The Small Days

I have just a few minutes as I sit on the deck with my coffee.  School is done.  I am tired. We are all grateful for a break.  I escape outside, to this fall-ish day, already cool with a hint of crispness.  The leaves are still green but soon it will be a colorful wonderland back here.

I am thankful.

Thankful for these few small minutes.

I pray the baby doesn't wake up. He doesn't like to sleep much during the day, but oh when he does... it's just a little bit of heaven.  We adore him, of course, but we all appreciate a little nap.

The introvert in me needs these small moments.  As I sit out here, I pray. I thank God for this day, because if I don't, it all seems like a crazy mess.  But when I do, it all seems just as it should be.  I pray for my best friend. For Pastor Saeed and his family.  For my baby. For my Petite who I feel is getting lost in the busyness of our days.  I pray for our upcoming trip. The flying, oh how I hate it. And I'm leaving my three oldest babies behind.

I tear up when I think of it.

I see a wispy little cloud float by.

And I think of how these are the days of small things.  Small moments like this when I get a chance to think, to breath, to savor a moment with my Savior.  Small moments of remembering that this is life and it is good.  Small moments in the midst of small things.

Nursing a baby.  Wiping the counters.  Reading lessons.  Making dinner, again.  Dust flying. Fingerprints on my mirror.  Half-eaten cookies on the table.  Floors that need to be swept and that rarely get mopped.

These are just little things I do, day in and day out.

I remember the days of big things.  Like planning our wedding.  And starting a Bible study in our home.  Of selling our house and settling into our new one.  Of special vacations.  I remember the days of our babies coming into the world and God's fingerprints over every single moment.  And the day I met my best friend who was brought to me by Him.

Those days and seasons when the Lord showed up in a big way.

But I find most days are like this.  Just little moments that require me to look harder to see that He is here.

That's why I need my coffee on the deck.  And that blessed hour after everyone has gone to bed.  And as many minutes as I can grab first thing in the morning with  my Bible and my journal.

To thank God for these small things.  And to be reminded that small doesn't equal unimportant.  These days matter, just as our youngest family member matters.  These days of throwing in wood, changing diapers, flushing toilets for those who forget, matching up socks,turning off the lights that always get left on, and reading books aloud, are no less significant than the wedding days, the birthdays, the holy days.

"Do not despise these small beginnings, because the LORD rejoices to see the work begin..."

Zechariah 4:10

The Planned and the Unplanned

I am staring at the sweetest little thing I know.  My darling baby boy, who will be five months old tomorrow.  These are precious days.  I am thankful for all the milestones he hits, like rolling over and laughing, but it is bittersweet because it means he is growing up oh so quickly.

Perhaps it is this little guy, his life, that is waking me up to the issues going on right now with Planned Parenthood.  See, I have always been pro-life.  I was raised that way.  I never doubted it was wrong to kill a baby in the womb.  I never doubted that, even as a "blob of tissue", it was alive.  And that it was created by God.  I have not always been a devout follower of God. Far from it.  But I always believed in letting life live.

I remember in my younger years, wrestling with so-called Christian views of what it means to be a woman.  It seemed so gross, so derogatory, things like submission and women not allowed to lead in the Church.  And it seemed like the world was so hostile to women, with its wage inequality, and images of beauty which produced vicious results in young girls and women.  Young and immature, not really knowing the extent of the term, I considered myself a feminist.  My freshman year of high school, in English class, this issue of abortion came up and I stood up for life.  A female classmate was appalled.  "Stephanie, I thought your were a feminist!" (oh, doesn't that sound silly now, between fourteen-year-old girls?).  My response," I am.  But abortion is murder."  I wasn't afraid to speak the truth back then.

And I'm a little ashamed that I haven't been speaking the truth, out loud, for anyone to hear, as an adult.

Yes, of course, I am still pro-life.  But I have let fear of man hold me back. I've let this become a complicated issue, when essentially, it isn't.  And I have silenced myself.  While many issues swirl around abortion, things like reproductive health and access to birth control and life of the mother, etc, the bottom line is that abortion is murder. It is destroying life that is made in the image of God.

I watch my young son smile at us. He follows us with his eyes. He thrives on our affection and attention. He laughs at us.  He longs to be held.  He knows instinctively how to suck to get nourishment, even fresh from the womb.  He has an emerging personality (extrovert, we think).  He is just so very precious to us and it is breaking my heart to think of the millions, yes millions, of children that have not been given the chance to live.

And let me be honest.  I have had an unexpected, and even unwanted, pregnancy.  The summer we were preparing to move, I was surprised by feelings of morning sickness and the smell of everything curdling my stomach.  A very familiar feeling.  I bought a Dollar Tree pregnancy test which confirmed my worst fear- yes, fear.  I had been married for 11 years, had three children, thought our family was complete, and was devastated to see two pink lines appear on that test stick.

I did not want any more children.

I didn't know how on earth I was going to handle having a new baby without the support of my friends and family in Lincoln.  We were moving to a new town, Josh was starting a new job, we hadn't sold our house yet.  This was terrible,  horrible timing.  I cried my eyes out when I told Josh I was pregnant. I felt numb when he prayed for our unborn baby that night.  I had absolutely no happy, joyful feelings about having another child.

So I understand, maybe just a little, about how it feels to be confronted with an unexpected pregnancy.  I understand how it feels to wish it wasn't so, to feel stuck with a circumstance I couldn't change.

Only, there is that option, that choice to change the circumstance of an unwanted pregnancy.  It is all too easy to find a local Planned Parenthood, or another women's clinic, and take care of this problem.

To be sure, having a baby is HUGE.  Pregnancy is not always glorious.  Infants are not always calm and easy going.  Neither are toddlers, tweens, or teenagers.  Children are not cheap to raise.  They change our plans, interrupt our nights, they  require massive change on the part of the mother (and involved father).  It is no light thing to carry life and then raise it.  And it's not just irresponsible women who find themselves pregnant without planning it.

But what I knew, is that my child was alive. I couldn't feel him or her yet. I hadn't seen an ultrasound picture. But I knew it was life.  And that while this life was interrupting my life, I would, eventually, love this child.

I realize not every woman who finds herself pregnant unexpectedly seems "qualified" to raise a child.  We have an overflowing foster care system because so many men and women are not able or unselfish enough to raise a child in a healthy, safe way.  I realize the teenage pregnancy rates are high and that high school and even college will be interrupted if they have a baby, even if they don't keep it.  I am not ignorant to how difficult it is to carry a life and raise it!  But none of that means it is okay to destroy a life.

Today, I reject what is commonly referred to as the feminist movement, because, honestly, it has served women so ill.  I reject the idea that  Christianity has a subservient view of women.  Perhaps religion does, but Jesus Christ does not.  Over and over again in the gospels, I read how Jesus set women free.  Women who were being used by men.  Women who were prostitutes, illegitimate, in poverty and medical distress.  He set them free!  He memorialized some of them! And this is where modern day feminism has it so wrong.

Abortion doesn't set a woman free.  It sounds so good, the ability to get rid of an unexpected pregnancy and all the complications it will bring. But it's a lie.  It's a sorrow women carry, sometimes their whole lives, because they know, yes they know, that this is life.

I have always been so confused about this.  If a woman wants her baby, it is fully alive from the very start. If she doesn't, it is merely tissue, a blob that can be disposed of.  Surely, if Planned Parenthood is selling body parts, doesn't that imply that there is a body, and if a body, a person?  And as a woman who believes we are created beings, not objects of random chance, I also believe that our bodies have souls.  And to kill a body is to kill a soul.

I know there are gazillions of arguments surrounding abortion.  I know it doesn't seem as easy as making it illegal, and I would agree with that.  Making abortion illegal would not end the practice.  It wouldn't change the hearts and minds or the behavior of anyone.  It wouldn't keep a woman from an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy.  It wouldn't solve all her problems.

But I also know that abortion only causes greater problems and does absolutely nothing to truly set a woman at liberty.  Abortion, itself, is a grave injustice toward women.  That there is nothing better to offer a woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to be than an abortion is a disgrace.

The truth is, there are other options.

Back to my story.

It didn't end well.

I carried my unexpected baby for twelve weeks and then had a miscarriage.  I had a miscarriage many years before that, yet very early on, but this one was so much worse.  Even though I had not fully embraced the idea of having another baby, even though I wasn't emotionally attached to that baby, losing it was a devastating process. It may sound crude, but it felt like I was delivering my baby in a toilet.  It was so, so wrong.  And yet, it was "spontaneous", as the doctors describe miscarriage.

I can only imagine how much more wrong it is to deliver your child at twelve weeks on purpose.  Planned.  Sold a lie that it will lead to freedom.

If we want to talk women's liberation, then abortion as the first prescription for pregnancy needs to end.  The alternatives may not be easy, but they will protect babies AND women far better. I don't have all the answers.

Yes, crisis pregnancy centers.

Yes, birth control.

Yes, caring for women in marginalized areas.

Yes, sex education.

Yes, it's going to take money.  Tax money, private money.

Yes, Church, wake up and reach out and dig in your pockets and adopt and foster and love like crazy.

Yes, support life after birth as well (education, food programs, child care, etc.).

My story of babies and pregnancy doesn't end with that miscarriage four years ago.  As I said, today I have a five-month-old baby boy who is an absolute delight to our family.  He has taken over our life.  He wants to be held at inconvenient moments, he wants to nurse all the live long day.  But he just loves to smile at us, and be loved by us. He brightens our home in the most incredible ways.  My children are experiencing the gift of life through this child.  They felt him moving in my womb. They saw his pictures while he was still in the secret place.  Their young hearts and minds knew this thing inside of me was fully alive. And they were fascinated.

How heart breaking to me that the fascination of bringing life into the world, one of the very things that  make us as women so very feminine, is so long gone in our culture. While surely women are made for more than bearing children, we were never, ever made for abortion.

Ducks Out of Row, Trying to Go With the Flow

This morning I made a list of twenty things I wanted to get done today.  Yes, twenty things.

Blogging wasn't one of them, but here I am.

Vacation is over. Well, our week away full of late nights and fun to the max is over.  And my hubs is back to work (thanks for that, Babe!).  And that means I have a very, very messy house. How is that possible when you've been away for a week?  I don't know, but it is.  And hence, my list of twenty things, which could easily be fifty.

But I'm devouring a salad and trying to type at the same time.

Truth is, I'm a little overwhelmed by my kitchen and the inability to get it cleaned up.  The same is true of the living room and the dining room (which still has blue painter's tape on the walls).  Goodness, I'll just admit I'm overwhelmed by  this whole house.  I can't get a thing done, or when I do, it quickly gets undone.  My list of twenty things includes tiny, minuscule items like marinating the roast for tomorrow night.  Things like using up the leftover frosting from the Fourth of July cupcakes and reading aloud to the kids.  Little things to check off to make me feel like I got something done today.  Because I sense that even when the lights go out tonight, the kitchen will still be a wreck.

I know in the grand scheme, these things don't matter.  But I am Ducks-in-a-Row Mama.  I make my lists and I check them so much more than twice. I like order, predictability, and clean countertops.

Why then, four children?

Why then, do I homeschool?

Because I've come to this place- wait, I'm still on a journey to this place- called Surrender.  My life isn't my own.  It's God's. And He has a plan for it that will stretch me and make me need Him like no one else.  Four kids is part of it. Homeschooling is part of it.  And apparently, all my ducks out of order is part of it, too.

And all the crumbs, lest we forget.

I think my lists are something the Lord smiles at. After all, He made me this way.  An ISTJ, according to Meyers-Briggs.  I think my lists are part of my way of bringing glory to Him, just like this unexpected blog post.

But I think He smiled a little bigger when I put everything aside and sat at the kitchen table with Petite today. I had to stack up the laundry that was covering it and move aside a pile of coloring papers.  I had to dig out some of my scrapbooking supplies.  And together we made a birthday countdown chart so that she will know exactly when her big day is.  We put Sleeping Beauty stickers on it and of course the paper was pink.  It wasn't on my list, but it was important.

I don't think I will ever be Go-With-the-Flow Mama.  But I hope that I learn more and more to take a time-out from my schedules and lists and let the frustration over the messy house go.... and just enjoy this very, very short season.

Of four kids.

And homeschool.

And everybody interrupting everybody at the dinner table.

It is all good, if not orderly.

There will be other days for order.

June 22, 2013

My sweet little promised one.

Two years ago, God whispered a promise in my ear as I read 2 Kings 4.

"About this time next year... you will hold a son in your arms." vs 16

This sounds sort of mystic, perhaps, or maybe you know just what I am talking about. When God speaks to you.

In this verse, the prophet Elisha is speaking to a woman from Shunam.  She and her husband had built a little apartment for him to stay in when he was travelling through and he wanted to do something kind for her in return. She asked for nothing, but Elisha's servant mentioned that she had no children.  And no doubt the Lord told Elisha, I'm going to give her a son.  Tell her.

A couple thousands of years later, God's Word spoke the same promise to me.  Like the Shunamite woman, who said "Don't mislead your servant, O man of God!", I wondered for over a year if the Lord really had promised me this.

I had decided to leave it in my husband's hands, for one. I prayed that if this was true, he would be the one to say, "Hey girl, let's have a baby."  I tentatively broached the subject maybe twice, but got very little feedback from him.  So I let it go. 

And I wondered if I was just being a little emotional about this whole promise.

Because just a month before the Lord even spoke these words to me, I really had no desire for another child.  We had lost a baby at 12 weeks in late summer of 2011.  That baby was a complete surprise, coming at an extremely difficult time for us as we were in limbo waiting for our house to sell so the whole family could move to be with Josh near his new job.  The loss was very difficult physically and emotionally, and I vowed I would never ever go through it again.  We both felt our family was complete.

But at a ladies retreat that year, the Lord began to stir things up in me.  At first, I just surrendered and said "Okay, Lord, if you want us to have another child, I will. But I don't want any more."  Within a week, everything I was reading, circumstances around me, so many things were softening my heart and making me say "Yes, Lord, I do want another child."

 I remember thinking "But we don't even  have the crib anymore!  All our baby stuff is gone!" And thinking we so didn't have a plan!  But also thinking, who cares?  

Last spring, I started running outside.  I would pray and dream for this baby. I would doubt that I really heard God right. But deep inside I knew I had.

So strong on my heart was this truth: that the only thing we could possibly carry into the next life with us is our children. Everything else would be left behind. And Josh agreed.  And then... we got pregnant.

I look at this little boy of ours, the son God promised me two years ago today, and I am just blown away that He speaks to us.  And that He puts desires in our heart and then fulfills them.  I am reminded how personal He is.  And this promise fulfilled gives me hope that the others not yet fulfilled... one day will be.

These Are My People

My little family of six, we sit in the back row.

No pews here, just chairs linked together, sitting on a concrete floor.

This is where the shy folks tend to sit. The visitors, or the ones who aren't quite sure they belong.  The ones who want to escape out the door as soon as the last song is sung.

But my people are fidgety and they whisper and they often have deep thoughts to share (about Minecraft or Pokemon) just as soon as you raise your hand in worship.

They can be distracting, so we sit in the back row.

Our church doesn't look much like a church.  It's a building with fake windows and a log cabin with bathrooms.  There is no steeple. No bell.  It's not even white.

But here my people meet.

This week we had visitors. They sat in the front row.  Some of them were up on the stage leading us in song.  We sang words like "I need you Lord"  and "I want to be like a tree planted by the living water".  I had tears in my eyes.

My son asked me if I was crying and I nodded slightly.  He was very concerned and he wondered why.  I shrugged it off.  I assured him I wasn't sad.

Several of our visitors shared with us their story.  The young lady leading our worship, she said she was so broken, even doctors didn't think she could be fixed.  Another young lady, a local girl, the daughter of one of our church family, she told us how she decided to stop trying to please everybody and she descended to the pits of hell using alcohol and drugs.  The man who taught us from the Scriptures out of Mark 4, he was from Jersey. We knew it before he even told us.  Yeah, he had that accent.  He told us about all the crazy stuff doctors and experts and other people trying to help had him do to try to cure him of his addiction to dope and not one of them worked.

The turning point in each of these people's lives was Jesus.

Yeah, these are my people.

In that room were addicts, prostitutes, murderers, thieves.  Sinners and saints, every single one of us.  There's not one of us that hasn't done something that we're ashamed of, something so bad we don't want anyone to know.

But we sing of our redemption- how the terrible things we've done have been forgiven.

And that's why the tears are in my eyes.

Because I sometimes, often, forget the depth of the pit I was pulled out of.  I become a stone-thrower instead of grace-giver.  But that morning I remember.

These visitors up front, they remember.  They know how terrible they were, how messed up their lives were.  And now they sing of the mercies of the Lord, who wiped the slate clean and made them a new creation.

These are my people.

We call ourselves Christians. Not because we are perfect, but because we are so very messed up.  But we have been made a completely new person in Christ. So we bear His name.

What a bad deal for Him, I think sometimes, to have us  representing someone so perfectly lovely.  Because even as Christians, we mess up big time. We don't always reflect His loving heart and His grace-filled life.

 We are liars, thieves, murderers, addicts, prostitutes, immoral,  but He calls us His own.

We are HIS people.

Wear It On Your Sleeve

It's one of those days when I have a lot to say. A lot to get off my chest.  That's why I write. I have this NEED to  get things out, and until I write them out, I still carry them around, like burdens.

I want to write a break-up letter to Facebook. You know, the kind you write, but never send, cause you're just not ready to do the damage yet.

I want to address all the frustrations of postpartum dressing.   Nothing fits, on top or on bottom.

Goodness, I want to address all the frustrations of the postpartum period... period!  Hot flashes, night sweats, leaking, birth control, calories, sleepless nights, emotional roller coaster rides.

Weariness. Physically and emotionally.

I'm not quite sure what this post will become, but this is what is mainly on my heart:

We need to be real.

I don't believe in covering up the truth with made-up happiness and plastered on smiles.

Why is it that we feel the need to do that? To pretend everything is okay when it isn't? Even if it's a small thing that isn't right (like pants that are too tight?), why are we so afraid to confess it?

For my own part, it's because I don't want to be a complainer.  The last thing I want to do, in the precious days following the birth of a sweet child, is to be complaining about all that goes along with it.  I didn't want to complain my way through the discomforts of pregnancy, either.

But isn't it okay to talk about the realities of these things? Like varicose veins, leaky breasts, and the worst part of having a newborn, which is worrying about getting pregnant again.

Words have a spirit in which they are said.  And therefore, they are received according to their spirit, not so much the words.  I'm no fan of complainers. Lord knows part of my reason for wanting to break up with Facebook has to do with the complainers. I want to start a campaign called "Can't We Just Keep Facebook Fun?"  But at the same time, there is a spirit in which we can speak the hard things and be real, without being a complainer.

We just had Easter Sunday at church, and part of my role is making sure our children's ministry is staffed and running smoothly.  Easter Sunday can be a hard time to serve, for many reasons, but often because it is THE Christian Holy Day and we all want to be in the service, partaking with others in the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.  Serving in children's ministry can feel isolated and lonely and maybe even anti-climatic for such a special day. And I fully understand this.  A sweet mom, who was scheduled to serve, confessed these things to me. And later wrote me an apology for complaining.

Her words were not in the complaining spirit at all. They were just real, flowing from a heart that was weary and a little sad and lots of other real things. But not complaining.

There are those whose default is negativity and complaining.  They don't even realize it, I think. But then there are those who will never admit their struggles, pains, sorrows, and daily realities because they are afraid it will drive people away or that they will be judged.

I have made no secret about the difficulties I have experienced since we moved over three and a half years ago.  I don't pretend, nor will I, that I am perfectly happy where we are and with what is on our plate right now.  Yet, I don't dwell on these things continually and I try to check my heart to make sure I'm not complaining.

I am extremely uncomfortable with people who are always positive, whose lives are always wonderful, who will never tell you the hard things they are going through, or ask for prayer.  I can't live up to that.  Frankly, I am desperate. Every. Single. Day.

I don't want to dwell on the difficulties, but I don't want to dismiss them either.

I have many incredible joys in my life right now. And many struggles too.  I want to write about them all, and I probably will, but some of those will be the things that don't get published.  Not everything needs to be shared.

But the things I do share, even if if they seem wrong to you or you disagree (no comments on birth control, k?  I've told you nothing.) just be gentle. Just listen.  Just realize I am a REAL person who is not perfect and not a clone of you.  Or stop reading my blog (smile).

And please feel free to be real with me.  No, I don't want to listen to your laundry list of complaints and injustices, but I do want to listen to your heart.  Wear it on your sleeve.

You're prettier when you do.

The Story Isn't Over Yet

"It's Friday... But Sunday's coming!"

The message of the past two years of my life has been "The story isn't over yet."

Maybe this has been the message for *all* of my life.  Because how many times have I thought I'd come to the end?

Thinking nothing good was ever going to happen again.

The present so dismal and dark that the light of the of the future just couldn't penetrate.

I'm so serious, that way.  I always have been this way.  I don't see the world with rose-colored glasses and I sure wish I could.

It's been job losses and baby losses.  It's been Wall Street failing and the outcome of elections.  It's been having babies and raising babies.  It's been standing still and it's been moving.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about the depression (and I hate to admit that's what it was) that I had been in since we moved three and half years ago.  I was at the place of dreading each day, waking up to the same discouraging circumstances, the same loneliness, the same old story.  And I wrote about how I decided it was time to live again.

And the Lord was whispering "The story isn't over yet, girl." (And HE is the only one who can call me "girl". Cause he says it with such love and sweetness.)

And my story wasn't over yet. It isn't over yet. Why, we've just had a baby, so hasn't it, in some ways, just begun again?

But this week, as I have sat on my bed pondering, and as I have sat on my nursing couch, mulling, again, this voice, that lying voice, whispers, "This is it.  There is no more.  Things will never change."

And I wanted to cry.  Such a heaviness on my heart when I listened to that voice.  But thank God, I've got HIS voice.  It straightens things out, it makes all things new.

In my heart, maybe not even in my head, I think I asked God for the truth.  And this is what He said. And, oh, He is the sweetest.

"Remember not the former things;

nor consider the things of old.

BEHOLD, I am doing a NEW thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert."

Isaiah 43:18 and 19

I came bounding down the stairs, thinking these words, this promise, over, and He said it again.

"The story isn't over yet."

And isn't that the message of Easter?

Think of it.  The disciples, they have lost their Teacher, Master, the one they dared to believe was Messiah.  The women, they have lost their Hero, their tender Rabboni.  All they had dared to hope in Him, and believe about Him, all the love in their hearts for Him, and He was now dead. In the tomb.  No doubt about it, cause they watched him beaten and literally torn apart. They watched him dragged off the cross and tossed into the cave haphazardly,  They saw the stone no one could move rolled into its place, sealing the grave.

It was over.

The two men on the way to Emmaus from Jerusalem, they just trudged along despondently.  Along came another traveller who asked why they were so sad.  "We had hoped he was the one..." they said.

And Peter and Andrew, James and John, what else was there to do but go back to their fishing gig?  The one they had given the last three years of their lives too, he was gone.  Dead.

 It was over.

No hope for tomorrow.

But the traveller on the road to Emmaus was Jesus, come back from the dead.

The one calling to the fishermen from the shore was Jesus,  risen from the grave.

He showed his hands and his feet.  Yes, that part of the story had been real,  But so was this.  He was alive!  Death could not hold him down.  There was no power stronger than him.

And there is much more to the story.  The book of Acts, the story of the disciples afterward, that is only the beginning!

What it is I long for in the pages of my life, I cannot even say.  All I know is, my heart cries for "More!" and it has pleaded for this for so long, and the promises seem so far off at times, that I despair.  But then Jesus appears to me and renews my hope.

"The story isn't over yet, girl."

There is this old hymn I used to love to sing in my growing-up days.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because He lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know He holds the future.

Life is worth the living just because He lives.

This is the Easter story. HE LIVES!

And because HE LIVES, though there is death and sorrow, there is also life and joy.  And so long as I live, there is a story unfolding.  It is not over, nor will it be, until my own glorious resurrection, from earth to heaven.

And even then, my story just begins.

"May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13

Happy Easter!