waking up… to you

that half asleep, “is there someone crying or is there some animal foraging in our driveway?” thought which only proceeds to draw the conclusion that there IS in fact a child crying. and the heart sinks and the body groans. and what in the all of this world is anyone doing awake right now?

and the hubby goes to check what exactly is the cause of this at 5:30 in the morning.

his report?

our oldest, our four year old, our wild and crazy and energy, the one who shares a room with his sister– yes… him– he has turned on the. bedroom. lights.

the one year old’s room? Yep, it is right next to this one with all crazy and crying and lights-to-bright-for-pre-dawn-of-day exploding out of it. yes, he’s up too. i mean, how could he not be?

when your day starts like that? 

you may find yourself wanting it to end as.soon.as.possible. 

well, sooner probably. 

can’t we just pull down the moon like a block-out shade?

put the kids to bed?

just try again tomorrow?

can we just skip time?

how about just pushing that little reset button? and this time we remember to turn off the light by the pull chain, making it impossible for our rambunctious to turn on the lightbulbs? Can’t we just do that?

Please?!

i know that button exists, by the way.

i just haven’t found it yet.

and then after hours of children with too-dark-circles under eyes, and a lunch which in short does not “go well,” at. all., why not load up the three children and head to the post office? i mean what could possibly happen there? 

you know, besides a child running around with one end of the waiting-line-rope unhooked from one of the anchor poles, chasing after her brother screaming “look a hook!” and something that sounded like maniacal laughter coming out of her after that sentence as she stretches in an attempt to loop that hook onto her brother.

meanwhile, the four-year-old (remember him?) yeah, he’s crashing into the greeting cards and ripping them out faster than seems humanly possible.

i hear him saying something about finding Spider-man and wanting to keep him.

and then? his sister joins him. and, after they’ve mutilated that to their disturbed satisfaction, they take to running from their mother (aka myself), who is chasing after them with a 26 pound “baby” strapped to her chest. bless my ergo-baby carrier. life line. god send. it’s not just a baby carrier y’all. it’s the only way to survive! (- there’s a reason why strapping a child to its mother is a pattern across the globe)

i know the way to make them stop. it’s to make the face. you know the one? Yep, the one that comes with the voice. the one that makes everything ugly. and let’s just be honest, it’ll only work for a couple minutes-  and quite frankly i just wanted to stay as calm as possible.

i may end up having to buy 15 “anniversary” cards and another 10 “best wishes,” but i will not lose my temper. i won’t. i don’t know how to handle this. i look them in the eyes and tell them to calm down. pull them to my legs. pick up cards as best as i can with a mega child tied to the front of me. and then?

i turn back to head into line.

there’s an adorable older woman in front of me. and bless her, she has the children wait with her while i grab envelopes. and i try to make sense of what is the difference between “priority” mail and “priority express”- yeah almost didn’t catch the +$10 price tag on that one! 

my daughter pipes up in line. my son just finished telling the lady his name is “Tucker,” and Maddi gazes up at her and asks, “Who’s your name?” 

the lady replies, “Joy.”

i only half listen as Maddi replies, “Ooooh that’s a GOOD name!” her hands to her cheeks as she tries to fully express just how much she likes the name.

within two minutes my kids are trying to “swing” on the waiting-line-rope and the baby is squirming every which way to try to watch me and them and everyone else while trying to not drop his pacifier. i grabbed the envelopes, paid for stamps, and got the “h” out of there.

“Mrs. Weasley’s “howler” would come in handy right about now.”

that’s what i am telling myself.

i doubt i’m the first. (if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, then you probably don’t understand the reference, so you should now go read the books, or at least watch the movies 😉 )

i could see me using her exact wording, “if you put another TOE out of line…” yep, that’s how i felt. but i don’t have the red hair and i don’t think i wear motherhood quite like she does. a woman you want to sit in the kitchen and just listen to, while at the same time knowing she is a force to be reckoned with.

(she may just be the epitome of my motherhood role-model.)

unfortunately, i cannot send screaming letters that explode into balls of fire after they’re done shrieking my reprimands to my children. it would be nice though.

The phrase “I’ll try again tomorrow,” morphs a bit to “Am I really going to try this again tomorrow?”

There must be an easier way.

There was something that stuck with me for the rest of the day though. You’ve probably already guessed it.

“Joy.”

is there a more beautiful name?

she didn’t give anything more than that, just the word- which at the time I found a little bit like God was smiling at me through the chaos, and a quiet voice in the back of my head telling me i can choose joy. here, in this moment. this crazy. this wrecking of government property. i can choose to find joy. to name the grace gift. to name it all.

and in the car with the kids going crazy and me crying on the phone. yeah, i can still name grace. speak truth over myself and my children.

as i put lavender and cedar wood oil combo on the bottoms of feet and put the mayhem to sleep- praying for sleep- and thanking for grace. and joy.

 

 

entry twenty four

it’s the black and the white of the world and the do’s and don’t’s and should’s and shouldn’t’s all begin to stop making perfect sense all of a sudden. and how and why the stress of something fleeting can fill up the mind and burst from the mouth?

why the tired of the day yields to the exhaustion of the constant and comes out all anger and ugly? why women need more sleep than men? or we’ll get mean. when the hunger sneaks up through the midst of perfect child chaotic mess of a day,

and the ugly

it.  just.  retches.  itself.  all.  out.

before it can be swallowed back?

when there’s so much love and yet none at all– and the thought of no longer hearing the tantrums and the tired sits okay enough within that the thought of leaving it all behind doesn’t seem horrid but pulls pleasant?

and you, you thought you were made for motherhood but all that fills you is resounding failure. that at the end of the day, what was it that was accomplished that won’t need repetition the very next day?

And tens of thousands of times after…

and it all wears thin.

and naming the grace gifts have been far from me. held off at arms length.

the race pulls at me and all i look for is the ending and the gentle soothe of knowing it is all over and i am all done. and the wanting that it won’t come fast enough.

and i am at loss.

for the desire may be good, the looking for the eternal, but it’s in such a desperation that it leaves all loathe for the place i find myself in … the here. and the now.

and how is that glorifying? and do i even care?

i want to whisper the thought – has my heart become so tired that it too has turned to all ugly? 

can i not wake long enough to name the grace that surrounds and abounds.

infant child “nu nu” sounds

young son’s desires to be as big brother

big brother desires to be baby once more

and the thought process there… oh son… you too will grow… and growth is an awfully big adventure. and sometimes it may feel all awful, that’s true. but the grace, it’s here, son. and the joy that comes from fully giving of a thanks that fully fills… to experience that, son. I pray you will live the majority of your life experiencing such a joy.

but that means you have to continue to grow. and the growth will be good. it will be hard. and it will end good.

our flesh is incredibly weak, child. and the pull of this world is wickedly sweet. but bypass the happiness to find the joy, you will find no regret there.

and here, when the desire for sleep leads to the demanding for rest and when respite is refused… to name grace. and when this feels like the hardest thing, to give thanks for the exhaustion. to give thanks for the crying. to give thanks for the never ceasing constant serving cycle of the day.

and maybe it’s time to rewrite the black and the white according to the serving of Christ that does not make the perfect of sense to the outside looking in.

-and to be okay when it’s met with the backhanded whispers and the shaking of Miss Manner’s head.

-when entertaining people may be bringing them into the realness of what is instead of a facade of something that’s all together perfect tidy.

-to fully relinquish that which causes stress and to realign priorities.

for the   eternal.   to.   matter.   more.  than the clutter that will burn and fade to nothing. 

 

entry twenty three

And the eyes ache. And the human patience has its limitations. And when eyes are pushed, and patience trembles, and all inside wants to shout out and curl into tiny quiet places- because does a woman ever have just one emotion?

and it’s all right about to be ruined.

It feels like dropping a ball over and over and over and over again… and the ferocity of it all makes me want to pick up each of these orbs and instead of catching them one. more. time. … just throw them like hot potatoes as far and fast away from my nervous system as is humanly possible.

because it hurts.

there is ache and exhaustion and a constant state of servanthood is not an easy supplication.

and the cry of my heart is to be as Christ like as possible… and with the opportunity to give all of myself on a daily basis, here I am wanting to run for the hills.

To be Maria on the mountain top once more- and to think she never would have come down if she had only known she would end up being a mother to seven.

And children are blessings? And everything for good?

And the baby screams instead of accepting sleep, and screams for days. and weeks follow slow. and this is blessed?

I sit mother over child. I stand and sway the unable-to-be-soothed-babe against my chest, and hold tight when it hits hard. For my mother heart knows the eyes need rest, and the body is weak and it is weary, but the boy-full-of-sobs doesn’t understand and he builds up defiance deep within his lung fibers, releasing bellows of indignation right to my face.

And how often do I scream at God? I am pleading for something I am not receiving, and does He not hear? And how as Father does He not just silence it all right then and there? For we are but children, and are unaware of what it is He is preparing us for, of how He is trying to give us exactly what we need in this present time… And in that black pit of the depth of my heart, am I sitting here thinking i know better?

“Shhhh” is the sound I give to my child. Eyes red and swollen, circles formed deep underneath. And more often than not I believe are faces bear similar markings of just right exhaustion. Or maybe we are fighting against the thing we need most. When we cocoon within our own commiserating and refuse to let in the light which might just warm us through to the very tips of our being…

the holding of grudges, the withholding of grace. forgiveness. thanks. we deny joy, and cling to the rot of our own misery. And we stand against the Father and declare we know better. And it all, all of defiance, may in fact sound like a tired defiant infant child.

And then thankfulness may fill up the heart and overflow out the mouth for the realization that the perfect Father is the one standing over this time- this life- and He. is. Patience.

Just as we want to give our children every good and beautiful thing- He gives us all good- all of Him– for all of us, and of that good there will always be enough.

And the baby quiets, the sleep-suckling takes over, and there is grace. and He is here. And we can rest in Him.

entry seventeen

“If authentic, saving belief is the act of trusting, then to choose stress is an act of disbelief… atheism.” (Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts 148)

and how easy to choose stress in motherhood. to let the fears of this world wholly consume until there is no trust left inside the depths of this heart. no longer does anxiety come upon me as I contemplate my own life, but now as I look at the three lives entrusted to my care. stress. my mind is prone to gallop full speed into lands rich with anxiety and cares that are solely of this world. and trust is absent.

to believe. it’s a verb. an action. a choice. to wake up to every day and choose the cares of this world and the blackened fear that accompanies- or to believe, to trust, that God is not only God, but that He is good. and the thankfulness of the soul builds up the trust in the God who has made all the things good.

to choose to name thanksgivings. to receive the joy from the trust that is built upon the act of naming thanks.

blue eyes color of Colorado skies perfect there on my daughter’s face

the strength of my family as my father battles the cancer 

and is this the ugly beautiful? that beauty can be seen out of something so unbelievably ugly? that the very thing that could easily cause the rush of fear has in fact created a stronger trust? that community rises up and takes breath right out of lungs while the waters rush to the eyes- because of the loving trust of One who is greater. who is good.

“I shake my head at the blinding wonder of it: Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks. Remembering frames up gratitude. Gratitude lays out the planks of trust. I can walk the planks – from known to unknown – and know: He holds.” (One Thousand Gifts 152)

perfect chub of baby hand held close to perfect round cheek

sideways baby smile – the response to hearing my voice – and the wonder of that full of love overflowing all consuming feeling

the baby-turned-child-turning-boy in fast-sleep in my husband’s arms

the laughter of late night friendships

a day of quiet

sun strokes dancing in daughter’s strands of hair

the boy joy of running down grassed hill

the child wonder of the nature that surrounds

the child like faith.

the unflinching trust in the parent’s provision.

and why as parents does that slip through fingers like the boat’s hull slips along the water’s surface? the water forgets the boat’s presence, and have I too so easily forgotten? and am I teaching my children to trust or am I teaching them to fear? do I clutch for a handhold of this world and strive to hold their hands a little tighter when their lives are not in my hands at all?

these lives labored into this world- and the laboring didn’t end in the delivery room- it just began there. but these lives, these three, created in womb and gifted to me are three things more that are required to in turn be entrusted back to Him. to be name-thanked and grace-given, and trusted to Him completely.