And Now the End is Here

So, last Wednesday night was my last night as the youth director at our church. I had been at it for five years, and at my age, five years represents quite a change in the physical aspects of keeping up with a bunch of teens. I\’ve been to camp with them four times; jumped up and down with them at several hundred concerts (and spent one year with a bulging disc as a result!); shown approximately 5000 movies; bought $100,000 worth of snack foods; driven hundreds of miles to different events; etc…… I\’ve prayed with them as they made decisions for the Lord, I\’ve loved and counselled them in the Word, I\’ve prepared a gazillion Bible studies to encourage them to learn as much as they can about Jesus. I still love them and my desire to see them grow in the Lord is the same as it ever was. It was just time, and we all knew it.

In the past five years, we have had 12 teens graduate out of the youth group into the college and career age level. The numbers have fluctuated from three to 21 to eight. In all the trips we took, I never once had to bring a kid home from a group function. They knew that I loved them, but they also knew that I wouldn\’t hesitate to remove them from an event in order to ensure the pleasure of the rest of the group.

It was a good five years. I\’m thankful to have had them.

Squished in the Middle

Hubby and I watch the boys every Thursday evening while our daughter goes to night class at the community college. Tonight, we were knee-deep in homework (i hate homework!) and the phone rang. It was my mother, sounding frantic and asking me to come over and take her to the hospital. I asked her where her husband was, and she said he couldn\’t take her because he was sick himself. What was wrong with her? She was having muscle spasms all over she said. Immediately my irritated sensor kicked in. She\’s been sick with stomach virus a couple days, and I would bet every single penny I own to my name that she took something to try to stop and when it didn\’t work she took more until she\’d taken too much. It\’s her habit to do this, so I know from whence I speak on this matter.

Anyway, after I hung up, fully intending to head over there, Dave stepped in and said he\’d go, since I needed to be here with the boys. Out the door he goes. I call mama\’s house to let them know he\’s on his way to take her. By the time he got there, she had already called an ambulance, and the paramedics were working on her. Hubby followed the ambulance to the hospital and is there even as I write this. He said he\’d let me know whether I need to go over as soon as they see a doctor. He also mentioned she might have taken too much medicine and that she\’s doing a lot of complaining about the folks who are trying to help her. Hmmmm.

I sigh. It\’s part of the season of life we are in, I know. The Sandwich Generation season. Little ones needing us, and older parents needing us. Most days it\’s not a problem. Some days it\’s almost too much.

Life is what it is. You either roll with it, or you lose your mind. You know?

Papa, The \”What If\’s\” Pushed Me Out of Bed!

Why is it that the \”What If\’s\” wait until bedtime to show up? I sit in my chair and fall asleep watching t.v. I wake up to find I\’ve missed the most important last few minutes of the show and now I don\’t know if he did it or not or if he was convicted if he did it. So I drag myself to bed and IMMEDIATELY the \”What If\’s\” join me in the bed.

\”What if someone hurts one of my grandchildren?\”
\”What if one of my family members gets arrested?\”
\”What if someone steals the volleyball goal or basketball goal that we borrowed from the church?\”
\”What if someone breaks into our home?\”
\”What if one of my kids falls down the well at my mother\’s house, which is 200 miles away in another part of the state?\” –wait, that was the \”what if\’\” from 25 years ago. What are you doing in my head? Get out!

\”What if , what if, what if…?\” It finally gets so crowded in the bed with all the \”what if\’s\” wiggling around that I have to get up.

Okay, now I\’m awake. So what to do?
-Check my email.
-Read a chapter in my book.
-Plan an agenda for the meeting tomorrow night with my VBS workers.
-Consider who might be gifted enough to handle our nursery for the upcoming year.
-Stare at the room I\’m creating for my crafting adventures, and rearrange it in my head a hundred times or so.
-Pray for my grands, my kids, my precious husband. (hmmm, should have done that first!)
-Place that order for Bible study books for the youth group.
-I could iron a shirt or two… Nah. I\’d rather wrestle with the \”what if\’s\” than iron.

Listen to music. Headphones on. \”Oh, My Soul,\” by the David Crowder Band, soothes my wrestling, restless soul. Excuse me while I close my eyes for a moment to worship. Be right back.

\”Ever faithful, ever true, You are known, You never let go.
…….
Oh my soul overflows, Oh what love, Oh what love…Oh my soul fills with hope… Perfect love that never lets go.\”

You mean, seriously, I don\’t have to worry about the \”what if\’s\”? And all that other stuff, You\’ve got that under control? Forgive me, Papa, for not remembering that. The guardian/protector in me still assumes I have to fix it all alone. I guess since You have it all under control, I can get back to bed, huh?

First, I have to listen to Mahalia Jackson sing His Eye Is on the Sparrow.

Good night, friends. I\’m suddenly very sleepy.

Getting ready to begin a new personal study entitled Epic, by John Eldredge. Stay tuned in. I get all excited when the Holy Spirit teaches me stuff and I love to share!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Cybersaints

Over the years, we have made some forever friends, and many of them come from the church hubby pastored for almost nine years in Roanoke Rapids, NC. These were the kind of friends who just popped over for a visit. Sometimes they even brought with them a meal or–even better–a dessert. We studied together at the church and at home Bible studies. Our kids played and went to camp together. We had some particularly fun New Year\’s Eve services (oh, man, did we laugh!). When we moved to a new church, these friends spent two days helping us pack and driving with us to our new church in DC. They did this because they were more than just members at the church where Dave pastored; they were our dear, dear friends. When we arrived at our new home, in another state, hours away from them, they unpacked us, cried with us, and then went back to their homes. At our new church, every now and then we\’d look around and some of these precious friends would have shown up for a visit–a visit that took them four hours\’ drive to make. One day, Dave and I came home from shopping. The kids were acting really strange. All of a sudden, these guys popped out of a closet and surprised us. I was so happy, I didn\’t stop talking for —ever!

As well, we kept up with each other through the medium of emailing, naming ourselves the Cybersaints. We talked about everything in very lengthy emails back and forth. As I was cleaning out some old files this evening, I found some of those emails I had kept in hard-copy form. Looking at the dates, I could not believe how often and how MUCH we actually wrote to each other. My husband, who tends to be the insomniac in our family (tonight it is I), even wrote a drama entitled \”Insomniodrama.\” I found it in its entirety in my files tonight. I think I\’ll print it all up and bind it and send a copy to all my Cybersaint friends.

I don\’t know why or when, but over time we stopped writing to each other on a daily basis. Life happened, I guess. It wasn\’t because we don\’t all love each other, and no one got mad–at least no one stayed mad. It just happened. Now we occasionally email each other, when something really special is happening. We don\’t have our \”squantums\” anymore. (Those of you who aren\’t enlightened, that\’s a picnic.) We just recently said \”see you later\” to one of the original Cybersaints, as she stepped into her heavenly home.

Facebook helps some. A few of the Cybersaints are now on there, and we occasionally comment on each other\’s statuses or pictures we\’ve posted. But we\’re older, you know? So why isn\’t life slowing down, allowing us more time to communicate? Are we too technological all of a sudden? Is there too much to keep up with, that we don\’t keep up with what really matters? That\’s kind of a dumb question, isn\’t it? Yes, we have allowed ourselves to become too busy.

Life did happen–lots of it. Our kids grew up, they went to college and got married, had kids. We became members of the \”sandwich\” generation–caring for aging parents on the one side and our grandchildren on the other side. But when the kids were right under our feet, demanding so much of our attention, we still managed at least a weekly correspondence–lengthy ones, too.

Well, dear Cybersaints, if you are reading this, please know that even though my communications have slowed down to less than a snail\’s pace, my love for you has not dimmed over the years. For me, you will always be the friends who taught me how to be a friend. Thank you for wonderful memories.

Catching Up

Well, VBS went well, but we didn\’t have any major decisions made during that week. Of course, who knows what seeds were planted in those precious little minds. Time and eternity will tell, as they say. By the way, who is \”they\” anyhow? Does anybody really know? And why do \”they\” get all the credit for stuff? Is that fair?

Saturday I had the youth group over for supper and a movie at the house. I fixed spaghetti, and the guys seemed to like it pretty well. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out what movie to watch. Ended up watching I Am Legend. It wasn\’t as scary this time as the first time I saw it, but it was still scary.

I woke up during the night with a terrible stomach ache. Apparently the acid in the sauce didn\’t agree with me. So even after preparing to teach and take the boys to church, I wasn\’t able to go. Bummer. I spent the day resting much as possible. Dave took me for a drive in the mountains, which was nice and peaceful. Then I worked on my pictures some more.

I know, I know! I said I wouldn\’t go on and on about the pictures, but I just can\’t help myself. I\’m having so much fun finding all these pictures again, and I even talked my mama into letting me have her pictures so I can scan them in. Her albums are all yellowing and the pics are fading, so I plan to fix them all up and give them back to her in new books at Christmas. She should enjoy that. I have some other ideas, too, but they aren\’t totally formulated in my mind yet.

I don\’t really have much to say. I\’m reading Dean Koontz\’s Frankenstein trilogy. I had already read the first two books, but it\’s been three years and the third book is just now coming out. So I\’m re-reading them. The new one should be here this week. I\’m looking forward to getting it, even though I have a really bad feeling about how things are going to turn out in the last few chapters. Who knows, though? Maybe I\’ll be surprised.

So there you have it. I\’m going to go talk to hubby for a bit and then read some more. And maybe work on my pictures some more. I know! I know!

Pastor\’s Wife Takes a Tumble and Other Attempts by the Devil to Thwart VBS

After several sleepless hours last night, I got up and went to the church to decorate for VBS. I got there early with hopes of getting finished fairly early and getting other things done at the house. Since I\’m just coordinating this year, my task for today was decorating the chapel where the kids will have opening session each evening. I noticed it was a little warm in the chapel and in the other rooms of the building as I walked around checking things out, but I figured the a/c either hadn\’t been turned on or was turned on late last night.

When hubby got to the church, he used his air compressor to blow up the big kangaroo that is part of the decoration. He also commented on the a/c and asked me when I had turned it on. Hmm? Me? Um, I didn\’t turn on the a/c.

It wasn\’t long before we realized that the a/c just wasn\’t working. This is not good news. We have 50 or 60 kids going to be in the building for the next five nights. No air is just not good at all. Dave called the a/c man to come out and check out the system. (He didn\’t get there until 5:30 or so.)

Meanwhile, I am setting up the chapel and trying to get this big 9\’x6\’ poster up. Dave comes in and helps me get a lot of it tied and taped up. The poster is in three 3\’ pieces, so we have to lay it on the floor and tape the pieces together. By this time, the Children\’s Director has arrived, and she is helping us by tearing off tape and holding edges together. It takes the three of us about an hour to get the pieces all together and taped on the cardboard background.

As I am straightening up some other things, I notice that there is a piece of tape extending about 6\” from the bottom of one of the poster pieces. \”Sweetie,\” I say to my hubby, \”could you please cut that piece of tape off that poster so it doesn\’t get stepped on?\” He said he would and that\’s the last I thought of it.

A few minutes later, after doing a bit more decorating to the front of the chapel with Melody and Daina, Mel asks me to fix something at the front of the poster (she is behind the poster at this time doing something else). I go over and fix what she was talking about. Unbeknownst to me I have now STEPPED ON THE PIECE OF TAPE that hubby has forgotten to cut off the bottom of the poster. As I step back, my shoe–stuck to the tape–catches and trips me up. I stumble backward and then fall and my shoe, with the tape stuck on it, RIPS the poster and yanks it off the cardboard we have just spent OVER AN HOUR fixing! I hit the floor, the other two ladies in the room jerk around to see me and the poster lying on the floor with a big rip in it. \”Oh, no!\” we all gasp at the same time. Mel comes over and removes the tape from the bottom of my shoe and helps me up. After looking the poster for a moment, we all laugh and decide we can fix it.

Just as I am getting up off the floor, hubby walks in, and seeing the damage, says, \”Uh oh.\” Mel tells him what has happened and then tells Dave, \”And she didn\’t even say sh*t or anything.\” At this time hubby decides he might better leave the room. And he does.

My first thought as I was falling and watching that poster coming off the board was, \”I wonder if Lifeway has anymore of these posters at the store?\” I didn\’t even realize I was falling until my backside hit the floor, because I was too busy watching the poster RIP OFF THE CARDBOARD backing.

Then I notice that one of the ladies decorating her room upstairs has been crying. I make an excuse to go look for something so that I can talk to her. She is clearly upset about something and we spend a little while talking until she calms down.

The enemy is clearly at work, which leads me to believe that this is going to be a GREAT VBS this year. I can hardly wait to see what God does this week in the lives of these precious little ones.

Now, if you will excuse me, I\’m going to go take an Excedrin PM and hit the hay. Goodnight.

When Did You Get Old?

My son was travelling through on his way to an Atlanta Braves weekend with his friend. They stopped at our house to spend the night, before resuming their trek. While I was cooking breakfast for them, I stood and watched the birds and my birdfeeder outside my kitchen window. When Josh came down from his room, I was talking to him about the birds and what types I had seen. He got quiet for a moment, and then he asked, \”When did you get old?\”

I suppose it comes as a shock to our kids that we get old. One morning they wake up, and we appear to have changed during the night. We don\’t move as fast, our hair either turns gray or it turns loose, we begin experiencing more frequent medical problems, and apparently our interests have changed.

I\’ve gone through this with my own mother. One day I went by her house, and not only did she appear to have shrunk several inches, but she also looked very old. She is 70, but because of her health problems, she looks much older than those 70 years. It can be a bit disconcerting.

I don\’t really have any words of wisdom about all this. I guess it just took me aback when Josh asked the question. If you count years, I am getting older. Don\’t feel old inside, most of the time–but then I remember that I have a 31-year-old son, a 29-year-old daughter, and three grandsons (grandsons!). My interests have changed a bit. I do enjoy getting out the old pics and looking at them. Since I\’ve always been a crafter, that doesn\’t seem like much of a change for me. Birds have become a real big interest for me in the past few months, as well. That is new. And the desire to reconnect with old friends has become a passion for me.

One thing about getting older and wiser is that I have begun to recognize what is truly important in life. After my relationship with Jesus, family and then other people become more the focus of my life than things. If I can deposit anything positive into the lives that I touch, then I consider my life successful. And I hope I grow VERY old while I work to accomplish that goal!

Now, about those birds……

i have six followers! how cool is that? pretty soon, i can begin my own kingdom. *wink, wink*

well, actually, i have five followers. one of those is me, for some reason. i have to remove that. don\’t want to \”fudge\” the numbers. i think my son ought to follow me, don\’t y\’all?

just trying to get some humor in the day before i head off to work. we are getting so slow there that i\’ve removed anything personal from my computer there just in case i get the \”you have 20 minutes to clean out your desk\” speech.

i make t-shirts for old-er ladies. my newest one is going to be: \”I\’m wearing a bra on Saturday. Can this day get any worse?\” You guys may not get that, but we girls understand, don\’t we?

okay, enough of this silliness. off i go! have a wonderful day, dear friends.

Well, here we are at the end of the weekend and a new work week beginning in the morning. I had a great weekend. Spent Friday evening with my husband and my mom-in-law. She bought a new car Friday and gave us her \’95 Buick LeSabre. It\’s still in fairly good condition, too. What a very nice thing for her to do.

Saturday, I just did what I wanted to do. I cleaned some in the house, cleaned up the car, took pics of the birds, made a cake for the grandsons, and bought groceries. Then I took a nap until the boys came over to spend the night.

Many times, when the boys come over, we\’re ready for them to go home after about 30 minutes. They tend to be wound up and going full-out. It wears us out. I don\’t know, either they were tired, or we were just really relaxed, but we really enjoyed having them over and had a nice evening with them. I took some pictures of the boys, which you can see on Facebook.

Today was just a great day. Good Sunday School class, great worship hour. Restful afternoon. Good evening service. Nice, relaxing evening. Sigh.

Now I gotta call Josh and ask him a question. Later, y\’all.