You Know You've Gone to the Dogs

You know you've gone to the dogs when:

• You congratulate yourself on how well you cleaned the house and there are still 3 squeaky toys, 2 bones and a rope on the floor.
• You set aside plastic bags that will be good for poop scooping. Hotel laundry bags are my favorite.
• You examine chew toys like a parent buying their child's first band instrument. Is it strong enough to survive my "children"? even if it gets left outside? How annoying is the sound it makes? 
• You have a heated dog bed. In our case, our bed, heated by the dogs sleeping under it.
• No matter how often you vacuum the carpet, the dust cup is always full.
• You keep an old towel near the back door for paw wiping. 
• You can no longer get down on the floor for any reason, including unconsciousness, without playing with the dogs.
• You are willing to risk the dogs ruining your furniture while you are gone rather than leave them outside in the mud.
• Your balance exercise is stepping around and over the dogs.
• Your visual acuity test is spotting a black dog asleep on the floor in the dark. 
• You answer the door by saying "Just a minute. Down! Quiet! Get Back!", then open it a crack so the dogs won't get out . . . but by now your visitor doesn't want in.

Over-Blessed

     On days like this, sitting outside of yet another nice hotel soaking up the sun, I realize that I have had more than my share of blessings. Embarrassingly so. Although, to some, being away from home would be a burden, rather than a blessing, because they do not like to travel. Others might blunt the blessing by focusing on finding fault with the facilities instead of enjoying the experience, because it is their nature. I have never understood people who can lay by a pool for hours doing nothing, but here I sit, drinking in the afternoon sun as if I'd nothing better to do, trying to store up enough of its goodness to get me through the cloudy winter. Even when it is sunny at home, there are a dozen tasks that pull me back inside the house. Or I enjoy the sun, but through the windshield, as I run half a dozen errands. Instead I sit here in the sun, enjoying Grand Junction, and the busy world goes on without me.
     I would feel guilty for this lavish gift of leisure if it was not something given to me by God. Nothing in my growing up gave me any hope that there would be such moments in my life. My childhood fantasies only traveled as far as truck stop hotels. Staying at the kind of places we do for Reed's work never entered my mind. If only I sought the Son of God as desperately as the sun He created, clung to Him as tenaciously, stored up His goodness and considered it time well spent, what a conduit of blessing I could be. Because God blesses us so that we can bless others, and I who have been over-blessed should not feel guilty, just generous.

A Miracle or a Nap

     Recently I had a series of daily migraines. I have good meds that take them away so this is not as bad as it sounds, but taking Zomig too often can make my body resistant to it, as well as taking too much of any med is hard on any body. So recently I asked our pastor if he would pray for migraine relief. Sure enough the migraines slowed way down--after I got shingles. I should have reread my post on Odd Answers to Prayer because God has used this method several times before. When my daughter was about to get married, long before I had dependable Zomig to stop them, I was having daily migraines. I could fake being okay, but in order to really enjoy the wedding I wanted to be migraine free, so I asked the Lord for a reprieve. He gave me the stomach flu. Because of that, I needed to rest for two days and those restful days kept me from having a migraine on her wedding day. I wanted a miraculous respite, God gave me a nap.
    My Guatemala experience was even more memorable. Toward the end of our time there I got, not Montezuma's revenge, but the revenge of whatever Mayan ruled Guatemala. This involved using a large quantity of Guatemalan toilet paper. So I was dreading the nearly 20 hours of sitting involved in flying home. I prayed that I would not notice the discomfort. At the Guatemala City airport, I bent down to pick up my briefcase and tweaked my back. Prayer answered. I did not notice the other discomfort. I decided I really should have put more thought into the wording of that prayer.
     So after this incident of trading migraines for shingles, I had about decided never to ask for prayer for my headaches again. God was obviously not going to waste a miracle on me and I was rather resentful about it. Then I remembered something profoundly simple--God loves me. God loves me more than I love me and He would not cause me to suffer if there was a kinder, better way to answer my prayer. He answers as He does because I do not need a miracle, I need a nap. Miraculously removing a couple migraines would not teach me to listen to my body when it tells me to slow down. I would need miracles day after day. One thing I have noticed that about God is that He tends to use ordinary people and things to answer our prayers. He does not need to perform miracles when the things He has already put in place work just fine.
     I was really embarrassed when I realized how long it took me to figure out Jesus loves me. I should have asked a preschooler. God will do what is best for me no matter how my prayer is worded. It is not about how I ask or who I ask to pray, it is, like everything in life, about God. His plan. His way. For my good--whether it seems like it or not. The fact that the God who made the universe loves me and hears my prayers is miracle enough.

To Sing Again

     One of the things I noticed when I became an empty nester is that I did not sing around the house anymore. When my children were little, I sang them lullabies. They enjoyed them, I know that because they used to make requests when I tucked them in at night. Tracy's was often the very simple "Lullaby and Goodnight." I would sing "I Went to the Animal Fair" to keep them calm while I washed their hair at bath time. Later they learned songs at church and school and taught them to me so we could sing them together. To this day, the only way I can remember the 10 Commandments in order is by the song "The Perfect Ten". Singing seemed to make the housework less tedious, the coming holidays more exciting, the house more like a home. For years playing guitar and singing was a comforting part of my routine. But when they reached tweens and teens, the kids made new requests--"Stop singing!" But I did not, because I was too happy being a mom to keep it inside.
     After the kids grew up and left home, I turned on the television or radio to make housework less tedious. My guitar sits in the corner of our bedroom gathering dust. I should take it downstairs but keep thinking, maybe someday . . . I still know the words and melodies and, of course, I sing at church, but I had lost the desire to sing at home. However, when the time came to calm a dying friend struggling against being on a ventilator, my default setting was to sing to her--softly, calmly, stroking her hand, warming her up for the much better music she would hear in heaven.
   In June my granddaughter was born so there was an audience for my lullabies again. I have even tried to upgrade my repertoire by adding a few new songs, but I am hampered in learning lyrics by the fact that my memory bank is full of all the commercial jingles from my childhood, and there seems to be no way to withdraw those memories and deposit new ones. I would rather remember the lyrics of "Ancient Words" than "N-e-s-t-l-e-s, Nestles make the very best CHOCOLATE". It is frustrating to love a song, yet not remember all the words, songs like: "Wonderful, Merciful Savior",  or "Beyond the Throne of God Above". I am having a little better luck with a song from the movie "Tangled", called "Now That I See You". Partially because the verses are similar, but also because the end of the chorus identifies why having a granddaughter has enabled me to sing again, "All at once, everything is different, now that I see you".

Taking Care

    At the end of December our lives will be changing. For the past three years, my husband has been working two half-time jobs. When the flight department he had built up and been a part of for 20 years shrank down to just Reed and one pilot, we were worried we would have to move out of Kalispell for him to find work. So the solution of working part time for two employers not only allowed us to stay in Kalispell, but he actually earned more money than he had previously. But it was not an ideal situation, our lives were now subject to two flight schedules instead of one. Reed had been director of maintenance for his previous employer for many years; at his new job he had a boss--a boss with a very different style than Reed. 

     We have been praying about the situation for months. Now that the flying has slowed down at the second job, he is no longer needed. At the end of the year, he will be done. We can live on just one income, but really need to save as much as possible in these few years before retirement. So things are changing and change is scary, but God is sovereign. Just in case I had forgotten that, the day after we got the news, God gave me an object lesson in a flock of birds sheltering in our back yard.

Taking Care

  

It is not the dead of winter,

it is early November

barely the beginning,

but the ground is covered with snow

the grass and seeds are buried.

Who will take care of the birds?

From the warmth of my home, I watch

dozens of them, in my yard, feasting,

well supplied with berries

and an abundance of apples

still on the tree.

More than we would ever need.

God has taken care of the birds.

When it is the dead of winter

and the new year has begun,

My husband will lose one of his jobs—

a source of frustration, but still income.

Who will take care of us then?

The generous One who supplied

an abundance of berries and apples.

The very same God gives

more than we will ever need.

He takes care of the birds,

and the Earth,

and the vast universe

and the Lambs.

What Brie Will Be

     My granddaughter is now five months old and each day she becomes more engaged with the world around her. When a baby is born one of the first questions everyone asks is, "Who does he/she look like?" Meaning, which parent? Although in the current craziness of casual sex, it could mean which of many partners, and there is a huge difference between a parent and a partner. I could not guess who Brie looked like at first. I usually think babies look like the parent I know best, but I know both Brie's parents pretty well. Her thick black hair and round face looked more like my daughter-in-law, Emily, rather than my daughter. Sounds like an episode of Dr. Phil. Later Britten sent me a picture in which Brie's expression, more than her looks, reminded me of Luke. Britten told me that is how Brie looks when she is constipated, thus confirming my stereotype about engineers in general.
     Since Brie is in the 98th percentile for height, she obviously takes after her 6' 7" father in that. Although I would be thrilled to be 5'7" like my daughter. She is also talkative; definitely did not get that from her mother. Brie has been trying to teethe early, whereas all my babies teethed late. And teeth will come in handy because she has a big appetite and needs something more like meat than milk if she and her mother are ever going to sleep through the night.
    Brie already sings, but will she play instruments like her mother? Will she come to love the books her parents are already reading her? Will she enjoy learning and school? Those are not necessarily the same things. Will she, by some genetic fluke, have artistic talent? Our family has been waiting for an artist for a long time. Will she display her parents' gift for remodeling when she is old enough to redo a Barbie playhouse? Will she be a natural mechanic like her Grandpa and uncle? A pessimist or an optimist? How old will she be when she trusts Christ as her Savior?
     These are things I must wait to find out:  What she is by nature, what she may become by nurture, what she chooses for herself when she is old enough. Her talents, her tastes, sense of humor. All those unknowns are what I am waiting to discover as Brie's personality unfolds, like a flower opening in the sun, like her namesake angel unfurling his wings. And, if God allows, I will be here to see what Brie will be.

FWO--For Women Only

• I guess one good thing about getting the shingles under my breast is that the sag holds the cold compress in place.
• It is a small gel pack for children's "booboos"--close.
• Since I already had the shingles' shot, I am not supposed to get a severe case. Do they call that the tarpaper?
• Since the shingles virus follows the nerve pathway only to the body's centerline, I do not have to worry about this becoming a 2 for 1 special.
• Another good thing--it is in a location that could not possibly come in contact with my baby granddaughter.
• Even if it were more comfortable, I do not have the figure for running around without a bra on, I could trip myself and really get hurt.
• At least shingles only happen when you are old, so my breasts were already "No longer in service."
• For the skin irritation, the doctor suggested a capsaicin product, derived from hot peppers. But fighting fire with fire seemed like a bad idea. The pharmacist agreed.
• I'm glad this happened to me instead of my husband. I find having pain easier to bear than hearing about his.
• For the first time in my computerized life, I can say I've "gone viral".