Life

The other night Steve set his cellphone alarm to go off at 3 a.m. so I would wake up and go move Deenie the Elf. See, when we went to bed, Kaylee was still wide awake. In bed, lights down, but completely unable to go to sleep. Since I was too tired to outlast her, I had to get up in the middle of the night to finally get in there. The only other option was not moving the elf and making the girl terribly sad, and I wasn't up for that just yet. I've never claimed to not be a sucker once in awhile. ;)

It is SO warm today that I have wandered around in a t-shirt quite comfortably, and loved it. The guys went out to the airport, and I considered going along since Kaylee and Mom are having fun playing together, but I thought such a nice day would just be a tease to go out to the airport if I couldn't do anything about it.

I saw Kim's Christmas greetings on my chat box, and went to her site, and it has left me all nostalgic. Her kids are growing up so fast; all of "our" group's kids are. We used to all get together about once a year when we could, but it's been a few years now. It gets harder as the families get bigger and schedules get packed out and we tried a few spreadsheets of available dates that failed because there wasn't one single weekend that everyone had off all at once. But I think we need to try again. :)

One of the quotes I saw reminds me again of a Christian lady who has had a pretty big impact, at least on a couple of us ladies. She came as a guest speaker when we were in college. Her name is Lucy Swindoll, and she was a breath of fresh air to us. She was the first Christian speaker we'd heard who was funny and silly and immature and said it was okay to be both a Christian and a human being, not a robot. She was mischievous and ornery and loved to just LIVE life. She made us laugh so hard it hurt. To a group of girls who wanted to do the "right thing" but had rather been under the impression that "the right thing" meant to be serious and pious and hands-folded and quiet, which was a little...difficult...for some of us, ;), Lucy was a stick of dynamite to our impressions of what Christianity "had" to be. You mean...a sense of humor is okay?? It's not bad to go have a good time? Irreverence to the establishment of life doesn't send you straight to the naughty side? It's okay to think for yourself, too? To have opinions that might differ from those of others? And SAY SO?? And that doesn't make you automatically wrong? Whoa.

I won't speak for anyone else, but I grew up going to Christian schools, church services Sunday morning plus Sunday School plus Sunday night services, Wednesday night church services, Awanas church services, chapel most every day in many of the schools, Bible class in all the schools, revival meetings once or so a year, church camp and so forth. In that time I learned many lessons and heard many excellent speakers and sermons. The only time I ever left a guest speaker's service and bought the actual audio cassette tape of their message? Lucy Swindoll.

She lives by faith, is a shining example of a Godly woman, and yet she's still a crazy, silly, sometimes annoying to others, fun woman. Times have changed and it's not such a shock to find that style of speaker any more, but back then...it was quite eye-opening. Barbara Johnson is another. She lost her first son in Vietnam, her second was killed by a drunk driver, her third son disappeared for 11 years, and her husband was critically wounded in a car accident, leaving him brain damaged. She writes comedy books, interspersing her story in such a way that you laugh one paragraph and cry in the next. She has gone through more than most of us, and yet her faith is strong as a rock and her sense of humor is undamaged. She finds joy in life and in God while most people would be blaming Him for taking away so much, so hard. Her story isn't unique, but she is one of the best to read in print because of her wacky sense of humor. I always find it a little ironic when I hear of people who feel their lives are just terrible, sad, horrible, depressing, bad, always worried and bummed about something, when their biggest complaints are fleas on the rump of real problems that are out there being dealt with by people with grace and dignity and humor. The old adage is true-you can't always control what happens to you, but you can control how you choose to handle it, what you choose to do with it, what you choose to let it do to you. I never claimed to be good at that myself, by the way. :)

Besides faith and joy, Lucy and Barbara both talk a lot about living your life, what a gift it is that has been given to you, and not wasting it. Maybe a little reminder from these two ladies would be a good thing as we come up on the start of a brand new, unmarked year. :)

"Life passes like a flash of lightening whose blaze barely lasts long enough to see. While the earth and the sky stand still forever, how swiftly changing time flies across man's face. Oh you who sit over your full cup and do not drink, tell me........for whom are you still waiting?"
~Hermann Hesse