Striving for a God-honoring daily legacy amid life's beautiful adventure.
Playing just wears you out.
Accomplishment in pulling to your knees.
But sometimes you get stuck and need someone to bail you out.
Oh my sweet little Abi! How I love you!
So going along with the Secret Garden theme, I’ve come to the dreaded duty of weeding the front planter boxes. To give you a bit of perspective, all along the front of our house are three large planter boxes. Now “the front” of our house is really the entire length of our house, the door is in the middle of our home, and some brilliant landscaper decided to plant a total of 13 or 14 bushes, all of which lie in beautiful planter boxes – and require pruning naturally. My planter boxes are 3-4 feet in width at some sections and the small bushes are planted in the middle of the boxes – allowing weeding on both the front and back sides of the bushes. While these bushes are a bit cute, when I forget about the weeding, this non-gardening Mama dislikes – a lot – the never-ending prickly weeds that flock to bush-country. Maybe I’m just such a good gardener that everything wants to grow in my dirt? (Coughs).
So this morning the girls took a nap at the same time – mark this day down in history – and I could put them both down in the morning because I don’t have Lexi today (whom I pick up from school in the morning) due to this weekend’s illness pandemic in our household. [We have a Dr. appointment for Rachael this afternoon.] And in the art of self-sacrifice, I decided to be my own Mistress Mary and try to find delight in weeding the last HUGE flower bed. So, no joke, it took me about 45 minutes to clear away a three feet long section out of the twelve or thirteen foot long flowerbed. I nearly filled an entire huge trash bag of weeds.
And all I have to say after my experience is:
Bad Eve… no apple!
– Seriously, I enjoyed the prayer time and quiet amid the work. Maybe a gardener is growing in me yet? And maybe this too shall pass. hehe. =)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTMLexhwi0o?fs=1]
“Mommy read book?” she pleas as the climbs in bed to snuggle up for a nap. When Rachael was 11 months old, we made the family choice for me to become a stay-at-home mom. Abi, whom we had yet to know to be Abi, was on the way and my heart overflowed with the prospect of being there fully to raise our kids. I rearranged the kitchen, did some serious housecleaning to kick off the week and began a new tradition, reading before nap time.
I remember my mom reading the Lord of the Ring’s series to us before bed, my sister and I fighting to stay awake longer to hear “just one more chapter.” We were elementary aged and past the “little kid book” age. But I found such a joy in the stories coming to life in our minds – no need for pictures, we were each writing our own movie as the text filled our imaginations.
I began the Anne of Green Gables series when Rachael was 11 months old. I still remember the joy of feeling her little body drift into sleep amid turning the pages and rocking. And it’s so precious to me to think that ever since Abi could hear from the womb she has drifted to sleep amid a story. I remember feeling Abi get heavier inside me as she neared her ripeness toward the end of Rachael’s lap-rocking days. When Abi joined us on this side of the womb, Rachael would fall asleep in her bed and I would rock Abi while sifting through the Chronicles of Narnia series and a Karen Kingsbury novel (yes, Matt finally convinced me). There’s something beautiful about knowing your kids are falling asleep to the soothing pattern and rhythm of your voice. And here we are today, with the Secret Garden.
Today we met Colin for the first time and a flood of a high school musical emerged in my mind. I love how a good book captures you as the scene is painted in your mind. But the scene coming to my mind was literally painted on sliding set pieces. I remembered try-outs with my sister, one of the first things I remember coming together to accomplish (due to high school falling at such a “sisters are uncool” age). My sister, an ever-so-old Junior, and then there was me, a little scared Freshman. My sister had the part of Lily in the bag, literally just waiting for the formalities of try-outs. But the part of Colin was up for grabs among all my friends. Whoever got the role of Colin would be immediately excommunicated from the group as the rest would probably be listed amongst the long list of “chorus” (hehe). My sis jumped into action, practicing and practicing with me. I remember thinking, “WOW! She knows me outside of the house too?!” (love ya, Jes.)
And then the call-backs list and the final posting sealed it all. I had my first lead in a musical, playing my sister’s son. There was much make-up, ace bandages to make the illusion of a boy’s chest appear, and a wig that took nearly 2 hours to put on my head (tucking my long hair beneath). But something magical came from singing “Come to my Garden” with my sister. I will never forget the excitement rush of hearing her beautiful voice cut through the fog (fog machined in) and pierce through the silence of the room. It was a moment. A moment indeed. And then that bridge… “I shall see you in my garden…” those tight harmonies. It was so neat. The show took on a life of it’s own.
The lady on the recording has NOTHING on my sister. You should see Daddy’s recording. =) But I do remember practicing to this version with my sister as we prepared for try-outs. It was just lovely. Lovely indeed.
Some pieces of the experiences God has given me are hard to convey. Rachael and Abi may never know the feeling of standing, or in my case laying on a bed (I was a crippled boy), and knowing that an audience of some hundred(s) of people are watching and yet feeling like no one else is there, but whomever is on stage. I hope Rachael and Abi get the chance to lose themselves in a musical number (not as in become loose morally here people). Just so much fun. So shaping and altering.
Funny how God has used some small-town moments to build up this stage-fright child within me. hehe.
Anyway… back to house chores.
– looking forward to tomorrow’s nap-time reading.
Sometimes a walk down memory lane is filled with beautiful, white-picket fenced pictures. Other times lessons learned come to mind. And sometimes there’s those ‘remember when’s that create a solemn and quiet moment in your heart.
I recently set up my old college computer to provide a space of childhood computer game playing. Funny to introduce the kindergartner I watch to packman – as if packman is something historic of the past. When booting up the old junker, curiosity led me to the old picture files. Funny to laugh through silly worship band pictures. But one file brought back a whole world of thoughts. It’s title? New Orleans Mission Trip 2006.
We come to crossroads in our life. The road to heroism and the road to normalcy. And sometimes the two interchange and weave amongst each other. But every once in a while on down the road there comes a hill. And after the hill’s climb you begin to see more values: greater value in rest, greater value in good hiking shoes, greater value in water, and even a greater value in life. And then all at once the horizon hits you from the top of that hill.
New Orleans brought back that feeling. The old war-zone looking pictures of displaced houses, demolished neighborhoods, and the eerie quiet that filled the air. No birds. No crickets. Nothing.
Work abounded on the trip. Filled with gutting flooded houses, stripping down walls and bleaching studs. All in the efforts to rebuild. All in the efforts to start again. In most cases we didn’t meet the neighbors – those that were coming back for the wreckage. We just did our work. Did our part. Tried to leave behind a foundation that someone else could value again.
The images. The feelings. The poor world feeling so much bigger and yet so much closer than before. It all came flooding back as I flipped through the pictures, my mind adding a few not captured on film.
inside
the final product – a gutted house
Sometimes a walk down memory lane is filled with beautiful, white-picket fenced pictures. Other times lessons learned come to mind. And sometimes there’s those ‘remember when’s that create a solemn and quiet moment in your heart.
– my heart goes out to Japan right now –
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a stay-at-home mom of little kids, it’s that you need a lot of support. It’s a blessing to have a friend to talk to when you just need an adult voice. There are times the last thing you want to do is wipe another boogie nose, but knowing girl’s night out is around the corner helps you press on. There are times you just want to take a drive in the car, without having to listen to 20 questions from the back seat. And while stay-at-home moms can seem like anonymous people , operating on a completely different day-shift than the rest of the world’s 9-5, you know that you matter to the Savior.
But I’ve found a new level of anonymity. You moms have probably experienced it. It’s the circumstance where you visit a friend, neighbor, extended relative, or acquaintance and the only one that matters in the room is …. the baby on your hip.
Have you ever felt that?
You’re not even acknowledged. The baby receives the engagement, the patting, maybe is even taken from your hip and not one word is said to you. It’s like you don’t even exist.
Most days it doesn’t bother me. I kind of enjoy staying out of the floodlights. But deep down inside a small part of me wonders why if I matter so much then why not even a word was said to me.
I’ve had this happen twice to me this past weekend. not a word was said to me in the hour+ that I spent with this person. All the interaction was with my children and my husband. It’s as if a world around me existed and I was merely there for functionality.
I’m not posting about this as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at that person. This has nothing to do with that kind of a shallow act. I just wanted to post about this feeling for all those moms out there that are put in similar situations. All those moms out there (whom most will never have heard of or ever read these words) who just want a friend to look them in the eyes and say, “you matter. Even if you have some undetectable sticky thing in your hair.”
“You matter to me even if you are thinking about how you wish you had time for a shower this morning. Even if you’re wondering if you’ll ever lose the baby weight. Even if your thoughts are on desiring a moment of quiet time once the kids go to bed. Even if the last thing on your list is to uphold some intellectual conversation because you just want someone to be with you without requiring something from you. You matter. Because you are you.”
And it’s in those moments that I hope and pray you hear your Savior whisper those truths to your heart.
Dear anonymous Mom out there,
You Matter to Me.
– Jesus.
He is all-sustaining.
Rachael was crying on the baby monitor and I went in to her. I asked her what was wrong. After a few minutes she said, “I was sleeping. Alligator get my hand and I say ouch. I wake up and I cryin‘.”
Sounds like the kid explained her nightmare quite well.
Quite the imagination.
Too bad it bit her. =)
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