Tag: Quotes

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Goodness Rising & Multiplying

Food is the daily sacrament of unnecessary goodness,
ordained for a continual remembrance that
the world will always be more delicious than it is useful.
Necessity is the mother only of clichés.
It takes playfulness to make poetry.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p40~

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Courtesy of one of my hubby’s coworkers a couple weeks ago, that’s a little peek at some of the yummy goodness that I sent to Steven’s office to cheer the hard laborers there. I like to send goodies every so often (I would like to do it at least monthly, but my brain & my follow-through is not always up to par with my desire!) But I am kind of well known there for my cinnamon rolls. A few years ago, I tried this recipe and now I just have my own sort of recipe (guidelines, really…) in my head, and I just make them from my own memory, and with my own intuition, using my own five senses. And honestly, while I did not grow up liking cinnamon rolls all that well (even though my mother totally rocks at them!!), I do miss these cinnamon rolls on my low-sugar, gluten-free diet. It is the sugar, the gluten, and the way the yeast rises in glorious goodness that makes these the cinnamony delights that they are.

Don’t go easy on the butter, don’t forget to use a heavy hand with sugar and cinnamon, and don’t mess with the flour ~ gluten free or freshly ground whole wheat, for instance? Umm NOPE. Don’t even bother. Don’t waste your time. If you aren’t going to indulge in the best cinnamon rolls in the world, then don’t even try to ease in around the edges. Some things have to be full fat, full sugar, full gluten. And these are definitely a solid case in point.

I had signed up to bring coffee hour snacks following yesterday morning’s worship service. It’s funny how different groups of folks can be. (Yes, little rabbit trail: oblige me, please.) At our old church, it was practically like pulling teeth & twisting people’s arms to bring enough food for stuff, or to bring generous quantity to supply all the grumbly bellies & grabby hands. At our new church? People might not necessarily sign up in advance, but they show up with abandon! There are always leftovers. There is always enough for seconds, thirds, and sending leftovers home with people who might need extra food in their hands later. The way these folks bring to life real examples of loaves & fishes multiplying in real tangible ways, with joy and humility and thankfulness… cups overflowing… brings tears to my eyes. It is life-giving.

So as far as I knew, I was the only one who had signed up to bring food for the coffee hour yesterday, and I wanted to be a blessing. My mother has long blessed people with food, and that is one way I delight in following closely in her footsteps. (Someone needs a meal? We’re having a potluck? People are coming over? I’m there!) I was raised in that you always bring twice as much food as you think you might need, because there is no blessing like the blessing of superabundant delicious food. So I made six dozen cinnamon rolls on Saturday. (That’s a double batch, in my book, in case you’re wondering.) I bought two big bags of gala apples to slice, and six pounds of easy-peel mandarin oranges. I put together a plate of sliced cheese with spirals of crackers. I had a package of rice crackers and a small gluten free coffee cake, to boot, because I am not the only one at our church who needs to eat gluten free out of necessity (you know, rather than fad).

Even just what I brought could have fed one hundred people, easily. But then other people showed up, arms full of edible blessings. Someone brought two dozen more freshly baked cinnamon rolls! Someone brought a few dozen Easter cookies fresh from a bakery, just the way the kids dream of. There were donuts and pastries that someone dropped off. And all of a sudden, coffee hour became a festive party. Afterward, we were able to package some things up for the freezer so that in other weeks we will once again have lots of goodies at church over which to have conversations about everything from the weather to Bible studies to childrearing to book collecting. And a few people went home with bags of leftover apples and oranges, handfuls of cookies, and cinnamon rolls to stash away for an afternoon snack. I’m pretty sure nobody needed to go eat lunch after that.

I was thinking back, upon looking at all that multiplication of food, how it just showed up naturally without anyone twisting arms or begging for people to provide it, and what a metaphor of God’s grace and miraculous handiwork it is. He may have provided it through fairly predictable, human means… but He still provided it, and He still showed His grace & handiwork through it. It reminds us of other times when His provision was not predictable, and when His handiwork was miraculous & physically inexplicable rather than common or ordinary.

Mark 6:41-43
And taking the five loaves and the two fish,
[Jesus] looked up to heaven and said a blessing
and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people.
And He divided the two fish among them all.
And they all ate and were satisfied.
And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.

As I look back on the baking of my cinnamon rolls, which was a very ordinary way God worked to provide food for people ~ through a woman’s hands working common ingredients together in a formulaic manner ~ I can also see another metaphor of God’s goodness and work. I think of the beauty and the wonder of leavening. Of little tiny yeasts (which are single-celled fungi, isn’t that delightful? read more here) that grow and produce bubbles, by eating sugar and producing carbon dioxide, and cause many wonderful changes in the lump they use for life. Scripture talks a lot about bad leaven (the leaven of the Pharisees, for instance), but Jesus also taught us about good leaven (in the parable of Matthew 13).

Matthew 13:33
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven
that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour,
till it was all leavened.”

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Watching my dough double and rise until it flopped over the edge of the bowls in the warming oven… rolling it out, smothering it with buttery & sugary & spicy goodness, rolling it again & slicing it up into pretty little round pinwheels… then watching it puff and rise again… oh! It is such an encouraging thing, and reminds me so much of God’s good works. In the dark, in the moist places, when the dough has been pounded and kneaded hard, and left for a while to rest and be on its own… amazing things happen not because I can follow recipes and not because I did things right, but because God is gracious. And even when God in His terrifying holiness seems so categorically unpredictable, He is yet predictable!! He is always gracious, always good, always benevolent and magnanimous! And those of you who know me, know that I don’t say that through rosy colored glasses or eyes of ignorant bliss. I have felt the terrible hand of the Lord. I have been pounded hard, kneaded long, and left in dark places. But this is precisely where so much beautiful rising and multiplying happens. Because the Lord is gracious, He continues to further His kingdom in me, through me, and even in spite of myself.

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What mercy!

A man’s daily meal ought to be
an exultation over the smack of desirability
which lies at the roots of creation.
To break real bread is to break the loveless hold of hell upon the world,
and, by just that much, to set the secular free.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p115~

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So next time you too put together water, milk, fat, honey, salt, flour, and yeast ~ when you smother it with the fatness of creamy butter and the deliciousness of sweet sugar and pungent cinnamon ~ think about the work God accomplishes even in you. I imagine that you, like me, can see how we fit into the description of even a humble cinnamon roll meant to be ripped apart and enjoyed and shared and prayed over and devoured. I am mixed, kneaded, pounded, left, punched down, smothered in goodness, rolled tightly, sliced into pieces, left again, and heated by an uncontrollable fire, and at last slathered with a thick layer of even more fatty sugary goodness simply because God likes to pour grace on top of grace… and why? Because it blesses my King, gives delight to my Creator, and feeds others around me.

Because God is glorious.

Because sometimes He works through ordinary, common, daily means.

Because sometimes He wants us to smile, and simply see Him in things like rising dough and multiplying food.

Because this is where the Gospel meets the edible.

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And it’s good.

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What I See when She Sleeps

Women see children with different eyes than husbands do.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p132~

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I sneak into your room while you nap, tiptoe gently across your rug, peer into your crib. Precious little limp body, resting so peacefully and sweetly. Blankie nearby, left thumb in your mouth ~ just the way you like it. Porcelain skin with rosy hues, the nightlight-lit room is dim and you look like a palette of creams and peaches and pinks, with your coppery hair lying all glossy and straight at the top. I smooth a stray wisp behind your ear so I can have a clear view of your eyelid. I love to kiss those soft little lids. Your eyebrows perfect little rainbows above the raindrop-blue eyes that flutter about in dreamland. What dreams do you see behind those eyelids? I can only imagine what you see, while I stand here looking at you in a hush, slowing my breathing with yours, until I feel as restful as you seem. Over the hum of your little room fan, I swear I can hear your heart beating ~ that heart that once beat underneath mine, and that now continues to make mine dance to a different rhythm.

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Psalm 4:8
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

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Little ear. I trace my finger along its roads. It is perfect. Kissable. I think of all the secrets I have whispered in there, and can not begin to imagine all the secrets that it will yet hear throughout the remainder of your life. Button nose, with your fist’s fingers curled just ever so slightly over the round of the button. Just like I used to do. Dimpled chin beneath perfect rosebud lips. Dimpled fingers. Sticky fingers, stray bits of strawberries left over from lunch under your fingernails. You set your bed up just so every time you are put to bed. Blankie and blanket ~ and you especially like the elephant quilt on which your head now rests. You lined up your babies and your animals at the other end of the bed today, but sometimes they are lined up directly with you, some on your one side and some on your other. They all have names, and sometimes I hear you say nigh-night to them and tuck them in by name: Puppy, Bunny, Pink Bunny, Anne, Bea, and occasionally Doggie and Lolly too. You often insist on having a stacks of “gooks” in there to read to your babies before you snuggle down for sleep. Today was one of the days where you needed to have your purse with you ~ stocked with a baby bottle and yellow sunglasses. You are my sunshine. You feed my soul.

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Proverbs 3:24
If you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

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In this sacred little place, I can hold onto the very last vestiges of your babyhood. Blankie. Thumb in your mouth. Crib. Diapered bum. It isn’t even so much the peaceful stillness of watching you sleep that holds me here in a trance, but the simple joys that these vestiges give me. It makes me think of the song I danced to with my daddy at my wedding: I’ll always be your baby. And I wonder if sometimes when my parents look at me, they can still blink and see me in the back of their eyelids, holding my buppy and sucking my thumb and sleeping in the safe haven of a baby’s crib. You grow up too fast, my little doll. Time somehow slows down while you sleep, and I want nothing more than to stand here drinking in these slow moments, memorizing them, loving them. Loving you. Loving being your mommy, and you my baby. I take a step backward and breathe in a big sigh. It is as though I remember your entire past and envision your entire future while I stand here. I will never tire of watching you sleep. When you are grown and snuggling your own child, if you fall asleep, I will walk in and watch you, and I will see you in the back of my eyelids just as you are here today. Dimpled, porcelain, rosy, coppertopped, limp, surrounded by little things that bring you big joys, peacefully breathing in and out the gloriousness that is the grace of life.
I back out slowly from your room, blowing you kisses, blessing you with heard yet unspoken prayers. Sleep, my sweet princess, snuggled deep into tranquil coziness. Be filled to the brim with rest until you overflow with so much life your thumb pops out and your eyes pop open, and you gather up your armful of pleasant things to call out for me to pick you up and set you on the path of energetic life once again.

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Psalm 127:2
…He gives to His beloved sleep.

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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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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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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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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~

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Timelessness

Sometimes a timeless moment in the midst of an ordinarily epic life story looks blurry from the speed and excitement… and it’s extra timeless when my son is wearing a flannel shirt my mother sewed for my brother 30 years ago, and my daughter is wearing the Osh Kosh overalls my brother and I both wore in the early eighties. This was an explosion of an evening in the most mundane little ways, because the sunset was gorgeous, the evening was mild, and the children were so giggly.

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Your life, right now, today, is exploding
with energy and power and detail and dimension,
better than the best movie you have ever seen.

You and your family and your friends
and your house and your dinner table
and your garage have all the makings
of a life of epic proportions,
a story for the ages.

Because they all are.
Every life is.

~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p18~

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Morning {Motherhood} Glory

 

The glory of motherhood comes camouflaged in so much chaos.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p198~

 

This morning, after waking my soul by praying in the dark under the warmth of a duvet, I managed to pull myself out of bed before the kids were even stirring. Kissing my husband goodbye is always bittersweet—sending him off to tame his portion of the wild, to tend the domain put into his hands—getting kisses for the kids, and extra for myself to carry me through until our lips meet again. A new day, new mercies. Even old things feel new sometimes, like these soft morning kisses that spark my soul.

I shuffle out of the bedroom, turn on music and set lavender candles ablaze in the hushed morning. Sunshine not yet streaming over the foggy hills in the east, I start the fire, put away dishes, put in a load of laundry, proof yeast & set the mixer kneading, make a dark cup of coffee. I set out little bowls of raisins & Cheerios, with cups of milk alongside, and vitamins resting in the spoons. Chairs lined up on one side of our table—one, two, three. I pause for a moment over the mercy that that number is. Three.

I dress in my workout clothes and put a heating pad on my back, then sit at my desk with coffee and books and blogs and Scriptures. I empty myself in spirit and ask the Lord to fill me up with Himself. I find Him in friends and pastors and authors. I find Him in a couple short email conversations.

Then I find Him in one of my favorite places, wrapped in the softest skin, whispers and muted footsteps coming down the stairs. The gate at the bottom of the steps creaks. I see two little red heads and four bright blue eyes peering secretly around the corner at me. They begin to sneak on tiptoes around the kitchen island, coming up behind me to surprise their mommy. I pretend not to know, to play their game, to give them joy—which then gives me joy right back. Boo!

Giggles ensue. With many kisses, a dozen tight hugs.

They run to their little sister’s room, eager to have her join their antics. They know we are incomplete without her. Soon a little caramel topped girl, dolls tucked under each arm, joins the tiptoeing, the giggling. I can no longer hear my own thoughts, the psalms that are playing on the stereo are drowned out, the beeping washing machine and oven timer might be going off but I wouldn’t know it.

Eventually, three sets of tummies begin to growl, I put my books back in a stack in the far corner of my desk, then help three little bums to their chairs. Three sets of hands fold, three copper topped heads bow.

It’s quiet, I hear lungs breathing and noses sniffling. I hear the fire crackle, outside raindrops, the spin cycle on the washing machine. Three little miracles, quiet here knowing they are about to give thanks to their Creator, preaching to one another their faith even as it comes out their folded fingertips in routines. This is a holy moment, holy ground, even with mundane Cheerios before us and an empty coffee cup in my hand—because we are quiet in the presence of God, Who is always with us, and this is one of those moments where my children talk with Him together, and where we praise Him for His provision of both big & little things. In one breath, with the pandemonium suddenly subdued, this moment and this place feel purely consecrated.

Who wants to pray? I whisper, almost afraid to ruin the sacred moment.

I do it, the littlest one whispers right back. And she does—in a hushed tone, with entwined fingers and bowed head, and eyes rapidly blinking because she doesn’t yet know how to keep them closed tight. Unprompted, she prays: God. Thank You. Food. Milk. Vitamins. Daddy. Mommy. Gabriel. Asher. God. Thank You. Food. Bless us. God. Thank You. JesusnameAMEN.

Hands unfold to grab for spoons, heads start to bob with chatter and laughter. Chaos returns with giggles and spilled milk and Cheerios on the floor and asking for orange juice and shouting when someone notices it’s raining or there is a robin on the fence or half a dozen deer right outside the window.

I stand back and revel in the noise, trying to hear my own thoughts. The way these things are so simple and so profound at the same moment. I lay out schoolbooks and coloring books, wonder if I will find time to exercise, put the cereal bowls in the dishwasher, stop a squabble, add another log to the fire, let the dog out, help the children exchange cozy jammies for clean clothes. Coffee is gone and breakfast eaten, the music plays on, the fire roars, the candles flicker. Deep breaths: the day has begun.

This is a good life. The repetition, the routine, the mundane, the small, the quiet, the noise. They are big to me—huge, in fact. And they are beautiful—glorious.

The Lord is here, present, with us—Immanuel. In the quiet moments and in the loud chaotic ones. I expect today, like every day, will hold many of both.

 

Only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p99~

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Thinking Big, Together

Think big. Great cooking is not the work of small minds.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p63~

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Family time means interacting with each other.
Every night will not go perfectly and be a beautiful picture of The Children’s Hour.
The idea is to have a goal to aim for:
“If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”
The Christian family is one that loves each other,
takes care of each other,
and is the salt of the earth and a light to the world.
It is hard to build relationships with each other if we aren’t doing anything together.
~Kim Brenneman, Large Family Logistics, pg248~