My cup runneth over

Last night I somewhat reluctantly watched The Notebook, which LittleBit had borrowed from HerSushi. I’m not a big fan of Nicholas Sparks. Or of the movies that have been made from his books. I hadn’t read this book, and I was bickering with the plot and the acting until midway through, when I realized [spoiler alert!] that Gena Rowlands' character was Allie, aging and demented. [Yeah, Firstborn, maybe a little like me. Now hush!]

And then it hooked me. OK, I’ve always had a crush on James Garner, back from when he was Bret Maverick, all the way through Victor, Victoria to Murphy’s Romance. He doesn’t have the “take me now” sexiness of Sean Connery, but he’s always seemed like somebody you wouldn't be embarrassed to find at your breakfast table the next day. Not that I would be embarrassed to have Sean Connery at my breakfast table the next day, you understand; I just wouldn’t know what to say to him, except to hand him my grocery list and ask him to read it, or to put a message on my voicemail. “Yes, you're right. This is Sean Connery, and Lynn can’t come to the phone right now because we are necking like teenagers. Leave a message.”

So, I was sitting here at my desk, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, when I opened up an email from Middlest and started crying in earnest. Good tears, evoked by good news. I have been bugging her to connect with the local congregation in Virginia and get a blessing and some practical help for her situation.

God had new friends ready and waiting to help her. She now has an emotionally and physically safe place to live, a safe place to store her things until she moves back to Texas, a part-time job in exchange for room and board. She is also walking distance from her doctor's office and from the legal office that will help her make sure that her rights as a soon-to-be-ex-wife are protected.

And I am so proud of her for doing something that had to have been at least a little scary. She has had numerous bad experiences with various church members over the years, including a run-in with one of the leaders in her current ward when LittleBit was visiting last summer. But you know, the church is not a shrine for people who are already perfect. It’s meant to be a refuge for the sick and the weary and the afflicted, which all of us are or will be at one time or another. It’s a place for people like my dear late friend Brother Stilts, who at 6’5” and 275+ pounds of pure gristle with a red ponytail halfway down his back, was not your typical elder. And it’s a place for all of my babies, poor or not, fashionable or not, conventional or not, if they choose to be there.

[It would not necessarily be a comfortable experience for some of the younger members of my congregation if I were asked to speak in church just before I move out of the ward later this year.]

I got another repeat and a half done on Middlest’s socks during the movie. And now I think I will go play Noah’s Ark for awhile until I am sleepy. I’d rather save animals two-by-two than play Chuzzle.

Hoisting a mug of milk in your direction, Middlest, and waving a celebratory brownie at you. I am one happy, relieved mommy-bug.