a meditation on Church: the testimony of the Saints

I look around the building and see faces. Behind their faces are a history of lives lived and some stories I know: stories of courage, of fear, of anger, of betrayal and dark abuse that shake me. Yet I've heard their testimonies of an even deeper love and unreasonable hope.

I see sweet newborn cheeks and innocence. I see the water of baptism. And I want to weep for the pain to come as that little one grows up into a fuller understanding of being born utterly depraved into a world that is not the way it was created to be.  Oh, how we have marred Your glory with our broken bodies and diminish it further with our tepid words!  With our lives that skim the surface and strive for comfort. If we were to stop and think.  If we were to wait and listen.  What would we say?  What could we hear rising from these hearts in these pews today? The testimony of the saints.  The poignant mix of treasure and pain that fill our hearts as we walk the way of the cross.

Yet by his wounds we have been healed, and though we limp, we limp without rest along the road: responding -- blindly yearning -- to His great love.  There is a chorus of voices, thousands strong, who have walked this confusing road.  They have sung their songs of faith while tottering between hope and despair (He has promised all this will sing his glory) and with them we are drawn in.  We walk forward and measure out, pace by pace, our part in the story of His Great Redemption.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Grace

I don’t know how God’s Holy Spirit works to do what it does in my heart on days like today.  

   Give us each day our daily bread,
(Luke 11:3 ESV)

Truly it is a mystery to me.   But the sheer unlikeliness of the sequence of events that led to me starting out my day crying and ending it with enough energy to contemplate writing a blog post is miraculous.  

Let’s start the story three days ago when I started coming down with a nasty cold, jump to two nights ago when I got the stomach flu, fast forward to 1.5 days ago when I put my hip out of place while bending over to give Wendy a bowl of yogurt and was in excruciating pain even after I got it re-aligned that afternoon.   How I felt this morning when I woke up in review?  Bad cold + getting over 24 hour Stomach Flu + back spasm. 

I groaned out of bed and uttered one of those hardly-awake prayers that if it had contained any coherent words would have probably said “please, please just help me survive this day and not murder my children,” but probably just sounded like “uhhhg.”  Even though I couldn’t pick Wendy up, I faced a day of appointments in the morning, grocery shopping, making lunch for the whole family to take to the Seminary and trade kids and car for the stick shift truck to teach a class of 5-7yr olds about Bach and an afternoon and evening of teaching private music lessons.  And we were out of milk. 

I lost it.  By 7:45am I had a loaf of bread in the oven (since even breakfast couldn’t be simple cereal) and was sobbing on Jonathan’s shoulder in the kitchen about how impossible the day seemed.  Mostly I was dreading picking up Wendy (35lbs!) as much as I would need to to get her in and out of the car that many times. 

And I’m not gonna lie.   The morning was terrible.  I couldn’t talk past the frog in my throat.  I forgot my coffee. I forgot my pain meds and we were late so I couldn’t go back.  I wrangled Wendy in and out of the car, the stroller and the giant shopping cart with the car on the front, too many times to count.    She screamed and tantrumed and threw herself on the floor twice and I gritted my teeth and leaned over with my back screaming along to pick her up and force her back into the car or stroller.  The low point came when I had to change her poopy diaper while lying her on my coat on the asphalt of the parking lot, because the grocery store bathroom didn’t have a changing table???!!!  Charlie was pretty much perfect, since I had my witch face on and he was scared of me (which I’m not proud of, but it is true it comes out on days like today).  

We made it home to drop of the groceries but with barely enough time to meet Jonathan and I still hadn’t made our lunches.  I noticed while I was putting the groceries away that my back might be feeling better and then my wonderful husband suggested Subway for lunch.   Grace! Thank you, yes!    Now I  only had to pack my dinner instead of 4 lunches and one dinner.  We ate apples on the way.  Amazing what a little sugar in the blood stream will do to improve your mood!   I dropped off the kids at Subway, snagged my sandwich on the way out and thanked my good friend Karin all the way to Starbucks where I used her gift card to buy myself my first breve latte since last October.  I also found two Tylenol in my purse (which I took).    Grace!  Amazing what a little pain relief and caffeine will do to improve your mood!

I went on to teach the 5-7 year-old class about Bach and they laughed themselves silly trying to pronounce his name correctly with much spitting/hissing/and coughing over the last “ch”.  Something about their antics made me crack a grin for the first time that day.  Grace!

My first private lesson of the day called in sick, so I lay in the teacher’s lounge and knitted for an hour while finishing my coffee. Grace, just when I was really needing to lie down and rest!  Then I finished up my lessons and drove home to find that Jonathan had cleaned and vacuumed the whole house. It was sparkling clean! Grace! And then here’s the amazing part.   Five minutes after I got home, Jonathan left for a meeting.  So I had bedtime duty all by myself.  Usually it would make me come apart and yell at someone for something trivial like squeezing too much toothpaste out of the tube on purpose so they could eat it.  But tonight I decided they needed a candle lit lavender bubble bath—I sipped my mint tea, stuck in the occasional hand and watched them enjoy each other, playing in the bath.  I don’t know why I thought of this, or why it worked, but anyone with small kids will know what a miracle two siblings getting along in a tub full of toys is.  Grace?  Something about the atmosphere was so calming that I felt almost refreshed.  A couple diapers and two storybooks later, they are sleeping and I am typing.   I actually was nice to them tonight.   Is that the stuff of God or what?   I’m smelling him all over the house, but especially in the lavender scent coming off my hands.  What a loving God I serve! 

Now I am hoping he will help me have my voice back in time to sing for the Faculty recital I’m supposed to perform in on Friday.   But, one day at a time?  Right?   One day at a time and I will praise him for the portion he gives me, even if it is ‘terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day’ grace!    

    And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings,
are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
  
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
        who was and is and is to come!”
(Revelation 4:8 ESV)

little bird turns 4

Dear Charlie,

You turned four this week.   You were old enough this year to want to count down the days until your birthday, but you still get naps and night-sleep mixed up.  Often you are ready to call it a new day at 4pm after your nap, so that made it confusing.  You kept asking when you went to sleep if it would be your birthday when you woke up, and on the day before your birthday you woke up from your nap and thought it was already your birthday.   So when it did finally get here and we went into your room early to sing Happy Birthday, you were surprised!

Wendy was almost as excited as you.   She loves singing Happy Birthday, and had a lot of practice with Mommy and Daddy’s birthdays right before yours.    I know sometimes she comes on a little too strong for you.   She comes on too strong for me, sometimes, too!   But she really does know to put all of herself into being excited for you!   This has been a big year for you, Bud!  We moved to a new house, you learned to rid a balance bike and now a real pedal bike!   You have made new friends and learned how to button your coat and put your socks and shoes on.   You can set the table and be trusted to obey instructions.   You are such an amazing help to your Mama.   And you are telling imaginative stories now that are so fun to play with!  This birthday, Dadda set up his childhood Darda set in the living room for you to find and play with first thing in the morning.    You kept saying, “Holy cow, is this weally fow me?”   (You still don’t say your ‘r's very well.  But you know you need to work on them now.  You asked me the other day if you were saying “roar” the way I say it or not.   And I figured out you were wondering about the ‘r’ sound.   I’m in no hurry for it to go, I still miss you saying “ploon” for “spoon”, but I guess you do have to grow up sometime!)You chose pancakes for breakfast, and Daddy made you a chocolate chip  Optimus Prime pancake.   Pretty neat! 

Wendy got a heart.

We spent the morning playing with Alaythia, Grace and Owen.   Everyone dressed up.  You cried and cried when you saw the Batgirl costume that Alaythia was wearing.  You wanted to wear it and when you couldn’t it made you so sad.  You wanted to have a Batman costume and an Optimus Prime costume to put “all over your body” and not just a cape.  I talked with you about it for a little bit and you told me through your sobs, “Mamma I need some comfort.”  So we sat together and held your blanket.    Then you needed a little time by yourself in your room before you were ready to come out and play with everyone.    Charlie, I love how smart you are about your emotions.   I am so proud of you for being brave enough to tell me when you need comfort and for knowing when you need a little space by yourself to process though something.   I love your willingness to say, “This is twicky for me.”  I hope you never loose the confidence to be transparent in who you are.   I also pray that God helps your Dada and I keep on having the discernment to respond to you well.  So that we keep on being a safe place for you to admit when you need help, comfort and support.   We do love you so!

After you were ready to join us again, we all went outside.   What a beautiful day God gave you!    We didn’t even need coats.   You all worked together to build a nest for a “fairy bird” in our hollow log.   You dug in the dirt, got covered in chalk, and you and Alaythia had so much fun pretending to be superheroes together!
”Want to save the world with me ‘laythia?”

”Oh, I thought you’d never ask, Charlie!”Posing like Super Heroes!In the morning Grandma and Great Grandma called to sing you “Happy Birthday”  you didn’t say anything but you got a great big grin on your face when you heard them singing to you.   After lunch we opened the presents Nana and Papa sent you while they watched on Skype.   You and Daddy got a pair of remote control transformers that can do battle with each other.   It was really fun!   Then you and Wendy  took a nap, and Mama worked on your cake.   

We had been talking for a while about what kind of cake you wanted and during one conversation, you told me that you wanted an Optimus Prime cake.   When I wasn’t sure what that meant, you explained it would have the Autobot symbol and a flag of Optimus Prime on the top of the cake.   I suggested several other (simpler) options, but you cut me off and said firmly, “We should just do my ‘gestion (suggestion), Mamma.”  I clamped up my mouth at that.
…And racked my brain about how exactly one makes an Optimus Prime flag to fly over a cake.   Thankfully my friend saved the day by offering her printable fabric to me—who knew such things existed!? A little Google image search, iron-on fusing and bamboo skewer later, and voila!: an Optimus Prime Flag!  The Autobot symbol was made with milk and white chocolate.   I melted it and then piped it out on parchment paper over an Autobot symbol I printed out.   After it hardened in the fridge, I just peeled it off and put it on top of the icing.    Thankfully, you liked it when you saw it.  You even said, “This flag is just how I wanted it!”   (whew!)We spent the afternoon reading superhero books and playing with the Darda set.   After supper we invited Daniel, Grace, Owen and their parents along with Alaythia, her parents and her baby sister Cossette to our house to have cake with you.    It was just the right number of people to sing Happy Birthday to you and watch you blow out the candles.    You ate the whole Optimus Prime symbol with your portion!   Right before bed, Uncle Erik and Aunt Catherine called to sing Happy Birthday.  You got that big grin on your face again, hearing them sing.  They called to make sure you knew that they were thinking about you and that they love you.   You are so loved, Charlie! 

We went to be the usual way, with pajamas and vitamins and teeth brushing.   Wendy had her milk while we all sang songs in the dark.  You sang a made-up “God song”  for all of us.  It was about God rising from the dead, and saving all the people, there was something in there about thanking him for giving you toys for your birthday and keeping your cake safe until the next morning too.    I love your good-night “God songs”!  

Sometimes at night after you are asleep, I slip back inside the room and lie down next to you Charlie, and just hug you for a little bit.  I like to put my arm around you and pray for you and for me.  You are 4 now and 4 year-old boys are not very interested in snuggling with their Mamas.  (though this Mama still is)  No, 4 year-old boys are more interested in making “the biggest” loud, house-shaking jumps, and talking at the top of their lungs right next to your ear, and building elaborate pretend stories using block, cars, pillows and superheroes all over the floor of the kitchen.   4 year old boys are not very convenient at all.   I have to confess, Charlie that sometimes I get very frustrated at you for being loud, messy, or for being so lost in the story you are pretending that you don’t hear me ask you to put your sock and shoes on.   Usually I figure it out, catch myself and tell you I’m sorry for yelling at you.  But sometimes I don’t, and it makes me sad.  Sometimes, I need comfort just like you.  And then I lie down next to you and tell God I’m sorry for not caring for you the way He wants me to.  It helps me to put my arm around you and remember how thankful I am for you, because I am.  I love you so fiercely, my little bird!   And I am so, SO very glad God that gave you to us! 

Happy Birthday, Charlie!  Love, Mama

Re-Using at its best….

I don’t know who is more excited about waking up tomorrow morning. . .

Charlie, because he knows it will finally be his birthday, or Jonathan, because he knows Charlie is going to spend the morning playing with one of his favorite childhood toys: his old Darda set, circa 1985.  Regardless, the birthday boy is waking up to this scene, and I’m finding myself pretty darn excited about it too!   

The Making of Booky Punk Punk

This is the first time in Charlie’s life that we have carved a pumpkin together.   Luckily we got around to carving it before the squirrels ate it all.  
“Ok, that is weird, Dad!”

The kids were not really sure about scraping it out at first….

But Charlie got the hang of it after a bit.  Then Wendy played with her little animals and other choking hazards while we got down to business.  Charlie wanted a monster with lots of teeth and three eyes.  

After dinner, a bath and getting ready for bed, we went out in our pajamas to see how it looked lit. 

 

Afterwards, I interviewed them.  here’s the results of their  up past bedtime thoughts.  I thought Wendy’s description was the perfect name for our happy little pumpkin monster, “Booky Punk Punk”!

Happy Halloween!  

gifts in the midst of stress: poop on the deck

Its been a crazy month followed by an insane week of moving.  I’m loosing everything, down to one sippy cup, and my brain is not much better.  Still, I have seen the Lord at work in so many ways, encouraging me and giving me a thankful heart.  I feel like it wouldn’t be fair not to mention it.   Wendy has been a big encouragement to me.  Even though caring for her often interferes with my productivity, she makes me so excited to be alive and a mother.

Our Wendy is a pistol.  A fire cracker.  A spit fire.   I find myself marveling that someone so small can be such a determined force of will. 

Since moving into our new home, (it has a back door that goes out onto the back porch and has steps to the yard), she has been declaring “Out, Out Out!”   “GO”  and “Wok (walk)” and “Yea-ya, Yea-ya(Alaythia)!”   Then she brings me her shoes, puts them in my hands and sits down on my feet so that I will put them on her and take her outside to play with Alaythia.   When I do not comply with her wishes great screams and tantrums commence! 

Yesterday, after cleaning our old apartment all day, we walked in through the back yard, but dragged Wendy straight inside, much to her dismay.  I jumped in the shower with her to rinse off the cleaning solutions and dust before dinner and then wrapped her in her towel and sent her through the bathroom door to find Dada, who I had just spoken to about something else.  When I got dressed and met Jonathan coming up from the basement, I asked him where Wendy was, but he hadn’t seen her.  We had a short  moment of panic and then found her with her thunder-thighs and glory rolls all naked to the neighborhood, happily eating rocks out of a planter on the back porch.  (It turns out she doesn’t need my help to go “OUT” anymore.)  She looked up at us and grinned, then turned to look out over the yard, showing us her back side, and threw up her arms to roar triumphantly at the sky.  

As I grabbed her hand to lead her inside, I noticed she had left a pile of droppings on the deck and a puddle on the door jam.  All I could think about was how much I liked her—even more because she had just pooped on the floor and cared not one bit about it!  Thinking of her yelling out her victory kept me smiling all day.  So splendidly alive, this girl of ours!

road trip

Both Alaythia and Charlie have a few good sized road trips under their belts at this point in their young lives.   This morning  brought another one. 

Destination: America

Driver: Charlie

Contact in America who they are driving to see:  Chewbacca

Pretty female passenger napping with cozy blankets:  Alaythia

They are bringing all their worldly possessions with them.   At one point Charlie declared they had arrived, but Alaythia informed him that this was just a stop to get gas in the car, because America was a long way a way from St. Louis.

Snack was a high tea at a reliable British pub on the way: Arrival was greeted with squeals of delight:  “It is so clean here!” 

I guess the immigrants were so excited to stretch their legs after that arduous journey, that they did not have time to take a good look at the living room floor. . .