Cool

School is in full swing. My sweet little Jonah is already in 2nd grade and growing up way too fast!

So, Jonah has always gravitated toward weapons. Why? I'm not sure. My mom would say it is because I let him watch Star Wars at much too young of an age, but I don't know. Maybe. When Jonah was three, he made the play-banana into a gun at church in the toddler room. A friend of ours was helping out in there and let Jonah know that it was not a gun, but a banana. The very next week, Jonah holds it up and points the piece of play fruit directly at our friend's chest and says, "This is not a gun, it is a banana." Our poor three year old was lectured over and over again about the horrific and deadly results of gun use. I think this increased his fettish all the more. Micah has taken the whole weapon obsession to a whole new level. He makes anything and everything into a lightsaber. Hockey sticks, baseball bats, pvc piping, cable cords (there is a permanent reminder on our flat panel lcd tv of that one)... You name it! This weapon usage has bothered me some, to say the least, as a mom. Unlike my dad who is a member of the NRA and proud of it, I don't like guns and never have! Thank God Joe is not too fond of hunting, because I don't think that I would let him keep one in, or anywhere near, the house, garage or yard that my little treasures play in.

So, last night I come home from work, and on the table is a really detailed drawing of a scarecrow. But this was not your typical If-I-only-had-a-brain scarecrow.

I asked Joe, "What is this?"

He nonchalantly responds, "Oh, that's a gangster scarecrow."

"A WHAT? DID YOU EVEN LOOK AT THIS PICTURE?"

You see, Jonah's scarecrow was hanging there with his decked out gangster outfit on and sunglasses with a hat turned to the side and patches with the word "YO" on one. There were bags of cash surrounding the bottom of the scene and little bunches of dynamite with their wicks lit and to top it all off, the scarecrow was holding a gun in each hand, with bullets exploding from their ends. I felt like I was going to throw up! My sweet, innocent child is being exposed to so much more than I thought he would ever be at his young age. The Star Wars, everything's a light saber thing, bothers me a little bit, but we always remind the boys how it's just make believe and not real. This whole gangster thing is REAL and for some reason,
Jonah thought it was cool. Oh, I was brewing last night. Jonah was already asleep and I so badly wanted to wake him up and give him a lecture. I waited until first thing this morning as soon as I heard his little feet hit the ladder of his bunk bed. I had a talk with him about how Jesus wants us to love gangsters and pray for them, but we don't want to be gangsters. I followed up with another graphic gun conversation, much like the one we had when he was a toddler, going on and on about how guns hurt and kill people, etc, etc, etc... Jonah jumps up and runs downstairs, crinkles up the picture and throws the paper in the garbage all the while apologizing over and over. He is so dramatic and I just don't know where he gets it from!

Jonah definitely has many characteristics of a leader but he yearns for people to like him and think he's cool. As I was observing Jonah, I started thinking about my own life and how he is a lot like me. I want to put on my cool clothes, (my church clothes). I want to wear my cool make-up, I want it to cover-up the real me, the exposed me, the ashamed me. I'm am so afraid to wash off the thick pancake, got-it-all-together look! Why? I think maybe because I'm afraid people will judge me like I have been judging them. I tend to get hung up on their outward sinfulness instead of displaying the unconditional love and forgiveness of Christ. This whole gangster thing has motivated me to turn on the faucet and splash some water onto my made up face, so hopefully as the make-up begins to melt away, my skin will become a little bit more transparent!