The Good Life

I just had one of those moments when I realized that although my life isn’t perfect, it’s good. We are making friends – evidenced by the fact that I ran into a friend at the local Walmart and she let me bring her sweet little girl home with me to hang out with Kullen for the afternoon. It was just a piece of “real” – the being somewhere and running into somebody, stopping for a minute in the middle of the hustle bustle of your shopping to talk a minute. In the last year I have been merely the spectator in those kinds of moments that seemed to have been reserved for other people.

Just a little while ago, the kids were playing some sort of game down the 30 foot hallway that spans the length of our house using my broom and a wadded up sheet of paper as a sort of puck/ball. (Somebody tell me how the toy companies survive?) They were playing the “Lilo and Stitch” soundtrack thick with Elvis music and giggling. As I passed, Kullen and I had a tug-of-war with the broom. I wondered how many moms allowed such fun to go on in their homes without interfering. Maybe a lot of them – I just know I wasn’t allowed to play like that as a kid.

I have been baking pizza crusts all day in anticipation of a house full of teenagers for a "make your own pizza" and movie night. The smell of dessert pizza is wafting through the house, but it is not nearly as sweet as the thought of having a house full of friends, not to mention a new litter of kittens. It makes my heart soar.

I cut myself a piece of Kullen’s birthday cake, and went out and sat on the porch swing listening to the music of laughter inside, throwing my legs all the way out and in like I did as a little girl trying to swing my way to the moon. I realized how very happy my life is becoming, in spite of a lot of sadness.

"Don's MY Man!"

Several years ago, I read a book that made me rethink everything I thought to be true about being a Christian. It was Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It was one of those kind of books that makes you think, but it is written in such an easygoing style. You can imagine each chapter as a conversation over a cup of coffee in some trendy coffee shop, or walking near the river with the author, who by the end you have become as familiar with as a friend. My daughter Kendra has also read this book – and it had a major impact on her as well. Recently I decided I was going to read it again, but when I went to get it off the bookshelf I couldn’t find it. That night at bedtime, I walked past the room and saw it in.her.hands! What transpired was not pretty - and ended with me relenting since she had already started actually reading! For the past few weeks we have been fighting over it. I keep asking her, "Are you done yet?" She like her mother often has about half a dozen books going at once, as well as the Bible, magazines and all the other reading we like to do. Today I told her I was commandeering it to read while I sat for hours with her sister at the hospital. But when I got home, in the mailbox awaited Searching for God Knows What by the same author. I forgot I had ordered it a week or so ago on Amazon. Kendra was doing a happy dance and said, she knew that meant she could have Blue Like Jazz to herself. Ugh! I want to read them both, but I guess it’s only fair I let her have it!

Everywhere I turn, I'm having to fight for my Donald Miller fix! The other night, when I went with the kids to youth group, just to sit in a corner and check it out, the young lady that was leading the study quoted some excerpts from an author with a similar style, Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis, which I liked but not nearly as much as Blue Like Jazz. I was distracted wondering if she had read any Donald Miller. At the end of the night, I approached her and asked if she had read Blue Like Jazz. She said, and I quote, “Don’s my man!” Now I realize that this should have made me happy - to have others reading such a great, life changing book. But shallow as I am, it made me want to talk about how much better I know “Don” than she does! How silly we can be sometimes! Good for her! And if she reaches for Don again, she’ll pull back a bloody stump! No really – it’s alright.