Dearheart

June 16th, 2010
A toddler girl crying
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God is crazy about you.

I know you don’t believe that.  I know you say he doesn’t exist.  But he’s absolutely mad for you.

Imagine if you had a child, the most perfect little girl with chubby capable hands, sturdy little legs and eyes bright with curiosity, fun and mischief.  Imagine how you’d love her!  Imagine how you’d feel if she took a bump and turned to you for comfort, curling into your arms.  How you’d feel if she bounded to her feet, catapulted into joy by a Barney song, and jigged across the floor, whirling and giggling.  You’d be so delighted by her, so captivated by her that your heart would ache.  Imagine if you walked into your kitchen and found both it and her coated in white flour.  And she, eyes wide with sincerity, explained that she’d decided to make you a cake for your birthday.  How you’d laugh!  How you’d love her!

This is how God sees you.  This is how he loves you — his precious, hurting little girl.

He knows you better than your best friends know you, loves with unflawed, unbroken love that your flawed, broken parents just aren’t capable of.  He hurts when you hurt, celebrates when you’re joyful.  He loves you perfectly and completely, and delights in you — flawed you — more than you would delight in your perfect child.

No matter what goes wrong.  No matter what mistakes you make, or how thoroughly bad, mad and hopeless you feel, he is still there, and he still loves you like that.

This is what I know for sure, as surely as I know . . . .

There is nothing else I know this certainly.

I know that he loves you.

And I’m going to keep praying for him to interfere with your life, until you have no choice but to know it too.

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My Uninvited Guests

May 22nd, 2010
Johns Inc Ice_Cream
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So when I got home the other day, I discovered that a family of four had moved into my house.  They were eating the food out of my fridge, watching my TV, and digging through my kids’ clothes to find the best things.

“What the heck are you doing?” I demanded.  ”Get out of my house!”

The father glared at me.  ”You’re house is nicer than mine.  Mine has holes in the ceiling and the walls are all torn up.  You have no right to keep me out!”

“I’m calling the police,” I snapped.

“Go ahead,” the man answered, plucking my car keys out of my hand.  ”But in the meantime, I need the car.”

“Hey, give me those!  I just paid that car off!”

“You’ve had the car all day,” he said.  ”It’s my turn.”

“It’s my car!  Why do you think you get a turn?”

He looked at me like I was crazy.  “I don’t have a car,” he said, forming the words carefully, so even someone as stupid as me would understand.  “It’s hardly fair, is it, if you have a car and I don’t have one?”

I grabbed my cordless and called 9-1-1.  The dispatcher promised me someone would be there soon.  While I waited, the family started going through my books and DVD’s.  Sometimes the mother would point one out to the kids.  If the kids smiled, then she smiled back and tucked it into her big purse.

“Put it back!” I yelled, but they ignored me.

They didn’t look up when the doorbell rang.  I ushered two officers through the door.  “Arrest these guys!  They’re trespassing!”

I waited for them to yank out their handcuffs and haul them away, but instead they hesitated.  “How long have they been here?”

“I don’t know . . . they were here when I got home.”

“All day,” the man interjected.  “Since early this morning.  My children feel like this is their home.  There are opportunities and comforts here that we don’t have in our home.  The school is better here, too.”

“I see.”   One of the officers got on her phone, while the other gave me an apologetic look.  “I’m sorry.  This is a very delicate situation.  If we don’t handle this right, it’ll stir up the perfect storm of controversy.  The media will eat us alive and we’ll end up getting suspended or fired.”

“You’re . . . kidding.  You’re kidding.  They’re breaking the law.  They’re taking my stuff.  I work hard to pay for that stuff.”

“We don’t have the same opportunities at my home,” the father explained.  “I told you that.”

The female officer, still on her phone, walked past me and upstairs.

“Where are you going?” I asked, but she was still involved in her conversation.

The woman abandoned her DVD search and went into the kitchen.  I followed her.  She opened the freezer door and fished through it, emerging with a box of ice cream.  “Kids, let’s have a treat!”  The kids chorused their approval.

I snatched the box out of her hand and held it away from her.  “No!  You’re not eating that!”

I felt it plucked from my fingers and turned to see the officer handing it back to the woman.  “Sorry,” he said.  To her.

“What?”

The other officer appeared, closing her cell phone as she approached.  “Okay, we’ve got it worked out.”

“Great!” I said.  “Jeez, it’s about time.”

“I see you have three bedrooms upstairs.  Your daughters  will need to share the one, so this family can use the other one.”

What?”

The two kids started to cry.  I felt budding hope.  Maybe they sensed that this wasn’t right.  Maybe they wanted to go back to their own home.

The mother hurried to comfort her children, keeping the box of ice cream tucked securely under her arm.  “What’s wrong?  Are you hurt?  Did that mean lady make you feel unwelcome?”

“I — I –”  The littlest one gulped and sniffed.  “I wanted my own rooooooooom!”

The parents and the older sibling turned as one to stare furiously at me.  The officers stared at the floor.

“Un.  Believable,” the father muttered.  “All I want is for my child’s needs to be met, and I face opposition and prejudice at every turn.”

The mother kissed her child’s forehead and stroked her cheek.  “Don’t you worry, sweetie.  We’re here now, and we’ll make it better.  Let’s eat this ice cream now and we’ll get settled in.  Tomorrow, we’ll repaint the whole house so it looks more like home.”

The male officer shuffled his feet, then glanced up to meet my eyes for the barest of seconds.  “So,” he said, clearing his throat.  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“There’s something else you can do for me,” the mother chimed in, as she stuffed ice cream into cones.  “This woman’s dogs nearly bit us as we came in the house this morning.  They are a menace, and I want them removed before one of my children gets hurt.”

“We’ll take care of it, ma’am,” the female officer replied.  “I’ll have animal control here this evening.”

And then, after pointing a finger at me in a silent warning to behave, the officers left.

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Step awaaaaay from the mirror. Just step away. No one has to get hurt.

May 13th, 2010
But for luck
Image by Tattooed JJ via Flickr

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”- Proverbs 31:30

I dedicate most of my time at a mad run, trying to make tangible improvements in intangible things like my family’s health and happiness.  I don’t think about how I look.  But then I’ll walk past a mirror or a reflective window and see what other people see.  Wild hair, no make up, faded clothes, and far far too much of me, of course.  Depressing.  Really.  In case you ever look at me and think, “why doesn’t she fix herself up?  Doesn’t she know what she looks like?”  the answer is yes, I do.

In spite of the Proverbs 31 verse, I feel like I should take more trouble with my appearance.  It’s an obligation that I’m failing to meet.  There never was a stage when I turned heads, like some of those pretty, young, thin women I see around town.  I never was able to pull it all together.  It feels like a failure.  It feels like I should ask people to forgive me, as if my spazzed out hair actually causes them pain or inconvenience.

But then I step away from the mirror and get back to work.

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Turn The Other Cheek?

May 10th, 2010
Sower - Road
Image by madison.murphy via Flickr

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.  If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”   — Matthew 18:15

Most of us know that we’re in the middle of an epidemic of Feel Good Christianity.  God wants us to be happy.  He wants us to be comfortable, and have the nice things that other people have.  He forgives us for our sins, so we don’t need to worry about it.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard one Christian sniff and say, “It’s a shame what he said/did.  You know — we claim to be Christians, but . . .”

So this verse gave me pause.  Why?  Because if I said/did something hurtful to someone else, particularly another Christian, I sort of rely on their forgiveness.  And when another Christian does something to me, I assume that it’s my job to let it go — turn the other cheek.  Don’t harbor resentment, don’t record wrongs — just let it go.

And that’s all true — we certainly need to forgive each other.  But this verse inserts another step:  Deal with it!

If your brother did something to you, you are not expected to swallow the wrong whole and move on as if something happened.  You’re expected to approach him, privately and in a respectful way, and broach the subject.  If you don’t get anywhere, then that’s where you need to accept it and move on.  But maybe he’ll listen to you, and if he does, then, as the verse says, you’ve won him over.  Your relationship is strengthened rather than strained by the experience.  If you, like me, hate confrontation and want everyone to like you, this is actually tougher than it sounds.  It’s easier to do the wimpy thing and harbor silent resentment.  But the verse doesn’t say, “If it’s really getting to you and all your family feels that you should bring it up, then maybe you should.”  It says, “Go.”  So, go.

Now, on the flip side, if someone approaches you suggesting you did something wrong, it’s very hard to set aside pride and defensiveness and allow for the possibility that you really messed up.  That person just made you feel uncomfortable!  And embarrassed!  He is not being a good Christian, because good Christians don’t make people feel bad!

As it turns out, according to this verse, good Christians are told to sometimes make people feel bad.  It’s all about relationship maintenance.

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He is Risen!

April 4th, 2010

family

This was the perfect Easter.  Perfect weather, my whole family was well and went to church together, and then we had a nice, fun dinner with family — including the Columbus segment.  Perfect.  And both kids’ choirs sang together, “He is alive!”  which made me cry.  Just  a perfect day.  Exhausted, but thought I’d share this pic in front of the cross in the church yard, where everyone brings flowers and tucks them in to decorate it.

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I Cannot Spend Anymore Time Worrying About This. Washington Doesn’t Listen To Me Anyway.

March 23rd, 2010
Structures of the kidney: Renal pyramid Interl...
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My husband is blind and chronically ill — a transplant recipient in renal failure.  Still, he and I worked full time until his health declined late 2005.  Since then, I have had no health coverage, and I have had to fight with the state to get the medical care he was entitled to.  We ended up paying thousands of dollars that we shouldn’t have because nearly all Medicaid employees (and I’ve had a pretty wide sampling) are incompetent.

I would love to have medical coverage.  I would love to have a mammogram.  No.  I would not love to have one.  But I would love the security of being able to get one, and being able to get treatment if I get some catastrophic disease.

Here are my worries about the new health care law:

I also love having my husband around.  So far, just in 2010, he’s had five hospital admissions with various problems.  While Medicaid is a mess, the laws protect us — when I fight, I know that the laws are on my side, and I can get him the care he needs.  When I’ve asked pro-health care reform people what this would mean for him, no one has had an answer.  This law seems to be utterly changeable and undefined.  No, I’m not talking about death panels.  I’m talking about changing Medicare/Medicaid without putting similar provisions in place, or allowing case workers to figure it out as they go along.  A week’s delay — a day’s delay — in getting my husband an expensive procedure or antibiotic will be enough to have my two children fatherless.

According to what I’m reading, I still won’t have health coverage in 2014, because we don’t have a dime to spend on my health — we live on his Social Security and whatever I can write to sell while sitting in hospital rooms and ER’s.    I won’t have health coverage, but I will get fined.

I realize that my concerns have been obscured by the endless airtime given to the crazy people (I’m pretty sure Armageddon won’t be triggered by an act of congress).  But I and many people like me have been ignored.  It’s much easier to mock the shrill soundbites than to address the reasonable questions, but we deserved to be respected, heard, and informed, instead of being forced to watch helplessly while someone did an end-run around our lives.

Health care in this country desperately needed reforming, but something this complex and critical shouldn’t have been a quilt of political and financial agendas, stitched together by elite bargainers with nothing to lose personally.  Blue team or red team, this is all a game to them, and health care reform was the Superbowl.  They don’t care about people like me because I have no money and no influence.  If that sounds cynical, be assured that they taught me this themselves over the past five years.

It’s passed.  I hope it’s good.  I hope we all get reliable health coverage out of it, and that it doesn’t bankrupt our nation.  But I’d appreciate if people would understand that behind the raving lunatic camera magnets, there’s some seriously scared people out here who just want to keep their lives intact.my-fammily

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Making Your Own Laundry Soap is Cheap and Easy

March 20th, 2010

swingset

I love my sister’s visits, not only because I’m glad to see her, but because it’s always interesting.  She’s the Country Mouse visiting the City Mouse, and while she appalled by my traffic noises and nose-to-nose neighbors, I’m utterly fascinated by her life.  She brings brown eggs, wheat she ground herself, and homemade bread.  This last time she brought bacon, sausage and pork roast — a sort of edible memorial to poor, dear Napoleon the pig.  She butchered the pig herself, which is awesome and fascinating, and I’m definitely going to tell you all about that in another blog. But today: Read the rest of this entry »

Going Up

March 19th, 2010
A set of lifts in the lower level of a London ...
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“Hold the door!”  Lauren muscled through the closing elevator doors.  “Oh, I’m so late.  Twelfth floor, please.”

The six or so other passengers moaned.  Someone behind Lauren asked, “Did anyone bring provisions?” Read the rest of this entry »

How Old Am I?

March 18th, 2010

grandma-nellie1

My Grandma Nellie

Truthfully, I’m pretty casual about referring to myself as old.  “I’m old,” I tell the kids.  “Be nice to your mother, because she’s old and tired.”  I try not to say it in front of perky people, but every once in a while I slip.  And then the perky person is required to respond with:

“Oh, don’t be silly!  You’re only as old as you feel.” Read the rest of this entry »

Krista

March 16th, 2010

June 6, 1982 - March 8, 2010

Goodbye, Dearheart.