A Little Story About Waffle Fries

Wednesday nights the kids have Bible study, which includes dinner for them, so I don't cook dinner. Usually, Mike and I just make-do, or sometimes I'll pick up Chick-Fil-A for Eliana and since I'm weak, I get some for myself. And then poor Mike just has to make-do. For the past few weeks, Mike and I have also been at the church on Wednesdays for the marriage book study. Tonight, after I sent the kids to their respective studies, I dropped Eliana off in the child care and zipped up to the Chick-Fil-A a few blocks away to get her dinner. I called Mike on my way there and he asked if I could get him something to eat. I wanted to get myself a soda, and he told me I could just have the soda that came with his meal.

I bought the food and headed back to church. Since Eliana doesn't usually eat all of her meal (and she had eaten a bowl of cereal not too long before we left home), I ate one of her nuggets and stuck several of the waffle fries in the box with the rest of the nuggets. I figured she could definitely eat as much as was in the box, and she would likely not eat more than that. I am not about to waste a perfectly good waffle fry. I put the rest of the fries along with two more nuggets in the bag with Mike's food, dropped her meal off, and ran to the other end of the building for our meeting time.

(I only run in church when my kids aren't with me.)

I was a couple of minutes late, so Mike and I divvied up the food as quietly as we could. Paper bags are very loud when you are supposed to be quiet. And listening to a speaker. We weren't the only ones with food, since the study takes place right at dinnertime. At any rate, he had his chicken strips, I ate my couple of nuggets, and put Eliana's small bag of fries (what was left of them) on the napkin in front of me. Before I could eat one, Mike switched his large fry with my small fry. 

Y'all. I love Chick-Fil-A's waffle fries. Once, I bought a nugget meal to split with Eliana and before we even pulled out of the drive-through she said,"Can I have a fry, before you eat them all?" My reputation is well-known. I don't like to share the food I love. 

It was just a small thing, but I thought it was a sweet picture of, and a physical and tangible example of, one of the core admonitions that we are reading about in this book. Do you want to know the best part? Before I put everything in the bags after I rearranged food, I took one of the waffle fries out of the top of the fries I was sharing with Eliana and put it in Mike's large fry container. It was one of the waffle fry butts. You know what I'm talking about...it had skin on one side. Who likes those? I make myself eat them most of the time, but I have a strategy that makes them seem less...dry? Crunchy? I don't know what it is, but they are not so yummy. So, when I saw Mike switching the fries at our table, I laughed to myself and thought,"That's what you get for giving him the waffle fry butt!"

But it wasn't there. He had already eaten it. He ate that one fry and then gave me the rest. It made me smile. 

A Lot of Words

Today my post is in the I'm Writing section. I actually wrote a very long-winded comment on Miz Booshay's blog as part of a discussion on Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. In fact, it was so lengthy that I had to post it as three separate comments. 

I was embarrassed. But I hit publish anyway. Apparently, I have been provoked to some thoughts, and long to share them. Emphasis on the word long. 

I am posting my thoughts on my site as well. I will have corrected a couple of errors that I made (Mistakes which drive me bonkers...I wish I could make them right in the original!!), and will add a few things that I would like to clarify or express more clearly. 

Because 30,000 characters just isn't enough for me to have gotten a clear thought across...

Strength in Numbers (or Even Just Two)

Our garage door is broken, so whenever Mike has needed to open it lately, he has asked me to help him lift it up. The last time I did so, I told him,"I didn't even do anything! I don't think you even need me to help you!"

He replied,"Maybe, but if you weren't here, and..." He didn't finish the sentence, but I got it. If the door were too heavy and it came down on him, the outcome would be very bad indeed. Then he said,"Having you there gives me the confidence to [I can't remember what he said, but basically to heave the door up with all of his strength]."

I laughed at the time, but thought about the conversation later. I was struck with how true that could be, in general and not just in the case of the garage door. Wouldn't that be a lovely thing, for me to be such a companion to him, a helper, and an encourager, that just having me there would help him do whatever it is he is trying to accomplish? 

In the book we are reading together, and with many other couples at our church, The Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy Keller, Tim Keller is adamant and abundantly clear that we are never to expect our spouses to be the one who saves us, and neither should we try to save our spouses. That is a task that is outside of anyone's ability. We are not designed to be saviors. There is only One who can accomplish that. However, we are designed to complement our spouses. (Not in the Jerry Maguire "You-complete-me" sense...) We are designed to help one another work out the gospel in our lives. 

I have a couple of chapters to read before Wednesday (I got behind because I couldn't put the Bonhoeffer book down!), but I am anticipating what they (the Kellers) have to say. I want to keep learning and growing in this marriage, because, you know, it's for the long haul! Honing in on those things that need attention and improvement will hopefully strengthen us as individuals, and together. 

So we can lift garage doors, among other things.

Longing for All to Be New

As I read through this biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my heart pounds. In part, I am acutely aware of how God moved in him and brought him to the understanding that he came to possess of what being a disciple means, and how far I am from that same deeply known, life-altering understanding. I am also anticipating what is to come: for him, for the Jews, and for all who find out about the extent of the horrors that took place, as well as for me once I am done with this book.

Shortly after his own ordination, he was sent to teach a confirmation class in North Berlin. The children that he was to teach, rowdy boys who drove off teachers in a way that brings the miscreant boys of Hardscrabble Hill to mind (from Farmer Boy), were so wild that they left other men in despair and even failing health. Bonhoeffer quickly got their attention, taught them well, and ministered to them with this teaching and by opening his life up to them. He preached the sermon at their confirmation, ending with these words:

I know that many of you know a great many of the hard facts of life. Today you are not to be given fear of life but courage; and so today in the Church we shall speak more than ever of hope, the hope that we have and which no one can take from you. (134)

When I read these words, I choked back a sob. This hope...this Hope...this HOPE is something that no one can take away. He confidently spoke of courage and hope at a time when it was becoming clearer, especially to him, that such things would be necessary for life itself. We know now what devastating storm quickly rolled into Germany, therefore such strong words of faith mean even more since we also know how he lived out his convictions, with courage and hope. And how much more can I, not knowing what uncertainties I might face, but being fairly certain that the difficulties in my life will not be of such great magnitude as those faced by Jews and Christians who supported them at that time, be courageous and full of hope for the days to come? 

I told Mike the other night that when I hold up my fears and anxieties next to those of the people who lived during the time when Hitler was in power, my own struggles pale in comparison. Actually, I couldn't come up with a word or phrase to describe what it was that I was thinking, and Mike finished my sentence with something like,"There isn't a word to describe how small..." and that was just it. What Jewish people faced, and what Bonhoeffer faced for his beliefs, teaching, and preaching, so diminishes my ridiculous, irrational fears...and yet, there they are, in my mind, in my body, even. 

I want that to change. And maybe it can, little by little. Sometimes I am afraid that it won't; in which case, I long for heaven all the more. And not only for that reason, but for all of the right reasons too. I long for all to be made right. For each person to be made whole and restored, not just to the person he or she was meant to be, but who each one is meant to be as a child of God the Father. 

With fear and trepidation, with deep respect and hopefully an open mind and heart, I'll keep turning these pages. 

Time, Running

Time-
It sprints along swiftly
In a loud manner, taking me with it,
Sometimes by the wrist, and
Moving so quickly that I
Stumble to keep up.
Then it might stop
So that I run smack into it!
Then off again!
Top speed and to where
I don't always know.
Suddenly, the day is gone,
And tomorrow is here.
At least it is here, indeed.