Noticing More Beauty

The first day of summer - the first full day of a week without my six oldest. The seasons are changing... I want this to be a time of relaxation and reset and rebirth, but something in me fears it won't happen - that it isn't possible; that they will come home and it will all be still as it was. As I look at what life would be without the six in it, I know I love them; I know I want them back; but... I don't want back the life we have had lately, fraught with tension, cross looks, hormone release, and lots of tears. I miss them. But perhaps I miss them because I miss the opportunities to do more, love more, engage more. Opportunities I didn't take often enough. That I missed. I miss the six because I have missed the opportunities. And then, I read two witnesses on the bread in the wilderness and I am convicted. Manna - no one, the wise fathers nor the up-and-coming children, knew what it was. But they ate it. They trusted God, and ate it. And ...

All I asked the tall boy was, "So... How are  you?"  Who knew it was that easy? My sister-in-law had spoken of a book telling of the impact on broken children of the simple act of eye contact. I thought of it as the son invaded my culinary corner, helping himself brazenly to bites of the dinner, not yet finished. He laughed at some joke of his own making and I sought his eyes - chiseled face like his father's but eyes like mine. Just a moment of connection before he turned back to taste another tidbit, so I made a quick attempt at small talk, "So...How are you?" He held my gaze just a second longer than before, but apparently it was enough to build a trust-bridge, for the next moment, he began gushing all the details of some conflict fought and then resolved, of new understanding between the brothers, of a change of heart. All this heart-talk from the teen mouth that usually flows with untimely humor or cutting sarcasm! Why have ...

I was crying on the shoulder of a friend recently - the kind of friend who lets you enumerate your entire list of grievances but then makes sure you know all the responsibility to change belongs to you.  And so with her it is safe to tell of the recent strain between The Man and I. Nothing monumental, just all the little things lately - us both under the pressures of moving and babies and parenting struggles - that added up to the blanket statement, "I just feel like he has let me down." As soon as the words were past my lips, I was instantly transported back in time to the competition a few weeks ago at the ballroom. The junior dancers had no more than 120 seconds to impress the judges with their routines of precise footwork, elaborate twirls, and daring aerials. Each couple combined skill and risk to present a jaw-dropping performance. One particular display of Latin and high steps and red skirt included a maneuver where the male lead twirled his beautifully clad ...

My grandmother was dying, and I wasn't quite sure I was up to the task of enduring it. The hospice nurse came in and spoke to her, the one struggling for the breaths, "Good job, JoAnne, you're working at it." Then the aside to us, the daughter, and the three daughters of the daughter, "We labor to enter this world, and we must labor to leave it as well." And suddenly I saw it all differently. I sat with the baby in my lap (does one bring an infant to a deathbed?! - but bringing one twin meant the kids at home could manage the other, and so it was that one not half a year into life was there in the presence of death). The baby helped me see it. As I had labored to bring her and her partner-in-utero from the darkness of the womb in to the sunshine of that September day, so Grandma was laboring to leave this dark world and enter in to the light of her Savior's presence. And then I knew what we could do. We could take the lead of the hospice ...

Part one: I spend most of my time nursing these days, and the short gaps in between are difficult for me to fill with intentionality; but today I must, I must write and record in order to remember and learn. Such things are a shame to forget. "I miss you, Heavenly Father." I said it the way I tell The Man I miss him, after days of activities, needs, and busyness make me forget the feeling of "us." In fact, I said it to him recently as well. But this time when I said it to him, instead of a mere fact, it had guilt hiding in the undertones. Guilt because my days never seem to include moments to make him feel that he is the most important person in my life. And then when he greets me with an unexpected, "I love you," instead of feeling joy, I turn to guilt and disbelief. I have trouble believing that he still loves me unless my action seem to deserve it. And I discover I am trapped in works-based righteousness again. With my husband and with my Father. Do...

I have thought to write this over the years, but I have always chickened out. Today I will say it. I read a repeat of a heartbreaking headline yesterday: "Baby Suffocates in Hot Car." I can never read the articles; they are too awful. And I always feel horribly sick to my stomach. And I can't read them because after the article usually come the comments. The comments where perfect strangers to the people involved berate them publicly for being the worst of parents, neglectful monsters, and worthy of death or worse. I assume because you are all my friends that you have never (nor would) post any such thing in such an instance, but be honest, have you ever thought those things?! I'm here to tell you (and risk losing friends in the process) that if you've ever thought (or said) those things, you need to say them to me. No, I've never lost a child to suffocation in a hot car, but... I could have.  I could be the one being called those terrible names. When ou...