Can't We All Just Get Along?

A rare occurrence has been taking place at my house.

Like... "call the Smithsonian" kind of rare.

My kids have been getting along. Working together, asking each other's advice -- then actually listening to the advice offered.

It is a beautiful thing.

To hear your children getting along warms the cockles of  my heart (I love to toss out the word "cockles" -- you just don't get to use that every day) and ranks right up there with their decision to accept Christ in baptism, as well as watching them use one of the many gifts God has given them.

I wonder.

I wonder how God feels about his own children getting along.

How He feels when I can't see past the fact that my brother in Christ chooses to tell God he loves Him and worship a different way than I do, so dismiss my brother altogether.

... or how He feels when I can't see past which lever my sister in Christ pulls on election day or the sign she has in her yard so speak venomous words about her to others.

I wonder how He feels when I judge my sister who was raised in an abusive home, or by a single parent who worked 3 jobs to make ends meet, so she shows up at worship dressed inappropriately and doesn't speak to her husband or children the way I think she should. I wonder if He wishes that I would come alongside her and love her instead of judge, and show her a better way... since no one ever has.

I wonder how He feels about us getting along? I'm pretty sure He told us:

"I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

John 13:34,35

P.S. The littles are not my adorable doodlebugs. But they appear to be getting along. The bigs are mine on the first day of school. This is how we do "first day" pics.

Bloggy Housekeeping on Wednesday

An update on baby Marlie Ruth:

She tolerated her surgery well (can you even IMAGINE being a neonatal neurosurgeon -- confessing I had trouble even SPELLING it!). However the tumor was found to be malignant, so not one more prayer will be wasted on sweet Marlie Ruth, her mom, dad, and brother and sister, and all those in the position of making decisions on her behalf. Lots of prayers. I'm sure everyone is very close to uncharted territory with this (at one point on the carepages, her dad said to find a brain tumor in a fetus, they would have had better odds of being struck by lightning while holding their winning lottery ticket. Very rare, obviously).

Then, it occurred to me -- I never chose my winner! So... drumroll (and hang on a minute) please!

First, here is how I the elaborate process went:

I fully intended to use a random number generator, but I had some offerings of "I'm not saying this for a card, but..." (you people are entered anyway) but, my apologies to completely anonymous entries, I have no way of verifying. And we are ALL ABOUT CONTEST SECURITY around here, people! (and Katherine got special not-even-being-in-the-Western-Hemisphere dispensation allowance and her comment of a few hours late from China was accepted) So.

Random drawing it is. Yes, the names are there. Lo, they are upside down in the pic. Work with me, friends:

Handsome name drawer.

Supervisory canine.

Winning entry.

So, congratulations, Terry! Send me your mailing address and your Amazon card will be on its way!

I learned some things from this contest. The main one being for myself: don't end on a Thursday. 'Cause I don't do Fridays or weekends well. Then I have "last week amnesia." But it was fun! Oh... and do you remember that the point of the whole contest was to name my newsletter that I would launch on October 1? And are you aware that October 1 is Saturday?

Well yes, yes, and no, the newsletter is still very fancy inside my head and quite non-existent anywhere else, thank you for asking. I'm a little stumped about parts of it. I need a newsletter team. I think that is me. My newsletter team needs to get crackin'! Seriously, if you have thoughts and ideas about free email newsletter templates and services --- I would love to hear from you.

Want to pass along something I read earlier that I just can't shake out of my head. I wrote an article about it that will be posted elsewhere that I will share with you when it's published.

This article in Fox News reports that scientists, who have been trying to figure out the structure of one particular retrovirus for over a decade finally had a genius (seriously!) idea to let online gamers try to figure it out. Less than three weeks. It took the gamers less than 3 weeks to figure out the structure of the virus.

The biggest implication of this is that is plays a critical role in the way the HIV virus replicates. New drugs will be able to better target and stop the virus.

The implications for what it means globally/ educationally, etc. are bigger still. I love that scientists were creative and humble enough to step back and think, "We are obviously not getting this. Who would be a good choice to do it?" And found the perfect key for their locked puzzle pieces. Video gamers. That lot that most of us consider to just be upstairs in the bean bag chairs eating all the Funyuns. Or maybe that's just me. Now they have a part in stepping up the fight against AIDS. And that is way cool.

I wonder what they can do with a blogging mama who occasionally OD's on vanilla Diet Coke from Sonic?