Let's Define 'little'

I have become keenly aware that there are certain words in the English vocabulary that need clarification. Words like: bad, good, comfortable, big, and most importantly ........ little. There are certain words that are reliant upon a comparison. For instance the word good is only significant if compared with a bad situation; i.e. This supper was good, mom. Compared to last night's disaster where you burned over half of our meal. or I am in my comfy clothes. Compared to the tweed pants I just took off that I itched all day in.

You see there are words in our vocabulary that necessitate comparison clarification. This I learned in my Lessons from Week 2. I relate the word LITTLE with kittens and puppies, sweet toddling children, miniature cookies that taste like cardboard, minuscule portions of cheesecake so as not to 'count the calories'. Now I have been reprimanded of late because I misused the word LITTLE in characterization of a great looking truck that my son was hoping to buy. 'cute little truck' is not a complement to a teen boy's dream truck, just passing on the wisdom.

My wisdom of late has come to this conclusion: The word LITTLE must be clarified with what it is in comparison.

Lesson 1: As I arrived to my training on Thursday we went on a LITTLE jog to a LITTLE hill. For me a little jog would be about 100 feet, unfortunately that is not the same comparison my trainer had in his mind. We jogged about 1/2 mile to a LITTLE grassy knoll. At first I am not intimidated by the grassy hill UNTIL he asked us to run UP it and down, without rolling! OH that wasn't all, then we bear crawled UP the LITTLE hill, then squat hopped up this small incline. Over and over we climbed, crawled and hopped up the LITTLE hill. I thought there was for sure a LITTLE heart attack waiting for me. Needless to say I was a LITTLE sore the next morning.

Lesson 2: The single most important lesson of my week came on Friday (after Thursday night's lesson). I have a dear friend that I adore ( I need to say this first lest anyone believe otherwise after reading the rest of this post). She is gifted in so many ways........vocabulary clarification is not one of them! Upon hearing of my journey with weight loss she is motivated to come beside me for encouragement - love her! She asked me did I like to hike - my response was "How long have you known me? Wildlife to me is a roly poly." She suggests that we hike AT Kennesaw Mountain. Now I have done the field trips to KM and hiked trails with children to see and study the HISTORICAL attributes of the area in which we live. I agree to meet her Friday, may I remind you of the LESSON 1 that occurred Thursday night.

I meet her at our designated spot. Her two girls join us, one in college and one in 4th grade. (the Lord has a funny sense of humor to keep me accountable to saying bad things) Where we are parked there is a LARGE incline across the street and some fabulously flat trails to our right. We begin........across the street to the LARGE incline. There was no gradual hike or sweet LITTLE trail, NO it is immediate stepping up rocks, hiking UP this hill. (Pigeon Hill for those of you who care to know) The girls are getting it, me-not so much! She tells me that this is a pretty steep climb but it isn't so BAD, another vocab clarification word - it should have been my clue! Well to make this a short book verses a novel (see vocab comparison) we do take a longer, gentler route but still have to climb over rocks, around trees and yes there was wildlife!

About half way through this escapade we look up, because all I could look at was the ground so as not to fall over a root or rock, there stands a herd of deer -- ok it was 2 but you know there were more! I FROZE - reference my idea of wildlife. Well so did they!! They were in no hurry to get away from us but I was not moving until those suckers were out of site. The girls shooed them away but I was terrified, I have seen that America's Funniest Video where the guy gets mauled by the deer in his front yard. Deer are DANGEROUS (yes another vocab comparison should be inserted but I just can't do it)

After the dangerous encounter with wildlife we do successfully make it to the top of LITTLE Kennesaw Mountain!!! HOORAY, I didn't die! However, I do want to make this clarification on the vocabulary of LITTLE at this point..............it AIN'T LITTLE. Compared to the Rockies, yes it is little, compared to Mt. McKinley, ok perhaps I can concede it is slightly smaller but LITTLE Kennesaw is not for the faint of heart - but it is worth the view.

In all seriousness however, I am so encouraged by my friendship that has seen me in my pits and passions. That God gives me opportunities to experience Him in huge, gigantic, enormous capacities through His creation. That I have laughter at those times of challenge. May today God grant you a friend to walk/hike beside you, His glory expressed in creation and belly laughter in times of challenge. Oh yeah, and vocabulary clarification for those hard words in life.

I love ya T!!

FROZEN to stone due to the DEER. (but got my coffee)