Sunday, December 31, 2006

Charity Never Faileth

New Year's Day is for celebration. New Year's Eve is for reflection.

Today, with a year to review, I can't help but acknowledge that I have lately felt a little cheated by the direction I took for the year. It has seemed that a few of my "do the next thing" moments I've lived in obedience to the Lord have been sort of dead ends. And dead ends seem awfully wasteful.

I am, after all, a penny-pincher head to toe. Actually, more. I'll pinch almost anything before I see it go to waste. And so, if I think something's been wasted, I end up down in the dumps. (I don't waste puns either.)

Faithful as He is, the Lord has recently been meeting me in the dumps. And He has been very patient about urging me out. But it wasn't until yesterday that I kind of woke up.

I was sorting through some old notecards and found scrawled across one of them the phrase, "Love is never wasted."

Why do I obey? Because I love Him.

If I do something out of obedience...out of love...and feel afterwards that it was a waste....

I have lost sight, then, of what love is about. After all, "Love seeks not her own." If I am obedient, expecting personal benefit...I will of course take the task of appraising its final worth. With the kind of sacrifices that obedience demands, the present cost often seems a bit high.

That's only natural.

And wrong.

Only when I release the expectation of personal gain can I stop counting daily costs of obedience, and start simply pressing for the goal.

After all, I already know that one "well done" will be worth a thousand tears.

All the figures I've jotted down on my sacrifice vs. benefit slate are a little meaningless now.

Because no matter how many negatives appear on the benefit side, the hard, cold eqautions disappear entirely when seen through a lonely hill, a jeering crowd, and a cross...

That and the words "Love is never wasted."

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

A New Leaf

Somewhere around the end-of-August-beginning-of-September...our computer crashed.

Since then, I have been snatching odd moments on some family member or another's laptop, which has made my writing moments few. And, to finish the cliche, far between.

You'll be happy to know that I am starting my a brand-spankin'-fresh-new-year with my very own brand-spankin'-fresh-new laptop.

So hope.... Or expect.... Demand?

Oh well...

I plan to show up here more often from now on.

Monday, December 04, 2006

I Have Been Young And Now Am Old

Whenever my family meets a new group of people, we always enjoy the lets-guess-their-ages-and-try-to-remember-all-their-names game together. I think we enjoy it more than the new people do, though. After all, a seven-membered family doesn't come accross everyone's path every day. And people can be funny when they're trying to commit seven new names to memory at once. Fortunately for the general public, I answer to nearly any name that properly begins with a "kkk" sound....

As for ages...that's as good as old-time pin-the-tail-on-the donkey. Nine times out of ten, Abigail and Paul triumphantly take away the honors: people always think they are older than John and I, respectively. Remember, in a child's world, when people think you are older, you know they must think you are also more mature. Plus, it's the older child who deserves more privileges like, say, staying up until 8:30 p.m. Imagine what a blow to pride it is to think that anyone might think that your LITTLE sister gets to stay up until 8:30 p.m.

Trust me, I know. I didn't bid childhood goodbye very long ago.

Besides, most nights I go to bed by 10:00 p.m. Because I want to. But I still don't jump up and down when people think Paul is older. Because, being growed up and all, I always think mature thoughts like, "What a tragedy it would be if anyone thought that I was less mature than any of my siblings!"

I think I could get over it, though...if the age-guessing thing didn't get out of control sometimes. Most people think I'm around somehwere between sixteen and eighteen. Yesterday, someone actually guessed my age to be fifteen.

I know you're supposed to be flattered when people think you're younger than you are and everything. But when you're fifty and someone thinks you're forty-five....that's totally different than when you're in your twenties and someone thinks you're a child.

Looking closely in the mirror, I wonder what there is in my face that obliterates six years. The only thing I can find is acne.

I would claim credit for discovering the fountain of youth, but I am afraid no one will be impressed.

I am the only one impressed for I know that when I was fifteen my acne drove me to total despair. Now I rarely notice it particularly or think about it. But my change in perspective isn't found in the mirror.

Maturity, it seems, is not in the eye of the beholder.