If Your Children are Driving You Crazy

My five year old already acts like a teenager in a lot of ways. My toddler acts like a toddler. It can be exhausting to constantly correct, direct, discipline, teach, answer, and even play with them.

But I have some words of this song, and the story behind it, and then the next part of the story... in my mind today...

"She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world...

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms...

'Cause I know something the prince never knew...

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms...

I don't want to miss even one song...

'Cause all too soon...

the clock will strike midnight...

so I don't want to miss even one song...

'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll... be... gone..."

Thank You, God, for the gift of these children! May I SEE them, and appreciate them, and listen to them, and play with them, and pray with them and for them, and love them well EVERY day, THIS precious day, that You've given me with them. In Jesus' name. Amen.

If You are Feeling Blind Right Now

They finally sleep.

I don't know how it's gotten to be 1 p.m., though the morning felt never ending.

I woke from a disturbing dream to a needy, clingy toddler and dealt with the most-pressing thing, one right after another, until I decided that it was necessary to cut lunch short and make them nap. They were falling into their food, anyway.

They did not ease into their rest, either.

Mondays are hard. They come after my long day of work(weddings, on Saturdays), followed by a wonderfully full day of church and family on Sundays. Meals, chores, naps and all other rhythms of normalcy have been forgotten by Monday morning.

They breathe deep now as I descend the steps slowly, emotionally exhausted that I am so physically drained at only a little past noon. I stop and stare into the disaster that once was a living room and cradle the 19 week old baby in my womb. I can't see the road out of this train wreck. I have no idea where to begin. Discouragement begins to drain the last of my resolve as I recognize the fact that almost all the work I would do would most likely be unnoticeable a couple of hours later.

My mental to do list screams loud and long and through it all I hear the calm, patient question to the heart of the desperate, blind beggar that I am:

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging...

When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

~from Luke 18:35-42

I need His lamp for my feet. I kneel among the mess to ask for focus, to confess my messes from the morning, to start with the clean slate He always offers. I read. I recall and record thanks.

I am transformed by the renewing of my mind. What a powerful God I serve.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will."~Romans 12:2

I can see to take the next step, encouraged now instead of discouraged, though precious minutes of children sleeping have been passing by. And I know it from experience but I can testify anew: being still before God is never a waste or misuse of time.

I think of it now, the lined notebook paper with the scrawled verses from Luke 10 taped on the corner of a sister's bedroom mirror. I saw it many times as I drifted in and out of sleep when I was so sick a couple of weeks ago, and she had offered me her place of rest while taking mine watching my equally sick children.

She had personalized it, and highlighted in yellow the same parts that struck my "too busy" and often blinded heart:

“Michelle, Michelle,” the Lord answered,

“you are worried and upset about many things,

but only one thing is needed.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Only one this is needed.

And it will not be taken away.

I sing it as I begin washing dishes, "Be Thou my vision of Lord of my heart... naught be all else to me save that Thou art... Thou my best thought by day or by night... waking or sleeping Thy presence my light..."

Lord, I want to see!

He heals the blind beggar that I am to see the beauty of His love and grace in the daily, discouraging, difficult...

recording those graces here, joining the Holy Experience community... so grateful for Grace...

#466-486

squirt water guns and screeching giggles in summer heat

good childhood memories

open communication-even when difficult

the gift of being able to physically hear the unique voices of my husband, children, loved ones

so much family, so close

going to sleep and waking up soul-singing "O Lord, You're beautiful... Your face is all I seek... and when, Your eyes, are on this child... Your grace abounds to me..."

generous gift from a friend

encouraging midwife check up

Bible cc

expressions, emotions, memories caught in pictures

hearing God through the voice of a friend

walking into my parents home, always feeling at home there

the cheerful drum of morning rain on tin carport roofs

breathing deep the fresh, cooled, after-rain breeze

husband's verbal appreciation and praise of my daily work

Holy Spirit revealing my sins, the root of the vast majority of my struggles, so I can acknowledge, confess, repent, be renewed

new perspective refreshing well-worn circumstances

knowing His heart breaks with mine

always enough time to do all that God has planned for my day

prayer time on my knees

an answered prayer for a brother

When You are Afraid of the Dark

She whispers it again, lips trembling, could I stay a little longer? Read another chapter? Sing another song? She says she's really not that sleepy. She says that she is really, really scared.

Her eyes are wide, brimming and fearful of that moment I walk downstairs and leave her alone in the baby-monitored bedroom next to her sleeping sister. The toddler sister, she has explained, who is no comfort because she is smaller and couldn't protect her, especially when she's sleeping.

I ask it gently in the lamp-lit, closet-lit, door wide-open light that softly flashes like shooting stars in the drops streaming quickly to her pillow... what are you afraid of?

Ever since she became sick, and during the three weeks of feverish ear-infection discomfort, her fears at nighttime amplified ten-fold.

Her face contorts as she sobs "I'm afraid of the dark. Of being alone. Of everything. Of... of... I don't know!"

The lights don't help in the dark, anymore. She still can't forget that it's nighttime. She wants me there with her, so I promise to check on her more frequently, tell her to do the things I've taught her to fight her fears. I've come upstairs to her brokenly singing lines of "Jesus loves me this I know", my checking in on her only painfully accentuating my eventually not remaining with her. She cries that she's tried the verses and songs and thinking only things that are pure, lovely, true.

"I just can't make my mind keep thinking about those things, mom!"

I pray-listen as she bawls on "Really mom, thinking about the Bible doesn't help... I just don't know what to do! Maybe when I'm bigger I won't be scared anymore, but right now, I'm still a little girl, and I'm still scared!..."

I lay my head on the pillow close, her ocean eyes only inches from mine. I wrap up her little hand in my gangly one.

She doesn't know the countless childhood years I shook my parents awake for prayers, for company, for comfort. She doesn't know the teenage nights I used to lay awake, more lights on than what was used during the day. She doesn't know my single-mom fears that left me crawling into bed next to my mom at 19 and 20 years old. She doesn't know all the prayers I could barely choke out against all the dark from without and within, or how many times I listened to Michael Card's Sleep Sound in Jesus lullaby CD on repeat to train my thoughts on Truth.

I pray peace will wash over her with my tone and Truth, I keep my hand sweeping gently down her mess of silk-brown curls. "I know, babe, I know. I know the dark is scary. I know being alone is scary. Do you know what? Just being bigger doesn't mean you wouldn't be scared anymore..."

I think of how much more I know about now... things to be afraid of. Of the fact that as I've grown bigger, older, I'm even more aware of my smallness, my vulnerability...

"... adults have to deal with fear too. We all do. And you know why I think it makes you feel better for me to be here with you?"

She shakes a definite no, her breathing slowly steadying.

I look straight into that beautiful questioning but trusting soul, marked all over by her Passionate, Thoughtful Creator. "It's because you are more focused on my presence, than what you are afraid of. The reason why I encourage you to say your verses and sing songs about God and to pray to Him is because all those things can help you focus on Him. And when you're focused on Him, on Him being with you and how much He loves you and how powerful He is, and that you are not alone... then you aren't afraid anymore."

She is completely calm now. I can see her thinking those thoughts so big I can't understand how they fit in her five year old brain.

I ask her if she wants to pray, to ask God to help her. I remind her we can't do anything on our own, and I ask it as I have before, reminding of that verse she has long had memorized, that she often turns to in the darkening hours "Selah, have you asked God to come into your heart? To give you His Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, and to take away your spirit of fear?"

She traces her fingers up and down mine, says it in a decided voice, "could we pray that prayer tonight?"

We do.

She asks all the things in tumbling tears, a waterfall of words, deep calling out to deep. "God, please come into my heart and give me your Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind and take away my spirit of fear. Please help me with my fears. Please teach me how to follow you, and how to hear your voice, and how to read Your love letter to me. Please forgive me for my sins against you and against other people. Please help me to remember that life is about You, and not about me. Thank you for loving me. I love You. In Jesus' name, amen."

I tell her angels are throwing a party in heaven, doing all kinds of rejoicing. They might be doing things like singing, dancing, shouting, maybe even throwing clouds at each other.

She grins so bright I can see the dark lifting. Says she'll go to sleep thinking about that tonight.

My heart sings and I think it over and over:

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

~Colossians 1:9-14

The dominion of darkness is a real, scary place in life that we all need rescue from. I have been rescued for years, and yet I can still allow my fears to choke out the Light that is all around me. Other than memorizing verses, singing songs of praise, and praying to God, something else that helps me to focus on His presence, to remember how loved I am is this: I enter His courts with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.

So grateful to be able to share my thanks here again... joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has brought me into His kingdom of light...

Because I haven't been able to write for a while, the list is long and covers a wide range of life situations...

#437-465

a much needed, long lost shoe found

little girls playing for hours in the "cabin", the currently tankless tank stand that the husband built

Rachel home for the summer

clattering of little feet on the way to children's church

a husband who looks long at me, compliments so generously, sincerely

always more than enough

slotted light

husband's tender surprise of washing my feet, then Selah's, just because he wanted to express his love for us

feeling, and really knowing, I am safe and secure enough in my marriage to be really vulnerable

sister support in exhausted moments

baby taking a drink of her water and then making a "sour" face to make me laugh. Saying "mommy-WATCH!" and continuing to do this long after I've lost the ability to sincerely laugh

Selah doing chores with a great attitude

big sister drawn castle as a gift for Alexa

freshly washed bedding

soft tissues for raw noses

home cooked meals I didn't cook

loved ones who come closer, help more, when we are sick, contagious, inconvenient

Alexa singing " 'winkle, 'winkle liddle star, how I wonder what you are..."

Alexa asking "why?" anytime I tell her no about something, using that as her follow up question for several answers then saying "ooooh"... like it is all clear to her now

reminders that little children are large sponges. Alexa told me she didn't want me to do something, I asked her why, and she answered "B'cause... I told you so."

Jesus talks with little sister, not at all little anymore

being considered a friend by a sister

feeling the baby move

keys riding safely, somehow, on the top of the truck all the way through stops and turns and freeways and side roads. A definite answer to prayer, and a new story, soon to come, for my Jesus Story Box.

good children's books that influence in God-honoring ways

husband-read scripture

knowing a good-bye is not eternal

praying with church-family

that God allows me in His presence... that He longs for me

learning the same lesson over and over, to know it better, because I need to

A Different Kind of Hunger

I have so much to catch you all up on... The next several posts will be from previous weeks when I could not write due to the lingering sickness that commanded all available time and energy... Thank you for grace...

***********

Heartbeats of pain pound behind my throbbing eyes. I squint hard at the clock.

4:37 a.m.

My body wrenches again and I feel the heat rising, sweeping away my resolve in waves of nausea. My forehead is damp, my hand steaming hot against the cool of the floor.

Only a few hours earlier I had been praying "thank You, thank You God that I am not sick while the girls are..."

I hear the feverish 19 month old crying but I can't crawl from the yellow light of the bathroom all the way up the dark of stairs to reach her. All retches and reels but there is nothing left to give. God, help me... please...

I become like a begging child in sickness, crying for the Parent to stop the pain, help with the pain, do something.

I hear her whimpering footsteps down the stairs.

I can't move from this spot, trying to will myself to a steady place, a place where I can breathe easy and maybe even go back to sleep before the sun comes up.

The toddler stands in the doorway, blinking bleary in the contrasting bright. I manage a "hi baby..." before I heave again. She stands confused, expressionless. She crowds close and as soon as she can sits heavy in my lap, arms wrap around my already strangling neck, pressing her pitiful heat into mine with a quivering "mommy... cra-ckers... cra-ckers...".

"Okay baby, okay..."

Wobbly legs walk slow to the pantry, I grab the box of crackers and put the toddler down as we reach the stairs.

"Go upstairs baby, you have to walk, mommy can't carry you..."

We both crawl up the stairs and into the twin bed in the girls room. The feverish five year old in bed in the other room with the exhausted husband, working 16+ hour days and barely sleeping through the nights of crying and constant calling out during sleep.

He committed himself to this extra work several weeks ago to be able to take days off when the new baby is born. The girls just happened to get sick right before this work week for him began.

I try to remember... this is night 5? 6?...

My nearly four months pregnant belly, now a very noticeable bump, growls both hungry and nauseous at the smell of the crackers the toddler is crunching.

It's been 10 hours since I've eaten, and I consider taking a nibble, but I can't even keep the water I've been sipping down, don't think I'll give them a try just yet.

Hours pass in aching moments, we groan and toss and turn in bed, trying to find comfort in sleep. It comes sometime long after the sky's soft light has been slowly brightening through the window overhead.

And still, within every hour, half hour, my body wakes and tries to reject what isn't there. By now, I feel wildly hungry.

I lay down in a comfortless half-sleep, think about how hungry I am, the myriad of options I have downstairs, what I will eat as soon as I can.

And His Spirit stirs unexpected, whispers quietly into my aching middle:

What if you treated the hunger of others as if it were your own?

And all the Truth I know melds, overlaps, echos in my mind that feverishly plays this over and over... do to others as you would have them do to you... Remember those who are mistreated as if you yourself were suffering... For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat...I was sick and you looked after me... The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

I silent scream against the swirling thoughts, this hopeless feeling circling. I don't know how to help all those who are hungry!... I want to... being hungry is horrible... and I've never even known real hunger, not any kind without an end to it in sight... Your limitless Spirit is in my limited body... what do I do?? How do you want me to respond to what You're telling me??... And I don't see those who are starving to death, it'd be easier to regularly do something if it was in my face, I'm so disconnected from those who are so hungry...

He says it firm... gently... words that stop the storm and it all settles clear.

You are surrounded by a different kind of hunger.

A different kind of starving.

A place so full of artificial nourishment that Real Bread isn't consumed.

I am the Bread of life. You are the salt of the earth.

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Do this with gentleness and respect.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they. Will. Be.Filled.

I satisfy the thirsty and fill the hungry with good things.

I will prepare a table for them in the presence of their enemies. Their cup will overflow.

So whenever you speak, do it as one speaking My very words.

"As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

If You are Pain-blurred and Sleep-deprived

I will be back to write as soon as I can, there is certainly a lot on my heart.

The girls have been sick and utterly time and energy consuming both day and night... and then I became sick as well.

I praise God that He has deep, loving purpose for every day we live, no matter how pain-blurred and sleep-deprived. I'm praying not to miss all the ways He is teaching and loving and growing me now.

He is good all the time.

He withholds no good thing.

I've had this song in my mind...

You may call it strange, and so once did I.... before...