Funny story. (if you want the short version, click here where Gabe tells the same tale in 1/10 as many words–this is how we roll)

Tonight at 6:30, a group of us met for prayer. We’re a semi-diverse bunch with one big thing in common: we all feel called by God to help out with a new church plant (Sanctuary Columbus Church) and we’re desperate for the Holy Spirit to do his thing, because we know how weak and helpless we are without him.

We met in the library of the school where we’ll be having church. Our four girls (we borrowed one for the evening) sat at a table out of the way and colored quietly, so that was a blessing. Pastor Rich chatted with us and shared some verses about the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives and we sang and took turns praying and sharing verses God had laid on our hearts.

Then we had a little Social Time where we got to know the faces at our table. Britt started off the intros. Then Pam, Will, Donna, Gabe, me. Once it was obvious that I was going to take way more time than anyone else (I think I might have said, “let me give you a little background”), Gabe nudged me sharply under the table. I couldn’t really stop though, because I was right in the middle of something “important.”

Then Pastor Rich cut me off. Time was up. I asked for 4 more minutes, and it was granted.

Are you wondering when the funny starts? RIGHT HERE.

I mentioned something about Gabe not being at the Clothing Drive because he was at a photography thing which led to someone asking if he was a photographer which led to Pam saying, “Okay, this is so embarrassing, but I’ve kind of been cyber-stalking you guys!”

Then she put her hands over her face to cover up the redness and we all started laughing. She said she hoped she hadn’t creeped us out, and we reassured her that we love this kind of thing and that it happens “all the time.”

Turns out she had hopped over to my blog from Rich’s (Radical Read-Along) then to Gabe’s 1PhotoPerDay and thought it was super-cool and wondered why he hadn’t updated it in over a month.

Well.

After a tour of the school, we said good-bye to our new friends before heading home to get our extra daughter back to her mama. We laughed one more time with Pam about the internet stalking, and I told her I would add her as a friend on Facebook tonight before she could add me, because I live closer to the school and would get home first.

“I should’ve taken a picture of Pam tonight when she wasn’t looking,” Gabe says on the way home. “Then she could see herself on 1PhotoPerDay, and it would be like we were stalking her.”

“Yeah, too bad you didn’t get a picture of Pam,” I say.

We get home, I put the girls to bed, sit down at my computer, and we find Pam on Facebook and add her as a friend.

Moments later Gabe turns to me with a gleam in his eye and a grin upon his lips. “I have an idea,” he says. I mostly love Gabe’s ideas-with-a-gleam but not always.

“Yeah…?” I say.

“What if I went to Pam’s house right now and took a picture of it and used it for my 1PhotoPerDay?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Go for it,” I say. “But be careful. Don’t freak her out. You don’t want her to call the cops on you.”

He looks up her address on WhitePages.com, grabs his camera and heads out the door with my blessing.

He calls me less than 10 minutes later (she lives really close to us) laughing. “It was awesome!” he says.

Long story short (I’ll try anyway!), he got to her house and could kind of see in her window, so he rang the doorbell, then hid behind the mailbox. She opened the door a crack, saw the light of his camera, and slammed the door shut, all freaked out. He went up to the door, knocked on the window while peeking in and yelling, “Pam!”

She opened the door with great hesitation and about died laughing when she saw Gabe. I loooooove the picture he snapped of her. Her expression is priceless.

She messaged me on Facebook a few minutes later. “Oh my goodness! That was hilarious!! I saw someone squatting down with a camera and I totally thought it was some creepy guy like that naked photographer a few years back. This is a start to a good friendship. I can feel it!”

I can feel it too. All friendships should start out in such a fashion.

Now, off I go to find out what my favorite naked photographer is up to… Speaking of (ahem), I’d still love your prayers as I finish getting my Sex Talk ready for the high-schoolers tomorrow at 10:50 a.m. Pray that the Holy Spirit speaks and I listen! Thanks, friends!

Any (light-hearted) stalker stories (with happy/funny endings) you’d like to share?

I loved this weekend. If you prayed for me, bless your heart, because I could feel it. I’ll tell you what. It felt just plain wrong accepting any money for my “speaking engagement” because what I actually did was just hang out with some awesome women and eat yummy food and laugh a lot and open up my heart a bit to them, and they opened up their hearts a lot to me.

And it was just really a total blessing.

I vaguely remember Beth Moore saying on one of her Bible study DVD’s, something to the effect of her telling God that she liked teaching her Sunday School class (or Bible study or something) and she had no desire to do anything on radio (or TV maybe?) thank you. Anyway, the point was that she liked things small and simple like they were, and could God please not mess and take her out of her comfort zone.

He pretty much thanked her for her opinion and moved ahead anyway with the great big plans he had for her life.

So I’m not even going to ask him what I want to ask him which would be, “God, can you just make all of my stuff easy like this–me just sitting around a big table in comfy swivel chairs with 14 other women who are really great and fun and want to know and love you more?”

Because it was really cool to meet my soul sister Jenn who loves Africa and teenagers and wears t-shirts that say, “Social Justice Begins in the Womb” and has a little 3-year-old boy who loves Skillet (a Christian rock band) even more than Nina does and is trusting God to bring in the $ to adopt little one #2.

And it was fun to sit by Gale and find out that she’s the mom of Emily who I used to go to church with and who is an amazing dancer and got her talent honestly because her mama is a dancer (and dance teacher). And it was fun to tease Gale because of something she said (that would be funny to share with all of you, but I should probably stick to telling embarrassing things about myself and not lovely women I just met 2 days ago).

And Mary was like a breath of fresh air with her beautiful curly hair and her soccer-star boys and her stories about Fluffy the Duck. And it was Mary’s idea to go around and say our favorite things (like ice cream and music and Disney movie and place to visit and so on). We got to know each other so well for a few wonderful hours on Friday night.

And Reba who I knew I had seen before, and it turns out that she goes to the church I used to go to, and she is a dear sweet grandma who has such a heart for young mamas and has had some heartache in her life that I’m committed to praying about.

And Karen who I got to spend some time chatting with on the couch on Saturday afternoon and was totally and completely honest about some tough family stuff, and I’m praying for her sweet self too.

And Jennifer who is a hoot-and-a-half that doesn’t mind making fun of herself one little bit and was proud as punch of her beautiful twins and that cute little redhead (she brought their school pictures). She’s also a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital where I birthed two of my girlies.

And Susie who works with Jen and is equally adorable with great stories about her own kiddos who apparently eat like horses but never gain an ounce and people tell her to feed them and she says, “I do!” and I totally get that because I took Livi (who hates jeans) to Once Upon a Child today in hopes of finding some sweatpants that would reach her ankles but not fall off her waist and after trying on 12 pairs, she finally found one that will do if she pulls the drawstring really tight.

And Mary Beth who works with Jen and Susie and is as sweet as can be and who walked with me after lunch and told me what it’s like working on the labor/delivery floor of a hospital (the good and the bad) and listened with great interest (or she did a good job of pretending) as I gave her the “highlights” of my own birthing stories.

And spunky Ashley who doesn’t work with the three nurses but rounds out their little foursome of friends and loves the Chicago Bears (who are losing as I type) and warned me that she might be checking the Buckeyes score during my afternoon talk and when I saw her with her Blackberry out during my talk in the morning, I called her out (just for fun) but she was LOOKING UP A BIBLE VERSE, not checking football scores.

And Runner Rosa who reminds me of my old cross country buddy Emily except that Rosa hails from Portugal and married a 6’2″ guy in hopes that her kids would have a chance to be taller than their 5’0″ mama. We bonded over 18-inch Twizzlers, and I loved her sense of humor and great stories about her family.

And Rhonda who just turned 50 and used to care very, very much about her appearance and what people thought about her but ever since she found Jesus a few years ago, none of that really matters to her anymore, and what she mostly cares about is loving Jesus and learning more about him and praying for family members who aren’t saved and being a good friend and eating yummy desserts.

And heart-of-gold Cherie (pronounced the French way) who moved here from New Orleans and loves it but misses her family and friends and the food and the music. She might be one of the most genuinely kind, sweet, selfless people I’ve ever met. And so wise. And always had the perfect thing to say to add to every conversation. And made everyone feel like they were so incredibly special. She and Susie and Ashley and Mary Beth and I walked in the woods together for an hour and sang every Sound of Music song we could think of, and Cherie said she enjoyed hearing me sing in the woods even more than hearing me talk which isn’t a compliment I get every day.

And wonderful Cindy who got the whole retreat together and had talked to me several times on the phone but she was waaaay more awesome than I imagined her to be, and I liked her very, very much and told her so.

Thank you, girls. It was such a pleasure to meet you.

RADICAL CHAPTER 4 TOMORROW!! You ready??

I say Part 2, because when I was looking for the post where I wrote about this shirt, I realized that I used the same exact title as last time. And if I wasn’t on “A-Sabbatical-of-Sorts” this week, I’d write a big long post about how amazing adoption is (and potentially heart-wrenching as well) and talk about all of my friends with their amazing adopted (and hoping-to-be-adopted) kiddos.

But instead, I’ll just share this cool passage from Galatians 4: But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage.

You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance. (v.4-7, Message)

And pictures of this beautiful little boy.

Meet Sean. He’s 12 weeks old and one of the cutest little guys I’ve ever seen.

After 8 (late) miscarriages (like second trimester late), my friend Val and her husband Mike were given the amazing privilege of adopting this little guy from the minute he was born. Val even got to witness his birth.

Their story is incredible, and Sean is just stinking awesome.

I’m no baby photographer, but when you’re this cute, does it really matter?

We’re going to shower Val and Sean with some love and gifts and cake sometime in the next month or so. If you live anywhere near me, consider this your invitation to join us!

You know you want a chance to squeeze those darling cheeks.

Thank you, God, for the blessing of adoption!

The last time I saw her, she had tears streaming down her face and she was clinging to my waist and begging me not to leave her. Gabe had gotten a job in Columbus, and I had to leave my darling class of third-graders in Cleveland two months before the school year was over. It wasn’t an easy time.

That was March of 2000. I was 24. She was 8.

Today, a beautiful 19-year-old young woman pulled into my driveway and I ran out to meet her and wrapped her in a huge hug. “I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said.

She looks exactly the same at 19 as she did at 8, except taller, curvier and even more beautiful.

We played Sorry with Nina and put together four 100-piece Strawberry Shortcake puzzles and listened to Nina read Llama, Llama, Red Pajama, and painted cardboard and made Dotza pictures and ate pizza and walked through the Metro Gardens and made chocolate-chip cookies and looked at old pictures.

And then the girls went to bed, and we sat on the couch and chatted about life and how it’s hard sometimes and we don’t really have all the answers (or any of them for that matter), and then Gabe came down and offered his male perspective and made us laugh and then we looked at pictures from the Metro Gardens and I’m throwing together some words for a blog post.

She’ll spend the night and go home sometime tomorrow and Nina will miss her like crazy because they’ve really bonded and I’ll miss her like crazy too but I know she’ll come visit even though she’ll be busy finishing up her degree and then going to English Nanny and Governess School and taking care of some lucky kiddos because that’s her passion.

And I thank God for bringing her into my classroom as an 8-year-old and into my heart and into my home. She’s a super-special young lady, and I’m so so blessed to know her.

I love you, Amanda.

Love, Mrs. T.

Guys (and by guys, I mean girls and a couple dudes), please believe me. I really mean to write a post that doesn’t have the word “radical” (or “Cambodia” for that matter) in it, but when I try to, nothing comes out.

Sigh.

But I really do sense God nudging me to be a little still-er, to weigh my words before they come barreling out. So. I’m going to let some of my bigger thoughts simmer and tell you a little story instead.

Gabe and I got to go on a little Date Night Tuesday night. (Hooray!) It was perfect timing, because I needed a real-life person to process some of the Radical (oops, sorry) stuff with. So we ate a lovely dinner and decided to walk to Barnes & Noble, which was clear on the other side of the outdoor mall thing.

If you know me much, you know that I’m not a big shopper and I’m not into fashion, whatever, blah, blah. (if I were addressing big issues today, I’d point out that where God wants ME to be radical is somewhere else entirely, and I can just get off my high horse about not caring about “stuff,” thank you.)

Okay, so we’re walking along, and I’m pretty much planning on ignoring every storefront (until we get to the bookstore) when I see IT. A store that many, many of my friends have been raving about for years and I just shrugged and said, “yeah, yeah.” My eyes grew huge, my jaw dropped, and I might have even drooled at the aluminum ALPHABET LETTERS and the OLD BOOKS and the APRONS.

“You want to go in, don’t you?” Gabe said, grinning.

I nodded fiercely and took off ahead of him into the store.

Anthropologie, where have you been all my life??

I thought you only had clothes! Clothes that were too trendy for the likes of me! But you have books! And journals! And travel books and journals! And old things! And things with “M” on them! And big aluminum “M” sculpture thingies! And drawer knobs! And lots and lots of BLUE things!

“I should never have come in here,” I told Gabe as I walked around in a drunken stupor, touching things and touching things and touching things. He just smiled.

So then I’m telling my dear friend Ali (who calls me her mentor, but um, she mostly just teaches ME things) today that I would love to get to the place where there is NOTHING in my possession that I wouldn’t give to someone if God brought it to my attention that this person needed it more than me.

(Ali and I had a lovely 2+ hour discussion today about “the book” and “The Book” and lots of other stuff. I’m just so thankful that in the midst of this beautiful but overwhelming online discussion, God has provided me with face-to-face processing opportunities.)

And 2 hours later, this comes in the mail.

Are you stinking kidding me?? Do you know what this is?? It’s a great big BOOK bag. With GIRAFFES on it. And a BLUE handle. And a SCRABBLE LETTER M.

My friend Jen saw this fabric and thought of me and made me this bag and sent it to me and MADE MY WHOLE ENTIRE DAY.

It’s like Anthropologie. BUT BETTER. I already told Jen how perfect and beautiful and awesome and wonderful it is, but wow. Just wow. I mean WOW.

And the shirt I’m wearing? I want to talk about that sometime too. I got it here, and the proceeds go to SOLD, an organization that’s helping stop child trafficking in Southeast Asia.

If you’re not sure you “get” the t-shirt, it’s okay. It essentially says, “Kids are not intended for commercial use.” (see a close-up here) Talk about wow.

So, yeah. Still working my way through your Radical posts, still praying for direction and courage and wisdom, still taking deep breaths.

And doing a lot of staring at my fabulous new giraffe bag.