Flamingos and Penguins

Christmas day 2005 is coming to a close and January of 2006 is coming up with a fervor none of us can quell.

And I? I have found myself sleeping, once again, in the bed that was given to me after I earned the right to move out of the crib. I am sitting atop the twin bed with a cat curled at my feet. Mismatching blankets are half-hazardly thrown about so that my bare feet can seek them out if necessary and my pillows are mostly squished between the little bed and the wall.

The white and pink antiqued bed once wore a white ruffled bedspread and sat in a room with pink carpet, pink walls, and matching curtains. It's whites and pinks have since been worn off in places. The headboard has fingernail polish and a pink X on it. As a child (a little blonde girl, who wore dresses and tights as often as I could) I tried to repair some of the cracking in the paint with white nail polish (it didn't work). Many years later the pink X came home as a black mark on my hand to show that I was under 21 and could not drink while watching The Urge, MU330, 311 and many other bands in cramped bars.

The stories this bedroom set could tell...

As I sit here I wonder what kind of advice these pieces would give me if they could. They have known me. They have survived my wear and tear, seen me cry, held my things, and heard my prayers. Would I be different if they could have spoken up and said something all these years? Should I have been someone different?

And as I sit here- I think they would say, "Charity, flamingos can't be penguins. Nor can penguins be flamingos. Nor would they want to be."

And I laugh. And smile. And even tear up a bit because the next thing that comes to mind is "a foot can not be a hand" and I get up and go to a book shelf. I eventually find it.

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
-1 Corinthians 12:14-18

As I go to sleep in this old and tiny twin bed with the cat still at my feet I know - flamingo or penguin/hand or foot - He designed me just as He wanted me to be.