There is something about the first couple of weeks in January that make us want to try and become someone better. So you set your goals, get your memberships, or buy the patch.
You want to be a better person.
For the past ten years I’ve set pretty ambitious New Years resolutions for myself. I’m not a Type A personality, but I’m close. Like a type A- or something. I love to work hard toward accomplishing a goal, and the thrill of having done something difficult. So in the past I’ve started rigorous work-outs or planned to read through the Bible in a year, or combine the two (B90x) or whatever it was.
But not this year.
This year Leslie and I didn’t have any goals, we had a baby.
And for the past few days our little family has just been living life through the baby fog.
I saw the above picture sometime last year, and I loved it. It’s an actual return letter from the IRS. A couple apparently was being audited because there was some discrepancies in their tax report. And the couple gave as their excuse that the human brain turns to Jell-O when having a baby.
And the IRS accepted it!
Which makes me feel better about where we are at in life. Because if the Federal government accepts this line of reasoning then we are at least somewhat in a normal frame of mind.
Hannah Grace has already gained a couple of pounds, along with her daddy, (generous church members and no resolutions don’t mix well). She’s already growing taller, doing new things, and making new faces. And if our experience with the other kids holds true, these days are long and the years are short. She will one day become a toddler, then an adolescent, and then a woman.
She’s born to change.
So I’m thinking about change, and resolutions and becoming a better person, all while I hold our new little baby that can’t really do anything, and I realize that this season just might be a word from God for my life. And maybe for you too.
Continue Reading...
So today is Samuel’s 1st Birthday. It seems like yesterday that he showed up. We weren’t ready for him to be here, but here he came nevertheless. (We hadn’t even settled on his name. So for the first 6 hours of his life, he was Baby Storment). His entire first year has been pretty topsy-turvy. We’ve moved 4 times, changed jobs and cities. We left a church community that we loved and came to one that we are growing to love.
Maya Angelou was once asked what was her secret to being such a good writer and poet. Her response was, “Because when I was a little girl, every time I walked into a room my daddy’s eyes lit up.”
I remember when we first had Eden, I was obviously pretty pumped about having a daughter, but I vowed then to never to be the owner of a Minivan. We would be the cool parents, you know the ones, they just throw the baby in their messenger bag and hop on a motorcycle as they speed off to whatever cool social event they had just been invited to. Obviously showing up fashionably late.
I once heard a scholar talk about the way Rabbi’s worked in the world of Jesus. It wasn’t just anyone who could become a Rabbi, you had to really know your stuff. You had to not only have huge chunks of the Hebrew Scriptures memorized, but also had to know how they related and interconnected to each other. But the Rabbi’s that people were really drawn to, were the ones with authority. 
