Puddles

Puddles

One day when my older two were little, 2 and 3, I took them outside after a rain shower.  We love rainy days.  Well, Micayla and I do.  We'd watch the rain make tracks on the windows, hug the sills and then then kiss them goodbye and fall into the grass.  We'd watch the lightning streak across the sky and count how many beats til our bones shook with thunder.  Dale, on the other hand, would stomp with his boots on, stick his lower lip out, point to the door and say, "when?" Meaning, when could he go outside?  He loved being out there.  He didn't find a grain of dirt that wasn't his friend...he loved all this friends and tried to bring them all home.  He loved running, jumping, rolling in mud, frogs, bugs, rocks...um, outdoors.  

Which brings me to the day of the rain shower.  It hadn't rained long.  By the time we went out, the driveway was nearly dry, the grass looked like it had drips of dew on it.  I was in the garage getting their bikes out and when I turned around, they were in the street.  Now, we didn't live on a horribly busy street, but it was a street!  With moving cars.  That came by regularly.  I believe I reached them at the speed of mom when I realized that they found the only puddle in the city of Janesville.  They were soaked from knees down, hands to elbows.  Faces shining not from the rain but from sheer kid-joy.  Even my prissy-girl, Micayla, was enjoying herself. It was a beautiful sight.

Yeah, taken another day on the sidewalk.  Cute, huh?

I find it hard, even at their age now, to restrain my kids after a good rainfall.  They're out there stomping, splashing, playing in the puddles.

In the street...again

I guess you never grow out of it... A year or so I went to Wal-Mart to get a few things.  I knew it was going to rain, but I didn't know how bad.  The lights went out, people were freakin' out.  I thought it was cool.  I've always loved storms. I grew up in the country.  Every time there was a bad storm or tornado warning, my mom would shoo us down into the basement.  I somehow found myself sneaking up by my dad watching the storms roll by.  Fascinating.

Anyway,  after I checked out at Wal-Mart, it was pouring out.  It was like God had unzipped the bag of rain and it came down in sheets.  I stood under the awning a few seconds to see if it would let up. It didn't.  I watched a lady unload her groceries into the back of her car, struggling under a Hello Kitty umbrella.  Hilarious!  A lady was hunched under the awning with me, and said, "well, now or never" then booked to her car.  I just laughed.  I started to run to the van, but it was such warm rain.  The water was past my ankles soaking through my flip flops making them squishy.  Fun.  I strolled to the van.  As I was unloading my car, I glanced at the lady with the umbrella and literally laughed out loud.  I don't know why she bothered, she was getting just as wet with it.  I slammed the door shut and took the cart back (as well as umbrella lady's...I've never seen a lady more grateful and miserable at the same time).  On my way back to the van, I stomped in every puddle bring some very odd looks  from adults, and longing from some children.  It was fun.  I looked like a drowned rat.  But it was fun.

drowned rat

A few months later, Micayla, her friend, Desirea and I went to a concert in Beloit.  When we arrived we quickly found out that there was a misprint on the artists website and the concert was at a different location.  It had rained on the way there so, yep, lots of puddles.  I watched the girls as they ran from puddle to puddle....well, yeah, I joined too.  We watched our flip flops float in the deeper ones and splashed each other like kids. 

Desirea and Micayla

We drove back home, looking for places where we could find more puddles.  We found them.  As the girls ran across the parking lot, I turned around and saw this ginormous double rainbow stretched across the sky.  It was the first time that I ever saw one from one end to the other.  I told the girls that and they said in unison, "really?"  I said, yeah...at least I don't remember noticing it. Maybe my eyes had never been opened to it before.  I remember seeing a million rainbows in my life.  Corners, tops, the beginning here, the top there, the end over there.  But not one in it's entirety.  I tried taking it's picture on my phone, but it wouldn't fit.  It was too big to contain.  It was breathtaking. I kept saying it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  I felt like that random guy on YouTube.  "What does it mean?!"  haha Well, not quite that bad.  But this rainbow was amazing.

God's Promise...Picture given to me by Micayla through the magic of Picnik

I wonder how many things my eyes haven't been paying attention to.  Countless, I suppose.

When my kids were little, if they had something on their chin or cheek, I would lick my finger or thumb and wipe it off.  My husband would look at me with disgust and say, "Ugh, my mom use to do that to me; I hated that."

Yet, I remember that story in the Bible where Jesus used his spit, mixed it with mud, put it on the blind man's eyes and healed him (John 9:6).  That's my prayer to the Lord... that He would lick his finger, wipe the dirt off my heart and heal it.  That He would open the eyes of my heart so I can see the things around me...see Him.

There are times when I become so busy, irritated, frustrated, complacent, have tunnel vision on the tasks that I have to complete, that I don't look at the things around me.  There's an acronym about the word "busy" that spells out Being Under Satan's Yolk.  I think that's true.  We get so busy that we forget about loved ones needs.  Forget to look at God's creation. Forget to pray and study His word.  Forget to play in the puddles.

Lighten up.  It's a rainy day.  Enjoy it.  He has things that He wants us to see...to big for hearts to even contain.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine..."  Eph. 3:20

My Abrieanna

My Abrieanna

There were three little note-pad sized sheets at the end of my bed scrawled with pink pencil. It’s not unusual to find Abrieanna’s papers around the house. Since she was itty-bitty she has been a paper hoarder. I’d find drawings, scribbles and cut outs everywhere. And I mean everywhere. One day I followed the paper trail from the kitchen counters and tables, to the bookshelves, the piano bench, in the cupboards, under the end tables, on the couch...  everywhere. Another time, she had turned the living room into a dining room for her stuffed animals. She had cut out knives, forks and spoons, as well as cups and plates. Very creative. She loves paper.

She cuts out paper money, makes movie tickets, driver’s license and cell phones. She will draw pictures, make cards and cut out snowflakes. She stuffs an empty paper towel roll with paper, draws a face on it and calls it her doll. She whips out her pad of paper, tosses her hair over her shoulder and says, “hello, ma’am. Can I take your order?” Then proceeds to bring my order out...made out of paper. She has a big imagination.

So it didn’t surprise me to see these three little pages at the end of my bed. What did surprise me was that it was a short story. She had never written one before. Sure she had scrawled, “happy birthday” in a card or spelled out the kids names and menus and more importantly, “I love you, mommy,” but she had never something like this.  

Here’s what she wrote. Verbatim, and in her spelling.

Alen Spcship [Alien Spaceship]
I was in a spcship. Then I land on a planit but I saw a alen she said that this planit was pink but I was nocked out! Then I walked out the spcship and the alen was right. It wes pink! But I saw a alen and she told me that her name was Rebcca and a nuther alen and she told me her name was Nikki and anther came and told me her name was Micalya and anther came and told me his name was Dale and Dale’s brithday was on Toesday! And my dog Ike was November 4 2004! Love, Abrieanna

So adorable. She really is a little light to me. Who knew that this little surprise would fill me with so much brightness?

Thousands of years ago an old couple got a surprise of their own. Sarah had a visit from an angel and said that she was going to have a baby. She was ninety! Can you imagine? Ninety! And her hubby was 100! Crazy. Sarah just laughed at the idea that an old woman would even have a child. Abraham must have thought it was hilarious too because he named him Isaac, which means laughter.  

Abrieanna has filled our home with so much joy and laughter. My Facebook statuses are filled with her one-liners. I don’t know what I’d do without her.  Our surprise has turned into our joy. Who knows what God will do with her wild imagination.  

Whoops!

Whoops!

A few years ago Rich took me out so I could deliver Valentines to some friends of mine.  My first stop was literally a block away.  The way my friend's house is set up, the garage juts out with the sidewalk on the side; you can't see the driveway from the car.  I was excited.  I told Rich I'd be quick and hopped out of the car.  I was quick alright.  I quickly slipped on a patch of ice going in.  Thankfully my back broke the fall.  As I rubbed my backside, tried to find my footing in my slick, yet stylish high heels, and glanced behind me to make sure Rich truly couldn't see me, I proceeded to the door.  No one answered but the dogs so I put my Valentine on the stoop.  Apparently it takes me more than once to learn the same lesson.  When I got to the exact same spot in the walk way, history repeated itself.  It all happened so quickly. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but two things I am sure of: One, I landed with my leg underneath me in a position I had never accomplished before.  Two: I heard a loud snap that sounded like a rat trap.   

I couldn't get up, and since I didn't have one of those things to call anyone, I had to crawl to the end of the sidewalk on all fours.  After a few seconds of "honey, help.  Look at me!" (sob, sob) "I fell...help me!" Rich finally saw me, had a look of "what the heck?", shook his head, then leapt to my rescue. He slipped my heel off and tugged to get my sock off.  He said he'd go to the door to get me inside and check me out.  I told him that she wasn't home, but she was.  She had the flu; she was sicker than a grown man eating boogers.  He carried me inside to see if anything was broken, you know, being a fireman and all, he could do that.  My hero.  =)

Come to find out, I did break my leg right above the ankle.  They use to call me "grace" when I was a kid because I didn't have any.  

The funny thing about this story is that whenever I talk about my spill on the sidewalk, everyone laughs.  It friggin' hurt!  What is it about someone else's spills, tumbles and falls that make us laugh?

Nikki got in the car the other day and told me about a couple of kids that were messing around.  One had a pair of scissors and his hand got knocked and it nicked the other kid right under the eye.  I know, that's what I said!  Yet, after the collected gasp, when the nicked kid laughed, everyone laughed.

There's a viral video going around about the lady from "The Amazing Race" that got smacked in the face with a watermelon.  She did it herself!  My goodness!  It's not funny at all...yet it's hysterical!  Why is that?

From The Three Stooges, Laurel & Hardy and Tim Conway to Jim Carrey and Chris Farley they all provide that slap stick comedy.  We laugh when they fall.

Yet it's not funny when we see serious falls like when the Twin Towers were falling on September 11th.  We watched in horror as person after person plunged to their demise.  It wasn't funny.

So what's the change?  

I think it may be empathy.  Putting ourself in the situation.  It's not funny to see ourselves in the panic state of having to choose between an impossible rescue or the chance of a survival by jumping out of a collapsing building.  Or to see the silly situation of someone tripping on the lip of a sidewalk, flailing around only to regain their composure and pretend nothing happened.  That's funny because we've all done it!  

I found this out online:  "The reason we enjoy watching other people trip, fall down and hurt themselves, otherwise known as Schaderfreude, because it results in positive self-evaluation.  Simply put, when others are made to look like fools, we subconsciously feel better about ourselves!  We might think, 'I'm glad that wasn't me,' or 'Boy, those people are stupid!' Psychologists say that the positive feeling while watching is actually strong for people who have been through a recent failure or setback in their own lives." (http://www.ask-kimberly.com/2009/05/why-do-we-laugh-when-other-people.html)

Well, that's kind of sad. I like my theory a lot better.  I like to believe in myself and my fellow man.  I guess my glasses are kind of rosy.

Proverbs 17:22 says, "A happy heart is good medicine..." And an English proverb says "Laughter is the best medicine."  I think they coincide.  Basically: lighten up.  Go watch the show "Wipe Out" and laugh a little...or a lot.  See what you're empathy-meter reads.  Or watch this video.  Laughter is contagious.  

Search Amazon.com for Schadenfreude
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