An Evening With My Boys

It still amazes me that after all the years of constant bickering, Evan is one of my best friends... the one that I call when my world falls apart.


I'm the only girl who has the honor of having Darren as an older brother.
And that makes me one of the luckiest females alive!
His hugs make me feel as if nothing could ever go wrong... and who else gets to say that they have an entire dictionary on speed dial??





I looked at this picture and thought how very grown up they look.
They've just always been "the boys" in my mind, but here they are...
loving husbands, caring fathers, an attorney & an electrician.
It's been an amazing journey to witness.

You Know That a Day is Not Your Day...

... when even God jumps on the bandwagon of teasing.

On Wednesday, things were not going well. It had been a really long, drawn out, hate my job and my life day, and I had plans to meet a friend for dinner.

I was praying on the way to the coffee shop that God would lift not only my bad mood, but some of the "heavies" of life that were weighing me down.

As I prayed, I saw a car coming down the road toward me and read it's personalized plate... "HEB817."

I think I yelped in glee, thinking that God had answered my prayer by sending me a message via license plate!

Before meeting my friend I had to run into WhaleMart for a card, and beelined it to the book section.

With breath held, I turned to Hebrews 8:17... only to find that Hebrews 8 only goes up to verse 13.

"Are you even kidding me?" I said, in my very out loud voice, in the aisle.

"Maybe I remembered it wrong," I said in my inside voice. "Maybe it was 3:17."

I turned back a few pages... and burst out laughing.

"Now with whom was He angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?"

"Very funny, God..." (can't remember if that was in my inside or out loud voice)

SO, to Henry & Evelyn Barrier who were married on August 17th...

or Hailey Elisabeth Brown who's parents gave her a brand new car when she turned 16 on August 17th...

I have this to say.

NOT COOL!!

My Girl!

A Picture

I see her in my mind's eye.

She is lying prostrate on the ground, wishing that the fingers of her soul could feel the printed words that her fingertips are caressing.

Longing for the touch on her heart, just as she is touching the words that He wrote to her.

And yet, even more than needing to grasp onto the promises He made, she is crawling over the book...

Straight to the Source.

Grasping His feet... the feet that have scars that He took... for her.

And she feels a hand on her back, moving under her shoulder, and drawing her up from the ground.

She is now kneeling, tears streaming.

His hands, now under her arms, bringing her to her feet.

And then, a strong hand, under her chin, gently tilting it back until she is staring... staring into the eyes of Love itself.

What she had clung to as earthly love, dissipates in comparison to this... ultimate love... genuine love.

Riveted, she cannot turn away.

And knowing her every longing, He draws her into His embrace.

Her head on His chest.

And she finds what she's been longing for.

She is... at rest.

Three Smallish Tidbits

Small Tidbit the First - have you ever thought, "I wonder if there's a hidden camera watching me?"

I will readily admit that I've thought this periodically my whole life.

Most recently was last night when I was typing, and suddenly held my hands up off the keyboard to look at my wee little fingers.

I wiggled them and chanted softly "midget fingers... midget fingers" and then my head snapped up, mortified that perhaps this hidden camera that stalks me was taping at that very moment.

Of course, if I was really that concerned about people not knowing about this, I wouldn't have come running to my blog and typed it for all the world to read.

Small Tidbit the Second - Why are the Bedford Librarians SO MEAN?

I am what we would affectionately refer to as a Space Cadet. It comes with my shade of hair, thank you very much.

I forget things - a lot. Therefore, I should be a Librarian's dream... a veritable angel in disguise.

Stringed quartets should play when I walk in with my overdue books and movies.

Entire wings of libraries should be named after me, as I am the one who has single-handedly funded their building.

But no... the Bedford Librarians do not see me as a Goddess of Financial Windfall-ness. They see me as a bother. One who makes the computer sound a godawful noise when I swipe my card, asking them please to take my hard earned money for their coffers.

Just the other day I walked in and said sheepishly, "I think I owe you money."

She took my card, swiped it, the computer balked, and with eyes bugging she said, "You owe us EIGHT DOLLARS."

I graciously took out a $20 and handed it over. (Thinking of it now, I should have had her keep the entire thing as a credit on my account)

She (not so graciously) took it, counted out $12 into my midget fingered hands and, without making any sort of eye contact, slid my newly checked out videos across the counter to me.

"Thanks, and have a great day," I said in my most winsome voice.

She ignored me until I walked out the door, where I imagine she had all SORTS of things to say to her fellow Bedford Librarians about me.

(Lest I paint too poor a picture of this library, there is one librarian there who is nice... so nice, in fact, that it's as if she is apologizing for all the others)

Small Tidbit the Third - You know when there's something that you feel as if God is asking for you to place on the altar of your life?

And you do so... for what seems like the 8703 time.

And He takes you up on it, and finally rips it from your grasp?

You know how that hurts? Even though deep down you know it's what you want... because it's what He wants?

Yeah, me too.