A New Pledge...

With fondest thanks to my darling Farmwife!

She related something she heard on Joel Osteen this morning while she was home with 2 sick babies...and it really made me think...

His words this morning were along the lines of we need to live life, not endure it. FarmWife went on to ask her own questions about her particular situation, and I started thinking, as I sit with Captain Chaos snuggled up against my side, and Tiny Princess asleep in her crib upstairs, BB outside mowing our lawn, that I too need to seek ways and pledge each day to live life, not just endure it.

I don't often struggle with things, but this has been huge for me since about 18 months ago. Sometime, during the holiday season, when we were in Oregon at MIL and FIL's for 3 weeks, away from my family, with my first child, on his first Christmas, and it was terrible and difficult, and I hated every minute away because MIL has started enduring (I hadn't realized that was the appropriate way to say it until just today) and had let go of all the family traditions that BB remembers. He doesn't have many memories of doing fun things with his family growing up, but after spending so much time with MIL and FIL that Christmas I understand why. They didn't do anything. They were so busy working and making things nice for BB that they didn't stop and do things like take him for ice cream just because it was 2 in the afternoon...the only stories they relate about BB growing up are the ones that humiliate him and degrade him.

I know that my family makes fun of me and the way I was as a child and teenager, but I also know that I have stories of how I was the one who would pick up Grandma and take her to lunch and to get her hair done, and to do her shopping after she came to live in Colorado. How I was the one who was there right away when Mom had her neck surgery, and the one who wouldn't leave while Dad was recovering from his fall down the stairs that resulted in tearing every possible muscle and tendon and ligament around his knee. How I am the one to whom someone very close to me came out...how my friends call me when they need someone to open up to about their hurts...

If I can be there for that part of my family, why is it so hard for me to remain engaged in Captain Chaos' daily life? Why can't I take him outside in his swim trunks and a swim diaper to play in his wading pool when he asks to go outside? Why has he only had 3 bike rides on his tricycle? Why haven't I taken out his crayons and markers and let him go to town with his giant coloring book, or the stack of paper that we can't use in the printer? Why haven't I let him play with his paint-with-water book that Grandma sent him for his birthday? Why do I look forward DAILY to the time during the afternoon when Captain Chaos and Tiny Princess are sleeping at the same time? Why is it so stinking important to me to erase all marks left on my doors, oven, dishwasher, and television left by Captain Chaos' sticky fingers? Why must everything be put in its place as soon as the kids are sleeping?

Today, here and now, I resolve to live my life, and provide an example of what it means to live life, and to live it in the manner God would have me live it...