Three strikes and you're out

On Fridays, if he has finished all his assignments for the week, Simon doesn't have to do homeschool. Michael still has to get up and go to public school, of course, but Simon...well, on Fridays I let him sleep in.

This is typically a wonderful thing. Simon gets extra rest, I have one less kid to worry about as I get Michael off to school, and everyone is happy. One particular Friday, I was struggling to get Michael's lunch packed and the baby fed and I didn't end up going downstairs to wake Simon up until after 8:00.

I knew something was wrong the moment I opened his door. "Good morning, buddy," I said.

He whimpered.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't want to tell you," he said.

I sat on the edge of his bed and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sick?" "No." "Did you have a bad dream?" "No." Then he started to cry. Sob. "You forgot about me," he wailed. "I waited, and waited, and you never came."

All of my hugs, kisses, and assurances that I thought he was asleep and that I would never forget about him had little impact. I had let him down. Strike one.

A couple days later, Patience was napping, LH was visiting his mom, Michael was at school, and Simon was still at the table trying to finish his lunch. It was slow going for him, due to the elaborate daydreaming taking place in his mind. I needed to run to the neighbor's house to pick something up so I told Simon I would be right back. "Okay," he said.

At the neighbor's, I picked up what I needed and then got to chatting. Five minutes turned into ten, and when I finally got back to my house, I found Simon collapsed in a miserable heap on the couch.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I thought you left us forever," he sniffled. "I couldn't find you anywhere."

Apparently, he not only didn't remember that I told him I would be right back, but he also couldn't believe it had only been ten minutes. He was certain at least an hour had passed. Strike two.

A couple more days passed. Christmas Eve arrived. After the kids were in bed, I pulled out the goodies to fill up their stockings. Michael and Simon had green ones and Patience had a red one. I went to bed exhausted but happy, sure the kids would like the gifts we'd bought.

In the morning, Simon approached our makeshift mantle with anticipation, eyeing the stocking he believed was his. "I can't wait to open it," he exclaimed, poking at the stocking in which I had placed Michael's gifts.

"That one's not yours," I said, pointing at the other green stocking. "Yours is this one."

His little shoulders drooped. Disappointment descended upon him like the weight of the world. His eyes grew wide and his lip quivered. "But, this one was supposed to be mine."

"I'm sorry, buddy," I said. "Here, I'll switch them right now. It'll be fine."

It wasn't fine. "I told you a million times that I wanted this one," he said, heartbroken. "And you didn't listen."

There was nothing I could say. He had, in fact, told me that. Once. A couple weeks ago. In the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I had forgotten. Swing and a miss - Steee-rike three! You're out!

Here's hoping 2017 is a year of success, forgiveness, and second chances. Happy New Year everyone!

A Christmas miracle?

When I was growing up, there came a time when the kids in the family (me, my siblings, my cousins) started to grow out of the toys our grandparents had been buying us as gifts. But they still wanted to buy something at Christmas, so...what to do?

Enter: The Happy Game. You've probably seen this game before. It has many variations and names, but basically everyone brings a wrapped gift (there's usually a spending limit and/or theme), and you sit in a big circle passing dice. When you get three matching dice (or whatever you choose as the "winning" roll), you get to pick a gift from the pile. The next person who rolls winning dice can choose another gift...or they can take yours.

This goes on until the timer runs out. Typically a lot of trading goes on before the game is over.

Well. One year, my aunt and uncle were hosting Christmas and The Happy Game was planned. "Movies" was the theme, so everyone brought a wrapped movie. No one was supposed to know which movie anyone else had brought.

My uncle got into the spirit of the game in an interesting way. He thought it would be funny to buy an "adult" movie for our game. I think he hoped to finagle my aunt into choosing it. I'm not really sure what he was thinking. But Christmas day came, The Happy Game commenced, and my uncle's plan...whatever it was...quickly went awry.

Wrapped movies were chosen and passed and stolen and re-stolen as the game went on and it soon became clear it was not his wife who would end up with the highly inappropriate movie, but my mother, a very conservative Christian woman with four young children watching. My uncle tried in vain to roll three matching dice and steal the movie from her, but it was not to be. His face grew grim as time ticked down. This was not the funny prank he had envisioned.

Then, the game ended. We began to unwrap our gifts, one by one, around the circle.

As my mother's turn to unwrap came closer, my uncle began to noticeably squirm. In fact, I think he began to sweat as he did some serious re-thinking about his life choices. When she began tearing the wrapping paper off her gift, he looked like he might pass out.

All eyes were on my mother.

The wrapping paper fell away and, with a smile on her face, she proudly held up her movie for all to see. A copy of The Jesus Film. It was a Christmas miracle! My uncle stared in stunned silence. What had happened? Had the Lord Himself intervened to rescue the poor, misguided soul who thought an X-rated film would add excitement to our Happy Game?

Nope.

Turns out my aunt had discovered my uncle's plans the night before and secretly switched the movies and rewrapped them in the same paper without breathing a word to anyone. Then she sat back and watched the drama unfold. The full story didn't come out until much later.

Maybe, in a way, the Lord did intervene. Make of it what you will. But either way, The Happy Game remains a favorite Christmas tradition in our family to this day and none of us, least of all my uncle, will ever forget the year of the Christmas miracle.

If rabbits could talk

Today I want to tell you all a story. It's a true story and it's a story that makes me happy. Maybe you might smile, too.

I was nineteen, and my second year of college had just come to an end. In a couple days, I would be joining a team of people to fly to Bolivia and help with the building of a Bible College there. A couple months after that, I would be getting married. It was an exciting time in my life, but also chaotic and stressful. I had no idea what to expect, either in South America or in marriage. And I had no money.

For months I had been raising money for the trip, and had secured just enough, but there was no extra. Other members of the team were talking about fun gifts they were planning to buy for their friends and family as souvenirs, but I had to be content that at least I had enough money for food. It was enough. But I prayed a little prayer, anyway, asking God if just maybe He would send some extra cash my way.

As I packed up my dorm room, my eyes fell on a small collection of stuffed animals sitting on top of my dresser. I liked stuffed animals. I still do. In the middle of the stuffed animal pile was a Velveteen Rabbit. I had received this rabbit as a Christmas gift from my Aunt Bev when I was little and I loved her. She was soft and pretty and wore a red velvet dress with a white lace collar. I walked over to the dresser and picked her up.

You know the Velveteen Rabbit story? How the stuffed rabbit becomes real because of how much it was loved by its owner? I thought about that story, wondering what my rabbit might say if she could talk. I imagined she would say something like, "Please, won't you wash my pretty, red dress? It's dusty and stained and oh-so-shabby."

Sure, I'll wash your dress, I thought. Then you'll look as good as new. I unfastened the dress in the back and pulled it over her head, careful of her floppy ears. And that's when it happened.

There are moments in life when you feel like God is watching over you. As a hundred dollar bill fell out from under the Velveteen Rabbit's dress, I knew it was one of those moments. I picked the money up off the floor and stared at it. A hundred dollars. God had given me a hundred dollars.

Holy smokes.

Now, I don't consider the fact there was money in the bunny's dress a miracle. My whole childhood I'd had a habit of hiding money in various places in my room and forgetting about it. Surely this monetary discovery had something to do with that old habit. Right? But the fact the money had remained lodged in the rabbit's dress all those years, even through a move to Montana? And that I had decided for some reason, at the most unlikely of times, to wash the rabbit's dress? Yes, that was a miracle.

I washed the dress, took the money with me to Bolivia, and bought a variety of interesting items in the market, including a red Quechua blanket I still use to this day. The trip was an amazing experience. But even more amazing was the gift the Velveteen Rabbit gave me that day. The gift I believe God gave me.

It was a small thing that had a big impact on my life. It made me want to appreciate the little things. It made me feel like God really cared about me. It made me want to believe there is always hope. Always.

And in the fourteen years since, anytime I've been without enough money, which has been many times, I've thought about the Velveteen Rabbit and her pretty, red dress.