A Little Broken, a Lot Beautiful

It's a very generous gift, and one we are glad to welcome into our growing home; a friend packed up a most lovely set of dishes and sent them to our home.

My oldest daughter and I are unpacking the beautiful white plates with lovely bursts of yellow flowers printed on them, and we are thankful for many reasons, the top being they are beautiful and they are many.

At one point she exclaims, "Hey! We could eat lunch without having to wash the breakfast dishes now!"

It's the little-big things, you know.

We come to a utensil holder that's cracked down the backside, and my daughter sighs a sad "Oooohhh. It's broken. I hope we didn't break it by accident ... Can we still use it?"

I examine the crack, and I shrug my shoulders, unsure of if we've caused the damage, but certain that after inspection it's still useful.

"It looks like it still functions just fine," I say. "Plus, it's just lovely."

My daughter smiles and happily places the utensils in the new holder. And it's true. The utensils perch in there nicely, and the holder is a beautiful addition to our counter space despite the crack.

My generous friend returns my thank-you message a few moment after we've placed the utensil holder on the counter. In her message she says she's glad we can use them, and that she's sorry there's a crack in the utensil holder; she just didn't have the heart to throw it away.

I look around at my life before I respond, and I can't help but to think that this utensil holder is more than a utensil holder right now; it's more like a reminder.

I reply, "It's ok. It's kind of symbolic of our life right now -- a little broken but a lot beautiful."

As the weeks go by, every time I lay eyes on that utensil holder, I remember that the broken doesn't take away from the beautiful by any means. And that little crack of brokenness doesn't make it any less valuable to me.

And I hear God whispering the same goes for me.

BTSBTW - Confession: The Spin-Cycle I Accidentally Perpetuated with My Life

During the past several years, other women often asked how on Earth I did everything I did:

Care for two kids./Nurture a marriage/Cook from scratch,/Garden and preserve./Write for blogs and websites./Own a business./Work part-time for a church./Volunteer./Keep a clean house./Engage in friendships./And take care of myself.

I've stood there uncomfortably as others have remarked such things, hearing not only disbelief in their voice but also a sort of self-depreciation at the admission of not being able to do it all. My response used to be something along the lines of not really doing as much as they thought I did.

But I wish I would have answered differently because this issue goes way deeper than my reply; that little sentence speaks worlds about the intersection of perfectionism and busyness and comparing and success and embracing ourselves. And it has much to do with perpetuating cycles of shame and feelings of failure and not loving ourselves and others.

I wish, instead, I would have said:

1. "We can have it all -- but we can't have it all at the same time without something suffering.  I may do a lot of things, but I don't do anything well. "

Don't miss it: anything and well are the key words in that sentence. But being a perfectionist {recovering now, thank you}, I had given it my best shot for too many years.

Now that I've cleared many responsibilities from my plate that just made me entirely too busy, I can tell you that doing all of that, even while not doing any all of it well, didn't come without a price.

Often times my family suffered -- namely my marriage because while you can't just leave two small children unattended, you can, indeed, leave a grown man alone after a long day so you can crash face first into bed.

Also, my health has suffered. I spent way too many years burning the candle at both ends and creating stress responses in my body and mind that have had lasting effects  I hadn't totally started identifying until two summers ago when my body started crying out for some serious TLC. Thankfully, my husband and I recognized its cries before serious disease states set in and began diligently working to lighten each of our stress loads.

And also, our small business, some of my friendships and even at times my kids have suffered from having an owner/friend/mom who simply had too much to juggle to invest a good chunk of time into any one thing.

So while it looked like I was doing it all, and maybe it even looked like I was doing it all well, I really wasn't.

I didn't understand that busyness was actually eating away at the parts of life I want to do really, really well -- build a strong marriage, nurture the two small souls with who we've been entrusted and be in community with others.

2. And then there's the bigger issue -- the comparisons we make when measuring ourselves against others help us form terribly imperfect definitions of success and also degrade the beauty of being created as individuals.

What I wish I would have said more often during these conversations was that while I can write an article or blog post or poem in 15 minutes or so, I simply could not balance my check book in that amount of time. Or fix a broken anything in our home with ease. Or sew anything relatively straight.

Because none of those things come naturally to me and none of those things naturally interest me enough to want to invest time into learning about them.

And that's ok. Because that's not me. And just because I can't do those things or you can't write a blog post with ease doesn't mean we are failing at anything other than trying to be someone else. I wish I would have realized long ago how demeaning it is when I compare myself to others. By doing what we were created to do and what we love, we are actually far more successful at being ourselves. And I think who we are and how that influences us to live is far more important than what we accomplish purely out of skill or muscle power.

I guess that would have been awkward to have said all of that during those exchanges, but I often wish for redos on those conversations -- a chance to stop the spin cycle I was accidentally perpetuating by living that kind of life coupled with relative silence.

A chance to honestly dialogue about these issues that keep us stuck on the spin cycles of guilt and shame and self-deprication and instead hang all of the truth out to dry ...  hooked up to the clothesline, dancing in the wind for everyone to see.

Motherhood: For the Days We Think We Suck

And that's a wrap on our first six years. 

A few days ago we sang happy birthday to our oldest son and welcomed him into year six. 

This year he graduates from preschooler into child, pilots Kindergarten and begins entering into a life away from home on a daily basis. 

A friend reminded me a few days before G's actual  birthday that we were tying up the last little loose ends of the most foundational years. 

I joked that we had three days left to really make time and build up a few more layers in that foundation. 

We laughed but the conversation drove me into introspection and maybe a little existentialism. 

During the days leading up to his birthday,  I watched the highlight real of six years play movie style in my mind. 

As I reflected, I realized a smattering of our moments of deep connection and his Aha moments stemmed from sadness and grief. 

Others were from times when one of us lost our cool. 

A blessed handful were products of celebration and bliss. 

But a good chunk were all born from those moments that make moms want to pull our hair out by the handful. 

Those moments where I was so deeply frustrated and he was blind with irritation or anger or selfishness have actually been the bricks we've most often used to build the foundation. 

I spent the first three years of his life being scared of screwing up in the heat of those moments. I dreaded losing my temper and patience. A beautiful realization emerged in my daily practice of finding the bugger picture. I realized those moments of inevitable imperfection were actually moments of living out what apology and grace and forgiveness looks like. 

A good number of those terrible moments I'd like to never relive now serve as secure stones in his foundation. Stones on which we'll continue to build. 

Is it a perfect foundation? Not hardly. But from what I can see its sturdy and ready to bear more weight. 

And isn't that what the next phase of building requires? 

As I cry into my homemade granola and lament sending my first baby out of the nest we call home and into the space-sky of kindergarten, I'm holding onto these first six years in my heart and in my mind. 

And I'm praying that every time he needs to add another layer to the life he's building, he'll feel the steadiness of what we've worked so hard to build together.

Bigger Picture Moments: A Gift

It didn't seem like a gift.

And it seemed like anything but good timing for John to travel abroad for work, anxiety still trying to take captive my heart and mind on a weekly basis and my physical imbalance throwing me through emotional and actual loops. And, honestly, every day I'm still giving over the inevitable stings of having lost our baby in March.

When John first told me he'd be leaving for Paris, thus, leaving me alone with the boys to parent them solo for five days and night, I wanted to cry.

So I did. I cried. And I asked God how He could be so callous with my tender heart.

How could I parent our boys alone in this season of intense healing all while keeping up with the other responsibilities that come with owning a business and working part time?

But, God, in His goodness, showed me, the very day John left, that I didn't have to do it alone.

I did it with the help offered and given freely by my in-laws, my own mom and my friends and their husbands.

I did it with His provision, and His provision for me in this season included a lot of help.

So much help, it's sort of mind boggling. Normally I try to muscle up and do as much as I possibly can by myself so as not to be a burden to others around me.

God, however, in my brokenness from the loss of our baby back in March, has gently picked up my pieces, softened me and put me back on the Potter's spinning wheel, intent on making me into something new.

During a Guided Prayer session in which my therapist asked the Spirit to reveal what He wanted me to know in this season, God brought to mind the baby we lost and whispered to my heart that He wants and has always wanted all of me so much more than I want and have always wanted all of our babies. And with that whisper, He challenged my deep-rooted thoughts of feeling like I'm a burden when He really created me as a gift.

This realization was the kind of reshaping that takes a cup and turns it into a pitcher, reshaping its very character and growing it in its purpose and its ability to be filled with much more than it was previously capable.

With space to be filled, though, there also comes space to be empty ...

empty from not truly understanding what we've been crafted to be

empty from always trying to pour out blessings

empty from rarely allowing ourselves to receive blessings from others who want to fill our pitchers

empty from keeping our bodies so busy we hardly ever allow our souls to be stilled and filled by His presence.


Burdens are, indeed, heavy with an emptyness.

But we were made to be gifts, overflowing with His very goodness.

We were made to be filled with His love over and over

day in and day out

moment by moment.

I am not a burden, but I carry the burden of heavy lies when I sit empty of the goodness with which He wants to feel me because I feel like I don't need/deserve/crave the fullness of what comes when we open our hands to receive.

In the days leading up to John's departure, I wrestled hard against that heavy lie of being a burden.

I wrestled hard against emptyness.

And I wrestled hard with understanding of the nature of the gifts He gives.

Though John's trip seemed like a burden, it only would have been if it were empty of receiving what He'd intended; his trip was actually a gift.

A gift that taught me much more about gifts

about how God created each of us, about how God created me to be a gift

a pitcher just waiting to be filled by the love He's ready to pour into each of His creations

not at all empty

but filled from receiving His provision of overflow

making us overflowing.

Motherhood: On Those Nights I Felt Trapped

Tonight he fell asleep by himself.

I remember days that feel like forever ago and yesterday all at once, when I spent every evening trapped beneath a small demanding body who only found comfort in his mother's arms. I prayed hard and steady those nights that I wouldn't fall asleep with him so I could get up and do something, anything other than rock, snuggle, rock. Rock, snuggle, rock. Sleep. Most nights, I would fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night, cranky that I'd wasted whatever free time I could have enjoyed.

He's five and a half now, and I don't have any idea where all those long nights went; I just know that they've all rolled into short years where his pants just have kept getting shorter and shorter even though they've stayed the same size.

He grows, my first baby, and I grow, and we grow

and I like who we're all becoming

but part of my heart twinges for the baby I once held.

Before I left the room tonight, I laid next to him as he prayed, snuggled beneath his warm arm draped over my stomach, waited for him to cue me for my turn to pray. And when I prayed tonight, I prayed thanksgiving for the blessings ... and silently I pleaded for the time to linger long in these moments where I was still snuggling an ever-growing boy.

When his breathing slowed into sleep breaths, his little brother also fast asleep on my other side, I began to unbind myself from blankets. But he he stirred and asked where I was going.

I said I was going to read my Bible and pray.

"Will you be back in a little bit?"

Absolutely, I promised.

Five minutes later my promised lured me back to that oldest boy of mine, and I thought if he wanted me with him right then that I would be there, so I creeped back into his room ...  and found him fast asleep.

I placed my lips on his forehead for a kiss and he mumbled, "I'm OK, mom; you can go and pray and read your Bible."

I whispered my love to him.

"I love you, too, mom."

And I can't help but to think how the desperate prayers I uttered all those nights I spent pleading that I would get something more done than rock, snuggle, rock, sleep have been answered.

On those nights, I didn't just lay down with my boy and fall asleep. No. On those nights, I laid down foundations of love.

Bigger Picture Moments: On turning 30

I thought it would be harder

this birthday

to say goodbye to my twenties

and enter 30.

But I'm ready.

Ready to bid farewell to a decade that began

like a wild ride on an enormous ocean wave

and one that's ending with toes dipped into high tide

settled onto the stable ground of Faith

rather than the tumultuousness sea of self.

These past ten years have been all about realizing that

I am not the ends to all means.

That the Earth spins for more than just me.

That self is in competition with Spirit.

That there's more to me than just me.

I count.

One by one I number the years,

and I see the blessings unfold

from messes, sea glass polished shiny by waves.

I see grace swell up and carry me onto shore and

love salve the wind and sun burnt onto my weathered skin.

This birthday

there's no dread

or twinges of sadness

just gratitude for the days I've known

and praise for the ones still spread out ahead.

Link at Melissa's!

    

Bigger Picture Moments: Christmas Present

We slept until about 8:15 and lounged in our pajamas longer than normal Christmas Day because we could.

Only casual plans sprawled out before us for the entire day.

Unlike most Christmas Days of the past that were filled with travel or spent inside my mom's home, this one seemed fully our own even with one must-stop at church that actually felt more like pleasure than work.

And it moved slowly. The entire day, hours spread out wide and open like prairie stretches for miles under the cover of snow.

We lingered in small moments of joy, watching two still-small boys play with a pirate ship that was still in its box.

We marveled as we read the Christmas story again {and again and again}

Smiled while E sang his own lyrics of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

Stood in awe of our dining room together after lighting the final candle for our Christmas candlelight dinner spread

and giggled as we drank our juice and sparkling kefir water from fancy wine glasses.

As I rocked my small one in my dad's old recliner at the end of the day amid the glow of candles and tree, little twinges of remembers poked at my heart -- of magical Christmas Days past where my sister and I unwrapped traditions more excitedly than we undressed presents stacked beneath the tree

and I smiled.

Last year, I think I would have cried.

But this year

I smiled.

I was thankful instead of wistful for the past.

I don't know when it happened --

when I made the jump from past to present

from being rocked to rocking.

It's almost like being married with two kids and one dog and a house sneaked up on me.

I rocked my small one in the lingering hours of twilight and pondered how on Earth

we are the adults now.

And my thoughts went straight from memories

to future

and how we are now the rockers but one day these boys

they will be the ones rocking babes in their arms as they think back to Christmas Days past and --

I stopped myself from light traveling seasons away

re-centered and focused on the

right now

arms full

heart warm

rocking

grateful for Christmas past

and Christmas future

sitting

rocking

heart swelling

thankful and long

in Christmas present.

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Brook's! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

'Twas the Write Before Christmas: Rebirth in Self Truths

So in the beginning there are small fingers and tiny toes

and no mother's heart seems to really grasp

that the fingers she holds and toes that meet her lips

will one day, perhaps, be bigger than her own.

Mary, she knew, that smallness was destined to be greatness.

But probably, it was just beyond her heart,

that smallness would become such Bigness.

These ever-growing bodies

these reminders

that smallness is fleeting

and has no indicator of

how wide

how deep

how long

it can grow.

I am reborn through Grace every day

to love

and Love.

And am reminded of such love

and Love

born in smallness and growing into bigness

and Bigness

every time feet that once fit inside the palm of my hand

outgrow another pair of shoes,

travel little pieces of my heart further from me

in ever-growing portions.


Inspired by the 'Twas the Write Before Christmas Day Six prompt:

Join us in creating as we get into the Christmas spirit!

Everyday Life: Hands

His hands are warm, and I don't expect it.

Not amid the cold of a chilly November day. 

Not within the four walls of this pale room. 

His hands, they are warm, and his grip, it is still strong despite the frailty of the rest of his body. 

They betray his poor prognosis and leave me hopeful that his strong will and determination will carry him through, leave him steady and standing, walking tall until the end. 

These hands

they say something different than does the gauntness of his face

the whimpers of his lips

the doctors' reports.

At first I can't find my voice to tell him what I intended

that he is loved

and that he is Loved. 

That I appreciate him

and those strong hands that 

fought for our country

built a business

bound together a marriage 

a marriage that made a family

a family that grew my father

a father who helped grow me. 

The words -- when the room empties of family and falls silent and still washes over the bed and his body quiets into a sounder sleep -- they come crashing out of my mouth, loud as they do when I'm talking over the  building and echoing voices of my boys. 

He responds not in words 

but in firm squeezes 

his hand to mine 

in a language he's been speaking for I suppose his entire life

one I'm just now beginning to understand. 

Bigger Picture Moment: Emphasis

We ask them questions, lots of question, when we're all gathered 'round the dinner table sharing plates from hand to hand and passing stories along words in much the same way.

What did you learn in school?

What did you talk about in church?

What did you do today?

And sometimes, at 3 and 5, they answer only in one-word sentence. But sometimes there's more, a full spread of dinner-table feast, coming from their open hands, open mouths.

It's then that I'm tempted to say we're doing this parenting thing well, that everything looks good. That our little shoots rapidly growing out of the soil of our lives look healthy.

That we've got kids who learn and succeed and communicate. Kids that do and go and see and experience.

And then I dig deep into me, and John digs deep into him, and we dig deep into each other during a heavy homework week for our Vantage Point 3 class, trying to uncover our values -- those very driving forces that influence our decisions, that steer the course of our path, that anchor us in the routines and happenings of our daily life.

Our values --they influence everything: how we spend our money, our time, our resources, our energy, the decisions we make, the relationships in which we engage.

No. Not our ideals, that which we aspire to be our powering forces.

Dig deeper. We loosen up the soil in our hearts and sink shovels in to get to the root of what's actually fueling the movement upward.

Our values.

In that digging and searching and uncovering, it becomes apparent that if we want to live intentional lives of authenticity and growth, transformation and depth, that we actually need to be more concerned with who we are rather than what we do.

Because what we do stems out of who we are. 

What we value fuels our decisions, yes, but our values grow out of who we are at the core, at the root.

This all circles back to the dinner table discussion in which we've been trying to engage.

We haven't been asking the wrong questions around the table each night; we do want to know what they've learned and done and enjoyed each day.

But maybe we've been asking them questions with the wrong emphasis, placing more importance on the doing and less on the being, less on the who they are becoming.

If we're far more concerned with who these little guys are and the kinds of people they grow to be, the passing of stories, the sharing of conversation around the dinner table should be a reflection of our intention -- growing strong roots rather than just good looking shoots.

"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The desperate need today is not for more intelligent people, more gifted people but for deep people." Richard Foster

Share your moment at Melissa's!

Five-Minute Friday: Race

He stands solemnly, stills his growing body, a few paces ahead of me, traces of his breath dancing in the cool October dusk as he deeply exhales a long sigh.

"Oh, mommy," he begins, "All of my favorite leaves are almost gone."

Two straights days of swooping, sweeping strong winds have wrestled the them in all of the bursts of colorful glory from tree branches, sent them rushing down the street and crashing into open stretches of prairie.

"Why does it have to go so fast?" he laments, standing taller, broader shouldered than he was even just a few weeks ago when the green first gave way to deep orange and sunset red. "I wish the leaves would stay a little longer ... they're so pretty like this."

I nod, resisting the urge to inform him that seasons changing are inevitable, that sometimes you blink and you miss the leaves lingering bright and gloriously from the trees at the peak of fall, only catching glimpses of their beauty as they run wildly off into the distance.

We stand together, staring at barren branches, sorry to have not stood here still for longer just a few days prior. I switch my gaze to his face, sleeker and defined more monthly by sharper curves, baby fat having mostly dripped away.

And I linger long in the blazing glory of five

because soon I'll be standing here catching tiny bursts of color racing down the streets.

Everyday Life: Lumps and Bumps and Steering Wheels

After we read,

after lights out,

after we pray,

after we are tucked beneath warm covers, my oldest drives into wide-awake nightmares instead of drifting into his normal peaceful slumber.

He begins to sob, asking through tears, "Mom, do kids get cancer? Or do just older people?"

And just like with most unexpected veers into darkness, I find myself swallowing my own fear at this sudden jerk of the car toward the edge of the cliff and try to calmly recover the direction of the conversation, steer it back onto the safety of the well-paved road.

I answer as simply, honestly as I can -- yes, sometimes little kids do get cancer, but that it doesn't happen very often.

He continues to weep next to me as I gently explain and whisper-pray for the right words to become my words to become his words of comfort and understanding.

His small body shakes next to mine, and I pull him close as it becomes clearer that he's not just asking hypothetically.

"Is the lump in my throat that won't go away cancer, mommy?"

I don't know how he's taken this leap from simply just telling me earlier about this lump to equating it with cancer, but I'm all too-familiar with how such leaps are made; I bridge the gap between these mountains all too often, linking symptoms and fear with disease and what ifs.

Though I gently whisper that I don't think the lump in his throat is cancer, he still can't rest, so I ask him what made him think about it and he reminds me that we've been praying for my Grandpa Filippi to be healed from cancer.

"Do people die from cancer?"

My heart flips again and sags heavy, holding his question

I steady the wheel, regain traction on solid grand and pray peace over him from the One Who knows our bodies and our hearts and thoughts; the One Who loves and protects. And the one who heals when we need to be healed.

His cries soften and fade into rhythmic breaths as he drifts to sleep.

But now I am wide awake

mopping up the soppy mess in my own heart

sad and dripping with the reality that

at just five, he would even be internalizing such heaviness


and

that at just five, there are even such heavy things to ponder.

Frustrated, I wonder aloud via Facebook at why none of the parenting books address how to explain things like cancer and such to soft and permeable five-year-old hearts.

I swerve my car toward the edge and into darkness, but she catches my hand at the wheel and she does, too,

and they calmly steer me back toward solid ground

reminding me

just as I reminded him

that we know Who really does the driving around here.

It's just that sometimes it takes those who have been on the road a little longer to remind you

to let go.

Bigger Picture Moments: Golden

When I was younger my grandma shared with me that it wasn't easy being the oldest generation.

Because, she'd said, who do you call when you need a little wisdom, a little more life experience than what's spread out across your own table?

Honestly, I didn't know what to think of that then, but now I'm starting to understand what I'm sure is just bits and pieces of what she meant.

Photo courtesy of my sister, Jill. 

I understand it slightly more every time I watch my little boys all but fling their bodies into still-strong arms that held their own babies and their babies' babies and now the babies of those babies.

It becomes clearer to me now on those days I pick up the phone to dial my mom or grandma or mother in law and upon hearing their inviting greeting I sloppily wring out the dirty water of a messy day's events only for them to offer soft, dry towels of compassion and perspective.

I get it more and more as I watch my father in law pour into his grandsons in only the way a grandfather can, my husband standing close by, almost taking mental notes on how to father from the man who helped raise him into the good man he's become.

It surfaces when I catch the gaze of eyes that have seen so much linger long on our two giggling boys, as if they were the most interesting, lovely sights ever to be seen.

Photo courtesy of Erica Lynn Photography

These generations, they weave together

tightly tangled and connected.

And each year I celebrate another birthday

I seem to take another step back from the brightest, most intricate of tapestries,

breathe in the bigger-picture design of family

and realize that these days of being sandwiched in the middle of it all are absolutely golden.

Share your moment at Brook's!

Everyday Life: Carry You

It seems like I don't carry you much any more.

At freshly five, you are long and lanky and beyond a comfortable hip seat.

So I settle for snuggling you to sleep. Tonight, I practically have to beg you to let me be the one to see you off to your dreams, but you finally oblige.

And I breathe gratitude at having these minutes.

We lay in the dark, wrapped tight beneath blankets shielding our skin from cool of night-time lake air.

We whisper back and forth, and I tell you the story of five years ago today.

How we waited long and we waited patient for you to come. {"How long, mom?" Nine whole months!}

How I labored hours and then days. {"Did you eat? Did you sleep?" Not really.}

How I pushed you out of my belly. {"How!?" With strong muscles.}

And how all you wanted to do was sleep in my arms and nurse, which was good

because that's exactly all I wanted to do, too -- exhaustion set deep in my body, we both faded in and out of sleep for five glorious hours that first night.

You smile, and I remember the you from five years ago, tiny and snuggled against my chest, legs still shaking from the shear labor of your entrance.

We are still in thought, still in bed, snuggling

and I linger in the very effort, remembering the endurance,

how my muscles worked long

and hard

and well

to grow you,

carry you,

deliver you into arms that spent hours cradling and rocking your small self.

How these muscles fatigued and pushed beyond what I thought I could muster.

How I was so much stronger than I knew.

And how I didn't even have a clue that that would be the easy part.

That carrying you in belly and in arms and bearing down and bringing forth your life was only training for the muscle that would bear the real load.



How I couldn't have known that my heart would need all the training in strength it could build to wrap you up in this weight of heavy love and carry you long beyond what my arms ever could. Linking with The MOB society's Let's Hear it for the Boys.

Everyday Life: The Weight of Even Good

On a Monday, I read aloud the letter slowly and deliberately for the first time. 

We sit around my dining room table as the boys play not-so-quietly in the adjoining living room.

Our hands -- they are so very full, I explain, smiling at the goodness of blessings in arms. 

Our employees, who are more like family, friends, they nod as my words unfold and then come together again realizing that this letter I'm speaking isn't one of just gratitude but rather one explaining our decision to seek out new hands to take the ropes of our Curves. 

Our hands, I say again, they are too full.

I can feel the heaviness lifting out of my arms when the understanding comes pouring out of their lips and shows in their knowing nods. 

Everyone knows what I'm saying is true, and I probably was the last one to realize it anyway. I've been feeling the heaviness we've been carrying since the first of this year brought about an unexpected health journey and the emergence of two growing boys who require more than just extra muscle to haul their lengthening bodies but also extra endurance and strength to shoulder the pangs of getting older. 

Then God, being good and being God, well, he's been pulling me toward living out the strengths He's given me, by not just opening doors, but hand-crafting them with only a carpenter's skill out of seemingly enormous and solid and unlikely walls. 

I can almost feel the stress in my arms when I think I about trying to carry it all ...

or when I think about trying to strong-arm my will against His out of the simple fear of change. 

We don't entertain the thought of carrying the entire good but heavy load -- the club, the boys, our marriage, writing, the ministries, the new callings -- for longer than it takes to pray and seek council and hear

that something has to be given into new hands

because we simply can't carry any of it well, if we keep dropping pieces of everything along the way.

And, so on a Monday, I turn my palms up and unclasp my grip

willing to let another set of hands unload from our arms 

some of the weight of blessing we're no longer meant to carry.

Everyday Life: Bulldozer

He's a small but mighty bulldozer, pressing himself forward, crushing whatever is on the path to his self-proclaimed prize.

And I'm the foreman tailing behind screaming for him to stop! look! be careful! 

It's so loud, those rumbling and pressing desires, he doesn't even hear me.

Almost three years old, and his body is now capable of playing out most of the scenes that have been spinning around in his busy and boisterous mind these past few years. 

Whereas his older brother gave life to scenarios through vocals first, talking it through, he is the hand reaching, the legs running, the arms climbing and the body moving first. 

Most days, he is curiosity in the flesh perched atop tall branches dangling over an open pond of fish, and I'm the firefighter trying to save the cat from drowning. 

But everyone knows that cats don't come out of trees for shrieking idiots, jumping up and down.

That's what I feel like lately. 

I talk myself down while scrambling up the tree, reminding myself

to breathe deep

to pray hard

to love well

and trust fully

that one day 

this passion

this vigor

this desire

won't be driving him over ledges or out of tree branches

or me crazy

but, rather, 

it will be driving him 

down the road 

spread out before him 

by a gracious Paver

and all this practice will have made

him ready to take the wheel.

Linking with Let's Hear it for The Boys over at M.O.B. Society. 

Thinking, That's All: Sunday Morning {Solo}

Yesterday, I posted a collaborative piece from the prompt Sunday Morning by Ani DiFranco where I shared my captures and my partner's words.

Below are the words I penned for the prompt and captures.

Sunday Morning {Solo}

Head sunken into pillows, hips into the cushion of a wool-topped mattress, I used to sleep long and late into the morning, gracious husband downstairs with two little boys scrambling eggs and scrambling to find church clothes, dress two boys.

Inevitably, there was always rushing, some tears, frustration billowing freshly like just-brewed coffee. Sunday mornings groaned for restoration.

So my sleep has since been traded for early-rising, frustration for the fruit of patience and hot tempers for hot breakfasts together beneath summer sun. 

And I was reminded that before redemption could restore and penetrate my heart while sitting beneath the steeple that it had to begin in the heart of my Sunday mornings first. 

Bigger Picture Moments: Gaps

There is white space in the picture folder on my computer, large gaps of time seemingly unaccounted for, left uncaptured by photographs.

When we lost the babies from deep inside my womb. 

When anxiety made a sweeping effort to steal every little piece of my joy.

When I was so fatigued I could barely stand and make lunch let alone pick up a camera and chase after boys to capture their wild-wrapped-cuteness. 

There are gaps, long and wide open and gaping, and I wonder if the boys when they grow will notice that months and months had gone by where not a single picture was snapped by the woman whose camera normally completes her wardrobe on any day.

Because they likely won't remember that many days for many months it was all I could do to even dress myself in the morning

and they probably won't recall how I counted myself fortunate to even snap mental pictures of their beautiful faces while they played on the floor as I rested on the couch. 

That's how I want it anyway; I don't want them to remember this season of hard and hurt that sucked so much of the life from our days despite my best efforts to carry on as normal. 

I hope instead that they see their childhood in years rather than months, pictures of their growing selves overflowing from folders marking each year of their lives.

****

My memory card was full tonight when I began snapping another round of photographs in the backyard, something that hasn't happened in months, signaling that I needed to release some of them onto my computer to make space for more. 

So I made a June 2012 folder. 

And with that, I bookended the gap from the fall, plenty of time to fill the rest of the year with enough captures to consider 2012 as what it's shaping up to be -- beautiful and so very full.

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Sarah's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Everyday Life: Hurts So Good

He fell asleep again today in my arms.

I couldn't help but marvel at his small-bigness.

His elongated legs, but his yet-chubby cheeks.

His almost-too-big-for-his-new-shoes feet, but his still-soft, still pudgy baby belly.



After he woke up and crabbed about having woken to a world where chocolate {gluten free!} cake cannot be consumed at all hours, he was off and running, wrestling and jumping with his brother.

His brother, who when we headed upstairs to get ready for bed, read/recited-from-memory two books complete with perfect inflections and voice punctuation.

I couldn't help but marvel, again, the small-bigness of my four and a half year old, too.

Who are these growing-over-night boys?

And how did I get so fortunate to watch them sprout up so lovely and strong and solid?

As he read and his younger brother tried to read along outloud, too, I think John and I smiled so hard our faces hurt the kind of good that happens when you take a small- big bite out of a life that's better than what you could have ever imagined.

Bigger Picture Moment / Five for Five: Age

I felt it again last night.

Like I was superman with all my superpowers drained from my body.

The kryptonite -- stretching of skin over lengthening bones and shedding of babyness for childhood.

The super powers I'd had wrapped up in my mother's body only a mere memory amid the screams of an inconsolable 2.5 year old, shrieking in the darkness of my bedroom at 12:15 a.m.

When both boys weaned, there was that sense of power-comfort loss, too. And then again when I could no longer pick up my lanky oldest son and walk rhythmically with him up and down the long hallways after he'd had a bad dream or a badly skinned knee.

And there it was again in the fullness of my inky-black room, only a tiny section illuminated by soft-glowing nightlight.

No milk. No baby carrier in which he could find rest amid the steady bounce of my pace, against the beating of my heart, in the security of being snugged right against my frame. No swaddling blanket large enough to comfort his toddler body.

Just me fumbling in the dark for new the bag of motherhood superpowers I haven't quite yet mastered -- the right words, the right melody of soothing song for his ears, the right touch to his skin, the right calm for his wild, wordless upset.

I stumbled hard into thinking in the sleeplessness of midnight about growing in my own mother skin. About what I have now to offer little boys who are no longer little babies and are growing quickly into little men.

What is there apart from a breast of comfort and arms like entwined branches and the calm of my heart thumping in time with their own now that they've grown out of the supermom powers I'd relied on most.

We finally all drifted to sleep, exhausted and teeming with frustration after riding out the crystorm together of what I can only assume is emerging molars, snuggled in the same bed.

I slept hard-crazy-dream sleep where I found myself struggling against intruders in my home, unfaced villains who were trying to harm my babies. In my dream, I was conniving and fearless, strong beyond my own knowing and I protected my growing flock with super-natural God-given mother fierceness of heart.

I carried this fierce-love into total consciousness, woken by smiles and babble mixed with toddler-crafted words followed by the happy sounds of a preschooler coming to say hello.

There were wrapped-up words, oh so many words from my preschooler and tackle hugs, so many tackle hugs wrapped around my neck by my toddler.

And with these word spoken, hugs given, tantrums thrown, ideas shared, tears shed, the emerging super powers of a mother who ages with her children, the sheer weight and depth of that strong-ocean-current-fierce love manifests itself in listening well, in embraces fully returned and in pausing to pay the captors of this soul-love my fullest attention even when I feel like I'm fumbling around in the dark.

Every Thursday we come together to share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week, and this week we are teeming with Momalom's Five for Five to find the Bigger Picture wrapped up in AGE. Don't forget to link at both Jade's and Momalom's to support each other and find new friends!

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's!Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.