Blabbety-Blab-Blab

Don't forget! It's Crazyville De-Lurking Week!

The Excuse: I'm sick

Since the weekend Tim said he was coming down with a cold, one that was creeping up on him slowly but bearing generous gifts of a soar throat, cough, runny and stuffy nose and a headache. When we woke up yesterday morning, he said he was feeling worse.

I felt perfectly well.

Until noon. Then it hit me faster than Heather downs a six pack of Pepsi: burning, swollen throat, aching muscles, stuffy nose. It lasted all day and through the night and still it rages on. I’m so, so very sleepy. If I wasn’t the sole human in charge of 2 preschoolers at the moment, I’d surely be in bed.

My favorite comfort for a cold is ginger-lemon-honey tea, made fresh in a pot and left over a tea light to be enjoyed throughout the day. I think I drank 3 pots of it yesterday, maybe 4. I’m on my second for today.

The Dastardly Deed: A Drive-By Posting, not well developed or thought out.

I’m going to ramble now. You’ve been forewarned.

1. My 8^th grader came home from school yesterday with rather shocking information: a kid in his guitar class was showing off his…. um… John Thomas. (For those of you unfamiliar with UK euphemisms, that’s a male’s outdoor plumbing.) In class, while the teacher was out of the room. What is the world coming to? I remember JB running around my high school with a fake John Thomas, but look where he ended up…jail. When I reported it to the teacher, he was speechless.

Anyone else ever experienced anything like this, either themselves or with one of their kids?

2. I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. I had a dream several nights ago that someone who had hurt me in the past suddenly appeared and apologized. My heart and emotions fell in a heap and cried, though my body stood perfectly still and I couldn’t bring myself to look this person in their eyes. When I woke up I suddenly saw everything clearly: that the injury I had received from this person was less that this person didn’t care about me, but more that I saw the injury as confirmation that I was indeed the awful person I thought I was. Someone doesn’t like me. I knew I was ugly, lacking talent, a no-good friend, poor, and stupid. Now it’s confirmed. On this side of it all, it seems ridiculous that I allowed it to hurt me.

But in this revelation God has also spoken to me about forgiveness in general. That forgiveness is freely given, with a foundation of grace, not because someone else needs to be forgiven, but because I need to forgive. I NEED TO FORGIVE. The Bible tells of a person forgiven who refuses to forgive, then warns that if we aren’t willing to forgive those who have wronged us, we won’t be forgiven by God. That’s motivation in itself to forgive, but it goes deeper. I need to forgive to move on, to heal, and to embrace my life and my Lord without being weighted down by my past. For the first time in my life I feel that it’s impossible that I not forgive those who have hurt me.

And with that, I’ve been set free of so many chains of the past. My heart is lighter and I feel joy. I have committed to pray daily for several people who come to mind that have caused me pain in the past. I pray that God blesses them as he has blessed me.

3. I’ve been reminded that when I believe God it doesn’t matter how I feel. Have you ever prayed for, say, healing and kept praying till you felt like it might happen? Or prayed for forgiveness until you felt forgiven? How often we try to conjure up the emotions that we think we should feel when asking God for something, eh? But the reality is that God makes promises to us (By His stripes we are healed. We have only to ask and we are forgiven and the offense is forgotten forever, etc.), and they are true no matter if our emotions line up with those promises or not. There isn’t any part of a promise made by God that I am obligated to fulfill. How awesome is that?!

4. Now that I’m sick and should be avoiding all things bad for my body, I am craving cake, pie, cookies, pudding, Peanut M&M’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (my favorites, of course!), those yummy nougat pecan rolls from Christmas, banoffee pie, Triple The Ginger Cookies. If only I could keep my eyes open to read a recipe…

5. I was giddy with excitement a couple of weeks ago when Tim told me about Hulu dot com, a new site where we can see a bunch of tv shows with really good quality picture. Then I was way bummed when I discovered that I can't watch any of them here in the UK. I saw Lost season 4 slip right through my finger tips and shatter on my bedroom floor. Then Tim came home bearing good tidings of another site where I could watch Lost, Watch TV Sitcoms dot com. I spent my sick day yesterday divided between cat naps, reading, and watching 3 episodes of Lost and 2 episodes of House. I'm absolutely convinced that if Jack knew me (and I was single) he'd dump beautiful Kate in favor of me (or if I could just get an interview with JJ Abrams he'd hire me for a staring roll on the spot). I'm also quite sure that Dr House would hire me in an instant, if I was actually a doctor. Ah, the joys of escaping reality.

6. I call my four year-old both "Dude", "Bub" and "Bud." Somehow, since I've been sick, I keep mixing them up,combining them, and calling him "Boob". This has got to stop.

~Reese, who begs your forgiveness if she made any major boo-boos in her post and asks you to try to make sense of those things she wrote that didn't make sense. (Did that make sense?...)