Moments of Grace

Not too long ago, after November, I mentioned how I was ready to get back to the holiness of the mundane, all the while being open to noticing moments of grace. Well, here's a couple of those. These are times that brought me such joy that all I could do was think about how amazing it is when God breaks into your world.

TOMMY THE TEACHER

On Thursday I went to Dr. Fulgham in Brownsboro to have the crown put back on my tooth. I went to high school with Ben, the dentist's middle son. We were good acquaintances which, to the rest of the world outside of small town Brownsboro, means best friends. It was great catching up with him through his mom. You know, it's so easy to think that I exagerrate and over-romantacize the friendliness and "real-ness" of people from home... but I don't think I do. I felt so warm and welcome in that place, even though I hadn't seen Ben's parents in over ten years. His mom treated me as if it were just a few days ago that we were talking. It was wonderful.

As I was leaving, I decided to take the back way to highway 31, you know, on Bear Circle, that goes behind the high school, and I saw my dad's truck outside of the gym (that would be the high school gym, not the older gym referred to as the "new" gym.) I also saw about a dozen school busses from other towns and I realized what was going on-- The Great East Texas Shootout, the Brownsboro tournament. This thing is the biggest damn high school basketball tournament in the state, possibly in the nation. Seriously. There are 29 boys teams and 30 girls teams that participate. It's huge.

So I decide to go in and see my dad. I walk in the gym, that was almost my home growing up in the fall and early winter growing up, as I went to every basketball game. (Have I ever mentioned I was voted Most School Spirit all four years of high school? Well, I was. My senior year I was also voted Friendliest, but I had to choose one over the other.-- I chose Most School Spirit in order to have the sweep.) I walk into the capacity crowded gymnasium and spend a good 5 minutes scanning the place looking for my dad. Eventually I see him, on the other side of the court, bottom row, and he has around 8-10 special education (the lowest level of special ed-- i'm not sure the pc word these days) high school kids around him, and he is talking to them, pointing out things. It's as if he's Socrates and all these students are staring at him, hanging on to his every word. He's holding court. Turns out he was subsituting for a special education class that day and decided to take them to a basketball game to teach them how to count by two. I eventually went over and hung out with him for a few minutes before going back to Waco, but not before spending five minutes just watching him and the joy that was spewing out of him. My dad spent over 30 years building tires, and now he was doing something he loved. I was very happy.

JUDE THE POPCORN EATER

Last night I was watching the Lake kids while Kyle and Jen went Christmas partying. This is my favorite thing in the world to do right now.

I put on the old claymation version of Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer and all the kids were entranced. As they were watching, I popped popcorn and went and sad down on the floor. Jude quietely walked over to me, never taking his eyes off of the movie, and sat in my lap. I started feeding him popcorn, and he loved it.... he was just like a little person, eating popcorn in the movie. Anyway, he started doing this thing that just caused me to laugh hysterically, but quitely so as to not disturb him and cause him to stop. Still in a trance watching the movie, he began lifting his hand over his head, palm up, everytime he was ready for a new piece of popcorn. It was so instinctual, instinctly.... uh..... deep down within him that he didn't even notice what he was doing. Again, I was very happy. And you can be a lot worse than happy.

I know, seems stupid.... but so do many other things God chooses to do to make you appreciate the world and people and things around you.