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Bloghaustion (#140)

I would blog, I really would, except that I'm just all blogged out.

You may argue that my blog output hasn't been that significant recently, and that I really have no good excuse for not cranking out more. And I--generally speaking--would agree.

But if you could have been with me in my dreams last night, you'd know precisely how exhausting my blog life really is.

First, a bit of history. Between the ages of 18-23, I was employed by a major pharmaceutical company as a (some of you won't believe this, and the rest of you won't know what I'm talking about) keypunch operator. That's right. Someone whose entire working life is reduced to a right-handed relationship with the numerals zero through nine. Someone whose mind is rewired, against the very laws of God and nature, to automatically see "15-362-11-48" when the words on the order clearly read "48 bottles of Dilantin 50 mg, 1000 per bottle."

Someone who knows without thinking that if the order says "Dilantin with Phenobarbital" instead of plain old Dilantin, she darned well better change that "362" to "365" or there will be heck to pay with the big boss.

I spent nights and weekends memorizing five thousand such stock numbers, never realizing until the task was accomplished that not only had no other employee ever managed to do such a thing, no other had ever been asked.

Needless to say, I ate, drank, and slept pharmaceutical stock numbers. I keypunched my way through five years of dreams, somehow bizarrely attaching stock numbers to all the words I attempted to process while asleep. All night every night for eons, I pictured the five fingers on my non-dominant hand flying over those keys.

No wonder they called me "Crazy Fingers McKenna."

Last year, when I wrote my first novel, all my dreams were processed through the filter of a computer keyboard. If, in my dream, my husband said, "I love you," I saw my fingers typing out the words "I love you" while hearing his voice.

Last night, I awakened every fifteen minutes or so, after not falling asleep at all until two. Each time I opened my eyes, I realized that the little dream scene I'd just created had "appeared" as a post on my blog. Then I'd fall asleep again, and the next sequence would be added to fallible as another new post. In four hours, I composed sixteen new entries on fallible.

You'd be tired, too, if you were me.

Do you have any regular activities, like typing or blogging or being late for class or not studying for finals, through which your dreams struggle to be born? Or is it just me?

Posted by Katy on 04/26/05
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Cleansing (#141)

The ornate crucifix must have been attached to a lovely rosary at one time, many long years ago. Whether the owner--either my mother or my father, God rest him--prayed so diligently, so often that the beads and cross came apart at the seams, I can't say for sure.

Jesus knows the world delivered plenty into their hands which was worthy of--indeed, begging for--prayer.

It's just as likely that one of us six kids gave the rosary a good jerk one day, perhaps as it hung innocently from a bedpost or a doorknob, and sent the amber or pearl or onyx beads flying across the hardwood floor.

There's a small chance that, as a toddler, I might have grabbed the crucifix in an effort to get my father's attention, leaving the beads behind, wound through the fingers of his clenched fist. Children do things like that, you know. They are not above being jealous of Jesus.

I found the crucifix today, in among the other medals I've saved. It's been a while since I really studied them, these pieces of my childhood. There were three Miraculous Mary medals, a Sacred Heart of Jesus, another broken-rosary crucifix (this one not as fancy), and a pair of Pope Paul VI medals. All cast in sterling silver, all terribly tarnished with age and neglect.

I dug up the little container of silver polish and an old soft toothbrush and went to work. Kevin came in just as I finished cleaning the Sacred Heart medal, and said how much he liked it.

"You can have it," I said, "if you're going to take care of it, but not if it's going to get lost in your room."

And then I started thinking, as I polished the popes and the Marys, about how I haven't treasured the beautiful gifts that have been handed down to me, about how often I've tossed God's precious truths into the junk drawers of my heart like worthless trinkets, abandoning them to rust and decay.

I picked up the greyed crucifix and ran my thumb over its forgotten facade. I dipped the brush into the polish and applied it on the back of the cross first. What had appeared to be an almost flat, undecorated surface began to take on texture and shape, revealing, in the middle of the cross, the emblem of the Sacred Heart. As I continued to polish, words began to form on the short bar. "Father, forgive them." When the long bar was clean, it read, "Behold this heart, who has so loved men."

Turning the crucifix over, I began to brush the four outer edges of the cross, causing the engraved areas, which resemble fleur-de-lis, to stand in bas relief. At first I hoped to remove every bit of tarnish from even the tiniest grooves, but soon realized that the contrast between brilliant sterling and mottled grey is startlingly lovely.

The figure of Jesus must have been made of a different material, because no matter how I tried to remove its stain, it seemed to be covered with a layer of ancient grit and grime no earthly polish could remove.

The sign at the top of the crucifix came to light after a thorough scrubbing, though. Every other rosary of my youth bore the initials "INRI" on the sign, but this one carries the Latin inscription, "Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm." The English translation, of course, is "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

I don't know for certain why this broken, tarnished cruicifix of my childhood made me weep, but it did.

I do know this: I can't see the words "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews" without remembering Pontius Pilate, who composed them. His wording of the sign enraged the chief priests of the Jews, who complained, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

Pilate's next words are among some of the most profound in the Scriptures: "What I have written, I have written."

Maybe I cried because Pilate, like me, knew all too well that Jesus was the King of the Jews. But instead of washing the wounds of the man he'd condemned, he washed his hands of Him.

I looked down at the tarnish covering my palms, ran them under the cool, clean water, and thanked God for the treasure of uncovered grace.

Posted by Katy on 04/23/05
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Attitude (#142)

"I guess I should just be grateful all to hell."

"Yeah, Mom, you should. You've got this big family, and we all love you..."

"But when you do too much for me, like you did for my birthday, it makes me think..."

"What?"

"That the doctor's told you something you haven't told me. That I'm dying."

The last thing we knew, she was dying. That was two months ago, when the doc said all signs pointed toward multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that had supposedly weakened her bones to an alarming degree. Since then, though, she's been feeling--and acting--better than she has in a couple years, making me wonder whether the cancer thing is real.

We didn't keep anything from her, not even the c-word. But she wouldn't entertain the possibility of it being true for even a second. When one of her close friends became frantic when Mom didn't answer the phone one day, I said, "Mom, Carolyn's worried about you. You've been in the hospital, and she doesn't know why. What have you told her?"

"Nothing."

"Well, maybe you need to tell her that the docs were worried about your bones so they did a bunch of tests. And that they think you may have this blood cancer--"

"Oh, no. I would never say that."

"Well, okay. Then just tell her that your bones are in a very weakened condition."

"I can say that."

I suppose we went overboard for Mom's 75th birthday. I had the brilliant idea to put together the iMovie of her life. Then Liz decided to book a nice room in an Italian restaurant for champagne brunch--a private party room where we could show the movie to the crowd of 35. To top it off, a ladies barbershop quartet sang just for Mom.

But by then, she was so freaked out, she couldn't enjoy it.

On Monday, her actual birthday, Liz hired the Dazzlers--a group of geriatric lady tap-dancers--to perform for a large crowd at Mom's retirement community. Mom had seen the flyers and she showed up in the lobby at the right time, never dreaming the event was being staged in her honor.

"When that tap dancer announced that they were performing in honor of Mary McKenna's 75th birthday, I was shocked! But I don't remember anything else about the dancing, because I was so worried."

So, to sum up: My mother is in total denial about her actual prognosis (which isn't too terrific), but instead chooses to believe--against every shred of logic in the known universe--that when her family throws her a nice party for a milestone birthday, it must mean the doctor has lowered the boom.

Sometimes it's tempting to give up on my mom ever "getting it," but then I remember what God puts up with. How often do I refuse to receive the gifts He wants to give me because I don't believe I'm good enough to deserve them? How often do I leave treats on the table He's set for me, because He must really have someone else in mind for them?

How many days have I spent slowly dying, when all He wants is to resurrect me to His new life?

"I guess I should just be grateful all to hell."

Make that heaven, Mom. And that makes two of us.

Posted by Katy on 04/20/05
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That Kid’s On To Something (#143)

Kev has two sessions at college on Tuesdays, with a couple hours off at dinner time.

"See you later, Mom."

"Okay, babe. I'll have dinner ready. You need your strength."

"Well, I won't have much time. I've got a lot of homework to do before Psych class."

He only has Psych class once per week. Wouldn't you think he could get his homework done before tonight?

"Why did you wait to do it?"

"I chose to do it tonight, when I didn't have something else to do."

"But you could have done it sooner, instead of something else."

Just so you know, as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I knew he had me.

"But then I wouldn't have been able to do...something else."

It's always something, isn't it?

Posted by Katy on 04/19/05
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God-Shaped Hole In The Middle of Our Hearts? (#144)

The new pope has been elected, and the news commentators are killing time, waiting for the announcement of his name.

So they're talking about which Cardinals jog through the Vatican Gardens, and which ones take the bus to work every day. Weighty matters like that.

One anchor said that every Mass contains prayers for the reigning Pope, and that Catholics haven't had a name to pray for recently.

"For a while now," he said, "we've had a Pope-sized hole in the middle of the Mass."

What a way to put it!

Posted by Katy on 04/19/05
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Twinkling (#145)

"They went so fast..."

I said the words aloud, not even meaning to, not even realizing what I was really saying. Kevin and I stood on the lawn at sunrise with our arms around each other, holding on tight. Cindi Lombardo--our dear friend who lost her husband and two sons in a car accident one year ago today--released the balloons into the sky as her father buried her loves ones' ashes.

I've seen helium balloons released before. It seems to me they always have at least one brief moment of hesitancy on their way to heaven--one moment when those left behind on earth wonder if maybe it was just a dream after all. Could it be, we mourners hope in vain, that the spirits who've gone on before might somehow change course because of something as fickle as the morning breeze or a wife and mother's sighs?

As I watched the balloons take off, I realized that I didn't want them to fly. If it had been up to me, I might have filled them with my own breath, rather than the breath of God. I didn't want them to stretch their wings and reach for places they'd never dreamed of and could only imagine. I wanted to take them by the strings and tie them onto Cindi's wrist as if she was a little girl, so securely that she'd never lose them. Ever.

So tightly that none of us would ever, ever lose them.

"God has shown me," Cindi said, "that I must love my life. Not merely exist. And not just live my life, either--but love it."

She let them go, and they flew to heaven like they'd been made for nothing less and nothing else. The sun had risen so far in the sky by then, that my eyes filled with tears when I raised my head to follow their path.

"Then went so very fast..."

Posted by Katy on 04/16/05
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Real Life Character (#146)

The old guy standing at the service counter in Best Buy looked for all the world like he'd just driven a truck load of pigs down from Maryville, Missouri to the slaughterhouse near the old stockyards in Kansas City.

(Something tells me the stockyards aren't there anymore, but they were when I was a kid, back when my siblings and I found out we'd been feasting upon Claudia and Mary Jo--the pet cows my Grandpa slaughtered when his health gave way--for dinner.)

I wondered, as I stood in line behind his short and stocky overalled frame, whether a fellow like him used a computer in his line of work. From the looks of his early-Spring farmer's tan, he didn't spend a lot of time indoors. His balding head rarely met the light of day, though, if its pale demeanor when he removed his cap to mop off the sweat was any indication.

Tiny tufts of greying hair sprouted from a few random spots on his freckled scalp, and the way they frizzed made me think he'd probably had a full head of curly hair as a younger man. When he turned his head partway to the side, I got an eyeful of eyebrows like the ones Andy Rooney sports. Some of those puppies were so long, I expected him to jump back and yell "Ouch!" when they poked him in the eye.

From where I stood, the only thing young about this geezer was the fact that he wore sandals instead of manure-encrusted boots. I took a whiff of him, and didn't smell any traces of manure at all, but I did pick up the aroma of Lava soap--the kind hard-working men use to charm the grime from underneath their fingernails.

Another clerk stepped up behind the counter and beckoned me to meet him there. The old farmer spoke, but I didn't quite hear what he said, since he was on my deaf side. The only way I could hear him--or even know for sure whether he was speaking to me--was to turn and face him head on.

He asked me a question about the DVD-Rs I was about to purchase, wanting to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into, since he was stuck in that durned line returning a batch of the same kind that hadn't been right for his machine.

At least, I think that's what he said. I mumbled some non-techie reply, mesmerized by the sight of his left ear lobe, which hosted not only one hoop earring but also three additional studs of various jewel tones.

I finished my business, but before I turned to walk away I couldn't resist hazarding another peek at his feet.

Just as I suspected: a gold toe ring.

Sometimes, it pays to look a man full in the face--and full in the feet, too--before you set to thinking you know just what kind of a man he is. One good look, and you're likely to be left wondering about him for quite a spell afterwards.

Any interesting characters you've run into lately?

Posted by Katy on 04/14/05
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Two Psychobabbles, Fully Caffeinated Please! (#147)

I'm struggling to get an article written. It's for Today's Christian magazine, a piece they requested about the girls from Northern Ireland who stayed with us for six weeks during the summer of 2001. We loved Sheryl and Chloe like they were our own kids, and the time they spent with us was priceless. The next summer, though, Sheryl and her sister Tara were killed in a car accident.

I probably haven't dealt with this too well. I'm reading back through their online journals as well as my references to them here on my blog (mainly in the archives of July 2001 and July 2002, if you're interested), looking for material I can use in my article and bawling my head off.

Doug is keyed in to my emotions, and thinks a fancy coffee beverage might help.

"I'm ready to go to Starbucks anytime you are," he says.

I, on the other hand, am committed to my writing. "But wouldn't that be an avoidance behavior?"

"Yeah, but what if, by not going, we're avoiding Starbucks?"

When he's right, people, he's right. We're outta here!

Posted by Katy on 04/13/05
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Talk Sleepy To Me (#148)

You're missing a lot if you don't have a TV in your bedroom.

I know...I know. There's the principle of the thing to consider. And believe me, for the first 25 years of our marriage, we considered it. But three years ago we began to believe that perhaps we had too many answers and not as many questions as people in general should have.

What if a big honking TV in the bedroom could provide us with the questions we so desperately needed?

So we cast off our predisposition for leading lives based on foundational principles like "Thou Shalt Never Enjoy Cuddling With Thy Spouse In Bed While Watching Reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond! Never!!" And we moved the whole darned entertainment center into the master bedroom.

All I can tell you is that our lives were changed forever.

Last night, after we'd settled in for American Idol and followed it up with that new doctor show, House, we even enjoyed a few commercials before clicking the TV off.

That last commercial did it for Doug. He rolled toward the center of the bed, drew me close to him, and in his deep, sensuous voice said, "Hey, baby, you're my Sleep Number."

Forget principles.

Posted by Katy on 04/13/05
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A Remote Impossibility (#149)

If I lived alone, I would lead a completely remoteless life. I know this about myself.

I'm afraid I'm just like my mother, who for the most part enjoys the benefits of her clicker until, that is, one of her great-grandkids visits and messes with the buttons. Not long ago my brother discovered that Mom had spent the last several months viewing all the programs on her bedroom TV in Spanish.

"Mom, why didn't you say something sooner? I could have easily switched you back to English," he said.

"Well," she said (and maybe she'd just been hearing a lot about illegal immigration or English as a second language or something), "I just thought the whole world had gone to Spanish."

"But, Mom, the TV in your living room is in English."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

I just called Kevin into my bedroom to switch my DVD player off so I could watch the weather report on the news. It's a process that involves a precarious combination of at least two remotes (out of the five that languish on various surfaces in my room) and upwards of seven or eight buttons. I don't get why, if I want "TV," I should need to push "SAT" and then "03," which is not the channel I'm interested in. Then, after "03," I think I'm supposed to punch in the channel, but maybe not. Whatever.

I do know that I need to punch "SAT" before punching the channel, and "TV" before controlling the volume. If I screw up on either of these steps, I end up with a snowy, staticky version of channel "03," which is NEVER where I really want to be.

Channel "03" is a middle-aged woman's cruel punishment for attempting to understand stuff like this.

"Kev, just put it on Channel 41 for me, will you?"

"Mom, you need to learn this. Come on, I'll show you again..."

"No, really, Kev. I think we may be directly in the path of a deadly tornado. Please get me to 41 so that we can find out if we should take shelter in our safe spot..."

I must have looked truly pitiful, especially when I used the words "safe spot," because the boy grabbed the remote with disgust as if he were the impatient parent and I the stubborn child.

"Just remember," he said, and even now I'm not sure if it was a promise or a threat, "You won't always have me around."

Hey, that's not fair! He's twenty, and I haven't even used that line on HIM yet!

Posted by Katy on 04/11/05
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Yeah. I Am A Sentimental Sap, And You Might As Well Know It Right Up Front (#150)

Some of you will remember that in February, my 83-year-old mother-in-law, Adele, became a published book author.

Lest you imagine that self-publishing meant any less to her than if Random House or Putnam or one of the University presses had picked up her volume of poetry, think again. The lady has been thrilled out of her mind with all the requests, at the retirement home where she lives, for autographed copies of her book. She called Doug about a week after her birthday, when she found herself with a few minutes to catch her breath between fans, and said she'd never been happier in her whole life.

I gotta tell you, this made me feel so good I could hardly stand it.

Well, next Sunday we celebrate my mother's 75th birthday. She hasn't written any unpublished works, unless you count all her endless, entertaining lists of every imaginable category, including her accidents, illnesses, and diseases along with dates of onset. She's a corker, my mom.

What made me think that putting together an iMovie of her life would be a manageable project, I can't say for sure. Maybe I knew from the beginning that it would be difficult to gather pics from far and wide to try to recreate the story of an only child who married, had six children of her own, then a bunch of in-law kids and fourteen grandchildren, and finally four great-grandchildren. Okay, I knew getting everyone to catch my vision would be challenging, possibly even impossible--but still doable.

So we did it. Carrie is an experienced iMovie producer. She came home from college for the weekend to put all the pieces together, around 250 scanned pics--a thirteen-minute-long show.

Last night at midnight, when she was nearly finished, I dropped into bed and told Doug, "I'm so tired, I don't think I can even enjoy the movie. I sure hope Mom does, but I'm pooped."

The show is set to five songs, in this order: Sentimental Journey by Barry Manilow; The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra; I'll Be Seeing You (In All the Old Familiar Places) by Bing Crosby; In My Life by Rod Stewart; and What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. I didn't get a chance to watch the whole thing until just now, when Carrie and I sat down together and viewed it straight through twice in a row.

If you ever want to get a different perspective (a visual and musical one) on the entire scope of your parent's life, or on your kooky family dynamics, or on whether or not there's anything to the whole birth order thing, put together one of these movies. I'm learning something new each time I watch it.

I bawled my fool head off, just so you know. And laughed like a crazy lady. And I still can't wipe the nutty grin off my face.

I hope Mom has a wonderful birthday. When I look back on her 75 years, I realize just how much she deserves it.

Posted by Katy on 04/11/05
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The Stories of Our Lives (#151)

I've come to the conclusion that few of us--if any--ever fully believe in the strength of our own stories.

My mother is a prime example. The woman is a natural born story teller. Her best ones, aged with the valued patina of exaggeration and hear-say, might become altered in small points with the episodic retellings. But the comedic timing remains flawless and the punchlines never change.

She can tell a story that has a roomful of progeny howling and after she's got us where she wants us, she puts on this innocent expression and says, "What? Was that funny?"

Does she truly not realize how hilarious she can be? Or is this schtick her leg-puller of a lifetime?

All I know is, yesterday she nailed me.

I spent a couple hours at her place, filling her next month's worth of pill containers. She takes 17 different medications, some of them three times per day. She's got four containers, each with seven days, each with four compartments per day. So, yeah. It actually takes two hours to complete this task.

It requires some concentration on my part to do it accurately, and even though Mom knows I need to pay attention lest I cause her some horrible pharmaceutical mishap, she doesn't stop telling stories the whole time I'm working. To be fair, I guess I get a couple tales in sideways, too, but I only do it for her, to give her a chance to catch her breath.

At the end of my visit, as I gathered up all the empty pill bottles and got ready to leave, Mom couldn't resist recapping our stories and though I certainly wasn't expecting it, she gave one of mine the BOD (Best of Day).

"You know that one about how Terri's such a wonderful friend that she'd give you the pants right off her behind?" (See my last entry.)

"Yeah," I said.

"That's a blog."

I hadn't thought of my public bathroom story as a blog until Mom pointed it out, just like she doesn't know she's funny until she hears our laughter. It made me think how much we need to learn to trust our own stories, to understand that this is our material, the stuff of which our lives are made. When will we learn to use it?

Mom will be 75 next week, and I'm wondering if maybe she was born before her time. All I know is, she would have made some blogger.

Posted by Katy on 04/07/05
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Bottom-Line Friendship (#152)

After a three-hour long lunch, Terri and I sat in adjoining bathroom stalls in Applebee's, still chatting before we hopped in our cars and went our separate ways--or so we thought.

We've only been friends a short while, since she was 13 and I was 17. So, while we've become quite close, there are still a few things we haven't shared. At least not in a public bathroom. Until now.

Terri turned on the water, gabbing away, and I'm thinking she was as surprised as I when suddenly I screamed out in pain.

"Aaaa-aaaaa-AAAAAAA!!"

"What? What? WHAT?" she screamed back.

"I can't MOVE!! It hurts so BAD!!!"

"What hurts? What's wrong?"

I gotta tell you, this girl's been around the block with me more than once. She knows I'm a drama queen, yes. But she also knows I have a knack for contracting some of the most exotic diseases and bizarre conditions known to womankind. Let's just say when I shriek, she doesn't yawn.

"Lower left quadrant," I gasp. "It's HORRIBLE! I can't stand up..."

"Unlock the door in case I need to come in there," she said.

Now this is where things started to get dicey, at least in my weird mind. I really don't like chicks with me in the bathroom, especially when I can't stand up and I'm screaming and my granny panties are down around my ankles. I looked at the stall door, which ends about six inches from the floor, and realized that it would be completely unfair to refuse to unlock the door because of nutty hang-ups. What did I plan to do? Pass out from the pain and expect Terri to worm her way under the door with me blocking it?

I reached up and unlocked the door. She was nice enough not to barge in until things got even more desperate, affording me another full fifteen seconds of dignity.

I managed to get my unders pulled up, which is the nice thing about elastic-waisted garments, isn't it? Even if you yourself can't, technically, stand up, you can still finagle those puppies into place. I breathed a sigh of relief. I might have to be hauled out of there half naked, I thought, but I've done worse. (Don't ask.)

"Terri, I can't get my jeans up, because I can't stand up."

"Should I call Doug?"

Did she think he could pull my jeans up? Because, honestly, he's not very good at stuff like that.

"AAAAA! Aaaaaa....AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

"Should I call an ambulance?"

I had to get out of that bathroom. I was dripping sweat and my mouth had gone completely dry. I hadn't started hyperventilating yet, though, so there was still hope.

"Give me your pants," I said. "Now. I'm dying here, Terri. I've got to have your pants."

"What? My pants? What will I do?"

When you've been friends as long as Terri and I have been, that last question--while entertaining--really isn't useful. It doesn't matter what one of us will do, if the other one is in need. She'd end up giving me her pants, and she knew it.

"I can pull your pants up on me, because they have elastic," I said. "You can wear my jeans..."

I started to fade then. The pain had its way with me, and I remember little after that. Somehow, she got out of her pants, got me out of mine, got my feet into hers, and got herself into my jeans. I remember hearing her mutter to herself, "It's OK. It's fine. We can do this. OK, now. Everything's fine..."

Then I heard her say, "I'm gonna pray for you." And she prayed out loud, and while the pain didn't go away, I felt a comfort descend upon both of us, right there, right then.

The next thing I knew, I was pulling those glorious elastic-waisted jogging pants up over my granny panties and gingerly making my way toward the bathroom door.

We left my car there in the parking lot and Terri drove me home. I don't remember the ride, just the feeling of the friendship. Just the wonderful feeling you have when you know that there's someone in the world who would do pretty much anything for you, and even refrain from laughing her head off at your weirdness. Someone who will give you the clothes off her rear end if you ask for them, who will pray you through your most embarassing moments in public places, proving to you once again that Jesus is truly Lord of everything.

He's even Lord of the Pants.

Posted by Katy on 04/06/05
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Empty Hands (#153)

“God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.”

St. Augustine

“So why should we bother to pray at all?” a man in our Sunday school asked. “If God only answers prayers that are prayed according to His will, and we don’t know His will, what’s the point? Isn’t He just going to do what He’s already decided, whether we pray or not?”

If you’re ever in the mood to squirm, come be our guest at Sunday school. Included in our number are two guys with doctorate degrees, an architect, several business owners, a couple of realtors, a high school math teacher, and more than one devil’s advocate.

“The point is that prayer is relationship,” said one middle-aged mom. “We don’t always know God’s will in a situation. But we pray anyway. And He shows us His ways through our relationship with Him.”

“But if we don’t know His will, what good does it do to pray?”

“But if we don’t get to know Him by praying, what good would it be to know His will?”

I couldn’t help but think about King David, who couldn’t help but pray for God to spare the life of his son, even though God had already revealed through the prophet Nathan that the boy would die.

Every time I read this story (found in 2 Samuel 12), I’m amazed by David’s guts. Here he’d just completed an elaborately planned scheme to have a soldier killed in battle so that he could claim the man’s beautiful widow as his own wife. Bathsheba—whose former residence included a bathtub on the roof, you’ll remember—moved into the king’s palace, married him, and bore him a son.

God wasn’t thrilled with this turn of events. Through the prophet Nathan, He let David have it. “Look at everything I’ve given you! Everything you’ve asked for and more! But then you had to take what belonged to another?”

David’s hands were full, all right—not only with the legitimate blessings God had given him, but also with his new wife Bathsheba, their young son who lay at death’s door, and the blood of an innocent man. How dare he turn to God in prayer?

And yet, he prayed. Until he heard from his servants that his son had finally died, he didn’t cease imploring God to spare the child. But if Nathan had already declared that the boy would die, why did David bother to pray?

“Prayer is relationship,” the woman in Sunday school said. “Even if He doesn’t answer the way we’d like Him to, prayer is how we get to know God better.”

By the time David finished praying, I’m thinking his hands were empty of everything but the one thing God still wanted to give him: A clean heart.

Read the Marginal take on this quote…

Posted by Katy on 04/04/05
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Baby Got Book (#154)

If you've already seen this, you have the advantage of having been laughing longer than the rest of us.

If you're just now seeing it, I hope you get as big a kick out of it as I do.

I'm ditching my wimpy Bible on CD after that, baby!

Posted by Katy on 03/30/05
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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Bloghaustion (#140) I would blog, I really would, except that I'm just all blogged out. You may argue that my blog output hasn't been that significant recently, and that I really have no good excuse for not cranking out more. And I--generally speaking--would agree. But if you could have been with me in my dreams last night, you'd know precisely how exhausting my blog life really is. First, a bit of history. Between the ages of 18-23, I was employed by a major pharmaceutical company as a (some of you won't believe this, and the rest of you won't know what I'm talking about) keypunch operator. That's right. Someone whose entire working life is reduced to a right-handed relationship with the numerals zero through nine. Someone whose mind is rewired, against the very laws of God and nature, to automatically see "15-362-11-48" when the words on the order clearly read "48 bottles of Dilantin 50 mg, 1000 per bottle." Someone who knows without thinking that if the order says "Dilantin with Phenobarbital" instead of plain old Dilantin, she darned well better change that "362" to "365" or there will be heck to pay with the big boss. I spent nights and weekends memorizing five thousand such stock numbers, never realizing until the task was accomplished that not only had no other employee ever managed to do such a thing, no other had ever been asked. Needless to say, I ate, drank, and slept pharmaceutical stock numbers. I keypunched my way through five years of dreams, somehow bizarrely attaching stock numbers to all the words I attempted to process while asleep. All night every night for eons, I pictured the five fingers on my non-dominant hand flying over those keys. No wonder they called me "Crazy Fingers McKenna." Last year, when I wrote my first novel, all my dreams were processed through the filter of a computer keyboard. If, in my dream, my husband said, "I love you," I saw my fingers typing out the words "I love you" while hearing his voice. Last night, I awakened every fifteen minutes or so, after not falling asleep at all until two. Each time I opened my eyes, I realized that the little dream scene I'd just created had "appeared" as a post on my blog. Then I'd fall asleep again, and the next sequence would be added to fallible as another new post. In four hours, I composed sixteen new entries on fallible. You'd be tired, too, if you were me. Do you have any regular activities, like typing or blogging or being late for class or not studying for finals, through which your dreams struggle to be born? Or is it just me? Posted by Katy on 04/26/05 Permalink Cleansing (#141) The ornate crucifix must have been attached to a lovely rosary at one time, many long years ago. Whether the owner--either my mother or my father, God rest him--prayed so diligently, so often that the beads and cross came apart at the seams, I can't say for sure. Jesus knows the world delivered plenty into their hands which was worthy of--indeed, begging for--prayer. It's just as likely that one of us six kids gave the rosary a good jerk one day, perhaps as it hung innocently from a bedpost or a doorknob, and sent the amber or pearl or onyx beads flying across the hardwood floor. There's a small chance that, as a toddler, I might have grabbed the crucifix in an effort to get my father's attention, leaving the beads behind, wound through the fingers of his clenched fist. Children do things like that, you know. They are not above being jealous of Jesus. I found the crucifix today, in among the other medals I've saved. It's been a while since I really studied them, these pieces of my childhood. There were three Miraculous Mary medals, a Sacred Heart of Jesus, another broken-rosary crucifix (this one not as fancy), and a pair of Pope Paul VI medals. All cast in sterling silver, all terribly tarnished with age and neglect. I dug up the little container of silver polish and an old soft toothbrush and went to work. Kevin came in just as I finished cleaning the Sacred Heart medal, and said how much he liked it. "You can have it," I said, "if you're going to take care of it, but not if it's going to get lost in your room." And then I started thinking, as I polished the popes and the Marys, about how I haven't treasured the beautiful gifts that have been handed down to me, about how often I've tossed God's precious truths into the junk drawers of my heart like worthless trinkets, abandoning them to rust and decay. I picked up the greyed crucifix and ran my thumb over its forgotten facade. I dipped the brush into the polish and applied it on the back of the cross first. What had appeared to be an almost flat, undecorated surface began to take on texture and shape, revealing, in the middle of the cross, the emblem of the Sacred Heart. As I continued to polish, words began to form on the short bar. "Father, forgive them." When the long bar was clean, it read, "Behold this heart, who has so loved men." Turning the crucifix over, I began to brush the four outer edges of the cross, causing the engraved areas, which resemble fleur-de-lis, to stand in bas relief. At first I hoped to remove every bit of tarnish from even the tiniest grooves, but soon realized that the contrast between brilliant sterling and mottled grey is startlingly lovely. The figure of Jesus must have been made of a different material, because no matter how I tried to remove its stain, it seemed to be covered with a layer of ancient grit and grime no earthly polish could remove. The sign at the top of the crucifix came to light after a thorough scrubbing, though. Every other rosary of my youth bore the initials "INRI" on the sign, but this one carries the Latin inscription, "Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm." The English translation, of course, is "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." I don't know for certain why this broken, tarnished cruicifix of my childhood made me weep, but it did. I do know this: I can't see the words "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews" without remembering Pontius Pilate, who composed them. His wording of the sign enraged the chief priests of the Jews, who complained, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews." Pilate's next words are among some of the most profound in the Scriptures: "What I have written, I have written." Maybe I cried because Pilate, like me, knew all too well that Jesus was the King of the Jews. But instead of washing the wounds of the man he'd condemned, he washed his hands of Him. I looked down at the tarnish covering my palms, ran them under the cool, clean water, and thanked God for the treasure of uncovered grace. Posted by Katy on 04/23/05 Permalink Attitude (#142) "I guess I should just be grateful all to hell." "Yeah, Mom, you should. You've got this big family, and we all love you..." "But when you do too much for me, like you did for my birthday, it makes me think..." "What?" "That the doctor's told you something you haven't told me. That I'm dying." The last thing we knew, she was dying. That was two months ago, when the doc said all signs pointed toward multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that had supposedly weakened her bones to an alarming degree. Since then, though, she's been feeling--and acting--better than she has in a couple years, making me wonder whether the cancer thing is real. We didn't keep anything from her, not even the c-word. But she wouldn't entertain the possibility of it being true for even a second. When one of her close friends became frantic when Mom didn't answer the phone one day, I said, "Mom, Carolyn's worried about you. You've been in the hospital, and she doesn't know why. What have you told her?" "Nothing." "Well, maybe you need to tell her that the docs were worried about your bones so they did a bunch of tests. And that they think you may have this blood cancer--" "Oh, no. I would never say that." "Well, okay. Then just tell her that your bones are in a very weakened condition." "I can say that." I suppose we went overboard for Mom's 75th birthday. I had the brilliant idea to put together the iMovie of her life. Then Liz decided to book a nice room in an Italian restaurant for champagne brunch--a private party room where we could show the movie to the crowd of 35. To top it off, a ladies barbershop quartet sang just for Mom. But by then, she was so freaked out, she couldn't enjoy it. On Monday, her actual birthday, Liz hired the Dazzlers--a group of geriatric lady tap-dancers--to perform for a large crowd at Mom's retirement community. Mom had seen the flyers and she showed up in the lobby at the right time, never dreaming the event was being staged in her honor. "When that tap dancer announced that they were performing in honor of Mary McKenna's 75th birthday, I was shocked! But I don't remember anything else about the dancing, because I was so worried." So, to sum up: My mother is in total denial about her actual prognosis (which isn't too terrific), but instead chooses to believe--against every shred of logic in the known universe--that when her family throws her a nice party for a milestone birthday, it must mean the doctor has lowered the boom. Sometimes it's tempting to give up on my mom ever "getting it," but then I remember what God puts up with. How often do I refuse to receive the gifts He wants to give me because I don't believe I'm good enough to deserve them? How often do I leave treats on the table He's set for me, because He must really have someone else in mind for them? How many days have I spent slowly dying, when all He wants is to resurrect me to His new life? "I guess I should just be grateful all to hell." Make that heaven, Mom. And that makes two of us. Posted by Katy on 04/20/05 Permalink That Kid’s On To Something (#143) Kev has two sessions at college on Tuesdays, with a couple hours off at dinner time. "See you later, Mom." "Okay, babe. I'll have dinner ready. You need your strength." "Well, I won't have much time. I've got a lot of homework to do before Psych class." He only has Psych class once per week. Wouldn't you think he could get his homework done before tonight? "Why did you wait to do it?" "I chose to do it tonight, when I didn't have something else to do." "But you could have done it sooner, instead of something else." Just so you know, as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I knew he had me. "But then I wouldn't have been able to do...something else." It's always something, isn't it? Posted by Katy on 04/19/05 Permalink God-Shaped Hole In The Middle of Our Hearts? (#144) The new pope has been elected, and the news commentators are killing time, waiting for the announcement of his name. So they're talking about which Cardinals jog through the Vatican Gardens, and which ones take the bus to work every day. Weighty matters like that. One anchor said that every Mass contains prayers for the reigning Pope, and that Catholics haven't had a name to pray for recently. "For a while now," he said, "we've had a Pope-sized hole in the middle of the Mass." What a way to put it! Posted by Katy on 04/19/05 Permalink Twinkling (#145) "They went so fast..." I said the words aloud, not even meaning to, not even realizing what I was really saying. Kevin and I stood on the lawn at sunrise with our arms around each other, holding on tight. Cindi Lombardo--our dear friend who lost her husband and two sons in a car accident one year ago today--released the balloons into the sky as her father buried her loves ones' ashes. I've seen helium balloons released before. It seems to me they always have at least one brief moment of hesitancy on their way to heaven--one moment when those left behind on earth wonder if maybe it was just a dream after all. Could it be, we mourners hope in vain, that the spirits who've gone on before might somehow change course because of something as fickle as the morning breeze or a wife and mother's sighs? As I watched the balloons take off, I realized that I didn't want them to fly. If it had been up to me, I might have filled them with my own breath, rather than the breath of God. I didn't want them to stretch their wings and reach for places they'd never dreamed of and could only imagine. I wanted to take them by the strings and tie them onto Cindi's wrist as if she was a little girl, so securely that she'd never lose them. Ever. So tightly that none of us would ever, ever lose them. "God has shown me," Cindi said, "that I must love my life. Not merely exist. And not just live my life, either--but love it." She let them go, and they flew to heaven like they'd been made for nothing less and nothing else. The sun had risen so far in the sky by then, that my eyes filled with tears when I raised my head to follow their path. "Then went so very fast..." Posted by Katy on 04/16/05 Permalink Real Life Character (#146) The old guy standing at the service counter in Best Buy looked for all the world like he'd just driven a truck load of pigs down from Maryville, Missouri to the slaughterhouse near the old stockyards in Kansas City. (Something tells me the stockyards aren't there anymore, but they were when I was a kid, back when my siblings and I found out we'd been feasting upon Claudia and Mary Jo--the pet cows my Grandpa slaughtered when his health gave way--for dinner.) I wondered, as I stood in line behind his short and stocky overalled frame, whether a fellow like him used a computer in his line of work. From the looks of his early-Spring farmer's tan, he didn't spend a lot of time indoors. His balding head rarely met the light of day, though, if its pale demeanor when he removed his cap to mop off the sweat was any indication. Tiny tufts of greying hair sprouted from a few random spots on his freckled scalp, and the way they frizzed made me think he'd probably had a full head of curly hair as a younger man. When he turned his head partway to the side, I got an eyeful of eyebrows like the ones Andy Rooney sports. Some of those puppies were so long, I expected him to jump back and yell "Ouch!" when they poked him in the eye. From where I stood, the only thing young about this geezer was the fact that he wore sandals instead of manure-encrusted boots. I took a whiff of him, and didn't smell any traces of manure at all, but I did pick up the aroma of Lava soap--the kind hard-working men use to charm the grime from underneath their fingernails. Another clerk stepped up behind the counter and beckoned me to meet him there. The old farmer spoke, but I didn't quite hear what he said, since he was on my deaf side. The only way I could hear him--or even know for sure whether he was speaking to me--was to turn and face him head on. He asked me a question about the DVD-Rs I was about to purchase, wanting to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into, since he was stuck in that durned line returning a batch of the same kind that hadn't been right for his machine. At least, I think that's what he said. I mumbled some non-techie reply, mesmerized by the sight of his left ear lobe, which hosted not only one hoop earring but also three additional studs of various jewel tones. I finished my business, but before I turned to walk away I couldn't resist hazarding another peek at his feet. Just as I suspected: a gold toe ring. Sometimes, it pays to look a man full in the face--and full in the feet, too--before you set to thinking you know just what kind of a man he is. One good look, and you're likely to be left wondering about him for quite a spell afterwards. Any interesting characters you've run into lately? Posted by Katy on 04/14/05 Permalink Two Psychobabbles, Fully Caffeinated Please! (#147) I'm struggling to get an article written. It's for Today's Christian magazine, a piece they requested about the girls from Northern Ireland who stayed with us for six weeks during the summer of 2001. We loved Sheryl and Chloe like they were our own kids, and the time they spent with us was priceless. The next summer, though, Sheryl and her sister Tara were killed in a car accident. I probably haven't dealt with this too well. I'm reading back through their online journals as well as my references to them here on my blog (mainly in the archives of July 2001 and July 2002, if you're interested), looking for material I can use in my article and bawling my head off. Doug is keyed in to my emotions, and thinks a fancy coffee beverage might help. "I'm ready to go to Starbucks anytime you are," he says. I, on the other hand, am committed to my writing. "But wouldn't that be an avoidance behavior?" "Yeah, but what if, by not going, we're avoiding Starbucks?" When he's right, people, he's right. We're outta here! Posted by Katy on 04/13/05 Permalink Talk Sleepy To Me (#148) You're missing a lot if you don't have a TV in your bedroom. I know...I know. There's the principle of the thing to consider. And believe me, for the first 25 years of our marriage, we considered it. But three years ago we began to believe that perhaps we had too many answers and not as many questions as people in general should have. What if a big honking TV in the bedroom could provide us with the questions we so desperately needed? So we cast off our predisposition for leading lives based on foundational principles like "Thou Shalt Never Enjoy Cuddling With Thy Spouse In Bed While Watching Reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond! Never!!" And we moved the whole darned entertainment center into the master bedroom. All I can tell you is that our lives were changed forever. Last night, after we'd settled in for American Idol and followed it up with that new doctor show, House, we even enjoyed a few commercials before clicking the TV off. That last commercial did it for Doug. He rolled toward the center of the bed, drew me close to him, and in his deep, sensuous voice said, "Hey, baby, you're my Sleep Number." Forget principles. Posted by Katy on 04/13/05 Permalink A Remote Impossibility (#149) If I lived alone, I would lead a completely remoteless life. I know this about myself. I'm afraid I'm just like my mother, who for the most part enjoys the benefits of her clicker until, that is, one of her great-grandkids visits and messes with the buttons. Not long ago my brother discovered that Mom had spent the last several months viewing all the programs on her bedroom TV in Spanish. "Mom, why didn't you say something sooner? I could have easily switched you back to English," he said. "Well," she said (and maybe she'd just been hearing a lot about illegal immigration or English as a second language or something), "I just thought the whole world had gone to Spanish." "But, Mom, the TV in your living room is in English." "Oh. I hadn't thought of that." I just called Kevin into my bedroom to switch my DVD player off so I could watch the weather report on the news. It's a process that involves a precarious combination of at least two remotes (out of the five that languish on various surfaces in my room) and upwards of seven or eight buttons. I don't get why, if I want "TV," I should need to push "SAT" and then "03," which is not the channel I'm interested in. Then, after "03," I think I'm supposed to punch in the channel, but maybe not. Whatever. I do know that I need to punch "SAT" before punching the channel, and "TV" before controlling the volume. If I screw up on either of these steps, I end up with a snowy, staticky version of channel "03," which is NEVER where I really want to be. Channel "03" is a middle-aged woman's cruel punishment for attempting to understand stuff like this. "Kev, just put it on Channel 41 for me, will you?" "Mom, you need to learn this. Come on, I'll show you again..." "No, really, Kev. I think we may be directly in the path of a deadly tornado. Please get me to 41 so that we can find out if we should take shelter in our safe spot..." I must have looked truly pitiful, especially when I used the words "safe spot," because the boy grabbed the remote with disgust as if he were the impatient parent and I the stubborn child. "Just remember," he said, and even now I'm not sure if it was a promise or a threat, "You won't always have me around." Hey, that's not fair! He's twenty, and I haven't even used that line on HIM yet! Posted by Katy on 04/11/05 Permalink Yeah. I Am A Sentimental Sap, And You Might As Well Know It Right Up Front (#150) Some of you will remember that in February, my 83-year-old mother-in-law, Adele, became a published book author. Lest you imagine that self-publishing meant any less to her than if Random House or Putnam or one of the University presses had picked up her volume of poetry, think again. The lady has been thrilled out of her mind with all the requests, at the retirement home where she lives, for autographed copies of her book. She called Doug about a week after her birthday, when she found herself with a few minutes to catch her breath between fans, and said she'd never been happier in her whole life. I gotta tell you, this made me feel so good I could hardly stand it. Well, next Sunday we celebrate my mother's 75th birthday. She hasn't written any unpublished works, unless you count all her endless, entertaining lists of every imaginable category, including her accidents, illnesses, and diseases along with dates of onset. She's a corker, my mom. What made me think that putting together an iMovie of her life would be a manageable project, I can't say for sure. Maybe I knew from the beginning that it would be difficult to gather pics from far and wide to try to recreate the story of an only child who married, had six children of her own, then a bunch of in-law kids and fourteen grandchildren, and finally four great-grandchildren. Okay, I knew getting everyone to catch my vision would be challenging, possibly even impossible--but still doable. So we did it. Carrie is an experienced iMovie producer. She came home from college for the weekend to put all the pieces together, around 250 scanned pics--a thirteen-minute-long show. Last night at midnight, when she was nearly finished, I dropped into bed and told Doug, "I'm so tired, I don't think I can even enjoy the movie. I sure hope Mom does, but I'm pooped." The show is set to five songs, in this order: Sentimental Journey by Barry Manilow; The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra; I'll Be Seeing You (In All the Old Familiar Places) by Bing Crosby; In My Life by Rod Stewart; and What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. I didn't get a chance to watch the whole thing until just now, when Carrie and I sat down together and viewed it straight through twice in a row. If you ever want to get a different perspective (a visual and musical one) on the entire scope of your parent's life, or on your kooky family dynamics, or on whether or not there's anything to the whole birth order thing, put together one of these movies. I'm learning something new each time I watch it. I bawled my fool head off, just so you know. And laughed like a crazy lady. And I still can't wipe the nutty grin off my face. I hope Mom has a wonderful birthday. When I look back on her 75 years, I realize just how much she deserves it. Posted by Katy on 04/11/05 Permalink The Stories of Our Lives (#151) I've come to the conclusion that few of us--if any--ever fully believe in the strength of our own stories. My mother is a prime example. The woman is a natural born story teller. Her best ones, aged with the valued patina of exaggeration and hear-say, might become altered in small points with the episodic retellings. But the comedic timing remains flawless and the punchlines never change. She can tell a story that has a roomful of progeny howling and after she's got us where she wants us, she puts on this innocent expression and says, "What? Was that funny?" Does she truly not realize how hilarious she can be? Or is this schtick her leg-puller of a lifetime? All I know is, yesterday she nailed me. I spent a couple hours at her place, filling her next month's worth of pill containers. She takes 17 different medications, some of them three times per day. She's got four containers, each with seven days, each with four compartments per day. So, yeah. It actually takes two hours to complete this task. It requires some concentration on my part to do it accurately, and even though Mom knows I need to pay attention lest I cause her some horrible pharmaceutical mishap, she doesn't stop telling stories the whole time I'm working. To be fair, I guess I get a couple tales in sideways, too, but I only do it for her, to give her a chance to catch her breath. At the end of my visit, as I gathered up all the empty pill bottles and got ready to leave, Mom couldn't resist recapping our stories and though I certainly wasn't expecting it, she gave one of mine the BOD (Best of Day). "You know that one about how Terri's such a wonderful friend that she'd give you the pants right off her behind?" (See my last entry.) "Yeah," I said. "That's a blog." I hadn't thought of my public bathroom story as a blog until Mom pointed it out, just like she doesn't know she's funny until she hears our laughter. It made me think how much we need to learn to trust our own stories, to understand that this is our material, the stuff of which our lives are made. When will we learn to use it? Mom will be 75 next week, and I'm wondering if maybe she was born before her time. All I know is, she would have made some blogger. Posted by Katy on 04/07/05 Permalink Bottom-Line Friendship (#152) After a three-hour long lunch, Terri and I sat in adjoining bathroom stalls in Applebee's, still chatting before we hopped in our cars and went our separate ways--or so we thought. We've only been friends a short while, since she was 13 and I was 17. So, while we've become quite close, there are still a few things we haven't shared. At least not in a public bathroom. Until now. Terri turned on the water, gabbing away, and I'm thinking she was as surprised as I when suddenly I screamed out in pain. "Aaaa-aaaaa-AAAAAAA!!" "What? What? WHAT?" she screamed back. "I can't MOVE!! It hurts so BAD!!!" "What hurts? What's wrong?" I gotta tell you, this girl's been around the block with me more than once. She knows I'm a drama queen, yes. But she also knows I have a knack for contracting some of the most exotic diseases and bizarre conditions known to womankind. Let's just say when I shriek, she doesn't yawn. "Lower left quadrant," I gasp. "It's HORRIBLE! I can't stand up..." "Unlock the door in case I need to come in there," she said. Now this is where things started to get dicey, at least in my weird mind. I really don't like chicks with me in the bathroom, especially when I can't stand up and I'm screaming and my granny panties are down around my ankles. I looked at the stall door, which ends about six inches from the floor, and realized that it would be completely unfair to refuse to unlock the door because of nutty hang-ups. What did I plan to do? Pass out from the pain and expect Terri to worm her way under the door with me blocking it? I reached up and unlocked the door. She was nice enough not to barge in until things got even more desperate, affording me another full fifteen seconds of dignity. I managed to get my unders pulled up, which is the nice thing about elastic-waisted garments, isn't it? Even if you yourself can't, technically, stand up, you can still finagle those puppies into place. I breathed a sigh of relief. I might have to be hauled out of there half naked, I thought, but I've done worse. (Don't ask.) "Terri, I can't get my jeans up, because I can't stand up." "Should I call Doug?" Did she think he could pull my jeans up? Because, honestly, he's not very good at stuff like that. "AAAAA! Aaaaaa....AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" "Should I call an ambulance?" I had to get out of that bathroom. I was dripping sweat and my mouth had gone completely dry. I hadn't started hyperventilating yet, though, so there was still hope. "Give me your pants," I said. "Now. I'm dying here, Terri. I've got to have your pants." "What? My pants? What will I do?" When you've been friends as long as Terri and I have been, that last question--while entertaining--really isn't useful. It doesn't matter what one of us will do, if the other one is in need. She'd end up giving me her pants, and she knew it. "I can pull your pants up on me, because they have elastic," I said. "You can wear my jeans..." I started to fade then. The pain had its way with me, and I remember little after that. Somehow, she got out of her pants, got me out of mine, got my feet into hers, and got herself into my jeans. I remember hearing her mutter to herself, "It's OK. It's fine. We can do this. OK, now. Everything's fine..." Then I heard her say, "I'm gonna pray for you." And she prayed out loud, and while the pain didn't go away, I felt a comfort descend upon both of us, right there, right then. The next thing I knew, I was pulling those glorious elastic-waisted jogging pants up over my granny panties and gingerly making my way toward the bathroom door. We left my car there in the parking lot and Terri drove me home. I don't remember the ride, just the feeling of the friendship. Just the wonderful feeling you have when you know that there's someone in the world who would do pretty much anything for you, and even refrain from laughing her head off at your weirdness. Someone who will give you the clothes off her rear end if you ask for them, who will pray you through your most embarassing moments in public places, proving to you once again that Jesus is truly Lord of everything. He's even Lord of the Pants. Posted by Katy on 04/06/05 Permalink Empty Hands (#153) “God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.” St. Augustine “So why should we bother to pray at all?” a man in our Sunday school asked. “If God only answers prayers that are prayed according to His will, and we don’t know His will, what’s the point? Isn’t He just going to do what He’s already decided, whether we pray or not?” If you’re ever in the mood to squirm, come be our guest at Sunday school. Included in our number are two guys with doctorate degrees, an architect, several business owners, a couple of realtors, a high school math teacher, and more than one devil’s advocate. “The point is that prayer is relationship,” said one middle-aged mom. “We don’t always know God’s will in a situation. But we pray anyway. And He shows us His ways through our relationship with Him.” “But if we don’t know His will, what good does it do to pray?” “But if we don’t get to know Him by praying, what good would it be to know His will?” I couldn’t help but think about King David, who couldn’t help but pray for God to spare the life of his son, even though God had already revealed through the prophet Nathan that the boy would die. Every time I read this story (found in 2 Samuel 12), I’m amazed by David’s guts. Here he’d just completed an elaborately planned scheme to have a soldier killed in battle so that he could claim the man’s beautiful widow as his own wife. Bathsheba—whose former residence included a bathtub on the roof, you’ll remember—moved into the king’s palace, married him, and bore him a son. God wasn’t thrilled with this turn of events. Through the prophet Nathan, He let David have it. “Look at everything I’ve given you! Everything you’ve asked for and more! But then you had to take what belonged to another?” David’s hands were full, all right—not only with the legitimate blessings God had given him, but also with his new wife Bathsheba, their young son who lay at death’s door, and the blood of an innocent man. How dare he turn to God in prayer? And yet, he prayed. Until he heard from his servants that his son had finally died, he didn’t cease imploring God to spare the child. But if Nathan had already declared that the boy would die, why did David bother to pray? “Prayer is relationship,” the woman in Sunday school said. “Even if He doesn’t answer the way we’d like Him to, prayer is how we get to know God better.” By the time David finished praying, I’m thinking his hands were empty of everything but the one thing God still wanted to give him: A clean heart. Read the Marginal take on this quote… Posted by Katy on 04/04/05 Permalink Baby Got Book (#154) If you've already seen this, you have the advantage of having been laughing longer than the rest of us. If you're just now seeing it, I hope you get as big a kick out of it as I do. I'm ditching my wimpy Bible on CD after that, baby! Posted by Katy on 03/30/05 Permalink Page 44 of 84 pages « First < 42 43 44 45 46 > Last »


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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