Childhood memories.

I am a fairly inquisitive person. In order to get to know someone I like to ask a lot of questions. When I was with Youth With a Mission, I met many people. One of my favorite things to do at dinner time was ask people about themselves. Such as; What's your favorite color? What's your middle name? I like to know other people's middle names but hate to tell them my own. If you know me well enough you know why.


One day, sometime in spring, after a very trying and emotional day of classes, I came up with my favorite question. What is your favorite childhood memory? That day I got to hear many warm memories and you wouldn't believe how that question lightened the mood and lifted spirits.


It was my dad's birthday about a week ago, and in honor of his birthday, I thought I'd share one of my favorite childhood memories.

I can't remember where we were or even how old I was, but sometime, long ago, when I was munchkin I had breakfast for dinner. Back when I looked like this --->
I moved around a lot and at that time we were staying at a hotel. I was hungry and my dad and I walked to Denny's. We ate our dinner--or breakfast-- my guess is I probably had pancakes. They're still on my top ten list of favorite foods. After we had finished eating we walked back to the hotel. It had begun snowing and my dad taught me how to catch snowflakes on my tongue. We stood in the parking lot, in the snow, and waited for snowflakes to land on our tongues. After all these years, I still remember that.


Try asking people what their favorite childhood memories are. You'll get some great answers and I would love to hear all about your favorite childhood memories.

Block.

I spent Thanksgiving in Ohio with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma. I had a really nice time, ate a lot of food, and got to to see some of my family that I hadn't seen in awhile. Pretty much a successful holiday. Also as an added bonus, I got to share a room with my little cousin. Being an only child I never got to do that as a kid. Now I refer to her as little, because she is four years younger than me (and she is one out of only two cousins who is actually younger than I am.) However without much exaggeration, if any, she is probably about a foot taller than me. So one night, my "little cousin," Annelise, and I are writing in our journals and she asks me what I'm writing about.

A few blog posts back, I asked people how they pray. I'm curious, you see, because I'm convinced that we all pray in a unique way. About a year or so ago I started praying via my journal. I am very easily distracted. In fact, as a small child one of my teachers had me tested for Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't have ADD but I often tell that story to prove my point about not being able to keep focus very long. I struggled for a long time in my prayer life because I could never seem to communicate with God effectively because I would get so distracted after about a minute of prayer. And so, I began journaling. I've always enjoyed writing, some people even dare to say I'm pretty good at it (including myself)-- and ever since I began writing my prayers, my spiritual life has improved. I still pray, even when I'm not writing, but I've found that writing to God is how I best communicate with Him. And so, when my cousin asked me what I was writing, I was praying.

Annelise and I had a nice long talk about, well, talking to God. I told her that I was writing my thoughts and prayers to God and how I had found that journaling my prayers was a perfect match for my personality. We also talked about being in a spiritual rut--or having a "block" when talking to God. You know that feeling when you just feel so spiritually low and you can't figure out why God's not talking back. Why He doesn't seem present. I said that I have found that even in those times when we feel that God is absent we just kind of have to keep showing up to pray and commune with Him and trust that He'll show up. And even though there might be a "block," He always wants to talk to us and that block won't be there forever. And then my not so little cousin said something that I would not have had the wisdom to say when I was in high school. She said, "Unless you let that block be there forever."

As of late I've been pretty discouraged. It's made it hard to talk to God. I told Him this morning that sure I trusted in Him no problem when the going got rough, but it's been a real struggle since the going stayed rough. After all nothing's been going my way... shouldn't I pout? But you see, just as my cousin pointed out, when we get stuck--really stuck, is when we refuse to move on. When we let our "block," our rut, win. When we give into discouragement or whatever it is. And so I ask you. What is your rut? Your block? And what are you going to do about it?