Hoodies and Leaves

Multitude Mondays #524-535

524) not being in the accident yesterday
525) time with family
526) being back home
527) eggs in the fridge
528) being reminded of the goodness of God
529) being reminded to trust in the goodness of God instead of trying to fix hard and dark situations on my own
530) how trusting opens the doors and windows to peace
531) Advent...the glorious anticipation and waiting for the promised King
532) the sound of rain
533) how thanksgiving always precedes the miracle and that it happened in me this morning
534) eyes to see what was really important. learning to put on shoes and socks can wait.
535) hot tea and Lebkuchen

Multitude Mondays #509-523

A thought from A Holy Experience today:

"To bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving means to sacrifice your understanding of what is beneficial and thank God for everything because He is benevolent.

A sacrifice of thanks lays down our perspective and raises hands in praise anyways – always.

A sacrifice is by definition not an easy thing.

There is this: We give thanks to God not because of how we feel – but because of Who He is."

I don't feel very grateful today, but there is always room for thanksgiving.
And so my list continues...

509) health
510) open windows
511) excitement of seeing family
512) beauty of our new church building
513) a new German friend who lives close by
514) a very successful yard sale
515) getting my grocery bill for the entire week down to $68.00!!!
518) Lebkuchen
519) that God knows the why behind this weekend
520) mothers walking side-by-side and encouraging each other in their calling
521) Joey
522) a list of meals waiting to be made
523) homemade rolls

Small Disclaimer about Previous Post

After reading my post again I wanted to add that this is not the first time that I have been struck by the importance and significance of mothering. One thing that I have found with myself is that the learning never ends, even when I have already "learned" a certain thing. The learning is almost like an onion, where there is always yet another layer. And so yesterday's post is essentially a surrendering to what God is doing in my life in a deeper layer of the "mothering onion."
Also, mothering is not just hard work and fatigue. :-) It includes many precious, silly, happy, creative and treasure-for-always moments. For example, Will managed to sneak out the front door and into the rain and leaves falling from the sky this morning. I realized that he was outside right away, so I looked out the door and what I saw was a blur of curls zooming past the door over and over again, and a smile that communicated, "I just had to be outside right now, mom!" So I fully enjoyed watching Will enjoy and discover the magic of the Fall season.

Confessions of an Imperfect Mother

Lately, I find myself dreaming about many things, except mothering. I dream about saving hundreds of dollars each month because of my mad couponing skills. I dream about learning how to use my grandmother’s old singer sewing machine that was built in 1952, and making beautiful quilts. I dream about sponsoring more children through Compassion International. When the kids are awake, I dream about nap time and bed time, so I can get back to making Christmas gifts, and cleaning the house, and maybe reading and writing. I dream about running the 10k in Charleston this spring.
I dream and I dream, and I get very grumpy when my dreaming (or maybe I should call it my escaping) is interrupted.
Sickness has returned to our home, so interruptions include crankiness, snotty noses, restlessness and towering dishes. I was loading my dishwasher yesterday when this thought came to my head, “What if this is all I have called you to do?” I had to swallow. What if mothering is the sole task I am given here on earth? That question laid my soul bare, and my pride and discontentment both stood naked and ugly before me.
This round of discontentment had nothing to do with possessions, looks, gifting or travel. This round was all about calling.
I grew up proud to be a missionary kid, maybe not because of what my parents were doing, but because it set me apart from any other child in my country of origin. I was raised in a cultured city. I knew how to jaywalk. I spoke a second language fluently. I was the first missionary kid in Austria from our missionary organization to go through the entire Austrian school system. I could travel internationally on my own. In college, debates over cross cultural experiences made me chuckle and at times even sneer. They knew it in theory, but I had lived it! My background, my gifting and all my wonderful accomplishments seemed to set me up perfectly to do great things on this planet.
Not long after college, a ring was slipped on my finger, and I made the vow of forever. Two years later Joseph Maximilian was born, which officially made me a stay-at-home mom. I coped by joining a cosmetic business, even though I hardly wore make-up. If I could no longer shine as a teacher, I could shine as a business woman. Two years went by, and I found myself starved to really be at home; to engage fully in the life of my child; to bake bread; to transform our house into a home. William Chadrick was born, and that sealed the deal. It meant auf wiedersehen to lipstick and mascara.
Then yesterday afternoon, I was confronted with the question that I have possibly been running away from for the last four years. What if being a mother is all I am called to be in this world? I love being a mom. I know the pain of losing a child. I see the pain of women I know and love who long to hold their own child in their arms. And yet, my escaping actually means that I am insisting that it is not enough and that there has to be more out there for me to do. I have a feast laid before me in my mothering, and I crave chocolates and gummis.
A day later, after being confronted with the immeasurable worth and vulnerability of children in Wes Stafford’s book, Too Small to Ignore, my mind is a whirlpool of thought fragments, and I am wanting some clarity. And it hits me. What was the remedy to my discontentment of earlier this year? Wasn’t it thanksgiving? Wasn’t it acknowledging whatever God set before me? Hasn’t that led to my eyes opening in wonder to the beauty and action of God’s blessing on my behalf?
I have thanked God for my children. I have thanked God with tears that I am a mother. But I have never thanked him for assigning this task to me. One of the most important callings (and maybe the only calling) of my life stares me in the face every single day in the form of twenty fingers and toes, curls plastered to a snotty nose, pains in growing limbs, questions about this big world we live in, pitter- patter in the hall before dawn, the contents of my wallet thrown around the room, the desire to play super heros, the need of snuggles and a good book, and using the air intake as a piggybank. It is exhausting, and I really can’t do all the things I want to do. I can’t even do a lot of “Christian” work in my own city, let alone in a foreign country. But I can open my hands to the blessing, give thanks and build the kingdom within the walls of my home, so that my boys know that Jesus is here and know him.

So here is my first attempt:

Thank you, Lord
for entrusting two of your sweet children to my care.
that you have called me to minister to their needs.
for giving me the grace to see that I am called to a very significant task.
for gently showing me my sin, and restoring me.
that I can build your kingdom here and now, not just someday.
that you see and that you know.

Amen.

Multitude Mondays #497-508

497) boys taking naps
498) hot tea and rest for a sick mama
499) tissues
500) amazed and thankful to have already written down 500 things to be thankful for
501) Compassion International and their ministry highlight of Ecuador
502) using my imagination with Max (or should I say Spider Man) on the playground today. (The playground did almost seem like a rocket ship at one point.)
503) Will crunching through an orange and yellow lake of leaves
504) the abundance of food
505) a bunk bed for free right when we started to feel the need for one
506) God's faithful work in my heart even when I don't learn as much from his lessons as I think I should
507) learning to look for God in the mess
508) flowering Christmas cactus

Dying and Rising

This weekend was hard. It seems like it should have been wonderful. We transformed the office into a playroom for the boys and Joey built a train/car table for them.
But the boys are sick and emotional and just absurd at times.
Both boys do not have a lot of patience with each other at the moment.
I lost mine on Saturday (and I am still looking for it.)
I feel tired and empty and I long to mother well.
But I don't long to die to self when the rubber meets the road.
It's inconvenient and it feels like crap.
Just when I felt I was making some progress with this, this weekend happened, and the whole dying to self thing really seems to have flown out the window.
But isn't our hope that death is not the end?
So maybe dying to self is really rising with Christ, or better yet Christ rising in us.
Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Christ in me, the patience to see beyond tears and screams to the hearts of little boys.
Christ in me, the love to pick up another snotty tissue off the floor.
Christ in me, the kindness to listen to the unending flow of four-year-old lips.
Christ in me, the ability in give thanks (even if nap time ends up being short and attitudes are not much improved).
Christ in me, the strength in my weakness.
Christ in me, the fullness of life.

This I long for.
Christ.

The Lost Ring

It was one of those days this summer. The boys were driving me crazy, and the only solution was to let the great outdoors work its magic. Who knew it takes so much work just to take off clothes to go play in the sprinklers. Little feet were impatient, making little voices fussy. The number one mission was to lather them in sun screen and get them out the door. I took off my ring, placed it beside me on the couch and beckoned one of the boys over, then the second, and then the third for we had a visitor that day. Mission accomplished, I turned to grab my ring, and it was gone. I asked if any of the boys had seen it, but the answer was negative. At that point I was more desperate to get the herd out the door, that I was sure in my head that the ring would turn up once I had time to really look.
At nap time, I started looking all around, and the ring was nowhere to be found. It had vanished. I wasn’t nervous about what Joe would say, but I was sad because it is the only ring I have. Opting for just one ring six and a half years ago when we said, “I do,” was a way to cling to some of my Austrian ways and a way to cut costs.
Joey and I tore up the house looking for the ring, and then went to bed with plans to look through all the duct work under the house the next day incase Will had thrown it down into one of the vents. I went to bed, my finger feeling naked.
The next morning, I got in the shower, and eventually started to pray. “Lord, I know a ring is not the most important thing in the world, but it means a lot to me, and it’s the most expensive piece of jewelry I own. I really want to find it.”
Once out of the shower, I found myself being rushed along by the demands of little boys. It was going to be a hot day, so the most comfortable and easiest shirt to wear would be the blue tank top. It was hidden under a pile of laundry in my bedroom. I flung it onto my bed as I raced to get something else. Once I turned my attention to the shirt again, I started to unfold it, and there sitting inside the shirt that had been buried underneath a pile of clothes at least for 3 days, was my ring. I slipped it on my finger and fell to my knees in tears of thanksgiving. To this day I do not have an explanation to the location of the ring. But I do know that I have a God who knows my desires and answers my prayer.