A Contrast

I was struck this morning by a verse in Psalm 31.  It's a real contrast of the world's solution to hurts and problems and the Lord's solution.

Verse 6 says: "I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord."

When hardship comes, when our feelings are hurt, the norm seems to be to air our feelings and get some sympathy--especially on social media.  It's not wrong to be transparent and honest about our feelings, but all too often, we're looking for the 'lying vanities' of nice people to soothe our pains away.  People will tell us everything will be okay, people will tell us nice things about ourselves, but that's not the best solution.

As for me, I'd rather trust in the Lord and bare myself to Him, for as verse 7 goes on to say, He knows my soul in adversity.  No one understands me and my troubles like the Lord.

I also want to be the kind of person that doesn't feel obligated to practice social niceities, but has genuine love and counsel for those who are hurting.

It's been a great reminder to be real, and take my troubles to the Lord!

Seeing the Big Picture

I am slowly making my way through Philip Yancey's book, Where Is God When It Hurts.  This is a real mulling-over book, because much as we would all like it, there are no easy answers about pain and its role in the lives of so many we know.  Pain is not always a consequence for wrongdoing or some great cosmic joke, and many times we don't know the reason for it or the many reasons are complex.  A trite, holy answer will almost never suffice.

Our response to the difficulties in our lives seem to really determine our success in managing them.  In the midst of pain and problems, it's often hard to see His purpose.  I found this quote to be a real encouragement to be patient and wait to see how He will use hardship:

"The symphony he is composing includes minor chords, disonance, and tiresome fugal passages.  But those of us who follow his conducting through early movements will, with renewed strength, someday burst into song."

God does love us immensely, but His purposes are not the same as ours.  Yancey earlier in the book made the point that we often view God as a sort of benevolent grandfather rather than a heavenly father.  Seeing my parents and in-laws as grandparents, and being a parent myself, that was a very vivid illustration for me.  We often feel sorry that God isn't giving us more and more good things and pleasure, but He knows us like no other.  He'd rather give us the best things--whether it be through good times or bad--than let us settle for the comforts of ease all the time.

After A Rough Winter...

Just about everyone I know has had a brutal winter, and it's been the same here in Cincinnati.  This morning's springly snowfall reminded me of Cara's reaction to the heavier snowfall and subzero temperatures we experienced on the first few days of spring.

She woke up as normal, peeked out the curtains of our living room, saw the snow, rolled her eyes, sighed in a magnificently dramatic fashion and said,

"Ugh!  If this is spring, I'm ready for summer!"

What a perfect description of everyone's feelings.  When she's right, she's right.

What a Girl Really Wants

It's been a pretty long day here.  We skidaddled fairly early in order to take our ITBS practice tests with a friend, only to return to the school day we had missed.  Before I knew what happened, it was late afternoon and the big kids were off to do more interesting things.  It caught my attention to hear Allie talking rather excitedly from the next room over.

With Scott and Cara playing outside and Meg snoozing in her boudoir, I peered into the living room to investigate what exactly Allie was doing.  She sat perched on top of the couch, curtains pulled around each side of her chubbiness, gesturing and pointing during her chat.  I watched a little, amused by her conversation with her unknown friend.

"Den we can go outside and pway together.  It will be so much fun today!" she said from the drapery.

I interrupted, "I'm glad you want to play, Allie.  We will have a fun day today, won't we?".

She turned to look at me with a grave expression.  Apparently I was not the friend she had in mind for this thrilling afternoon.  She told me kindly that she wasn't talking to me, then settled back into her perch to continue.

A big sigh, "Daddy, you're my best fwiend.  When you get home soon, den we can go pway some more, okay?".  She then told him about all she did today before climbing down to amuse herself.

All a girl really wants on a sunny afternoon is her best friend, her daddy, home to share the day with her.

Word of the Week

I confess, I was feverishly seeking out a word of the week with a more autumnal meaning, but apparently there are very few synonyms for autumn.  You have fall, harvest, equinox...and not much else.  Oh well, so much for an inspiring vocabulary this fall.  I guess we'll have to adapt our weekly word to fit into our harvestly mold.  This week's word is:

dapple: n. a spot or mottled marking, usually occurring in clusters.

One can also use the verb form of the word, meaning 'to mark or become marked with spots.'  If any of us ever contract the chicken pox, I'll make sure to use the verb form.

On to today's sentences.

The air was dappled with color as the nippy wind blew up through the large, leafy tree.   (This has been happening all week.  We've enjoyed watching the leaves fly through the air during school time every day!)

Cynthia woke, stretched, then stared in horror as she spotted the fresh dapple of acne, prominently adorning her nose.  (Alas, poor Cynthia will spend the next hour of her existence trying to camoflauge the dapple, which will only irritate both her skin and her siblings, who also need the bathroom.  Thank goodness we're not at that stage of parenting yet!)

Add your dappled sentence to the mix!

Word of the Week: It has returned

Well, it may be more realistic of me to create a word of the month section, but I'll give a weekly post a go.  While recently rereading some of my previous postings, I remembered how incredibly fun it was to do the word of the week, as well as how useful it was.  In fact, it was just the other day that Andy asked me to elaborate on the word schadenfreude.

The word of this week is 

crepuscule:  [kri-PUHS-kyool] n. twilight, dusk.

Gaze with me through the crepuscule at Mount Vesuvius.  This painting is by Abraham Pether.  It's called, A View Of Mount Vesuvius Erupting.  It would have gotten your attention more if crepuscule were included in the title, but after all, Pether was a painter, not a grammarian.

This strikes me as a very fitting addition for this autumnal week.  Besides, who isn't excited by a word that has a guttural burst of <<PUHS!>> in its midsection?

Okay, enough with the abdominal puns.  I promise to move on.

There actually is another pronunciation, but it isn't nearly as fun.  Perhaps the other pronunciation would sound a little less scabby, but nevertheless...

Here we go for the sentences.  Have I mentioned that my kids look forward to my sentences with each new spelling list?  That's why I can no longer deprive my loyal audience.  Stop laughing, both of you.

She peered into the crepuscule, hoping to see the silhouette of her beloved's car humming into the drive.   (Yes, many days this is quite true, and on a particularly harsh day at home with the children could possibly involve a slight twitch and strange look about the eyes.)

The crepuscule greeted them briskly, as they closed the door on the poor teenage babysitter's silent screams.  (This one doesn't usually happen actually.  The screams are usually excited child screams whenever we leave.  Little do they know, we are more excited than they are.)

Baby in the Baseline

(A story for my Scott, to commemorate the many evenings at the ballpark with the little girls in tow!)

It was early in the evening's game, and I was all covered up, from head to toe with my catcher's pads.  I creaked along to home plate, where I bent over, ready to catch the first ball headed my way. I could hear my sisters nearby, giggling and singing to Mom.

Strike one.

I threw the ball back to the pitcher and knelt down again in the dust.

Strike two.

The ball nearly hit me this time.  I adjusted my mask and got ready for the next pitch.

Crack!  My mask flew off and I shielded my eyes against the sun.  Phew!  It was only a foul ball.  I grinned over to third base where my good friend Austin was ready to defend...and I saw something I never thought I'd see when I came to the field tonight.  There was a baby--my baby sister--crawling quickly to third base!

The pitcher threw the ball too high but I hardly noticed, because I was watching my baby crawl past Austin's waiting glove and crouched legs.

"Ma ma!  Ma ma! Ma maaaa!"  she squealed.

I was so scared that someone would run over her I began to move forward and landed squarely in the path of the batter's bat.  Onto my helmet it clunked, knocking me right off my feet.  I saw the warmly glowing sun seep between the cage of my mask and felt the dust settle on my face and teeth.  The coach was shouting to me, "Are you okay?".

"Yes."  I answered, as I stood up.  Then I remembered what had frightened me enough to walk straight into the batter--my sister!  Where was she?

I could hear her groaning from somewhere on the field, "MMMMmmmmmm.   Ga.  Ga.  Ga.   MMMmmmmm...".  I jumped up and squinted at Austin on third.  No baby.  He looked back at me, shaking his head, wondering why I kept staring at him.  I tried to mouth, baby.  BA-BY!

"I'm not a baby, Scott!"  he grumbled to himself.  He kicked third base before he turned his attention back to the batter.

I felt terrible.  I hadn't meant to call my friend a baby, but where had baby Megan gone?  The groaning of before I couldn't hear any more over the noise of the cheering.  The pitcher threw another high ball.

"Where is she?"  I whispered to myself as I threw the ball back to the pitcher.  Then I spotted her again.  She had crawled over second base,  hit it two times with her chubby hand, then continued crawling toward first.

The pitcher threw a fast ball straight into the strike zone.  Just as the batter hit the ball, baby Megan tagged up on first base, laughing and blowing spit bubbles the whole time.  She sat down on first base and began to clap as the ball rolled toward her.  Bryson, who was guarding first base slammed his cleat down on the base just as Megan crawled off.  She was really crawling now.

I took of my catcher's mask and called to her, "Come here.  Come here, little Meggie."  The first base coach thought I was crazy, talking to him like that!  What he didn't know was that my little sister was crawling at top speed, heading home.

The batter was tagged out at first, thank goodness, and just before the next batter came up to the plate, Meggie planted her dust-stained knees on home plate and grabbed my legs.  She stood up and said, "Da Da Da!".  Then she screamed in happiness.  I picked her up, and the crowd cheered for the mini base runner..  Meggie began to clap for herself again and say all kinds of things I didn't understand, and the umpire yelled, "She's safe!".

Meggie liked to slap her hand on my pads, and she smiled and opened her mouth to give my nose a big, wet smooch,  "aahhh-MWAH!".  Coach came up to me and ruffled my hair.

He said with a smile, "That's the first time I've EVER seen a runner give the catcher a kiss on the nose!".

I had never seen that before either, and I hoped that I never would again!