Baby, you look brave

Hey :)

Many of you know that I'm a member of Jen Hatmaker's Launch Team for her book For the Love, set to release in early August. I cannot say enough good things about this practical, hilarious and wonderful book. Getting to be an early reader has been a fantastic treat, but the community that has emerged from the group has been the most fun. There's so much more to say about it, and I will another time. But I will tell you that one of the sweetest benefits has been partnering with other aspiring writers and sharing ideas and encouragement. Bloggers within the group have invited those interested to submit posts on various topics and Guest Post on their blog. My new friend Kelly Johnson asked for submissions on the topic of bravery. I was all in and am thrilled to have the opportunity to share one of my posts on her wonderful blog.

Hop over to Grace Notes to have a look and check out her lovely writing style and winsome heart.

Who You are When no one's Looking

The girls' school offers an award every nine weeks. The Coyote Character Award is presented to one student from each class who exhibits outstanding character and leadership.

Ainsley has watched a few friends receive the award and though she celebrated with them, she very much wanted the award for herself. In explaining her longing she said to me, "Wouldn't you just be so proud of me?" I told her I was always proud of her and an award wouldn't make me any more so. "Yea, but wouldn't you be just extra proud of me then?" I told her it would be impossible for me to be any more proud, I love her for who she is and that's what makes me proud. She heard me but she didn't stop longing for that extra public affirmation. I mean like she sort of started an all out campaign for it. She asked me if I would ask her teacher for ideas on how she might reach her goal. Her teacher was gracious enough to tell me that she's always looking for leaders who do what they're supposed to do before being asked and helping others to clean up or helping them with their work. She also kindly told me that she had lots of wonderful students and basically, don't count on your kid getting it, gift giving Room Rep or not.

Truth is, the girl does have plenty of character and is a character:) I wanted so much for her to be awarded not so much because she is the most character-laden Kindergartner in the school, but because she wanted it. She wanted to be recognized for something in front of her peers. This is something I cannot relate to at all, except for the times when I always relate to it. I mean, this is what I want...to be seen. To be told by people I respect that I am good at what I do. I wanted my girl to have that same affirmation showered over her.

So the weeks went by and Ainsley gave it her best go. Over many family dinners she recounted the ways she'd put her things away before her teacher asked her to or how she'd helped a friend with their work. She felt she was well in the running for the award and so did we.

Donuts for Darlings

Summer birthdays mean not getting to bring treats to your classmates and postponed parties because everyone vacations on your big day. I realize these are First World problems, but when you're in the third grade, the struggle feels real.

Since today is exactly two months before this little dolly turns ten, it seemed the perfect time to break out the sugar-laden goodness and bring enough for the whole class. Em's teacher willingly agreed to let me come in this afternoon and celebrate my girl.

Sometimes the love I have for my children is just too big to contain. Sometimes the gratitude I have in my heart for motherhood is enough to bring me to my knees. Seeing Emerson's dimples deep with delight brought all of that today. This is the stuff of Fairy Tale childhoods and youthful dreams. But I'm pretty sure mine was the fullest heart in that classroom today. I dreamt of moments like this when motherhood was out of my reach. I knew I wanted to do things like this for children of my own, I just never could have imagined how much I'd love loving them.

Best Pool Party Ever

So the lovelies are planning a party. This really isn't a newsflash, this is what we call Tuesday or any day around here. But this one is bigger than most since it's meant to celebrate the beginning of summer - the pinnacle of wonderful when you're a kid.

This is the first year that both girls' last day of school falls on the same day, so they plotted to plan the Best Pool Party Ever to celebrate.

They made invitations which included these little gems:

School's Done - Pool's fun!!!

School's out! No homework-yay!

School's out, it's Time to Play!!!!!!!!

As you can readily see, they love exclamation points a lot and seeing them on their little invites does make me so happy too. They are so looking forward to the party and have planned snacks to serve and created a little online potluck sign-up for others to bring things to share. They've each made a list of friends to invite, which for Ainsley includes her entire class in case (in her precious words) "Someone would see me handing out an invitation and feel sad-hearted that they weren't a part of it."

Summer's on the Way... Problem Solved!

Though I truly have savored the moments, I cannot help but be surprised (again) that another school year is coming to a close. I guess this one flew all the faster than those before since there was so much anticipation for it to begin. Such a momentous season when my Ainsley love headed off to Kindergarten.

We I had such fun with these pictures documenting the anticipation for the start of full-day everyday school.

We did eventually get some fun shots to document the season and I'm pretty sure bribery was involved.

Color my World

When I walk into the kitchen and see this, I just cannot take it. I cannot take how precious my Ainsley is with a paintbrush in her hand, a free-bird in flight. Without any help, she set up her own make-shift studio, donned a beret she found in the dress-up box, and channeled her inner Picasso. Sure, I lost a few years from my life when I considered what might have become of my kitchen table, floor, and walls when I saw that she had helped herself to the paint supplies. But I'm happy to report that everything looks just as lived in and sticky as it did before she set to work.

Know what I really love the most? That she just sat down to paint and didn't doubt her ability to make something beautiful. She hasn't always done this. With an artistic older sister in view, she has been know to compare her work to her sister's and feel like she's not measuring up. What I carefully remind her, in those moments of self-doubt, is that Emerson is three years ahead of her. Comparing Kindergarten art to Third grade art isn't a fair contest. I remind her that Emie's had three years to learn new techniques and skills that she didn't have when she was in Kindergarten. I can teach this lesson without a blink, yet I'm guilty of the same unbalanced comparison in my own life.

Don't we all do this? We look at the success, the impact, the growth that someone is experiencing well into the process and compare it to our own meager first steps. It's as though we're in Kindergarten and feel dismayed that we haven't yet mastered pre-algebra and long-division like our Third grade neighbor. When we've missed a really important truth - we are in Kindergarten and we are rocking it.

We have everything we need to create something beautiful right where we are. Let's be sure that we do.

Jesus Loves the Jenners

Earlier this week I listened to Jen Hatmaker's amazing sermon on Jesus calling the twelve disciples. It was so good. In it I was reminded that we are often so glad to receive grace freely and yet we give it out so conditionally. Yes, Lord thank you for the grace you extend to me but let's be careful just doling it out to everyone because some of these people are really making a mess of it. A humbling reminder that none of us deserve it. The word grace actually means unmerited favor and yet sometimes we get a little pious and start to think we're more deserving than "those people". I hope I know better and hope that I'll do better.

In related news, my FB newsfeed was full this week of posts of links to an article comparing Kendall Kardashian to Sadie Robertson. I'm no master of TMZ or entertainment news but after one quick read it was easy to see that all of this conversation began over some challenge Kendall made on Twitter. Whatever its original intent, it was translated to be aimed at Sadie in a brawl over which of them would win the culture war and have the most influence over today's teens. A conservative reporter wrote an article in which she made a line by line argument for why parents of young girls should choose Sadie over Kendall as their daughter's role model. It went a little something like this: Kendall wears sleazy clothes while Sadie embraces modesty. Kendall wrote a book that failed while Sadie's had great success. Sadie loves Jesus and Kendall wore revealing clothes to church on Easter as a slap in the face to her view of Christianity (huh?). Sadie is sweet and Kendall is disgusting. Um, excuse me. I'm sure I didn't hear you correctly. You didn't mean that, right? You just forgot for one second that you are talking about children. These little whippersnappers are 17 year old souls. They weren't alive before 1998. How is it okay to slam a young one about like this with thoughtless words?

How many of us could have been held up as role models when we were teenagers? And as long as we're remembering that these girls are just kids can we talk about their parents for a sec? Sadie's had the advantage of God-fearing parents who have (as far as we can assume) taught her about God's abundant love for her and have lived their lives with arms wide open. Kendall's mother manages her career (insert face-palm) and her father wants to be a woman. Come on. Can we expect her to understand and embrace the love and acceptance of a Father God who's crazy about her? And before this starts to sound like a slam to Bruce Jenner, it so is not. I watched his interview with Diane Sawyer and was absolutely touched by his sincere and tender heart. His children from previous marriages appeared on the show and were nothing but lovely. I mean just beautifully supportive and respectful of their dad. His children from his marriage to Kris each added a word of love an support as well though they didn't appear on the show. It truly was inspiring and honestly displayed more authentic and selfless love than we see from most on the right who claim to follow the ways of Jesus.

Listen, I'm a social conservative, too. I don't want my girls to wear provocative clothes, be promiscuous, or follow much of anything that the Kardashians or Jenners are doing - but you know what I want less? For them to spew hateful comments about anyone. Whether people believe what we do about who Jesus is has nothing to do with how much love we're going to extend their way. I'm a little confounded as to why some people who love Jesus feel they get a free pass to hate on people who don't share their beliefs. Jesus loved everyone and spent a good bit of time with people who lived their lives in direct opposition to what He taught.

One great truth from Jen's sermon was that when we're told to love mercy it's not just for ourselves - all that Jesus lived and died (and rose!) for was for every.single.soul. He desires that none should perish and so should we. I really do believe that most Christians would heartily and say, "Yes, of course! His love and grace is for everyone." Yet our actions and words are telling an entirely different story.

We made it

We made it. Ticked off every single one of the “firsts” in this maiden year of grief after my mom died. We miss her terribly but it does feel good to have cleared this hurdle. It was such an honor for us to have been at her side at the end of her life. It is something I had always hoped I’d get to be there for, I just never wanted to experience it so soon. Ours was a long goodbye since we lost parts of her for several years before she passed. But in the end it really was a beautiful final farewell. I have never been more aware of the presence of God and His profound, touchable, eternal love than I was at the end of her life. It was nothing short of sacred.

We were so glad that her fight was over. The disease that gnarled up her neuro-transmitters and all of our pathways to her for so many years was gone for good. For a second there death had no sting. We reveled in the unmistakable presence of God Himself. We nearly felt her spirit brush past us as she was led into the place she had sung about the whole of her life. Every inch of the room felt full with the company of angels guiding her home. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything, but I absolutely, most assuredly, felt something in the very marrow of my bones. The presence of holiness. Without plan or fabrication, I let out a little yelp and lifted my hands to the ceiling and said, “Praise God! She is home. Your servant is home!” I went on to speak directly to her while looking up at the chandelier in the dining room of my childhood home, “Mom, if you can see us, we’re all here. We love you and we’re so proud of you. You fought so hard. You lived so well. Go and rest. We’ll be there soon.” If I live to be one hundred and ten (and I hope I don’t because, mercy) I pray I won’t ever forget what that felt like—when heaven came to earth. But then there we were left behind without her. My dad, alone for the first time in 56 years. My sister, brother, and I like tiny kids in the department store lost without a mother.

I helped to plan for her funeral and delivered a eulogy and flew back to my home and family. Suddenly the daily routines, appointments and obligations seemed pointless and sort of mean. Life moving on as before seemed irreverent somehow when what I really wanted was for everything to just stop so I could numb out and stare off into the sky. Sometimes I did. I stared up into the glinty sun through the leafy trees and just had my mind blown. I mean how in the world was it possible that the woman who gave me life no longer had hers. Just how was this supposed to work? I truly could not grasp how the most constant presence – the most constant life I had known every single day of my life had been snuffed out. Though well-meaning friends told me “You’ll always have your mother,” the fact remained that she was unreachable and gone, as she had been in many ways for such a long time. I knew that, though she loved us all, even if given the choice, she wouldn’t come back to her life here if she could.

I was glad to know she wasn’t hurting anymore and had not a single ailment. I knew that her mind and clarity was restored, her body glorified. Oh, and her memory, it was hers again — no need for Memory Care when you’re dancing on gold streets with Jesus. Why would you ever look back then anyway? Living in the moment must come pretty easily in paradise. All of those pictures of her fully restored made me so thankful. But that wasn’t always enough to motivate me to keep moving along the path of life on this broken earth.

I let myself ache. Sometimes the hurt came from nowhere and seemed disconnected to her in a way. In truth I was grieving not only her life as it was but what her life could have been. Honestly, I grieved a good plenty for what my life could have been had I been given a mother (and my daughters a grandmother) fully alive and present through all of the seasons. Though the pain was sometimes raw and hard, I knew that feeling all of it meant that I was breathing in the riches parts of life. Experiencing depth of sentiment is the very best of it and where the authentic livelihood happens – where I always want to be.

In time I came to see that even when it hurt I could still reach out and reclaim the glory I had experienced at the end of her life. That undeniable presence of holy that I had felt — I learned that it’s mine for the taking every.single.day. I had only first noticed it when I was on vigil, quiet, waiting for the end of a life. But it was there all the time in the land of the living. I just had to quiet myself and seek out His company to experience it again and doing so breathed new life into me.

Now I take time to be with God and it’s profoundly different from the “Quiet Times” I used to check off my to-do list while my mind was often somewhere else. I seek Him out and talk to Him and I stop and listen without saying a word. I see now that He’s not like a father, He is the Father. His love is parent gold standard. He nurtures me in a profoundly intimate way that I never knew was possible before the loss of one of my earthly parents. I wish I’d have gone to Him for this kind of love sooner. He could have filled in a lot of gaps along the way. He’s so quick to give love and such a steady faithful gem of a Father God. I just never knew how to hang out with Him like this before. Maybe I never thought I needed to. But if this is the silver lining I was looking for beyond the trees into the shimmering sun, I’ll take it all day long.

Grief steals. We know this. It only shows up when something is lost or taken from us but the sweet surprise is that it can also give some awfully precious gifts. This loss gave me a newfound appreciation for God’s presence in the brevity of my life. I drink deeply of the best of life now. I sense the holy not only in my time hanging out with God but also in the smell of Ainsley’s tousled and sun-drenched hair, her sticky kisses, Emerson’s hilarious wit and laughter, Dirk “getting me” — these I sip and appreciate as precious gifts from my very good Father. I always knew He was there and loved me and sent His son so I could have abundant life (this side of heaven too) but I never really lived in the luxury of it. Now I can’t do anything other than treasure the divine moments masquerading as everyday events. My eyes have been opened and I am, at long last, fully alive.

This is perhaps the best and last gift my mom ever gave to me — the pathway to abundant living. As long as I have breath in these lungs I’m going to do enough living for the two of us. While she’s hanging out with Jesus face-to-face, I’ll be hanging out with Him right here. One day I’ll join the big party with her but I’m not going to wait until then to celebrate.

“The glory of God is best seen in a woman fully alive.” Lynn Hybels If: Austin 2015

Baby, you look brave

So the kids did not have school today. Thanks for that, Columbus. Though it was a holiday the day was not without struggle. Our trials were likely not as difficult as sailing by night and sailing by day using only the stars to guide our way. But alas, the waters were a wee choppy for us today on our tender vessel.

Because there was no school I was glad to let the girls stay up past their bedtime last night. Though I thought we'd be up just a bit later, it turned out to be ten o'clock before we turned the lights out. This is late for us but I figured we'd make up for it this morning when we could sleep in as late as we wanted. That was until 6:16am when I heard the thunderous sound of galloping girls coming down the stairs and into our bedroom.

It was Emerson who spoke first, "The alarm is going off in our room!" Alone in our bed I was fogged over with unfinished dreams and interrupted REM so it took more than a few seconds for me to register that I had to actually get up out of the bed to figure out what the matter was. Once I had padded up the stairs I heard the unmistakable beeping of the clock radio docking station that sits on Em's dresser.

The odd thing is we never set this alarm in the girls' room because it's the girls' room. Did I mention they're in there? We want them to sleep. When they do have to get up for school Dirk does the waking so they didn't even know there was an alarm in their room let alone how to turn it off. I have no idea how it got set but I'm reasonably sure it was Satan's doing. Though we tried a good plenty, none of us could get back to sleep, so the day started with all of us in a deficit.

Home Sweet Home

Some days I can scarcely believe that both of the girls are off to school already. It's a time I hardly trusted would ever come. I have been anticipating this season for so long, sometimes with more than a little eagerness, sometimes with great angst.

I'd love to say that this season came with well-prepared children who eagerly embraced the new horizon before them. Though they were quite well-prepared for the change they did not necessarily embrace it with arms wide open. Or at least the sweet baby girl Ainsley did not. She did not take to kindergarten readily. The schedule itself was the biggest hurdle. In the first week there was not a single day when she did not ask why school started at night. She couldn't begin to imagine that people actually got up willingly at 6:15am (when it is still dark outside) after what felt like such a short night's sleep and had the audacity to call it "morning." I knew she was legitimately tired from the change to her routine and the long scheduled day she'd stepped into. But I was equally weary from the daily cheerleading routine required of me at the very same unholy hour of each day.

My attempts to convince her that school would prove to be a fun place to go fell heavily to the floor. All the while she continued to let her dislike of formal education known to us all. Dirk gently asked her just what it was about school that she did not like. I braced myself for the answer. She has a problem with the alphabet, with rhyming words, or with counting numbers. Instead of any of those things I heard my youngest girl say, "I just don't like leaving mama." Bless this child. Bless her to the center of her heart. She loves her mama. Listen, kids like their moms at this age. I get that this is not exceptional news. But it blessed me. She has not been a textbook baby or a simple puzzle to put together over our six years together. But baby girl knows she is so very much loved and she loves me back. She finds being at home with us the best gift given. Mission accomplished. But the girl still needs to go to school each day which means I had to dance a new dance and find a new approach.