BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.........drum roll please......... Everybody listening?.............
Daughter #2 and her hubby are expecting again! Their first child is a mere three months old, so they are still in shock mode, but they're adjusting. So that means that Grandchild #4 is on the way! Woo Hoo!!
In honor of that announcement, I thought I would regale you all with a couple of cute grandchildren stories.
My grandson, Aiden, is 5 years old. In addition to being an absolutely beautiful child (shhhh! he would correct me if he heard that - "Mimi, boys are handsome, not beautiful"), he is extremely bright. Recently, as I was leaving his house, he walked with me out to my truck, asking if I knew what he wanted to be when he grows up. "No," I said, "what do you want to be? I was expecting the typical boy answer of a fireman, a policeman, a super-hero, something along those lines.
"I want to be an entomologist," he said, pronouncing entomologist very precisely and precisely right. That one stopped me in my tracks. I dropped down on one knee to eye-level with him and asked him if he knew what an entomologist does. He looked at me like I had just asked the dumbest question and told me, "It's a person who studies bugs, Mimi." Oh. Well, now I knew because I sure didn't know before he told me. (Seriously, I had to look up how to spell it! Probably could have just asked Aiden!) Meanwhile, his three-year-old sister, Olivia, was running circles around us in the front yard wearing her fairy costume with wings attached, screaming at the top of her lungs, "When I grow up, I want to be a pink Power Ranger!"
Last Sunday after church, Hubby and I went to lunch with Aiden and Olivia and their parents. We were all discussing a house that my two sons and Hubby have been remodeling to "flip." When the house gets to a certain livable condition, my two sons will move in and live there while finishing the work. Apparently, Aiden had been present when my sons were discussing this possibility earlier in the week. He asked if we were talking about the house that Caleb and Eli were going to move in to. His daddy told him that was right, it was that house.
"But, who's the other one who is moving in with them? There's three of them," Aiden wanted to know. We were stumped. His daddy suggested to him maybe he meant Maverick (Eli's Chocolate Lab.) "No," he insisted, "it's another human."
We still don't know who he was talking about, but what a kid! Another human! I love talking to Aiden.
Olivia has her moments too. She and Aiden were in the den one day recently, playing with their toys while Hubby was trying to get some work done (he works at home, remember?) Aiden was running up and down the stairs, Hubby had already spoken to him about it twice, so on the third time, he spoke more sternly and threatened him with serious bodily harm if he didn't stop it. Olivia sidled up to her granddad, and slipping her arm through his, she laid her precious little head on his shoulder. Looking up at him with her big brown eyes, she told him, "Granddad, I love you."
"I love you too, Baby Doll," he said.
"Granddad, you're so handsome," Olivia cooed with her head still resting on his shoulder.
"Well, thank you, Baby Doll. I think you're very beautiful." By this time, Hubby should have known something was up. But he was clueless.
"Granddad?" Lots of batting of the eyes at this point.
"Yes, Baby Doll, what is it?" says clueless Hubby.
"Don't ever talk to Brother like that again." Serious as cancer now, but still with that sweet little munchkin voice.
Hubby thinks he must have misunderstood her, so he asks her to repeat what she just said. She repeats it, doesn't miss a beat. Still thinking he can't be hearing what he is hearing, he has her repeat it a third time. And again she repeats it, with the same sweet conviction as the first two times.
Hubby came wandering into the kitchen shaking his head, still trying not to laugh out loud as he related to me the orders Olivia had just given him.
The girl is a force to be reckoned with, I tell you.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Mercy Came Running
I've been a Christian for a very long time now. I first got saved when I was only 10 years old. I didn't really know what being a Christian meant back then except that I wouldn't go to hell, which I thought was a pretty good deal at the time. I remember leaving church that day and just feeling like I was walking on air. I thought everyone must be able to see how different I was - I was changed! When I went into the church earlier that morning, I was just a plain old sinner and when I came out later, I was a sinner saved by grace. I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But as I walked along behind my mom and dad and little brother to our car and tried to strike up a conversation about this wonderful thing that had happened to me, no one seemed too excited. I was confused, but I didn't ask any questions. I just figured this was one of those things that we didn't talk about - we had a lot of those.
So I tamped down my joy and acted like it was just a regular day, but inside I knew it wasn't. It was a special day. I don't know why my mom and/or dad weren't comfortable talking to me about this great and wondrous thing that had happened to me, but they weren't. My mom downplayed it and my dad just said, "Well, that's good." So I wondered if I made a mistake and was making too big a deal out of it.
Over the years, my parents took us to church sporadically and that flame inside my heart didn't get fed very often. But it never went out. Eventually I grew up and began to find my own way to God. I got married and we picked out a church to call our own. I studied and prayed and found my place in the church. Every time the doors were open, we were there. We were faithful. For years, we were faithful. I thought I understood mercy and grace. I sang about it and taught it and wrote plays about it.
I could never imagine my life outside of God's will and I wondered at people who wandered away from Him. I decided they must have not really known Him if they could leave Him. It made me feel better to think that because if that was the case, then it would never happen to me.
Then one day, I got my heart stepped on one too many times and I walked away. I told God I could get treated like that in the world and that I thought I would just go out in the world where at least I wouldn't be expecting to be treated better. I said, "See ya later, God. I'm going to live in the world." I was the Prodigal Child, walking away from the Loving Father, thinking I knew more than He did. I was angry and hurt and I was through with God. But He wasn't through with me.
For seven long years I kept my back turned to Him. I lived like Hell and every line I crossed made it easier for me to cross the next one. I kept getting further and further away from Him with every step. At times, the thought would cross my mind that I should turn back around and go home to Him. But I would quickly dismiss that thought - I was still too angry and bitter. I ran faster and looked harder for something in the world to make the hurt go away. It never did, it just got worse. I refused to even consider that I was headed in the wrong direction. I came to despise the things I once held so dear. I belittled the faith of others and told myself I had been a fool to believe the things I had once believed. I tried to convince myself that God didn't really care about me or my problems. I rebelled and rebelled again. Still, God wasn't through with me.
My heart grew cold and hard. I believed my anger was justified. I became bolder and bolder in my rebellion. My life was in shambles and I no longer recognized myself. I had become someone completely different. I was a stranger to myself. Still, I wouldn't consider that the reason I was so miserable was because I had wandered into the wilderness and was lost. I wouldn't let myself think that I needed to go home.
All the while, God was holding on to me. He never let go of me. He loved me still, even when I didn't love Him. Gently, gradually, carefully, in His infinite wisdom and patience, in a way that only God can do, He chipped away at my hardened heart and drew me back to Him. I never even knew I wanted to come home until I heard myself saying those words to Him in a church, of all places, somewhere I had said I would never go again. You see, God wasn't through with me.
And now, I am finally beginning to understand mercy and grace. After all these years, after seven years wandering around in the desert, after wallowing in a cesspool of my own sin to the point that I believed I couldn't come back even if I wanted to, I find myself enveloped in God's mercy and grace. I finally see that there is nothing I could do to earn it, nothing I could do to lose it. His mercy and grace do not now, nor have they ever, depended on me. God's mercy and grace are gifts I don't deserve and treasures I could never earn. Even when I was in the cesspool, His mercy and grace covered me.
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there." Psalm 139:7-8
There's a song that says it so beautifully. The words are:
Mercy came running, like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures, to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried was all I could see
When I could not reach mercy,
Mercy came running to me.
So I tamped down my joy and acted like it was just a regular day, but inside I knew it wasn't. It was a special day. I don't know why my mom and/or dad weren't comfortable talking to me about this great and wondrous thing that had happened to me, but they weren't. My mom downplayed it and my dad just said, "Well, that's good." So I wondered if I made a mistake and was making too big a deal out of it.
Over the years, my parents took us to church sporadically and that flame inside my heart didn't get fed very often. But it never went out. Eventually I grew up and began to find my own way to God. I got married and we picked out a church to call our own. I studied and prayed and found my place in the church. Every time the doors were open, we were there. We were faithful. For years, we were faithful. I thought I understood mercy and grace. I sang about it and taught it and wrote plays about it.
I could never imagine my life outside of God's will and I wondered at people who wandered away from Him. I decided they must have not really known Him if they could leave Him. It made me feel better to think that because if that was the case, then it would never happen to me.
Then one day, I got my heart stepped on one too many times and I walked away. I told God I could get treated like that in the world and that I thought I would just go out in the world where at least I wouldn't be expecting to be treated better. I said, "See ya later, God. I'm going to live in the world." I was the Prodigal Child, walking away from the Loving Father, thinking I knew more than He did. I was angry and hurt and I was through with God. But He wasn't through with me.
For seven long years I kept my back turned to Him. I lived like Hell and every line I crossed made it easier for me to cross the next one. I kept getting further and further away from Him with every step. At times, the thought would cross my mind that I should turn back around and go home to Him. But I would quickly dismiss that thought - I was still too angry and bitter. I ran faster and looked harder for something in the world to make the hurt go away. It never did, it just got worse. I refused to even consider that I was headed in the wrong direction. I came to despise the things I once held so dear. I belittled the faith of others and told myself I had been a fool to believe the things I had once believed. I tried to convince myself that God didn't really care about me or my problems. I rebelled and rebelled again. Still, God wasn't through with me.
My heart grew cold and hard. I believed my anger was justified. I became bolder and bolder in my rebellion. My life was in shambles and I no longer recognized myself. I had become someone completely different. I was a stranger to myself. Still, I wouldn't consider that the reason I was so miserable was because I had wandered into the wilderness and was lost. I wouldn't let myself think that I needed to go home.
All the while, God was holding on to me. He never let go of me. He loved me still, even when I didn't love Him. Gently, gradually, carefully, in His infinite wisdom and patience, in a way that only God can do, He chipped away at my hardened heart and drew me back to Him. I never even knew I wanted to come home until I heard myself saying those words to Him in a church, of all places, somewhere I had said I would never go again. You see, God wasn't through with me.
And now, I am finally beginning to understand mercy and grace. After all these years, after seven years wandering around in the desert, after wallowing in a cesspool of my own sin to the point that I believed I couldn't come back even if I wanted to, I find myself enveloped in God's mercy and grace. I finally see that there is nothing I could do to earn it, nothing I could do to lose it. His mercy and grace do not now, nor have they ever, depended on me. God's mercy and grace are gifts I don't deserve and treasures I could never earn. Even when I was in the cesspool, His mercy and grace covered me.
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there." Psalm 139:7-8
There's a song that says it so beautifully. The words are:
Mercy came running, like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures, to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried was all I could see
When I could not reach mercy,
Mercy came running to me.
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