10, 20, 30 Years Ago...

My friend J. Wo (who you can access from my sidebar -->) had this meme (as if I really know what that means!) on her blog and I really enjoyed reading it, so I tagged myself and will share! Let me know if you decide to do the same...

TEN years ago...Shane and I were getting ready to move into our new house! Our actual moving date was May 5 (Cinco de Mayo!), but we had already started to organize things for packing. (What's funny about that is here we are now, ten years later, and we're just now in the process of finishing our basement! LOL!) Our awesome twin baby girls were four months old, which marked the beginning of a magical season with them. They were finally through the colic stage (PTL!) and were now vocalizing and smiling in heart-melting ways. I remember holding Lexi up and singing "Laaaaa" to her and she'd throw back her head with this gummy grin and sing it back to me. And then while her mouth was wide open she'd swoop in and try to gum my chin. Baby attack! It was so precious! When I did it to Maisie she'd just cackle at her goofy mom and then shove her fist into her mouth. (I'm thinking four months must be the period Freud referred to as the oral stage? Hmm...)

TWENTY years ago...Let's see, 1988. I was just about to finish up my freshman year of college! My man was living in Tyler, Texas at the time, so I was no doubt devising a plan for spending my summer with him there. It must've worked because I ended up doing that! Still, I remember really enjoying my freshman year of college. I was no longer intimidated by the whole "academics" thing and found out I was really pretty good at "doing college"--If there's a job that entails just taking classes and getting paid a nice salary, SIGN ME UP! I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career, but I remember taking an Intro. to Social Work class to see if I'd like that. I didn't. The 40 hours of volunteer work I did revealed that I was far too emotional to be of much help to people who needed not pity, but practical, assertive help. Fashion staples in my closet twenty years ago included really long, straight skirts worn with a big belt, granny boots, and tops or jackets with really wide shoulder pads. We also pegged our jeans (and hush!--you KNOW you did it too!). The baggier our high-waisted acid-washed jeans were at the top and the tighter they were at or above the ankle, the better! I had the same long spiral perm with big bangs that everyone else had. Bobby Brown, Young MC, Sting, Prince, and Bon Jovi played on my cassette tapes!

THIRTY years ago...I was nine years old. That makes me younger than my girls are now, so I'm thinking I was in third grade? If that's the case, I was sitting in Mr. Oller's 3rd grade room probably being nervous about learning long division and fractions. I remember trading posters with friends--I gave away anything that would score me a Leif Garrett or Andy Gibb poster. Shaun Cassidy hung in there for awhile but faded out after the Hardy Boys stopped airing. I remember Ponch from CHiPs being a hot item too, and at recess my friends and I played "Charlie's Angels." I always got "stuck" playing Sabrina. :-)

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Braggin' Rights, Part 1

I'm humbled when I consider each of my children and how wonderfully they are made. So I'm going to devote a post to each one of them over the course of the next few weeks (in keeping with my usual laxity in posting!) in praise to the Father for these three blessings.

In the paraphrased words of the apostle Paul, "Yeah, I'm boasting, but it's only by God's grace that I'm doing it." In other words, it's nothing I've done.

But with that said, I remember secretly hoping when I was pregnant with Skylar that he would live up to his name, which means "scholar". (It also means "protection" which was so fitting because we had some difficulties while he was in the womb, but God was so faithful in His protection over him.) I envisioned him loving books as much as I do and maybe even writing. The Lord showed me the other day that He, in that awesome Grace of His, has gifted this six-year-old boy in that direction.

Presenting...

If You Give A Lion Some Candy! by Skylar

Once upon a time there was a boy named Skylar and a forest with a lion in it. No one has ever gave candy to a lion before.

So I walked through the woods to the lion and gus what. He started to hop everywhere and asking for more.

I did not know what to do. So I ran and got mom and dad and I showed them it. They did not know what to do either.

Then I had an idiea I put candy in frunt of his face and filled a gun up with vegetadles I shot it in his mouth and I never gave a lion candy again! The End.

Applause, applause... Now, maybe I have a faulty memory, but I don't think I could string two complete sentences together when I was in the first grade. And I certainly didn't know to attribute hyperactivity (in humans OR animals) to candy or sugar!

Here's the proud author sharing his masterpiece.

Father, thank you for this boy who You've fearfully and wonderfully made. He's so precious and such a joy. Use him mightily and give his father and me the wisdom to shape him according to Your purposes. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

In the Toilet

I ran across a verse today that made me pause, re-read, laugh, and then ponder. (I love those kinds of verses!)

Check this out: “They smashed the sacred pillar and wrecked the temple of Baal, converting it into a public toilet, as it remains to this day.” (2 Kings 10:27, NLT). Rewind…converted it to what?! Yep, you read it right.

If I were on a quiz show and the host said, “Okay, Kathy, for $10,000…True or false… The words ‘public toilet’ do appear in God’s Word…” I would have said “False” and forfeited my $10,000!

I was intrigued and decided to see how other versions of the Bible coined the phrase. This is what I found:

The King James Version says, “…and made it a draught house unto this day.” No offense to King James and those he commissioned to translate the Bible, but that sugar- coats the new function of Baal’s temple to the point of miscommunication. A draught house to me, is a tavern. Dictionary.com agrees with me. ;-)

The New King James Version says, “…and made it a refuse dump to this day.” Well, that sounds a lot closer to the truth, but refuse could be any type of trash or waste, which still leaves some ambiguity about where Baal worship ended up.

The NIV is more specific: “…and people have used it for a latrine to this day.” And the NCV and AMP (respectively) are more vivid in their depictions with “…and they made it into a sewage pit, as it is today” and “…made it [forever unclean] a privy to this day.” Ahh…can’t you just smell it on a hot, middle-eastern day? I bet real estate downwind took a nose-dive.

The Message uses pretty much the same verbage as the NLT: “They smashed the Baal altars and tore down the Baal temple. It's been a public toilet ever since.”

This is so fascinating to me! Not that I’m obsessed with bathrooms (ancient or modern) at all—in fact, if you visit one of mine you’ll probably see that I should be a little more obsessed with them, especially cleaning them. But what is so interesting to me is the fact that Baal worship was so entirely detestable to the Lord, and therefore to Jehu (the one doing all the remodeling) that it wasn’t enough to merely destroy the temple. What Jehu did was to ensure that Baal worship was thereafter associated with such a lowly position that it was “in the toilet”—literally.

I know I’m dangerously close to crossing a line here, but I can even imagine the soldiers “writing their names” on the pillar in a kind of a “Take that, Baal!” sort of gesture.

Wow. It’s hard to take a god seriously that you can do that to! God made clear in no uncertain terms that He is the only God, the One True God, and all others--even our 21st century idols--are just… well, worthy of a refuse dump.