1000 gifts: best friend's birthday

Continuing my list of gifts, blessings that I write down to remember all the wonderful things that God gives me along life's journey (from Ann Voskamp's book and her blog, A Holy Experience).

This list of gifts is in honor of K.A. and her fortieth birthday, and over 15 years of friendship.

439.  Sharing books
Early on in our friendship we discovered we could both spend hours in a bookstore together - well, sort of together - K in the history section and me in fiction. For many years we have sent each other books for our birthdays, and borrowed books from each other's shelves; she's even given me two books she got signed for me by authors. Here's just a small sample...

440. Dresses, lace, beads and quilts
K used to volunteer at the Territorial Park with a friend, and she has a beautiful Victorian dress that she made herself. She also made me a dress, complete with a tatted lace collar. Nearly every time we sit down to talk or watch a movie together, she either has a tatting or a hardanger project in her hands. Here's a beautiful piece of hardanger she made me. 

She also does beading, and one of my favorite necklaces is one that she made for me. Oh, and she also quilts - I have one of those she made me, too.  I love that there is something made by K in almost every room of my house, and my only sorrow is I have absolutely no inclination for anything crafty to give her in return. But, I did make this to give her...

441. Verse collections 

The little booklet on the right is something I put together in 1997 of all my favorite verses, organized by categories to such as "Security", "Salvation", "Waiting on God",  verses for helping with "Loneliness", "Discouragement", "Worry" and "Witnessing." K says she still has this booklet, and recently she sent me a bookmark (on the left) with some of her favorite verses. She also reminded me - I'd completely forgotten this - that for one of her birthdays I gave her a collection of all the 4th verses from all the books in the New Testament, because her birthday is May 4.  


442. Theological differences 
One of the interesting things in the past couple years of our friendship has been the diverging path of our theologies. We've exchanged long e-mail discussions and exposition of verses as we take turns arguing our sides (creating a rainbow of different colored annotation). In the end we agree on the Gospel, that we are saved by grace and not by works, and have agreed to disagree on finer points of theology. I consider our differences in this area a blessing in many surprising ways.  

443. Four kids each 
 Oh how far we've come from our single days, wondering what the future would hold in store for us! She was my maid of honor, I was her matron of honor; I have four girls now, and she has three boys and a girl.
 
444. Bikers 
K's husband is a biker and one of several pastors at a biker church (which is where her birthday party was held). I love how one of their biker friends has a patch on the back of his leather biker jacket that says "these are my church clothes."  I love hearing all her stories about biker culture and lives changed by Jesus.

445.Oswald Chambers
A quote by Oswald Chambers K sent me in 2010: "It does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not.  We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things."

446. The Princess Bride
We love almost all the same movies, and this one she used to be able to quote almost word for word, almost the entire movie. (Alas all I ever seem to remember is "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die" and "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!")

447. Sunsets
There's a long story behind K and why sunsets are so meaningful to her, but it can be summed up in this beautiful statement: "It was almost as if God spoke to me in the colors." -K



448. Shadow mission
There's a long story behind this one, too, but K shared with me how sometimes when God points you toward a purpose, a ministry, or a mission, there is often a shadow mission that you don't see at first that goes along with it. 

449. Teapots
The truest friend will always share a pot of tea with you. K has a collection of dozens of teapots and a selection of dozens more types of tea - so visiting her home is a teatime delight.

450. A map scrapbook
I turned 40 first, and K made me a scrapbook of 40 favorite things about me which made me cry when I read through it. Knowing how much I love maps, she had created and printed a series of Google maps showing the routes of all our road trips together, along with pictures: Estes Park and Zion Canyon and the Million Dollar highway up from Durango. The last map in the book was the route between her house in Colorado Springs and mine in Laramie.

451.  A-Z scrapbook
When K turned 40 this year, I made her a scrapbook too, 26 pages of memories - it wasn't hard to come up with something for each letter, because we've had so many experiences together.


452.  There is A Redeemer by Keith Green
We rarely sing this song anymore in church, but when we do, oh what a flood of memories it brings back. And oh, what praise it wells up inside me! 

There is a Redeemer,
Jesus, God's own Son,
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah,
Holy One,

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.

Jesus my Redeemer,
Name above all names,
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah,
Hope for sinners slain.

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.

When I stand in Glory,
I will see His face,
There I'll serve my King forever,
In that Holy Place.

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.

1000 gifts: jokes, songs and spangles

Continuing my list of gifts, blessings that I write down to remember all the wonderful things that God gives me along life's journey (from Ann Voskamp's book and her blog, A Holy Experience).

428.  Grade school jokes
10 yr old Blaze had me cracking up when she brought these home: What is a surfer with no water? Board. What does the horse say when you pull it's tail? Hay! Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide. 


429. Red Rose Tea
Every since I was a little girl, I remember my mother buying Red Rose Tea, a Canadian brand. It's still my favorite kind but for the longest time you couldn't get in Laramie. For many years Mom would send me boxes, and then we got the point where we could find it in Colorado and would always stop to buy a box or two while we were down there. Now I can buy it right at my local Wal-mart! Even better, the last box I opened I found they had included a small travel tin, which is perfect for carrying three teabags in your purse without them getting battered.  


430. A "tense" joke
My wonderful friend N.L. emailed this to me where I found it when I showed up to work on a Monday morning with the blahs.  Truly a great joke for a writer!

431. Boyfriend jeans
Stars went shopping with her mom and showed off all her purchases to me, including her new pair of "boyfriend jeans" - this is an actual type of girl's jeans (it even has a label). They are made to look like a girl borrowing and wearing her boyfriend's jeans - big and baggy, full of holes!  They are actually kind of cute and I really like that they are baggy - maybe they will start a new trend away from super tight jeans.


432. Understanding travelers
This year it was Dreamer's and Serious' turn to travel with me to Hilton Head to visit Mom & Dad for spring break. Unfortunately, our plane was delayed and we missed our connection, and had to stay overnight in Atlanta. Not fun! Though the airline paid for dinner and a hotel, everyone on the plane got sent to the same hotel, which meant a LOT of WAITING in LINES - first to get rescheduled for the next day's flight, then to get vouchers, then to get on a hotel shuttle, then to check in, and last of all going through security, AGAIN. But, the blessing with all of this was how kind everyone was, seeing that I was traveling with two small children. Twice, people motioned us to the front of the lines. Also wonderful was the shuttle driver for a different hotel who saw that after waiting a half hour for my shuttle, me and the girls would have to wait another half hour (at 9 at night) since the first one filled up. He offered to take us to our hotel, no charge (though I did tip him generously for his kindness!) 


433. Moonlight walk on the beach
The beach at Hilton Head was wonderful, as always. It's especially magical to take a stroll on the beach at night. The moon was too bright to see many stars, but it turned the ocean into silvery magic. Mom couldn't resist going swimming - she went right in her shirt and shorts.  Also, speaking of swimming, Dreamer and Serious spend every day in the pool (and waves). Dreamer is now able to dive down to the bottom of the pool to retrieve pennies, and can swim short distances. Serious can swim all over the place with water wings!


434. Crab races
The latter part of our Hilton Head visit was hard, because Dad fell and broke his knee and had to spend 5 days in the hospital, in a lot of pain. But I'm glad it happened while we were there, to help him and Mom. We spent a lot of time at the hospital, but on our last night Mom insisted on taking us out to the Crazy Crab, one of our favorite seafood restaurants. There is gigantic wall-size aquarium there that the kids adore, and out on the deck they were also holding hermit crab races, where you could pay a dollar and pick your own crab, put him on the "race track" (a large round table with a rim) and then win prizes if your crab happened to reach any one of the prize patches on the table. 

435. Finally seeing alligators
The kids always look forward to seeing alligators sunning on the banks (Blaze actually saw a mother alligator and four babies in March when she visited), but it was unsually warm this year that by April, all the alligators were keeping cool in the depths. Dreamer and Serious went the whole week without seeing nary a glimpse. But on our very last day, in fact as Mom was driving us to the airport to leave!! - they got to see two alligators on our way out.

436.  1950's music
Seventeen year old Stars had to show me the video of a modern re-mix of the old fifties' song, Run-around Sue. She says she loves fifties music, which makes me shake my head in wonder, because after the movie Dirty Dancing came out in 1987, when I was in high school, my friend M.C. and I got crazy about 50's music too (in fact,  I still have 20 or 30 small records of some of the songs we collected).  One of our favorites was Stand By Me, by Ben E. King, and Love is Strange, by Mickey and Sylvia (we used to sing take turns singing the Mickey parts and the Sylvia parts to each other!)


437. Spangles
Stars has a shirt covered in spangles. One night when she was wearing it, she sat down next to me on the sofa to show something on her cell-phone. The light from her phone reflected off the spangles on to her face - like she had a bunch of dancing, shimmery freckles. (might have to use that in one of my stories someday)


438.  Christ is Risen
We sang this song (by Matt Maher) at church Easter morning. Such worship!


Let no one caught in sin remain
Inside the lie of inward shame
We fix our eyes upon the cross
And run to him who showed great love
And bled for us
Freely you bled, for us

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave!

Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with him again
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave!

Beneath the weight of all our sin
You bow to none but heavens will
No scheme of hell, no scoffer's crown
No burden great can hold you down
In strength you reign
Forever let your church proclaim

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave

Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with him again
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave

Oh death! Where is your sting?
Oh hell! Where is your victory?
Oh Church! Come stand in the light!
The glory of God has defeated the night!

Oh death! Where is your sting?
Oh hell! Where is your victory?
Oh Church! Come stand in the light!
Our God is not dead, he's alive! he's alive!

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave
Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with him again
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave

Rise up from the grave...