Jodilightful!

You probably know that Wednesday is “my mom’s day off” and that I pretty much always spend it with her. Maybe you didn’t know that. After all, you can’t possibly remember everything I say here. That would be a terrible waste of brain space, wouldn’t it? Anyway, it is, and I do.

Last week my mom told me with a few days notice that she would *not* be taking Wednesday off, because the store was being renovated all week and having a big reopening on Friday. Fair enough, I thought. She is, after all, an important and irreplaceable lady, and I’m willing to accept that sometimes there are other people who need her (almost) as much I do.

But by 10 o’clock Thursday morning, it hit me like a whopping great caffeine withdrawal headache: I had missed my day with my mom. I didn’t really know what was happening to me as I was running perfectly normal errands with the girls in the stroller and suddenly felt totally overwhelmed and on the verge of tearsy in the middle of Rite-Aid. They weren’t being bad. Pippa had to go potty. We went. My package kept falling out of the stroller as we walked to the post office. I survived, and I held it together. Just. It was really no different from any other day, and I couldn’t figure out why on earth I was teetering on the edge of total melt-down.

We got to our play group at church, and I recharged a bit while there were a few other moms there to chat with and babies to keep mine occupied. On gathering myself up and reflecting, I realized something: I wanted my Mommy!

Friday and the weekend took the edge off it, but by yesterday, I was feeling totally burnt-out and counting the minutes until today. Ah… Wednsday, sweet Wednesday.

Then my mom called last night. “Honey, I’m really sorry, but I have to go to the hospital tomorrow for a treatment (nothing super serious… well, serious enough, but routine for her). I’m not going to be able to do tomorrow.”

Oh, I tried to act all cool. “Oh, don’t apologize, Mom, of course that’s totally fine. We’ll be fine. Are you okay?” But it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears and begging her to cancel her silly treatment and come hang out with us. (Would that be selfish, do you think?) Two no-Mom Wednesdays in a row? Could the delicate fabric of my universe withstand such a blow? I really wasn’t sure.

This morning, we soldiered on. There was lot of TV, I won’t lie, but it wasn’t too bad. She called while she was hooked up to her IV just to see what we were up to (can you believe it?). I told her what the girls were doing, and she requested that I take some photos. Turns out she was missing us, too.

The afternoon rolled on toward naptime, and I was beginning to think I might just survive the day after all. I was all ready to settle into an afternoon of catching up on e-mails and blogging my mommy an I-MIss-You-Message when my phone rang again.

My Mom: I’m done.  What are you doing right now?

Me: (With freakish excitement in my voice) Hoping that the next words out of your mouth are going to be “can I come over right now and bring coffee”!?! (I really did say that to her. She was at the hospital. I am a bad, bad daughter.)

And that’s just what happened! Instead of spending the next few hours pining away and feeling sorry for myself, I spent them drinking coffee and eating cookies and sipping tea with one of my favorite people in the world. Instead of blogging about how much I miss my Mommy, I’m blogging about how amazing she is for coming to my rescue today in spite of crazy circumstances. Order and balance have been restored to my world. My tank is full. The sun is shining. I’ve had my fix, and life is very good again. Thanks, Mom.

What do you do when your best friends and steady couple have a baby girl less than two weeks after you have yours, but then go and end up 2000 miles away? Well, in this day and age, you organize a cyber playdate, of course! That’s just what my dear friend Carol and I having been planning for the past month or so for Romilly and her little friend Tabitha, who is serving as a faithful MK (missionary kid) in Mexico City. Have a look at the amazing work Tabitha’s mummy and daddy have been doing working with street kids in Mexico .

Romilly and Tabitha have met a couple of times, but it has most definitely been much too long. (Yes, they really are just eleven days apart, but the remarkable difference in size is just as pronounced now as it was when they were 3 months old.)

So, as you can see, it was high time for a reunion of sorts. Let’s call it an e-union, shall we? The plan was as follows: Today, April 28, 2008, Romilly and Tabitha would don matching outfits and participate in matching activities, then we would swap photos and stories to share with the girls, and voila – it’s like we were really together! Hmm… not quite, sadly, but it was still a *fab* way to spend the day and we will certainly do it again sometime.

We started off the day by doing this craft: a picture frame inspired, once again, by my favorite toddler craft guru. It went okay, considering the attention-span constraints involved.

The next item on the agenda was supposed to be a trip to the park and a picnic, but as our weather forecast was for thunderstorms today (none so far, but plenty of rain) we decided to go with Plan B, which was probably more exciting for my girls anyway. (I wish I could say that this was Bea’s first fry, but, you know, third child and all…)

Unfortunately, the Playplace had nothing to offer poor Ro. She just wasn’t big enough to climb up to where all the action was. Happily, she was delighted to sit in a high chair and drink her juice and play with the American Idol Happy Meal toy (do kids even watch this show???), so it wasn’t a complete bust.

Finally, Carol made a rather odd suggestion for dessert, but she is a missionary after all, so I didn’t like to argue. Jelly and ice cream. Okay, Carol, if you say so… (must be some sort of delicacy where they come from. Northern Ireland: they’re a little backwards there.)

Oh, wait… she means JELL-O and ice cream! Now that, I can get on board with, and so could the girls!

Here‘s one of a couple short videos the girls made for their friends.

Meanwhile, south of the border, this is what the other little sweetie pie got up to. Isn’t she adorable and hilarious? I believe there might be some more photos of her day appearing here at some point.

While it was wonderful to “spend the day” with Carol and Tabitha and baby Oscar, it did make me miss them all the more. Wouldn’t these two girls be the best of friends?

Please know, dear friends, that we love you and miss you and are praying for you always. Until we can meet again for zilch and Starbucks, the Internet will just have to do.

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

I discovered this verse, quite accidentally, when I was in my late tweens/early teens. It was the first time I can remember reading the Bible purely of my own accord, finding a verse that spoke to me, and committing it to memory. I wish I could say that it was the beginning of a lifelong habit for me, but, alas, it is yet another area in which God is still working on me.

By that age, I was just starting to realize that being a Christian is not the default in our world. Many grow up going to church or being exposed to Christian ideas and stories, but not so many truly understand this “message of the cross” of which Paul wrote here. I was beginnning to see differences in the choices my friends were making, including one who had begun to call herself an atheist. I was beginnning to see that living this life was going to mean being thought a fool, and this verse made it all make sense.

In this verse, I hear the Lord telling me that He knows how crazy the story of the cross will sound to those who have hardened their hearts, but it is never mine to decide who those people are. The message of the cross, of our complete justification through Christ’s death in our place, might sounds like madness to some, but the truth is, it is powerful to save those who will believe its simple truth. The very power of God is contained in a message that Christ empowers me and emboldens me to vocalize. Whether I will be thought a fool or not, this verse reminds me that it is entirely worth it to share this powerful message at every available opportunity.

Now fly over to his blog and check out his favorite verse!

Warning: don’t try this at home, unless you’re under three feet tall and very, umm… well-cushioned.

Today I have dabbled in the arts, helped the environment, and enjoyed an outdoor concert. Who says a stay-at-home mom has a mundane life?

We started our day off with a bit of photography. I wanted to sort of recreate this photo of Pip and Ro when they were littler, but with all three girls. It didn’t go all that well, but it was fun trying.

Next we recycled crayons. Remember how I told you I was inspired by KT earlier this week? Well, this craft went much more smoothly than the last one, and we will definitely be doing it again. I’ll give you the picture tour. If it isn’t self-explanatory, you can find the official how-to here.

The finished product reminded me of a certain chocolatey peanut butter delight, and I wondered if you could make those the same way… Three guesses what I have in the oven at this very moment.

Finally, because it was *gorgeous* outside today, we played in the garden for a while after lunch. The girls were kind enough to serenade me with many of their greatest hits, and I particularly enjoyed this medley by Pippa, though clearly Romilly did not.

(I think subtitles might be in order here:
Pippa: (After finishing their entire repertoire of songs… a grand finale of sorts was in order, I guess) Something we forgot. All of them. We need to put all of them together. (Singing) Twinkle, A, B, deep and wide, All of you go into the mix. Up A-(something, something) world so A-B-C-D…
Ro-Ro: (shaking head furiously) That A-B-C-D-E-F-G!
Pippa: (Starts singing A-B-C’s normally) Let’s all sing A-B-C-D Beatrix, and Ro-Ro!
All (okay, maybe not Bea, so much): (Sing A-B-C’s)
Pippa: Let’s sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star now!)

See? Who knew you could pack so much culture into one day without even leaving home?

The last two chapters in my ladies’ marriage Bible Study book have been about communication.  Most marriage books I’ve read seem to focus on things like I-statements and differences in the way men and women communicate, and certainly there is value in those things.  This book, however, sets all that aside, and looks purely at what God has said about communication to *all* of us in His Word.  Apparently I needed it.

This passage from James 3 is the one that has been hitting me hard for the past few weeks.   (It’s a long one, but I encourage you to read every word.  Slowly.):

2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.  5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

This passage has applications in a dozen different kinds of evil that our tongues might lead us into, but the one that’s been on my heart lately is gossip.  I have always been naturally very guarded about what I will say about my husband (in a negative light) to anyone outside our marriage, but within the comfy cozy haven of our home, I’m afraid I have many times crossed the line into conveying others in a negative light to him.

Recently, on my favorite internet community of moms of toddlers (another cozy little haven, most of the time), there was a bit of unpleasantness about a member who some believed had been lying to the group.  At this time, one of the community leaders brought it to everyone’s attention, that the huge, secular women’s health website that our messageboard is just a tiny little part of, has a policy against what is called “cross-posting” that goes something like this (my paraphrase):

Posting a link to another messageboard with the purpose of making a member look foolish or calling them on an inconsistency is prohibited.

Let me give an example, for those who are less familiar with the vast Internet subculture that is messageboards:  Perhaps I post on a Christian Moms messageboard and also a Moms of Toddlers board.  On the first, I might freely admit that I use spanking as a form of discipline.  On the latter, I might keep that to myself for fear of offending someone or being thought cruel. It would be against policy for someone to quote what I said on one board to the other board with the intent of making me look bad.

Good rule.  But when I discovered that this was an actual policy for a completely non-religious website, I was suddenly very aware, and very convicted, that I am sometimes guilty of this very practice in real life (IRL, in messageboardspeak).  Is that gossip? I thought.  If I merely quote what someone else has said in the privacy of my own home without making any explicit judgment on what was said.  Surely it can’t be gossip if I’m just repeating what someone said…

But of course it is!  Taking something out of its original context and repeating it to someone who was not there to judge the situation for themselves can be every bit as damaging as spreading complete lies about someone.  What it really boils down to is what is going on in my heart when I repeat it.  Am I telling Trevor about something because I am genuinely concerned or seeking his wisdom in a situation?  Sometimes.  But other times I repeat something that hurt me or rubbed me the wrong way because I know he will see it my way, and by stroking my ego, make me feel better about myself.  But at the expense of “cursing people made in the image of God?”  Not okay.

Our Bible study leader finished up our class on Sunday with a metaphor about the dandelions (which, incidentally, Pippa now calls “the flowers that we don’t like” thanks to her daddy’s horticultural training)  that have invaded her lawn.  She and her son spent an evening pulling all of the flowers off a large section of lawn in order to feed them to their family pets, and by the next morning, as I’m sure you already know from experience, the lawn was once again covered in yellow flowers.

Cutting off gossip at the lips does not get to the root of the problem.  It is not enough to try not to say anything about someone that you wouldn’t say with the person in the room, although this is a rule I try to live by (emphasis on *try*).  God would have us not even have the thought in our hearts against them in the first place.  When I feel the impulse to repeat something unflattering that someone said to me, it is not enough to hold my tongue.  Instead I need to speak to my heart, and ask the Lord to help me love that person enough that I don’t even want to repeat it for fear of hurting someone who is, indeed,  made in God’s image.

I’m currently selling a very fancy-dancy mantle clock for my mom’s store on eBay. Big ticket items like this one always seem to draw the international bidders out of the woodwork, which is fine by me (as long as they just drive the price up and don’t actually win. Then it’s kind of a pain, but I digress…).

So *today alone* I have had about six different bidders ask me questions about this clock (I usually field maybe two or three questions a week total on four or five items, so you can tell this clock is something special.  Too bad I only get 25%). Often, the questions I receive from overseas bidders make me smile, so I thought I’d share a few I’ve gotten recently.

Please understand, I have no intention to mock here. I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for someone who can make himself understood in another language. I had a hard enough time doing that in a classroom of inner-city Edinburgh teenagers. If I had to ask a question about a Japanese eBay auction… well, let’s just say if it required words other than sushi and kimono I’d be in trouble.

That said, these work best if you read them aloud with an appropriate accent, as I always do when I call my mom at work to read them to her:

Dear sir:
I prefer your this clock you can shipping it to China ?? I am waiting for your reply ,
Thank you

I got called “sir” twice today. Ha ha! I always try to imagine how alarmed they would be if they knew they were actually addressing a thirty-year-old-housewife in her PJ’s.

Could you do the ship to Japan?
It pays with Papal.

I can’t decide if this sounds like a dance, a la “The Hustle” or just a very funky new way of asking the question. Maybe they’re just cooler than me…

hi…how much ship in italy?..very thanks

Umm… lots of ship, I think. Yes, lots. Very don’t mention it!

hello,
shipping cost to french please…..

Did you do the accent on this one? I think it particularly helps. I do hope they actually meant France, because there are a surprising number of countries that have names starting with the word French, and they’d all be pricier to ship to than France.

Viva la funny English!

Today, inspired in no small part by KT‘s heroic crafting efforts with her two boys (aged 2 and 7 months!), I set about to do a craft with my girls. It’s not as though they have never done a craft before. We do an awful lot of coloring and a fair amount of playing-doh (surely more grammatically correct than play-dohing, right?), we just don’t often do anything interesting. I like to leave that to the experts (that is, the girls’ Sunday school teachers) most of the time. But today, I was inspired, as I said.

I decided it would be “fun” to have each of the girls work on a scrapbook of their own lives thus far, and I could work on one for Beatrix until she’s old enough to jump in on the “fun”. They could each do a page on each major milestone, and we would be set for crafty projects for the forseeable future. Today, of course, would be the introductory When-I-Was-First-Born page. Easy-peasy, I thought. I’ll just print off a couple of baby pictures onto normal paper, then let the girls go to town decorating them with stickers, ribbons, crayons, markers… the possibilities are endless! Of course, I would offer some “guidance” along the way. You know, make sure their names and birthdates appeared somewhere, but really, it was their project, and I was mostly just going to stay out of their way and let the creativity flow.

Romilly’s page went perfectly to plan. She was delighted by all of my “suggestions” and offered only a few of her own. Here she is working away on her page:
(Do you think her outfit here indicates that I am an indulgent parent? I’ve decided not. Scrapbooking is after all, a dangerous sport, what, with the scissors and all that sharp-cornered paper. One can never be too safe. And nothing gets the creative juices going like a princess dress. I might just start dressing this way for all of my crafty pursuits. It just makes sense.)

Pippa, on the other hand, is old enough to know her own mind, yet not old enough to have an ounce of sense in it. I glanced up from helping Romilly to discover Pippa had colored all over all of her stickers, a beautifully stamped letter P, and baby Pippa’s face with red marker.  *On* the baby’s face.  “Red is my fay-bert, Mommy!” she said.  I don’t think I was really aware that I had control-freakish tendencies until that moment, when I removed every writing implement from her reach, removed the photo from her scrapbook page and set about printing off a new one, and told her she could cut up the old photo with her pink plastic scissors to her heart’s content until I got the new photo ready (which may well have been her “fay-bert” part of the whole craft.)  It was not my finest moment, I can see that in hindsight.  As soon as we got her page adequately repaired, I snatched it away from her and hung it on the  fridge before she could “decorate” it any further.  What kind of mother am I, stifling her creativity like that?  Sigh… I have so much to learn.

I was sure I would at least be able to work out my perfectionistic frustrations on Beatrix’s page and create a beautiful masterpiece, but even there, I was met with disaster at every turn.  I had only the dregs of the colored letter stickers to work with, so was forced to substitute l’s for i’s (why are there so many i’s in my girls’ names?  I had even used up all the exclamation marks) and use random capitalized letters in the middle of her name. The yellow marker had been green-ized by one of my little artists, and was also dried out. In the process of trying to re-wet it, I dripped greeny-yellow marker ink on Bea’s poor little baby picture, which I then had to try to fix with pink crayon, but still left her looking like she was born with hives.

As I look at the finished products (you can click them for a closer look), I realize it can’t have been as bad as all that, but let’s just say I don’t think we’ll be scrap-booking again tomorrow.

Those who celebrated Passover this weekend will probably know that the title of this post, taken from a popular Passover song, translates to (roughly, I’m sure): “Why is this night different?” The song’s answer to this question comes in several verses about the traditions of the Passover meal, but I (naturally, or this would be very short post indeed) have my own answer.

Passover, of all the Jewish holidays, has always stood out to me as the really exciting one, the one that I could relate to best, and perhaps the one I imagined I knew the most about. The story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and the plagues that culminated in a strike against all of Egypt’s firstborn is one that every Sunday-school-goer (willing or otherwise) will know. It has always interested me that Jewish people still celebrate (quite rightly) God’s deliverance of His people from this unthinkable plague by way of the blood of an innocent and perfect lamb.

To the Christian, this event, although completely literal and true in its own right, also paints a beautiful picture of God’s provision of His perfect Son, whose blood covers over our sins. I was just discussing some of this a few months ago with my friend Dana (see, Dana? If you had a blog, I would totally have linked you just then. See what you’re missing out on? Of course, I could always edit the link in, if, say, you wanted to start your blog with a post about your Passover festivities this weekend…), and then today we were blessed to hear a whole sermon on this very topic.

Our guest speaker today, Roger Wambold, director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship shared some amazing insights into the Passover festival, and almost as soon as he started speaking, I was blogging in my head. Such fascinating stuff!

So, open up to Exodus 12, grab a cup of coffee and have a read of some of my favorite new insights into the Passover festival, in no particular order:

• If a household was too small to have its own lamb, a provision was made (in verse 4) that one lamb could serve for more than one household. In this way, *no one* of God’s people, regardless of age or socio-economic standing, was excluded from God’s provision of safety from the coming destruction.
• The lamb was taken from the other lambs and “kept” for four days before it was slain (verses 5-6). Apparently during this time, the lamb would become a part of the household, almost like a pet. It was a time for scrutiny to make sure he was absolutely flawless. I couldn’t help but think of those who were friends of Christ’s during His earthly ministry, observing His perfect, sinless life, but at the same time growing attached to Him as a friend and beloved brother. I can’t begin to imagine their shock and denial when His true purpose (dying on the cross) was revealed.
• The blood of the lamb was to be applied “on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses” (verse 7). Can you picture it? A dab of blood on either side of the door and one above? What a visual image of the cross! Amazing.
• The people of Israel were to follow the above instructions, and then stay in the house until the plague had passed by. *But* this was only to be done once. The instructions for remembering the Passover as a festival for the generations do not involve reapplying the blood to the doorposts. This one time application of blood was completely sufficient for all the generations to come.

Throughout his message, Rev. Wambold repeatedly asked the question, “Who would *not* take advantage of this provision?” Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that *all* of the Jews took God up on His plan of protection. They knew there was no other means of escape, and they recognized His grace in providing this means of rescue.

In John 1:29, John the baptist says this of Christ: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Check out some other New Testament references to Passover here and here. In Christ is the complete and perfect fulfillment of everything that first Passover was about. We all, like the Israelites trying to escape from Pharaoh’s heavy hand, are facing death, but God has provided an escape at great personal cost. Christ was the ultimate, perfect, spotless Passover lamb, utterly innocent but brutally killed. We apply His blood by faith that He has completely paid the penalty for the sin of the world. For my sin. For yours, if you believe.

Rev. Wambold concluded his sermon with these words:

“Who would not want to take advantage of the marvelous provision Christ has made? Good question.”

Good question, indeed.

It is crazy that I live less than a half an hour’s drive from the beautiful property where I grew up, and where my dad, step-mother and two sisters still live, and yet I’m there at best once a month.  Would you leave it a month between visits to this place?

This week my wonderful step-mom Debbie called and asked if she could “have the girls” for the day on Friday. Umm… yeah! Only when I thought about it, I didn’t have that much I needed to do without the girls, and I hadn’t seen her for a while myself, so I asked if I could hang out there, too. So, we spent a lovely few hours in the morning and over lunch chatting and catching up before I took her up on her offer. I disappeared for a couple hours while the little ones were napping to have a frappuccino at Barnes & Noble without having to share run some errands. Lovely!

A little while after I got back, everyone started arriving home, including the usual three or four extra kids that always seem to be there.  My dad got out his riding mower and trailer to give the girls a ride.

(Note: Yeah, it isn’t the *safest* place in the world. I try to run each activity my dad or sisters suggest through a little test I call the Emergency Room Test. It goes like this: I imagine myself in the ER describing to the triage nurse what my child was doing when the accident occurred, and if I sound like an idiot in my head for letting them participate in said activity, I regretfully decline. Examples: “Well, my dad was giving her a ride in the trailer attached to his lawnmower when she climbed out/reached out and tried to grab the wheel etc.” passes the test. Barely. On the other hand, “You see, my 12-year-old sister was driving the mower down the steep slope to the valley when the baby asked if she could try steering, so, well, it seemed like an okay idea at the time…” Not so much. So, I try to relax when I’m there and trust that if I survived growing up there, it’s probably okay, but there’s a lot of covering my eyes involved, and I’m pretty sure my dad still thinks I’m overprotective. Oh well. As you can see a wonderful time was had by all.)

Other highlights of the day were Emma’s new kittens, and Ro’s choice of nap location.  Cute, and cute again!

As I said, this place and I go *way* back. It is the home I was brought home to when I was born, and though some things have changed, plenty of things haven’t.


















The motor cycle may have been traded in for a riding mower, but at six weeks shy of 60 (I know!), my dad still *rocks* his cut-offs. The great dane has been replaced by a yorkie, but stray cats (and their little ones) are still welcome and fed. And a certain little blonde girl now is all grown up, but there are still plenty of little blonde girls around to enjoy the riches of this beautiful corner of the world.