Thanks to my friend Laura, I am going to try my hardest to jump in and try a weekly photography challenge!
I am not big into new year resolutions or goals… but I hope to do more writing and more photography this year. So this will be one push toward one of those hopes. Cheer me on, please! My camera is still super new and unknown to me.
Week One: Self Portrait
Week Two: Traditional Landscape
There is something about children mixing with elegance that just makes me smile from ear to ear.
Out celebrating in elegance the beloved parents and grandparents of this joyful group,
and their marriage of forty years & counting!
What a glorious time Advent is! And I’ve been too caught up in the business of Adventing that I haven’t been taking the time to write about it. Of course traditionally (so we have been hearing, especially, in the Anglican tradition) it is a season not unlike Lent. Advent prepares for Christmas like Lent prepares for Easter. The two glorious hallmark holy days of the Christian faith are preceded by seasons of waiting and anticipation, preparation and repentance. So we don’t party like it’s Christmas until Christmas. There are no flowers on the altar at church. The word “alleluia” is suddenly absent from some of the liturgical texts in worship, and the eucharist liturgy is actually altered a bit during this season too, with an emphasis on sin and repentance ~ and, praise the Lord, plenty of grace to soak in.
It is good to be children sometimes,
and never better than Christmas,
when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.
— Charles Dickens
In our family, we remind our kids of the waiting and the anticipation by giving them tiny tastes, little sips. They get one chocolate each night, and one tiny glass of wine at each Advent dinner (which we’ve been doing on Saturday nights, and we love this tradition!). I ask them questions (“what does Advent mean?” “who is coming?” “what does Emmanuel mean?” and more…). We sing songs (they’ve got O Come O Come Emmanuel memorized, and most of O Come All Ye Faithful). We read little books that are toddler friendly to remind everyone of the real Christmas story, and I sometimes ask the boys to fill in the blanks to see what they can recall (“what did Herod want done?” “what did the angels tell the magi?” “what did Mary say when Gabriel told her about the baby Jesus?” “what did the angels sing at Christ’s birth?” etc…).
And the kids are eagerly counting the days until Christmas. Every morning (and probably half a dozen more times throughout the day) they declare the countdown for everyone to hear. They love their Advent calendars in their rooms to help with this endeavor.
Most notably, the children know that Advent is about anticipation, hope, looking back but also looking ahead. While they only get one chocolate each evening of Advent, Christmas will soon be here ~ and on Christmas, they can have handfuls of chocolates if they want! We get a sugary, gooey breakfast with rich drinks. We get a big brunch, and a beefy dinner. There will be wine and cookies. And gifts ~ oh, there will be gifts!! I have put some under the tree already, because the kids were begging… but they are ones that can not easily be peeked into, haha! or they are ones not for the kids. 
Although even our two year old seems to be embracing obedience about the tree, the ornaments, and the gifts all being off limits for touching. We are thankful for that!
When the kids wake up on Christmas morning, the rest of the gifts will be under the tree, and the stockings will be full. Breakfast will be baking in the oven and coffee & hot cocoa will be steaming. Music will be on, candles lit, fireplace roaring. Gifts and games and laughter and singing and rejoicing will fill the day. And, Lord willing, it will overflow into the days yet to come afterward. Which is just what grace should be like. It should fill you up, then overflow you. And one of the best ways of showing that to children is by the tangibles. For that matter, it’s a pretty downright good way to remind us adults too!
Thanks be to God for being the perfect Father, the giver of all good and perfect gifts, so that we know Who to imitate! Now… may He give us the grace to joyfully imitate Him with vigor, and the mercy to grow closer in our imitation accuracy year by year.
“Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey;
that Truth might be accused of false witnesses,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo
Isn’t there something just completely, inexplicably wonderful about the way children look like
fairytale characters when they play in snow mounds,
bundled up like the softest of marshmallows?!
I love these marshmallow munchkins.
When do we most need hope?
In hopelessness.
That is when we feel lack of hope most acutely. It is when we need to have our eyes opened to real hope.
“A prison cell in which one waits, hopes,…
and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom
has to be opened from the outside,
is not a bad picture of Advent.”
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer
That is what this first week of Advent is all about. Hope.
Anticipating, longing, looking ahead, believing that the fulfillment of promises and prophecies are yet to come.
I love these simple perspectives and tips for observing Advent, even in a family with little (messy, fussy, short-attentioned!) children.
“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light,
now in the time of this life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;
So that, at the last day, when He shall come again
in His glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal.”
–The Book of Common Prayer
I am pulling out our Advent wreath, our Advent calendar, and a huge amount of chocolates.
Soon, other Christmas-is-coming boxes will be brought up from the basement, as we slowly see hope fulfilled by the advancing of Christmas.
May God give us eyes to see and ears to hear. May He make us awake and ready.
May He give us hope because of Jesus.
We are continuing to celebrate life! Simeon’s lungs filled with oxygen 36 days ago. Yesterday Simeon’s head was covered with water and oil. He has always belonged to Christ, but yesterday he was officially welcomed into the Church by receiving the sacrament of baptism. He is officially a son of the covenant, heir of God’s Kingdom, full participant in the body of Christ as a member of His bride. Hallelujah! What hope! What a perfect thing to celebrate on the first Sunday of Advent, where we lit the candle of hope. Please rejoice with us and celebrate the life of Christ in our little son.
For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off,
everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.
Acts 2:39
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
The joy of having these four children in my arms is indescribable. Simply incalculable!
And that joy is multiplied by the delight they take in one another.
Thanks be to God for these immeasurable blessings!
There is no denying that I have been nothing short of a walking pharmacy for the last few years. In the last few months (maybe since June?) I have saved up all my needles and syringes (and a few of the med vials) in order to share another unique perspective on my PAL journey. If I had saved all of them since I started doing injections in late August 2010, all four of my children (THAT is am amazing phrase right there…) could be surrounded by a fort made out of them. Not joking.
But this is what a couple months looks like. Just the injection stuff though. This doesn’t include the 1/4 cup+ full of pills (medications, vitamins, supplements, probiotics) that I took every day.
This is to show a portion, a perspective, on a specific labor of love – just a small glimpse. I want my children to always know how desperately loved they are, how incredibly wanted they are, and how I would give anything (including my own life-blood) for them.
Pregnant with a Rainbow, Part X
Ends & Beginnings
When I got up last Sunday morning, I had no idea what the Lord had in store for our day. I went about our morning like any other Sunday morning ~ pancakes for children, dressing in our Sunday clothes, packing Bibles & coffee cups into the car. More for the sake of having a practice run than actually thinking we needed to, Steven and I threw our hospital bag into the car, and the very last thing I ran back into the house to get was my camera. The drive to church was our normal boisterous fifty minutes. Sunday school and worship were normal too, but for the fact that I preferred to stand in the back & sway a bit rather than sit for two and a half hours. I was noting fairly regular cramping, but only had a few real contractions. Which I had been having on and off for a few days. So I brushed it off as being nothing. We continued with our plans for the day, which happened to be having brunch at our pastor’s house. What a sweet time of food and fellowship! But our visit was suddenly cut short because around 3:15pm I suddenly noticed that I was having contractions… about every four minutes… and they were quickly growing intense. I called my parents to let them know I thought we might need to think about going to the hospital at least to get checked out, and wondered if they could meet us there… but while I was talking to my mother in the span of about three minutes, the tsunami hit.
Wave upon wave, with barely a pause between, the contractions kept coming ~ and hard. Steven took the phone and told my parents we were on our way as quickly as we could. We called the children to clamor into the car, and we said goodbye to our friends. We sped off… and within a couple of minutes, my water broke. In the car. With my children in the backseat. And we were still twenty minutes from the hospital. It was a dramatic drive, to say the least, and the Lord’s angels were clearly His agents of grace toward us as we made our way from one end of the city to the other. I tried to control my breathing, to resist pushing, without scaring my children who sat behind me. Steven kept two hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road, maneuvering the car with some pretty good skill along the way. At 3:40, we pulled into the emergency room drop-off, where my parents and a nurse got me into a wheelchair. I called goodbye & I love you to my children, and told them how proud I was that they were so brave, and was whisked away through the hospital to the maternity ward. At this point, I let the emotions flood through ~ I covered my face with my hands and wept while I tried to breathe in a focused and purposed way to resist pushing. I was not in the mood to have a baby on the elevator. Thankfully, they had a room ready for us; nurses bustled about, bringing in everything they needed for me and my baby. I was bewildered by everything going on around me, and completely disoriented. Weren’t we just sitting on the pastor’s couch talking about things like schooling and coffee and baptism? How is it that I am suddenly here? At the hospital… in, umm, labor?!
Praise the Lord, my own doctor was on call. It was a relief to see him walk in. We waited for a couple more minutes, while my dad passed our children off to my brother, and I was grateful to have my mother & husband on one side of me and two nurses on the other side to help me get through the intense contractions. Apparently I had been in quiet, early labor all morning; and then I guess I started to hit transition suddenly at our pastor’s house; and now that we had arrived at the hospital a few minutes earlier, as soon as my dad ran into the room, my doctor declared it’s time to have this baby.
I felt delirious and overwhelmed. So not prepared for this today. Did not expect the baby to come yet, and definitely had not spent the day expecting it to involve labor & delivery! Talk about a sweet surprise.
Two long, hard pushes (and a couple of screams) later, I was told to open my eyes… as my doctor reached up and placed a purplish, wet, squirming, tiny human on my chest. I could not believe my eyes. He’s here!? Already? Now?!
Amazing. It was 4:06. One hour prior, I was still eating egg casserole and sausages at my pastor’s house. Now I was in a hospital bed, with a circus whirlwind bustling around me, as I tried to get my eyes to focus on my little 5lb 10oz rainbow boy snuggling on my chest.
Simeon James arrived in famous fashion at 36 weeks ~ a bundle of precious little pumpkin peanutty goodness. I still simply can’t put him down. My neck has a continual kink because I can’t stop staring down at him.
Oh! The Lord has heard! He has supplanted our grief with joy!
We are in awe of His good plan.
I did not know when I woke up last Sunday morning, before we got out of bed, that it was the last time my husband’s hand would rest on my belly & play with the baby who was nestled underneath my skin.
I did not know when I was in Sunday school last Sunday morning that it was the last time I would feel my son’s hiccups from inside the depths of my body.
I did not know during worship last Sunday morning that it was the last time there would only be seven of us in our pew, or that it was the last time Asher would sit beside me and try to poke his baby brother’s limbs under my ribs.
I did not know last Sunday morning that it was the last day I would ever be pregnant.
I did not know last Sunday morning that my rainbow was about to break through the clouds for my eyes to behold its beauty firsthand.
And then suddenly it happened.
It was the end. And honestly, it happened so mercifully fast that my brain and heart did not have time or coherency to fight the bittersweet side of it. I did not process until we were home from the hospital that the end of my PAL journeys had arrived.
But what’s beautiful in the Lord’s economy is that ends are also beginnings.
And the end of Sweet Teen’s life in the womb brought a beautiful, dramatic beginning to Simeon’s life in the world of sunshine.
There is a time for everything.
Thanks be to God.
Sweet Teen’s rainbow has burst forth!
We joyfully welcome our precious son
~…~…~
Simeon James
~…~…~
~the Lord has heard, and supplanted our grief with joy~
born on Sunday, October 25th at 4:06pm
5lbs 10oz ~ 19 1/2 inches ~ pumpkin fuzz atop his head
Blessed be the Lord!
For He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to Him.
Psalm 28:6-7
I waited patiently for the Lord;
He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
Psalm 40:1, 3
This is the Lord‘s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:23-24
