Little Miss and My Birthday

While window shopping together last week, Little Miss realized she'd missed my birthday.

"Well, it was a bit overshadowed by Easter, honey," I explained. "(Or chocolate and candy, I thought.)

"But I wanted to get you something!" she exclaimed.

"Why don't you make me something?  Get out your scissors and paper..."

"But I wanted to use my money!"  And she stomped off towards home.  

I watched her go, and was touched how upset she was.  I let her run ahead the two blocks home, her arms stiff with fists and a look of determination plastered on her face.  I was certain she would forget it all soon enough.

But later, I plunked facedown on our bed while Little Miss was "doing her hair" in the bathroom.  She came over and started rubbing my back.  "This will be my gift to you," she said to me, wriggling her little fingers along my spine.

"And that's just fine with me," I answered softly.

*****

I told this story to Mr. Man just the other night.  I asked him when he thought I would get over my lousy birthday.  "What does it say in the Bible about how long we should hold a grudge?" I gave him a crooked smile, knowing the truth.

Quickly, without looking up, he said, "Apparently 40 days."

Little Miss on Eternal Life

There has been a lot of discussion around me lately about introverts. If you're shy, are you an introvert?  If you are a "hermit", are you an introvert?  Can an introvert enjoy a party? A heavy discussion?  Do they open up?

I've been called an introvert, and even a recluse.  Especially after I quit teaching.  I snuggle up in my house with my books and laptop, and enjoy the solitude of quiet.  I do not necessarily like to be alone for long periods of time, but I certainly like my quiet.  In the movie, Date Night, Tina Fey's character, Mrs. Foster, explains that her fantasy would be to get a hotel room all to herself and just sit in the quiet.  That's what I am like.

So when Little Miss is home, the ultimate extrovert, I am stretched to the max with 'anti-introvertness', and am forced to engage in the most complicated, and deepest conversations I've ever had.

"Can God bring people back to life?" she asks from the back of the van.

"Yes." I say, uncertainly, wondering where this is going.  Easter was just last week.

"So when is Grandma coming back to life?"

Oh, dear.  "No, she's alive in heaven.  She won't come back here on earth."  My mind is racing as to the questions I am about to answer.

"Jesus came back to life 'cause he's God's son, right?"  She's looking out the window, deep in thought.

"Yes."

"So are we Jesus' daughters?  kids?"

"Uh, we're his friends..."

"But aren't we God's kids?"

"Um yes.  But God gives us life in heaven, not on earth after we die."  And I went into the Easter story again, the raising of Lazarus, anything that could possibly either make it easier to understand or so  complicated that I could possibly confuse myself.  I was sweating.

And just as I think I have a handle on it, Little Miss interrupts, and yells,

"COWS!"

Oh, good grief.  I look out the window at a herd of boring jersey cows and suddenly remember that I was riding with a five year old, with the attention span to match.  My blood pressure lowers back to normal and I am suddenly very tired.  Sigh.

Someone will someday explain eternal life to her better than I can, and for now, I will continue driving through Oak Hills to my home, where I will pull a hoodie over my head, sit in front of my laptop, and lather in my 'introvertness'.  Little Miss can go off and play, contemplating life and death with her barbies.

The Lamb of God

The first time I ever understood what the "Lamb of God" meant, I was entering our summer chapel at the Bible camp I attended each year.

The chapel itself was merely a shell of a building: windows, plywood, and visible rafters housing bats that swooped down during our singing.  But everyone knew this was where you had to behave and listen to important things.  In my last years at Bible Camp, I would be at the front, playing my guitar and leading campers in those same songs I sang on the donated pews.

So, this one particular week, as a counsellor, I walked into the chapel to see the guest speaker hanging homemade banners across the front.  Drawn on them with perfect cartoony strokes (he must've been quite the artist in his spare time) were pictures of lambs.  In black marker he'd outlined, in chronological order, various stories from the Bible in which a lamb was used to seek forgiveness of sins.

There was a lamb to represent the clothing Adam and Eve wore as they were cast out the garden.  There was the lamb Abraham sacrificed instead of his son Isaac.  There was the lamb that Jesus carried as the Good Shepherd, and so on...until the very end, the last lamb picture.  The ultimate lamb sacrifice:  Jesus as the Lamb of God.  He sacrificed himself for the forgiveness of our sins, and that morning in a dusty, bat-filled chapel, I fully understood.

Perhaps, like me, you feel uncomfortable with the idea that some living thing needed to be sacrificed for sins in our biblical history, or that it is still the description included in the Easter story.  But for one moment, it all made sense to me, and I relive it each Easter morning.

I pray, whether you are attending your home church with your parents, visiting a church with neighbours, or sitting at home with a bad cold (like me), that you would somehow be hit with the reality of what Easter really is, and that He is truly the Ultimate Lamb, sacrificed for you and your sins of the past, the present and the future.

Be blessed, for He is risen :)

The Grocery Store and the Belly Laugh

Often, I postpone trips into the "big city" for when Little Miss is home from senior kindergarten.  It's better with company, although she does not go at the speed I would like.  I am perpetually impatient as she loses a mitten, fixes her curls, or gets distracted, "Oh, look, there's a birdie!" But it is nice to have a helping hand.

And since she thinks she is 30-ish, she does the grocery shopping.  I pay, of course, but she loads up the cart, places the items on the cashier's counter, puts them all in bags, and places them back in the cart again.  Two major differences between her and I: she can't reach the produce bags, and I can't ride under the cart handlebars.

And we always give each other a high-five in the end.

*****

Earlier this month, she and I stepped out of the house to go for a walk.  I promptly fell off the edge of the sidewalk.

I stopped.  "Well, I'm ready to go home," I sighed.  She looked up at me, and I down at her.

"That was a terrible beginning," I said, and flashed a crooked smile.  Little Miss blasted out a huge five-year-old belly laugh, and we continued on down the road.  She carried my things for me in case I fell again.

On our next trip to the grocery store, I got the cart jammed in the entrance door.  I grumbled, pushed, and complained about carts, grocery stores, and other stuff, and finally got the cart through the door.

I stopped.  "Well, I'm ready to go home," I sighed.  A light turned on behind her eyes, as Little Miss remembered something.

"You said that before!"  And gave another jolly belly laugh.

We continued on, she, packing the groceries, and I, swiping my chip card.  We packed up, high-fived and got home in time to go to the park.

After about a half an hour at the park, Little Miss tripped on something and lost her balance.  She righted herself, and suddenly grinned.

"Well, I'm ready to go home!" she said.

Gave a big belly laugh, that's what I did!