I am absolutely terrified of mice. It is beyond irrational. For the first time in over 26 years of marriage, we had a mouse in our house. I literally went to pieces. My initial scream of stark terror was followed by hours of sobbing. You'd have thought my life was over. I wish I was exaggerating. A known terrorist breaking into our house would have invoked less fear. At least I can envision myself taking on the terrorist...my hair is standing on end just thinking of catching a glimpse of that mouse again. It's a sad reality that a mouse could scare me more than a terrorist with a machine gun.

As flight attendants we are required to attend recurrent training every year. Since 9/11 we have had additional training on ways we could stop a terrorist attack. Situational awareness is key, and we are reminded of the various "weapons" we have at our disposal...scalding coffee to throw in their faces, oxygen bottles to bash their heads in with, fire extinguishers to squirt in their eyes, and various other objects you wouldn't ordinarily think of as weapons. We watch self-defense videos and even practice on a rubber dummy--punching his face, kicking his privates and poking his eyes out. I get all tensed up picturing and practicing all the ways I would hurt him. I feel empowered, really believing that a terrorist would rue the day he ever thought about blowing up my airplane. We are shown a video re-enactment of a foiled terrorist attack on an Israeli airline. At the end of the video, the Israeli flight attendants that were solely responsible for thwarting the attack are interviewed. They tell of running their carts down the aisle and blasting into him. As an aside, that's one thing I can't picture doing. Their airplanes must have much wider aisles than ours because I can't keep from bashing into every armrest, not to mention the unfortunate shoulders, knees and elbows that I clip on my way up the aisle. These Israeli flight attendants know they are in a life or death situation. The last lines of their testimony are (in heavily accented English), "after we subdued him...we took him out." Took. Him. Out. They killed him! Can you even imagine? No getting "lawyer-ed up" for a long drawn out trial, no referring to him as the alleged terrorist. Nope, instant justice. What's up with this alleged business anyway? Dozens of eye witnesses watch a guy shoot and kill people and he's only the alleged shooter? A guy ignites an explosive device in his underpants and he's only an alleged terrorist? Puh-leeze!

Anyway, back to the appallingly speedy little creature that turned my beloved home into a house of horrors. Are mice even capable of doing anything but darting around with lightning speed? Bob went into serious hunt and kill mode (he who doesn't even like killing flies). He chased that mouse into the wee hours of the night without success. He went online and researched their habits and all the different ways he could "take them out." He was at Home Depot as soon as their doors opened and purchased close to a hundred dollars worth of traps. Mercifully, the next night his mission was accomplished and we haven't seen or caught any since. The happy result of all this drama is that I've never felt more like a damsel in distress rescued by her knight in shining armor nor have I ever loved Bob more.

I recently reconnected with some old college friends. What a gift! I was reminded of why I loved them so much then and dearly wish I could see more of them now. Reminiscing is priceless, and I was surprised at how many memories we were able to retrieve from the "corners of our minds."

Robin, my old roommate, was almost as tall as me but weighed about half as much. My mom knew Robin made me feel like a moose and gave me the old, "you're just bigger boned than she is." I never bought into the big-boned, small-boned rationale. Seriously? The reason my thighs are twice the circumference of hers is because my thigh bone is that much bigger than hers? Hmmm.....anytime I've seen horrifying pictures of piled up skeletons or starving people that were practically skeletons, I've always thought they looked relatively the same size. So there goes that little theory.

Robin always had snacks in our room. Since I was forever trying to lose a few, I never bought snacks, but it didn't keep me from sneakily munching on hers. One day I came into our room and found Robin peering into what she thought was a toy surprise from her cereal box, possibly a little magnifying glass. She had accused me earlier of eating some of her "Donkey Kong" cereal, which I had flatly denied. When I walked in and saw her with her "toy" I was thrilled that she had somehow managed to find the missing glass piece from my watch. Busted. Not only had I been sneaking some of her cereal but I had pawed through it so much that the face of my watch had come off in the box. How gross, how mortifying. Surprisingly, I remember that Robin seemed more hurt than mad, or maybe it was just pure pity. As I've gotten older I've realized just how hurtful lying is. No wonder it's one of the ten commandments and on God's list of seven most detestable sins. Honesty is one of the most important building blocks of any great relationship.

Fortunately, God provided us with the greatest gift ever given: forgiveness. Robin forgave me (though she probably never trusted me around her food again).

Of course, no gift can surpass the sacrifice of God's only Son to redeem us, but I sometimes forget what a precious gift it is to be able to forgive each other. There are things that I've done, and things that have been done to me that I thought were unforgivable,  and yet, with God's help there has been forgiveness and healing. I am always inspired with stories of people that have (by God's grace) forgiven the seemingly unforgivable...like Corrie Ten Boom's forgiveness of that monstrous Nazi guard from the concentration camp. I love verses that talk about removing our sins "as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103), and that remind us to "forget what is behind and strive toward what is ahead." (Phil. 3)

I love how C.S. Lewis put it, "to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

I was thinking today how incredibly self-absorbed I am...how self-absorbed most of us are. Who can deny clicking impatiently through pictures to find the ones we're in? Whenever I see pictures of myself, I scrutinize them closely and then decide they're just not good pictures of me. My dad used to ask me what I thought I looked like. Good question.

Now with the advent of facebook, twittering and blogging there's more of a "Me, Me, Me!" mentality than ever. My friend commented that Facebook finally gave some people a legitimate platform to brag about themselves. We haven't changed; we're still like little children, wanting our tiniest accomplishments duly noted..."watch me, watch me Mama".

Something happened to my sister that highlighted the absurdity of posting every moment's activity on facebook (as if anyone cares). She had left her iphone in a public restroom. Fortunately the wiseacre that found it didn't steal it, but did take the audacious liberty to update her facebook status to "I am pooping." Thankfully, Kristie must have received a few "TMI" or "Ewwww" comments to alert her to the fact that something was up and she was able to delete it before too many people saw it.

Perhaps most insidious of all is self-absorption disguised as self-improvement. Being encouraged to think it's in our power to make our lives perfect, to be anything we want to be, to believe that we deserve an easy, happy life.

We don't deserve anything and yet millions of books are sold telling us that we do--that if only we believe in ourselves we will feel worthy and be happy. I know for a fact that my unhappiest days are those when I'm focusing too much on myself and what I want.

I am so susceptible to forever trying to improve my outward appearance at the expense of neglecting my soul. God offers to satisfy my soul with "love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control" (Gal. 5:22).

Nothing of worth is obtained without self-discipline and an undisciplined life is never satisfying. The Bible tells me that the focus of my life should be on God and His perfect plan for me and that I should consider others above myself (Phil. 2:3). Exactly the opposite of what the world peddles.

With the arrival of a New Year it's difficult to avoid all the clamoring for self-improvement and self-gratification but I'm hoping to make strides in being a little less self-absorbed and a little more God-absorbed. I know it's not going to be easy but I was inspired recently by an interview I saw with Billy Graham. He was asked if he had any regrets. He said his only regrets were that he hadn't prayed and meditated more; that he hadn't spent more time just adoring his Savior.

Think about it... Billy Graham's(!) only regrets were that he didn't live a more God-focused life.