Oh the Humility!

I feel like this blog has been pretty heavy lately. So let's lighten this up a little with some real talk on motherhood.

I have never felt so ill equipped to do anything in my life. Never. I am one of those people who is pretty good at the whole fake it til you make it phenomena. In college, I managed to write a ten page paper on a book that I read the same amount of pages of. I got an A. (It was for extra credit and I don't think the prof even read it)

In grad school I managed my way through grueling internships by feigning confidence in the midst of sheer terror at the impact I may or may not have on the lives of those I came into contact with.

Motherhood, is a totally different ballgame. I always knew I wanted to be a mom. Always. I wanted lots and lots of babies. Now that I am in the throws of motherhood, expecting number two within the next 3 months, I am not far from crawling into bed, assuming the fetal position, and waiting out the storm. My child has been incredibly easy, until recently. She figured out that she can willfully disobey Mommy and honestly I think she thinks it's hilarious. She often stands up in a chair we have in our play room and looks at me like "yep, I just did that, what are you going to do about it? Oh pull me out, nice try mom, I'll just go ahead and climb back in and do it again." Funny, sinful, little child.

This child, at only 15 months, knows how to push my buttons at just the right times. And I get angry and then think, how am I going to do this as she gets older? How will I do this with two? HOW? Oh and there is no way short of a miracle that this little boy will be as easy and laid back as his sister was as a baby. No way.

Then I think of my bed, and again I'm tempted to crawl in and never come out.

Until I think of all the goofy things that E does, the laughs, the giggles, the obsession with my scarves and anything that can substitute as a bracelet. The silly faces and dances she does.

That's motherhood. The joyous mess. It's beautifully humbling and entirely terrifying, but simply amazing at the same time.

Motherhood makes you into this person you never knew you could be. Someone who is obsessed with bodily functions, especially poop. Is it the right color, consistency? Oh look, she ate some crayon, thats an unexpected surprise! Someone who loves this little being more than they ever thought possible. Someone who willingly gives up fancy clothes, showering at normal times, eating warm meals, and their thought of the perfectly clean and decorated home for their child.

Its humbling, surprising, and often hilariously messy.

Thank God that we don't have to be prepared for everything, that He meets us in every messy chaotic moment and grows us into better mothers with each blowout, each throw of the cup, each whine, hit or bite.

Thank God that we don't need to meet perfection, that He is the perfect one and that we get to share that with our children when we mess up. "See Mommy needs Jesus just as much as you do because she gets mad and sins and has to ask for forgiveness too"

Someday I will look back and miss these days terribly. The days that I could pick up my child and hold her tight. The days that she pooped in the tub, threw her cup 45 times, whined, complained, and then gave mommy the sweetest hug. I will miss each sweet mispronounced word.

Because someday she will be a teenager, and knowing how I was, and knowing how many are during that time, I will look back and beg for her biggest issues to be throwing cups and pooping in unexpected places. Because its much easier to clean up a mess on the floor, than a hurting heart or broken friendship.

So for now, thank God for spilled milk and standing in chairs.

A Life of Gratitude Part 2

I wrote a few weeks ago on how I have struggled recently with joy and gratitude in the midst of suffering and I wanted to give a small update.

I finished the book I was reading, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and although there were parts I may not fully agree with, the overall message painted a beautiful picture of learning how to practice living in gratitude to a faithful loving God. The great thing was it wasn't a self help book, it was a memoir, a reflection on how noticing God's graces leads Ann to a more grateful life and a greater union with Jesus.

Couldn't we all use more gratitude? More Jesus?

As I began reading I decided to take on the challenge and write down 1000 gifts over the course of the next months or however long it takes me. Each day I try to write down one or two things I am thankful for. Simple things, some recent examples being: walks with friends, the smell of the woods in fall, and driving under the yellow trees on Kossuth Street.

A word of caution, one could fall into worshiping God's creation rather than worship the true God. So we must be careful to recognize that we are giving thanks for the good gifts God gives, no matter how small, not worshiping the gifts themselves.

I have found that being intentional about keeping track of these gifts, these moments, has helped me to be more aware of what God is doing around me. As I said in my earlier post, my vision has been completely obscured by negativity lately and this forces me to find the positives of each day. Slowly shifting how I view the world.

It's a wonderful thing when we can begin to feel God moving in us, making us more like Him. Although small so far, I am hopeful that this shift is just the beginning of beginning to live a more grace filled, grateful life. That joy and gratitude would overcome my tendency towards negative realism. I feel like this is just the starting point, just the beginning of freedom from negativity.

Ok, I love a good quote so I will leave you with a few on thankfulness.

“Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks.” 
― Thomas Goodwin

"Resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can. You have not the power of your comforts; but have you no power of your tongues? Say not that you are unfit for thanks and praises unless you have a praising heart and were the children of God; for every man, good and bad, is bound to praise God, and to be thankful for all that he hath received, and to do it as well as he can, rather than leave it undone.... Doing it as you can is the way to be able to do it better. Thanksgiving stirreth up thankfulness in the heart.”  Hence Baxter

"It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness." Charles Spurgeon

“When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?” 
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

All Knotted Up

Ok women, please tell me you have had a necklace that became a tangled up, knotted up mess of a thing. Every time you thought you were getting close to untangling the last tangle, a new one appeared, then another, then you were worse off than when you started.

Frustrating. A mess. A beautiful, cherished, mess.

This life.

A beautiful, chaotic, cherished mess of an existence.

Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV) "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

It's that sin. It entangles us. Ensnares us. It knots us up and when we think we have victory another knot appears. Then we get all tangled up again. How true. How very accurate, we are a sinful mess. Isn't that exactly what sin does to us, makes a knotted up mess of us. 

Jesus calls us to throw that sin off and run with perseverance. Keep going, keep untangling, unwinding the mess we have made of ourselves. Placing our focus on Jesus and knowing what He endured that we might have a hope to overcome and not lose heart. 

That's the hard part, right? Moving forward, running when you feel like you have nothing left to give. I hate running. Hate it, its boring, tiring and I feel like I can't breathe the entire time. That's not fun. That's not enjoyable, that doesn't seem like life. 

That's why we focus on Jesus. Why we put our hope in Him. When you run you are supposed to focus on something other than the excruciating pain and inability to take a normal breath. You are supposed to listen to music, distract yourself from the negative and focus on the positive. Focus on why you are running, for the benefit of it all, not the pain of it all. For the joy set before us.

We will always be knotted up messes until Jesus makes us whole and right. The great untangler of our sin. Until then we keep going, keep running the beautiful chaotic race of life, with our shorts around our ankles and our heads held high. Because a great joy awaits us, even in this life. Every triumph over sin, every good gift that God gives us to keep us going, to keep us moving. Every little glimmer of hope. The smallest things, like a yellow leaf on a dreary day. The biggest things, our child's first words, first steps, first anything. Those joys keep us going. They give us the strength to endure the knotted up mess that sin creates.  

Community

I don't know about you, but I would much prefer to be giving than receiving help or hand outs. However, many situations in the last two years have put us in situations where we are the ones needing the help, needing to ask for assistance, just needing.

It's a hard place to be. Feeling vulnerable and having to humble yourself to the reality that sometimes you can't do it on your own.

Within the mess and chaos, stumbling through one difficult situation after another, God provides. The biggest provision God has given us is our community. The family of believers and friends that He has placed us in. Without our church family, we would have been up a creek without a paddle many times.

It was them who sat with me in the hospital when my husband had surgery, them who helped me clean the house while I had a baby with RSV and a husband who couldn't stand.

It was them who gave us $1000, $500, $300  and more to put towards what we needed, they who have kept us afloat.

It was them who came over on a sunny afternoon to talk of parenting and faith and making it through hard times.

Them who brought us meals when we had a miscarriage, when we were grieving in ways we never knew we would. Then those who brought us meals in celebration of our precious gift, who sat and held our daughter in the hospital with smiles and laughter full of joy for the blessing that we had all been asking to receive.

Those who have prayed for us, laid hands on us, interceded on our behalf. Those who have fought for us, with us, against the evil one who seeks to destroy.

Those who have watched E countless times without asking anything in return. Those who have served us, loved us, cared for us.

Those who have made this passage come alive. Acts 2:42-47
"42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe[a] came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved."

The church's purpose lived out in our life, that we would receive God's love and provision through the kindness, love, and generosity of those He has placed in our life. 

How do you do this mess called life without community? How do you go through your rough patches, through all the valleys and droughts, without people surrounding you? Telling you to keep going, keep walking. How do you keep from falling down under the weight of this world without your community holding you up? 

Our family would not be where we are, even if far from perfect, without our community.

I look forward to the day when we can give instead of need, but for now, with humble hearts we thank Jesus for the family who has stood beside us when things were crumbling.

Here's to the Dads

Has anyone noticed how commercials and sitcoms portray the modern dad? A fumbling goofus with little knowledge of how to raise or even care for a child. Someone who is inept at even the most basic of household tasks, is often lazy, and drinks an inordinate amount of beer. One commercial tonight (the one that sparked this rant) had a woman on the phone with a credit card company saying her husband forgot to pay the bill. When the woman on the phone resolves the issue she asks if he is "off the hook" the wife responds, "oh no, last week he went out for milk and brought home a puppy." Really, a puppy? I don't know about your husband/father but mine would never go out for milk and bring home a puppy, he might bring home the wrong type of milk, but not a puppy.

I would even say this commercial is a tame example. Look at Homer Simpson, Al Bundy, and  Ray Romano. They are hapless men who seem to know little about functioning as a parent or even adult in some circumstances. Often Dads are portrayed as selfish slobs who tune out their wives and children as they watch football and drink beer. This is not reality, at least not for many of the dads I am privileged to be around. 

I should also note that I do not have a good relationship with Dads. Mine was a deadbeat who hasn't seen me since I was sixteen. If anything, I have every reason to think Dads are selfish jerks who abandon their children and wives. But I don't, because even though my Dad was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a stand up father, I witnessed many who were.

Are there men out there who aren't stepping up to the plate of fatherhood, a resounding yes! However, what are we saying when our portrayal of men is inept, lazy idiots? Aren't we giving men a free pass saying, "it's ok, hunny, you are just like every guy I see on TV, that must be the norm." Shouldn't men be challenged to step up, to be the warriors that they are made to be. Warriors for their morals, for their families. 

Men were once seen as strong and fierce, now downgraded drastically to weak and lazy. 

BUT, here is the ray of sunshine. Men are fighting back. I see it everyday when my husband comes home from one job early to play with our daughter for an hour before going to the next to provide for us. I see it when he gets up early on a Saturday morning to be with E so that I can have a small break. I see it when he and I talk of mediocre fatherhood and the righteous indignation he has for laziness and ineptitude. I see it in my friend's husbands who sacrifice their football games to take their daughters on a date or their son's fishing. The dad's who give up their video games for pink tulle and ribbons. The men who not only look after their own children, but fight for other kids to love and know Jesus. I see it when my husband sacrifices yet another free day to put his energy into the jr high students at our church. 

You see, I am blessed to have a husband who loves and cares for his daughter and I the way he ought to. A man who most likely hates that I am saying all this about him, because he is humble and doesn't like attention. A man who sacrifices day in and day out for his family, who didn't run away when things got hard. A man who makes mistakes, yes, but has character and integrity that puts many to shame. It's not just my husband either. It's many more who are standing up against this age of fatherlessness. Who refuse to let the stereotypes define them. Men who are rising up and acting their age, knowing the great responsibility that has been given to them. 

So here's to the dad's who are not content with the status quo. Men who fight for their family, for their manhood. Men who know they have been called to a mighty task and face it with bravery and strength. 

A Life of Gratitude

Do you ever feel like your circumstance is sucking the life right out of you? That you just want to stay in bed until the clouds break and the sun decides to finally peak out and offer you a ray of hope? Do you ever feel like nothing is going right?

I know you have. Everyone has. And if you say you haven't, my guess is that you are either A. in denial or B. an ultra optimistic person.

In recent months, I have felt much like a wanderer, wading through a desert with no oasis in sight. Truthfully, my soul has felt the dryness of the sand. Parched. Thirsty. Worn. There has been little joy, little relief from the day to day stresses of not having enough, not feeling enough, not being enough.

It's draining. That lack of joy. You bleed out, life removed.

Through some divine act (I'm not a big reader, especially when stressed), I have been reading a book lately called 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Her writing is everything I aspire to, poetic and profound. Her words paint beautiful, sometimes painful pictures of life and loss and how to live in gratitude in the in midst.

She calls it eucharisteo. Simply meaning: to give thanks. Her goal: notice and record 1000 gifts. Her result: a life of gratitude.

As I have read I have been smacked hard with the fact that I am living with a major lack of gratitude. My focus has shifted, the foreground of joy obscured by dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. There is no denying life has been difficult, that wouldn't be genuine. There is also no denying that I have forgotten the good that God is giving. Those peaks of sun, the rays of hope that light up the darkness of stress and fatigue. My sight has been so obscured by the negative that I have lost all view of the positive. Selfish. Prideful. Ungrateful.

In my distress I have cried out to God. I have whined, I have complained. I have pleaded for an end in sight. I have been silent with frustration. I have not given thanks.

A life of gratitude doesn't begin when things are in order. A life of gratitude comes from knowing the Giver of good. From knowing that He is enough, even when the world around us is falling apart. It comes from finding the good gifts that Abba Father has been giving you in the worst of times.

Ann didn't focus on writing down gifts that God gives that are profound. She didn't focus on the answered prayers, or materialistic gifts. She focused on the mundane, the day to day. She found thanks for the obscure gifts that God gives. The little things like a child's laughter, a husband's warm embrace, the way the sun pours into morning windows. Little glimmers of God's goodness to us.

That focus on the small, seemingly insignificant gifts is what shifts our focus. The foreground becomes clear, we begin to see the good in life. We begin to see God in the little things. The Good Creator. The scales begin to fall off our eyes and we begin to see with a clear perspective. If I can shift my focus to all of the good that the Good Giver has placed in my life, won't the negative become background? Negative replaced with positive. Yes there will be difficulties, yes life is hard, but is there not much joy to be had each day?

Romans 12:12: "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." (ESV)

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

God commands us to rejoice in hope. There is no qualifier, no "if you feel like it." He commands us to put off anxiety and clothe ourselves with prayer and thanksgiving. This doesn't mean that we will get what we ask for, but that "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard our hearts" Isn't that wonderful. What a gift. With prayer and thanksgiving comes the peace of God. A life of gratitude leads to joy and peace in Christ. Because even when life doesn't make sense, when everything falls apart, He stands. Being thankful for what God has already given you (read: Christ on the cross) and for what he is giving you each day (read: the gifts we often overlook) will lead to a peace that transcends all understanding. 

Now the hard part. The practice. The discipline of gratitude. It's not an overnight epiphany, it is a marathon. Something done after months of training and discipline. Days upon days of intentionally noticing the good gifts of the Father. So, following in dear Ann's footsteps, starting tomorrow I will begin my own 1000 gifts. Keeping record of the good in my life, in hopes that my focus will shift. That I will move from a place of dry desert to healing waters. 

Discipline. Practice. God's goodness displayed in the mundane of life. 

Who's with me?

In the Quiet

Today, as I laid in the quiet stillness of our bedroom, tissues scattered across the bed, hot tea by my side, I noticed something. Something I wouldn't typically notice because on a normal day I am not lying in bed during the midday light. 

Our walls look lavender. Our gray walls, the ones that are supposed to be neutral so as not to emasculate my husband who is currently outnumbered 2 to 1, they look light purple. Feminine, girly, flowery, all things that come to mind when you think lavender. Not masculine, not even gender neutral. 

Oh well, in the evening, when it matters, it looks gray. But, why am I writing about this? What in the world does this have to do with anything?

After I noticed my lavender walls, I began to think. What other things am I missing? What other things are only noticeable in the quiet. In the midday light. You see, I am pretty good at talking to God. Asking Him what he wants to do with us, asking for what we need/want. However, often I struggle with listening for God. Having patience and waiting on Him to answer. Instead, I keep asking, keep talking. 

What am I missing God speak when I cover the silence with the babbling of my thoughts. I've felt distant from God lately, like there is some sort of static making it hard to hear what He is doing, hard to know what He wants from me. That static I'm hearing is my own chattering. There is no disconnect, no technical difficulties, just me getting in the way. 

I wonder what I would hear if I could stand the silence for longer than a minute. If I could just be still and wait in the silence. If I was able to turn off all of the distractions, the constant humming of thoughts whizzing about in my head. If I would be patient enough to wait in the silence to hear God speak. Maybe I would get the direction and affirmation that I desperately seek. Maybe I wouldn't feel overlooked, forgotten. 

You see, God sometimes speaks to us loudly and clearly. But often I have found that it is in the quiet, in the wait that I find God's voice among the many competing distractions of my mind. Those moments, those small whispers, have impact that far outweighs their volume.