On riff raff and how amazing God is.

This post may sound a little snooty.  I assure you that it is not.  I've had a few experiences the last two days that lend to the writing of this post and so I just had to write it.  Yesterday morning started off beautifully.  We had a photo shoot in Cy-Fair with a very sweet family in a beautiful neighborhood.  They were nice people and it was a nice place.  We were there early and parked at the tennis courts to look over some e-mails and just chill before we went and met the family.  As we were pulling out Chris said, "That lady is calling the police on us."  And I really think that she was.  There was a lady standing on her porch, spying us out and wondering what in the heck these ruffians were doing parked at her tennis courts.  As we pulled away, Chris saw here mouth, "They're leaving." This just made me laugh.  She was afraid of US.  In our MINIVAN.  We do have tinted windows and Chris does have a goatee.  Other than that we look harmless.  We then went to a certain large retailer (left to your imagination to guess) at the end of the day yesterday.  I avoid this certain retailer at all cost, but it was the one-stop shop I was needing.  We went to the toy department and were strolling along when I heard someone behind me say, "Did you play with Barbie when you were growing up?" The answer was a loud, echoing, "HE**, yeah." I should preface this with the fact that Chris and I had been having a heated discussion on the way there and I was already a little on the edgy side.  I turned around slowly and met eyes with the woman who had so crudely and irresponsibly shouted out dirtiness within ear-shot of my precious babies.  We met eyes and I stared her down.  I didn't look away and honestly wondered if were about to tussle.  Side note- I would have gotten the beat down if we had "tussled."  Based on her looks, she probably knew all kinds of street fighting techniques.  It makes me laugh to even imagine for a second me "tussling" with this lady in the toy department.  Now back to reality.  I have never stared anyone down like this before.  I was determined that if she said anything at all to me, I was going to let her know how ridiculous it was that she had been so crude.  Of course, we didn't fight.  For my good, I'm thankful that we didn't.  For my families honor, I'm glad that we didn't.  It doesn't change the fact that I was and continue to be frustrated by the roughness of our society.  This afternoon, while Chris was helping the folks who bought our treadmill load up, there was a fist fight out in the road on our street.  Wow.  Those folks must have thought they were in the ghetto.  We live in a pretty good neighborhood and yet people are fighting in the street on a Sunday afternoon.  The thing is, this is normal in our society.  People are rough.  They talk rough, live rough and just share their general roughness freely with anyone who can see or hear them.  Here's why I am amazed.  God still loves us all. We may not cuss in public or fight in the street, but he knows when my heart is trashy after arguing with Chris.  He sees the yuck in me that no one else sees.  And he continues to love me.   He extends himself to us.  He doesn't lock eyes threateningly, he looks at us with mercy and compassion.  This doesn't change my disappointment with how dirty the world is and my deep, aching hunger to protect the eyes and ears of my kids.  A clean, safe world is "just what I've always wanted" for these little guys.  Because that's just not a reality, we'll work to shine the light of Jesus, not fist fight, and hopefully teach them to do the same.