I passed through the birth canal like they passed through the Red Sea. Together we were birthed into the wilderness of the growing up years, full of rules and guidelines until we reached a measure of maturity. At that point we all made the choice to go in to the Promise Land, or as Jesus called it, the Kingdom of God, and were baptized, them in the Jordan River and me in New Mexico. Together we were told to cast out all the sin in that land, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites…my anxiety, my temper, my right to my own free choice. Together we lived sans earthly king.

Studying through Judges, the story of their years with no king, I see their fall, distrusting God, disobeying God, forgetting Who He is and finally rebelling against any concept of God as they each “did what was right in their own eyes.” As I watch my country, and the world at large, follow that course, will I go with it?

Or will I route out my sin, as identified by “It’s just my…” or “I have a right to…” or “I’m just that way”? Will I be among the counter-cultural, faithful few, like Boaz and Ruth who used their strength to submit to the rule of the unseen King who is coming?

Sometimes our Aussi hounds me.

Sometimes she just does a drive-by lick to let me know she’s there and that she is still refusing to learn not to lick people (good luck with that lesson with a houseful of kids!). Other times she hounds me, tangling among my legs or resting her chin on my thigh and “talking” until I acknowledge her. Often the hounding is a request for scratches. Since I have the longest nails in the house, she likes my scratching the best, especially in shed-season.

Occasionally I’ll even go for the Grand Scratch and take her outside to be brushed. On those occasions, we settle in for the long haul, filling the sky above our lawn with wafting dog fluff. Reminiscent of the “sandwich method,” I usually do a brief enjoyable brush around her neck before detangling the less pleasant long rump hair. I finish in the middle, going over and over her sides and back. And over and over. And over. On the twentieth journey from shoulders to rump, every bit as much hair is still floating away on the light breeze as on the first pass.

Incredible. I could do this all day, and she’d still have just as much hair and yet I’d still get as much out every time. Kind of like little home-running tasks. When I’ve done a million of them in a day, there are still no less left to do. Clearly, it’s time to just take a break and play a game with a kid!

I don’t even remember what she did. But there I was, staring down my five-year-old, expecting some pithy answer to my “What do you need to do?” following some infraction or other. She tentatively stepped forward and wrapped her little arms around my legs. Obviously, I was way off. What was really needed was more love! Of course.

Parts of my childhood were charmed, or so I’ve learned as an adult. Every holiday and for one week in the summer, all my cousins on my dad’s side gathered in Thornwood at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was just how things were.

Twenty acres of hillside forest, farm and lawn and a three-story stone house filled with nooks and crannies of character. We had a fort among the trees, took rides on the tractor, sledded around the house and down the long hill. We jumped the fish pond, galloped around the pasture and played hide-and-seek all over the house.

Thirty years later, I find that we also sipped soda on the porch swing, tossed chemicals into the fireplace to turn the flames different colors, played myriad games in the stone room and enjoyed music from the organ or record player piped through the house (before wireless speakers were even thought possible!).

And apparently, we also spend a good bit of our time there vacuuming the floral-patterned rugs, dusting the vanities in each room, pulling weeds in the garden and raking leaves.

In addition to the adrenaline-soaked action, I remember some of the more restful activities and none of the cleaning, yet they occupy huge sections of my cousins’ otherwise affectionate memories of “Grandma’s.” I am certain these were the same people with whom I grew up there, but I’m stumped by how differently we remember it.

The next time someone asks me why we need four perspectives of Jesus’ life and why they are different, I have a story to tell!