Perspective on Loving My Children

A friend of mine from our homeschool co op shared this sweet little take on 1 Corinthians 13… it made me smile and brought courage to my heart. It is a day where I needed this strong reminder: all else (including freezing rain, cranky hearts, fussing siblings, sick kids, and halfhearted schoolwork) will fade away, but faith, hope, & love will remain. May the Lord grant me perspective and give me grace to daily show love-in-action to my family.

“Though I teach my children how to multiply, divide, and diagram a sentence, but fail to show them LOVE, I have taught them nothing!

And though I take them on numerous field trips, to swim practice and flute lessons; and though I involve them in every church activity, but fail to give them LOVE, I profit nothing!

And though I scrub my house relentlessly, run countless errands, and serve three nutritious meals every day but fail to be an example of LOVE, I have done nothing!

LOVE is patient with misspelled words and is kind to young interrupters.

LOVE does not envy the high SAT scores of other Homeschool families. LOVE does not claim to have better teaching methods than anyone else, is not rude to the fourth telephone caller during a science lesson, does not seek perfectly behaved geniuses, does not turn into a drill sergeant, thinks no evil about friends’ educational choices!

LOVE bears all my children’s challenges, believes all my children are God’s precious gifts, hopes all my children establish permanent relationships with Christ, and endures all things to demonstrate God’s love!

LOVE never fails!

Where there are college degrees, they will fail; where there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

For we know in part and we teach in part. But when the trials of life come to our children, the history, math, and science will be done away and faith, hope, and love will remain;

But the greatest of these is love.”

~Author Unknown~

Big Kid Joys

I love babies. My mom might smile and tell you that’s largely because I’ve had “easy babies.” But let’s be honest: to at least a certain extent, babies are babies, and babies are also honed by the hard work of their mama. So while God definitely did give my babies their blessed personalities and natures, He also has used the hard work of my hands, my time, my tears, my discipline, my prayers, my tactics… It’s not like they have grown up into “easy kids” in a lot of ways. So I think it might be safe to say that I’m GOOD at babies. I’m not quite so good at the preschool season. Not yet anyway. I am praying for grace to get there! 🙂

There are lots of joys that I can easily place my fingers on when it comes to my baby. Each one of my four children has brought me immense joy, and there is nothing I have loved (yet!) more than their babyhoods.

Perhaps that is one reason that I struggle emotionally with having the baby years closing behind me. In another couple of weeks, my baby will be a year old. That is, officially speaking, the end of infancy and the beginning of toddlerhood. This is the first time I’ve come upon a child’s first birthday without being/having been pregnant again. It will be the first time I have celebrated a child’s first birthday without the huge shadows of grief & fear. (I was pregnant with Promise on Gabriel’s 1st birthday, and had just miscarried Glory shortly prior; I was pregnant with Evangeline on Asher’s 1st birthday, and utterly terrified; I miscarried Heritage just two days before Evangeline’s 1st birthday, and was grieving immensely the death of her baby sister.)

Now the only shadow I sit under is the unique heaviness I feel upon knowing that this is the last time I will celebrate my child’s first birthday. (Praise the Lord for the hope of grandchildren!) I have had so much joy with my babies.

But here’s the thing I want to emphasize: there are going to be so many big kid joys in the future.
And this is one of the things I am just now discovering.
Perhaps it is because my friends’s kids, and my nieces & nephews are largely younger kids too. With a couple of rare exceptions, the folks we tend to hang out with on an intimate level are either in the same season of life we are, or are even a step or two behind us on the path.

And I need to know that the biggest joys of motherhood are not exclusively behind me.
Because, in all honesty, that is one of my big temptations, one of my big fears.
The baby years are familiar to me, they are joyful and comforting and deliciously sweet.

I am only barely beginning to see what some of the future joys may be.
The challenges of the older years seem to express themselves more easily.
I know there are hard times ahead. (Oh boy. It looks like menopause may intersect with puberty… that will be fun.)

So I need to start writing down the big kid joys as they come.
I need to look ahead with happy hope.
I need to laugh at, rather than fear, the future.

Image result

I need to remember that resurrection follows death, in God’s economy.

Live the gospel in the things that no one sees. Sacrifice for your children in places that only they will know about. Put their value ahead of yours. Grow them up in the clean air of gospel living. Your testimony to the gospel in the little details of your life is more valuable to them than you can imagine. If you tell them the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs every day, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work.

Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross. There is more joy and more life and more laughter on the other side of death than you can possibly carry alone.

~Rachel Jankovic~

Yesterday, my 8 1/2 year old (who is, by the way, beginning now to show me lots of big kid joys!) came grocery shopping with me. Now, that’s not unusual. But the unusual factor is that we did not have the 4 & 3 year olds with us. Simeon rode around the store strapped to my chest, I led the way with list in hand, and Gabriel took the initiative to choose a cart & push it along behind me. He was very intentional about letting others go first, about being a gentleman, and about jumping in when he saw an area to help. We talked about math a lot while we were shopping; figuring out which were the best mozzarella and parmesan purchases to make, based upon price per ounce, for instance. We did a good bit of math in our heads but also pulled out the calculator on my phone to help us with minutia.
But the biggest joy to this mama’s heart yesterday hit hard when he pushed the cart into the checkout line for me, while I ran back to the baking aisle to pick up a bag of powdered sugar. When I came back to him, he explained that he did not want to load the groceries onto the conveyor until the older woman in front of him was out of the way, because he wanted to give her space; but then he did not want me to lift a finger (except for the 17lb pumpkin…) because he wanted to do the heavy lifting. 🙂

He did not wait to be asked to help. In fact, he did not even ask if I wanted him to help.
He simply saw an area where he could help, and his servant-heart jumped into gear.

There also was not a bagger at our checkout line, so Gabriel helped bag things and placed every single bag into the cart.
By the time we reached the car, and it was time to buckle in his baby brother and help me put all the bags in the back of the Pilot, I was bubbling over with happy, humble thankfulness. To God and to my big boy.
I told him so.
And then when given the option of two “rewards” of a sort (two different reward systems we’ve got going on currently), he chose the option that would also affect his siblings, rather than the option that would only affect himself.

These are good things. They are big deals in the moment. (Sure, I understand they are not huge in the grand scheme, but my prayer and hope is that they will lead to huge good things in the bigger picture of our future.)

Image result

There are also big kid joys like bowling league. Ballet class. Kids following their daily activities lists without me needing to micro-manage every hour of their day. Kids who basically fight over who gets to help Mommy set the table or wash the dishes. The joy of being able to play Carcassonne with my son, rather than always needing to play Chutes & Ladders; of being able to play real Monopoly, rather than always the Jr. version. The joy of watching my son both tithe & serve in a worship service with a happy countenance and willing heart.

Oh. And losing teeth. That’s a uniquely big kid joy, too. 😀

DSC_0054

There are definitely joys behind. These moments and memories will remain dear to my heart.
But knowing that there are joys ahead is a huge encouragement & blessing to me.
Experiencing the firstfruits now gives me hope for the future.

I so truly love the season of life where my sweet little branches develop beautiful, strong buds.
But now I am beginning to see the beauty of the buds opening, and the petals beginning to open little by little.
And I have hope that when the blooms are fully open, the true fruit will begin to show itself.
And someday, oh someday… those fruits will come off this tree… and I want to have joy & thankfulness about it…

So cheers to the future! Watch me embrace the next phase, as we move into big kid joys.
May God be my strength and establish my roots,
so that the sap is flowing thick & sweet for nourishment all around.
The roots are deep.
The buds are beautiful.
I can’t wait to taste the fruit.

DSC_0079

He Makes All Things New

Acts 14:15

“…we bring you good news, that you should turn from vain things to the living God
who made the heaven and the earth and the sea
and all that is in them.”

Revelation 21:5

“And He who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

Last month, I had the pleasure of participating in a webinar that focused on motherhood & building culture. One of the first things that really struck me in the conversations was when the presenter made the statement that this has never been done before. As a mom, as a homemaker, as a housekeeper ~ I can wonder sometimes why my job description feels so hard, so complicated, so downright daunting. I mean, really: this has been done for centuries. There is nothing new under the sun. Meals have been cooked, houses have been cleaned, homes have been made lovely havens, laundry has been endlessly done, hearts have been trained in the nurture & admonition of the Lord, brains have been educated, skills have been taught, books have been read, catechisms & Scriptures & musical pieces & multiplication tables have all been memorized… over and over and over again, generation upon generation, for centuries.

And living in the modern era of computers, washing machines, microwaves, riding lawn mowers (we do have 10,000 sq of thick grass!), and 2-day delivery of a thousand sundry items from dear old Amazon Prime, I should really have a heck of a lot easier time than many of my predecessors. In fact with reference to homeschooling, I should even have an easier time than my own mama did, who was something of a pioneer in the homeschooling world back in the 1980’s Silicon Valley. There were not the options of tutors, co ops, curriculum abundance, and things like the Homeschool Legal Defense Association were pretty cutting edge.

This can all make me easily wonder, So what’s MY problem?

And this brings me back to a little conversation from the webinar last month, where the idea was posited that this has never been done before.

Hm.

I am doing something new and groundbreaking and fresh and never-been-done-before.

Really???

Well. Yes. In a manner of speaking, with a certain perspective.

I have never done this before.
These particular kids have never done this before.
This specific family with these specific goals & ideals & worldview have never traveled this journey before.

Every day, I face a new phase of my calling.
Each morning when I wake up, not only am I older, but my children are older.
We break new ground every morning.
I have never parented an eight year old before.
I have never taught preschool and ladylike lessons to a daughter before.
I have never taught a child to cook before.
I have never managed a budget for a family of six before.

This is new. Every day. For each one of us.
I need to remember to keep this in my perspective.
Neither I nor my children know what we’re doing, have it all down pat, and know it all by memory.
We learn as we go.
Just like every other woman before me.

And sure, I have amazing modern assistance at my aid (hello, Google!) for everything from laundry scrubbing to coupon clipping to crockpot cooking to finding any answer to just about every question my curious little people could ever ask me (and I don’t even have to drive to the library anymore to figure out the dewey decimal system and pore over volumes to locate mediocre answers).
But I also have modern distractions, and unrealistic levels of comparison & expectations right at my fingertips.

Even when it comes to the grand blessing of living in this modern world and having practically the universe at my fingertips has both its pros and its cons.

It is okay to feel like these things are new.
I am made in God’s image.
And just like He once created the world, and all that therein is,
He continues to make all things new.
So while there was a time of beginning and firsts for me,
I too reflect Him when I realize & acknowledge & embrace
that I am also in the lifelong business of making all things new.

Creating precedes recreating.
And until my King stops time by His ultimate renewal,
this cycle will continue.

This is good.
It glorifies Him.
He continues to create and recreate (to once again make new)
even through my weary hands and often feeble attempts.
And I am thankful that He has chosen me, and my little people, for this good and hard journey.
I am thankful for simple words from other women in the trenches.
Simple reminders of basic truth.
Reminders like, “while it feels like this has been done before, it really hasn’t been.
You are breaking new ground every single day.
And groundbreaking things can sometimes break your back and strain the muscles.
It’s part of your calling.
Simply be faithful.”

Amen.

There are Days…

There are days when I am THAT mom.

When I bring my daughter to storytime at the library even though she is coughing with a bark like a seal. When she sits in the front row, squished between total stranger toddlers, and proceeds to loudly make friends between conversations, giggles, coughs, and interacting with the storytime leader. Not a wall-flower, this one. She made her presence known. Hand on hip. Ponytail flip. Giggle, cough, hack-up-a-lung.
Not only that, though: it’s also a day when I have baby poop on my fingers because I was dumb enough to see if the baby had filled his diaper, checking by feel rather than by sight or smell.

This was one of those days where I kind of felt like half the people, everywhere I went, must have been staring at me with wide eyes, wild cynicism brewing in their heads, stifled giggles behind their hands.

But instead of getting frustrated and focusing on what could be seen as mistakes, oversights, or faux paux… I just embraced it and smiled at myself. I giggled inwardly at my half-baked, tired little crew. Sick and poopy, to boot.

IMG_1157

I’m happy.
I’m blessed.
I have way more goodness and God’s grace in my life than I can describe or deserve. (which is why it is called GRACE, after all)
Nobody fell into a gorilla cage.
Nobody was dragged into a lagoon by an alligator.
I didn’t forget a child, strapped in a hot car while I went shopping.
There was no pickpocket, carjacker, or insane gunman on the scene.

It has been “one of those days.”
Where things are imperfect. And everybody seems to need a nap & an attitude adjustment.
But there are days, like today, where the imperfections just add to my joy and up my daily giggle quota.

There are days where I’m THAT mom.
And I couldn’t be more thankful that God has given me a girl (even when she’s sick), a baby (even when his poop gets all over me), a car to drive us around, provision to fill up the grocery cart again today (even though I already did it yesterday too), two big boys who are exhausted & sun-crisped from soccer camp, and a messy home (laundry room has a mountain in it, and please don’t check the kitchen sink out today)…

There are days where it’s just THAT good.
And I love it when I have the eyes to see it.

IMG_1152

Be Encouraged, Mamas!

IMG_1460

I recorded a little voice memo for myself not long after my husband bought me an iPhone.
“Be encouraged. The work you are doing may be hard, and you’re in the thick of it.
But you are doing GOOD WORK.”

I often think about the good works God planned long ago for me to walk in.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Good work of doling out cough medicine when little chests are croupy.
Good work of a shopping trip through the grocery store with four little ones in tow right at naptime.
Good work of getting everyone up, dressed, fed, pottied, and out the door by 8am for sports camp or VBS.
Good work of saying yes to park playdates with Auntie & cousins.
Good work of saying no to too many other playdates or too much martial arts practice.
Good work of washing diapers, wiping bums, changing sheets, washing towels, serving Goldfish & blueberries for afternoon snack.
Good work of disciplining little wayward hearts.
Good work of practicing self-denial and self-control on my own part.
Good work of admitting faults and asking forgiveness when I too give in to my own wayward heart.
Good work of planning dinner for tonight, even if fruit salad and tortellini is as far as I’ve gotten so far.
Good work of kissing booboos and covering owies with bandaids.
Good work of providing reading material, piano books, math facts worksheets, and audio books.
Good work of praying with my children, even if I feel like it is a wrestling match just to quiet them for giving thanks.
Good work of running errands, driving kids to events, fellowshipping with others, washing dishes, unloading groceries, and having an afternoon cup of coffee to ensure I make it through playtime, dinnertime, and bedtime with open eyelids.

DSC_0371

I may not be on a short term mission trip in Africa, evangelizing people who have never met King Jesus.
But I am on a long term evangelical mission right here in my own home, discipling little people who do know King Jesus and who desperately want to serve & love Him better.
I am in the business of Good News sharing, Gospel living, Kingdom expanding work.

I am in this for the long haul.
I’m doing my best.
My little disciples spend some days as faltering as Peter
and other days as unassuming as James.
I try not to spend too many days as doubtful as Thomas.

This is the work God has given me to do.
Right now.
Right here.
For this is the time and the season for it.

Oh! It is hard work. But it is GOOD.
And sometimes, I just have to remind myself of that.
God Himself prepared these works for me to walk in.

I spend a lot of time and energy and heart being an encourager.
I write notes of encouragement all the time.
It’s something I am known for, and it’s just because of Jesus’ grace.
Being an encourager-of-others is a good work God has called me to.
Of course my children are one of the main groups where I pour myself out in encouragement.
My husband also needs my encouragement, and I seek to find the ways that best encourage him.
I am continuing to grow in this skill.
I want to hone this good work to which God has called me!

IMG_1406

But I admit that there are too-often times where I feel a lack of encouragement myself.
Where is my report card?
Where is my annual review?
Where is my own to-do list all neatly checked off & squared away?

There are days when nothing is as sweet as a kind word of encouragement while maneuvering a large unwieldy grocery cart…
You know the moment…
The moment when I think the cart is so top-heavy and overloaded that it might topple over at the next aisle corner…
The moment with one on my back, one in the cart seat, and one on either side of me (“at their station” ~ which phrase may only make sense to those other young mamas who have read much Rachel Jankovic!), but all four making conversation with me in a simultaneous cacophony…
The moment where I’m so hungry I might pass out, the baby smells strongly of spit-up, the big kids ask if they can break into the container of blueberries, and suddenly the three year old declares they are in imminent need of a potty break.

That is the moment when, recently in my experience, an older woman with grace and joy and kindness (and smile lines!) simply said to me, “you’re doing a good job, mama.” I thought I heard the angels singing.
She smiled, I said thank you, my kids smiled at her and tried quickly introducing themselves all in the same breath, and we continued on.
Not four aisles over, an older gentleman with life-worn hands and the passage of time spilling from his eyes touched my arm gently with his hand, saying, “you’ve got good kids. They must be loved very much.”
I responded, “oh yes I do and yes they are! I can not even tell you.”

Like a cup of cool water.
The reminder from been-there-done-that perspective of older, wiser folks.
The encouragement that this is good stuff.
It may be hard, it may be heavy, and there may be moments where I wonder if it’s all truly going well.

Weeks later, I am still lifted up and encouraged by the words of those two people that day.
In the interim, I have been able to dip my own ladle in and share some of that cool water with others.
A cranky looking pregnant girl who had that familiar look of large discomfort – I simply told her she was beautiful.
A mom with little children acting like monkeys, who looked like she was about to totally lose her cool – I smiled at her understandingly and said, “I get it. I would offer you some chocolate, but I don’t have any! I’ve got gum!” She didn’t want the gum, but she appreciated the laugh and the moment to catch her breath.

Be encouraged, mamas.
Encourage one another, too.
Walk in the good works God prepared for you.
And when you can’t see the goodness, just believe it.
It takes faith.
But that’s encouraging too.

DSC_0438

Enjoy It

snuggle my bebe

What is one of the first, last, and most common things that an older & wiser woman tells a young mama? Enjoy itEnjoy these days, because they go by all too quickly.

Oh! Don’t we know it!

I do not begrudge the sentiment by a long shot, nor do I hold it against the throngs who have thus sought to encourage me. (And, yes, I too have said it to others!)
But what I would really love to know is HOW ~ how do I enjoy it? What are the secrets to embracing the chaos with joy? Where do I uncover secrets for how to capture the beauty in the mess? When will someone explain to me exactly how to soak up life in its moments rather than being pummeled by its speed?

I know that I should enjoy this.
And in all honesty, there is nothing I enjoy more than motherhood.
Nothing!

But there is also nothing harder.
Nothing challenges me to the extent that motherhood does.
Nothing else pushes me to these limits.
Nothing makes me long for quiet moments lying between cool cotton sheets like the chaos of four children, homeschooled by little old me, in a big house in the country.

I enjoy cooking. And baking (yeah, especially baking).
I enjoy a tidy, ordered home.
I enjoy washing dishes and putting away the laundry.
I enjoy dressing my children.
I enjoy undressing them and bathing them and watching them splash in bubble baths.
I enjoy reading books together and having educational aha moments.
I enjoy being the one my husband comes home to.
I enjoy being the woman who makes his lunches, irons his shirts, listens to his thoughts, and entwines my legs with his at night.
I enjoy waking up to the sound of “moooooooommmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!” through the monitor.
I enjoy answering questions, especially when I know the answer.
I enjoy planning outings and projects and schedules and parties.
I enjoy homemaking.
I enjoy turning chaos into order, mess into beauty, strife into peace.

But in recent weeks, I have wondered: “Do I enjoy MY LIFE?”

What a strange thing. Individually, I can not say that there is honestly any single aspect of my life which I do not enjoy.
I count myself among the blessed few in God’s wide creation that truly enjoy each thing He has called me to do.
But collectively, when it is all shoved together into the short 24-hour windows that He has allotted for me, I find it very hard to enjoy life.

I struggle with feeling like I deserve to enjoy my life.
I feel guilty if I find myself enjoying it fully.
I’m always thinking of twenty other things I should be doing rather than sitting still and enjoying a moment.

(Tell me I’m not alone.)

When I am on my deathbed, if I am coherent at the time, would I say to anyone, “I wish I had vacuumed more regularly? I wish I had cleaned my home on a schedule? I wish I had stuck to a meal plan? I wish I had sent my children away from me each day to be taught by someone else? I wish I had spent more time on the computer?”
I sincerely, highly and deeply, doubt it.

I will, God willing, look around at my descendants and those who I love most, and say, “My only regret is that I did not put aside futile things more to enjoy each human soul God put beside me each day.”

Thirty-two years already into this life, and no clue how many years yet the Lord has written into my story on earth.
But I am trying to get a handle on this thing called life.
Learning how to walk and drink ~ the basics, really.

Does it matter how many dust bunnies are found beneath my couch?
Does it matter what size my jeans are?
When I am older and grayer, will I look back in my memory banks or gaze through photo albums and simply critique the flabby abs of my thirties or the dog hair & country dust on my wood floors?

I should hope not!

These flabby abs were hard to fight for.
Damnit if I allow myself to succumb to peer pressures which make me think I’m less-than because I am no longer a size two.
This body brought thirteen more eternal souls into God’s Kingdom.
I spent nine years giving my body to the work of fattening heaven and earth with children ~ I will not give up my remaining years to agonizing over the evidence they left behind.

These wood floors in my country home are a tool for our life, not the point of our existence.
Phooey on me if I give in to the false assumption that cleanliness is next to godliness because my home doesn’t always sparkle and smell of white vinegar & lemon verbena.
This home is to be used for a blessing, a haven, for those who live here and those who visit here.
Rather than wasting my days scrubbing this place for the sake of appearance, I need to drive Matchbox cars on these floors, crawl alongside my baby through the dust bunnies, and have tea parties on the rugs. Rugs which, by the way, have a clever skill of hiding immeasurable imperfections.

I will enjoy this life.
I will enjoy these children.
Not only the individual events but the collective gathering of people and tasks and weeks.

My personal weakness is to find fault and focus there. To feel guilt over embracing blessings.
But what has God called me to do? To be faithful. To enjoy Him.
May He grant me the daily and hourly strength to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.
May the God of heaven and earth reach through my weak flesh and grab hold on my faltering heart, causing me to fully enjoy what He has given me to do in this life He has called me to live.

Amen.

Photography Challenge, Week Twelve

Week Twelve: Artistic, Transportation

DSC_0078

Each week, I find myself trying various ideas
and trying to be particularly artsy…
but then I find myself back in my “real life mama” rut! :)

So this week’s artistic interpretation of transportation,
is simply a picture of all my babywearing gear.

That’s how my littlest kiddos
are transported around.
And it’s my favorite thing right now.

DSC_0057

Life in the Weeds

I was gritting my teeth through the morning… two crying in one room while two squabbled in another… one wetting her pants while another filled his diaper… two boys throwing up hands because of math problems while the baby throws up milk because I didn’t pat out his burps while I want to throw in the towel at the sight of a dog tracking in mud-and-who-knows-what… costumes and matchbox cars and crayons and sippy cups strewn all over the house…
I am smiling though my body aches and my soul is stretched, because I know there is no other choice.
But there is a struggle going on while I nearly drown myself in self-doubt and self-loathing. Yes, this day feels like an exercise of futility. But does that mean that it is not valuable? Deep in my heart I know that it is invaluable, but that is an intangible & invisible price tag.

Then at noon my phone rang. It was my husband, calling to check in on my day. When I heard his voice, it felt like a drink of cold water when you are really thirsty. I needed that. And when he asked how my day was going, I said, “tell me about your day” – to which he said, “that good, huh? tell me how things are.” I sighed and walked to the bathroom. It’s funny how a bathroom can become a place of refuge, of comfort and quiet. The rest of the house may be a busy, noisy, bustling, messy place ~ but my bathroom? I can close out everything else, even if just for five minutes. So I did. Well, except for the kids calling me from the other room, and the sleeping baby strapped to my chest. But you know. That is basically the same as being alone. 😉

I poured out my thoughts (anxieties, fears, self-doubt, struggles, frustrations) to my generously listening husband. I emptied myself.

And then he poured his thoughts back to me, seeking to fill me back up.
I may have cried while he did.

He encouraged me, it is hard to see the fruit when we are still planting.

And, it is hard to see when you’re in the weeds. You have to be able to step back and see where you came from.

My husband took the time amidst his own busy workday to encourage me in mine.
I don’t get graded or adjudicated or reviewed to find perspective.
But my husband can see my emptiness. Especially when I am not too proud to lift the veil and let him see it.

Sometimes all I see are the weeds that need pulled out. And when the plants are still small, the weeds and the seedlings can actually be hard to distinguish. I need a fellow gardener sometimes to give me perspective and remind me that I am still planting, still watering; the harvest at this point is in tiny portions. Someone else’s eyes may better see the good growth while surveying the land, while I am on my knees in the furrows, hands covered in dirt and eyes focused on the weeds.

My job isn’t to wonder how great the harvest will be. Not yet.
It is to keep planting good seeds, keep watering, keep fertilizing, keep plucking out the weeds, to let the sunlight in, to patiently wait while the tiny plants take root.
Someday it will be easier to see the work that has been accomplished.
Right now, all I need is to be this empty vessel, this diligent planter, this person who takes five minutes to cry “alone” in the bathroom and then gets back digging into the dirt.

I need to remember that only eyes of faith can see the beauty of future fruit even when life feels lived in the weeds.
Oh Lord, help Thou my unbelief.

Life as SAHM is (More Than) Enough

I praise my King, that He and His grace are sufficient
(which means not only enough, but completely and totally filling it up to all the corners!)
even for the moments where I muse about the following…
where I wonder about myself and my work…
where I ask Him, is it enough?
and am I enough?

I can feel like I run around all day trying to just keep little people alive, fed, clothed, and moderately happy.

And is that enough?
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough.
There are moments where my brain says, “I’ve HAD enough.”
And there are moments where my heart screams, “This is enough to fill me up for six lifetimes!”
But there is a tug of war going on inside myself.

Is it enough? What I do? Who I am? How I do it?
I spend all day every day just trying to keep our world going. To keep bellies filled, house clean, home havenly, children tended, errands run, bills paid, prayers said, minds educated.

“Just.”

As if there were anything JUST about it.

For today, while yet another ellipses claims my thoughts and my time, I will leave you with a wonderfully long missive that G.K. Chesterton said about the massive duty of motherhood, for which it could never be said to have “just” as its adjective.

Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior.

Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist.

Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world.

But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean.

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.

How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

-What’s Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton

Life in Ellipses

I know there are lots of jobs that dictate a life and routine with a rinse & repeat nature. Truly, that is how God created the world. Even He seems to live within a refrain ~ times and seasons, which are necessarily repetitious. It clearly does not mean that a repetitious, cyclical job is not fully useful. Just because something is cyclical does not mean it is futile. Read Ecclesiastes to see that truth right in front of your eyes from the incomparable wisdom of Solomon.

But it does mean that I can only live so linearly. Even a description of “two steps forward, one step back” doesn’t always prove true when one’s vocation is cyclical by nature. Round and round I go. The nature of my cyclical jobs are domestic, but I realize that it is not the only one that has a cyclical form.

But I don’t think it is simply the repetition that has forced me to go without a checklist.

It is my vocation. Motherhood has caused me, little by little, to give it up.
To have open hands for each day.
To live in a moment-by-moment mindframe.
To accept that my entire world right now is controlled by the tyranny of the urgent.

For example, in the forty minutes it took me to write the simple, short thoughts above… I have changed a diaper, switched the laundry, refilled a cup of milk, taught an English lesson, stoked the fire, sipped my coffee, and nursed the baby.

Whew. No wonder my thoughts rarely seem to flow smoothly anymore. My life is filled with punctuation. But it isn’t always periods or commas. It is most often ellipses. What we describe as dot dot dot. Meaning, to be continued. Or this is a lapse. Or fill in the blank.

I try to multitask, for sure. Just ask me about the crazy things I have done lately while breastfeeding my son. I may have sat in the rocker to nurse and a read a book with my firstborn son and called it multitasking. But that is nothing compared with talking on the phone, wiping a 3 year old’s bum, teaching a piano lesson, and nursing the infant… and no, I’m not making that scenario up. Ask many a mom, and they will tell you the same. A big part of our career is multitasking, definitely & no question about it.

But more often and more definitely than even multitasking is my life of ellipses. Stopping and starting. Fits and spurts. Interruptions of all kinds, sizes, lengths, reasons.

Whoever coined the phrase (it seems to be a man named Charles Hummel in 1967, at first glance google), “tyranny of the urgent” had to have some major inside scoop on motherhood.

I can start sixty things from a checklist in one day, but I don’t know how many months it would take to check them all off as “complete.”

And that has been a big struggle for me, in all honesty.
It is a new thing for me (eight years into my motherhood journey!) to embrace life without a checklist.
It’s only recently that Mommy decided I live life better, more fully, more joyfully, more completely, more God-honoringly when I am not beholden to a piece of paper covered in bullet points.

And it is amazing to me that things are still getting done.
They are even getting done on time and in a routine way.
And when things don’t get done (or done on time, or done in a predictably routine way), none of us are worse for the wear.

The things that really matter in my vocation can not be described or defined on a checklist anyway.
Most of the things that happen in my day to day life can not be predicted or put on a timeline.
The people that I manage, and those who I report to, do not adhere to checklists.

So I am learning joy in flexibility.
I am learning to embrace the ellipses rather than clinging to a desire for checkmarks.
I am learning to find encouragement and fulfillment without relying on a completed checklist for my sense of value in God’s world.