a picnic in the theater

Taking a 5 year old to the movies is not as simple as going with one of your friends. It takes time, energy, skill, a good sense of humour, and time. Did I mention time?

Step 1: Pack snacks. You have decided to see the 5:40pm show, which means you will be watching the movie during dinner time.

I didn't want to fill up on junk food, so I packed us sandwiches and fruit, and tell Kaleigh it's a "picnic". Yes, I am that aunt. I realized once we got to the theatre and smelled the popcorn how cruel I was being. But hey, I packed us lifesavers and candy canes...
I am laughing so hard at myself now.

Step 2: Become a clock. On the drive there you will be asked "how much longer?" about every 3-5 minutes, and she will keep track, so don't even try to tell her the same amount of time twice.

It's amazing the random topics she will find to talk about. She started telling me a story about someone in a barrel in a river by the "Nyoo-Ited States" who they were poking with sticks and things? Apparently she saw it at Ripley's Believe It or Not. Also their hotel had two pools. Indoor and outdoor. Daddy liked the outdoor one better.

She was extremely excited because I told her there would be 3D glasses.
"Do we get to keep them after? Do they pass them around when we get there? Do we have to keep them on? Will we get in trouble if we take them off?" I have a vision of theater employees standings like soldiers, one on each step, carefully watching that everyone puts on and takes off their glasses at the appropriate time. I wonder if that's what Kaleigh is imagining.

Step 3: Don't stop at Timmies. She will worry about the time.
"Oh no, there's a big line-up."
"It's fine, Kaleigh, we have 42 minutes before the movie starts."
"Oh. That's a loong time."
"Yeah we've got lots of time."
We then waited about 5 minutes in the drive thru line just to place our order, and another minute or so at the speaker thing. Finally I said "Helloooo" and the employee replied "I'll be with you in a sec."
From the backseat Kaleigh said "One. That was a second, right Auntie?" She looked at me with those big blue eyes, so innocent. She really and truly wasn't being a smarty pants.
"Right, Kaleigh, but usually when grown-ups say they'll be a second, they mean longer, like a couple of minutes."

Step 4: Don't attempt to teach dishonesty.
When we pulled into the theater and parked, I turned to her.
"Now, Kaleigh, don't say anything to the people in the theater about the snacks in my purse, ok?"
"Ok. Why?"
"Because we're not really supposed to have them."
"Oh," she looks and sounds very concerned. "What will they do if they see us with them?"
"Probably nothing, but we just won't let them see us." (oh my gosh I'm terrible I don't think I should be telling people this!)
"But what will they do if they do see us?"
"I don't know, maybe ask us to throw them out, but it's ok, they won't. It will be fine."

Later, in the theater, I asked Kaleigh if she wanted her sandwich.
"No," she said quickly.
"Kaleigh, they're not going to get you in trouble."
"They're not?"
"No," I laugh "Kaleigh it's fine."
"You were just joking?" She asks me, so sweetly, so innocently.
"Yes," I lie. I outright lie to my sweet, beautiful niece. "I was only joking. Now please eat your sandwich."

Step 5: Be prepared for bathroom breaks.

Step 6: Regret packing your "picnic".
"Last time I went to theater with my Mommy and Daddy, and we just bought the food there. Like popcorn."

Yes. I'm sure that was much, much easier.

Step 7: Work out/have a wheelbarrow handy.

A limp, sleeping child is incredibly heavy, especially when they weigh almost half of what you do. I think she fell asleep mid-sentence on the way home, and didn't even wake up when I awkwardly pulled her from the car and carried her inside.

The Turn of The Tide by C.S. Lewis

Found this in a book of poems by C.S. Lewis. A beautiful imagining about the birth of Christ. The meter is a little strange, I had to read a couple of phrases more than once to find the rhythm.

Also, there are leprechauns.

"Breathless was the air over Bethlehem. Black and bare

Were the fields; hard as granite the clods;

Hedges stiff with ice; the sedge in the vice

Of the pool, like pointed iron rods.

And the deathly stillness spread from Bethlehem. It was shed

Wider each moment on the land;

Through rampart and wall into camp and into hall

Stole the hush; all tongues were at a stand.

At the Procurator's feast the jocular freedman ceased

His story, and gaped. All were glum

Travellers at their beer in a tavern turned to hear

The landlord; their oracle was dumb.

But the silence flowed forth to the islands and the North

And smoothed the unquiet river bars

And levelled out the waves from their revelling and paved

The sea with cold reflected stars.

Where the Caesar on Palatine sat at ease to sign,

Without anger, signatures of death,

There stole into his room and on his soul a gloom,

And his pen faltered, and his breath.

Then to Carthage and the Gauls, past Parthia and the Falls

Of Nile and Mount Amara it crept;

The romp and war of beast in swamp and jungle ceased,

The forest grew still as though it slept.

So it ran about the girth of the planet. From the Earth

A signal, a warning, went out

And away behind the air. Her neighbours were aware

Of change. They were troubled with a doubt.

Salamanders in the Sun that brandish as they run

Tails like the Americas in size

Were stunned by it and dazed; wondering, they gazed

Up at Earth, misgiving in their eyes.

In Houses and Signs Ousiarchs divine

Grew pale and questioned what it meant;

Great Galactal lords stood back to back with swords

Half-drawn, awaiting the event,

And a whisper among them passed, 'Is this perhaps the last

Of our story and the glories of our crown?

--The entropy worked out?--The central redoubt

Abandoned? The world-spring running down?

Then they could speak no more. Weakness overbore

Even them. They were as flies in a web,

In their lethargy stone-dumb. The death had almost come;

The tide lay motionless at ebb.

Like a stab at that moment, over Crab and Bowman,

Over Maiden and Lion, came the shock

Of returning life, the start and burning pang at heart,

Setting Galaxies to tingle and rock;

And the Lords dared to breathe, and swords were sheathed

And a rustling, a relaxing began,

With a rumour and noise of the resuming of joys,

On the nerves of the universe it ran.

Then pulsing into space with delicate, dulcet pace

Came a music, infinitely small

And clear. But it swelled and drew nearer and held

All worlds in the sharpness of its call.

And now divinely deep, and louder, with the sweep

and quiver of inebriating sound,

The vibrant dithyramb shook Libra and the Ram,

The brains of Aquarius spun round;

Such a note as neither Throne nor Potentate had known

Since the Word first founded the abyss,

But this time it was changed in a mystery, estranged,

A paradox, an ambiguous bliss.

Heaven danced to it and burned. Such answer was returned

To the hush, the Favete, the fear

That Earth had sent out; revel, mirth and shout

Descended to her, sphere below sphere.

Saturn laughed and lost his latter age's frost,

His beard, Niagara-like, unfroze;

Monsters in the Sun rejoiced; the Inconstant One,

The unwedded Moon, forgot her woes.

A shiver of re-birth and deliverance on the Earth

went gliding. Her bonds were released.

Into broken light a breeze rippled and woke the seas,

In the forest it startled every beast.

Capripods fell to dance from Taproban to France,

Leprechauns from Down to Labrador,

In his green Asian dell the Phoenix from his shell

Burst forth and was the Phoenix once more.

So death lay in arrest. But at Bethlehem the bless'd

Nothing greater could be heard

Than a dry wind in the thorn, the cry of the One new-born,

And cattle in stall as they stirred."

Christmas giving: what's it going to take?

To all of my readers (cuz I know there is actually a plethora of you out there, just for some reason you're not showing up in my view count thing...) Ahem To all of my readers, if you don't believe in God, I hope you will still read my blog, and learn about why I believe in God, and why I live the way I do. If you don't believe in God and it really irritates you to read blogs which refer to him... I still hope you will read my blog.

So, the other day I was in Sobeys grocery shopping, and when I left I walked past one of the Salvation Army Christmas Kettles. After I walked past it I asked myself, why do I always walk past these things? I discovered that, oddly enough, my main reason for walking by is embarrassment. Why the heck would I embarrassed to give to charity? For some reason the thought of stopping in the middle of a doorway, having to dig through my purse for my wallet, and then through my wallet for change, and then try and get it into the little slot (slots are such a challenge for me!) makes me break out into a cold sweat. So really, is that a good reason not to give to charity? I don't think so. I think about all the sad news announcements about charities not reaching their donation goals and feel very guilty. So I says to myself I says "Kaitlyn, there will be other kettles. The next time you come across one you will put money in."

About half an hour later I was leaving Canadian Tire and, what do you know? Another kettle. Now's my chance! I'm walking closer, closer, closer, and... I pass by. I hear the pathetic "jingle jingle" as the door shuts behind me, and I've missed my chance again. Even the immense pain in my conscience is not enough to get me to turn around. "There will be others," I tell myself. "You will have another chance!"

About half an hour later I am at the cash register at Independent. I have just paid for my order when the cashier from the next till says to me "Did you get that goat cheese, dear?" Lo and behold, I had goat cheese in my cart, hidden under my purse, and I had been about to leave with it! Embarassed, I paid for the goat cheese. As I'm headed out the door, guess what I see? Another kettle. Already flustered by the goat cheese situation, I am clearly incapable of stopping, opening my wallet, searching for change, and getting it in the slot.
As I walk through the automatic doors I nearly barf all over the linoleum floors. I make myself sick. I am a despicable human being. Ever heard of someone being a Judas? Well I'm a Peter. Three times... cockadoodledoo!!!

 I get to my car and am searching in my purse for my phone when I feel a mysterious object in my purse. I pull it out, and, horror of horrors, I discover that I HAVE STOLEN something! A stick of organic, paraben free deodorant, no less. Apparently, I had put it in my purse after checking to make sure it smelled good (it does, by the way). It takes me about 2 seconds to realize I am going back in to pay for my deodorant. I march myself into the Independent and announce: "I stole this, and now I would like to pay for it."

You better believe that after all that I PUT MONEY IN THE STUPID KETTLE!

Just another little story about why I believe in God. He knows us, He knows our hearts, and He knows what it will take to get us to act. I need to be a more giving person. Clearly.

Hebrews 4

Over the past week or so I felt just awful. I knew I should snap myself out of it, but I didn't care enough to. This is what I wrote...

I feel frustrated, lost, overwhelmed, and angry. I feel like I have given up so much, and for what? If God told me tomorrow to hop on a plane headed for Africa, I think I'd do it. This sitting around and waiting is the worst. It's not even nice waiting, like anticipation, because I have no idea what's coming or when or if it's going to be any fun when it gets here. I'm worried I'm going to be stuck here, in this place emotionally, physically, and spiritually, forever.
I'm uncertain about what to do with my time. There are so many things I could be doing but I don't know what I should be doing.
I feel so far from God, and so tired. I need to be peaceful and rest in Him, but I also need to "not grow weary in well doing." 
I'm sinking into the green, filthy murk of my own pride.

Hebrews 4:18 "For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted."

Jesus must have been tempted to sink into melancholy. The Holiest of Holies, dwelling with our filth. He knew the eternal destiny of every soldier marching past, ever merchant selling their wares, every beggar, every Pharisee, ever child. He knew his own fate, to suffer on the cross, to be separated from God for a time. How tempting it must have been to just stay in bed, go back to sleep, stay in the garden alone and weep.
He must really get it when people can't seem to stop being sad, when they are feeling overwhelmed, tired, weak.  "He... being tempted... is able to aid those who are tempted."
^{Hebrews 4: 14} Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,^[f] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

It is a humbling experience to ask for help, whether it is from a friend, a mentor, or God Himself. He longs to equip us with what we need to meet our day, our responsibilities, our trials. To greet whatever comes with a peaceful, confident attitude. Whatever comes.
Whatever comes. 

driving in cars with grandmas

Sitting in the passenger's seat while my 82 year old grandmother drives puts a whole new meaning to the words "awe" and "fear". If you were in the queue of cars behind us, I apologize.
"Nana, just so you know the speed limit is 80 on this road," I say sweetly.
"Oh, ok."
Continues to drive 65. A couple of times I feel the car speed up and glance hopefully at the speedometer, only to feel that horrible lurching feeling of the brakes being applied. Have I mentioned I'm sorry if you were behind us?
Next we get to the highway. It's a 4 lane, highway, not big, but clearly a highway.
"Is it 80 on this road?"
"No, it is 100."
"Oh. That's why all the cars are passing me."
Yes, that would be why.
When we get into town, we approach a round-about at a fairly steady clip, getting closer and closer to the black truck ahead, whose brake lights glow a foreboding red. Closer, closer, closer, my life flashes before my eyes and I think to myself "Well, there are worse ways to die", when she finally applies those wonderful brakes.
Next we approach a stoplight. We will be turning left, but the light is red.
"Where am I going?"
"Left."
Proceeds into intersection.
"Not on a red!" I can't help myself, but the light turns green and we continue driving.
"What was that, dear?"
I laugh nervously, "Oh nothing, I was just like, 'no, not..." The brakes make a comeback and we lurch to a stop. This exchange has taken only a matter of seconds, and we are smack in the middle of the intersection.
"No? Not left?" she questions in a panic.
"No! I mean, yes, left! GO!!"

We park and I go into a store while Nana waits in the car. When I come out and get in the car I tell her.
"Ok, Nana, you're going to go straight now and then turn right at the light."
"Oh, ok." She responds, and we pull on to the street.
"Ok, so see that light? You're going to turn right at that light." I say.
"Ok."
We pull up to the light.
"Ok, so where am I going?"
"Right."
"Ok."
Oi.

I won't even try to explain what happened when we got to the roundabout again and had to turn right twice within a matter of seconds. It was almost beyond us. We managed, however.

Later we get to the parking lot at Wal-Mart.

"I'm going to try to get nice and close," she says as we cut across parking spaces willy-nilly.
"Ok," I reply. I am not even bothering to watch for other cars at this point, I figure if I'm going to die, I don't want to see it coming.
"How about right here?" She asks. I open my eyes and find we are between two enormous trucks, a mile away from the entrance and with the nose of our car jutting out about 3 feet past the others.
"This is fine, Nana, but I think you need to back up just a smidge," I say when I have unlocked my jaw.

The ride home is much faster, though as I watch that scary white line on the side of the road get closer and closer to our tires, I'm wondering if we were better off communing with the snails.

We made it home. Safe and sound. I hope that when I'm 82 I can still drive a car, and will be willing to move to a new town "up north" after living in the same home for 30 years, to live with my son and his wife and their crazy radical daughter who has no job, isn't in school, and almost all her friends have moved away and left her.

Yes, I think my Nana's pretty cool, and I'm going to keep letting her drive. Life's short and I want to live it, and I want her to live it too.

mawwiage

I can't believe what happened this weekend. My Kevin got married. MY KEVIN GOT MARRIED! Also, my Lay-Ka got married.
To my Kevin.
WHAT?!
Why are we all so OLD?

Anyways, Kevin is one of my best friends in the whole world. Our moms met in the hospital when we were just weeks old (we were both sick, poor wee babies). They would chat and Kevin's mom, Glenda, would keep an eye on me in the hospital when my mom had to go home to look after my older brothers. They lost touch afterwards, though.
About two years later, in a little town called Bracebridge, a two hour drive north of where they originally met, my mom saw, or thought she saw, Glenda in McDonald's, with a little boy about my age. My mom hesitated though, and then they were gone. Five minutes later, we ran into them again in Zellers. Friendship was rekindled. What was the likelihood of both families moving from "the city" to the small town of Gravenhurst, and then running into each other on an outing in Bracebridge? Destiny, that's what.

19 years later I'm driving in my car to McDonald's to buy Kevin a small regular coffee. I just bought him a present at GT Boutique, camo "onesie" pajamas, and next I'm headed to the LCBO for a can of Richard's Red. In my trunk I have my entire collection of beauty supplies, a black dress, grey tights, and black Toms. I get to his house, he takes a swig of coffee followed by a swig of beer. I ask him the question I already know the answer to.
"Have you eaten anything yet today?"
"No..."
"I'm making you food. How about pancakes? Want some pancakes? I'm making you pancakes. Glenda, where is the pancake mix? I hope you have some because I don't know how to make pancakes otherwise. Do you want pancakes too? How about everybody else? You know what, I'm just going to make everybody pancakes! Kevin, get me a frying pan."

This pretty much sums up our friendship. I don't know how he endured my bossiness all throughout the years. I think he learned to just suffer in silence.

A few hours later I'm watching him watch his bride walk down the aisle. I'm listening to him say his vows. I'm crying because he's crying. It is taking everything that's in me not to run into the pastor's office and rip the phone jack out of the wall. I was definitely not feeling the love of Christ toward whoever chose to call the church at that moment.

There were pictures in the pouring rain, there was a beautiful reception with singing and dancing and more tears. There was delicious food and I got served first along with the bride because we were the only people gluten and dairy free (so awesome, remember that next time you go to a wedding! People with allergies get special treatment...)

So two of my dearest friends were married. I get to see my Kevin loved and cherished by a beautiful, godly young woman. I get to see him love and cherish her. Life is good... and God is better.

hope and humbling

God has been shaking my confidence lately. When God shakes your confidence, it's a frightening thing, but you come out just... better. I believe this is called "humbling". 

There are really hard things in all of our lives, and there are some really hard things in mine. I have wishes and hopes and dreams for the people around me, but I'm forced to stand by and watch as they suffer and dig themselves deeper and deeper in sin and pain. I pray for them, I try to pray with faith. I try not to be like the man in James 1, who was a double-minded unstable doubter, like a wave driven and tossed by the wind, yet that is exactly how I feel sometimes, well, most of the time. I always fear that my prayers won't be answered in the way I want them to be. We talk about praying for God's will, but I think our secret fear is that His will won't align with ours.

I was thinking about hope, and how hard it is to have hope for other people. It seems like so much of what happens in our lives is directly dependent on our own behaviour. We live in a world of sin and consequence, of work and reward, of reaping and sowing. My hopes for other people are dependent on them, that they will turn away from their sin and turn to God. My hopes for myself are based on my own self-discipline and obedience to God. The problem is, these hopes aren't fail-proof. I want something I can hope in with confidence, really believing it's going to come to pass.

I think sometimes we think of hope as being more along the lines of wishful thinking. Yet that's not the definition of hope. Webster's says it is "to desire with expectation of obtainment" or "to expect with confidence". This certainly doesn't suggest a passive wish or fancy. The bible doesn't suggest that either. 

As I was struggling and trying to figure out how to hope in faith for God to answer my prayers, I felt Him saying to me. "I have given you an everlasting hope."

Romans 8:23-25

New King James Version (NKJV)

²³ Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

This speaks of a hope in an assured future, waiting knowing that it will happen, knowing your perseverance won't be in vain.

I realized that He is the only One worth putting any hope in at all. The words of Chris Tomlin's song "Jesus Messiah" rang in my head. "All our hope is in You. All our hope is in You" I wondered to myself, what would my life look like if I put all my hope in God? 

If I put all of my hope in the assurance of my salvation, then I would have hope that never fails. If I put all my hope in the promises of God's Word, then I would have hope that never fails.

 It takes so much trust, though, trust that God is bigger, greater, wiser, and infinitely more loving than I could ever be. If I put all my hope in that, in the promises that He makes, wouldn't I be able to live in perfect peace?

I wrote in my journal.

"If all of my hopes are placed in God, how can they ever fail? I need to fixate myself on eternal dreams, dreams that are so caught up in God that they are prophetic."

I like the word "prophetic". It means predictive, foretelling events that will happen. I believe the promises in God's Word, so I can I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will come true. How awesome is it that we can have hopes and dreams that we know will be fulfilled? If our dreams are caught up in Him, in the assurance of His Word.

So I will cling to those promises, that He will never leave me, that He desires that all should come to Him, that He will save those who turn to Him, that His justice will prevail (that's a hard one), and that His plan is better.

Personally, I think that's better than any old wishing star.