Time Warp!

How can time pass so slow and so darn fast at the same time?  You hear it over and over as a kid, but never grasp its reality until it happens to you and you look back and wonder where in the heck your 20's went? Where the last year went?  (Didn't I just HAVE a birthday, like LAST month?)   Or even where your day went?

I see the time slipping, anniversaries gaining in number, kids growing and relationships growing stronger and closer with those friends who match my soul.  Some of those people I was fortunate enough to have from my beginning and some I have just met, but either way I want to take in the moments that are shared.

I see this hanging in my bathroom every morning...

Thank the Lord for this because there are some days I do not want to remember, but there are millions of moments that flood my head from my 35 years.  From the amazing to the ugly and the profound to the silly... they are the beautiful and unpredictable mess of me.  But, I am challenging myself to not let the days slip by any longer without at least one memory that I can grasp onto and take with me.  I have this in my kitchen now.

It is a great reminder to take the time and embrace the joy and bring that to the surface everyday!  Crush the busyness, the chores, the calls, the "to do's" and let joy reign to give way to a Happy Moment that I can take with me and stuff into my ever swelling change purse of life.  

Be happy my friends!

Sister Hugs

Every morning when three little girls are exiting the door for school there is a little voice that rings out, "Sister Hug!!!"

Journey runs out in the cold garage, usually still adorned in her morning hair and pajamas while chewing remnants of her half eaten breakfast, to pull all of her sisters together for one peaceful embrace for the day.  

You can say a lot about Journey and her seriously witty, sarcastic, loud, interrupting and explosive spirit.  But, you cannot ever deny the fact that that girl loves fiercely.  She is the one who goes around to every sister each night demanding, yes demanding, a hug and kiss.  She is strength in a tiny nearly four year old body and she will be the glue when this family predictably tries to fall apart every so often.  She can drive you mad and I am madly in love with her.

I pray my girls always share sister hugs and I know all of you out there who have grown daughters are laughing at my naive optimism right now and that is ok.  This island is comfortable and I will stay on it as long as I can and who knows... maybe I will be able to hang onto it.  I pray I can.

The Walking Man

Where do we go from here?

Isn't this a question you have asked yourself throughout the obstacle course of your years?  I know I have.  When I was a child I was lost in a store and just asked myself over and over again, "Where do I go?"

When I was a bit older and would not understand a complicated friendship, the nuance of relationships, a parents decision or a new definition of life I would ask again, "Where do I go from here?"

The "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" episode turned musical (yes...  I was a Buffy fan, ok?) had a song with the exact title that was keyed up in my head in my later years when the choices and questions came.  It still is.  I have always figured it out though... at least I think I have.  But, what happens when the "where" is so vague and thepossibility of a solution is foreign.

Last week my husband and I and our four little girls all went to a local Mexican restaurant for some food since we were running late, which is our usual setting I must say. This should really be tattooed on my forehead or just inlaid in my introductions to others so it is to be expected.  One day I will have a rocket ship car fueled by recycled water and get everywhere on time.  Until then give me 10 minutes.  I'll be there

When we walked in and cleared the necessary wide path for our crew to the line to order a young man passed me.  Just a typical young man with short dirty blonde hair, ear phones, cell phone or iPod, black jacket, jeans and over sized tennis shoes that look like marshmallows at the end of his pants.  I wasn't sure what it was, but something about him snagged my soul as we passed and I felt him.  Not literally, but some how.  I felt him.

We ordered, said our grace and began eating.  I am not even sure when this young man appeared again, but right next to me, within a couple of feet, there he was again.  Just playing on his phone, or whatever it was, like we all do far too much and the world passes by around us.

"Excuse me?" He spoke in our direction.  "I hate to ask this, but I have been walking for 12 days, TWELVE days, and I do not have the money for any food.  Would you be willing to give me a little something?"

Every worldly instinct I have conducted an anthem of red flags rising in succession of one another inside me.  He was lying.  He was just trying to get a free meal.  He was some "punk".  But, I just asked a question.  I asked him why he had been walking for so long and where he was going.

When he was nine years old he left home because his dad was abusive and his mom was into drugs.  He didn't want to be around it.  He couldn't be around it anymore.  He left and has been living around the country for a while.  He was walking to Lafayette, where he is from.  I asked him who was there for him and the answer was no one.  But, that is where he is from, so he is going back.

His way was not clear, defined or absolute, but it was his where.  At that point I had verses from the bible tugging at my heart and my biblical world view smeared and erased the red flags.  "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"  (1 John 3:17)

My husband gestured for him to follow him up to the menu and ordered him a meal.  Though trying he didn't have very much more to say than what he had already told us.  I could see he didn't think his story was worth telling even though we knew better.  He came back and sat down again.

We were done and were packing up by then, but I had that pull.  The one you know can only be the Holy Spirit tugging at your heart.  Before I knew what it was I might have thought it was guilt or something else, but I know better now.  I was being told to pray over this young man.

As his food was being unwrapped and prepared for his eager appetite I asked, "Do you mind if we say grace with you?"

"No. That is fine." the words stuttered out and the food regained its position on the plate.  I laid my hand in his rough young hands that were older than his earthly years. The six of us gathered together and my little, giggly, 5 year old Lana reached for his other hand with one of those illuminating smiles she has.  I said grace.  I don't even remember exactly what I said because it wasn't be speaking.  I just let the words flow through me.  The ones he needed to hear to know that our God was right there with him in his travels of life and He has not been forgotten.

That was it.  We left.  In the car I found out that my husband had that same feeling when he first saw him as we walked in the doors.  We were used in the best way possible that day.  Our family, my four little girls, were a part of a bigger story for this young man.  I pray for him and think about him often and pray he has found a "where".  I wish I could have done more, I wish I did do more, but I did exactly what I was supposed to that day.

Just listen.  Listen when you are lost and need to ask yourself, or someone else, where to go.  Listen when someone else is lost and you can help them.  You never know when you will be used in the best ways possible.