The number one dilemma facing our family tomorrow is this: do we wake the children at 5:30 in the morning to get in the voting line early, or force them to stand in line for hours some other time throughout the day?

We used to vote early in Colorado for everything – just ask for an absentee ballot and presto, done. Since moving to Missouri, everything has been harder to do: getting vehicles approved, getting house okayed, changing address on driver’s license (oops, still need to do that!), registering to vote.

We’re lucky to even be able to vote. I thought I sent in the forms to change our address a few months ago, but we never got the cards in the mail indicating we were good to go. One week before the deadline, I sent them in again. This time it worked, but not in time to send off for absentee ballots.

I don’t really mind taking the girls. They are pretty fascinated with the whole thing and I know they want to see the election process in action. Still, if I wake them up at 5:30, I’ll be paying for it the whole rest of the day. But, if I wait until they wake up we’ll all be paying for it in the form of really long voting lines.

I’ll never forget the night we watched the poll returns in the Bush/Gore election of 2000. We had another family over to watch with us and finally realized sometime late that we weren’t going to find anything out anytime soon. The other family went home and we went to bed. Part of me wants to cast my vote in the morning and then head somewhere with no Internet access or television for the next week or so. Craig reminds me I can just leave the screens off. I’m not sure I can. It’s easy not to look when you can’t; when the wreck is right there on the side of the road, you absolutely have to take a peek even if you convince yourself you aren’t interested in seeing it.

Anyway, here’s to tomorrow and the hope for something different. Not sure what, but something. Regardless, thanks, God, for being in control.

A King A Kingdom by Derek Webb

who’s your brother, who’s your sister

you just walked passed him

i think you missed her

as we’re all migrating to the place where our father lives

’cause we married in to a family of immigrants

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man

my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood

it’s to a king and a kingdom

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:

“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”

and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican

and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

but nothing unifies like a common enemy

and we’ve got one, sure as hell

but he may be living in your house

he may be raising up your kids

he may be sleeping with your wife

oh no, he may not look like you think