Today is one of my dearest friend's birthdays. And it just got me to thinking about how life is just so much sweeter with friends. Not just see ya at the ball fields friends or the see you on Sunday morning friends or the thanks for the Christmas card friends. But the kind of friends who not only see you at the ball fields, but show up with snacks for the team when it was your turn to bring them and you forgot and guess who you can call still on their way to grab snacks for 10 little stinky and sweaty 9 year olds. Or that friend who calls you to see where you've been when you haven't made it to church for 4 weeks in a row and well, she was counting and not to judge, but only noticed because she really cares about what is keeping you from church these days. And how can she help you get back? Or the friend whose Christmas card comes in the mail...or not at all...and you still know everything about their last year even though you didn't get the Christmas card letter update. There are friends. And then there are friends.
You know, motherhood is one of those things in life that is just much better with friends. Those kind of friends who you call last minute and they notice when you are gone and they know every little and big event from your last 365 days. And even better, they still LIKE you. In a lonely world and a do-it-all by yourself culture, motherhood is one area I would suggest having some real friends.
If you pray for anything for yourself during the motherhood years, pray for a real friend or two. Because we all need a friend who knows our good days and our bad days. We all need a friend who we can call when we're excited about life and when we are drowning in life. We needs friends who go to bat for us and cheer us on. We need friends who do the inconvenient for us and hold the flash-light for us when we just can't see through the fog...or the dark. We need friends who laugh at our bad jokes and tell you when to laugh something off, it's not such a big deal after all. We need friends who tell us what we really look like in skinny jeans and when we've cut our hair way too short. And please don't ever wear that shirt again if you don't want to look like your mother. We need friends who you call up last minute for dinner plans in the back-yard of nothing more then hot-dogs over a fire and marshmallows for the sides. And friends who drive miles to get the one thing you need and can't ask anyone else for. We need friends who give us God's word for a breath of fresh air and His grace when we've screwed up. In motherhood, every single one of us needs a friend.
So today I smile in my heart for the friends I have been so very blessed with. The real, gut wrenching truth filled, Jesus loving, and grace giving friends. Motherhood could very well swallow me whole some days... and it's nice to know that I've got a gal or two just a phone call away, ready to throw me back out for some more because they believe in me...sometimes when I don't believe in myself. Today I am thankful for friendship and motherhood and the real part of relationships that makes this life journey such an adventure. And every time one of my friends celebrates another year, I am right behind them cheering the loudest. Fearfully and wonderfully made they are. Humbly and blissfully I know it. Happy Birthday, friend :)
Monday, September 30, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
here I am
I wasn't sure how to write this post. Or if I should. Or when I should. But now is as good a time as ever and I told myself this blog would be a honest place where I could just be me. So here I am.
Life with four kids has been everything and nothing I thought it would be. If that is possible? But I find myself marveling at what God has placed in our care for now and also wondering some days how in the world He trusts us with these 4 little people. I mean, there is major potential to screw them up! Some days are easier than others, but mostly I am trying to keep my purpose at the forefront of my days and living from that place. It puts most things in a much better perspective when I do!
Adding that fourth bundle of joy brought many things and with her addition brought the fruit basket upset of how we've done life here the last couple years. And it should. Roles would change, people would change, sleeping would change, routines would change, and so on. If there is anything you can count on with a new human coming to your home, it is the act of change being consistent! So with change in the air around here we are just trying to breeze through just where we should all land when this transition is said and done. Just in time for the next change probably!
Most know that for the last 9 years I have done child-care out of my home in some way, shape, or form. With the recent family changes, this just came to a place where it was very hard to juggle both child-care and the speed at which our 4 kids needed something from me. We knew something would have to give and for a short time, my rock-star husband picked up a side job of driving taxi to pay the bills around here while I finished out my pregnancy, had a baby, and helped said family of six transition to new life. Whew. It got a little crazy for awhile :) But we are still standing! I hated sending my already tired husband out though on Saturday nights when he had already worked a very full time job for the week and trying to help him recover from a night of no sleep for days after was not fun. I knew this could not go on forever. But money needed to be made up some where else then...
Here is where my new journey starts. Shortly after Carson was born, a friend of mine handed me a Spark. I was sleep-deprived, exhausted in every way, and living in a fog. What Spark did for me was awesome. I was drinking at least a pot of coffee a day at that time and by the end of the day my gut felt so heavy and ick. I knew it was too much caffeine and I didn't have energy or the sustained mental focus that I deeply craved to function well at home. I can honestly say Spark was great. I even shared it with some other mom-friends and thought how did I not know about this until my third kid!?!? So I enjoyed Spark for a year or so and then decided to look into their vitamins. "Their" is Advocare and I didn't know much about them at the time, other then they produced and sold me my favorite mommy drink!
As I browsed the Advocare website looking at what else they had to offer for products, I stumbled upon their different ways to get a discount. I liked Spark. I wanted to try their vitamins. I was interested in their body cleanse. I wanted a discount. And I wanted to make a few hundred dollars a month to get my husband out of the weekend taxi driving gig. So I called up my Spark giving friend.
My Spark giving friend met me at a park, our kids played, and she explained how Advocare helps people feel better in the health and wellness area. I was very interested in knowing more about the 24 Day Challenge Advocare offered and I was curious how to get my best discount. She filled me in and I came home and shared with Dave that night just what Advocare could possibly do for us... better health, better discount, possible pay check.
I sat on what I learned for a couple days. I wasn't sure I could "sell" stuff. Actually, I knew I couldn't. I am a horrible sales person and hate the business side of that. But I love helping people. And what I learned in the last year and a half was that having a body that felt good could not happen if you didn't have a heart that felt good. And I started to wonder if God was leading me towards a way to help both others through a way of caring not only for their bodies better, but feeding their hearts in a way that would let them really live a full life. Years ago I took a strengths test and Belief was my number one strength. I took the same test a few years ago and it was my number one strength again. To this day, I can not stay with a project or a ministry or job or a purpose in life if it doesn't line up with my beliefs. I get bored, uninterested, and fizzle out very quickly. I know this about myself. So if I decided to step into Advocare, would I be able to do it in a way that was both healing for people's bodies and for their souls? Could I be in the Advocare world in a way that would let me flow from my place of belief? There is a lot of hurting people when it comes to their view of themselves, how they care for themselves, and the way they let their hearts lead them away from His love and grace instead of closer. After spending a chunk of time trying to help my body be healthy for the purpose of better living, I learned that what my heart was doing during that time frame was just as important. And perhaps He is calling me to pay that forward now. To share with others, through Advocare, that healing can happen well when done for both health and heart.
I make no claims to know much about all this, other then through personal experience and His leading. I typically step back when big changes come and when new things get hard, I often like to step away and try to make things go back to "normal". But I have learned to embrace change. I'm practicing it daily. And I think where He has called me, I just need to stand up and say "Here I am". Use me.
Life with four kids has been everything and nothing I thought it would be. If that is possible? But I find myself marveling at what God has placed in our care for now and also wondering some days how in the world He trusts us with these 4 little people. I mean, there is major potential to screw them up! Some days are easier than others, but mostly I am trying to keep my purpose at the forefront of my days and living from that place. It puts most things in a much better perspective when I do!
Adding that fourth bundle of joy brought many things and with her addition brought the fruit basket upset of how we've done life here the last couple years. And it should. Roles would change, people would change, sleeping would change, routines would change, and so on. If there is anything you can count on with a new human coming to your home, it is the act of change being consistent! So with change in the air around here we are just trying to breeze through just where we should all land when this transition is said and done. Just in time for the next change probably!
Most know that for the last 9 years I have done child-care out of my home in some way, shape, or form. With the recent family changes, this just came to a place where it was very hard to juggle both child-care and the speed at which our 4 kids needed something from me. We knew something would have to give and for a short time, my rock-star husband picked up a side job of driving taxi to pay the bills around here while I finished out my pregnancy, had a baby, and helped said family of six transition to new life. Whew. It got a little crazy for awhile :) But we are still standing! I hated sending my already tired husband out though on Saturday nights when he had already worked a very full time job for the week and trying to help him recover from a night of no sleep for days after was not fun. I knew this could not go on forever. But money needed to be made up some where else then...
Here is where my new journey starts. Shortly after Carson was born, a friend of mine handed me a Spark. I was sleep-deprived, exhausted in every way, and living in a fog. What Spark did for me was awesome. I was drinking at least a pot of coffee a day at that time and by the end of the day my gut felt so heavy and ick. I knew it was too much caffeine and I didn't have energy or the sustained mental focus that I deeply craved to function well at home. I can honestly say Spark was great. I even shared it with some other mom-friends and thought how did I not know about this until my third kid!?!? So I enjoyed Spark for a year or so and then decided to look into their vitamins. "Their" is Advocare and I didn't know much about them at the time, other then they produced and sold me my favorite mommy drink!
As I browsed the Advocare website looking at what else they had to offer for products, I stumbled upon their different ways to get a discount. I liked Spark. I wanted to try their vitamins. I was interested in their body cleanse. I wanted a discount. And I wanted to make a few hundred dollars a month to get my husband out of the weekend taxi driving gig. So I called up my Spark giving friend.
My Spark giving friend met me at a park, our kids played, and she explained how Advocare helps people feel better in the health and wellness area. I was very interested in knowing more about the 24 Day Challenge Advocare offered and I was curious how to get my best discount. She filled me in and I came home and shared with Dave that night just what Advocare could possibly do for us... better health, better discount, possible pay check.
I sat on what I learned for a couple days. I wasn't sure I could "sell" stuff. Actually, I knew I couldn't. I am a horrible sales person and hate the business side of that. But I love helping people. And what I learned in the last year and a half was that having a body that felt good could not happen if you didn't have a heart that felt good. And I started to wonder if God was leading me towards a way to help both others through a way of caring not only for their bodies better, but feeding their hearts in a way that would let them really live a full life. Years ago I took a strengths test and Belief was my number one strength. I took the same test a few years ago and it was my number one strength again. To this day, I can not stay with a project or a ministry or job or a purpose in life if it doesn't line up with my beliefs. I get bored, uninterested, and fizzle out very quickly. I know this about myself. So if I decided to step into Advocare, would I be able to do it in a way that was both healing for people's bodies and for their souls? Could I be in the Advocare world in a way that would let me flow from my place of belief? There is a lot of hurting people when it comes to their view of themselves, how they care for themselves, and the way they let their hearts lead them away from His love and grace instead of closer. After spending a chunk of time trying to help my body be healthy for the purpose of better living, I learned that what my heart was doing during that time frame was just as important. And perhaps He is calling me to pay that forward now. To share with others, through Advocare, that healing can happen well when done for both health and heart.
I make no claims to know much about all this, other then through personal experience and His leading. I typically step back when big changes come and when new things get hard, I often like to step away and try to make things go back to "normal". But I have learned to embrace change. I'm practicing it daily. And I think where He has called me, I just need to stand up and say "Here I am". Use me.
Friday, August 23, 2013
table service
When I found out we were having another baby last summer one of my first thoughts were...we will need a new table. Now, that may seem weird to some, but to others it makes sense. You see, we would be bumping our family alone up to six and that is what fit around our then current dining room table. The place we dwelled for most meals morning, noon, and night and the place we called home when it was time for a variety of other things too. 6 chairs. 6 of us. One would think that is perfect. Not me. It's not enough.
So when baby #4 arrived my thoughts had already well entertained just how to fit a bigger table into our home. Because not only did the six of us need a place to gather and share food and thoughts and fun...but as always, my table needed space for the friends and family that we so often love to gather with us. The little friends and the big friends and the grandmas and grandpas and neighbors and cousins and aunts and uncles and anyone else who may show up or need a meal with a family of six. I grew up knowing that food was always plenty for whoever happened to stop by and there was always room for "just one more". And I plan to keep the tradition of "table service" in my home too. I am thrilled to have a table with more then 6 seating standing in the biggest room of our home today... the biggest room used to put people across from each other instead of away from each other and used to mute out the screens of all kinds and see the real faces of real people. What a celebration to bring in new. But what is a celebration of a new table without a farewell to the old...
So here it is...
Dear New Table Family,
I am surprised at the emotions I had when it came time to say goodbye to that old table of ours. I guess I probably shouldn't have been, as that new table of yours has many memories carved into it...some literally. I hope it will bring you as much joy as it did us for so many years.
It's a good one, I tell ya. It knows how to gather the loud ones and bring them to a quiet level where yummy things can nurture their bodies and gentle ones can nurture their souls. That table and those chairs can remind us that we are connected and what we share across that table is nothing compared to what we share around it.
It is a place that can handle daily do-overs. It makes a great spot for breaking the ice or letting the elephant in the room or whichever hard topic is on the tip of your tongue that day. That table has had many do-overs happen at it and it knows a do-over is sometimes all the grace a person needs to try again and succeed this time.
Lots of milk will get spilled on it I'm sure... but remember, it's just milk and whoever cried about spilled milk? No need to when gathered around that table...it knows all too well that spilled milk just means able bodies are learning new things and we all need to spill a bit in life before we figure it out.
You'll probably put a burnt something or other on it some night, but don't worry....that table knows that too. Knows that when you come to it feeling burnt out at the end of the day, to just look across the table. There sits your best friend. And they know that burnt out moment doesn't define who you are. We all need a place to land at the end of our days and those chairs can hold a lot. So just bring it to the table and hand it over...all the crusty hard edges that only He can clean up.
And don't forget the sweet things. Christmas cookies and pie crusts and birthday cakes and You are Special plates and corn freezing...celebrate it all. Around that table. It loves a good celebration...whether you are blessing a little one or baking for the neighbors or eating a harvest full of garden. Be thankful for all the sweet things, but mostly the sweet ones placed around your table.
Now that table does come with a few scratches. But those scratches are scars of what has happened before you. And every scar has a story that at one time was a deep wound. But wounds heal and that table will still work just the same it did from day one. Sometimes better because sometimes we know how to live better after a few wounds. So let wounds be wounds and be willing to let the scars left behind remind you He is not done with us yet.
The nice thing about that table is it cleans up well. So get messy. Let the kids get messy. Let that table get messy. Because each day is a new morning to come back...a clean start. Gather your people messy and all and let that place be a new beginning...as many times as you need it.
I couldn't be happier with the new family that old table found. I know it will be well loved, well used, well gathered around... See deeply into all those that gather around your new table. And remember grace is a way to live, not just what you say every time you sit down there.
Enjoy! I pray that table serves you for years to come...
So when baby #4 arrived my thoughts had already well entertained just how to fit a bigger table into our home. Because not only did the six of us need a place to gather and share food and thoughts and fun...but as always, my table needed space for the friends and family that we so often love to gather with us. The little friends and the big friends and the grandmas and grandpas and neighbors and cousins and aunts and uncles and anyone else who may show up or need a meal with a family of six. I grew up knowing that food was always plenty for whoever happened to stop by and there was always room for "just one more". And I plan to keep the tradition of "table service" in my home too. I am thrilled to have a table with more then 6 seating standing in the biggest room of our home today... the biggest room used to put people across from each other instead of away from each other and used to mute out the screens of all kinds and see the real faces of real people. What a celebration to bring in new. But what is a celebration of a new table without a farewell to the old...
So here it is...
Dear New Table Family,
I am surprised at the emotions I had when it came time to say goodbye to that old table of ours. I guess I probably shouldn't have been, as that new table of yours has many memories carved into it...some literally. I hope it will bring you as much joy as it did us for so many years.
It's a good one, I tell ya. It knows how to gather the loud ones and bring them to a quiet level where yummy things can nurture their bodies and gentle ones can nurture their souls. That table and those chairs can remind us that we are connected and what we share across that table is nothing compared to what we share around it.
It is a place that can handle daily do-overs. It makes a great spot for breaking the ice or letting the elephant in the room or whichever hard topic is on the tip of your tongue that day. That table has had many do-overs happen at it and it knows a do-over is sometimes all the grace a person needs to try again and succeed this time.
Lots of milk will get spilled on it I'm sure... but remember, it's just milk and whoever cried about spilled milk? No need to when gathered around that table...it knows all too well that spilled milk just means able bodies are learning new things and we all need to spill a bit in life before we figure it out.
You'll probably put a burnt something or other on it some night, but don't worry....that table knows that too. Knows that when you come to it feeling burnt out at the end of the day, to just look across the table. There sits your best friend. And they know that burnt out moment doesn't define who you are. We all need a place to land at the end of our days and those chairs can hold a lot. So just bring it to the table and hand it over...all the crusty hard edges that only He can clean up.
And don't forget the sweet things. Christmas cookies and pie crusts and birthday cakes and You are Special plates and corn freezing...celebrate it all. Around that table. It loves a good celebration...whether you are blessing a little one or baking for the neighbors or eating a harvest full of garden. Be thankful for all the sweet things, but mostly the sweet ones placed around your table.
Now that table does come with a few scratches. But those scratches are scars of what has happened before you. And every scar has a story that at one time was a deep wound. But wounds heal and that table will still work just the same it did from day one. Sometimes better because sometimes we know how to live better after a few wounds. So let wounds be wounds and be willing to let the scars left behind remind you He is not done with us yet.
The nice thing about that table is it cleans up well. So get messy. Let the kids get messy. Let that table get messy. Because each day is a new morning to come back...a clean start. Gather your people messy and all and let that place be a new beginning...as many times as you need it.
I couldn't be happier with the new family that old table found. I know it will be well loved, well used, well gathered around... See deeply into all those that gather around your new table. And remember grace is a way to live, not just what you say every time you sit down there.
Enjoy! I pray that table serves you for years to come...
Monday, July 15, 2013
for this time...and the next
How does a gal put onto page just how a heart transforms during seasonal changes? I have been sitting on this post and these verses for many weeks now and I can't quite seem to gather all my heart is hearing from this view. When winter winds begin to blow warm and the blooming from recent rains have made a new something emerge beautifully from the rich ground? When time keeps changing and the scenery around us never stays one way or another for too long? So many seasons in this life, yet not one defines me more then another...or maybe one does?
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
There is truth in the seasons. Truth that tells a story to our heart of grace...and love...and joy. And sometimes pain. Truth speaks louder then anything. But sometimes we are too noisy to hear it. But over and over, I sense this need to keep giving and keep taking. Give outwardly and give to myself...time and patience and love and grace. And to take in the same way...from others...from myself.
The give and take way of life leads me through so many seasons of birth, death, healing, war, the dancing and the mourning...the keeping and the saying goodbye. And in each season I somehow want to keep my arms open to accept that moment's bread of life. When it feels beautiful to hold my new baby in my arms or open that unanimous check that came to us in the mail or hear a friend's voice on the other side when you've had a hard day. A really hard day. And also when it feels terrible...when you watch your friend's say goodbye to baby boys and your neighbor loses her mate of 50 some years and you don't know how to reach out to your child or you find yourself in a hole of sadness that you just can't climb out of or you watch life leave your body before it ever laid in your arms. Take it...eat it...let each piece feed your soul.
My days are filled with all of these things. They blend together and each new morning is another gift to give and take away. In all the times He presents us with I know his truth is on the surface and my eyes are fixed on Him... the ultimate giver and taker of all things. Blessed is He. Blessed are those that let Him feed their soul... this time and the next.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
to fully celebrate, I must first give thanks
Mother's Day is around the corner and this year I can't help but feel gracefully humbled to celebrate such a day. Not just because I have wonderful mother's all around me, whom I celebrate in my heart a little bit every day of the year...but because I am given the chance to carry such a title of my own. And at this moment I want to give thanks to two people... the One who wove this crazy life together for me and the man who have made me what I am today. For it all has started here and they see me in my most beautiful moments as a mom and at my darkest and ugliest moments in the very same role. And they choose to still love me.
In the days of nursing babies and mopping floors and washing the 6th load of laundry...of the day, and reading stories and pushing swings and airing up bikes and traveling to and from with a van full of kids and making meals and cleaning up meals and doing homework and teaching numbers and memorizing verses and baking cookies and sending cards to grandmas and pulling weeds and wiping tears and controlling...well, chaos...in all of this are two people whom met in an old church van and fell in love on the streets of Chicago in the middle of a college mission trip and decided early on to make a go at this relationship thing. They made plans for what is now today and it seems those plans have in many ways happened and in many ways been pushed to the side for new plans to be walked into.
But early on in that budding relationship between me and the man I get to call husband, I knew being a mother was a part of it. And he knew it too. And so here we are...that boy who started loving me on dark Chicago streets while we reached out to the homeless together and made me into a mother just a few years later. It's been everything and more and also nothing I knew it could be. I know I am not the same person I was for my best supporting role husband and these days it is easy to forget where we started or which way we are even going. But too often I lay my head down at night with a swelling heart of thankfulness to him for helping make me who I am today, too tired to climb back out and tell him, thank you for this place in our journey together...mother to this over-flowing house full of kids...good and bad days...messy and beautiful...exhausting and fulfilling all in the same breath.
I know we are trudging through the swampy little years with too many bills and not enough money and too many needs and not enough time and long days and short nights and a routine that feels a little boring for my spontaneous husband, yet so rewarding at the end of the day anyways. And in these muddy waters much goes unsaid...
... words like...
I love you. Thanks for taking out the garbage. Thanks for working your job that stresses your mind and wears out your body and never is quite done at the end of the work day. You are a great dad. No, make that a super awesome dad. Thanks for reading to our boys. I love when you pray with our family. You're looking good in those old blue jeans and white t-shirt by the way. I'm sure glad you are funny. We need that around here. Thanks for knowing when I need a minute to myself. Thanks for hugging our kids. Thanks for sitting through church with kids who barely listen, but need to see their dad worship and bow his head to pray and listen to His truth. Thanks for being a good friend. The kind that goes back to help a pal because its the right thing to do. Thanks for honoring your parents. I love watching you run super fast and impress our boys, even at 35. Thanks for taking care of us...all of us, financially...1 wife, 4 kids, 2 dogs, and 5 hens. Yup, we're a lot. I know we.are.a lot....and growing. Thanks for building tree forts and basketball courts and riding bikes and going to games and playing catch and cheering from the sides and playing peek-a-boo. Yes, you grown adult man...thank you for holding our babies. And sometimes just holding me too when it gets to be too much for me to stand alone. Thanks for fixing things around our home and washing the dishes. I know you are tired, but thanks for staying here...with us and this crazy life and being the Dad so I can be the Mom. I love being the mom to your kids. And I love that you love Jesus and have this crazy strong inner strength to do the right thing in so many places in your life. And thanks for forgiving me and moving forward when I mess up, even when I mess up real bad. You are my best friend and even though I feel like this wild life of ours right now doesn't allow much time for us to spend time together or chat together or laugh and cry together the way best friends do, I am so glad it's you who comes in and kisses me goodnight at the end of our days. You plan the best family vacations and pull off the best surprises for me and I know it's how you tell us "I love you". Thank you for being that for me. So many things each week as we flip the calendar and keep moving forward I find myself counting the blessing you are to me...the grace you pour my way. And I should tell you more...lots more...thank you. I love you and thanks for making me a mama. It fills my heart in ways I can not explain.
Happy Mother's Day to me, only thanks to you...and Him. The one we keep thanking together for this crazy life of kids and parenting and fatherhood and motherhood. I wouldn't be here without either of you in the way I am today and this Mother's Day I am celebrating being here by the grace of God and the grace shown from the love of a man I get to call husband...who has made me a mama. Thank you.
In the days of nursing babies and mopping floors and washing the 6th load of laundry...of the day, and reading stories and pushing swings and airing up bikes and traveling to and from with a van full of kids and making meals and cleaning up meals and doing homework and teaching numbers and memorizing verses and baking cookies and sending cards to grandmas and pulling weeds and wiping tears and controlling...well, chaos...in all of this are two people whom met in an old church van and fell in love on the streets of Chicago in the middle of a college mission trip and decided early on to make a go at this relationship thing. They made plans for what is now today and it seems those plans have in many ways happened and in many ways been pushed to the side for new plans to be walked into.
But early on in that budding relationship between me and the man I get to call husband, I knew being a mother was a part of it. And he knew it too. And so here we are...that boy who started loving me on dark Chicago streets while we reached out to the homeless together and made me into a mother just a few years later. It's been everything and more and also nothing I knew it could be. I know I am not the same person I was for my best supporting role husband and these days it is easy to forget where we started or which way we are even going. But too often I lay my head down at night with a swelling heart of thankfulness to him for helping make me who I am today, too tired to climb back out and tell him, thank you for this place in our journey together...mother to this over-flowing house full of kids...good and bad days...messy and beautiful...exhausting and fulfilling all in the same breath.
I know we are trudging through the swampy little years with too many bills and not enough money and too many needs and not enough time and long days and short nights and a routine that feels a little boring for my spontaneous husband, yet so rewarding at the end of the day anyways. And in these muddy waters much goes unsaid...
... words like...
I love you. Thanks for taking out the garbage. Thanks for working your job that stresses your mind and wears out your body and never is quite done at the end of the work day. You are a great dad. No, make that a super awesome dad. Thanks for reading to our boys. I love when you pray with our family. You're looking good in those old blue jeans and white t-shirt by the way. I'm sure glad you are funny. We need that around here. Thanks for knowing when I need a minute to myself. Thanks for hugging our kids. Thanks for sitting through church with kids who barely listen, but need to see their dad worship and bow his head to pray and listen to His truth. Thanks for being a good friend. The kind that goes back to help a pal because its the right thing to do. Thanks for honoring your parents. I love watching you run super fast and impress our boys, even at 35. Thanks for taking care of us...all of us, financially...1 wife, 4 kids, 2 dogs, and 5 hens. Yup, we're a lot. I know we.are.a lot....and growing. Thanks for building tree forts and basketball courts and riding bikes and going to games and playing catch and cheering from the sides and playing peek-a-boo. Yes, you grown adult man...thank you for holding our babies. And sometimes just holding me too when it gets to be too much for me to stand alone. Thanks for fixing things around our home and washing the dishes. I know you are tired, but thanks for staying here...with us and this crazy life and being the Dad so I can be the Mom. I love being the mom to your kids. And I love that you love Jesus and have this crazy strong inner strength to do the right thing in so many places in your life. And thanks for forgiving me and moving forward when I mess up, even when I mess up real bad. You are my best friend and even though I feel like this wild life of ours right now doesn't allow much time for us to spend time together or chat together or laugh and cry together the way best friends do, I am so glad it's you who comes in and kisses me goodnight at the end of our days. You plan the best family vacations and pull off the best surprises for me and I know it's how you tell us "I love you". Thank you for being that for me. So many things each week as we flip the calendar and keep moving forward I find myself counting the blessing you are to me...the grace you pour my way. And I should tell you more...lots more...thank you. I love you and thanks for making me a mama. It fills my heart in ways I can not explain.
Happy Mother's Day to me, only thanks to you...and Him. The one we keep thanking together for this crazy life of kids and parenting and fatherhood and motherhood. I wouldn't be here without either of you in the way I am today and this Mother's Day I am celebrating being here by the grace of God and the grace shown from the love of a man I get to call husband...who has made me a mama. Thank you.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
When winter is long and you just need spring
I don't think I am the only one who has said out loud a time or two..."it's just been a long winter". I found myself saying this over and over and hearing this just the same from so many. And after our last snow fall, that came in March, when spring was supposed to be here...I started to wonder about that final covering of snow all over the earth and wondered if maybe, just maybe, it was exactly what we needed?
For the days were long with little ones cooped up inside and it seemed that we were all maybe a little tired of being crammed together all day in our little cozy home and that what could we all possibly do with yet another....long...wintery...cold...day. Doesn't the winter in our lives, the seasons of the heart, the ones where it is snowing all around us and we can't walk outside much to breathe fresh air, seem a bit too long too? Some winter seasons I have wondered myself if God would help me step into spring sooner then later. Please take away the blowing winds and the freezing temps and the hills of snow piling up on my heart. But looking back...a good hard winter is just what I need some days. Some seasons. As cold as it is and as long as the days seem and as short as the days feel with no sunlight...those winter days are just as fruitful as the ones that follow in the spring.
Winter seasons for the heart bring days of being covered by the thick, cold, wet stuff that makes us freeze where we are and requires stillness in a hard place, a place where others can't come themselves as the drifts are too big for anyone else to see over, much less step through and this wintery place seems long and cold and dark and lonely. And we wonder to ourselves...will it ever be spring again?
While the winter seems long, it is only one season amongst many really, and perhaps we should just trust that He has us right where we need to be. That the hard winter days must come before we recognize what spring is really all about. And to deliver a spring with no melting of the snow and no gradual step down into warmer days would only make one forget those cold winter days...the ones He walked us through and the ones that are leaving a cold, but humble and knowing and grateful imprint on our heart. We need winter days. We wouldn't need spring the way we do without them.
I walked outside last week to see winter slowly moving away from us...
The signs of a long, cold, hard freezing winter were still around and the way it slowly is melting away tells me that the earth needed that final covering of frozen water to fill itself after a long drought. And that maybe, just maybe, once again we needed a few more weeks of winter. To hydrate us. To prepare our roots for what is to grow and what is to come...
And the winter was just long enough that in the same day I can breathe in new fresh spring air, but still feel the winter frozeness crunch under my feet and I know that the two seasons are meant to go hand in hand...a slow move to the next so that we do not forget what spring is all about and just where we are coming from after a long cold winter.
As we see the signs of winter melt away at it's own pace and in the same day see the dirty marked cold stuff turn into clear, flowing, streams of living water for the earth, we can trust that the long winters He places us in are just as needed and glorifying as the beautiful showers of spring that always follow...and they do follow.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Back-seat or back-yard?
As a mom, if you haven't found yourself filling the driver's seat of your van regularly as you transfer one kid or another to this or that...then count this gift as you thoroughly enjoy those days of choosing how your little one's spend their days, uninterrupted naps, eating snacks and meals at the table with you, and laying them down at night knowing you spent the best of their hours with them. That transition of having my children home every day with me and then moving towards a school schedule and slowly adding activities has been one that I have had to really walk gently into as I learn to let go, but not let our culture of "busyness" steal too much of my boy's childhood. Each year I really have to consider what we are going to participate in, how it will affect that person and ultimately the family, and what is a long term investment worth making now. It would be easy to get swept up in a sport for every season, an art class for every category, a music lesson for every instrument, a foreign language session from every country, a church activity from multiple resources, and anything that falls in between. All of these activities are wonderful, don't get me wrong. Simply great areas to plug a child into at one time or another if that is their given interest, talent, or strength. But too much of good things, can be a bad thing.
I have found myself driving down the road and as I look in the rear-view mirror I see three boys interacting. Sometimes they are laughing, sometimes they are arguing, sometimes they are eating, sometimes they are begging to stay home. And sometimes I wonder if all this running to and from is really worth it? We have stumbled upon some things that just are and have been worth it. And we have learned some things just are not. To live simply, which is one thing I want for this growing family...we say no a little more then we say yes. But our yes's are big and we make them count. Because as I look at my boy's from the driver's seat I hope they will come to learn that we each were made uniquely and we will spend some time devoted to encouraging that in each of us...but the relationship they are building right now, as young siblings, is not one I want solely created from the back-seat together. But more the back-yard kind of relationship I hope will carry them well into their old adult lives.
That back-yard relationship I hope my boys build on is one that is unstructured...loose and natural. It happens not in the back-seat of our van but out back in the yard and running through the house and down at the park and hiking through the woods and riding bikes around the block until sunset and sitting across from each other around the dinner table. Riding side by side in the back-seat will be a part of their days, but it won't over-take them. And this is a tough culture to make that happen. Some seasons I will just be in the driver's seat position as the siblings tag along... but most of my years as I play Mama to this crew I hope to make drivable from my own back porch and in my kitchen and on my living room floor just an arms lengths away from the sibling crew that I truly hope will grow up together and stay together, rather then grow away from each other.Back-seat brothers or back-yard brothers? I hope they too find the most enjoyable childhood side by side running through the grass and not side by side the back of our van.
I have found myself driving down the road and as I look in the rear-view mirror I see three boys interacting. Sometimes they are laughing, sometimes they are arguing, sometimes they are eating, sometimes they are begging to stay home. And sometimes I wonder if all this running to and from is really worth it? We have stumbled upon some things that just are and have been worth it. And we have learned some things just are not. To live simply, which is one thing I want for this growing family...we say no a little more then we say yes. But our yes's are big and we make them count. Because as I look at my boy's from the driver's seat I hope they will come to learn that we each were made uniquely and we will spend some time devoted to encouraging that in each of us...but the relationship they are building right now, as young siblings, is not one I want solely created from the back-seat together. But more the back-yard kind of relationship I hope will carry them well into their old adult lives.
That back-yard relationship I hope my boys build on is one that is unstructured...loose and natural. It happens not in the back-seat of our van but out back in the yard and running through the house and down at the park and hiking through the woods and riding bikes around the block until sunset and sitting across from each other around the dinner table. Riding side by side in the back-seat will be a part of their days, but it won't over-take them. And this is a tough culture to make that happen. Some seasons I will just be in the driver's seat position as the siblings tag along... but most of my years as I play Mama to this crew I hope to make drivable from my own back porch and in my kitchen and on my living room floor just an arms lengths away from the sibling crew that I truly hope will grow up together and stay together, rather then grow away from each other.Back-seat brothers or back-yard brothers? I hope they too find the most enjoyable childhood side by side running through the grass and not side by side the back of our van.
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