly something (and I'm not trying to say that what I do is mothering, because you mothers out there know that it's way more than just making sure kids aren't choking on plastic bags or whatever), but I have been so thankful this past year to realize that the Lord knows my heart and keeps my lap filled with children who want to listen to me read story books.  It's a gift.  And I'm thankful for it.
6)  I should never be so dogmatic when I say that certain things won't happen.  Turns out #2 on my list applies to all kinds of areas.  Sometimes things that seem like they'll never happen do.
7)  Life is made of moments, not milestones.  I mean, some people get milestones, and I obviously have milestone-ish things in my life, but I've been learning not to look to milestones for contentment.  Life passes me by when I'm constantly looking ahead for events over which I hold no control.  Life is the every day, the mundane, the mealtimes and conversations and friendships and the shared memories.  Life isn't always about moments that are scrapbook-able.

I could go on.  But 2014 has already been overwhelming with with things and I'm afraid that if I finish this list (which I started a few weeks ago, but, as per usual, left in draft format for a while) it'll be subtly influenced by 2014.  And then what would I put on my list next year?  If the Lord doesn't come, that is.

Very Busy Season (or... VBS)

 

It's Vacation Bible School time around our place.  Which means, basically, that we run around for a week pulling our hair out, picking up more children than can possibly fit in our vehicles, and generally feeling like surely we'll be more organized next year.

We never are.

So don't expect me to update regularly like I was doing last week (three times!  possibly a new record!) because I'll be busy feeling guilty about breaking the law by having at least 10 more kids in my van than I have seat belts.  That sort of thing.

But it surely is good to be having VBS.  There's something energizing about all the kids, and the smell of paint, and hearing little voices learning Bible verses.  That sort of thing.  So (loss of hair aside), it's a good week around here.  A good week indeed.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I read a super interesting book recently.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, to be precise.  I read it at the urging of my sister.  Well, more specifically, because my Chasm's Lady sister told me that my other Until-Recently In Denial About Reading My Blog sister liked it a lot, and it "revolutionized her life."  So I read it, and really liked it, but must admit, it didn't change my life.
Then again, I don't have kids, so...

The general idea of the book is as follows: a Chinese immigrant marries a Jewish guy and they have two girls--Sophia and Lulu.  She wants to raise them in the traditional Chinese manner (which is to say, all work and no play makes Sophia and Lulu very smart and focused children), and thinks the kids will be happy all working and no playing.  They learn musical instruments and how to do math and excel at every school subject.  These girls were set up to be the next Chopin/Supreme Court Justice.  Whatever they wanted.

Only...  the girls were less than enthusiastic about the fanatical practice sessions.  Less than warmed when their mother out-and-out rejected poorly made birthday cards and called the girls "garbage."  Not so thrilled that they couldn't have sleepovers, or go on vacation without their musical instruments in tow.  Even irked that they were taken out of school all the time so they could get "real work" (read, more musical practice) done.

Eventually Lulu, the younger daughter, figured out that her mother could be broken.  So, she broke her.  After enough times of refusing to practice her violin, and then even more times of refusing to practice her violin, her mother, Amy, let it stop.

And that, basically, was the end of the book.

That review sounded less than glowing, but, as I said earlier, I really liked the book.  It was well written, thoughtful, and easy to identify with (well, inasmuch as I know how to identify with either the parents or children in this situation).  Amy Chau was candid, and you could tell (she mentioned in the follow-up portion of the book, in fact) that her daughters had a say in what went in the book and what stayed out.  Not like I know what's not in the book, obviously, because, well, I'm not Amy's friend, and she didn't tell me.  I have no idea.

Besides all that thought-provoking stuff, the book was downright, genuinely amusing.  Between the discussions of why they had a dog--and then got another one--you'd find a paragraph containing a rant about school.  "...there's nothing I hate more than all these festivals and projects that private schools specialize in.  Instead of making kids study from books, private schools are constantly trying to make learning fun by having parents do all the work."

For some reason, I find that very amusing.  I was reading this book on a bus, by the way, and got some strange looks because I would inadvertently allow a laugh to audibly escape every once in a while.

The book came under a lot of criticism.  Which I partly understand.  I mean, calling your children garbage?  But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that most of the people who hate it passionately (and the people who sent the author death threats and such--which actually happened) maybe didn't actually finish the book.  It's divided into three sections.  The first section: background story and stuff that went on when the girls were young and everyone got along well.  Section two:  when everything went horribly, terribly wrong and Amy realized that Chinese parenting maybe didn't work so well after all.  Section three:  Amy explaining why she wrote the book, and how the household dynamic changed now that there wasn't quite the same level of tyranny, as it were.  So yes, I cringed several times as I read it, but I also was impressed at the willingness of the author to bluntly share her faults and walk us all through what worked and what decidedly didn't.

I'm glad I read it.  It's true, I don't have children, but it was an interesting read if only for the things I learned about Chinese culture.  It was valuable for the things I learned about parenting (not just Chinese parenting, but general parenting) and, quite frankly, I found it an interesting study in human nature in general.

And now, in my opinion, the author owes us another book.  A book about her poor husband, Jed, who got basically no say in the parenting.  There needs to be an ode to Jed.  I feel sorry for that man.  But that's not the subject.

Anyhow, if, like me, you've ever read the articles about the book (first I heard about it was from Time magazine--both girls say, by the way, that as far as they know, they're going to turn out fine), or had it recommended (possibly even by my sister, haha), you should read it.  And then we can all discuss it.  I'd very much like to hear what other people have to say about it!

In His Image

I'm not trying to say that my parents are awesome, or that my siblings are awesome, or that we're all that and a canister of silly string, but the fact is, my parents did an amazing job at bringing up their kids. There is always margin for error, but at this point, everyone is pretty much turning out.

I always marveled at that fact (yeah, I have this phobia of one day having kids and them all turning into little hoodlums who wreak havoc and don't go on for the Lord), and I know many godly parents whose children have turned out less than well. To say the least.

I had always figured that my parents were just really in tune with the Lord when it came to raising kids (they were), and that they used principles from the Word of God (they did), because obviously that's the best help book for parenting. True and true.

But my dad was talking about it the other day and said something that made all the sense in the world to me. He said that essentially, a lot of people try to raise their kids in their own image. The parent sort of wants their kid raised a certain way, for one reason or another, and that's all good and well, but... my parents didn't want kids in their own image. They, through much prayer and patience, tried to mold us kids in the image of God. No sense having a bunch of little kids like them, they'd rather a passel of kids who live in Christ's image.

Somehow, it made me a little less scared of having (and, subsequently, messing up) children. Not much, but some. Kids like me would be a disaster. Kids following in the footsteps of God? I could deal with that.

No small wonder

I love books. We all know this. All kinds--big, little, boring, fat, picture, memoir, hilarious, odd, anger-inducing, calming, whatever. But I do especially love children's books.

Which is handy because... my co-worker is going to school to be a children's librarian. It's pretty much awesome, because we're always going off on these random conversations about illustrators and authors and genres and subtle lessons. She's taking a children's literature class that talks a lot about Caldecott books, which is fun for me personally, because one summer I decided to read every single Caldecott book I could find. I ended up reading all of the Winners and a good portion of the medal-winners, and still reminisce fondly on those picture-book-heavy days. Good stuff.

But our conversations are so hilarious. We both love the same edition of A Child's Garden of Verses because the illustrator was a genius (actually, Gyo Fujikawa is one of my mom's all-time favorite illustrators because of this book. I think that's why I love it so much), and our conversations about Crockett Johnson go like this.

Co-worker: "Crocket Johnson--"

Me: "Sheer genius!"

Not very work-inducing, but a good way to keep spirits up in the office.

Do I seem desperate?

For some reason I've been getting a lot of relationship advice recently. I have no idea if suddenly I got a neon flashing light that says "I DESPERATELY NEED YOUR ADVICE" or something, but for some reason I've been getting loads of it. Yesterday at Sunday School a little boy asked me how old I was and followed with, "Do you got a husband?" When I told him no, he was rather shocked, and said, "Why not? Don't you know how to get one?" That's clearly everyone elses question, as well. Here's a sampling (sadly, I do mean sampling. Most of these are condensed from much longer commentaries) from the last week and a half or so.

From the lady at the YMCA (pardon, Y, they recently changed it): Make sure to decide how many children you want, because you won't often just naturally agree.

From my boss: If you've found the guy who gives you the last piece of chocolate cake you'll know he's the one for you.

From the lady at the grocery store: "Sweetie, just make sure, whatever you do, to not lower your expectations."

From the guy who works at the auto-body shop: Oh, you'll wake up one day and say, "this is it? the house? the kids? the husband?" so just make sure you have someone you don't mind being stuck with.

From the lady who was paying a bill: Don't expect very many flowers. I don't know who started that story, but they never bring flowers.

From a random person at the office: It's all fun and games until you have stretch marks.

From my friend Mrs. B: Why aren't you married yet? =P

All in all, it's not like any of what they've been saying is specifically pointing at any major flaws (that I can), as if they're trying to gently help me out, but rather these people are just saying this sort of thing for fun. Is it because I'm "of age"? It's kind of freaking me out, because I'm neither desperate nor worried.

I just thought I should share.

When I was a child

Yes, yes, I'm a child. This was recently proved to me a few weeks ago, when my grandparents gave me a sticker, explaining that they'd been to our family doctor and he'd sent me a sticker (of a little lamb; my first thought was that maybe he'd gotten saved and the lamb was a reference to the Lamb of God. Alas, not so much) via them. Then, when I went again, today, he gave me not one, but two stickers. These were of raccoons.

But it made me laugh to think that I garner such childish perks. I like!

Patience

Has anyone ever read or watched Character Builder books from the Agapeland people? Because when I was a nanny I used to watch the little dramatized book versions thereof, and sometimes I think back to those and consider what good lessons they are.

For instance, right now, I'm not finding much in the way of patience. I'm actually a little irritable, to tell the truth, and I keep thinking of those Agapeland lessons and pondering that I should be more like a little child.

(Side note: I have been solidified in everyone's minds as a little child, but I'm talking more spiritually than mentally.)

I need to view things and actually think, first off, "What would Jesus do?" I need to think, "But I should love everybody!" I need to want to share, not just feel obliged.

Oh for the traits of a little child.

Oh, baby

The other day, while driving home from having spent the night with my cousin's children as my cousin's wife had a child, I heard something frightening on SRN News.

And no, saying "SRN News" isn't redundant (uhg, like ATM machine, or PIN number, or ISBN number, to name a few of my least favorites) because SRN stands for Salem Radio Network, not for Something-eR-other News, like I always thought.

Anyhow, on that day they were announcing that apparently they just decided in Sweden that you may abort your child for no other reason than that you don't like the baby's gender. Yeah, some woman wants a boy, so has aborted two babies (both girls, in case you didn't catch on) because, well, she already has two daughters, and doesn't want any more.

This is tragic, obviously, but even more odd to me was that I heard this news while driving home from my cousin's house, where they were rejoicing over the birth of their new daughter, yet anxious, because the coming weeks will show whether or not their child will have Cystic Fibrosis or not. They knew, when they were expecting, that their baby had a very high chance of having CF, but decided to wait until the baby was born to know for sure. It's been tough on them, I know, having this hanging over their heads, but they've decided to trust the Lord, regardless of what happens next.

What a contrast! It just struck me, especially on the heels of some weird stuff I'd personally been going through. Trusting the Lord is so difficult, but, for me, when I hear about the extreme cases--the people who take their circumstances into their own hands and try to cut God out of it completely--I realize how much the Lord knows best. That sounds simple, but in light of the ways He's been working in my life recently, that's about all I can even think to say about it. His wisdom is beyond my understanding, that's for sure.