"Gift of Goodbye"

The gift of goodbye is a phrase coined by one of my favorite pastors. (https://www.tdjakes.org/bishop-td-jakes.php)It is a gift that has begun to having meaning for me in the past several years. The gift is in the understanding of something fundamental. Sometimes we try to hold on to things we should let go of and we are better off letting go. Sometimes we get upset by things that leave us and we shouldn't. Sometimes we need to leave and wont because we are concerned by what we are leaving behind. The gift of goodbye is in the understanding that we, most of the time, need to accept that God has a plan, and we need to get in line and follow the plan. Just because someone leaves doesn't mean they are a bad person, it doesn't mean that they, or you, have done anything wrong, it just means that their part in your story is done. The reference comes from the Book of Ruth. Orpah (sp?) didn't do anything wrong in leaving Ruth. Her part in Ruth's story was done. She left Ruth and Naomi, with Naomi's blessings. Its that simple, Ruth had more things to do in Naomi's life, Orpah did not. The sooner we can grasp this, the better of we will be. We should not beg others to stay in our lives when their roll is done, we are better off moving on. We should not allow others to convince us to stay in their lives, it wont work, we have other things we need to do, and so do they. This is a difficult and painful time for people. Nobody likes change. God has a habit of closing doors in front of us, but we need to learn that when a door is closed, we need not worry, fret, fight, or cry about it. We need not bang on the door or try to hold on to what is on the other side of it. What we need to do is turn about face, keep our heads up and eyes open because when God has closed a door to us, another one is standing wide open waiting for us. Blessings are waiting for us to venture down this new path. This is what the Story of Ruth is about. Doors were closed to both Ruth and Naomi, but because they persevered and walked into the open door, many blessings were bestowed on the both. Their blessings came to them from others who were in turn blessed by them as well. Times of change can be difficult, but if we stay in Gods will, greater things are ahead of us and as we walk into this blessings through our troubled time, we will become a blessing to others.

Okay, whats the deal with the mini sermon you might be asking yourself..

Angie and I have decided that Crosspoint Community Church is going to be our new home church. I knew God was closing the door at Hartzell, my part in their story would seem to be over. I am of the belief that for some reason, we are to move to CCC now. I don't know for sure what ministry opportunities, if any, lay waiting on us, but I feel drawn there now. This became clearer to me this past Sunday when the Pastor started talking about Goliath and killing giants, and Grace (the divine kind if Grace) These are things I have had on my heart here as of late and things I have even written about in these blogs. If you note the date of the blog called "Lazarus" you will notice that it was posted before this past Sunday. I don't believe in coincidence so I believe there is a message here for me to take. I only pray that I don't misinterpret the message. Angie and I are going to look into what this place is offering the youth. They seem to have several kids running around, there might be an opportunity to work with youth again at some level. It is also possible that God just wants us to rest under a new teacher for a while and our service is going to come later and require the tools we gain from this new opportunity. Either way, God is leading and as for me and my house, we shall choose to follow. Amen.

Lazarus

Real men don't Cry. I had to think a bit on what to call this latest blog entry. Part of this story is another detail about the story of Grace. Part is another insight into the normal chaos that is me. Part of this entry is about growing up and reminiscing. I think I have to settle for the sarcastic just because that's me. Part of me wanted to call this entry, "I kill things" but that wouldn't make much sense until the end of it so I skipped that one.
Lets start by going back to "The Story of Grace" , which means I am going to assume you've read the story already, otherwise you might miss some of the meaning but you will understand enough anyway.
Okay, God and me have already had our little chat and I am still getting my sign posts delivered regularly at this point. Brief synopsis, we have no children but God has said we will. God is in the process of telling me about children and teaching me things I need to know. If you have ever had God get on your case, so to speak, you know what I mean when I say he is relentless and it feels a bit harsh at the time, but its for your own good.
Let me paint the picture for you.
Real men don't cry, better yet, real mean don't feel emotional pain at all and real men don't even over react to physical pain. Real men are in total control of themselves at all times, particularly when loved ones are involved. We must be the strong ones and help with everyone else. We must be strong enough to deny any hurts so that we can take care of any others who might need it. We must not feel pain so we can be the rock for our wives, our parents, our family, our friends, whomever. Real men don't cry, we simply say things like, yes that's sad, yes that's unfortunate, everything will be okay, its better this way, or the ever popular, they are in a better place now. Real men don't cry because we have learned not to. We learned as boys that crying is weak and we cannot be weak. It is a conditioned response. I had become a very strong and very real man during my childhood. My conditioning was excellent and complete. I learned every trick there was to learn. I not only learned how to hide my emotions at a young age to project the image of strength, I learned deny them by my early teens. By the time I was an adult, I could keep them from happening all together. I will say this, when it comes to defense mechanisms, building barriers, and manipulating ones self conscious, I am a master craftsman. Let me present you with the latest visual metaphor. I have grown fond of metaphors as of late. When something presents itself to me as a threat of causing me pain, I kill it, bury it, roll the stone over the grave and forget it. Its dead, its buried, its gone. Got the picture? Oh, must not forget the best part, I can do this in a flat second and once its buried, it is really gone from my conscious memory, it never happened, neat huh? Well this leads back into the story I have to tell tonight from the man cave. The night when God sent me a message, I killed it, and my Pastor brought it back to life. Two little girls about 6 or so years old about made my world implode, the system failed, it never fails.
Okay, here is the story.
Angie and I were at a gathering at the Pastors house. There were 3 or 4 couples there that night which added up to something like 7 kids. Gracie was still an unknown entity at this point, this is the place when God is preparing me for the answer He already gave me. This story became the first sermon I would ever do without notes. I digress. I am sitting in the living room on a small chair with kids running amok all over the place, chasing each other, playing tag, hid and go seek, etc. The adults are all sitting around just chatting about whatever. And then it happened. One of the little girls was running away from one of the others. She ran towards me and jumped in my lap, mushed up tight and cuddled in close. The chaser followed her up into my lap. I know have two little girls on my lap snuggling in tight. Having no children and not yet to the point of understanding that I will be a father one day, I am of the mind that I will have no children. This circumstance of cuddling with this little girls is oddly suitable at this second, it feels natural. But then one of them, the chasee, squeezes a little harder and says, "protect me daddy". Now, if I wasn't a real man, that would have been emotionally crushing. If I had not been a real man, that would have brought tears to my eyes. If I had not been a real man, this could have been awkward and painful. Ah but at last, I was a real man, a very talented and Strong man who took that phrase, killed it, buried it, rolled the stone across the door and forgot it. I did this in a blink of an eye and therefore never felt any pain, never shed a tear, never flinched. Angie was sitting across from me and instantly felt remorse and awkward for me, but she made the observation that my facial expression never moved so therefore it must not have been as bad as she perceived it to be. All was well and all was forgotten, except one small detail. God knows me, and God wasn't going to let me kill His message. Conveniently he happened to have a servant nearby in the form of a Pastor. Pastor chimes in right about her with a bit of a sarcastic comment. "well, I guess Chris and you mom have some explaining to do" this resurrected that which was dead. He brought the memory back into my consciousness. I was calm enough to let let it eat me alive, but now in my conscious mind I would have to struggle with this until it made sense to me. God had two messages for me that night, the first was Him still telling me about Grace and that he had changed my name to daddy, the second was that He didn't like me killing things because by doing that I would not address them. By not addressing them I could not forgive. He forgave me and He was letting me know that I had some work to do. I needed to address everything that was dead and forgive. Forgive others, forgive myself, forgive it all. He was not going to allow me to keep this tomb closed.
Back to the metaphor. I am going to keep this in metaphorical terms so that you might apply it to your lives as well as to protect the reader from all the horrid details of what I was forgiving. I had a tomb with a big stone in front of it. Every time someone nearly caused me pain, I would kill the memory, toss it in the tomb and roll the stone back in front. This thing was dead to me now. God told me to forgive, as He had forgiven me. That meant the tomb had to be opened. The thing in there were not pretty and most had been there for quite some time. They stank alot when they were alive, they were even more rancid now. I stood before the tomb as the door was rolled open with the assistance of my Pastor. God stood with me as the dead things were resurrected one by one. One by one they came out, I forgave and another one followed. One by one until they all came out. All but one. The last one had a name, its name was Goliath. He was the reason the tomb was built in the first place. God pointed me towards a creek bed from which a retrieved a smooth stone with which Goliath might be slain. I dropped Goliath where he stood because he was not a dead memory come back, Goliath was the fear of the memories. I didn't have to forgive him, he needed killin'.
From that day forward I have struggled to keep the tomb from returning. These days I cry at movies, at the sound of my daughters voice, I cry pretty much whenever I dang well feel like it. Why the change? Don't you want to be a real man anymore?
The answer is this: Real men don't cry. I don't want to be a real man anymore. I want to be like my saviour and Redeemer because my Redeemer lives.



John 11:35 "Jesus Wept"

Well Well Well

A few posts back I talked about how I was feeling marooned on an island. I have a new metaphor to use now. A well. If you find a persons inner thoughts disturbing or their inner issues and disturbances uncomfortable, then please click over to a different page or slide over and read a different blog because I feel the need to go deep. (you have just been victim to pun number one)

Whenever I feel attacked by life or things start to become stressful and chaotic, or if a situation occurs that is intense or traumatic, my mind and body have been taught over time to react in a very specific and peculiar way. The more stressful and intense the situation that I find myself facing, the more pronounced this reaction becomes. I internalize, rationalize, think in black and white logical terms and measure out every word and action that happens with slow and deliberate efficiency. Situations that cause normal people to become agitated and acting outwardly due to adrenaline reactions, cause me to slow and become deliberately logical and calculating. This is a defense mechanism that I have perfected over a lifetime of feeling attacked. It works oh so efficiently. The more hazardous the real situation is, the more I can feel this reaction kick in, all reactionary elements of a personality drain away, things like anger, frustration, fear, hopelessness, they all run down and out leaving only cold logic. This allows me to concentrate on the problem and more, at a steady pace, towards resolution.

Let me give you and example. Several years ago my dog Woody jumped up and bit my nose. I will spare you all but the necessary details. I was leaning over to kiss Angie goodnight while she was sitting on the couch and Woody was in her lap. He took offense to this motion and turned around and hung his bottom canine tooth in my nose hole, pierced through the other side and tore open the wound all the way back down. Most people would react angrily to this and irrationally to the pain. My “systems” kicked in immediately and prevented this from happening. I stood up and walked , not ran, walked to the bathroom to get a visual on the damage. Moved the flap of skin away from the gushing blood to see how bad it was. Determined that I would need to have medical assistance and asked Angie if she would mind driving me to the hospital. She has ran in four circles at this point, had one or two of her Charismatic Pentecostal prayer sessions, and hasn’t yet stopped long enough to hear the answers to her question. Angie, the dog bit me, I need a towel, some clothes to get dressed, and if your able, a ride to the hospital. We will worry about the dog later and take care of the mess later, right now I need you to focus on what I am asking you. She then tossed me a white towel and a white t-shirt. Now, I am bleeding a lot, I don’t want a white towel so I go get an old towel that we can through away, I don’t want a white t-shirt, so I go find my own clothes. I say my own clothes because I need more than a t-shirt to go to the hospital since I was naked at the time and I would really rather have shorts, shoes, etc to wear. I am thinking that maybe I should drive myself but on this one I relent because my eyes are watering profusely. I will stop that story here because you get the picture.

One other shorter example. Once one of my employees walked into work in the morning, grabbed his stomach and drop to one knee and fell over in the floor of the shop. Reaction kicks in. Sam, I am going to call 911, stay put. I call, they come and take him. I then call his wife and she is a lot like my wife, or I guess, she is more normal than me. I tell her that Sam has been taken to the hospital. “why, whats wrong, how is he, which hospital, how long ago, is he okay, what did he say, how does this happen, he was fine, but…………..why wont you answer me?” Well you wont stop talking, but yes he will be fine and they are taking him to University Hosp…..Click. Phone goes dead. It was kidney stones and he was back in a few days with a message for me from his wife, “tell the slow guy not to call anymore, get somebody else who talks faster to call me.” Uh, okay then.

Anyway, these are examples of a conditioned response that has served me well. Whenever I feel stressed, attacked or overburdened this response kicks in automatically. Now lets expand on this a bit shall we. What about those longer lasting events like having two houses, mom being in the hospital, Gracie and her growing and adapting issues, moving into a new house, boss having health issues, wife having stress issues, God putting me back on that island alone, friendships becoming strained, finances becoming strained, etc. How does this work with longer running issues? Well, it works the same way only over a longer period of time, I become focused on the problems and oblivious to everything else. I function with cold logic towards the things that must be done to address each issue. On the long running issues, however, there begins to be side effects. It works towards correcting the problems, but with these there are great costs.

Well, one would think things are looking up, I have new directions, though not clear directions, in my spiritual life, I have one house about to be sold which will help with the finances and the stress levels of wife, mom is home and doing much better, it has become clear which friends are going to vanish and which are going to stick around and grow stronger with us. While this is all true, its not quite so simple. Its time to pay the price for these things. Listen carefully, if you internalize, the problems don’t go away, they just wait there turn, fester, and resurface as different issues.

Lets see, what’s the cost. I am now ready to go to that metaphor I spoke of at the beginning. Think about a well for a moment, they are deep, dark, narrow, and cold. That’s were I am right now. I am at the bottom of the well. Narrow is what happened because I became too focused on a few issues that needed attention. The fringes have all slipped away from me. Deep is the well of depression. I am losing more and more desire each day. All I want to do is eat and sleep. All I do is work and eat, not much sleep involved. Eating is becoming related to other things besides hunger and I am putting on weight, which only feeds the lack of energy and desire to do anything. Dark is the place at the bottom of the hole that I am at right now. I don’t see things getting better anytime soon; possibly because I cant see what’s going on right now without any light. Cold is what I feel I am left with right now because I don’t have the warm and comfortable things around me that I did because I over focused on the dangers. My body is complaining loudly right now. Both my shoulders are torn up, my feet both hurt worse than they have in years, my back aches, my stomach is churning all the time. I vomit about 3 times a week now. That’s not too bad, it has been twice a day everyday before, but its still enough to keep me from sleeping well.

So now I am down here, what do I do next. Do I fight to climb out? Don’t have the energy to climb or fight right now. Do I call for help? Friends have been seen at the top of the well but I am safe down here so I haven’t reached up to grab them and I wont call them to come down and get me because while I am fine, they might drown. Do I stay here forever, no, I would rot away. For now I think I must wait. If you have ever wondered where my blog got its name, wonder no more. For me these cycles of chaos are normal. In time, I will find the energy to climb out on my own, someone will decide to come down and extract me, or God will blast away the well and leave me standing on a pinnacle. All have happened in the past and one will happen again, for now I will just wait here in the dark and hope I feel up to getting out soon.

I've been tagged

Okay, so I've been tagged, thanks PK. I must answer three questions. What was I doing in 1977-1987-1997? Well lets start with 1977.

In the year 1977 I would have been nine. Lets see, that would be about 4th grade. Okay, I was in school and going to the last racially diverse school I would attend until I hit THE Ohio State University. My best friend was Hiep Nguyen, he was a recent Vietnam immigrant. I was the kid who was nice to him, one of the very few because he was so different and he talked funny. Apparently nobodies parent had explained what an accent was to their kids yet. He was a great guy with a big round pie face that was always smiling, even when the other kids were mean to him. I would defend him verbally when I could but I was a whisper sized little runt that nobody liked anyway so that didnt help much. Hiep had an older cousin there too, he was a year or two older and a little guy like me. Jung however had some schooling in the fine art of butt kickin. If people talked mean to Hiep he said nothing, that was my roll, if they touched Hiep, look out for the roundhouse from the 1o year old, there was a martial art butt kickin about to happen. I miss Hiep, wish I knew what ever happened to him. Oh yeah, this is the year that I got over cooties and decided I liked girls. They however took a while longer than I did. I got my first kiss from Eliza Paul at about this age, my next kiss would be around 1985 but lets not go there shall we.

Next, 1987

Okay, I am at THE Ohio State University on a full ride scholarship and living in a frat house called the Evans House. (http://www.evansscholarsfoundation.com/) I just turned 18 back in September so I am a little younger and a lot more immature than I need to be. I am fighting depression, unreasonable fear, and a host of other issues that I was not prepared for yet. I attended the University for a total of 4 quarters before I was asked to please leave. I was tossed from the Evans house after 3 quarters. My best friend Darin lived in Columbus and attended Devry just up the road. We had some good times together. He actually attended class while he was there. I did to, mostly, but I would go to class and passively listen and I would eat and I would sleep. I could sleep anywhere from 10- 15 hour a day. Now I know why, but then I just did it.

1997

I have been married for about 5 years now. We have a house and soon I will have no job. My wife had already quit her job to go to school to learn to do nails. This is the point at which our adventures begin concerning children. I wont bore you all again with this story, but if you haven't read this story already please drop down to "The story of Grace" and read that section of this blog.

Road Trip

I love a road trip, I love the drive and everything about a road trip. This Saturday we drove from our home in Maineville to a small town in Southern Illinois. Total distance was 219 miles each way. It took us 6 1/2 hour to get there and 4 1/2 hours to get home due to lunch and a couple of map quest and driver related detours along the way.

Why did I venture to Illinois you might ask?

Well a friend of the family who happens to be a senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church of this town just happened to read my blog on the Story of Grace (listed below for your viewing pleasure of course) and this story just happened to have meaning to him and he just happened to be finishing up a revival at his church were a speaker might just happen to be able to share a story of his testimony. This Pastor, Pastor Gene, asked me if I would be able to come tell my story at a cabin next to a pond at the end of a week of revival. It just happens that instead of being in Mexico as was planned or being at my sister in laws wedding as was also planned for that weekend, I was free. It just so happens that I feel God is leading me away from what I have grown comfortable in doing and into a new phase of life. It just so happened that Pastor Gene had some things to share with me after it was all over that wouldn't have been shared if I wasn't there. Now, its time to quote one of my favorite Pastors and speakers. "Nothing, Just, Happens" The point, God is involved and nothing is purely accidental. God is involved and there is a message in everything. God is involved and touching lives. My life, Gene's life, the lives of the congregational members and guests who might have been gathered there. I was meant to be there and I was meant to do something, Pastor Gene was meant to facilitate this and somebody there heard something they needed to hear. That's my belief. I believe this because Nothing Just Happens.

Now, let me tell the tale as best as I can recall it.

We left Maineville at 10:59-1/2 in the morning because I said I wanted to leave between 10 and 11 so we would not have to rush. Slight miscalculation on my part at this point. We start off down the road to find our way to State Route 50 West. All we really need to do is stay on this road and we will eventually get there. I printed off mapquest directions and left Pastor Gene's directions and phone number at home. Miscalculation number two. Gracie is being soooooooooo good on this trip, she is talking a lot, but what else is she going to do. Well, the answer to that is sing a lot. It moves me every time she sings her bible school songs. Particularly the way she says Jesus and Lord. You would have to hear it so I wont bother t0 explain other than to say she is four, Chinese, has a little bit of a speech impediment and a southern drawl she is working hard to master thanks to my wife and her family. We stopped for lunch briefly and were on the road again. It has become obvious to me that leaving plenty of time was not leaving enough time due to traffic and frequent 25 MPH zones that I had not expected to be so crowded. It was time to pick up the pace and rush a little bit. We had just left the latest po-dunk town and the speed limit was now 60 MPH. We were on a two lane highway next to a railroad track but we were only going about 45 MPH behind a semi truck. I looked around the truck and saw miles of straight road ahead. Okay I though, I can pass this truck and make up some time, nothing is coming and its just one truck so let me gently sway out across the line and get a better look. Hmm, its not one truck but two semis drafting along at about 45 MPH. I nailed the gas and off we go. Next observation, we are passing on a straight road that has a subtle decline to it, in other words the trucks, plural are picking up speed. Next observation, there is a minivan in front of both trucks making this a three vehicle pass attempt. Next observation, something is now in front of me and closing fast. Lets do the math, If I am moving at about 80 MPH and the truck is now doing 55MPH I am passing the three vehicle line at 25 MPH or so. Now if I am doing 80 and the approaching vehicle is doing 60 we are closing that gap at 140 MPH. If you figure that the visual range on a cloudy day in these conditions is about 1/2 mile and the distance I need to travel to clear the 3 vehicles is a moving 1/10 mile then you can calculate that I have 16 seconds to make this pass. 14 seconds into my most recent miscalculation, I dive in between truck 2 and the minivan, I breath a sigh of relieve, giggle a little and thank God for watching over those that are His. Angie has a brief Charismatic Pentecostal prayer session in the seat next to me and we continue on our way. We arrive at a cross roads were mapquest tells me to turn right onto 50 East. Note to self, no matter what, you cant get to Illinois from Indiana while traveling East. This error costs us 15 miles north and 15 miles south and about a half hour more delayed. Next we get to a split in the road that causes a small synapse to fry and I merge onto a highway headed north. Note to self, while in Indiana you will never find Southern Illinois while heading north. This latest miscalculation cause a 6 mile delay north and 6 miles back south. At 4:20 PM we arrive, woot woot. We needed to be there by 4:30 their time and we made it with 10 minutes to spare.

Pastor Gene and his wife Mary, were very gracious and welcoming hosts. Exactly what one would expect from such a Christian family. Well visiting time is over, time to head to the church van and make our way to the camp sight. Upon arrival we found a fairly diverse group of folks ranging in age from the early teens to age 96. Connie is 96 years young. She is a great lady. She made us feel welcome and showed us around a bit. This cabin and pond is her place. She mostly uses it for retreats and events such as this one. Connie didn't act her age at all, God has truly blessed her body as she was moving around better than people half her age. Her mind was as sharp as could be as well. Next we met one of her daughters whose name escapes me tonight, but she was just a sweet as momma. There is a group of about 8 or 10 early teens running around the pond, fishing, boating roasting marshmallows etc. People are sitting around the fire with hot dogs and such. This relaxing pace continues until about 6 o'clock or so. Then pastor Gene calls everyone together and talks a bit. He then moves on to introduce a man with a guitar. This guy was great. I want to say his name was Gary, but I am probably wrong there. Anyway, he played several praise and worship songs and we all sang together, all 30 or so of us. I was moved to tears at one point when he chose to play Amazing Grace. It was an awesome mood setter. Pastor Gene then did 4 baptisms. A couple, a youth, and a women on her own. This women, Teresa, was not doing well with the emotions of the day. She choose this day to not only call out to the Lord to help her in her struggles, but to call out to her church body as well. I hope the church body responds as the whole Body of Christ and lifts her out of her troubles, amen. After this, I am introduced and I tell the story of Grace. I talk for about an hour or so telling the whole story on the fly. Angie helps me with a few details along the way and Grace decides to help too, why not, its her story. When everything is said and done its time to head home, and a couple of people came to me and made some comments. The kind of thing you would say to somebody you don't know, polite, cordial, but not very deep comments. There was one notable exception to this however. Connie came up to me and said that she couldn't hear a thing I said because her hearing is so poor, but she could feel the Spirit and it felt good. I told her thank you and it was written down. Pastor Gene is going to print it off for her later. Well to shorten this story up quite a bit, we road back to Pastors house and said our goodbyes and good nights. During this ride we talked about some things that I am praying about and thinking about. Suffice it to say for now that yet another man of God has made reference to the fact that God might be calling me into some kind of service beyond what I am able to do right now. His words have taken root in my head for now and my heart is trying to process them. After our goodbyes, we hit the road again. The road home is much quieter, Gracie is asleep before we get a mile away, and much less hectic. Angie and I talk together and I drive home. The only thing about the ride home was the road kept disappearing, but they will do that from time to time.

I do love a road trip. Particularly those that have such Spirit and affirmation to go along with them. Thanks to all of you from First United Methodist Church of small town southern Illinois.

Finally

We have a contract on our "extra" house. Good news is we won't have to write a check at closing, bad news is we wont get much of a check either. The buyer has already seen the inspection report and has a pre-approval letter so we should be good to go. It is such a relief to be done with this. Hopefully, my wife, ::blink:: ::blink::, Angie, can start sleeping at night again.

It has been a good Gracie week. She had a run in at school the other day that kinda got us a little perturbed. Two of the little blond haired blue eyed cutie's at her school (remember she's FOUR) know each other very well and have been buddies since birth. They tend to gravitate toward each other and play together. Gracie wants to be their friend too but they keep resisting. When its clean up time, they drag their feet and when Gracie gets her mess cleaned up she goes and helps them. They let her help but wont let her play with them and wont let her play with "their" toys. Not a crisis thus far, oh but wait. it gets ever so more interesting. Monday they made my Gracie cry. Okay, now I am little irritated but these things happen and Gracie is a sensitive little thing so making her cry is not all that hard, but then I find out that this is not the first time they have done this. Hmm, still not a crisis but headed that way. The rest of the story is a bit more disturbing. How exactly did they make her cry you ask? Well they were playing Princess and my Gracie is extremely fond of princesses. Her room, her Jammies, her bathroom etc are all princess, she has the movies and can name them all on sight. Gracie tried to play princess with these two and was told she couldn't be a princess because she had 'black' hair. Now Gracie could have argued with them, Snow White, Mulan, Jasmine, but she just cried instead. Now this might be chalked up to kids being kids, maybe, but at this point I am smelling a skunk. Gracie is the only kid in class who looks different and normally kids notice everything but could care less, thus the odoriferous aroma. My first gut instinct is to fill a little kids hair with bubble gum and tell them stories about how the boogie man lives under their bed and comes out at night to eat their eyeballs for a snack. But that wouldn't be very Christlike so I think I will refrain. The thing that really stinks out loud is we have always called Gracie our little Chinese Princess, and now some little dork muffin is telling her otherwise. Well, Wednesday was field trip day and Gracie made a new best friend. They went out to lunch together and had a grand ole time. Gracie got to sit between Matie and her sister who is five, this was big stuff. Now Friday is coming and its back to normal class time and normal class situations, right? Well, not exactly. Daddy doesn't like it when heatherns mess with my princess and make my wife ::Blink:: :: Blink:: upset as well, and I detest the feeling of being helpless to do anything. Actually, I refuse to be helpless to do anything, which means I have to do something. Now what could I do that's not illegal, immoral, or at a minimum not socially unacceptable. Better yet what can I do that is going to be at least somewhat effective. Well, logic kicks in about here. First, what is the problem. Answer, my Gracie and my wife were hurt by a couple of little heathern crumb crunchers. Second, what would be and acceptable solution to the problem. Answer, Gracie and Angie are no longer bothered by the thing that caused them to be hurt. Options, have them arrested for illegal possession of Tootsie Rolls at school, nah, have them turn up missing after a tragic Barbie Jeep accident, nah, get them a co staring roll on the next Survivor series somewhere in Siberia, hmmm, okay, nah. Well it would appear making them go away isn't going to happen so lets look at other options. How else can I make the thing that hurt them go away? What was it that actually hurt them again? Oh yeah, words. Words from two little booger bundles that really don't mean anything. Maybe if I can get the message to my princess and my queen mum that they really are special and really are important and................................. ah ha.... now I'm on to something. Positive pro-active action. It'll work and its logical and its even Church sanctioned. Flowers. Simple yet effective. So, on Friday, flowers are being delivered to the pre-school. A big basket of daises for the Queen mum with a card that just says it's Wednesday. (okay its Friday but Wednesday flowers are flowers without any real occasion, and besides the field trip was Wednesday) And a little basket of daisies for Gracie that just says,"for daddy's Princess".

Now, if the florist screws this up we may have to revisit the idea. I can see the headlines now.

" Florist delivery man arrested for trying to smuggle contraband life savers across county lines, film at 11:00"

Oh, I almost forgot to give props to my friend Digger. His blog is on linked here, please visit him and his princesses as well. Thanks Digger, Wednesday flowers are a good idea eh?

Pass it on.

Today was a better day.

When I arrived home, Gracie was finishing up her nap, she had told mommy that she wanted to finish lunch and take a big nap today. When she awoke, I was home from work and she was squeaky and happy. I then went upstairs and took a nap of my own. Grace woke me up in about an hour to tell me it was time for tea. She was going to go play restaurant and I was to come place my order. Well of course I had to drag myself out of bed and crawl (literally) into the other room and lay down in the floor. I was served grape tea and potato salsa with a side of chicken leg and a carrot. For desert I had a banana, and some more grape tea. (momma likes to watch the food network) After dinner we went down to the mancave to do laundry and color. Gracie likes to be the passer which means she hands me one thing out of the dryer, gets bored, cleans the lint filter and then goes of to color or play in her tent or at her desk. All in all its just another day in the life of a four year old. She had half a little watermelon for night night snack, took a bath and went to bed.

As for me, I am looking forward to driving to Illinois next weekend. I love telling the story and hope it reaches out to someone in someway. Whether it be the adoption, or the finding the path of Light that means something to them, I hope I can be used to make a difference in someones life. I am still in shock that Pastor Gene is having us out, and I am glad we have seen him in person twice already, that makes it a bit easier because I at least know it is going to be a safe environment.

Side note about other adoption issues: Grace found a ladybug in her bathroom, now somebody besides me has witnessed the bringer of news. Now we must wait to see what that news might be.

Attempt number two at blog networking, if you are reading this and you have your own blog, please link yours to mine and leave a comment with your address and I will link mine to yours if you wish. Why would I want to do that you ask, I want to make the Story of Grace available to as many people as I can. If your readers can get to the story through your blog, then you are helping to spread a story of adoption and a story of salvation. I love how these two stories walk hand in hand. I mean think about it, Gracie would have grown up with nobody, nothing, and with no hope of a good future. God sent a servant to the hopeless and brought blessings to them all, the servant was blessed with the desires of their hearts, their cup is shaken down and running over with the goodness of the Lord. The child is blessed with a family who loves her with all their heart and has made promise to bring her up in the house of the Lord. God blesses us all more and more each day. I pray the Holy Spirit visits a certain mother in the heartland of China and brings peace to her heart and lets her know that Grace has been Grace and is given Grace. Amen. and Amen.