Lenten Plans and Other Meaningful Things

My Mom and sister carried it up the stairs and set it next to my bed. A table turned desk where my nightstand used to be. The room I grew up in is more than a little bit crammed. A bed and now a desk. A dresser for me, one for the baby. The glider by the window that my sister sent me last spring, the baby's crib that all of my siblings chipped in and bought for me. Mom asked if it's too overwhelming and, like many things in my life right now, yeah, it kind of is. But it's also beautiful, warm, and everything that I need.

There's something special about coming home to recharge and reinvent yourself. I am beyond grateful for the sacrifices made in the name of love that made this possible. In my little cocoon, something beautiful is growing, changing, becoming. It is a massive gift and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't realize it.

So, yes, crammed, but yes, blessed. Yes, overwhelmed, but yes - overwhelmed with good things. School is amazing and difficult and rewarding at this stage of life. That goes for parenting as well. I am exhausted and hanging by a thread but determined to see all of this through to the finish. I'm trying not to get bogged down, trying to find little spaces to do the things that are meaningful, things that feed me so that I can continue to pour into these kids, this work.

Lent is right around the corner and I have been dreaming up a plan that will bring back a part of my spiritual life I have been missing so much. The spiritual practice of encouragement. So much of writing this blog was about the encouragement of others and that continues to be something I am so passionate about and feel called to. For Lent, I am focusing on Hebrews 10:24:

"let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds...encouraging one another"

Grateful every day for the gift of the days God has given me, the people he has placed in my life and the work he has set before me. 

What are your plans for Lent?

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Spark Light

Last week a friend of mine lost and buried a beloved daughter to her struggle with depression. There hasn't been a day since that they haven't been on my mind.

As a mother with a kid heading to high school in the fall, I am just now becoming acquainted with the idea that my little ones, they're growing up and away from me. Their struggles are no longer the sort that are played out in front of me, like when they were little and any heartache could be solved with a cuddle or nap. It can be tempting to think that "I'm fine" really means just that. But I know better.

I vividly remember my life as a teen. Despite being a happy kid in a wonderful family, I had my own bouts with anxiety and confusion. Emotions that seemed insurmountable at the time. I still have those moments today. It's natural and normal, but, like a toddler's tantrum, it requires a constructive response. A message that is consistent and true.

How many times have I walked through life assuming people in my life know how I feel about them without verbalizing it at all? How often have I, on the other side, just needed a simple reminder? Someone to notice. Someone to care.

As someone who is wired for affirmation, I've often felt embarrassed by my need for encouragement. As if requiring a reminder made me some monster egomaniac. I no longer believe that. People are made to be love and to receive love. And while there are a variety of ways that that plays out depending on temperament and personality, none is more virtuous than another. It all comes down to connection.

It's not enough to say I didn't know you needed that. We all need it. We all know it. We know that it isn't always enough to know intellectually that we are unconditionally loved. We need to hear it. To be reminded over and over and over again.

It seems overly simplistic. Stupidly so.

Be love. Spark light. Stop looking around for your mission field and remember that the people in your life right now, today? They are your purpose. Your challenge. Your responsibility. Be committed to that.

If you need help, find someone, anyone, tell them, ask for it. This struggle against darkness and pain is best fought with people on your side. We belong to each other.

Hey, you. You're a miracle, God breathed, made for love, unique and gifted, infused with purpose for glory and good. Your life matters. Your heart matters. Your struggles matter. Your quiet and desperate moments, your sparks of joy - they touch the world around you, even when you are so sure that no one sees.

You are too precious to be lost.




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School, Change and Identity

On Monday morning, everything changes.

The beginning of a new week always feels that way. It's funny, this kind of arbitrary system we all agreed on. that Monday is the start. The beginning. Something new, something fresh. Something different. Like we're slipping off the garment of everything that came before and stepping into the stark light of something unknown.

On Monday morning, everything changes.

For the first time ever, my kids are going to school. There are so many decisions and thoughts and feelings and questions that go along with that, but there it is. Truth be told, I don't really know how to talk about it yet. It's a cautious and delicate thing I'm sure will take me quite a while to unwrap for myself, much less others. All I know for today is that God is good and this feels right and I know they'll be fine. As for me, well...

Not unlike when I made the choice to greet Maggie in the hospital instead of at home, my wonderful friends rush in with reassurance. And, in the same way, I'm not sure it will help. Yes, I know teachers love children and the school is a wonderful place. Yes, I know my kids will be well looked after, will make friends, will love it there. Yes, I know, everything will be alright. Yes, yes.

And yet.

There's a sort of humility in opening ourselves up to change - yes, even right down to the things staked our identity on. Homeschooling was one of those things, for me. A part of me from my own first day as a homeschooled kid, through the 9 years I taught my own kids in my own home. I keep myself busy getting them ready but deep down there's a little whisper growing louder all the time, something insistent that demands to be heard. Something keening, muffled but there all the same. Something I'll have to deal with, sooner or later. A little bit of heartbreak.

I don't know what tomorrow brings. Or next Fall, or ten years from now. I don't know how a house feels without the big kids home, or really what we're going to do with ourselves. Maybe it's just a season, or maybe I'm taking one last look at what life was like once upon a time. I don't know.

I'm still learning, after all this time, that aligning my self worth and identity with man made labels and tags is a fools errand. Who I truly am isn't something that can be changed so easily. It follows me through all the twists and turns life takes and sticks close to me on the darkest of days. Eternally loved, emphatically chosen.

So, on Monday morning, I'll pack lunches and hug the people who I love more than anything on this planet and feel along the razor sharp edge of love and pain and growth and change. Believing that this could be the start of something beautiful, bursting through what was before.


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Give Us This Day

                                

We're out of eggs. My grocery planning didn't account for having to make a second cake this weekend due to a kitchen mishap (read: toddler "helper" accidentally dumping batter all over the floor). As a result, no eggs. It's Wednesday and my little three are a tangle around my legs while I pour three bowls of cheerios and still my heart for a moment of gratitude. Food for my babies and babies to feed. Blessings.

Our day is going to ramp up soon, but while they eat I scroll facebook, pick out a few articles to read. It's a tough time to be on social media and I need to tread carefully here, knowing how the news can affect my heart/day/family. A friend keeps telling me to focus on the light and, for me, that might just mean keeping the outside world at an arms length today. Striking balance between informed concern and self preservation is a tricky balance I'm still building. Focus on the light. Turn toward the light.

Today, the light is three bowls of cheerios, the children they are for and the milky way she grins at me from her high chair, calling to me to come get her. I'm thinking about the daily bread of God and how it comes to us in many forms. In the meeting of basic needs, sure - but also in the tender holding of hearts. The people He places in our lives to speak truth, be love, stand sentry. The gift of children. Hope.

The daily bread of God is the promise of God with us. God in this, with us. Even here. This day, these kids, my weary and splintered heart. Held and counted, redeemed and comforted.

Don't forget, not for one day, one moment, one second - that there is something more. Something bigger than this election, news cycle. Something more abounding in good than this world is steeped in evil. Something that promises to redeem the howling ache of every human soul. 

After breakfast, we'll start school. Beginning it as always with His words, His heart for us. Abiding just there. Asking, knowing the answer. 

Give us this day your daily bread.

Give us You. 

Your words, your hope, your presence, your comfort.

And He does.

Never Easier, Every Day Better

Monday morning and I'm knee deep. Every day just flows right on into the next. If at one time I felt like I had a bit of time to take a breath each evening, a stop gap between one full day and the next - yeah, those days are behind me.

That's the thing no one tells you about the kids growing older. In a great many ways, the benefits are huge. Yes, I have a child old enough to babysit - something my friends with only littles look to enviously. I know, because I've been there. I know because I remember being awestruck at a friends home when her teen made our kids pb&j with a baby on her hip while we visited and sipped lattes. I thought wow - you've arrived. She assured me, though I doubt I believed her - Ha! No. I haven't. It's still difficult - just a different sort of difficult.

I feel that these days where my kids aren't all tucked in and fast asleep at 8 pm, and I'm not getting that "break" I spent years getting used to. Where the school days are longer and much more intense, where we roll into 5 pm barely done with schoolwork and I still have a 9 person family worth of housework ahead. Where the concerns aren't so much a toddler losing their mind in the middle of the grocery store half as much as how this culture is affecting my kids and what on earth I can do about it. There's a lot less knitting, sewing, baking and writing for me these days. I haven't arrived. Not by a long shot. But I'm beginning to embrace that maybe that was never really the point.

This life, it's never been about "set it and forget it." I can know this intellectually, but in practice it still smarts a bit. It starts in the beginning, where we want a baby to sleep through the night - and maybe they do. For a while. Until they don't. On and on with parenting we go, ironing out this or that issue, thinking - yes! There! Done! Until it's undone. Or something else crops up. On and on and on. Add more kids, and it's that doubly, or triply, or x7 more. We want that because it seems easier. Less work. We want to be done with difficulty so we can just sit back and relax.

But, as He always does, God gives us all these maddening opportunities along with a gift. The gift of growth, of sanctification. Instead of allowing us to stagnate, to atrophy in our lives - He uses life to invite us further. Deeper. Beyond what we could have ever fathomed possible.

It's that hook that I can hang my hat on. How I can look out on a Monday morning, with yesterday's laundry in a pile at the foot of my bed, with last weeks bills on my desk, with tomorrow's unfinished homework looming, next week's lesson planning untouched, today's toddler tantrums ramping up and 7 kids worth of Halloween costumes in the back of my mind - and believe that He is present in this chaos.

It's never going to get easier. But every day is better.

He has a plan here.

Every day. For His glory and our good.

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Begin Again

We've started back in that way we do, both resisting and loving the restructuring of our days into something a bit more productive, at least in the literal, pen-to-paper sense. Truthfully we've been producing things all summer - things like rest and contentment, things like space to breathe, things like friendships. It has been good, but it is time now, again, to get back to it. So we do - reluctantly at first, but getting better all the time. This year, 5 of my kids are being formally schooled. 8th grade, 6th, 4th, 2nd and Kindergarten.

On the first day, just after bible and prayers were hollered over the din of shrieking toddlers (isn't that how everyone prays?), I cracked open "A Wrinkle In Time" to share with my kids. This is my very favorite part of homeschooling. When I get to pull something dearly loved out of my past and hand it right over to my kids, like the precious heirloom it is. It has been many years since I've found myself in the pages of one of Madeleine L'Engle's award winning children's books but oh, it very nearly felt like the first time.

They just don't make books like this anymore. Not that I've seen for kids. The beautiful writing. The sophistication of ideas and plot lines and the grand supposition that, yes, you, little one, you can hang with a quick little lesson on quantum physics right smack dab in the middle of a child's fantasy. This type of book elevates thinking. It inspires and challenges, yet it avoids boredom by being unspeakably beautiful. It's real, good, thoughtful. It is art, life, science and faith all wrapped into one. It's a work of art, a labor of love.

Long after I closed the book and slid it into it's spot on the living room shelf, it stayed with me - just like a good book does. We went about our day with the usual swirl of laundry and personalities and meal time drama that consume our days, but my thoughts kept turning back. I think I know why.

Everything that I love about that book? Those are the things I love about our life. The things I want to cultivate in our days here together. A place where kids can be kids, but are spurred onward to be curious, to push themselves, to take on more and more responsibility, to ask questions. To seek the good, know the truth, rise above and claim rightness. To love life, art, science and faith. It's everything I want for my kids and, truthfully - myself. To know what it is to experience beauty in the every day.

To walk with God. To love one another.

It's the beginning of another school year and my friend tells me - "I feel like I've been run over." Yeah. That. But also? This:

Life is raw, real, relentless. People aren't perfect. Plans are almost certainly made to fall through and there never seems to be enough time.

But all.is.grace.

And it's a good, good life.

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Haphazard Summer Confessions

I paint toddler toes on the back steps, because that's the rule. No nail polish in the house, even though she runs right back through when she's finished and it certainly wouldn't be the first time I notice little flecks of nail polish on the hardwood floors. But I paint toddler toes because she brings it to me and this is my job. It's small and it's silly and it's mine.

This summer has been a bit ridiculous. I haven't had time to write, but what really have I been doing? I'm thinking back on it, this first Monday after vacation. What do I have to show for it? I feel this way at the end of every summer, when the days cool off and twilight flutters down a bit earlier each evening. On paper, it seems almost sad. I've started a handful of knitting projects and have finished none, even pulling them out in frustration that they don't seem to feel right. Try a different pattern, a different yarn? Take a week, a month off? Haphazard. My work out routines have lacked my normal focus and my plans for kids and chores and summer math went out the door months ago.

But sometimes the on paper list of what (wasn't) accomplished misses the bigger picture. This summer I became best friends with my neighbors, surely a gift after so much loneliness. This summer I opened up my home to a gaggle of kids and learned to not sweat small stuff. This summer I began cautiously dreaming about the future. This summer I feel stronger and more sure of who I am and what I want than ever before.

It's something I come up against time and time again, challenging me, stretching me, strengthening me. If you're so busying convincing yourself that the small things, the things you don't understand or haven't experienced, the things that feel frivolous or excessive or trite, that these things are ridiculous - you run the risk of missing out on a divine appointment. Because God doesn't just reach us in the thunderhead moments, in some sort of magnificence that dwarfs our every day struggles. The depth and height and breadth of His miracles are always, always that they apply just as surely to the humble things of human life as they do to the majestic.

So I've done a lot of toddler toenail painting and water table filling and dancing-while-breakfast-is-cooking and a lot of talking, singing, wishing, praying. But I'll never say that those things don't have the potential to carry every bit as much weight and power as anything else I could come up with.

I know better.

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Dishwashers and Dryers and Space-making Grace

Right smack in the middle of the summer, between sticky humid days that never seem to cool off, the dishwasher quit working. I pushed the start button twice, then three times - as if it just needed to be jarred awake. Hey - you've got a job to do. Wake up! I bought paper plates at the grocery store and stood at the sink late at night, plunged in deep, right up to my forearms. Before we found the blessedly simple fix, the dryer decided to take a vacation as well. On Monday afternoon I stand in a sun spot and hang wet clothes up on the line while the toddlers run back and forth beneath flapping sheets.

It's been a while since I've been here. That line waits between my garage and the oak tree but somehow life gets in the way when one clothesline is no longer enough to hold the laundry needs of a family our size. Revisiting it for a bit reminds me, like a gentle tug, of this type of meditative work that helps to center me, to free my mind even as my hands work. There's never anything small about the smoothing out of chaos, the gentle setting to rights type of work that makes up a housewife's days. It's here that I find order, and, thus, peace. It's here that my mind is unleashed to dream and to wonder, to listen, to pray. It's a good place I didn't know I missed.

The summer is beginning to wind down and we're in the middle of a whirlwind, visiting friends and family and so much goodness that my heart feels heavy at the thought of it ending. Because when this is over, then what? Just regular life. Nothing special. Work and school and life. But then appliances break and I'm reminded that every day is an opportunity to make space for grace. To beckon it close, welcome it in, hold it up. To look through it like a lens, aperture opened wide to let all the light in. It's a precious miracle just for us, and each time I'm reminded of it I wonder how it's just so easy to forget. There are no circumstances, no secret hurts, no busted up and broken lives that are exempt from grace.

It's all from Him and all for us.

All heaven and earth a wild tangle of unfathomable grace.

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At the Still Center

{It has been way too long. Summer is so wonderful, such a necessary time of stepping back and soaking in and I need it, this break. Sharing a post I wrote back in the Spring and never posted, because it's still true -- and sending you all love from here.}

My dear friend gave me a ride to and from Girl's Night this week and, because it had been too long since we last had a private conversation, we spent the drive catching up. Questions about life and work and how are you, really? floated between us as the car splashed through springtime puddles on the warmest night of the year so far.

I shared the frustration I felt whenever I was asked about my husband's current job because yes, it was a relief he had one but for many reasons, no, we aren't out of crisis mode. Before I ever make it to the explanation point, the inquirer is already turning away, satisfied that this chapter has already been tied up neatly. Because that feels good to believe. No one likes an unresolved tale. We all want to hear the happy ending - even if it's not true. It's comforting. Comfortable.

Our difficulties ending would be nice. They haven't.

Thankful as we are that he has work, it is a 30 minute drive away with our one car - often longer during the evening commute. It also frankly cannot be a forever situation for other reasons, mostly financial. Our crisis isn't over. Every day, struggles still loom before us like a massive wave and, at best, we're just treading water.

She understood. "It's like saying the roof's fixed when you put up a tarp to keep the water out. It's a bandaid." Yeah. It's just like that. Things aren't fixed. Not by a long shot.

All that said, there's a curious joy that has found me in the past few weeks. My hard headed plodding of "just do the next right thing" has helped keep us buoyant in a way. We plan the kids' birthdays. We do school and the kids are doing so well. I revamp the chore chart and we seem to have found a really nice groove here. Rhythm and (loose) organization and setting things in their proper places when the bigger things of life seem to sway unpredictably is unbelievably comforting. I cling to the joy small things bring. Staying on top of laundry. Making beds. Daily prayers and read alouds and baking birthday cakes.

So we're not done. Our struggles are not fixed, secure, or ended. But at the still center there is still that spark of joy. It is a loving and gentle God that gives us the ability to find pleasure in small things.

The more I think of it, the more I realize that buoyancy may just be a spiritual gift, showered upon us mere mortals for such a time as this. Struggles and unknowns and upturned plans are the norm, not the exception in a life like ours. As our children grow and begin their own lives and we hold space for them, this truth will only multiply. Being able to float along may just be the key to thriving with joy. Not just for today, but for a lifetime.

So I keep counting the gifts because they keep being revealed to me. And although there's just a tarp over our heads shielding us from whatever unknowns are coming along next, we are safe at the still center. Warmed with a peace that passes all understanding.

A work in progress.


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Life Long Delight

Proverbs 8:30

...And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, 

Rejoicing in the world, His earth...

I'm teaching myself how to charcoal grill. In my typical style, learning by doing - and by making plenty of mistakes.

As a kid, I was reluctant to try things I had zero experience with. If a group was playing soccer, I'd sit out rather than make an idiot of myself. On a date to play pool, I declined to participate rather than learn how. I never liked how that made me feel, but the alternative of appearing ridiculous felt much, much worse.

I'm so glad I'm over that.

In some ways, my 30's feel like the most free I have ever been. I'm in a place of being pretty comfortable with myself in most ways. Getting beyond self consciousness because who has time for that? Of course I still have some of that nervous kid inside. I prefer to make my mistakes in private, which I think is pretty typical, but I'm past living in fear of them.

So, I'm figuring it out. Not only is it something I've never tried before, but it is something my Mom never did. It was always my Dad's thing and I think I had some sort of unspoken expectation that it would be my husband's thing as well. A "Man Job." There's a special thrill to stepping beyond your own preconceived notions and forging new ways of doing things. I kind of love standing over a hot grill with my baby wrapped up on my back, sipping some ice cold wine, making this my own. It's stretching me. Delighting me.

Maybe that's it? My own brand of thrill-seeking is learning. Looking at something from all angles and thinking "yeah, I could do that. Let me try." At 32 years old, still finding things about this world that delight me. It's in these normal moments that I feel closest to God. Where I feel the joy of what this gift of life is really all about. Living other-centered, sacrificial lives isn't about eschewing delight. I need to remember that.

Created to create, delighted to delight, enjoyed embracing joy. This is how God loves us.

Reaching arms out wide to embrace all of it I can, as long as I can. Fearlessly.


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Not Ready

Rosemary will be 3 years old this weekend, and she's not ready.

Oh, she's been potty trained for nearly a year, speaks clearly in full sentences, is somewhat precocious and opinionated and, on occasion, demanding.  She knows she wants a pink birthday cake, how to show three fingers for her age, how to draw in crazy detail. She has everything she needs to be three.

Except Rosemary still nurses. And not just once or twice a day, but as much as she possibly can. It might be the thing she loves most in life. Rosemary isn't ready to be three because her Mama said at three, it's time to be done. There's a long standing (ridiculous, in my opinion) saying,"if they are old enough to ask for it, they are too old!" Well, Rosie not only asks for it, but can give you a three point logical explanation why you should submit to her demands. "Mama can you please nurse me when you are done folding that laundry? I'm waiting patiently!" Goodness.

I'm not really ready either, because I know that this time, weaning won't be easy. Not that it ever is, but, as I mentioned, Rosemary is more than just fond of nursing. She is incredibly attached. The few times that I have tried to cut back with her have elicited sobs and pleading and hours long tantrums. Weaning is almost certainly going to be difficult for both of us. But is the avoidance of difficulty really a good reason to continue on with something? If I've learned anything, it's that ease isn't always a good thing - and sometimes the pursuit of ease prevents us from moving forward with other good things.

The thing is, I know how she feels. I know how it feels to be so attached to something that the thought of being done with it can make you sob for days. I know this aversion to change, to growth, to maturity. I know how it feels when God asks you to hand over your security, comfort and sense of place, asking only for your trust that He has something better. It's scary. It's hard. It hurts.

Nursing is the best thing in Rosemary's life. Her very favorite. In her limited experience, the best life has to offer. It spells comfort to her. Love. Security and place. Part of her very identity feels wrapped up in this. I can so relate. 

I can't see the future for Rosie, but I know that this is just the start of so many good and beautiful things in her life. So much that will bring her joy and spell love in her life. As I watch my little girl grow, I know I'll see her grapple with the pain of letting go a thousand times in this life. I get a little glimpse at how God feels watching us. Full of sympathy, love and compassion, yet knowing that sometimes it's in the letting go that we receive more than we could have ever dreamed of. If He waited for us to decide when we are ready, would we ever be? I know comfort is a strong influence in my life. Would I ever be ready to step out in trust? Or am I the type that needs a little push?

Today she's still two, and her curls are so long they brush my leg when she sits on my lap and nurses, patting my cheek with her hand, her beautiful brown eyes searching my face. It's hard to imagine anything better than this. But I know there's something better coming along. My Mama heart feels like it couldn't love someone more - and I know He loves both of us deeper still.

"The hard things will be for good. The good things will be forever. The best things will be forthcoming."

~Ann Voskamp

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Gently Does It

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Romans 8:1

How has it been two weeks? Time flies when you are knee deep in birthday season with Holy Week and visitors thrown into the mix. Truthfully, I've barely kept up with spinning all of the plates I've got going and, as is commonly the case, writing is the first thing to go. Except it hasn't, at least not completely. I have a draft folder full of half baked ideas and thoughts, moments of intention that were interrupted. I'm still learning how to be interrupted well. This life is so full of opportunities to stretch and grow into virtue. Sometimes maddeningly so.

The three March birthdays, a baby shower, Easter are all behind us, with the final birthday in this set coming up this weekend, along with a visit from my husband's parents. I've been looking toward this weekend as an end cap to the madness since before Lent. I know that living life to "just get past this" isn't how I want to be, nor is it what I am called to. Still, something has to change and I feel it most on the day after Easter when my home is a shambles, work men show up unannounced and I'm completely overwhelmed by the chaos. All of that paired with lack of sleep and several consecutive weeks of extras and I'm just suddenly so done I couldn't be more done if I tried. And I realize it in the moment right after I completely lose it that maybe I need to get a little better at establishing boundaries and respecting my own needs.

It's a common realization for me at times like this, but one I always struggle with implementing. On the one hand, service and self donation are, in my mind, the highest and truest calling on my life. On the other hand, I have a tendency to give until I give out. It is only when I'm at rock bottom looking up that I realize maybe I'm going about this all wrong. When I see someone with a good grasp on communicating their needs and establishing their boundaries, I'm in awe. My people-pleasing tendencies run deep, and in the rare event that I do try to set parameters such as that, I'm back pedaling and apologizing before anyone knows what happened. If anyone has any suggestions for good reading on boundaries within a Christian life, I'm all ears.

The thing is, pushing through until the magical weekend with nothing on the schedule is a fools errand - because right beyond that we start the push toward summer time with all that that brings. I've got to figure out how to choose the better part - and to remember who and Who's I am. In those tender early days following the arrival of a baby, I have no guilt about requiring gentleness for myself. Perhaps there are other seasons and reason to give myself a break and remember that not all rest is laziness and not all efficiency is good. Sometimes, dare I say it, the theme of the day needs to be to simply abide.

Perhaps you're like me? And you think you need permission, a reason to be gentle with yourself. You don't. Dearly loved one, don't forget to treat yourself with kindness and heaping grace.



Today, for me, for you, for us - gently does it. 




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February Reprieve {All's Grace}

Over the past few days my feed was alive with the joy-filled posts of my Mama friends, sending their kids out on a February day in Michigan to nearly 70 degree temperatures. A reprieve, it seems.

Winter hasn't been too dreadful this year. In fact, we never even got to go sledding because the only snow of any consequence was way back in early November and was gone nearly as quickly as it came. While we've had a few cold days, it has been nothing like the last few years with day after day well below zero. Still, Winter is winter and the bleak landscape is uninspiring at best and downright depressing at worst. With the warmth came sunshine and the haunting scent of Springtime just around the corner. So my mom friends and I, we threw open the windows and kicked the kids out and turned a blind eye to the masses of dirt they tracked back in. And it was glorious.

But a reprieve is just that, and nothing more. We'll return to regularly scheduled February programming here this week and once again the ground will freeze hard and kids flock to the heat vents first thing in the morning. But something changes when there's a break like that. We all feel it. Reminded of what is surely coming next, we are better equipped to handle today. We start to dream about Spring.

This Lent hasn't really felt much like Lent at all. I'm not sure if it's because it is so early this year, or perhaps because I'm not in that achy last trimester of pregnancy and all the emotional turmoil that that brings with it. Maybe it's because our months that proceeded Lent were already difficult and dark. I'm not sure, but I've felt an undeniable lift lately. Looking and leaning toward that promise of what comes next with an anticipation. I've been praying to be freed from fear and I'm realizing that fear flees when you hold onto the truth that there isn't a single day where God doesn't show up. Not a moment where I can turn to Him and say, "Well, what next?" I'm growing into a less formal, more intimate relationship here and the most marked result is an overwhelming calm. Abiding in it and coming to a place of surrender.

Maybe that's what Lent is all about anyway. With the ashes we acknowledge our impotence, and with that in place we are freed to lay it all at His feet and let Him sort it out. A reprieve that reminds us that Easter is for us. Sunshine is coming and we've got nothing to fear.

He's all Good. It's all grace.

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Trust, Peace, and Life All In

Another Monday.

It snowed last night, although not enough to elicit much interest from my kids. I get up early to get the house back in shape after the weekend before the workers come back to do more on the upstairs hallway.

Last night my sister in law asked me how it was going, how much longer it would be that we are showering at my parent's house and are sequestered to the downstairs during the day. I told her - I don't know. But somehow I'm not that worried about it.

That is increasingly becoming my answer to questions about inconveniences. Things I used to get quite worked up over just don't seem to topple me in the same way. I don't know if I've given up or grown stronger or am just sticking my fingers in my ears to drown it all out, but it seems to be the way things are going.

If anything, I feel challenged - but not in a bad way. I feel like the lines I have drawn, the deals I thought I struck with God - are being challenged. "Ok, God. I can do 1200 square feet with 7 kids. But that's it. No smaller." Oh, really? How about half that for an undisclosed period of time? Throw in no shower or bathtub access, just to see how ya do. Well...sigh. Fine.

My husband started a job this week that is not what we had hoped for. Again, my lines are being crossed, my parameters breached. The job is "too far." It's not what I ordered. But God says here you go. You prayed for a job. Here.

Well...ok.

My bookshelves are falling apart. The downstairs bathroom (the only one we currently have access to!) light fixture decided to stop working. One of the new-last-year tires on the van needs to be patched. On and on and on. That last paycheck hasn't arrived yet. And I'm more than a little tired of feeling discouraged as these things spring up like a never ending game of whack-a-mole.

The rock hard truth on this one is just this: the more stipulations you place on Joy, the less likely you are to experience it.

The lengthier your check list of a good life, the greater your odds are of missing out completely.

Is your joy dependent on a well stocked emergency fund? Watch it deplete when your funds tank. Is it dependent on health? A family-wide bug can leave you down for weeks. If my benchmark of joy depended on a large house neat as a pin, children who never argue and a marriage that requires no effort - I'd live a life of bitterness and disillusionment. I've been there. It's no way to live.

I feel like God is peeling back the layers of my dependency and inviting me to deeper trust. As so many things I thought I needed to have a joy-filled life fall away, I'm presented with a choice. Do I choose trust or fear? You can't hold both at once. Trust is scary. So is fear. But only one carries with it the promise of peace.

Maybe that's the name for how I feel when I shrug it off. When I face the coming days that look quite a little bit like question marks and decide to live all in anyway. At peace with how it goes.

I'm learning that this abiding, this settling in - it's giving me some crazy courage.

And just like that dusting of snow, I wake up to a gentle mantle of joy.

Thank you, Jesus.

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Inspired Joy

It's Friday morning. Only half of the kids have eaten breakfast. The baby is on my back. I've already had to instruct on why we treat siblings with kindness and I'm not done with my first cup of coffee yet. One of the kids was sick during the night, so that lovely laundry is waiting for me, plus the normal school/jobs/life stuff that is incessant.

I spoke with a Mom's group yesterday on the topic of rest, and while I was preparing I kept had the nagging feeling that I really had no authority to speak to them. Who, after all, am I? My house is always a mess. My heart, too. I don't have any "hacks" on how to make this motherhood thing any easier. If anything, the one thing I'm sure of is that it's not getting any easier. I can't offer them a pin-worthy picture of happy homeschooling or 10 tips on how to get siblings to get along.

It's almost like the longer I'm at this gig, the less I'm sure of anything. Didn't I used to think I had some of this figured out? Every day here feels like I'm starting back at square one. Back to the basics, time and again.

My husband has been working at a warehouse while he looks for a new job. It is long hours, backbreaking work, he comes home with sore muscles and calloused hands and a bone-deep exhaustion that only 12 hours of physical labor can bring. He confides in me one night - "I love it." And I think I get it.

While he's working hard for his family, I'm just doing the next right thing here at home. Grown ups struggling doesn't mean that childhood stops, and my kids still need me. They still need my kiss on the tops of their heads when I set their breakfast in front of them. They need my singing at the sink. They need my tickles and laughs and they need my warm arms in the middle of dark nights. I keep doing the next thing even during this difficult time in our family, and it reminds me of something.

Moms need to be very careful where they get their inspiration from - and what they fill their minds with. The internet is filled with images, some benign, some not so benign - and some that you don't realize are stealing your joy until it's too late. What really is the harm in a few unrealistic pictures? Of beautifully (albeit expensively) decorated homes, beautiful happy children in thousand dollar get ups and women modeling motherhood who are barely old enough to be a mom, much less have ever experienced it?

We see what unrealistic images can do to expectations. We live in a culture that is proof of that and I don't know about you, but I'm not really liking the result.

When we fill our minds with more of this than reality (which lightning fast internet speeds make all too likely), a shift happens. We can't help but compare our experiences - and find our lives lacking. Discontent moves in and gratitude moves out and instead of waking in the morning with anticipation at the day ahead, we just want to quit. Comparison becomes our companion.

I finding myself increasingly looking to step back from glossy pictures of perfection and the discouraged way they make me feel. I'm looking elsewhere. I'm looking for reality.

One of my favorite images of motherhood ever is this photo, taken during the great depression. When I see it, I feel it. To me, it encompasses how mothering feels quite a bit of the time - although I've never been in such dire straits as the Mom pictured. But when I see it, I feel strong. Instead of showcasing an impossible standard, I see something here worth emulating. Something worth working toward. It inspires me to take this day, this house, this family, this life - imperfections and all - and be the best I can be.

I want to be a mom. Not a model. I want to be home to my family, a person of peace, a place to rest. I don't want to flee from discomfort, pain or struggle - I want to dive in head first and find the redemption there at the bottom. Because I know it's there.

I get why my husband kind of likes the way it feels to work so hard it hurts. To take something that maybe isn't the prettiest thing ever and really give it your all.

I have less answers than I did 10 years ago, but I have more strength. More adaptability.  More grit. More gentleness. More gratitude. More peace.

And at the center of it all, 

Joy.

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Losing Myself

I woke up in the middle of the night with the toddler's arms around my neck, her cheek pressed right up against mine and one leg flung across my chest - while I was nursing the baby who was pinching me at the same time.

I used to think the idea that mothering is 24/7 was a little bit overdone, a gripe for people who needed to legitimize their role as mother as "the hardest job in the world." I mean, of course we are on call for our kids at all times, but sleep does exist (even if it is in small doses) and there are those moments of quiet knitting and netflix with my husband and even the odd evening out of the house here and there. I get to grocery shop alone. It's not that intense, right? The thing is, back when I brushed off the idea of mothering as a 24/7 occupation, I had a lot less patience for the interruptions. The constant neediness. The plans gone awry and the devastation of the whole family coming down with a virus.

The past week has been non stop. Even as I write that, I feel the need to amend it. The past month, then? Year? The past 13 years? I think I may have caught my breath at some point a year or so ago but I'm not altogether sure...but no matter. I'm making peace with the intensity. When I expect to be on call 24/7, irritation doesn't arise as readily when that call actually comes. When I wake up to a toddler who has once again snuck out of her bed and into mine, my knee jerk reaction isn't to feel touched out anymore. When I come to expect to be needed and held onto at all times, I become a gentler Mama. I untangle myself from her grasp and carry her back to bed but I'm not upset at the interruption. This is just how this goes.

There is nothing to complain about when you expect to be poured out. It is only when your expectations aren't met that you get that creeping feeling of dissatisfaction. Sometimes I think we are so worried not to paint motherhood as drudgery that we do a huge disservice and swing wildly the other way, assuring young mothers to be that they won't lose themselves in the process - and when they inevitably do, pave the way to more disillusionment and discontent.

The miracle of it all is just this - that in losing yourself, your need to be in control, your need to know the outcomes, your desire to hold on to some pre-child version of yourself who was able to pick and choose exactly when and where to serve others (or not) - you gain so much more than you could ever imagine possible. Holding back and sealing off parts of yourself will only lead to atrophy. Why not give it all you've got? What are these gifts for if not giving away?

I may not get uninterrupted sleep now or in the foreseeable future, but I am adored beyond reason by these precious little ones. The gift of their lives entwining with mine is something that I will never regret and always treasure for as long as I live. Not because it went according to my plans, or was on my terms. But because by being completely opened to it, I received more than I could have ever asked for.

The best thing I ever did was lose myself. And every day I'll do it again and again and again.




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Extraordinarily Ordinary

"The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children."

G.K. Chesterton

On Saturday, I slipped on a dress and picked up my Mom in my 12 passenger van and together we made our way to a nearby Catholic church. A family friend had suffered heartbreaking loss, and as soon as I had heard of the funeral arrangements, I tapped out a quick text. "Will you come with me?" She merely responded "yes."

So here we were. Sitting in the pew of a massive, beautiful church, watching it fill with people I've known my entire life. People I grew up with who are now adults like me, along with their parents and, some, their own children. I remembered long sweaty summer nights playing neighborhood games with these kids-now-adults. Every once in a while Mom would lean over and say "In that pew there, is that...?" Family after family after family. Brought together to stand in community with one of their own. It was breathtaking.

After a lovely service and greeting people we hadn't seen in years, we walked through the frozen January air together and Mom commented about how it's amazing two normal people can be so blessed to have children. The gift of human life seems almost too magnificent for most of us mere mortals. What's so special about us, anyway?

More than that, though, how incredible is it that two ordinary, normal people can have babies together that then grow into people that become community for others? I think about those pews full of people drawing together in love. People holding space in grief and joy. People who are gifts to the world. People who are only possible because of someone's yes.

We talk so much about growing community, looking for community, longing for community. But do we realize that it's in our homes where whole communities take root?

It's Monday morning and my kids are still in bed. Once they trickle down things will get noisy and chaotic and messy and I'm sure there will be less than lovely moments. But the picture of Saturday's service remains in my mind and reminds me to keep an eye on the end goal. If a grubby group of south side neighbor kids could grow into something as strong, peaceful and loving as I saw then, I know there's still hope for us.

Mamas, the ordinary life you are weaving will yield some extraordinary things. Keep on keeping on.


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For Granted

"Let every heart prepare Him room."

We start this Advent journeying and I'm caught unprepared, those candles still somewhere down in the basement and our devotional who-knows-where.

The kids are bickering when I glance at the clock. Between picking up the oldest and picking up my husband, I have about an hour. It's time to start dinner. I open the freezer.

It's one of those days where I need something to make that doesn't need a lot of watching, so I can do the driving and come home to dinner ready to go. No deadlines, no oven-watching. The trouble is, what I have available it something several of my family members won't like in the least. I steel myself for the inevitable and begin.

Washing the dishes after, I think about how I'm not really doing this for me. Really, if I had my druthers, I'd have take out from some sushi restaurant. Or maybe share a greek platter with my husband. I certainly wouldn't choose to spend time and effort on dinner that is lackluster at best. But because I love my kids, because I chose to have them and continue to choose them every day since, I make a healthy dinner even when it elicits a lukewarm reception.

Tonight I feel taken for granted a little, and that gets me to wondering. What do I take for granted?

If my husband didn't choose me, choose us, he wouldn't spend every dime of his paycheck on me and the kids. He might not bother to come home. Plenty of husbands and fathers don't, you know. The thing is - humans are selfish animals, set to self-care and self-centeredness in every way. Every time he pushes down that animal and chooses differently? That's love. That's a blessing. And how often do I take that for granted? Daily.

If my parents didn't choose me, choose to have me, choose to love me, choose to cherish me long after I left their home - would my home back up to theirs? Would they make space in their limited lives for me and my kids? Or would they find something easier to do than let seven urchins track mud through their home and rent out their tiny house to a family that is bursting it at the seams? Yet daily I take that for granted.

The truth is - anyone who makes space in their life to hear you, to see you, to meet with you - that person is choosing to love you. That friend who texts just to tell you they are thinking of you? They are making space for you. That sibling who forgives you time and time again? They are making space for you, too.

It's this grace-space making that has all the makings of a miracle. It's how we are smoothed out a little here and a little there, just a little bit each and every day.

May my goal always be to be a maker of space, a crafter of community, an artist of almsgiving. And may I never take for granted those who have done the same for me.

This Advent begins and I feel a bit directionless until this drops into my lap like the first snowflake on a newborn winter's day.

That's it, then. In making space for the Christ child, we make space for each other.






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Love Isn't Soft

Today was the first real snow of 2015, so of course I made cookies. The four and 2 year old argued over who got to add which ingredient and we all ate too much cookie dough and then too many cookies.

Long after they had lost interest, I kept taking those pans in and out of the oven. And then there was the clean up, of course. Wiping crumbs off the counter, sweeping them up from the floor, scrubbing cookie pans while everyone else played outside or watched a movie.

Watching the snow through kitchen panes while scrubbing at stuck on chocolate, I remembered a story Mom told me. How, when we were little, she bent cookie pans by scrubbing too hard, too often. Shining circles on tin bearing witness to the cookies she baked with her own little people.

I rinsed my hands, dried them off and stretched them out before me. Mama hands aren't soft. Winter is coming on fast and the thousands of times a day that I wash my hands mean they'll be dry - rough. Just like hers were. I remember how they felt when we laced fingers together when I was small. Mama hands aren't soft and cookie pans used often enough are riddled with divots where Mamas scrub too hard, too often.

Why do we think love is soft? Love is tender, yes, but love is also hard. Love is rough. Love is still working long after everyone else has moved on. Love is relentlessly bent toward the other.

After the cookie mess is cleaned away, I bathe the baby in the sink. Then I nurse her to sleep, clean my room as she slumbers and sling her up on my back to make supper when she awakens. Love carries on and on and on.

We are raised up to see love as some puffy pink cloudlike heart. Some luxurious bubble bath of sweet smelling fluff. It's only in the trenches of real life that we see what real love requires of us.

Real love is sacrifice. Real love is in the small things. Real love is digging through last years mittens to find him a pair. Real love is letting littles make a big cookie mess when buying a package would not only cost less monetarily, but it would cost less of you. Real love is giving yourself, your time, your life - for someone else. Real love is stretch marks and aching joints and getting up at three a.m. when someone calls your name.

Real love is rough hands. Worn cookie pans. Babies yanking on your hair while you make supper. Real love is scars.

Real love isn't soft.

The most real love of all was nail-scarred, not cloud soft.

Real love is strong. Relentless. Complete.


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