The Best and Worst of Me

One of the biggest misconceptions from this social media driven world we live in is that everyone else's life is perfect.

It's human nature to want to post cute pictures of our littles, the good things we've done this week and what all we're involved in and put it out there for the world to see.

And while there's a fine line there that I think need's to be drawn as far as airing our dirty laundry, I do tend to think it might be helpful if we were all a little  bit more real. How good is our testimony if all we broadcast is perfectionism?

So on that note, I'm sharing this story because the last thing I want people to think about me is that I'm all Mother Teresa-ish. Not because that wouldn't be great and wonderful, it would.

But that's just not reality. Anything good that I do is all because of Him....it's really none of me.

Last week while we were caring for our house full of sweet little girls plus one boy of mine, I had a not so wonderful moment. I have them quite often actually and when it only affects me, that's one thing. However, on this day, I let my meanness spill over and it was not good.

The day had been long and eventful, spent in court fighting for the very life of three of five babes under my roof. The outcome had been good and my mind was relieved, but exhaustion quickly set in as soon as I got home and most of what I was pouring out of me and into these little lives was like lemonade that needs a lot sugar if you know what I mean.

I was tired and my patience was getting pretty thin as the day lingered on.

I stepped outside with the four littlest ones when I heard my boy and his precious neighbor friend announce that the electric scooters didn't work anymore. They tend to do that when submerged into a pool.

"Really?!" I said yelled. "You really think that something like that is an ok thing to do?" They tucked their heads and my boy went inside and the neighbor child turned and headed home.

Shame settled nice and heavy on my shoulders in about five seconds. I tried to pick it up and throw it off but there's just something about that weight called guilt; it can't be removed with human hands. That can only be done with words of apology from a broken heart.

I'm not saying that I was wrong for correcting my boy. He does have to learn to respect his and anyone else's property. But it was not my place to raise my voice at either of them and definitely not my place to scold the neighbor child. He has a sweet mother who has handled that job for many years without my help.

So I did what I had to do.

Donning my big oversize t-shirt and ponytail high on my head, I strapped one baby in the stroller, put another on my hip and the other three followed me down the sidewalk to the neighbors house. Now that's quite a walk of shame let me tell you that much for sure.

I knocked on the door and made said apologies and we walked home talking about how sometimes mommy messes up and has to apologize too.

The only way little people are going to learn about grace and forgiveness is to see big people putting it into action.

Did it hurt my pride? A little.

But it made my heart feel so good that it was worth every bit of it.

Some days I give the best of me and some other days unfortunately, I give the worst.

At the end of every day though, I'm just like every other woman/wife/mother and that means I'm in need of a whole lot of grace. I'm so glad He has it to give.

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Redemption

Have you ever had the weight of brokenness settle on your shoulders and stay there for a while?

I bet if you've lived longer than a few years you have.

And it doesn't sit there like a fluffy comfortable pillow either. It's a hard, heavy, cumbersome sack of a thing and carrying it around is not fun at all.

It settled on me Tuesday.

Here's the back story-
As our first foster experience we were given the opportunity to provide respite care for a sweet couple while they were away working for the Lord. So that meant two weeks with little chubby cheeks to kiss and love on. Every person who knows me knows that when it comes to anything like that, I'm in.

But the sweet kisses and cuddles and the fact that we even get to do this at all-means that there was at first brokenness somewhere.

This week of Passover that we're celebrating as we anticipate Sunday and the celebration of the glorious empty tomb....it means that at first there was a whole lot of wrong and a whole lot of hurt for the need of such a price to be paid.

And I think if we miss the heaviness of the sin that required such a sacrifice-we miss the beauty of the Cross.

As I sat Tuesday and fed a sweet little man some peas and banana baby food while waiting for his birth family to arrive for a visit, only to sit there a bit longer and longer and finally realize that they weren't coming-I felt the heaviness of the sin infested world we live in settle on my shoulders.

I looked into big bright blue eyes that don't even understand rejection yet and thought about the circumstances on both ends.

I wasn't mad, I was hurt.

Don't be fooled for a minute, but for the grace of God-that could have been me on the other side of the table Tuesday.

I could have easily been the one struggling, not showing up, not being the person that I need so desperately to be to the family I have around me.

Because it's not me-I get to see the other side of the spectrum and look straight into the face of the ones that the sin trickles down to and ends up affecting.

The enemy never sets out for just one. He is in it to kill, steal and destroy whole families.

And that's where it would end if Jesus hadn't ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of "Hosanna, King of the Jews." and willingly laid his own life down-

And because he was both God and man you know that although He knew what was required of Him as part of the triune God-head, he felt every lash of the whip with his man flesh that He so gloriously put on to be like us. The sting of the thorns on his head, the spear in his side and the nails in his hands and feet felt just like it would if that were you and I on that cross.

Deathly.

He did it so that every bad choice, every wrong move, wrong turn and the weight of the whole world's sins could be atoned for with one drop of His precious blood.

As I rocked sweet little foster babe yesterday I was more thankful than ever for the precious blood of Jesus.

I don't want his life to be lived in brokenness-and you know what?

It's not going to be.

Because of the cross. Only because of the cross.

Redemption can come to heal and bring restoration to people in unsafe, unwanted, unhealthy situations because the price of our Lord and Savior paid.

Sunday I will wake up three precious littles instead of two and walk into the sanctuary to praise my Jesus for the redemption He so graciously gave us.

It was needed, the sin debt could never be paid without it.

It wasn't cheap, He suffered beyond human recognition.

And it isn't wasted now, I hold a sweet new little redeemed by the power of the Cross.

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To the Lady in Front of Me at Target

I blame it all on the unexpected week at home.

All of that break of snow fun left me a tad bit emotional I reckon, because on Monday when we got back into the swing of things well, I was not swingin'.

I've been blessed with a job that allows me to work while the littles are away but, truth be told on Monday it really didn't take much time.

And when I found myself finished early and the clock didn't read pick-up time yet, then what's a woman to do but go to Target? Because, of course.

All the browsing of those aisles filled with pretty little things can do a woman about as much good as an hour at a counselor's office.

Until you round the corner and run smack-dab into the woman you used to be.

I didn't meet her until I was in the check out line.

She wore a pony tail and a tired look on her face. Scurrying around like a busy squirrel, she was getting those groceries onto the check out counter as fast as possible.

I know that feeling. That "Oh my goodness if I can just hurry up and pay and get out of here surely no one will notice the screaming."

Or better yet, "Come on you've made it this far, do not leave that whole cart and give up now. Just make it through check out and get out. Focus girl, you can do this."

Any mama knows that the wheels do tend to fall off the wagon right when you've made it to that  counter.

What caught my attention most wasn't her worried face, the hurrying around or the annoyed (twenty years old at most) attendant at the register.

It was those kids. Those ridiculously beautiful brown eyed little beauties....well, I just couldn't take my eyes off of them.

"Mama I want a snack! I want a juice box PLEASE. Please mama, I'm hungry now!"

In my minds eye those were two little blonde heads and that woman with her hair in a pony tail was me.

I tried to stop the tears from coming-but it was no use.

Embarrassed, I tried to quickly explain myself and I'm sure it was all a bit or much awkward.

"Oh I'm so sorry, please excuse me. It's just that it all goes so fast and now mine are in school and oh how I wish I could have one more day like this when they were little."

It's true. What they tell you about blinking and it's on to the next season? That's very true.

Soon enough there comes a day when there is no need for a diaper, a sippy cup or a nap time.

You suddenly go to the bathroom and no little person tries to follow you in there.

No one wakes up in the middle of the night needing to be rocked back to sleep.

And while healthy development and progression is a beautiful thing it can sometimes leave a mama wishing for yesterday.

Like leaves blowing off of a tree in the fall, time blows swiftly and there's no gathering up those leaves. No putting them back on the trees again.

A season passes and it's gone. You're left with the memories.

So while it may be a frigid cold of a winter time in mothering for you dear friend, try your best to embrace it.

Stop in the front of the grocery store, listen to those little cries for help and soak it in.

All too soon those little people you're pushing will be running ahead of you and you'll be doing your best to keep up with them.

So let's enjoy every moment and make the most of today. Don't let the little things rob you of the JOY of the current season.

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But The Lord

He's gone away again for a while now, only heaven knows when I will see him again.

It's been that way for some time now. A few months here, a few there, never settled for too long.

The way of the wanderer is hard. Unsure and unsettling, it's lonely and it's cold.

Time makes accepting the way that things are now easier, yes. Yes it does. It doesn't however, make the reality of the situation less hard.

Cold hard facts are just that; cold and hard.  While you can get used to some things as time passes, I tend to think you never fully recover from the loss of peace that comes through the disconnection of a loved one. You simply re-adjust.

Here's something you don't learn in Wandering 101 of Real Life University: it's very hard on families. Because we all know that everybody's got to find their self sometime, right?

But when you have to leave your intact group of core human beings to do so? That's hard. That's a good amount of sleepless nights and tears shed right there times the number of left said human beings.

So while he wanders, while he drifts, I wait.

Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, wait I say on the Lord (Psalm 27:14)

One can learn a lot in a decade or so of desperately waiting. Actually there are some life lessons that can only be learned in a period of time like this.

Hope is learned while waiting.

You can go to church all of your life, go to Sunday School faithfully and be a part of the best small group ever. You can read all the verses and do the curriculum....but hope just doesn't come fully alive in your bones until it's the only thing you've got left in them.

Hope let's you see sentences like "But the Lord," and go for days and weeks at a time just from the beauty of those three small words.

But the Lord. That's it. Nothing fancy or earth shattering here. But such profoundly truer words have never been spoken.

The fact that I never even prayed about the man that I would marry? And that I married one of the best men, THE BEST MAN that God had just for me?

But the Lord.

The eldest of my littles was born with a VSD (that's a hole in the heart otherwise known as a ventral septal defect) and at three days old we didn't know if we were facing open heart surgery or if this was a minor issue? Thankfully, over the period of about six months time the Lord closed that little hole in his heart and that very same child has since brought me to my knees more than once or twice with a few other health issues that haven't been terrifying but bothersome enough to keep a mama close in touch with Jesus.

But the Lord.

That time I was sinking further into depression with every single day and felt like I had somehow missed out on how exactly I was supposed to be happy and carefree-especially since I'd just recently brought two little people into the world?

But the Lord.

When Tim and I lived in Ohio and were having one or three or four hard years figuring out where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing and at times it all got oh so desperate and confusing?

But the Lord.

The mountain I'd love to see God move right now is not another hurdle we've stumbled upon, but in fact is the oldest request of my life. It is to see the wanderer come back to Jesus. To live in the gloriously full and abundantly rich life that our Savior offers.

And when David Crowder sings "Come as you are, wanderer come home" and my heart feels like it might break right in two?

But the Lord.

I know that the hope that I've held onto for years is just as real now as it ever was. It never dies, it never fails and it never gives up on that one lost sheep even when, ESPECIALLY when the ninety nine are safe with the fold.

But the Lord....thank you Lord, thank you Lord.

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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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Don't Lose Hope

Sometimes.....well sometimes that little glimmer of hope you've been waiting for....it just finds a way to crack through the clouds like a ray of sun on a cold winter day. When it does, it warms the heart and it makes music to the soul that sounds a bit like this,

"I see a little improvement today ma'am. We'll do further testing again in two weeks to confirm."

That was what came spilling out of me and onto social media last Thursday as the littles and I walked, skipped, RAN WITH JOY to the car after leaving the Dr.'s office.

Just a few hours prior, we had a lot of questions, but we also had a lot of hope. Because that's what keeps you going, right? "You can lose everything girl and you'll be fine. But if you ever lose your hope, you've lost it all." Once spoken to me by a woman with wisdom beyond her years, I've clung to that line like a bee on honey ever since.

On our way to the appointment, as we made our way off of the exit ramp and were getting a little closer to the hospital my boy had asked me, "Mama what do you think they're going to say today?"

 "Well I don't really know son," I told him. Because I don't.

 "But if I had to guess I'd say we might hear some good news," I told him. Because if I'm going to err, it's always going to be on the side of optimism.

 There's a beautiful young woman I've become aquainted with and she's dying on the other side of town. She's got two precious children and what should be her whole life full of promise ahead of her. Yet she knows that she doesn't have much longer to live here on this Earth. What does she say nearly every time I talk to her? She says that she knows God knows best and she's just going to trust in Him. No doubt about it, her body is probably racked with pain sometimes. But she doesn't lose her hope.

 A friend I've known for years just got the news that her child has leukemia.

 A sweet young lady fights for her life and the life of her precious child at the homeless shelter. A life torn apart by addictions and unfortunate circumstances, she is trying to piece it back together again and have some sense of normalcy for herself and her child.

What would any of these people do, what would I myself do....if it weren't for the hope that is found in our Savior Jesus Christ? Romans 8:24 says that hope that is seen is no hope at all. Hope that is seen is called evidence. But hope that is not seen? That's called faith.

To the woman whose child awaits good news, to the young mother dying with cancer, to the woman whose child suffers from leukemia and the girl fighting for her life in the homeless shelter, what does hope look like for them?

The next verse says that we hope for what we do not have and we wait for it patiently.

Eleven was our number. For nearly one full year we got one bad report after another concerning my boy's kidney situation. And then after eleven months we walked into a hospital room one day and were told that it looks like we've rounded a corner. There is some improvement in the situation and low and behold hope delivered and a light could be seen at the end of the tunnel.

Friend, I don't know what your number might be, but I do know if you will wait patiently for it then you will see hope bring life to your circumstances.

That looks different for each and every situation. The good thing is that we know that in all things, ALL THINGS, God will work the situation out for the good of those who love Him.

That means that HE will work it out for our good even when we don't like what the outcome is. Even when it isn't what we thought it should be. Even if my boy has to have surgery again, even if he loses his kidney, if the young mother dies from cancer, the child suffers from her disease and the mother doesn't get her life back on track as quickly as she'd have liked, God is still at work. And he can turn each and every bad outcome from each circumstance into something He can use for our good.

For our good and for His glory.

I don't think you can go anywhere else in this world and find odds that will beat that. What a mighty God we serve.

We live in a fallen, sin-infested world and there will always be death, delay, disease and disruptions to contend with. But we have this glorious hope.... (Titus 2:13)

For that I am so grateful.

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Resolution to Hope

You've seen them glaring at you like a deer in the headlights as you scroll through any social media news feed.

 The beginning of any new year is filled to the brim and running over with newness and promises. Full of resolutions and good intentions, the masses are set to make a change as the calendar year turns a fresh page.

 But what if you're like me and you're just not sure about this new year? And what if you hardly know what to resolutely change because you aren't even sure of the state of everything that is in the interim?

What if you hardly know what the first week of January is going to hold, much less the remaining eleven months? 

Because it's easy to make plans and set dates with goals when you feel like you've got a pretty good grip of control on your life, but what about those plans that you just have to surrender simply because you've got more questions than answers at the time?

 All of that is what crowded in my mind as I brought in the first day of 2015.

 I'm usually pretty good with being laid back and going with the flow, but even for this non type A girl that I am, I still like to have at least some sort of a plan.

 So when the only real plan that I could come up with was to open that app that my man challeneged me to...that one that divides out the reading of The Word in a year? Well, that's what I did. Even though I'm not a fan of a checklist, I do like a challenge. Especially when God's Word is involved.

 I open the book, thinking I can fill in the box next to Romans chapter eight and I begin to read. I come across a verse that says, "Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

Intrigued,  I read on and the beautiful scripture that says,  "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" really starts tugging at my heart. 

There in the middle of the book of Romans I find my resolution.

The truth of the matter is that I really don't need a new goal for the year at all. What I need is the realization that God already knows every intricate detail of this year.

What is my job? My job is simply to hope.

Hope for what I do not have and hope for what I can not see.

Then when I do not yet see what I have hoped for? I'm to wait patiently for it until indeed I do see it. 

My mama bear heart aches with hope for a change in the wellness of my little man child in this new year.

Next week we will walk into a building that has become all too familiar. We will sit and wait for our name to be called. We will walk down a long hallway and into a sterile room where an ultrasound will be done on his left kidney.

We've done this enough now that I will look at the screen and before the Doctor even confirms whether or not we have had sucess or failure this time, I will know. I will know if this chapter of our lives is coming to a close or if it indeed has a few more pages, or chapters perhaps, to be written.

 Either way it goes, I have this hope....this glorious hope and we will walk into the rest of the new year full of it.

Full of promise, because even if the screen doesn't really say what I think it should, We know that in all things, ALL THINGS, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 

Whether that looks the way I think it should or not, may our God receive all of the glory and may His perfect will be done. He will work everything out for our good. His word says it and I believe it.

Here's to some HOPE for the new year.

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