Finding the Funny

I was reading an article about Marlo Thomas the other day.  I don't really know why because I don't know who she is, but she said something so interesting to me: "There are three kinds of people. Those who see the funny right away, those who see it after they reflect and those who never see it."  I'm realizing this is so true as I think about some of the people in my life.

I would definitely classify myself as someone who sees the funny right away.  I love when people fall down, mix up their words, or do something ridiculous. I love it even more when they can laugh at themselves, because it just is awkward if you're the only one laughing at them. I have a hard time understanding serious people...I sometimes wonder if life's circumstances have brought them to a place where they can't see the funny at all.  But often times I just want to say something like, "it's not traumatic that you passed out at the dentist...it's freaking hilarious!"

I laugh at weird times and about weird things. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and start giggling about something someone said or did years ago.  Eric just says "what now?" Then I burst out laughing and try to retell the story...he never finds it quite as funny as I do but he usually gives me a courtesy laugh. Like that time when all of us college athletes were in the gym filling out our physical forms and one of the guys yelled out "how do you spell syphilis?" Gets me every time. I giggle when I'm getting adjusted at the chiropractor mainly because it's so awkward. There's just something funny about being cracked by someone you barely know. I wiped out on my kitchen floor last week....hilarious.

I find myself being very drawn to people who are funny.  If I go to a get together of any kind I veer straight to the people who will make me laugh.  Probably because I grew up in a family who likes to joke about everything. We make fun of each other unmercifully and I love every minute of it. If this gives you any idea, my nickname growing up was "birdbrain." My sisters still love to call me this.  Now that I think of it...maybe some of my self esteem issues derived from that.  I see therapy in my future.  It's always the parents fault.

She Waits (Part 1)



Jerod and Natalie holding Austyn in the hospital



I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. Psalms 130:5

This is my best friend Natalie. We are soul sistas. She gets me and I get her. We've been mistaken for sisters based on our looks many times but I think we are really almost one and the same person. We could be real life sisters. I met Nat for the first time on the basketball court our freshman year of college. We were instant friends. She took notes for me in Sociology while I nodded off, I helped her weed the junior high clothes out of her college wardrobe, we cried over boys and basketball, we laughed about everything. We still cry and laugh together, but sometimes I long for the carefree life of college days. Little did we know what different roads our lives would take us on. It's the not knowing that gets you through.

When I asked her if I could write about her she told me to stay away from 2 subjects: "my hair and the 2 guys I dated named Ernest". All I have to say to that is: I would never touch the hair and...how does a person date 1 guy named Ernest let alone 2?

Behind this beautiful smile has been much pain. (Well, literally, a few years back a dentist damaged a nerve and she sometimes has shooting pain when she smiles and kisses her husband :).)  When I first met Natalie she was hurting. Her dad passed away just a year earlier - when she was a junior in high school.  Despite this suffering, she was probably the happiest person I had ever met. I love this joy about her. Shortly after her father was gone, a friend had invited her to a church service and she was saved. She was new to her faith but it was strong and she saw hope and happiness through the pain. From the time we first met to now, her joy has continued to be tested.

After college she fell in love with and married Jerod, the perfect guy for her, and a year later they began to dream of starting a family. Five years later that dream is still on hold as she struggles down the long road of infertility. As she goes to doctor after doctor she never, in a million years, thought this would be her life. But despite all the heartbreak and the pain...she waits.

She listens to well meaning advice from friends and family. She's done all she can do physically to prepare her body for a baby. She watches everyone around her have babies of their own. But she waits.

As her friend, I have had to tell her twice I will be living her dream. She's watched me have two babies and couldn't be happier for me. She's never once tried to take my joy away with her pain. Did she go home and cry after I told her my news or after she visited me in the hospital when I had each of my girls?  Maybe...probably.  She cries over the death of her dream, but she is content, she finds joy amidst the pain.  Mine is the soul that is toubled. How can this be? There is no one who would be a better mom than Natalie. How many hours have I spent on my knees asking the Lord to bless her with a baby of her own? How many hours has she? She waits. She prays, she smiles, she cries and she waits.

Five years she has waited. What is she waiting for? Why doesn't she just adopt? Foster? Why doesn't she do in vitro? These are the questions everyone asks her...asks me. The answer is simple yet the most difficult thing to do in this fast paced, answers-now world we live in. She's waiting on the Lord. She knows every option available to her but she is waiting on the Lord's voice. Not opinions, not feelings, not impulses...His voice.  And when she hears it she will know, but until then...she waits.

I am in awe of my friend. I'm so proud and blessed to call her my friend. This story is titled (Part 1) for a reason. There will be a part 2 and it will be amazing because she waits.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Micah 7:7

Happy Birthday Nat!  I wish everyone could have a friend like you.

A Quick Fix

The other day I needed some junk food and I searched high and low in my cupboards for something to satisfy my craving. I don't keep a whole lot of junk around because I normally can't be stopped once I get started on something. Well, I found nothing - not even stale potato chips - so I had to go to my last resort for a quick fix....chocolate chips from the freezer.

I was talking to my friend Jen about this and she said her last resort junk food is a scoop of peanut butter with semi-sweet chocolate chips on the top.  Why didn't I think of that!  I've just got to know what else I'm missing out on.  What am I not thinking of in times of bare cupboards? What is your quick fix?

Sins of the Father

About a week ago I met the most annoying person I've ever met.  Sorry, not gonna sugarcoat it.  There are no other words.  I've never met anyone that can talk so much and also so loudly. I couldn't really escape it so I just sat there thinking things like "her poor mother" and "she's got issues" and "would you please shut up for one minute, one second!".  She was a foster kid I found out later.  So then my thoughts went to "she can't help it she's just dying for attention" - as if I'm a licensed therapist - and the old saying "sins of the father pass down to the sons" came to mind.  That saying didn't come to mind because she was sinning necessarily, just that she was the way she was because of life's circumstances.

Then literally the next day I read Ezekiel 18, "the soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him....for I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord, Repent and live!".

I just lived under the assumption that we are somehow guilty for the sins of our ancestors. It never really occured to me that, while we may live under the consequences of their guilt, we are not guilty of the sins they committed.  We will not be punished for someone else's sin, though we may be punished for our own. Our lives will throw us a few curve balls, but sometimes there is no explanation for trials except to give us the opportunity to bring glory to God.  I often think of the blind man in Mark 9 who was blinded "that the work of God may be displayed in his life" - he was not blind because of his own sin or parents sin.  What a difficult life he must have lived, but his life was for an awesome purpose and he is remembered to this day.

The Soveriegn Lord gives everyone their own chance to repent and live. We are our own person. We can choose to break free of a lifestyle (righteous or unrighteous) or choose to go down the same road of our parents before us.  I don't know her story but, most likely, this foster girl is living under the consequences of her parents guilt. They made sinful, selfish choices that directly affected her quality of life. She is not guilty of her parents sin, she can break free of a sinful past and "repent and live."  And maybe she has. Her life could be an awesome testimony.  I guess "annoying" is not a sin but it should be....clearly I don't have anything to work on. :)

A Fun Day

We took a visit to the Tanganyika zoo for Austyn's 2nd birthday on Saturday.  We had never been there and I must say...what a fun place!  We got to get so close to the animals and they had so many we had never seen before. Like these lemurs...

Zookeepers walked around carrying all sorts of different small animals for us to pet and see up close...

What is a petting zoo without goats to love on?

Feeding the bunnies...

and the turtles...

and the kangaroos...this one had a baby in it's pouch.

and the birds...

this was kind of an eerie feeling...

We finished off with a dinner at Red Robin - gotta love this place!  Doesn't matter how loud your kids are...they will be drown out by someone else's loud kids. Doesn't everyone just look happy?  No idea who that guy is.

Happy Birthday to my little girl...can't believe she's already 2!