Tina Fey's Prayer for her Daughter

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Crap. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

Ever Feel Like This?

Last night, one of our college friends fathers died after going in for a general surgical procedure.

Just really an unexpected blow.

It's a real ding dong dandy. But not so dandy.

We'd like for the hits to cease for a little while.

But I've been reminded lately that God is not to be found in our circumstances like a giant Magic 8 Ball. Often I believe I can read how pleasing my life is or isn't to God by my circumstances (like reading tea leaves or something). If things are good, then I'm on solid ground. If bad, then I need to shake things up until they get better. But I'm learning you can't just grind out life working harder until it gets better.

These things are going to keep coming. That is life.

Someone else is GOING to die.

Someone else is GOING to lose their job.

Someone else is GOING to get married and have great joy.

So have I. I am going to experience great highs and great lows in my life. Who is God going to be in the midst of these things to me?

God doesn't say anything on the topic except this:

He just says..."I AM."

He just wants me to open my hands and take what he is trying to place into them in the midst of whatever is going on-good or bad.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

My life isn't a Magic 8 Ball that I can read how pleasing my life is or isn't to God by my circumstances either. I'm just trying to open my hands and see how God wants to fill them.

Read This Morning

I don't often do this, but it penetrated me so deeply this morning...

"I confess that I sometimes feel so inadequate to meet the crowd of needs that surrounds me. Like that little boy with the lunch basket (John 6), I feel that the loaves I have are so small and the fish, so few. How far will they go among so many?

And yet I know that you manifest power through the weak things of this world.

You used a barren couple past the age of childbearing to create a nation as populous as the sand on the seashore. You used young shepherd with a slingshot to slay a giant. You used a poor little boy with five flat loaves of coarsely ground barley bread and a couple of small fish to feed thousands.

Help me to see, Lord, that this is how you characteristically work.

Help me to see that I don't need the adequate bank account Philip recommended or the abundant assets Andrew hinted at. All I need is to place what I have in your hands like that little boy did.

Give me the faith to realize that you will bless what I give, no matter how small the loaves or how few the fish. No matter how meager the time or the talents or the treasures I place in your hands, you will multiply them.

I don't have much, Lord, but I give you what I have. Take my coarsely ground life and the small skills that accompany it. Take them in your hands. Lord. Bless them. Multiply them. Use them for your glory and for the good of others.

Help me to realize that you are the true bread of life. Whenever pangs of hunger grab at my soul, help me to see that the bread in other windows-no matter how seductive to the eye or sweet to the taste-is not what I should be eating. Train my spiritual palate to long for you. And teach me that you are my daily bread and all the bread I will ever need.

Lord Jesus, I have a friend who has never tasted such bread. Her name is __________. She has sampled from life's smorgasboard, tasted from all that life has to offer. But she is starved for something more. Starved for love. For acceptance. For forgiveness. For meaning and purpose.

Help me to lead her to you, Jesus. Prepare her heart so that I might be, as someone once said, merely one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

--Ken Gire
Moments with the Savior
p. 170-171

My Sweet Little Angel

Tonight, we sat down to eat dinner and we were all digging in and Asher just looked at us and said, "STOP! We have to pray!" So we joined hands and Matt asked Asher to give the blessing. So Asher held Lucy's hand, bowed his head and said, "God, thank you for this food. Amen." Then, looking very pleased with himself, sat back down and ate his dinner.
We were so in love with him!
The same child woke up from his nap yesterday and decided he didn't want to poo in his diaper and so he took it off and pooped on his floor. In three piles. Thankfully, I was running errands and so Matt had to clean it up. Cause I might have puked on my child otherwise.

Seriously.

Update on Nate

Jeannie emailed me a little while ago and said that Nate woke up in the middle of the night due to his back pain. He is going to the hospital right now for a bone scan to see if he has a tumor, fracture or infection. They want to schedule an MRI for the next day or so. If that can't be done, they will admit Nate in order to get an in-patient MRI. I know that this is really scary for Jeannie, Kelly, Watts and most importantly Nate. I can't imagine going through this with Asher. Please pray for them and I will update you as we get news. Thanks!

Happiness Project

One of my favorite blogs these days is www.happiness-project.com and the woman who writes the blog put up this post a few months ago about controlling or dealing with your anger. Now I know that none of us likes to admit that we get angry (or just how often we get angry) but I just read the tips and I think that they are extraordinarily useful and as soon as Matt gets back in town, I am going to try and put them into action with him in particular. And I will start with everyone else immediately!

"One of my worst faults is my quick temper. I’ve been working hard to control my anger—by not expressing it, or even better, not feeling it.
The problem with that familiar advice about “counting to 10” is that I can never remember to do it. Here are some strategies that do work for me, when I manage to use them.

1. Don’t give in to my anger. Many people believe in the “catharsis hypothesis” and think that expressing anger is healthy-minded and relieves their feelings. Not so. Studies show that expressing anger only aggravates it. I’ve certainly found this to be true; once I get going, I can whip myself into a fury. It’s better to stay calm.

2. Let the sun go down on my anger. I tend to get irritated with the Big Man at night, probably because I’m tired. Now I force myself to wait until the next day to berate him about this or that. And the next morning, my anger is completely gone.

3. Accept blame. I hate being in the wrong, and often snap back when people find fault with something I’ve done. Now I really try to pause to ask myself, “Am I in the wrong?” and to respond with gentleness.

4. Ask: “Am I improving the situation?” This works especially well with the Big Girl. If I get angry with her, she has a complete melt-down. It’s unpleasant, but her reactions have sure helped me get better control of myself. Now, when I have the urge to snap, I think, “Is this going to help the situation?” And the answer is always NO.

5. Find “an area of refuge.” I lifted this phrase from a sign near an elevator at Yale Law School—it struck me as funny. Research shows that when people’s thoughts are unoccupied, brooding sets in. So I try to “find an area of refuge” in my mind; that is, to dwell on serene thoughts instead of brooding and fussing. Along the same lines…

6. Distract myself. Indulging in “overthinking”—dwelling on trifling slights, unpleasant encounters, and sadness—leads to bad feelings. I can enrage myself by obsessing on some petty annoyance. In what the Big Man calls the “downward spiral,” I begin to rail about every negative episode in recent memory. Now I deliberately distract my thoughts, usually by thinking about some writing question.

7. Ask: am I mad at myself? Martha Beck makes the interesting argument that we brood on other people’s faults when we subconsciously identify with them; what we condemn in other people is what we condemn in ourselves. So now when someone is making me angry, I ask myself, “Can I accuse myself of the same fault?” In a telling bit of psychology, I’ve noticed Beck’s observation to be very true for other people, but not so much for myself! Do I suspect a bit of self-denial might be going on…?

8. Laugh. Humor is the answer to everything (humor and exercise). Now when I absolutely can’t hold back my anger, I at least try to insert a joke, or make fun of myself, or assume a lighter tone as I rant on. So instead of sniping out a comment like “Can you PLEASE just answer my emails so I can deal with these horrible logistics issues?!” I might say something like, “I’m thinking of getting a homing pigeon that will fly to your office and rap on your window with its beak until you send me an answer.” The added advantage of this approach is that no matter how the other person responds, I feel less angry and more light-hearted when I adopt a lighter tone."

And finally my own tip...pray for the person that you are angry with. Something changes when you lift that person in prayer and all of the sudden you are more compassionate and caring. You might even see things from their perspective and stop being angry with them.
I am going to try to do this today. Anybody else?

Sweet Baby Nate

Well, he's not so much a baby since he's two. But his mom, my sister-in-law Jeannie called tonight to ask for some prayers for Nate because he has been complaining of back pain for about two months. They took him to the doctor and x-rays revealed a pretty significant curviture in his spine. Since two-year-olds don't have back pain typically, there are alot of alarms going off in the doctor's mind and in Jeannie and Kelly's minds. The first thing that they are going to do is physical therapy for a few weeks to see if little Nate just tweaked a muscle in his back and has been over compensating for the pain. If that is the case, the curviture should correct itself through the PT. If it doesn't correct itself, then it sets a whole other set of wheels in motion. We are praying (and would love for you to join in) that this is the case. Thanks for praying!