13 Hours of Rain

Yummy Brotchen! Dear Kids, To make up for Mommy's-gotta-do-a-lot-of-work-today-so-PLEASE-play-nicely-with-each-other Mornings, I attempt preschool creativity at least once a week. Some days it is a simple craft that gets both of you excited. Other days we don particular colors and celebrate elements of the rainbow. Occasionally, I go all out and have a load of fun with both you. The last couple of days were the later option! Thursday and Friday marked Virtual Travel Days , where we imagined travelling to some faraway destination at very little cost to our family. To coordinate with our church's MB Missions Daily Prayer Guide , our country of choice was Germany. It was an added bonus that your Mausi & Mausa (Maternal Auntie & Uncle) are currently living and studying in Germany, so we could remember them in our prayers as well. Here is what we did: DAY 1: January 24, 2013 ~ Let's Play Together! Put together the Melissa & Doug World Map Puzzle and...

Dear Gracious Healer, Our kids have spent the last 1.5 weeks recovering from various illnesses. Both have been on antibiotics. Both are catching up on sleep from prolonged middle-of-the-night coughing spells. And both are whinnn-y! There were days this last week I was tempted to pack it all in, resign my position as stay-at-home-Mom, and trade jobs with my husband for a good and long while. Hey, I'd happily teach other kids and let someone else deal with two snotty-nosed children who don't seem to understand that increasing their fluid intake will indeed do them a whole lot of good! It is here I pause, re-focus, and look to you, my Gracious Healer. In lieu of reading passages of scriptures for "daily devotions", I have opted to work on scripture memory. God, your Word is powerful! In faith, transform me as I aim to imprint the following words on my mind, my heart, and my soul. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves w...

Dear Children, Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain if my personality is due to the expectations placed on me as a child or if this is really who I am. You see, I am the eldest of four. After me, there are two sisters and one brother. There is a ten year spread between the eldest and the youngest. Save for the help of your Nana during non-work hours, your Nani single-handedly raise us in the "jungle" (her word to describe the isolated region of the province that we lived in). She didn't have a Mom's group. All her family was in India. And she was a new immigrant trying to adapt in a cold, foreign land. Understandably, much was demanded of me. I remember cooking my first family meal when I was ten, along with tackling six people's laundry, when my little brother was born. I was expected to take initiative for tasks around the house and look out for the needs of others. I was taught to be responsible, independent, and reliable. Through necessity, I was given t...

Dear Lord and Father, So, I've been diagnosed with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), a condition where the stomach contents spill back into the esophagus, causing heartburn. I've been advised to avoid spicy food, sleep upright, maintain my weight, and reduce my stress. Doctor, please tell me something I don't already know! Here is my annoyance and frustration. (1) I hardly eat spicy food except once or twice a week. And the food isn't really that spicy. Rather, it's flavorful. (2) I try to sleep upright, but it bothers my neck, which is currently under chiropractic treatment for the past year. Thus, I sleep in such a way that is comfortable for my joints but unhealthy for my GI tract. What is a girl to do? (3) I religiously weigh myself and I am twenty pounds lighter than 1.5 years ago. Shouldn't that make things better instead of worse? (4) I try very hard to reduce my stress with exercise, personal time,...

Dear God, I have lived in this urban center for 2.5 years and I believe I am at a crossroads when it comes to experiencing spiritual community in my church. I feel that my relations with others in our family's place of worship have plateaued. For the most part, gone are the initial feelings of excitement in meeting new people and being the object of another family's hospitality. Individuals have become familiar in faces only, since I don't know acquaintances or peripheral friends any better than I did a year ago. I acknowledge that there is a honeymoon period when it comes to church experience. In the beginning, all is refreshing, warm and inviting. The positives of an organization attract you to stay. As time progresses, the negatives begin to stack up like overdue bills. The ugliness of organized (or lack thereof) religion grotesquely masks the beauty that is present. Within time, the niggling thought of checking-out begins to penetrate the shaky wall...

Dear Children, So it begins: 2013. A year to be marked. Signified. Archived with special sentiment. One day, you will discover that thirteen is the favorite number of both your parents. The number has appeared it my life too many times to be a coincidence. Both your birth times contain multiples of thirteen. The church we currently attend is on thirteenth avenue. And in the past, my teaching assignment in the school before your existence placed me in Room 113 with parking stall 13E. Eerily cool, isn't it? Which brings me back to year 2013, the only year in my lifetime that will have my blessed number in its digits. I desire to accomplish something profound this year. Yet, I hesitate to resolve a list of specific "To-Do's" at this moment. On the one hand, I am prone to over-ambition and the resultant guilt (and self-loathing?) when I under-achieve. On the other hand, my realistic nature coupled with skills in logistics often aborts visions in their embryonic st...