Life is short...

I wrote what follows a few hours ago - I'm not sure what it is that set me off and got me so hot...I considered not posting it - just hit delete - but I think I'll go ahead and post it....maybe others will stop and say "hmmmm" like I did....

I'm sure that all of you, like me, have heard the saying "Life is short..." I know I hear it almost every day and I'm sure many others are nodding their heads and saying "yep - heard it!". It occurred to me the other day, however, that most of the times when you hear someone say it (okay, I admit it - or say it myself), it's usually a very selfish thing that follows. Like, Life is short, eat dessert first. Or Life is too short to not take that vacation we want. My thought was...why don't we ever say what life is REALLY too short for? Life is too short to spend keeping up with the Jones' (sorry Mary!)...or Life is too short NOT to praise God for every day you can wake up healthy and happy. I look at all these natural disasters - Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the earthquake in Pakistan, etc, etc, etc - and I think about these folks - just like us - who now have nothing. How do they feel when someone walks past them, and says Man, life is just to short for (use your imagination here). They now have no home, no belongings, no money, no food, no water...they may have lost loved ones or beloved pets...I look around at the small apartment my husband and son and I share - the one that I have complained about and huffed about and whined about - and I drop to my knees and give thanks to God that we have what we have...every morning I look at that beautiful mountain (and on days like today, with the seasons first snow - it is breathtaking!) and I say a prayer: Thank you Jesus for opening my eyes and letting me see the everyday miracles you give us - Thank you for keeping us safe and healthy - Thank you for giving us a roof over our heads and food on the table. I will think twice before I say Life is too short again. I will get down off my soapbox now.

Through The Eyes Of A Child

My son is three. Sometimes I feel like he will never be out of the "terrible twos", but sometimes he absolutely astounds me with the depth of his understanding. He is without a doubt one of the most incredible miricles in my life.
As a new Christian, I have been trying to raise him to know and love Jesus, but sometimes I feel very inadequate. How can I teach him about God when I'm still so new to it myself?
One of the things I have done is started praying with him every night before we go to sleep. He didn't really seem to get into it for a while, but the last couple of nights he has wanted to do the praying himself. Last night, he brought tears to my eyes with what he said...not because it was the "perfect prayer" but because I realized that he had been listening to me as I prayed and he had understood what I was saying! Not only that, but he showed a level of comprehension that just brought me such joy! Here was his prayer in a nutshell:

Dear God, please look over Mama, and Daddy, and James and Meaghan and Grandma, and Jim and Polly (friends of ours whom I've been praying for each night) and our family, and my teachers and my kids (his friends at school) and the people in the big storm (we've prayed for the hurricane victims), and please let me sleep without bad dreams (something I prayed for him after he watched a scary movie and couldn't sleep one night) and let Mama be able to sleep too (I had a very bad night the other night - I didn't even know he noticed), and thank you for a good day - Amen. Then he had to repeat it just to make sure.

Now, granted, it wasn't quite that clear - he had a lot of other "look overs" in there that I couldn't quite make out, but I thought one of them was to look over Winne the Pooh...he had just watched the heffalump movie...
The point is, all this time I've been thinking that I was dragging him to pray with me and that he wasn't getting anything out of it - and last night I realized that I was wrong - he was getting it! He understood, not only what I was saying, but Whom I was saying it to! My heart was about ready to burst. By the way - he slept all night - didn't wake up once with a nightmare. :-) His prayer was simple, honest and childlike...and I felt the amazing Love of God right there with us last night.

As my wonderful friend Paulette would say - God is still on the Throne - and He shows me in so many ways His Love and Grace.

What is dysfunctional?

I have a great family. When I was in high school, I used to tell everyone that I had an Ozzie and Harriet family. Then I went through the phase of believing that no one had a more dysfunctional family than I did. I finally settled down to realize that in this world, everyone's family has some dysfunction. What really matters is how you deal with it. My parents were what is referred to as "functional alcoholics". That means that although they drank a lot, they were never abusive or neglectful. They loved us kids, and we came first in everything they did. But they would be asleep in their recliners by 8 pm almost every night. My Dad had health problems, and died almost 10 years ago. He was very sick while I was in High School, but he and my Mom never missed an event, never hesitated to get me where I needed to go. And although we didn't have much money, I wanted for nothing. I think it was their love and support that made me not really want the "high priced" life that some of my school chums had. That stuff never really mattered to me.
My father fought in WWII. He was in the army and was in Africa and Italy. I used to believe that, since he wasn't in Germany or France, that he hadn't done or seen much fighting. In doing research I now realized how wrong I was. But he never talked about it. So many of our Veterans keep all that happened to them buried inside. My Dad met my Uncle Herb while "over there", and they became such good friends that when they came home, my Uncle brought my Dad to meet his family. I love the story of my Dad walking in the door, seeing my mother for the first time and picking her up and twirling her around...It was love at first sight. They were both engaged to be married to other people, but broke off their respective engagements and eloped. Their love for each other was wonderful - but extremely hard to copy..
They built the home we lived in by themselves, and had three children - two boys (Hal and Lance) and a girl (Darcie) - each just a couple years apart. They had the perfect "average" family. Five years after my sister was born they had my brother Kevin. He was referred to as the "oops" child. Seven years after Kevin, I came along, and my mother liked to tell my that if Kevin was an "oops", I was an "oh, my God!". Some people would object to being called an "oops" or an "oh, my God", but it was always said with a warm smile and a sense that they were so happy and excited to have such unexpected surprises.
The only grandparent I ever knew was my Grandpa Gerber. He was a crotchety old man by the time I knew him, but I loved him a great deal. He always had candy corn for me and called my his "chickie". I was seven when he passed away. I attended the funeral, and all I remember about it was that he looked peaceful. My Dad's dad had passed away when my Dad was young, and I don't know anything about him. Both of my Grandma's passed away before I was born, and all I have are stories about them....I really wish I had had the opportunity to meet my Grandma Hazel, our house was right down the road from her and my siblings tell great stories about her - especially her cooking and her smiles.
My oldest brother, Hal, was 19 years older than me...He joined the Navy the year I was born (I try not to take that personally!) and went to Vietnam. Like my Dad, he doesn't say much about what happened over there, but I know that it really screwed him up. Despite our age difference, we are very close.
My brother Lance is probably the only sibling that I don't have as good a relationship as I'd like to with. He's had a crazy life, and I'd really love to get to know him better, it just seems like we are oil and water. He never approves of anything I do, and I always feel like I'm on the defensive when I talk to him. My Mom says it's because we are too much alike...I don't know about that! He recently suffered the tragedy of losing his wife to cancer. She was more sister to me than sister-in-law, and I can't even imagine - even though I lost my second husband to cancer - what he is going through. I wish we were closer so that I could tell him that I am here for him.
My Sister Darcie Jean (I'm one of few people in this world who can call her DJ) is probably my best friend, although she has many troubles in her life. She had a baby at 16, married a jerk of an abuser, whom I still have the occasional nightmare about for her (but that marriage did produce my second nephew!), and finally met my brother in law Dave, who is a great guy. They don't have the perfect marriage, but they work together to keep things going.
My brother Kevin is really the only sibling I literally "grew up with". He and I fought as siblings do, but at seven years older than me, we really didn't have a lot to do together. I used to follow he and his friends around like a puppy dog. But they were always good to me. One of his best friends, Dana, was my first crush. Kevin, too, had difficulties in life, but I'm happy to say that he has also found real love at last and seems happy.
I also have had a crazy life. I have been married, divorced, married again, widowed, and finally, married again to the man I believe to be my soul-mate. He has given me unconditional love, and given me a beautiful son as well and two wonderful step-children. But even beyond that, he showed me the way to Jesus and that is a gift I can never repay. I think I have found a taste of what my parents had.
The greatest tragedy my family has ever known is the death of my father. We were such a close, happy family. But after my father died, almost 10 years ago, we have all sort of fallen apart. My dad was the glue that held us all together. My mother, who is coming to visit me soon (STRESS!), misses my father every day. She is much stronger than any of us gave her credit for being.
So I ask you, what is dysfunction? How can I say that my family is dysfunctional, when we all love and support each other and had such a loving upbringing? Just because my parents were alcoholics, does that make us dysfunctional? Because my siblings had their own problems, does that make us dysfunctional? I firmly believe that dysfunction has become the "norm" with our generation. I think we need to find a new definition for that word.
This blog is very fragmented, but it's stuff that I feel compelled to write - I'm considering writing a story about my family...but I don't know that anyone would want to read it.