{"id":1562,"date":"2014-12-12T03:57:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T03:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2014-12-12T03:57:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T03:57:35","slug":"15-days-the-blonde-headed-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=1562","title":{"rendered":"15 days: The blonde-headed baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each month, I have the honor of speaking to our church\u2019s AWANA kids. I try to coordinate my talk with the theme of the night, but that is not always possible. Last night\u2019s theme was \u201cdress like a mess\u201d. While I have spoken at women\u2019s groups on \u201cmaking your mess your message\u201d, I didn\u2019t feel kindergarteners through sixth graders had enough life experience to really make a go of that talk. So I did what I always do when preparing\u00a0a speech (for any audience), I waited for God to spark my heart and thoughts.<\/p>\n

About four days before AWANA, I felt that old nudge as to what my talk should be based upon. It took some coordinating, but after digging through countless Rubbermaid totes in my storage room, I found the object I needed . . . although I kept her hidden until mid-way through my allotted time last night.<\/p>\n

Next week, the kiddos will be celebrating Jesus\u2019 birthday; so, I opened with telling them about when I was a little girl. In some ways, I feel sorry for them because a beloved part of my Christmases growing up is completely foreign to their world. The face of every adult in the room travelled back in time when I told the kids about how my brother and I would wait and wait and WAIT some more for the Christmas catalogs to arrive. We would spend hours perusing through the wish books picking out just the gifts we hoped to receive. I\u00a0heard\u00a0a few chuckles when I said the Montgomery Ward catalog was always my favorite.<\/p>\n

I told the AWANA clubbers\u00a0about a Christmas when my whole view on toys changed. So unlike the world these kids live in, back in the day, brunette baby dolls were virtually non-existent. One year, my beloved MW catalog had a tiny baby doll with (Yep! You guessed it) brunette molded hair. Oh! I wanted that baby! How I wanted that baby! I wished and wished and could not wait to wake up on Christmas morning, assured she would be there waiting.<\/p>\n

Only that is not what happened. There under the tree was another blonde-headed baby doll. I was heartbroken, and though I tried my best to love the little blonde baby, she was never going to be in the league of the Bye Lo Baby.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My precious Bye-Lo Baby surrounded by an almost 70 year old quilt made by my Mama.<\/p><\/div>\n

The baby of my dreams made another catalog appearance the following Christmas and eventually made her way into my loving arms.<\/p>\n

I have been busy helping to direct this year\u2019s children\u2019s Christmas pageant at our church, and each week we have a lesson, detailing the different gifts of advent, that corresponds to a portion of\u00a0our script. One week I asked my sweet kiddos to name\u00a0five gifts they received last year. After a period of time, I had them list all the gifts they would like this year. Even though I could have predicted the outcome, the actual results of my experiment were startling.<\/p>\n

Reassuring them all, I confessed that a gift I had been dreaming of for many years which\u00a0still sits in the box in came in. The lust and lure of gifts are not only appealing to children with visions of sugarplums in their heads.<\/p>\n

Unlike the baby doll I never wanted (but who grew into a nice member of my childhood pretend family), there is a baby who once came into the world who will never and who has never disappointed me. Though, I cannot say the same about myself to that baby. I have done plenty of things that have made him sad throughout my life, but his steady presence in all I do has been the best present I have ever received.<\/p>\n

I would be lying if I told you I wasn\u2019t pining for more this Christmas. I truly do want more: more of the peace that comes from spending time with that baby, more of the joy that comes from being content, more time to be a blessing to others, and more love\u00a0to share. I realize that to get more there will need to be less: less hurried, less focus on things that don\u2019t truly matter, and less wishing for things of this world that don\u2019t truly satisfy.<\/p>\n

If I can (with God\u2019s help) do that, then I will have MORE than enough Christmas.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Author\u2019s note: On the lighter side, I love to laugh. I can always use MORE of that in my day. I knew the subject of today\u2019s blog a few days ago, and I always wonder how much of what I teach or speak on\u00a0actually sticks with an audience. This morning, God gave the answer to that question as well as a joyful bowl of laughter. Our little Sally Gal recently was given a hamster. He is a delightful little\u00a0creature whom she adores, and it appears the feeling is mutual. He rests in her hand as soon as she takes him out to play. Of course, every day she serenades him multiple times. Her little angelic voice can be heard singing all sorts of tunes and melodies. The rest of us really like \u201cLord Business\u201d (named after a favorite character from the Lego movie), but he does really put an impact on our sleeping. Erin says she believes he is training for a marathon as he runs on his wheel ALL NIGHT LONG. Alternate names of \u201cSqueaky McGoo\u201d and \u201cLord Busyness\u201d have been floated around by the big people in our house. On our trip to the college tour, we stopped by a huge pet store and invested in a whisper quiet wheel. Let\u2019s just say we have a sad hamster today because I think the wheel is too small for him. Downtrodden and heartbroken for her buddy, Cloie told me at breakfast, \u201cMom, I think that new hamster wheel is his blonde-headed baby doll!\u201d She was listening all along!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each month, I have the honor of speaking to our church\u2019s AWANA kids. I try to coordinate my talk with the theme of the night, but that is not always possible. Last night\u2019s theme was \u201cdress like a mess\u201d. While I have spoken at women\u2019s groups on \u201cmaking your mess your message\u201d, I didn\u2019t feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1093,1094,1095,1096,105,783,1097,1098,1099,1100,347,1101,790,1076],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}