What To Do When the Scrambler Stops Spinning

The scrambler is always my favorite ride at any theme park.

Not much of one for a roller coaster with even as much as one loop, I'm the girl who sticks to the small rides. With two little people following along who are near waist high now, the scrambler is the perfect size for them and all the more fun for me.

I've stood in that line of anticipation a few times this summer and with one passing group of riders after the next,  I've noticed something.

Standing on the brink of what I call the next phase of motherhood, this summer has felt a bit to me like I'm on the exit side of a wild ride, about to exhale.

While some might call that a breath of fresh air, I call it frightening.

For years before I became a parent I would wonder what it was like. I remember walking through Gymboree and baby Gap and picking up the little clothes, the tiny shoes and wondering what my baby would someday look like. Would it be a boy or a girl? I never had a preference really and surely never dreamed I'd one day be blessed with both.

When my son was born I was so much at the beginning of the learning curve that something as little as changing his diaper intimidated me. I was in complete and total awe of him and I just had this eager anticipation to get it all right. I probably had a big fear of failure too, thinking there was a chance I'd also get it all wrong.

My children are close in age so soon thereafter it all began again. Just the simple marvel of a tiny little onesies, the smell of a newborn, the way that those tiny little fist's close and open up slowly-those are little breath's of Heaven given to a new parent.

I don't remember when exactly when it was that I took those little pieces of Heaven and jumped on a wild ride, but I did. Oh my goodness, I did.  We all do.

People try to warn you, "Take it all in, time flies I tell ya!"

Or, "Honey you better enjoy them while they're little because they sure grow up fast."

You smile and nod because that's polite and that's what you do but the minute they turn and leave you retreat back into changing diapers and cleaning up spilled sippy cups and breaking up fights and doing what it is that you do to get through the day. And the day after. And the day after that.

Until one day you're like me and the diapers stay on the shelf at Wal mart and there are no sippy cups to be spilled and all is silent and fighting has ceased. Baby fat legs turned into long lanky ones and walked themselves into school like big kids.

The ride spins, it turns whirly twirly and my stomach aches-oh it's a good ache and not a bad one. It's pure bliss.

It's a day in the pool, a day at the park, a trip to the beach, a trip to the library. It's meeting friends for lunch at Chik-fil-a for that hour of blessed chicken and regrouping while they play. It's afternoon naps, evening walks, catching fireflies past bedtime. It's building forts in the living room, crafts at the kitchen table and dance parties to Disney music.

It's a few times of, "If you do that one more time you're going to be in time out forever."

And every now and then a few scares and trips to the pediatrician with uncertainty that builds the faith of a patriarch.

Sometimes it's a moment so big it's like you're watching a movie and living outside yourself. They hit the ball out of the park, show kindness to a friend, walk away from a fight, read a verse of scripture aloud, bow their head to pray unprompted.

It's all that and more, this wild ride of motherhood. I wouldn't trade a moment of it for anything.

The funny thing about a scrambler ride is that though much of it is the same, it never starts and stops exactly as it did before.

There is no cookie cutter recipe for how to do motherhood. There's no instruction manual for a tiny human given out at the hospital when you check out to go home.

You step on to your ride, your own wild adventure and then hang on for dear life as the joy unfolds.

You belly laugh and giggle your way through because you never thought living like a kid again would ever be this good.

While my youngest goes to Kindergarten in two short weeks, I feel like we're walking out of the gate and they're two steps ahead of me running on to the next ride-one that they're big enough to ride alone.

I'm catching myself looking over my shoulder wondering how we ever got on there, rode and off again in what seemed like less than a minute. It all went by so fast.

Now I follow them along and into the rest of the park. A new adventure awaits.

 Theres a lot of uncharted territory out there.  Preferably, I would like to hit rewind and just get back in line and ride that scrambler again- but I'm sure this next one will be just as good or better than the ride before.

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Keep Digging

This sweet boy of mine, he is always teaching me a thing or ten.

I'm so thankful that The Lord didn't make him an "easy child" because how boring would that have been?

On good days he is a delight. On bad days he is stretching me, pulling me out of my comfort zone. I love it that he keeps me humble and in constant conversation with the Savior on my parenting. I don't even pretend to have him all figured out.

The truth is that this sweet boy of mine is actually a lot like his mama.

It's humbling to see the best and worst of yourself in a pint size version.

I used to wish that I could tell him the hard lessons I've learned early on so that he could just skim over that part of life toward becoming the little person that God has designed for him to be.

But lately I've changed my prayer to sound a bit more like, "God this is an amazing child with a super strong will. He is strong, yet tender hearted. He is very opinionated but easily influenced at the same time. So I thank you for the wonderful person you've created and I want you to show him from an early age how to become all that you intend for him to be."

The fact of the matter is that I think I've been protecting my sweet boy too much.

Often times I can see him starting to get angry and I'll hurry and try to redirect him.

If I know that something is going to upset him then I'll do whatever it takes to avoid it.

There's nothing wrong with that sometimes-but my heart has been convicted lately that I need to let him feel anger so that he can learn how to deal with it in a healthy way.

I need to let him be upset, so that he learn how to cope with disappointment early in life.

That might sound mean and hard and cruel but the truth is that I wasn't much older than my boy is now when I vividly remember how I started figuring out that everything in life wasn't always sweet and sassy.

And the last thing I want to do is build a bubble around my little one that is so thick he'll never be able to see the world around him clearly.

We are on vacation as I type this. You would think that a week in the sand and sunshine would be giggles and grins and everything glorious wouldn't you?

You would be wrong.

Our little man wasn't feeling well when we started this trip off and that coupled with the lack of a routine....shazam. We found ourselves in the middle of a couple of off days for our boy.

I immediately did what I always do first, which was start thinking of ways that I could handle this and ways that I could make it better.

Of course, as a mom, it's easy to do that.

But then I made myself let go a little bit.

"Just trust Angel. Trust and believe he's going to be able to figure some of these hard things out."

That's always so much easier when you aren't right in the middle of a mess.

And then yesterday as I was watching the grumpiness unfold he did the neatest thing.

He sat down with his blue shovel and just started digging. He dug for quite some time and actually he and The Princess spent a few hours today doing the same thing again.

Not building a sand castle really, just digging for the pure pleasure of it.

As I watched him dig I thought about life and the times that you feel overwhelmed, overcome by frustration, anger, sadness, depression and all of it would surely overtake you if you didn't choose to keep on digging.

Sometimes for the life of you, you just look at everyone else and they all seem so happy and carefree, jumping in the waves and all, and you have to sit and dig.

But if you keep digging long enough you will find what you're after.

The joy everlasting that comes from Him, only from Him sometimes gets covered up with the messiness of everyday life.

Week after week and year after year of storms and waves can  overlap and bury your dreams deeper and deeper until you look around and it all looks the same.

Kind of like a sandy seashore.

When it does and when you feel numb from the frustration of it all-if you'll just go back to where you started from and start digging, it may not appear at once, but surely after while persistence pays off and what you're looking for will start to resurface again.

And like a six year old who's just been handed a double scoop of ice cream, you will cherish your treasure and relish in the joy of that which you spent precious time looking for.

Are you in a pit today? Keep digging friend.

I don't promise gold....I've got something better.

It's joy everlasting. It can't be bought or measured-it comes from on High and it is so worth every day you'll ever spend digging.

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The Loom

So when you're handed number 18189 on a little business card at the information desk of the O.R. where your son is having surgery, the process goes a bit like this:

1) You take said card and make your way to the fish tank. (Because everyone knows that a glimpse at a bright fish will always distract a mama's eyes and still a fast beating heart just a little.)

2) Find the number on the card and match it with the number on the screen. See what color the number is highlighted by.

3) Take a seat and get busy being still. Get busy being still....just waiting for the green of the O.R. to turn to the blue (recovery) and finally yellow and the little lady that walks over and says you are soon to be connected with that little piece of heart that beats outside of your chest in just a few minutes.

Ahhh, sometimes  oftentimes it's in the stillness, in the quiet, in the sitting while-waiting-it-out that we realize the gravity of our situation.

The realization that God is so very near or we would be so very overcome by the current state of events in our lives is made evident by many a fact at a time like this. I have literally sat and waited for my breath, my very next breath, sitting there in the grip of His grace waiting on number 18189.

Last week, while I was sitting there waiting I joined my littlest little on a project she was working on.

Before we left town and headed for another hopeful chance at a successful procedure on my boy, a friend of mine gave our sweet children some crafts to keep them busy on the long trip ahead.

Little did anyone know, the loom was for mama-and the Lord was about to show his glorious Self through the weaving of the threads on that loom.

As the hour of 4 turned into 5 and 5 into 6-my fidgety heart took the loom that my little Quinley had already created quite a few masterpieces on and got to work.

I would weave a few rows, look up and see where 18189 was, look down to weave again, wipe some tears and realize I'd mis-stitched a few rows.

Frustration would get the best of me and I'd hand the loom to my sweet other half sitting by me on that couch. He'd fix my mistakes and hand me back the loom again. 

That process repeated itself for the better part of the evening until I'd finally finished a potholder or two myself.

When the surgeon walked through the doors to greet us at a little past 7 I was finally able to breathe a little better and felt like Mt. Everest had been lifted off my shoulders.

As we were gathering up our things to head to Tanner's room a few nurses commented on our potholders. 

"Oh how beautiful," they would say. I heard a lot about how many of them used to do the same thing back in the day. 

As they talked I looked down and I saw the missed stitches. I saw one orange row where three lines in a row were missed. 

One was tightly woven in the middle and so loose on the edges.

I thought about my mistakes and the fact that my potholders weren't perfect.

I didn't care. 

Because to me, the grace in the fixing was worth more than my perfection ever would have been. 

No one looked at my little piece of art and said, "Oh that's cute but it would have been so much better if you wouldn't have messed up here."

No-when the world looks at our lives friends let me tell you a little nugget of truth here: they aren't looking for perfection. We all know that perfection is unattainable anyway and the strife to get there can drive one to misery in the process.

What they are looking for someone who is real. Someone living in the trenches and doing their best along the way with a joy that marks the life of a believer.

That is what makes the web of our lives so beautiful. And that is when Christ really shines through. What is the meaning of our salvation if we're so put together on our own that we don't need the blood of our Savior anyway?

It isn't the beautiful perfect rows so much as the redeeming ones with more than a missed stitch or two or three-caught and woven together by the surrounding support of a web that catches all.

It catches all our good days and bad days and the good thing is that even the bad days are worth something!

We don't just throw them away never to be remembered again, we redeem them and weave them into our story. Our story for His glory.

That's how the Saviors love makes us known. As His broken but beautifully pieced together and  brightly shining masterpiece.

Isn't that so much better than perfect?!

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