Kids...

I deal with kids the same way I deal with adults. I treat them like little people, because that's how I was always treated by my parents. I was never treated like a little baby.

When I meet a new person I usually can discern a lot about where the interaction will go very quickly. I owe it to the fact that I am a good read of people right at the outset (and I owe that to the Holy Spirit!). There are people I have literally loved from the first few minutes I spoke to them (we'll explore some of them here). Others, I know I will never really click with (we won't bother exploring them too much).

Now you may wonder how in the world I can get get a "read" on a baby, I mean, sure, a little kid you probably can, but a baby? I can and I do. Some kids I love the minute I see them, others, not so much.

Two strong examples of immediate baby love over the past few years are my friend Caroline's first-born who is going to turn 4 in October. The first time I saw him I fell in love with him (and still am in love with him because now as an almost-4-year-old he is polite, kind, smart, and very adorable!). Another more recent example is the new daughter of my friends Andy and Jeanine--the minute Andy put her in my arms I literally fell in love with that little girl. She screamed her head off for a good amount of the time I was with her and I still fell in love with her. She is going to be a good friend of mine for years to come.

I give this background because I had a similar but different siutaion recently when I had the opportunity to visit my high school friend, Trish, and her husband and son, in Ohio for a short vacation. Trish has been in Ohio for about 9 years now and I had never been out there to see her. I still live in the town where her family lives, so I have seen her when she has come back here, but I had never been there.

She has a 4-year-old son that I only met once before when she had come home (he was about 1 and he was asleep when I met him). This time, I had 5 days to live with him and really get to know him. He was a delight. I truly enjoyed his company--and again, he is only 4. I liked the clever and funny things he had to say, I liked that he was a good listener, I liked that he was so good and well- behaved in church (heck, if he was about 28 years older, I'd marry him!). He kept up with us in all of our sight-seeing, it was great.

When I was leaving Ohio, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight and I told my friend on the phone that spending time with that little boy made me want to be a mother. For the first time in my life I knew that I wanted to have a family of my own. The trip, which I just expected to be relaxing and calm, really wound up being a very powerful experience for me.

I got an e-mail from Trish this week and she said that she and her son were talking about me the other day and he said to her, "Mom, do you miss Lori, because I sure do."

Hearing that a precious 4 year old who has only spent 5 days of his entire life with me not only remembers who I am but misses me opens my heart wider to the world. It reminds me that that is why we are in the world, why God gives us people to love in all kinds of ways, and why I want to try to become better and better all the time.

This, my friends, is why we are here.

Today, please pray that Kathy's job interviews are a success and she gets a job where her employers know they are lucky to hire such a well-educated and wonderful woman as she.