Laughter at all the wrong times.....

Odd how a memory will all of a sudden POP into your head.

REALLY bad when one does that as you are in church and you are trying desperately to not break out in laughter. Yeah. It happened to me today.

I went to church today, Saturday, because I just wanted to have the day at home on Sunday. Got lots to do and not enough time to do it in. You know the drill.

So during worship time, there we are singing and a certain song comes up and of course it brings the funniest of memories to my mind. The song was "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand" and the memories flowed from there.

I have a daughter. She will be turning 35 this year. I don't speak of her much to anyone. A long time ago, I learned the best way to handle not having anything nice to say is just to say nothing at all.  Better that way. But there was a time when she was cute and precocious and oh, so sweet! I know I may be biased, but I don't think there was ever a little girl that was as cute as her. She was quick and bright, inquisitive and I always knew that lurking behind that little smile was a creative and curious mind.

When I was a younger woman, I had boundless energy. Always on the move, making and creating and I LOVED being a Mom. When my children were little, at bedtime I would sit between their open doors and read them books. We covered so many different books, but their favorites were always from C.S. Lewis.....The Chronicles of Narnia. So much magic! When I read "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" to them, they were enchanted and many summer days were spent in the back yard with swords and imaginations.

So I did what any Mom would do. I built them a "Dawn Treader". Smack dab in the middle of  what would be a sand box. A HUGE sand box. I made the sail out of red canvas and on it there was a big Aslan, right in the middle. It had a poop deck and a ladder and I never did get that ships wheel to stay on correctly, but they loved it.

When it came time to fill the sand box with sand, we talked about it. Did they want white sand? Did they want sand that looked like a sea shore or just plain brown sand? What? I remember her answer clearly, as if she uttered it only today.

"Well I just want the kind of sand Jesus has. Not that stinking kind."

Wait. WHAT???

I questioned her as to what she was referring to and she broke out in song, belting out these words....

"On Christ the solid rock I stand! All other ground is stinking sand! All other ground is stinking sand!"

I had a really difficult time in church today. To not bust out laughing like I did that day long ago.

I guess the moral of this story is......If you are building a sand box for your kids, make sure you don't fill it with STINKING SAND.

Because that would be icky.