i'm sleepy

I don't really feel like posting anything tonight but for the sake of our readership (just kidding), I'll do it. Y'all are lucky tonight, though, because I'm still processing some things that I've been thinking about about selfishness and freedom and the relationship between the two...but I guess you'll have to wait until the weekend. I know you're at the edge of your seat. Haha.

So days have been pretty much the same so I don't really feel the need to give y'all a play by play of what happened today, but I'll share a little anecdote of what it feels like to be a mother figure to 10 kids (to some more so than others, obviously. Brandon doesn't want anything to do with us). Naseem and I, thankfully, have Sunday school duty with the kids, so instead of sitting through a pretty bland sermon, we get to sit through an hour of listening to a tape of children with unnaturally high pitched voices singing about their joy like a fountain. Sometimes we color and sometimes we do hand motions to songs about being in the Lord's Army. It's pretty exciting. Anyway, so, just like in every Sunday school class, third grade class, or movie about children and their little shenanigans, there is this one punk kid. I mean, this kid just looks like he's always up to no good...or like his name would be Brick. Or Tank. And someday he would be that one kid who gives skinny trombone players swirlies and shoves Latin Club members in lockers. Alright, so you get the picture. Well, Naseem and I usually try to sit in between our kids so they don't punch each other but Nolan was sitting in the row in front of us and i was sitting next to Brick, whose real name is incongruously Grady. So as we're singing our sing-a-long songs, Nolan keeps turning around and looking at me really sadly. I ask him what's wrong and he tells me Brick keeps hitting him, so I lean over and tell Brick very nicely that it's not nice to hit people and that he should probably stop. Brick grunts something and I turn back around to Gabriel who is making farting noises during the prayer. Just a few minutes later, Nolan looks back at me with these big, sad, brown eyes, and I ask what's wrong: Brick is still hitting him. Now I'm a little angry, so I get in front of Brick and say, "Alright, that's enough. If I hear that you're hitting my kid again, I'm going to be very upset and you're going to get in biiig trouble. Do you understand me?" He says yes and then there are no more problems.

Obviously the latent maternal instinct in me came out of hibernation and I had to protect my child, who technically doesn't really even belong to me, but the thought of someone hurting Nolan...I couldn't stand it. I can care for Nolan so much only after knowing him for a month; when I see that he is sad, I want to make him feel better and protect him from things that hurt him. So I was thinking: as cheesy and cliche as this is, Jesus loves us infinitely more than that. It's incomprehensible and inexplicable really. So as much as I love Nolan, God loves him a hundredfold times a million, and as much as I wanted to save Nolan, God has already had that feeling to the nth degree and done more for his salvation than I could ever possibly imagine.

And that's what I want to leave you with tonight. I know it sounds lame, but hey, may everyone feel loved tonight.

Peace, Alison

PS: I'm posting a photo from our trip to the iguana farm. It was a little creepy. An iguana sat on my foot and it scared me.