brithday celebrations with the "youngest"

Growing up, I was blessed with many siblings in cousins on both sides of my family. I don't ever remember not having someone my age to play with at family gatherings; it was more an issue of who to play with or finding someone I knew the best.
That's not the case for my nieces and nephew. My oldest nieces are in college. My nephew is 13, my other niece is 9. They also have lived very far apart all their lives, so most holidays they don't see each other. With my birthday coming immediately before Christmas, my birthday has become something of a "tradition" to be celebrated with the two younger ones (because they live near my parents who we are visiting at the time).  Carly has taken it upon herself the last two years to "plan" birthday parties for everyone. She discusses it with her Mom or my mother, and designates who is buying, baking what. She doesn't always get what she wants (like last year for my 40th when she just KNEW I wanted a fancy cake with purple and pink sparklies and my sister bought me a cookie cake instead with Peanuts characters...she was quite amazed to find out I loved chocolate chip cookies and even more surprised to find those some cartoon characters on a wall in my house when she visited this summer....yes, Mom does know some things!), but she does her best. So this year we played "Pin the Tail on the Donkey (more like Aunt Monica, Carly, and Mason played), and had a pinata (which only the two kids hit and she was the only one scrambling for the candy...yeah, we adults are boring that way), but there were a few other interesting things as well:

1. The decor...I don't think I would have pictured myself as a zebra kind of girl, but that's what we had: zebra plates and matching table cloth (which of course matched her shirt):  

 

2. The cake: Mom had a variant on her traditional home-made cake with chocolate icing. For years, I was convinced it was a caramel icing, and was quite surprised when I started helping cook and discovered it was: peanut butter. I think Mom was relieved and pleased that I not only remembered that but suggested it when she asked. It's both easy and delicious. It was also Carly's first time having one of my childhood favorites, and I don't think she was impressed. At all.

 

 

3. Game time...several people in my family are big Monopoly players. This year I bought and tried out Monopoly Empires (because it claims to be a faster version of the game and my younger sister and I share a mutual dislike of really long games), and we brought it to AL with us. We discovered something new and disturbing...when a child has never had to play games with other children...they don't know how to lose. She pouted, she cried, she cried with BIG crocodile tears, and Uncle Bobby and Aunt Monica and her Mom hardened their mean old Grinch hearts and "stole" her favorite billboard tiles and "made" her lose the game. And to make it even worse? It happened again the next day with different players.  Life's not fair. Get used to it. I sound so much like my mother!







 

The craziest part of the first evening was when I told her she needed to clean the table before we put the game down, as I didn't want Uncle Bobby's Christmas present to get messed up. She immediately put that hand on her hip, looked at me with a frown and said "How can you afford this?"  We all looked at each other in surprise. One of us asked her what she meant. She shook her head incredulously and said "Y'all are just poor farmers. You can't afford this."  It was all we could do not laugh. Owning chickens does NOT make us farmers, and we are certainly not classified as poor. I guess since we don't have smart phones, a Wii, an XBox, and ipad, nor cable (and I told her she needed to send me a different list when she requested a Kindle Fire for Christmas...that was not in our budget), and we eat the eggs from our chickens and have our own garden...in her mind we are very poor.  Perspective is truly everything!

 

But when all is said and done: I love the time we have together and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world

 

Kisses from Katie

Last night I finished reading a book that many people have probably already read. Of all the books I've read the last year (and that's quite a few!), this has probably been one of the best, and one that I'll keep.

Some of her reasonings/rationales reminded me so much of GO Conferences and prayer meetings with missions students while I was in college. (Why should dogs in America have better food and health care than people in other countries?, etc)  I was challenged by her constant use of Scripture and depth in the Word for not just her theology but also her day-to-day problems. And I was very thankful when she finally mentioned the hardness of it all. I was starting to think she was either very idealistic or was blissfully ignoring the reality of life.

There are two passages that I actually wrote down the page numbers so I could go back and re-read later. The last one dealt with one of her younger girls who suddenly decided she didn't like to take a bath. (It reminded me very much of another young girl that I adore.) Here's the excerpt:

The bath time struggle never is about the bath at all. It is about obedience. Grace is three years old and she simply does not want to obey. She thinks she should be the one to decide whether she gets in the tub or not...I shudder to think what I could have missed in life because o fmy disobedience. I am so thankful God in His grace does not allow me to win. It is not about the bathtub. It is about me, trying to figure out just how much control I have over my little life...So God picks me up, exhausted from struggling, and plops me in the center of His will fo rmy life. And then a funny thing happens. As I kick and scream and struggle, I remember: I like being in the center of God's will for my life. God's plan is usually pretty great. It is a whole lot better than mine, anyway. I am so glad that He does not allow me to win.

Just the very parallel: a child not wanting to take a bath even though in a dirty place it's a necessity for staying healthy, fighting her Mom every step of the way, and then ultimately crying when she's taken out of the water...that is such a perfect portrait of my walk with Christ.

There aren't many "preachy" books that keep my interest very long. This one did. It was good enough that I interrupted Bobby several times to read excerpt to him. I will admit that reading parts of this book were very difficult. It's not exactly easy to read about suffering children and adoption when God has so clearly closed the door in that area.  But as I've been reminded over and over and over this last month (from so many different directions!): God is sovereign.

There's not a whole lot of books I'll read more than once. This book will definitely make the list.

fittings

The few times Bobby and I have been to a Civil War Reenactment, he's always laughed a little and commented that most of the soldiers didn't exactly fulfill the role of starving soldiers. And when we read the history books and see the photos, I understand his comments. The average southern male during the civil war would not have weighed over 125 pounds.  Many of them weighed much less.  And yet today's reenactors weigh well over 225. Yes, things have definitely changed during the last 150 years.

This past few weeks we've been reading from Leviticus, and as we've read about the exemptions made for the poor (if they can't afford animals to sacrifice, they can use flour, etc) it makes me appreciate God even more for how much he pays attention to the tiniest detail. Working in the garden as a child, we were taught to check and double-check a plant before moving to the next one to make sure we didn't leave anything to waste. Yet during Biblical times, the Hebrews were commanded the exact opposite: leave fruit on the trees and vegetables or grain in the garden...so the hungry can pick what they need.

I love the two-fold principles here. One, we have a responsibility to share what we have. But two, (and the point my parents always emphasized), was that people had to do their part. Picking vegetables or fruit is not always a pleasant or enjoyable task. There's bugs; it's sweaty; it makes your muscles and joints ache. The command was not to simply give your extra food to the poor, but to make it available to them to pick themselves.

We're not an agrarian society anymore. Few people have gardens, and even the ones who do don't use it as a means to supply the majority of their food source. We have food banks and rescue missions, but how do we give to the poor without robbing them of their dignity? A handout doesn't give them the satisfaction and self-worth of earning their food, even if it is from someone else's garden. Recently a friend and I were discussing the number of people who truly struggle after serving time or overcoming addictions in finding work. No one wants to hire them. They are willing to work and desirous of living a good or godly life, but no one gives them a chance. My friend commented that we really needed a network of Christian businessmen who would step up to the plate and open positions for such people.

And I've thought about that quite a bit lately. Realistically, would I sacrifice my business or company's well-being by taking a risk on an unstable employee? Is that today's equivalent of leaving food in the field? Since I'm not a business person, it really doesn't matter, but I do wonder about these things. How do some of the good commands from the past fit into today's society? God clearly cares about those details, but how to translate them over into modern times is about as difficult as making a reenactor fit into a true uniform from 150 years ago.

age 20

At the age of 20 two dramatic things happened in my life.  One, my Christian service assignment was a ladies Bible study at the Nashville Rescue Mission.  Two, as part of my Missions degree, I spent 6 weeks in Ivory Coast, West Africa learning to analyze cultures.

Experience number one made several impacts, the most memorable being a study where the ladies angrily and verbally attacked the group leader doing the study. Her lesson was on salvation, and they blew up when she started up about everyone being a sinner. Their questions and anger startled me. Our group leader, like me, grew up in nice Christian homes. Our clothes may not have been new and our food may not have been exquisite, but we always had clean clothes on our backs and food on our table at every meal. We had a loving environment.  The same could not be said for these ladies. I wish the person in charge of service assignments had given us the first two weeks of preparation time to learn about the mission, its people, and how best to reach them. Our message was correct; our way of delivering it wasn't. I struggled long and hard that year with where I fit on the social ladder.  By Bible College student standards, I was a poor church mouse.  By the street ladies standards, I was wealthy.

Then my first trip overseas came. I realized regardless of what anyone in my school had or earned, the simple fact of American resources and what I had made me one of the riches people on earth. I saw poverty that I never dreamed possible. The remainder of the year I struggled with the American mindset of success, but even more, the question of why God allowed me to be born in a rich country while others who are smarter and more creative were born into poverty with no opportunities.

I'd like to say that in the last 18 years I've reached some answers and conclusions.  I have a few small stones that I can stand on when such thoughts weigh me down.

• My purpose on earth is to glorify Almighty God.  That purpose does not change regardless of my position in life.
• Like Abraham, I'm blessed to be a blessing.  I'm to share what God has given me. How to do that wisely isn't so easily answered, but the principle is a certainty.
• There's a season and a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3). Just because the situation is one thing today doesn't mean it has to be that way tomorrow.

So now I go about my day and ponder a few of the questions from my past.  But now I've added one I didn't have back then.  Have I made any progress in making my life count?