They used to say he was "all boy" and I didn't know what they meant

I know now.

Shepherd's letter to his Compassion child:

Dear Oliverio,

Do you like your picture I drew for you? It's of pirates.

What do you do all day?

Do you like pirates and wars?

We have the exact same birthday. I was born on August 26, 2003.

How old is your dad and mom?

I like to play sports. Especially flag football.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Do you know the story of Eglon and Ehud? It's from the bible. From the book of Judges.

Once upon a time, there was Israelites that kept disobeying God. So Eglon's army took over the Israelites. So now the Israelites were slaves of the Eglon's people. So they told God that they'll be good to Him. So God sent a left-handed man who was named Ehud. And he was a left handed man. And so he made a sword, and he strapped it on his left leg. And he came to Eglon's castle and told him that he had to tell him a secret and to get all his servants away. And then Ehud told Eglon that a secret was about to come, so he told Eglon the secret, but it was not a secret at all! He stabbed Eglon! And so Ehud got out his sword that he made and because he was so fat, that when he stuck his sword in his stomach even the handle went into his body. Then he locked all the doors and the servants thought that Eglon was in the bathroom pooping! Then he said, he is taking so long to poop so they opened the doors, and they were so sad to see their king stuck with a sword in his stomach. They tried to pull it out but he was so fat they couldn't get the sword out. And so the Israelites were free.

That's the story of Ehud and Eglon! The end.

Love, Shepherd

The coolest fanny pack evah

I stated below that my least favorite thing about myself is that I tend to go on and on and on and on and on about moi.

I was incorrect.

My least favorite thing about myself is that I am the ditziest, most scatterbrained, (to quote my dad) can't find my arse with both hands and a flashlight (but my dad doesn't say arse) person I know.

Which is why every time I leave the house, Walker says, "You'll be back" and then when I walk right back in to get whatever I forgot he says, "One." "Two." and sometimes even "Three."

Which is why even at moments when I believe my daughter is dying a slow death by elephant ear I must plead my case before the Father to please just show me where I put my keys! Please!

Which is why yesterday when I said to Shep, "You've got to learn to finish one job before you start another one!" my mom burst into laughter as I immediately confessed that I was the biggest hypocrite on God's big green hypocritical earth.

And which is why I spend much of my life trying to fake it to all four of my kids' teachers that of course I remember exactly when their programs/class parties/field trips/Easter egg hunts are. What kind of awful mother would forget that today (today? Holy crap today?) is class pictures/field day/donuts with Dad??

Usually this trait is cause for much, much, much aggravation on my part - and frequently those who share a home with me.

Sometimes it crosses the line from aggravation to panic.

Yesterday was one of those times.

In March, my dear friend Amber and her husband hosted a garage sale fundraiser for our family. One of the donations was a green fanny pack. I know you are asking, why on earth would anyone would want to part with an accessory as cool as a fanny pack? Obviously a sacrifice of the heart to bring Bethie home. We decided it would be a great place to put the money.

The garage sale was a success. Due to the generosity of so many friends who donated fanny packs and other treasures, we raised over $1000.00!!

After the garage sale, I hid the stuffed-with-over-$1000-in-cash fanny pack until I could get to the bank.

I hid it well.

Really, really well. Really well.

I hid it SO STINKING WELL that yesterday I was in a full panic mode as I realized that I COULD NOT FIND IT ANYWHERE and HAD NOT SEEN IT IN WEEKS.

Weeks during which any number of people had opportunity to come into my home and steal our adoption money. Adoption money that Gladney is sweetly requesting by May 21 at the latest.

This afternoon my friend Jen, who is also in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, and I had a long email exchange about it. Did you look in all your usual hiding places? Yes. Did you ask the kids if they put it someplace weird? My kids are useless. Could you have stuck it in your jeans pocket? Well, its too big to go in a pocket, it was in a green fanny pack. So it's in a green fanny pack somewhere. (I'm going to talk to you about fanny packs at a later date. The timing seems off right now.)

Sometimes you realize that a friend is a true friend. Like, when they don't let you call boys from Hawaii, or when they make a note to self to gently discuss with you - later - that there is really no excuse to ever wear a fanny pack, convenient though they may be. In the midst of my near-hysteria, her concern for my dignity made me laugh.

Jen promised to pray. Sweet Amanda was also enlisted in Team Green Fanny Pack. Walker prayed - well, maybe he prayed. He may have been too busy to pray as he explained to me the minute mathematical probability of a person being presented with the opportunity for the perfect crime versus the well-established probability of me being a complete dingbat.

I busied myself with breathing into a paper bag whilst meditating on Philippians 4:6-7.

Until just now, when my Math Nerd Knight in Green Vinyl Armor saved the day. As I sat, fresh from the shower, as he, Flip camera in hand, showered me in cold hard FOUND ca-zash.

Nerd/Knight had dug it out of one of the many bins and laundry baskets that I fill with junk to put away that I then never put away because, well, you know why.

Tonight, my friends, fanny packs are very, very cool.


And now Math Nerd's wife, Nerdy Goth Girl, shall try to find some eye makeup remover.
Which is going to be hard to do since I misplaced my glasses.

Enough about me. Let's talk about what you think about me!

I'll have a grande, please, with lots of room for cream. Lots of room. LOOOOOTS of cream.

I should say first off that congratulations are in order for me that I can finally walk up to a Starbucks counter and just order without even slightly resembling a deer in the middle of a dark and previously deserted country road. I have tried enough of the $tarbuck$ $pecialty drink$ to discover that I don't care for any of them. Just a coffee please. A plain old, McDonald's would have been fine but completely lacking the ability to make me feel cool, even though it is a little pathetic that Starbucks makes me feel cool humor me I have four kids I don't get out much, coffee please with lots of room for cream. Lots of cream.

So. Since I can't post about anything even slightly meaningful, go order yourself a virtual mocha frappe latte americano whatever and let's just chat a spell.

I must warn you that I will probably talk only about myself because that seems to be my MO lately. Beth and I went thrift-shopping yesterday (we was some proud girls with our new-to-us bread machines) and on the way, I talked to Jenna on the phone, and only talked about myself. Then after spending a couple hours with Beth, I drove away and realized that I did it again. Beth, this is my public apology for being completely narcissistic amidst the pre-owned small appliances.

I get that way sometimes. It is probably my most hated trait about myself.

I have a lot going on and a lot of very big deep stuff swirling in my brain and I tend to vomit it up on whoever is around. I'm just a little, well, self-consumed at the moment. Even more so than usual.

Which a blog is perfect for so, like, y'all set your mochachino down and put your barf bag in defense.

Latest going ons in the old Naptime house, none of which will be deep I promise:

• Eva Rose lost her first tooth. FINALLY. Because like a shark, the other one had already grown in and sweetie, we do not have an orthodontia tree growing in our backyard! Walker ripped that baby out with his mad daddy skillz and she came running to show me looking like Bella and Edward's bipolar love child.

Last night at 1am praise the Lord Walker remembered to remind our ridiculously ditzy Tooth Fairy to reward her. TF was advised to sprinkle some glitter around the window sill, across the room, and onto her bed before s/he left five glitter smeared dollar bills in an envelope under her pillow (the first tooth earns major scratch. After that, teeth get a buck.) (Buck teeth. Get it?) TF got a little glitter happy - it was dark, really really dark, s/he claimed, and left sheer piles of glitter about the room. This morning Eva Rose said, "I think I saw the Tooth Fairy last night. She was huge! Much bigger than I thought she would be! She was about as big as...Daddy...."

• Do you ever go to your favorite restaurant, decide to be wild and crazy and order something new, and spend the rest of the evening wondering why you did that and dreaming about what you wish you'd gotten? Why didn't I stick with the glory I know instead of chasing the mediocrity I know not?? Happened to me tonight. We went to get Mexican at our favorite place, Doneraki, and next time I will be the prodigal fajita daughter because the chipotle shrimp did not love me.
  

My momma takes us out about once a week and this is a beautiful thing because were it not for GG, we would never see the inside of an Eat House thesea days. Except for about once a month when Walker says these magic words, "I'm gonna put the kids to bed early, then run get us Freebirds, okay??" Except he doesn't really say "run get us" because he does not speak proper Texan. And yet, I love him.

• I had a gigantic clothing sale here last Friday. You know how toys breed at night? When you have four kids of two genders, clothes breed at night. I had literally hundreds items for sale. It's downright obscene. Some I bought, because I am woman. Others came from Tooth Fairy's shopaholic sister, the Handmedown Fairy.
  

Anyway I had been saving them all for the Just Between Friends sale next week (where the majority of my kids' clothes come from) but after a late night slightly teary discussion with Walker regarding my "time sucks" I realized that I in no way had time to tag them all. So I sent an email to everyone I knew and on Friday, the Missy Boutique was in bidness. It was a huge party in my dining room. So much fun. Almost everything was a dollar, the nicest things were a whopping $2-3. I think I sold 250 things, and you know what? I STILL HAVE A TON LEFT. Ack. Now I have to box some up for some families in need at church, box some up for the resale shop, and tag just a few for JBF...let's just say Walker is about to kill me. And he called me a hoarder. Which was so untrue because hello! Hoarders don't sell their hoards, they hoard their hoards! Hoarder. Pffft.

• As part of the livin' the International Adoption Glam Life, I decided that hey, why pay a small fortune to have someone professionally trained and experienced color my ever multiplying gray? I've got a DVR full of Shear Geniuses. I can do this myself!
  

I had gone darker the last time, so I bought myself some Miss Clairol that looked very much like what my girl had done. And not only that, y'all, but the hair dye I found was on the clearance rack at Randall's!

Am I so stinkin Proverbs 31 you can barely stand to look at me??

I decided that I would make it a full on Night O Beauty and use that facial mask thingy that had been in the back of my linen closet since before Ike was born. Then I emerged from the bathroom to show Walker how thrifty and independently gorgeous I was.


It's so rare that I get the opportunity to scare the chest hair off him. I was very proud.

My hair came out dark. Dark. Like, it's black now. Which I should love, I have always wanted to be very dark instead of blond. But, wow. It's dark. I decided I would consult Miss Clairol about some damage control but everyone has told me they like it, and I have truly pressed them for honesty and they swear they like it. They swear. And then a friend at church told me about this little hair Sharpie type pen you can get to hide the gray between Miss Clairols! Y'all. Come on over and let me do your hair!!! I swear you'll like it. I swear.

• HAVE. Y'ALL. SEEN. those motorized coolers? I do not think I have words to express how cool they are. I covet. Better than a flying broomstick. I can so see myself zipping around the neighborhood, in the car line picking up the kids from school, sippin a cool one...with my they-swear-they-like-it black hair...
  

• My mom just got back from spending my inheritance in Egypt. Don't mean to brag, but, she's seventy-sumpin-sumpin years old, and not only can she watch four preschoolers while simultaneously making the best cornbread ever, but she can also pick up ancient pyramids with her fingertips.
  

Do you really expect to see folks in Egypt so bundled up? Especially not the hot blooded Frieda, with whom I have been engaged in a thermostat war for the last four decades.

But enough about me and mine. Seriously. I'm officially sick of my own self.

What'd y'all do this weekend?

Giveaway!

I have a super fun giveaway for your kiddos from JumpStart - please hop over here to my Giveaways Page.

I have a lot more giveaways in the works, so be sure and subscribe when you're over there.

Perhaps soon I can string together several coherent thoughts and write a real post.
Let's hope.

Designer babies, designer God

It's been quite a day.

This morning I read this article about a pregnant woman who, upon discovering that one of her twins had Down Syndrome, scheduled an abortion. Only problem was that the doctor aborted the wrong twin. The healthy, wanted baby was killed instead of the undesirable, imperfect baby. Upon discovering the mistake, the mother rectified the situation by aborting the "right" baby. And then there were none.

Then later this afternoon I read how doctors are taking mitochondria from one egg, implanting it in the egg of a woman who carries a genetic defect, and creating an embryo. The baby, therefore, has three parents.

And a ob/gyn named Dr. Frankenstein.

Last summer I sat by a neighbor's pool when a newly pregnant friend of mine revealed that her doctor had offered her the opportunity to take a new blood test that can determine the gender of the baby during the first trimester. My friends gasped at the fun of finding out so early.

My worries exceeded my excitement. "Now, people will abort that much earlier when they don't get the sex they want." My friends called me ridiculous. "No one will do that, Missy. Tsk tsk."

I cocked my head at their ignorance. "Yeah, they will," I nodded, and whispered, "For sure they will." I let it drop. They didn't want to go there.

Many countries already do this regularly. China is facing a fifty million girl shortage due to gendercide that had become the norm. I am sure they will be delighted to abort mere weeks into a pregnancy than to wait until they have felt her kick, or to suffocate her once she is born.

It is believed that 90% of babies diagnosed in the womb with Down are aborted. Many women who choose to implant several embryos during in vitro fertilization routinely "selectively reduce" the babies down to a number that is desirable, a practice I have always found the epitome of irony. And I can guarantee you that children are being aborted in this country because they made the mistake of not developing into the girl or boy that their parents were striving for. We are not morally superior to the Chinese.

Nor are we any less hedonistic than our friends the British, who often abort babies for such simple, correctable abnormalities as club feet (which Olympic champion ice skater Kristi Yamaguchi was born with) and extra fingers and toes. One English father aborted his 20 week old child with a missing hand because he feared the child would not excel at sports.

As the field of genetics and prenatal testing continues, it won't be long before it is routine to abort babies for reasons of eye color or height. "Tsk tsk, Missy," you say. "No one will do that."

To which I will reply: untold millions of babies have been aborted for much lesser reasons.

Tsk, tsk.

Not so long ago, if you wanted a car, you went down to the lot, and you picked one out and drove it home. You didn't custom order everything down to the color of your steering wheel. If you wanted curtains, you drove to Sears, you decided which ones matched best, and you hung them up on your windows. At a restaurant, you had several items to choose from, not a ten page booklet. And they didn't make it your way. They made it their way.

But this is not the world we now live in. I am constantly overwhelmed by my choices. I've literally burst into tears in Lowe's paint department trying to choose between the sixty five different shades of light green before me. And as much as I love online shopping, it drags out a purchase considerably. Decisions to buy a camera or, heaven help me, one of those custom ordered cars, take hours of research and add stress to what should be a delightful purchase.

Because there are so many options, I feel obligated to design every aspect of my life down to the smallest detail.

Is it any wonder that we feel entitled to do this with our offspring? To create a perfect reflection of ourselves and reject the inferior version?

Is it any wonder we feel entitled to do this with our God?

Back in the curtains-from-Sears day, there was also little to no God shopping. The God of the bible was the God you got. You could take Him or leave Him, but you weren't encouraged to redesign Him.

Then God, like cars and cell phones, got marketed.
And marketing appeals to the consumer, not the product.

"Repent for the Kingdom is at hand"? Way too depressing. And, well, judgmental. Let's replace that with "Join the Excitement!"

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord"? We're too busy choosing a new cell phone for that. How about, "Become a Better You"? Now that, I could squeeze into my schedule.

"Rejoice in your sufferings?" Suffer? Why suffer when you could "Live Your Best Life Now"?

"Blessed are the poor"? Pshaw! Joel Osteen says, "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money."

This Extreme God Makeover is nothing new. Paul spoke of it almost 2,000 years ago in his letter to the Romans: "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles....They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator..."

None of us probably worship lizards or cats.
But I know a lot of us worship a god of our own creation.

It is a god who wants nothing for us but perfect health. A god who is only interested in our finances to the extent that he increases them. A god who is tolerant of and even encouraging of sin, especially if we claim we can't help it or were born that way. A god who doesn't care if we worship him in a pew or at IHOP. A god who would never, ever send anyone to hell. Well, maybe Hitler. But not our friends, our nice friends.

A god who above all else wants us to be happy, no matter what we have to do or who we have to hurt to achieve satisfaction.

A god who never judges, never condemns, never disciplines. We find ourselves saying, "My god would never do that."

But this god that would never do anything we don't like is a refurbished computer. He was pieced together from different parts, some of them functional, some of them garbage. And the problem with this god is that he frequently crashes.

This designed god offers no explanation when our cancer is diagnosed. This god of wealth's impotence is revealed when our house is foreclosed upon. This god stingily withholds the abundant joy that is found only from turning away from the behaviors and attitudes that are slowly and certainly killing us. This god can make nothing new, especially our hearts.

And this god not only denies us access to eternal life, he can't even give us clear directions on how to get there. This god shrugs his shoulders and suggests that we just try and be as nice as we can be and hope for the best.

The true God, however, reveals himself to us, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, in one place alone: his Word, which He so graciously wrote to us. The true God offers only one pathway to Himself: his Son, which He so sacrificially gave to us.

The true God sometimes says and does things we don't like. Like the parents of these "designer babies" will very shortly learn, even the best "designed" children will have minds of their own. So does this God.

The true God who sometimes takes away things we love most. The true God who is completely intolerant of sin, not only the sin of a child molester, but the sin of a dishonoring wife or gossiping neighbor. The true God who assures us that indeed, we were all born that way, but that doesn't mean He's okay if we stay that way.

The true God who makes it abundantly clear that being nice is never, ever going to be good enough to go to heaven.

But -
He is the true God who shows us that peace has nothing to do with the storm that surrounds us, but everything to do in trusting in the One who is mightier than the storm. The true God takes the most horrific circumstances of our lives and makes them beautiful. The true God works all things - especially the painful, frightening and confusing things - for the good of those who love him.

The God who planned great works for us before we were ever born - in order that we glorify Him, not ourselves. Because in that, and that alone, we find happiness.

The God who believes a child with a deformity or a difference is not something worthless to be discarded, but a sign of his glory. The God who takes our greatest fear, death, and makes it our greatest blessing.

The God who wants to love us with the strongest, deepest, most unquenchable love, now and forevermore.

He is a God so much better than any that we could ever design for ourselves, who has such a better life for us than that other god could ever imagine.

Which God do you choose?

The one you designed, or the One who designed you?

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua 24:15

Addendum: I was unaware until a commenter pointed out that gender selection is not just an issue in China and other countries, but Canada is experiencing the same phenomenon. Canada - CANADA - is now reporting a shortage of baby girls due to gender selection abortion.
Guess which country's next, friends?

Call to Action

Most of you are aware of the recent situation regarding Torry Hansen, the Tennessee mother who put her 7 year old adopted Russian son on a plane to Russia with a note in his pocket saying she no longer wished to parent him.

For various reasons, adoption abruptions do sometimes (rarely) occur. But the manner in which she handled it is not only an unconscionable case of child abuse, but also threatening the adoptions of the thousands other orphans in Russia who need and deserve loving families.

And a threat to international adoptions in one country is a threat to international adoptions in all countries.

We learned very quickly after we announced our intent to adopt that Satan hates adoption and fights it with all his might. The spiritual warfare we have contended with has been real and intimidating. As more Christians hear the call of God to rise up and protect the orphan, the armies of the Enemy assemble and seize every opportunity to attack.

I recently received this petition via email:

Recognizing that the tragic abandonment of Artyem Saviliev is an isolated incident and is not at all indicative of the thousands of successful adoptions between Russia and the United States, we, the undersigned:

- Respectfully call on President Medvedev and President Obama to lead an effort to ensure that the rights of children are protected and that every child’s right to a permanent and safe family is not interrupted due to the suspension intercountry adoption services.

- Respectfully call on President Medvedev and President Obama to ensure that their governments aggressively prosecute any individual involved in child abuse to the fullest extent of the law.

Would you please take thirty seconds to go here to sign this petition? I would be so blessed if a couple more thousand signatures were the result of my blog.

Please let me know when you signed it, and tweet, blog, facebook away, sweet invisable friends. There are kiddos in Russia who need our help.

Restless Life Syndrome

It used to happen randomly, without any warning. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and my legs would just have to move. The only way I could describe it was to say it was as though they had each drank twelve cups of coffee. I called it crazy legs.

I'd lie in bed, shuffling them, but they weren't satiated until I hopped out of bed. In the dark I'd march, do high kicks, jog to the bathroom and scrounge for NyQuil, Benadryl, old prescriptions that warned of drowsiness side effects. Nothing worked.

It was utterly miserable.

After several years of suffering I saw someone on TV discussing restless leg syndrome. "That's it!" I jumped up and pointed at the TV set. "That's what happens to me!!"

I haven't had it in ages, thankfully. Pregnancy seems to have cured it. Or maybe it was the medicine prescribed by a doctor, once I finally knew my crazy legs problem had a name.

I'm on the phone with my husband who is traveling on business. He's exhausted, but I am lonely and want to talk. "I'm just...bored. Not bored. That's not the right word. Just...I don't know. I'm sick of our status quo."

"Let's see if we can get away for a weekend. We'll go to the Inn above Onion Creek," he tries.

"It's not something that can be cured by a weekend away. I'm talking about a life change. Don't you want that?"

"NO," he replies. "I'm so tired. I'm so focused on just keeping my job, and trying to enjoy myself now and again - no. I like boring. Boring is good. I'm too tired to think about anything but boring."

That's part of the problem. I'm frustrated that my incredibly creative, artistic husband spends his entire day marketing a product he cares nothing about for a company that cares nothing about him and that could and might lay him off tomorrow. "That's life," he says. "That's how the majority of Americans live their lives."

"But we don't have to be like those Americans," I counter.

"Oh babe. We are so not on the same page right now."

That's normal. The not being on the same page thing, I mean. For our entire marriage, my husband has said, let's move! Let's go somewhere! Let's go live abroad! Let's go be missionaries for a year someday!

And I have sworn up and down that No. I will never leave Houston. My mom is here, my friends are here, my church is here, I like my big house with the small mortgage, I like my nice clean neighborhood with the good schools and the tall trees and the landscaped medians. I want to stay here and be safe forever. No.

What is happening to me?

After I hang up the phone with him, I realize: my life has restless leg syndrome. I have Restless Life Syndrome.

I don't want to stay here. I don't want my kids to grow up in this beautiful upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood where they'll join Young Life in high school then go off to a state college and pledge a fraternity and then work for a big firm and then get married and live in a suburb like the one they grew up in. I just want something different.

But for years, almost forty years, that has been exactly what I wanted, exactly what I've striven to create. Until the past year. Over the course of the past year, something has changed. What I want has drastically changed.

I want to go live in a hut in Africa.

There, I said it.

What is happening to me?

But the thing is I probably don't want to live in a hut in Africa. Or a tent in Haiti. Or anywhere uncomfortable. I have never, ever been that girl. I don't like bugs. I don't even like camping. I sleep with seven pillows and a white noise machine and I am addicted to several programs on the Bravo TV Network. Plus I am kind of shy around strangers and you know what else? I'm flat out xenophobic. And I'm not just scared of people from strange countries. I'm scared of, like, Germans.

So what on earth is happening to me?

I bury my head in my pillow and before I can begin to pray, I burst into tears. I don't even know what to pray. The Holy Spirit groans for me and whispers a song in my ear, my favorite hymn from when I was a little girl, sharing a hymnal with my grandma in her tiny Woods New Hope Baptist Church:

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.

And I realize that the waiting, the yielding, is the hardest part. But for whatever this is that is happening to me, the waiting is the now part.

And for now, I must be still.

Weekend link/podcast/youtube love

Your links:

One of my BBFs (best bloggy friend) Nichol explained so eloquently why Christians should adopt here.
(By the way, Nichol's real name is Nichol Starr. Really. It's not just a name her agent talked her into when she first came to Hollywood. Could it be more fabulous?)

Choosing Life in Ethiopia

Loved this photojournalism of Ethiopia

Scandal of Genocide: War on Baby Girls by Al Mohler (ht to Challies)

A story from Haiti: this broke my heart

And to break my Debbie Downer cycle (good grief y'all, didn't mean to be so glum!)
Go here to download some really cool free fonts!!

And I have thoroughly enjoyed grossing out everyone I know lately with this fabulous find (you know you can't help but click. Go ahead. Then please leave me a comment expressing your thoughts.)

Your Podcast:

I am WAY excited about these. Paige Benton Brown rocks a big fat casbah and she doesn't speak much anymore. But she came out from under the mommy rock for a conference and y'all don't want to miss it. She's speaking about the heart. She's fun and funny and deeeeep. Go here or here to listen.

Now your YouTube:

This is footage of San Francisco in 1905, shortly before the earthquake. It's really amazing.




I do it all for you, invisibles.
Have a great weekend.

Questions from the audience - about abortion and wee women

Eva Rose, 24 weeks and 5 days old

From the Ask Missy files.

Random number generator came up with this question, which was left by Annie Anonymous:

I've read your blog for a little while and admire your out-spokenness regarding your political and religious views. Some, though not all of my views are similar, and I've wondered...have you had an opportunity to volunteer with women/teens pre- and post-abortion? If so, how did it affect you? I know your views are very strong, but some of their stories are heartbreaking, and even though we may not agree with their decisions, it's a valuable experience. It's a wakeup call on so many levels--people who are smug (I don't mean you, just some people) in their beliefs often point fingers and blame politics for the number of abortions taking place, but seem to lose sight of the fact that women who've had abortions are children of God, too, and God feels their sorrow and is crying along with them.

I posted on this before somewhat here, back before the election, when I wanted to claw my eyeballs out with all the emails I got from friends and family telling me that it was a sin to vote for a pro-abortion president when they themselves had done nothing to prevent abortions in their own neighborhoods. I feel pretty strongly about that too.

So, have I ever volunteered with women pre and post abortion?

The short answer: No, I haven't.

The long answer: I have been wanting to do this for years but God has not allowed me to yet. My BFF C volunteers with Fifth Ward Crisis Pregnancy Center here in Houston and every time she tells me stories, I turn a shade of envygreen, and C says something like, "I cannot wait till God has you do this. But now is not the time." And I pout a little.

So why hasn't God let me?

Well, when your name is Missy you are always dreaming up schemes. God hasn't let me do lots of things. Other things God has not (yet) let me do: bible study leader (cause I have been trained); volunteer hospital chaplain; foster parent; new mommy mentor; write more; sell everything we own and move to Haiti as missionaries; American Idol.

(He tells me no a lot. A lot. And then sometimes he laughs at me, pats me on the head, say's aren't you cute and tells me when I am caught up on my laundry we'll talk about me tackling the world.)

(Oh wait, that isn't God who does that, that's my husband.)

BC, Before Children, I was a Court Appointed Child Advocate, which was time consuming and emotionally draining, but the most fulfilling service I ever did. I could not have worked at a crisis pregnancy center simultaneously because I am only one wee woman.

But, it's also possible that God kept me away because I mighta been one of Annie's 'smug people' who looked down on women who had abortions and could not fathom how they could possibly kill their own child, no matter what the circumstances.

Then I became friends with Joanna, who was working for CareNet, and who told me the backstory behind so many of those very women.

Jo told me how Planned Parenthood and the other abortion clinics lie to the girls and tell them they are more pregnant than they are so that they can charge them more for the abortions. That Jo had even seen women come into CareNet who weren't even pregnant, but the abortion clinics had told them they were so they could charge them for an imaginary abortion, and saddle them with lifelong guilt over something that never happened. Jo said it was the Christian girls were often the most likely to abort because they feared being judged by other Christians for getting pregnant. She told me that most women who have an ultrasound choose life, because a picture is worth a million words.

And Joanna invited me to a benefit for CareNet where one of the speakers was a girl just like me, from a family like mine, who had gotten pregnant by a guy who never wanted to see her again, right after she landed her dream job that required lots of travel to the cool town of NYC. She spoke about how scared she was, how she hated to lose this job, how heartbroken she was to disappoint her parents, how her friends would never understand her "stupid" decision to not get an abortion. She spoke about how she would lie in bed and her mind would race and she would cry and decided that abortion was the only way. But God spoke to her louder than her racing brain and got her into CareNet where they told her that yes, it was scary but doable and they would help her every step of the way, and then they did. She had a beautiful baby girl. And I realized, she wasn't evil at all.

She was just like me.

I believe that after the babies, the mothers are the biggest victims of abortion. Abortion clinics capitalize on their panic and desperation and tell them the lies they so want to believe. Then they abandon them to the regret and guilt for the rest of their lives.

And I can't wait till I get to go work with those women. Maybe telling them that they are no greater a sinner than I am and that Christ makes all things new. Or maybe teaching some parenting classes - I've already thought about what I would say. I might have even rehearsed it when I was alone in my car.

When, God? When?? (Pout.)

Then He reminds me, child, there's a baby in Ethiopia who needs you to do some paperwork. And you are only one wee woman. One dream at a time, one dream at a time.


For more information on how to get involved locally, please click here: InspireLife

It is well, it is well with...

Easter is a very important day in our home. Not only because we celebrate our risen Savior who died to take away the sins of the world and was resurrected so that we may have eternal life. There's that.

But there is another cause for jubilation. Not quite as important as salvation, no. But close.

Sisters.
White shoe season is upon us.

And if you had already worn white shoes before yesterday, I am here to testify that Jesus died for that sin.

But the time has come to repent.

I am raising my daughters to live and die by the Law that dictates that white shoes are to be worn only between Easter and Labor Day. Eva Rose, who at the age of five takes fashion very, very seriously, takes this fashion precept very, very seriously.

Last week we were at that dreaded den of iniquity, WalMart, when suddenly I heard her gasp. Her eyes were wide with fear. "Mommy!" she whispered. "Look!" and she pointed to a woman in white flats. In March.

Eva Rose shook her head. I shook my head. I said softly, "All we can do is pray for her, baby," and steered her eyes away from the tragic sight before it caused any psychological damage.

On Saturday, we went to an Easter egg hunt, and Eva Rose asked if she could wear the white sandals she has been pining for to the hunt. "Well," I acquiesced, in a moment of weakness. "I guess it would be okay, since it is really like Easter. We'll pretend it is Easter."

She stared at the shoes, then put them aside sadly, and pulled out her silver ones instead. "I can't. I'm afraid I'll get in trouble."

She had this crazy notion that the Fashion Police might write her a ticket if she got caught in them. I just don't know where she got that idea from. But I beamed with pride at my little prodigy.

It's true that one must tread very carefully with white shoes so as not to look like Cousin Eddy. I know half of y'all are saying, "I would never wear white shoes anyhow" and I had been in your shoes for years after my Princess Di white flats that went so perfectly with my Laura Ashley floral dresses went out of style.

But then I found these cuties at a very exclusive little boutique and I have looked forward to resurrecting them every Easter Sunday since because they really do look fantastic with a springy sundress.


I do not, however, own anything joyfully referred to as Clappy Shoes. But someone in the house does. And someone was mighty excited that she FINALLY got to wear them yesterday.


If she clicks her heels together three times and says "There's no place like DSW" I don't know what will happen but I'm coming with.

But alas, with shoe joy, sometimes there is also shoe tragedy.
Yesterday we had a taste of both.

Each year my kiddos wear sailor outfits for Easter. And each year we try to get a halfway decent family photo of them wearing them.


Some years are more successful than others.

Sadly, this year was Ikey's first year to grow out of his sailor suit. He did look very, very spiffy in his big boy outfit because yesterday also happened to be his THIRD BIRTHDAY!


And he also looked very grown up. Sniff.


Except for one thing.

Because we were (as usual) running late to church, I had thrown Ike's shoes in the car to put on in the parking lot.

When we got to church, there was only one yellow croc to be found.

However, as there often is, there was an extra pair of shoes lying on the floor of the van.


Pink shoes. Pink Barbie shoes.

Forgive me, for I have sinned. Again.

I am certainly glad I do not have to earn my way to shoe salvation.

And for this, my sole rejoices!!

Good Friday

Original posted 3/15/08 at Internet Cafe

On June 2, 1953, Princess Elizabeth left Buckingham Palace, her home of over 800,00 square feet, and rode to Westminster Abbey in a golden horse drawn coach for her coronation as Queen of England.

During the spring of 33 AD, Jesus made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. He was coming from Bethany, but he was essentially a homeless man, for he had said that he had no place to lay his head. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a young donkey - the most humble animal available. Not a horse, and not even a full grown and trained donkey, but just a colt. A simple, stupid beast of burden.

A crimson coronation robe that was six yards long hung from Elizabeth’s shoulders. Made of hand woven silk velvet, it was edged with ermine and two rows of embroidered gold filigree work. Her crown was solid gold and set with 444 precious stones. She also held a scepter that contains one of the largest diamonds in the world, at 530 carats.

Five days after he entered Jerusalem, the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. (Matthew 27:27-30)

Designers and seamstresses worked on Queen Elizabeth’s coronation gown for sixteen months. The white silk was elaborately embroidered in pastel colored silks, pearls, diamonds, pale amethysts, golden crystals, gold and silver bullion and sequins.

Jesus was stripped of all his clothes and hung on a cross. He was completely nude. Naked and exposed, he was humiliated in front of his mother and all of his friends and enemies. His clothing was then gambled away by strangers.

I am a daughter of the King. Therefore, I am a princess. But what kind of princess do I really want to be? Am I striving after what the world considers royalty? Or is it my goal to exhibit my royal blood in the same way that Jesus did?

My daughter Eva Rose is 3 years old, and has recently entered her “princess stage.” She is obsessed with castles, tiaras, and ballgowns.

I’m a whole lot older than Eva Rose, but think I still retain a little of this princess attitude myself. I definitely think my husband should be Prince Charming, and can get very frustrated when he isn’t. I want my children to be perfect princes and princesses, with appropriate regal attire, and I especially want them to behave in a royal manner. (Boy, is that fantasy going royally unfulfilled.) And I want my home to be a castle, beautiful, with everything just so. Jewels and wealth and servants to do my bidding would be awfully nice as well.

But this is the worldly view of royalty. And if I want to grow in godliness, I need to Get Over It.

Our King didn’t live like that, not in the slightest. Why should I, his daughter, expect such things? How can I closer reflect his life in my life? How, as John the Baptist put it, can I decrease and Christ increase (John 3:30)?

Reviewing the events of Easter week, the word that most comes to mind is humility. The Lord of the Universe, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, humbled himself in the most degrading way possible, that I may be called a child of God, a member of a royal priesthood, an heir to his glorious inheritance.

Humility. I am closer to godliness when I am changing a dirty diaper than possibly at any other time!

Humility. I more resemble Christ the King while cleaning the toilet than if I had a 800,000 square foot palace full of servants.

Humility. I reflect the splendor of my Father more when I am gracious to a rude salesclerk than Queen Elizabeth did in all her finery on her coronation day.

Lord help to remember this, change my heart to be thankful for the opportunities to lay down my time, my pride, and my life for others.
Change my spirit that I would not be bitter or resentful of the unending chores and sacrifices.
Renew my mind that I may see them as opportunities to become more like the daughter of a heavenly King, who condescended to save me from my worldly desires.
Lord, teach me what it means to be your Princess.
Amen.

Surprise

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GOTCHA!

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