My life, all that it is…all that it’s not, is mine.

My life.

Many people think it’s not.

They would tell you that I belong to others, many others, and that all I’ve done…and not done, has had more to do with other people than with myself. To a degree, that is true.

I lived to please my parents, not that I very well succeeded, until the young age at which I was married, when I began, in earnest, to please my husband. I don’t know that I have always done that either, but I have stubbornly tried. I have had children from a youthful age and have dedicated, am still dedicating, myself to them, now more than ever with the coming of grandchildren.

Mothers don’t have a life, right? I have been told that by youngsters less than half my age, some of whom I gave birth to and some I didn’t. I guess one comes to expect it more from the one’s you brought into the world because as everyone knows, when it comes to kids, nobody gets a choice who they are hooked for life with, parent-wise or kid-wise.

When it comes from a child that you have reached out to, given your time and attention to, even though you didn’t have to, even though your family didn’t want you to, it’s really a kicker. He made this remark because I am a “stay at home mom” who had the time to answer his phone calls and help him through his adolescent struggles while his own mom worked all day and was too tired at night to engage in the extended dialogue he craved. When all was said and done, though, his mom was the one that “had a life”. I was the one that didn’t. I only had my family……..and him.

Now I don’t even have him. I kinda knew this would happen someday. I used to ask him, “you’re not gonna get old on me, are ya?” He promised he wouldn’t. He promised. But he did. When push came to shove, he did.

High school is such a needy time, isn’t it? Like I said in another post, self-esteem is at a premium when one is in high school and those who have it are either popular or outcast. He didn’t have it. Barely a shred. Well, he knew he was smart. Making the National Honor Society and meeting Wynton Marseles in NYC because of your incredible jazz expertise will kind of assure you of that. It doesn’t do much for the social training though. That’s where I came in. If I am nothing else, I’m social. Boy, am I social. Not that I have to be out and about all the time. Not at all. In fact, as I am getting older, the more and more attractive my home is becoming to me for privacy purposes. Yet, when I am with people in social settings I am generally very comfortable. I talk easily and have been told that I am a good listener too. I don’t think I’ve always been a good listener, but being a mom will work that in a person.

This kid needed a mom. He needed a mom real bad. Maybe this sounds bad but even if his mom stayed home, I don’t know if she could have given him what he needed. He needed an non-judgemental ear. He wasn’t a bad kid. He didn’t use drugs or even smoke. He just needed someone who wasn’t going to nit-pick. I’m good at not doing that.

I got nit-picked to death when I was a kid….”sit up straight, elbows off the table, hand in your lap, no crossing your leg at the knee, stop jiggling your leg, this is the shrimp fork, this is the salad fork, this is the dessert fork, this is the soup spoon,….yeah, yeah, yeah”. When my mom realized that I was left-handed she made me switch. Probably around two or three because I don’t ever remember eating with my left hand but she claims I did. She didn’t care if I changed for writing. I still write with my left hand. Just for eating.

She was left-handed too. We are the only lefties in the family and her mother made her switch too. She wanted me to be socially correct in public. Everyone else eats with their right hand and lefties, if they aren’t trained, always get relegated to the end of the table. Being able to eat with my right hand (which means I cut with my left hand like right-handed people do) has actually has made me ambidextrous in some areas. I iron with my left hand but I bat a baseball right-handed (not that I do that very much anymore!).

Even though I know what all the utensils are for, and I can eat in public without disgracing myself, and I don’t jiggle my leg anymore, at least in public, I grew up feeling slightly paranoid, like I wasn’t measuring up and I was never going to. . To my parents, to society, to myself.

Whether I do or not doesn’t really matter to me anymore, but I could see this kid struggling the same way I did. He didn’t know how to talk to his parents, he was constantly being berated for one thing or another and he was emotionally sensitive to start with. He found me…..and I filled that gap. I am pretty laid back, take it as it comes….non-judgmental. I know how to hang, play games, go with the flow.

We became very close. To the point that I could have told you almost exactly where this kid was 24/7. I knew his schedule, his classes, his after school activities, his weekends…I knew what days he would call and what days he wouldn’t. I knew when his concerts were, and even went to concerts that his parents were too busy to make. I knew what his likes and dislikes were, I knew what video games he liked to play, I knew what he liked to eat and that he was allergic to walnuts. I stopped putting them in the banana bread during the eight years he was coming over to the house. I knew what girls he liked and what girls liked him but he wasn’t interested in. I knew more about him than I knew about my son who was only one year older. This kid shared EVERYTHING with me.

One day he called me from school and the girl was coming down the hall and he wanted to know what to say to her. He was loudly whispering, “CON, tell me what to say, tell me what to say!” How am I supposed to know? I’ve never even heard of this girl before!

He gave me a music box at Christmas that said, “make a joyful noise” and Russian chocolate and a wooden doll from the mission trip he took to the Ukraine. I stuck those little rectangle Christian cards with the picture on the front and writing on the back, in his coat pocket for him to find later to encourage him. He always seemed to find it at just the moment he needed a lift. He was gentle, he was sweet, he was adorable. I thought about and prayed for him a lot, and I knew he cared about me.

After high school he went to the local Bible College. He had received almost a full scholarship to a prestigious college in the city that is thirty minutes away from us but he turned it down. I didn’t think he should have done that. He wouldn’t listen to me about that though and insisted on going to the Bible College. After his first year there, when he got out in April for the summer, I was talking to him on the phone. He was complaining about his parents, and about something that I can’t remember now about the school.

I told him that he wasn’t supposed to be there anyway, and he should go to this other college that was in another state. I told him that the Lord told me that and I don’t say things like that lightly. He knew I didn’t. He pooh-poohed it though and said he had to finish up at the Bible College.

Over the summer things got very tense with his parents. He couldn’t take it. Finally, he called me one night and wanted to know if I would pick him up at his house and bring him to mine. It was late and I was already in bed. I made him tell me what the problem was on the phone and then I told him that my son would pick him up at the house, not me, and take him to a the home of a mutual friend to talk. The whole ‘avoid all appearance of evil’ thing.

We talked outside (it was summertime) until two in the morning. He wanted to come live at my house. I kept telling him that God wanted him to go to this particular college. When we were ready to leave he asked me what he should say to his parents the next day. I told him that when they asked what CONNIE SAID, that he should say that Connie told him to go home and obey his parents. I told him that after his mother picked her chin up off the floor, to ask her if he could go to this college. He said okay.

The next morning he walked in his kitchen door and his mom was there. She asked exactly what I said she would ask and yes, her chin dropped to the floor when he told her what I had said. Then he asked if he could go to this college. She got so excited she ran upstairs and got the application from the younger sisters desk (apparently she had looked into this college), they filled it out and in LESS THAN A WEEK he was accepted. Hummph, that’ll increase the prophetic confidence, won’t it? He left a week and a half after the incident. God is going to have his way, one way or the other.

After he was there our communication actually increased because there were no parental controls. He called once or twice a week, and e-mailed everyday. He wanted to IM but I am pretty illiterate about that. Again, he told me about girls, schoolwork, music, his feelings. I didn’t see much of him but he was safe, happy, and acing his schoolwork. He graduated Summa Cum Laude. Big surprise.

It started about a year before graduation. When he was home that summer I didn’t hear much from him but wrote it off to his parents being on his case. He called a little here and there but e-mail was the only real communication. After he went back to school in the fall, we were on the phone one Sunday afternoon and he was telling me that he might be getting an internship in the worship department at our large church in town. I was thrilled. Yay, you are coming home early! His mother, ironically, was NOT happy. She wanted him to take an internship near the college he was at. He wouldn’t listen to her and the large church in my town accepted him for the internship. I mean, it’s free labor as far as they’re concerned so they were good to go.

I got little smatterings after that and I should have gotten the hint. He had made some comments to me about how he wouldn’t be able to come over to the house, he wouldn’t be calling after he got home, etc. “Oh, I’ll still check ya when I get a chance….”. I figured he was trying to tell me he was going to be busy so I didn’t think too much of it.

What he was trying to say was……”you aren’t politically correct in our church…..and I am going to be working for the church, and something has to go” He never said this directly to me but it WAS said.. Now, he didn’t want to give up the friendship, mind you, he just wanted to keep it out of the spotlight. When another girl from our town who was going to his same college, asked him once if he still talked to me, he told her that he didn’t, even though he was calling me twice a week and e-mailing daily! “You know, Con, I gotta keep a low profile”.

When he came home for the internship he came over to the house a couple of times but he wanted to make sure no one outside the family knew. He didn’t want to stay long so his car wouldn’t be seen and he wanted to make sure I didn’t talk to him in church or anywhere where someone might see us. You know that scene in A Walk to Remember where the guy comes to the house to get help with his lines for the play from the girl but then when they are in school he doesn’t want to associate with her? He comes to the house a second time and she slams the door in his face. He can’t understand why she is mad. She says, “Oh, you want to be SECRET friends”. He says, “Yeah!” like she finally gets it and doesn’t understand why she would be so mad about that. That’s EXACTLY what happened. This kid wanted to be SECRET friends. After all these years.

I’m just a common little housewife and have a very common little housewife life…but somewhere, under all this servility I have some self-respect. I know I can be a doormat sometimes but when you start wiping the doggy doo-doo of your integrity on me and expect me to lie there and take it…..well, that’s where I draw the line.

This one hurt, this one wasn’t the church…a bunch of people I didn’t know very well. This one was the one that had become like a part of the family.

My life...all that it is...all that it's not...it's mine.

Before Christmas, Junior and I were having a discussion on predestination as opposed to free will. I made the comment that when I was younger the only part of school I liked was writing the papers. I despise multiple choice, true/false, or any kind of test that I have to memorize something word for word. Give me the essay, man. Not to sound arrogant but if I know the material I know I will ace it, and even if I don't I can bluff my way through with at least a C+ at the top of the page. He then, very professorily, assigned me to write a paper detailing my views on this subject. I will refer to it as 'the readers digest' version because there is so much more I could have written, and usually do write, as you my dear readers can attest to. I have made some changes in paragraph style for easier reading.

God’s Desire--Our Salvation

What a quandary I might have fallen into should I have tried to explore this subject matter as a young, uneducated Christian. What confusion would have caused my mind and my heart to swirl and spin if I had attempted,at some earlier state,to justify a position regarding our predestination for salvation or the freedom of our will which God has so graciously bestowed upon us. It is my contention that one must have a firm grasp on the character of God before trying to debate theological points. It took many years of living with God, not just reading His Word, or going to church, to give me an inkling of just how vast, how deep and how great is His love for us and His yearning heart for us. God is love, and in Him is no evil. God is light, and in Him is no darkness. God is just, and in Him is no injustice. Without certain basic tenets how can one comprehend all that is God and what He is saying in His Word?

At this latter stage of my life I will, from the beginning of this paper, state that I have come to the conclusion that God would have it
that every man be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:4) and that He has predestined all mankind to that fate.

I just love being able to take the middle ground whenever possible, don't I!

Any other doctrine that would be taught must consider this text fully and through the eyes of a loving Father who would not want even His most rebellious child to go to hell.

As a parent, I fully understand this.

Yet,even while making this point,one must never discount the holiness and justice that also embodies our heavenly Father who made us. His love is not the mushy,permissive kind so prevalent in our society today. He knows the sin that so easily entangles us and He knows that His holiness cannot look upon that. His way is narrow and only a few there are that will find it (Mt. 7:14). Since He knows the end from the beginning (Is. 46:10) then, of course, He knows who will find it and who will not It is my contention that He speaks to all men, whether through creation (Romans 1), by appearing on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3), or by any of a myriad of ways in between, yet He ALWAYS speaks.I believe that He gives each man, woman and child the opportunity, oftentimes many, many opportunities to come to Him through His Son.

Our free will is ultimately our salvation or our undoing. God, knowing beforehand that Adam and Eve would disobey Him in the Garden, still gave them a will to choose that destruction. Being born then in our iniquity we have only one way out of the pit and that is the salvation that God so graciously provided for us via the cross.

In essence, He came from heaven to rescue us from our own “free“ will; which Romans 6 proclaims really is not free after all. It is a slave to sin. Our own sin. The sin that resides in us from our first parents rebellion. Yet as we begin to work our salvation out with fear and trembling through Christ,we find that we are still enslaved because we become slaves to righteousness. Hallelujah! So, our choice then becomes not will I do His will or my will but will I be a slave to righteousness or a slave to unrighteousness.

Defined, predestination means a doctrine that says that everything was determined by God beforehand, especially in regards to divine omnipotence over the free will in determination of one’s fate. Most likely the foundation of this doctrine is Romans 8:29 that states, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son”. Yet this must be balanced by God whole Word and in consideration of His known character. John 3:16 boldly declares that “whoever believes in Him should not perish”. God has no desire that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). 1 Peter 1:2 states that we are the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”,yet that must be considered in the light of 2 Peter 1:10 (note same author)which states, “Therefore brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble”. This verse alludes to the possibility of stumbling, or falling.

“God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” (Gal. 6:7) We are given choices here on earth to reap corruption or to reap everlasting life.

“The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” (1 Cor. 2 14). However, we must also be born again by the Spirit of God in order to make right choices in our lives and to be imputed righteousness in Christ. Is the choice to be born again our choice or God’s choice? “It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:14). Yet, “he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matt. 10:22/ Matt. 24:13). I can almost hear Paul begging the Colossians “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” (2:8) Why, if it were not possible, would Paul have admonished them so and why would he waste his time if it were not useful?

I will leave the reader with my final word on this topic and that is “Yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless and above reproach in His sight- IF indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel.” Col. 1:22,23

Working has given me two things I had previously learned to take for granted:

Eating and sleeping indoors.

Okay, I give up. I GIVE UP. I have never seen so much political mumbo-jumbo anywhere in my whole life as I have on the blogstream since I came on at the beginning of the New Year. I stand in awe of both sides battling it out with a duel of words worthy of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Swords or pistols, anyone?

Well, lest one should think I am elevating myself above the fray let me graciously beg your indulgence, and have my humble say.

I will give in, this one time, and am only going to go as far into it as my anti-abortion, conscientious objector, small government, big private charity, pentacostal, charismatic, leanings will allow me. Only this once, mind you. Should you read another rambling piece of political jargonism on my blog, you may arightly assume that I have gone out of my head. Or at least into menopause. Okay, I know that was unseemly....yet it is not untimely.

If turnabout is fair play in this volley of words, then here is my lob. It might be an out, or it might be ad-in, but after this, the game is over for me. My serve was always my best shot anyway. After that it was just too much running around for me. I got too hot and sweaty. I forfeit. I know, that’s cheating, isn’t it? Playing until you feel like quitting and then just walking away. Ah, yeah. My Dad wouldn’t allow it, but my friends couldn’t stop it.

Well, since our eminently qualified Whitster is posting scripture and asking for our cogent arguments about the afterlife and eternal reward over there in The Whittier Whithood, so I am going to, this one time, step out of my philosophical ivory tower, far above the hustle and bustle of real life, which as you know by now I do not condescend to do anything that could be construed as mundane in my REAL life, and give you my caustically bland two cents on politics on this side of the blogstream, in these decidedly non-desperate housewife ‘burbs.

If you cannot comprehend the ambiguous enigma that I am, you will have to get your daily devotions elsewhere today. I’m sticking my head out of my imbued shell as far as I’m gonna, and I ain’t getting it chopped off for nobody.

Wait a minute, you say, I’ve been reading you a bit here and there... how can you be BOTH anti-abortion AND conscientious objecting all in the same breath? One is the mainstay of the political right. One is the foundation of the ‘peace, baby, free luuuv, sixties’, the cornerstone of today’s liberality. Oops. Politically incorrect once again! Can't fit in on either side. Will I ever learn?

The answer is easy if you could only see into my objurgatory yet conciliatory mind. I am anti-death. Well, we all die sometime, don’t we? None of us get out of here alive. Grow old or die young, I always say. However, let’s not cause any more death on purpose than we need to.

My generous, forgiving, magnanimous outward appearance conceals an irksome, tedious, wearisome morality. eeeeesh. I have been called names such as unseemly, ill-advised, impious, overly loquacious, and pertinacious by some who purport to be way more important and wise than I will ever be. Well, at least in their egomaniacal dreams. I have also been referred to as garrulously mellifluous, docile, benevolent, eloquent and obeisant by others. Yeah, I don’t know quite what to make of them either. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I have concluded this much from my mundane musings about rules and reigns, monarchies, oligarchies, dictatorships, and republics. I am too doveish to be a true elephant, and yet not ‘peace at all cost’, ‘let ‘em bomb us and turn the other cheek’ enough to be a true jacka…..,I mean, donkey, either.

The only forced death I am in favor of is the death penalty in the unfortunate circumstance that we have an unrepentant serial killer among us. Does that fit into somebody’s neat little box for me? I hope not. I’ve always aimed to be the model of servile perfection, but since hitting the big 5-0 have embraced my inner indomitable child and am circumspectly allowing a bit of her to emerge, but not so much that I am summarily hammered into the ground.

I never claimed to be uncomplicated. It’s kind of the unspoken right of a woman anyway, isn’t it? To be complex and indecisive yet overbearing. Oooops, that was sexist. Incorrect again. This is why I don’t spend much time on the specifics. In my common little housewife life it doesn’t make that much difference anyway. It’s all rhetoric and semantics.

Okay this is what I have to say:

Politics is a beach full of constantly shifting sand, continually and incessantly ready to ebb with society’s flows. If you don’t believe me, consider this:

My parents, so Republican that my father took me into the voting booth with him when he voted for Nixon over Kennedy in 1960, when I was seven, had to shift gears in the 1960’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s when being a Republican became associated with anti-abortion protestors, war hawks and other conservative leanings. It was really a ponderous time for them. As Democrats were then and are now known for big government, big spending, pro-welfare and other liberal platitudes that they were not prepared to embrace, what were they to do? As far as I know my parents have never claimed to be born-again Christians. My mother worked for Planned Parenthood. What a quandary.

On the other hand, my in-laws, who were much more politically active and astute than my parents, running for offices, holding high estates, even their volunteer work imminently noteworthy in local and state newspapers on a substantially regular basis, were Democrats. Christian Democrats. An oxymoron you say? You would be wrong. Not in the political climate of the 1950’s and 60’s.

In those days religion played little or no part in politics. Yeah, some people were a little nervous that Kennedy was Catholic but so what, he was SO handsome, wasn’t he? SO well-spoken, looked SO good on TV in the new age of television politics, especially next to the sweating, stuttering, teary and beady eyed Richard Nixon.

He did so well, indeed, that even my so-called conservative mother was subtly taken with him in spite of herself, not that she would ever admit to such renegade heresy. Oh no. We are much too elegant and refined for such lack of demurity.

Ah, the irony. She is four years older than Jackie and resembled her more, with her high cheek bones, wide set eyes, and strong jaw line, than Jackie’s own sister Lee Radziwill. We couldn’t go anywhere in those days without someone remarking on the uncanny resemblance.

JFK had the Boston political machine behind him and it didn’t hurt that brother Bobby, who was quickly added to the Cabinet after the election, had a moral compass, at least publicly, that Jack couldn’t seem to follow or cover up. Ooooo, those Kennedys. You couldn’t help but love them. They were just so goldarn pretty! Camelot. What a dream. Imagine. Worthy of the theology of John Lennon that we are all debating over in Whittierville.

These days, these pseudo- cool, you da man, you dog, ruf-ruf-, oo-oo, wild-n-crazy days, everything is like flipped, bro, like, you know, um, like flipped upside freakin’ down. When did all this happen? Where did the change come from?

Whoever heard of Christian Democrats? NO way, man, you zoopin’ me?

I don’t think many would think ol’ Teddy, that slippery Chappaquidick guy, would admit to being, even on his BEST day, a born-again, Bible thumpin’, Falwell following, Robertson redacting, TBN televiewing, Christian Coalition cohort. (Sorry, I was having too much fun there with the alliterations and just couldn’t stop.)

Yet even HE was against abortion before it was legalized and he had to suck up his opinion ‘for the good of the party line’. So much for integrity. Repeat after me, “life’s a stage, Connie, and all of us are merely players. You got a bit role, bud, and it’s a non-speaking part,

and don't you forget it!”

Republicans believing in the right to choose between life and death? Where does this fit in? That’s as ludicrous as Alan Keyes and Rush Limbaugh even dreaming that Hillary just MIGHT come over to the right side on that one!

I’m a gonna give ya a piece of inside information on me that even my best friends, for the most part, don’t know. Honest! I asked my daughter, the political science/pre-law major (I told you I was just a maze of irony), just this morning as I was writing this, if she knew what I was registered. She said no and was perplexed to find out the answer.

I’m a registered Democrat.

Ha, ha, haaaaaaaa.

Did I get ya on that one?

I have been since one year after I was old enough to vote.

Ahhhh, I just love gloating over the ironies of my common little life.

All my children, the ones who are eligible to vote, that is, which is six, soon to be seven, out of nine, are ALL registered Republican, along with the two son-in-laws who decided that they would marry my daughters even though they realized they would have to put up with a religiously obstreperous, seditious about church, almost to the point of being treasonous, mother-in-law.

I guess they figured out that my daughters were the treasures that I always said they were, and married them in spite of having to deal with me on a fairly regular basis, and knowing that I would be the grandmother of their children.

I don’t know, it’s just all too Family Ties for me. My kids are Alex and my husband and I are Steven and Elyse. Well, not really. In name, if not in practice. Besides, I'm not as pretty as Meredith Baxter.

It’s really downright laziness, as in an ‘I really don’t care’ attitude, but I think I’ve decided to leave it that way because in my old age I’m just enjoying the dichotomy too much. There’s already so much paradox in my life that this just makes one more interesting addition. Anyway, it gives me something to throw at the people in small town America that keep trying to shove my increasing girth into their tiny boxes.

That common little born again, fundamental, charismatic, goody goody housewife with the big opinions about God, abortion, and capital punishment, is a DEMOCRAT?

Well, let me tell ya what happened up in here.

Way back, when I was 18, back in the Stone Age, for the teenagers that read my blog, I registered Independent. I didn’t completely agree with my parents mostly unspoken views. We were not allowed to express opinions about anything controversial at the dinner table, particularly politics and religion. My father was a relatively quiet man but if you got him riled up on something he could be loud and argumentative, so it was better to say nothing at all than to say the wrong thing. We didn’t know exactly what my parents believed but Walter just wouldn’t shut up about the Vietnam War every night and the poor people of Southeast Asia just kept showing up in front of our face all the time, and it was all just so polarizing that no one could keep their mouth shut about it for very long.

I didn’t completely agree with my future in-laws political pontifications at the dinner table either, all that social injustice stuff that didn’t seem relevant to my perfect little life at the time. I mean, when my mother-in-law was the President of our large city school board she actually got picketed! Right in front of her house! Right on our respectable street in our upper middle class neighborhood! How could this be? So what that she was for busing to end what was essentially classest segregation. What’s wrong with these people out there with their signs and loud voices, and why don’t they go home already?! That was my take on the whole thing, but I will beg off for being ignorant. You think a lot of stupid and ignorant things when you are 18.

So I just up and went Indie on all of ‘em.

The problem is that I didn’t take into consideration that I would not be able to vote in the primaries. Bummer! So, I registered Democrat. It was 1971. I wanted to vote, even in the primaries, in 1972. Big deal what side I was signed up for. It made the husband happy. Who cared? The lines weren’t that delineated. There wasn’t as much yelling over Sunday dinner, even at the in-laws, about it back then.

Then January 1973 rolled around. Uh-oh. Well, the lines were still sort of blurred. Let’s face it Mommy and Daddy were still voting under the sign of the elephant for the most part, and the in laws were still solidly on the side of the jacka....I mean donkey. My mother-in-law personally met ol' Jack through her political work. We have the picture of them deep in conversation. Tough to walk away from that kind of headiness. After he died, he became a martyr worthy of Fox himself. At least in that house. Marilyn Monroe, notwithstanding.

I know I’m not a Democrat, I never was, although once in a while I vote that way in my hick town election for Mayor because I like the guy and what’s the worst that can happen? He might approve re-paving Main Street? Gee, I even let him put his little sign in the corner of my yard.

Okay, this is probably the most politics I’ve discussed since I was twenty in 1973 and I know I’m still definitive yet waffling. Where’s the syrup? Now, THERE, seeeee, I CAN pick a side…..I have to have Vermont Maid. Nothing tastes quite the same. If I can’t have Vermont Maid I’m not eatin', so there!

The legalization of abortion is the only issue that ever got under my skin.....that still gets under my skin. Don’t worry, I have been accused of being narrow minded by more intellectual people than I’ve met on the blogstream before. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Open mindedness is for people who haven’t researched the topic and formulated their thesis yet. I’ve written the paper, handed it in and got the grade.

“Connie, I don’t agree with what you’re saying but you have such a way with words.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whoopdedoodlededoo. Big deal. Words don’t save babies. In this country I’m not sure what does.

I've never cared what party whoever is on and have always looked at the issues only. I’m not anti-Hillary any more than I am pro-George. I like both of ‘em. I don't agree with either of 'em.

Hillary came to the small town next door to mine last year. Oops, one kudo for her. Bet she wouldn’t have stooped to do that though if she wasn’t looking at higher goals than the NY Senate.

George came to our big city and gave a little speech in 2000. I shook his hand and got his autograph. Two kudos for him! Well, he's actually MADE it to the big house, and not on his spouses coattails so his signature might be worth more than hers, huh? Oh, that ISN'T what it's all about? Well, at least I have SOMETHING to tell my grandchildren from my common little housewife life.

I personally think Hillary has got some good ideas about health care, and with the crisis on that in this country somebody better give it some thought, even if she does believe in out right murder. As for me, I like doctors okay, but they aren’t God and couldn’t heal me two years ago when I almost bled to death. If I don’t have health insurance someday, I’ll just have to trust the Lord some more. Ooops, she's back on GOD again.

Anyway, I think George is right on some stuff too although for the life of me it escapes me right now.

If you think I’m waffling, that’s okay. I’m sure George and Hillary would too, if they ever stopped by long enough to have breakfast with me. Don’ t even get me going on the ketchup guy. At least Hillary has half a brain in her head even if I don’t agree with most of it. I just never did see what the attraction was with John and Theresa.

So, that’s why I’m not a political analyst. On the blogstream or anywhere else. A true politician plays both sides against the middle and I’m too one track minded and set in my ways to ante up. I can sure go on a long time about nothin’ though, huh?

It was a bright spring day when the gentle man, who is the head of our county offices, called to tell me that my babies were coming back into foster care.

“They are? Yay!” I replied.

I had been picking them up for weekends and didn’t even know they had a caseworker working with them. Well, okay, I’m dense. One Friday when I drove out to get them after school to spend the weekend I had seen a caseworker there but it just went over my head like so many other thngs I see, but am too busy to process.

The one day that I remember seeing her, two of the kids were complaining because I wouldn’t let them bring their Britney Spears music and Pokemon cards to the house. I told them that I had a lot of things planned and we were going to be busy. While I really did have lots of things planned for the weekend, we were going to the museum, baking cookies, making crafts, going to the dollar movie theater, etc., in reality, I didn’t want either of those things in my house and had strong opinions about the value of them. The kids always came and by the time they got to my house weren’t even thinking about Britney or the stupid Pokemon cards anymore. However, the impression had already been made on this caseworker.

I had no idea the impact this small incident made. I don’t remember how much time elapsed between this and the time the kids were to come into care, probably several months, but it stuck with her. When the time came for them to be removed from their mother, a fact that I had not been made aware of, the county had decided that the three of them would be placed with another family in a town fifteen minutes away.

“Another family?” I croaked after he told me on the phone. “Another town?”

My head was spinning.

“But...but...but...I've been picking them up every weekend. I have dressers full of clothes for them! They have their own beds! They KNOW me! They’ve never been with anyone else! They’ll be scared! Our house is the only stable home they’ve ever lived in all these years! I wouldn’t even let my husband re-side the house because I knew it would upset them! THEY’RE MINE! No...no...NOOOOO!”

“I’m sorry, Connie, the decision has been made. We’ve had a meeting and it’s been decided. The new foster parents have already been retained.”

“Why? Whyyyyy? WHYYYY?”

I started crying. I started bawling. Right there on the phone. Sobbing into the mouthpiece like a blubbering fool.

“You can’t do this! You can’t do this to me! You PROMISED! You PROMISED me that you would give them TO ME if they ever came back into foster care. Did the mother say she didn’t want them to come here?”

That is a rule of the foster system. If the natural parents don’t like the foster parents, for whatever reason, they have the right to overrule that home, no questions asked. I didn’t think it was that reason but I couldn’t think of anything else.

“No, Connie, we haven’t talked to the Mom. She doesn’t even know the kids are being taken yet.”

“Was it the kids?” I couldn’t believe that even more, but I was running out of options.

“No, Connie.”. His voice was gentle. I could sense he didn’t want to do this. But for some reason, some reason that he wasn’t telling me, he felt compelled to.

“What is it then? WHAT? You KNOW how I feel about them. You know I’ve been involved in this case for eleven years! They are MINE! How can you do this to me? I can’t believe this!”

Did he just think I was going to take this sitting down? I had worked with the system for over twelve years. I was no rookie. They knew I wasn’t a ‘take it lying down’ kind of foster parent. They already knew I was their resident ‘radical, fanatical CHRISTIAN foster parent’ and were cool with it. There were no surprises at this point.

“Connie, we just don’t feel that you and your husband are the right home for them at this time.”

“WHAAAAT? How can you say that? They visit us every week! They KNOW us. They know all of our kids and they all get along really well. I AM their mother, as much or more than their real mother. What are you TALKING about?”

He wouldn’t say anymore. Nothing I said made any difference.

I told him that he had made an “oral agreement” with me. I told him that it would stand up in court. I told him I would fight this. He said he was sorry, he couldn’t help me, the decision was made. I asked him why he bothered to call me at all. He said that he knew I would find out and he wanted the first word to come from him.

He hung up. I just sat there with the receiver in my hand. The phone started to buzz. I just sat there and stared at it like I didn’t know what it was.

I made dinner in a fog. I went through the motions but I felt like I was outside my body watching myself do it. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus.

My whole body felt weak from fighting. I felt like the past five years of my life, ever since the problems with the church started, had been one big long fight. One right after the other.

I went to bed. I started to cry again.

“God, isn’t what I went through with the church enough? Isn’t it enough that they wouldn’t let me go to Scotland with the teens even though I had all my papers in order? Isn’t it enough that I’ve lost my reputation in this town, and most of my friends? The Hardcore is gone, the band guys are gone, everyone is in college, I’m home schooling and feeling like a complete failure...isn’t this ENOUGH? When does it end, God, WHEN DOES IT END?”

I was beginning to feel like maybe even God was against me now. This wasn’t the church anymore. I couldn’t blame them. This was different. With the exception of the whole Marine and Deandra thing, I had always gotten along well with caseworkers. The guy that called me was the top guy. I had nowhere to turn.

Was the whole world against me? Was God against me? I didn’t feel inferior anymore. Now I was feeling paranoid. I laid in bed and cried out all my frustrations, all my weaknesses, all my fear.

All of a sudden something so MAD rose up in me. I thought of something I hadn’t thought of before and suddenly I was just SO MAD.

The DEVIL was the one that was doing all of this. HE is the one that comes to kill, steal and destroy! Sure, I knew all the verses. Yeah, I knew in some vague way, that he had been involved, but suddenly all I could think of was that he was right up in my face. Right then. Stealing my babies right out from under me.

I had never taken authority over the devil before. Never. Even during all the problems with the church. I kinda knew about it, having been to Rod Parsley’s church you can’t really miss it, but I had never done it myself. But all I could think of was that this was a devil. A devil assigned to steal my babies from me. Over and over I found myself whispering, “this is a devil...this is a devil...this is a devil”.

These days I rebuke Satan in a loud, no uncertain terms voice, but back then, in May of 2000, even after all those years of being a Christian, all by myself in my bedroom, under my covers, my face all bloated and splotched, barely able to raise my voice above a raspy whisper I said,

“I rebuke you Satan in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth”.

I wiped the tears away and again, in a low but determined voice I said,

“I REBUKE YOU SATAN IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH”

Out loud I said, “You WILL NOT steal MY babies from ME!”

It would have been one thing if they were going with their mother. I didn’t like that either but she was their MOTHER. The county would even CONSIDER giving them a different FOSTER mother, let alone already have one set up?

I went to sleep telling myself that if they didn’t see the light on this thing I would call one of my lawyer brother-in-laws and make good on my promise.

First thing the next morning I called the Senior Caseworker, the one just below the top guy. She tried to give me the same answer about my husband and me “not being the right home for them at this time”.

I told her that I wasn’t accepting that. I told her that they had given me ‘oral agreement’, and that I would take them court if they didn’t stop this right now. I told her I needed a better answer than the one I was getting. I needed the REAL reason. This woman had known me for ten years. I begged her. Finally she realized she wasn’t going to get rid of me. I wasn’t going away. She brought her voice to a low whisper and said, “Okay, I’ll tell you what the reason is.”

The reason as it was explained to me was that they had heard I had issues with secular music and only played worship music in my house. I admitted that that was true, that on the three ‘family stereos’ there was only music that I liked and felt honored God, but I told her the kids were allowed to have Discmans and listen to other music.

She also mentioned Pokemon. Again, I admitted that I did not like that. She wanted to know why.

She thought it was for spiritual reasons and as everyone knows that is the WORST reason to do ANYTHING in your life, right?

I told her that there was a big spread in Time about the guy who drew the cartoons and how he started the whole thing because he was having nightmares. He was an artist and he couldn’t sleep until he got up and drew out his nightmares on his drawing board. I told her that I didn’t know anything about the spiritual ramifications of Pokemon but my kids had enough of their OWN nightmares, thank you very much, they sure don’t need to watch anyone elses! She sat in stunned silence. She had known me long enough to know that I was not going to lie about that.

Today was the day the kids were to be removed. Time was short. Court time was early afternoon. The county was expecting to win the case, had already set up another foster home and barring an upset from the judge the kids would be picked up when they got off the bus.

An hour later I got a phone call from the home finder, a different worker from the one I had spoken to earlier. She is an extremely kind and gentle woman. She said, “Connie, I want to let you know that we have changed our minds and are letting the kids come back into care with you.” My heart felt like it was going to fall into my stomach. This almost seemed too easy!!! I was so used to fighting every battle to the bloody end and still losing.

She said, “I’m really sorry about this. I went to bed last night thinking,”We can’t do this to the kids. We can’t do this to this family.”

I asked her what time she went to bed. It was the exact same time I was in my own rebuking Satan in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. People can argue the Bible with me, but they can’t take my testimony away from me. Okay, it must be a coincidence. I don't think so.

She said they had had another meeting and would I please take the kids (like she had to ask), and oh, by the way, would you mind driving over to the kids house (a one hour round trip) and helping the caseworker get them in the car, we might have a problem with that”.

Okay, so let me get this straight, suddenly you are going to give me my way but you are still asking favors of me?

I didn’t care. I got off the phone and thanked God and repented for thinking that He had abandoned me, and cried new tears….. of joy.

It was not known for a year whether the kids would go back to her or not. The mother made her usual half-hearted attempts to do what the county asked of her. She just couldn’t see clear to giving up her convicted child molesting boyfriend though. She SAID she wanted her three GIRL children back, but for the life of her couldn’t understand why the county would object to a registered molester living in the house.

In 2002, after the adoption papers were final, the kids caseworker came to make a last ‘close the case’ visit. She gave each of the kids a gift. She went on and on telling me how good the kids looked, how well they were doing in school, what an amazing improvement they had made since they had come into care with us.

I answered her in a low voice, trying to keep the sarcasm to a minimum,

“Yeah, you guys don’t like to hear about the Gospel but you sure like the fruit of it, huh?”

She nodded a very humble nod.