Prayer For A Friend

Update: My girlfriend was able to pick up her son only at the regular time and under HEAVY security. She said she only became SO freaked out AFTER retrieving him and driving away. All of the measures she had to go through to get him left her both scared and relieved. What a rush of emotion that still shocks me though it's sadly become all too common. He has described a rather chaotic time inside, but he is fine. The threat was never TO the school, but they were quick in taking precautions just in case. We are grateful. Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers. If you don't mind, when you think of this family, please continue. They still have a long haul this weekend. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I would like to ask anyone who is dropping by here today to please pray, just real quick, for a dear friend of mine who is blowing my mind with her cool. Her son, my son's best friend, is on lockdown in his school right now while a suspect with a rifle is sought somewhere in the vicinity. I called to check on her when the news came on and she had not heard from the school. Now the lines are jammed. The school is surrounded by law enforcement and the children are fine. This precious family has just had so many issues with schooling and this seemed like the most promising resolution they've ever had. My prayer is that her son's memory of this will not be vivid or disturbing. This change was a big leap of faith as they were at a private school last year that financial changes have made impossible to attend again. In fact, they are set to close Tuesday on a new (different) home that will be more affordable.

While I had her on the line, she explained that she has not called me this week because her husband's 24 year old sister (with a 3 month old new baby) had a stroke Monday and his brother's wife died suddenly on Tuesday of a major heart attack. She was 42. And oh, by the way, her other son has an unidentified rash that has gotten worse each day this week. That is why he is NOT at school today. Thank God - literally. This girl is not a drama queen of any kind. So obviously, any extra prayers for them would be a tremendous need and a blessing and I thank you in advance for your petitions on their behalf this weekend if they are brought to mind.

The family is having to split up. My friend's family will be visiting the sister in Texas on Saturday while others attend the SIL's funeral. Did I mention they are in the middle of packed boxes for a move on Tuesday?! God grant them so much grace today. And thank you for praying for a stranger in need.

Five O'clock Somewhere

It's been a wonderful summer! I feel like I had balanced amounts of progress in my projects and time with the family, plus the kids really gained a lot of confidence in themselves in areas they had long struggled. They also just exuded the innocence of childhood as we kept it simple. No organized activities outside of baseball, which was good fellowship for all of us. Other than that they did all the stereotypical summer stuff. Chased frogs and ate ice cream and stayed up late watching everything from Hannah Montana to the race for the White House. (My oldest is fascinated already.)

As usual, I didn't accomplish near as much as I would have preferred, but it most definitely was not for lack of trying! I worked so, so hard this summer to deal with some organizational issues stemming from things long ago. (Too lazy to go find that post to link it right now. :) ) And I still have several months of it to go. So just before school started, we decided to enjoy a weekend away to relax and pretend summer wasn't really ending.

Now, let me just set the tone for this trip and tell you that despite all the slapstick comedy that could have been written from it, we were in that "Que sera sera" frame of mind. I mean it literally when I say that we were not dwelling one iota on the fact that school would be starting in a few days. It was all about being in the moment. And we didn't waste a lot of time on any kind of an itinerary. We don't even plan our vacations any more. We seriously just pick a spot, throw some clothes in a bag and go. As long as we have a moderately nice hotel with a pool, we're good. In fact, we had originally planned to meet my husband's family in Branson, but all of the hotels within 20 miles of them were booked so we just drove over to Tulsa instead.

Since we had planned a week long trip that got cut to a long weekend, hubby decided to use the extra money to splurge on a five star hotel. Score! We were only a couple of hours from home but it FELT like a million miles away! We pulled away from home under an overcast dry sky and headed for our Paradise. The only problem was that both of our "normal" vehicles were out of commission and we were traveling in my husband's open-bed work truck. So when the nice cool air gave way to a full fledged raging thunderstorm, the clothes got soaked! The ones I had spent the entire day laundering and packing the day before. I spent the first six hours of our trip in the hotel laundry room re-washing five loads of wet, bleeding clothes. But hey, I figure I got the easier part. Just grabbed a magazine from the lobby and enjoyed the solitude. Hubby had to keep three kids occupied for several hours in a hotel that LOOKED like absolutely nothing should be touched.

Actually though, the atmosphere was very laid back. They didn't seem a bit phased when a kid would occasionally yell across the lobby or somone would come down for a newspaper in their PJ pants. My husband did remark though, with mocked annoyance, that everything in a fancy hotel is SLICK. "The valet drivers, the marble in the foyer I almost fell on, the sheets on the bed - how come in a really fancy hotel, EVERYTHING is SLICK!" He made this comment from the floor beside the bed he had just slid off of. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, it was hilarious. He mistook the many inches of fluff on the down comforter as mattress edging and plopped down unaware. And his comment made me think so much of my dad. I remarked to him that I never thought the old adage that you "marry a man just like your father" would ever apply to me because they are so different, but it just sounded exactly like something my dad would say. Then when I caught him watching The Learning Channel later, I KNEW it was true! Anyway, it cracked me up, especially the next morning at breakfast when they garnished our plates with some unidentifiable slick white gelled stuff. I guess I just AIN'T fancy enough to know what it was.

That evening we spent time swimming in the pool and watching the Olympics and the Stephen Curtis Chapman interview on Larry King (bless their hearts) while taking turns exploring the hotel just like our kiddos. At bedtime, I loved, LOVED laying there in the dark on the satin-y, fluffy, comfy bed, watching the lightning outside outside our window and hearing the giggles of our youngest two. They were torturing our oldest with repetitions of phrases they had concocted for the loop of advertisements on the electronic billboard across the highway. He was particularly annoyed that they didn't "get" who or what the Michelin Man was about. They thought he looked like a character built of toilet paper rolls. The ad immediately following that featured a look-alike of our pet dog. So poor kid. Every 23.2 seconds precisely, he had to hear "TOILET PAPER DUDE!.......LEXIE!!" Followed by unquenchable laughter. Then his growl-sigh. Maybe I'm mean, but I was laughing right with them.

The next day, we grabbed a brochure from one of those lobby racks and headed out to return to our favorite Tulsa attractions. My very first memories are made up of the landmarks of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was born. I can't remember the activities that accompanied these memories, but last year, I called to ask my mom about "the old-timey amusement park that had a giant metal man waving outside of it and the Mexican restaurant with different themed rooms and you raise the little flag to get the waiter to come." I had a great childhood, so I wanted to go back and see what had impressed me so as a toddler and hope it would do the same for my kids. My mom filled me in at that time and we went and it was every bit as magical as I hoped it would be. Not because there was anything particularly outstanding about these places, but because it DID bring back all those wonderful memories. And it DID make for a fun time together with our kids just like it had when I WAS the kid.

Well, I'm glad we did that last year. Because this trip, both those places were gone! So, we were now truly wingin' it.

I'm going to finish this in parts now, because it is SOOOO long. :)

Improvement Or Absurdity?

It would have been just about 31 years ago this very week. I can VIVIDLY remember standing in front of the built-in bookshelves of our brown paneled living room just SOBBING to both my parents about the pressures I expected second grade to bring. I mean - what if I couldn't see the equations on the board with the teacher standing in front of them? What if I had to go the the bathroom WHILE she was in the middle of an explanation and she wouldn't let me? And For The Love Of All That Is Good And Right In The World, what ON EARTH .....WHAT would happen if I didn't learn to read the BIG words as fast as everyone else? I would after all be forever left behind then, wouldn't I?

There IS a worry wart gene, I am convinced, and I was born with it. It has been present (along with the competitive gene, the excuse gene and the OCD gene that normally accompany it) for as long as I can remember. Which specifically is the day I MADE my mom reserve my first official potty poop to show my dad when he FINALLY returned home from his business trip. After all, I wanted enthusiastic credit for my Sweet Success. It also seems like this anal retentive habit crescendoed when my frustrated father forbade my continued studying for college finals for fear that my head would fall off! This propensity of mine to worry has never really applied to such things as elevators or heights or drowning or things like that (for which fear WOULD have actually served me quite well), but it has been exclusively reserved for areas of my life that invite the potential of - GAAAAAAAASP - FAILURE!

So when I heard a preacher tell me for the very first time at the age of 23 that I am a most imperfect creature but that God loves me exactly the same as he does all those higher performers who maddeningly kept me out of first place in all of life's thousands of potential accomplishments - well, I liked that. I liked that enough to trust my life to Him.

But not enough to change immediately. The cursing and the drinking and the those sorts of activities seemed to cease instantaneously. The perfectionism thing lingered a lot longer. And my parents, who have lived with it most of their entire lives and see me often enough to recognize only gradual progress, are probably witnesses to my many starts and trip-ups the most often. And yet, no one knows as clearly as myself how very, VERY, VERY FAR the good Lord has brought me in this particular area. Tonight my parents are here visiting. As I made the rounds to lock up after they went to bed, I pulled up the front blinds to look outside and I was able to laugh at myself. A mistake I've let linger since Christmas at least. The wind had apparently blown some flowers off of a plant stand that sits at the very corner of our home. It's an out-of-the-way corner that we rarely pass. Obviously. The plant laying there in front of our picture window as I gazed out at the night WAS A POINSETTIA.

So is that laid back enough for you now? I just have to wonder. Has God done a miraculous work in my heart in getting me to give up the sin of perfectionism that no one else was able to - or have I just gotten INCREDIBLY dingy or lazy?

Poinsettias in August! You know, it may just be easiser to leave them there since Christmas really isn't all that far away. And if I were a guy, I might just wear black socks with sandals.