Mullings in my brain

I've been thinking a lot about poverty.

Thinking about how our North American culture is so much about accumulation. Our goal as young adults is to get the great job, so we can get the new car and big house and all the nice stuff. We work hard to get those things, but soon we want more. We work hard our entire lives to set ourselves up for a sweet, indulgent retirement. We're never satisfied.

Thinking that if we want to live within our culture, we almost have to bow to the pressures to accumulate. Thinking about how we have so much more than we need and people are dying because of it.

We had the same plans as everyone else. Get through school. Buy a big house. Buy a nice car. Buy a second car. Upgrade the house. Upgrade the cars. Repeat as necessary.

But then, school lasted a lot longer than we'd expected. We learned to live with so much less than we ever thought we could. Over the past couple of years, it's really made us rethink the life plan.

And recently, God's stretched us even further. God's been doing something to my heart and at the same time, similar things to Peanut-lover's heart. We know it's God because he's changed our hearts in the same direction without us even ever talking about it. We're becoming really uncomfortable with the luxuries in our lives that we see as necessities. Uncomfortable with excess.

Frankly, it freaks me out.

I like to be comfortable. I don't like to stretch myself. I don't like challenge. I like fitting in, blending in, not being noticed. I love a new pair of shoes.

But if God is changing my heart, what is he changing it for?

That's what freaks me out.

Conversations with KK: Looking on the bright side

The kids and I are playing Polly Pockets, or "Pollies" as we call them.

Mommy: KK, you seem to be missing the matches to a few of these shoes *eyes JJ suspiciously*. Maybe we should throw these ones away, since they aren't any good anymore.

KK: No, that's ok. I'll just take the leg off my Polly. Then she'll only need one.

If only all of life's problems could be fixed so easily!

Conversations with KK: Random bits

(Why is it that I only seem to find time to write when I'm working a night shift? It might be because my patients don't pull each others hair... or because they don't try to remove the keys from my keyboard... or maybe because they don't sneak off with markers to write on carpet when I'm distracted... or it might be because they don't bite...)

KK has been saying all kinds of cute things lately. Of course, it is 3:30 am, so most of them have flown out of my head at the moment, but here are a couple:

Daddy was getting his hair cut a few weeks ago, and I asked the kids if they thought daddy would look more handsome when his hair was done. KK replied, "No. He can't look more handsome. Daddy is always handsome. He never changes."
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While I was busy packing for our recent trip to Mexico, KK was busy doing things that she is not allowed to do. When I found out what she was doing, she tried to hide it from me, eventually escalating the situation to a full-blown tantrum and hour-long episode. When she was finally calm enough to talk, I told her that it doesn't matter if mommy can't see if she's doing something wrong, because God can still see it. She gasped and said, "Did God tell you what I was doing?"
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And JJ, well he's two. Just about anything he says these days is cute. Especially if he's getting in trouble...