Category: God

Dear Soleil~

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Dear Soleil ~ at this time in your life, most of the world sees you as painfully shy and maybe… maybe even some might see you as weak.  and you are shy, around most people. but, your family ~ we know you are extremely discerning and strong.  it is not easy to live like you do, in between two worlds.  and you are learning.  learning about not being of the world while living on the earth.  it can be painful.  it’s not easy to stand up for what you believe in. even when you are standing in silence.  it’s not easy to let go of expectations that are high and then quickly disappointed.
then, there are some days we worry.  we worry that you might be too much of a follower.  that you are too quiet when you should be more vocal.  that you would rather stay behind the scenes instead of taking your place on the stage to shine.  and even though there might be moments, or even seasons when you do follow… we remember.  we know whose you are.  we trust Jesus to hold you, protect you, strengthen you and carry you.  we know that you are following Him.

and as you grow, it will not become easier.  

sure, there is a part of me that wishes i could tell you it will get easier.  that life will be fair and balanced… and organized.  and clean and tidy.  and all your ducks will be in a row.  and all of your dreams will come true.  and life will become a fairy tale if you believe in yourself.  well… you know i never tell you that.  but isn’t that what all the movies for little girls say?  “just believe in yourself.  just believe.” we’ve watched so many of these movies, some of them hundreds of times.  but you know.  you already know!  life is not a fairy tale.  wishes upon the stars are not true.  penny’s will not bring you luck.  and there is no fairy god mother who comes to your side every time you shed a tear, ready to sparkle you from head to toe and send you to the ball.
you know.
you know you have a daddy, a mommy, a brother and a sister who come to your side and comfort you every time you shed a tear.  who squeeze you with big hugs, smother you with kisses and make you laugh when you are upset.  you know you have a God who is greater than any fairy tale story could ever peg. and He is by your side every moment of everyday.

you know.  
there is a specific code, time of day and special key that will unlock your heart and soul.  and it helps if there is a full moon and if the stars are aligned… not really, but…  😉  once you open up, the wisdom you share, the beauty that you speak, the love that you give is amazing.  it fills us up!  and for those… those very few, who are blessed to be close to you, it fills them up too.  

we don’t want you to conform to this world. and you don’t.  you are living between two worlds ~ beautifully.  with conviction and grace. you see beyond the surface.  already, you know such depth of the Lord.  and you are only seven.  

you bless us Soleil.  we are amazed by who you are.  thank you for being you.  there are no words descriptive enough to say how much we love you.  so we just say it.  over and over and over again.  until you get tired of hearing it.  we love you.
~your fam 🙂

Noted. By Les Babs

I hope You dance

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I noticed it; again...

Not that I’d never noticed before. I am, after all; a people watcher. a student of culture. a keen observer of social science.

I took my daughter to a school father/daughter dance and I noticed:

That, most guys are awkward when it comes to being with their daughters- they either are seemingly distracted from her by a cell phone, disconnected from her by side conversations with other guys in attendance and talking about sports or hunting or some other  b.s. that seems to be more important, or they are all together distant from the situation, not really present at all. Just somewhere else- physically, mentally, -maybe even both

Tonite, I observed all 3 of the above at multiple times with multiple dad’s & their daughters. Distracted Dad’s. Disconnected Dad’s. Distant Dad’s.


Now you are probably thinking-“that’s pretty dang judgemental & who named you the Sigmund Freud of Father’s at dances anyway.”

Not a judgement, an observation- Of Myself….I have been “that dad”. All 3 of them in fact, sometimes all at once. I feel awkward walking into a room of dude’s I don’t know, I make valid reasons in my head to be disconnected, distracted, distant. And it’s so easy to be like this- especially when you sense every guy in the room is just doing the same.. just getting through the evening so he can go home and do something else more important- like watch ESPN or something else to distract him from true beauty.

There is something within us as Men that can cause us to succumb to a feeling of carelessness when a moment, an event, an evening with a child… does not focus on us or on our interests.

We give in to this sin of selfish distraction and our daughters suffer. They lose hope of the love they desperately desire that only a Dad can reflect… a Dad that loves in such a way that He foolishly dances with His daughter.

I noticed that tonite too…  I saw a Dad being a fool of himself…. His moves were definitely more like 1992 than 2012, But he strutted his stuff like no body’s business, and nobody mattered but that one girl he brought with him- his daughter.

No Distraction. No Disconnection. No Distance. Just Dancing.

I noticed I was jealous; jealous of the abandon this Dad possessed, the abandon that all Dad’s possess yet push away. The abandon to ditch everything and everyone else and focus on the one in front of you, the one you came to be with, the reason you are there in the first place. your Child.

And I think about God. I think if He was at a School dance we would not observe Him being distracted, disconnected, or even distant. I think He would be making a complete fool of himself, even embarrassing Himself with the careless, over-the-top love He has for His child. He would dance like no Dad has danced before. He would Dance because that is why He came in the first place. And every child in the room would be waiting in line for Him.

I noticed something tonite. I want to be more like God and less like me. I want to be that Dad that dances with his daughter while other guys just sit and stare.

Then maybe they can blog about the Dad who made a fool of himself, dancing with the one He loves…

noted by: Adam B

Marriage as Mirror

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One word we would use to describe our marriage
…

Fireworks


That’s right.  Fireworks, baby.  
Beautiful.  Colorful.  Sparkly.  Fantastic.  Brilliant.  Bold.  Shocking.
and Eye Opening.
and Loud.
And Explosive.
…
Now when we say “explosive”, that may conjure up images of battles and warfare.  Or two people engaging in physical combat on an explosive level.  But for us, it’s been explosive verbally.  Mostly because of the ugliness that can come out of our mouths.
P.A. is not a yeller by nature, but Les is.  P.A. still gets angry; he just lets it rage beneath the surface until it sometimes does boil over.  P.A. is generally not as easily angered as Les is.  And until we met and were married, we never realized we both had so many reasons to yell and be angry.
Now you might be thinking, “Dang peeps, get a hold of yourselves, you shouldn’t be so angry and yelling all the time.  You need to check Yo-Self!”

And this is true.
And we have.
And we still do.

In the beginning of our relationship as Mates, one thing we realized is that our relationship was like a Mirror.  When you look into a mirror, you see your reflection. You see everything physical… the wrinkles, the dark circles, the pasty skin, the silver gray hairs, the messy hair ( or lack of it ), the root color, the ginormous zits, the flab, the yellow teeth…  And then you fix yourself up and you see the “better you”… after using hair growth or hair coloring products,  putting on make-up or brushing your messy hair, or your teeth, or your… whatever else you brush.  And hopefully, you don’t break brushes, like Les has done. Or break hangers in half, like P.A. has done…

Our Marriage is like a Mirror.

When arguing with each other, it is like looking in a Mirror.  What we are seeing is reflecting back.  It can be ugly.  Mirrors don’t lie.

In the beginning of our relationship, this mirror/reflection made me (Les) even more angry and gave me more reasons to yell.  After one of our arguments while we were still dating, I left.  I ran out of P.A.’s parents house, around the block, and down the street.  This was a rare event.  I usually stay in an argument.  I confront, yell, and want a resolution.  Eventually he found me and we talked calmly, resolving the situation.

When I (P.A.) am arguing with Les, it is like looking in a Mirror. She is seeing everything – spoken and unspoken, every grunt, every mumble, every snide remark, every roll of the eye, or flinch of the shoulder.
Eight years ago, this made me so angry that I once took a hot dog she was eating out of her hands and smashed it up and threw it in the trash beside her. I didn’t want her eating a piece of manufactured, mystery meat known as a “hot dog”.  At the time, she was pregnant with our first child.  Yes, I truly overreacted, because of a lack of control. Not something good to do to a hungry, pregnant woman. I’ve been a idiot – oh I’ve been one alright.

Both of our parents had concerns for us when they witnessed how explosively we could argue.  However, they trusted God and were always supportive, knowing we would hopefully grow thru this part of Marriage.

And we still argue.  And we have matured in our arguments.  It takes longer before I (Les) yell and become verbally explosive.  It takes longer before I (P.A.) wait til my breaking point to expose my feelings. There are times when we both  feel like we want to run away, but we don’t.
 More than running, we want resolution.  We want to grow.  We want to be able to reflect each other.

You can never fully escape your reflection.  It’s who you are.

And we are thankful, that from the beginning of our relationship, we were honest in our reflections of each other.  We challenged each other.  We committed to love .  We reflected the truth when we were being ridiculous.

We are both still very imperfect.  Shocker.  We have our own issues.  And we both challenge each other as we reflect each other thru our marriage.  

Mostly, our hope and prayer is to reflect Christ.
We were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26).  We desire to continue being transformed into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

We will always reflect each other in our Marriage as Mirror.  We still have Fireworks in our Marriage.  Our prayer to fight less explosively and to love more completely.  On that note, we will share more of our story next week in “Marriage as Marvelous”.


Noted. By Les & P.A. Babs (Part 2 of 4 Marriage/Relationship Records) 

Marriage as Mates

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HAD2BU

My Grandparents recently celebrated their 65th wedding Anniversary this past December…

That’s 780 months of marriage… Or 23,725 days!!! Wow-zers!!!

And the thing is – they really love each other.  Still… 65 years later.   They Love.

They chose each other.

They didn’t just stick it out for the “sake of the kids”… their 4 children are fully grown with their own kids (like ME!) and grandkids (like the wee Babs).  It’s safe to say that they have been empty-nesters for a while now.  They didn’t just stay married for the hell of it, or because marriage is the “cool” thing to do.  Or because it was easy and like a sunshine fairytale everyday the past 23,725 days…
Nope.  They chose humility, selflessness, teach-ability, willingness, trust, respect, hard work, dedication, commitment and they chose to grow… together.
They met when they were 5 years old, my Grandpa would ride his horse thru wind, snow and rain to visit his one true love, they married at age 19 and now they drive a Lexus with a license plate that says “HAD2BU”. They began their journey as best friends… and still are.
One of the foundations of a Marriage must be Friendship.  Marriage as Mates.
I am so grateful that P.A. is my B.F.F., my Bestie, my Mate!  We kicked it off that way.  We met working together at a Christian bookstore ~ Mardel.  The first time I saw P.A. I laughed at him.  I made fun of his outfit (because he was totally overdressed for his interview) and teased him about his cologne (because it was waaaayyyy too strong).  He was cool with all of this.  We loved laughing together, and could laugh at ourselves – *bonus*!  We loved hanging out together and talking for hours, and on our lunch breaks, after work, on the phone, any chance we could get.  And it hasn’t changed… much.   Now we have to usually talk over the needs of the wee Babs, or save all of our conversation up until the evening time.  But we talk.  We go crazy if we haven’t talked enough.  A friendship breeds on conversation.  True, deep, authentic conversation.  We love being mates who talk.
And we laugh.  Still we laugh at each other and at ourselves.  We laugh thru the difficult times of pain, hurt, sorrows and screaming wee Babs. We laugh at life when it is hilarious and those times when it’s not so hilarious.  We love being mates who laugh.
P.A. and I are blessed to have (almost) 15 years of marriage under our belts.  Our hobbies and interests (not Pinterests) are also similar.  Since we met, we have truly enjoyed each others company.  We have traveled throughout the US, Europe, and India.  We dream of traveling more.  We love dreaming together.  We love being together.  We both enjoy being outdoors, staying active, keeping fit, eating healthy, reading, drinking coffee, watching the same goofy PBS documentaries, cooking shows, and movies.  And most of all, at the center of our friendship, is our friendship with Jesus.  He’s the foundation of our friendship foundation.
Here we are in 1996 – back in the diz-ay – when our friendship first began.
Is everyday is a sunshine fairytale?  Do we agree on everything?  Do we laugh every second of the day?  No.  But sometimes we do think, this is too good to be true.  Because it is.  There is nothing better than being married to my mate.  Even when it is difficult.  There are so many people, places and things that can divide a marriage.  I believe if a marriage begins with two mates, there is a stronger foundation at the core of that marriage.  Like my Grandparents, my parents and P.A.’s parents, we have chosen humility, selflessness, teach-ability, willingness, trust, respect, hard work, dedication and commitment.


We have chosen to grow… together.

and Blog… together.
I am grateful that on in August of 2012 we will celebrate 15 years of marriage.  And I am hopeful that in August of 2062, we will celebrate 65 years!
I love being married to my mate.
Are you Mates in your Marriage?  I hope and pray so.
Noted. By Les Babs (Part 1 of 4 Marriage/Relationship Records)

supersame, superficial, superblah

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I hate football, actually let me restate that, I hate watching football on TV, in fact ( and I know, as a man,  I am a freak of nature here ), I actually don’t enjoy any sports on TV. Ok, so if I’m gonna be honest with you, I have watched some English premiere league soccer games ( the real deal,”football” in my opinion ), But even that has been few and far between and in the company of other dudes in a pub of some sort with the game on some big screen blaring and the sound of Flogging Molly in the background( is this the obligatory band  to be played at all Irish pubs?- what about the “other” band – you know- U2! ), and fan’s screaming Irish sounding expletive’s at the screen, and Guinness ( of course ). It’s not that I don’t like sports, I actually like them a lot. And I like them enough to think  that in order to enjoy them, you need to get of your duff and actually play them yourself.  But, to each his own….
The truth is, guys like to get together to “watch” sports because all guys know it’s really a disguise. A disguised, Sherlock Holmes, cloak and dagger, stealthy attempt of  building a friendship with other dudes. So instead of a guy saying to another guy, “you want to get together and talk sometime”, which to 99% of guys would be way-weirded out if they were asked that and would probably cause some kind of adverse reaction such as, ” I am going to avoid THAT GUY” for the rest of my life! No instead, guy’s say,

“so, uh, you uh, want to like, um, hang out sometime and uh, watch sports and stuff?”

That is guy-speak for :

” you want to try to awkwardly connect sometime and have some kind of activity going on in the background, so we can choose to either focus on that, so we don’t have to focus on talking about some deep stuff of or God forbid our dang “feelings” ?

Because, at least that way our attention can be diverted by a punt, a kick, or a pitch when the dude goes way to serious on us or challenges us to actually talk about more than the mundane – Right?
The harder than a halfback truth is: We were created for far more than deeper than  football-focused  relationships… Enter the WOMAN,
You remember Adam right, not this blogger Adam, but Adam, the first man. Adam, the one God created out of the earth and breathed life into Him. Adam, the one who walked and talked with God himself. And as we see in the Blog of all Blogs ( The Bible ) in Genesis chp. 2… Adam can also be known as the crocodile hunter, horse whisperer, and lion tamer all-in-one ( beat that Jack Hanna!).Adam was Active, hanging out in the great safari called Eden, walking with God himself, yet even then, God knew something was missing for the Man of all Men- Adam was missing this really, really complicated, totally different, intricately created; Someone. So different to Him, yet a part of Him at the same time. An “other” ( Shameless LOST reference ) called Woman.
NO Activity; no walking in the plains of the savannah with a tiger, or swimming in the sea with a shark, or wrestling with a bear could fulfill a core longing that God put in Adam- the longing for a Woman.
And before I go on, let me set the record straight for all of you reading this thinking, ya we know what Adam had a, “longing for alright”, it was some nookie ( sex in layman’s terms ). Now that is definitely a part of it, but not ALL of it, So keep posted over the next couple weeks, because don’t you worry- we’re gonna go there too.
What God acknowledged, what God recognized, what God instilled in Adam as He does in all of us, is the desire for a,” deeper than sports on tv congeniality” in our relationships. In our relationships with other guys, but even more so- in our relationships with the significant woman in your life ( Yes, your wife! ) .
God’s desire for you, His no joke, flat-out desire for you as a man is to have some real “at your core” conversation with the woman in your life. To turn off all the activities that distract you from her. To settle every exterior voice or activity vying for your attention and give all of that attention to her. To let that voice, you know the one, the one you so often silence, the one within you that is hungry.Hungry within you as a man for some real-life conversation to roll off of your tongue and release some of those thoughts that she has been CREATED to listen to. Those thoughts that have been tied up for so damn long . You can do this– just open yourself up to her a bit- and I will bet the farm on this- I bet you that when you take a step of true friendship, past congeniality with her, beyond just what’s normal, supersame, superficial, or the superblah you will  be able to quote and paraphrase a small Irish band that once sang a  line that should’ve gone a lil’ something like this;
“I think I’ve found what I’m looking for”.


Noted. By Adam  (Part 1 of 4 in Marriage/Relationship Records)