A Lixy Life

As splendidly as I've been doing at not blogging I can't NOT blog on this day because I have to say...

At a certain primary school during their weekly class on morals, a group of first-grade students were asked to finish the story of the hardworking ant and the lazy grasshopper in the way they thought would be best.
Most of us know this story—one of Aesop’s fables—how the Grasshopper wasted the summer months playing his fiddle while the Ant labored hard storing food for the winter. When cold finally came, the industrious Ant and his friends were all safely tucked away with all that they would need, while the Grasshopper was left to search for food and found himself dying of hunger.

The six-year-olds were asked to draw a picture of and rewrite the ending of the story in any way they would like, but it needed to involve the Grasshopper asking the Ant for help. About half of the first-graders took the general view that since the Grasshopper was undeserving, the Ant refused to help him. The other half changed the end to say that the Ant told the Grasshopper to learn his lesson, and then he gave the Grasshopper half of what he had.
Then a little boy stood up and gave this version of the tale: After the Grasshopper came to the Ant and begged for food, the Ant unhesitatingly gave all the food he had. Not half or most, but everything. The boy was not finished, however, and he cheerfully continued: “The Ant didn’t have any food left, so he died. But then the Grasshopper was so sad that the Ant had died that he told everyone what the Ant had done to save his life. And the Grasshopper became a good Grasshopper.”

Two things came to mind when this story was related to me. First it reminded me what giving meant to Jesus. He didn’t go halfway for us, and He didn’t say we were “undeserving,” but He gave His all so that we could learn to be good. It was only through Him totally sacrificing His life that we were able to receive the gift of eternal life. It was just the way the Ant died for the Grasshopper in the six-year-old’s retelling of the classic tale. And for us it should also not end there. In gratitude, we should follow His example and give our all to tell of the wonderful thing He did for us.
Second, I learned what it means to give your all. It is not true giving unless it hurts, but when you do truly give it will be multiplied many times over. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” But it doesn’t end there. Here is the bittersweet promise that makes it all worthwhile: “But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24 KJV).

Ever since the world turn white with snow and frost and all that cold wet-ish winter stuff, Dad has truly been like a big kid in his very own winter wonderland. Dad is an authentic Canadian boy and having a real Canadian winter has that part of him alive and kicking—literally!

In our Gi-normous back yard we have a large swampish area in the trees which makes up the outside of our property, and that has all frozen over nice and solid. Dad got out there with his snow blower as soon as it turned to ice to claim it as his very own skating rink. The next day he was gone working and didn’t get back till late at night. I hear him come in the front door shuffle around a bit and then I hear him walk straight back out the back door. I don’t think anything of it. Even when I start hearing some random war hoops coming from the distant darkness I foolishly don’t connect it with Dad until he walks in through the back door red faced and covered with white….”Uh huh!?” You gotta love that about dad, he’s got energy, enthusiasm and craziness that can put most people to shame and what he does he does with all his heart.

Course something he can’t understand is when others don’t always share that same enthusiasm and it breaks his heart. He’s been trying to get me out on the ice from day one but I’m just not an icy person.

Now something you have to understand about dad is, that no matter what, he is usually, occasionally, mostly, always right. And when he thinks you should do something you probably should but you don’t always want to; when he tells you something is good it probably is but you still might not like it. I’ll give an example that has kind of become a family joke. Dad has excellent taste in wine. He can look at a bottle and make those intellectual, deep sounding grunts and appropriate facial expressions and “wine lingo", and he can daintily swirl the wine in the glass and inhale with the perfect snort, telling you just how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a wine is—My confession…I like “bad” wine (aka cheap wine). So when dad brings wine home he warns me now “You won’t like this wine, I paid a little extra for it” or “You’ll love this wine tonight, I got the cheap stuff”…har har. So you get the picture, it is the same with skating.

Okay so tonight Dad and Mom took us all you can eat Chinese food (our new years family treat)! So so so so good and bad and bad and good in all those wonderful ways. Completely stuffed, we get home groaning about how “we’re so going to have to work this off” with absolutely no intention of doing anything tonight…except for dad who heads straight to the back door again. Oooooh the words we are all dreading “Come on guys, we need to go for a skate!” I'm getting ready to do battle with dad to yet again to defend my right to NOT do the "good" thing but instead I found myself having to argue with my full tummy which told me "Get out there" and I obeyed. I bundled up in a big fat snowsuit jacket which just happens to be dad's (another thing he had to force me to wear a couple weeks back, which from since I have happily adopted into my don't-wanna-freeze-my-butt-off wardrobe) and stuffed my feet into some skates, nearly slid to my death walking through the snow, and stepped out onto the ice---and I Loved IT!

It was beautiful, the night was perfectly black and the stars perfectly white and the moon just made the ice light up like silver. Gliding along the ice, breathing in the crisp night air, the beauty of God's creation and the love of family...it was heaven. Dad was right, it was GOOD and I could see for a moment why he loves it so much out there.

And then my toes froze and I started feeling like a lollipop so I ran back to safety before it was too late and when dad asked me "So NOW are you going to start coming out here more?!" I had to honestly say "No. But it was perfect for tonight and you WERE right. Thanks Dad." He huffed at me and probably is huffing at me now as he reads this, but I don't mind. He's right and I love my right to be different and we are both stubborn and crazy about each other:)

I love you Daddy. I love the life and brilliance you bring to each day and the way you enjoy life to the full and make sure we always have the opportunity to do the same--even if we don't always take it--and we love you for it. I don't know where we'd be without you. We wouldn't want to be anywhere without you!!

A Lixy life wouldn’t be a life at all without all the lives that fill it that make it a life worth living. As you might have already noticed I’m not so good at writing about myself nor am I all that interesting—but I do have a interesting life and a good one because I have so many incredibly good people in it. So rather then trying to make myself interesting, which I’m already doomed to fail miserably at, I’m going to share with you the people that fill my life with love and happiness and hope and smiles and laughter (heheh Laura gets leading points in that department).