mighty beans and puerto rico

-TWO HOUR DELAY!!!!!  yes, i'm yelling!  but if my voice is raised it is only because my pajama-clad body is still nestled warmly on my couch while my children are sleeping, at an hour when i would normally be shivering in the front seat of my van, wearing these same pajamas with nothing but socks on my feet at the bus stop.  this delay makes my coffee taste so much better. 

 

-that said, this snow makes me feel like a trip to puerto rico, like we took some 10 years ago, staying right on the main strip off the beach in san juan.  it was magical and warm, smelled like hot sand and tasted like sangria.  that was BAK (before all these kids), when life was perhaps not as rich, but certainly more free and footloose.  puerto rico, for crying out loud.  our "getting away" these days consists of taking the baby to arby's for lunch while the older two boys are in school. 

-the other night while we were reading books before bed quin got up to walk around and he sounded like he was full of pieces of some kind.  every step sounded like a bag full of marbles being shaken.  but i couldn't see anything in his hands. so i picked him up and shook him.  ra-cha-cha-cha-cha.  i patted him down, and found that his pants were full of mighty beans, a popular toy in our house, that had settled down by his ankles, held there by the elastic at the bottom of his pjs.  when i started pulling them all out, cade protested a bit too loudly, and in a way that caused us all to laugh hysterically:  "WHAAAAAT?  how did those get there?"  well, of course as soon as he said it, we all knew exactly how they got there, but we were also delighted at our new catch phrase.  when something seems blatantly obvious, we offer this proclamation with feigned surprise, "WHAAAAAAT?"  makes us laugh every time. 

-this post may just hold the record for most capital letters in any post i've ever written.  holy upper case chaos, batman. 

-sometimes when i watch the news in the morning, i imagine that jesus is sitting there watching it with me.  inevitably, he starts to weep, not like a whiner, but like one whose heart has been trampled on.  and inevitably i feel compelled to do something about it.  the same way i felt when my sister used to come home from elementary school crying because the kids made fun of her.  i wanted to stand up for her, to go right to the source of the problem and knock some heads together.  that's how i feel about the Jesus sobbing on my couch.  i want to fix it.  maybe that's exactly why he's called us to help build his kingdom, or kin-dom.  because once our hearts break when his does, we'll be ready to do whatever it takes to help the world experience mercy and redemption. 

-and then, of course, as i move through the rest of my day, i am confronted with my own sinfulness, and i see jesus out of the corner of my eye, and i'm pretty sure i spot a tear on his cheek, and the only response i can think to give is, "WHAAAAAAT?  how did that happen?"

-hey, i'm working on it. 

-but i'm pretty sure it would be easier in puerto rico.  in any case, i need to turn the news off, get off the couch, put something warmer on and go shovel the driveway.  have a great day, saints and sinners.