September 8, 2006

• Can you hear me now?

  If it's true that laughter keeps you healthy, everyone who knows my sister, Cheryl, oughtta have a lower rating for life insurance.  I just talked to my sister til I was down to the last sliver of the last bar on my cell battery, and I could have stayed on the phone longer. 

  "... so remember that day when Mom and Dad were at your place and my baby called and asked, "Aamaw, when are you coming home?  Will you make me pancakes?"  I just don't see why a little kid would complain about getting rice krispie bars with Pepsi.  When I was a kid I'd have killed for a breakfast like that.  But are these kids grateful?"

  I was telling her about the new church and the new Bible study group and all the new activities in my life.  ((I've taken a liking to living on the edge.  For example: Tuesday night I'll be bowling with the boss, and I'm taking Michael and Tucker.))  SO there's this one more group I've been asked to join.  It's called Women of Courage and it's a group for single moms.  I visited them on Mother's Day weekend and it really is an awesome group.  But they have these ... rules.

  You have to be working, trying to improve your financial standing, not dating anyone, diligent in disciplining your children ... and you have to promise to feed them nutritious meals.  I was doing okay until I got to that one.  I looked over at Tucker who was totally enjoying his frito-chili-pie and I realized that this MIGHT be the group for me to skip.  At least for tomorrow.

  I already joined a Bible study group.  And the material looks to be awesome.  It's a study written by Beth Moore.  Beth is an interesting person.  She grew up in Arkadelphia which is just a few miles down the road from where I grew up in Malvern.  We have a lot of shared experiences and are the same age.  I bought the video set and studied the first material that Beth Moore authored for LifeWay and it was an awesome study.  (it's called "A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place" - it's still available and I highly recommend it.)

  The new study is called "The Patriarchs" and I expect another fascinating study.  For people who have an ... unholy ... reverence for "scripture" The Patriarchs are a call to reality.  These people who are described as the family from whom God would make a nation and reveal SPIRIT to the world ... these people were the most dysfunctional people in any body of literature anywhere.  From drunken debauchery, lying, theft, polygamous marriages, incest, murder, ... have I left anything out?  These were not the kind of people you'd want living next door.  But these are the chosen people. 

  Kind of makes me feel like if God could see a way to get things done with that crowd, maybe I'm not a lost cause either.  It's an interesting group of women who've come together for this study.  Mostly they are much younger in faith than I am.  Some of them only found their way into the church in the last year or two.  All but two or three of them weren't sure where to find the Bible verses under discussion.  None of them have the "head knowledge" that I bring.  And it makes me feel ... odd. 

  There are a lot of ways in which I envy them.  They seem so innocent.  They are all so sure that if they read the book every day, and come to church on Sunday that bad things won't happen to them.  I could tell them that bad things WILL happen.  And the bad things will be bad enough that some of them will think that God doesn't love them, never loved them.  And they will be angry.  Some of them will walk out and never come back, because finding God isn't like finding a magical teflon shield - no matter how much warm and fuzzy they feel right now. 

  But some of them will find their way through, and find their way back. 

  Some of them will be like my sister.  Coming to terms with being a Pepsi and rice krispie Mom in a whole wheat and yogurt world.  Some of them will be just like her as she's trying to find her way through a minefield of health problems and enough life issues that she could share them around and still have a plateful.  And if they are lucky, they will find their way back because they will have discovered that one of the names of God means "laughter".  And they will know the lesson of the Patriarchs.  God doesn't waste a lot of time with the people who don't have need.  God shows up where things are a mess. 

  At least, that's the way I see it. 

   

  • 11:03 pm
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