The Liger

gently paced back and forth. His massive body, seeming barely to touch the floor. A leap could have happened in a second's notice. Something had is attention. I am not sure what. I know that look, I said to myself. That is the leap when the serve hasn't been served yet. When I am pacing making sure that I am covering the court, in case the serve is forehand or backhand. Covering ground, looking over the spots to make sure that the court would be covered and that my oponent knows that I am there, wherever, she chooses to serve it. I had a comradery about the panning and the leaping. I have limited myself, because of weight and those considerations. Those lions are 1000 pounds, I am exagerating. They don't look hindered or limited from running or leaping or jumping, if the need arises. I was motivated to move, by looking them in the eye. I know that look. I only get that look, when the ball is a floater. Everybody knows, move out of the way, mom is in the zone... BOOM!
Tape, net, or line, I will feel better, once I have attacked it. Is that a sickness?

Is there a right use of anger?

We know that there is. God is the perfect example and He uses anger in righteous ways all of the time.
There is a thin line between animosity and motivation. The emotional boost that I get when someone hits that perfect lofty lob and I can taste the overhead. The feeling that nothing is going to stand between me and the full accomplishment of that overhead. My children have studied that moment in their mother. They have nothing to compare it to. They know when they see that look to duck or do or look around at what I am aiming at. If they happen to be the poor "Les'mis" who hit the lob, they know from very young to duck. I won't hit them, but I make it close enough for them to know that that is a dangerous position to be in. Some things, I simply cannot get accomplished until I get to that point of adrenaline. I don't know why. I wouldn't exactly call it anger, although it feels like anger, sometimes, lets just call it "the urgent". Get this finished or else. Or else what? Or else the consequences will be ominous! Kapow!
I am not angry with the ball, I am directing it with power and force and my whole body is involved, Maybe I am angry with the ball. Anyway, I have intention of whomping that ball, several times this season, God giving me strength...LOL

There is something of savagery that is addressed in Tennis ettiquette!

Of course, we consider ourselves of a higher breed, who place, carefully and skillfully a ball, within and very precise boundary. Not just a boundary, but there are rules of care and consideration. We have animosity for another person or concept and address it, without touching or addressing the person. We can hit at them as hard as we can and dream about whomping them, without having hurt them physically. What an amazing use of the anger of man! I find it cathartic. After you beat them, you saunter to the net, or jump over the net, as the case may be and shake their hand. Still, addressing the animosity factor of human nature. Good sports and bad, are expected to follow tennis ettiquette.
We considered them barbarians, who took down the nets at Baisley Park. What kind of a primitive person would not care for the keeping of the nets? We wondered. We, who couldn't know how to keep and do our chores were judging the cultural development of a people group, who couldn't know how treasured these items were in our tennis ettiquette culture. We judged the mental and emotional stability of those who could live so close to the treasured courts and dare come down from their apartments, in anything but a tennis outfit. What is wrong with them? It is a culture all its own. Unwritten, understood rules of life and character and how harshly we judged the ignorant barbarians, who were sorry enough to be born outside of the tennis culture. I do speak in jest, somewhat, but, only slightly, you know.
I am glad that I married apart from my tennis culture to see that there are others who think differently about a net when they see it. Those to whom, perhaps, other rules exist. Life outside the court and without the sense of electric shock, if you touch the net. I look at my children in the eye, when they walk up to a tennis net and immediately put their hands upon it. Is there a reason, in that? Do you have any tennis sense at all?

To do it all over again, I wouldn't have raised them anywhere else, but, on the courts.

As a tennis ball in the hand of a mighty serve...

That is my paraphrase of my direction to my children. God has given me 3 and 3, like 2 cans of balls. Kapow! I imagine Martina Navratilova. I see the powerful strength of a well placed and powerful serve and see the importance of parenting with diligence. I am no longer a young woman. I am no longer a powerful serve. But, I still have the responsibility of the toss and the serve. Sometimes the finesse of age and spin can do more than the powerful serve. Getting them directed toward heaven is more important than the power of their direction. I will use power and I will use spin. Training and finesse blessed with the amazing grace of the most powerful Savior, will lead us safely through. Bless us to see Your hand in our efforts and the work of our hands, establish Thou it!

The Blessing and the Comfort of a Considerate Daughter.

I came home and found much of our Easter Dinner prepared and ready. Devilled Eggs, never looked so good as they did. The comfort of having another woman, being responsible in the home is a tremendous comfort.
Thought of what we will eat and what we will drink were carried, on Easter, by my responsible assistant. Halleluia.
God is merciful and kind to bless with such a gracious and considerate set of daughters head by the daughter who helps and cooks. Bless the Lord!

The balancing act between the caps of wife and mother are certainly difficult.

Mommy is authority. Mommy is commanding. Wife is caretaker and considerate and giving. What do I get out of it? That is certainly the question, in this season. How do I act like a Christian mother and a Christian wife and what lessons am I learning through the passion of Christ on my behalf.
I am redeemed
First, my sins and limitations have been laid upon my Savior. I am His child and the Heavenly Father watches over me. When I realize that I am enveloped in the infinite love of a good and gracious God, it gives me liberty and freedom to love the people, whom I am charged with, out of the excess.
"Without a vision of that the people perish!" When I look in the mirror, I see a limited and simple person, who has not enough hands and not enough strength to do any of the responsibilities that are mine. I lament that I am limited and all of my responsibilities seem to be sapping the life out of me. Where is the light? The light is in the Love of Christ. Christ loved me enough to die for me. Christ has comforts for me that life cannot tell. He doesn't require that I be perfect, only loving and trying.
Where is my strength, Lord? Where is my recovery from this season in life? Is it built into our culture? Not anymore. Women live for themselves. The single women and the worldy, materialistic women say to you, bail out. Do for you. Leave them to themselves and go get a job. Its alot easier. You have excuses then. No body can blame you if you are not there? They still blame you, though. Ha, they laugh, we got you. You are a materialistic and a selfish person like the rest of us. We all are. Whatever we need to do to survive this life and sacrifice, God has an answer for us. You cannot blame God for your selfishness, though. Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world. We cannot imitate that in total, that is for sure.
All we can do is render to God our service to our family and bear one another's burdens. Hold one another up in prayer and be there for one another in the deterioration of our culture away from the family way.

I try to retrain my mouth by looking at pictures of the past life and motherhood and wifing that worked. That is what Life with Father means to me. What do I say, when my husband comes in with arguments as he is sure to do? How do I control my tongue not to retort with injudicious speech. I can think of alot of bad stuff to say, in English and in everyother language, that I know.

Get off my back man! Do you know what I have been through? That is what I feel like saying. I must say to myself, You have the right to remain silent!



Beulah Bondi, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Irene Dunn, So many women character actresses of femininity from bygone eras. How do I clean my tongue not to say the first thing that comes to mind. We don't have examples of pleasantries, as they had years ago. My mommy had many older women that took her by the hand and led her through the land mine of motherhood. In my neighborhood there were only those who were the same age as me. There were no women who discipled younger women and loved them into and through the life of self-sacrifice.

My dad told stories of the day that Aunt Dorothy came over to ask my father if my mother could go shopping with her. He said he felt so respected and trusted by that question. He was loved into staying a father and husband by neighbors, whose Christianity was contagious. Materialism, was not the priority. Raising the children and maintaining the relationship was. When the mothers are outside the homes, there are fewer comforts for the husbands for the children and for the world. I am too tired to love my family, after work. Everybody has to work and everyman for himself is the recipe for the death of our culture. Help us Lord to recoup.