"Introoging" Insights

While cleaning my closet, the Lord blessed me with a priceless and timely find: a box filled with spiral notebook journals, chronicling so many funny and poignant moments with John and Leah. I had forgotten I had even written them -- now I am so thankful that I did. Here are just some of them.

3/4/94 -- When we went to the park, any child whose jacket was open was John's target. He went up to each and every one, saying, "Zip, zip."

4/25/94 -- Daddy came home early from work and played ball with Little John. That night when Daddy put him to bed, he looked up, smiling, and said, "Happy."

9/3/94 -- We were visiting Yaya. She asked, "What shall we have for lunch?" Little John said, "Oh, I'll just have a gumdrop."


4/19/95 -- Last night, I could hear little John in his bed talking to the animals on his wall, "Bunny, did you know Jesus is alive? Hamster, did you know Jesus is alive?"

5/7/95 -- John walked through a mud puddle. He looked up at me and said, "I did that because my feet were thirsty."



10/7/95 - I was singing at home, then I asked John to sing and he said, "Of course, my voice isn't as nice as yours." I encouraged him, and he sang a little then grinned, "My singing is sort of like loud talking."

10/15/95 - As we were packing up to leave St. Louis, Little John said, "Anyone who doesn't want to move, raise their hand."


5/10/95 -- Leah was awake and Little John still asleep. She heard him stirring in his room and said, "Dada?" I said, "No, that's John." She said, "Little Dada." Now that is what John calls himself.


11/22/95 -- John went to Sunday School and learned about Noah. Daddy asked him about the story and gave him a sort of leading question about the scoffers: "So what did the other people say when Noah was building the ark?" John: "They said, 'Yup, that's sure an ark.' "


3/8/96 -- Today Leah stood outside, looked at the sky and just beamed. I asked her what she was doing. "I'm smiling to Jesus."

4/7/96 -- John was pretending to read Leah a book called "Fun with Shapes." Suddenly, he tossed it aside and said, urgently, "Mama, I need to read her a book about Jesus."

8/28/96 -- Leah got bit on the face by a dog. As we waited in the Emergency Room, I kept pulling the gauze up to look at the wound. "It looks better, doesn't it?" she would say hopefully, of the ugly red gash. Then she added: "The lucky thing is, it's John's favorite color."

11/16/96 -- I looked in Leah's room and she was down on her knees with her head down, praying. Later, I asked her why we kneel to pray. She said, "To show God how tiny we are."

11/25/96 --I asked John what his favorite thing to do is: "Laugh," he said.

3/25/97 -- We had bought Daddy a basketball as a surprise, but I had told John and Leah not to tell him. While I was out running errands, John pipes up to Daddy: "One of the things we might have gotten you could be a basketball. But maybe not!"

5/6/97 -- We went to a baseball game and the people started cheering. Having recently heard the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, John and Leah started yelling, "Hosanna, Hosanna."

1/14/98 -- I was reading a book that mentioned the slave issue. Leah said, "They're not free on the outside, but they are free on the inside." I looked at her all teary-eyed, marveling at her intuitiveness and wisdom. Then she looks at me: "What does that mean?"

11/28/98
Leah was writing and she wrote: "I love Jesus Rabe." I was puzzled and asked what she meant: "Well, He is part of the family."

11/30/98
Today we were discussing how we don't know exactly when Jesus was born. John said, "Well, I believe -- and I believe the Bible makes it clear -- that Jesus was born in the night."

12/3/98
At bedtime, John said, "You know, Mommy, numbers are kind of like God. You just start counting and go on and on and on."

3/25/99 -- Daddy gave Leah an apple. She started to eat it, then stopped: "Does this need to be watered?" Daddy was puzzled and said, "Well, once it's off the tree, you don't need to water it anymore." Leah said, "Mommy always waters it before we eat it."

5/14/99 -- We bought a butterfly net at Flamingo Gardens. On the back were instructions for suffocating a butterfly in a jar and displaying it in a case. John looked at it and said, "Don't they know a live butterfly is better than a dead one? Why would Flamingo Gardens even sell something like that?" He kept asking me about it, then was silent. Finally he shook his head: "Mom, I wish I didn't even know about this."

1/25/01 -- I was talking to the dog: "Just a few more days, and it's Obedience School for you." Leah pretended to be the dog and answered me: "Oh, no! I will have to give up my indolent ways."

4/18/02 -- I overheard this conversation between Leah and a little 2-year-old friend of hers named Dawn, who had ordered Leah to do something. Dawn: "Leah, you have to obey." Leah: "I have to obey my authorities." Dawn: "You have to obey the Lord Jesus Christ." Leah: "But you're not Him."

5/27/02 -- We were at the Seaquarium, watching a manatee. John said, "He looks like something I would make out of clay when I was trying to make something else."

6/5/02 -- I took John to the dermatologist, and it turned out be quite painful physically. As we drove home, he said, "The next time I get involved with dermatology, I think it will be as a dermatologist."

1/7/03 -- Leah is always stretching for new vocabulary, which leads to some interesting malapropisms: Her verbs get "congested" rather than conjugated; she once asked if she could present us with a different "skenario"; on Mother's Day, she wrapped and set out her gift to "introog" me; and after reading Proverbs 5, she ran around the house shouting repeatedly: "Drink water from your own 'kistern'. " Once when I offered her some snack, she politely said, "I must recline." Another day during school, she told me that if she wrote any smaller her writing would be "inaudible." When her grandmother confessed to having trouble saying the word "calligraphy," (which she was pronouncing perfectly), Leah gallantly came forward to help: "Oh, Almy, it's pronounced 'callee-graphee.' "


And there I shall end this "sa-ja" with a heart overflowing with gratitude to the One who has given me so much laughter and joy and reason to trust Him -- a believing, thankful heart.

13 The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
He is the one you are to fear,
He is the one you are to dread, 14 and He will be a sanctuary; ...18 Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion. (Isaiah 8:13-14, 18)