Our Great Works

So I have been spending a lot of time bonding with baby Meghan these days, and she is getting more interactive every single day. Sometimes we wrestle, sometimes we read, and sometimes we argue about boys. One of the cutest things she does is crawl into my office while I'm working, and topple over my trash can. She rumages through the starburst wrappers, the old paper and junk mail. Then, when she finds a particularly special piece of garbage, she looks up at me, with a look of pure satisfaction on her face, and presents it to me.

She's so cute.

I take the paper, and say "this is great! its what I always wanted! thank you" She seems so pleased, smiles, and then dives back into the garbage to do some more great work.

I have an eerie feeling that God is trying to tell me something about my great works.....

BIG NEWS!!!

Back in the days of our youth, when our marriage was beginning, and our love was just blossoming, Heather and I used to dream about the children God would give to us. What would they be like? How would they be special?

It was difficult to imagine what was in store for us, but one thing we were sure of...

The Shah children would be unique. They would be different. They would stand out in the crowd.

We had no idea. Let me introduce you to my youngest daughter, Meghan Elizabeth Shah

Yep, she's a beauty. But we also recently discovered something amazing. For those of you unfamiliar with children, it is a common practice for doctors to regularly measure a child to determine if they are growing properly. Height and weight are common attributes, but some would say the most critical is the all important HEAD CIRCUMFERENCE. Over Meghan's first year, she has always excelled in this area. Regularly scoring in the 95th percentile. However, last month, she took it to a whole new level and placed in the 99th percentile. 99th. Pretty amazing huh? Destined for greatness? To be sure. Little did we know....

Last week we took her in for her 13 month check-up. They did the regular tests...

Height - 95th %....weight - 75th %.....then the all important HC....

100%.

That's right, I said 100%. Now its been a long time since I took any math classes, but if my memory serves me correctly that means that my daughter Meghan has the LARGEST SKULL OF ANY CHILD HER AGE!

You can't teach that people...its God given.

(FYI - I am currently trying to determine if she's number 1 in the whole world or just in America...the paperwork doesn't really indicate....I'll keep you posted)

Security

So the day we brought Savita home from India we gave her a blanket. To be honest, I don't know where we got it, from a relative or friend, but every night of her American life, it has been by her side. It is a strange shade of yellow & after almost 5 years it has a giant hole in the middle. Everyday it rips just a little more. Through the years we have offered her other blankets...newer, softer, bigger....no thanks, she says, I'm sticking with what I know.

(Or as a wise man once said...."You gotta dance with who brung ya"...but I digress)

Well, one day last week, Savita announced to Heather..."I'm 6 years old now. I'm going to put my blankie in my closet and be brave. Maybe I don't need it anymore" She walked over to her closet and gently placed her blanket on top of her assorted animals. Then she went back to bed, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

The next night, as I tucked her into bed, I noticed that she had her blanket back. I asked her, "Savita, I thought you didn't need your blanket anymore. What happened?"

"Well dad, let me tell the story of what happened. Yesterday I decided that I was going to be brave and not use my blanket anymore. I put it in my closet. I slept without it. But then later, I got kind of lonely, like I was missing it. So I decided that I wasn't ready to be brave yet. I went and got it back. I've decided that I'm going to have to wait until I'm older, maybe 10 years old, or nine years old, and then maybe I'll try again."

"And dad, its ok. Its ok that I'm not ready yet."

I smiled, kissed my little girl on the forehead, and assured her that it most certainly was ok. Then I watched her curl up with her blanket and fall into a blissful sleep.

Ironically, earlier that day, I had realized I had made a couple mistakes in life. Because of those mistakes, I tried something and it had failed. Somewhat miserably.

I was distraught. I felt vulnerable. weak. guilty. "You are 36 years old and you still have trouble doing that??....I thought you were mature.....You're a pastor!" (Just to clarify, no one actually said that to me...it was just the little evil voice in my head)

It was decidedly NOT ok.

So you know what I did? I analyzed what happened. What were the mistakes I made? Why did I make them? Are there deep underlying issues that drove me to these mistakes? What approach could I have taken that would have been better? I need to know WHY this happened so I can begin to piece together a strategy to have this never happen again. As I thought about it over and over again in my mind I began to worry...what if I never grow? what if I am destined to fail at this forever?....there is no hope. There's just something wrong with me....I wonder what people think....I am letting people down....God cannot be pleased.....

You get the idea.

I thought about my daughter going through that process...

Why did I go back for the blanket? What exactly am I scared of? It is not rational. What deep needs is the blanket covering up? What could I have done differently...hid the blanket? I'm SIX YEARS OLD! What is wrong with me? My 5 year old friend doesn't sleep with anything! I'm going to be stuck with this blanket forever! Someday when a boy proposes to me I'll have to tell him about my blanket, it will be so awkward....

But she didn't do that.

My daughter tried something and it didn't work.

She's thinks its ok, and she'll try again later. Now she's asleep.

I have got to learn that.

Choose Your Own Adventure

So my boy is pretty deep. (see, don't we look deep in this picture?)

He knows how to read. He reads 'chapter' books now, and likes to read them before he goes to bed. Well, the other day Heather decided to look in her old boxes and find some books from when she was a kid.

As she rummaged around she found what she was looking for....a choose your own adventure book!

So Sammy gets ahold of this book and starts tearing into it. As he's reading I get a little worried. See, he doesn't really like surprises. So I warn him. "Look buddy", there will be times in this book where it ends. Sometimes it will end badly and sometimes it will be good. Either way, then you go back to the beginning and you can start a whole new adventure!! Yes, I used my best envisioning pastor voice. He seemed troubled. "I don't want it to end. I don't want to start over again" "Ok, don't worry about it, just read and choose your path and have fun!"

10 minutes later I return and he's flipping through the book page by page. He is reciting numbers to himself....43, 74, 40, 51....."what are you doing bud?" "Dad, these are the numbers of the pages where the book ends. If I never pick these numbers then I'll be happy"

"What about the adventure buddy?" "Dad, adventure can make me dead."

True that.

Later I asked Heather, isn't that crazy, all he wanted was to make sure that he avoided all the bad choices. He was neurotic about it. She looked at me with those sweet Dutch eyes, chuckled and said..."I wonder where he got that from"

Ok, maybe from me. Sometimes I wonder if I've spent so much time mastering the numbers to avoid that I've lost the adventure. I love control. Its probably not very spiritual to say so, but deep down I think I like control better than adventure. Adventure can make me dead. Or at least severely injured.

I'm not a good skier. I know what you're thinking....But Jon, you are SUCH a natural athlete, how could you not be a good skier? Well, I've only gone a couple times and each time I do the same thing. I get going, I go fast, I get nervous and I make myself fall. A nice non-violent controlled fall. How lame is that?

Sometimes I think I've missed the whole point.

And now I'm going on a church plant.

Let's face it. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I do know one thing....I am committed to NOT memorizing any page numbers for this one.