If I only Had a Brain....

It has rained a lot this winter. No sooner do Asherel and I get real equipment for snowboarding...like helmets to protect all that valuable grey matter, than Winter decides to wimp out on us. However, all my ski equipment is packed in the van, ready for our trip up north to see my folks for Mom's 80th birthday bash. I packed cross country skis, alpine skis, parkas, hats, gloves, wool sweaters, poles, boots, ski totes, boot totes....The van is packed to the gills with winter fun.

Then I looked at the weather. Nice driving weather. Not a flake of snow in the forecast until you reach Alaska. Alaska is having the worst winter weather of its life, however. Snow is so deep and so pervasive that some villages have had to have ice cutters dredge paths for supply ships, and then use dog sleds to get it the rest of the way. Life is not fair nor its goodies even close to equally distributed.

As I was driving Asherel and her friend Josh to their volunteer work at a nearby farm, Josh asked, "Hey, if you could have anyone's brain transplanted in your head, whose would you choose?"
Now this was an interesting twist on the old question who would you be if you could be anyone on earth. With a brain transplant, you would retain all of you except your thoughts. You would still look like you, but you would think like....hmmmmm....who?

I could tell Asherel was stymied as well. We both fell silent.
"You know," I said, "I guess I really can't think of anyone I would rather think like. I guess I am pretty happy with my brain."
"Yeh...me too," said Asherel.
"I would keep my brain,"said Josh, "But make it better...super power it."

This came as a great revelation to me. When I look around at how much better everyone else on earth seems to be handling life than I do, I sometimes daydream about how everything would be so much better if only....

If only i had more money...
If only I had more patience....
If only I had more bathrooms....
If only I had more storage space....
If only my wrists didn't hurt when I tried to work on book #3....
If only someone famous would read book #1 and #2 and tell the world....
If only God answered every prayer exactly as I prayed it....
If only I knew how to be a better parent....a better wife....a better friend....
If only I had a better brain....
so many "if onlies".....

But when push comes to shove, I realized that if I had a brain transplant, where would all my thoughts go? If no one else thought like Vicky...the Vicky thread on the tapestry of life would be absent and all the threads that are held in place by the Vicky thread might unravel.

I thought of my new precious grand nephew, Gregory. If the Bible is true, and I believe it is, then that little prince of my sister's life was known by God even before He was born. His contribution to the kingdom may not be known by us as of yet, besides the unspeakable joy he brings with his advent, but it is known, has always been known by his Creator.

Isaiah 49: 1-6
Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my mother's womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor." But I said, "I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand,
and my reward is with my God." And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength— he says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth."


-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org