On Sunday mornings, the Baptist church would send a bus through the neighborhood where they lived and she sent her daughter to church with many of the other children.

Before long, Briscoe looked out her window and saw two women talking to her daughter on the playground. She immediately ran them off with loud and abusive language.

They were her daughter’s Sunday School teachers.

A few weeks later, they knocked on her door and asked if they could pray for her.

‘I cussed them out and told them to get off my porch’ she said.

Then the women offered to babysit whenever Briscoe needed help. She told them off again. Then they invited her to children’s programs at church and she refused.

‘Those women were relentless, [emphasis mine -erin]‘ Briscoe said. ‘Finally, they asked us over for a meal and we went. Soon I was in a car with them and they led me to the Lord.’

Finding Jesus didn’t make the problems of the world go away for Briscoe. There was a lot of damage inflicted in 30 hard years.

But a little more than a year of Theophostic Prayer Ministry has led to a devotion to both her God and the girls who she wants to rescue from the streets.

Briscoe was not content to let becoming a prostitute be her story. She has turned the page and now works with church groups and other organizations to try to help those who are still living that life to get out.

-full article at the Augusta Gazette

“A modest man who did not court celebrity or praise, Mr Ritchie would spot would-be suicides from his home and slowly walk across the road to them. At the cliff-edge he would simply smile and ask them, ‘Can I help you in some way?’ More often than not the quiet approach worked, though on some occasions he risked his own life by physically restraining the more determined from making their final leap.

” ‘You just can’t sit there and watch them,’ he added. ‘You’ve got to try and save them.’ ”

-full article at The Independent

About a year ago I started helping teach my Sunday School class, which is still craziness to me, because about every other week I’m leading the discussion with older and much wiser people in the room.  But here I am.

So a few weeks ago we were reading about the Samaritan woman in John and specifically how Jesus went out of His way to get to her.  He traveled through an area the Jews would add time and distance to their journey just to avoid; He arrived there when He knew she would be alone at the well; He talked to a woman, which was highly taboo, and an unclean woman at that.

But none of the taboos mattered.  Jesus just wanted to bring one of His children to Him.

John Piper talked about this scene in one of his sermons.  I’ve taken my favorite parts and then emphasized my most favoritest parts and put them here:

“Jesus is the hound of heaven. The Father is seeking (pursuing!) her worship. And He is seeking her through Jesus. This is John’s version of the prodigal son (Luke 15)—only here it is a prodigal daughter. And the Father is seeking her worship. So just like Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners in Luke 15, He is willing to share a drinking cup with a Samaritan adulteress.

“Jesus is pursuing this unacceptable relationship. God is pursuing this woman. He means to have her in heaven. This is graciously relational. Everything is intentional. This is not just happening.  This is design.

“He broke a centuries-old taboo. He sought to be alone in Samaria. He sat on the well. He spoke and did not remain silent. He spoke to a Samaritan. He spoke to a woman. He spoke to an adulteress. He asked for a drink. And the only vessel available was hers…

“…[A]t this moment, in this text, God in Jesus means for you to feel graciously pursued. God is seeking a gracious relationship with you. That’s what this well-scene means.”

Then yesterday I listened to a guy on the radio talk about how God needs nothing from us but yearns for a relationship with us.  And my response is: Why?  How could He daily seek a relationship with such broken beings, knowing that we’ll break His heart, and yet He longs for us anyway?

It is too much.  More goodness than I can comprehend.

Then this morning Ravi Zacharias quoted a bit from The Hound of Heaven wherein a man runs from Jesus but Jesus pursues him through nights and days, over years, allowing the man to taste the empty joys of this world so that the man will know the true joy of life with Him.  Each of us is that man.  Just some of us give up and turn to Him before others.  It is a dense poem, but you should read it.

Because that is Jesus: an ever-chasing emissary of love.  Do you feel Him?  Do you hear His breath behind you, as He chases you and longs to bring you into a relationship with Him?  Because He is.  He’s there.  Just waiting for you to admit that you are blind and beaten down, to accept the treasures He has stored up for you.

So go.  Accept Him.  He is pursuing you.

Today on the way home from school Little Missy exclaimed, “LACY!  Now I know where Lacy lives!”  Glee burst from her little body and smacked me in the back of the head.  I had no choice but to inquire.

Me: “How do you know where Lacy lives?”

Little Missy: “CUZ I JUST SAW HER COMING OUT OF HER HOUSE!!!”

Excitement, I tell you.

Once we got home, Little Missy immediately made a note with hearts across the top and it said something like this:

Dear Lacy,

I know where you live.

I love you.

Your secret admirer.

If she were a few years older that note would be totally creepy.  But now it’s just so stinking cute and funny.

THEN she made an envelope and sealed up the letter.  Here’s what the envelope says:

Hi-Lacy

theis is [this is]

your secict [your secret]

admire [admirer]

I love who Lacy. [I love you, Lacy]

She makes such a cute little stalker.

But you know, she comes by the stalker naturally.  The day before my first date with Hubby, my mom, sister and I went to the mall to pick out a cute new outfit for me.  Since Mr. Fox worked at B. Dalton, my mom and sister strolled through the store to spy on him.

The next night (maybe? I can’t remember exactly) I laughed and told him that my mom and sister had spied on him the night before.  But he totally knew.  Because my sister could not be discreet and stared at him around the corners of the bookshelves with her big ol’ eyes.

I’m guessing Little Missy’s attempt at Secret Admirer (Stalker) will not turn out too secret-y, either.

Every once in a while Hubby and I are jolted back.  We shake ourselves free of the haze of life and schedules– MUCK in general–that had been clouding our view of how precious our children are.

Because they are.  So precious and so silly and so stinking well-behaved and so full of light and life and love.

So I’m relaxing on the schedules and blocking out others’ opinions of me and my children and I’m just going to enjoy them.  I want them to look at me and know I’ll laugh fully at their jokes and take time to listen to their stories and watch them ride their bikes up and down the street.

I need them to know how much they’re loved.

And hopefully one day this song will ring true of their mother, except they’ll know I got my hope from the Lord, and it will give them the desire to follow Him and live in His sunlight as well.

I’ve seen the way you deal with things

The troubles that this life can bring

If it gets to you, I can’t tell by the way you sing

You act like it just doesn’t mean a thing

I see you dancin’ all your

Dancin’ all your

Dancin’ all your days

…

Come on, come on

That’s got to be the way

I want this one to be true of me: “…She laughs with no fear of the future.” Proverbs 31:25

Auntie Leelee and Little Missy, after a girls' night two years ago.

This theme of body image, and more specifically  how society forces its malformed version of the Perfect Woman on girls and women, keeps popping up in my blog because I have two daughters that I want to protect from its insidious perversion; I have a son who I want to protect from believing the Perfect Woman is the one with the perfect hair and skin but who also lacks love and wit and a relationship with the Most High.

And so I’m grateful for my sister, who is funny and witty and wise, who wears pretty clothes without allowing her appearance to become what defines her, who will jump to listen to either of my daughters (or my son, undoubtedly) whenever this world is dragging one of them down.  And I’m grateful that she already has a plan in place for when they come to her.  And when Hayley tells my sweet child to “not take their shit,” I will turn my head and giggle, because sometimes cursing is totally appropriate.  And in that situation it will be.

I love to tease my husband about this, especially when he is sitting right behind me as I type BECAUSE HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, but he does not want me to take the kids out of school.  He says that because I skipped a few classes the second semester of my senior year in high school there is a possibility I do not believe in the necessity of our children daily attending school, that I might willy-nilly pull them out of school just for the fun of it.

So you can imagine my hesitation in telling him about that morning in December.  But they were to school by 8:35!  The teachers barely noticed the kids’ absences.

Yesterday, though, we mutually decided to take the kids out of school so that we as a family could attend the free admission day at the zoo.  Third year in a row of attending, and it’s awesome every time.

I have to say, in all my years of going to the Sedgwick County Zoo, this was the best trip ever.  Those animals were so active.  The grizzly bears strolled right in front of us; a gorilla ate, then laid down, then puked, then ate his green puke right in front of us; a hippo bellowed right up at my husband and kids; the tigers playfully wrestled with each other and then nuzzled right below my kids; the male lion climbed up on a rock and roared, ROARED YOU GUYS, right in front of us.  It was amazing.  I mean, I’ve seen the gorillas in their exhibit, but the bears and the lions are always hard to find.  For the former to just meander in front of us and the latter to ROAR WHILE WE WERE WATCHING… amazing.  Oh!  And some very naughty attendees tore branches from a tree in the rhinoceros habitat to feed to the giraffes, so we got to see the giraffes climb down an embankment and eat leaves until the zookeeper chased away those rule-breakers.

Here are some pictures:

Pretty girl.

G, always ready to protect his family.

Yes, that's my finger in the corner, but it was the only picture of all three kids.

Post-roar. You just know he's thinking, "I've said my piece, now I'm going to lie in the sun."

This is the baby and the daddy giraffe. The daddy had just walked back up the embankment to share a large branch with the mommy giraffe.

Then we came home and were all very tired, but Little Missy had dance and G had Boy Scouts.  But it was fun.  Perfect weather, no sunburns, active animals.  I dare say we should take them out of school again next year!

Every time I get on the treadmill I am immediately discouraged by the thought that I have 45 more minutes of this: running in place and watching TV.  I cannot make the time go fast enough.

Quickly it turns to a game.  Powering through the hurting legs; turning my ragged breathing into a long, smooth rhythm of inhale… exhale…

And then I’ve won.  I’ve gone longer and further than the last time I ran on the treadmill and I’ve got the wonderfully sore legs, sweaty face and expanded lungs to prove it.

I’m not sure I’ve ever reached that runner’s high, that mythical euphoria I’ve heard talk of.  But I am happier after I run.  Worn out, but happier.

But I haven’t run since last week.  A week ago yesterday I had my best run since last fall.  Then last Wednesday I got shin splints mid-run and had to switch over to the elliptical.  Last Friday I couldn’t make it a third of the way that I’d made it days earlier and had to spend my time on the elliptical.

You guys, I do not like anything as well as I like running.  Nothing works my entire body and blows the dust out of the corners of my lungs like running does.  I miss it.  I miss the treadmill and the monotony of running in place and the deep breaths and the sore muscles.

Someone, please tell me these shin splints will go away.

women hating on women:

–>“The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted.” -Ashley Judd at The Daily Beast (h/t Angela on her Facebook wall)

men hating on women:

–>“Does it seem like men feel kind of entitled to sex? Does it seem like we react to rejection with the maturity of a child being denied a toy?

“Well, you have to keep in mind that what we learn as kids is really hard to deprogram as an adult. And what we learned as kids is that we males are each owed, and will eventually be awarded, a beautiful woman.

“We were told this by every movie, TV show, novel, comic book, video game and song we encountered. When the Karate Kid wins the tournament, his prize is a trophy and Elisabeth Shue. Neo saves the world and is awarded Trinity. Marty McFly gets his dream girl, John McClane gets his ex-wife back, Keanu “Speed” Reeves gets Sandra Bullock, Shia LaBeouf gets Megan Fox in Transformers, Iron Man gets Pepper Potts, the hero in Avatar gets the hottest Na’vi, Shrek gets Fiona, Bill Murray gets Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, Frodo gets Sam, WALL-E gets EVE … and so on.” -5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women on Cracked (and heads up: foul language contained therein)

teenage boys hating on teenage girls:

–>“I want these guys to know that they’re able to be so cavalier because they don’t hear unsolicited opinions on their bodies and alleged sex lives all the time. Because the changes they noticed in the mirror a year or two ago were not interpreted as permission by strangers to offer an opinion on their bodies. Because they don’t put up with the kind of language the list used on the regular, and didn’t have to see it manifested as some kind of official document or rulebook, shared and spread and broadcast for students and teachers and parents to see. I want these guys to know that of course it would be easy for you to get over, because your transition into puberty didn’t include the same kinds of ridiculous beauty expectations, and then unsolicited evaluations of how well you measured up.” -First Encounters With the Male Gaze on Rookie (h/t Hayley)

the media hating on women:

–>“It’s bad enough that most models are part of a gene pool and age group that encompasses a very small percentage of the population. But now, they are photographing these folks and manipulating their skin, the lighting, their weight, and proportions to make them into an alien life form that exists only in a computer.” -Photoshopping Our Souls Away on Darling

And then here’s how we women need to change our mindsets:

–>“In the end if all one accomplishes as a woman is being really sexy, forgetting to be kind, compassionate, authentic, and brilliant, then she misses out on being all that she can be.  She misses out on making this world a better place.  My friends, you were made to shine, to pour the light of your beautiful and authentic self out on this world.  Believe in that, and move forward into your own beauty and complexity as a human being.” -Jen Shewmaker (h/t Hayley.  Again.  She is my sister, but even if I weren’t related to her, I’d still say she posts awesome stuff.)

–>“In her book The Good Body, Eve Ensler describes a time when she was traveling in Africa and asked a native woman named Leah if she liked her body. The woman responded confidently, ‘Do I like my body? Do I like my body? I love my body. God made this body. God gave me this body. My fingers, look at my fingers. I love my fingernails, little crescent moons. They lead right up to my arms–so strong–they carry things along. And my legs, my legs are long.’

“Immediately after hearing this, Eve began to complain about her own body only to be cut off by Leah: ‘Eve, look at that tree. Do you see that tree? Now look at that tree. (Points to another tree) Do you like that tree? Do you hate that tree ‘cause it doesn’t look like that tree? Do you say that tree isn’t pretty ‘cause it doesn’t look like that tree? You’re a tree. I’m a tree. You’ve got to love your body, Eve. You’ve got to love your tree. Love your tree.’ ” -Healthy Girl Talk: Redefining Beauty on Darling

My friends don’t seem to worry about this.  I don’t see them sizing up their contemporaries and mentally tearing them down.  In a life of missteps, I chose my husband well and I chose my friends well.

But the constant sizing-up and comparing myself to others is a battle I’ve waged within for a long time.  I would say the war is waning, but it’s still there.  And now that one of my precious daughters is in school and wants hair like K’s or a backpack like W’s, I am even more vigilant than I was in her toddler years to watch my words and watch the thoughts in my brain so that they don’t come tumbling out of my mouth.

In that last link, the author suggests we compliment our friends, not on their hair or other physical appearance, but on what makes them BEAUTIFUL: their compassion, wit, love, etc.  I think it would be a good idea to take up Heidi’s challenge and  send a handwritten to those I love a note just to tell them what I love about them.  It would be good to spread happiness around.

Little Baby Chickadee is sleeping, which gives me time to post pics from Spring Break and Easter.  I’m working on posting more pictures to this here blog.  Here goes.

And, we did more on Spring Break than just go to Botanica.  But sweet Baby Chickadee deleted most of those pictures when I wasn’t looking.  I think she liked the slurping sound my phone made each time she clicked “delete.”  But I do have these:

Painting at Botanica.

Making friends with the instructor at Botanica.

Gathering clues at Botanica.

Though surrounded by nature, G did not let that affect his choice of subject; no, he drew Transformers.

The last one at Botanica. I promise.

Our unsuccessful geocaching attempt.

My family makes me happy.