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What God Wants/Doesn’t Want For Us

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

Those of us who believe in God often believe ourselves into one of two categories of faith: that God is perpetually angry and predominantly just or that God is constantly loving and always mercifully forgiving everything.

God number one just gives us laws, and if we don’t deduce them correctly and obey every one of them to the letter, we are eternally-conscious ash on the funeral pyre of hell. He expresses what He wants from us; what He wants for us to do.

God number two wants everyone to be saved, so no matter what we do and how heinous it is He will just mushy-hug us all into His heavenly home anyway. He expresses preferences for us rather than commands, and in the end it doesn’t matter whether we’ve lived up to them or not.

These naive extremes result from the logical fallacy that since these concepts of God seem oppositional to us, only one can be true. Nuh-uh. They could both be false. They could both have roots in truth. They might not be oppositional at all – and they aren’t.

I believe God is both merciful and just — and I’ve blogged about the reasons and the scriptures enough that I’m not going back over than road again here. I believe that what He expresses toward us are not merely commands or preferences … but the loving instructions and promises of what He wants for us.

What He tells us to be and do is what is ultimately best for us, and He tells us because He is righteous (it’s simply the right thing for a parent to do!) and because He loves us.

Angi and I have raised our kids well into teen-age now. If we’ve done our treasured job well, Matt and Laura will continue to make wise decisions that build their future and their relationships with others. The time for mere commandments is over; those were necessary when they were little and unable to make wise decisions yet for lack of experience. We rewarded obedience; we punished disobedience. Now that is becoming unnecessary; as they increasingly shoulder the responsibilities of life, life itself applies discipline. We do not intervene to remove the consequences of their choices because we love them and want them to grow in the directions that they choose.

Let’s pretend.

Let’s pretend that Angi and I had also been the parents of an older child and she had been our first. This child had helped us care for and nurture and teach the younger two, loved them as surely as we did, and in an unfortunate incident whose portent the younger children could not fully understand — a dare, perhaps — she had rescued the two of them from certain death … yet lost her own life in the effort.

What would we want for our remaining children from then on?

I think I’d want them to remember their older sister fondly. I’d want them to understand and appreciate how much she had loved them and was willing to give up for them. I want them to know that I still loved them as dearly as ever; that I did not blame them for her death.

I would want for them to live their own lives reflecting a growing love toward others, love that gives and never looks back. I would want them to be willing to tell stories about her to others; repeat stories that she had told them when they played school and she was their teacher.

I would want them to get to know her friends better and spend some time with them so they would know more about her; to sing her favorite songs when they got together to remember her. I’d want them to know everything I believe about where she is now and how and why.

I would still want them to grow up, find a mate for life they can love, bless, and be blessed by as much as I have and have been with their mom. It’d be great if they had their own kids, too!

There are all kinds of things that I would not want for them; things that would warp and distort and could yet destroy their lives, even after being rescued once before. Every parent knows what those things are.

And, of course, I would want / not want these things for them because I believe they are the things God wants and does not want for His children. He expresses His relationship to us as “Father,” and He did so through His Son. The comparison between the perfectly merciful and just God and the fatally-flawed person that is me is infinitely distant, I know.

But as I have confessed many times, I am an unabashedly simple-minded person. And an analogy like this “let’s pretend” helps me understand a little better His nature, His love, His righteousness, His justice, His mercy.

It helps me understand who He is, and what He wants – and doesn’t want – for me.

Incarnation

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

I’ve had a truly crummy day, and don’t feel like blogging.

I’ve had to talk to both my children – separately – about academic integrity today while keeping in my anger that the new phone/Internet/cable was down when I needed to be doing urgent things online; that the dog had seen fit to wolf down an entire box of doughnuts AND a bag of frosted pretzels; that the garage door opener has gone on the fritz and will require an expensive repair call; that our planned family trip to Ireland next summer has been seriously jeopardized. It’s also my son’s 16th birthday today, and has been possibly the suckiest one ever for him, since we’ve had damp or dangerous weather three days in a row now and the State Police will not conduct the driving portion of the license exam. In addition, Angi put together his favorite red velvet birthday cake mix and left it in the oven to help preside at UALR’s winter graduation … and I followed my nose to its singed remains about an hour ago. If she said anything to me about it when she left, I didn’t hear her two rooms away.

If you want to read something profound and seasonal and spirit-lifting, read John Mark Hicks’s blog entry, Christmas: The Incarnation of God and/or Royce Ogle’s Merry Christmas.

I wish I could put two cogent thoughts together right now, but I can’t. I wish I could weave a great tapestry of meaning on how I wish Advent could be about shouldering the responsibility for being God-in-the-flesh as Jesus was rather than about indolently anticipating His return as if we had nothing better to do. But Paul already wrote the second letter to Thessalonica and I know I couldn’t do better than that.

Nor could I do any better than the two brothers I linked to above, who understand what Incarnation means and the sufficiency of it – and write about it powerfully and persuasively.

This evening I learned that incarnational living sometimes means dashing out in the <1/4-mile visibility fog to go to Kroger's and pick up a couple more red velvet cake mixes and a small bottle of cooking oil, recruiting my daughter to help me clean up the cake pan and mix the new one and pop it in the oven before Mom gets home and brother comes out of his room.

She helped a lot. As we were cleaning up again a moment ago, she said, “That was fun! I know you were having a bad day today. It’s better now, isn’t it? You were lucky I really didn’t have homework tonight.”

And she was, of course, perfectly right.

Boo At The Zoo

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

Angi and I took our daughter Laura, 12, and her neighbor Caroline, 9, to the annual ‘Boo At The Zoo’ last night. Matt, at 15, is too old for such tomfoolery while there are video games and an operating X-Box 360 in his room.

He missed a great time, though.

At ‘Boo At the Zoo,’ though most of the animals are asleep, you will see all kinds of colorful creatures going from tented booth to booth trading tickets for treats … eating funnel cakes and corn dogs … riding carnival rides and the Little Rock Zoo’s long-time attraction, the miniature choo-choo. LOTS of colorful creatures. Dozens and hundreds and thousands as the night grows darker and the lines grow longer.

It’s a real zoo!

They pass giant wire-frame sculptures of spooks and jack-o-lanterns. To pass the time in lines, they see glowing pumpkin patches and “cemeteries” alight with skeleton-topped “tombstones” that all read:

R.I.P. Ashes to ashes / Dust to dust / Here lies someone / I wouldn’t trust.

The tombstones are cute … the first time. But there are dozens of them, all over the zoo, and they all read the same!

So the would-be writer in me got to thinking (as we waited in line for treats and rides): “What if they were different? What if they were funny epitaphs like the bizarre ones people used to have, with names that sounded like animal names?”

And this is what I came up with:

ELLA
FANT
She traveled slow
Her life well-spent
She’d always go
Where her trunk went.		 MYNA
BYRD
Her songs and cries
Always enthralled
But to the skies
Her soul was called.		 CUBBY
LYON
Too young for wife,
Too small for friend,
The circle of life
His life did end.
     
PEL E.
CANN
To fish – he can
To fly – he can
To cry – he can
To die – he can.		 P. KOCK
For many eyes
He’d flash his plumes
But now he lies
‘Midst flowers’ blooms.		 R.A.
COON
A mask so smart
He always wore
He’d steal your heart
But is no more.
     
JER.
AFFE
He was quite tall
And quick of tongue
He took a fall …
Now he’s just long.		 B.A.
BOONE
When aped at sport
He’d take a ribbin’
To rude retort
He was not gibbon.		 POOR
Q. PINE
A prickly quill
He’d always wield
Yet to Death’s will
He had to yield.

Okay, probably too weird and morbid for most kids … and many adults ….

What do you think? Worth suggesting to the folks at the Zoo?

Goodbye, Fluffy

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

She was twenty years old but not prematurely gray. She had been gray all her life, from the time she was just a handful of kitten and a gift from my wife to her mom.

Of course, I had never met any of them at that time. Fluffy was a companion for my mom-in-law, a shy under-bed dweller who was especially afraid of men.

I didn’t let that stop me from trying to make her acquaintance. After a few visits to her mom’s house in Texas, I coaxed her out from under the bed and found that she liked to have her head and belly rubbed – and that she liked to scratch and chew your hand gently when you obliged her.

When we moved my mom-in-law from Texas up to Little Rock to live nearer to us almost six years ago, Angi wanted to have Fluffy put to sleep rather than put a 14-year-old cat through the hot ride in mid-summer. I talked her out of it. I’m glad I did. She made the trip just fine. The place where my mom-in-law lives in Little Rock doesn’t permit pets, though, so Fluffy came to live with us.

Our other two cats were more or less indifferent to her – as she was to them – but somehow respected her seniority. When we added a cocker spaniel a year ago, he indiscriminately took to all of them like long-lost cousins.

In the last year, Fluffy had grown thinner and thinner. As her teeth deteriorated, she could only eat soft food – and the other pets let her have plenty, preferring the crunchy kind – but her digestive system was never very happy. She grew gaunt. She hasn’t been able to hop up to her rightful place on the bed for several months because of the arthritis in her back legs, but she never complained. (If you hang around some of the same blogs I do, you may remember that I commented about Fluffy on salguod‘s blog a couple of months ago.)

One of her favorite things to do was talk with us. She only knew two words – “Mama” and “Hello?” – but she got the pronunciation right and the inflection perfect, including the cleft-kitty-lipped “m,” the aspirated “h,” and the rising inflection at the end of “Hello?”.

Sometimes when we came home, she would come sit at the top of the stairs and say “Hello?” and wait for us to say it back to her. She would go back and forth with us, repeating it for as long as we were willing. Sometimes, she’d do it even though we’d been home for a long time!

She would say “mama” mostly when she was hungry. She knew who fed her.

Last evening, while Angi and I were at a formal dinner at the University, something happened. It might have been a stroke. When we came home, I found Fluffy only semi-responsive, eyes glazed, reclined with her head against the water dish. She could barely get up. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t drink. She couldn’t fully stand. She’d just squat by the water dish, looking longingly at it. Once, she dipped her tongue into it. But she couldn’t swallow. The drop of water dribbled down her chin.

We tried to make her comfortable, but she couldn’t get comfortable. We had hoped maybe she would improve during the night, but by morning it was clear that she was suffering – and unwilling to put her head down, lest she fall asleep and not awaken again.

Laura was inconsolable for a while, wailing “I don’t want her to die” over and over. Matthew, stolidly, just rubbed her head and belly.

After the children had had a chance to say goodbye to her and had gone to school; after Angi had called her mom to see if she wanted to go with me to the vet (she didn’t), I took Fluffy for her last ride.

She was pretty close to gone before we got there.

I was handling it all right until the vet’s assistants took her to the back room for the shot. Then I just sank into a chair and sobbed. The kindness of a stranger – an older lady with a quiet new puppy – consoled me with an arm around my shoulder.

Then they brought me her collar and tags, and I took them home.

Goodbye, Fluffy.

It wasn’t so much that we hardly knew ye – but that we knew you so long and you loved us so much.

We will miss your greeting when we come home.

Those Eureka Moments

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

If you’ve read my blog for very long, you already know I am crazy about my wife, my kids and Eureka Springs – especially the ES&NA Railway, where I proposed and she said yes.

So any time I can get all of them together, it’s especially wonderful for me, and last weekend I did.

We did the trolley buses, the toy stores, the great places to eat, the excursion railway ride, and even the Passion Play. It’s called the Great Passion Play. Maybe I’m too critical, but if I were still writing advertising copy for clients in Eureka Springs, I would only rate it as the Pretty Good Passion Play.

It is outdoors, in a wonderfully hilly and wooded setting with terrific sets, special effects, costumes, animal and human extras, and cast. Since it’s pre-recorded and the actors just mime to the dialogue, it loses some of its power to me. And the script is a little odd at times. While it’s been carefully edited to remove any reference to “the Jews” that might sound anti-Semitic, some moments and lines have been added to Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem that you won’t find in a Bible I know of.

There’s the healing of the little crippled girl in front of the temple, who leaves her crutch behind and races into Jesus’ arms. Do you remember that moment in scripture? It might have happened. But I don’t think anyone wrote about it.

I don’t remember Jesus having a tussle with Satan in the tomb, either – but the dialogue and special effects sure did imply it heavily!

And I guess I just was a little put off by the voice talent who recorded the role of Jesus. If Jesus’ voice broke occasionally, I think it would add dramatic effect to some of the moments portrayed. But this actor’s voice was faltering in just about every blinkin’ line!

But, you know, we went there for the kids. And it was just about right for them. Matthew, the consummate teenager at 14, kept trying to divert my attention from his moist-eyed empathy by asking how certain special effects were done. And 11-year-old Laura – very quietly, afterward in our hotel room – was asking her momma what all it means to be baptized.

You see, for all the things this would-be writer would try to “set right” in the Passion Play script, there was a lot that was already “right” about it – and it didn’t shy away from baptism at all.

Listening to Angi quietly and gently speak with Laura about baptism while Matthew and I overheard is one of those Eureka moments that will always be precious to me.

Now, to divert your attention from any moist-eyed empathy you might have experienced reading this: Matthew’s YouTube video of good ol’ diesel locomotive #4742 smashing coins on the tracks as it passes – and featuring a one-second cameo by Laura:

 

 

 

A Mother’s Day Blessing – Reprise

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

(Originally posted in 2005.)

In 1999 I was asked to lead a “prayer and blessing” for Mother’s Day at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, and I didn’t exactly know what that meant. I turned it over to the Lord in prayer, consulted a bit with elder John Willis (who was to read a passage and lead another prayer at the service), and put pen to paper in hopes that the Spirit would supply the words I lacked. John intended to read from Isaiah 49. This is what I read that Sunday morning in May:

We call God our Father in our prayers and our private meditations, but we don’t often think of Him in “motherly” terms. Yet, that is exactly how God chooses to express His tender affection and compassion toward His children when Isaiah speaks for Him in chapter 66, verses 12 and 13:

“For this is what the Lord says: ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you, and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”

It’s my privilege this morning to lead us in a petition to God for a blessing on those who give us birth, give us homes, give us love and give us themselves. If your mom is nearby and you’d like to hold her hand while we ask this blessing together, please do.

May the Lord always bless mothers like Eve
… who may have been suprised to find they are with child
… who courageously approach motherhood for the first time ever
… and some who later must cope with the untimely death of a beloved child.

May the Lord always bless mothers like Sarah
… who may have laughed at the thought of having a child later in life, but take the job seriously
… who may not see their child married, or see their grandchildren in this life, but have faith that they can still become the mother of nations.

May the Lord always bless mothers like Hannah
… who want a child so badly that they never cease to ask God’s blessing in this way
… who are willing to give up their children to adoption by another family for a chance at a more blessed life
… who dedicate their children to the Lord’s work and His house.

May the Lord always bless mothers like the prophetess Anna
… who may possibly never have children of their own
… and who, without a thought of bitterness, fast and pray for others at the Lord’s house,
… and give Him praise for the children others have and bring there.

May the Lord always bless mothers like Eunice – and grandmothers like Lois
… who teach their children Bible stories
… who tell them of God’s love and will for them
… and give them the gift of a faith as strong as Timothy’s.

May the Lord always bless mothers like Mary
… who meet the challenge of rearing a child very different from His brothers and sisters
… who may have felt a degree of estrangement from a child who describes his companions as his “mother and brothers and sisters”
… but who never stop believing in – and supporting – their children … even at the foot of a cross.

May the Lord always bless mothers … but especially on this day, which is also the Lord’s day. For “as a mother (who) comforts her child” has God so loved.

For all mothers we thank You and praise Your Name, Father; and all these blessings we pray through the Son who expresses Your love to us in its most eloquent way.

Amen.

Fathers and Sons and Wars and Rumors of Wars

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

I just read Patrick Mead’s recent post Another Tent Peg Pops Loose, and his fatherly angst brought to mind some that I felt a little over four years ago, and wrote about in my weekly column in the Abilene Reporter-News. I wrote it in the late autumn of 2002, when Matthew was about to turn ten years old, and pretty much everyone in the Western world believed that Iraq was brimming with weapons of mass destruction. I don’t write political commentary in this blog very often, but I do now strongly believe that the administration at that time pulled a stunt like the mythical Governor sang about in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in his showstopper, “Dance a Little Sidestep.” I believe that some sleight-of-hand about this so-called WMD “intelligence” and Iraqi government sponsorship of Al-Quaeda was presented to distract Americans’ from the unsuccessful attempt to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden, the self-admitted mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet it is undeniable that Saddam Hussein practiced genocide within his own country and attempted to annex another. And while I rue my own credulity, and detest the catastrophe that has befallen Iraq and all armed forces there engaged in trying to establish peace, I can have nothing but the deepest admiration for the young people who are willing to serve at the President’s whim and protect their nation to the price of their own lives – even if he may be wrong about where or how that must be done – and admiration for the parents, spouses, children and friends who send them off with their ongoing prayers. If my son chooses to serve, I will not be able to be more proud of him. If he chooses to protest and oppose the war, I will not be able to be more proud of him. He will do it with all his heart, whatever he chooses. But if he chooses to remain silent and do nothing, I will be no more proud of him than I am of myself for having said nothing and done nothing all this time. So here is what I wrote then, and what I felt then, and what I mostly still feel ….

“What war now?” my son asked, appearing at the entrance to our den in his pajamas.

I fumbled for the remote and quickly shut off CNN.

“C’mon,” I redirected him, heading for the kitchen. “Let’s get water for you and your sister. It’s bedtime.”

“What war now?” he persisted.

Matthew’s question came some time back, when sabres were first being rattled in the direction of Iraq and CNN was already discussing strategy. He was already aware of the “conflict” in Afghanistan, which eventually was called “war.”

“It’s possible,” I said hesitantly, “that we will go to war with a country called Iraq, and soon.”

“Why?”

Why do countries ever go to war? I wanted to say, but it was a question beyond adult reason and certainly not an answer to an honest child. I filled two kid cups with ice and water.

“Their leader may have helped the people who destroyed those two buildings in New York and damaged the one in Washington.”

“And crashed that plane?”

“Yes, and crashed that plane.” I gave him his cup and we started upstairs. “He also tried to take a country next to his several years ago and said it was his. When we stopped his army, they set fire to everything they could so no one could have it.”

Matthew thought about it. “So we didn’t really stop him.”

I shook my head. “No, I guess we didn’t.” We were in his room now, and I picked up his globe to point out Iraq. “But if a war does happen, it will happen way over here, on the other side of the world. Nowhere close to us; we’re here. Their missiles can’t go that far.”

Yet, I thought. Yet.

“So we have to go to war to stop him?”

I hedged. “It will cost a lot of money. And a lot of young soldiers may die or be hurt really badly.” For one heart-stopping moment, I saw my little blond, blue-eyed boy very differently: all grown up, and yet just a teenager … wearing desert fatigues and carrying a gun. “But, yes, our president thinks it’s the only thing that will stop him.

“And the sad thing is, he may be right.”

“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between Governments. The once powerful malignant Nazi state is crumbling; the Japanese warlords are receiving in their homelands the retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl Harbor. But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough; we must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.” – What would have been President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s next speech, had not a stroke taken his life the day before he was to deliver it. His son read the message April 13, 1945.

The Prodigal Mouse

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

Yesterday afternoon as the kids and I got home from school and work, we were plunged into the depths of tragedy.

Ten-year-old Laura’s pet mouse, Cheese, was missing from his cage.

Cheese is the more gregarious and adventurous of the two pet mice in our household. Matthew’s black-with-white-face-and-chest rodent is named Tuxedo, and even though he looks like he’s dressed to go out, he never does. He stays in his little purple igloo bubble within his cage and only exercises on the wheel at night.

But Cheese likes to be held, is up at all hours (between naps), and has been known to squeeze through the grille on the top of his cage to go out exploring.

It looked like he had made that mistake, and that there had been a struggle with one of our three cats. (Don’t ask why Angi let our children buy mice and cages and wheels and bedding and food when we have three cats. I had warned them both that when a cat sees a mouse, she usually thinks: “Snack!”)

Laura was distraught. She wailed, and I comforted. She searched, and I searched. We found nothing. No remains, no tiny drops of blood, nothing.

She was pretty much inconsolable all evening, though I managed to coach her through homework.

Then, right after her bath and just before bedtime, she began wailing again. I met her halfway down the hall and understood her to say, between sobs, “I … just … saw … Cheese!”

Fearing the worst, I followed her to her room, trying to calm her down. Then she said, “I saw him under the bed … and over there … and over there!”

Well, that changed matters a bit. I wondered briefly if she was hallucinating, but she had never displayed any truly hysterical behavior like that before. Within a few minutes (and after closing the door to the cats), we both spotted him: a flash of white fur with black spots, darting between toys and boxes on the floor. In a moment, I had him boxed in and presented him to Laura.

She spent the rest of the evening snuggling that mouse and telling me “Thank you!”

I mean that, literally. She must have told me “Thank you, Daddy!” and hugged me a couple dozen times.

Maybe there’s no real moral or point to telling this, but I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ comment between the telling of the stories about a lost coin and a lost sheep recovered, and the return of a prodigal child: “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

I understand the concerns of folks who feel uncomfortable when people clap after a baptism, or when they repeat aloud their praises and thanksgivings when a child of God is born again.

But I wonder if what’s actually happening in heaven is a lot of dancing and high-fiving and hollering and singing all at the same time – every time a reborn face breaks the surface of the water and his eyes are opened and he begins to seek his God.

Shouldn’t the rest of us be saying, “Thank you, Daddy!” over and over and over again?

Father’s Day Early

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

It had to come early for me – and probably a slew of other dads – because my just-turned-teen son went to Uplift at Harding University at noon today. So he gave me a gift and a card at breakfast.

More specifically: a NASCAR card reminiscient of our new favorite movie, Cars, and some new togs to wear on vacation in a couple of weeks. I imagine his mom – who is teaching in Dallas this weekend – had a hand in that selection. But he’s already e-mailed from the student center three times.

My 10-year-old daughter was a trooper this afternoon, tagging along with me at work on a rainy Saturday and even helping here and there. I felt like I owed her big-time, and McDonald’s was a disappointment when she saw the sign in the play area requiring socks of my barefoot, besandaled cherub. So we went home and called and called until we found a family willing to turn loose of their daughter on Father’s Day Eve to sleep over tonight. (Now I owe them big-time.)

Yet, not even the gift and card she’s holding until tomorrow morning will beat a few minutes ago when she came out to me in my hobby closet off the garage and told me – for no reason; no request, no beg, no plead – “Dad, have I told you today that you’re the best daddy in the whole world?”

I gave her a big, squeezy hug and told her that she says it even when she doesn’t say it.

“Huh?” she said, and I was a little too choked to explain.

It’s really easy to manage being a pretty good dad when you’ve got the greatest kids in the world.

Flamingo Light of Grace: The Sequel

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

A few months back in my post The Neon Flamingo Light of Grace, I happened to mention that my 13-year-old son Matthew had purchased with his own money a pretty expensive T-rated X-Box game titled (I think) “American Army.”

He did so after consulting with me, and listening to the reasons why I don’t approve of such games, and exercising the option I gave him to buy it anyway. He was wise to play it in his room only, where his younger sister Laura wouldn’t be affected by it. (And in that previous post, he redeemed my opinion of his choices by buying a Neon Flamingo Light of Grace for her after I had taught an exceedingly tough and somewhat cruel lesson in thrift to her.)

Well, the 10-year-old sister he loves to taunt is in camp this week … and the pool where we have our membership is closed due to rain … and was closed yesterday because it was Monday … and he was sounding pretty bored when I met him for lunch.

So I took him to Game X-Change so that he could look over the selection. He had brought a couple of his games with him to see if he could trade them, and as we approached the counter he showed me the one he had carried underneath the outdated race-driving game case. Sure enough, it was “American Army.”

He traded them in for a newer race-driving game.

And the Neon Flamingo Light of Grace?

It’s in his room now.

Laura gave it back to him as an apology for taunting him beyond his patience … because she knew he liked it.

I am so proud of my kids.