Gold, Common Sense, and Fur.
My husband and I had been happily (most of the time) married for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with his word as my guide. God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, he blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter. My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old. I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.

I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs. When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.

In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.

While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close - I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God. I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too. Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."

My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine. My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes." My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not clothes, silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes."

A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing. I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama." Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.

My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."

The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation. "I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," Father Brian laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. "For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

Isnt that just the cutest story? No, I didnt write it, so dont even ask. I was bored enough that I could have written a story if I wanted to, though. Every single class today was a study hall, with the exception of the classes I took exams in. Both exams were SO EASY! I dont know why Mom makes me study at all. I mean, I guess I needed to study for English, and Geography, but the others, from what people have taken, sound so easy, I think I'll spend tonight relaxing. And I just sneezed, for the 1000th time today. Although I didnt write a book, I certainly got up for tissues often enough. And made pretty name signs for people, even if I did have only 2 colors (yellow and brown). That was fun. And I dont know what else. My cough is getting a little better. I could NOT stop jumping around in Algebra today, and because of it I was dragging my feet to my exams. I messed up the scantron a TON of times in English, I bet those will get counted wrong. Oh well. I got a 94 on my geography exam, hip hip hooray. But yeah, anyway. I'd like to go home, but Mommy disappeared. I think she's showing Mrs. Huddleston how to use the scantron machine. I feel so bad for Mrs. Huddleston, this is her first year with anything like this junk, and she's just so lost. Its kinda funny, but I hope I'm never THAT clueless about things. Tomorrow should be easy, the only official kind of exam I'm going to have is Spanish. Oh woohoo, like that will be hard. Not. But yeah, Mom is back so its not time to bug her so we can go home! Hope you enjoyed my long story. Bye bye!
~Mindy

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