The decision has been made....

The decision has been made.....

Billu's wife will be named.....Gina. We wanted you all to know. Billu and Gina. Somehow we came up with it in the car coming home from an open mic night we host at work.

I had the unique privilege of meeting a little 1st grade girl named Destiny. I can't stop thinking of her. This world is a hard place for us adults...seems to be even harder for kids. I've never considered myself to be one of those women that is ALL into kids...yet my heart bleeds for kids and the lives they are born into. I have grown over the years to appreciate, value, treasure, delight, and belly laugh at the little glimpses children bring into the way God thinks. I don't know this little gal's story but could gather some info just from the 2 hours we sat beside one another at the open mic night. I asked her if she liked school and being in the 1st grade and she said boys were mean to her...AND even girls were mean to her. She made a point to emphasize (with piercing serious eyes and all) that even girls were mean. We sat whispering back and forth enjoying the show and it was like she couldn't get close enough to me. She taught me about making a face out of pepperoni pizza. I loved it. Then she methodically ate the eyes. Somewhere in the middle of that interaction she asked if the kids that were with me had the same mama. I didn't even know that was an option when I was in the 1st grade in small town Indiana. I liked talking with this little gal.

Regularly, I feel like I'm still fumbling around trying to find myself here in Chicago as a recently married woman living in the inner-city. Sometimes I get afraid that I've lost connection to my heart simply because most days I feel so incredibly out of my element. I mean come on...marriage AND inner-city living seem like foreign waters to be paddling my little soul around in. For rizzle my fizzle.

Anyways, I came home and made some comment to John about maybe feeling more at home in my own heart after that night of hanging with my new buddy Destiny. She was like a little sponge that soaked up any attention I'd give to her. I was blessed.