what i want to be when i grow up

actually, more like, who i want to be when i grow up.

answer: a mom

details:

-with 4 kids all skating in hockey skates by the age of .02 hours, forcibly. ;)
-oh yea, i always forget the most important half, a man! of course you need a man!!! hahaha!

I used to NEVER want kids. and i never shared why (truthfully.) i mean, i always acted like one, sometimes, i still do. why wouldn't i want them? This is why i didn't...i was afraid of them!!! it's true, i was, and sometimes, dangit, i still am!!!  I wasn't confident in who i was as a person so it was like i was making up their mind before i even gave them a chance to make up their own. 



(ok...this might be overdoing it..but you get it...)



for most of my life, i was always told i'd make an excellent school teacher. my thought, "well, they do get summers off..." but i never thought much beyond that. and when you're 12...how could you?  my 'hatred' of kids followed me, and doomed me. it doomed me into loving them.  when i went away to college, we were required to participate and contribute to a ministry once a week off-campus.

I'm quite certain there was fasting and prayer and gnashing of teeth for the weeks leading up to my 'randomly' selected outreach by the Dean of Ministry. Random.  Yes...'randomly' I GOT KIDS!?!?!??!!  Young, inner-city kids.  Randomly. are you KIDDING ME!!??!?!

I believe it was the 2nd or 3rd time that we were scheduled to go (we went in groups of 3-5ish), i was on tap to share an interactive Bible story.  OMG!!! ME!!?!! i'll get eaten alive by those little monsters!!! But i did it.  and, if you haven't figured it out...i lived.  truth is, i was more blessed by those little monsters than i think they were blessed by me.  one little man came walking up to me, plopped himself on my lap as i read him a story and said, "did you know that Jesus loves you?"  That was it.  i was broken for them.  from that time on, i have envisioned a houseful of them, my own houseful (don't worry, Mom....)  The next year, i got a youth group full of middle-schoolers.  my senior year, a dry youth group of all the ages mixed together.  the second half of my senior year, a team member on a youth drama/service team that traveled to other cities ministering to youth groups through various ways.  skits, camp counselors, worship team, service jobs...you name it. 

I think i've been destined.  And so....I wait.    =)