House of Pain Mafia

When you were little, didn't you love to have a sleepover at your friend's house and stay up late and play dress up? Did you try on Mom's make up and pearls and put on Dad's shoes and thump around the living room, proudly showing off your newly acquired attire?

Apparently that's something that takes a while to get out of your blood. Maybe it never does.

Something woke me up about 3:00 in the morning last Saturday night and I sat up in bed, listening for a minute. It took me a second to realize it was just the boys, still awake, goofing off with their friend Chase. I went back to sleep.

Sunday morning, as I was yelling at everyone that we were late for church, I noticed my camera sitting out on the counter. I immediately turned it on to see what the kids had been up to in the wee hours of the night. This picture is what I found.

As if this wasn't funny enough by itself, I saw that all the boys were in the picture...meaning not only did they get all dressed up and find toy guns, not only did they go into the sunroom and pose in front of my great-aunt's quilt, but they did all this and stared hard-core at a camera that must have been sitting on Caleb's bunk bed with the timer on. I wonder how long they had to hold those aren't-you-scared-of-me stares on their faces before the flash finally went off!

I swear, I love my life.

Yay for summer 08

So school started yesterday. I read some of my friends' posts as they sent little ones off for their first day and how bittersweet is was...wow. I don't relate.

As of December our boys will be 16, 19, and 20. I am practically living with four full-grown men! They are in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades and I always look forward to school starting back.

This year, however, I am sooo not ready for summer to be over. It was the greatest summer I've ever had. It was the first summer since I was 13 that I haven't had a job where someone else determined my schedule. Wrestling shorts and old navy tank tops were my attire of choice. Daily. Yes, even to meetings. Hot dogs or Little Caesars graced our dinner table. Yes, almost nightly. And I have had the oil changed in the Yukon four times this summer because of all the miles we put on it since June...so many road trips!

This picture really says it all. We have enjoyed our boys so much this summer. We have enjoyed our dogs, our family times, our vacation, and even sometimes our jobs. Now that I don't own the Manna House anymore, I understand why people always love summers and Saturdays. Since I was 16, summers and Saturdays just meant more customers - now I know what the whole world has been doing while I was behind a cash register! :)

Just me and my taser

So last night at midnght I'm sitting in the Yukon at the corner of Wire Road and Givhans Ferry with my lights off, no cell service, my taser in one hand and a statistics textbook in the other thinking, "What events unfolded in my life that got me to this place at this moment?" I wasn't truly scared...until I looked at my gas gauge and saw that if I didn't soon turn off the engine I wouldn't make it anywhere without walking. I was exactly twenty minutes from St. George and twenty minutes from Summerville, waiting at that desolate intersection for Trey to come pick up his wife's text book. Which, of course, she needed for class at 7 in the morning. Not to mention the fact that NO ONE knew where I was because I was supposed to be in bed, sleeping soundly in between Joey and Ladybug.

Grrrrrr...

So basically I drove to Reevesville at 4pm, then drove back home when practice was over at 10:30, picked up the book, saw Caleb's new cell phone, and drove back to meet Trey at midnight, waited for twenty minutes, drove on to Reevesville, dropped the book off at his house, found a gas station (on another desolate corner with my faithful taser in my pocket), passed Trey trying to find me, then drove back home.

Thankfully I had good ol' Perry. I listened to four Perry Noble sermons last night during my midnight escapade. He's the only thing that kept me awake! But does anyone else find themselves in a ridiculous situation and take a second to wonder, "How did I get here?" That happens to me a lot.

So the best part of the night was Trey trying to explain to me why he didn't make it to our meeting spot. He was on duty last night and was answering a call to an old lady's house where apparently a man danced naked in front of her window flailing his arms and legs screaming, "Booga booga booga." Like any decent old lady, she called the police. Trey came to the rescue and was subjected to a detailed account of her life story while he looked sadly at his cell phone each time I tried to call. Best moment, hands down, was Trey Wade, on the side of Main St. in St. George impersonating the booga-booga man dance in front of my car...fully clothed, of course.

The only thing to top that off was as Trey headed back to his car and I began to roll up my window and who passes us by with a whistle and a wave? At 12:30? On Main Street? After whining all night to Selena about how late it was and weren't we done with practice yet and couldn't he go home? Chad Crosby. I wonder where he was coming from?


The whole night left me wondering, "Freakin St. George. What events in my life led me to that place?"

Why vampires?

So it's embarrassing and all, but I am ready to admit that I am totally hooked on teenage vampire novels...I've read three this week. I made fun of my best friend last year when she made the same confession to me and now I find myself asking her which one to buy next!

I found a quote in one yesterday that I read and re-read and I finally dog-eared the page. Nothing about it is relevant to my life at the moment, but something in it was so compelling, so real, that I found it worth reading again...

"Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me."

I just knew when I read this quote that the person who wrote it had been in pain. Real pain. It made me ponder the validity of reading a vampire novel, or any novel for that matter. Yes, I have always been an avid reader of "fluff books," and have always felt a twinge of guilt because of that. Like I am wasting time on useless stories when I could be reading more important things about church planting and business models. But I found in this quote what everyone who sits down to a good book or movie is looking for.

Relativity.

We all desire to enhance our individuality, but we crave relationship. Relating to others, finding common worth. It is what draws us to any good story. We relate to a character in that story - we identify to their plight. Isn't that exactly what Paul recognized and tried to communicate?

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin."

Jesus is our high priest, but one who has been where we are. He has walked through what we face each day and brings the promise of victory to life. He meets that craving for identification, relativity, and acceptance. He meets the need to be seen and accepted anyway. To be accurately measured and still be found desirable. To be fully known and fully loved. The Story of mankind is laced with this theme and so it can easily be found in less significant tales of entertainment.

So what do I have in common with my vampire characters? Not much. But any story has an element of truth, an element of good and evil. An element of Story.