A Game of Uncovered Stones

 There is a large flower bed bordered by stones at the top and to the side of my driveway. Flower bed is a terrible misnomer, as it features one gardenia bush that nearly died elsewhere, 3 amaryllis bulbs, and a rather awkward blueberry bush. Mostly it’s a barren landscape waiting for a genius greater than mine to take it in hand and make it beautiful. 

The stones bordering the bed are merely quartz rocks, faintly pink and oddly but pleasingly shaped, culled from the woods behind our neighbors home. With their permission, of course. There’s nothing special about these rocks, and for quite a while this fall they’ve been buried in inches of leaf litter and pine straw. As there isn’t much to showcase in the mostly empty flower bed, the rocks perform their function just as well beneath as above the foliage. 

Warm December days have the gardener in me itching to be outside, so this afternoon I unspooled the extension cords and started the leaf blower, rediscovering all manner of landmarks such as the driveway, the front porch, and the quartz border. Later in the afternoon, after putting away the tools and cozying in with a cup of chai and a Chesterton essay, I looked out the window and spotted my son and his friend walking along those stones. Those same stones that have been there for years, bordering that barren bed, signifying nothing. While I thought I was tidying up, I was actually recreating the landscape of neighborhood play. Instantly, a new path was forged, ready to be woven into whatever game was afoot. (This afternoon, dreadfully, I believe it involved zombies, complete with wounds crafted with Scotch tape and Crayola markers. Red. Of course.)

Suburban moms with lackluster landscaping prowess aren’t the only ones who put stones to use. God’s people did, too, at His direction. Several times in the books chronicling the early history of God’s chosen people you see stones raised or stacked or carted from one place to another specifically as a reminder to future generations of current grace. While I can walk outside and say to my son, “Remember the day we tromped through the woods and hauled out the rocks?” Israelite mothers and grandmothers would stand by the Jordan and say, “Remember the day we crossed over?” A question pregnant with the past 40 years of wilderness wandering and present life in the Promised Land. Israelite parents were commanded to teach their children about the Lord and His great deeds all day, every day. Those stones were tangible reminders of those deeds year in, year out. 

I don’t see many houses of God’s people with heaps of stones outside as a reminder of His faithfulness. Our Rock became flesh and dwelt among us, and we remember Him with the grace of communion, with each other and with Him. Every time believers take the meal together, we are telling each other and our children to remember. Remember His past faithfulness. Remember His promise that He is coming again. Remember. Remember. 

Uncover the stones. Reforge the paths. Christmas is coming. Follow the stones as the shepherds and wise men followed the star and find the King. 

When Glory Bows Your Head

 Heat and humidity have hit my state with a one-two punch this week, after a glorious stretch of spring through April and May. That used to mean long days of frizzy hair (perhaps frizzy days of long hair?) and avoidance of outside activity, but in my new paradigm it means growing season. Each day, almost each hour, my garden is stretching and changing. If I could park myself in a chair and just sit, I'm pretty sure I could watch my bean vines grow. As it is, I make frequent trips to the garden and marvel as tightly wound tendrils slip and twist upward from ankle, to waist, to shoulder, until finally I'm craning my neck to check for blooms. The same basic story is true almost everywhere I turn. Verdant height, midday shade beneath the cooling leaves as I hunt for the babiest of fruits, tipped with inviting yellow blossoms, luring the pollinators to that life-changing sip.

I've said before that a garden is good for my theology. I think of life-giving death as I watch strong, tender leaves push up through dirt and mulch. The gladiolus stalks that have toppled haphazardly in other beds are straight at church spires in their new location, and I remember that good soil and well-fed roots produce the best fruit. The morning glory vines are as curious as a toddler, reaching out to explore in every direction and must constantly be trained to trail upward and grow in safety. Boundaries are blessings. Pea vines untended during vacation topple under the very lushness of their being and the weight of their pods. The fruitful vine needs the branch for support and sustenance. 

Today it's the sunflowers that have caught me. Many of the usually sunward faces are bent toward earth from rain and weight. And glory. In the case of the plants, they are wonderfully healthy and riotously productive. I look forward to all the bouquets I'll be giving away. But every time it rains, we lose a bunch of them. One stalk, laden with six current blooms and as many more buds will simply snap. Or a stalk with only a few blooms will lean over, bowed beyond strength to straighten again. Those glorious ruffled reflectors of the sun face downward, shining on those that walk beneath them. It's almost as though the flowers do their best to kneel in joyful prayer, for their attitude is certainly not one of dejection or grief. How could such a magnificent part of creation, even in brokenness, be truly broken? It's the glory that weighs them down.

And I? Am I not also a glorious part of creation? When rain and weight lower my head, is it not with the glory of God's goodness, sovereignty, providence, and promise? Should I not bow in joy and thankfulness? Nothing comes to my life that does not first pass through His hands. The rain. The sun. The heat. The snapping stalk. No pain is not a blessing when it comes from my Father. 

And so, from my sunflowers, I learn to be content. 

    Do you remember kindergarten? Do you remember what it was all about? Shapes, letters, numbers, perhaps learning to read and to tie your shoes. Sure, those were the academics. But it was also about many intangible things. Playground dynamics. Sitting quietly. Listening patiently. Also, if you were like me, it was about learning from and respecting an authority other than my parents. If you were like my kids, it meant learning from and respecting your parent(s) in a new role. Kindergarten was a blending of the inner and outer life, the tangible and intangible, the already known and the yet to be learned. It was a big step in the direction of functioning well in the world at large. 

    Kindergarten for many is the milestone moment, the major metaphorical event when a child learns to share. And I don't just mean their favorite crayon with the kid across the table. It requires a sharing of the whole self. A sharing of time and attention, those intangible possessions that adults most cherish, on things that might not interest the child 100% of the time (recess and lunchtime yes; phonics, no). It's about sharing interests and empathy as the child attempts the monkey bars with their new best friend and then rushing to find help when the friend inevitably falls and grazes their knee. It's also about learning to trade jealousy for joy when that same best friend masters the monkey bars first. The experiences of kindergarten go a long way in laying a path and shaping the character of children. It does this in many ways through the practice of sharing, through giving of self to or for something or someone else. 

    This year I've needed to be reminded of the lessons I learned so long ago in kindergarten. I wish that as a wife, mother, daughter, and friend, that it was as simple as rolling a crayon across the table, knowing I'll get it back in a minute or two. Looking back that seems so easy, but at the time it wasn't. We always grasp tightly the things we love the most, and that emotional reflex doesn't change much as we age. The things we cherish will change, but our fierce feelings of ownership and protection won't. Back then it was a crayon, or a swing on the playground, or my attention during a lesson. Now, it's my willingness to forgive, to let go of bitterness, to continue loving people even when I don't really trust them because I've been hurt one too many times. Now it's about my willingness to do the hard thing, knowing full well how hard it truly is. And this year has been hard.

    The lessons I learned in kindergarten to be kind, do good, and share, only go so far. Ultimately it's pretty easy to ignore those admonishments and switch back to how I want to live my life. There has to be a greater reason to give up what I want for someone else. There is. And His name is Jesus. Knowing Jesus has made all the difference in my motivations and abilities to follow those simple, terribly difficult rules for life.  Knowing Jesus makes things both harder and easier. Truly knowing Jesus means following Him as my example, my Shepherd, and my Lord. And yes that means green pastures and still waters, but it also means the valley of the shadow of death. But that valley is never endless, and the deaths I experience there are never without purpose. Each day Jesus is faithfully leading me in the way that I should go, not necessarily the way I want to go. So His leading can be hard, but it is always good. 

    Of all the difficult challenges that I face, Jesus is there first. He walks the road before me, He knows the safe way through, and even if it sometimes appears to be dark and full of death, I still trust His leading. I can trust Him because I know Him to be kind and wise, loving and good. If He were merely kind and loving, He'd take me on the easier path and skirt the challenges that help me grow as a person. If He were only wise, He might set me on the right path but then walk behind me and see how I handle things for myself. But because He is all of those things all the time He leads me and never leaves me. 

    Just like in kindergarten I am still being taught to share, to let go of the things I treasure most and to trade them for something better. In kindergarten I traded crayons for goodwill and jealousy for trust and friendship. I traded my time and attention for a greater knowledge of the world. Now I trade my preferences, my comfort, my desire to protect my heart because that's what He asks of me, and I trust Him. Not blindly or stupidly. I trust Him because I know He did it first, for me. He traded His comfort, His preferences, His desire to guard His heart and body from pain - for me. I have seen the ultimate example of sharing. And so I follow Him through plentiful pastures and barren valleys, content in His leading, knowing that goodness and mercy are following me, and ultimately I will dwell in His house forever. 

-Ashley

I am not being an awesome mom during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantine. There's been no extra crafting, Pintrest hasn't seen my face in who knows when, and we aren't doing any of those awesome scavenger hunts or online art classes. Do I feel guilty about this? Of course! Does that mean any of that will change? Probably not. Why not?

Because, normalcy.

Routine. Stability. Boring old run-of-the-mill day to day mundane activities. Perform, sleep, repeat.

A little background.

As a kid my life was full of abundance. Of siblings. Of church attendance (going to a Friday night Bible study was the thing to do). And an abundance of moves, and not usually the one-block over kind. We're talking new city, new church, new people, new everything, Because I was homeschooled I was not constantly adjusting to a different set of teachers or school friends, but boy did I run the gamut of Sunday School leaders and church peers. With all that moving came a lot of uncertainty. And so I gravitated to the things that were constant in my life. My parents. My siblings. My faith. And after the recent loss of my grandmother, I realized even more her role as a touch point in my life, a rock of certainty and security. Little things like how the tater tots were always served in the same melamine bowl, or the fact that we always watched Matlock and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! were small rhythms that meant a lot to this highly emotive, introspective, at times umoored young girl.

In seventh grade, after a particularly rough move away from my best friend and into the frozen wasteland of a lake-side cabin in rural Alabama ( I promise is wasn't nearly as charming or idyllic as that sounds. It was November, it was cold, we were all lonely and miserable) I was tasked with writing an essay every day in school. I wrote a lot of ridiculous, angsty things that have since found their way to the trash can, but a few of those essays stuck around, particularly the two I wrote about my grandmother, about how I loved visiting her and the security I felt at her house. I mailed those two essays to her a couple of years ago as a thank you for what she meant to me. Before she died she made sure those essays were put back in my hands. Up to this point, I still haven't found the courage to read them. It's just a little too soon.

So because of the instability of certain aspects of my childhood, and the firm example of the goodness of sameness, I guess I've been coming to this point of cultivating routine for all of my life. I joke about being boring on purpose, but maybe there is something to that. I want my kids to generally know what to expect in their day-to-day life. To know that Jesus is the Lord of our life, that I love their dad and he loves me, and that dinner will be eaten together. 

But here's the flip side of that. I'm a follower of Jesus. And I wasn't called to mediocrity.  I was called to a cross. Every day is meant to be a death to myself as a sacrifice to God in the form of love and service to others. So are my daily, mundane offering to Him repulsive and putrid? Shouldn't I be doing more?

No. And yes. And no again.

No, because it isn't the doing that makes Him pleased with me. It's what He's done.

Yes, because He's glorious and magnificent and kind and good and worthy to be the object of every ounce of effort of everything I do.

And no, again, because the things I do already, I'm doing for Him. From the outside it looks like I'm homeschooling kids and cleaning a house and loving my husband, but it looks like that because that's what I'm called to. It doesn't look that way for everyone. God gifts His children with a variety of marvelous gifts that all work to glorify Him, for He is worthy. My gifting, at this point, is domestic, and mundane.

So at this point in the quarantine, it's pretty much business as usual. A few things are different. Due to warmer weather, we are taking more walks. Due to the quarantine, most of those take place in our neighborhood. I'm cooking more meals, and because of  a shortage of processed foods they are even more "whole food" and fresh than usual. I'm trying to be more engaged with my kids, even and especially  after a day of school with them. That's when I remember that I hang out with them not just because I'm their mom and responsible for their basic physical and emotional needs, but also because they are delightful people and it's fun spending time with them!

Maybe you are an awesome quarantine mom. If you are, kudos! Please post some pictures so I can see what fun things you've got going on. If you're more like me and working to safeguard your routine, here's a high five for you, too. You're all wonderful, beautiful people, and I'm so glad to know you. So go on and love your family in the way that God has gifted you best, and do it all for His glory. He is so, so worthy.

Boy Mom

I like spiders. But that hasn't always been true. As a child and young adult I avoided touching anything creepy, crawly, slimey, or scaley. And I didn't have time to stop and admire, much less look at bugs, unless it was to step on them swiftly and strongly. Stomp. Squish. Dead.

I'm not sure exactly when my thoughts and feelings toward insects and spiders began to change, but it was sometime in the last 8 years, after my son was born. As a boy mom I determined not to instill an irrational fear of bugs into my son. So instead of shuddering and stomping, I stooped and observed. To satisfy his curiosity I watched shows and YouTube videos and read books with him that all extolled the wonderful world of bugs. Sure, there was a good mixture of dinosaurs and construction vehicles in there as well, but who has problems with bulldozers or triceratops? I didn't need convincing on those topics. My hang ups were all those creepy legs and disturbingly crunchy shells. We aren't talking tacos here, people. But I persisted in my decision to stay chill on the bug front.

And all those factoids about legs and thoraxes and compound eyes? They began to stick. In my brain. And you know what, I began to truly see the fascinating world of insects and arachnids all around me. God put so much detail into every aspect of His creation, and this was no exception. The design of the body of a honeybee and the social structure of a hive. The fact that there are spiders that have adapted to almost any environment, and many of them don't even live in webs. The persistence, diligence, and bravery of an ant colony. This world of insects and arachnids wasn't just fascinating, it sang. It was a harmonizing strain of  the same song in my heart, the song God put within all of us, that He teaches a little more of everyday. A song of Him, and for Him, and to Him.

So now I like spiders. And insects in general. Don't get me wrong. I can't reconcile myself to the millipedes that have recently invaded my home. Nor do I hesitate to end the life of any species of roach (surely a direct product of the Fall if not direct spawn of Satan.) But for the most part I am so interested in the small but ordered world of bugs. I love to see them crawling around on my herbs and flowers, to observe the different methods of gathering nectar or pollen. To watch the stages of transformation from corpulent caterpillar to lithe and lovely butterfly.

To change is to learn. To learn is to grow. To grow is to understand. To understand is to appreciate.

Go watch a spider, and tell me what you think.

A Poem, at Evening

There is a sky

above. The world below

still spins and tilts

and man will suffer

hunger

clamor

strive.

The rose of evening

blooms above the leaves.

Gold-caped clouds

stream pink air

under the trees.

The peace above defeats

the hearts below.

The rage of life cease into

solemn breath.

Bathed by beauty

in the evening hour

Barely Merry & Bright

Yesterday was a day when I should have felt like I had it all together. I had eaten wisely, exercised (what?!), showered, and had done my hair and makeup. Check check check. I was finishing up a successful Christmas and grocery shopping trip (thank you Target for being almost all things to almost all women (until we get Costco, hehe)) with Chai latte in hand. But as I drove toward my last stop before heading home, I found myself sitting at a red light feeling completely empty. Why was that? This is supposed to be a season of glad tidings and good cheer. Why did my heart feel as heavy as the rain-laden clouds that dulled the sky?

Maybe I had missed a step, something crucial that when plugged into the Holiday Happiness Formula would instantly produce flurries of snow, cups of steaming cocoa, and good will toward all men. Or maybe I had done something wrong. I definitely spent more money than I had anticipated. But those gift tags were just so cute! And really, who doesn't need a rotating projector to blast Christmas cheer all over the front of their house in the dark hours of the evening? Was I having buyers remorse? What was nagging me so badly?

Maybe it was because this holiday season is fraught with relational tension. It's been a tough year for my heart, and while I am trying to work diligently and lovingly to retrace or reforge some paths between myself and others, many times it feels like one step forward and two steps back. 

Or perhaps it was my kids. They had been a chore to drag from store to store. And my belabored decision-making was certainly hampered further by a constant need to supervise, shepherd, and search for my kids. Never are we more wandering souls than in the glittering aisles of the Wonder Shop at Target. But no. It wasn't their fault that I was feeling this way. In their own way they are caught up in joyful participation and anticipation. And they are just kids, still being formed and trained. I can't blame them.

No, the reason I felt bottomed out and caved in at that red light was not because I had done too much or too little. It wasn't because I'm treading lonely and confusing waters where once I had only experienced warmth and community. And it's certainly was not my kids fault for being happy and energetic. God bless them I'm glad they are healthy and whole today and every day! None of those surface explanations can touch the real issue. 

The problem with me that day is the problem with this whole world. It's broken. I'm broken. In the beginning God made all things good. And we broke it. And we continue breaking it over and over again. And this brokenness cannot be fixed with feelings of accomplishment and a victory latte. We can't, I can't fix this brokenness at all. And that's what this season is truly all about. God knew that we would never come to Him to be fixed. And so He came to us. The eternally existent God came into the form and person of a finite man, to show us the way back to wholeness. Healing began in a manger, under a star. 

The Christmas season can be good, and terrible. It's an emotional roller coaster of well-wishes and high hopes and the crashing thump of reality with things don't go as planned. We can tell ourselves to just roll with it because that's the way things are. And in some ways that's true. We should give ourselves the gifts of grace and reality, knowing that pretty much nothing will go according to our well-laid plans. But that isn't the ever and all. If nothing else this season needs to teach us to yearn and to hope. To know that eventually the Babe will return as the risen and victorious King and He will claim His own. He will forever fix our broken hearts and take us to Himself. That comfort and joy will be like none we have never known. And it will be forever.