My little Cayley bug!

This past weekend was an absolute blast to say the least! I got to see the two most beautiful ladies and enjoy their laughter. Living with a man, I often forget how great it is to be around women that you love and understand. Unfortunately, in May of 2004 I went through a bit of shock when my sister, best friend, and roommate of 21years graduated from A&M, moved out of our house in College Station, and relocated to Dallas. The last 5 years have been very strange for the two of us. We have both switched our jobs a few times, got married, and moved houses. With full schedules and 4 hours between us we have missed a lot of each others' lives.

Cayley is Wendy and Greg's beautiful six month old baby girl, and let me just say that I was a little nervous going into the weekend for two reasons, both of which I explained to my sister ahead of time. Since my sister was going to be a bridesmaid in a wedding and her husband was busy coaching a high school football game, I would be in charge of Cayley for most of the weekend. My nervousness initially was because I had only been around Cayley for a limited amount of time and wasn't sure that I would know what would calm her in the event that she became upset. As the weekend approached and I started to feel more comfortable with the idea of spending time with Cayley, I started to become nervous that I might actually like spending time with her and not the other way around. Why is that a problem you might ask? Well, the fear of deciding that I might be ready for a baby was overwhelming.

Much as I had anticipated, I had a lot of fun, with absolutely nothing that I couldn't handle. I finally got to spend some quality time with my sister and the most important person in her life right now, which obviously meant the world to me.

When I got home from my trip, Chris and I were looking at the pictures from the weekend and he asked me, "So does that make you want to have kids yet or did it not?" I sort of chuckled to myself, and replied, "No." He was confused, and as he should be, what was I saying no to? I explained that I left with a pretty neutral feeling, nothing really changed inside of me. I loved spending time with Cayley and if I could guarantee that my child was as happy and easy going as Cayley, I might consider starting our family right now. However, spending the weekend "filling in for mom", toting her around, spending the night with her, experiencing her schedule and the high demand needs of a six month old also gave me a sense of reality. For good or bad, it was a great experience and really gave me a good feel for what life will be like someday as a mom.

I cannot wait until Thanksgiving to see my little Cayley bug again!

Check out the pictures from this weekend to the right!

Church and State

I read a disturbing story this morning about a young girl that ran away from home for fear of her life. The part that disturbed me was that she was scared that her own father was going to kill her because she had converted to Christianity.

The teen was threatened by her father after converting from Islam to Christianity this past summer. After fleeing from her home in Ohio in July, her parents requested that their daughter be forced to leave Florida and return to Ohio. Their wish was granted by a Florida judge this Tuesday.

While I have seen far worse than this occur over far less regarding religion, the thought of killing your own daughter sort of seems more disturbing than anything else. This family came to America for who knows what reason, but I would assume a better way of life, and yet the sheer thought of a child turning her life towards a different religion was enough to set this father off in a rage big enough to end his own daughter's life.

I do not claim to understand Islam, and I have no desire to start a heated debate about the "rights" and "wrongs" involved within each religion, however, I have a hard time believing that "Allah" would justly accept killing your own daughter over her religious freedom.

Many actually think that the mere thought, versus the action itself, is enough to be considered a sinner in most religions. With that being said, if this girl felt threatened enough by her own father to seek refuge with total strangers then I believe that this involved more than just a mere thought.

My thoughts surrounding this case are far beyond the religious aspect. Our society has tried to separate church and government so much so that we cannot prosecute a father, possibly due to his religious affiliation or because he is foreign, and instead we force a threatened daughter to return home and face a very dangerous situation that we cannot possibly understand.

What has our government come to? Let's turn the tables and say that this happened to a Christian converting to Islam in the Middle East. Would the teen be forced to return home to her Christian family? Would the government prosecute the Christian father for threatening the Islamic daughter? That is such a heated topic and loaded question. I will let you ponder and leave you with this:

Many push for the separation of church and state to protect the church from the corrupt state, while others think church should not be forced upon the citizens of the state and therefore must be separate. Perhaps both sides are wrong. Church needs to be governed by the state to protect against corruption and state needs to be governed by the church to protect the citizens.