Scoot Over

My middle kiddo, Bradley, is the one of my three children who was my clinger when he was little. He always wanted to be held, to sit in my lap, to be rocked for hours ... and he is the one of my three who still kisses me goodbye every time we part and calls me almost every day. He's also the one who is going to bungee jump off the Grand Canyon in April with a camera on his helmet to film a commercial for a crime scene company, and I am the mom trying to be calm about his newest adventure. Back to when he was young, however ... no matter where I was sitting or whom I was sitting with, Brad would squeeze himself in and say, "Scoot over, Mommie, I need a sit by you."

It's cold and snowing here in Kansas today ... a good day for staying inside, watching TV and sleeping. After lunch, I looked at the hound dogs I live with and said, "Let's take a nap, dogs, a nice long nap." It's funny to me the way dogs never seem to need encouragement when it comes to taking naps on a Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon for that matter. And they certainly don't need an ounce of encouragement to sleep in my bed. In fact, sometimes I think it's more their bed than mine, especially when it comes to who takes up the most space.

Since the first night that Oliver came to live with me and Julie a little over a week ago, he has slept right up next to me ... actually, it's more like under my side than next to me. I spend a lot of time in the night, or during nap time, saying, "Oliver ... scoot over." No matter how many times I move him away, he always manages to wriggle his little wiener dog body so close to me that he almost pushes me out of the bed. When I woke up this afternoon, I was hanging off the side of the bed, and Oliver was sleeping soundly ... half under me with his head on my pillow. As I patted his little head, tears pooled in my eyes and began to stream down my cheeks.

This morning, my pastor talked about how sometimes life doesn't turn out the way we think it will, that sometimes things happen that we don't see coming ... things that are hard, things that we don't understand, things that hurt and wound. He talked about how sometimes all we can do is wrap our arms around God and just hold on for all we're worth. I couldn't help but think as I tried to move Oliver over a bit ... how many times instead of wrapping my arms around my Father do I say, "Scoot over"? How many times instead of wriggling in as close as I can get to Him do I try to move Him away?

Oliver ... scoot over. Lord ... come closer.