go team!

I had to run to the grocery store (for the 50 jillionth time this week) to bake cookies for next week, and as I drove the familiar route, I noticed quite a sight to behold.

It's not the first time I've witnessed this sight, but it's close to the last.

You see, we live very close to the football stadium (until the new one is finished being built) and so on a warm summer evening like tonight, the streets are filled with people walking toward the big game.

I smiled to myself as I saw car loads of people empty out like circus clowns all wearing their Winnipeg Blue Bombers tshirts and hats and jerseys.  I saw people walking in pairs from every direction sporting their team gear - even one guy that had his head shaved with our team logo painted onto it!

It reminded me of the explanation my husband gave the campers at Children's Camp last week about baptism.  He told the kids that to make the public stand of being baptized is like wearing a team jersey, telling the world "I'm with Jesus!"  As we walked onto the beach that evening and three young people were lead into the lake to profess Jesus as the Lord of their life, the image of putting on the jersey played around in my mind.

And tonight as I saw people laughing and walking with determination to the football field, my imagination began to run wild with this picture.

Like, what if we really did wear a jersey all the time to proclaim that we are with Jesus?  Would it change the way we interact we strangers?  Or our family?

How cool would it be to see the jerseys around and know you have something very special in common with people you don't even know?  Like that feeling you get when you see someone in the Mall of America with a Jets tshirt on? (that happened to us earlier this week!)

What about all the people who faithfully gather to watch games, either live or on tv, with friends and family - all the while enjoying the game more because of who they're with?

(this is Cass dressed in Duke gear when
we lived a block off campus!)

And then I thought about how super-fans of a team will get tiny baby jerseys and put them on their infants who somehow grow up to be fans themselves. Are we dressing our kids in lives that claim Jesus as Lord?

Truth be told, I don't know if tonight's Bomber game is over, or who won (or who the Bombers were even playing, for that matter), but it's fun to think about wearing the team jersey for Jesus.
Put it on, friends!

Galatians 3:27 ~ 

"for all of you who were baptized into Christ 

have clothed yourselves with Christ. 

what's in a name

As I drove down Portage Ave on Thursday after lunch, the van was quiet.  Cassidy and I both deep in our own thoughts, until the question came:

"Mommy - what did your name used to be?"


I was pretty sure I knew what she was asking, but requested clarification, to be sure.

"I mean, what did other kids call you when you were little?"

As I tried to explain to her that they called me the same thing my friends today call me: 'Becky', it struck me how far into my new name I've fallen.

MOM.


If I am remotely within earshot of any one of my 3 kids, every question, thought or statement begins with those three little letters (and a questioning tone).  M-O-M-?

I remember when my first born was around 8 months old and all day she would say 'da-da-da-da-da-da.'  I would repeat back to her 'ma-ma-ma-ma-ma.'  I was so anxious for the day she would look at me and say it with full knowledge of my name: Mama.  Months later when it rolled off her tongue so easily, she reached her pudgy arms out to me with tears on her sweet cheeks and she called out that name, my heart almost burst - could it be?  Am I really Mama?

Almost 9 years have gone by and I've had the joy of teaching 2 more little souls my name.  But truth be told, there are days when it's not the easiest name to be called.

"Mom, what's for dinner?"

"Mom, you know that girl at school...."

"Mom, Ethan's driving me crazy..."

"Mom, where's my..."

"Mom, is it true that....."

"Mom, where are you?  Mom?  MOM?"

"Mom, I'm just getting a drink..."

"Mom, do you want to hear a blow-by-blow description of the movie I watched at school today?"
[the answer to that is almost always: 'no, thank you.' and 'why are you watching movies at school anyway?']

I love my kids - and I'm so thankful that I'm able to be a mom.  I don't underestimate the value and privilege that is.

But if that was my whole identity - where would I be when the kids aren't around?  When they no longer need to say that name a hundred (thousand) times a day; when they've found there own calling and are going on their (hopefully) God-led journeys?

I would be lost!

The Good News is that I have another name.

Christian.  


Here are some of the other names I claim as I follower of Jesus:

My role as Mom has changed a bit over the past 9 years, and I'm well aware that it will continue to change.  I expect one day I'll hear my given name much more often than this name I've heard dozens of times already today.  I'm quite sure that I eventually I'll be wishing to hear my kids say my name - to tell me all the things that are on their hearts.  Oh, Lord - may it be so!  But I praise God that the name HE has given me will never change!

"In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory."  Ephesians 1:11-12