Blood Brothers

As a kid there were a handful of times that I cut my palm and smushed it against a friend’s matching wound to seal our alliance. Only the coolest, most trusted buddies became my blood brothers this way. Then the Eighties brought aids to light and my sanguinary relationship building came to a halt.

I had all but forgotten about that ritual until the other day when a blogger I know only through our various online relationships made an extraordinary promise to me. She pledged to make a modern-day blood sacrifice that will be added to my own personal sacrifices to accomplish something that will be life-changing.

We are blog sisters, friends, mothers, advocates, and educators walking down the same road of life together. Her son and my youngest daughter brought us together in this exclusive, invitation-only club. She knows certain private details of my life that are written on my heart because she has read them off her own. She recognizes my pain, and feels my pride. She dreams my dreams and wakes from my nightmares.

One simple genetic hiccup has given me a new sister, and she is worthy of a bloody high-five.

I’m Supposed to Save Who?

In many ways my church is evangelical... we want to go out and save as many people as possible. We want to show people the way to God, encourage them to take next steps, and train them to become mature followers of Christ. We want to grow the body of Christ... to make more and better disciples.

Why? Just so they can fill our seats at weekend services? So they can tithe ten percent to support God’s work? So they can be Godly examples to others? So they’ll know the “right” way to vote when it comes to abortion?

I’m doing my part. I work for the church. I tithe as I should. I am involved in a bible study and I pray for my unchurched friends... Wanna see?

Dear God, I pray for my friend so-and-so, that she will come to know and love you. I pray that she will be saved and come to church. I pray that she will become like me... that she will write blog posts about you, that she will model your love in her marriage, that she will sing in the choir and volunteer in the Sunday school nursery. All this, Lord, so that she can become Christ-like, like me and then pray for her friends to become Christ-like, like her. Amen.

Lately His replies are way off topic... “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82: 3-4

What?!!

Come on God, you’re not serious... are you? You want me to go rescue afflicted, destitute orphans? Don’t you think me working for you, me tithing my ten, me leading a bible study, and praying for those in need is enough? Sheesh. Can’t I just pray that somebody else takes up that cross?

And the King answered me, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me... Truly, I say to you, as you do to one of the least of these my brothers, you do to me.”
Mat 25:34-40



p.s. Oh Mel-an-ie, La la la la la...I’m not listening to you.

"Will God call you to lead a Bible Study while He calls others to adopt orphans? No. As long as there are orphans in the world, we are ALL called, because these children deserve to have a family and a chance at life; they need to know God loves them. If every Christian family in the United States adopted only one orphan, we wouldn't have an orphan crisis around the world, and many Christian families have room for one more child in their homes. I firmly believe EVERY believer is called to care for orphans unless you are aged out of the system, are financially limited or have a physical condition that prohibits you from adopting.....and in those cases, you can still help raise money to assist others in adoption.

Some of my words may be tough to digest, but I am sickened by the prejudice against the orphans.....especially the orphans with Special Needs. For goodness sake, they are children. They are children. They are children. They are children. We cannot turn our heads and pretend it is not our problem."

Ok, seriously Melanie, I am listening. In fact, the whole "Will God call you to lead a Bible Study while He calls others to adopt orphans?" line is what inspired this post.

Man Feet

My son the Gecko is my first born child. I tend to baby the Gecko a bit... on school mornings I dress him either while he is still half asleep snuggled in his bed, or while he is at the kitchen table enjoying his breakfast. It is a ballet dance between us as he automatically presents an arm or foot just as I am slipping on a sleeve or pant leg.

Yesterday morning, a morning that pretended to be like any other, he swung his foot up to hook the oncoming sock... and I saw it. I caught his foot in one hand and left the sock dangling in the other as I gawked at it. It was a man foot. There were strong tendons fanning out with little dips between them. The toes were individually shaped with the first and middle ones grown longer than the big one. There were indents in the sides of them where they lay tightly against each other when he walks or runs. And there was a faint hint of stinky.

Before I could stop it, out flew an astonished, “Oh my goodness your toes!” Peanut butter and honey toast froze midway to his mouth and he looked down at me with concern. I recovered quickly and made up a little myth about how having your first and middle toes be longer than your big toe meant you are brilliant. I showed him the evidence of his genius and then tugged the sock over it and moved along to the other foot.

It too showed no trace of my baby boy’s scrumptious feet. No longer was it plumped up and covered in silky soft skin, topped off with perfect piggies... one the size of a small grape, the others like tiny treats in a row from biggest to smallest.

Those infant boy feet that I had sung to, feigned eating, massaged with lotion, and squashed against my nose to sniff up the sweetness of babyhood were gone, replaced by man feet. I had made it just fine through his first crew cut, his first day of kindergarten, and the loss of his first tooth but this... this was different.

I knew the second I saw that man foot it was a harbinger. It gave me a vision of something I was not ready to see. One day those man feet will walk out my front door and the boy will not return.

Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned

Bob Marshall, a Virginia delegate (R-13th District), had this to say about the reason women have disabled children...

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion who have handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first-born of any, Nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first-born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest, and with the knowledge they have from faith has been verified by a study by the Virginia Commonwealth University.”

Huh, I am not even sure where to begin with all that is wrong there, so I’ll change the subject.

I got baptized in the Spring of 2008. As part of the process at my church you have to meet with someone and talk about your understanding of baptism. I was asked what I expected would be the result of my baptism.

Considering that God had made it very clear to me that he wanted to me to get baptized (why else would I stand in a water tank, chest-level deep, in front of a couple hundred people and profess my commitment to him), I was convinced that there would be a dramatic change in my life. I expected to come up out of the water a new person, connected to God in a new way.

Just a couple weeks after my baptism, I found out that the baby inside me had a major heart defect and would require life-saving surgery by 6 months old. Oh, yeah, and it likely had Down syndrome too. Not exactly the baptism blessing one might expect to receive.

In fact, a girl might start to wonder if God was punishing her for something. Because after all, aren’t disabled children a burden? Don’t they suffer and cause those around them to suffer? Isn’t the scorn and hate people heap on them because they are inherently wrong, a mistake of nature, perhaps even Nature’s vengeance?

I am so glad God prepared me through baptism for the birth of Kimani. He knew that soon I would walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He knew all the things I might think, all the fears I would have. He knew the barrage of contempt and ridicule complete strangers would hurl at me.

And he also knew that when it was all said and done, I would know I had been honored. I have given birth to a child that has given birth to me. There is no greater gift I could ask for. Kimani has cemented my faith in God and she has woken up my creative heart.

Thank you God, for in spite of my many sins, you have richly blessed me.


(Oh, and Mr. Marshall, shame on you for saying such an ugly, hurtful lie.)

Yes, Kimani, I am

Learning When to Laugh

I love stand-up comedy. I can't tell you how many times Eddie Murphy has cracked me up... “You don't got no ice cream.” I grew up with no ice cream and I could still laugh at that skit. And Damon Wayans describing his cheese-eating math teacher... ROTF LMBO.

I could have been a comedian. And I might have if only I hadn’t been so slim. (Oh, come on, you know there is a weight requirement when it comes to being a successful girl stand-up comedian.)

I love to laugh. And I am my favorite target. I make jokes about things that were hilariously embarrassing, scary, or painful only a few years (weeks, hours) ago. I make jokes about my marriage, my sex life, my weaknesses, my crazy childhood, my colorful pre-Jesus years...

Because laughter is therapy... it feels good. Laughter heals.

But not when it’s ugly... like the time I was in the back seat of a car with a friend-of-a-friend driving... and it was raining and there was an obese girl walking down the sidewalk. The driver deliberately drove faster into a large puddle alongside her and splashed her with the muddy water. The guys up front laughed like hyenas. I was horrified. Ha ha ha, not funny.

I pink slip people who make fun of others in a cruel or demeaning kind of way. I consider it a fatal character flaw, and with all the people I can choose to spend time with why would I pick someone who gets a belly laugh out of humiliating someone else?

Yeah, I knew when to laugh and when not to. Then Kimani was born and the line shifted.

Damon Wayans doing “Handi-Man” isn’t quite so funny anymore. And yet, one night when my husband and I were talking about Kimani having Down syndrome I said to him with a grin, “Last one out’s a rotten egg.” And then I burst out laughing (and ended up crying. It was all a little raw still.)

If you made that joke I’d wipe the mud off me and hand you your walking papers. Is that fair? She’s my kid, she’s my egg... it was my guilt. So yeah, it’s ok that I could make that joke. (And it's ok if you laughed at it, or gasped and said, "That's horrible.")

I hope Kimani inherited my sense of humor. I hope she learns when to laugh. I hope when she hears a joke about squeezing her pet rabbit to death... that she gets it, and that she cracks up over it.

(And, I am already proud to know that she will never get her laughs by hurting someone else.)

Stone Me

A while ago I went with my aunt to see The Stoning of Soraya M. It was a hard movie to watch.

Soraya’s husband no longer wants to be married to her so he arranges for her to be accused and found guilty of adultery. According to Sharia law, she must be stoned for this. Her own father and her two young sons participate in the stoning (along with her husband and most every other male in the town).



I wanted to close my eyes, to turn away as the rocks flew into her face. But I denied myself that out because I knew it was a true story, and because she could not turn away, I would honor her by watching what she went through.

I felt so connected to her. I live in the same time period as she did. I have a husband and two young sons. I have committed sins much more worthy of a stoning.

I, too, have been condemned to die for my sins.



But as I await the fulfillment of my sentence, I hear Christ’s words, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7

Though no one steps forward, the weight of my own sins still holds me down in that hole like the convicted prisoner that I am. I realize that I am alive today simply because I was born in the USA instead of Iran.

Picture credit: I doctored the dvd box art. You can click it to see the original.
'TUC in the Ground' by Artist Anaa.