And To Our Veterans....a little blueberry juice.

Before I tell the story the title eludes to, let me digress and tell about the conference I went to last weekend.

I went to an Extraordinary Women conference. I heard Chonda Pierce (too funny!!!), Angela Thomas, Karen Kingsbury, and Thelma Wells. I heard concerts by Avalon and Mark Schultz. There was worship, praise, worship, and more praise. It was awesome! If you ever get a chance to go to one of these conferences, please try to go. You won't regret it. They will start touring again in the spring, and as a matter of fact, I am making plans to go to the one in Birmingham with Steven's wife. She of all people will need this time of refreshing. I am already looking forward to it. I would love to hear from any of you that have been to one of these conferences or might want to go to one in the future. There were over 3,000 women there praising the Lord together!



Now for a funny, yet embarrassing, story about what happened in the cafeteria at my son's school on Tuesday. It involves my son, a veteran, and blueberry juice.

To celebrate Veteran's Day, the school invited any parents or grandparents that had served in the military or were currently serving to come speak to their child's class and then stay for lunch. There was a flag parade, and it was just going to be a really nice day.

There was a mom there (I later found out she is being deployed to Iraq in May), and unfortunately she had the task of sitting a couple of chairs down from my son during lunch. As far as I can tell, lunch was fine and then clean-up began. My son apparently crams all his trash down into his milk jug. You know, to make it easier and quicker to walk by the trash can and just throw one item in instead of several small items. Well, on this day it backfired, literally. In the process of him cramming things down into his milk jug, he also had his milk jug in the bowl of blueberries (which he had not eaten). The side of the blueberry bowl burst open and blueberry juice went flying. Yep, right onto veteran-mom herself. The teacher's words were this: "I didn't see it happen, but I saw the aftermath." Oooohhh, that doesn't sound good. She said it was in her hair, on her clothes, and on the floor on the opposite side of the table.

What kind of punishment do you enforce when your son has sprayed a member of today's military with blueberry juice?

Well, he spent a couple of hours in his room (he's used to this), and then he wrote her an "I'm Sorry note" (he's not used to this). I helped him with sentence structure, etc., but he had to come up with the words all himself. I wanted it to be sincere.

This is what his note said:


I'm sorry for getting blueberry juice on you. I should not have been playing with my food. I am willing to help pay for the cleaning of your clothes.
Please forgive me.


We prayed over this note and for the woman he had "offended." I wanted him to learn that he must take responsibility for his actions, no matter if it was truly an accident or not.

We have not heard back from the lady, and last night my son asked me if I thought she would write him back. I said I didn't know. Secretly, I wish she would. I wish she would acknowledge his apology. But even if she does not, I rest a little easier thinking I used this Veteran's Day and some blueberry juice to teach a 7-year-old a little lesson in humility and forgiveness.

P.S. If you have not packed your shoebox yet, get busy! Next week is Collection Week! To find a dropoff location near you, check out their website.