Crazy Living

On the way to bible study this week, there was a car in front of me with the license plate "crzlivn," which I took to mean "crazy living."  The vehicle was an SUV which, I immediately stereotyped as a mom car whose message reflected a life of carpool, basketball games, volunteering at school, packing lunches, making dinners, housekeeping, errands, etc.  I have had that crazy living SUV in my mind all week, because I too, sometimes find myself running from here to there trying to get one more activity done.  But then I am thinking of something else.  What if that license plate didn't mean what I thought?  What if that person is challenging the world to something far more "crazy" than simply going all day every day...Not a chicken-with-your-head-cut-off kind of running, but rather a self-sacrificing, unto others, kind of running, with no thought of yourself?  Something like what Crystal from Money Saving Mom decided to do with the money from her book sales?  Or what Ann Voskamp writes about in her book One Thousand Gifts - living a life of thankfulness even in the harsh reality of a world full of hurt - landing on your knees in a pile of dirty laundry, to thank God for the way the sun streams in through the window.
My daughter who just turned three has been asking for rain boots for a good six months now.  The sincerity with which she asks for these boots makes your heart melt, and still I have not made that purchase.  How practical are rain boots in a city where it rarely rains, and when it does, it's usually at night?!?!?  Finally this week, I pulled her onto my lap, and explained that one of her birthday cards had money in it, so if she wanted, I could take her to the store and we could buy those rain boots she wanted so badly.  She immediately, without even a thought, said "I don't want to."  Very surprised by this response, I asked her what she wanted to buy with the money, and her answer was equally as surprising, because it was again without thought at all:  "I want to buy gloves for Nonie, so she can wear them in her garden, and then she won't get dirt all over her hands."  A crazy way of life is that way in which one does not think of themselves, and my baby girl had just shown me.  
Lunches don't pack themselves, and my children cannot yet drive themselves to piano, sometimes I am needed to volunteer at school, and eventually the closets really do need to be straightened.  But oh, let me go this life thinking of those I serve before myself, for then my going will not be in vain.


"Give us grateful hearts our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen"    -book of common prayer, 1928