Scandals and Subjects

I've been working on entering some family tree data my grandpa gave me into Ancestry.com lately. I'm fascinated by it, and it's been taking up most of my free time. He has always said he comes from a long line of horse thieves and cattle rustlers. Truly, many of these entries have been like a soap opera - murder, insanity, betrayal, suicide, greed... you name it. I'm sure there were good things too, things like love, friendship, loyalty, and generosity, but those things don't make "history" any more often than they make the evening news. The fact that my grandparents turned out as normal as they did, rarely ceases to amaze me.

Mark has been working 3-11's lately, and when he gets home around midnight, I'm still plunking away at my keyboard. I was lamenting to him last night about the sadness in this tree. The infant/child mortality rate was one thing that was bothering me. It was not uncommon for a couple to have 8-10 children and lose more than half of them to death before age 5. I can't imagine bearing children knowing that there was less than a 50% chance that they would survive. Mark said, "Well, they were a lot more accustomed to death than we are." I know he's right about that. It started making me think about, not only how shamefully spoiled I am, but how ungrateful I often become for the things I do enjoy.

This evening, for example, I was going to run to get a pizza for us to eat for supper, as I sometimes do when Mark is not home at dinner time, and I want a quick eat and clean-up. Austin is old enough to stay with the younger kids for a few minutes at a time, but Levi and Claire wanted to come with me to town. That was fine with me, because I figured it would cut down on the chances of strife at home while I was gone if I took 2/5 of the brood with me. Levi and Claire were in the back seat, and I was listening to him trying to make conversation with his big sister, "So Claire, what you bent?" "What I bent?" asked a confused Claire. Levi replied, "Yeah, what you bent? You know, what you bent?" Claire exclaimed above the radio, "Mom, Levi is asking me what I bent. What does that mean?!" I turned down the radio and had her repeat her question. Then I said, "I think he's asking you where you've been." He said, "Yeah, Claire." She said, "Um, in the car with you."

A little while later, Levi decided to try again, "Claire, what Wiggle do you want to be?" Claire sheepishly responded (finally considering herself a little too mature for The Wiggles), "Oh, I don't care." He said, "Okay, you can be Mary." She said, "Murray?" "Yeah," he replied, "Mary." Claire just said, "Okay," undoubtedly hoping to end the conversation. He then asked me what Wiggle I wanted to be, and I turned down the radio again to tell him I wanted to be Greg. He said, "Good. I'll be Jeff," and promptly pretended to snore. I began to holler, "Wake up Jeff!" And, after awhile of my nonsense, Claire actually decided to join me.

Later that evening, I was putting the children to bed without Mark here, which is always twice the chore - twice the stories, twice the medicining and teeth brushing and expander key turning and talking and singing. Violet (18 mos.) is obsessed with tooth brushes, tooth paste, and anything else associated with dental hygiene. She takes the toothbrushes and paste out of the drawer in the bathroom and disperses them throughout the house, and the older kids have taken to hiding their toothbrushes to keep them from being stolen and redistributed. Last night they hid the toothpaste also. So this evening, she was looking for the toothpaste for her brush. She brought me her toothbrush, and a sample tube of Eucerin lotion. She wanted me to put the lotion on her toothbrush. She spent the rest of the evening trying to put anything that comes in a tube on her toothbrush.

All of these things can either strike me as cute or annoying, depending on my mood. Following around after a child, putting her messes back in order or having nonsense conversations in the car when I'd rather listen to the radio is a blessing I am taking for granted. If I had been in my ancestors' shoes, I would likely have lost some of my children (or my own life in having them). I doubt I would have felt at ease giving my whole heart as freely to my children either - fearing I would likely lose them at some point. (I know this, because I'm afraid of getting attached to the kittens that live in my garage for the same reason - and I didn't even birth them.) Not that I never worry about the safety of my children, but I am blessed to live today, when I can feel freedom not to worry to excess. Maybe the idea that we now have some level of control over life and death makes us feel more like gods ourselves. Maybe it makes us feel less vulnerable and more powerful, and, as humans, we can get drunk on that feeling. But I have to keep remembering that it is, after all, only a feeling of control.

I obviously haven't been able to protect my children from all heartache. Mark and I have a book about helping your children heal from the pain of divorce. Speaking of which, I am aware, through the typing of my family tree, that I am one of the scoundrels in it. I didn't kill anyone or end up in an asylum (yet, anyway), but I have had two marriages, two sets of children. We were at a park with some friends last week. My friend and I were talking when her son came up to us and said, "We're playing house." I said, "Oh, yeah? Who's the mom and who's the dad?" He said, "Katelynn's the mom, and Levi's the step dad, and Mason's the real dad." I immediately looked at my friend and said, "Oh, no. We have your kids playing step family! You may have some more explaining to do on the way home." We laughed about it, but it wasn't funny... not really. I had an immediate lump in my throat when it happened, and now it's more just kind of a twinge of heartache. It's not only that my children are "adulterating" their friends, but more that they are adulterated themselves. They have met, at such a young age, with a cruel truth of life. Yes, it's one that many share, but that doesn't mean it's not unfair or that it's right. There are a lot of people who have done something wrong or are doing something wrong and, instead of seeing their sin for what it is, demand that other people get on board with it... agree with it... or even endorse it. They want people to accept their lifestyle so that they feel better about it. I've never felt that way. We had family/friends who refused to come to our wedding because it was a second marriage, and we understood and respected their choice. We hate it when we see our own sin effecting our children or anyone else we love. We have grown through our divorces, and we have changed in unimaginable ways, but we don't ever expect anyone to be okay with our situation. We're not even okay with it. We are thankful for God's grace, and we hope to extend it to others, even if they can't find it for us sometimes.

I'm thankful that my family tree is just a vignette of the truth of who I have been made to be - who I am becoming. Some truth, after all, actually is subjective.

Lost and Found

At our home, we don't have cable or satellite TV. We don't even have an antenna. That decision partially started out as an "accident", but it has ended up a choice. When we were first married, we had two houses - the farm Mark was renting from his parents in Iowa and the one I had built in Illinois. The girls and I moved to Iowa with Mark and Austin until Mark could find a job closer to our home in Illinois. Before my divorce, I watched a lot of television. We had four in the house, and many times they were all on at one time so that I could walk from room to room without missing things. I often found it a way of escape from the trials of a difficult marriage. It was similar to attempting to nourish myself with mostly junk food or like putting electrical tape over the low oil warning light in my car. It was a brief escape, but probably, in many ways, kept us lulled into apathy about the state of our marriage. Financially, things were more tight when Brett left. I started working again, which I hadn't done in a few years, and I decided it that we weren't home enough to justify paying a bill for TV.

Anyway, that was the first season of my life minus TV, and I have enjoyed every season since then. I have spent more time with my children. I have become more sensitive to the things I once missed. I have become more likely to try to confront the things that make me miserable, and I have become less miserable.

We still have DVD's, and we rent movies from Netflix sometimes though. It is easier to enjoy TV but still keep it in balance that way. Lately, we started getting the TV series LOST from Netflix. We are enjoying watching it. If you've not seen it, it's about some people who, as the result of a plane crash, have become stranded on what they thought was a deserted tropical island. We are still only in the first season, but the crash victims are beginning to find out that they are not alone on the island after all, and that there are some other "people" who seem to be (at least at this point) soulless. They have empty eyes and hollow speech. Their emotions are lacking.

This got me thinking, as I was headed to bed one night, of all the movies I've seen in my life, the scary ones are often about the soulless: the vampire, the undead zombie, the "pod people"/alien replacements of real humanity. These are the ones who are missing a portion of themselves - the invisible portion. This is, apparently, the worst thing that we can imagine - losing our own lives is bad, but losing the invisible part of ourselves is so much worse. The soul - our mind, will, and emotions - is the invisible portion of ourselves that makes us distinct as humans - different from the animals. Our soul is the invisible part of us that makes us capable of having a relationship with our Creator and with the rest of His creation. It was a gift from that same Creator... not only to us but to Himself. To create something that has the ability to commune with oneself and others (like Geppetto and Pinocchio) is within the heart of the artist and reflects our Father's heart. He has longed for a relationship with us. Like Pinocchio, we don't understand our Creator's desire and, as a result, we often hurt Him. We wander on our own way, looking for the more that we know is out there somewhere, but filling ourselves with all the junk food we can find along the way instead... not realizing that it is ultimately lulling us into a position of complacency that could lead to the very thing we fear the most - losing our souls. We are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to become real.

When you have seen a loved one lying in wake at a funeral or visitation... what's missing? Their physical body is still there, but the most important part is obviously gone. What has gone away? In Matthew 10:28 - 31, Jesus says, ²⁸"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰"But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹"So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows."

It's the soul we fear losing... the part that is actually necessary for living. If we had just descended from animals, we would have no need for abstract thought, a complex will, or certainly any emotions beyond fear. The simplest sets have survived the ages without the ability to reason or feel. However, we have all of these - and more. Obviously, the physical body isn't what's necessary for living, because it is still present - even in the dead. The part that many try to deny even exists... that's the part that we most fear losing. If the physical body were able to go on living without mind, will, and emotions - the ability to commune with humanity and Creator... no sympathy, no heart... that is lost.

Back to my first season without TV: My spiritual walk changed completely at that point. I had nothing to do at night anymore. I had a few books... a Bible, which took up permanent residence on my "husband's" side of the bed. I soaked it in. I copied entire chapters word-for-word, by hand, taking extra notes. I figured that the purpose of God's Word was to 1) teach me about who He was, 2) teach me about my identity as a follower of Him, and 3) teach me how to live my life. I wanted to learn these things. So I began to read for hours each night - classifying each verse into one of 3 categories: God is..., I am..., and Admonitions. I have 5 subject notebooks full of those copied chapters and notes and a mind full of those sweet memories... nights spent face-down on my floor - looking for something I had already thought I had found. Knowledge is not being found. In fact, sometimes it ends up in feeling more lost. Truth is the only way to be found. The winner of the World Geography Bowl could be just as lost - anywhere in the world - as you or I... without a map of where he is. He has all kinds of knowledge, but without the truth of where he is and how to get somewhere else, he is just as lost as you or I.

Like Pinocchio, you and I were made for a purpose. The Artist wants a relationship. Turning toward Him is where we find our identity, and the LOST become FOUND.

Sacrifice of Praise

As a parent who spends much of my time with young children, and has for the past 9 years or so, I also spend much of my time on opposite ends of a particular spectrum - the Pride/Shame spectrum. One second they do something that creates a feeling within me that sometimes makes me feel as though that, were it not for my skin, I would explode in a hundred different directions. It starts with a lump in my throat and radiates slowly throughout my entire body and makes me feel 10 feet tall. Often times, in fairly short order, the pendulum swings to the opposite end of the spectrum, and they do something that leaves me loathe to admit they are even mine. This feeling, I am fairly certain, begins somewhere in the eyebrow region and progresses rapidly to the viscera until the rest of the body language follows suit and I am curled up like a pill bug hoping to fade into the wood work.

Just this afternoon at the lunch table, for example, Levi started hacking up a grape. Apparently, the grape was too sour for his delicate palate, and he had gotten it halfway down his throat before realizing he didn't want it. After some effort at coughing and gagging with dramatic flare, he regurgitated the grape into his hand and proceeded to put it back into the community grape bowl. Seeing nothing wrong with this, despite the disgusted response of his sisters and me, he continued on with his lunch. This is the same young boy who gave the window below the OPEN sign at Jiffy Lube a thorough tongue washing a couple weeks back. But he is also the boy who spent an hour helping me in the garden tonight without taking a break. He asked me for one of my garden gloves, and he went to work pulling weeds and keeping me company. I had anticipated that he would not be as much help as he was hindrance and attempted to send him off on a "fool's errand" or two at first to see if he would boomerang. He did and ended up being a great help for a child of any age - much less a 3 year old. And the pendulum swings back to pride.

I haven't always been very good at giving praise. To my shame, I all too often have a critical eye more than a positive vision. Encouragement doesn't flow as easily from my lips as I would like. It often resonates in my feelings or in my heart, but the words don't often make it past the gates of my lips. It is, of course, easier to encourage my children when they are meeting my expectations and staying closer to the end of the spectrum that gives me pride in them than it is when they are on the other end. My love for them obviously never changes, but I'm not sure they feel it as consistently as I hope they do.

Praise is, apparently, a sacrifice - true praise, that is. Flattery, on the other hand, is easily done, and it flows from insincerity. Its backhanded motive is to lift up the flatterer instead of what it appears to be doing - encouraging the flattered. It is a lie. Feeling truly positive toward another and expressing it unselfishly is a gift from God alone and requires sacrifice.

Psalm 54:6 ~ I will freely sacrifice to You;

I will praise Your name, O LORD, for it is good.

Hebrews 13:15 ~ Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

Can I praise God when He's not acting how I think He should? Can I sacrifice worshipful words when my heart is aching? I have met people who think that God is largely uninvolved in their daily lives for these reasons: If God really cared about every moment of my every day, how could He let difficult things happen to me? If He really cared about me, how could He let my husband lose his job? How could He let my child get cancer? How could he allow natural disasters? Therefore, in order to reconcile the fact that I don't trust God to move in my best interest - even if it appears difficult, I'll just believe that He's not working at all. That way, I can love Him at a distance - impersonally. I can't love/worship a God who would... fill in the blank. Isn't it easy to put God in a box you can carry under your arm? He's much more predictable and safe that way. My faith can't be challenged, and I will never change or grow, but I'll be in control, and I won't be vulnerable.

I have to admit that, in some ways, deistic theology (that which states God set the world in motion and let it spin, and everything that happens after that lacks His involvement) is appealing. It lets me off the hook. It relieves me of obligation to find out any more about Him. It keeps me from personal encounter. I don't have to change. I can just try within myself to be a better person. Most of all, I never have to offer a sacrifice of praise. I never have to thank God for giving me challenges. I never have to trust that He's using my hardships to help me mature. I never have to be one of those people who stands there with a dumb look on his face and says, "I know there's gotta be a pony in this pile of manure somewhere." But the problem with that theology is that I don't know what to do with the miracles. I don't know what to do with an obvious encounter with God. I don't expect them, and, as a result, I don't see them in my own life, but when I see inexplicable joys in someone else's life, I don't get it... or I just write it off to sentimentality and try to forget it ever happened.

It's easy to praise when praise is not a sacrifice... when I get the promotion I want, when I have a thriving marriage, when my children are healthy and well. It's easy to have faith and trust during those times. It's much harder when the God in our box is not acting like we hope He will. I have only to look at His creation to know that He is reliable - tides, seasons, daylight and night time, phases of the moon - all like clockwork. I also have only to look at the same creation to know that He is not predictable at all - the random beauty of trees, rock formations, flowers on cacti, gemstones in caves, kittens playing, my children... all of these things expected and unexpected at once - unpredictability without an ounce of chaos.

The sacrifice of praise He desires is derived from a heart that is trusting His heart to be good and involved to our best interest despite how it appears from our worldly perspective. Not to mention the fact that looking at an isolated season of our lives and judging it as bad is like standing very close to a beautiful mosaic, looking at one tile, and saying, "This stinks." Whether or not we believe it, He always warrants our praise. He has always deserved it. His actions are not just good - they are what determines what the word good even means. Yet He recognizes our temptation is not to give praise easily. (Luke 19:37-40) We want to withhold it - avoiding vulnerability, but if we can, we were never His.

I hope that I can learn to give praise - not only when it's easy - but when it is truly a sacrifice. He has already proved His love to me. What other way have I to prove my own back to Him - or even to myself? Praising Him for His blessings it not going to cut it. I can praise my own children for what I perceive is good behavior, but that won't prove my love. It's the praising of them despite their actions - for who they are - who I know they are - and the fact they are my very own. This is the proving out of my faith... the ability to take all from His hand and still believe that He's right there every moment and that He's being good to me. If I let my circumstances determine my level of faith, then I am denying the power that was given me. My faith will determine my circumstances, and not the other way around. To pass on this ability is to pass on life - the proof of what is not seen - the evidence of what I hope for.

Wild Kingdom

Do you remember "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom"? We were limited on our television watching when we were growing up, but that was one of the shows that my sisters and I were allowed to watch. I remember liking to watch the variety of animal footage that they would show. There were so many interesting creatures and scenarios. However, there was always that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach for the inevitable moment of, what my brother-in-law would call, "the circle of life" footage. (Actually, he would sing it in a really high-pitched voice at the most poignant moment of the scene.) You know what I'm talking about: The Wildebeests are grazing peacefully on the savanna - babies frolicking together. Then suddenly, a stampede... the animals start to run - a stalking lion is spotted in the tall grass, and they all start a full-blown run. But wait, one of the little babies is separated from its mother. It cries that pitiful cry as it starts to run aimlessly with the herd and is singled out by the lion. Inevitably, the shrieking baby is caught in the lion's sharp claws and carried away "to feed the lion's hungry cubs", of course. (Even as I type it, I can hear the high-pitched sound of my brother-in-law's voice singing "The Circle of Life".)

Well, I think that, as a general rule, girls see this scene in a completely different light than boys do. We have the Planet Earth DVD series. It is fantastic, and it is similar, in some parts, to Wild Kingdom. The baby elephant who loses it's mom in a dust storm and is lost forever... The juvenile elephant who is taken down by a pride of hungry lions... The baby gorilla that is beaten to death by a larger male... The baby goslings carried off by a hungry fox - to feed its hungry cubs, of course... My girls and I are nearly weeping at these scenes, and my boys are going, "Wow! Cool!" Levi actually says things like, "Yeah, he got him! He's gonna eat him all up." Sadie has a stuffed elephant named "Ellie" that she has had since she was born. She adores "Ellie" - sleeping with her every night. When we were watching, in suspense, the elephant being attacked by the lion pride, Levi said, "Uh, oh... Ellie's in BIG trouble!"

Yesterday, when I was away from our house, my husband texted me a photo of an injured hawk that was hanging out on our back deck. It obviously had an injured neck, and he took 5 minutes of video of the dying hawk. I added music to this video, because I have just figured out how to do video editing with my iMAC. So now, every video we take becomes, not just a video anymore, but rather an emotional experience. My husband asked me why I was adding music to it, and, aside from "because I know how to", I had no other good answer. I think it added the touch of sadness that I felt over being helpless to help the bird of prey. Alas, he was not able to be helped. He passed away in the night, and we laid him to rest this morning. If you look at his talons, you can be sure, as I am, that he had taken his share of smaller animal lives during his time on earth, but I still felt sorry for this pitiable creature in his final hours anyway.

When we came home that evening, the bird was still languishing on the patio under the deck. My son, who just turned 14, has hunting in his blood, apparently. My husband has hunted before, but he doesn't care for it. Austin, on the other hand, has wanted to kill innocent creatures for as long as I can remember. I'm sure some people would think that makes him deranged somehow, but I've come to realize that he is just that kind of boy. He likes guns and planes and could spend all day watching the Military Channel. I grew up with sisters, and I have borne daughters. My father and husband are both mechanically-inclined. That's how they conquer. Others do it through creating computer programs (or viruses), playing sports, inventing things, restoring things, demolishing things, or curing diseases. He starts the Illinois hunter safety course next week, and that was our prerequisite before he could buy his own gun. He's been saving up for quite some time.

Last night, when he and his dad were home, he used his dad's rifle to shoot a bunny rabbit. I'm not saying it was a baby bunny, but it was small. The girls and I were not happy when we came home to find him dressing it out, but he couldn't have been happier. I'm not sure I've seen him that ecstatic - maybe in years. He then took out his Dangerous Book for Boys and read up on how to get the meat off the bones, skin it, and tan the hide. I know he felt so good. He felt capable and alive. He felt strong. I couldn't help but feel emotions colliding - the Wild Kingdom emotions were all churning within me, at the same time, I was proud of my son for doing something he's always wanted to do and for learning something new. The pioneer spirit within me thinks, "Well, if the apocalypse comes, he won't let us go hungry." :) Mark came in with one of my kitchen bowls with a few pieces of rabbit meat in it. He put it in a baggie in my fridge - next to the real food. The thought of preparing it for him makes my stomach turn, but I so want to be a good mom to him. His biological mother is, for all intents and purposes, absent from his life. I love him dearly.

Anybody got a good recipe for rabbit stew? I feel like Grandma Clampitt off to cook up a mess o' somethin'.

Crutches

Mark took Levi and Violet down to the creek today to toss rocks off the bridge. This, of course, is one of their favorite activities... like most children. As he told it, Levi had smuggled a pacifier, "paci" - affectionately, down to the bridge. He is supposed to be being weaned from paci. As he was enthusiastically throwing rocks over the bridge, he opened his mouth to exclaim, and, like something from Aesop's Fables, paci tumbled out, bounced once off the bridge railing, and fell, plop, into the creek below. Levi, with furrowed brow, looked forlornly down into the water and said, "I lost paci! Now, what am I going to do?" Now, one could successfully argue that if a child can utter such sophisticated monologue, he should scarcely need a paci. However, I think that Levi would be inclined to disagree, and might, quite maturely, make a decent case.

When Mark came home to tell me the story, I said, "Oh, no. That was our last spare."

To which he replied, "Well, maybe tonight is a good night for him to say goodbye to paci."

I had to agree, although I was still contemplating a quick trip into town for a new one.

I think about how strange it is that we learn to depend on crutches from a very early age. We lean on things - sometimes encouraged by our parents - to fill an emotional or physical void. Even if parents are the ones who try to fill our voids as children, they are still inadequate. They still fall short. I struggle with my voids. I try to fill them with hobbies or time wasters. I try to fill my stomach with sweets and other things I know aren't good for me. I try to fill my ears with noise and my eyes with stimuli.

I was thinking about my thoughts today - how redundant. I noticed that I think a lot more thoughts about God than I think toward Him. I imagine He would tend to prefer the latter... just like I would. It's nice for my husband to think about me, but I don't know he is unless he's thinking toward me. If he tells me what he's thinking toward me, or if he expresses it in actions that benefit me, then we have made a connection that is impossible when he merely thinks about me. More often than not I let my thoughts direct me. Today I am prompted to be more purposeful to direct my thoughts, instead of letting them direct me, and to make them known - not just in words on a blog or even in a prayer, but in my actions. God thinks about me, no doubt... and has been since the beginning of time. (Zeph. 3:17, Zech. 2:8, Jer. 29:11, Col. 3:12) But more importantly, His thoughts have been directed toward me for my good. Sometimes we find this hard to believe.

We mistrust God because we are unsure of our worth to Him. We think that we are merely tolerated by Him... that since our failure is so great that we couldn't be worth the rejoicing He claims to do over us. We are unsure of His goodness. So we may tend to think that when difficulties come our way we are being punished or at least neglected by God. The contrary is always true. His thoughts have always been directed toward us... for our good. If I tell my son tomorrow that he has to continue to go out and work in a garden that is scarcely producing any fruit, he is frustrated - maybe even angry - with me. But I carry a burden called: The Big Picture. I can see that he is learning to stick with something he started - to persevere in bleak circumstances. I can see that he is learning good work ethic - to finish a project started. I can also see that this will make him a better employee someday... more marketable... more competitive... stronger.

God also carries the same burden, but on a much grander scale. Our trials and sufferings aren't the result of a forgetful or vengeful God. They are part of our growing process... a tiny portion of The Big Picture. Salvation wasn't a contingency plan for a bunch of cosmic failures. It was a way to sacrifice Himself for His greatest love - people who were lost. The greatest love stories are ones of great sacrifice. He made us the object of the greatest love story every told.

Jesse Ventura once said that "religion is just a crutch for the weak". He's right.

~ Grease Monkeys ~

I rarely take all of my children on more than an errand or two in town. I usually just wait till my love gets home around 4:00 PM and do my running around after that. I think stores that stay open late promote tranquility and sanity for moms. I have often found myself - during later evening hours - dancing down grocery store aisles (they have the best music) all alone with nobody saying, "Mom, you're embarrassing me." Who is trying to crawl beneath the cart or standing on the sides of it? Nobody. Nobody is standing to the right and left of my elbows either, resulting in what I think of as the Millater Battering Ram... 3 people and a shopping cart wide - plus two whirlwind toddlers in, on, or hanging off of the sides of the cart. People see us coming down the bakery aisle and decide they didn't really need bread after all. That's what I would do in that situation. I'd think, "We have tortillas anyway... never had PB&J on tortillas."

Sometimes, when it seems like it's been a long time since I've taken all the children on errands with me I start to think, "It really wasn't that bad last time. I think I can manage it." For the record... that's just stupidity talking. I tend to forget certain things too easily... like the time I was putting groceries in my boxes at Aldi when the giant Aldi cart fell over on top of Claire (who had been standing on the side of the cart). She was not even quite 3 at the time, and I had no idea that was even possible! I must have pulled enough weight out of the inside of the cart, because as I was putting things in the boxes, I heard a crash and screaming, and half the store was rushing to my side to help me pull the cart off my screaming toddler. OR... the time when Levi crawled under the cart at Walmart while I was talking to a friend and scooted just far enough down the narrowing rungs on the cart to get his knobby knee hopelessly stuck. He was screaming so loud that people came from aisles around wondering what I had done to him. OR... the time when Claire had to go to the bathroom and, while I was headed toward the family restroom, she ended up walking into the men's. She was in there 10 minutes, and I thought she was in the women's the whole time. We searched the women's restroom and started to head down coronary alley as she sauntered out of the men's room swinging her sweatshirt in the air. I said, "Claire, didn't you notice that was the men's room?" She said, "What? It is?" I said, "Yes, didn't you think it was strange that there were men in there?" She replied casually, "There were only a few." These are the annals of Millater shopping lore.

Somehow I always think that the next time will be different. However, today was no exception. We decided to meet my sister at the library for an hour around 10:00. Austin is usually my right arm when we do things like this, because he's my extra set of adult eyes (not always hands, but at least he sees what they're doing). It's hard when each one heads a different direction as soon as we enter the building - trying to keep track of where everyone is and what they're doing. Aside from Levi and Violet personally tasting every, single item of pretend food the library owns and Violet nearly leaving the library with a strange man, things went pretty well.

On to the UPS store. I got distracted on the way to the UPS store and thought I was going to Walmart. So after I got parked and all of the kids unloaded at Walmart, I realized to my joy and pain that I didn't need to be at Walmart at all. So everyone got back into their seats (to the refrain of weeping and wailing from the younger two), and we headed over to UPS. The package delivery went without incident, and we headed to the pool store, which also went without incident, because everyone stayed in their seats.

Then... Jiffy Lube. On a good day, I'm not fond of Jiffy Lube. It smells funny. The floor is always filthy. The chairs have some sort of sticky residue on them. The magazine selection consists of Field and Stream and racing fare. The bathroom is unisex and, therefore, an adventure in disgustingness. They always give you the "you know nothing about your vehicle" shame fest/sales pitch. Oh, but they offer complimentary coffee and water. There's only one catch - you have to bring your own cups - and your own coffee and/or water. (Nearly every time I go, there is no coffee, very little water, and no cups.) The added joy of bringing children to Jiffy Lube is the tiny lobby, the grimy toys (that I'm sure have never made the acquaintance of a Lysol wipe), the greasy floors, the stale air, the rickety candy machines in the corner, and the almost (but not quite) empty water cooler with no cups.

On this particular occasion, we had not yet eaten lunch at 11:34 AM when we pulled in, and we were in a rather lengthy line. We didn't pull out of Jiffy Lube until 12:34 PM (which is a whole other meridian), which means that it wasn't as much "jiffy" as it was "lube". I doubt they'd bring in as many customers if they called it Sluggish Lube or even Sluggish, Dirty, and Bring Your Own Cups Lube. However, if they had a suggestion box, I might have been tempted to comment, "if you advertise a 'no butt crack view guarantee', you might bring in some more customers." The kids didn't seem to mind. They were craning their necks to see the goings on in the big shop next to the lobby... the men working together like a big, hairy, well-oiled machine. The first 5 1/2 minutes went smoothly as the kids were interested in the grimy toys they only see about 3 times per year. But after they had emptied the lego container onto the floor and table and taken all the pieces out of the 3 puzzles, they were unimpressed and began to move on to the non-toy toys. I was trying to track down a book to read to the kids as I turned around to see Levi thoroughly licking the front window right under the OPEN sign. As I searched, next to the actual two styrofoam cups they had for (nonexistent) napkins to clean up the slobbery slime/grime combo on the window, Violet found a broken popsicle stick in the garbage can and proceeded to suck on the sharp end of one and round end of the other before I could reach her. As I was taking that away from her and re-trashing it, I looked to find Levi swinging the cord of the OPEN sign around his head - barely missing his sisters' faces as they were squealing. The sign was swaying back and forth precariously like it could fall any second. He had apparently unplugged the sign and was using the cord as a mace. As I re-plugged it, an elderly man, who had walked in earlier, snickered at one or all of us. We decided to share a styrofoam cup of water (the last dribbles of water from the cooler) - just for something to do, but as I was trying to prevent an accident involving a chair, the water got dumped on the floor and on Sadie.

The man in charge of customer service came over for my sale's pitch - which was punctuated by intermittent "Can we go to Donalds?" from Levi and a polite smile from the salesman. He told me a flat out lie about my vehicle mileage/oil change ("per the manufacturer") frequency, and I told him he was wrong and offered to show him the vehicle manual on the subject... to which he responded that the vehicle manual assumes we are using synthetic oil, and then he tried to sell me the synthetic oil at 3x the price of regular oil. I had a 50% off coupon, but that still didn't sound like a deal to me. Short on time, and desperate to leave, I pulled the ol', "I'm just a brainless woman, and I have to talk to my husband before I change anything with our vehicles," routine (which always works since it's a different guy every time). After accepting a half price tire rotation, I sat down to play with the kids until the van was done. They had brought in two stuffed animals, which they had been throwing up in the air - and after the Sheltie narrowly missed the elderly man, I decided a safer game would be for Claire and Levi to throw them to me and I would throw them back to them. They stood back against the wall below the counter to play catch with mom. It went well for about 75 seconds until Levi got excited and jumped up as he threw resulting in a loud crack of the top of his head against the bottom of the countertop and loud screaming and wailing. Shortly after I got him calmed down, the man came with my car keys, and I wanted to kiss his feet. After chasing around my Grease Monkeys for a full hour, I was ready for the relief a couple of car seats provide.

The exhaustion of running errands with the children makes me wonder where I'm going wrong sometimes. I realize that there are 6 of us who all want our way, and that has a part to play. I want my children to, not just learn to pick up their toys, but to learn to take responsibility for their actions. I want them to gradually put away their childish ways as they grow older. Lately I've been reading about the putting away of "childish things". 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 says, ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part;¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. It makes me wonder how many of my childish things I have yet to put away... selfishness, complaining, slandering, ungratefulness, procrastination, and the desire to be entertained, - even insecurities... so many things that I see in myself that shouldn't be so pronounced anymore. These things make life difficult. Because of these things, I have friction with those who surround me, with those I love. I am stunted in my growth. I can only get so far in my relationships, in my personal growth, in my spiritual walk, all of it - before I am frustrated and thwarted by those childish ways.

Verse 12 makes me happy though - it says that although I now only know God partially, understand spiritual reality dimly, and only slightly understand my purpose - I am fully known by a Father who wants to help me put away my childish ways. He enables me to put things in their proper place. He works with me to help me grow up into a person who is okay with acknowledging my own weakness and dependency. With my own children, I am training them for physical independence... so that they will be able to meet their own needs. God is training me to recognize my dependence... so that I will remember where to go to get my needs met. Of course, independence is only an illusion anyway - we are still always connected to one another - if only in our need. We are certainly connected to our power source... that which keeps our heart beating in our chest... our Battery. I can be thankful for those needs, because they always lead me to the Source of their meeting.

I poke fun at the folks at Jiffy Lube, but, to their credit, they have always done an excellent job taking care of our vehicles. They meet a need for our family too. Running errands with my grease monkeys is never easy, but it's always a learning experience.

For the Birds

A couple months ago my husband was working 72 hour weeks at his job. My own father works at the same place as Mark does and has for most of my life. As a result, I'm used to the types of things that go on during these weeks of long hours. One thing my mom still says to this day is that things always go wrong when there is no one around to fix them. A refrigerator compressor goes out. The clothes dryer quits working. The van gets a flat. Those types of minor irritations generally accompany everyday life, but when your husband is your handyman, they seem worse somehow. I found this out last year during a set of long work hours for Mark.

Last fall Mark got a new lawn mower. He had never before owned a new lawn mower, and had spent hours each week working on our old one. We went ahead and bought a spiffy new lawn cart to go with it. This lawn mower is his mechanical pride and joy. He changes the oil regularly, washes the deck after mowings, and all but spit polishes it and kisses it goodnight. He taught Austin how to run it before he taught me, and I assume this means that a man of nearly any age is more trustworthy with machinery than I. I did my fair share of mowing in junior high and high school for my parents - who own quite a bit of acreage. So I'm not completely inept at running machinery. However, I do have a tendency toward paranoia at swooping birds, and I have been known to jump off machinery and run around screaming that the birds are attacking my hair. I always say, birds can recognize good nest material when they see it.

Anyway, Austin is actually the one who gave me mower instructions, and he is a great instructor. If I was half the student he is an instructor, we wouldn't have run into trouble. On this particular occasion (as I often do) I was trying to figure out how to entertain the kids while getting work done. So I thought - "the lawn needs mowed" and simultaneously "hey, big lawn cart, and kids love rides." So I hooked up the cart and told the kids to hop in the back. Claire and Levi gladly did. I gave strict instructions that they remain seated at all times while the mower was in motion. They looked at me like that was a no-brainer, and we proceeded as I engaged the mower. The first 5 minutes or so things went GREAT. The kids were having fun, and I was getting work done. It was like parenting utopia. I had entered the magical world where work and fun meet and seem to effortlessly pair. As it turns out, they've met before and couldn't stand each other and decided it would never work out. On this occasion, they only briefly acknowledged one another in passing.

Our lawn is a hilly place - especially in the back. The first problem came when I realized that Austin hadn't told me how to engage the brake. (This happened, you see, because this new machine had something called hydrostatic transmission - which, for all you women out there, means it stops or slows when you take your foot off the main pedal.) This being a hilly lawn, you can imagine the problem as I was barreling down the hill toward the 32' round pool. Visions of running into the water-filled mammoth on my lawn mower - kids in tow - tore through my mind as we bounced down the hill recklessly toward it. I swerved and barely missed the pool. I ended up on a flatter surface and, when I could actually breathe again, I decided I should go find Austin for a few more lessons. So I started to climb the hill slowly - only to realize that the machine didn't want to pull me and the children up the steeper incline at the degree of turn I was asking. So we started to roll backward... back toward the pool. The lawn cart suddenly jackknifed - stopping us briefly, and the insides of the one tire ripped out and the whole tire just fell off the wheel hub. As I glanced sheepishly at the MADE IN U.S.A. sticker on the back of the lawn cart I wondered if it applied to the tires on the cart as well, because I had to console myself that they were manufactured elsewhere. (Of course, I'm not even certain that my fellow Americans could build machinery that could see me coming.) I finally found the brake, but the parking break eluded me. I pushed down tightly on the brake and sent Claire off to find Austin to show me where the parking brake was before we rolled any farther down hill. I realized that I would have to eat humble pie in front of my teenager - which is never fun, not to mention that his dad would surely be consoled that he had made the right decision about who to train on the proper use of his new machine. The fact that I was "only trying to help" would be appreciated but mostly eclipsed in the muck of not only having to still mow the lawn but also having to now fix the mower and cart that I had driven into a pickle.

Fast forward a year, and spring outage 2010 comes. Mark is working his long hours again, and, as Sunday morning comes, a strange scratching in the flue/pipe of our living room wood stove. I've long found this wood stove useless for us, and we just store old newspapers in there right now... in case the apocalypse comes, and we can't buy pinatas and other paper mache` items anymore. We'll have quite the business, I imagine. But I digress... There was a bird in our flue. It flew into our flue. (homophones) I love nature, but flying things and I don't always get along (as evidenced in the above narrative). My dad came that morning to pick up Austin for church... as the little ones were sick, and I was staying home with them. He said that he was running late, but when they came back they would help me get it out of the flue. Well, after about an hour at home, I realized that the scratching and flying had stopped, and I assumed that the bird had flown the flue. The dog, however, was not as convinced and kept his eyes firmly peeled as he shook nervously at the edge of the stove.

I reached into the stove to put the Saturday paper inside, and something jumped and flapped. It was the bird. I screamed and shut the door. The dog was going crazy. The kids thought I was the one who was going crazy. Anyway, after about an hour I thought to myself, "This is stupid. I can catch a little bird, and put it outside." Do you ever get that? The pioneer spirit of my great grandmothers rears it's can-do attitude and gets me into trouble. I grabbed a large plastic bag and held it in front of the door of the stove and opened the door. The bird saw a chink in my armor (maybe that it was a plastic bag) and flew straight out the door and into our living room. It flew back and forth divebombing me and the little ones. I was screaming, ducking, and holding onto my hair. It was a true coward-fest my children were witnessing. I think I scared the poor bird (a sparrow, if you were wondering), and it ran into a window and fell to the floor on the stairs. I rarely wish death on any of God's creatures, but I went to try to take what I hoped was a dead bird outside. As I went to pick it up, the bird flew up into my face and started circling the living room again... to the (I'm loath to report) same refrain of screaming and lunacy I had demonstrated only minutes before - apparently 2 minutes had not matured me at all in this particular area.

Finally the bird flew downstairs, and I regained a small amount of composure. Weighing all my options and realizing that I couldn't leave the creature down in my family room to "grossify" it all up, I went downstairs to search for it. I found the stunned creature about 5 feet from the glass sliding doors clicking. It was clicking its beak. I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with stress. If had had a beak, I am pretty sure I would have been clicking too. I moved closer to it, and it didn't even try to move away from me. I figured it would start to fly again, but it just sat there. I grabbed a towel and tossed it over the bird, and the bird still sat there. I picked it up to move it outside, and it still didn't move. It sat in the grass for a good 10 minutes, and, as I was about to take its picture for memorabilia, it flew away. I was glad I hadn't killed it - or vice versa.

All in all, dignity gone (which isn't a new thing for me), I felt pretty good about the outcome. "Hear me roar" and all. I managed to handle the situation (with very little grace), but I got the job done. I would surely impress my dad and Mark that they didn't have to help little, old, helpless me. I ended up with a decent story to tell as well. I didn't make friends with the aviary kingdom that day. That would have been the ideal outcome, but I don't think I'll be enjoying birds any time soon - except through binoculars and on my dinner plate.

I feel blessed that I do have men in my life who will take care of me. I know some women bristle at the idea, but I like to be taken care of, and I don't mind being thought of as "the weaker sex", because sometimes - especially physically - I am. And I like that my dad, my husband, and now my sons, all like to come to my rescue when I need it. Family is an excellent thing. We were at a combined, family birthday party tonight, and I needed to write 4 birthday checks, but halfway there realized we only had 3 checks left in the checkbook. Mark and I debated as we were giving everyone else $30 checks, we had two $20 bills between us for cash, and we couldn't give someone $40 over the rest. What a dilemma. I realized, as tacky as it sounds, family are people that you can ask to give you change from their birthday card money. Dad was happy to oblige and come to my rescue again. :)

I'm pretty sure that God gave us family to show us how He wants us to be with Him - close enough to be real... forgetful, weak, silly, and all... He knows it all anyway, but I'm convinced He gave us a voice for a reason - He likes to hear it. Sure, we could communicate with Him through our minds only, but He loves my voice. It is music to His ears. No matter what I say, He wants to hear it - and maybe the weaker, the better, because, "When I am weak, then I am strong."

II Corinthians 12:9-11

⁹But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.