The minute our oldest was born we began receiving items about protecting a daughter and those infamous, “applications for dating my daughter”. Because there is a boy in the picture at the moment that doesn’t seem to have any desire to get to know us personally, I was motivated this morning to sit down and edit and combine the various applications.
Judging by the horrified response of my 16 year old, I’d say I did a pretty good job.
God’s Valentine to You
February 14, 2011 by Amanda
Filed under Journal, Morning Show
My Child
I know everything about you…Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up…Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all of your ways…Psalm 139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered…Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image…Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being…Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring…Acts 17:28
I chose you when I planned creation…Ephesians 1:11-12
I knew you even before you were conceived…Jeremiah 1:4-5
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live…Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made…Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb…Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born…Psalm 71:6
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book. Psalm 139:15-16
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me…John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love…1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you…1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father…Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father…Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand…James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs…Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope…Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love…Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore. Ps. 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing…Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you…Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession…Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul…Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things…Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me…Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart…Psalm 37:4
For it is I who gave you those desires…Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine…Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles…2Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you…Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart…Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes…Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth…Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus…John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed…John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being…Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you…Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you… 1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love…Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me…1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again…Romans 8:38-39
I have always been Father, and will always be Father…Ephesians 3:14-15
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen…Luke 15:7
Love, God
So yesterday Seth climbs in the car all mopey-faced. I ask, “What’s wrong?”
He replies, “Well, nothing really.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. You look like something is wrong. Did something happen today that you need to tell me about?”
“Well, you see. I had to write a letter to Mr. Woodburn. You know. We’re learning how to write letters. (I silently cheer on his teacher) I wrote, Dear Mr. Woodburn, and then I started writing next to the comma. Mrs. Barrow said I have to skip two lines before I start writing sentences and she made me do it over.”
“Well Seth, that’s how you are supposed to write a letter.”
“But, Mama. I kept trying to tell her that it was just a mistake and she just wouldn’t listen to me when I kept telling her that God’s grace covers ALL mistakes.”
How do you define progress?
I have many definitions myself, but at this very moment, I define it as a news reporter referring to victims of human trafficking as “victims” and not as just prostitutes or members of a prostitution ring.
People, this is HUGE!!! 15-face-charges-after-prostitution-bust-020711
It’s no secret that I’m a nut-magnet. Seriously disturbed people have fought their way through huge crowds just to be in my presence. If there are a hundred people sitting in a room and I’m in the exact center of that room when a crazy person comes in the door, they are likely to ask the person next to me to move so they can have the seat. I’m serious.
It’s also no secret that one of my top three biggest fears is hitting someone with my vehicle. I have recurring dreams about it and several people have been in a car with me when people have literally ran out in front of me.
We lived in Korea from 1998-2000. While living there, I witnessed several pedestrians get hit by cars, but there was one incident that had a huge impact on me. I really don’t think the man had any hope of surviving and I sat there in shock as the driver and a few other drivers who witnessed the accident hopped out of their cars, picked the man up, deposited him on the sidewalk, hopped back in their vehicles and drove away. It’s a scene that plays out in my mind in slow motion. I was right behind the driver that hit the man. He flew in the air, landed in the middle of the intersection, and then the driver actually pulled forward and stopped on top of the man. After stepping out of his car, he had to get back in and pull forward in order to get his vehicle off of the mans abdomen. I watched the man who’d been hit lay on the sidewalk with blood coming from several locations and his limbs twisted in very unnatural positions. And..NOBODY stopped to help him. People literally just stepped over him as if he weren’t there.
I pressed the emergency number on my Korean cell phone and was connected to a lady who spoke no English. I spoke little Korean and we could not communicate. Eventually an ambulance came to the scene. The paramedics actually lifted the man up and just carried him into the back of the ambulance and drove away. No gurney. No police. No accident report. For eleven years, I’ve seen that scene in slow motion.
My magnetism and fears caught up with me today. Today I should have been reading and writing. Instead I spent my time doctoring my sick hubby and doing load after load of laundry. I am attempting to find a happy reconciliation of the five different edits that I’ve made of the book I’ve written. I have never laid all of the different versions out in front of me and read them in parallel fashion. Now that I’m in the process of doing exactly that (and I’ve promised to deliver it), I’m having a hard time deciding what to keep and what to toss. Prayers on this matter are GREATLY appreciated….
While I should have been sitting in a quiet place searching for what will be in the final version of my book, I called and made myself an appointment for an eye exam. My prescription expired in December and I ran out of contacts a couple of weeks ago. I had this brilliant thought that having brand new contacts in my eyes might just be the one thing that would help me find the motivation and clarity to complete my project. I waited an hour past my appointment time before they called me back. To be honest, it wasn’t that awful. The place was quiet and I hadn’t brought my laptop so I felt excused from my obligation to work on the book.
After seeing the doctor, discovering that my vision has improved in the last year, and leaving with a brand new pair of contacts, I stopped at the drugstore to grab my hubby some meds and distilled water for his humidor. As I left the pharmacy, this burgundy Oldsmobile Silhouette that was built about the time Chad and I got married, pulled out in front of me. He immediately started tapping his brakes. So, I slowed down, kept a good distance between us, and made a mental note of his license plate. A little over a mile after the van pulled in front of me, he pulled over to the side of the road and came to a complete stop. Like anyone who’s tired of driving behind someone who is driving erratically, I had been waiting for an opportunity to get past him. Here was my opportunity. As I pulled alongside the van, the driver’s door flew open and in a second this crazy man was pounding all over my husband’s car. He started at the hood and then moved to the passenger’s window about the time that I realized my doors weren’t locked. Since he was no longer directly in front of me and because he was scaring the crap out of me, I slowly pulled forward and put at least half a football field between us before I pulled over. I looked back and he was standing in the road with his arms spread wide, screaming at me. I grabbed my phone, dialed 911, and stepped out of my car before pressing talk.
I then screamed, “What were you doing?”
He responded, “You were riding my a$$!”
Me ~ “No I wasn’t. You were driving like an idiot and I kept enough space between us to see your tires and read your license plate.”
Crazy man then starts closing the gap between us, limping, and screaming, “YOU RAN OVER MY FOOT! THAT’S A FELONY! YOU ASSAULTED ME WITH YOUR CAR!”
He was probably still twenty feet away from me when his eau-de-liquor drifted my way. I pressed talk and informed him in the calmest voice that I could muster, “I’m calling the cops. I’ll get you an ambulance.”
And then…as I put the phone to my ear, he hopped in his old dirty nasty oxidized van and sped off into the neighborhood.
The dispatcher asked if I’d like someone to come to the scene or if I’d rather have an officer meet me at home. I opted for home.
As I started to give the kind officer my description, he stopped writing and shook his head. ” I know who the guy is. What was he driving?” Once again he started shaking his head as soon as I gave a description. I handed him the tag number and he said that he was going to run it, but it probably didn’t match the vehicle. He then said, “The guys a little coo-coo and unpredictable. He lives around there. If you see the vehicle again and he sees you, just call us right away.” Great, Officer. Just great.
He ran the plates. They belonged to a 2010 Toyota Camry.
My dear friend Kim listened to my story tonight and then prayed with me. In the middle of her prayer, I had a moment of realization. The man is hurting. I’m not just talking about his crushed foot. He’s really hurting. People don’t drink and rage like that without experiencing some pretty big emotional wounds in life. And…he chose me. He could have jumped out of his car and raged at someone who already had their concealed carry permit (I haven’t gotten mine yet). He could have continued to drive drunk and killed himself and/or others. But he didn’t. He chose me and now I have a choice. I can be freaked out and frustrated. Or I can be compassionate and pray for him. I’m gonna sleep on it, but I’m sure tomorrow I’ll choose option 2.
Well crap. I really don’t have any choice. Before I could even finish typing “option 2”, this went through my head…..
Philippians 4:6
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” NLT
And then this….
1 Thessalonians 5:14-18
“Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone. See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” NLT
and lastly this….
Psalm 34:18
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” NLT
Seth was home today with an earache so he went with me to pick up Sofija. She had boarded the bus this morning with great disappointment over the fact that we were out of milk. As I walked into her classroom, she looked up at me and said, “Millilk, Mama.” She continued to say it over and over again as we walked back to Stan the Wan and loaded up. Less than a mile from the school she became insistent. “Look to me, Mama. Look. To. Me!” Seth said, “Sofija, she can’t look at you and look at the road. Do you want her to crash? Sheesh!”
A mile and a dozen, “Millilks” later Sofija yells, “Mama. When I say Millilk, it means MILLILK!”
We stopped for a gallon of milk.
We get back on the road and Sofija starts demanding it again.
Seth says (in his most authoritative voice), “Sofija, stop being demanding. Nobody is going to meet your wants or needs if you keep demanding things. You have to ask nicely! Got it? Sheesh!”
Where do they get this stuff?
I make every effort to keep up with any great post that’s out there in the adoption, autism, cancer-defeating blog-world. Somehow, I’ve missed this one. HeatherBee, Thanks for posting the link on FB.
Enjoy!
http://itsalmostnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-dont-want-my-children-to-be-happy.html
Sofija walked in my room, began batting her eyelashes and saying, “Pretty, pretty Sofija.”
I thought she had gotten one of my sharpies…..
She took me to my purse and showed me that she had used my mascara. Then….she proudly showed me her eyes AND her breakfast.
I began to snap away with my camera. She cooperated for a brief moment.
And then informed me, “No more smile, Mama.”
She meant it.
As promised….. (borrowed from Dennis Rainey on FamilyLife.com)
Rule 1: Marriage isn’t about your happiness. It’s not about you getting all your needs met through another person. Practicing self-denial and self-sacrifice, patience, understanding, and forgiveness are the fundamentals of a great marriage. If you want to be the center of the universe, then there’s a much better chance of that happening if you stay single.
Rule 2: Getting married gives a man a chance to step up and finish growing up. The best preparation for marriage for a single man is to man up now and keep on becoming the man God created him to be.
Rule 3: It’s okay to have one rookie season, but it’s not okay to repeat your rookie season. You will make rookie mistakes in your first year of marriage; the key is that you don’t continue making those same mistakes in year five, year 10, or year 20 of your marriage.
Rule 4: It takes a real man to be satisfied with and love one woman for a lifetime. And it takes a real woman to be content with and respect one man for a lifetime.
Rule 5: Love isn’t a feeling. Love is commitment. It’s time to replace the “D word”—divorce—with the “C word”—commitment. Divorce may feel like a happy solution, but it results in long-term toxic baggage. You can’t begin a marriage without commitment. You can’t sustain one without it either. A marriage that goes the distance is really hard work. If you want something that is easy and has immediate gratification, then go shopping or play a video game.
Rule 6: Online relationships with old high school or college flames, emotional affairs, sexual affairs, and cohabiting are shallow and illegitimate substitutes for the real thing. Emotional and sexual fidelity in marriage is the real thing.
Rule 7: Women spell romance R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P. Men spell romance S-E-X. If you want to speak romance to your spouse, become a student of your spouse, enroll in a lifelong “Romantic Language School,” and become fluent in your spouse’s language.
Rule 8: During courtship, opposites attract. After marriage, opposites can repel each another. You married your spouse because he/she is different. Differences are God’s gift to you to create new capacities in your life. Different isn’t wrong, it’s just different.
Rule 9: Pornography robs men of a real relationship with a real person and poisons real masculinity, replacing it with the toxic killers of shame, deceit, and isolation. Pornography siphons off a man’s drive for intimacy with his wife. Marriage is not for wimps. Accept no substitutes.
Rule 10: As a home is built, it will reflect the builder. Most couples fail to consult the Master Architect and His blueprints for building a home. Instead a man and woman marry with two sets of blueprints (his and hers). As they begin building, they discover that a home can’t be built from two very different sets of blueprints.
Rule 11: How you will be remembered has less to do with how much money you make or how much you accomplish and more with how you have loved and lived.
I found this list on the FamilyLife website. It’s followed by 11 rules for marriage you won’t learn in school and yes, you will be seeing those soon. For now, I’m trying to figure out how to embed this list in the brains of my teenagers.
Here are the 11 rules of life that you won’t learn in school:
Rule 1: Life is not fair—get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 per year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping—they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault. So don’t whine about your mistakes; learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself.” Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Lux, Libertas 