HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY DAD!!

My dad turned 58 on Wednesday, December 29, 2010!! Happy Birthday Dad!! Since it was a Wednesday night, there was a birthday celebration for him at church along with the other December birthdays.  I think this says a lot about my dad and my family!  I have been meaning to write this post since Wednesday but haven't because I haven't gotten on the Internet in a while and because I've been trying to think of what to say and now I've got it!

We normally go eat at my parent's house after church on Sunday's and lately the boys have been interested in going to my old room and digging around in my closet for any old toys that got left behind.  Last week we played with Barbie's - I loved it!  This week I reached up a little higher and was pleasantly surprised to find a hand-made "Cabbage Patch" like doll that my mom made for me for Christmas one year.  Her name was Sarah Marie and my mom worked so hard on it.  I remember that Christmas though and I've never said this before but when I saw that doll under the tree I wanted to cry.  All I wanted was a real Cabbage Doll from the store.  I did not want my mom to make me a doll.  In my child mind, all I could think was that my other friends had more than one Cabbage Patch doll already and probably got more for Christmas and I just wanted the real plastic doll - I wanted to be like everyone else and I wanted to be able to afford or to have what everyone else had too and the very last thing I wanted was to be different with my hand-made doll.

But you know what, when I went through my old shelves that doll was still there some 20-something years later, and its there because my mom spent her time and afternoons and nights sewing for me and making her clothes and stitching on her hair.  There's only one other doll there and I know over my lifetime I had more dolls than that, but Sarah Marie is special because she was made with love.

Maybe you are wondering what this has to do with my dad's birthday and this is it, I've never wanted to be different.  I've never wanted to stand out.  I've always wanted to blend in and that's not really in my dad's vocabulary.  I always wondered why my parents weren't at the cool events or in the social group or why we didn't have this or that and now I know, it's because they are different  . . . in a good way!  They always knew, even when I didn't, what way was best and it's the way the less travelled, it's the narrow road. 

Where I live my maiden name is sometimes recognized and usually when it is people will ask if I am related to "so & so" and more often than not its usually the ones that I'd rather not claim!  But in the past ten years, more and more people ask about my dad and they ask about church and they say how much they love my father and what he's meant to them and suddenly I'm so thankful that my parents were never cool (in my young mind - now I know they are the coolest!)!

So Dad thank you for choosing the narrow way, thank you for taking me with you - you may have drug me kickin' and screamin' (on the inside) in a 1949 Chevy, but THANK YOU nonetheless!  You (and Mom) are everything I want to be when I grow up!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!