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This post of Molly’s is an absolutely awesome account of how heartbreaking it is – in every good way – to invest in the life of a child.
It’s so much more than sponsorship. It’s relationship.
And if you don’t read anything else today, take the time to read Molly’s post.
Please and thank you.
photo by Keely Scott
Since I was in Nashville from Thursday until today, my fellas decided that they’d take advantage of my absence and head to the beach for a few days. I didn’t mention their little father/son trip earlier because I am wary of announcing to the internet that HEY, OUR HOUSE IS EMPTY, but now we’re all home again and everybody’s safe and sound. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, Ring of Thieves!
Anyway, I have started about four different posts over the last 24 hours (more Mexican food misadventures with Melanie, links to a couple of great posts from Compassion El Salvador, last week’s episode of “The Office,” and this one), and I’ll try to get to all of that other stuff eventually. But for the last hour I’ve been looking at all of the beach pictures and thinking about how much I love water, sand and sky. It makes me all weepy, really. Too much beauty for my heart to take. And when you add my favorite people in the whole world to the mix, well, I get a little captivated.
I KNOW.
Before the boys left last week, I asked Alex if there was something special that the two of us could do when he got home again. He said, “Let’s snuggle up and read books, Mama,” and so tonight, about 30 minutes after he walked in the door, that is exactly what we did. We snuggled up and read a chapter of “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.” It was delightful.
But before we started reading, I asked Alex to tell me about his favorite part of the trip. Without missing a beat he said, “Just getting to spend all of that time with Daddy!”
It made my heart smile.
Have a great week, everybody.
Well, I missed “The Office” tonight because I’m in Nashville. And I guess that last sentence sort of makes it sound like Nashville is the land that TV forgot, but certainly that is not the case. It’s just that I didn’t get to watch TV tonight because I was doing fun stuff like visiting with Sister and picking up Melanie at the airport and then screeching into the LifeWay parking lot about two minutes before Travis‘ worship concert was scheduled to start.
So it wasn’t the usual Dunder-Mifflin hijinks, but it was definitely good times.
And by the way, Melanie thinks it’s BITTERLY COLD here in Nashville. Apparently life in south Texas has ruined her in terms of having a tolerance for any temperature below sixty degrees. After the concert we walked outside to the car, and she practically trotted across the parking lot because she was so desperate to escape the thirty-five seconds of chilly air that she had to endure. When we got in the car I looked at the thermostat, and it was 46 degrees outside.
Or as you northerners like to call it: spring.
If this keeps up tomorrow we may have to find a Burlington Coat Factory so that we can buy Mel some sort of quilted down jacket.
Anyhoo, now we’re back at our hotel, and I’m checking email and watching SportsCenter. I don’t really care about SportsCenter, mind you, but I’m sitting on the bed and the remote is across the room on the desk and, well, it’s just so far.
(It just occurred to me that if you could somehow meld Melanie’s brain and my brain right this very second, you’d wind up with a very cold lazy person. And for some reason that makes me laugh.)
(However, I feel like my temporary bout of laziness is kind of okay since I’ve been up since dark thirty this morning and started off my day by trying to load two elderly dogs in my car for a trip to the vet, and I was only able to coax the lab into the car by encouraging her to eat a renegade sour cream and onion Pringle that Alex left on the floorboard after his last soccer game, so I might not have a great deal of PRESENCE OF MIND at this juncture. It’s been sort of a long day.)
(The good news is that everything strikes me as completely hysterical right now. Even SportsCenter. AND THAT IS NO SMALL FEAT.)
Anyway, I hopped on here to tell y’all two things:
1) Tomorrow (Friday) I’m going to be spending the day at LifeWay for the Women’s Leadership Forum, and there’s going to be a live stream of the festivities running pretty much non-stop. You can check out the schedule of events over at AllAccess.
And.
2) The Compassion bloggers have done an incredible job this week – and this post of Shaun’s is a must-read.
I’m going to bed now. I fully expect to dream about elderly dogs who eat Pringles in the bitter cold while they watch SportsCenter and sing worship songs.
I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
My two fellas weren’t home this afternoon, and since there was a little bit of a chill in the air what with the non-stop rain that shows no sign of letting up in this lifetime, I decided to grab the laptop and stick my legs under the covers so that I could stay warm while I checked the email and the Twitter and the internet whathaveyous.
And y’all. OH my word. I woke up TWO HOURS LATER with no idea who I was or where I was or what I had done to deserve THE BLISSFUL, UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP OF ANGELS. Now granted, I’m sure I’ll now be awake until 4 in the morning and therefore have to spend the rest of the week straightening out my sleeping schedule, but it was totally worth it because did I mention the BLISSFUL, UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP OF ANGELS?
Divine.
(That reminds me. Every once in awhile when I’m tucking in Alex for the night, he’ll look up at me and say, “Mama, I LOOOOOVE to sleep!”)
(And it makes me so happy.)
Anyway, there were two things today (other than All The Sleep) that just delighted me to no end, and I will now share them in order of occurence because all that rest has my brain feeling very logical and structured.
Well.
Before my nap I was clicking around on the Entertainment Weekly site, and I saw a link to the video for Kris Allen’s new single.
Remember Kris Allen? The one I sort of adored during this past season of “American Idol”? HE’S DARLIN’.
Well, listen to this goodness:
Isn’t that the most fun? Except for the annoying ad at the end?
Then.
Later this afternoon my husband and I were talking about a whole bunch of nothing (IMAGINE THAT), and he said, “Hey. Tell Daphne that I saw a billboard today that says, THE McRIB IS BACK.”
It cracked me up that he remembered that my friend Daphne has a fierce and undying devotion to the McRib sandwich, but it didn’t really surprise me since Daph’s fondness for McRibs is just one of the many things that we love about her. She has been a fan of McRibs since college, and I even tried a McRib with her one time in the spirit of sharing in her joy. Unfortunately, the McRib did not win me over. Even still, I wholeheartedly support Daph in her pursuit of her favorite McDonald’s specialty item (IS THAT AN OXYMORON?), and at least once a year I will call her and say, “HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIGNS?”
Anyway, all of our McRib-related focus today has made me think about foods I enjoy that other people might not find to be quite as delicious. I’m not talking about, you know, STEAK, because just about any meat-eating person would tell you that steak = GOOOOD. I was thinking more along the lines of stuff you might find at a fast food restaurant.
For the longest time I couldn’t think of a thing, but then I remembered that every once in awhile – maybe once every two years – I HAVE TO HAVE some fried fish from Captain D’s. Or as we like to call it: The Cap’n.
And I guess that’s not really a strange preference, but it just feels sort of unusual to me because it’s not something I want all the time. I mean, I’m up for Popeye’s or Sonic pretty much whenever, but a two-piece meal from The Cap’n – well, that is a spesh-ul occasion.
I’m also a sucker for a Zensation Zalad (yes. I totally used the Zs.) from Zaxby’s. They’re uzually available in the zummertime.
Any unique fast food preferences with y’all? Feel free to share. After all, I’ll probably be awake and probably doing laundry until 3:30 or 4, so I’ll have all the time in the world to read about how you too love the McRib. Or how you like to stack an iced chocolate Krispy Kreme donut between two original glazed donuts so that you can make a little donut sandwich in the privacy of your home.
There’s no condemnation here, my friends. After all, I believe I just admitted to a fondness for The Cap’n.
Hope y’all have had a great Tuesday!
It’s been almost two years since I went to Uganda.
TWO YEARS.
The memories from that trip are still so fresh in my mind – and you know what? I’m just as blown away by the work Compassion is doing as I was when I came home. There’s not a doubt in my mind that our family will be involved with Compassion for the rest of our lives. We’re committed to our sponsor child for the long haul.
Since the Uganda trip (did I mention that it was almost TWO YEARS AGO?), Compassion has taken two other incredible blogger trips to the Dominican Republic and India. Children’s lives are forever changed as a result. And this week – starting today, in fact – there’s a group of Compassion bloggers in El Salvador.
My wordiness is tempting me to get all long-winded at this point, but I’m going to fight the wordiness for once. Oh yes I am. Because I want to encourage you to give yourself the gift of following the Compassion bloggers this week. Read their posts. Follow them . Look at their pictures. See the faces of the sweet children they meet. Consider .
I’m sure that over the next few nights I’ll find myself waiting for the next post from Kelly or Heather or Molly or Keely or Patricia or Shaun. I just cannot wait to see what God does in and through them so that children can be released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
And I guess if you get right down to it, the bottom line is this: I may not be in El Salvador.
But I wouldn’t miss this trip for the world.
Dear Internet,
Are your kids / nieces / nephews / godchildren / siblings CUCKOO SLAP-DAB CRAZY over these little dealios?
Because in our house? And at our school? And in our town?
The kids – boys and girls alike – are CUCKOO SLAP-DAB CRAZY over the animal bracelets.
Beats anything I’ve ever seen, this fascination with GLORIFIED RUBBER BANDS.
That is all.
Love,
Me
p.s. CUCKOO.
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