When did they do the watermelon thing?

For the last 5 years, I've worked for an apartment complex in a small town. Usually my days are filled with standard credit from average applicants and tenants with typical stories and unexciting lives. On most days, nothing exciting happens here. On occasion, however, I walk in and overhear the strangest things:

"No ma'am, we don't allow animals to swim in the pool."

"Could you refrain from walking through your apartment naked with the blinds open? I've recived several calls from your neighbors."

"I understand that you're moving. However, we still do not allow vehicles of any kind to back into the breezeway, or park on the sidewalk."

Yesterday, though, I walked out of the kitchen and heard my favorite so far:

"When did they do the watermelon thing?"

Give him a football

His name is Marcel and his nearly white-blue eyes stole my attention from all the other children on the table. He lives in an orphanage in Moldova. He is 12 years old and his smile makes me realize that I am more fortunate than I'll ever understand. He sends me notes every so often telling me thank you for the gifts I've sent - gifts purchased with my inconsistent donations to Justice and Mercy International - and he asks me about the weather.

He sent me a photo wherein he's holding gifts that he goes on to thank me for in the email. Nintendo Wii? No. New bike? No. Money? Nope. What was it that caused him to write me a thank you note and ask me to come to see him this summer? Toothpaste and a hat. There are a few other items that I can't quite make out, but I can clearly see toothpaste and a hat. And he's thrilled.

I was telling a co-worker about Justice and Mercy's gifts and he said, "Give him a football. He'd probably like a football."

Yeah, he probably would.

Donald Miller is my literary crush

Donald Miller is, well...he's brilliant. In his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (which I super highly recommend), he says, "You become the people you interact with. And if your friends are living boring stories, you probably will too. We teach our children good or bad stories, what is worth living for and what is worth dying for, what is worth pursuing, and the dignity with which a character engages his own narrative."

See? Brilliant!

That single comment made the book worth the purchase. It's helped solidify my opinion that my life - every single moment - teaches my daughter something. I'm a firm believer that behavior is a form of communication, and when I stop in an attempt to grasp the fact that my mouth only communicates about 20% of what I'm saying, I'm blown away. I can speak words of love, respect, forgiveness, kindness, and/or mercy but until I act out those behaviors, I'm done for. Nothing I've just said with my mouth is truth. And that hurts. It's made me think about what Lauren, my daughter, must think when I tell her that I love her and then wave her out of the kitchen because I'm cooking dinner and she's in the way.

Ouch.

Miller also tells the story of Jason and how he saved his family. Jason's 13 year old daughter had weed in her room, was dating a guy who was disrespectful, and was just generally dancing around the start of a bad path. Miller shares something similar to the earlier quote with Jason and something ignited for Jason. At the end of the chapter, Jason says this about his daughter's transformation: "She broke up with her boyfriend last week. [...] No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her. She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while."

Know what made the difference? Know what reminded her of who she is? Jason figured out that he hadn't mapped out a story for his family. As a result, his daughter was creating a story for herself, a story that available to her and contained all the elements of a good story: mystery, intrique, risk, excitement, independence, rebellion. When Jason realized that his behavior communicated a story to his daughter, and that her behavior communicated a story to the rest of the world, he quickly changed the story. I won't tell you how (buy the book), but I will tell you that it makes complete and perfect sense to me.

I've always sorta thought that the characters make the story, and in a good story, that's probably true. But in a great story, the story makes the characters. I mean, life is what shapes and molds us and makes us who we are, not the other way around. So, how can I honestly expect Lauren to develop her character in isolation? If I'm not doing all that I can to create a story in which she not only is expected to have a lead, but one in which she wants to star, how in the world can I expect her to develop into the character she is supposed to be?

Does any of that make sense?

...and that's why we don't let Tracy near the strawberries.

I'm eating one of the sweetest, juiciest strawberries in the history of ever. It's straight from the carton, no sugar needed. Beautiful red on the outside with only a hint of white on the inside. It's heaven wrapped in tiny seeds and hair. Which reminds me...why do strawberries even have hair? Nah. Let's just keep moving.

Watching this strawberry disappear whooshed (yes, you must make the sound) me back to my youth. One Saturday afternoon, in particular.

My mother fancied herself a gardener during those days and had a generous strawberry patch out behind the garage. She spent her afternoons piddling around in various endeavors, usually having something to do with those strawberries. On this specific Saturday, my older brother (Roger), his wife (Tracy), and their daughter (Adrian) came over to spend the evening enjoying some of Mom's famous grilled burgers and, of course, strawberries. Mom spent all afternoon picking and capping berries. Finally, she passed the mountain (what a sight it was) to Tracy, who'd offered to sugar them when she went inside.

A couple of hours later we're all sitting around on the front porch, swinging and laughing and looking forward to dinner (cause we've always been a family of eaters), when Tracy says she's gonna go in and get more tea. Now we all knew that she was really saying, "I'm going inside to sneak a strawberry", but we pretended tea was the truth and let her go. Moments later, she came back out with a horrified look on her face. Not like she'd seen a mouse or a dead body, but definitely like something was very...well...not right.

Tracy: "What do you keep your sugar in?"
Mom: "The yellow container in the cabinet."
Tracy: "Not in the yellow shaker?"
Mom: "No. That's what I keep the salt...oh no"

Mooooo-oooom....God slapped me

So there I was, sipping on my free church coffee and minding my own business when God reached down from the heavens and slapped the wax outta my ear. On Mother's Day. Geesh. All because of a stinking picture frame. A broken frame at that.

What does a picture frame have to do with my spiritual spanking? Basically, our lives are frames and the job of the frame is to accentuate the big picture, the big picture being what we worship. How do I know what I worship? That was our church question yesterday. (That's not some strange cultish thing we do, it was simply the basis of the message.) If I wanna know what I worship I have to look at my checkbook and my calendar.

When I started thinking about my bank account and my calendar I thought that I worshiped food and money. But then I realized that I don't worship food or money. I worship ME. It's all about me. It always has been. It's liberating to say that out loud and scary at the same time. But it's horribly true.

Example: Friday night I took Lauren to Chuck E Cheese and I let her take a friend. I didn't do it to be nice. I did it so that I could sit in the corner and read a book I bought at lunch Friday afternoon. While that's a small example, my story is full of those little things that I've done because I wanted to or because I am the most important person in my life. And now that I see me for what I am, I'm struggling with how to walk the fine line between taking care of myself (read: not turning into a yes man) versus continuing on this self-absorbed path.

How do I learn to listen to that still, small voice that gently whispers selfless suggestions to my soul? How do I break out of my comfort zone?

Seriously...how?