Today was a great day. Church in the morning - I taught Gabe and Reese's class, always fun to watch them interact with other kids and also teach them about God's love. After nap time we ran a few errands - the jewelry store to polish Kelly's ring (a yearly tradition), a nearby park to play in the fountain,
Panera for dinner, and finally Target to pick up a couple wiffle ball bats. After getting home we finished the night with a few swings of the new bat in the neighborhood. Along the way we couldn't help but enjoy our kids. At the park they were caught by surprise a couple times by the water fountain. At Panera they decided to play airband to the jazz music playing in the restaurant. At the neighborhood park Gabe asks a kid riding by, "you wanna play?" It was a great day.
In the midst of the running around, something unusual happened. On the list of errands was Reese's first pair of underwear...a hopeful purchase. Gabe was especially excited. It was like he was an old pro passing on tricks of the trade to a young rookie. He held her hand all the way there and did everything he could to try to convince her to buy the Spiderman underwear. She was more interested in Hello Kitty. Kelly was around the corner looking at other options when a man in his 50's approached. I looked up as he walked by and he said some words to me that went straight to my heart.
"You don't know how lucky you are," he said.
He wasn't joking, he wasn't lighthearted...he was completely serious. His voice was deep and his eyes were intense.
As soon as I heard the words I knew there was more to it. I politely said, "thank you," attempting to match his intensity but not even coming close.
Maybe he was an emptynester recalling the early years or maybe there was some deeper pain behind his words. I'll never know. He was gone as fast as he came.
Tuesday is our 9th wedding anniversary so Kelly and I have already been thinking about how blessed we are to have each other and have two beautiful, healthy kids. But it's easy to forget that stuff, right? Getting up 5 times in the middle of the night to put a pacifier in or change wet sheets. The whining, the fighting, the ever constant "no" answer. That's more like it. Maybe it's just me but unfortunately when I think of "normal" I think of Gabe running the opposite direction when I say, "come."
Christians have a word for "lucky." Grace. Grace, that simple word that defines everything about us. It's all grace right? It's all a gift. A week or so ago I dreamt about Eph. 2:8, "for by grace." I know it's weird but by morning I was overwhelmed with the idea that life is all about grace and when you've been given grace it changes everything...your perpective, your outlook...even your attitude. Bitter people know very little about grace.
Bottomline - the guy was right. I don't know how lucky I am.
I stole the title from a facebook comment, he was referring to Otter Pops. Tonight was one of the hottest days Portland has seen, 107 degrees! Most people don't have air conditioning because it doesn't normally get that hot in Portland. As I was watching the news yesterday (it was a meager 106 degrees) I saw a story on a non profit that was handing out fans to seniors in poverty. The heat is so extreme that it seems to be something that everyone is talking about. So I had an idea...why not hand out Otter Pops to our neighbors? Wednesday is our when our home community meets and it just so happened to be the hottest day so we filled a couple coolers with about 300 Otter Pops and canvased the neighborhood. It was an amazing experience to say the least. It served as a way to help unite and mobilize our home community but more then that it gave us some great opportunities to bless our neighbors and get to know them more.
