Good Night

I'm going to bed soon.  I've been flitting around on the internet.  Most of the time when I do that I am reading blogs and laughing; there are some very funny ladies out there, moms who share great stories with a lot of humor.  There is nothing I like more than laughing until my face hurts. Tonight, though, I've come across many blogs that are heartbreaking.  While there are so many folks out there who live normal lives, and just relate everyday events for friends and family, there are SO many folks out there who are suffering, in pain, grieving a loss, and just trying to make it through each day intact.  Some of them find comfort in God, but not all of them.  It's easy to get caught up in the emotion that particular people I don't even know are experiencing.

So, tonight I'm going to bed and I'm making a choice to be grateful.  Our house, it is a disaster (partly from having moved a couple of months ago, and partly because, well, it's ours).  Our children, they are sassy and disrespectful (it feels like) a majority portion of every day.  Our laundry, it is piled up both clean and dirty (but not together!).  But...we have a home.  We are all healthy (as far as I know).  We have clothes to wear, and food to eat on top of that.  At the end of the day, we can tell one another,"I love you."  Even at the end of a hard day.  And for that, I am grateful.

Worship

This morning two of the worship services in our church met together, The 11:05, our contemporary service, and All Nations, which is a service made up of mainly African folks, who sing in Swahili and dance at the same time! By the second song it was all I could do to hold back tears.  Watching all those Presbyterians clap their hands and move their hips, hearing so many people praising God in two different languages but all together...it was a taste of Heaven.

Raise your hands, all you nations;

Shout to God, all creation.

How awesome is the Lord most high!

Great are You, Lord,

Mighty in strength.

You are faithful,

You will ever be.

We will praise You

All of our days.

It's for Your glory

We offer everything.

Raise your hands, all you nations;

Shout to God, all creation.

How awesome is the Lord most high!

Where You send us

God, we will go;

You're the answer

We want the world to know.

We will trust You

When You call our name.

Where You lead us

We'll follow all the way.

We will praise You together

For now and forever.

How awesome is the Lord most high!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

How awesome is the Lord most high.

(How Awesome is the Lord Most High-Chris Tomlin)

Indeed, how wonderful it was to raise hands offering God glory and praise alongside white-haired ladies clapping and lifting their own hands as well as Kenyans moving their bodies joyfully worshiping the Lord of all of us.  And to hear Michaela's voice calling out those words,"How awesome is the Lord most high!"  Well, there are no words for that.

When a House Becomes a Home...

When you walk around a place and remember,"This is where Christian sat when he opened his birthday presents in this house for the first time."

When you remember having three other families, some of your closest friends, come and stay with you, and everyone had enough space and the kids all had a blast, and you can picture how everyone was sitting in the living room when you all played Cranium, or around the table playing Apples to Apples.

When you think about how it finally felt like it was your own crud making the place dirty, in the corners and around the edges.

When you remember holding your baby for the first time in it.

When you miss seeing your two oldest sleeping in the same room, in different beds but facing one another.

When the memory of watching Constantina Tomescu-Dita finish the Olympics 2008 marathon, calling out through tears and laughter,"You go, girl!" as your mom and you eat chocolate chip cheesecake, makes you want to cry.

When you remember everything fitting in its place (even though it totally didn't) and being put away so nicely (even though it totally wasn't).

When you can still see your baby sitting up, crawling, pulling up, and walking for the first time, from the middle bedroom into the hallway or in the schoolroom, or around the dining room table.

When you think with fond memories about how sweet it was that the two little chairs the kids have for their wooden table were always in the kitchen against the cabinets so that they could stand there and watch whatever you were doing because it was their favorite place to be.

When you miss how the kids used to run to the T.V. room front window/door and yell goodbye to their daddy after he walked out of the house onto the porch every single time (until that room got closed off and no one went in there anymore, but until then it was pretty precious).

There were so many things about that house, the one we just left, that drove me up the wall, plenty of things I didn't like.  But right this minute I am missing familiar.  And right this minute I don't feel like I'm home. I know that will change.  Part of me is uncomfortable in a big house.  I grew up in a small house.  For many years Mike and I lived in tiny apartments, some of those years with two kids.  This house feels so big, so spread out.  The kids feel far away.  Instead of more room for our stuff to fit in, it's more room for our stuff to mess up.   I remember a long time ago meeting a family that had opened up their home for a growing congregation to meet and worship.  Eventually the service found a more permanent home but this family still hosted many church events; I'll never forget the lady of the house and something she said on one occasion, a mother's tea.  She told the story of when she and her husband first moved into their very large home, of how she felt overwhelmed, like it was way too big.  She walked through, placed her hands on the walls, and prayed that God would make it smaller.  She had grown up in a rowhouse, a very small space, and felt at odds having such a big space now to call home. By the time I met her and heard this story she had had many years to work on making that house a home, and you have never been to a cozier, more settled, comfy, warm, inviting place in your life.  And although it was one of the biggest houses I had ever been in, it didn't feel big at all...it felt close, but in a good way.  Personal. For some reason that memory just came back to me, so vividly.  Maybe it was just for this time.  Maybe it was so that one day I could remember that big can be small.

There is so much work to do...people ask all the time,"Are you settled?"  I usually laugh and make a silly comment like,"Ask us in December...of 2013!"  But sometimes I don't feel like laughing about it.  I want to be settled.  I want to settle for the kids' sake.  It's hard, though.  It means I have to pick up something and put it away-find a place for it, or decide that there isn't a place for it.  I think of the verse from Joshua, where he declared before all of Israel,"But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."  That is pretty humbling...the alternative being to serve other gods, because serving the LORD is undesirable.  Well, I know that I believe that isn't true (serving the LORD is undesirable), but I do feel like I need to continually revisit what it means for our household to serve the LORD, whether we are doing it here, or out and about.  Serving the LORD for me would certainly include getting order in our house for everyone's sakes.  Aside from all of the feelings that a house can elicit, maybe when as a household we are serving the LORD is when our house will truly become a home.

Mud Pies and Humble Pie

Around dinnertime things were not going so well here.  My two older children were in trouble for some bad behavior.  Eliana was eating, but all day she had been throwing temper tantrums; oh, yes, those here-come-the-two-year-old-temper-tantrums, screaming and yelling at me while flailing her body in all directions at once.  (How can babies turn into octopuses, squirmy messes, with arms and legs all over the place, that cannot be held?)  (I don't mean to offend any octopuses out there; sorry.)  I was thinking of the post I would put up later...kids for sale! it would just be pictures of the one fun time today, playing outside in a lot of mud.  I didn't have many good things to say, so I figured nothing said would be best.

I finally got to the point of putting Eliana to bed, which I have to say was a relief.  I gave the two big kids an order to find something quiet to do (how's that for direction), put Eliana in her own bed, and then lay down on mine (I know, this is a ritual that is going to come to an end soon, but I am not quite prepared for the hysteria of the ordeal...therefore, I stay with her until she is asleep, and rest my own eyes for a bit as well).  I could hear Michaela and Christian in our entry (a.k.a. the playroom) jumping rope.  Quietly!  Eventually, I didn't hear them anymore, so I was pleased that they had indeed gotten involved in some quiet activity.

Just as Eliana got very quiet and still herself I heard a knock on the door.  If I had high blood pressure, I would be in the hospital right now.  I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths and hoped that whoever that was would come right to their senses and go away; the closed door while I'm putting Eliana to bed signifies NO ENTRY!  NO KNOCKING! Oh no, there was another little knock, and following that the door swung open.  I thought I was dreaming.  Christian peeked his head around the doorway and I calmly said something about how that was not helping me at the moment.  He tiptoed in the room and said, so seriously and gently,"Here is something I made for you because I love you."

And the parents police showed up and took me away in handcuffs so that I could serve a lifetime sentence for my crimes of insensitivity, selfishness, and general mom-slackery.

I took the piece of paper he handed me, and asked him to please go on out, and he and Eliana said sweet good nights.  I was worried that she would flip out, because she totally could have.  She didn't, though.  She lay back down and went on to sleep a few minutes later.  I looked at the paper Christian brought to me...

Translation:  When I went to the zoo I saw a girl jump-roping.  It was my sister.  I saw lots of animals!  I loved them!  Love Christian  To Mommy

He had written me a story, because he liked to write stories now, he said.  When I came out of the bedroom, there was another paper for me, and he went to work on a third while I read a bedtime story to him.  He can be so sweet.   Earlier today I felt so frustrated and admittedly angry when he stomped out of the house in a major huff because I wouldn't let them turn the hose on outside-I don't want them to have fun, right?  I put on a pointy little party hat, and called on the pity-party brigade to come on by and join me in my pouty shindig.  I felt like I was on the other end of that proverbial fair-weather-friendship (or mommying in this case)...when things are going their way, then I'm the greatest; if things are not all as they prescribe, then I'm the poster-child for Bad Moms 'R' Us.   There were other instances of give-mom-the-attitude, but we managed to make it to the end of the day intact.  In fact, there was at the end of the day this beautiful gesture, this precious act.  It leaves me speechless.  That's funny, isn't it, after I just wrote 20 paragraphs about the whole thing.

I'm just like everyone else in this family.  I want what I want, and I get fussy when I don't get it.  I have a lot to learn about parenting; being a mom at this point in our life together is very challenging.  I compare myself to other moms that I know, or that I read about online, and I think,"You just don't measure up!"  The truth is I don't measure up to a perfect standard, but I also don't have to be perfect.  I may have said this before, but I am an all-or-nothing kind of person.  If I can't do it perfectly, I want to (and usually do) quit.  The kicker is I want to do it perfectly with very little effort on my part.  These things don't make a good combination.  I am aware of these flaws; they are always before me.  A lot of the time I want to work to make a change, and sometimes I want everyone to go away and leave me alone.  Part of what I enjoy about writing most nights is I am able to look at my perspective and often make adjustments, or see things in a better light.  Of course, the kids are sleeping and now I can't tell them I'm sorry for my own bad attitude, or for not knowing the right thing to say at a particular moment and being snappy.  I can look at my day (week, month, year) and see so clearly that I am in need of patience, forbearance, and humility. 

Looking at those three words...they speak to me of how my God deals with me.  I can only pray that tomorrow will grant a fresh start.

Lamentations 3:21-23  (after contemplating affliction and bitterness, the writer has this to say...)

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Well, here are the pictures I talked about so long ago, from outside in the mud.  They really did have a good time.  It's not my idea of fun, but I like to see them so happy. Eliana wrecking checking out the castles that her siblings constructed...

Some rain to wreak havoc on the castles, finishing off what Eliana started...

Delighted...

Can you imagine these fingernails?!

It started to sprinkle; I asked Eliana,"Where is the rain?"

There was also this moment I caught...the three of them singing "All Things Wise and Wonderful."

Eliana joined in with a little,"La, ah-ahh, ah, la, la, la..."

I think I'll go to bed with a smile on my face.

Returning

I took the kids to Barnes & Noble today because it is once again pouring here.  Christian said,"Why does May have to be so rainy?"  My sentiments exactly, although I know that it is good and necessary for the rain to drench this land of ours, nourishing, replenishing, bringing life. While we were at the bookstore, I saw so many books that looked interesting:  novels, young adult literature, books on artists.  I wanted to read them all!  I miss reading long chapters in long novels, or short stories by masters like Fitzgerald.  I miss getting lost in another world, a world of words and characters that are easy to fall in love with, and longing for resolution that sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. I decided just now that I am going to make time to read more.  Mike bought a book for me a while back, The Prodigal God by Tim Keller, and I'm starting with that. What are you reading?  Do you love it?  What do you recommend, either something new or a classic?  (For example, I love Les Miserables and would highly recommend that book.  Read it as soon as you can!)  I have a list in my head of books I would like to read, books that I should have read long ago but for some reason never did.  They include The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, The Three Musketeers, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There are many more. Here's a secret about me.  I want to read more so that I might be able to write one day.  Some people know that, but not many.  I would love to be an author.  Oooooh, maybe I should not put that out there...but I'm going to anyway. I'm off now, to see what I might learn from the Reverend Dr. Keller... addendum:  Right, I just finished the introduction and am already choking back tears.