Ashley's Week - G'nore Me!

It is almost impossible to believe that my little girl, Ashley, is now 23 years old. It's even more impossible to believe that my little Ashley is getting married this Saturday to a great guy, Donald Binkley. Donald is a very lucky man! But, Ashley did good too!

The years have passed by quickly and my sticky, sweaty, fly by the seat of her pants Ashley has grown into a beautiful young lady. Oh, she still is a "trickster" and can dish it out as well as she can take it, but she is a wonderful person. I'd say that even if I weren't her dad!

There are so many stories to tell about Ashley and I plan to share them between now and Saturday. The first comes from my book, GRACERUNNER - FAITH ON THE RUN. Here you go:

G’NORE ME

It’s hard to believe that my daughters, Morgan and Ashley, are now in their 20’s! It seems like yesterday that they were running around as little girls looking for ways to stay busy. Now, they are two wonderful, talented, beautiful young ladies with bright futures ahead. However, one thing has not changed. In my mind, they are still Daddy’s little girls.

When Morgan was about 5 and Ashley was 3, they had a very unusual relationship. Ashley tended to want to make sure that Morgan always knew that she was there! No matter the time or place, Ashley was doing something that would just about send Morgan over the edge. The words would always come from Morgan, “DAD! Ashley is bothering me!” My response remained the same through the dozens of time that I heard this phrase. I would tell Morgan, “Ignore Ashley. You know how she is.”

This ritual continued for quite some time and finally, one day while we were traveling and the girls were buckled in their car seats, Morgan uttered her famous phrase, “DAD! Ashley is bothering me!” Before I could get the words out of my mouth, I heard Ashley proclaim, “Well, G’NORE me! You know how I am!” This story lives on in infamy in our family. It’s truly one of the funniest things that I’ve ever heard a kid say.

“G’nore me! You know how I am!” Have you ever said that to God? I think we go about our days and forget about God. When we do something that we know we shouldn’t or we don’t do something that we know we should, I think we probably go into “G’NORE ME” mode. We want God to be there when we want Him. Yet, we really don’t want Him there all the time. We don’t want Him to control our lives. Instead, quite frankly, we ignore Him. What we want is to control how God intervenes in our lives. We don’t want God to be involved in our day-to-day activities. We just want him to be there when we need Him. “G’nore me! You know how I am!”

It just doesn’t work that way. We can’t have it both ways. We need God to be involved in ALL things in our lives. Turning over our lives in total surrender is what God desires – but He gives you that choice. What is your choice? “G’nore me!” or “Change me!”

I LOVE YOU, ASH!

Under HIS Grace...

Chris