randomness

I'm almost finished reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. Go get it and read it now. Seriously, it's that good. Reading it has made me reflect on my past and how amazing it is that I am who I am where I am. It seems as if at any point in my life I could've turned out to be a caricature of Christianity (not that I've got it perfect by any means). But God made sure that didn't happen. And I think a lot of that is because my mom is amazing. Of course I didn't realize that when I was growing up, but in so many ways she did things and believed things that were different from other people but that were true. And she didn't do it aggressively or with an agenda, she just did it. I think she'd say that she learned from the things she didn't like when she was growing up. Joe says that, too. It makes me wonder if I've actually learned anything. I've always been surrounded by people who have learned things, and I feel like I tend to just depend on those around me.

Sometimes it's hard. In the Christian culture, even the anti-Christian culture Christian culture, it seems as if there's a stratification. People who do things that affect large groups of people, particularly oppressed or marginalized groups, are held up as examples and have articles written about them. I'm sorry, I just can't make it to Africa this year, I have laundry to do.

I'm not looking for a pity party, I swear. Sometimes it's just hard to believe that this stratification that we apply to every aspect of life is not how God operates. And if that's the case, then why do we do it? Did He create that tendency in us? Seriously, is it really the same spending an hour with orphans and spending an hour trying to get all of us dressed in the morning? It's like trying to reconcile the idea that we don't know what's going to happen in the next hour or the next day with the reality that we have to make plans, whether it's to go to the beach or what to have for dinner.

Alaina requested "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as our lunchtime soundtrack. She even knows that it's a Beatles song. I wonder if my kids are going to think I was amazing, despite the freakouts I'm prone to when they make a mess unnecessarily... (Don't squish your muffin! Why did you do that?!?)

My sibs and I used to play the "crusties" game. For whatever reason, people stare at us when we go places together. Inevitably, every time we walked into the mall, we would win because of the number of people who looked at us funny. I sort of feel like I'm playing that game by myself now, but sometimes it's a little less innocuous. It is far from the easiest thing in the world to do errands with three small children. I always have this voice in the back of my head telling me that I did this to myself - this is the choice that we made, so I can't complain. That's not what I used to believe. I used to believe that God would give us children according to His plan for our family. I still believe that. Everything else just doesn't look like I think it should. The way things are going, God is blessing us in ways that I never expected, or maybe even wanted. I'm not sure what to do with that.

By the way, I now believe that a water bottle is completely inferior unless it is filled with candy. (Thanks Azina!) :)