Pulling Weeds

So I often have "mommy guilt" over the fact that it seems like all I ever do is correct my children.  When I'm not correcting, I'm mostly moralizing (as in, someone (on TV, in a book, in real life, etc.) does something and so we discuss how that action was foolish or unkind or whatever...or the flip side - what they did was very kind, generous, wise, etc.).  Sometimes it's little things ("AJ, get your finger out of your nose.").  Sometimes it's not ("Joanna, stop eating Styrofoam/rocks/sticks/mulch/barrettes").  But it's a constant part of my day.  I feel like the other moms aren't constantly correcting their kids and I worry that I'm too hard on mine.

Today, while Lucy was sleeping and the bigger two were playing in the pool, I was working on this plant that is infesting our yard.  We have no idea what it is.  It is growing _through_ one of our trees (as in parasitically pretending to be branches on this tree - growing up between bark and trunk or in between rings) in addition to popping up EVERYWHERE in our yard.  It has a woody root and is VERY fast-growing, but the branches are more like a flower or tomato plant (non-woody and slightly furry).  If you happen to know what it is, feel free to let me know, but I'll warn you in advance about doing a Google search for anything that includes the words "weed" and "growing."

Not that I've done that.

Ahem....so there are plenty of blogs out there that can and will take every experience and relate it to God somehow.  It's amazing sometimes, mostly because I doubt that the folks who write those blogs would speak that way normally, and since my writing style is very much conversational, I feel rather fake following suit.  That tends to lead me to assume that _they're_ being fake, but that's my own issue to deal with, not theirs.

Anyway.....so this story isn't like that.  I'm not telling you that _your_ life is like my lawn.  No.  This story isn't about you, it's about me.  And that's what makes it ok somehow for me to tell.  You see, as I was digging these plants out, getting as much of the root as I could in each instance (working with a broken shovel, which adds a whole new level to this metaphor), I really felt like God was telling me that this was my work - to root out those character flaws that are inherent to my children and to teach them the right way to go (morally, socially, fiscally, etc.).  It's a seemingly endless task of hard, hot, backbreaking work (especially given the broken tool that I have to work with (that would be myself in the metaphor)).  Every time it seems like I've gotten an area clear, I look up and see dozens more sprouting up.  Sometimes I almost miss one because it's hiding in the grass.  Sometimes the lawn gets mowed and it looks like they're gone for a while.  Sometimes the roots go straight down.  Sometimes they fan out just a few inches below the surface.  Sometimes the smallest plants come from the biggest roots and sometimes the biggest plants come from the smallest roots.

But just like I could never eradicate the weeds if I stopped weeding, I'll never "train up my children" without the correction.  And if I were to stop, even just for a time, those weeds would make WAY more headway than if I just battle them constantly and consistently.

So I'm letting go of that bit of "mommy guilt" today.  It may get tiring, but at least one of my jobs right now is to root out all those weeds just as soon as their ugly heads pop up in the little garden that we've been given.

Hello! And a Little Tidbit...

So, a crazy thing has been happening lately.  People have been reading my blog.  I don't get it.  I've hardly posted in like two months and yet random people that I don't know keep following my blog.  It's not even halfway through the year and I've already surpassed my page-load stats from last year.  Granted, I think I forgot to add in the counter code back in for a little while last year after Blogger changed some things up, but still.  I'm not really sure why you're here, but you're welcome to stay!  Maybe one of these days I'll get on the ball and actually post regularly!

In the mean time, here's a little tidbit I've been thinking a lot about lately - the church's definition of "success." Churches have limited resources, so they have to use some metric to determine which ministries get money and  how much.  Frequently that metric is "we've always done it, so we have to keep doing it."  While that's not necessarily the best of metrics, it's also far from the worst.  I'm not talking about that one right now.  Next to that one though, the metric tends to be "results."  But how does a church gauge results?  Well, we're told not to judge, so it's not like we can look at the people involved in the ministry and decide whether or not spiritual growth has occurred.  So what do we do instead?  Well, we look at the numbers.  How many people are coming?  How many people have had a need met by the ministry?

And we want to see results right away.  Because it's God's money and we don't want to waste it.

So what would you call someone who plugged away at their ministry for three years.  Heart and soul poured into it.  Every moment of every day he was either meeting needs, teaching, or preparing to do one or the other.  And at the end of those three years, even with miraculous things happening, there were only 120 people who were "regular attenders."  Oh, there were other hangers-on, but really only 120 were into it.  The modern church, I think, would call that man a failure.

I'd call Him Jesus.

Maybe we should rethink our metrics and our definitions of success.

Guest Post

Today we're part of something big here at "Common Sense."  Jon Acuff of StuffChristiansLike.net is doing one of his (in)famous "scorecard" posts, but is letting lots of us, his readers, participate by posting individual scorecard items on our sites.  Click through to SCL to see the whole scorecard.  The key will be posted tomorrow on his site.

So, without further ado...

The “Is that contestant on American Idol a Christian? Scorecard”

33. The first time they see the huge crowds that they perform in front of they mention, “Imagine if we did a love offering in here?” = + 3 points 


To add up your score with over a 130 other ideas on this scorecard, visit stuffchristianslike.net.

And to buy his new book, click here (note, I'm now an Amazon Affiliate, so I'll get like $0.02 out of the deal too).

Church "Friends"

Because of may factors all coming together recently, I've come to a realization: most "church friends" are really a lot more like co-workers than they actually are friends.

Now, before I get to far into this, I want whatever non-church-going friends I have (that actually read this) to understand that I'm not so much downing the church as I am just pointing out the nature of the beast (if you will). So don't add this as another "black mark" against the church, please! :) Instead see this as an introspective on how I, personally, need to be better. Yes, it applies to much of the universal church too, but mostly it applies to me.

But back to my point. See, you have no (or little) choice about who your co-workers are going to be. But whether or not you would have been BFFs in high school, you're still expected to act "professionally" around and to them. Yes, your co-workers can be a decision point for whether or not you'll take or stay in a certain job, but unless you're the one doing the hiring, you have little say in who else works there.

Similarly, you can pick a church with people in it that you get along with and enjoy (maybe they're all in a similar life stage as you), and you can choose to leave a church if you don't get along with the people there...but really, you have no say over who is admitted into the community of people who meet in your particular church building. It's not like it's acceptable for you to stand at the door of your Sunday School class and ask for the secret handshake, kicking out anyone who doesn't know it. In fact, not only do you not have any control over who comes, but you're also expected to "love" everyone who shows up.

So how does this work itself out in the day-to-day operations of a group of people attending the same church? Well, a group is thrown together for some purpose (let's call it a committee that is supposed to administer a certain ministry or activity within the church). Now, this group will have _something_ in common (other than just attending the same church), namely they all (theoretically) have some desire to see the ministry/activity succeed. Beyond that, however, they may have nothing at all in common, especially when talking about personalities. (Thinking back to the co-workers analogy, your project team all works at the same company on the same team, but that doesn't mean that your personalities are well suited for actual friendship.)

So even though your personalities may not go well together (or may even conflict greatly), you're expected to work together towards this purpose. So just like in your office you might put on a mask of "professionalism" prior to working with these other people, in church, you'd put on the mask of "love" for everyone. You put up with them at the meeting and say hello to them if they see you at the grocery store, and when you talk to them it's only about the "work" that you do together (relating to whatever ministries you're both a part of), but you don't know (or maybe even really care) what's going on with them beyond how they get their job done as it relates to you. Maybe you know the latest news in their life through Facebook or the grapevine, but you don't really know _them_.

Do we do this on purpose? I don't think we do. I think we're just too busy to take the time to get to know people in general, and have gotten into bad habits of assuming friendship where there really isn't any.

Maybe a more apt analogy is that a church is like a family (go figure). You have no choice over who comes into it, no ability to kick people out of it, and are expected to maintain a certain level of decorum around those with whom you interact. Some families are more "functional" than others.

So how do we (I) change this? I think it has a lot to do with the follow-up. In pretty much any ministry in a church, we take the time to share "prayer requests." One of the sweetest things anyone ever did for me was call me up after a doctor's appointment they knew I'd been worried about to see how things went and if there was any way they could help. That particular person, even though she had no ministerial reason to follow up with me on that thing is someone that I know actually cares about _me_ and isn't just putting up with me.

It think it also has to do with learning to be a better conversationalist. Instead of always resorting to the easy prey of common job functions, we (I) should have in our proverbial back pockets questions about something they mentioned the last time you saw them (maybe one of those prayer requests). I know that I, for one, am TERRIBLE with small talk. It terrifies me to the point that I'll just sit there and say nothing rather than try to think up something to say to someone. Apparently that's intimidating. But if someone can get me talking, it's hard to shut me up. Occasionally I might even be funny or insightful. I wonder if, in this age of Facebook, Twitter, and texting, we have lost the ability to have normal conversations? Or maybe it's just me sucking at it and assuming that everyone else does too. I don't know. Like I said, this is introspective.

I also think that we need to stop pretending like everyone is actually friends with everyone else. Co-workers with the same goal? Sure. Friends? No. We can be on the same committee and not go to each others' birthday parties without it being a big "thing." It's ok for people to have circles of friends that do not include me (or you). And I'm not forming a clique if I want to go camping with a group that's not all-inclusive of the whole church.

But having said that, it's also not ok to ONLY ever do stuff with that one group of people to the exclusion of all others. Sure, you might be closest with a small group of folks (that's natural), but you might be missing out on a lot of wisdom and fun by not ever talking to anyone else.

I think this works both ways though. There's a great movement within the church for "authenticity." Usually this involves admitting that you curse or drink or something. I think what this should really mean is that when someone asks you in the hallway how you are, you actually stop and give them an honest answer. I'll bet you money that the next time you ask that same person how they are, they'll be honest with you as well. I'm not talking about over-sharing ("well, little Timmy's got this boil on his hiney that we can't seem to get to go away..."), I'm talking about giving something more than just "fine how are you?" as you race past each other.

I'm also talking about actually paying attention when someone is speaking to you. I know I find my eyes wandering when speaking to folks. And usually when my eyes wander, my brain isn't too far behind. And if my mind's wandering when I'm talking to someone, then I have no idea what they're saying and have been far more rude than if I'd just walked on by without saying anything at all.

Anyway....this is long and rambly. Think about the people with whom you interact (especially in a "church" setting). Think about how you actually treat them. Then try to change so that you're actually friends instead of just co-workers. Or find something you can learn from them rather than just putting up with them like you do "crazy uncle Bob." If you feel so led, share about an experience (for good or bad) in the comments.

Seeing the Miraculous

So today, our MOPS group packed our buckets. Each discussion group filled their own as I read aloud a prayer I'd written, calling out each food item as it was to be packed. In one of the sections of the prayer, I asked that the food in the buckets would be multiplied (thinking that, like the widow, it would last the Haitian family until they could provide for themselves).

I'd brought a fifth bucket with me. One that was only about half-filled that VNB's office had put together (they had completed one bucket, but hadn't quite made it with the second). I brought it (and the other "extra" stuff that we had) in order to fill in gaps where we could (worked well because one mom brought ziti instead of spaghetti) and just in case someone brought more than was needed for their bucket.

In a couple of cases, someone mentioned that they had brought something, so I directed them toward the table with extra stuff....but for the most part, every time I glanced over at the table, there was another of something. Usually it was the sugar. I'd lost track of one canister amidst our various buckets (family, small group, Sunday School class, MOPS, Ferguson, etc.) which magically re-appeared today. But as the morning progressed, there was another canister of sugar. I knew it wasn't one of mine because it was a different brand. Then, when time came to pack up, there wasn't just one of that brand, there were two!

And then when I'd collected everything and brought it out to the car, someone found more rice.

The food was literally multiplying.

I know I asked for that to happen...but wow...

What's in the Bible?

So really, this blog isn't going to stop talking about my kids and life...it's just been crazy these past few weeks given the Haiti earthquake with stuff going on. The kids are good. Joanna's got 12 teeth (all 8 in the front and the first molars, skipping the canines). AJ's attempting to forgo his naps (his mama will not be foiled, however - there _WILL_ be quiet time, whether he sleeps or not!). Work is good. Life is good.

So instead of talking about that stuff in detail, I'm gonna tell you about a cool new offering from Phil Vischer, co-creater of VeggieTales and creator of JellyTelly - two of my favorite Biblically-based children's programing. It's called "What's in the Bible?" and features the characters and some of the content from JellyTelly.

Back in the day, Southern Baptists had several different "teaching" times, each focused on different things. Sunday School was focused on teaching the stories and facts of the Bible. GAs/RAs/Mission Friends/Brotherhood/WMU were focused on missions and missionaries. And "School of Disciples" or "Discipleship Training" was focused on how all the stories of the Bible fit together and other things like church history. Discipleship training as a class went the way of the dodo (at least in my church) when I was in late elementary school, so nowadays we have LOTS of folks who know some Bible stories, but have no idea how they all fit together and intertwine.

Well, if VeggieTales is like Sunday School, What's in the Bible is like Discipleship Training. And if the content is anywhere near as good as what's on JellyTelly, it's gonna be great!

In any case, the first two DVDs came out in stores today, so if you're related to me and/or my kids and just happen to want to pick one up (for them or yourself), I'd be all for it! ;p Even if you're _not_ related to my kids, you're still welcome to pick then up for yourself and maybe your kids too! Don't worry, it's not gonna make you crazy like Elmo does me.

Called Out

So until just recently, my dad has been a minister of music (and sometimes youth). Sometimes he was full-time (most of my childhood, but not since my senior year in high school), sometimes bi-vocational, but always on a church staff. Still, he's not so much the type to talk about his kids from the pulpit, using something we said or did as an object lesson for the congregation.

So it was a new experience for me yesterday morning when our Senior Pastor called me out from the pulpit! I didn't even realize what was going on at first (even though I really was actually paying attention right then)! I was sitting there, thinking how funny it was that he was talking about what my email signature has said for just about forever (or, you know, 5-6 years): "The grass is always greenest right next to the puddle of raw sewage."

I made that up one day while driving through a poor part of Baghdad on a cold, dreary, November day. The houses were all adobe-colored, the sky was gray...and the only color I saw anywhere was this tall tuft of bright green grass growing next to a drainage ditch. In that part of town, there is no underground sewage system, so every house just has a ditch running from their "bathroom" to the ditches along the roads. And that was the only spot where grass took root and was growing.

Anyway, that gave me a good chuckle, so I put it after my name on all of my emails and it's been there ever since. I don't know that I've emailed the pastor in months, but that's obviously left an impression on him...so yesterday when he was preaching about finding joy, he mentioned that "the grass your neighbor is standing on is like that because..." then he trailed off and started staring right at me.

After a moment of discomfort (as I wondered, "Is he really talking about me? Is he really staring at me? Is he looking at something/someone else? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? (ok, not really on that last one)), he then said that there was someone in the church who ends her every communication with that, then said, "Melissa, you want to fill them in?" At which point, VNB roared with laughter, as did the few others who have received emails from me and knew exactly what he was talking about.

So I yelled out, "it's right next to a puddle of raw sewage!" He repeated me for amplification purposes, the congregation tittered, and then he moved on with his sermon.

It was definitely a new experience for me!

While You Wait

I'm not usually one for pimping other people's blogs, but this post by Shaun Groves is awesome.  Great perspective.  Great hope.  Possibly even "good news of great joy!"

Percolation

So our small group is reading the book "The Divine Commodity" by Skye Jethani. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily blowing my mind, but I _would_ say that it's bringing together some scattered thoughts that I've been thinking for years and putting some words to them.

For instance, Mr. Jethani talks about how we, as American consumers, have lost the ability to imagine God actually _doing_ miraculous things. And since we can't imagine it (or to put it in more common "church" parlance, to "have faith like a child"), it doesn't happen. Well, that's not really true....it's not that it doesn't happen, it's that we don't _see_ it happen. Because we don't believe that it could or that God could/would do it. It just doesn't make "common sense" to believe in the miraculous. And our culture is all about the "common sense."

I'm also thinking about what church should and shouldn't be. We've spent so much time and energy making church "relevant" and "seeker-sensitive" that I think we've forgotten that church is actually for those who _ALREADY_ believe. Yes, non-believers will be drawn in (especially as we practice the community aspect of being a follower of Jesus and then show His love elsewhere through service both near and abroad), but the main point of "church" (imo) isn't to "bring people to Christ," but rather to equip and renew those who already follow Him.

And as believers, we seem to think that if we "bring a friend to church," then we've done our job. Nevermind actually _serving_ that friend and meeting them where they are. We just want to get them to join our club.

Back to the imagination aspect, it's like we've run out of ideas for ways to actually _serve_ people. It's not _bad_ to bring cookies to our local fire station...but when we talk about acts of service, why do we think so small? Why do we think of things that will make someone's _day_ rather than change their lives? And it's not to say that bringing someone cookies couldn't be used by God to change their lives...but there are other ways that _DEFINITELY_ will change someone's life. Maybe those take more work? But I don't even necessarily think so.

I don't know....lots of stuff percolating....still not quite ready...

Operation Christmas Child Hits Home

So today we collected the filled shoeboxes from the church to take to the collection site. Including ours, there were 78! A little down from last year, but I know that there are several folks out there just planning to bring the boxes to the collection site themselves, so we didn't do so badly.

AJ and I filled our box last Sunday night (Joanna and I had bought all of the stuff, but she wasn't so much into the packing). It was VERY hard for my little man to see the fun toys get packed away (along with some soap, pencils, crayons, some copy books, candy, shirts, off-brand play dough, and a few other things), but eventually he got excited about the present for the boys and "dirls" (it helped that he got his own set of play dough to play with). The box has been sitting on the counter since then, and he's mentioned it a couple of times - "Dat p'esent not foh Ay-Day. Dat foh boys an' dirls." He was very excited this morning when the box was clearly ready to leave the house. I had to explain to him that _we_ weren't going to bring it to the boys and girls today, but that we'd give it to someone else who would bring it to them. ("Although," I said, "wouldn't be cool if one day we would get to deliver our own box?!" Planting the seeds early...)

So after our MOPS steering team meeting this morning, AJ helped me load the boxes onto the cart and then into the back (and floorboards) of the car. It was kind of a blessing that we didn't have quite as many as last year since I had an extra passenger (CaptainConundrum) and car seat (Joanna) that weren't there last year (well, Joanna _was_ there, she was just still hitching a ride in my uterus). When we got to the collection site, he helped carry in and stack the boxes, but we saved one for last - OURS.

I'd taken one home from our October MOPS meeting for AJ to help fill, knowing that it might be disastrous, but that it was worth it to teach him early to give to others. He'd been excited when he saw the wrapped box - "Dat foh me, Mom? Dat foh me?" To which I replied, not sure how much he understood, "No, Buddy, that's a present for a little boy or a little girl somewhere else in the world who doesn't have any toys." Thinking that we'd bring it into the store with us when we went to buy the stuff to fill it, I left it in the car, between the car seats.

Every now and then, he'd ask again, "Dat foh me, Mom?" and I'd explain again that no, it was for a little boy or girl far away who maybe didn't have toys to play with. Time passed and passed and there was never a good opportunity to take him out to buy the stuff for the box, so last Sunday after choir practice (when he was _not_ with me), I stopped by Target, and hit their "Dollar Spot" and school supplies aisle. When I came home, AJ was excited to see both the box and the new toys. (Again, "Dat foh me, Mom?" "No, Buddy...") We talked as I packed the box about the little boy or girl who maybe didn't have crayons and paper to draw with or toys to play with or soap. We talked about how they lived far away, about how much God has given to us, and about how that means that we need to give to other people.

He cried a little when the toys went straight into the box, but he was surprisingly good about it, eventually repeating his mantra - "Dat not foh me, dat foh duh boys an' dirls." He was especially upset because the box was getting new play dough, so I was glad when the box was all packed and I could surprise him with his own play dough (which I think has all already dried out or been eaten by Joanna!).

I was reminded at my meeting this morning that if you donated online (you're supposed to pay $7 per box to cover the costs of shipping, etc.), you could print out a bar code to track where your actual box had gone. Since I hadn't yet donated, I borrowed a computer and printed out a barcode for us and taped it on OUR box, which sat on CaptainConundrum's lap the rest of the way to the drop-off location.

After AJ had helped unload the boxes at the drop-off point, I pulled out OUR box from the dashboard. As I handed it to him, I asked if he wanted to pray over it, and he said yes! So we prayed, thanking God first that we had been given so much that we were able to give to others, but then praying that the boy who got our box would enjoy drawing with the crayons and playing with the toys and eating the candy and using the soap. There were tears in my eyes as I thought about how proud I was of my little man, not yet 3, who was so generously and happily giving up fun toys that he would love to a little boy that he'd probably never meet.

Then we got to the stacks of boxes and he started to cry. We asked where he wanted to stack his box and got an incoherent response. Thinking that he maybe just couldn't reach the top of one of the stacks, I helped him put the box down, at which point he collapsed onto the floor, face buried in his hands, boohoo-ing about how he wanted to draw (with the crayons that our prayer had reminded him were in the box). I picked my sobbing boy up off of the floor and carried him to the car (picking up an "I donated a shoe box" sticker along the way), reminding him about his crayons at home and how we were giving OUR box to a little boy who didn't have any crayons.

He calmed down eventually, and I'm still _VERY_ proud of him, but what can I say? He's not even 3 yet. We've done well not getting too much "MINE" from him, but he's still a very little boy.

Someday I'll remind him of this, his first time giving away something that was hard. I think on that day maybe _I'll_ be giving away something hard as he goes out into the world to do the work that God has for him to do. A mommy can certainly dream worse dreams for her little man.

Enough

So on Saturday, I got pretty much the whole day without my darling kiddoes. It was both blissful and painful all at the same time. Blissful because I got to be an adult all day without anyone hanging off of me while attending a great training for MOPS leaders and then Amplified. And painful because not only was I without my darling, wonderful husband (who was watching our children all day, despite being called into work at the last minute) and my adorable little ones, I was also without some of the necessary pieces of my breast pump. By the end of the day, we'll just say that I was...full...

Anyhoo...it was a beautiful day, so I got to drive with the windows down, singing along with the radio (or at times with the radio off and just in silence!!!). And it was freeing! It's so rare that I'm actually _alone_ in a car anymore. That used to be my time to sit and chat with God, and I have to say that it's one of the things I've missed most since being a mommy. Well, that's how I used to think of it anyway. But since I had probably two hours of "alone time" while driving to and fro on Saturday, I think I have come to a startling realization.

I am seriously lacking in angst in my life right now. That's totally not a bad thing to lack and I certainly don't miss it, but it gives me far less to "chat" with God about in those rare moments when we _are_ alone. Looking back, I think our "chats" used to revolve a lot around the "things" I wanted in life (pretty much just a husband and kids, back in the day), and now that I have those "things," I don't know what to talk about.

Makes me wonder exactly how self-centered my relationship with Him was in those days, constantly asking Him why I wasn't getting the things I wanted at the times that I wanted them. Heh...reminds me of a certain young man I popped out a few years back who is still learning the concept of "yes, but later."

Wow...this is totally not the blog post I expected it to be. How do I expect my 2-yr-old to understand a concept that I didn't get when I was 27? And still probably wouldn't get if there were anything I wanted RIGHT NOW. I wonder how many times _I_ got put into "time out" and had those "things" taken away because _I_ wouldn't stop pouting? Now there's a point to ponder...

Anyway...I've noticed a lot of other bloggers lately talking about the concept of "Enough." C.S. Lewis touches on it in "Perelandra" (the 2nd book in his "Space Trilogy") when Ransom eats the special fruit. He recognizes that the ample crop would allow him to eat as many of the fruits as he wanted to...but something holds him back after the first one or two. By indulging (or over-indulging), he would be taking away some of the "special-ness" of the fruit. And by waiting in between each taste of the fruit, he got to savor the memory of the last special meal and eagerly anticipate the next.

What I have now is "enough" and then some. Yes, we could stand to have more money, but we have enough for our needs right now. Yes, we could stand to have a bigger house, but we have enough for our needs right now. We could have nicer cars, a bigger TV, phones that can do everything, all the toys AJ and Joanna could ever want....but what we have right now is enough for our needs (and then some).

And now that I recognize that, I can see how shallow my interactions with God were back in the day when all I'd do was complain about what I didn't have. Now I've just gotta figure out what else there is to talk about with Him.

One thing for sure is to thank Him that He has _far_ more patience as a parent than I have. And self-control. Dude...if I had to deal with whiny me while being all powerful? Let's just say that there'd be a whole lot more lightning bolts.

JellyTelly

We're big fans of Big Idea Productions around here (VeggieTales, 3-2-1 Penguins, LarryBoy), so it should come as no surprise that we were excited to hear about Phil Vischer's latest venture - JellyTelly.

He explains it better than I will, but basically, they're trying to create a Christian version of the online content that websites such as Disney and Nickelodeon. In the process, he hopes to help encourage young Christian filmmakers by providing them a platform on which to show their work. It's a subscription service, but they let you try the first month for free and the base price thereafter is only $3 a month (although at least the original plan was to let you pay more if you wanted to support the ministry). You can do the free first month without giving them any information other than your name and email address.

They just started airing content this past week and today was our first time watching it. They have a mixture of puppets, animation, and live action. There's catchy music (today there was a song about the book of Judges, listing all of the judges in order), and lots of good, Biblically-based information. But more importantly, except for one clip which was just too far above his head, AJ was completely riveted.

Anyway, they're not paying or giving me anything to write this, it's just a great new source of online Christian content that I hope succeeds! Check it out!

Two Things I Learned Today...

So today we went to East Carolina's Homecoming today. After watching the homecoming parade, we tailgated, then when VNB and AJ went to the game with one of VNB's friends, I had the afternoon to myself.

There were two things I learned during the day:
1) Former band members are terrible at planning tailgates (especially when it's a group of women who are pregnant, little kids, seminary students, and random other people from InterVarsity). We just have no idea what goes on. I mean, we brought chairs and got food (Subway - not really "tailgate" food)...but the people around us just seemed more "tailgate-y" than us. We just have no idea what to do at a tailgate since we've never been to one ourselves.
2) If you're not taken up in the rapture, you need to have a harpoon, because as I read today, after the rapture there will be great "whaling" [sic] and gnashing of teeth. I think I laughed about that for about an hour...and still chuckle every time I think of it.

Hope Lives!

So I've long been a fan of Compassion, International. They're an organization that reaches children in poverty and helps them help themselves and their families out of it. They do it using local people who are working for the betterment of their own community with money donated by sponsors in the US and elsewhere. The child that you sponsor is not a "representative" child that fifty-thousand other people are "sponsoring." That child is unique to you and your family and for $32 a month is well-fed and schooled. They write you letters and you can write them back. You can even send them Christmas presents or other special things for their community or family.

Anyway, Compassion has recently gotten into blogging, thanks in no small part to Christian musician Shawn Groves. Currently, he and several other bloggers are in the Dominican Republic seeing the work that's being done there and opening themselves and Compassion up to the world through the various blogs. They're also sponsoring their first ever blog contest! So here's my entry describing how hope lives in my life.

Ever since I was young, my favorite Bible verse has been Psalm 30:5b "Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning" (that's the Leia Standard Version, btw). Whenever anything "bad" has happened in my life, that verse has been my mainstay because, not only does it give me hope for this life (i.e., as Scarlett says, "Tomorrow is another day!"), but it reminds me of the hope that I have for my eternal life after I die here on Earth.

When I was going through my various breast lumps and wondering if at 23 I had breast cancer, I knew no matter what I was going to have to deal with, that God would be there with me through it all...and even if I died of cancer, I was gonna go to heaven, so woohoo!

When I lived and worked in Baghdad, I knew that, even if I were kidnapped or worse, that God would be with me through it all, and even if I died, God would be glorified through my death (as he was through the deaths of my friends), and I was gonna go to heaven, so woohoo! While others in my company wanted to hunker down and stay in our office instead of going out and actually _helping_ people, I was ready to go out to the "dark" places because of that hope.

More recently, when Baby Jones' first sonogram showed a "soft marker" for Trisomy-18 (a genetic disorder which only very rarely allows the baby to make it to term, much less live outside the womb), the only thing that kept us sane was the knowledge that God was in control. It wouldn't make the loss of this little one hurt any less, but we could rest in the knowledge that God had a plan even for the shortest of lives, and that He would be glorified through it all. And we were happy to give Him the praise when the follow-up sonogram showed no signs of anything other than a healthy baby!

Hope lives in my life because I can look back across the years and see clearly where God has taken care of all of my needs (and those of my family) and given me so much more than I could ever ask or imagine along the way. Knowing that He's always done that in the past, I can rest assured that He will continue to do so in the future.

As Bill and Gloria Gaither said, "Because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. Because I know Who holds the future. My life is worth the living just because He lives."

Who needs sleep?

So have you ever gotten into bed sleepy, with the thought that you've got as close to a perfect life as it gets...only to then remember that you might get to achieve your life-long dream of being an astronaut too?

I mean, seriously...I've gone on and on about how good God is to me before...but really...life can hardly get any better than it is right now. Does that seem an odd thing to say in the middle of a financial crisis in our country? I've got a wonderful husband who has his quirks, but who takes excellent care of me and who loves me very much. I've got the cutest, smartest, sweetest baby outside of a uterus right now...and another one (who is also the cutest, smartest, and sweetest - yes they can both share the titles) inside my uterus right now. We've got jobs, we've got savings, we've got a mortgage that we can handle for the foreseeable future, we've got minimal non-mortgage debt, we've got cars that work, we've got supportive families that love us, we've got a circle of friends who love us and pray for us, we've got a good church, and a cat named Monkey. I mean, seriously, what more could you ask for?

And I might get to be an astronaut too...

Yeah...break out the Farscape DVDs...there's no sleep for me for a while tonight...

Mommy Blogger

This is a long one, so bear with me if you will. If not, I'll put up some more pics of AJ soon!

So I think I've mentioned this before, but there's this whole "mommy blogging" community out there. Officially, as AJ's mom who also blogs, I'm a part of it. I participate in some of the 'carnivals' (like Works-for-me Wednesday), I've got links to other "mommy blogger's" blogs, I read several other blogs written by "mommy bloggers," occasionally I'll comment on other "mommy blogger's" blogs...basically, I ought to have the bumper sticker and t-shirt (and laminated membership card)...but I don't, and I haven't really figured out why yet.

Partly, I'm reticent I think because I started out as just a blogger - long before I met VNB, and even longer before I became a mommy. So changing my mindset from being a 'blogger' to a 'mommy blogger' has been difficult.

But I think more than that, the 'mommy bloggers,' while wonderful, wise, witty, and fun ladies...well, I just don't think they'd be the kind of people that I'd hang out with were we all in high school. From my point of view, they mostly fall into two categories: conservative Christian stay-at-home moms (SAHMs), or ultra liberal SAHMs. There are a large percentage who are work-at-home moms (WAHMs) like myself, and a smaller number who work outside the home. Ironically, a large majority of both sides homeschool and are somewhat "crunchy" in terms of earth-friendliness.

I think I shy away from the Christian side of the fence because, in my high school, EVERYONE was a Christian. The question wasn't "_Do_ you go to church," it was "_Where_ do you go to church." And 9 times out of 10 it was a Baptist church (I went to hs in Nashville - "the buckle of the Bible belt"). And the kid who was a known pot-head and trouble maker wore his Christian t-shirts with pride and I'm sure was a pillar of his youth group. So I stopped wearing Christian t-shirts since I didn't want to be associated with his kind of Christianity. And the "Christian" crowd...I dunno how to describe it...even then that seemed like too sheltered a way to live. I just had _friends._ It didn't matter in the making of them what religious background they had. Sure I wanted them all to know what I know, but that wasn't the basis of our friendship.

These Christian mommy bloggers seem somewhat similar to me. They're insulated from the real world and "real" people. Not that they aren't wholly sincere...they're just...this tight-knit little community that rarely seems to do much more than pray for each other and link to each others' blogs (not that those things are wrong). I mean, they share wisdom and creative solutions on any number of useful topics (a popular one that I've been trying to learn from is "Home Economics" - not sewing and cooking like we learned in middle school, but actually how to run a home economically) and are wonderfully supportive in times of emotional need...many have at least one sidebar link to things like the Scripture of the day, which shows up on a pretty background. Often their entire post will just be a Psalm of praise and a picture of their (perfectly landscaped) backyard.

The thing is, I bet if I met them in person, they wouldn't talk like that. They wouldn't see a beautiful scene, gasp, pause, and in a reverent tone quote entire Scripture passages from memory. And I know that people (including myself) have different written voices than we do in person...but I dunno...it just doesn't always seem genuine to me. It seems like they're all trying to live up to the word "Christian" in their little sidebar summary description.

I appreciate that these women are all diligently trying to be better Christian wives and mothers, I really do. And I enjoy learning from what they share with the world. But I just don't consider myself "part" of "them."

And yet I'm (obviously) not part of the ultra liberal crowd either. But misanthropes...they're just more fun to me! The cynical, the sarcastic, the biting...their writing has _FLAVOR_, if you know what I mean...and yet I'm reticent to link to their sites for fear of what you'll think of me. I mean, yogabeans.com is one of the absolutely funniest sites on the planet. But it's about _yoga_. And she _curses_! But it's about doing yoga with action figures! And it's HI-LARIOUS! (but she _curses_!) And not all of them are misanthropic or cynical...but their writing still has a 'tang' to it that the "Christian mommy bloggers" just don't always have (and I'm not saying that the liberal crowd aren't Christians...they just don't advertise themselves as such on their blogs).

Does that mean that I love the world too much? Am I so enticed by the things of importance to this world that the more reverent "Christian" community doesn't appeal to me? (And I'm not saying that the "Christian" community isn't irreverent either...they just all have on what I call "church face"). Or have the "Christian" mommy bloggers so sequestered themselves that they are of no impact on the world?

I mean...one of the blogs that I read is actually written by a single girl. While she grew up in a church-going family, she does not emblazon herself with the label "Christian" (she blogs about tv and baseball and movies and advice - and did I mention that she curses?), and she and her readership just since the first of October have raised over $50k for "Donors Choose" a website where teachers ask for money for projects for their schools and you pick which ones you want to donate to. Apparently Donors Choose is running a month-long contest among bloggers to see which blog can raise the most money for these teachers. Political blogs are doing it. Technical blogs are doing it...but I haven't heard a peep from the "Christian" community about it.

Just about every "Christian mommy blogger" has a link on their side bar to pray for this family or that little one who has such and such grave illness...and it's not wrong to do that...but why aren't we impacting our world more? And how do we go about it?

There's definitely a dichotomy of readership too, I think. The Christians use their churchy words and talk about submitting to their husbands (and potty training and child-rearing and home ec and dozens of other topics) and the liberals talk about all the same things, minus the churchy words and teachings and with a dash of cursing and salt. And to some extent, never the twain should meet.

Except that _we're_ called to be the "salt" of the world. Why are we so boring?

No answers here, folks....discuss amongst yourselves.

(But how is it that blogger.com doesn't have "blogger" in their spell-check dictionary?)

Updates

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything except the little parasite who is currently (literally) sucking me dry. He's still good. He still screams when the carrots are gone and he likes sweet potatoes too, just not quite as enthusiastically. We'll try squash here in a day or two. His favorite new game is to lunge forward. I guess that means that sitting up is just around the corner. It's hard to believe how quickly he learns, gets stronger, and grows. He's got a white bump on his lower gum below where his left canine tooth would be, and he's been royally fussy these past few days, so I'm thinking that one might be first.

Today I was even able to lay (lie?) him down in his crib and have him fall asleep. It wasn't nearly as easy as that sounds, but that was the ultimate outcome. In between lying him down and him actually sleeping was about 20 minutes of him "rolling" around in his crib (just back and forth, not over, although he's done that twice on the floor now), about 30 minutes of him screaming in his crib, then about ten minutes of me standing by his crib with my head on the railing and my eyes drowsily blinking as I went "shhhhhh, shhhhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhh..." That quieted him down, eventually _his_ eyes started blinking drowsily, and then he fell asleep!!! And he slept for about 45 minutes, whimpered for a bit, then slept for about 15 minutes more. And the angels sang.

They were also singing because my scale told me this morning that I am officially no longer "overweight" (according to my bmi)!!!! I'm still 20 lbs heavier than this time last year, but I'm no longer officially "overweight!!" I still feel pretty ookie about the way I look, but at least there's progress!

What else? Hrm....so I've found myself feeling a bit directionless lately, mostly because I'm just now getting to the point where I can notice that for the past I don't know how many months, all I've been doing is keeping my head above water. To the point that I've somewhat had that McDonald's commercial moment where I wake up and discover that I'm a soccer mom with three kids in a mini-van. Now that I've gotten over the anxiety caused by that awakening, I'm realizing that I'm in a very different place in life than I was just a little while ago. Relationships are different (and some don't seem to be surviving the transition...but at the same time others have deepened and new ones have formed...), responsibilities are different, priorities are different....but there's been so much change in my life lately that I've been afraid to ask Him what my next steps should be for fear that the answer will require _more_ change.

Or at least that's what I thought I was afraid of. I think the real problem was more that I don't know yet how to deal with His will for _our_ lives. It's not just about me anymore. Gone are the days when He can say "go" and I can get up and do just that. I mean....He could still tell us to go and we would still go, but now it involves changing two people's minds (and eventually AJ's too). And I think my real fear is that He'll tell _me_ something, but not VNB and then I'll have to figure out what to do about that. Except that I know that's just silly and He'd never do that. In fact, ways in which I've hoped that VNB would step up, he's done exactly that on his own without any prompting from me.

But life is different now in ways that I never anticipated (and I'm not just talking about surprises like AJ). It's still good, it's just different...and it's interesting seeing who's come alongside me and who's fallen away.

Working from home has really been good. We've gotten stir-crazy from time to time, but really much less frequently than I would have expected. I've still not quite figured out working, keeping AJ happy, _and_ keeping the house clean, but two out of three (at least most days) isn't so bad, right? I've still got a complex about my bosses thinking it's a good long-term plan, but really, I would say that the company's getting a _really_ good deal out of me this way. Since I'm part-time, they don't have to pay benefits, plus they're getting about as much work from me as they are from people who are on this same project full-time - they just pay me for half as many hours, plus I don't have to worry about getting up, dressing up (in my one pair of work pants and two work shirts that "fit" right now), getting AJ to daycare, getting to work on time, and working while feeling guilty about AJ being in daycare...AND they're not losing an experienced analyst. Logically, I think they come out ahead, even though it means that I'm not in the office all the time. I still worry that at some point someone's not gonna be so cool about it and I'm gonna have to defend my work situation though. It could be interesting as we walk as part of Futron's "Race for the Cure" team with the company president this weekend. :)

Speaking of which....if you want to sponsor us, go to this site. Only sponsor VNB because his company will match whatever he raises, and then my company (whose team we're on) will match whatever he raises...which means that if we do this right, your pledge could be quadrupled. Pretty nifty, huh? :) This is a cause that hits pretty close to home for me. There's been virtually no cancer in my family history (what little we know of was caused by my grandfather's 2nd-hand smoke and even then my grandmother was in her late 70s), but my lumpiness puts me at higher risk, as does the fact that AJ didn't come along until I was 30. Plus, I've known several folks who have been personally touched by this disease. So give early, give often. :)

What else? Hrm....AJ's kinda funny and already reminds me of myself in many ways. My mom loves to remind me of one time that I was down in the dumps when I was about 9 or so. I'd only been playing piano for about a year, but we had this simplified version of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" that I was desperate to play. So she found me crying one day and asked what was wrong. There were three things. I don't remember the first one, but the second was that I didn't like Cabbage Patch dolls (they were the big thing at the time, so something _must_ have been wrong with me if I didn't like them), and "I can't even play the Moonlight Sonata!" Oh, life was ending....well...AJ does the same thing. He can reach for and grab onto toys now, but if he can't get them to do what he wants them to do (or if we empty the jar of carrots), he _SCREAMS_ in frustration. With the toys, he usually gets distracted after a minute or two of _SCREAMING_, so life in his Pack 'n Play goes like this - play, play, play, _SCREAM_, play, play, play, _SCREAM_....and so on. And he can't even play the Moonlight Sonata.

Well...that's about it for now. I'll upload the video of AJ eating so that everyone can experience the joy that is carrots.

Is This Parenting?

So I just got back from a funeral. I only remember meeting the guy who died twice, but his sister is a dear friend of mine and was one of my bridesmaids, so I went to the funeral. Dennis was the same age as my older brother (32) when he died suddenly and unexpectedly of what they suspect was pneumonia.

My first memory of him was from high school. His family had moved into the Laurel area shortly after my family had left, but he was in Sunday School one of the times I came back to visit. I don't remember really talking to him, but I remember thinking he was kinda cute. Many years later (and yet still many years ago), I played piano for his twin sister's wedding. At the reception, he ended up sitting at my table for a while. We chatted/flirted during the reception until near the end when he finally asked if I was ever going to dance. I told him I'd dance if anyone would ever ask me. So he asked (after a minute where the thought that was clearly going through his head was, "It can't be that simple"), and we danced. The next Sunday, his mom told me that he'd said I was the prettiest girl at the wedding.

So, while those are both very pleasant memories, I really didn't know him at all. But I still found myself crying during the funeral. Partly it was because my bridesmaid gave the eulogy, with tears in her eyes and voice the whole time, and I'm definitely a sympathy crier. Partly it was because Baby hormones make my crying proclivity much harder to keep in check than normal. But mostly, I think it was because I was imagining myself in the situation of having to bury my child. It didn't help that one of the songs played was "Held" which talks about the unfairness of a two-month-0ld dying in their mother's arms while she prays.

I've heard my mom and dad talk about that thought a couple of times and brushed it aside as silly thinking...but the full horror of it really hit me while looking at the family sitting in front of that box.

Is this what parenting really is? Thinking about all of the "what ifs?" What if they get really sick? What if something goes wrong? You're warned about midnight feedings and colic and dirty diapers, and you get to experience through friends' kids the joys of playing and watching them grow...but is this really the secret that is parenting? The horror of "what if?"

But the thing is, as hard as it would be for us to lose this baby at any point in his or her life...wow...that's hard to even type...as hard as it would be, "we" would still be a "we." I'd still have VNB with me. I wouldn't have to go through it all alone.

But if it were him...and I had to somehow raise our baby alone...



Part of me misses the time when I could quit my job, sell my house, and move to Baghdad on a "whim." (And part of me is now ashamed at what I must have put my parents through when I did that.) Because then I wasn't tied down...there was no one else to consider. Sure, that meant that no one had my back when I could have used some help...but I was truly independent. Now I'm not. Now I have a husband and soon a child to care for...and to worry about.

I know that God gives grace in the moment, not in advance...which is why this is so scary right now. I'm sure that, in the moment, I'd be able to handle whatever happened. But the choice between being in Heaven with 'my Boyfriend' and being here on Earth with my husband (and child)....well that's a hard one. And it didn't used to be.

But the verse that keeps coming to mind is Mark 8:38 - that we can't know what it means to _really_ live until we throw away our lives for the sake of the Gospel. While it was "easy" enough to 'throw away' my own life...it's not so easy to think of doing the same with the alien growing (and kick boxing) in my belly or with the Very Nice Beloved for whom I'm so grateful.

I guess this is where we mimic Jesus' prayer the night before He died and say, "Father, if it's possible, I'd rather this didn't have to happen.....but the bottom line is that what I want most is for Your will to happen, whatever that is."

Sometimes that's easier said than done though...