Highlights of my Week

• I got things done!!!! For the first time in over a month, I actually felt like I accomplished things at work. I crossed out almost everything on my "to-do" list. I felt wonderful!
• I got a huge compliment at the writer's critique group I go to. Everyone there said I am a very strong writer. Glad they think so - I wonder.
• Something amazing happened in Texas: it rained!
• Those pink flowers along the interstate are not the pink version of bluebonnets. They're Indian paintbrush. Personally, though, I really miss lilacs - really, really miss them.
• I didn't have much to do today, so I spent the afternoon reading. You can't imagine how great that was!
• Planning a road trip - yea for road trips!
• Ending the week by sitting in the living room, watching "Bringing Up Baby". Why don't they make movies like that anymore?
  

Childhood Dreams

I just finished reading a book where the author spoke a lot about childhood dreams and accomplishing them. Had had fulfilled all but one of his. It got me to thinking: what were my childhood dreams? Have I fulfilled them?

• Being a teacher - well...sort of. I've been a tutor and taught kids at church, which I love!!!
• Seeing all the wonderful places my first grade teacher talked about: NYC, Philadelphia, Washington DC - yep!!!! NYC twice, Philadelphia once, Washington three times, but all of them could stand another visit...or two, or three, or four
• Being a wife and mother - obviously not...and can't do much about it
• Being a published writer - a work in progress? well, let's hope so
• Visiting England/British Isles - not yet, but I've been thinking a lot about that lately, so maybe its about time I did something about it
• Working at a camp - check, did that twice and LOVED it!

All in all, my childhood dreams aren't huge, exciting or even too hard to grasp. But they were very important to me. And they're still very important to me now. That's why I can remember them - and still work on accomplishing the ones I've yet to check off.

What were your childhood dreams? Have you fulfilled them? Think about it and enjoy the dream!

Last week, one of the chaplains at work came into the office and told me about a lady he's known at a nursing home he used to preach at on Sundays. In her late eighties, this woman went to be with her Savior about a week earlier. Much more an old maid than I often think I am, just days before she died she informed the directors of the nursing home:

"No man ever asked me out, and so no man is going to carry me out."

Interpretation: she wanted women pallbearers.

Like most "old maids", I imagine, most days I can give or take men. But for the past two weeks, it would have been great to have one around. For do you know how heavy bags of 3-cubic feet of mulch are? I'm not exactly sure myself, but they're heavy enough. I lugged six of them out of the back of my car and into the backyard. Today, I dumped three of them into a wheelbarrow (one at a time, I promise) and pushed it around the yard mulching the flowerbeds.

But, as it seems having a man around isn't in my near future, I guess I need to go for the next-best thing if the gardening around here continues like this: take up weight lifting.

A Life Without Children

Have you ever seen the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? I think I was nine years old when I first saw it. My sister Katey and I spent the night at the house of two sisters. We all piled upon their parents’ king sized bed and watched a fun movie full of color, music and Dick van Dyke. But at the age of nine, you fail to see the lesson a movie like that can teach.

If you don’t know the story of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang one of the major parts of the story is a small country where children are outlawed. Because of this edict of the royal couple, the families in this nation hide their children underground. The village is quiet, sad and dark. As the heroine in the movie quickly observes, the problem is there are no children.

Lately my life has been like that. I can go through a whole day and not see one child. I live in a world of adults: adults at work, adults at home, adults in the neighborhood. And – quite frankly – it’s AWFUL. No laughter, no silly games, no imagination, no innocent view of the world, no sitting and chatting with them while we do craft projects. Everything is business, chores, work, politics, spreadsheets, responsibility and seriousness.

When you live in a world like that, every moment with a child is precious. On Saturday, my friend Jenny and I had her two brothers in the backseat of my car while we went to the grocery store and her office. Her littlest brother, age ten, sat back there eating sour straws. All of a sudden, we hear an “Uh-oh!” He had spilled his candy on the floor. A few moments later, he was informing us how wrong it was that two police officers in a car next to us were chatting away. After all, shouldn’t they be keeping an eye on the things in order to protect us from the evils of this world?

On Sunday, a little girl at church came up and gave me a hug. She’ll never know what that meant to me. And my nine-year-old cousin came with his parents for Easter dinner. He creamed me in Yahtzee, but I beat him in swordplay on the wii. We each won a round of bowling. And it was fun just to sit and watch him shoot hoops, play ping pong and bowl some more on my wii.

Now I know that kids are not all fun and games. Of course I don’t have any of my own, but I have my share of younger siblings. And except for a few years in my early twenties and today, I have taught kids on a weekly basis. I know something about the handful they can be. But the next time you want to get away from your kids before you scream, use that imagination from your childhood and seriously consider what your life would be without them. You’ll get a little idea of my life, and I guarantee you won’t like it. Then praise the Lord that He gave us children.

How Great is Absence?

The world is a complicated place. For humanity, it isn't all black and white. Worse, our grey areas differ. We face hardships in various ways. We respond to trials and joys from all ends of the spectrum. As Christians, though, we have to constantly ask ourselves how God sees things.

An Absence so Great is a book full of grey areas. Beautifully written by Jane Kirkpatrick, one cannot help being drawn into the fictionalized story of her own great-grandmother. Jessie Gaebele is a female photographer at the turn of the century, striving to make a name for herself and fulfill her dreams as an artist with a camera. And yet, she is constantly pulled back into emotions she cannot rid herself of.

Jessie lives a life in grey - and a life never fully devoted to her God. For while God matters, her dreams and emotions appear to matter more. For there is something much more important - and much, much harder - in life than following one's heart: Following God's heart.

Interested? Find it here: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?isbn=9781578569816



This book was provided for review by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers.