Skipping a stone across the Gene Pool

This Saturday, as I was watching Hopie recite Philippians 3:7-14 at the ASCI Speech Meet in Columbus, I became very distracted. A good mom listens intently, concentrating on her daughter's every word. I really was proud of her and the courage it took to memorize and quote so much scripture. But there was one thing I just couldn't get out of my head. As she stood before her audience sharing every word verbatim, I was mesmerized by how much she looked like my first cousin, Becky. I wanted to shake my head from side to side like they do in cartoons to dislodge my thought pattern. It's not that I don't love my cousin Becky. She is one of my favorite people. But I knew what I was there for, and it wasn't to make familial connections in my brain as to whom my daughter looks like. It was involuntary.....and I couldn't help myself. "Focus....you must focus...."

Today, I took Hopie to get a much needed haircut. She went with a friend of hers and they both had an after school beauty adjustment. They were already beautiful to begin with.....their hairdresser just fine tuned them a little bit. When we returned home, Hopie ran downstairs to show her daddy her new look. He looked over at me, without her seeing him, and mouthed "Becky." I completely agreed with him. Now, he was seeing it too. She is a chip off the old ancestral block.

I think genetics is a strange, yet fascinating thing. How is it that my daughter can look that much like her first cousin once removed? (Is that right? I don't know how to figure out the cousin branches on the family tree once you get passed the first limbs.) Maybe we have strong genes like the Kennedy's. Have you ever noticed in their family photos, how some of their facial features have floated consistently across the gene pool? Bizarre, isn't it?

PS- My cousin Becky only reads my blog once in a blue moon. It will probably take her a couple of years to notice I posted something about her. Let's see how long it takes. :)

PPS- Hopie won a "Superior" rating at the Speech Meet!! She scripturally rocks!!

With tears streaming down......

Even though I have walked in this body for 39 years now, there are still things I am learning about myself, and must embrace....because they are part of my "G0d-given wiring" and they aren't going to change. I am coming to grips with the fact that I am a "feeler" and no matter what I do to fight the joys and pains of having that attribute, it is never going to leave me. I feel a person's triumph....I feel their tragedies. I feel so much some times, I struggle with how to communicate it beyond my feeble words. I doubt that people will believe me when I tell them that I truly "feel their pain." (No thanks to Bill Clinton!!) My husband always tells me that our greatest strengths can sometimes be our greatest weaknesses. I don't like to hear that, but he is right. Because as I sit here before you right now, I have tears streaming down my cheeks. And this is why:

Last week, a friend of mine sent me a link to a blog she had been following recently. In her email to me, she briefly described the subject matter of the blog, and my instant thought was, "I am not going to be able to handle this. I can't read it. I won't." But Gregg was flying, the girls were in bed for the night, and it was just the laptop and me, so I decided to click on the link. For the next hour, I read through entry after entry, as if I were reading a book, wanting desperately to get to the happy ending. I did everything I could to keep my tears under control and not allow "Hoover Dam" to burst. I kept selfishly saying to myself, "You know you won't fall asleep if you start crying now. You have a lot to accomplish tomorrow. You need your rest." I successfully kept my eyes dry but I noticed I wasn't allowing myself to feel the words of this blog like I would have, if I would have just allowed the tears to flow. Emotion is such a big part of who I am. Because I wasn't allowing myself to feel it, I wasn't absorbing it like I should.

Today, I revisited the site to learn more of how the family was doing, how they were praising God through their circumstances. And then.....the Dam broke. As much as we as a sinful society shine a spotlight on people's pain, this is not my heart's intention in sharing this with you this morning. But if you would like to be inspired, if you would like to see God glorified in the midst of someone's intense season of "rain," I think it would be worth reading. You never know how God might use this story in your own life. If you are a feeler like me, it may be too much for you, and I am learning that there is nothing wrong with that. Feel free to avoid it if you need to. That is perfectly OK. It really is.

http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

The "Cat"ernity Ward

Call me a seeker of small thrills if you must. I guess it doesn't take much to "wow me." And boy, was I "wowed" today! We have some friends who live a "stone's throw" from us, (I am not talking about the grave stones across the street) who found out about two weeks ago they were expecting.....expecting kittens, that is. They are the type of animal people I envy. They have no problem taking in a stray. In fact, they took two on within the last 6 months. They are never preoccupied with the cost of another animal, and they don't seem to worry too much about what the furry addition might do to the house. These are all things I don't want to consider, but do, when I get the itch to add another pet to the Hesterhouse. The first born structured side of me cannot throw caution to the wind when it comes to pets. (Plus, I have the constant drumbeat of "no....no....no" resounding from Husband #1.) Our friends took the news of their pregnant kitty in stride, and learned from the vet that she only had a few weeks to go before the bundle arrived.

I have always been a "cat person" by genetics. I come from a long line of cat lovers on my dad's side. Yet, I have never seen a pregnant cat before ( I know, I must get out more), let alone seen kittens come into the world. I asked our friends if they would let us know when "Cookie" went into labor. I wasn't sure if this request would be an imposition, because I know NOTHING about cat delivery. (I am still learning about "human delivery" and I have had two of my own. ) Our friends said they would be sure to let us know, but they are busy people, and I really didn't expect to hear anything. I felt like it was asking a lot to be one of the first they called with the news.

We received THE CALL today, and the girls and I started screaming, as if we had just received 4 tickets to Disney World, complete with overnight stay in Cinderella's Castle. I cannot tell you how honored I was they thought to call us. "Cookie" went into labor while the family was gone this morning. When they returned home, they found her in the hallway with one little bundle of joy....the umbilical cord still attached to the kitten. We dropped everything we were doing and ran over to see this new little one. Because I suffer from minor feline philistinism, I had no idea what this kitten would look like. Would it have fur? How big would it be? Would "Cookie" still love him/her if we looked at the kitten....maybe even touched it? (You know how birds are about that kind of stuff.) As we entered the house, you would have thought we were on holy ground. We tip toed quietly so as not to disturb the new mother. Turning the corner, we found "Cookie" laying very peacefully in the very same spot in the hallway where she had given birth just a little while before. She looked great and we told her so. We commended her efforts at kitten delivery and raved about how beautiful her baby was. The kitten was truly amazing....incredible to look at with all its God-given detail being displayed before us. "Cookie" was not a modest mother, and nursed her baby right in front of us. She never once ask for a sheet to cover herself up. We could hear the newborn making sweet little squeaks as she drank from her mother. We just sat there and starred. "Cookie" purred away as if to say "Look what I did, guys!" We were in awe of her and even more in awe with her Creator.

We sat in the hallway and waited for Kitten #2 to come into the world. We may have missed the first, but we weren't going to miss this one!!! So we waited.....and we waited some more. But "Cookie" never had another one, at least not while we were there. She just continued with her "minutes old" mother instinct, and cleaned up her baby very meticulously. We felt like we needed to let the family have some alone time with "Cookie and kitten," so we went home. Our friends promised they would give us a call as soon as Kitten #2 came into the world.

It is now 5 hours since we had the privilege of viewing this little one, and the phone hasn't rang. I am thinking that "Cookie's" kitten may be her one and only. Maybe this was all "Cookie" could handle. Apparently, she is not much older than her offspring. But it was clear today she has the innate skills to nurture, pamper, and dare I say "temporarily cherish" this little one. As a mother myself, I can identify with all those feelings. It is the "temporarily cherish one I just can't relate to.

Where is the justice?????

Unfortunately, the DVR malfunctioned last night and we didn't get to witness this shocker for ourselves. Would someone please tell me how Michael Johns gets voted off American Idol before Kristy Lee Cook? **My apologies to those that don't "give a hoot" about AI. I just had to get this "off my chest." As Husband #1 always says, "That really chaps my hide."

The Charm of the "Chairman"

**Please see original post on April 3rd before reading.

I experienced deja vous yesterday. Strange feeling, isn't it? Faith and I were returning to school to pick up Hopie after an orthodontist appointment. As we turned the corner, I noticed 4 more folding chairs on the side of the road....at the very same house I got them from last week. How could this be? Was it an optical illusion? Was it God providing "manna" in the form of folding chairs? I looked over at Faith to make sure the younger eyes of my daughter were seeing the same thing. Mine haven't been working that well lately anyway....must be the "approaching 40 thing." She concurred with my visionary assessment. My eyes weren't deceiving me! There really was more!! Oh glorious day!!!

I walked up to the house, just as I did last week, to make sure it was ok I took the chairs. I am not sure why I feel it necessary to get permission when I am "garbage picking." I just want to be polite about it, I guess. It feels like stealing, otherwise. In the garage, I found two elderly men working on a tractor. One I recognized from my "find" last week. I dazzled them with my "award winning personality" ( groan if you must) and asked if it would be ok if I took the chairs. His response was the same as it was last week.....a simple fling of the hand, and the words "take 'em." My first round of chairs has generated the same question from friends and family of "Where did these originally come from?" So I had to ask some background on the chairs. Here is the story:

1) The chairs are from a funeral home in southern Ohio.
2) They purchased them at an auction.
3) They started with 30 of them years ago, and have been gradually putting them out on the side of the road for the garbage man. But he has yet to see one of them, because they are always picked up before hand by people like "yours truly."
4) He only has two left, and is going to keep those. Unless.....I put on my charm again. :)

There is so much more to this story than meets the eye. The man who did most of the talking with me is 90 years old. He is short, round, with thinning white hair. His tolerance for my questions was "hit and miss." Sometimes he didn't mind answering them... sometimes he showed that he did. And if you are 90 years old, you have my complete permission to be that way. The former mechanics teacher shared with me that he is raising his 10 year old grandson by himself. His son had died, and the mother is in prison for arson. She is due to get out very soon. I was speechless. My thoughts drifted to the Hestergirls' newborn/toddler season, when I was parenting alone and how exhausted I was. THIS MAN IS 90 YRS. OLD!!!!! His hardship takes away any probability my complaints of occasional single parenting will hold any water in the future. I kept commending him on what he was doing, and the value it had on his grandson. But that was all I could say, because I was left without words. I thanked him for the chairs, and went back to load them in the van. The chairs suddenly seemed worthless to me. Here was a man who was spending the "twilight of his twilight years" trying his best to make an investment in future generations of his family....no matter how troubled they appeared.

My mom was here for the weekend, and commented "I bet there's a story behind those chairs" when I showed them to her in the garage. (And, that's when we only had 5 of them.) Boy...she wasn't kidding! We didn't know the half of it. As we re-cover each one of them, I will pray for this sweet, yet cantankerous elderly man, because there is certainly more to him than meets the eye. He will always be the "chairman" in my eyes.

My Posse's getting laughed at.....

Should I really admit this? OK...in the name of "keeping it real," I will. I realize I have been a little on the "deep" side lately in Blogdom (I try to keep that "beast" under control, but sometimes I just can't help myself), so in effort to "lighten up," I will share with you my fav commercial as of late. There is nothing to this commercial....nothing eye catching or particularly funny to the average person. But to me, it really cracks me up. I love the way the car looks, and the guy's failed attempts at lip-syncing the jingle in the backseat. I have other favorites....but I will keep those to myself...for now.

This has me thinkin'

Christians tend to wear "badges of holiness" based on what they stand against rather than reflecting the gracious, redemptive image of God by living out what we stand for.

-Mark Waltz, Granger Community Church

I am sitting here with my laptop, rereading this statement over and over again, because it strikes a convicting cord with me. How many times do I communicate the things I stand against as a Christ-follower, instead of relaying the grace that I have received as a result? Whew!!! This one has hit me hard!!