Something I hate, and something I love

Do you ever start writing and stop ten minutes later because you realized that the last 5 paragraphs you wrote almost put YOU to sleep, so you deleted it and started over?

Me neither. ;-)

I cannot STAND Alton Brown. See this picture? Does it really need any explanation? I do not think this man is funny AT ALL. Anytime I hear his voice or see that he is in some show on The Food Network I cringe and think "Man I hate that guy!" He hasn't done anything to me personally. For some reason, everything about him just annoys me. This picture, to me, is a great depiction of how stupid I think he is. Who poses like this? An adult with a party hat on, holding a chicken with a matching party hat. Who does that? Am I missing something here?

I wasn't planning to write about Alton Brown. It even annoys me that I am giving him any time at all on my blog but it was on my mind and so it shows up here. At the risk of driving off any of you who actually tolerate this man. I would apologize, but I'm not sorry. It's just my opinion...I do not like this man. I think he tries too hard to be funny, which inevitably makes him NOT funny!

What I really intended to write about (before I turned The Food Network on and had to abruptly turn it off because the annoying man was coming on...) was a conversation I had with my 8 year old son tonight.

Ever since Katherine was baptized almost a year ago, Kaleb has talked about baptism. However, he always says things like "I want to take communion" or "I'm the only one of my friends who isn't baptized." These types of statements concern Kris and I, and so we have sort of put Kaleb off. We haven't been trying to discourage him, but we haven't pushed him. We want to be sure that he is being baptized because he loves God and has a desire to serve him. That he understands WHY we are baptized and that it goes beyond wanting to take communion or being like his friends.

I am not exactly sure what prompted Kaleb's questioning tonight-after it was all said and done, I have to believe that it was God working in his heart. He told me tonight that he and Abbey and Livvy were going to go to hell because they hadn't been baptized. I was trying to explain to him that whole age of accountability thing in as simple terms as I could, and that we couldn't presume to know how God operates in that regard. He didn't seem to believe me or really grasp what I was saying.

Fast forward about 10 minutes...

Being over-dramatic, as always, while the tornado sirens were going off, I told Kris over the phone that we were going to die. I really need to stop saying things like that in front of my kids, especially Kaleb. I'm just being a drama queen and over-exaggerating, and sometimes I forget that Kaleb is sensitive to those types of things. I looked back at Kaleb shortly after that comment and he had his head bowed and his hands folded. He was praying. I asked him if he was asking Jesus to come into his heart, based off of our previous conversation.

He advised me that he was not. He was asking God not to let us die! Boy did I feel horrible in that moment! So I apologized to Kaleb for saying that and told him I was just being dramatic. He seemed to accept this. We kept talking and went back to the topic of baptism. I asked him many different questions to see if he really understood why people got baptized and what it really meant. What resulted was a truly great conversation. I think it is finally clicking with him.

Throughout the course of our discussion, I could see light bulbs coming on in his mind. After we had talked about this for a while, he told me he had an idea. He began to talk about stars and how the Christian life was like a hotel. Bear with me...it makes sense! He was talking about stars in terms of hotels that have 3 or 4 stars. The more stars, the better the hotel. Can you see where this is going yet? He told me that just one star was like when you learn about God, before you are baptized. Then when you get baptized, it's like you have 2 stars. And the more you grow and learn and become more Christlike, the more stars you get. It was really sweet listening to him talk about this, because there was such confidence and excitement AND UNDERSTANDING in his voice and eyes.

So when Kris got back we talked to him about it all and Kris and I feel like he is finally ready to be baptized, if that is something he really wants to do. This was the first time he has mentioned being baptized outside of settings where we have taken communion or he has seen his friends be baptized. When we got home this evening, even though it was past his bedtime, Kaleb asked if he could draw a picture really quickly. I decided to tell him yes, and I am glad I did. Here is the picture he drew:

As you can see, he has 2 stars colored in already. Step 3 for him is baptism (we decided this in our earlier conversation because you can know about God, and then you can try to follow Him before you are baptized). I love that little boy!!! I told him we would have to call Mammaw and Pappaw to see if they could make it out to see him be baptized like they did for Katherine last year. It was about 9pm (10pm where they are) and he excitedly asked "Can we call them now?" I told him it would really be best to wait until tomorrow. But he is ecstatic and it is awesome to see such joy in his eyes over a desire to be baptized. What more could a mother ask for?