James

My son is a deep thinker.  Of course I should probably know that by now, but most of my interactions with him involve a request/a denial/followed by a second request or defense of first request/followed by explanation of denial coupled with threat of punishment/followed by…you get the picture.

But last night I got out our Bibles and told him to sit down because we were going to start reading through the book of James.  We read the first chapter and it led to an amazing conversation about conviction, the Holy Spirit, gut feelings (aka the Holy Spirit most of the time), and politics – which was the most fun for me.  I couldn’t have been prouder with his conclusion after our discussion.  Following a conversation about government assistance programs and generations knowing only that and the fact that we are supposed to be taking care of widows and orphans and all – he looked at me with total understanding and said “Well, it sounds to me like if the Church would have been doing it’s job a long time ago that none of that would have ever been needed.”  Apparently being a Social Democrat is genetic.  I agreed with him of course and encouraged him to remember that, because he is now the future of the Church.  I do believe that his generation will have the power to change things – to get them back on track – but it will be a long and difficult process.  They will have to be strong and convicted and determined – all qualities that I know he possesses.  So after our conversation I have a renewed sense of hope, along with a renewed sense of responsibility to continue encouraging him to think about the world around him in relation to the God who loves him.  What a privilege.

 

Ow. Ow. Ow.

When I hit age 35 things shifted.  I’m not speaking metaphorically here – I’m talking physically shifted – to my middle.  What began as just a little pudge has over this past winter grown into a full blown roll all the way around my waistline and I can’t take it any longer.  There are only so many baby-doll tops a 38 year old woman should have in her closet.  So as undisciplined as I am, and as much as I despise exercise, I’ve decided to work it off.

For the past two weeks I’ve been walking/running (who am I kidding…walking mostly) and doing stomach crunches every single night.  (at least 10)  I’ve been eating a sensible, pretty much sugar free breakfast each morning, something sort of light for lunch and a decent dinner.  I’ve been avoiding junk and lots of sugar.  And tonight I remembered why I don’t usually do this.  Shin splints.  Ouch.  I always used to get them in high school.  I also got fluid on my knees every time I ran or walked very much.  So as I hobbled down the road with piercing pain in my legs a while ago I started dreaming up alternatives in my head:  Elliptical???  Honestly – I don’t even know what that is.  I just hear my very fit friends talk about it all the time.  I don’t have one and don’t have time to visit one, so strike one.  Swimming???  I can’t swim.  Strike two.  Lypo???  I hear it’s very expensive.  Strike three.

I plan to fight through the pain as long as I can.  I actually have noticed a difference in my belly.  In fact, I was feeling pretty good about myself until the 19 year old, blond, perfect size 1, 0% body fat intern started working in my office two days ago.  I know God has a sense of humor and all, but seriously, that’s just mean.

 

A Rainy Wednesday

I’m sitting here on a rainy Wednesday morning just reflecting and thinking a bit.  It’s one of those rare times when I have the house to myself – quiet except for the snoring cat behind me and the occasional car on the highway outside.  I’m listening to some of my favorite music, just after some reading & a little talk with God that continues.  Soon I’ll be off to start the rest of my day which will include a tiny step back into my not so distant past.

And all of this has got me thinking.  After months and months of contemplation and trying to figure out – I’ve come to this conclusion:  Sometimes I just feel like I feel.  Profound, I know.  But it is my truth, and I think it’s everyone’s truth really.  Sometimes we just feel like we feel.  It doesn’t matter what wise and well-meaning friends tell us or what we read or watch or listen to.  As wise and beautiful as all of those things may be – they lack the fundamental perspective into my life that is that special thing shared with only God – who I’m convinced is a major influence on how I feel.  Just as I cannot tell the people closest to me how they should feel, neither should I think they can do that for me.  I have a tendency to rely more on my friends and music and art than I do on God Himself – a result of my own insecurity – always worried that I will misread Him.

But on this rainy, quiet morning I wonder if I have over complicated God.  Maybe what I’ve been begging Him to make so clear to me has been clear all along and I just didn’t want to hear it because of all the baggage it brings.

I can sit in a room with my best friends and know with certainty what they’ve told me.  And this morning I’ve sat with the closest friend of all – and I think it’s time I listen to Him too.

 

Change Part 3

This is my last post in this series.  I guess I should wrap it all up with a pretty little bow, but life just doesn’t work that way.

Since Part 2 1/2 I’ve been reeling in the aftershock of change.  Anyone who has read my blog can tell that it has been a consuming part of my life for the past year.  Of course it has been difficult, but much good is coming from it – and that is how I want to end.

I’ve come to realize that God made us in His image – and He never changes.  I think that’s why we resist it so much.  The world around us, however, is in a constant state of change, and for us to pretend otherwise is at once ridiculous and unfortunate.  The curve balls of life are the very things that make it interesting.  Without them we would simply be writing a script and acting it out – always knowing how it ended and never needing to challenge ourselves to find the deeper meaning behind the characters and the dialogue.  If things never changed we would be boring and bored.  Not all changes are bad.  Some are.  All of them have the power to change us and it’s up to us to decide in which direction we let them push us.

Time has a way of making change make sense.  Distance and perspective can turn painful times into insightful revelations.  The problem is rarely with the changes in our past.  We all adjust eventually.  The problem is with the here and now – with how in the world we will make it through to the other side of the current upheaval.  With the doubts and the what ifs and the if onlys and the longing for how things used to be.  It’s funny that no matter how many times we make it through, that part never seems to get any easier.

A good friend pointed out to me recently that I’m not bad at change – I just take my time with it.  She’s right.  And the amount of time it takes me seems to be directly proportional to the weight of the particular circumstance.

I don’t have a formula or short-cut for working through the inevitable.  But I do have a God that has proved time and again that He does not and will not ever change.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  He formed me in my mother’s womb.  He knows exactly how I am wired and how stubborn and selfish I can be.  He knows that I like to be in control and He knows that when I’m comfortable that I forget how much I need Him.  So He doesn’t let me get comfortable.  No matter how hard I have tried to orchestrate my life into a finely tuned symphony, He has broken strings and reeds and given the horn section chapped lips.  He has redirected my symphony a million times and in the times I trust His direction and listen, the music is far more brilliant than any I could ever conduct.  I’m learning to appreciate every measure – even those in a minor key.

So for those of you in the midst of a life altering change – God bless you.  No matter how good or how bad you feel right now – that will change too.  You are in the midst of climbing to the next step of your life.  Turning the page to the next chapter.  Modulating to the next key.  This is just a tiny piece of the greater picture.  It doesn’t have to define you, but it can if you aren’t careful.  Allow yourself to experience it fully.  Don’t gloss over a single second of it.  Be grateful for the lesson and the beauty that it holds.

And for those of you who aren’t – pray for those who are.  And then buckle up, because your ride will begin soon.

 

Change – Part 2 1/2

It occurred to me as I began to write Part 3 that I can’t just write Part 3.  Part 3 is still very fresh and very raw and I have to be careful with it.  Part 3 is my present.  And for Part 3 to make any kind of sense to anyone besides myself and possibly three other people in the world, there just has to be another part in between.   So this is Part 2 1/2.

I’ve heard it said that if you truly love your job you’ll never have to work.  Few people get to actually experience that statement, but I did.

Around the middle of the year in 2000 I had begun to serve in my church as a volunteer.  I played the keyboard and sang on the Worship Team.  I loved it.  Our church had experienced a huge growth spurt and the spurt was quickly turning into an out of control explosion.  A new pastor had injected excitement, new life and hope into an already solid congregation and the combination resulted in a whirlwind of changes, building plans and new ministry teams.  One such ministry team was the Planning Team.  Its purpose was to design Sunday morning services from beginning to end.  I jumped on board and before I knew it I was leading it.  To say I loved this was an understatement.  It was the most perfect place for me.  It allowed me to be creative, explore art & music, do ministry and organize all at the same time.  After just a few months as the volunteer leader I was asked to join the staff.  I was excited and terrified at the same time.  To do this meant leaving a stable, secure bank job with benefits for an unstable, church job with no benefits.  It went against every grain of common sense I’d ever known and the decision process was grueling.  Eventually though, I couldn’t ignore what seemed so obvious.  God had led me to this moment in my life and I knew I had to trust Him and seize it.

The following years proved to dispel any doubts I once had.  The staff grew quickly, and once it was in place we looked around and saw this group of misfits that could have ONLY been brought together through divine intervention.  There was really no other explanation.  Only 3 had ministry degrees, and two of them had been fired.  The rest of us were a mix of bankers, teachers, salesmen, moms & factory workers – and I loved every single minute of it.  We experienced the most amazing things in the years we served together.  We saw life after life after life change for eternity before our very eyes.  We laughed, cried, celebrated and mourned together.  We supported one another loyally and fought with each other without apology.  We were experiencing something much greater than ourselves and we knew it.  It was scary and at times frustrating, but every single minute of it was worth it.  I worked harder in those years than I’ve ever worked in my life, but it didn’t feel like work.  I was so happy.  I was having a blast because I was right where I was supposed to be doing just what I was supposed to do.

The danger with good times of course, is that we begin to think they will always be good.  And when they become not good it causes things to change.  Inevitably that’s what happened.  I believe what made our staff team great was the fact that each of us filled just the right spot and what one lacked, another fulfilled.  The combination itself was what made it work, and to lose any one of the players would mess with the team.  But for various reasons that is exactly what happened.  One by one, beginning with the pastor himself, our team began to dismantle.  Each time someone left I felt like I was starting to “work” just a little bit more.  The chemistry was fading and the purpose was getting cloudy.  The church I loved so much was beginning to suffer from each change and I felt powerless to help.  The more I tried the more I seemed to cause even more hurt.  Before I knew it I found myself typing my own resume.

Losing my mom was excruciating.  Cancer was terrifying.  This was both. Not only was I mourning what I was losing, but I was scared to death of what the future held.

 

Change – Part 2

In July of 1997 I became a mommy.  Ethan was born after years of prayer and 42 weeks of waiting – since of course he was late.  He was 6 pounds, 15 ounces of sheer perfection and I couldn’t believe the love I had for him after I regained my strength from the torture of his birth.  (He was a trying little guy even then…)  I had miscarried a couple of years before and we feared for a while that children wouldn’t be in the cards for us.  But along with his birth came the natural plans of a sibling down the road in a couple of years too.  Eighteen months later I discovered this wasn’t meant to be.

After a routine visit to my doctor I was told I needed some tests.  “Just routine” they told me, and I bought that.  But those initial tests led to more tests and the next thing I knew I was sitting in a wing back leather chair in my Doctor’s actual office while he told me that I had cancer.  I was 27 years old.  He told me that it seemed to be growing at an uncommonly high rate of speed and so he would be sending me to a specialist as soon as possible.  The specialist did his own tests and we waited.

I was at work when I got the phone call.  The doctor simply said that the cancer was at stage 2 bordering on stage 3 and I needed surgery as soon as possible.  The surgery would leave me unable to have any more children.  I begged him to let me have one more before he did the surgery and his exact words were “If I did that you would be leaving 2 children without a mother.”

Just a few weeks later I was in a hotel room with my husband.  I was spent from 48 hours of pre-surgery “cleansing” and lay on the bed exhausted, dazed and terrified.  The next morning I would be losing my ability to have any more babies.  It was so final and I was so young and this was not in my plans.

My relationship with God was better by this time.  I finally had grasped the concept of grace after a childhood of works based teaching.  But once again I found myself questioning why He would allow this to happen to me.  I mean really – losing my mom was bad enough wasn’t it?  I had rebuilt my life, settling into that new kind of normal that everyone talks about.  I had married a wonderful man, had a perfect little boy and I was doing things His way.  None of it made sense to me.

I remember the sadness I felt afterward.  I felt emptied and like a little less of who I used to be.  The loss of my mom had changed my past.  This loss forever changed my future.  I was left to wonder about my prognosis for over a week, allowing for lots of speculation, fear of the worst and anger – lots of anger.

Thankfully my prognosis was good.  They were able to remove all the cancer and the lymph nodes tested negative which meant that it had most likely not spread.  I was given a clean bill of health, patted on the head and told to go on my way – which ironically made me even angrier.  Now I wondered if the surgery was even necessary in the first place and I wanted that part of me back.  I wanted another baby so bad, and it was impossible.

We talked about adoption a few times, but we could never land and the financial burden of it at the time was too daunting.  So we accepted the fact that we had an only child and we went on.

Of course I can look back now and see so clearly how this changed the course of my life, but at the time it seemed like just another cruel blow.  I was bitter with God for a while, but I got over it and decided to start serving Him instead.  I poured all of myself into that in fact.  It began to consume me.  I think maybe it was my way of trying to prove to Him that I WASN’T bitter.  I sort of understood grace and all, but I still didn’t feel like I had any right to question God, and so I stood up straight and said “I’ll serve You.” in almost an “and I’ll show You…” sort of way.  Hindsight has proven that probably wasn’t the best idea.

The next chapter of my life became one of the most defining ones to date and led me to the place I am today.  In the next chapter I went into ministry…

 

Change – Part 1

In my childhood home our sofa was dark green.  It had two throw pillows on either end & they sat precisely at 45 degree angles with the bottom of the seat.  There was a mirror with little side shelves on it that hung above the sofa.  Each spring my mom would move the couch from one wall to another to allow room for the front door to be opened delivering a cool breeze during the warmer months.  The mirror still hung above it with the same knick knacks on the same shelves and the pillows remained in their given places.  As soon as colder weather approached the sofa switched walls again – and so it was for the entire seventeen years I lived there.

The floor covering in our kitchen came with the house and the throw rugs always lay in the same places, moved only on Thursdays when they were shaken free of dirt on house cleaning day.

We went to “town” on Fridays.  This was the only day of the week we ventured far from home except for the necessary trips to school, or the occasional doctor or dentist appointment.  On Fridays banking was done, groceries and gas were purchased, my mom went to the beauty shop and we took piano lessons.

We went to church every Sunday just down the gravel road from our house.  Mom played the piano.  Dad taught Sunday school.  We sang two songs before the lesson and two songs after.  My sister and I rode in the back of the car – each on our “own” side that we somehow decided was reserved for us.  This tradition continued until I was in Junior High School, at which point the little church shut its doors from lack of attendance.  We never missed a Sunday, but drove five minutes in the opposite direction from our house instead and continued our Sunday morning tradition for the rest of my high school years at a different little country church.

My dad left for work around 5am each morning and returned home around 6pm each night.  Supper was always ready and we would eat by 6:30 on most evenings.  Dad would read the newspaper and watch a little bit of television.  Mom would clean up the kitchen and my sister and I would get ready for bed.  Mom made us breakfast every morning and usually had a homemade snack waiting for us when we got home from school.  She didn’t work outside the home until I was in seventh grade when she began baby-sitting and house-keeping part time for a local family.  Even then she was home with us each day when we came home.

When I was around twelve years old, Mom and Dad decided to finish out the attic and convert it into a master bedroom.  This was a huge decision and didn’t come without it’s share of tears and apprehension.  It was the only significant change I can remember from my childhood until January of 1987.

I guess you could say that my childhood was pretty stable.  It was free of any upheaval, conflict or fear.  I knew my parents loved each other and I never once worried that they would divorce.  We weren’t wealthy, but all my needs were met.  I knew what was expected of me and I knew the consequences if I didn’t meet those expectations. I always felt safe.

But then came the day – or evening in January.  Mom had a doctor’s appointment.  Dad went with her, and that was very strange.  They were late coming home, and when they did the news wasn’t good.  Mom had been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and given 3 months to live.  I can still remember my dad standing in the kitchen doorway telling us.  He looked so stunned and calm and I recall realizing that I hadn’t ever really looked him in the eyes that closely before.   He didn’t know what to say to us or how to comfort us and so our Pastor at the time came and prayed with us.  I don’t remember much else about that night, except that it didn’t seem real at all.  I think I thought it couldn’t be because things like that didn’t happen to us – to me.

The following months are thankfully a blur.  Mom underwent intensive chemotherapy and the week of Easter  her breast was removed.  The chemo continued after that throughout the summer months.  Some things do remain vivid in my memory.  I remember the home health care nurse showing me how to remove the needle that was shooting the poison into her veins – to kill the cancer cells of course.  But that same poison killed her good cells too and caused her hair to fall out.  That day was one of the worst.  My humble mom, who didn’t have a vain bone in her body, crawled between her bed and the wall and sobbed.  And there wasn’t anything I could do to help her.  So during the early morning hours of the treatments I would go upstairs and remove the needle the way I was shown.  And then I would help her to the bathroom so she could vomit for the next few hours.  I would bring her Sprite and crackers and wipe her forehead with a cold wash cloth like she did for me when I had the simple stomach flu, and I would pretend that that was all she had too.  I would try to talk about the weather and other random stuff to take her mind off things.  We never talked about the fact that she was dying.

The clearest memory I have of that time is the hardest.  I was awakened by the oddest sound.  It took me a minute to realize that it was the sound of my mom groaning & crying.  She was in extreme agony and was sitting bent over in a fetal position on the stairway that led to that little attic bedroom.  My dad was upstairs packing a bag for her so he could take her to the hospital.  My sister & I sat on the stairs with her and cried.  Dad took her away and she never came back to that house.

This was my first real encounter with change.  The stability I had felt suddenly seemed like a cruel joke.  I felt like I had been conned.  My dad remarried less than six months later.  He sold our home and we moved to a neighboring town.  My sister moved in with my grandmother instead and so I was left living with my dad, his wife and her daughter – all three strangers to me.  There was NO stability during this time.  There were no expectations and there were no consequences.  I literally did not know what each day would bring.  I lived in fear and unbearable sadness.

My relationship with God at this point was virtually non-existent.  I knew all about Him, but didn’t know Him, and quite frankly – I didn’t like Him all that much either.  I was angry and bitter and confused.

Looking back now I see the irony of my childhood.  The stability that my mom worked so hard to give us was the very thing that drove a wedge between God & me.  I was so focused on the things I never thought would change that I was unable to see the One who never will.

But as much as my earthly mother loved me, my Heavenly Father loved me even more, and so He began the long process of getting my attention…

 

Preface

A couple of days ago I saw a Facebook status that made my heart hurt.  One of the girls from my high school graduating class posted that she had just found out her job of 15 years was being eliminated and now she needed to decide what she wants to be when she grows up.  I could relate so well & there were a billion things I wanted to say to her – but I said nothing.

I’ve written so much about my job change and all the subsequent drama that I hesitate to write even more.  But it is still at the heart of my life right now.  It’s how I believe God is teaching me.  I’ve gone from desperate sadness to euphoric freedom, and yet I too am still trying to determine what I want to be when I grow up.

After seven years of doing a job that defined my person, it’s been refreshing to just do a job.  I like my job, but it certainly isn’t where I’m finding my identity these days.  I’m still searching for my identity actually.  I know that I’m supposed to say that my identity is in Christ alone – and I believe that it is – but since I’m getting to know Him all over again too, that doesn’t really help me to draw lines right now.   I’m re-learning the things I like to do that I had forgotten, and I’m discovering some new things along with them.  I’m starting to prioritize again – but not in the same order as before.

One thing that has roared to the surface is writing.  It is the thing that carried me through an emotional crisis – a tool for which I am so grateful.  When I was a kid I dreamed about being a music teacher someday.  I loved – and still love – music, and I was constantly singing or playing or listening.  That dream didn’t become reality, but the love of it remains.  Now that I’m older I’m more cautious about dreaming.  Life has taught me to temper my expectations.  But if I had to choose a dream these days, I would be a writer.  I would sit at my computer at the strangest hours and pour my soul out on the keyboard and when I was done I would hit send & my publisher would gush about it and it would become a best seller and I would live happily ever after.  I would have plenty of time left over for keeping my house clean and cooking delicious and nutritious dinners and spending quality time with my husband and my son.  I would volunteer in my community and I would travel on a whim.

Of course the reality is that I have a different job.  I’ve never taken a writing course past English Comp II and my preferred style consists of run-on sentences and fragments and lots of sentences beginning with “but” or “so”.  I don’t have any connections in the writing world, no one I know is either rich or famous, and my chances of being published are about as good as my chances of winning American Idol.   I know all of that.  But it doesn’t keep me from loving it anymore than not becoming a music teacher didn’t diminish my passion for music.  And lately I’ve been convinced that I have a story to tell.

I hate change, and yet my life has been a series of catastrophic events that left me unable to avoid it.  I don’t consider myself an expert at much, but change is something I know about.  Maybe it’s because I want to turn my pain into something positive or maybe it’s because so many people I know have been struggling with major changes in their own lives – but I want to write about it.

My next few posts will be written on this subject.  This is the preface I suppose.  For those of you stumbling your way through a change of some sort right now – please hang with me.  I do believe there is strength in numbers.  I welcome any comments and would love to hear stories about how you’ve learned to deal with the curve balls of life too.

 

Dad’s Quartet

This past weekend the weather was beautiful, but it had been a sort of sad week.  My husband lost a close family friend to cancer.   Ironically enough, funeral homes always make me think about life.  So as I sat there watching people come and go paying respects to the life of this great man I got all introspective.

The following day the combination of the nice weather and that introspection led me to make a random visit to my dad’s house.   When people find out I belong to my dad they always tell me what a great guy he is.  He’s a hard worker, loyal to a fault and has a great sense of humor.  Unfortunately, we’ve never been particularly close, and after my mom died, instead of getting closer, we actually drifted further apart.  I’ll admit that I am bothered by that and place the blame for it on him most of the time, but deep down I know that I’m equally guilty.  I haven’t really tried that hard either.

When I got to his house he and my step-mom were  in the backyard.  We had a great little casual conversation in the sunshine.  But what began as just a casual conversation became a huge revelation for me.  I mentioned the death of the family friend to him and it turns out Dad knew him also.  This man had been a year or two ahead of Dad in school.  Dad proceeded to tell me this story:

When Dad was a sophomore, he was selected to be in an elite men’s quartet in the high school choir.  Apparently this was quite an accomplishment for a sophomore.  The man who just passed away was in it as well.  Dad told me that he loved being in that quartet.  He said he had an absolute blast with it.  When he became a Junior he had enough credits to start leaving school at noon if he wished, so he chose to do that so he could get a full time job.  This allowed him to earn enough money to buy a new car, but it forced him to give up elective classes and he had to say good-bye to the quartet.  His next statement was the one that really floored me.  “If I had it to do over again, I never would have done that.”

I’m 38 years old and my dad is 70.  Until he told me this story, I didn’t even know he could sing.  I loved high school choir too and I excelled in it.  He used to dread going to our concerts and grumbled every time.  I was always hurt by that, but now I wonder if maybe what he was really dreading was the regret he knew it would make him feel.

The whole thing made me sad on many levels.  I was thinking about it on the drive home and big tears came to my eyes.  I am so sad for him that he gave up something he loved for a car.  I’m sad that he regretted it so much that he quit singing altogether.  I’m sad that it took me 38 years to find out my love of music may have come from him instead of my mom.  I’m sad that it’s taken him 70 years to begin sharing his heart with people.  And I hurt for the years I’ve missed.

But crying over something doesn’t change it.  So instead I’ll embrace the fact that I might finally get to know this great guy that everyone always tells me about.

My niece is in high school choir now and she’s great at it.  This Sunday I get to go watch her perform in the spring musical.  And I get to sit with my dad.

 

Beginning

A new little person entered the world this morning.  Sammi Jean arrived via c-section a few weeks before scheduled.  She was tiny and stunned and perfect.  She belongs to proud parents Matt & Sandy – my brother-in-law & sis-in-law.  Her early arrival threw a kink in their plans – but that is after all lesson number one in parenting:  Things will rarely go according to plans.

I love watching new borns, but I’m always reminded of how merciful it is of God to block the memories of our first few days on earth.  The things we have to go through to get here.  And then after we arrive – we’re poked and prodded and rubbed and smeared with ink and we have to wear silly looking hats and people stand around looking at us naked.  But if we’re really lucky, those are the same people  who will also cheer us on as we take our first steps, say our first words, chew our first solid food and graduate from high school (not necessarily in that order).  Little Sammi had a support group of grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins – not to mention surrogate family members related by the friend gene.  There were hundreds of prayers being sent up as she prepared to make her first appearance, and even more after she arrived in her “medium well done”  little body.  Sammi is welcomed by parents who now realize they have more love to give than they ever imagined existed & extended family eager to begin the spoiling process.  She is truly blessed and a living breathing gift from God.

I can’t help but think  though, of all the other tiny souls that met flesh today that weren’t given such a welcome.  I know that it’s one of the mysteries of God that some are born with much – and other’s are born with little, but I still try to make sense of it.   I think maybe part of the answer is in the flesh/soul part.  We all are loved beyond measure the moment our souls are created.  Our flesh lasts only a short time – and for whatever reason some of us get to experience fleshly love too.  But ultimately we all have access to the soul love – the kind that matters most.  Someone reminded me the other day of the line “To whom much is given, much is expected.”  Maybe that’s the big lesson here.  Those of us who are blessed enough to get the fleshly love need to try harder to spread it around to the ones who aren’t – so that they can more fully understand the soul love too.

So welcome to the world Sammi.  Rest assured that you have entered into a virtual love-fest complete with striped walls and little hand-stamped ants around your window frame.  You are one of the lucky ones – and from you much will be expected.  Love back.  Love your mommy & daddy.  Love your friends.  Love people who are mean to you.  Love people who don’t look like you or talk like you.  Love them with your smiles, your words and your actions.  And love Jesus.  He loves you so very much.  And many, many years from now when you feel like all the other love is a memory – His will remain.  May you always know that truth.