A Worthy Life

delight

Of all my children, you are the one who needs me the most. You are the one who wants me desperately near and available every second.

And yet, even in those moments of closest proximity, you are the one most likely to push away, to build a wall, to refuse to talk about what is troubling you.

Yet again at the closing of every day, it is you, bone tired in sheets all around, who begs for my kisses, who must share a prayer.

This week it became clear to me that those God has surrounded me with - husband, children, family, friends - often wink of His great love for me, how each serves as a personification of the eternal, undeserved grace and love God extends to me.

I see His wink in you too, my precious Eden, but even more that twinkle in my Father's eye when I roll my eyes heavenward in desperate demand for some help learning how just to love you so.

He knows just what He put in you, a little of me at that age with my love for folly and penchant for trouble. In you I see so much of me, so many of the same struggles I wrestled with at your age and I recognize the strong desire to do what is right even when all the while choosing what is wrong.

Look in that mirror, baby girl. It is you and me.

You while still in the struggle.

Me always by your side as a promise that God does grant victory and that He will use those eternal ingredients He gifted deep inside of you to make something beautiful of you, more precious some day because of the refining He is doing in you, and in me, today.

You are heaven's delight and so too are you mine.

Joining with Embracing the Camera and Five Minute Fridays.

mr. valentine

Mr. Valentine, mine:

Every year I fail at sending out the family Christmas card. I thought this less stressful holiday might be a bit more apropos for sending howdy-do and how-are-you notes to our friends. So I started my love letters weeks early; I didn't want my words rushed or my gesture a mere hasty afterthought.

(You know how I pity those husbands rushing through the grocery checkout line with a fist full of roses and a box of chocolates shoved securely under pit, scribbling obligatory words on papers bent up on dusty dashboards.)

I secretly hoarded gifts for the kids weeks ago and conspired successfully to finish all my festive preparation while their fingers danced along the ivories and skipped among the wires during music lessons. When they came home to merry surprises and sang their thanks through squeals and giggles, I knew they knew they are loved.

When you came home, I was cycling downstairs in your office. You were the second one to interrupt my workout, after our offspring who came to proudly display your tokens of affection to them wrapped in silver paper.

In your arms were a dozen roses and, ever the practical man, a new tee for me to christen with tomorrow's sweat and tears.

In return, I sighed a mandatory thanks though it was obvious I was anything but grateful.

It isn't you babe, it's me.

It's just that I love this holiday for it's darling ideals of love and friendship and long to celebrate it at this it's shallow intent. Bring on the chocolates and heart shaped sound bites, all hail to hugs and honorary loves!

But I hate it too, hate that it has concocted contrived obligation from what should be spontaneous, frequent celebration of who we are, of who we know each other to be.

You know now that I hate roses, this a few dozen of dozens of bouquets later. (Sorry, roses. It's me, not you.) And yet, roses, red ones, is what you my love gave to me. It didn't matter to me that they weren't the cheap grocery store variety, what mattered was that you still didn't know something about me that I felt you should.

You scrambled to make right what had somehow gone so wrong. You promised that you would get me something else, something more, something, anything that could convince me of your love.

I said I already knew and hoped you knew that I knew that you loved me.

We don't need this day of roses and red, don't need the notes of love written on a deadline. What I need, what I want from you I get every single day.

You give yourself to me, your time, your devotion. You build me up, make me believe my wild dreams are possible, that together there is nothing we can't do. You work for me, you pray for me, you stand with me. You serve me, sacrifice for me. Your look alone, it whispers things I never would have believed before I met you.

All I want is more of the same. More years, not a day. Years to continue this conversation of hearts, this sharing of ourselves, this sharpening of each as we brush against the other.

Now do you understand? It wasn't you, wasn't even so much the roses. It wasn't that your gift, your sincere desire to make my day special wasn't enough. It's just that at that moment on that day it seemed compulsory, the required enactment of billboard propaganda.

This love, our love, cannot be contained in heart shaped sound bites, "a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense." I want no minimum, no annual deposit. I want the maximum, a daily profusion of our commitment in word and deed.

Last night you whispered in the dark, wondering what my favorite color was. My favorite number. So many of the things of which you realize that even in a decade of sharing we have never plumbed the depths of.

I'm excited to tell you, longing to know yours.

In the meantime, all I ask of you is patience. While we continue to discover and reveal this lover beside us, let us celebrate where we are today and continue to share our hopes of who we long to be one day together.

Though not finished nor delivered yesterday, this is my letter of love from this mutinous heart to yours, hopefully at just the right time.

xo, d

Adding mine to other marriage letters here, too.

mondays remembered: supermodel mama

Because Mondays are busy for us here at home, I think I might start pulling up old favorites to post so that I can remember what I wrote in the past and see if I'm purposefully living out in the present my deepest aspirations. This is such a post... What are the poses/attitudes/example I strike most often with my kids? Is my life and choices ones I would want them to emulate? Which ones could use some adjustment and realignment?

My day started happily enough. Summer was being ushered in on the backs of warm, dry breezes and life was good. Until I came face to reflected face with every aging woman's kryptonite: your body in a swimsuit. I'm a generally optimistic person but this was one time I would rather take the cup half empty instead of filled up and bursting at the nylon seams. Milk does a body good. Having provided it to four eager babies, not so much.

During my recent physical, I bemoaned my mounting ailments and gravity-laden parts to my doctor, hoping perhaps that she had a prescription that could make everything better. She assured me that I looked quite good for my age, this while doing my semi-annual pap test. I guess the up side to being old enough to have birthed four children is bragging rights to a beautiful birthing canal. How's that for inner beauty...

Gravity-laden or not, I'm proud of who I am, how God made me, and what He created me to do and be.

It wasn't always this way. Growing up, my mother always warned me against my steady diet of fashion magazines, cautioning me that photos from a centerfold can lead to discontent in my center, my soul. I kept binging on the images until my own became too much a priority and my reality could never match my fantasy.

These days our children don't even need to open the pages of a magazine to feel physically inadequate. The top rated shows for kids are those with tweens bedecked in full make-up and hair extensions as their starlets. The grocery lines are full of magazines mocking the cellulite or the excess baggage of even the thinnest stars. Commercials during all the sporting events boast beautiful women, capitalizing on their beauty, mocking their supposed lack of brains.

This is the definition of beauty today? These are the role models for this generation?

I want something more for my kids. I want them to be someone more. I need a hero for hire. I need a role model who could show them how to walk worthy, a tall order only a super model could fill.

As I read my Bible one night, I found her. I found him.

I found the mother of Moses, who saw that hers was not an ordinary child. Seeing something special in the innocence of his baby eyes, she wanted something different for him. So, she hid him away. She sheltered him from death and then instilled in him a powerful sense of justice.

He, the remarkable son, refused to be but a child of this world, turning away from the privilege and the comfort that was his. He chose to suffer that he might bring justice to a hurting people.

I found Joshua who courageously believed that there could be more to life than what God's people were willing to settle for. He believed that God had bigger plans, better plans, a better land prepared for them.

There was Daniel, brilliant and handsome, who resolved not to defile himself in an environment toxic to his beliefs. He purposed in his heart to stand apart.

Ruth was a beautiful woman who didn't find humility and service below her. She looked to the needs of others over the pursuit of her own desires.

An oddball from the start, there was John. He didn't exactly dress to impress and his diet was, shall we say, unique? But his words, a voice crying out in the wilderness, drew people by the flocks. His message made others listen. His passion made them want the Truth that he shared.

This is who I want my children to emulate.

As Moses' mother did, I want to believe that my child in no ordinary child. That they are meant for more than what the world would offer them, more than what the world would have them settle for.

I want them to possess a justice that compels them to stand up for those without it. I want them to have a courage that turns away from apathy and lethargy, a courage that demands that they fight for what God desires for them.

I want them to understand that beauty and brilliance are gifts but they do not define you, they do not complete you. I want to warn them that following solely after those pursuits can lead to a slippery slope of conformity and arrogance. Instead, I would that they would humble themselves, that they would never believe themselves to be above any service. 

To be a voice of Truth, to be one pointing others to God, that would be a enviable future for my children.

My desire is that they would walk like David who, though he slipped up time and time again, knew the love of his God surpassed any other's. I hope that they can hold fast to the truth that forgiveness is only a call away and that they would never give up pursuing after God.

As a mom who can do little to shape their external features, I want to do all I can to shape their inner beauty. By providing them with alternative models to point them in the right direction, to show them that it is possible for them to walk a different walk. Maybe one day they too could be super models to a generation of children desperate to know how they can love God and live in this world.

At the very least, they can always claim themselves as heirs to a legacy of people with inner beauty.

After all, their mother sure did have one good looking birthing canal.

real

They are the ones who see the real me, the everyday mama me.

The wake up puffy face, let's-text-this-picture-to-our-auntie scary face me.

They don't read my words here; they read my lips, my what-I-really-do rather than "what I aspire to do".

They know only a little of my impact outside of our home, little of my role as anything other than mother.

If mama is strong and patient and persevering and hopeful and grateful and respectful, so go my mini-mes.

Where I flounder and waste and resent and blame and fake, there are my students studying their teacher, wondering if this is to be learned or avoided.

If I gain all, and diminish and dismiss and defer my responsibility to show love, to give love, to teach His love, I have lost the truth of who I was created to be right now in this place on this planet to these four.

It's time to get real.

with 5 Minute Fridays...

embracing imperfection

Looks peaceful, right?

The only moment of the day.

The little one photobombed my eldest's attempt to snap a photo of the mama who had been snapping at her all morning. Putting her in the picture was the only viable compromise to her not giving me bunny ears.

While I semi-smiled awkwardly, Manu hammed away. First by pretending angelic slumber. Later by all sorts of snorts and googly eyes.

It was our only photo worthy moment of the rest of the afternoon.

I lost steam halfway to goodnight and so every misconduct, every imperfection from every kid earned each my full wrath.

The only repeat of the false moment above was a real catnap on mama's lap after a full blown meltdown and during room incarceration for the other three.

Ignored directions, wicked words, childish foolishness, slammed doors, doors left open, food spilled, shrill screaming...each was opportunity for patient correction, wise words to instruct and build up.

Except that I opted for the irrational mother act - screaming right back, hoping the volume would emphasis the gravity of each infraction.

I even shouldered my frustration and took it for the short ride to drop the girls off at Awanas. Another slammed door, an almost severed limb and I didn't hold back.

In the same parking lot that just week I had given my best Pharisaical look of disdain to a yelling father who couldn't hide his humanity and pull on the shiny mask we all prefer.

Later at bedtime, the girls said their sincere apologies. I echoed back.

We all agreed that tomorrow we'd try again and give Jesus more than elbow room in our self-filled hearts.

And to catch a few winks until morning gives more challenges and more opportunities to embrace love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control...

Embracing with Emily...

answered prayers

There were over 600 of them, names of people that never got their miracles. Waiting for what for many has been a lifetime, the names and maladies of these desperate 600 had been gathered from across Togo by missional seekers offering the gift of hope.

In villages and streets, their stories were given and in return, a possibility of healing and new life.

Many of their fellow countrymen had done the same and, when they were summoned, soon found a temporary home aboard a giant life preserver floating in Togo's coastal port. The staff, all volunteers, of Mercy Ships had been able to restore health, reverse death sentences, and rekindle hope for hundreds of such patients.

But these 600 had not been helped. These were ones whose conditions were too serious or not serious enough, ones who missed their appointed time for treatment, or ones who simply could not be re-found before Mercy's mission had come to an end.

One nurse Ali was not ok with that. She wasn't ok with a gesture of hope but no final culmination of their deepest hopes. So she sent out a petition, recruiting other volunteers into the ministry of mercy; this mission being eternal, one without an expiry date.

She asked for warriors of prayer to lift each name up to the Great Physician, the one who knows their name and their need. Of the 600 names, almost half of them were matched with intercessors. I asked for and received 20 names of children, the first four perfectly matched in age to my own four.

The slip of paper with these names became my nightly prayer roster. Before bed and in bed when counting sheep seemed silly were there were souls to name.

Last week Ali wrote with an update while the ship was once again docked in Togo. It had been five months since her call for aid and that day they were admitting twenty of the 600 who were still waiting. I emailed her then to find out if, by supernatural happenstance, one of those patients might have been one of my 20.

If for just one my prayers were heard, I would have my faith strengthened.

If for just one their miracle had come, I would be reminded that God hears my cry.

If for just one new life was theirs, I would know that last August my own life mattered.

She responded to say that not one, not two, but TEN of the twenty patients they saw last week were from the list I had wept and prayed over!

"WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?!", to quote Ali.

What indeed are the odds that my God would care so much for little ol' privileged, safe, healthy, affluent me that He would send this clanging confirmation that even in a world of need and hurt, He sees ME, He hears ME??

The chances, as it turns out, are pretty good that God does not forget those the world has forgotten. It's pretty good odds that He is still in the business of answering prayers and delivering on miracles.

All we have to do is ask.

p.s. One more answered prayer, Ali is expecting her first baby in August! Would you go and leave a word of congratulations for Ali and, for me, a request that Canada be the first place baby visits after the hospital and grandma's house? :)

tender hearts

Her heart is warm, her smile gracious, always inviting you in, asking you to freeze this moment in time and remember her. She longs to please, her countenance sensitive to her mother's tone. I long to build her up, assure her that she is loved just as she is so that no fragility of heart remains, only a place where tenderness makes it's home.

This discovery was hers, a remnant of once warmer days, newly clothed in icy waters. The beauty here was that the past still serves us in this our present; what once dressed and imbued our dinnertime salads now awakens us to the allure that still blossoms even in winter's harsh grasp.

Her words, a love letter weeks too early for the yearly holiday, came right on time to a mama who just this afternoon balanced precariously on the edge between firm teacher and fiery preacher. She knew nothing of my need to write today for 5 minutes, nothing of the word that spoke the challenge. Just as she tries her best, so I try mine. As her words bring sweet reward to my weary feet, so I trust my example provokes hers to follow where Jesus' trod.

motherhood ain't always pretty...

Sure, motherhood ain't always pretty but it sure can be darned funny...!

Regrettably, I am usually not present at morning devotions, an event that happens over breakfast with papa while I get my last few moments of beauty sleep. My presence for Sunday's devo while on a weekend getaway was regrettable for everyone else. When pops started off with the title, All by Myself, I took it as a personal invite to serenade the family with my best rendition of All by myse-e-elf, don't wanna be, all by myseeeelf! Everone waited until I was done but, alas, there was no applause. When I heard, We built this treehouse... it was, of course, another opportunity to break out in song, We built this (treehouse) on rock and ro-o-o-ll...!

No one has regretted my absence at morning devos since.

We hit up some outlets this weekend and all the girls scored new pea coats for a song (this time, not one of mine) at their new favorite store...Ooosh Koosh b'Goosh.

Somehow passing with flying colors came up this week at school. I am now inundated with requests for the actual test called, you guessed it, With Flying Colors.

With a full collection of books all things Star Wars, I fear I may be evolving into one. And no, not one of the beauties like Princess Leia or Queen Amidala. Nope, I've adopted the weirdo verbiage of Yoda..."Kids, don't forget warm to dress when outside you go!" Let's just hope my skin doesn't start morphing into a lovely shade of green.

My no-fail response when I want to put off a question from my kids is maybe. This week, however, my five year old lawyered up with, "Maybe is NOT an option! YES or NO?!?

Now, I'm being asked my the little people that rule the roost to vacate my computer. Fine, I'll just go find another way to waste time before starting dinner... :)

Embracing with Emily.

supernatural wife

I'm a natural mother, or so people say.

Loving my kids, sacrificing for my kids, serving my kids isn't something I have to will myself to do; it's something that to me seems as effortless as breathing and as rewarding as any other calling.

I do it because it's what comes easy, naturally. I do it because being Mama has always been highest of my heart's ambitions.

By contradiction, marriage is about as natural to me as being one half of a Siamese twin; I don't naturally operate well with some another head directing the same parts of a life shared.

While girlfriends in my youth sighed dreamily about Prince Charming and hoped his arrival might happen any day, I yearned for independence, a life free from yo-yo emotions and a steady resolution towards my plans and my dreams. One day I would settle down, perhaps, but the future held too much to risk sharing it while holding hands.

Ironically, I married before most of my friends. I married while quite young to a man I loved, one who shared so many of my same desires and vision. The pastor who married us counseled my husband, "This one (meaning me, who was sitting right in front of him, privy to this entire conversation!) is very independent (I could almost see the italicization of very in his breath!). This is a good trait though (obviously!), one that when directed well will prove your full confidence."

You can imagine my delight in his use of the word directed.

I didn't want to be directed or steered or led. I wanted to share a life with my husband and friend while staying true to me, not having to divorce myself from everything I was so that I could be everything someone else thought I should be.

I thought words like submission and meekness meant I was to surrender every aspect of the person God had started an eternal work in years before. I thought I had to swallow all of me so I could morph into him.

I understood serving as it applied to my children but when compared to my husband all I heard was servitude.

I understood sacrifice as it applied to my children but when compared to my husband all I heard was inequality.

I understood love as it it applied to my children but when compared to my husband, he spelled it r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Thankfully, my confusion (and bitterness) was short lived when this pastor's wife shared with me a glorious picture of what my role really entailed and the value I had the potential to bring to my union.

The example was taken from scripture, a conversation between Jonathan and the man who walked into battle beside him carrying for him his armor.

"So his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.” (1 Samuel 14:7)

Here I am with you, according to your heart.

I had fallen in love with my husband because of his heart, because of his heart for me and for the life we envisioned together. Trust me, our minds might (and do) not always agree but because I was and am so convinced that his heart holds only the highest desire for me and for our God, my willingness to be his helper grows, my eagerness to support him is authentic because his successes become our triumphs.

Because his heart is for me, I have tremendous sway over the direction his heart chooses to go. And as I respect him, he has full confidence that what my heart desires is locked on the same eternal purpose as his. Sometimes I challenge his heart, sometimes he questions mine; it's a leadership of love, submission by trust.

Even as great as it sounds, rarely does it all come naturally to me (I wasn't born a Siamese twin, after all).

That's why I'm eternally grateful that God's directives for wives never come without the certainty of supernatural aid. Sure, I may never quite perfect being Super Wife but I'll happily settle for Supernatural Wife any day.

 

salvageable faith

A faith in flux. The dark night of the soul. Wrestling...

These are the descriptions of Christians, true believers, who for a period of time, however brief or lengthy, have found themselves questioning the foundation of their faith.

Perhaps this uncertainty comes because of unimaginable tragedy that visited when they had somehow thought their God would shield them from any and all suffering. Perhaps because of popular secular opinion and theories that shatter their already weak convictions.

Perhaps because of an unsettled discomfort that maybe all this is little more than a ruse, a cleverly devised fable that caught fire but is now nothing more than smoldering ash. Perhaps the darkness descends when reality hits after the mountaintop encounter and doubt encroaches where vibrant faith dulls to a flicker.

Perhaps a shaken soul comes with as little as silence from an absentee God, a life void of all the emotion and experience others said were sure to follow a life given over to God. Perhaps it visits when others tell you to divorce your mind from your heart.

Perhaps it pounces with the aggression of legalistic zealots whose desire to purify often comes with pain and punishment. Perhaps it slips in between the sheets of cooling lovers who wonder at the mystery of marriage and how something of God's design could be so difficult, the solutions so muddled in love and respect.

The whys and hows of it's coming are varied; the souls and minds wherein it settles range from the simple to the intellect, the long-time saint to the newly converted sinner.

For some time now, I have found myself possessing a different mindset, one visited by dark nights of the soul and foggy days of wrestling with unresolved questions; this new one far removed from the simple, unquestioning faith of my youth.

Then, I was willing to accept everything I was told and taught, assuming that what I read or had read to me straight from God's word must be digested and absorbed without argument and without dissent.

Now, I am growing more and more willing to be the one asking the questions, moving away from being the one who had to have all the answers.

Questions like mine, confessions like ours are unsettling to so many. Fearful of rocking the boat, of challenging authority, and apprehensive about a faith teetering on the edge, other believers are quick with their cliches, hasty to offer a scriptural band-aid to a heart bleeding on the inside.

Last year my only resolution was to avoid religious extremes, groups and affiliations and trends within the Christian community that take a harsh stand on what we must do or else pay the price.

When my local Christian homeschool community published articles stating homeschooling was God's direct command to parents, I opted out of my paid subscription and occasional article submission. Instead I chose to integrate into the broader homeschooling community, most of which are not religious, and have had my faith strengthened as I reached beyond my self-centered and self-serving insulated world into a deeper, solidified conviction of who I know God to be.

When others around me talked apocalyptic bunkers and self-preservation for the end of the world, I knew that this wasn't what God's word taught. Even had I believed myself to be living through such times, I knew the only appropriate action would be increased missional living so that the truth of Jesus Christ might be known to more and more as we near the brink of eternity.

This year my resolution, keep wrestling.

Though I've seen my faith bruised, "no faith is as solid as a wounded faith" (E. Wiesel).

Though I've seen my faith highjacked by public figures whose lives are but a play of hypocrisy or whose words devalue and debase the truths I hold dear, I cling to the example of One who would address their Pharisaical ways and show Truth more by what is lived than by what is said.

Though I've heard and read words that oversimplify the cost to following Jesus and over-commit on the personal prosperity to be gained, I am persuaded that it is less about me and more about Him and His eternal kingdom.

Though I still question and struggle, I now understand that "if only the will to walk is really there He (God) is pleased even with their stumbles" (C.S. Lewis).

I.will.wrestle, like Jacob of old, refusing to resign myself to a faithless existence, believing though God may be absent He is not non-existent, and drawing still close to Him and His word that I may continue to salvage truth from fiction, light from darkness, and action from apathy.

My faith remains, rooted in the historical validity of scripture, in the proclamation of His glory as seen through creation, and because of this little light of mine that sometimes smolders and sometimes shines deep, deep down in my heart.