Habits, a King, and Germs

After I dropped Eliana off at Co-op this morning (which is going pretty well, by the way...she was fussy as I passed her off, but had stopped crying a couple of minutes later), I zoomed up the street to a small Christian bookstore and snagged (well, I paid for them!) the books for the Bible study that I am going to while Eliana is in her class.  I managed to do that and still get there before the study started.  Pretty good.  What is not so good is that I should have bought the books two weeks ago when the class started. 

I do things not only at the last minute, but at the last possible second.  Why?  Why do I do that?

That question is part of this post.  (I mean, obviously, it's part of the post since it's in the post.  I mean, it's a part of the reason for me writing this post.  Is anyone still reading this?)

Okay, for fear of not actually making any sense at all, I'm going to try to keep this short. 

Last minute...I iron things just before they are needed (five minutes before Mike is leaving for worship, in which he is assisting...two minutes before Christian needs to get dressed so that he can walk out the door for school); I wait until twenty minutes before the first soccer game to discover that Christian needs new shorts because I gave away his old ones that didn't fit anymore.  This habit is not new, as shown by the lesson plan fiasco (although that might fall into a different category since I did try to work on it before it was due).  Anyway, it causes a lot of problems (can you imagine?) and stress (no way!) and unnecessary angst.  And if you ask me why I operate this way...I don't know what to say.  How do you answer this question?  How do you give an explanation for your own repetitive stupidity?

I know that I make a lot of bad choices as far as time goes.  Instead of writing this, I could be loading the dishwasher, or getting Christian's clothes ready for tomorrow.  I could be looking at Michaela's grammar lesson or sweeping the dining room floor.  I get it that there are things for me to change.  And that making simple changes would in turn change much about how things go around here. 

I went to the Bible study feeling quite exasperated with myself (as usual).  The ladies there are wonderful, and I can often snap out of whatever funk I am in, at least temporarily, when I give concentrated time to the Lord (hmmm, maybe that should CLUE ME IN ON SOMETHING).  There was a large group lecture and then we split up into small groups for discussion of questions (which I, of course, had not looked at yet, since I just got my book TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE STUDY STARTED).  I try not to give answers in that situation since I didn't spend the time preparing, while others had.  It doesn't seem fair.  I did contribute a couple of thoughts today, though.  Oops.

Before the small group discussion time started, there were several moments for prayer requests.  You guys, there is so much pain and suffering in people's lives.  The stories that people have to tell, and some of the stories weren't their own but other families', are unbelievably heartbreaking.  There are men and women and children in this community, in other states, and across the globe that are hurting so badly.  Most of the women were in tears by the end of this time, and we paused for a prayer.  There were a lot of sniffles but the prayer went up...it was said, and it was heard by our Lord and Savior.  And the lesson we were about to study bouyed everyone's hearts. 

We are studying Revelation, and the section for the day was on Chapters 4 and 5, in which John is given a vision of the heavenly throne room, and of the One seated on the throne, and those who surround Him.  He is given a vision of the worship and the cry for someone who is worthy to open the scroll, and when no one is found there is a great sense of sadness.  But an angel calls out,"Do not weep" and proclaims that there is, indeed, one who is worthy.  And the worthy One goes to the throne and TAKES the scroll.  The victorious, powerful, risen Christ is worthy.  And He is pictured as a lamb, one that has been slain.  His wounds are still with Him.  This King knows pain.  This Sovereign knows suffering.  This Lord knows rejection, and agony, and forsakenness.  And He is worthy.

There are sad things in my past, as is true for everyone.  There are hard days now, for no really good reason other than I am an obsessive-compulsive germaphobe and living in the world without coming into contact with germs is quite tricky.  This is going to sound silly, but today I didn't change Eliana's clothes when I brought her home from her class.  I normally do, because I don't know what germs might be on her clothes.  As I write this, I realize that it sounds ridiculous.  But it is the reality for me.  It is what I do.  I am able to laugh at myself at times.  But the truth is, I try to avoid touching public surfaces as much as I can.  I went to Christian's classroom today to hear a report he gave on the Brontosaurus (which I recorded and will try to get on here soon!!).  I sat in a chair in his class (albeit on the edge...and not because I was so eagerly anticipating what he had to say-although I was!) and when I got home I didn't change my pants.  I normally would have.  It sounds crazy, I know, and also explains why I have such an enormous amount of laundry, but I purposefully did things today that I wouldn't normally do, for a couple of reasons.  First, there are people out there who are in such terrible situations.  They are going through things that are devastating.  Second, there are people out there who live in terrible conditions.  There are really disgusting living environments in which people have to live; they have no choice.  Third, God is bigger than my fears.  In fact, John says that perfect love drives out fear.  I happen to believe that that means fear of condemnation, but I think that it can also apply to all that is in our lives that takes away the joy that we can have when we are close to God. 

I have a long way to go.  I know a lot of the right answers, but I don't study my Bible, or pray without ceasing.  I don't teach my children the way that they ought to be taught Scripture.  I don't memorize Scripture myself regularly.  If you don't fill up the pitcher, then when you go to pour nothing will come out.  That is common sense. 

I keep having these conversations with myself, about making changes, about taking baby steps...it's such a process.  And there are so many things that need to change!  Change is difficult when you've done something a certain way for so long.  So, that gets back to the question at the beginning...but!  There is a way.  There is a King.  And because of Him, there is hope.  And I am going to keep clinging to it.  And to Him. 

And one day when He makes all things new, there will be no more germs!  Right?!  Or clocks!

It Could Be Rugby

Sometimes Christian's soccer team (and this has been true for the last couple of years) reminds me of a rugby team instead. First there is the scrum (I don't know if that's the proper way to use rugby terminology...I'm not really qualified to talk about it, but these are the thoughts that come to my head.  There you have it.) and then there is the shoving.  I'm not positive, but I think the ref blew his whistle about 159 times during the game and called out,"No shoving!" or "Stop shoving, boys!"  He said it with a little shake of his head and a half-grin, knowing full well that boys really can't help themselves. 

So, there is a little shoving and mad circling and shouldering around the ball, but then they get back to the soccer.

I won't overdo the whole soccer thing, and show pictures from every game.  We did manage to get some good ones of Christian tonight, so I thought the grandparents would like to see them. 

He is good at throwing the ball back into the game.  I would say that 90% of the time the boys forget to keep both heels down when they throw in.  This is the rule, your feet cannot come up off of the ground when you throw in the ball.  It's hard to do, it's their natural instinct to throw with everything they have, including their heels.  It gives that extra little push.  So it takes a lot of control to keep those heels on the ground.  I'm glad that self-control is exhibiting itself sometimes in his life.  At least I know that it is in that little body of his.

There are certain teams that are just good...this other team had aggressive players who were not afraid to take control of the ball.  They had a high score by the end of the game, while we scored no goals.  Here, Christian was trying hard to get the ball away from another player, and trying to keep him from scoring a goal.

Unfortunately, the kid scored; would you please look at Christian's face...it's like he can't believe that just happened.

At one point he went by me, where I was standing on the sideline, and shouted out,"The score is five to none-they have five, we have none!"  He looked so indignant!  I love, though, his determination in spite of such a score...

A cookie after the game doesn't hurt, either.

Now, this one?  She would be happy outside all the livelong day.  I am not kidding.  She can throw one major fit when she has to come in from our backyard.  The open air, the grass, the dirt, whatever...she loves it.  It had rained earlier in the day, and so the field was wet.  I had her on my hip for a while, but then she asked to get down.  I said,"What are you going to do?  Where are you going to go?"  She pointed to the grass right beside me and said,"Right there," looking me straight in the eye.  I put her down and she was total happiness.

And sweetness.  (I accidentally wrote "sweetmess"...that would work, too.)

And what can I say about her?  She is my lovely daughter.  My sweet and sensitive girl.  She had a great time playing with some friends who have a brother on Christian's team.  It makes my heart glad.

So...our life keeps moving forward.  There are many things on my mind these days.  I am sorting through the papers in my head, so to speak.  Some people say that the years when your kids are little are the best years of your life.  I'll probably think so one day, when I'm old and they're all living on their own and I can't remember half of what life was like back then.  Right now, the days are often hard.  Honestly, it has more to do with me than with them.  I have hard days and then look back on any given day and think about the moments that were good...and hope to be better at savoring them the next day.  Looking at these pictures, seeing these smiles, knowing how happy they can be is priceless to me.  Each night I hope that seeing and knowing that which is so valuable will help me look at them tomorrow in a new light.  I want to treasure these days, not just survive them!

Because It's Fun

I've been playing.  My new lens is interesting.  I am still figuring it out. 

I should probably read a manual here and there, but...I'm a rebel like that.

Speaking of rebel...here is what I did with the Rebel + my new lens...

You know you are Christina when you try to adjust the distance while taking a picture with a lens on your camera that has only one focal length.  (I'm thinking of starting a section on the blog...You know you are Christina when you...[insert any number of stupid stories here])

My readaholic...

You guys, I promise that Christian has two legs. 

Just some fun on a Friday.

Flash Back to FlashForward

Last night Mike and I had a date.  Before anyone gets too excited I want to tell you it involved sitting on our blue denim couch watching a new TV show together on our big screen, but we had such a good time.  He put his legs over mine.  And then a little later I made brownies and we ate almost the whole batch just the two of us.  It was so much fun.

Watching a show together was always our thing.  Well, maybe not since we were first married; the first year we were married we didn't realize we had cable, or it wasn't hooked up or something, so we never watched TV that year, just rented movies sometimes.  I don't remember watching TV shows together until our third year.  And especially after Michaela was born.  We watched Alias!  I remember he said to me that there was a new show that was really interesting and had some good and complicated relationship story lines, and we watched and were hooked.  It took some weird turns over the years, but we were faithful to the end.

There were some times when we took a hiatus from our show-watching together, because of circumstances...when we lived in Kentucky he traveled about half of the time.  I watched enough TV for the both of us those two years!  I think during that time I watched every single episode of Friends and Frasier twice.  I also watched a lot of edited-for-TV movies on TNT.  The kids went to bed pretty early at that point, so I had a lot of time on my hands.  And a lot of laundry to fold (that never seems to change, no matter what stage we are in).  Watching TV is a good folding-laundry activity.

In the two years since Eliana has been a part of our family, I haven't really watched any TV.  At first she was a great sleeper, and then, as with each of my other kids, her sleeping habits got worse, and I have never been able to (strong enough to?) work towards healthy sleeping with very young babies.  It never seemed to work out that I could watch a show, even though there were shows I was interested in.  (Pushing Daisies was one of them-I love quirky guys...is that still on?  I haven't checked.) 

Anyway, the other day Mike told me about a new show that sounded intriguing...it's FlashForward.  And goodness, whoever came up with this story has got one wild imagination!  Has anyone else seen it?  It has quite a plot.  I have been sucked in and now there is no way I'm not finishing it out!  Hopefully it will take; we did watch Journeyman together, but it didn't make it past its initial season.  (And that was during the last two years, so I guess there has been a little TV in my life relatively recently.)

By the way, Joseph Fiennes must be one of the top five most intense looking people on the planet.  I think that Colin Farrell is another...the other three spots are up for grabs.  Any input?  How can someone do that with their eyebrows for such long periods of time (like always)?  You know, that  \  /  thing with their eyebrows.  Do you know what I mean?

I am looking forward to relaxing (okay, relaxing isn't the best word since the show made my leg muscles go tense until I made them stop, then they'd do it again until I noticed and made them loosen up...) with Mike and watching this show.  I also love watching a show like this with him because he always has such as interesting perspective on things.  I am simple...I watch a show.  I laugh.  I jump.  I cry.  But I don't often go below the surface; he does.  I am going to pick his brain along the way, get his commentary.  He helps me to think about things in ways that I normally wouldn't.  It'll be fun!  I'll grow.

What are you watching this fall?  What is your favorite kind of show?  I don't even know what else is on right now, which is probably a good thing!

We'll See How It Goes...

I'm very excited about this...