I am thankful you guys are all patient with me.  I am a terribly vacant writer lately, and truth be told- I have loved every moment of my net-vacation.  I have wanted a couple of weeks to decompress and avoid excess voices in my head.  To simply be, in the midst of a busy life I am wanting always to love.  And unplugging is the key for me.  I have always seemed to have this love/hate with the Internet.  I love it, but I sometimes dislike what it does to me and to others.  What it creates as community, in the face of real community.  Real people are always more challenging, but boy- are they worth it!  Real friends will make you reach beyond yourself at times, and it will be uncomfortable.  But just beyond the uncomfortable lies being known, and when you are known, you can be loved.  When you give and receive love with real faces and real souls behind those faces- there is nothing better.

I was totally humbled in the face of a Bible study topic I chose to facilitate last week.  I love to plan and lead discussions.  I love the note-taking and the organizing.  I love making something in a book jump off the pages and become real.  I love sharing life with other women, and watching us all grow and change in our knowlege of God’s goodness.  There are not many things that fill me with so much amazement that I come alive in the face of them.  My kids bring me to life.  My husband constantly raises my dead and tired spirit.  But sitting in a group of other wives and Moms and sharing any struggles I have had and continue to have.  And raising my hands in mutual recognition of the fact that I am nothing without Christ: that makes me come alive.  Give me moderating discussion over doing the dishes any day! 

My topic was Contentment in Relationships.  And the amazing part of preparing for this study was the preparation of my own heart.  There are some thought-provoking questions in the back of the book, and they caused me to write and write and journal and journal and cross-reference Scripture until I was quite at peace with my quiet wrestlings, which started out as quite loud rumblings.

But here is the nature of the biggest struggle of my year: forgiveness.   And this is something I explored and covered quite fully in my discussion Wednesdsay morning.  Because I needed to hear myself work it through, but also because as I sit and listen and read between the lines of any of my friends’ stories, there is constantly woven the threads of struggle to forgive.  Someone.  For something.

And you know?  Often, or more times than not, I assess forgiveness as a response to hands held out for it.  Like, we talk about things, we air our sides of the story and then we forgive in mutual recongition of our mutual baggage.  Isn’t that what forgiveness is?  A mutuality?

Sometimes.  But what happens if you are called to forgive outside the boundaries of justice?  Like, what if it is a one-sided venture? 

What happens if forgiveness is not fair? 

What if forgiveness means that we let a person away with their harmful and hurtful wounds they have inflicted on us?

What if forgiveness lessens the sense of justice and power we feel we have?

What if forgiveness is one-sided?

Because that would make it a gift. 

And gifts are GIVEN.

What if?

The last 2 months I have finally realized my need to apply forgiveness to several relationships.  I had never thought about whether I had forgiven or not, because I had forgotten.  Or maybe I hadn’t.  Either way, God saw fit to REMIND me of what I had forgotten, or tried to forget.  He dredged up many memories and comments and divisions.  He turned me to His Word in which I saw face-first that I am not asked to forgive, I am told to forgive.  He allowed the pain of several unreconciled circumstances to swirl so vividly through my mind that for a moment I drowned, but came to the surface wanting air.  Fresh air. 

 And without God’s healing application, there is no fresh air in the soul of an un-forgiver.

In all this, I fear I sound a victim, but I am not.  Humanly speaking, life is a battleground and can become a wasteland when we allow the disappointments and frustrations turn us toxic.  We either sink or swim.  Drown or come up for air that can save us.  The many and varied challenges of our lives either turn us stony and stoic, perhaps angry and bitter, maybe hopeless and lifeless.  Or they become the materials with which we become alive.  Finally, wholly alive.  Our ending point is generally God’s beginning, and though it seems cruel at the time, He is amazingly loving.  Journal your thoughts somewhere.  And you will without intending to, possess a record of the loving hand of God.

In Christ, we are breathed life into.  Unforgiveness is costly and life-ending.  Covering over an offense promotes love and tangibly thanks a God who hung with nails to paint a picture of what forgiveness looks like.  I suppose what I am trying to say is forgiving is a struggle to the death.  Or it’s the opening to life that is truly life.

A reader wrote to me recently to link an article another had written.  And in this well-written piece was a quote I shall record, because it summarizes better than my paragraphs can.

“Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed.”

I am 31, and already I have a trail of wounds behind me.  Because I am sad and pathetic and maybe a victim?  No.  Because life is imperfect and humans are hurtful.  At least, I know I am.   Until Christ makes all things new we will long for relationships that are without pain and free of the lashes of others.  How I wish others were free of my lashes!  But for now, we are suspended in the not-yet and are living for God’s glory with a whole lot of sin.  Sin has consequences and by my age, everyone has been affected brutally by their own baggage and that of others.

I am so thankful that a good and righteous God has chosen to send me into 2011 with a realization of and the desire to live out forgiving.  Like I said, I had never pin-pointed that there was anything to forgive, when all was neatly forgotten.  But there were these ghosts and they were vanquished in part by the light-bulb of this:

Letting go of the fact that I wish the past could be changed.

There is freedom in letting go.

Yesterday began like any other.  I woke the kids and served breakfast and packed lunches and helped with shoes.  I cleaned up the messes strewn throughout the house- they are always everywhere!

And then following car-pool, Will and I had a Costco-date.  My kids are all in school together this week with nobody home sick.  I am in shock!  For the record, Will is not the funnest date ever.  Have you ever been on a date with someone who yelled at you and threw things out of your purse?  Or who tugged on your necklace and hurled your cell-phone down to the ground?  That is more-or-less a date with Will.  His incoming molars are contributing to his long-winded cries lately, but I also attribute a good dose of willful human nature to the problem.   I get stares everywhere I go now, when Will is fighting for his rights, and older ladies sometimes scowl.  And I realize memory-loss related to previous child-bearing, does begin around 45.  

Anyhow, I also wonder at times if living in the closet has turned him against me. 

But, I settled  Little Love into his carseat, and loaded up Emma and our neighbor and looked back to see Will jabbering away.  He is always jabbering, which is fun when it is joyful.  But many times it is angry.  Anyhow, the thing that struck me as odd in this encounter was not his chattering.  But the fact that somehow between house and car, Will turned up wearing lipstick.  I turned around to get a better look, and sure enough his lips were a bright cherry red.  All smudged over the corners of his mouth, and on his cheek.

Then we arrived at the gas station and the wind picked up.  I shivered and filled the car, and when I went to replace the gas nozzle it would NOT quit.  Gas sprayed all over my pants and shoes.  Oh and, I had not one baby wipe left in the car.  So, Will and I trudged through Costco getting groceries, I smelling like the Gulf oil spill and Will wearing red lipstick- which I could not wipe off, because remember? No baby-wipes.

It is a good thing faith is bigger than life, or I would surely grow faint in the face of the daily humiliation we face together.

Full of ingredients and new ideas- because Costco always inspires me- I decided to bake cookies and banana bread.

I have to mix both things separately- because Anna is allergic to all tree nuts, and even the doughs mixing, will give her very big lips.  Itchy throat.  Followeed by vomiting.  She now has an Epi-Pen at school and one for my purse. 

Speaking of Anna: She and Josh have been feverishly looking up the meaning of names online.  Anna was content to learn that her name means: God’s grace.  And Josh was equally pleased that his means: God rescues.

Anna evidently shared her latest hobby at school with her friends.  Because she came home last night with a list of 8 names her class-mates wanted her to look up.  She was so excited for this task, and set to it with great gusto, but moments later came into the room a little ruffled.  It turns out that her sweet little friend Rachel has the unfortunate name-meaning of :a female sheep.

Anna has a good sense of diplomacy and she does not like to embarass people, or make them feel awkward.  But she could not figure this name-shebang out.  There is she, all regal in God’s grace.  And her little friend relegated to being a wooly thing, forever.  She asked whether she should lie to her friend and make up a new meaning for her name.  And I reassured her that obviously she should not lie, but instead tell her friend to look up her name by herself.  And that might solve the uncomfortable problem.  It turns out another meaning was revealed: innocent lamb.  So Pat advised her to simply tell her friend that her name means Innocent.

Anna came home triumphant that she followed Pat’s lead.  Her friend was quite pleased with Inncocent.

If you are looking for a good breakfast bread, this recipe turned out well.  And it will be our breakfast for the next few mornings.

Banana - Pecan Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour (or sub. some whole-wheat)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed well

6 tbsp melted butter

2 large eggs

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup pecans

Set oven to 350 and combine ingredients together in a bowl and blend well.  Butter a 9×5 loaf pan, and place in oven.  Bake for 50 minutes or so.  And enjoy the feeling of have accomplished something!

Enjoy your Wednesday all!  I am off to Bible Study this morning, which is a high-point in my week, and a low-point in Will’s.  He shrieks with gusto each time that nursery comes in sight:).

Pat and I have reached new high’s or lows – as the case may be- and falling asleep around 8 or so each evening.  I think we are finally catching up on the rest we have needed for weeks now, with lots of up-in-the-nights and kids needing us through the early hours.

The good half of this habit is that we wake early and have great conversations.  Like, for instance this morning, Pat told me about a dream he had in which a hyena was pulling a mini-van along.  We get to know the early-morning side of the other, which is a very different perspective than the rest of the day.

Pat always has bizarre dreams and I have rolled my eyes for a decade now at his sleeping escapades.  There was the time he was moaning in his sleep incessantly, so I woke him.  And he told me he was dreaming of being chased by a dinosaur.

Or the time he woke in fear that my Mom had tied him up in the basement.

My husband has quite a vivid imagination, which is something to be celebrated in his designing at work.  Or his approach to problems.  But can cause great consternation for him at night.

Pat and I have hobbled along a touch lately.  I doubt he would care if I mentioned this, since he knows I share everything else on here!  We have been bearing large stresses and have found ourselves too tired to nurture our marriage very much.  The other night we lay in bed and laid out exactly how we need to reach one another.  Every so often we have a State of the Union, so to speak and review again our love languages and how to interpret love to the other.

This year is our 10-year anniversary and it is truly awesome to look back at the decade we have been committed to each other.  It has been far from perfect.  It has been learning to love with a lot of interruption.  Learning to love with more grace than we have, humanly speaking. Learning to love in the midst of raising multiple children.  Learning to fight fair.  In fact, learning HOW to fight.  Learning how to resolve.  Learning how to have fun.  Learning how to exercise patience and kindness.  Learning how to elevate the other, and not give the best to the kids, and serve one another the left-overs.

One commitment we have made for the New Year is to plan a date once each month.  A real date.  We are terrible about never going on real dates -where we dress up and go out together.  I would also like to take turns planning, so he plans for me.  Then, I plan for him.  Sometimes I just need a prompt to make myself think creatively on Pat’s behalf. 

A habit Pat has gotten into is sending me a text each day: something encouraging that communicates love and support.

Ten years ago I would have thought that I might need more stuff out of marriage.  More things which communicate love.  But it boils down to thought and attention for me.  For most women, I think.  We just want our husbands to notice us and to be appreciative for how we show love to our families. Whether by doing endless laundry.

Working with the kids, to ensure that they excel in their talents, improve in their struggles.

Cleaning up a house again, and again and again.  A cycle that ends never, but order that is created out of love.  Because it takes order to be a functioning family.

The noticing the daily is obvious to us, but not to them.  Their needs are self-evident in their eyes, but we are blind to them.  Lots of our talks boil down to the same issues time and again, but were it not for the reminder, we would revert into ourselves and drift and drift.

This month is Valentine’s Day- the biggest opportunity of the calendar year to show love.  It’s a marital requirement to show love this day.  It’s fun for women.  But I honestly think that many women want more of a Valentine’s Day approach to daily life.  You know how the cards say: Thank you for being my wife, my friend, etc.?

I wonder if many marriages would be boosted a hundred-fold if men simply told their wives daily: Thank you for being my friend.  I love that you love our children.  Etc.  That kind of thing means so much to women.  And often men think that monthly big things mean the most to us, when in reality simple, daily doses of love are our FOOD.

But guys need to be told this.  It’s kind of unromantic, because women want men to be beautiful mind-readers.  But they are not.  And they need to be reminded often of what makes us feel loved.  And then we need to be willing to love them how they want to be loved too.  (And that is not proper for a blog:)).  And then the whole comes together and it is something worth working toward.  Something beautiful, because it is so selfless.  Totally based on someone else’s needs.

Marriage takes so much prayer and forgiveness.  I have been amazed over the years at what deep wounds we can hand the other.  How I would never do to anyone else, say to anyone else…the things I would do or say to Pat.  He has been receiver of my absolute best and my absolute worst.

It is a forgiveness and reconciliation and the totality of a whole and real-love worth celebrating.

Someone emailed me to ask where I had gone to.  So I pinched myself and clarified that I am still here and I am still breathing.  But oh, the noise.  Sometimes the Internet is such grand noise to me and I want to clear my head and be monastic and escape and be still.

So, I had this little vacation from the Internet.  And on this vacation, I realized that were it not for the ability to email easily, I would disconnect from Facebook entirely. But then a great neighbor emails me about something meaningful, or a need we can meet together, or to say hello.  And I am instantly back on board.  Technology is such a gift!

My children are almost healthy, though Will is cutting molars and making it abundantly clear that he is doing so.  Our darling caboose has quite the passionate temper.  Again, he got that from Pat.

The other day, I took Emma and Will to lunch.  A sweet little Mom beside me remarked on how when I told Will : No, he listened.    .  She remarked about how advanced it was.  I reassured her that it was simply a momentary happenstance, and would likely end momentarily because, hello?  Knock on wood, with no wood to be found.  And wouldn’t you know, he writhed to get out of his seat.  He yelled through lunch.  He threw his drink down.  He said Mama, Mama in not a very kind fashion, while grasping for the buckle on the highchair. 

I think she actually felt quite reassured about her own parenting as she left.  Sometimes I consider our poor behavior a gift to others.  Not the noise per se, but because in that small taste of time it elevates another person in their own sense of mothering.  We try to do our part to build others up, us Helms.

My silly Willy.  He is such a handful.  And I love him so much more with time.  Isn’t that the oddest combination?  As children become more challenging, your love also grows with the simultaneous exposure to them.  Love grows with time and despite difficulties, I suppose.

I have worked a touch on our house.  Pat was horrified that I slid a second-hand book-shelf into the car last week.  He HATES second-hand furniture because it looks used.  And that is precisely why I like it.  I like that look on furniture.  It looks used within minutes anyway, so why not save the heart-ache of watching the downward spiral?

Anyway, generally I can find a way to convince him of how brilliant my methods are.  But the problem this time around was, I scratched the floor while moving the bookshelf around.  And so, just when I thought I would win him over to my improvement, the scratch came along and messed everything up.  Sometimes I believe that the way Pat will die is through a heart-attack brought on by a reaction to the house.  You should really hear the man in his fits of passion about this place:

The kids.  They ruin everything!

Please do not buy any more paint.  They have already painted the stair-railings.

Look at the couch!  It’s wrecked!  Etc.  Etc.

But he also realizes how keeping up our space is more my love than his, and he bites his tongue mostly.  Though I can see in his eyes the pain and suffering of the second-hand life.

There are not many things that ruffle him entirely, but the ruination of the house can get him going like nothing else!  I am so used to everything being decapitated and battered.  Plus, I like the distressed look and kids are really good for that.

Anyway, I placed metal bins in my book-case, which was wondrously impressive to me, because I measured in my head while using the last of my Christmas money. Spot on for me! 

 3 bins across fit perfectly for all the toys we seem to absorb into this space. 

I then slid my pea-coat under the hutch and slid it over to the front entry-way, so no more scratches would appear.  Brilliant, mes amis? (my friends, plural French).

And then, because I was painting everything else, I hit this hutch too!  My $15 Goodwill piece.  Was orange, but it made my eyes burn after a while, so I painted it grey.  Josh was relieved, Anna disappointed- which actually reflects their personalities well.  He- conservative.  She-risk-taker.

Thank you for inquiring about my whereabouts.  That is awfully sweet of you.  I simply took an Internet breather and it was really nice, actually.  We have had some big things to think through, and extra thought was not an option for me.  Big decisions take big brain cells.  But I feel confident and peaceful about the direction we have chosen.  And excited about opportunities that lie ahead!

 What have you guys been up to, in my recent abandonment of you?

I’m popping on here for a tenth of a minute, because it’s a goal to do so, and ducks in a row are a comforting thing.  My ducklings have NOT been in a row recently, and so control in small areas is a fulfilling thing!   Like I said before, stomach bugs do not inspire greatness, and this I am learning by exploration.

Incidentally, Moms do not get sick easily, do we?  I am thankful for this.  And yet perplexed.  How can we be so face-to-face with Plague, and not contract it?  It’s probably a good thing we don’t, because the amount of night-call we have been doing, would not be easily accomplished with The Bug.

My heroics are documented forever here.  I bathed Will with some lovely-smelling new soap last night, and here are the results of that choice:

He instantly turned into a polka-dot.  Red and white, which just happens to be my favorite combination of dots, yet not in human form, I realize now.  His rash retreated quickly upon rinsing and time.  And now I know that Bath and Body Works is not for my baby!

We are busy meeting school dead-lines.  Practicing reading and working multiplication tables.

Enjoying  my Bible Study.  So very much.  I am grateful for Pat’s ability to work from home, so that I could go and learn yesterday, even with a sick child at home.  I am absorbing from this group of women already, and much of it in the form of the ones just a stage or two ahead of me, who are sharing openly who and what they are.  Who and what God is.  I am reminded often to be available down the road, to attend studies when I am older.  So that I can share the life-skills and wisdom I have gained at 50, with the Moms behind me, who need encouragement and perspective.  (This is Will, doing the back-scoot.  He back-scoots when he does not get his way.  In lieu of a tantrum, he slides back on the floor and waits for me to sympathize with him).  Where was I?  Oh yes, perspective!

It is fitting that we are studying Contentment, because the circle of us documents that every woman has a  story of why she needs encouragement in this area.  Marriage, children, wayward children, empty-nesting.  It is good to be together, to pray one another through the hills and the valleys.  To build each other up.

My verse of choice lately comes from Zephaniah 3:16,17:

The Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.

The Lord will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with His love.

He will rejoice over you with singing!  

Every morning these are the words I have been reviewing in my mind.  The truth that today, God rejoices over me with singing!  Does that sound odd?  Or uncomfortable?  Or too emotive?  It might, based on the comfort-level we have with emotion or passion.  But the truth is: my children fill my heart in a way that Pat and I could not have imagined, before we were parents.  I rejoice over their accomplishments with: praise, high-five’s, ice-cream rewards, and sometimes great shouts of: That’s awesome!

God is Father in His Word.  No matter how unavailable or distant or unloving your ”real” Dad is or was, God presents Himself in the Bible as the Father who REJOICES over you with singing! 

I can be face-down in vomit with those promises in my heart, and there is joy.   I can smell terrible things, and the scent of beautiful words is more powerful.

I have nothing much else to say today, so on to cooking and laundering and car-pool.  At least one of my children has been ill since November 8th – minus one glorious heatlhy weekend- and so I have noticed that while my heart is at peace and God has stretched my limits of patience, I am numb in the brain.  They are night-crawlers now and find beauty in coming into our bed at all hours.  There is a subtle beauty in this which has not escaped me, because they are secure and they are loved.  And they can tap on our pillows and know that we will love and attend to them, and tuck them in again.  And again.  Again.  With hugs and kisses, and all the security that is given night-by-night that we pray will stretch out into a life-time of confidence. 

And a security that is rooted in the fact that every new morning, we will begin fresh.  We will put aside the interrupted night and still rejoice over them. 

Perhaps even with singing!

One night a week, I escape.  Or once every other week - just depending- I find myself a soft spot to land and drive through the darkness into somewhere that promises rest.  And quiet.

Tonight I called my sister and she asked where I was going, and I replied.  I am driving really quickly away from my house.  I could have driven into a swamp and found rest, so ridiculously long have the past few days been.  I meandered in my Mini (van, that is) to Borders and promptly developed a concentrational disability which would not allow me to focus. 

 I so badly wanted to sit with a lap-top and write.  But I looked out across the store and realized we could not be married this night.  Nope.  Me and intellectualism could not find a commonality worth sharing, so I dropped the vision and went in search of something else.  Something deeper.

I strolled into Pottery Barn and soaked up the beautifully orchestrated worlds that exist only in store-fronts and wondered to myself who would rightly pay $80 for a small glass lantern? 

 What Will could do with that is a question open to anyone’s guess.  I lifted objects and studied price tags, and realized that garage sales spoil you on retail.  When your bottom-line is 5o-cents, it’s hard to go back.

I admired the store set-ups. 

 I openly enjoyed the staging–because Pottery Barn does an awesome job at staging, and then walked next door to the Gap.  A much better choice.  I strolled around, really quite energetic – especially for a Mom who had cleaned up:

1.  projectile vomit

2. diahrrea on my bedroom carpet

…just hours earlier.

It was hard to be frustrated about this whole episode, for the rendition of the song Emma’s sweet little voice kept singing out in earnest earlier in the day: Swing Lo, sweet Cheeri-o. 

That sweet little Cheeri-o was not so cheery-o today.  But I kept thinking that if she thinks her life is complicated, she should really try leaning face-forward in somebody else’s poop, and cleaning if off of the rug of the room that is supposed to inspire romance.

That my friends, is complicated.  Today I spent far too many beautiful moments eye-to-eye with things I do want to see on my rug, ever again.

After growing weary of the Gap and knowing that the next trail of sales will come when I least expect them, I left with empty hands.  But yet duly inspired that the Spring nautical theme is on its way, and that it looks like ballet flats are here to stay too.  Phew.

My legs found their way to Banana Republic, where I was chirpily told: Everything on sale is an additional 50% off!  That is a good thing when the baseline prices are exorbitant at best, and rainboots cost $100.  You NEED to have a sale when rubber costs that much.

I bought slippers.  $4.39. 

I debated trying to read at the bookstore again, but my will departed through my finger-tips.  And I decided that tonight I would simply be a dummy.  I did not want to read.  To think.  Or process.

My Mini embraced me as I drove, and for once I did not turn on any music.

When I am alone and the kids are not around to set a bad example for, I normally listen to hip-hop.  It’s my hidden deviancy, because we all have a dark side and this is mine.  I turn the music up loud and I honestly love the rhythm and the pulse of “black-people” music.

Speaking of black people: I stopped at Goodwill on my way home, which surprises exactly nobody reading here.  And was stopped in my tracks by the very pale, tall white tower-of-a-Cuacasian-man speaking Ebonics to the African-American employees in the store.

Girl, I was all like…

And I was all like: What are you doing?  Who are you?  Have you looked in the mirror recently and realized that not only are you white, you are translucent?  You cannot speak Black-talk.  Ever.  Never, ever.  It causes great consternation to others, and it most definitely defiles the second-hand environment around you.  People are trying to concentrate here!  Finding things without broken zippers is more stressful than you may realize!

Of course, I thought all of this and said none of this, because he is really nice and always helpful and I needed to know immediately what the color-of-the-week was.

Yellow.  Not black.

Now, there is black-people time.  And there is black-people talk.  And this is an area of culture that should be left alone for African Americans to sort out.  They understand the tones and the under-tones and the emphases.  White people just don’t.  And the whiter you are, the worse Ebonics sounds.  A little Latino and you can get away with it.  But my friend at Goodwill, you are too snowflake and my head is hurting now because of you.

Anyway, after witnessing this embarassment which made me want to crawl under the rack and wait until morning, I left.  It was all too much for me.  This crossing of linguistic boundaries.  I was tired and cross-culturally emotionally exhausted.

Back to my story.  I bought Emma-the-Shoeless some shoes.  She would have done better in another century, her loathing for footwear being great as it is.  The only shoes Emma will wear are Crocs or Furry Uggs or Ugly Things.   If it is the ugliest shoe or boot on the entirety of the Earth’s surface, she will find it to be lovely and beautiful.  She will love it and take pride in it and nurture it with everything inside.

If it is classy or elegant.  If it bears the stamp of Stride Rite or some brand of heightened quality, she will roar and gnash teeth and hurl the offending item far, far away.

These Pedoodles (from Goodwill where I left my friend) may not stand a chance, but I am going to try. 

Try hiding away all the Ugly Things first, and see if we can force a match.

Thanks for joining me on my night out.   On my bonding, rapping, Mini-driving, mini-vacation.  Just me and 7 seats, cruising into the darkness.

What do you with your time off?

I am wrestling to be back on board with January Reflections, after a week-break to allow for a different kind of life.  One as a Mom to 5.  You guys clearly enjoyed my trials and tribulations, my plunging into the depths and corners of chaos.  Glad I could supply a laugh to you mean, mean people!  We enjoyed our week, and I saw that the heart’s capacity to love expands greatly.  Love for each and every child is there, because God magnifies and intensifies love.  Mom-love grows exponentially – and that is a simple parental fact.

I have been writing and recording and making record of our January.  This journal should be full by March, but it is good to see the train of thought as I put pen to paper.  It is neat to see that as God promises that when we place our trust in Him, He will make our paths straight – that such is the life of this notebook.

The path straightens with each page.  Commit yourself to the attributes of God exercise if you are wandering and wondering.  Write down 5 words to describe God as HE says He is.  It has been extraordinarily helpful to me, this exercise.  It has strengthened and sharpened my vision for who God is, not just in the heavenly sense.  But in His  daily nature, too.  Life is tough.  We need the daily aspects of God to live in our thoughts too.

Our weekend was a slow one.  More sickness.  More quiet days.  I escaped for a few hours on Saturday, due to the kindness of Pat.  And threw on those skinny jeans I have come to love.  And was thoroughly mortified when I arrived home to realize that I had worn skinny jeans and Transgression AND vomit while running my errands.  I felt so cool for a few moments.  But Mom-life NEVER lets me feel cool for long – God desires my humility.

I took a photo of this still-life.  My dusted room.  My victory over the smudges.

If Will were to be given a Viking name, it would be Will-the-Destructive.

He is not content for long, away from Mama’s side.  And he is also not content for long, away from smashing and destroying.

I admired the shadows, as they crept into the front room.  The sunshine pouring through the window.  And I turned the flash of the camera off, and wondered how to ever capture light and shadows.  And in the meantime, Will thumped and chipped away at my candles, until they were sufficiently dented.  And he rested, sufficiently happy.

The older children spent 2 hours crafting.  First, Emma made me this lovely painting.

And then all three pored over the wonder that is marshmallow structures!  My cousin - a real-life mom to 5- alerted me to the goodness that is marshmallows + toothpicks.

We made castles and forts, and even painted a flag for the top.

Pat was duly impressed with the level of concentration, and subsequent relaxation that overtook the house. 

We even had people created, in the end.

 Isn’t imagination an awesome thing?

The happiest of Mondays to you all! 

Another week to be busy and attending to responsibilities.  Another week to taste and see that God is good – in the daily elements of normal life.

I was struck by a most profound statement, spoken by none other than my BFF,  Nancy Leigh Demoss.  She was speaking about relationships and particularly those among women.  And here is what she said - (paraphrased, because I have read and listened so much lately, I cannot distinguish my sources anymore):

It is really easy to say that you would die for another person.  For your friends.  But it’s much harder to actually live for them.

Living for.  Living with.  Living near.  It takes work.  Sometimes it’s easy to feel grounded and completely passionate about the desires of our hearts.  We want to do right.  We want to think right.  We want to live according to the Bible’s commands, according to its clear-cut words applied to life. 

And we MIGHT think right.  And we might strive to be Godly.  And we might become one with our ideas so much that they are us and we are them, and we simply do not realize in the good-hearted passion of our own heart’s ideals, that:

Feet do the talking.

If we think we love, but do not walk in action the path of love, we are not loving. 

If we think we embrace, but do not stop to ever actually make contact, there is not love grown there.

If we speak and know and believe so hard it hurts, but do nothing with our background of knowlege, we do not love.

If we do not apply, our ideas are just ideas.  Of no more value than any other world-view orbiting the cosmos.

So, ask yourself: Do you love?  Are you only willing to die for, because that is unlikely to happen and maybe nothing will be asked of you, in the end?

Or do you live?  And if so, how will you live and who will you live for today?

There are always people God brings to mind, that we can give 5-minutes of living to.

(I love my BFF.  She always sets me straight).

I woke in the morning to the thumps and bumps and giggles of toddlers unleashed in the bed-room.

It was no surprise then, to enter the room an hour later and to find the canopy over the bed – simply unhinged.  A spot of dusty drywall on the ceiling, a canopy free at last, below.  The half of the toddler twin-set responsible for this disturbance?

Two clues: 1) has a peanut  2) does not have bosoms

Isn’t he beautiful?  This little toddler-monkey.

The 3 little ones and I trundled out the door yesterday morning, in a blur of shoes-on-the-wrong-feet, no jackets and cries of : “I’m hungry!”  I promised snacks at church and assured them we would warm up in the car.  There would be no jackets this morning.  I grabbed my pager at the nursery and waited for it to vibrate me to death.  I had delivered a seriously load of energy to those kind workers.  But, no vibrations and I was very pleased.

The topic for my Bible Study is: Contentment.  And our facilitator spoke from Psalm 16:5. 

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup. She emphasized the word: ASSIGN.  And I was left to drive home to the shrill shrieks of kids begging for Tacos!, also plugging in to the quiet stirrings of my own heart.  Lord, what are my assignments for today?  For tomorrow?  Help me to fulfill them.  Not merely well, but with grace.  With mercy.  Love and kindness.  With joy.  These are my assignments from You.

This morning I have a list of assignments for another day with 5 little ones.  And it is good to pray over these things, because altogether they are overwhelming.  But piece-by-small-piece, they are manageable.  And I want to exercise joy in every piece.

We came home from Bible Study to a quick lunch of cheese.  Do not judge.  Micah wanted cheese for lunch.  So, he ate untold ounces of orange cheese and that was lunch.  Quick.  Easy.  Unbalanced.

Then, the big kids arrived home and I decided to infinitely complicate life.  Let’s paint!

Will took his place on top of the table.  I removed him.  He scrambled up.  I placed him in the high-chair.  He wriggled out.  It it merely irony that I checked out a book on Houdini from the library?

Each child had a vision.  Anna, for the Titanic.  Josh, sea creatures.  Emma and Micah?  Sort of Kandinski in nature.  Lots of blobs and squares.

Meanwhile, Will unearthed the hidden bribery.  Mama, Mama he begged, while chasing me all over the kitchen.

Cheese-balls.  I opened the container because I had paint on the floor, taco-filling burning on the stove-top and a million cries of Help Me!  coming from a million different corners of the home.

Once his back turned and he lost interest in the orange, I emptied those digusting chemical-orbs into the sink. 

Bye bye, future medical complications. 

I could think of no place to hang the myriads of art-work I was presented all afternoon long.  I found some yarn and clothes-pins and strung a line across the window.

All were sufficiently pleased, and sufficiently proud.  Though Anna was discombobulated over her Titanic.  The poor people should be on the lower level, the wealthy on the top.  Mom, if we were to be on the Titanic, which level would we be on?  Top, middle, or lower level?  Well, I don’t know Anna.  This is a recession.  With the fall of the American dollar….

We also had some “fresh” issues with the tongue, which had to be righted.  And in my confrontation of the issue, she assured me: Mom, I am not sassy, I’m just dramatic. 

I wish Pat were not so dramatic.  This is his doing.

My portion, my assignment for the day is to return Micah to Mimi.  I have lots of driving and some sleepy children.  I have a husband with a looming, large dead-line tomorrow.  He needs patience and grace to complete.  He is tired and I am tired.  And that is where faith comes in: God has assigned me THIS portion today.

And He gives the grace to fulfill the portion. 

The dark winter morning began early.  The older 2 are in school just down the road, and need to be moving and shaking by 6:45 am.  Which means I need to be moving and shaking- or caffeine-induced twitching- by 5:45 am.  My friend calls this early rising “playing offense”, and rising without enough time, “playing defense”.  I so agree.

By 8am, my belated Christmas gift to Micah was causing my ears to bleed.  I told the Pied Piper of Hamelin that we would retire the flute for the time being.  He complied easily and up it went, out of sight.  

After round 1 of school-shuffle, we did round 2 and Emma headed out to her private pre-school down the road.  This left Micah and Will and I some time to tidy up and head to the library.  The librarian exclaimed over Micah’s beauty – so true- and over Will’s great behavior.  Now, I live with Will and he is actually quite demonic these days, so I was pleasantly pleased with this encouragement, but quick to explain that we were simply experiencing a good day.  Because seriously, it was just a good day.

Immediately after this uplifting statement, I turned around and Will had upended each tiny chair in the child’s reading section.  I set all to rights and excused ourselves before any more damage was inflicted on the library.   That sweet librarian- I know her from experience, and she loves and tends to that place like it is a little sanctuary, she loves it so. 

The older kids arrived home and the 4 collectively convinced me we should eat ice-cream, because it is Tuesday, or something like that.  My will-power is generally strong, but I grow weak in the face of demands after noon.  I start to slump around that time, and my perceptive off-spring are on to that.

So, ice-cream it was.  Two friends swung over and picked up 2 kids, so that whittled our numbers down to 2 toddlers and 1 baby.

That’s right, this baby.  Will knew that I was making head-way on dinner and had swept the floor.  Hee hee, Mother was the cry of his tiny black heart.

While he was stomping and scattering snacks, Micah used this opportunity to tell me how near at hand starvation was, and I simply sat he and Will down in that pile of honeyed pretzel rods and let them eat.  And eat and eat.

In no time at all, I had a tiny Ziploc-baggie full of pretzels and that was it.  Snacks for tomorrow:).

The toddlers did play-doh for a few minutes and I caught myself ignoring Will licking the varying colors.

Emma then asked if she and Micah could help me clean.  I inwardly debated.  Because all Moms know what a mop and a toddler combine into.  A weapon.

Like I said, I grow weary after lunch and my resistance is poor.  So, I relented and merely tuned out the drip, drip, drip of the sodden mop.

Drip, drip of the soggy cloth on the wall.  Rain-drops splattering onto the floor below.  Will skidding in the slick tracks.

Be still my inner OCD.  Fly away, every nit-picky compulsion.  This is buying you time.

I set to work on my calzones.  Using the same recipe as the pizza dough I referenced last week.  

Roll out the dough and spoon filling into the middle- I made a grown-up version for Pat and I, and a steak/cheese and tomato version for the kids.

Roll up into a half-moon shape and pinch the ends off, so filling and cheese does not come bubbling out.

Set oven to 400 degrees, brush calzones with butter and bake for 10 minutes or so.  Until lightly browned. 

And in the mean-time, hide your lipsticks away.  This is what I learned yesterday, among other life-lessons.  Rolling dough is just enough time to allow a Baby a sample-session of what is in Mom’s purse.  In this case, tasting the berriest shade of lip-color that can be found, by Cover Girl.

I set my chomped-up lip-stain down on the counter.  Right beside the eraser Pat was given by someone-who-shall-remain-nameless.  And I started to smile and become very lost in this joke played on me. 

Because I could not help but admire the accidental still-life that real-life had just created.

And once again, the house and the homework and the bath-times came together and by 7pm, it was clean and ready to go…for another day!