Dreadful Day

The evening of the Friday before Mother's Day, 2016, my sister Angie and I had a simultaneous realization with several states between us. Our mother hadn't been on Facebook for many days. I received a message from her moments after noticing.

"Have you heard from mom lately?"

I had last spoken with her on Facebook Messenger the previous Tuesday, but there had not been much to say, things were the same as usual. Friday night I called her home: no answer. Emailed: no answer. Facebook messages: no answer. I couldn't sleep that night, dread...dread...dread. First thing in the morning I called all the local hospitals, she had been hospitalized twice in the last year for pneumonia, but she wasn't there.

Dread. So much fear. Ice in my veins. Angie called the police.

An officer was on the scene within the hour, at our request, for a health check. All the doors were locked, no one answered, both of her cars parked in the drive with no signs they had been moved in several days. He reported being unwilling to enter. We called back. BREAK DOWN THE DOOR IF YOU HAVE TO.

Silence. Waiting. Trying to be hopeful. The call.

Angie: "It's not good. They found her on the couch."

Then tears and tears and lament and confusion and "what do we need to do?"

We set to work when our emotions over come us. We make ourselves busy. The pain can't reach us then.
And now it's been 32 days since we buried our mother and the missing starts to come. Today would have been the Sunday I would make an effort to call my mom. I tried to call her one Sunday a month. She didn't seem to mind that but, was irritated if I called more often.

Truth is, we didn't talk much, my mom and I. When I called I most often could hear the clicking of her keyboard, she responding with half listening answers, me grasping for conversation. Trying to be a good daughter, feeling like it didn't matter. Over the last ten years so much of our interaction was digital, social media creating a relationship that didn't hold up face to face. Online she loved and doted on her grandchildren, in real life they were too loud, too busy, too much. Online I was her wonderful daughter who married a doctor and wasn't I lucky for that? Real life there was so much criticism, nary a compliment outside of "You're lucky you have a good man." And I am! And I do! But I often longed for her to see something worthy in ME, to raise up who I have grown to become. Ever the child craving the praise of the parent.
,br> The strange truth, that everyone knew how proud she was of me, how she praised me, except for me. I wish I could have heard her say it. I wish I had a card, written in her beautiful handwriting, telling me all the things she gave away easily to others. But I don't.

And now I'm left with photos, a record player and a few nostalgic records, trinkets collected from her home, memories. I can't call her anymore. I can't agonize over what to send her for Mother's Day, her birthday. I can't log onto Facebook as I used to everyday, to make sure to like and comment on all of her gardening posts, because that's how she felt honored, noticed. And don't we all just want that? To know that we're noticed?

How do you miss some one who wasn't a part of your everyday? How do you miss a mother who seemingly stopped mothering when you went to college? Who, after spending every day of her life since her teens with children, was just ready to break free. Do you force yourself to miss her? Mostly I mourn the mother of my child hood. The mother who made me biscuits and gravy for my birthday breakfasts, who boiled home made noodles for chicken soup when I was sick, who taught me how to read. I had a mother who took me to the laundry mat and let me pick out a candy bar at the gas station next door even though we had so little extra. I had a mother who made sure I had a little more than I needed even when there was no surplus, a mother who worked hard for small pay for decades so I could be a straight A student, college bound, scholarship recipient, soccer captain.

It's easy to forget she's gone.

The nature of our infrequent connections means that life doesn't feel much different, but then I see a photo and my heart squeezes tight inside of me, and I remember.

This was the last time I saw her face to face, hugged her long, smiled at her, made her laugh. Even in death, I never saw her again. My good bye was to the shell of her, wrapped in a shroud, veiled from connecting to the actual loss. This final visit was shortly before our family moved from Texas to New York. We drove over from Houston, the kids and I and stayed in a hotel for the weekend. Mom met us at this park, the kids played all red faced and sweaty at 9am in the heat of a Texas June, ate lunch at the local deli that gave me my first job. I am SO GRATEFUL I did that. So grateful we ignored the expense of a hotel and dining out and gas and spent these two days with her. We ate dinner at Chili's where the service was slow and she marveled at how well behaved the kids were despite waiting over an hour for their meal. Impressed that I didn't just give them a screen to keep them busy. I soared for days on the compliment, felt loved and honored.

In those two days I noticed how slumped she become, how her back bowed and her breathing seem labored. Decades of smoking, of allowing that to be her "only vice" as she would say. I longed to take her with me. To pack her up with our children and fly her away with us. But that was never meant to be.

In the photos, I miss her.

bury

My mother has a grave.

This image is hard. It hurts to look at because I know it is my mother there, but also because it is beautiful and death seems as if it should be ugly and rancid, it is hard because it reminds me that we are all so close to this moment. Our mortality is finite.

My mother has a grave and a piece of my heart is left in it. All the questions I still wanted to ask, all the memories I was imagining we might make. She was to move in with us soon. We had plans for her own tiny house on our land and a path from me to her and her grandchildren skipping to her door. Hopes of digging deep in the earth together, a garden and silly chickens and dying surrounded by love. I didn't know. I didn't know it might not happen.

My mother has a grave and laying her there was too soon and uncomfortable and perfectly right. My faith tells me that God guided our hands to the place where she rests. I prayed and prayed and chanted in my heart and mind and begged God to make it right, to guide my siblings and I, to show us where she wanted to be, to show us HOW to be.

He DID.

Every step was guided. Random internet suggestions told us about Eloise Woods, we found papers in her home about the very place. I walked the trails of that place, my heart crying to God. "Show me God. Show me where." And he did.

My mother has a grave and I am at peace that it is the exact right one. Walking the trails, my heart reaching out, He came close. The sun peered at me here and I knew. We walked through to find a quiet, secluded little place, sunbeams just plentiful enough to let the wildflowers in but not so harsh as to dry the land. Everything can grow here. Even in death my mother will do what she always loved. She will help beauty grow, she will be fully one with the ground and the most beautiful plants will thrive there. We planted Texas lantana at the foot of her special place. Together we sprinkled bits of her garden down deep with her. Soil and flowers growing in her garden, rose petals from the rose bush she had nurtured for so long. Momma rose will miss her careful pruning.

My mother has a grave and when they carried her past me the finality of it made sense. There she was, she was right there, but she wasn't. They wrapped her body carefully, beautifully, fully naturally she lay there. From dust she was, to dust she would return. Until this very moment nothing felt real to me. The day we worked through her home, collecting important papers and special keepsakes for the children, it felt like she was going to come home any minute and find us there. Maybe she was just at the grocery store, some one must have made a mistake. But no, in this moment every truth of that phone call the day before Mother's Day impacted fully. The tears my sister and I cried to together, the shock, the waves of grief and disbelief and all the careful planning in the days prior, it was all laid bare when her body was carried past. My sister, so strong and brave to carry her to this final place.

My mother has a grave and I no longer have a reason to visit the town where I was raised. The last ten years of life with my mother have been mostly digital. Emails and Facebook posts, phone calls where her typing was evident background noise. Our time physically together was never quite as joyful or comfortable as these electronic interactions. I often felt like it was two people I was pursuing. I see now that they were both the real her, just expressed differently. I wish she would have been fully herself for me, I wish I could have heard from her own lips and voice what she thought of me, I wish I had told her more of my favorite memories from my childhood. Memories of home made chicken soup on sick days, of biscuits and gravy on special weekend mornings, of playing Scrabble and being so proud the first day I beat her fair and square. I wish I had told her how glad I was that she never just let me win. I wish she knew how much it changed me to volunteer at the nursing home where she worked, how it taught me to value age and life and wisdom and to treat them with dignity. She was gifted at that. My heart aches that she never had a chance to meet Zoe, to smile at her and see how sweetly she smiles back. My children will never know their grandmother who was so proud of them, who posted their pictures for all to see, who filled her home with their photographs. Zoe met her grandmother in the most tragic of ways.

My mother has a grave and just a handful of us have touched its earth and seen it in its serene beauty. My heart is filled with determination now that she is gone. To not squander the gifts I have because of her. My love of books and writing, my desire to make life in the barren soil, and in the wake of her passing my heart finds itself empowered to connect in real time. To see the faces of those I love, to look up from the digital and touch the real in front of me, to make time for the family she left me. Brothers and a sister, an aunt who has always reached out despite my distance. If there is good in death, it is this. It forces us to truly see the people who might not always be around us, but who are HERE. To draw them into our own daily life. To begin our own lives anew, connecting more fully to the sacred, to the tangible, to the given gifts of our days. I write these words to work through my own shrouded understanding of this loss, but I do hope that if you have come here you will think deep about your own time. How you spend it, and whether the people near you know how special they may be to you. My hope is that I will be better about not holding back my praise, my sentiment, that people will know how very loved and important they are to me. I pray you will consider these things too. Let not the days of our lives be wasted.

so long

It feels an eternity since I wrote here last. So much life lived between now and the last time I worked in this space. The unfortunate truth that I am back here to process a loss, a loss I'm not sure how to articulate. Today is the day after Mother's Day, the first Mother's Day I celebrated as a mother of 5 and here I sit, delayed in the airport after missing a flight that will lead me to bury my mother. The sudden loss of her is both startling and somewhat expected and yet the irony of this, of my traveling to lay her rest with my sweet daughter, 5th in line, just as I was to my mother, born to me the same age my mother was when I completed her child bearing years. So full circle and continuous is life.

In six weeks time my siblings and I were to gather together for the first time, all in one place, to give our mother a chance to enjoy her children and grand children what was expected to perhaps be the last and only time. The heartache of this, that instead she passed alone in her decades old trailer, no one there to notify 911, no one close as she breathed her last breath. I can't stand it. I can't fathom this, why the trajectory of life lead her this way. I hesitate to even say God, though I know He allowed this. I am angry with Him over it, but also oddly placid. Things will happen the way they will after all. It benefits us not to dwell on the unanswerable why. The practicality of my nature that I inherited from my mother.

I don't want to do this. I don't want to go back to the town where I spent my entire childhood, where all my memories of her are so fresh. I don't want to step into that trailer where I grew up, the one I cleaned because she didn't, the one I was so embarrassed of in my youth, the one that made all of my belongings wreak of second hand smoke. I don't want to remember the man who lived in the trailer down the street and how she never knew. But I'm writing all this here because I have to. I have to process the loss of her, of a person who loved me so deeply but hardly told me. Who boasted of my successes in life to people she'd never met, but from whom I only received criticism.

I love her, she sacrificed for me, she worked hard so I could have the very opportunities that brought me to the college where I met my husband, where God met me, where my life unfolded into this beautiful masterpiece that it now is. I love her because she is my mom, but I still carry hurt and resentment and questions and I know that only the healing presence of the Father will walk me through this. I am an orphan now. No father. No mother. But I don't walk alone. I have a Father who adopted me long ago, who celebrates me and allows me to rest. It is my joy and challenge now to rest in Him.

hidden

We are coming to a point of closure on our time in Peoria. While there is much to look forward to and be excited about I find my heart lingering here, this place where we grew our family, this place where God laid out so much of his will for me, my children, my marriage and my purpose. I am and have always been a very natural extrovert, I'm energized by people and groups and activity and find that my very soul thrives when I have plenty of this in my calendar. Yet lately, there has been a shift, something I've felt deep within that has been a slow and sure progression, a whisper of a plan for who my family needs me to be as these school age years approach us. I have come to consider it a holy calling.

I read recently about this idea of the "hidden years," a time in which we, as mothers, must sacrifice our play dates, our busyness about town, our frequency of activities for the purpose of investing in the future of our children. A time when our work is most valuable, but most unseen. This is not a martyrdom, is not a dying of self, but it is a true change of perspective where my heart and mind align to a hard truth that I am the most tangibly valuable person my children will encounter in their present stage of life. I have battled God on this, fought the required self sacrifice only to see that even the tiniest efforts on my part to pursue this path of devotion to little lives, produces so much good fruit.

When I slow down, plan less, have a more open calendar, my tendency to yell and rush and fuss slows. My children and my husband see on me a face of joy in being together more so than a face of frustration and exhaustion. Every effort I make to invest in and disciple the lives of my family, turns outward to produce people who in turn want to connect and relate to people in the world around them. I will be the one to teach them compassion, to care for the widow and orphan, to serve as we see need BY MY EXAMPLE. If I am so busy with book clubs and Bible studies and play dates I will miss out on the opportunities to bend low, listen attentively to the world questions my children ask of me, and answer slowly, and make the world right for them. This is my great privilege, to grow in my own wisdom and depth of self as I engage them and allow them the freedom to do the same in the safety of my attention.

To bring this back around, in June we will journey to Houston, where we will live for a year and then, hopefully, transition to our settle down home. But God has spoken to me about this year, this one, single year in Houston, that in it my family is meant to be the focus. That I do not need to panic about "plugging in" or extending outward at all hours of the day (as my extrovert heart feels compelled to do), but that instead it is a time to teach my children that they truly are the best friends they will ever have. Siblings have a special connection and gift that can be lost when too many other relationships are allowed to crowd in. Houston will be our time of connection, of discovering the world together, of reading so many great books and standing in awe of God's creation. We will still practice hospitality, we will absolutely serve the poor, the marginalized together, we will make friends, but the greatest purpose will be to create a special unity among the members of our family that brews a fierce devotion, a love of each other and a willingness to sacrifice self to make a whole.

I have needs that will still need to be met. The very fact that I write this now, at Panera, without the clamoring for my attention that home life demands, is proof that my husband understands this in me, this need to be "me" separate from "mom" at times. I thrive and feel alive when I am able to exercise, be fit, run the trails and push the limits of my abilities. I will figure out how to weave that into our days, because my health is vital to theirs. Oddly, I feel confident in this (confidence is not my strong suit in decision making). I am free from fear of judgment, as I know not everyone will agree with this choice, but I am glad for it. Glad for the chance to stand strong in the conviction laid privately upon my heart, and I look forward with gladness to the fruit of these hidden years.

yoke

Sometimes I'm standing at the kitchen sink, rainbow bubbles foaming from an old rag turned wash cloth, water so hot it's almost unbearable; my heart aches. Married life can be fun and fulfilling and joyous. More often it is a struggle, work, a balancing act of keeping quiet when all you want is to yell about your feelings and unmet expectations. It's a journey of learning to be vulnerable and true with another person, while still honoring their beliefs and needs and desires and perceptions. All this, and then figuring out how to still get your needs met while you pour out self to the other. It is growth. It is stretching. It can be pain, strife, bitterness, anguish. It can be connection, joy, loyalty, truth.

I was married under an ancient tree, friends and family looking on, crimson sunset forming in the west, white dress. My best friend watched as I walked down a grassy aisle to him, his face was stoic, serious, fighting tears and joy all at once. We kissed for the first time after profession of vows. I honestly don't remember everything we said to one another, but I know that when we proclaimed this rite, we proclaimed it forever. And we meant it. The sincerity between us and in front of God and fellows has brought me peace in these nine years, knowing there will never be an option in either of our eyes to not work, to not give it our all and fight for connection. I am deeply thankful for that as a woman who comes from a family wrought with divorce and brokenness. We will start a new story, a new path and example.

When we first got married, I remember saying that I thought it was silly for husbands to buy flowers for their wives. A waste of money on something that would quickly erode. So desperate was I to be a desirable wife. I see now how deep in my core is the need to be seen as beautiful, to be surrounded by beauty, to create it in my own space and to be showered with simple affections. I love flowers.

I think there are some truths that have taken me a long time to learn, and some prior thought truths that I now need to unlearn. As a Christ follower I created an ideal of constant pouring out, unceasing selflessness with an expectation that it would be returned naturally, that I wouldn't have to communicate my needs. I feared being a nag. I thought my desires for thoughtfulness, for giving and concern were obvious and would be met out of a natural response to my own giving. These years have taught me that unmet expectations that were never voiced are unfair weapons. The daggers of my tears over feeling unseen are only valid if I have communicated a desire to be noticed, and, specifically, what that best looks like for me. If I want my husband to act or serve, I should tell him that it is a need, of great value.

Today, if some one were to ask me what I think the number one most important thing in a marriage might be, I would answer with "communication." Any two people who are willing to bend and flex for one another can succeed in marriage, but they must work diligently to learn how to best communicate their wants and needs and hopes and dreams to the other. I am just this year really learning this, and wish I had known so long ago that being a "good" wife doesn't mean creating the appearance of not needing anything. All the years of living that way didn't create a bond, it created distance and sometimes, bitterness. All of which was brooding under the surface, hidden from the heart of the one who wants me to be happy, and who wants to share in that happiness.

Each day now is a challenge to be fully seen by the one my heart loves. To not be a false picture of contentment, but to be a connector of hearts, even if that means conflict or hard times have to be fought through. Those difficult times are worth it, they wash away the scabs of the fallen and heal with the balm of new a beginning.

IF: then what?

"In your life, is Jesus useful...

...or is he beautiful?"

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."

These two phrases have echoed in my heart and mind since February 7th and I've loved what they have spoken in me. There is a renewal and a refreshing in learning to let go the hand that grasps so tightly at habit, at normalcy. A quenching of long suffering thirst when one is able to let loose the strict bound chains of worry and anxiety of doing it all right, in favor of just living.

These past few weeks I've set a goal of not having goals. Track with me, the goals here are really expectations for to-do list checking, clear counter tops and folded laundry baskets and Martha Stewart home making and I have dropped them in favor of the unforced rhythms of grace. Grace over myself, my children, my husband, my world. Expectations are some times these cell blocks that cage in our joy.

Husband doesn't say, do, help enough.

A bar goes up, joy with no parole.

Kids fight, argue, disobey, make messes.

The lock turned tight.

Friends ignore, say wrong somethings, say wrong nothings

Joy serving its death sentence.

What if...what if...we just lived? Lived with grace enough for people we share our lives with that we could enjoy daily living with out that constant let down of "not enough?" We fill our head space with those not enough thoughts. Of ourselves, our spouses, our kids, our friends. The endless list of not enough, making steal cages bar by bar so we can't feel full. What if all that grace we get from heaven, for all the mistakes and not so mistakes and full out poor choices...what if that was what we gave out? It takes time to LEARN those rhythms.

But I think we could.

I've started simply, with strangers. I realized how often my face of joy is hiding silent cuts at the other. My jealousy of ladies more fit than I at the gym, spouting into judgment that "they must _____ too much, not enough", blah blah. Or you know those thoughts about a friend who is dear to you, yet your mind cuts them for this or that choice? I've been making a conscious effort to TURN OFF THE STREAM OF JUDGMENT.

I realize that there are probably some of you who don't have this, who are naturally sweet, gentle, the criticism not surfacing so ugly. What a gift you have, truly. But for those of us who struggle with steel bars, we know it is mostly because we judge ourselves so harshly that we judge others as such. We have a choice, though strange and unnatural, to hear those thoughts rising, and crush them with the good.

So when I find myself saying, "Self! Why are there ALWAYS baskets of laundry unfolded?!? Why can't you JUST GET IT DONE?!" Or when I'm tempted to question some one's purchase, or clothing choice or tone of voice, or my husband for not doing what I had hoped, or my kids for JUST BEING KIDS...I turn it off, and turn it to good. I am starting to see this whole new world where people aren't just bodies, they are PEOPLE. They have hurts, and awkward moments and a back story that makes them exactly who they are and they are on their own journey and I am just. on. mine. I do the other no good with my negative inside dialogue, so I've been writing their stories instead. I try to see why that lady in line in front of me might be yelling at her kids, see her hurt making them hurt and then compassion wells up.

So here's this, this making Jesus BEAUTIFUL by seeing the beauty in those he loves. What would it take for me to TRULY love my neighbor, a stranger; to see the hurt they hide in their "flaws?" How could we, as women, choose to not compare, to not question motives, but to love fully and let the Spirit guide the rest?

Do we dare try? Could we change our very world?

What do you think? How do we start?

IF: unpacking

I have a husband, four children, a dog. I say "I have" as if there was any truth to the concept that they belong to me. These are blessings, gifts, facets of my life in which I have great privilege and responsibility. I want, have always wanted, so badly, to do well by these pieces of the divine that I share my days with.

So I flew to Texas, ran to a gathering of women though I knew not how to explain to others what it was that I was seeking, what I would be given were I to attend. I just knew in my bones that I was supposed to go. So after mishaps with tickets, miracles with tickets, miraculously affordable air fare and perfect in-law baby sitters, I came. My Rachel and I, we came. Arms and hearts and minds open to whatever it was God was leading us toward. As I sat in the Austin Music Hall, at a farm table expertly decorated, my friend by my side, I prayed and wrote the first thing that came to mind in my journal.

EMPTY.

I felt empty, I felt tired and weary from a life that I didn't feel I was living particularly well. This isn't self deprecation, it's an honest assessment of my feeling that my days were meant for more. I home school my oldest, I nurture my youngest, I serve and honor my husband in every way I can, I keep a relatively clean house, I cook from scratch, but it all has felt so empty and mundane, and at IF, God showed me why.

One of the speakers alluded to IF as to the manna in the desert, the "what is it" that was exactly what each person needed each day while wandering in the wilderness. And it WAS. Every one who attended or watched received something so different, but for me, God showed me that all the things I want to see in myself, my family, my home, my writing, my LIFE, can only be achieved with one thing.

JESUS.

So simple is this truth that it feels absurd. Truly "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I have wanted to lead a powerful life, but have not, perhaps in my entire journey as a disciple of Jesus, ever loved Jesus. It feels uncomfortable and odd and foolish to even say that. I know that some who read this will not agree that there is power in it, but I truly believe, in my mind, that "God made foolish the wisdom of the world." I desperately desire for my heart to catch up.

Many facets of the many speakers spoke so loudly to me, but the one that keeps resonating and reverberating in my heart was from Shelly Giglio. She spoke from Psalm 84, verses 3 and 4 say this:

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you

A term from my science studies of past was used, describing the sparrow as having a "cosmopolitan distribution," you can find them thriving on every continent. The only other animal with the same global representation? It's us. People. And much like the sparrow, many of us are plain, nothing flashy or attention getting in our very nature, yet God made a place for this bird not outside of his house, but near the altar. How much more does he have a place for US in his house? And I have sat in this emptiness thinking that I just can't "build my nest AND be near to alter of God" because of the daily busyness of life with littles. I think I need to do grand things, that I have to lead devotionals and pray arduously and fill every second of the day with God's goodness, but what I really need? To fill my own heart with a love of Jesus, a depth with God, and allow that to organically flow out in my home.

I don't have a plan for how this will happen, because no genuine relationship was ever built on a process or a plan. Instead I'm taking every day to remember Jesus, finding his love in the word, often just a small passage while my littles eat cereal and I stand at the counter over coffee. I'm choosing the Bible over Facebook, inspiring blogs over Instagram. I'm using different language to bring peace to sibling rivalry, expressing to them that they are each precious and made perfect in Jesus, how then can we choose not to forgive, not to love another? We've had some great talks already about what it means to be precious, and I'm finding that what comes out of my mouth about God, is formulating what I and what my family thinks about Him.

I have so much to unpack. Layers of baggage built up in my heart, layers of truth God spoke over me and my life and the power in this new Esther generation of women that we are. I will unravel it here, slowly, but mostly I will focus on Jesus. I will look at my children with mercy and grace, with less restriction and hard lines and more gentle guiding.

Speak God.
Your servant is listening.

a new quest

I write about being a parent. It's what I do. It's my life and I eat, sleep, drink and breathe it in every moment of every day and I want to. I want to soak up this life and these little souls while they are little and fill up my day with them. I have grown to know that right now, in this life, in my life, raising these souls well is enough, it is a great high purpose to which the extent of it's reaches will likely never be fully known to me. I have power.

I'm learning to use it wisely.

My last post was about my issue with anger. It hasn't subsided, it's always there under the surface, brimming, waiting for its chance to strike. I won't let it. I have, I have let out that ugly monster on occasion but feel my children are beginning to grow up in a place where it is no longer the norm and I can only thank and praise the supernatural power of the Spirit that is within me. It could not have come from me alone.

In this time of learning to deal with issues of respect and obedience and far more importantly, the attitudes of the heart, a great revelation has come to me.

My children are PEOPLE.

coming to terms

In the last year I've come to see and accept that I have a problem. A problem that never surfaced prior to having children, one that I never thought I would struggle with. But I'm in the trenches of it, it suffocates me and I'm on a quest to dig myself out of this horrid pit.

It may seem like nothing, but this plague in my heart, it's yelling. As we've added more children and more responsibilities and more more more of life, I've found that I am spinning out of control at times, and it is in those times that the anger comes out. It spills out in rage-face, finger shaking, counter pounding raised voice, and it is so ugly. It has made Shiloh cry more than once, she has said through her tears ,"I don't like you right now." It has caused Asher (who is the unfortunate target of most of this uncivil behavior) to cower if I walk briskly toward him. I hate it, oh I hate it so much and I know that the best way to overcome a weakness is to face it, to confess it and put it on display and ask for prayer and accountability. I am done with it, I am done with living every day with this tension bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for one of my children to make a bad choice or make a mess or treat each other cruelly so that I can return their cruelty with explosive voice.

So here it is. I've put it out there in confession, in humility I bow low and ask for prayers, for advice, but also that if you struggle as I do, that you confront it with me, that we over come together. I have been reading and applying new lessons I've learned from The Orange Rhino, committing to memory verses that speak gentleness into my heart. I tried challenging myself not to yell, I got to 31 days before something trivial opened the flood gates again and since then I have been back sliding farther and thus I am here, opening myself up to your judgments, your empathy, perhaps your condescension. I'm okay with that. In the end, I want to look back and know that I let my real self be known, that I wasn't trying to create a mask, a series of perfectly cropped IG photos or carefully written status updates to make others feel inferior or even just to build myself up.
,br> My hope is that in exposing the struggles, I will have more triumph to celebrate, and that I can erase the memory of an angry mommy from the hearts of my dear children. They are sweet people, I hope to help them stay that way.

poured out

I write often about motherhood. Sometimes I fear that I obsess, that I wallow in its intricacies. But something new is paving its way, adding to the noise, silencing some of it even as I come to a new conclusion. I find myself ever asking where the course of my life is headed. What will I be remembered for? What do I WANT to be remembered for?

So many books and clips and conversations, messages and photos are leading me down a path that I think intentional motherhood has paved. See when you make it your life's work to pour yourself out for you spouse, your kids, to WANT to do it, to find in it great joy, you start to see the beauty of living life empty. The more I move my selfish impulses and ambitions out of the way, the more of my real self I am finding. I like this self, I am happiest when I am allowing her to take control instead of that self whom always wants more.

I have always questioned why Christian culture as a whole sometimes hasn't seemed much different than the good people of the world who don't care for God. I know some humble, serving people who spend their lives helping others for no other reason than that it feels right. For a long time I struggled with this idea that the goal of the faith is, yes, to know God, but really it's to reel others in. Well guess what? People don't want our God. They don't want a club where we tell them they have to believe in something intangible or they're burning for eternity. And if they do find that glimmer of truth of God, choosing to believe, then they better behave or out they go. No more "Mr. Nice Guy" from us, get it together or get berated until you change or leave. And THEN, then if they stay and manage to conform? Then they BELONG. I heard these words from Jen Hatmaker recently and OH how they struck a chord. Believe...Behave...Belong.

But wait. Was this the way, the way of Jesus? When he called the sons of Zebedee did he ask for their belief? NO! My heart leapt as I realized the great truth about Jesus. People believed because in him they found a place where they belonged. They were loved, accepted and gently taught as they were...flawed, uneducated, selfish. People like them believed because Jesus gave them a safe place to learn how to. They belonged first.

I am certain my thoughts are mixed, jumbled, hardly discernible at this point, but thank you for reading this far. What I'm getting at here is the true mission we might just be called to do, is to really, actually be like Jesus. Leave a comfortable life to have nowhere to lay our heads, be so different that even our skeptics praise us for our works of mercy. Pour out. Pour out. BE the least of these. Maybe it starts in small ways. Maybe we say yes when asked to serve some one. Maybe we jump at the chance to bring meals to a family in need. Maybe in each tiny step He will open our hearts to pour more and more and more. He will prepare us to move ourselves aside for his works. He will show us who we really are as we strip bare the selfishness and learn to truly think of others more.

In all the swirling of my thoughts and the achings of my heart one thing is loud and certain:

"We don't get to opt out of living on mission because we might not be appreciated. We're not allowed to neglect the oppressed because we have reservations about their discernment. We cannot deny love because it might be despised or misunderstood...doing nothing is a blatant sin of omission. Turning a blind eye to the bottom on the grounds of 'unworthiness' is the antithesis to Jesus' entire mission." (Jen Hatmaker, "Interrupted")

So this is my new goal, my new direction. How can I make God tangible, how can live so that others see his reality IN me? How can my one small, seemingly insignificant life, have significance? How i live so that people know they already belong? I have only a small handful of ideas and promptings and leadings for how to change and scrape out my fear and selfish bits. I know it will take time. I know that it is what is being asked of my one wild and precious life.

Inside

This voice behind action,
Cold, critical, harsh and self imposed.
Ever speaking, listening not
To truth and caring, wise words
Of those giving of the heart.
This voice bent on the tear down,
Hell bent on making a mockery
Of self, of worth, of accomplishment.
Whispering line of lie, shout of shame.
"You do too little, never enough."
This voice active in criticism,
Putting words in mouths not open
Thoughts in minds unthinking falsehood.
Insecurity a rampant hatchet
Marriage the bed of its hacking rage.
This voice speaking always, loudly,
Yet I have ears to never hear.
Truth words like tornadic wind surround
And set free a heart long jailed.
Eschet chayil, even the imperfection.

fierce

As I sit here writing, an empty glass once holding the contents of a modestly sized coke float keeps me company. A coke float makes me think of my mom. It's funny how so many of my happiest memories about her are connected to food and I'm not sure what to think about that. But I digress.

I've had this post on my heart, in my mind, for weeks now. As usual it is about my own motherhood journey, because that's who I am right now. My life energy is used up every day for them, so little left for me, and that's okay. It's who I am meant to be in this season of life. I have a short time to do this well.

I came to a painful realization while enjoying our month away in Bethesda, MD. I realized that in some ways, this season for me could be characterized by a terrible flaw. My children were starting to expect it of me at every turn, it was creeping into everything, showing up more and more and more until it slipped out without forethought or remorse.

Anger. Rage.

In and of itself it may not be a sin or such a terrible thing. It has it's place. I used these foggy perceptions of it as justification for myself. Now let me put this straight for you, this post is not about beating myself up. It is not about pointing the finger or self hate, it's about self realization. It's about a lightbulb, it's about filling a dark space with something bright and whole and healing.

So to start I want to get real. I want to put out in the open the things we are afraid, as mothers, to reveal. We confess snippets of our struggles in guarded phrases, "I spanked out of anger." " I yelled at the kids." Our confessions are heart felt, but I dare say they don't carry with them the true healing He wants to give. In my time away my sin became so glaring, I had no choice but to voice it. See it for what it is. In my anger I had sinned, often, against my children. Here is the part no one wants to say, because we're afraid no one else has struggled this way...

I had sinned by yelling at my children, screaming so loud my first thought was of whether the neighbors could hear through walls and closed windows and fences and yards. I had spanked in the moment, hot and fierce, angry hand slapping bare bottom, or tops of precious heads or backs of hands in moments of ugly and raging frustration. I have pushed little bodies in the direction I wanted them to go (at times causing them pain), I have yanked them quickly into car seats out disgust at how slow they moved (because I was running late). I have told my sensitive little boy that his tears were annoying, that friends would not like him if he carried on so much. I have crushed spirits.

But here is the light. I am made new. I write this and my eyes and my heart and my hands, they have been made new by the changing of my mind set. In the original Greek, Jesus uses the word metanoia when referring to repentance. More directly translated it refers to a mind change. Now this is not the same as a simple "change of mind" that might be considered when picking out shoes or ordering a drink at Starbucks. It's not an "in the moment" decision of rushed unimportance. This is an over haul of one's thoughts and the behaviors that follow. God did this for me, and sweet mothers reading this who have struggled, He will show you too.

On this fateful date in August I had a terrible, screaming, lashing out day with my children over petty things. Arguing about watching TV, dragging their feet when I was in a rush. Who knows all the justifications I may have fabricated, but instead of shrugging it off or telling myself I needed to stop this "bad habit" I felt a powerful conviction that I haven't felt in nearly a decade. I knew God was telling me, right where I sat, to "confess and be healed." I jumped on my phone and sent a mass text to ten other women whom I trust to guide me straight, confessing my struggles, asking for prayer. By noon that day the Lord was at work in me in a way I haven't felt since entering this world of motherhood. I felt physically and emotionally lifted, a sense that the spirit was truly moving within me, guiding me and empowering me toward what was true. A metanoia was happening.

I spent my time that day digging into the scriptures, hunched and hungry over my Bible, wearing out my iphone concordance app. I found verse after verse that showed me how deep my anger was. That it is sin. It is NOT a bad habit to break but a poison swallowing my heart, clouding my children from seeing the me I want them to so desperately remember. My anger was a slow trickle of toxin, dripping like slow, steady torture into their little hearts, manifesting itself already in acts of deliberate violence against one another. That day, the Lord paved a way for it to stop.

And friends, family, I feel healed. I realized so often that my anger was brought on by my own poor planning. Not being ready in time because I was distracted by something else (iPhone!). I saw that my harsh words came readily when I allowed disobedience to creep into their hearts because I wasn't tackling it at the first signs of waywardness. And just as I would never allow even a tiny drop of poison to cross their lips, so it must be with my anger. When I see it in this light, it is so much simpler. Cut out that which draws the anger near. No iPhone when I have a place to be, stop the arguing with immediate consequence, don't allow myself to get caught up in a back and forth with them.

Now have I slipped in the last two weeks? YES. But it is different, it's not to the extent it once was. I ask for forgiveness from them, I confess it as it is, I take a breath before I speak. Every time. Because isn't that very breath the sounds of Yaweh? The source of life itself? This is the difference between breaking a habit and holding fast to a conviction and I am here to tell you, it is possible for you. If you have struggled, if you have cried over your darkness of heart, confess these things. Confess them fully, let every dark space empty out in full revelation of where you're been, hold NOTHING back. Ask for prayer, immerse yourself in truth. We come from dust, our lives are but a breath. Don't waste it by trying to hold onto pretense. We've all walked there. We all want out. Take the first...sacred...step.




A few verses (NLT) that continue to steady my path:

Control your temper,
for anger labels you a fool. (Ecclesiastes 7.9)

Sensible people control their temper;
they earn respect by overlooking wrongs. (Proverbs 19.11)

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other,
making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. (Ephesians 4.2)

Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. (James 1.20)

more, then less

My husband is a doctor, I find myself skirting this fact with people. Typically an encounter with some one just learning this fact comes back to words of, "It will really pay off BIG some day!" or "What a bright future you guys will have!" These things are meant, no doubt, as encouragement but it nonetheless some how draws a sadness. Our today, the future that will be tomorrow and the end of the week, those days pay off, those days are bright. Money isn't going to change it. If our marriage, our life together as parents and spouses and friends wasn't tight now, money would simply mask it. Money allows people to gloss over the true iniquity in their life, allowing them to buy an illusion of happiness. Retail therapy. That phrase puts a pit in me, I've used it myself.

I've been reading and reading and praying and pondering and the Spirit, it is turning me. There was a time when I allowed day dreams of future purchases to dwell in the recesses, my mind swirling with the wants. After finishing "7:A Mutiny Against Excess" and now diving into "A Divine Commodity" and "Affluenza" I'm starting to see that this obsession with want as a true illness. It's an epidemic in this land of the free where we use our freedom to puff up self rather than to spread about equality. I'm not talking a communist, Marxist type equality, just a desire in the God people to share and give away instead of obtain and hoard. I look at my house and wonder, would God walk in and see himself there?

So I write on this some what insignificant, rare read screen, that when we find our selves in a place of abundance even more so than the blessings of today, we will live the same. We will budget for needs, save for the occasional want and spread the rest. I dream of a day when the expenditures tell a story of hope for others.

Ann Voskamp recently wrote, "What will keep you from doing much good-is caring too much what others think...What would the world look like if Christians didn't care about keeping up with the Joneses but about keeping company with Christ? Maybe we'd keep our souls from insecurity and our minds from insanity?"

And isn't it such, that the things that worry us often have the minds of others at the center? We feel a need to have another shirt, different shoes, not because what we have is worn or used up, but because we desire to be seen. We desire the trend. A debt of different car for convenience of inches instead of stretching ourselves toward contentment. Is this who God meant for us to be. The Jesus I'm reading doesn't seem to approve.

I want to be esteemed more than envied.

I've thought about that lately. How I have this materialism brewing all the time, how I want to make nice, to redecorate, to buy new and have and how that feeling of some one complimenting the style of my home or wardrobe can fill me up. And now this growing, this pledge internal to be happy with less, to wear until worn and to find the needs we can meet where we're at by living a life free from want. Because really, aren't I already living this life? Free from want, with my full cupboards and bulging closet, stuff stored and usued?

Yes, I am free. And what will I do as I live in it?

My heart, it didn't use to be this way and in fact, it's still a work in progress. I want to be free from the bondage of guilt when I DO buy something that isn't need absolute, but what's more, I want to draw my heart to a place where the want isn't always there, isn't repressed. A place where I have a genuine want for others that imposes a want for self.

Little by little.

It will come.

create

I believe there is an innate desire in all women to make things beautiful. We find a satisfaction in sewing curtains to brighten a room, to write something lovely, to repurpose what was old and worn. We like to see our children clean and dressed well, we like clean kitchens and men of style and fresh cut flowers in vases. We were MEANT to make this world beautiful, to create.


I have never considered myself a creative person. I don't sew well, I don't "craft" and anything arranged attractively in our home is thanks to my husband's keen eye. Oh but I WANT to. I want to put together strange items that come together in a gloriously eclectic, Bohemian beautiful chic. I don't because the inevitable end is that I will spend hours on something that I don't like and feel like a failure. I'm so good at making myself feel that way. I never ever measure up in my own eyes. If you have ever thought that I think that anything about myself is better than you...you're wrong. I've never thought that. I can fake a good confidence, but it's a sham. I feel like I am mediocre at many things, moderate at best.


Through my children I'm realizing something. I may never be an expert at anything, but I certainly won't if I don't step out and try. In teaching my son to persevere I am learning that I must listen to my own advice. If I want to sew well, I need to get off my sad tuckus and sew the mess out of some stuff. I need to make a cock-eyed skirt with backwards pleats, a dress that's four inches too short, just SOMETHING. If I never start I'll never finish and finishing could prove to be really really good.


So, a pledge. This month, I am going to make this.



If it kills me.

I am also pursuing the decor of both a newly moved bedroom/playroom for all of the kids upstairs, inspired by this, as well as a homeschool room of our very own. My goal is to spend under $50 on each room. $100 max. It's time to get my thrift on!

a mess

I am on chapter four of this book and it's messing me up.


I've cried at least three times.  I'm not often moved by literacy, people.


My husband has, from the day we moved to Peoria and even some time before, desired for us to not be confined by our "stuff."  With the spirit prompting him, we sold nearly everything we owned to start our residency journey here in Peoria bare bones.  In so many ways this was a rebirth for us, a chance to start a chapter of living that took all the learning of the previous four years and applied it whole heartedly.  We moved into an empty house with a pledge to buy nothing new except a mattress for our bed (back issues *ugh*).  We found a dining table for $10 at Salvation Army, painted it and made it perfect.  A very new friend GAVE us her sofa.  God provided and for that first year we bought used.  We were even given a CAR for Corey to drive to work by our sweet neighbor.  It was an amazing year.


Then desire crept in.  I started wishing my kids could "dress better", wishing for a more "put together" home and I felt my heart creeping away from this desire to live intentionally, to give away and forget about getting.  I forgot.


And now here enter 7.  This book, ironically enough written by a woman leading a new church in Austin, TX, my home of homes, is a "mutiny against excess."  It makes me feel ashamed for all the things I've wanted.  For all the ways I've dreamed of a "better" future when Corey is done with his training.  I mean, when is it enough?  When I've exchanged my stained, hand-me-down couch for something pretty, will I be done?  Will I be happy?  There is ALWAYS one more thing to change, to better, to want. The best is NOW, how easy it is to let that slip away.  Jen Hatmaker writes, "Money is the most frequent theme in Scripture; perhaps the secret to happiness is right under our noses.  Maybe we don't recognize satisfaction because it is disguised as radical generosity, a strange misnomer in a consumer culture."  I read it and all at once I wonder, if my life was looked upon with the volume off, what would be seen?  Would it be evident that I live to please God, imitate Jesus?  So many of us talk a good Christ talk, but without the sound, would it be known where our hearts lie?  It matters little what other people see when they look in on me, but God sees it too.  Clearly.


So.  A recommitment.  My children will know that I am a passionate Christ follower not because I go to church and read the Bible in addition to a slew of other religious material.  They will know it because we live it together.  I will stop making them an excuse for not having my heart wrapped up in the poor, the marginalized, the hurting and hungry.  There are little things we can do together.  Little things I haven't done out of fear.


Now it starts.  This summer, I will invite the lost children of our neighborhood, the ones who wonder around aimlessly outside, I will invite them into our world.  We will have neighborhood slip'n'slide parties, show movies at dusk on our garage, feed popcorn to kids who may eat little now that school is not in session.  Oh spirit, help me know how to begin.

Momma

Today is my mother's 65th birthday. She can officially claim social security and medicaid and cash in on all the "great" perks our country has to offer to those who have managed to survive the perils of the standard American diet. I called her today as I drove away from sleeping babies, husband internet searching for camping gear. I wished her happy birthday and we chatted mostly about her abundant garden and what a great father my children have. I love that she loves that. She respects him and our life together and that matters to me. I hope that in a few years we will be in a place where I can take my mom on a great nature-filled vacation. That we can see sights she's always yearned for and that we can walk trails and admire wild life and just be. I've wanted to be able to do that for her for a long time. It being just within reach makes me ache for it every May 11th. Each year makes time seem more fleeting. Parents don't live forever, a fact that is both natural and painful to admit. In June she will drive the infinite roads of Texas to reach us in our little Illinois space. My children will love her and beg for her time and after a day or two she will grow tired from it. Their energy will both bring her joy and make her weary and she will move on to visit others for a day or two. She doesn't land long, but I'm glad she carves time, makes memories, drinks coffee and is content to just be. She is a woman of no pretense, little needs, content to simply be in the same room. Togetherness is simple with her, her silence is silence, no undercurrent. It has taken me thirty years to learn that, to not shrink inside my own insecurity. I am proud of who this woman is. I am proud of who she is able to become in her retired years, the woman she likely always wanted to be but couldn't manage the time, the energy. I love telling friends that she likes her solo life, that her garden is her new family and she grows it beautifully. Unlike some mother-daughter relationships I don't call her for parenting advice or tips on marriage. I "facebook" her random questions about gardening, growing seedlings, collecting rain water. I like this, it suits us. We don't have to talk often, we know the other is there. We know we need each other is different ways, we know things will always be familiar and pick up where they left off. We keep up with the ins and outs of daily life through photojournalistic social media posts and it is sweet and more than enough. Our relationship is quirky and different and not fitting into any mold I may have had and I am just fine with that. Just fine.

full

I can't stop thinking about stuff. Not wanting more stuff but instead, desiring to not care about stuff, and what that looks like. How far does one go in either direction and still justify selflessness, righteousness, living as a good steward?

When I talk about life, our situation, with most people there is an immediate jump to "but it will be great in a few years!" or "the pay off for all this hard work will be so worth it!" I agree with these things yet when I think of our future, of the change in our earnings, I feel fear, I feel anxiety, I feel the weight of what it means to be good with very little and to be great with very much. Right now, I feel rich. I live in a home, drive a newish car, have clothes to wear and bags to pack and children who have luxury in addition to satisfied needs. I have extra to give to others with needs, desires. This is enough for me and in this life I love that I am able to relate to others, there is no jealously, no pretension between hearts. We are all struggling together, we are all looking to fill our lives with love and goodness and deeds that bring those things to others. The people that matter most to me don't live their lives to acquire the best stuff, even if they can "afford it."

I never want to be that person who cares about the best stuff.
I used to be that person.
It was empty.

So where, in the circle of the Jesus followers, is this line to be drawn? For those who have an abundance is it a sin of the heart to keep buying, to keep filling up your home with pretty things, to clothe in trends, to purchase new vehicles or electronics or things that are not needs but rather just modern conveniences that make a strenuous life a little less so? Does feeling peace about a big purchase make it right? How much of our blessings should be shared? Saved? Invested? These thoughts are so fast and furious and covered in emotion for me and our 3 year prospects that I am overwhelmed.

I just want to live well.

I never want stuff to come between hearts. To change a person's respect for me, my husband, to garner disappointment, to be looked upon by all glaring eyes of disparagement. I want every choice we make to be a living sacrifice, I want to give more than I take, share more than I get. I want to use old, and give new. I burn for the Jesus way.

So for me, right now, it comes down to this.

What will I allow to fill me up?

Out

We went to the park in Pekin today. Gibson met his Great grandparents for the first time today and my little crew enjoyed sunshine and breezes and each other. I took this picture today, the tidal of emotion hit, rolled over me, whispered within my own heart, "These are MINE." An unbelievable, beautiful truth.

Shiloh fearlessly climbed to highest playground heights, slid down slides, approached restful fowl, screamed at gnats. I caught her skipping and singing her own lyrics to a happy melody, she ventured into groups of peers with intent to play.

My son, he changes from minute to hour, but he has a sweetness at his core. He wants to impress, to be best, he ate his lunch while saving crumbs for hungry bills, he took care of Baby G. I see him wanting to hard to be good, to treat others well, being driven by something deep to be responsible, in charge.

The baby. Oh how she sheds her light today there were first fingers and toys in grass and mud, first sunburns and many smiles. She has two bottom teeth with the promise of more from swollen, purplish mouth.

So wonderful, this day.

working

There is a stirring happening, a slow change in my soul.

I wonder where God is taking it.

What is this I am circling around, and is it part of the answer I've sought?

Speaking life. Building the strengths. The tongue.

These ideas are looking for solid ground on which to land.

That thing

I try not to be prone to complaint. Complaining is annoying, and when I find myself wrapped up in it I suffer feelings of disgust and disappointment but mostly I wonder what good was just lost in that moment. What blessing did I miss in my hour of dissatisfaction?

My thought life is often a mess, a true reflection of the fallen soul I am. While my outward strength may be self control of tongue in many a situation, there is a blur and buzz of judgement and rants and negativity under the surface. It's THAT tension I am finding so hard to release, to control ones thoughts is an arduous task, but, dare I say, a noble one?

Regrettably the silent beatings bear down mostly on two victims, two so dear to me: my husband, my son. They are my treasures, my golden blessings and thus the target of the evil one when it comes to controlling the thoughts and attitudes of my heart. I want most to do right by them, to raise them up for greatness, but my selfishness uses my thoughts to corrupt the motive of my actions toward them.

So, in light of this, I want to publicly proclaim one thing I love most about each of them. I will fill my heart, and my tiny blip of cyberspace with positive truths, and thus thwart all attacks from the dark side at war within.

For my husband. He is brilliant and creative, good at everything, but this is not the first thing that stands out. That thing I love most is the ease of expression of a childlike heart, that his title has not changed the core of the man, that he can still play freeze tag and ride on shopping carts and giggle at immature jokes and surprise tickle me when I least expect it. He is a blessing if not for all else, for that.

For Asher. He also is brilliant like his daddy and good at anything he takes the time to persevere at, but what I love most about him is his exuberant joy over things unexpected. The bouncing peels of pure excitement over bowling pins knocked down, the pride of writing and reading new words, the genuine love of cheering on little sister at potty tasks, the huge smiles and coos generously given to all babies. He has a deep sweetness. I want more of that.

And now dear friends, it's your turn. Let's encourage one another. Since you have read this I humbly ask that you speak up. Comment here and encourage us all with affirming words toward the one that your heart finds easy to criticize. Speak only the positive, within your mind and out, and see how the change begins.