a mother | chatting at the sky

on being stubborn

September 6, 2011

He asked me, What would be life-giving to you today? And it didn’t really matter what I said after that, because the question itself breathed life into me. But I answered anyway, and we packed up the kids and headed to the big park across town.

September smiled on us yesterday, getting brave against hot August with her breeze and her deep blue skies. I used to think nothing good happened in September, but then he chose September to propose all those many years ago and and now it is also the season where my words have finally been released. Enough good things have happened in September to help me change my mind about her.

There are other things happening, things that are invisible and difficult, things that are bringing us closer together even as we fall apart. When control drips through your hands like water, prayer becomes a lot less rote and a lot more desperate. I think that’s good.

When Jesus told the crowd that the work of God is to believe in the one he has sent, it seemed to be just the right words. But when you have to live it in the face of anxiety, fear, helplessness and lingering doubt, I want the work of God to be results. Activity. Answers. Action. Belief feels too small, too passive, too invisible, too impossible. And so we have to dig in our heels and hold fast to belief. Even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when it’s counter-intuitive. Even when it all goes wrong. Stubborn isn’t always bad, you know. Sometimes it’s what saves our life.

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Scroll down to see if you are one of the winners of Grace for the Good Girl or a copy of Shaun Groves’ Third World Symphony.

Tagged rest Filed Under a mother, breathe 22 Comments

graceful things to chat about

August 26, 2011

As our coast prepares for a hurricane, my heart is recovering from one this morning. We have a girl who is … reluctant to go to school. I wish it could always just be easy, but easy doesn’t push us into Jesus. And so we pray and we wait to watch the miracles. It helps to remember grace, to think of the hands that made heaven and earth are the same hands that hold us up. Oh, how I need holding up. More pictures of grace:

Lysa Terkeurst is personally donating $5 per every letter written to the young people recovering in the Dream Center in LA.

Love this post watching Shaun and Ann on the farm :: One Day & One Thousand Gifts.

Lara speaks grace for when you can’t take the whining :: I ate my own words.

Today is my last post at Bloom (in)courage :: Grace for the small group leaders.

Grace for the Good Girl is finally in stock at Amazon! :: Be the first to write a review?

Tagged grace for the good girl Filed Under a mother, breathe 21 Comments

how August is like a maid

August 1, 2011

June and July blew through like giddy old friends from out of town. And they made our house feel like home for a while, shared their beautiful memory-making stories. And some heartbreaking, life-changing ones, too. It has been a fast summer, and I don’t want to let go too soon. But today is August.

I do crazy things in August, things like pull out fall smelling candles and start to make soup. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at not rushing ahead to the next season, and maybe I have in some ways. But this year, I can feel that familiar pull towards autumn, that new shoes and pencils itch, a longing for a schedule that school days brings, hope for a cool blast of air. I should know better, living in North Carolina.We don’t get fall until October. Still, August comes in like a maid and readys the house and all her tenets for the transition. She sweeps under the couch and taps your crossed feet off the coffee table, and as she wipes the surface clean, she whispers Get ready, sweetheart. Change is coming.

Aren’t you thankful for times of transition? We have a Maker who doesn’t just throw the sun up into the sky in a shock of fire, but pulls it up slow every morning and down the same way every night. And if you stare as it happens, the change is hard to see, but if you close your eyes and count to twenty, everything is different when you open them back up again. It’s because a lot happens in the transition, secret things, beautiful things, Spirit led things.

And so I wait for the book to release in a few short weeks, and ask for the Lord to calm me. We look forward to school starting up again, and place any anxiety about it in his hands. I sit with The Man with calendars and fall schedules, and quietly celebrate what every future meeting and event means: that we are living, that we are doing what we love, and that we belong to a community. Prepare us, O Lord, in this month of transition.

How do you feel about August?

Filed Under a mother, breathe 38 Comments

on why I’ve been a bit quiet

June 23, 2011

My fingers are dyed pink-red and I pause to put my wedding rings on again. The watermelon sugar cookies are nearly done in the oven and I send them outside with a promise to call them when the icing is ready. The cookies are easy — just a bit of food coloring, store made icing and slice-and-bake dough. It’s the being present and engaged that takes all the work.

I want to write. But the words come syrup slow, like trying to play tag in the heat of the day – you want to and it’s fun, but it’s just too hot. And so you find the shade and sit against the bark and let your knee-pits air out a little. And you pull the wet curls from the nape of your neck and dream about lemonade that isn’t too sweet. The gnats begin to hover but it’s too hot to move. That’s where my blog writing life is this week – sitting under my front yard tree, airing out her knee pits.

In other news, the book writing is in a full springtime swing. The words pour out like petals from a mason jar. Fresh. Colorful. New. But I can’t share those words with you yet, and that’s why it’s brown-grass summer over here on the blog. Slow. A little weary. Thankful. Reflective. Quiet. I have a Man who has been gone for a while and some children who haven’t been. So we’ve been eating like kids and staying up too late and trying not to get sunburned. And any words I come up with go directly into my next book, tucked away for you later. And so this is just a little note to let you know the quiet and slow may remain around here for a week or so. Pit-airing in progress.

Filed Under a mother, a writer 37 Comments

for when provision looks different :: day 2

May 31, 2011

This isn’t where we visited today. We weren’t allowed to get our cameras out while on the street, so this is a photo I took from the bus of a neighborhood nearby. These homes here are much nicer than the ones we saw today.

This is Rose Ann. We saw her home today.

This is her only light.

This is Rose Ann’s kitchen.

Her home was neat, all their clothes folded together on one small shelf. To get into Rose Ann’s house, you have to climb a ladder. The door is a swinging piece of plywood with no lock. Her entire home is smaller than the inside of my mini van. Four people live there.

You might be tempted to think, Why can’t we do anything about this? Where is God in this poverty? The answer? Somebody is doing something. And God is right in their midst.

Shaun, Kat and I stood in Rose Ann’s tiny home, her son AJ asleep on the hard floor, and we watched Beth, a worker at the church where Compassion hosts a program called the Child Survival Program, of which Rose Ann is a part. Beth sat beside her on the floor, asked her to open her Bible, and together they read from the New Testament. They read living words, and the Living Word stood protective over that room.

And there was a craft and a book and vitamins for AJ. Small things. Kid things. Important things. And Beth sat casual with her shoes off and leaned in close to Rose Ann, asking her questions about AJ’s health, about her home and her well-being. And they do these kinds of visits regularly.

To question poverty is normal and important. But don’t say you are helpless to do anything. Because we were there, in that tiny one room home. And there was a home just like Rose Ann’s one ladder climb below us who didn’t have anybody standing in their room. They might one day soon, but Rose Ann does today. She has people pray for protection for her family today. She has people casting vision for her son’s future today. And it’s because of people like you who sponsor children and support programs like Compassion.

But her poverty is not going away. She still lives in a room the size of a small walk-in closet with her husband and her two sons. As I rested my backpack on her small kitchen in that hot one-room home, I fought with my stupid eyes as they leaked ridiculous all over my shirt. Who am I to cry for her? She’s not crying, she’s laughing! And I was struck broken by the question that came next.

Am I crying for her, or am I crying for me? I wondered if I was thinking of her and her needs, or if I was thinking of me and what my life would be like in her shoes. It does her no good for me to project my life into hers. I was forced, in that moment, to reconsider my concept of provision. And to look at her with eyes that weren’t so self-centered.

The truth is, because of Compassion, she has support now. And Rose Ann needs support.

There’s Rose Ann holding AJ in the front row this morning during the Child Survival Program.

Her son won’t die of pneumonia now. Her family is being prayed for now. And when AJ turns 3, he will be eligible to enter the Child Development Sponsorship Program and be sponsored by someone like you. I knew I wasn’t prepared to see poverty like this. Today was proof that I was right.

I thought I was prepared to see what Compassion International is doing about it. Today was proof that I was wrong. This organization is doing more than I ever thought possible. And they are doing it better than I ever imagined.

The Philippines is filled with mothers like Rose Ann who love their babies and simply want the best for them. Not so different from what we want for our babies. Will you join me in supporting young mothers in the Philippines like Rose Ann by choosing one of their children to sponsor today?

Tagged Compassion Filed Under a mother, Compassion Philippines 63 Comments

the secret to keeping the wonder

February 10, 2011

Every afternoon, we walk. And most of the time, I hear myself telling him Hurry up, we’re gonna be late. We don’t want to keep the girls waiting. And his legs, growing for only a little over four years, quicken for a few steps. But then he sees a stick or a pointy leaf and must stop to touch, to pick up, to handle the wonder.They’re like magnets, his little hands to nature. And just last week, in a stroke of brilliance, I thought Hmm. Perhaps I should leave 10 minutes earlier. Maybe I should consider scheduling in time for the wonder. So we did. We left early, we walked slow, we stayed silent, we stopped. It was all a part of the plan, and so we were sure not to miss it.

For two years, that’s what Tuesdays Unwrapped was here. We scheduled time to think about the wonder, to consider the gifts, and to unwrap them with our photos and our words. I’ve missed it. And I don’t know what else to say about it. I’m not in a place where I can start it back up, but I haven’t had the heart to take down the page in the navigation about it yet.

Because the kids have been home sick for so many days, I think a lot about what I have to do, but am unable to do as much with all the needs. But sick brings a hidden blessing along — a slowing. Time pours out of bottomless buckets and the clock ticks slow days away, days of jammies and soup and giant blanket forts. And I’m with them, but I’m not always here. I have to fight to stay in the moment. I fight the pull of the list, the email, the laundry, the window-staring. I look at the clock and promise myself For the next 20 minutes, I will sit here without getting up. And I will play cars.

Before I had babies, I never dreamed that play would be such hard work. I imagined endless days of wonder, the kind I felt on Friday nights when I would babysit for two hours and travel back to the days of Disney movies and footed pajamas. And I’d dream pink frilly dreams of my own someday family. I never imagined that I would have to fight to keep the wonder.

But fight, I do. It’s a messy fight, not at all consistent. I cry about that sometimes, about my inability to stay in this day, this moment. But I try not to dwell on my lack, try not to embrace the shame that threatens to overwhelm. Instead, I think about the wonder, about this moment, and about the God who gives good gifts. Thankfulness can chase away a thousand thoughts of shame.

Can you relate with this wonder fight?

Filed Under a mother 95 Comments

a time to heal

December 9, 2010

The world doesn’t cater to healing. It all spins way too fast. Bodies need time while the world wants on time, and the need for healing gets lost under the assembly line conveyor belt. The IV drips consistent next to his bed. There is no rushing there. He’s quiet now. No sounds or snores or stopping of breath. I whisper thank you’s to nobody and everyone. For nearly 10 hours, I’ve sat in the same place next to him. And as I do, I realize how our souls are so like our bodies. They need space to heal as well, but the wounds aren’t so apparent and they can be more painful, anyway. And so we rush, we cover up, we turn the channel and spin right along with the world.

Thank you for your emails, comments, and prayers this week as our son had his tonsils and adenoids/asteriods removed. I can’t believe I get to know such a beautiful community of supportive people. You have blessed my family and you are a gift. And to those of you who quietly stepped out from the shadows for the first time to offer support, I want to say especially thank you. I hope you’ll speak up more often around here. Your voice is greatly appreciated.