Adoption

Everyone needs good friends -- people who rally around you, people who are always in your corner, people who love you no matter how stupid you act. I have a number of friends, but Shaunti and Linda are in a league of their own.

Shaunti is like a big sister, and Linda (who works for Shaunti -- and is sort of my manager when I do contract work for Shaunti) is old enough to be my mom... if she had me as a senior in high school, anyway. They are too good for me. In a sense, they each have an arm around my shoulders. I love my family, but we had all sorts of turmoil going on in my family when I was a kid. I basically raised myself (pity my future children!) and I didn't feel loved most of the time. I suppose I knew deep down that I was loved, but I rarely felt it, and it was rarely shown.

In my relationship with God, I have always struggled to hang onto my faith when I don't "feel" God. I go astray. I start to doubt. I suppose I am learning that the reason that is such a struggle for me is because I didn't feel loved growing up. Surely, God wants to make us feel loved, right?

Well, yes. But not always.

Mature faith understands that sometimes God pulls back those feelings in order to cause us to draw closer to Him, too seek Him with our whole hearts, to reach the end of ourselves and awaken to the fact that without Him, we're like a child's lost balloon floating across an endless blue sky -- no direction, no destination, blown wherever the wind takes us.

When I "feel" God's love, I absorb it like a sponge. I cannot take it for granted, because I have spent my life desiring it. I feel loved by God in many ways, but mostly through my earthly relationships. I have an amazing group of friends. God has used Shaunti and Linda and my sweet husband, in particular, to bring about that feeling.

I look around at the people He has put in my life and they way He has used to them to fill the void in my heart... and how He has used them to show me, in a very tangible way, what His love looks like, and one word comes to mind: ADOPTION.

I spent the evening with a friend tonight -- another older woman assigned by God to help guide me through this life -- and when I came home, I got out of my car and couldn't help but notice how bright the moon was, and how perfect the stars were, and I truly understood the phrase, "adopted into the family of God."

If that doesn't amaze you, let me put it another way. The King has thrown open the gates to His kingdom, and has sent out an open invitation EVERYONE. Doesn't matter if you show up in a ball gown or tattered rags. Doesn't matter if you drive a Jaguar or a Ford, if you're a rock star or a waitress. Come one, come all, and COME AS YOU ARE.

Wow.

I'm A Loyal Fan -- Sickeningly Loyal

People keep asking me why I don't blog more. I used to be a blogging fiend, but it has been hard to muster up the interest lately. Writing used to be cathartic to me. Now that I do it professionally, it's not so cathartic anymore. It is my skill, that thing I do best. I still love it, but I find it hard to sit down and write for nothing but pleasure anymore. And I don't have a direct purpose in blogging anymore, either. I used to blog politics -- I campaigned for GWB during the '04 election that way. Some people blog because they're angry at the world and enjoy pretending to have a hardcore personality, or get off on taking pot shots at the people they don't like. That doesn't interest me, either. I left that kind of writing behind in the 4th grade. Pathetic, weak. No thanks.

So I'll write about random stuff. I seem to recall that's how I start blogging to begin with. Let's start with something that really got my training bra in a twist.

THE ultimate boy band -- before N'Stink, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees... there was the New Kids On The Block. I was 10 years old when I fell in love with them. A fifth-grader smitten for the first time. I learned to kiss on a life-size band poster on my bedroom door. (Thanks, Jon.) Eventually, Jordan would become by guilty pleasure. I bought Big Bop Magazine and Tiger Beat, ripped out all the pictures, and stuck them on my wall. My brothers listened to Rush and the Grateful Dead and called MY band "New Sissies On The Corner" but there's just something special about planning your wedding to a boy band star. Who ever planned their wedding to Jerry Garcia? Gross!

And now... THEY'RE BACK. Or. Um. At least supposedly. They're kinda wrinkled and winded, but they're still mine. Jon is almost 40 now, but I'll bet he can still kiss as well as his old poster.

Upon reading this news, I immediately emailed my college friend, Reba, to spread the love. There was much rejoicing on her part, as well. (See, she blogged about it, too.) I'm pretty sure if we had been in the same room, there would have been a good bit jumping up and down, and screaming, followed by acting out the entire video for "You Got It (The Right Stuff.)" Which, in case you're wondering, looks something like this: