Forever a Child by Jenna Vick Silliman

If heaven was giving out awards, I think I would be in the running for winning the award for “Biggest Kid”. After all, I’m five feet eight inches tall—that is a pretty big kid! Some of my best friends are children. I don’t have very many peers that like to goof off as much as I do—they are probably embarrassed to be seen with me! I like to load up my car with kids and go to the beach, go swim at the pool, go folk dancing, or go to the park. I turn the radio up nice and loud and sing at the top of my vocal capacity. I don’t wanna get a speeding ticket, but I really like to drive fast. What I do is “hug the turns” whenever possible and as fast as possible. It is so fun to make the kids squeal! As a result of hanging out with kids a lot, I get invited to their birthday parties. My favorite one so far was Angelina’s princess party. I am pictured here, dressed as a princess, surrounded by my little friends. I told you I was the biggest kid!

One way I am childlike is that I like to have fun. If you ask me what one of my goals is, I will probably say, “To have fun!” To be funloving is a character quality I admire and hope to develop more and more. I like to goof off with kids because they really know how to have fun. When they go to the beach or the park, kids don’t think about their list of things to do or how much money they have in the bank or about their next appointment—they just have fun. My youngest child, Peter, and his friend, Michel and I went shopping one day and I was having a good time with them skipping in the parking lot, telling jokes, and looking at stuff to buy. Michel paid me a high compliment that day. He said, “You know Jenna, you are more like a kid than a mom!” I said, “THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”

I like to make people laugh. Laughing is SO fun and it is contagious too. One of my favorite scenes from a Disney movie is the one in Mary Poppins where they all start singing “I love to laugh—hahaha!” and they all float up to the ceiling. Wouldn’t that be fun?! Children laugh on an average of 400 times per day! Adults laugh like about 15 times a day. Whew--what a difference! I think I’d rather be a kid, wouldn’t you? If you listen carefully, children call adults “dolts”. So that’s what I’ve started calling them too. Hahaha! I’d rather be a kid than a dolt!

Another way I’m like a kid, is I love to sing silly songs. It is common for me to break out in song and the silly ones are my favorites. (With a last name of Silliman, I can’t be too serious, now can I?) For some examples, you might know this song: “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly…I don’t know why she swallowed a fly; I guess she’ll die!” Do you know this one? “I had a little sister; her name was sister Sue, we put her in the bathtub to see what she would do. She drank up all the water, she ate a bar of soap, she tried to eat the bathtub, but it wouldn’t fit down her throat!” Here’s another favorite: “If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain it would be! I’d stand outside with my mouth open wide, singin’ ah ah, ah ah ah, ah ah!”

Don’t you love the way children are full of wonder and amazement at the world? They chase butterflies, blow dandelion seeds and watch them float on the air, and they love to run and jump and dance around. I love to go swimming with kids and play games in the water. That’s a blast. I like the way kids will get enthusiastic about things too. Why do we have to be so dang reserved all the time? To be childlike is to be more trusting and loving and spontaneous and honest. I teach a children’s dance class and my students never cease to amaze me at how loving they are. They run over and hug me and tell me they love me. They skip and frolic around with carefree abandon. I want to be more like that. Yesterday one little girl told me, “I like your colorful blouse, but I don’t think it matches your twirly skirt very well.” Hahaha! That made me laugh! Kids are so honest. They tell you when they like something and when they don’t.

When I was a girl I was often scolded for daydreaming. My hands would slow down at the task at hand—such as washing dishes, folding laundry, or doing a math assignment. Instead I would stare off into the distance, lost in my dream world. I wrote creative stories about make believe lands and enjoyed reading and daydreaming about what it would be like to be one of the characters in the book. Even now, at age 54, I like to dream. You’d think I would have grown out of it by now, wouldn’t you? No, I like to dream about all the possibilities in life, such as where I’d like to travel and what I’d like to do. The Bible says, “Nothing is impossible with God.” We have an unlimited God and so we need not limit ourselves or our lives either.

As long as I am faithful and responsible and dependable and all those grown-up things, I don’t see anything wrong with being like a kid. In fact, the Lord Jesus said, “Be as a little child to enter My kingdom.” Now I have a new dream. I can picture the Lord saying, “Here’s your award, Princess Jenna.” Jesus walks towards me in a trailing purple robe and in His hands is a golden crown all sparkling with diamonds and jewels of different colors and He places it upon my head and says, “Good job on being childlike! Well done—you have entered into My joy everlasting!”

Rocket Man...burning out his fuse up here alone.

I had a dream as a young boy...

When Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11's Lunar Module in July 1969, I was sitting beside my grandmother watching on her black and white television. Although I was completely unaware at the time, she was dying from cancer and would take her own final trip just a few months later. I treasure that memory... and miss her today.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an astronaut. After a few flying lessons from a former Leatherneck pilot in an old cub prop plane, I was ready for the big show. I had it all mapped out. Through Vanderbilt University for commissioning in the USMC. Flight school. Carrier duty. Instructor School. Test Pilot Program. Astronaut Program. Space!

God had a different plan. I never made it to step two...vision 20-40...unacceptable for flight training.

Now don't get me wrong, I was crushed. But looking back at how NASA changed from the glory days of Apollo through the routine grind of Skylab to driving a space bus called the Space Shuttle, maybe my dream wasn't the only one that faded.

I changed majors from engineering to business after my flight school hopes were dashed. The USMC paid for my education, and in return I gave them five years of service. One more than I had to give. While I cherish my time and lessons learned as a Marine Officer, somehow I lost that enduring motivation to stay for a military career and left to go to law school in 1991...but I never went.

Being an attorney really wasn't my calling (though some would argue that fact) and in the midst of a very personal crisis, I never pursued enrollment in the schools that accepted me. There are absolutely no regrets in that statement...none at all.

Looking back at that fork in my path twenty years ago (something I rarely, if ever, do), it is far too evident to me just how immature around age thirty I really was. Shamefully evident. Serving God was not to be found anywhere in the picture of my life. Without going into dialog concerning eternal security, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if God had decided my time here was over during that dark phase. Thankfully...He didn't.

While I may not be living my childhood dream today, I am nonetheless living a dream life. My home is filled with love and happiness, my girls look forward to going to church each week and finding their own paths in God's will, and each night after a final word with my life's love, then one with my Father...I fall into a peaceful sleep realizing that if I don't wake up in this world the next morning...well...I'm a very, very blessed man.

You just don't need a spaceship for that dream.

The Bride and the “Broom”

Linda Maynard is without power from the storm that ravaged the East Coast.  Being a trooper, she got her blog to us.  As you read it, pray for her and all those on the East Coast without power and dealing with the aftermaths of this storm.

Sometimes, when people have said to me…”I always knew I wanted to be…” OR when asked “ What dreams did you always have?”, I have sometimes been stumped.

Not having a lot of stability growing up, it was hard to dream when I was just trying to survive.
As this topic was presented for the Kingdom Bloggers, faint and almost hidden hopes and dreams came back to me.

I remembered a very little girl who attended summer camp.  Rainy day activities centered around a box of crayons. Year after year, I drew and colored the same picture…a Bride and a “Broom”. Yep, that’s what I called him in those days. I was sure that is what people were saying.

This couple was always happy, that I remember. I wanted to get married…but I wanted more assurance that the marriage would be a happier one than the ones that I saw.

As I got a little older, say 6th grade or so,  I started to get stirrings of becoming a nun. I told my mother I wanted to become a nun. I felt that I had the “calling”. I could have joined the convent in 8th grade and finished my high school there. My mother, in her wisdom said “ Let’s wait until you graduate from High School and we will cross that bridge when we come to it” I even had a name picked out…Sister Mary Catherine.

The fact that these two desires focused on being a Bride is not lost to me today. A desire to be a Bride spoke to me of happiness and fulfillment.

Years later, in my adulthood, I kind of made fun of my desire to be a nun. I sensed the Lord did not share the “put down” that I experienced when I thought of it. At that moment, I realized that my true desire was to be as close to God as I could. He knew what was behind my longing. I viewed nuns that way. Also, they even wore a ring symbolizing that they were married to Christ.

I have lived out the dream to be a Happy Bride with my husband of 41 years. Never the perfect life in marriage and yet nothing could ever separate us, except death. We both realize that we are truly a blessed couple.

As far as being a nun, I have since realized that I can be as close to God as I want to be. Scripture tells me that I AM the Bride of Christ.

My capacity for ministry was not lost because I didn‘t chose the convent. I truly love the Lord. I minister in so many ways, that I couldn’t even imagine back then. He is my Bridegroom and I am His Bride.

This remembering and revelation brought front and center that the Lord gives me the desires of my heart…not give me the things I randomly want, as some think…but HE is the one who puts the life giving desires in my heart in the first place.

Great Adventure

I’ve written a lot about my life on Sounds of Hope. I’ve talked about childhood abuses. I’ve talked about being a single mother on welfare. I talked about being an abused and abandoned wife. There I’ve shared that I was a high school dropout, living on welfare, in a trailer with three small children. Not exactly the material for success in life. Certainly not someone you’d say was likely to succeed. But God...

Yes, but God. It’s always but God… He seems to see us differently than everyone else. He sees our potential and gives us dreams. Then He gives us a hope that we might fulfill those dreams. Then He gives us faith in Him and His ability to get us to those dreams. And He gives us strength.

This summer I took another huge leap of faith or stupidity – there are days I wonder which it is, faith or stupidity? I started a doctoral program. While I do ask myself sometimes is this just a stupid dream that I am too old to have, deep inside, I know differently. I know that God has put this dream inside of me. A dream I’ve had for many years, many, many years.

So this summer I did a lot of research. I probably have read around 4000 pages of material. I’ve produced a 103 page annotated bibliography. I’ve struggled through a position paper which still needs tweaking. I don’t think the tweaking will stop anytime soon as we are being taught to write an academic argument and that will take a while. So I’ll be editing, and editing and tweaking. Then I’ll be reading and reading some more and adding to the monstrous bibliography.

I’ve also produced a Curriculum Vita which is a fancy resume where you go on and on about yourself. Mine was six pages. Not because I accomplished that many great things but because I am old and had a lot of experience.

I don’t know where this is going – do we ever know really where God is taking us? We just sort of get on the roller coaster, let God strap us in and go for the ride. We let him take us on a GREAT ADVENTURE.

In the process of all this reading and living in a dorm on a college campus for the first time, I’ve found new hope. I may be old but God isn’t finished with me. Like Sarah, I laugh at times to think that God still has more for me to do or that doors will open.

This doctoral program really got into my personal business this summer. We were pushed not just academically but personally. We were pushed to look at ourselves, know ourselves and change ourselves. One of the biggest changes for me was I committed myself to exercise. I am now doing 5 miles in a half hour on an exercise bike, 6 days a week. My goal was 20 minutes 3x a week. Most of us don't think about our physical discipline as part of our spiritual discipline. But it is. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) You can see a little video I made for class here. Turn the sound on to hear the song at the end.

So I'm on a new adventure. God willing in 2013 I'll be Dr. Joyce Lighari. I'll still be me, but hopefully I will be prepared for whatever God has next. For my "Isaac." What about you? I’ll bet you have a dream. God’s not done. What’s your dream?