Tag: Thoughts

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Exercise of Faith in Suffering

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

I know this passage. I know it well. I have memorized it. I have memorized a couple different song versions of it. I have sung it in church before. I have clung to it through years of trying to have a baby but finding the blossoms & the fruit failing. I have used it as a frequent reminder that regardless of my physical situation, my soul’s stability remains unshaken — my joy and my strength being grounded in the One who created the mountains and the trees and the animals, storylines and climaxes and rainclouds, life and laughter and suffering and me.

But until last week, I don’t think I had ever gone to the length of putting my own fears, my own troubles, my own sufferings and shadows and dark corners by the means of words into this form.

“Though the _________________________________________________ and there are no ___________________________, though the ___________________________________________ fails and the ___________________________ produces no ___________________________________, though there are no ________________________________________ in the __________________________________ and no __________________________________ in the ____________________________, yet I will rejoice in the Lord….”

 

So when Mr. Palpant suggested, at our final Lenten lecture meeting last Wednesday, that we fill in these blanks according to the story we are each currently living, I might have (okay, I did) melted into a puddle of weeping at the table in the back of the room. Boy, did it ever hit home. In good, painfully sharp & cutting to the bones, Christ-be-with-me kinds of ways.

In your own path of suffering, of doubt fighting with hope, of walking with the Lord on the heights as well as in the valleys, passing by both sunshine and dark shadows ~ what would your own version of Habakkuk 3:17-19 look like?
This is what I came up with that night, and what the Lord has challenged me to claim with joyful confidence rather than with fear every day since.

Though the miscarriages continue to come and there are no more living children for my arms to hold, though the medical treatments and the prayers for life fail and the pregnancies God puts in my womb produce no more little redheads to nurse on my breasts, though there are no end to the longing in my heart for my family to grow in the home God has given us here on His earth and no more siblings for our children who beseech the Lord for babies in the beauty of their own childlike faith, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.

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Hosanna in the Highest!

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
Thou art the King of Israel, Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’ name comest, the King and Blessed One.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
The company of angels is praising Thee on high;
and we with all creation in chorus make reply.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
The people of the Hebrews with palms before Thee went;
our praise and prayers and anthems before Thee we present.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
To Thee before Thy passion they sang their hymns of praise;
to Thee, now high exalted, our melody we raise.

All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King!
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.
Thou didst accept their praises, accept the praise we bring;
who in all good delightest, Thou good and gracious King.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! Hear all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue Your road with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die.
O Christ, Your triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! The host of angels in the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! Your last and fiercest strife is night.
The Father on His sapphire throne awaits His own anointed Son.

Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die,
bow down your meek head to mortal pain, then take, O Christ, Your power and reign.

Yesterday in worship, I got to say my son’s name a lot. Hosanna. His name means save Lord and is a cry to the only One who can save to the uttermost. The service began with the choir, pastors, and dozens upon dozens of children processing through the sanctuary with palms in their hands while we all sang to the Lord of His glory and honor, lauding Him with our praise. We cried out to Him beseeching Him to save us! And since we are on the other side of the story, we know with confidence that He is the Savior! He has saved us! He did triumphantly bear our sins and conquer death, saving us from the holds of those shackles! Amen!

But we are still in the midst of the story.

I sat there with my family, in the midst still of our own story of asking the Lord to save and preserve and give us life in place of death…
In front of us was a family whose daughter suffered a terrible cancer some years ago, and the Lord preserved her precious life, and there she sat with parents and siblings, with health glowing in her cheeks and hair and the saving presence of the Lord spilling from her eyes as she sang…
In front of them sat a family who buried another son this very week, the Lord saved Gilead by ushering him to heaven, and now He saves this family every moment by upholding them even in the midst of horrible grief…

I cried repeatedly.

Suffering everywhere I looked. Sometimes already redeemed. Sometimes not yet.
It is hard to wait for the redemption, and wonder whether we will see it here in this life, or whether we will be yet waiting to see it in the next.

And then the sermon came. And Pastor Sumpter spoke on hope & joy.
He said, so much of joy is bound up in hope.
How painfully, purely accurate.

Jesus came to restore the places where suffering and despair have reigned.
He came to save.
He came to give us hope.
~Toby Sumpter~

And so as we begin to walk through this week leading up to Easter, where we consciously focus on the work of Christ in His final days, I am also focusing on His current work even now as His Spirit continues to save and give us hope.

Romans 2:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

This week, I will be reminding myself day by day to be joyful even when I don’t know the end of the story. Because that is why Christ came. I rejoice in hope ~ and this hope is not bound up or settled on the things of this world. This hope in which I rejoice is bound up and settled on the glory of God. And because of this, because of God’s glory, we can rejoice fully! Even when suffering comes. Even when endurance is necessary. When character is tried, tested, affirmed.

This hope is not foolish. Hope that is grounded in God’s glory will not put us to shame. He died for me. So that I could have hope. So that I could rejoice. So that as I remind myself of these things this week, walking toward Easter, I will remember the joy and the hope along with the suffering and the grief. It’s the dichotomy of living the Christian life. May He give us the strength and peace to glorify Him this week through all of this.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
~Toby Sumpter~

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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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Harping Anew

Why do we marry,
why take friends and lovers,
why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry, or cooking?
Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course;
but out of more than that, too.
Half of earth’s gorgeousness lies hidden
in the glimpsed city it longs to become.
For all its rooted loveliness, the world has no continuing city here;
it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself—
and it is our glory to see it so and thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last.
We were given appetites,
not to consume the world and forget it,
but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p189~

I love giving myself to music (among many things). Partly because music gives such joy and delight in temporal beauties, things that are here & now. Also partly because it serves a dimension that goes so far beyond that though, into the heavenly, the eternal, the glorious things that can not be touched. The way God created earth and matter and tangible things is so amazing ~ when it really comes down to it, isn’t it obvious that God did not create a veil of separation between the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal? He has woven time and space, the seen and the unseen, the physical and the heavenly, in such a way that we can not grasp its dimension, we can not see its edges, we can only begin to imagine its overlaps.

When I was playing harp over the weekend, I was continually struck by this thought, and repeatedly returned to the thought that Robert Farrar Capon gives in the above quote: half of earth’s gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become. The city that it WILL become. Music, and even particularly harp music at the moment, is one way I get to taste the goodness of the heavenly Jerusalem, glimpse the new heavens & new earth (where all my tears will be wiped away, by the way!), to taste goodness & hunger to make it great. Wonderful.

And of course this is not limited to music at all, but to other delights that the Lord gives. In what ways does God encourage YOU to thirst for heaven, and give you tastes to feed that appetite here on earth in the meanwhile?

Psalm 57:7-8
My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!

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If you read my post about harping a few days ago, perhaps you wonder what ended up playing out. (Pun intended.)
I continued to pray about it the last few days, and eagerly looked forward to going to the home of Miss S to meet her and see her little lever harp. What’s funny is that this harp belonged to my own friend a couple years ago. My friend was the second owner of the harp, and sold it to Miss S, but has often told me over the last few months how she wished she still had it because it was such a sweet little harp with a pretty sound. And now, ironically, the harp is mine. 🙂 I am the fourth owner of this Allegro. My dad smilingly called it Ally yesterday. (As an aside, did you know that a lot of musicians name their instruments? And apparently it is an especially big thing in the harp world, from what I’ve heard. I am boring though, I call my instruments by their given names, their make! Athena and Allegro, then. But I thought my father was awfully cute for using a nickname, as though it were a pet or a child.)

After church, and after a quick lunch, we headed off to meet Miss S. Steven graciously stayed in the car with Asher and Evangeline, because I didn’t quite know what to expect in  her home, even though she had told me on the phone that my children would be very welcome. Gabriel came in with me, and we were greeted by a lady of tall but slight stature. She oozed the essence of musician. Her home included a large area that was obviously crafted carefully into a studio. There was a place for shoes by a bench, right near a powder room, where we asked to wash our hands (I was teaching Gabriel that it is polite musicianship to wash hands prior to touching anyone’s instrument). There was a corner of the room that was filled with windows where the sunlight was streaming brightly in, with sofas. It was a lovely little sitting area, where I could easily imagine music students lining up, waiting their turn, nervously folding & unfolding hands like I used to do before my lessons. This waiting area was set apart by vertical screens of sorts that felt very Victorian in some sense. Beyond that were three baby grand pianos. Each had cushions stacked up to various heights on the benches, and little footstools to short legs to rest restless feet. There were a couple electric keyboards to one side, and more than one filing cabinet filled with music books. Oh! the organization was delightful! It made my tummy flip, it was so great. 🙂 I could see some plastic drawers that were filled with other various music teacher supplies: perhaps flash cards, theory helps, maybe even some metronomes, I don’t know. But even at first glance around when Miss S let us in, it was one of those moments where you feel like you have walked into an old fashioned music studio. I could sense Gabriel felt it too. He in his sweater vest, tie, and Irish cap ~ me in my pantyhose and high heels. It felt very… well… elegant.

As Miss S repeatedly encouraged her large black poodle to stay off to the side on a designated rug, Gabriel and I enjoyed fingering the harp. Two strings had snapped, so I pulled those out. Gabriel and I each took turns sitting, leaning the harp against our shoulder, running our fingers along the strings. I lifted each lever in turn. I felt around the column and the neck and the base for dings and dents and scratches ~ it was mostly very smooth. My friend who had previously owned this harp assured me that it had spent years being babied. 🙂 While I am not precisely sure what one does or doesn’t do in the babying of a harp, I could tell that it had not been thrown around or wildly abandoned. We played it with its four legs on (better for me), and without the legs as well (better for Gabriel). We figured out how to take it in and out of the padded carrying case ~ and, wonder of wonders, how wonderfully strange it felt to be able to pack up a harp and sling it across my shoulder! I don’t know if I have a picture anywhere from my various times carting my Athena around, but it is something of an ordeal. As tall as Steven, more than half my weight, fragile and delicate yet strong and unweildy… my father crafted and constructed a metal frame with casters, some padding and velcro straps, so that I (even when I was only 17 years old) could haul my big harp around by myself… as long as I had his Suburban, with all the rear seats out, to drive. I don’t think I have taken my harp anywhere since I played in a friend’s wedding two years ago. So the novelty of carrying a harp around, in a padded carrier, simply slung over my shoulder? It was kind of invigorating.

Gabriel handed Miss S an envelope with cash in it, and our contact information on the outside. She asked if he would come back to visit her, and bring the harp, to play her something once he has learned a song or two.
She gave us extra strings, the tuning key, and a small stack of harp music books to zip into the outer pocket of the harp carrier. It was shockingly easy to fit the harp in the back of the car: I simply set it in the back! And it fit with much room to spare, even with a large cooler, a basket full of Bibles & water bottles, and a small pile of other things that always live in the back of the vehicle (like a miniature potty, jumper cables, and a small plastic bin of emergency kid care like clothes, snacks, acetaminophen, and plenty of wipes). I couldn’t help but laugh. “Harp” and “portability” have never been simultaneous in my vocabulary or experience before, so this is a new delight.

Psalm 92:1-4
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
to declare Your steadfast love in the morning,
and Your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For You, O Lord, have made me glad by Your work;
at the works of Your hands I sing for joy.

I made sure to ask more than once, if Miss S was certain she was ready to part with her little harp. She sounds very busy with teaching piano and developing a new instructional method for playing by ear, and said that something like playing harp with any diligence or frequency is a few years out for her, and in the meantime, a wide car + narrow garage has left her with a new purpose for the money we would give her.
And then she said that she just really felt a peace about our home being the right home for this Allegro.
She remarked numerous times how it matched us, our coloring and our hair. How perfectly it suited my Gabriel.
How it just seemed “like a God thing” for the timing to happen how it did.

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And I could not agree more.
I told her about how I took a little step of faith by saying no to a harp just like this one about forty-five minutes before she called me last week. How it might be a very small thing in the big scheme of life and holiness, but it was still waiting on the Lord for His direction and His provision. I told her what an encouragement it is in times like these, to have pictures and experiences of the Lord reminding us that He knows all our desires, He cares about our wants & needs, He holds even the smallest of details in His sovereign hands.

And whether He says yes or no (in big things as well as in little things), He is good and wise and altogether wonderful.

Psalm 71:22
I will also praise You with the harp
for Your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to You with the lyre,
O Holy One of Israel.

So the corner of our family room has a new little lever harp tucked into the corner with my piano and my faithful pedal harp. The children enjoyed playing it yesterday. And Gabriel and I played our first duets.

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The goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, as we look ahead through these little glimpses into the glories He has prepared for us in the heavenly kingdom, is sweet and lovely. And He is 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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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!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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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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~