Bigger Picture Moments: To Rejoice

I've cautiously celebrated the new blessing I'm carrying in my body.

But fear has restrained my excitement; it's been hard to live this year's word -- it's been hard to rejoice.

I speak carefully about the future because I know nothing is guaranteed.

Nothing except one thing: God's goodness. God's goodness doesn't waver.

"For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:5 

The past few weeks I've been muddling through what I say I believe and what I actually believe -- beliefs versus ideals, you could say. I say I believe in God's goodness no matter my circumstances.

And if that's true, I've asked myself, shouldn't I trust Him no matter my circumstance?

Shouldn't I rejoice right now without abandon because I trust in His goodness?

To rejoice is to trust in God's goodness no matter what happens -- simply just because God is good.

In these thoughts, I've been drawn to the fact that not only is He good and His goodness central to His character but that he's also a merciful Father who wants to love us well and give us good gifts.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:9-11

I just have to trust Him.

And when I trust, my heart easily rejoices in His love.

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Just Write: Tagless

This body has grown and birthed two full-term babies, and so I'm not surprised during week seven when it boasts proudly that it knows exactly what He made it to do.

Hips and breasts and abdomen expand even while baby is the size of a blueberry, driving me to secure my jeans with a rubber band, find refuge in my yoga pants.

But there aren't enough yoga pants for every day of the week, so yesterday I took to the aisles of Target and bought a pair of black maternity workout pants.

And I was fine, despite some of the anxiety that still boils up unexpectedly just beneath the surface all the while praying away the fears that I'll be back in my size eight jeans sooner than we're bargaining for.

This morning, laundry called my name and despite still feeling the weight of a hefty lingering cold in combination with the normal first trimester fatigue, I oblige its call

and I'm face to face with those maternity yoga pants

needing to be washed

tags still attached.

So I try them on to make sure they fit; they do.

But I knew they would.

I silently debate ripping off the tags and washing them clean, ready for wear ... or leaving them on for an easy return just in case ...

Before I can finish the thought, I throw up my hands to God, grab the pants off the sink, rip off the tags and say

"I trust You."

Heartracing, in the bathroom,

I find the pants aren't the only thing that are

tagless.

Five-Minute Friday: Opportunity

Yesterday I sat atop a long table in my midwife's bright office, bared my arm and gave a vial of blood for testing -- our meek human attempt at measuring the progress of the miracle of life freshly sown into my body.

{I'd give much more than a vial for you, little love, just so we're clear.}

There are options if my body is having a hard time supporting the huge need for progesterone -- something I struggled with when I was sick and lost two babies a year ago and a little more.

But I am healed {in more than one way}. And as I give blood I remember I have been bought with His.

So we're thankful, oh love, are we thankful.

And believing, love, oh, are we believing that we are just crossing Ts and dotting Is and that the Gardener has already taken care to sew this seed and He will sustain it -- that God has healed my body and given it the ability to conceive and nourish and grow through His power.

But, nonetheless, we are parents, and so we go and test and wait because we'd never want to neglect a little life, no matter how small, how tiny.

Today we have the opportunity

to wait well

and rejoice

or sit in fear and what if.

And today I choose

to wait well on test results

because I know what I'm really waiting on.

And He is mighty, able and good.

Five-Minute Friday: Risk

I think you say jump.

And instead of asking how high

I find myself frozen 

instead 

asking for a fiery bush 

or billboard

or email 

with those simple words 

burning 

or bolded

or line-addressed 

to my name:

Jump. 

But in the quiet recesses of my heart

when I still myself from thought-questions 

and thought-distractions

I hear you loud and clear. 

I hear you in the details you've already taken care of

in the affirmations

in the revelations of grace-mercy you've given

in the very word you spoke centuries ago

"Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 1

I'm no prophet.

But you've given me the same promise.

That if I jump

when you say

trust replaces risk

and there will be cushion in the landing.

Thinking, That's All: Awakening

There is light at the end, but today I pray for wide-angle vision.

I don't want to waste it away -- the time -- on waiting to live fully only in the fullness of light.

I want to see, live nestled inside these moments with little boys who only want to snuggle their mommy and serve her pretend sparkling wine from the restaurant of imagination.

I don't want to lose it to the darkness of anxiety-laced thoughts about MRIs and ENTs and MDs and whatever follows those letters and their diagnosis.

I cry-pray rest enough to unclench white knuckles from clinging to my life.

I cry-pray hot tears, sink my hands into the low back of a black kitchen chair and feel two small arms wrap around my thigh, a head press against the side of my hip.

I weep quietly for a few moments and usher out breath from my shaking lungs, squeezing tightly the shoulders of my oldest son.


I won't go there.

I won't go to the places where I'm drowning deep in the waters of picturing his life, his brother's life, his father's life if the what-ifs were to unfold.

I stand my ground against diving into the waters and then force jelly-like legs to move into the wide-angle frame of life outside the tunnel in which I'm standing.

He follows me around the house, stays close enough in his play that he could dive in after me if I jump.

At not even five, he thinks he's lifeguard to my wild-toddler-at-the-shore moments.

And I know I have to move away from the sand, the beach, the lure of drowning myself in what-if waves and stand firmly on the Rocks

my back to the ocean face toward the Sun glowing in the horizon of tall grasses and little boys and a strong-heart husband and this life-gift spread out before my eyes.

This piece was inspired by the Bigger Picture Blogs Writing Circles prompt "awakening" in the Life-Out Loud genre. It was edited after critique from fellow writers. Join a Writing Circle and take part in the writing process at a whole new level!


A few friends have said I was too vague in this post and asked for explanation to the MRI references. I've had some lingering head pressure issues we thought were stemming from sinuses ... but my sinuses are clear. A specialist suggested doing an MRI to see if we can find what's causing the pressure. It's probably bothing but as someone who battles anxiety, the unknown can grow if I let it. 

Thinking, That's All: A bump

A bump.

It's likely unworthy of any attention or special notice, my favorite nurse says as she examines the slightly stretched, raised skin on one side of my nose.

It's not hugely obvious, but it's there -- a bump that should probably be checked out.

I leave the office with each hand clasping that of a little boy, a recommendation card for a dermatologist slid into the back pocket of my jeans.

As we step outside of the office and our faces meet sunshine, my boys unlock their fingers from my own and are running wild in two seconds flat.

And so is my mind.

I scramble to capture all that has broken free.

I buckle little behinds into car seats and wish that my fleeting thoughts were as easily bound before I settle on one thought.

Could we just have a break? 

My heart and mind long for simple days spent wrapped up in the moments that spread out easily before us, free of tangled thoughts and unrest and dis-ease.

We've known these days, gifts we carelessly unwrapped and tossed aside for each new one that came perfectly wrapped in the new ribbon of each morning's sunrise.

We gobbled them up, gluttonous almost, devouring a harvest in which we'd barely toiled, just barely uttering thanks as the sun set daily behind the horizon.

What did we know then of love that came easily without sacrifice

of health that bloomed like clockwork leaves on trees

or of thankfulness for simply another day

of the Gardener's goodness.

My skin is all sorts of stretched out thin from growing and growing and growing during this time of His planting and sowing seeds of gratitude and trust into our hearts, into our minds.

Breaks don't come during the growing season, and I know, I admit, that I surely want to bear fruit come harvest. 

There is a wrestling in breaking out of the tight-wound bud. And there is stretching in growth, in maturing, in coming to full bloom.

I abandon wild-grown thoughts instead giving my attention to the wild love strapped into two car seats behind me.

We talk about everything and nothing, and I cannot remember the details beyond smiles from the tender attention of a mother to her sons.

He weeds and waters and suns and grows through the clumps, the bumps of dirt, and there's a resignation of details on my part about what He'll use to fertilize and pull those weeds replaced with simple prayers of thank you and a begging to not leave me this way.

And He won't; because this is the kind of love that tends carefully with out break without abandon and without fail.

Thinking, that's all: Trying not to Try

Last week, a wave of panic sloshed into my mind when I realized I was late.

Late, late.

Because we're trying not to try.

It's not that I don't want another little set of feet pitter-pattering in tap dances across a stretched and swollen belly or that same tiny pair later scampering across my floor; it's more that I don't feel well enough yet to support another pregnancy or take care of another little in the here and now.

And.

I'm scared.

I'm scared of getting pregnant again.

I didn't know exactly how scared I was until I flipped open the calendar, counted the days and passed the number 33.

Three negative pregnancy tests calmed my nerves, but each test and the negative results that brought such relief forced me to confront how far I still have to go in healing my mind and growing my trust in His perfect time and provision and love.

The thought of miscarrying a third time is daunting, yes; but, also, now equally daunting is all of the changes the body encounters while growing a new life.

See my brain has kicked into overdrive and become extremely in tune with each symptom and feeling felt in my body since the pregnancy losses last fall. And because my mind has been dancing in the darkness of anxiety, I have to battle myself to take captive all thoughts to Him and focus on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, excellent or praiseworthy {Philippians 4:8} instead of allowing obsessiveness to prevail.

That takes quite a bit of energy.

So to embark on a journey of nine months where nothing in the body feels normal and everything changes all of the time sounds like a recipe for exhaustion on so many levels.

I'm not ready yet.

Amid these panicked moments of what if, though, I've heard loud and clear that sweet, sweet whisper of the Spirit that repeats Follow Me.

Tiny buds have formed on trees outside our home, and I notice them as we pass by from the driver's seat of the car as I drive G to school in one of those moments of fretting about being late and being late.

At the same time my eyes meet the buds, snow begins falling from the sky.

The tree doesn't worry about its leaves blooming too soon because it knows the Creator knows when His creation is still in a season of rest.

I still my heart as the car falls into line with the speed limit and I root myself in the Truth.

The Creator knows when His creation is still in a season of rest.

And so I stand firm in frozen soil, waiting, trusting, knowing that the blossoms will bloom when He deems it time for spring to come.

Five-Minute Friday: Trust

It's not until his screams match the intensity of the sirens that come in whirling and swirling and making a mess of noise in in my mind beyond just what fills my ears that I finally suck in my own deep breathe of muggy south Florida air.

It's a heart-in-stomach kind of feeling when your smallest child is clinging to your neck gasping for air before those gasps become loud wails of terror. And it's a cement-in-lungs kind of weight that sits square in the middle of the body as your baby's raspy voice emerges, his own lungs shake in some air of their own.

I sit wide-eyed on the couch, stunned, holding a recovering two year old as paramedics listen to his chest, his lungs.

Clear, they say. Clear.

As for what he choked on, we might never know. 

But I know what I've swallowed.

Anxiety-drunk and adrenaline-drenched, I'm choking on fear and helplessness.

In those moments of mother-lode panic, I often forget to throw myself into Arms that hold because I'm so busy trying to shoulder the weight of emergency as well as my own heavy body.

Later that evening, while the boys are sprawled across a big bed, I surrender to bathwater and writing out the gratefulness of my heart across blank pages.

And with each moment of mercy penned, He builds trust into my heart number by number, gift by gift, grace by amazing grace.





{Totally longer than five minutes this week! Sorry! It needed to come out.}