Author: joyfuldomesticity

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it is a twisty journey

As for my dear friends and me,
our hearts are full, of course,
but also a little tender, bruised, tired.
Motherhood and the journey toward it,
has battered us a little bit, each in our own ways.
From ambivalence to longing to loss,
from the anger that our bodies won’t do what we want them to,
to the consuming, crushing love for a baby that is just hanging on.
From the emptiness every month
over and over,
to the physical brokenness of our bodies,
to the deep questions—When? When? When? Why? Why not?
~ Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet, p151~

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Motherhood has rumbled over us like a freight train,
rendering us in some moments out of control and humbled,
positions we’re not accustomed to.
We’re get-it-done women.
We’ve handled everything, all the time, all at the same time.
We’ve made lists and plans and back-up plans.
And motherhood laughed at our plans,
twisted up our expectations,
and gave them back to us upside down,
covered with blood and stretch marks and Goldfish cracker paste.
~ Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet, p151~

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Harping

Psalm 98:5

Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!

 

While you read this, you should listen to this music because it’s just the perfect soundtrack.

When I was a teenager, after having been a pianist since I was four years old, I became intrigued with the harp. I think it was in 2000 that I began taking harp lessons, and my father shortly thereafter surprised me by buying me my very own gorgeous pedal harp. A Camac Athena with an extended soundboard (for anyone who cares :lol:), a honey color, matching my hair and my complexion. I love this thing. It’s gorgeous and healing and splendid. Once I played well enough, I joined a local youth symphony as their principal harpist (although I quickly became too old to remain in it), and did hired gigs every now & then to make a little bit of money. I continued taking lessons until college kept me too busy (ironic, considering I was a music major), and my poor beautiful harp gathered dust under her maroon dust cover. She still stood gallantly in the corner of my family room, and she went unplayed, untuned, some could even say unloved. For years.

I finally started getting back into it after I was married, playing occasionally for church, and even for a friend’s wedding.
This last year, I decided I wanted to make a concerted effort to get back into playing music more diligently. I started with piano. Every evening. For a minimum of thirty minutes. I have slowly started incorporating harp back into my routine, at least a few days a week. My fingers are getting good callouses again, and I am learning to keep my fingernails trimmed appropriately. At our new church (we’ve been there for nearly a year now!), there are two other harpists, and they have gladly inspired me to get back into harping. They are at two ends of the spectrum: one plays only lever harps, is self-taught, and prefers non-Classical music; the other plays any and all harps, has been professionally taught since she was six years old, has studied under some of the best harpists in this generation all over the world, makes a living as a professional harpist, and plays anything under the sun. They both encourage me by their music and their examples, and whether they are trying to or not, they have watered the seed of desire in my soul to increase my skill on the harp as well as broaden my sights ~ what kind of harp, what kind of music, whether I am professionally instructed or self-exhorted…

It has been gloriously fun to fall in love with harp again.

But then came a dilemma: I can not take my harp anywhere. I don’t have a vehicle anymore that it fits in. Sure, I could still borrow my dad’s old (I’m tempted to call it “beat up” but I don’t want to be crude! :lol:) Suburban, take the seats out of it, and haul my 6’2″ tall and 71lb instrument places to share music with others. But it’s not all that realistic, at least not with any kind of frequency.

So about two months ago (it was actually right before Christmas that I started with the desire, but only in mid-January to early-February that I started legitimately looking), I began the search for another instrument. A new harp.

I almost wanted to just buy anything that I could get the soonest. Wasn’t sure I wanted to be discerning about maker or model. Figured since I am no professional, it doesn’t matter if I compare harps a lot or play something before I buy it, because to my amateur ears & fingers, a harp is a harp is a harp. Right?

Well, my harpist friends didn’t really agree. :)

After some fun discussions and more than my fair share of online searches, I became convinced that I was looking primarily for a certain make (Dusty Strings) and model (Allegro 26). I came up with a budget (and harps are not cheap, let me tell you), that I figured was reasonable… and while my professional harpist friend lead me to think I might have to wait quite a while to find something within my budget that was not a total beater, I knew that if I were supposed to have this harp and keep this budget, the Lord would provide.

And honestly, I figured I would be waiting many months. In my head, I was kind of hoping I could find one by Christmas.

Then yesterday happened. :)

I found a listing online (through a magazine called Harp Column, which is snazzy) for the exact harp I was looking for. But I am in Washington state, and this harp was in Florida. But I contacted the seller, we emailed back & forth, we spoke on the phone for a while. And she was asking one hundred dollars less than I was hoping to pay, and said if I gave her $100 for shipping, we would call it even, regardless of what shipping would end up costing (and it seemed, from preliminary glances, that shipping would be anywhere from $75 to $300). I told her that I would pray about it, talk to my husband about it, and get back to her. She said she had two other interested buyers, but that she would put them both off for another day, and wait for my decision.

I spent a while yesterday praying about it, and dreaming about it, and getting excited about the opportunity to have a harp that I could actually fit in the back of my SUV, could take places to share with people, could play at church, could use for a blessing for others and not just myself. And I forwarded all the information, including pictures, to my local professional harpist friend. She was excited for me! So excited, in fact, that she called someone locally here who owns an Allegro harp (the type that I was hoping to buy from Florida), to ask if I could stop by and play hers before I committed to having one shipped to me from the farthest corner of the country. And then a funny thing happened: the lady said, “funny you should call about it, because I was just thinking how I haven’t had time to play my harp in so long, and maybe I should just sell it. Maybe your friend would just like to buy mine.” So I got the woman’s phone number and gave her a call. But she didn’t answer. I left a message. I didn’t know if she was really serious, and half expected her never to call back.

My husband eventually got home, and we talked about harps. We talked about using our money wisely, and what I would do with having two harps (in addition to my baby grand piano, a set of handbells, and an Irish hand drum – not to mention a couple of penny whistles my parents brought from Ireland, and two different sized guitars in the house) to make it not ridiculous to spend the time and money and space on a new little harp. Suddenly, it was time to let the woman in Florida know my decision. I so much wanted to say yes, and just have her ship it on out to me so that I knew there was a guarantee of something in my budget coming my way that I could use to encourage my own soul and to bless the souls of others around me!

And yet, we decided to say no.

It felt almost counterintuitive to decline the harp from Florida, when it was the exact harp I was looking for, and exactly in the budget I had come up with.

 

We got in the car to head to church for a Lenten dinner and service.
On the 50 minute drive last evening, I was feeling a sense of sadness. Peaceful though. I knew that if God wanted me to have another harp, He would make it excessively clear. So saying no thank you to that harp made me sad, but the Lord gave me peace. When (if ever) it was the right harp and the right time, we would know. And my husband, honestly, did not feel all that comfortable with buying something three thousand miles away, and having a perilous journey for the delicate instrument outside our control, never having been able to play it or hear it before spending the money and making the commitment.

So was said no, but were very grateful for the woman’s time spent with me. And I told her that I hoped one of the other two interested people would pan out quickly for her.

And then, just before we pulled into our church’s parking lot, my phone rang.

It was the local woman with the same little harp!

While my husband gathered our things and went in to the church building, I talked to her. A sweet, older sounding lady who was very chatty. :) And she invited me to come to her home, which is only about thirty minutes from mine, to meet her and play her harp.

So after church this coming Sunday, I have a date with this woman and her Allegro… and if I fall in love with her harp, as she said she is sure I will, I might come home with it that very day. :happytears: I told her that since this all came up so suddenly, and it’s not like she was actively looking for a buyer and trying to sell her harp, that if she wanted me not to bring my checkbook but just to come visit and talk together, I was happy to move more slowly. And she assured me that either way, she was comfortable. She said I sounded lovely, and that any friend of my professional harpist friend would make a good home for her beloved little Allegro, and she felt at peace with saying that she could say goodbye to it even as soon as this Sunday.

So I don’t know what will happen for sure. But I do know that this wee saga encouraged me, once again, that God knows all the desires of my heart, and He does not let any detail past His control. Right down to the timing of me needing to say no to a harp on the East Coast just forty-five minutes before the phone rang with a possible yes to a harp practically right here in my own backyard. And how much would the harp locally cost? My budgeted amount exactly, right down to the dollar.

Once Sunday comes and goes, I will share the ending to this story. Or maybe it will simply be the beginning of another story.

Maybe my beautiful Athena is about to get a sweet little sister called Allegro. :D And if so, I will share pictures of my harps with you.

 

Psalm 33:2

Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!

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The Concrete is Drying

If life is a race (and it is), then it is run across wet concrete.
If life is a story (and it is), then that story is the cumulative spatter of our tracks.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p165~

Not sure what kind of day today was.
Have you had those days where you feel like you started ten different things, but can’t put your finger on whether you completed even one?
That was today.
It was a fast run across wet concrete, but I am not sure what footprints I left.
There must be a spatter of tracks left in the storyline of my life that is the chapter called 3.18.15
But I don’t think it is going to be one of the most remarkable.
Who knows.
Sometimes remarkable is in the eyes of the beholder, right?

I lived today for my husband who gives his life for me. I lived today for every single one of my children who are our love made flesh.
I got my hands up, groped for the pillars, hung on tight, and eagerly rode the waves.
Sometimes it all just gets lost in the daily things of bums to wipe, bread to knead, math problems to solve, phone calls to make, papers to file, fires to stoke, laundry to wash (and rewash when the dog pees on it), bathrooms half cleaned, floors not swept, ironing not done…

But these children laughed today, they smiled, they squealed, they made jokes. They loved with white knuckles and butterfly kisses.
This husband held me tight today. He worked hard. He came home to me. He held my hand and drove me to church for an evening service. He will snuggle me all night because that’s just how we like it.

He is a reminder.
To get my hands up.
To grope for the pillars.
To saddle up the mustang and hang on tight.
To live for this woman who is giving her life for me,
for these little humans who are our love made flesh.
Ride the roaring wave of providence with eager expectation.
To search for the stories all around me.
To see Christ in every pair of eyes.
To write a past I won’t regret.
To reach the dregs of the life I’ve been given
and then to lick the bottom of my mug.
To live hard and die grateful.
And to enjoy it.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p181~

So it was a day that was lived.
And loved.
It may be gone forever, but there are remnants of it that will go on for generations.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had the perspective and the viewpoint God does, to see how each of these footsteps impacts the fruit of my womb, and the fruit of theirs?

It’s time to sleep while the concrete hardens. So goodnight. We will find more wet cement tomorrow for a new race.

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It Gladdens our Hearts

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Wine is simply water
that has matured according to nature’s will…
God gave us wine to make us gracious and keep us sane.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p93~

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With wine at hand, the good man concerns himself,
not with getting drunk,
but with drinking in all the natural delectabilities of wine:
taste, color bouquet;
its manifold graces;
the way it complements food and enhances conversation;
and its sovereign power to turn evenings into occasions,
to lift eating beyond nourishment to conviviality,
and to bring the race, for a few hours at least,
to that happy state where men are wise and women beautiful,
and even one’s children begin to look promising.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p91~

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When you eat, I want you to think of God,
of the holiness of hands that feed us,
of the provision we are given every time we eat.
When you eat bread and you drink wine,
I want you to think about the body and the blood every time,
not just when the bread and wine show up in church,
but when they show up anywhere—
on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p17

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Psalm 104:15
…wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

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St. Patrick’s Day

Someone is trying to wake me. It’s so hard to shake myself out of a dream. Dreams can be so thick. It holds me, even though two minutes later once my eyes blink into the light and see a familiar face, I have completely forgotten what gripped me so strongly. Long cold drinks of water to say goodbye to sleepiness, and long warm kisses to say goodbye to my husband. He leaves with two baking pans full of fresh cinnamon rolls. One topped with Irish coffee icing, the other drizzled with bright green liquid sugar. I think I deserve a pot of gold for sending in goodies on a Tuesday. Right? Or at least a rainbow maybe?

Rainbow.
I open the blinds. It is raining, the grass suddenly looks so green and the hills so misty. It is a very Irish day.
No rainbow though. Not yet. Keep looking.

CHRIST BE WITH ME

Clothes on. Whoops ~ blue and pink do not make green. And nobody will believe me if I tell them my underthings are green. And I won’t prove it. So green earrings and green scarf. There. Head to the kitchen singing St. Patrick’s Breastplate. Twice.

Coffee made, vitamins swallowed, crockpot turned on (sighing thankful that I put this together last night), recipe for colcannon queued up for the afternoon.
Time to rustle the children. Why is it that the days when they need to be up early are the days their little bodies rest like rag dolls under their blankets? Moist heads with heavy eyelids. I kiss fuzzy cheeks. I snuggle warm bodies. Then I turn on the light and rip back the covers. Oooooh, morning feels so harsh sometimes.

But then they remember. Donuts!!
They hurry to put on clothes. I remember to make them put on something green. Since we will be out in public, and I don’t know if kids are mean these days or not, but when I was little, you got pinched if you didn’t have green on. Whether someone knew you or not, suddenly they thought they had the right to squeeze your flesh between their fingernails if you were not wearing a proper color. Strange tradition. My mommy bear instinct kicks in, and I make sure the boys wear their brightest green sweaters of all. Top their coppertops with Irish hats straight from the island herself, and there we go. We are channeling all our Irish heritage we can at the moment.

Take a sip of coffee, shuffle the boys off to the bathroom, head down to dress the girl. She has a splendid green dress with orange flowers and butterflies. The orange accents please her father, as he annually reminds me that green is for Catholics and orange is for Protestants. I don’t know if I have ever taken the time to even so much as google the truth or tradition behind that… but I believe him, and I take a moment of delight in the fact that my daughter can wear both green & orange with much success. Little bow on her head, little shoes on her feet. Don’t forget blankie and baby doll! The day would be ever so rough without them.

Pop these little people in the car. Oh bother: where are my keys? These things really should come with radar tracking systems built in. Why are there so many purses and diaper bags to search through? Jacket pockets? Nooks & crannies? Hmm. Good thing there are travel cups of milk to pass out to the kids along with granola bars and apple slices, to keep them blissfully unaware in their carseats while I frantically search through the house for the fob. Honestly. A second car key might be nice (hint, hint, darling: Mother’s Day is coming!).

Finally, it emerges from the bottom of a third diaper bag. Of course. I can never remember which bag I took last. On my to do list: improve my memory. One of these days. Perhaps my large cup of morning vitamins needs some additional zinc or ginko biloba or some such magic.

CHRIST WITHIN ME

Here we go! Ten minutes late, but nobody the wiser.
Driving in a misty morning with coffee in hand is delightful. It is St. Patrick’s Day though, so perhaps I should have thought better and splashed in a dash of whiskey to make it Irish coffee. Oh wait, no, better that I didn’t ~ I am driving, after all.
Rain. Potholes. Puddles. Ponds! Windshield wipers. No umbrellas though. I might not have channeled enough Irish in me to remember that far.

I am able to take some back roads to make up time, and we get to the donut shop only three minutes late. The homeschool tour hasn’t quite started yet. About twenty children dolled up in all kinds of bright green shirts and shoes and headbands are lined up, waiting. We walk in just as a Krispy Kreme employee says good morning, leprechauns. My boys tug at my shirt, wanting to know what in the world is a leprechaun and why were they called such a strange word? They are an obvious combination of offended and concerned. A man stands here with a big blob of stretchy dough that looks like it has green sprinkles in it and asks if everyone would like to touch it. Evangeline takes one look at it & declares, rather loudly, messy. The boys suddenly revert to shy copies of themselves, and hide behind my blue jeans.

Watching through glass walls. Mixers, dough, ovens, bakers, bowls of green icing, conveyer belts covered in donuts like bugs processing on my sidewalk, a lustrous white waterfall that glazes them while the children press noses against the windows & make impressed oooooohing sounds. Children all around me, my own three little copper tops buzzing around from window to window, trying to figure out the best viewing point for the baking process.

CHRIST BEHIND ME

An employee scrubs and squeegies the walls of windows. Goodbye fingerprints. Goodbye breath ghosts. Goodbye residual sneezes. Goodbye splatters of icing and melted cooking oil. Children are enthralled with the scrubbing and the squeegie. Especially the squeegie.
Gabriel asks, if I buy him a squeegie, will I pay him to wash all our windows?
Dollar signs and overflowing piggy banks fill his brain.
Clean windows without the aching arms and streak-free countryside views fill mine.
How big of an investment is a squeegie, I wonder?

The window washing is done. Another employee emerges from the kitchen with two boxes of perfectly shaped, perfectly golden, perfectly warm, perfectly glossy donuts. We are given free glazed donuts, and the children squirm their bums onto a green faux-leather booth with delight. They grab at sugary rounds. Fingers and faces suddenly glazed with the familiar white sheen. Wiggles and giggles ensue. They return to the glass walls to peer once again at the baking process. Windows are no longer clean. Hello fingerprints. Hello breath ghosts. Hello sneezes.

CHRIST BEFORE ME

People eventually leave. We are the last to file out of the donut shop, complete with two dozen donuts in hand. Why not? St. Patrick brought the Gospel to people, why shouldn’t we bring donuts to people?
A phone call to one friend who lives nearby – they are in Seattle. Hm, no donuts for them I guess.
Another phone call to another nearby friend – unfortunately the day is just not going to work out for a visit there either. Bah humbug.
Sticky-fingered children buckled in their seats. Mommy, who remembers her love for the gooey deliciousness of Krispy Kremes but is not allowed to indulge in such a sugary glutinous delicacy, still smelling the twenty-four donuts on the seat beside me, making one more phone call.

This friend knows we are coming. They are ready for playtime and chats and donuts. Ten minutes of driving and chatting with little ones about donuts and baking and legends of leprechauns, and we pull into the driveway of dear friends. It feels familiar and wonderful to see faces of loved ones, exchange hugs, tell stories of recent life, play ball, build a fort out of cardboard & couch cushions. Children play loudly. Mommies try to converse over the din. We take turns taking a child out for discipline or potty trips. My friend scales their staircase three separate times to retrieve more superhero costume pieces for super boys. Conversation helps us share life ~ conversing in the same physical space not parted by computers or cell phone towers makes the sharing extra tangible.

CHRIST BESIDE ME

Then the crying begins. My daughter is screaming almost inconsolably. This is a mind-boggling moment, where the little girl clings to me, clings to her blankie, clings to her baby doll ~ but cannot tell me why she is crying, if she is sad or hurting or scared. We take this as our exit, pack up our things, take turns at the potty, leave two (only two of twenty-four!) donuts behind us with our friends, I shuffle two happy boy and one unhappy girl out to the car. It is still sprinkling, the clouds still rest in wispy tufts around the tall pine trees, and I stumble in a little puddle. After I buckle the carseats once again, and my sad girl continues in her weeping punctuated by little gaspy sobs every couple of breaths, I shut the door for a moment. I put my hands on my hips superman-style and take a deep breath. It is a beautiful day, and my car is filled with life. Life strapped into protective seats simply because these lives are particularly precious and life itself is so volatile in its unpredictability. Before strapping myself into a seat where the noisy chaos of playful boys, crying girl, and cranked up Jamie Soles on the speakers would pound in my head, I breathe in the fresh air of March. I think of how cooling and life-giving the raindrops are. Even the mist. I quickly glance around for a rainbow. Still no rainbow in sight.

I climb in the car, take one of a few remaining sips of my morning coffee, and accelerate down the road. I tell myself to smile, tell the boys to be cheerful, even though our joy girl remains inconsolable. The very present picture of unrest, of joy trying to take over sadness, of comfort banging heads with discomfort, of pain having victory over peace… it busied my brain while I drove. I just kept driving. And driving.

 

CHRIST TO WIN ME

Unfortunately, I had a couple of errands to run. Oh Lord, be with me, as these tired little souls and their weary wee bodies in the backseat want nothing more than more donuts, and a cozy movie on the couch while the rain splatters down on the green fields by our country home. But here we remain, zooming along big roads and a busy highway, in the city.

Suddenly it hits me: call my hubby.
Darling, I’m coming! Please come sit with the children so I can run my important, time-sensitive errand!

And he does. Oh! Isn’t it just like a husband to put his things aside, and come to the wife’s rescue? To humbly sit in a car where his daughter is screaming, another son has begun to cry because nasty molars are slicing caverns into the gums in the back of his jaw, and the remaining son begs simply for another green donut.

CHRIST TO COMFORT AND RESTORE ME

I go inside a tall, boring beige building. But I don’t particularly find this building boring. I have spent blood and tears in this building many times, let me tell you. I run my errand. It takes twenty-five minutes. And during this time, I have quiet around me. I know that my husband is gently leading our children, even if that just means letting them cry the tears that need to be shed and filling mouths & bellies with another round of donuts.

And while I quietly go about my errand, and my thoughts wander to each one of my children and their various current wellbeings, my mind goes to my Savior. And how many times He has saved me before, saved my children, saved my family. In so many varied, both complicated and simple, scenarios. Knowing that this omnipresent Savior is both with me in this quiet moment and in the car with the rest of my family in their discordant moments is comforting, sweet. He is holding us up, and gives us the strength to stand, to endure, the continue on. Even with this day’s tasks and joys and struggles and hiccups. Sometimes He gives us psalms, sometimes He gives us outstretched arms of His people, sometimes He gives us green sugary donuts. Sometimes all three.

CHRIST BENEATH ME

Upon my return to the car, it seems that everyone is about in the same shape that I had left them. None the worse is sometimes all that we can ask for, right? And it’s still a gift. One entire donut box is empty now, so there’s that at least.

With a kiss and a knowing smile, my husband heads back to work, and I head back to the fray of the car, facing another 25 mile drive with crying children. I feel so hungry, dizzy, faint. I can’t reach my water bottle, my coffee cup is empty. The only snacks left in the car are literally oozing with gluten. Why did I let the kids eat all the grapes, oranges, and apples without leaving any for myself? My ears start to ring, my tummy growls, my palms get clammy. In the distance on the right I see, no, not a rainbow, but it might as well have been: golden arches! Yessss. Just what we need to drive out the hissing snakes of tears and fears and dizzy hunger pangs. I swerve into the turn lane, and immediately find myself in the McDonald’s drive thru. Some solutions are greasy and salty, and perfectly scrumptious with every bite. I pass the french fries around and find my water bottle. Ah! Christ’s banishing of evil things are sometimes such little gifts, but you know what they say: good things come in small packages. Red paper cups filled with hot shoe-string potatoes definitely qualify.

We keep driving. The crying won’t stop once the french fries run out. So I call our friendly neighborhood pediatrician and tell him, without explanation, that we are on our way. I divert our course and we head a different direction, off to see Dr. Grandpapa. Stethoscope, thermometer, otoscope. Rather than driving the children to further tears, they bring calmness and peace. Funny how familiarity is so comforting, even when it invades our personal bubble in strange ways.

Another ear infection for the daughter. Aha. Now it begins to make sense. A molar pushing its way through a gum for a son, its iceberg nature causing more trauma beneath the surface than we can even understand. So we head out for antibiotics and acetaminophen. And movies. We simply have to make a quick run to the library while we’re at it, and see what kind of videos I can grab to keep these little guys happy. Such a gift from the digital era!

CHRIST ABOVE ME

Finally. Home. Windshield wipers are tired. The clouds still hang. I tuck boys in beds with blankets and set up a laptop so they can begin cycling through library dvds. It begins with Mickey Mouse. It ends with superheroes. Of course.

I unload the car while she cries, and then my arms are finally free. Open and ready for her. Desperate to cling to her and snuggle her, to put my chin on top of her head, to whisper in her aching ear that everything is going to be okay. She seems to believe me. Oh wait: her eyes have caught sight of Sofia The First. Well. If that’s all it takes right now to make her world a beautiful place of sunshine and rainbows, even while the clouds continue to drop their rains outside, that’s good enough for me. She lift her onto my bed with me. Push play. Snuggle deep into pillows. She climbs onto my lap, and rests a weary head against my breast. Chest still heaves with occasional leftover sobs. Little dimpled hand holds onto my finger. I kiss her moist head. Rest my cheek on her ruffled locks. She watches princesses on the television. I watch her, my princess, and cry because of the beauty of moments like this.

CHRIST IN QUIET

Eventually she is ready to lie down on her own in her bed. Medications are such a gift to the hurting, the sick, the suffering. Blankies and babies and nightlights, likewise. God gives us tangible things to take with us for the slaying of dragons, whether the dragons are owies or infections, bullies or nightmares. It is so easy to give way in our spirits to dread or doubt or fear or anxiety, or all combined together. While my daughter takes blankie and baby doll to the comfort of her bed with the nightlight shedding some peace in the room, I turn to books and blogs for my own armor. I have felt evil prowling about even today. If I wanted to deliver donuts in the place of gospel this morning, I guess now I fight inward serpents who threaten to bite and constrict rather than Irish snakes. But regardless of the littleness of my battles in my world, they are still battles. And I am still thankful for the strong together to whom I run, and for the armor He provides. I drink it in through my eyes, my fingers, my brain, my heart, my soul. I am fortified. Because He is my Fortress.

And I’m ready to face what’s next. And that’s when my husband walks in, and causes me to remember that’s what’s next is dinner. And while the crockpot has done its wonderful magic all day, corned beef is only one part of the sustenance I’ve got planned. Time to go weild knives and light fires, people: it’s time to cook dinner. Fight for victory!

CHRIST IN DANGER

We spend the evening sharing food with one another, and even my daddy joins us around our table. The house smells of beef and spices, onions and cabbage. I mash potatoes with leeks and cabbage, smothering it all with milk and butter and salt. Humble things, yes, but delicious, and it has a really fun name, colcannon. Undeniably Irish sounding, isn’t it? Asher, at one point, thought I said Uncle Colin rather than colcannon, but I assured him that they are two distinctively different delights. There is Guinness on the table, and a hard apple cider, and even the children delight in the tasting. Cool water is guzzled as though we have had salt and sugar in abundance today… oh, I guess, perhaps that is because we have. The child on my right asks for thirds on corned beef. The child on my left asks only for colcannon… four times, I fill her plate with large dollops of colcannon. The child across the table from me pretty much just wants another green donut… I rack my brain to do the math to figure out how many donuts that child has eaten today already… it might be half a dozen, give or take.

When the middle child goes potty and calls out for someone to clean his bum, we are all called in for a serious look at what has happened. We get a very visual education on the idea that “what goes in must come out,” and we realize that Krispy Kreme must use a very lively green food coloring for their donuts. What Asher produces, and is rather proud of, looks nearly radioactive. I don’t think I will ever eat a green donut again, even if I were to find a low-sugar gluten-free version. Asher has taken the surprise out of green donuts for me forever.

Dinner is a jovial hour of eating, drinking, chatting, laughing around the table. The grandfather tells jokes with us. He does math problems with the 3 year old, using green grapes for manipulatives. I didn’t know my young boy already knew 2+2 and 3+1, for instance. Grapes make math delicious and graspable. Then the 6 year old takes the grandfather aside to have some kind of deep conversations for ten minutes in private, as he so loves to do. Sometimes they discuss medical cases, sometimes theological questions, sometimes science experiments, sometimes knock knock jokes. On this particular night, I am not given a hint, I am left in the dark. Eventually, the 2 year old gets a turn with her grandfather, and once she is in jammies, he rocks her in the dimly light nursery. He sings at her request: Holy Holy, Glory Be, Blessed The Man, Lord’s Prayer. He sings things, thirty years in the making, that he used to sing to her mother in a like rocking fashion. Her pain seems gone, her heart seems encouraged, her thumb wet and wrinkly, her blankie clutched at her cheek, her eyes droopy. Grandpapa eventually lays her down in the comforting solace of her crib.

CHRIST IN HEARTS OF ALL THAT LOVE ME

With children in bed, my father gone home, my husband getting ready to call it a night, I go to my instruments. I play St. Patrick’s Breastplate on both piano and harp. I sing. I tinker. I try to find pieces of music with titles that are Irish, Scottish, Welsh, British. Definitely time to go on Amazon and order another songbook or two of things labeled Celtic, because I just don’t seem to have quite what I’m looking for.

Music played for half an hour of invigorating solitude, children lulled into their dreams, husband waiting.
I quickly shower and crawl beneath the duvet. We hold hands while we watch a little television and enjoy some random distraction from the day’s duties & delights. Then it’s lights-out finally, and I can almost feel the nightly rest grab me and pull me down into my pillow.

He says goodnight, we kiss & kiss again, we spoon, we draw the covers close around our chins and scootch our heads into the best positions on our pillows. The rain still falls lightly outside, but I know the stars are out there. The children are sleeping, their cries are silenced and their pains are numbed, their dreams have begun and their little bodies are snuggled like as many cocoons in their own beds under their own comforters. And what Comforter is here holding us all, in our own rooms and our own beds?

Our Father, the Christ, the true Comforter. He is here with us. We know His gospel, we have felt His peace, we have experienced His sustaining grace not only before but today. In the moments that He gave us on this day. In the donuts and the corned beef. In the friends and the store clerks. In the children, the parents, the siblings, the strangers. And even now with our eyes closed and our breaths slowing into rhythms we don’t even know how to replicate, He continues to give us His grace. And He is our rainbow, our promise of peace and life, the sign and seal that God is always good in all things. That no matter what happens when we rise tomorrow, He will again be here with us. And we can not escape Him. Like St. Patrick before us who went hither and thither, we too know that our Lord is always with us, and His gospel is always the foundation, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, and priceless to carry with us to all we meet.

With this in mind, I quietly praise the Lord for my husband, my children, my home, my Christ.
And I fall asleep, ready and hoping to meet Him under rainbows in my dreams.

CHRIST IN MOUTH OF FRIEND AND STRANGER

 

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Prayers of Psalmody in Waiting

Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Psalm 27:14 (ESV)

Oh sisters, we are all waiting, aren’t we? Waiting for something seems to always be an underlying current, the chorus and refrain to which the daily returns. Deliverance from something, perhaps—a physical ailment, a dispute, imprisonment under harsh leaders. A someone—whether it be a spouse, a child, a friend. Direction from the Lord, with wisdom—for where to move, what job to take, which college to attend, how many children to have, which medical avenue to take. Waiting for results—a university entrance exam, semester finals, medical tests, hormone levels in a scary pregnancy, waiting for a wayward child to return to the fold.
Questions punctuate so much of our human life, and often the divine answers remain just beyond the reach of our fingertips or grey matter. It takes faith to wait. It often takes courage. God knows, it takes patience! These things are not easy. And we can not drum them up within ourselves—rather, we need the Lord to grant us (as one of my beloved hymns says) “patience to watch, to wait, to weep, though mercy long delay; courage our fainting souls to keep, and trust Thee though Thou slay” (Lord, Teach Us How to Pray Aright by James Montgomery, 1818). And so, for whatever you wait, my sisters, let us come together seeking the Lord today. Let us together kneel at His feet, interjecting your personal nuances where they fit, and ask for the Lord to gird us with trust, courage, and patience in the waiting—and, ultimately, deliverance from the waiting into joyful contented acceptance of the answer He provides.

 

God our Rock, Ebenezer that I cling to in the stony places and are reminded that You are with me (1 Samuel 7:12), I come to You now asking for Your name to be hallowed here in this place where I bow my heart, quiet my soul, and lay burdens at Your feet. I seek You now, and recognize Your goodness—please be good and merciful and gracious to me as I wait for You, for Your presence and Your answers to my requests. (Lamentations 3:25) For You alone, O God, my soul waits in silence. You are my hope, my rock, my salvation, my fortress. I can not be shaken, even though the waiting is long, because I rest on Your strength. God, please help me to know You deeply and truly as my salvation and my glory, make me to feel your strength as my rock, and your protection as my refuge. O God, I come here to pour my heart out before You! Please cause me to trust in You as I bring my yearning to Your ears anew, and give me trust in Your character rather than in Your deeds. (Psalm 62:5-8) You establish my steps, and I delight in Your way—even if I fall, You will not cast me headlong because You uphold me. (Psalm 37:23-24) O Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Father, I am waiting, and in some ways it feels like the waiting will never end. It can seem as though I have been waiting forever already. Give me the strength to continue waiting, and to continue asking until You have made Your answer clear. When You wait to be gracious, please exalt Yourself in showing mercy. Bless me, my God and my King, in Your justice as I wait for You and wait for Your response. (Isaiah 30:18) During the waiting, please be gracious. Be my arm every morning, so that I will have the wisdom and the integrity to set my hands to necessary tasks, to prayer, to reaching up to You in faith. In this way, please save me from trouble—anxiety, worry, grasping for control—but rather be a majestic deliverer, leading me through broad places where enemies can not reach me. Lord, You are my Judge, my King, the One who commands & my heart longs to obey—You will save me. You will not lose me in this season of waiting, and You will not set me aside. (Isaiah 33:2, 21-22) O Lord in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

My heart is faint, Father, and You do not always feel nearby. Sometimes it is like calling to You from the farthest end of the earth! Even when I do not feel You, I know You are here—I know You hear my cry, O God, and listen to my prayer. You are my refuge and my strong tower against every enemy—the enemy of illness, of dispute, of missing someone, of grief, of longing—and against the ultimate Adversary the Devil, and his demons prowling about me in spiritual warfare. God my Captain, lead me to the rock that is higher than I! (Psalm 61:1-3) Lift up my face so that I look to You alone, so that I will wait for the God of my salvation, so that I will know with confidence that You hear me. You are gracious to me, and You forgive my transgressions with such magnanimity! Thank You for delighting in steadfast love, showing Your compassion to me, and treading my iniquities underfoot. O my Savior! You cast my sins into the depths of ocean and You put away Your anger! While I continue in a season of waiting, please remind me of Your past faithfulness and the way You bend low to carry me. (Micah 7:7, 18-19) Father, as I rest in the righteousness of Jesus Christ the Lord, please save me again, delivering me from snares of wickedness and peril. Thank You for being my haven of peace—please enable me to rest in this sanctuary of Your presence while I wait. (Psalm 37:39-40) O Lord in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Sometimes it feels like I say things before I believe them, and I wait for You to bring my heart to follow my words and my mind. So God, I will trust You. I will not be afraid. Please make it so! You, God, are my salvation, my strength, and my song. Because of this, You have my trust, and I know that I do not need to fear. (Isaiah 12:2) Hear my voice, my Savior, from the depths of guttural waiting, longing, yearning. Do not ignore my cries, but be attentive. You hear me—so please listen as I beg for Your mercy. I wait for You, Lord, with my soul, and I hope in Your Word. I search Your Scriptures repeatedly, and bring my pleas to You as I wait for You, Your presence, Your answer to my petitions. The waiting feels dark and unpredictable like night. I long for the morning of revelation, knowledge, revealed paths, increased wisdom, indescribable peace. (Psalm 130:1-2, 5-6) Give me patience—it is even fearsome to pray for patience!—but grant me extra measures of endurance while I wait for You. Incline Yourself to me, hear my cry, hurry to give help, and be pleased to deliver me from this waiting and this thorn! Do not delay in coming to my side with Your help and Your deliverance, O God, for even though I am lowly, You think of me, You hear me, You know me. (Psalm 40:1, 13, 17) I commit my way to You, Lord, and trust in You for Your actions. I believe You will continue to bring forth righteousness and justice as predictably as the rising sun. I trust You! While I wait for You, busy my hands with good works and faithfulness. Allow me to truly delight in You, and to place the desires of my heart completely in Your trustworthy hands. Make me still before You—and Lord my God, strengthen me with joy and peace to wait patiently, diligently, prayerfully for You. (Psalm 37:3-7) O Lord in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Father God, my Lord, please answer me. These days are troublesome! Protect me by the strong name of the God of my fathers. Send help from the sanctuary, support from Zion! Remember my offerings and regard my sacrifices. Please, loving Father and Lord of all, grant me the desire of my heart according to Your will—bring my plans to peaceful fulfillment as You direct my steps. I shout for joy because You have saved me, and in the name of God I desire to set up banners of loud praise again when Your deliverance comes anew! Lord, fulfill my petitions. (Psalm 20:1-5) Hear my request and end my waiting in Your mercy. God of all grace, because of Your holy will, and for the sake of Your glorious Kingdom, I boldly bring these things to Your feet. Please remember me.

O Lord in Your mercy, hear our prayer. We wait for You. Amen.

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Sous Chefs

Gabriel made muffins by himself for the first time last week, complete with doubling the recipe which meant adding fractions.
I love how he wears my childhood apron, and how he made himself a chef’s hat to complete the uniform.

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Asher and Evangeline continue to delight in chopping veggies and herbs for dinner prep, measuring grains and water into pots, and wiping counters & setting tables.

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These little people are positively a delight. And goodness! they are becoming downright helpful, too. 🙂 Have I mentioned how all three of them clamor for a turn at emptying the dishwasher?! 😀

 

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Resting in His Image on His Day

…Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you… a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord… It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.
Exodus 31:13-17

Around here, we love Sundays. We love the routines it carries, the rest it brings. It is an anchor for our week, the most predictable day of all.

A Sunday here is typically quite simple in structure yet profound in what it represents. Rest is indisputably delightful, in its various manifestations and representations! All five of us cling to the joy of resting on the Lord’s Day. We go to bed earlier than normal on Saturdays so we are well rested—in order to be prepared for the day of rest! (What could be more wonderful preparation than that?!) We have some of our best & favorite foods and wear some of our best & favorite clothes. We go to church to worship the King and be with His people. One of my favorite things about Sundays, personally, is how we covenantally ascend into heaven (just read Hebrews 12 for yourself) during corporate worship, because it makes me feel so intimately close with my nine babies in heaven. We commune through bread and wine with the Lord and with one another. We sing and pray, pass the peace of Christ to one another and find ways to shower grace upon each other, share conversation and fellowship and food and handshakes or hugs. While sometimes Sundays include hospitality, family parties and meals at the grandparents’ house, or spending hours with friends, we do sincerely love Sunday afternoons that offer us quiet hours at home—not to fret over schoolwork and house projects and cleaning nooks & crannies, but to play together and rest together. We love enjoying God’s creation on His day, from many vantage points and in varied ways. We have a special family tradition on Sunday evenings of eating goodies and doing something fun—for this current season of our little family’s life, it usually looks like eating popcorn & ice cream while snuggling & watching movies. After kids are tucked in their beds, it also means date night for my husband & me—with wine, chocolate, cheese, and sometimes a movie just for us.

Sundays—the Lord’s Day—our Sabbath—is a foretaste of heavenly rest, and a recurrent (utterly joyful and blessed!) reminder that our hardworking life should be predictably punctuated by worship and delight. And it isn’t just because in our human frailty we need a break from the six other days where we run around working hard, being as productive as we can manage, and having an undercurrent of diligent & dedicated labors. It is, after all, a good reminder that God did not rest on the seventh day of creation because He was exhausted. He rested to delight in His work.

God did not rest because He was tired.
He rested so that those made in His image
would share in His rest through worship.
He rested so that He could turn Adam and Eve’s attention
from the creation to the Creator.
In a sense, God was saying to Adam and Eve and all humanity,
“Come and rest in who I am and what I have accomplished.
Enjoy with me the goodness of all I have made.”
This was to establish a rhythm of
engagement with the world through work
and then thankful enjoyment of the world through worship.
~Nancy Guthrie, The Promised One, p45~

Some Sundays are more placid than others. Sometimes our resting is kind of… well… flat out energetic and lively and noisy or busy enough to even border on chaotic.

In fact, at this very moment—while I might be reclining on a comfy bed with a cozy comforter snuggled on top of me and a cup of tea within reach—I have an excessively wiggly and noisy two year old girl going up and down, up and down, up and down… screaming and giggling and babbling, trying to grab at the computer keys or spill my tea cup… while a video booms with bright images and loud soundtrack in a corner of the room and children carry on with continual commentary, occasionally interspersing requests for a water bottle, popcorn or ice cream refill, or simply expressing utter delight in sharing goodies with one another on this special day of the week.

And this is after lots of lively fellowship & projects at Sunday school, loud singing during worship (although I must confess that the entire corporate worship service is beautifully rich and peaceful even in our busy pew), a boisterous lunch at a crowded Red Robin restaurant (mac & cheese, ketchup, and juicy orange segments seemed to get absolutely everywhere!), and a long chatterbox-filled 26-mile drive home.

But these in fact are some of the best ways that we see Christ, His goodness, His rest, His future hope—in the people He put around us, and especially those in our own home under our own discipleship. We turn our hearts to Him and tune our souls to His praise, resting in who He is, what He has done, and delightfully embracing these living temples where He lives right here among us—but sometimes the resting is clamorous and rollicking rather than quiet and what you might describe as serene.

But whichever way our Sabbath rest takes us on a given day, we delight in the gift of the Lord’s Day (Mark 2:27), knowing that the Lord accepts our worship, covers us with grace, and fills us up on this day that He has set aside for us (and in return, we set it aside for Him) so that we can once again go forth to labor for another six days in His creation before being called again to this sanctified day—this day where we enjoy all that God has made, and where we delight in six days of productivity and rest in enjoyment of His sweet grace in so many of its innumerable manifestations.

Serenity, silence, and solitude are good things.
God uses quietness to tune our heart to listen to Him through His Word.
Silence can help us pray without added distractions.
In the peacefulness of our surroundings,
the Lord can still our busy heart.
“Truly alone” time with the Lord is a gift.
But so are the times when you’re ringmastering your family circus.
The Lord is just as near to you when you’re
using a bulb sucker on a tiny, congested nose
and as you’re summoning the wisdom of Solomon
to settle a spat over a disputed toy.
~Gloria Furman, Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full, p72~

And now it’s clear that I need to move on to ringmastering my family circus down for the night… the three rings are busy and the tents are bouncing. I have a little girl here who can’t seem to decide whether she is a dancing poodle, a trapeze artist, or toy juggler—and it’s always fun to wrangle acrobats into their beds. So excuse me please while I go tuck these little God-images into their beds, and watch them drift into the rest of sleep as the rest from His day prepares them (and me!) for another six days of working the ground the Lord has put into our hands.

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His Dwelling Place

Psalm 132:7-14

“Let us go to His dwelling place;
    let us worship at His footstool!”

Arise, O Lord, and go to Your resting place,
    You and the ark of Your might.
Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness,
    and let Your saints shout for joy.
For the sake of Your servant David,
    do not turn away the face of Your anointed one.

The Lord swore to David a sure oath
    from which He will not turn back:
“One of the sons of your body
    I will set on your throne.
If your sons keep My covenant
    and My testimonies that I shall teach them,
their sons also forever
    shall sit on your throne.”

For the Lord has chosen Zion;
    He has desired it for His dwelling place:
“This is My resting place forever;
    here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”

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Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that according to the riches of His glory
He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—
that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

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Lenten Thoughts, III

Soup, it seems, is the ultimate comfort food—
warm, soft, slipping down the throat with ease.
We eat soup when we’re sick,
when we’re snowed in,
when we’re heartbroken,
when even cutting and chewing seem too much,
when we need to be soothed in some deep way.
Soup is cold-weather-dark-sky food.
Soup is peasant food—odds and ends, bits and pieces,
a way to stretch a piece of meat or a handful of rice.
And the best soups are made, I think,
when we treat them as such—
earthy, simple, slow, soothing.
Soup is the wool sweater, not the little black dress.
It’s the cardigan with elbow patched, not the pressed shirt and tie.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p161~

 

Each Wednesday evening during Lent we have been gathering in the fellowship hall of our church with dozens of saints, eager for fellowship and sharing of life and breaking of bread. Once people are there and food is set out, the pastor says “the peace of the Lord be with you” and everyone responds “and also with you” & he opens the evening with prayer. The evening ends with a compline service, which is a short call & response to end the evening with prayer & Scripture & singing the Lord’s prayer. The evening really is a beautiful way of incorporating the gloriously high with the beautifully low, the elegant with the casual, the special with the mundane. Everyone fills bowls with soup, and grabs chunks of warm bread in hands. We sit around tables with one another to fill our bellies as well as our souls.

In the middle of it all, a man—friend of ours, but also new local author—shares exhortations and encouragement and experiences on the subject of deep suffering, physical and spiritual.

Hearts are poured out, theologies discussed, Scripture opened, prayers ascend, bowls emptied.

It is a blessing, and while my little world might not be shattered or rebuilt by the conversations in any truly monumental way, I am still lifted up and filled. By being with believers who love one another and love the Lord—who spill actual grace into the lives of each other—who emphasize unity in essentials and diversity in nonessentials—who care for one another by cooking soup, baking bread, donning aprons, washing dishes, spending a weeknight together not because we have to but because we can.

And God’s blessing abounds in big and little ways, some that we can see and some that we cannot yet see. But I know He is there, and He is working.

And that feeds us in temporal and eternal ways I can only begin to grasp.

 

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The meal itself wasn’t spectacular by any means, but it didn’t need to be.
It was simple and it was good and it gave us something to gather around.
It filled our bellies and let us laugh and connect
and settle into our chairs while the kids played under the table.
It did what food is supposed to do:
it fed us, in all sorts of big and small ways.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p216~