Is This Considered a Sermon?
This is what's happening right now: "Are you typing a T? Why are you typing a T? You forgot to type an F. (Reaches over and grabs my fingers to try to force me to type an F) Is this what you're doing right now? Typing? (Strange trumpeting sounds from lips along with leaning on my shoulder) Is it 2:00? Is it 5:00? You need to type more. Why are you not typing?" Why am I sitting here calmly rather than pulling my own hair from my head?
This is what else is happening right now: "YaYa? Do you need to pee? Do you want to try? Sit on the potty honey. Make pee. Oh… no pee. That's okay, we'll try again later. Make sure you don't pee on the floor" (or the couch or the carpet or my leg) (Kid A tries to put the YaYa Sister's diaper on himself over his pants) It's an odd form of self-torture in the form of Potty-Training begun for some odd reason during the last month of my pregnancy. Oh, I remember why; a futile attempt to have this process really going so that I don't have to change thirty-six diapers a day once the baby is born.
Life is good. Can you believe that I read the other day that if you want to be rich and happy you should get married but shouldn't have kids? The basis of the argument was that studies show that getting married improves your happiness as much as a $100,000 salary would, but studies show that having kids doesn't affect your happiness one way or the other and it's expensive. So, logically, if you want money and happiness, nix the kids. This was seriously a real article. Silly me for thinking we were all in this for something other than wealth and personal happiness. And pardon me, but what stage of marriage were they talking about as far as your happiness being so greatly increased? It seems to be that over half the married people in this country choose to become unmarried because they're so desperately unhappy. But, I have to admit that in the same article, they suggested things like finding charity events to mingle with rich people, in order to feel more rich, and tons of ways to wear or have things that rich people have, so you can fool yourself into thinking that you're in a different wealth bracket than you are.
Hello, my name is Rae, and I live below the poverty line. However, I somehow seem to be incredibly happy, perhaps not instead of this simple lifestyle, but because of it. I'm glad that there are a lot of different kinds of lifestyles, glad that my shared lifestyle with other people means that we can live for less. I'm glad that we don't have a lot. I'm glad that we have tons of stuff, compared to people all around the world who don't live in an American reality. I'm glad that I have a lot of different friends in different levels of society and that I never feel that I need to be anything other than what I am with them. I'm glad that Chinua and I can serve others and always have the opportunity to be served at the same time. I'm glad that we are who we are, and that we are where God put us. I'm glad that He takes such good care of us.
And forgive me, but I kinda think that happiness is not such a smart goal. Running after it could take you your whole life and bring nothing but a whole lot of futility. How about things like character, joy, giving, love, adventure, growth, maturity? Or godliness? Whew. Those things seem more likely, because life is often hard, even if you are married to the man of your dreams in the ministry of your dreams with the kids of your dreams.
Oh yes, and patience. That's what I'm achieving as kids with hot breath lean all over me as I try to type away. Or as my three-year-old son tries to tell me how to drive when we're in the car and I let out a deep breath and patiently takea shot at letting him know why that's not so cool. (As in, I've been doing this almost three times as long as the span of your little life.)