Tag: Life

Am I Focused on the Smudges or the Sunshine?

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Last week tucked in between rain and unseasonably cold temperatures we had two very pleasant days of warmth and sunshine in my little nook of the world.

So often on these warm sunny days, I find myself watching my four children playing in the yard from the bay window in our kitchen. As I watch my children playing outside, sun streaking through the windows, feeling it’s warmth and enjoying the extra brightness that sunshine brings inside our home, I feel shalom for a moment. Wholeness, peace and beauty.

On this particular day, I found myself feeling shalom and enjoying beauty one minute and finding faults the next. I took my eyes off the beauty of that sunshine streaming though the bay windows in my kitchen for a moment and I began to see first handprints all over everything; windows, television, fireplace, then computer screen. And next the tiny specks of dust resting on the surfaces of my cherry furniture. My gaze turned from beauty and instantly I saw imperfections and smudges all over the place. Sunshine has quite a way or exposing beauty and smudges.

It is a tough battle for me not to grab my version of a glock 19, the windex bottle, and distract myself from that moment of rest, shalom and beauty by getting caught up in the busyness of shooting down smudges. Doing is the nature of my flesh. Rest has always been counter to who I am. It is the work of the Spirit maturing inside of me to hold still and fight to take my gaze back to the beauty and shalom of that sunshine.

I cannot see beauty when I am bustling about focused on destroying dust and shooting down smudges.

I can only see beauty when I still myself. (Psalm 46:10)

When I lay my arms (that trusty bottle of windex) down and see shalom despite the smudges.

And as I have thought about his moment over the past week I have been convicted that my entire life is lived this way. I am so quick to take my eyes off of bright, warm, all encompassing beauty and focus and fret over tiny imperfections. Once I find one tiny imperfection, I tend to see them all.

I live this way with my kids. My children could have one hundred good days at school and a handful of bad, but that handful of bad tills up every single imperfection I see in them in my heart. When I take my eye off of beauty with my kids, I easily forget whose they are. I see them for how they live, what they do right and where they fall short instead of seeing them as covenant children of the Risen King.

I live this way with my husband. I could come home from being away at a women’s retreat or spending the day subbing at school. Every time I am away he has folded the laundry, taken all four kids swimming or to the amusement park or something else extraordinary, but I find myself taking my gaze off that beauty and finding faults in tiny details of crumbs on the counters and toys strewn across the floor. I fail to see all of the beautiful ways he loved our children while I was away when I focus on the condition of my home.

I live this way with myself. When I turn my gaze from beauty, when I forget to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). It is so easy for me to see my imperfections and let those imperfections take hold of my gaze. I so easily focus on the smudges in my own life and fail to see the sunshine. I fail when I focus on seeking the approval of others, what I did right or what I did wrong, drinking from the unsatisfying cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13) of performing the role of parenting well or my reputation in the community and the church.

And as I reflect on standing there in front of that bay window in my kitchen I believe I am feeling God’s nudge to fight to focus on the sunshine.  To lay down my arms of wanting to constantly work on buffing away smudges instead of basking in the beauty of my Savior. When I keep my gaze on Him, the smudges are still there but pale in comparison His beauty.

In my nook of the world I want to automatically focus on the sunshine and forget the smudges. When I start to feel my fretting heart beating a little bit more quickly when it comes to housework, parenting, marriage, ministry, I want to be quick to ask myself: Am I focusing on the smudges or the sunshine?

In my nook of the world I am fighting to remind myself to keep my gaze on Jesus. To focus on sunshine and feel shalom, wholeness, beauty and peace. To dwell in the shelter of the Most High God, feel His all encompassing beauty and rest in His presence. (Psalm 91). To be still, lay down the doing parts of my nature and walk in the path God has called me to. A path of freedom and rest. A path with eyes fixed on Him.

What I Love About Sundays

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Most of you know these things about me but for those of you who do not… it is important I catch you up on where I am in this chapter of the story God is writing for me.

I have four young children. My boys are eight, six and five. My daughter is three. My husband is a pastor of a church in a denomination called the Presbyterian Church in America… say that three times fast.

Every Sunday, I get to go to work with my husband. Bring my kids. And sit in the front row.

In my dreams Sunday mornings are well, easy. There is a whole song about it. Easy Like Sunday Morning. So soothing to think of that song. In my dreams I hear that soothing instrument and Lionel Ritchie. And in my life, in this season, I wish this song were my truth. I want you to think it is easy and a joy and a delight to go to my husband’s work place on Sunday mornings. After all, his work is for Jesus.

But my reality. Hmmm. Even on the best of Sunday mornings, Sundays for me, are about as easy as well, the Tasmanian Devil. Dirty-dust-cloud and spit-swirling-chaos.

745 Kids upstairs. Make beds, get dressed, brush teeth.

825 Kids downstairs. Shoes, breakfast, dog out. CLEAR instructions about kids cleaning their own plates.

850 Me upstairs. Try on at least four different outfits. Stress about looking too wrong. Not pastor’s wife enough. Dry shampoo my hair. Daughter upstairs while I make-up. She wants to know about all of the eight items I put on my face. What they are and if she can use them. We have an argument because I NEED TO BE ON TIME and I don’t have time to do this on this day. I stress again about looking wrong. But reassure myself in the mirror that wrong or right to humans, I am enough. Because of Jesus I am enough. Breathe, smooth my half-washed hair again. Say it again. Because of Jesus I am enough. 

915 Coats are strung across the small wooden table which was my mother’s and sits right behind my sofa. Kids did clean up their dishes. (Hallelujah Chorus) I leave the crumbs. My pre-four-children-self hates this. I shut her voice down, I can’t be that girl anymore. I give the first “get in the car” warning. I’ve had coffee but still haven’t eaten. I am caffeinated but hangry. Dog comes in. My oldest mostly cares for her and gives her what she needs to been happy while we are gone.

918 Someone has to pee. Or poo. Or the dog pooed. Or peed. My life revolves mostly around poo or pee. Vomit sometimes too but mostly poo and pee. Today it wasn’t that. Today it was about a plastic piece of fake lipstick. My daughter was in tears because one of her brothers stomped on her Anna lipstick and it had mud on it. Tell brother that the most important job he has on Sundays, is to be a peacemaker. For his mommy, for Jesus. Be a peacemaker. Go back inside to rinse mud off fake lipstick.

924 Try not to get crazy-eyed and loose my crap in the driveway. I am almost always crying or yelling by this point. Hangry lighting is not my best lighting. Breathe. Also notice stain on the skirt of the outfit that took me way too long to choose. Sunday School and Adult Community Groups are in six minutes and I have a four minute drive so skirt with stain it is. Breathe again. Check the mirror. Say I am enough. Because of Jesus. I am enough.

928. Heck who am I kidding sometimes 935. Pull into Sunday school drop-off circle and cheat park because this is the easiest way to get my four children into my husband’s workplace while I am hangry with a stained skirt and dry shampooed hair. Battle the Pop-a-Shot basketball hoop, my new nemesis which has been perfectly placed near my cheat parking spot. Shoo boys away from giant idol and into classrooms where each of them are welcomed by the very BEST Sunday School teachers a boy could have.

940 My three year old cries because I’m abandoning her. She uses those words. Abandonment. Knife to my heart. I know it’s developmental. I know she will be okay. I am beyond late for Adult Communities.

942-1000. Get stopped by friends in the hallway or heck, I stop friends in the hallway. I’m an extrovert. Sooooo. Late. For. Community Groups.

1000-1030. Go to Community Groups. Overshare waaaaaa-y too much. Feel insecure about oversharing. (Make note to no longer attend Community Groups to spare everyone from my oversharing.)

1030-1045. Pick up boys and army crawl pass my daughter’s classroom because if she sees me the abandonment argument returns.

1045 Worship begins. Inhale. Exhale. Pray that the visitors and members who are here don’t hate the fact that me and my three boys are sitting here with this giant mess of markers, notebooks, Bibles and crafts from Sunday School in the front row and that our chaos does not distract them from Jesus. Really need to be praying that this chaos does not distract me from Jesus. Also praying no one needs to pee or poo.

1046-1110 Try to keep crazy eyes and disappointed sighs towards my children to a minimum. I hear the whispers of my name in my children’s counseling sessions when they are grown. My mother was always so stressed out in church. She was hangry. And crazy-eyed.

This all goes on. Even after I drop the children’s church eligible kids off for their developmentally appropriate church program and am left with one kiddo there with me in the front row.

I hear nuggets of what my husband is saying. What God is saying.  Jesus opens my ears to what I need to hear. The Word in my lap and it being taught is the thing I crave most. I mark up my Bible with the little I can absorb.

1145 I now am aware that I have four kids to pick up/get to the car on my own and three boys I need to unglue from the Pop-a-Shot before I can them out the door. Breathe and prepare for the chaos awaiting me in five minutes. For the dirty-dust-cloud and spit-swirling-chaos.

1148. Final song. The Doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 

Praise Him all creatures here below. 

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

I know the words. I know them well. But in this moment. After I make sure my son is signing them, I stand with eyes closed and I listen. I barely sing a word. I stand with ears fully opened. I listen to the voices of my community. I breathe each word and note in deeply. This is my Sunday moment. In this season of life– I’m grasping at truth wherever I can get it. And this Doxology. These voices all around me. That beautiful Amen. I want to stand in it forever. I don’t want it to end. I want to hear it all week long.

This is the moment that makes it for me on Sundays. I love my husband’s sermons, he is a gifted preacher of God’s Word. I love listening to what I miss via audio on Monday morning.

But I cannot get that community Amen from a recording. You can’t pick out each individual voice and rejoice in the fact that one day you will sing this Amen with them at the feet of Jesus. The Doxology. The stillness. The skirt stains. The crazy eyes. This is where I stand in my story of this Sunday morning, with my community, in my chaos and I forget all the moments where I based my worth on how well I executed being at work with my husband with my four kids in the front row and remember why I am there.

To Praise Him. With how little I have to give. Feeling hangry, unraveled, unworthy, dirty-dust-clouded and spit-swirling–almost always on the verge of big hot-mess tears.

That Amen, that community. That is what I love about Sundays. That I can come as a Tasmanian Devil. Hangry. That I am worthy of that Amen because of a Jesus who died for me. Not when I was perfect. But when I was a skirt-stained hot-mess. That Amen. Those people singing it together. To Jesus. That makes all the swirling around worth it. That’s what I love about Sundays. I feel His goodness surrounded by community. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

I Miss Mayberry

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Although I wanted to be a big city girl growing up, my story had me in a Mayberry kind of place during my youth.

Everything was not in black and white by any means. My Mayberry was in technicolor with the taste of Natural Light Beer or Zimas that had baked in the trunks of first cars in the high school parking lot and memories of house parties in the winter and bonfires in the spring, summer and fall.

I can’t help but think of you in Mayberry. How I miss you sitting next to me during games of power hour or around the bonfire chanting I hate rabbits in hopes of making the smoke move from stinking our clothes and hair to the other side of the circle to make the eyes of our friends burn and water across from us.

How I remember you sat next to me in Spanish IV, taught me how to shop for legit thrift shop tees, change the oil in my 5 speed- manual Dodge Neon or just loved a heart-broken girl who lost her mother freshman year in high school.

I miss seeing all of you in Mayberry.

Now it is just Facebook posts and Twitter tweets and I feel like I know more about which side of the aisle you stand on than I can remember the crooked teeth that settled back in your smile because you didn’t faithfully wear your retainer.

I miss feeling your shoulder next to mine and your laugh.

I miss seeing you in three-dimension and technicolor instead of 140 character posts and emojis that show up in my feed.

I miss Mayberry being a place where we could talk about real issues face to face, around a table at a house party or around a bonfire. Because heavy conversations should be had in three-dimension. Not in 140 characters on a feed.

My heart has been heavy from only experiencing you and where you stand on candidates, abortion, refugees and women’s rights. I have become frustrated. I’ve thought about this. I’ve thought about you. And I confess I have forgotten to see the three-dimensional, technicolor, Natural Light breath version of you. I’ve seen posts, and I have forgotten the entirety of you.

That we are different. And I am thankful for that. We think differently about issues and the differences I experienced in Mayberry make me who I am today. Your story is weaved into the patchwork of mine because of time spent cruising in the Neon or conversations around the bonfire.

And damn, we have had fun times and you can make me laugh.

I wish we could make it back to Mayberry and wade through spouses, children, jobs, states and time to sit around a kitchen table with week old Natural Light or Zimas (if they still make those) with Jolly Ranchers sunk down in the bottom of the bottle. The conversations about candidates, abortion, refugees and women’s rights would be much different. I’d see you in three dimension and I’d remember the whole you.

Because the more I think about you in technicolor, in Mayberry, around that bonfire. The more I remember my deep affection for you and the crooked teeth in that smile.

You are not just someone standing on the left or the right. You are a whole person. You are my friend. And I believe our friendship and our experiences together are much deeper than our polictical choices.

I miss you in Mayberry. I want more often to think of you there instead of words on my mobile screen.

I miss seeing you in three-dimension.

when there isn’t much to say

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Last night we sat in a booth adjacent to the high-topped bar table in the restaurant where we sat eleven years ago on the night when we were engaged.

Then we were both getting to know each other and there were words, abundant words. Words about my job working with at-risk children in the public schools, words about your job in graphic design, words about our future, our dreams, our future children, our current ministries, our future ministry. Abundant words.

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But last night, eleven years and what feels like a lifetime from a season of dreams, getting to know yous and abundant words– I feared I wouldn’t have much to say to you sitting in the vinyl booth across the table from you on our date.

As I scrambled around the house picking up stray socks and then as I bathed our four children, scrubbed their heads and toweled them off I tried to think of interesting things to tell you.

We had just been out a few nights before so my well of what-to-says seemed dry.

All I could think of was how today as I reached behind the toilet to shut off the water in hopes of keeping the guest bathroom toilet from overflowing, my hair dipped into the toilet water but other than that it was another day of making breakfast, bus stops, volunteering at school then making and cleaning up another meal. All I could think of was the mundane. The wiping of crumbs and the tips of my freshly highlighted hair in toilet water.

And in my fear I worried that you would think I was much less interesting as I had little to say to you from across that booth in that same restaurant where we sat on the night we were engaged over a decade ago.

I thought about how I have little to report, how my mid-section is so much softer (and my rear end section too).

My past reminds me of the times when I have no longer been interesting, I became disposable to people. Replaceable. Leaveable. Forgettable. My demons don’t ever forget this and remind me of the times when there isn’t much to say it’s easier for people to toss me away. In fear, my demons are loud. The foundation of fear is fragile. It’s built on past hurts and tender places. And as I walked around my house in fear yesterday the demons grew and they grew and they grew.

My fear is a breeding ground for my demons to remind me I am not enough.

I fear these dates when there isn’t much to say. When I don’t have inspiring words. When I didn’t do anything to change the world. When the season is mundane. When I’m just a girl in front of you with a softer mid-section and my well of abundant words is dry.

We know marriage is work. We have been through that season.

We know our marriage has been in the convection oven of seminary, ministry, four kids in four years and a senior pastorate. We know it is important to date one another. To not talk about kids or work. To laugh, be light, put down our phones and be present. We have been through that season too–of fighting and wading through time to see one another.

But last night as we sat there in that booth I felt a new unchartered season. A season where I feel uninteresting and mundane. A season where there is not much to say. A season where I am just doing the same thing every day, over and over again. A season of mundane.

But today, as I prepared for a lesson on marriage with my small group– how God designs two people in marriage to be committed to one another, even in the mundane, when there isn’t much to say.

God says, we are loved not because of what we do but because of who we are. And marriage is the same. In marriage you vowed to love me in the mundane because you don’t just see me, a girl in a hard, uninteresting season. You see me, a girl who God is not finished with yet. You see me not because of the things I have to say or what tasks I have conquered that day. You see me and you love me because you committed to do that. In the mundane, until death do us part.

You see me as enough because Christ is more than enough. For you, for me, for us.

I remembered how you sat there with me in the mundane last night. Across from me. The same way you did eleven years ago.

Eleven years ago I would have never told you my fears. But last night I told you I was afraid I didn’t have much to say tonight when you asked me about my day. And you still sat with me. You still loved me in the fears and the mundane and you filled the spaces with conversation when you could and when I couldn’t really do my share I filled my softening mid-section with pasta.

And it was lovely. It was lovely to sit there and not have much to say. To speak fears, to be somewhat silent and lacking words and softening in the mid-section by more mouthfuls of pasta and still be loved.

To be fully known, even on the boring days when there isn’t much to stay and have someone to love you for just being ordinary. This is marriage. This is life. This is choosing to love when it’s nothing but toilet water hair.

When I gazed past you towards the other side of the restaurant I could see that high-topped table. I can remember eleven years ago and picture us there. I can remember having too much wine that night and talking a mile a minute, arms likely flailing, a heart bubbling over with excitement. You laughing at my every word.

And I am thankful for the seasons of dating. The seasons of plenty and want. I am thankful for us then, and thankful for the mundane now. I am thankful you will still chose I do when there isn’t much to say.

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passionate. not terrible. passionate.

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She sits there in her room, tiny plastic pieces of treasures, books, pink feather pens surround her, a crooked tiara on her head and streaks of orange marker are drawn on her leg from her kneecap to her hot pink painted toenails.

She is forty pounds and forty some inches tall. She is three and she is the fiercest tiny human I have ever known.

I can’t remember whether we were discussing which pajamas she should wear for the night or who should put them on her. But I remember her being assertive with me. She was fierce when she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, No mommy. I will do it myself. Humpf.

After having three boys in three years when I discovered I was pregnant for the fourth time I was certain it would be another boy. Boys were what I knew. Surely God was not going to challenge me with the newness of raising a daughter. 

Oh but God has a funny way about things and He did in fact turn my world upside-down and gave us that daughter. We have loved more than we thought we could love and I personally have been challenged more than I thought I would be raising something supposedly filled with sugar and spice and everything nice.

We are so grateful. I am so grateful for her. Our little girl, the last of four children in four years and the only girl, she is precious to all of us.

But she is so fierce. Frustratingly fierce. Passionate. Wanting to go about things her own way. Princess dresses, painted-toes, Batman masks and Boba Fett blasters.

She regularly will grab her brothers and scratch them so close to their eyeballs, leaving Harry Potter-like scratch marks on their foreheads.

She pushes smaller children at play dates. Moments worthy of making me want to crawl into the playhouse and hide or maybe cry.

She was the first of my four children to try out a passion-filled shut up to my face while I was correcting her.

And a few weeks ago while we were visiting my grandmother and grandfather in New York my grandmother had asked one of her kind friends if she would watch our four kids for us while my husband and I attended a grown-ups only event. When we returned there was my girl asleep on the floor. She had protested with my grandmother’s friend all night long. My grandmother’s friend reported to me that the boys were great and she couldn’t understand much of what my girl said all night except when she looked her in her eyes and clear as day said to her, “YOU are NOT welcome here.” 

She just straight-up tells selfless, helpful friends of her great-grandmother they are not welcome. sigh.

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My sweet forty pound daughter. The girl with the big bows in her whispy brown hair and bangles all the way up her arm can be quite challenging. And yesterday as she was being assertive with me I felt the words creeping into my head. Terrible Twos. Even though she is not two anymore. Those words terrible and twos were lurking in the back of my head.

I had to remind myself.

Challenging, yes. 

Terrible, no. 

Fierce, tenacious, passionate. Yes.

Terrible, no.

Assertive, opinionated, strong-willed. Yes.

Terrible. No.

In the moments when the anger starts to bubble beneath the surface and my vat of patience is running low I find myself grabbing on the posh words of parenting which often flash in my face on the Facebook Newsfeed. Terrible Twos, threenager. This is how the world sees her.

And honestly. I have written about this before and finding myself needing to write about this again. These posh sayings are not helpful to me as a parent at all. Parenting is difficult enough. And when you are drowning the last thing you need is the world chanting bitter snarky sayings to you from the top deck. Oh you’re drowning, yeah that’s terrible. It will be a year of terrible, terrible drowning. And then the next year of it will be even worse, but good luck with that.

What I need when I feel the hard prongs of raising up children is someone to throw me a life preserver and hop in the water with me.

And when I breathe deeply, I remember God is with me in the difficult waters. Not shouting unhelpful sayings from the boat but right in the difficult waters.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

Isaiah 43:2

I can chose to breathe deeply, step out of my frustration, my impatience and on Sundays the crazy eyes produced by my aching pride when she is tenacious in front of a crowd in the front row at church.

I can pray for more peace. More patience. More self-control.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled.

John 14:27

I can breathe deeply and see the child standing in front of me, in the middle of the tiny plastic pieces treasures, books, and feather pens; with the crooked tiara and the orange marker drawn on her leg.

I can breathe and I can see her as God sees her. Precious. Uniquely knit together. Wonderfully made. A passionate girl in a crooked tiara trying to sort out this thing called life the same way I am.

And then I can be moved to compassion for her. I can remember that sometimes feeling great passion for things produces great emotion. And while I am a grown up and do not experience great passion about pajamas, my sweet girl has only been picking out and putting on her own clothes for a few months now and she does indeed experience great passion about pajamas.

And in my compassion I can correct her outside of my anger and impatience. I can help teach her proper words and tones for communicating independence because while I can be gracious and identify with big emotions and tenacity I will not tolerate sass or disrespect. Girl may be fierce but girl must be respectful to her momma.

And I can remember she is in the waters too. That God is with her. The rivers of passion and difficulty will not consume her either.

That in these challenging passionate days in the middle of tiny plastic pieces of treasures, books, pink feather pens, crooked tiaras and streaks of orange marker down her legs, the Lord is near and He is working on both of our hearts.

We are on a journey. It feels terrible but we will get through it. And God promises the waves of difficulty will not overcome either of us.