kids

Comedy

Posted on by Christine

He would swoop in out of nowhere, and the harassment would begin. I was allowed to ride my bike on one street my mother had deemed safe. It was close enough for her to walk to or yell out the back door when I was needed at home.

My friends and I would buzz along, minding our own business, and a police siren would send the alarm that we weren’t alone. My older brother was talented in sound effects, and he made it seem authentic.

I had learned to look over my back, so I could outrun him if I had the chance. He had caught on to my dodging technique and would keep silent until he was right up on me. Easily I should have been able to escape, but he had a partner who would get in front of me while he closed in from behind. Ultimately, I stopped to avoid running into the neighbor kid, his minion.

If he got me in the middle of the road, he would demand I pull over to the curb, like the city officially licensed him to be an officer. Once I complied, he would take out a pad of paper and a pencil to write my ticket. He would purposely stare at the sky, trying to come up with something. He should have flunked every class in school because of inattention, but when it came to this, he was perfect in his penmanship. 

“How fast were you going, do you think?”  He would say in this nasal tone that sounded nothing like him in our house that was two lawns over. 

I had no speedometer on my bike, but I had to go through the motions to get away from him faster.

“I don’t know! 20?”

“20 what? 20 miles per hour? I think that is low. I think you were going way faster than that.”

“50! I was going 50!”

“No. I think it was less than 50.”

It was like playing the higher or lower game on the Price is Right.

“40?!”

He would sigh, put the eraser on his chin, tilt his head and ponder the situation. Meanwhile, my friends were racing by laughing because they thought he was hilarious. 

“You might be right about that. 40 sounds about right,” he would state in slow motion. Like a record being played backward. 

Scribbling down a number, he would then proceed to inspect my vehicle. 

“That back end looks like it’s ready to fall off. When was the last time you had that checked?”

My young mind would go blank trying to answer questions that didn’t make sense. 

I was given a bike used by every kid in the family that my dad had repainted, put on a banana seat, and had multi-colored plastic spoke covers. 

“I don’t know if those are street legal. We might have to take them off.”

On and on he went walking around jotting down infractions that should have warranted my removal from society. 

“Let me go!”I would say after giving him plenty of time to annoy me.

“Are you talking back to a police officer, Chris? I will have to add that. That’s not good.” 

When I thought it would never end, he would tear the sheet off with a grand flair and hand it to me.

“I don’t ever want to see you do that again,” he would say, walking away. I had no idea what he meant. Then, he would focus his attention on my friends.

After witnessing my humiliation, you would think they would want nothing to do with it. It was just the opposite. They could hardly wait their turn because they thought he was humorous. 

From their standpoint, I would have too, but I had to live with him, and it was non-stop entertainment before streaming services were available. Once he set his attention on me, I knew I had to figure out a way to get out of it. Sometimes, it was so bizarre I sat transfixed, trying to comprehend what his brain was doing; he knew this tactic worked to keep me involved longer. 

“Do you see this container?” he said, coming into the living room. 

I was reading a book, nowhere near his domain. I had conditioned myself to ignore his inquiries because this was the starting point of the marathon that was about to take place. 

I made the mistake of looking up. He was holding a plastic margarine tub. Our mom was a survivor of the Great Depression, so anything toxic like that was used for leftovers or a spare set of keys. Whatever she could think of to put in one, it was never thrown away.

I saw him swallow and blink a few times as he said,

“This is all some people will get for Christmas this year.” He cupped it in his hands like it was valuable.

“What?” I said, breaking my code of silence. That is all it took to get the party started. 

“Some people, Chris, will only get this under their tree.”

That’s when I saw the tears form in his eyes. I blame him for my forehead wrinkles that began in my pre-teens. 

“Isn’t it so…” he cleared his throat and let the drips fall. “Isn’t it awful? Someone will get this as a gift this year, and that’s going to be it.”  He broke into a complete bawling session worthy of a funeral. The Academy Awards had missed their opportunity for best actor. 

His skills didn’t stop with sorrow. 

“Let’s fight in slow motion,” he suggested one time.

“What is that?”

“We throw punches at each other, but you don’t really hit the other person. You go slow, so no one gets hurt.” 

That sounded like a fantastic idea to me. I could take swings and get out my frustration without injuring either of us. 

In the basement, far from where my mom could see, we began to go around in a circle, with fists raised and jabbing toward one another. It was all going along as planned until I moved in the direction of one his fists striking me right on my nose. I dropped my arms and looked into his frightened eyes. The blood began to pour out of a nostril. 

I didn’t realize he was capable of moving so fast. He did everything at half the pace of the rest of the world. 

“Get into my room!” he demanded as I saw the bright red blood on my palm, signaling the wail he knew was about to erupt. 

He pushed me onto his bunk bed and ran into the bathroom to get a tissue. I got up to find my mom, a registered nurse, but he blocked me before I could. 

“Sit down! Put this up your nose!”  He was whisper yelling. “Shh! Be quiet!”

Had I known the punishment he would have received, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs, but he looked so scared that I followed his orders. 

“See? You’re fine. It’s stopping.” 

I sniffed a few times and tasted the blood go down the back of my throat.

“Pinch your nose. That will help.”  He had suddenly gotten his medical license. He ran back into the bathroom and brought another wad of toilet paper. Moving quickly wasn’t usual, so I knew he was terrified. I heard him flush the evidence on one of his trips there and back.

Eventually, the bleeding stopped, and he was out of the woods. 

It was one of only a handful of times that he and I started laughing about how stupid we looked. 

His most outstanding performance came in the summer.

A group of girls were at our house, fangirling over him. He was born with the ability to drum, and like Ringo from the Beatles, the same peers who thought he was amazing as a police officer ranked him highly as an international musician. 

“Do you want to try?” he asked one of them, handing over his sticks. Barely able to keep her knees from buckling, she walked up to him, and he gave her tips on how to play. One by one, they were warmly welcomed to his set.

I knew what was coming as I observed.

“Chris should play,” one of them said.

“I am out of time for today, but maybe next time.”

He shot me a shark teeth grin because he never let me near his drumset. It was covered with a cloth when he wasn’t playing, and if he ever caught me near it, I knew I would be in trouble. Whatever that meant, I didn’t want to find out.

After the drum lesson, he decided it would be fun to scare all of us. 

For some reason, his performance in horror was also one of his strong points. I would be watching tv, and he would enter the room and stand in front of me to block my view, giving a long-winded speech about nonsense. In the middle of his talk, he would stop, appear to see something over my head that was terrifying, and begin to play the role.

“Chris! It’s coming! I can’t stop it!” He would lower his voice as if to warn me not to move and upset the unseen monster approaching. 

The first time this happened, I fell for it and whipped my head around, jumping up to protect myself. He walked away, throwing his head back, laughing.   The next time, I steeled myself mentally, trying to ignore his expressions of panic because what if this time he wasn’t faking? What if there was a hideous creature sneaking up to devour me? I reasoned that he wouldn’t care, so why bother moving? 

I caught him off guard once and did it back to him. He never did it again. 

“I am going to build a haunted house,” he announced that day after enthralling them with his drumming. In their eyes, he was the perfect brother. 

He went into a back room where my parents kept a giant freezer. He shut the door while we waited outside, listening to him bang objects around. He taped a note to the door:

Knock Before Entering

A brave girl tapped lightly on the door, and it swung open with a creaking sound accompanying it. He had shut off all the lights. I remember her turning and looking at me for advice. I had been in that room a million times, but with it dark, it appeared to be a new addition. 

She mustered up the courage and went in while the door automatically shut behind her. That sent a wave of fear through the entire group. His engineering skills were better than I thought.

Each took their turn, and as usual, I was last. I followed the instructions, and I was allowed to enter. The sound of a drum reverberated off the walls. The space was small so that I could feel it in my chest. Tucked away underneath the stairs, he was seated, banging on a brown plastic wastebasket. To add to his costume, he had taken a towel off the clotheslines where my mom hung the wash to dry. Wrapped around his head, looking like a swami, he pretended to be a mind reader.

From where I stood, it was low budget with a single light bulb burning.

“Enter,” he said. I was pretty much in.

He made moaning sounds like he was summoning the dead while he struck the wastebasket. Mr. Amazing had not thought about a hot light source melting the plastic container he was beating on, causing it to smoke. Jumping up, he tried to put it out before it became an inferno. His future was looking bleak.

I assumed my role as the runner.

“Mom!” I yelled up the stairs with all my friends watching. “Bob is setting the house on fire!”

I heard the stomping of feet in the kitchen above. I moved away before she ran me over. 

Running into the dark, she was unaware of the ropes he had used to make the door open and shut. Her neck got caught, so she began to claw her way to freedom. The smell of smoke drifted out to where I was with the rest of the audience. 

“Bob! What are you doing?” she screeched, somewhat constricted. Alfred Hitchcock had never directed or produced such a work. It was as if a snake had wrapped itself around her throat.

Unsure how he fixed the problem, it was rare to see him subjected to her wrath, but it was her favorite trash bin with a gaping hole in the bottom. Between coughing from the smoke and the choking of the ropes, she let him have it.

While dealing with him and all of his antics, he taught me that fear is temporary. Just throw a switch, and it can be transformed into laughter. What appeared to be so scary ended up backfiring and became a comedy.

Lessons

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I paid close attention to their interests. With home education, you spend a lot of time in the same space and pick up on where your kid’s curiosity lies. In my experience of going through the public school system, there was little room for free thinking. We were given our work and sat at a desk, slugging our way through material we had little interest in. It was a requirement to get somewhere in life. 

How many apples are in the basket? That one was to help with grocery shopping because we all go to the store with wicker baskets over our arms.   

Count the chickens because we all had them in our backyards roaming free range against city ordinances. 

Circle the letter F. That had nothing to do with curse words. It was simply learning the alphabet so one could identify a fudgesicle from a frankfurter which we always said hot dog, anyway, so what was the point?  

“Class, pass your paper to your neighbor so they can grade it.”

Words of dread because I always sat by someone who seemed to have it in for me. With their fat crayon wedged between their fingers, poised and ready to strike, I kept one eye on my work and one on the sheet in front of me. When I had to mark something wrong, I always felt a wave of guilt.

I see now how this took the pressure off the instructor. They didn’t have to be the bad bearer of news. It was peer against peer, which may be why the aggression at recess happened later. Some child was subjected to a thrashing on their spelling sheet, which built up anger all day. 

Like caged animals, we were given a few short gulps of fresh air, and for somebody who had been wronged, this was the perfect time to act and release those hostile feelings in a way the teacher might not notice. 

I have often wondered why Mary bit me in the arm that day. We were sitting under some trees talking when suddenly, she sunk her teeth into my right bicep. I don’t recall if I checked over her work and she was carrying a grudge, but when I got home and told my mom, she immediately disinfected my entire body, even though it had happened right after lunch, and it was now late afternoon.

Not to speak badly, but her teeth were dirty and some a bit ragged like fangs. My mom knew that the family often struggled with keeping up appearances, like combed hair and a drop of Crest now and again. So her response was to protect her young one from having a medical malady. 

If rabies had settled in, I was past the point of no return by the time she got her hands on me. However, she relished having an emergency on hand that she could stop.  

I made it without a single sniffle or infection, enough so that I had to, unfortunately, return to the classroom the next day. 

I bypassed the public school system’s way of educating and opted to home school before it was popular. I was met with many questions about the well being of my children.

“So she won’t get to ride on the bus?”

This was one of many inquiries I had to answer as if that were a significant milestone. I harkened back mentally to when I had to ride the bus to high school. It wasn’t like a limo picked me up by the end of the driveway. I had to walk three blocks through ice and snow and sometimes run to ensure I got on in time or face the wrath of a mom who didn’t want to drive me.  

My brother, six and a half years older than me, would often follow me in his car and sing obnoxious songs while I tried to ignore him. He never offered to give me a ride but practiced his opera skills, much to my horror. 

At the start of my day, I was subjected to humanity that had no manners, no volume control on their voices, and some forgot all about the personal hygiene habits we learned in health class.

She was missing out on nothing. 

The only drawback about teaching them at home was that I saw every activity as a school experience. I had to learn early on that making a tray of ice cubes didn’t have to turn into a science experiment. It was just ice cubes. 

One day, while I was out in a garden I used to have in the backyard, and both of them were with me, I had a moment of clarity. Most caretakers only get to spend so much time with their kids. It struck me as a blessing while digging around in the dirt and depositing seeds into the soil. My oldest daughter and I discussed a subject from her school work like it was a regular conversation.  

How many times had I crossed the threshold of my parent’s home to be asked:

What did you learn today?  

I wanted to reply, how to hate school, that is what I learned. How to avoid detention, how to sleep with your eyes open, and how not to lash out at the child next to you who was clicking their pen repeatedly. Valuable life skills to be applied if a person was incarcerated at any time. 

But, in my home, speaking about what was being learned was a natural part of our days, and it also gave me insight into what the two of them might want to participate in. I discovered early that the older one preferred something other than contact sports.  

She tried her hand at soccer at one of the home school events. She had the ball all to herself and could have easily taken it down the field for a shot at the goal. But then, out of nowhere, a boy came along to challenge her. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked at him, and said,

“You can have it.”

Competition was not her speed. She took up ice skating and was fantastic. 

The other one I was not so sure. She approached life a little differently, and when I asked, she would always say she didn’t know. 

One day, as I walked through the kitchen, I saw her dancing, similar to a cartoon character she and her sister watched.

I asked her if she liked to dance, and that is when I enrolled her in the first dance studio. She had a natural talent for it, just like her sister did for skating. After her first year, I moved her to a different location that offered more of a modest approach to music and movement.

Because she was coming in a little bit behind the class for her age, she had to dance for the instructor alone. We showed up early one day so she could do so. The woman teaching her was kind and patient as she ran through various moves to see where her strengths and weaknesses were.  

“It’s all about muscle memory,” she said at the end of the session. “You are very good at what I asked you to do, but the connection has to be made between your brain and your body. As you practice each week, you will get better and better.”

By the time the recital came in the spring, she had made so much progress that she moved on to the next level. The teacher’s words proved to be true. The repetition had created a neural pathway between her mind and the physical part of her. She now did a technique that had been uncertain and awkward with precision and ease as if it had never been a challenge.  

When the report cards came out at the end of her second year, she was asked to repeat where she had been so she could improve. It was stated clearly that it was normal for students to take the same level two years in a row, so most girls stayed together throughout the program.  

The other day, she pointed out that I had kept one of her performance skill sheets. I had folded it and put it in a kitchen cupboard. I don’t know why other than it was the year I got divorced, and I kept it as a reminder that I did my best to make things as normal as possible for both of them. 

Because money wasn’t as abundant during that time, I offered to clean the studios on the weekends to help offset her tuition so she could keep dancing as usual.

When I looked at the sheet, I realized how gentle the explanations were where she needed improvement.

She was praised as a good dancer, and pointers were given in specific areas needing improvement. It wasn’t meant to rip her down but to have her aspire to a higher point where she could perform more confidently and pay less attention to each step.

This type of report and how it is worded can either contribute to a person’s life or cause damage, especially to a child.  

Proverbs 18:21 says,

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose. (Message)

As I read over what was written, I felt a difference in the approach of it versus what I had been subjected to in my youth. I could feel the love radiating from the paper, like the person who filled it out wanted my daughter to succeed and not get stuck thinking that she wasn’t meant to dance. Her carefully chosen words were meant to be received not as harsh criticism but as a mentor offering encouragement. 

That is who God is; as we learn new things, we are given signs and positive thoughts that keep us going. We see the highlights of what we have grasped spiritually and where we have the potential to go. 

I read long ago that God doesn’t need to test us. It’s similar to how I viewed parenting my girls. They didn’t have to prove themselves to me. And, often in our homeschool days, when we did school work, I didn’t make tests the end of the world.  

I wanted them to learn and retain information, not memorize, to pass an exam. A test can take an hour, but real education is acquiring knowledge that can last for the rest of an individual’s life. The goal was to take away valuable skills they could apply daily.

One subject where we often went against nonconventional schooling was math. If a problem was complex and needed to be solved readily, I would get out my teacher’s manual, and we would look at the solution.

That is cheating. No, that is learning.  

If we had the answer, we could go step by step without the pressure and find what we needed by working it out on paper. 

Who said there had to be a rough path to finding the answer? More often than not, when we did it this way, the information was retained so that they could recall how to get the correct answer by the time they got to a test. 

Timed tests, pressure, and a strict approach did not bring about good results, so I taught them in a way that helped them succeed. A relaxed state was the key to outstanding achievement. 

It’s too bad that more of what we are subjected to isn’t fashioned this way because it’s the nature of God that many of us miss. After all, we have been conditioned to perform the world’s way, which is about competition and test taking.

God wants us to use the gifts we have been given to benefit those around us and doesn’t push us toward an invisible finish line where we mentally and physically drain ourselves and others to get there.

When I folded up the paper and put it back in the cupboard where it had been for 15 years, I heard this:

Dancers don’t take tests. They take lessons.

We all could use a little more ‘energy’, couldn’t we?

Encounter

Posted on by Christine

“Do I need these?” I asked, holding up a pair of workout pants and showing them to my daughter, standing across from me at a table where humanity had trampled through and thrown all the sizes everywhere. I had finally unearthed what I thought would fit.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the lady standing next to me, folding, sorting, and putting them back in order. I saw her nametag briefly, but I was not focusing my attention on her. Instead, I was consumed by an inward mental battle with a nagging voice telling me to leave the store and not come back.

The harassment started in the parking lot before I was out of the car.

“You don’t belong here. This is for people who have money. You don’t have any, so turn around and go back home!“

I had not heeded its advice and dragged myself through the door. How I ended up in a clothing section was beyond me. I should have been shopping for food to live, not clothes. That is why I asked, 

“Do I need these?”

The woman next to me said,

“Need? I don’t think that has ever stopped me from spending money. I look at things, decide that I want them, and buy.”

Now, she had my full attention. I grabbed two pairs and moved to her other side. They were on sale for a really low price, and I did need them. My other ones were starting to fall apart. 

“When you go through some things financially, you start to ask yourself that question a lot,” I said.  

I noticed she had a smile the entire time she worked correcting the chaos of what the public had created. 

When I got to the other side of the table facing her, I had the familiar light-headed feeling take over. This comes right when I know that I have been placed in the path of someone who needs to hear something from someone in heaven.  

Without me asking much, she told me she had gotten a divorce from a chemically dependent man and had children with him. She was now with a new person who she said did everything for her.

“I don’t need to work now, but I do.”

As she spoke, I saw a woman, a hologram-like person, stand behind her on her right.  

“Do you have family?” I knew it was her mom, but I didn’t assume. I never do.

“Not really. I have a dad, but my mom died..”

Before she finished her sentence, I said,

“She is standing right behind you to your right with her hand on your shoulder. She is proud of the decision you made to get the divorce. You will go on to have grandchildren, your ex-husband will get remarried, and many more family members will come from that.”

“I like that,” she said. 

I saw her surrounded by many people, resulting from her one decision to give up fighting something that would never change. 

Her smile got brighter and brighter.

“Did your mom have a favorite color? I think you will start to see the color pink, and when you do, that’s her.”

She held up her freshly manicured nails, and they were bright pink.

“Pink was her favorite color, so I picked it.”

“Do you celebrate her birthday? Because I feel she would want you to celebrate her passing to heaven more than her birthday.”

“Yes, we always have a party on the day she passed. She had cancer, and she died 16 years ago. That date is coming up in a couple of weeks. Just before you and I started talking, I saw a lady who looked just like her walk past.”

I told her that her decision to leave behind what wasn’t working would open the door for more to come in.  

All of this over a couple of pairs of pants that I was not so sure I should get. I left Laura to go about her business happily, and I was suddenly not afraid to get myself new clothes. 

From there, I went through a drive-thru, and as I was waiting, I saw a young blonde girl filling up a machine with ice. I got her attention, and she came to the window.

“I think you are supposed to go to school. Are you putting it off?”

Her eyes were enormous, and unlike in my other encounter, she only nodded her head and verbalized nothing.  

“Your grandpa, who is in heaven, is trying to tell you that now is the time. Don’t put it off. This is the time. And don’t worry about the money. Are you worried about the money part of it?”

I saw tears fill her huge eyes, and she nodded yes. It was like a paralysis had taken over, and she was frozen, staring at me while the words came at her. 

“Start filling out the paperwork and go now. You will be able to communicate with animals like no one else can, and you will be very successful.”

It’s incredible for me to watch absolute strangers be told things that I would have no clue knowing. By the time her coworker handed me the bag, she was smiling through the tears and promising to look into becoming a vet. 

A few weeks later, I was in a store with my brother, and he needed light bulbs. A woman came around a corner out of nowhere and asked if we needed help.

He told her what he needed, and she meticulously walked him through every choice of light bulb he could choose. She was very experienced in knowing what she was saying and seemed to do this effortlessly. Thomas Edison would have been impressed. 

As she walked away, I felt that familiar pull to give her a message she needed to hear.  

“I need to tell her something,” I said as I watched her walk away. I noticed her shirt was slightly stained in the back, like she didn’t have a lot of money to buy herself new things.  

I know the feeling, and I have found that what I have experienced has made me hyper-aware of those walking that road. 

As I chased her down, my brother said,

“Is this going to be like Touched By an Angel?” 

He knows I do this once in a while when God asks me. 

I ignored him.  

“Excuse me,” I said, trying not to get the whole store looking our way.

“I have to tell you something.”

I explained that this was just a starting point for her and that she would quickly climb the ladder of success. That promotions would come her way quickly, and her co-workers might get a little jealous, but to cast it aside.  

“You are loyal and trustworthy with a good heart. That is leading you through, and someone on the other side is helping open doors for you. That’s why you are moving up so quickly. You will outgrow this place and move way up higher.” I could see far in advance. 

“I have only been here two months, and they have given me two promotions already, which is unusual.”

That’s about all she said because, once again, I think the shock of hearing all of her life secrets, good ones, being spilled out was overwhelming to take in.

She kept saying thank you and then returned to her work. I feel Emily will never forget that she met God in the middle of the cleaning section of a hardware store. 

We moved on to the cash registers, where a lady was waiting with no one in her line. 

“You need to ask her who is sick that she knows.“

I didn’t want to do that. I tried to get through and get out the door. The question seemed too invasive and might not even be true. When I got to the door, I had to go back.

She was standing at the end of her lane, waiting for customers to come.  

“I have to ask you a question,” I said. “I can see heaven, and I have been told to ask you who is sick that you know.”

“My sister’s son,” she said. She went on to tell me he was in the end stage of disease.  

“He has an angel standing next to him,” I said.

“My sister has spoken to that angel,”

“Tell her that this confirms she is right about it.”

I saw the future and that a grandfather figure would be showing up to take him to heaven.

She told me that his dad had passed on as well.

Both of us were near tears as I said,

“Both men will pick him up and take him to heaven. Tell your sister he will be okay. He probably will say he sees them before he moves on.”

“We believe. Thank you for saying all this. I will tell her.”

The next night, I visited my dad in a rehab he has been in for about a month. Later in the evening, the med technician came in to give him his pills. She introduced herself, and I told her who I was.  

I began to see a grandmother figure.  

“She needs to know she is going to have kids soon. You have to tell her,” said the whisper.

Oh, gosh, no! I cannot tell someone they are going to have a baby. What if she doesn’t want one? I thought I would make a big mistake, but when God wants to use your mouth, you and your opinion don’t matter. 

I started with the soft sell.

I explained that I could see and hear heaven; then, I asked questions about her life. Was she married? Yes. Did she have brothers and sisters? Yes.

And then, she opened the door for me to move in a bit further.  

“Does anyone have kids in the family?”

“My brothers and sisters do.”

“You will. You are going to have kids soon.”

I watched her eyes get that shocked look.  

“You are going to have a big family. They will be musical. I see piano players and singers. And this is probably going to happen before you have thought it possible. You are waiting for the money to show up, right?”

She was wearing a mask, and I could see now that her smile was reaching her eyes. 

“Yes, I will stay home and home-school when we have a family. My husband wants a big family, and his whole family is very musical.”

I told her some more, and she looked at my daughter and said,

“Does she do this all the time?”

I sensed she was a bit scared it would happen the next day.  As if she would wake up with ten kids all wanting breakfast.

“This will come to you naturally, but it is coming sooner than you think. When your husband gets a raise, which will be soon, that is your sign.” 

She said this would make her husband so happy and left with a big smile.

Crisis averted for me. That one seemed like a big and frightening jump. 

I don’t have to look for them; they sometimes come to me. 

Like the nursing assistant who told me she had just visited her neighbor who was dying.  

“Did you feel the angels in the room? There are two, one by the foot and the head of his bed.”

“I told them I could feel the angels in the room when I went to visit.”

“There are two of them, and his grandma is coming to get him.”

“His wife kept talking about his grandparents, and he gets to see them again,” she said.

“Yes. They will escort him into heaven.” 

I can always see when the words bring comfort too.

“Ask her if she is a teacher.”

Going out on a limb, I asked,

“Are you a teacher? I hear the word teacher.”

I hadn’t ever had a conversation with this woman who works at an assisted living where I was visiting a hospice patient. 

“Yes. I am a teacher.”

“This job will end, and that will be your job again, but less stressful.”  

She told me she taught English to children who were disabled and that it has been very overwhelming.

“It won’t be next time, so don’t turn it away. You’re a teacher, and that’s your life path.”  

She walked away smiling, raising her hands to the ceiling and thanking God. 

There is a promise that God will always keep you in sight and not forsake you, but the world can convince us otherwise. There’s a wearing down process that can take place, making some of us wonder if any of this has a point.

When I am sent to strangers with details I shouldn’t know, there is no denying that everything needed is seen, and the Creator of all is longing to reach us through a loving encounter.

Super

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I wanted to take them to a resort about four hours from home. We had been there before with people who owned a timeshare, so it was paid for, but I discovered that we could rent a cabin on the property and use the pools scattered throughout. Instead of being cramped in a tiny hotel room for days, this was a nice option to try for. And, near to it, there are various waterparks and activities that the girls loved to do.

The only obstacle standing in my way was my ex-husband, who told me he didn’t want to spend the money on it. We had plenty of money to do this, but he decided he didn’t want to go. In an attempt to throw me off, he said,

“If you somehow come up with the money and rent it, we can go.”

If this was a poker competition, his money was on himself, thinking I was an at-home mom homeschooling two young kids. In other words, I wasn’t smart enough to come up with the funds because I was not employed, and he held onto the purse strings.

I knew God wanted this for my kids, so I decided to have a garage sale.

The night before, while marking everything, he walked through the garage shaking his head like I was the dumbest person he had ever met. I had included another mom who also was interested in making the trip with us. We kept our items separate.

The sale netted us enough money to pay for the needed cabins and everything else the kids wanted to do. So much for being dumb.

The resort had listed all of its amenities on the website, including an indoor pool and hot tubs in case there was inclement weather.

When we got to the location, the “friend” who had done the sale with me walked into the registration building. When we got to the counter, we were informed that the indoor pool was being repaired. An electrical storm had somehow wiped out its functioning, so they had to close it.

“We are giving everyone passes to go to the Howard Johnson’s up the street so you can swim in their indoor pool. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

I didn’t think anything of it because many outdoor pools throughout the property were set around a golf course. The forecast predicted nice weather, so the need for an indoor pool was not heavy on my mind.

But, this woman who I was coming to find out was not the nicest, said,

“You advertised an indoor pool here. And, now you are telling me you don’t have one?”

“Yes. We are sorry, but we had a bad storm that left the electrical part of the pool unsafe, so we are in the process of fixing it. You and your family are welcome to use the Howard Johnson’s pool. This has the code on it so you can access that area.”

He pushed a piece of paper toward her with a number on it. She shoved it back at him.

I was filling out a form regarding our car with our license plate identification on it. I had just glanced out the window and was headed back to the desk when I saw this exchange begin.

“That is not good enough!” she snapped.

Her husband was out in the car, hiding, I assumed. Why I thought it was a good idea to bring her along, I do not know. My people-pleasing habits have taken a while to die.

It had gotten to the point where if I called their home, he would answer the phone with a whisper and go into a hall closet to speak to me because she didn’t want him talking and laughing with me on the phone as friends. Her control freak nature was rearing its ugly head more and more. She wanted me all to herself.

Often, he would speak to me and quickly say he would get her. There was no way he would want to deal with her Godzilla attitude at the front desk.

The employee swallowed down his fear and said,

“I don’t know how else to solve this problem for you.”

“I paid to have an indoor pool!”

The guy’s eyes caught mine, and I was hoping he didn’t think I was like her just because we walked in the door together.

“I know. And, we are really sorry about that…this is why we are sending people to Howard Johnson’s to try and accommodate everyone.”

“I am not a Howard Johnson’s type of person!” she said with a snarl. Ugly comes in many forms, not just in appearance but in attitude.

What? She had told me she had hardly ever been on vacation, so I was confused about where this entitled attitude was coming from.

Out of nowhere came another employee who was not as discreet as the man trying to help.

“He has explained to you our situation. Howard Johnson’s is it, or nothing.”

“That is not good enough!”

“What do you want me to do? Build you a pool, lady?” said the fresh helper.

My traveling companion then went to nuclear.

“I will contact the management here and let them know you did not go out of your way to compensate me for not having an indoor pool!”

With that, she swiped her papers off the counter and stormed out.

Both employees looked at me. Great.

“I apologize for her behavior,” I said. “I do not share her viewpoint.”

I could not say it enough. My two daughters had watched the entire exchange along with the lady’s two kids.

When I went to say goodnight to my two that night, I whispered,

“I am setting my alarm, and we are going to the indoor pool.” I did not say a word to anyone else.

The following day, while the two men went golfing, I quickly got my two in their suits, and we drove to the Howard Johnson’s. They had a great time swimming and using the hot tub. This was before cell phones, so no one could get a hold of us. And no one knew where we were.

I faced the firing squad when I returned.

“We were looking for you! Where did you go?” she asked the minute I stepped out of the car.

“Howard Johnson’s to swim,” I said without blinking. I wanted to see what reaction I would get.

“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask us to go?”

“Because you made it quite clear yesterday that you were not a Howard Johnson’s type person. You said that to everyone at the front desk.”

I did not hear one more tirade from this woman for the rest of the time we were there. I wasn’t as predictable as she thought I was.

Did she and I remain friends? No.

Her controlling nature became so severe that even my best people-pleasing nature couldn’t cut it anymore. The more I bowed down to her demands, the worse she became to the point where she was verbally abusive toward me. When I refused to continue being her friend, she tried to turn everyone against me. I preserved, and she is long gone in my rearview mirror.

I had convinced myself that God would not be happy with me if I let her go, so I kept myself attached to her. It got to the point, however, where I was either going to please her, lose myself or break free and be genuine. Sometimes you have to be not liked. And unpopular. It’s just the way it goes.

Proverbs 22:24-25 says, Don’t hang out with angry people; don’t keep company with hotheads.
Bad temper is contagious—don’t get infected. (Message)

That’s the risk you take. You can morph into what you consistently keep company with, so choose those who are God’s best.

As a side note, the ex-spouse was rewarded for not generously giving me the money for the vacation. Shortly after we got home, he cleaned his closet. He made a pile of clothes that no longer fit him as he had ‘grown’. This was intended for the garbage. The other, he was going to keep.

As I walked through the living room, he watched the garbage truck pick up and dump the contents of the can with all the sludge.

“I put all the clothes I wanted to keep in the wrong pile! He just dumped everything into the truck! I have no clothes to wear now except for what I have on! I have to go buy all new ones!”

I wanted to say..why don’t you have a garage sale? But I was too afraid back then to say anything like that. I just kept on walking. Silence is golden, and you let the situation speak for itself, like swimming at Howard Johnson’s on your own.

Galatians 6:7 spells it out pretty plainly:

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. (Message)

There’s another verse in James 4:6 that says:

It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”(Message)

When you walk in humility and do your best to follow God’s way, it may not always be easy, but I have found that you won’t regret how you treat others. You can end each day knowing that you are doing it right, being led through a life that is spiritually super.

(These usually don’t have a pool, just saying..)

Illusion

Posted on by Christine

Having two daughters spaced four years apart had its challenges. The younger one always wanted to be as advanced as her sister and was slightly annoyed if she felt I was paying more attention to her sibling. She made sure I knew it. Even before she could speak, she would make it known that she wanted to be the top dog.

She noticed early on that our physical abilities were superior to hers, and she wasn’t happy until she was on the same level.

She learned to crawl by eight months old and began to pull herself up by using the furniture to hang on to within that same time frame.

One night, she saw that we were sitting with a blanket over us. My oldest daughter had meticulously set up her pillow, a few stuffed animals and had settled in next to me, absolutely content watching one of her favorite shows.

The other one came by, pulled on the blanket, and screeched. She pulled so hard that before I could lift her that it sent her sister’s enormous bowl of popcorn showering all over us. The quilt we were using ended up on the ground. The stuffed animals were in a crumpled mess with pillows scattered everywhere.

Like that magic trick where the person pulls the tablecloth, but the silverware doesn’t budge.

Jealousy and competition had given her the strength of ten people. It was so shocking to witness an infant take over like that.

While we cleaned up the mess, she sat on the floor laughing.

She progressed quickly from barely walking and was fully able to run by nine months old. Not always steadily, but with speed.

“Mom! Help!”

I saw the two of them run by, but the younger one had gotten a hold of the back of her sister’s nightgown. She had her in a hostage situation, clutching onto the material with both hands. While the little one beamed with glee, the other one panicked.

“Mom! She has me! Help!”

It was the strangest sight to see the younger one executing such a power play over someone who could easily outmatch her.

“You do know she’s a baby. You are four. You are older and can get away from her?”

I unhooked her from her kidnapper so she could go free.

When the oldest was learning to print her name when she turned 5, I thought it would be a great idea to have her write it on all the valentines for a homeschool party she would attend with other kids her age. I figured after 40 of them, she would have it down pretty good.

I didn’t want to leave the other out even though she did not yet possess the motor skills. I found her a little purple ink stamp with her name on it so she could use it.

Before I left the room, I said,

“Only use that on the paper, okay? Don’t put that on anything but the paper.”

She nodded in understanding.

I left for milliseconds and returned to find her name emblazoned across her forehead, arms, and any place bare skin had been. The one across her lips was creative.

Her sister had been so concentrated on forming each letter of her name that she hadn’t noticed the rampage next to her.

It wouldn’t be the last time she had a run-in with ink.

A few months later, while her sister attended a roller skating birthday party, she and I sat off to the side watching. I had brought an assortment of things for her to do, including washable markers and coloring books. I had glanced up to check on her sister when I heard the sucking in of air, like a deep gasp.

I quickly turned back to find her holding both hands up in front of her face in total horror. Her color choice had been red, and it had gotten on her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, wondering why this was so traumatic. She could come into the house totally filthy and not care. Her mouth was wide open in a silent scream as she gathered in as much oxygen as her lungs would allow. Then the wailing started.

I had a difficult time making out what she was trying to say.

“I..I..I am….bl…eed…”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“I AM BLEEDING!” She used all of her strength to say it as panic shut her down.

It appeared that she had been playing with sharp knives.

I got out a wet wipe and quickly cleaned her hands. Within a split second, she looked down, smiled, and said,

“Oh.”

Things aren’t always as they appear. Like a funhouse mirror that distorts your image to make you look taller or shorter, sometimes our senses and how we think can play tricks on us.

Three years ago, I had my roof replaced after a storm. A sunny day suddenly turned dark as the skies broiled angrily with fast moving clouds.

I had received a message from a family member that they had gotten hit with strong winds, and he sent photos of chunks of hail. It was headed my way.

Our sirens were going off, indicating that we should go into the basement. However, it looked so calm outside that I went out to see how ominous it was. My daughter and I watched as large raindrops started to hit the driveway. We were standing in a corner that provided us the ability to not get wet between the house and the garage.

Slight sprinklings of pea-sized hail began.

“This isn’t good,” I said. “I think we should go in.”

As I said this, it was as if a switch was thrown, and ice baseballs began to come down everywhere. We were trapped because there was no way to come out for a split second without getting nailed with multiple of these.

We watched as puddles in the street looked like they were hit with small bombs nonstop. We huddled in the corner as the wind whipped branches and other debris flew in the air.

Once we quit screaming, we went back into the house unscathed. But, I knew that the house was not.

I immediately contacted my insurance representative, who sent over someone the next day to help. It was determined I had damage, and the process for repair on paper was begun.

First, I had to come up with a $2500 deductible, which I did not have.

“We can fix this right now,” he said.

“I don’t have the deductible at the moment.”

I knew if I had him do the work, I would be in debt. I was using everything I had to pay off a $10,000 debt that had been strangling me financially for over eight years. I had vowed to myself never to create more of it after taking lousy advice under pressure in the past and being too trusting.

This meant living in a limited, constricted way. I didn’t want to add to the stress.

“We do roofs until the first week of October. That way, we know we won’t have any snow. You are one of my first houses. We will book up quickly, so we really should do it right now.”

As he said this, one of my neighbors appeared.

“Do you replace roofs?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you look at mine?“

After inspecting it, it was determined she needed it fixed.

“How quickly can you do this? I’m putting it on the market next week.”

There were workers all over her property by the next day, and I had been given a referral discount off of mine.

I noticed another neighbor needed work done, so I wondered if they wanted a second opinion. They already had a sign in their yard from one of the many companies going door to door. I knew the competition was high.

After my inspection, a stranger came with a ladder and climbed up unsolicited. When I confronted him with the threat I could report him to the city; he realized he was at the wrong address and quickly left.

When my other neighbor signed up with the man I referred, this meant another discount for me.

I was still short $1500.

With work being completed on both sides of me, I was tempted to get it done and figure out the cost later. I kept hearing to wait it out.

By early fall, I received a higher property tax refund than anticipated.

“I think we should fix your gutters, too,” I was told in the interim. “I will do them at cost.”

Four months had gone by while I watched everyone else having work done. We had gorgeous weather, and I had paid it off in full by the time the job was completed. I had made up my mind not to allow more debt.

What had appeared impossible at the start took care of itself.

The only slight setback in the whole process was that the noise of the reconstruction had deeply disturbed one of my dogs. It was as if she anticipated the entire house crashing down even though there was no danger. She refused to sleep lying down, but as fatigue would hit her, she would fall over, wake up, and the process would start again. For days she did this until her body forced her back into a regular sleep pattern.

Her faulty senses and limited ability to understand had resulted in her being a nervous wreck.

Unlike her, we have access to insider information that can be easily tapped into if we allow it.

In Jeremiah 33:3 it says:

This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: ‘Call to me, and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’ (Message)

This leading generally doesn’t come in noisily but rather in subtle, quiet ways that only can be heard when there is no fear interference. Your reaction in the moment of adversity will determine how long you suffer.

Frustration, competition, and jealousy aren’t the ways out.

If you are willing to put aside what you think is true and seek out the One of all truth, the drama gets silenced. You won’t bleed to death because it’s just an illusion.

Changed

Posted on by Christine

We used the food scale for weeks to accurately measure portion sizes, watching the digital readout grow dimmer by the second. Once in a while, it would flash a warning reading ‘Lo’ indicating that the batteries might be nearing the end of their existence. It was so worn down, it couldn’t even add the ‘w’ to make a complete word.

As with anything that isn’t blowing up or causing urgency, we kept using it, thinking it wasn’t being serious. It’s like when the gas light goes on in your car. You always have some time before you have to pay attention to it.

I don’t take my chances too long with the car, but it seems like it’s jumping the gun a bit when you have to deal with an issue with electronic devices. I could manage fine if I squinted just right and turned it, so the light wasn’t directly shining on the screen.

Even when I could hardly read if it measured in grams or ounces, I ignored it, and once it had given me what I needed, I would forget about it until the next time I had to use it.

“I really should put new batteries in this,” I would say with every single use with absolutely no intention of doing so.

History seems to repeat itself. I have never gotten a different outcome when I have lived on the edge in this way. I pushed the on button, and it remained silent. I hit it again, thinking I had not done it hard enough. No familiar beep meant the unthinkable. It had died.

How could it betray me like this after so much time of it running on fumes, trying to warn me it was on its way out?

I opened “the drawer.” Everyone has one where you keep items, but nothing resides in there that is useful for times like these.

You move aside keys you have no idea what they open, a flashlight that when you flick it on has the same affliction as the food scale and screws. Lots and lots of mismatched screws that belong to something somewhere, essential oils that have names like breathe easy and relax, glue sticks, charger cords that have gotten separated from whatever they are supposed to bring back to life, and underneath everything, you find that package of homeopathic stress mints.

You do get credit for that extra refrigerator light bulb because you bought it months ago and threw it in there, totally prepared for when that burns out.

You wade through it all on the hunt for the triple A’s that seem to disappear the minute you bring the package across the house’s threshold. You have double-A, C, and D. The square 9 volt. When was the last time you ever needed that? The tiny round ones that no one should ever swallow and the flat pancake-shaped offering that belongs to nothing in the whole house.

You are left with only one choice. Go around and start kidnapping what you need from the other devices you own. Because you don’t need one or two, this monster takes three. You swear on a stack of Bibles that you will replace them. Later, you use the remote for the tv, and it’s not working. Why? Because the food scale is now functioning at its best.

It’s not like you haven’t been near a display at the store where you could solve your problem. But it seems that your brain decides to have amnesia, making you forget you have a crisis at home where inanimate objects run your life and drain your energy.

This leads to getting so over the situation that you make a special trip to get them, buy them and find a stash you have put away in that ‘other’ drawer from the last time you did this.

It’s a fun game I don’t recommend playing.

While not only battery challenged, there’s another issue in my home that baffles the mind. No one except me will put a new roll of toilet paper on the holder. I don’t know where this started and how I became responsible for it; I must have signed a contract I am not aware of.

It’s not uncommon to see a new roll sitting next to the holder on the sink or an entire pile of them on the floor by where one needs to be placed. But, never, will it be hanging on display. Never.

When my daughters were younger, I thought maybe removing the old and putting on the new was not something they could handle, but no one lacks motor skills at this point. If they can brush their own hair and swipe a credit card, they can do this; I know it. So it can only mean one thing. I enabled it.

When I became aware of that, I did try to fight back by going on strike and not doing it anymore so that they would understand what it was like to be me. It was an ‘I will show them’ moment. No one seemed to notice, and it drove me to resume the job of replacing it. You just know when you are up against those who are more strong-willed than you are.

It makes one wonder how we get into the habits we do. According to those who have studied human behavior, it’s not always easy to break patterns we have established because they can become unconscious, making it difficult for us to see them in the first place, like fears, worries, and irrational thoughts.

When my youngest daughter was six, she went through a time of having nightmares. It was not uncommon for her to suddenly be next to my bed, waking me up, tormented, asking for me to come into her room and pray. I had the same thing happen when I was young, so I knew the feeling.

I would get her to calm down, remind her that she had protection around at all times, and she would get through it. This kept happening to her for a while, but then it suddenly stopped. When that occurs, you let it go because it means your prayers have been answered, and you get to go back to not being woken up by a frightened child.

Shortly after her bad dreams had ceased, I noticed one day that she put her finger to the middle of her forehead and pushed on it.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I am changing the disc in my head.”

She went on to tell me that one night, while terrified after another alarming middle of the night awakening, instead of having me help her, something told her to pretend she was putting a new movie into her mind. She followed the instructions she was given, and this cured the problem.

“I use it when I have thoughts I don’t like. It works on everything,” she said.

She told me it was like putting in a new DVD and went through the physical motion of pretending to take out something, put something new in, and push the spot on her forehead again. (This was well before all of the streaming services we have now)

Whether by angelic intervention or not, we can change how we process a situation. Once you realize that the way you are thinking is not serving you, that is the minute you can take over and put things in their proper order.

Another way to end the struggle within over outside circumstances is to do this from Romans 12:2:

Let God change your life. First of all, let Him give you a new mind. Then you will know what God wants you to do. And the things you do will be good and pleasing and perfect. (NLV)

Matthew 7:7-8 describes how you can do that:

Ask, and what you are asking for will be given to you. Look, and what you are looking for, you will find. Knock, and the door you are knocking on will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives what he asks for. Everyone who looks finds what he is looking for. Everyone who knocks has the door opened to him. (NLV)

Pray and ask God to replace unhelpful ideas that play in your mind and hold you hostage. Like old batteries and empty toilet paper rolls, you can be changed.

Sometimes it looks like they are winning…
(Keep these buried in the drawer where the batteries that you need should be…You will have no problem swallowing all 30 of them at once)

Yucky Parts

Posted on by Christine

Sometimes it’s the smallest of things that make you realize how much God sees the details. Heaven seems to show up at just the right time to remind you that you have done alright, no matter what memories you might have surface to say otherwise.

She handed me a book that I forgot I even had.

“Where was this?” I asked.

“In my room.”

That happens quite often where we share without me realizing it. But, if it had not been in my possession for that long, then I guess I didn’t really miss it.

I recognized the cover and title from a while ago. I had gone through this phase where I could not absorb enough about people experiencing miracles. It can help you to believe when you read about the circumstances of others, prompting you to follow those leads that God is always putting in front of you.

To say you don’t have any isn’t the truth. You have to get quiet, and one way to do so is to read material about the very thing that you are seeking. While memorizing scripture is excellent, sometimes you need to subject yourself to multiple stories where people of various walks of life have all had incredible things happen to them.

The unusual happenings in the Bible, from the parting of the Red Sea to Jonah being swallowed by ocean life, sometimes don’t seem relevant unless I am stuck in traffic and I need an act of God to move cars along so that I can get back to my real life. The whale thing doesn’t really coincide unless I have to tell someone bad news, and I would rather not. I don’t live where there are whales readily available, though.

What does resonate is when a mortgage gets paid off unexpectedly, a child is healed of an incurable disease, or someone escapes a life that was leading to destruction. The themes are generally the same, with a person needing an unseen hand to intervene and come to the rescue seemingly out of nowhere.

I think it’s difficult to imagine God doing that because we always believe that it’s for everybody else. Our neighbor might fit the bill up the street, but we aren’t good enough to have it happen to us.

Isn’t that what blocks the miracle? Not God, but us.

“I was told to give you that book, and you need to look in the front cover.”

“Why? I haven’t seen this for so long.”

“Just look.”

When she tells me to do something, I do it.

Inside the cover was a note from her that I had used as a bookmark. She had written this to me during the height of a very tormenting and dark time in my life. My marriage had turned into divorce, and I had to figure out somehow how to keep it all on track.

I was constantly concerned that I wasn’t doing enough or being a good mother while working three jobs at once and homeschooling. I struggled to keep a stable environment for them while the world around me looked nothing like it had before.

While some of the existing problems were now absent, a host of other troubles seemed to be cropping up all the time.

One way I can describe it was like walking into one of those rooms where the whole structure is built at an angle. You have to navigate your way through using force to lean and move. You might have to hang on to a few walls to get through it, and right when you think you can let go of the support, you start to fall again. In the middle of it all, you come to a new understanding regarding the instability of life.

Believe it or not, it’s a gift. You realize that what is here today can be quickly gone tomorrow.

I would be rushing through the living room, trying to get to the next responsibility on my list, and she would tackle me with her eight-year-old self. She knew I was faking my way through it all, hiding my pain and trying to convince everyone that all was well.

In a death grip, she wouldn’t let me go and would repeatedly say,

“You are strong, mom. You are strong.”

I learned not to fight to get away because, one, it was pointless because she would suddenly have an iron hold on me that I could not release myself from. She would have both of her arms wrapped around my legs, making it impossible for me to move.

I know it sounds strange, but I had to stand still against my will when this happened. After a few times, I realized that God was speaking to me through her.

I felt the exact opposite of what she was saying. Totally weak and broken down, I was running on fumes, forcing myself out of bed every day, fearing that I would not be able to keep up with it all. And in the chaos of that, I had this shorter version of me stopping me in my tracks, giving me the advice I would give anyone else I saw in the same situation.

I had taught her without knowing it.

When I gave my life to God, I made it my mission to make sure both of my girls understood its importance. I didn’t want them walking the same trail that I had, not knowing who God really was. There were pitfalls along the way as we all learned, and still do, what spirituality really means. My goal was to have God be real to them, not some fictional guy in a book. And here it was on full display as she forced me to take a minute to listen.

“You are strong, mom. You are strong.”

One time, I said to her,

“Our house has been destroyed. Your dad is gone.” I thought that would make her quit doing this. It was inconvenient most of the time.

She looked me in the eye and said with much assertiveness and on the verge of anger,

“He is my real Father!” She pointed up. I couldn’t argue with that, and she made me stand there longer than usual. I learned not to be resistant to it anymore.

When I look at what she wrote back then, I can see now what she meant. Those sessions of making me stop what I was doing were times that God infused me with the strength I needed to go on. I just didn’t know it then like I do now.

She brought to life this verse from Psalm 46:10 that says:

Be still and know that I am God.

Sometimes when you look in the rearview mirror of your life, you see that all isn’t lost. It makes sense now.

In those places that seem impossible to endure, something is changing on the inside of you.

She and I went to a yoga class at a very early hour on a Saturday when the temperature was fourteen below. The drive was nearly forty minutes away, but the class was free, and there would be a litter of puppies.

“I want to go to this,” she said.

I did, and I didn’t. I know dogs and me, and I will want them all. I wasn’t so sure I could do all the moves either, but I was willing to try. Above all of that, I can never say no to her.

As we progressed through a flow of maneuvers that required balancing, many in the class around us were trying not to fall over.

“Relax your face as you move along,” the instructor said randomly with her back to us as she demonstrated, and we followed.

Immediately a woman in the back row said,

“I feel called out,” and started to laugh.

When it got quiet, and all of us were shaking uncontrollably, trying to stay upright while forcing our muscles to be more productive, the leader said,

“Breathe through the yucky parts. You are becoming a better person.”

If I have learned anything, you must know that God is holding your hand, everything will work out when you think it won’t, and now is the time to breathe through the yucky parts.

(I’m not crying..YOU are crying….)

Combination

Posted on by Christine

She opened the refrigerator, and a plastic container flew out and hit the floor with a loud smack. The force of the impact made the lid disengage. The contents then were free to splash upward toward the poor unfortunate soul who was standing nearby with clean clothes on.

His pants were immediately covered in some sort of leftover that I am sure he would have instead had presented to him on a plate. We all stood in shock as he had both of his hands outstretched, looking down in horror at the red meat sauce that was rapidly seeping inward past the outer layer into deeper regions.

She sprang into action to attend to the spill, totally focused on that, not really coming to his aid. He had just been involved in an unwanted food fight and now stood immobile, not wanting to traipse the problem through the living room carpet to get a change of clothes.

While she was absorbed in trying to reign in the mess that had splattered the walls, cupboards, and doors, his annoyance was on the rise at her lack of attention toward him.

“Wipe me! Wipe me!” He suddenly yelled.

My brother, ever the quick-witted comedian, passed by and said,

“I would never want to do that!” Clearly with a different scenario in his mind. He dropped that comment and darted away.

This made my mom burst out laughing to the point of not being able to get up off the kitchen floor.

“Jean! Get up right now!” He ordered.

She laughed louder. She loved physical comedy, and once something struck her as humorous, it would be a while.

As she became more caught up in laughing, he kept on hollering, trying to snap her back to reality. While he swore through the entire process, she could not control what had overtaken her. Finally, she just threw the wet rag in her hand at him and let him start on disengaging himself from the problem.

It must have been contagious because suddenly, he started laughing with her. It was one of many odd things I saw happen between the two of them. I stood there, not knowing if I was witnessing anger or joy.

On another occasion, she came out of the laundry room hysterically laughing, trying to tell me something.

“Your dad…he..he…” she tried so hard to say what was going on, and she couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, she said,

“He was outside staining wood.”

“Okay.”

She had to pause between each sentence to get it out.

“He took this big lid off and set it aside.”

Another round of bent over laughing.

“He sat on the lid!”

“What?”

After many minutes of questions, I pieced together the facts that he had forgotten he had set a lid on a chair and then sat down for a second. When he felt wetness soaking in, he jumped up and raced for the house for her help.

“He has a huge brown target on his butt! You have to come to see this!”

I only got up to help her in case she was not capable. It was almost identical to the sauce incident with him standing there helpless and her not functioning.

“Is it bad?” He asked me with his back to me.

“I think those are going to have to go in the garbage,” I said while she hung on to my shoulder, doubled over in a silent giggle.

“Jean! You have to help me get these off!”

The minute I heard that I was out. Like, bye.

From the other room, I heard her say,

“You actually have stained your skin! Like a big tattoo!”

She never understood the art of telling someone terrible news slowly. She just blurted it out like that, which caused him to go into orbit.

“I have to go in for my physical exam! What will the doctor think?”

“Maybe if I scrub it with cold water. That might help!”

This is when I cut off my visualization skills. There are just some things you don’t even want to see in your mind’s eye. In moments such as this, I didn’t want to possess the ability to have insight. I hit the pause button mentally.

“That is freezing cold!” I heard him screech.

“It’s not coming off!” She said, delivering more bad news.

Cue the cuss words. And more laughing. The blending of these two individuals never ceased to amaze me.

It wasn’t always him having bad luck either. Sometimes it was caused by his own doing.

“I hit him right between the eyes with a spoon one time.”

“Why?”

“I was eating cereal, and he said something that I didn’t like. I was pregnant.”

That would do it, simple as that.

Other times, he did fall prey to unexpected circumstances inflicted upon him by her hand.

One time, he had just sat down to eat this massive plate of food. This man would take his time doing this. Seasoning things. Moving slowly like he was getting it ready for a magazine shoot.

She tripped on her way past him with a bottle of wine in her hand. She fell directly on him, pouring the entire contents on his plate. He was so taken by surprise that he still had his fork in his hand above her head while my brother quickly whisked his plate away, saying,

“You’re done!”

He had not taken one bite.

“What. The. Hell,” was all he said as she laid there laughing, crumpled upon him.

This went on for years.

“John, do you want a cookie?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you don’t want one, or yes, you want one?”

By now, she had lost him as he was in the middle of watching something.

“John!”

“What?”

“Is that yes or no?”

“For what?”

“A cookie! Do you want one?”

“I already said no.”

“I thought you changed your mind.”

He was gone again.

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

Feeling that she wasn’t getting through to him, she placed herself and the container of cookies in front of him.

“I can’t see around you!”

“Are you sure you don’t want a cookie?”

Right as he was about to answer again, the entire thing fell out of her hands, and every single cookie landed on his lap.

“Leave me be, woman!” He shouted like he was casting a demonic entity out of his presence.

As she scrambled to pick them up, the laughter and the swearing again.

The other day I was talking to him about heaven. I have seen it and was giving him details.

“Mom is there, right?”

“Yes.”

And you would think with their history, he might not want to spend eternity with her. Life on earth just might have been enough.

“That’s good. I miss her.”

For all the times they were in conflict or nearly at their wit’s end with one another, there always was and still is this invisible chord that kept them together. Not once since her transition has he wanted anyone else in his life. Some would say that he finally has peace and quiet.

But he was very adamant with me when she first went on to heaven.

“I will not ever be married to anyone ever again. She was it.”

So all I can do is make him remember the funny moments that maybe weren’t so humorous to him then. But now, he sees it for what it really was.

One of the morning routines that they adhered to was that she would get up early, ahead of him, but she didn’t let him rely on his alarm to wake him up.

She would always say,

“John, it’s time.” And raise the shade to blind him with light first thing.

“I hated that so much!” He told me once. But she did it every day.

I have a feeling that when God calls him up, he will hear that familiar voice saying,

“John. It’s time.”

Some things you look at and think, who decided that this would be good? Like waffles and syrup. Who conjured that up? I think a lot of people are glad it exists.

And while I didn’t always understand them, and I still really don’t, I am grateful that God decided to put them together into a weird, sometimes ugly, but purposeful combination.

Clue

Posted on by Christine

“I want to see Miss Scarlett in the billiard room with the wrench.”

There was shuffling of cards as she searched for one of the three so I could mark it off. If she produced nothing, then her sister would have to show me what she had.

We went around the mansion, taking turns rolling dice, trying to land on a space that would give us access to a door. We would use a secret passage to speed things along where a player can instantly move from one room to another. Then the accusation could be given. Ultimately, you want to be the first to reveal which of the characters became a cold-hearted killer.

It could be Mrs. Peacock taking a rope and strangling her victim in the kitchen when he got on her last nerve and asked for the salt shaker.

Or Mr. Green lost his temper and took out a lead pipe in a jealous rage to do away with his enemy in the study while he read a world map. Unknowingly, the next destination was the afterlife.

I didn’t realize in the original game he was known as a Reverand. The title was removed because it sent the wrong message that a church leader could go insane and commit a crime. That would be too shocking for the public to handle with a board game.

Professor Plum’s character always seemed shady to me. I wouldn’t be caught dead with him in a conservatory late at night if I met him in real life. Who knows when he would pull out that candlestick and end my existence while I was looking at a botanical?

Colonel Mustard seemed like he could at any moment take out a revolver, and without a second thought, blow away whoever was standing next to him in the lounge while drinking his scotch.

Other characters were considered, but Mrs. Silver, Miss Grey, Mr. Gold, and Mr. Brown did not make the final cut.

When she revealed her card, I was able to take it off the list. And so, by deduction, we were on the move to hunt down the culprit and figure out where, who and what was involved.

When everything is set up at the beginning of the game, three piles of cards are made with weapons, rooms, and suspects. One of each is drawn and placed in a golden-colored mystery envelope in the center of the board. The most alarming thing for me was discovering that my character had been murdered by one of the others playing with me.

How dare they take me out when they depend on me for everything in life? They just callously knife me while I am in the hall, lost and wandering because I don’t even know the hall’s purpose. Isn’t a hall just something that is used to get to somewhere else?

I kept calling off names, rooms, and weapons during one game and kept coming up with no answers. With confidence, she ticked off all her answers, moved along, and closed in on the solution to put us to shame. I usually go with a specific strategy to get to the bottom of what is happening by eliminating one variable at a time.

But, I was coming up short. So, I kept asking for the same items or people multiple times to be sure that I hadn’t overlooked something.

“Something isn’t right,” I said after exhausting all my tactics. “There is a problem with this.”

“What?” she asked.

We had been playing for a while, and there should have been a conclusion to this by now.

“You don’t think something is missing? I keep trying to determine who did this, and there are two instead of one on my list. I have asked for every single one of them.”

She glanced down and looked at her paper with her name at the top, where she had been marking off her guesses. Both of my girls are very artistic, so their papers always have artwork all over them.

They can’t sit without drawing flowers, dogs, cats, and everything else they can think of. They are so talented that I could sell their art to pay off the mortgage.

It didn’t seem like she thought anything was wrong. So, we played on until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I think maybe I put an extra card in the envelope when we started. We aren’t going to solve this.”

I had to quit the game and look at what had been set aside. There were only three cards like there should have been.

“I don’t get it,” I said. I showed her my findings, and she showed me hers.

“I think we have a card that has gone missing, so this would have never ended. Without that one suspect, we cannot come to the right conclusion.”

It was somewhat disappointing, and I thought about going online and buying the vanishing card. As I picked up the game, I noticed it underneath the board. Somehow, as we had put it all out, one of the suspects had hidden himself there.

I saw another rendition where you can lie through it unless the other players hit this big red button and challenge what you are saying. Your body language and facial expressions have to look genuine and go undetected as false by others around you to succeed.

I don’t think many of us would admit out loud how dishonest we really are. I am not talking about flat-out telling lies but living in a way that is not entirely what we want. We fake our way through things to keep the peace and make others comfortable even though we are miserable. If you do that long enough, it starts to feel normal.

In another version, the murderer is at large and can take you out before you figure out who they are. It’s a race against the clock to see if you can escape. You are in constant danger, dodging the fatal blow that will end your life.

I have had those situations in real life without realizing how close I had come to being a victim. It takes strong discernment to see the truth and to act on it.

One evening, I was out working in my yard, and a man approached with a clipboard.

“Do you have cable?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I think I can offer you a better deal.”

There was something about him that made me uncomfortable. It was starting to get dark, and I was near my garage.

“I am happy with what I have,” I said. He advanced closer to me, and I moved a few inches away.

I realized that no one was around, and all the houses were closed up.

“I think you should switch to my plan,” he said.

“I have said I am not interested.”

I moved enough so that he could clearly see that I was not at all needing him to go any further.

“I think you will like this better,” he said, coming into my garage.

I had my phone in my pocket, so I took it out.

“I have asked you to leave. If you don’t, I will call for help.”

I moved away again.

“I think you should take into consideration what I am saying.”

I started dialing.

When the 911 operator answered, he was sprinting down the sidewalk. I explained what had happened, and they sent a police officer my way. Those are the moments when you realize you have angels, and you need to have the best spiritual ears ever.

Friends may betray you, just like your opponent in a game of mayhem, and it’s going to hurt. Maybe they kill you with their gossip about you or slander your character, make unfair judgments, and spread it around. You will have to overcome unfair conditions as you walk through them, but God will show you where you have grown into a new person at the end of all of that.

The one thing that is clear if you ask God for help, it will come. In Jeremiah 33:3 it says,

This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: Call to me, and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own. (Message)

When life gets confusing, and nothing makes sense, send out a prayer, ask God for insider information, and listen as heaven will send the most valuable clue.

(Don’t let the Hall fool you…it’s not really a hall..it’s a room with no point…)
(Miss Scarlett was always a problem..)

Illusion

Posted on by Christine

“Do you see the penny?”

“Yes,” I said.

I knew what was coming next because my brothers had shown me this trick repeatedly. The shiny copper piece would be held before my eyes to ensure I watched. The master was performing it, though, and he had taught the three of them how to do it.

“Now watch. I’m going to rub it into my elbow.”

When I think about it now, that’s the most ridiculous thing I could ever imagine falling for. Why not involve his kneecap? What was so magical about his elbow? A magician has to use whatever he can to get his audience to be receptive.

So he would start to move his hand with the coin in it, but he would drop it at least three times to keep my full attention. He would pretend to be clumsy, let it loudly rattle on the table, and have to start the process all over again.

Then, it would totally disappear. The hand it had been in would be empty. He would take the other hand, put it up to my ear and say,

“It’s right here!” And it would materialize out of thin air. I hadn’t felt a thing, so how could that happen? If I had money stashed away that close by, life would have been so much easier.

“Do you want to see it again?” He would ask.

“Yes,” I would say because I thought I had missed something. My dad could do that at least 100 times, and it was like watching it for the first time.

As I got out of my preschool years, I wanted to know how he manipulated it, but he wouldn’t show me. The other day I said,

“Here. Teach me how to do that disappearing thing you used to do.” I handed him a dime.

“What? That’s so ancient! I can’t remember that, Chris.”

“You better. I have waited a long time for you to tell me this. It will come back to you.”

He dropped the dime I had given him multiple times due to his shaky hands, not for the show. But it did all flood into his memory as he went through the motions.

“So you switched hands,” I said. I demonstrated it to him.

“I never showed you how I did that?”

“No.”

“Now it spoils it for you. It takes away the mystery. But now you can baffle people.”

“Baffle, huh? Really? I wouldn’t say anyone would be in awe of that unless they are really naive.”

He laughed.

“But it does take away the secret of it.”

It wasn’t the first time I had been told the truth about something that had seemed so real.

I was led to think that Santa would show up every Christmas Eve. Presents from him would always appear in the living room while I was in the basement. I was the last one of the kids to accept this, and the others never said a word. They let me have the experience just like they had.

I trusted that what I heard was true. I equated Santa with God. So when my mom announced to me on Christmas Eve that he wasn’t real, I thought she was joking. When it became clear that she wasn’t lying to me, I wondered if everything else I had been told was accurate.

It wasn’t difficult to be in a religious organization and lack a closeness with God. And this upsetting news made it easy for me to question everything. It wasn’t that I had been fooled into a myth, it was how I was told and when. The timing of it was not ideal for a seven-year-old.

When unpleasant things happen, you can decide not to repeat history, and that was my goal with my girls. Because of my disappointment long ago, I chose to skip the traditional man in the red suit coming down the chimney. Instead, I always hid a gift that they had to find. Because after all, the element of surprise was the aim. There were a few wrinkles to iron out, however.

I found out that the game of hot and cold was a challenge for my oldest. As she got closer to what she was seeking, and I would say, “You are burning up,” she would suddenly run away as if she were in danger. It took a few times for her to understand that cold wasn’t what she wanted. I had spent years telling her not to touch a hot stove, so that’s where I think the confusion came in. So, we pressed on, and I had to undo some of my parental training so she could find her elusive item.

I made sure to reiterate not to run with scissors, though.

“You are ruining Christmas!” A family member said who learned of my rouge departure from the iconic Christmas character. I got a tongue lashing on how horrible I was for taking away all the ‘fun’ out of the holiday. There was another person nearby who agreed with my stance, but they suddenly lost their ability to speak, so I withstood the beat down.

I didn’t listen. I bought a book that explained the place St. Nicholas took in history as a generous man who made sure that the poor were cared for. I educated my girls to know who he really was, not the one depicted in movies or cartoons.

I told them both to never ruin it for others but keep it to themselves.

“Santa isn’t real,” said my youngest daughter at the age of three, out loud to her friend as they looked at a display at a mall. Before I could clamp my hand over her mouth to stop more from spilling out, her friend said,

“Oh, I know! That’s Santa’s helpers. That isn’t the real Santa, silly!”

There is a God.

I wondered at times if I was damaging them somehow by not adhering to age-old rules. Was I stripping them of something that others were participating in and they were not? There were small indications along the way that I wasn’t completely destroying their childhood.

“I’m buying this so I will get a Nintendo DS.”

My oldest daughter showed me a game that only could be played on that particular handheld device. At the age of twelve, she set the intention and expected it; soon, she got it. She applied her faith, and the money she needed to buy it showed up.

My youngest daughter was sitting on my lap during a magic show when she was four years old. The guy on stage would hold out his hands, and doves would suddenly fly out. I watched as she put her hands together, trying to recreate what he was doing. It was the beginning of her understanding that she could make things appear that hadn’t been there before.

Throughout the years, I tried to model for them what this verse meant from Hebrews 11:1,

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. (Living Bible)

During tough times, I would write down what I needed God to do for me. Like a Christmas list, mine had things on it, such as getting the house repainted, the dishwasher fixed, and money for a car repair. I wanted them to understand that prayer doesn’t only operate during a season, but it is always available to stream to us what we need. There were times I had no idea how problems would be solved, but I let them know I was giving it to God, so they could do the same.

The idea that we can ask for help from an entity outside ourselves is prevalent. It seems to have been downloaded right into our DNA.

Instead of having them put their hopes in a legend, I had them look to the One who owns it all and have lifelong, genuine communication with heaven, which is real and not an illusion.

(He is a good second place, though)