When we were kids, summer vacation lasted at least two and a half years, didn’t it? The excitement of the last day of school couldn’t be topped. It was as if there were a thousand warm miles of tree-climbing, pool-splashing, Barbie playing days ahead of us.

I think back to those long days and want to remember only carefree, but the truth is my kid days were filled with lots of worry. I worried about school starting back. I worried about tornadoes. I worried about robbers and flat tires and divorce.

The things we practice, we tend to get good at. My worry habit didn’t go away when I grew up. The worries just became more complicated. I learned how Jesus takes care of sparrows and lilies and basically knows everything, but that knowledge seemed to float on the surface, never really dissolving deep into my belief.

That is, until I didn’t have any other choice. Faith is often a last resort when everything else stops working. It’s ugly to admit, but sometimes ugly is the narrow road to true. What did it take for you to believe?

Posted in a mess
28 Comments

In less than 24 hours, my sister and I will be on a plane to Nashville. I just started packing this morning. I blame my packing procrastination on this fever that has weaved hot fingers through my kids like the black smoke on Lost (did you see that premiere last night?!) They are on the mend-ish and my brain is slowly making the switch from here to there. Now, let’s all pray I don’t fall off the stage or get toilet paper stuck to my heel.

Posted in a mess, a mother
24 Comments

I want to be all New Years-y and goal-setting-y and fresh start making. But that is just going to have to wait until another post because we are taking the kids to Disney in the near-ish future and I have no idea what I’m doing. My sweet husband has done all the planning for the past six months and now my part is fast approaching: the packing.

I’ve never been to the Magic Kingdom so I’m really looking forward to the castle and the princesses and all the magic. The girls are looking forward to meeting Ariel but they very much expect her to be in a tail. Not sure how that’s gonna work. But first I have to pack. And I am filled with anxiety about the whole thing.

Have you been with your kids? What would you say is the number one must have thing that I may not think of? Or perhaps your top three must have things? We will be flying, if that changes anything. It makes a big difference to me as I am super anxious about flying. But that’s a whole nother post.

I would appreciate any Disney advice you would like to offer: packing related, ride related, anything really. Ready? Go.

Posted in a mess, a mother
76 Comments

Sometimes I’m not thankful. There are days when I am so restless I can’t see straight. Days when the funk settles like a fat troll who made his way up from under the bridge and plopped his hairy, nasty feet up on my shiny coffee table. Days when dead mums on the porch aren’t a reminder of happy memories from autumn gone by or the beauty of the natural course of life. Sometimes they’re just ugly, dead mums.

How it is possible for a girl who is happily married, has three healthy babies and a beautiful warm home to be ill-content? How can I, a woman who doesn’t have cancer, a daughter with both parents living, a sister as a best friend and enough money to buy what she needs and some extra, how dare I feel ungracious?

I’ve heard people, when they are going through a struggle or a hard time, try to reconcile the hard time with the presence of God and say things like “Life is hard but God is good.” or something like that. But what about when life is good? My life is good. Still, it isn’t enough.

It’s because I wasn’t created to be healthy. I wasn’t created for a blessed life, a healthy life, a life that is overflowing with abundant goodness. I know that because I have all of that. And it isn’t enough.

It is important to notice and celebrate the small and sacred things like we do here on Tuesdays. But those small, sacred things do not a content life make. It no longer surprises me when I feel ungracious in the midst of abundance. It instead reminds me that the daily gifts are tiny shadow-like reflections of the Giver.

For in Him, all the fullness of Diety dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete.  Colossians 2:9-10a

Posted in a mess
51 Comments

I am coming off a weekend of total over commitment on my part. I’m trying to keep this Monday from being a fall-apart Monday since I’ve done enough of that over the past few days. To counteract the crazy, I give you the epitome of relaxation, calm and innocence:

The Dimpled Baby Hands. I do not normally associate calm and relaxation with babies because I’VE HAD THREE OF THEM, but this one is not mine (A) and was sleeping (B) so that makes it relaxing and calm to look at. And you know how I feel about dimpled baby hands.

Considering my crazy state as of late, I couldn’t be happier to announce that after nearly a month of Mister Linky not working for me, Tuesdays Unwrapped will officially be back up this week. As in, tomorrow. Finding the gifts in the midst of the messy, the lovely and the unexpected seems to come much easier when I have someone to share it with. I look forward to celebrating the little things with you.

Also, The Nester is hosting a Giveaway Day today where she will be offering a different giveaway nearly every hour. You heard that right. I can hear the flapping and chirping of all those crazy birds from here. I can’t win anything because I’m the sister and that just wouldn’t be right. Right? All the more chance for you. Fly on over to her place and enter, enter, enter! As of now, there have already been four terribly wonderful giveaways and I’m not at all huffy about the fact that I’m related. Maybe I could enter under a fake name?

Posted in a mess, blog business
11 Comments

I have been following my friend Robin’s trip to India with Compassion International. As I read her stories, I can’t help but imagine the glimpse of life they are witnessing there. Which often times seem more like glimpses of death.

Then I think about my home church preparing for a Sunday focused entirely on human trafficking, the fastest growing international crime. Soon, it will become the number one illegal industry worldwide, even above drug trafficking. And it is happening here, in our country. In our high schools.

Babies in India without food? Children being sold as slaves? I can’t help but think: What can one person possibly do? It feels more than a little hopeless.

And then I see this. It is an unopened letter from our Compassion child. Her name is Pinky. She writes faithfully. We write, but not so faithfully. She lives in Bangledesh. We live here. She writes, and I hesitate to open her letter.

Because reading her words, seeing her little drawings, I am forced to face the fact that I am a walking contradiction. I feel both too much and not enough. To open that letter means to admit that Pinky exists, that her life is hard, that there are other children like her who don’t have a sponsor. There is a part of me that fears if I allow myself to consider the reality of the pain in the world, the sadness would be too crushing and I would never recover.

Feeling nothing is easier than facing the vast, empty, never-ending pain. And so I get busy. I forget. I turn the channel, watch a movie, eat some ice cream.

But it doesn’t realy help. That isn’t really living. Because there is one important thing about God that I forget. He hasn’t asked me to save the world or to erradicate human trafficking or to support every child in India. He simply asks me do the next thing and to trust Him in the doing. He gently asks me to open the letter. And so I do.

Posted in a mess
29 Comments