Why I Have Been Politely Declining Your Dinner Invitation

September 9, 20145 Comments

For the last five years I have been politely declining dinner invitations to your home.

I know you have fabulous hospitality gifts and I want to eat your delicious dinners and scrape my fork on your gorgeous wedding dishes. I can picture your centerpiece, smell the candles and hear the hipster music playing in the background.

Then a loud, old-school record scratch wakes me up from the daydream of what I might think it would be like to come have dinner in your home.

I remember one large very important detail.

I have small kids. Four small kids.

I love them to pieces. I love the dirt under their nails at the dinner table, their loud burps followed by their giggles and their ‘scuse mes, I love their spilled chocolate milks and the food that seems to end up mostly on the floor instead of in their sweet little baby mouths.

I love them to pieces.

However, I have politely been declining your dinner invitation for five years because of them.

Most nights collectively, my children spend ten minutes sitting at the table before asking to be excused and swirling off like tasmanian devils (cute and very loved tasmanian devils). We send them outside or in the basement just so my husband and I can hurry and shovel dinner in our own faces before some else needs us.

Just two weeks ago I ventured out to your home with my kids for a church picnic. In the hour and a half we were there one of my children kept peeing in their pants. He went through three changes of pants. Three. I was in the bathroom changing pee pee pants three times in the ninety minutes I was in your home. One time while exiting the bathroom I found another one of my children playing your piano with his chocolate covered hands. Just as my panic attack was beginning to my make neck tense up and my head shake someone spilled water on your arcade basketball game and maybe tried to ride your dog.

That’s right. It was time to go. I shuffled my children out the door, thank youed and apologized several times while bringing my three pairs of pee pee pants home in my purse.

Just two nights later another you invited us over for dinner. I accepted thinking we may be able to have a decent time. Your family also has four kids so I thought we may be able to make it through the evening without the pee pee pants or my tense neck and shaking head.

We almost made it until my two year old began stripping all his clothes off down to his nude birthday suit on your back deck. My infant was crying and exhausted so I tried nursing her upstairs in your master bedroom but my baby kept screaming. She wanted her swaddle and she wanted her bed.

And lastly. We didn’t have pee pee pants but one of my boys was too scared to ask to go to the bathroom with the big crowd so he just pooped in his underwear instead. This evening’s consellation was poopy pants in my purse. My child pooped his pants at your house.

We had a great time but the drama. Oh the drama my kids certainly like to save it for their mama.

Last night, I invited you to my house for dinner instead. I thought in my own house I could control the poop and the pee and the chocolate covered fingers and faces. I thought while my kids played with their own toys I could look you in the eye and chat about your marriage, your job and ask you what God is teaching you. I thought maybe we could joke and laugh around my table of mismatched silverware and a bottle of red wine.

I love my kids to pieces but they brought slugs and caterpillars in from outside to show you at the table. I love them to pieces but two of them pooped in their pants together outside while playing in on the swing set. And then my oldest child barfed. Right in the middle of the kitchen, coating the hardwoods with the soup I just served everyone and reeking up the house so badly you couldn’t even smell that Yankee Candle I lit for you anymore.

I apologized again and thank youed you for coming as my kids blew kisses and chased your car down the road. They said, “See you soon” as they chased you.

Phew I thought. I don’t think I can do this again for a long time let alone soon the tension in my neck started to come as I thought about it.

I love my kids to pieces. But this is why I have politely been declining your dinner invitation for so long. It’s not how I feel about you, it’s how I feel about pee pee pants in your house. Maybe in a few years once we are beyond the pee pee pants and the strip shows can we look you and your husband in the eye and chat over dinner.

For now it will just have to be the hubs and I, shoveling the food in our mouths and living these crazy years with littles laughing together. We love them to pieces but we’ll keep them and their pee pee pants to ourselves at dinner time.

One Simple Way To Survive Preschool

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014Leave a comment

It happened on our eight minute drive.

DJ Shuffle was playing in the car as we drove down that one road on our way to preschool. I was half awake and mostly consumed with getting back home to get the end of the year teacher gifts in order.

What wasn’t on my mind was this was my last morning drive to preschool.

It wasn’t until our first stop light when I realized the last moment I was actually experiencing. The last morning to transport my son to school in the safety of my own vehicle before he transitions to the school bus.

My heart broke a little.

Just five years ago I was working as a first grade teacher figuring out childcare for my new baby and counting down the days I could be at home with him and pour into him before he went off to kindergarten.

Two moves and three siblings later here we are wrapping up preschool and I’ve realized that time is gone. Everyone tells you it goes by quickly but you can never know just how fast “the blink of an eye” is until you’ve experienced one for yourself.

I’m not going to tell you how fast it goes by. You’ve heard that before. What I am going to tell you is a story of the most important thing you can do for your preschooler and it has nothing to do with play dates, alphabets, numbers or trendy pottery barn monogrammed backpacks.

On our last drive to preschool I turned DJ Shuffle down and I just did the one thing I can do for him as a mom on my way to school.

I asked him, how can I pray for you today?

This one phrase has gotten us through the last two years on that eight minute drive to preschool. Sometimes he is not sure how to respond so I ask if there is something he is worried about or something he is working really hard at learning.

Then, I pray in the car. Then and there.

We have prayed for his safety. We have prayed for his social relationships. We have prayed he would obey his teacher. We have prayed he would have self control over his body. We have prayed he would count his teen numbers correctly and learn to color his entire coloring page. We have even prayed he would remember not to color on other’s clothes with markers.

On our last drive to preschool he just replied, “Mom… Today, I’m just really nervous about kindergarten.”

(Sigh and small tear.)

Me too.

I told him we would have all summer to pray about that and for today we can just ask God to help us enjoy what he has for us this day.

So we did. We forgot about what lies ahead and focused on that last day. That last blink of an eye and we covered it with prayer.

The prayer is both for me and my preschooler.

That little prayer in my minivan on my eight minute drive to school helps me remember that I am not the one controlling his “blink of an eye”.

So whatever transitional stage you may be in as a parent, remember to pray. That blink of an eye should be covered in prayer. You all know and have heard before it goes by too fast.

Cover it in the simplest way. Cover those mornings and those “blink of an eyes” in prayer.

Unraveled Identity

May 24, 2014May 29, 20148 Comments

When my husband first told me he wanted to go to seminary I threw up in my mouth a little bit. This was a calling he was sure of for himself but a calling for which I did not yet feel prepared.

I did not grow up in a family that attended church every Sunday or attended VBS in the summers nor did we have family devotions around our dinner table and the only way I knew how to pray was “now I lay me down to sleep.”

I have struggled with a difficult past marked with depression, unhealthy relationships with men, partying and I have experienced great loss through the passing of my mother from cancer as a young teenager.

Back then at twenty-three, in a little four door Camry on my way to St Louis, I did not believe that God could use me in His church.

Back then I did not see myself, this girl with an imperfect past, being able to ever connect with faithful church attenders on Sunday morning serving a perfect God.

This calling felt too big.

I followed my husband to seminary anyway like a faithful solider not quite ready for battle but on the inside I struggled against the inner voices from my past that whispered I just wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t like I believed it to be from 2 Corinthians 5:17: if you are in Christ you are a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

The new had come, I did have a changed life, but it was also so interwoven with many past experiences and voices. Somehow the old would have to begin to unravel from the new.

Walking through this story has been quite a journey. A journey against myself. A journey so challenging it would fail if God was not in it with me.

I have had some unraveling to do especially when it comes to my identity.

I was being called to the beginning of a journey against myself where I would constantly be required to put off the old and use the new to redefine the woman God was making to be in Christ.

It wasn’t long before the inner voice became coupled with the outer voices from others who were surrounding me.

I will never forget one of my first interactions with another seminary wife, “Wow, I’ve never met anyone like you… someone from total darkness.”

In that moment, whether that woman was joking or not, I stopped putting on what was true about me from the promises of scripture and I put on the scarlet letter of “the girl from total darkness” and I never wanted to step foot on the seminary campus again.

Just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness became the anthem of my season in seminary. I let that moment mark me and this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness let the inner voices win.

I spent three years trying to distance myself as far away from seminary as possible. I didn’t want anyone else to know the real me. I chose to mark myself with that just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter.

What happened to me while we lived in St. Louis was painful. I was crippled by my anthem. I wept. I was sick to my stomach almost every day. While my husband was thriving I was dying, carrying this heavy scarlet letter around my neck.

I still appeared to be a good solider on the exterior. But on the inside I was barely breathing.

It wasn’t until one morning on my couch when the words from Matthew 11 appeared on the page of my hot pink Bible in technicolor. “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I thought about how long I had been carrying the weight of this interwoven old and new. How long I had walked with this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter around my neck breathless and searching for air?

How long had I carried this burden alone and not shared the yoke with my Risen Lord?

He makes the burden light when I share it with Him.

Matthew 11 helped to let the unraveling of my identity begin.

The thread started to pull and I felt like I could breathe.

This moment happened in our last weeks in seminary. It took me too long to realize I was not bearing the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness identity alone. The one sharing the yoke with me was Jesus. The One Who had overcome death itself.

If He could overcome death He could help me overcome the voices.

So the unraveling of my identity in Christ began as I started to put off the old patterns and ways of viewing myself and I began to put on the new.

I started to challenge the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness label with the label of the deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness.

(I mean, I need to stay true to my roots, right?)

You can’t appreciate where you are if you forget where you came from- so the girl from total darkness stays…for now.

I know this journey of the unraveling of my identity is Christ is not over. I know the thread is just beginning to unravel.

I can’t say I feel completely equipped even now to serve alongside my husband but I can say the idea now longer causes nausea. This
deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness knows God calls unlikely people in His Great Story Of Redemption.

No matter what the past, the inner voices, or the audible voices might be whispering I can hush them with truth because Christ, the One who ultimately has called me, is walking alongside me sharing this burden.

In Him I am…

Deeply Loved.
Completely Accepted.
Image bearer of the Risen Lord
Girl From Total Darkness

What is your identity? Are you letting the new unravel from the old?

It’s Not Like A Quick Wardrobe Change

May 10, 20148 Comments

Almost ten years ago I came to know Jesus. This was not an effort to clean up my life nor has it been what some have referred to as a “spiritual awakening.” What happened to me took no effort at all. I wasn’t even looking for Jesus. The only thing that happened to me was I went to coffee with a friend and he challenged me to read the book of John and consider the teachings of Christ.

I had never read the Bible. Never. But at the age of twenty-one when I opened a real Bible for the first time something in me just could not put The Book down. I couldn’t even sleep without thinking about the verses written in it.

In the next few weeks something in me changed. The God of the Universe changed me for real.

I don’t know why.

God changed me when I wasn’t even seeking Him.

Adapted from Ephesians 2

In the past I was spiritually dead because of my sins. Yes, in the past my life was full of those sins. I lived the way the world lives. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to follow God. In the past all of us lived like that, trying to please ourselves. We did all the things our bodies and minds wanted. Like everyone else in the world, we deserved to suffer God’s anger just because of the way we were. But God is rich in mercy, and he loved me very much He gave me new life together with Christ.
it is because I am a part of Christ Jesus that God raised me from death and seated me together with him in the heavenly places. God did this so that his kindness to me and my belonging to Christ Jesus would clearly show for all time to come the amazing richness of his grace. I mean that I have been saved by grace because I believed. I did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. I am not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about. God has made me what I am. In Christ Jesus, God made me new so that I would spend my life doing the good things he had already planned for me to do.

As I was changing in the back of our car in Atlanta traffic out of my yucky road trip clothes and into my cute party dress I thought about how quickly and easily you can switch from one outfit to another.

It’s easy to put on the Christian look and even talk the Christian talk however, the Christian life is not at all like a quick wardrobe change.

The Christian life is more like an unraveling of yourself. Little by little your life gets turned upside-down and inside out.

I’m still the same Rachel I have always been. Kinda awkwardly funny, super bossy, intense, first on the dance floor and last to leave. But as I continue to walk with Christ all of the parts of me are constantly being unraveled as I recognize old patterns of responding to life without any thought of what God thinks and pursue new patterns as I seek to please a merciful God who changed me when I was not even looking for Him at all.

Marriage becomes unraveled. Being in Christ is not a one time magic formula for becoming the best supportive wife in the world. Constantly I am working to identify old patterns of responding to situations and praying God would redeem them.

Parenting becomes unraveled. As you seek The Lord in His Word, the Christian life helps turn past hurts and harmful patterns into redeeming, new, life giving ways to grow up a new family heritage in Christ.

Friendship becomes unraveled. For me little by little I unravel and discover how to be a better listener, question asker and more thankful for the friends God has given me.

My sisterhood unravels. I have decades under my belt of responding to my siblings in a way that does not honor Christ and slowly… very slowly… those previous patterns are unraveling and becoming new.

You don’t run to the altar on Sunday morning after a nice sermon and walk back up the aisle with a magic formula to now be perfect.

God’s Word does not say, just as you received Christ now be absolutely perfect in Him.

The Word says, now walk in Him. (Colossians 2:6)

It’s not a quick clean up or a wardrobe change.

Knowing Jesus and walking with Him is a lifetime of unraveling.

Ephesians 4
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So ten years later I am committed to this constant upside-down and inside out way of unlearning and relearning.

I know I didn’t get quick clean up when The God of the Universe called me into relationship with Him.

I get to walk in Him and unravel as I go.

I’d love to write more about this unraveling story and share personal stories of unraveled patterns. Please leave feedback if you’d like to hear more about this.

Here is a link to that first study I did ten years ago when my friend asked me to just consider the teachings of Christ.

Click to access libook1xpress1.pdf

Traveling With Tots

April 17, 2014April 17, 20151 Comment

We take two trips a year both over twelve hours long.

I have four kids- all five and under. My husband tends to the driving while I tend to our little herd. I’d love to share the bag of tricks I’ve developed over the years with you. There is nothing fancy or new here. Some ideas are from theprincessandthetot.com and some are ideas that friends have passed on to me.

I hope this will be something useful to you and something you’d be willing to share with others.

This will be my third year using a visual schedule. My oldest especially likes to know what is coming next and I have found the schedule cuts down on the “are we there yets”.

This year I am using words and clocks for the first time. In the past I have used a picture schedule.

I pack all our food. We will have fresh fruit and donut holes for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch and dinner. When we don’t have to stop to eat it saves us so much time. I have noticed we save at least 30 minutes a meal when we pack our food.

I will have four scheduled movie times. My baby is not old enough to care what’s on the DVD player so i have narrowed the movie times down to a choice for each child and mommy’s choice. Mommy’s choice is last because then I get to pick something I can stand listening to for the last minutes of the trip.

Music time is pretty easy. We listen to our favorite CDs. We love Veggie Tales, Jamie Soles and the Curious George Movie Soundtrack. For Easter the boys are getting new CDs in their baskets including

Rain For Roots

Veggie Tales 25 Sunday School Songs

DJ Shuffle from Disney Channel

Now for the good stuff. The Treasure Chest.

Everything fits nicely in this Thirty One Tote which I place between the two Captian’s chairs in out minivan.

We love Lauri Toys Puzzles and Linking Discs

Finger puppets

Lacing Cards

Pipe Cleaners

Books with sounds and lift the flap books

Magna Doodles, Dry erase workbooks and Stickers with notebooks

Audiobooks

Magnetic Tins – these are awesome but also messy and tempting to put in a little one’s mouth. Make sure you open the tin before hand – it does require some pre punching out for the magnets.

This is a newbie to the treasure chest and I am most proud of this one. “Tattoo Parlor” which is a kitchen timer, some baby wipes and loads of tattoos leftover from birthdays and valentines.

For the critical spelling police, it does seem I left a t off of the word “tattoo” that is a word I hardly ever write with four small children. Lucky for them it looks like I left enough room to squeeze that extra t in and hopefully no one will be emotionally harmed for this minor mistake.

For electronics time we have Leap Pads, iPads and a 3DS. These are screenshots of my iPad so you can see our favorite apps.