The Weight of the Pack

 The kids and I spent this afternoon at Line Creek in Peachtree City. This has been a favorite nature spot for almost a decade, and I have many memories and even more pictures made there. In the early years of homeschooling, it was easy to spend an entire morning or afternoon in the woods or playing in the creek, but as the kids got older, the textbooks grew thicker, the commitments more numerous, days at Line Creek became fewer and farther between. My inner introvert kept us cozied up at home when we didn't absolutely have to be somewhere else, and I sought sunshine and adventure less and less. In some ways, my own personality led me to become a bit of the homeschool mom I never wanted to be - shackled to textbooks and our schedule of extra-curriculars, rarely veering from that path, growing pale on my face and in my soul as the richness and joy of our earlier homeschool years began to fade.

On the brink of sealing my own tomb with a hefty curriculum purchase, the Lord opened a window and blew the breathiest freshness of air into my life. Through a swirl of growing friendships that blossomed around our mutual desire to educate wildly and well, at the beat of our own drum and no one else's, I found a new path in front of me, one that circled back to where I had begun years before, on the couch with a pile of books, flanked by my kids with a cup of tea close by. This newfound freedom  reopened the way to the woods once more, and over the last two years I have slowly shed the textbooks and picked up weightier matters, like the strap of our trusty backpack. This bag has traveled many trails, growing lighter with every water break, every snack dive, every rest for lunch. It has traversed the sidewalks between enclosures at the zoo, angling for a better view of those frisky golden tamarinds and shy rhinos. Because it's awkward and only has one strap, the weight of water bottles and oranges and crunchy, salty snacks has a particular weight of memory on my left shoulder, and as I hoisted it on today, ready to take to the trails again at Line Creek, I was so happy to remember the weight of the pack. My shoulder will be sore, but my soul will be singing. 

Mothers, don't forget the way to the woods. Remember the weight of the pack. 

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. 

Junky Heart

So I'm thinking about clutter. Toy clutter, specifically. A few months ago the raging demon of organization within took hold and banished most of my children's toys to the closets of the playroom, with specific instructions that NO CHILD was to open those closets and remove any toys, whatsoever. Sound cold-hearted? Cruel? Probably. I smashed all the stuffed animals into plastic bags, dumped all the 5 million junky little pieces into baskets and made precarious towers in the closets before finally shutting the door and forgetting about it all. Well, forgetting about it until my precious daughter would ask for one of her dolls. I would reply, "I don't know where it is. Probably in the closet," and then go about whatever task I was doing at the time. Yep, heartless. But tidy.

Okay. I truly am a horrible person.

In my defense, I could not take ANY MORE of having every floor, table top, EVERY STINKING FLAT SURFACE covered with knick-knacky plastic pieces that have the nerve to be labeled "toys," thus making them assume some marginal value. Or, in the case of my children, the status of precious objects that must be loved and cherished, but only when Mom decides it's time to get rid of them. Until that point it's fine to strew them everywhere and forget about them.

AGH.

So, into the closet it all went.

And right back out it all came today. What. Was. I. Thinking???

Here was the reasoning behind The Great Toy Exit 2017: 

With cold weather coming (eventually?), I wanted to go ahead and cull through the kids clothes so I could consign the ones that had been outgrown and fund the purchase of the next size up wardrobe. So yesterday my hilariously compliant son tried on about 30 items of clothing for me so that I could determine what to keep and what to toss. With my daughter's clothes it was a bit easier. Tried on two sweaters, hooray they still fit, and then packed up the pile that has been slowly growing in the top of her closet as I stashed items that were too small.

But then that light bulb went off in my head. You know, the one that ALL MOMS EVERYWHERE should always ignore. The one that says, "Hey, you're already in the mode of cleaning out. Why don't you go through the toys, too?" Never, EVER listen to that thought!! Slam your mind shut to it! Hum the latest Disney song! Stream an N*SYNC album! ANYTHING but going through the toys!

Alas, I succumbed to THE THOUGHT, opened the closet doors, and begin pulling out the bags and baskets brimming with banished toys. At first the kids didn't catch on. They know that diving into those closets is a big no-no so they were probably waiting for me to be struck by lightning. But then the truth slowly started to dawn and it was like Christmas morning. In about one minute flat the previously tidy play room floor was littered with toys and looking like Times Square after a ticker tape parade. The declarations of joy and rapture coming from my kids were merely dimmed by the whooshing sound of my sanity flying out the window. 

To deal with all of this stuff I decided to go ahead and get rid of anything the kids completely ignored as I pulled it out of the closet. That took care of a garbage bag full of stuffed animals. Next I exercised some motherly discretion and pulled out a box worth of toys that were pretty much always ignored. Those two culls left way more than I still wanted to have, but one side of my heart was feeling all mushy from hearing how happy my kids were to see their stuff, and I decided that if I could just get it organized and everything could have a home, then maybe it would be okay. That is one big maybe. But I gave it a go, gathering baskets and boxes and bins to try and contain all the tiny pieces. 

Getting my daughter's toys sorted and stored took the measure of strength equivalent to that needed to traverse the Himalayas. That done, I called rest time and betook myself to the couch where I renewed my strength with a bag of kettle corn and a phone call to my mom. And took the time to write this blog. Which isn't really about clutter. At least not toy clutter.

This blog is about a heart that is cluttered with selfishness and idolatry. A heart that has valued controlling the amount of stuff that my kids have access to more than it has valued teaching them good stewardship. A heart that feels smug and accomplished when it should feel compassionate and helpful. 

Not a very nice heart.

Nevertheless, it is a heart that is loved. A heart restored by sacrifice not of it's own. A heart sought, purchased, and won for eternal possession. A heart with a second chance, and a third chance, and a millionth chance to be kind, to be humble, to be selfless. 

So after rest time, I'm going to continue sorting and storing. But I'll do it with a sense of joy, not martyrdom. I'll smile with my kids as they create new games with their newly found toys, and at the end of the day I'll help them sort it all again and put it away. I will love them by allowing them this joy, this cluttery, inconvenient joy.

Because that's the kind of heart I want them to have, so that is the kind of heart they must see.

Greater Light

I'm just going to come right out and say it: The eclipse freaked me out a little bit. Maybe it's because I didn't have themed snacks, or a nifty viewer. I just had my son and the view from my front porch. But as I watched the shadows of the trees swallow my lawn, and the quality of the light dim to the point where the very air seemed to be effected, I confess I only felt a sense of unease. I shake my head at myself. I am a self-professed space nerd, and even aspired to being an astronomer in my youth (back when dreams weren't determined by the number of math credits I would need). But for some reason I just couldn't hop on the train this time, and the excitement everyone else seemed to feel over the eclipse just rolled right off me. 

But it wasn't a completely lost experience for me. Because, like so many other things in my life, it brought me back to Jesus. He's the greatest light. He can never be eclipsed. He never wavers. His Father is my Father, the Father of lights who is never shadowed, the Giver of all good gifts. Even freakish and unnerving eclipses. So maybe I wasn't excited about it, but I'm thankful I experienced it, and even MORE thankful that the same God who created those massive bodies and governs their paths through space, is the same God who created me and guides and protects my path on earth. Although I aspire to reflect His glory now, like the moon does the light of the sun, I hasten the day when I am fully swallowed up by His holiness and awesome purity, when I am remade and may dwell with Him forever. Amen and Amen.

A Late Tribute

(At the time I wrote this, I just couldn't get the words right. It all came together today. I hope you enjoy it.)

My husband's grandfather passed away last week. In black and white that doesn't look like much, but it was. He was old, and sick, and weak. Well, his body was. But his spirit was still strong and vibrant, and every inch the man that my husband grew up loving and admiring. The man whose eyes glittered with life, and whose voice rang out strong with a warm welcome to "Come in! Come in!" The man who stood up in the pew at church and clutched a closed Bible to his chest because he knew the words by heart as he gave them forth to the congregation. The man who was born on the same day as my daughter, 89 years earlier. The man who inspired respect and admiration, not just for the years he had lived, but because of how he had lived them. This wasn't just any man. This was our BoBo. And we miss him.

To pay our respects and remember his life with other family members required a trip to southeast Missouri, to the town where my husband lived his boyhood, where his grandparents are living their last days. We've been back to visit several times since we married, and though I always enjoy the time we have with family, I've never particularly liked the journey to get there. But this time was a little different. Maybe because my heart was tender and my eyes were a little red with grief, or perhaps because life has been so busy lately that the monotonous hours in the car finally allowed my mind to be at rest, for whatever reason, I found reasons to smile, and admire, and wonder along those many, many miles. 

We traveled many county highways and country roads past fields upon fields of toasted corn stalks and verdant soy plants. The farm houses, with their tidy yards and soaring silver silos never grew old to me; the orderliness of it all had it's own kind of beauty. Most of the fields were uniform, either the dry corn plants, stooping in the sun, or the low and lush soy. But one set of fields defied the norm, with rogue corn plants sprouting like undiscovered geysers from the surrounding soy. Those corn plants were still green and straight, unwilling to bow to the cycle of farm life. That's perseverance for you. And downright rebellion. And hope.

Along the way we stopped at a place I've visited only once before, a tiny state park nestled in a sliver of Illinois. On my first trip to Missouri, on a very cold day in December, my future husband and I stopped and took our picture here. I was in awe at being in the very place where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers meet, and wanted to document the fact that we were there. It remains one of my favorite pictures of us. 

This time when we stopped, we were joined by our two children, and it was a fresh experience. The rivers were full of barges and noisy tugboats and everything about the landscape seemed to have changed. We found some beautifully sun-bleached trees that the kids climbed on. My son, as most 5 year-old boys, enjoyed throwing rocks in the rivers, lamenting when he missed because I wouldn't allow him closer to the water. I pointed out the spot where you can see the currents of the two rivers meeting, to convey some of the wonder in that moment in that place, but I'm not sure it worked. No matter. That's the magic I find in that place. Perhaps his magic was found somewhere else, in the soil beneath the rocks he pried free, or the heft of those rocks in his hand, or the arc they made as they traveled down the overgrown bank. 

On this trip to honor the dead I was reminded again of all the humor and grandeur and beauty that comes with living. Whether it's roguish stalks of corn or mighty rivers meeting or my children's hair shining in the sun, there is so much to see, to wonder at, to be thankful for in this life, even in the face of death.

Love & Loathing

Well, today was both humbling, and enlightening. The Bible says that knowledge puffs up, and I heartily agree. But I think that any time we I can receive a bit of new information with a sense of quiet gratitude I am that much the better for it. I know I am. Read on and perhaps you will agree. 

Let me set the stage for you. As most mothers of young children tend to do this time of year, I've decided to celebrate the season with a smorgasbord of holiday crafts, even though I generally give my glue gun the evil eye while I turn away and smugly sip my coffee. I don't know if it's that we poor dears, as a group, are deceived into this heightened sense of creative festivity by the aroma of snow-scented candles (ask me how I know this scent exists), the reams of colorful paper and their starkly bare inner tubes that begin to grow like sapling forests in our closets, or just the wild proliferation of joy and anticipation, but no matter the cause the end result is this-those of us who, as a general rule, refuse crafting at all costs, not only embrace this messy, expensive, time-consuming hobby, we invite our children to join us. What madness are we perpetrating?! In my enthusiasm I have planned an entire 24 days worth of celebratory events, many of which involve the use of scissors, glue, and paint. Paint! What am I thinking?!

Of all the evil minions lurking the shelves of a craft store, paint, in all formulas, is my self-sworn foe. Acrylic? For grown-ups only please. Crayola's offering with that tiny purple-handled brush and about 5 plasticky bristles? The primary colors are positively screaming obscenities at me as they promise irreversible stains, never mind the profuse promises on the package. Barking dog, says I. Don't get me started on finger paint. Have the manufacturers never seen how children are absolutely, fatally prone to shoving their messy digits into their mouths at any and all given moments?! Imbeciles.

Despite my very strong feeling regarding paint in all forms and colors, one activity I planned to do with my 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter was assembling snowflakes with craft sticks, puzzle pieces, and hot glue, then painting them. I'm going to give you a moment to snicker at me. Joke's on your if you snort your peppermint mocha. That'll burn.

So here we are, my sweet children and I, crouched on the floor because I can't find an extension cord to make the glue gun reach the table, merrily making these snowflake ornaments. My son is practically vibrating, high on a cup of cocoa and the intense joy of wielding an instrument whose name includes the words "glue" and "gun", two of his favorite items of all time. My daughter manages to burn herself only three or four times as she sticks the puzzle pieces to the craft sticks, but soldiers on like a true artist, unfazed by pain, intent on lining those pieces up perfectly. Once the pieces are dry and I've removed most (some?) of the excess glue strands, it's time to paint our snowflakes. 

My son fetches a paper plate. My daughter selects her paint brush. I squirt the paint with an uncharacteristic liberality and verve, and away we go. Bristles are quickly gobbed with paint; puzzles pieces are transformed by swift, joyful smears. I remain tense and watchful, ready to call it quits, grab an entire roll of paper towels, and swear off painting forever, or at least until next Christmas. I continue to watch, and then realize, They are doing just fine. Sure, my son reloads his brush for every single puzzle piece, and my daughter seems to paint the same three or four branches of her snowflake over and over again. But neither of them have painted themselves, or each other. Their clothes are unsmeared. One drip on the table is easily wiped away. I breathe out and slowly reach for my camera. Snap a few pictures. Feel brave enough to break their concentration and ask them to look at me, smile, and say "Merry Christmas!" The magic isn't broken, so I grab my own snowflake and paintbrush and begin to paint. As I smooth the glittery gold color over the brown puzzle pieces, I actually relax. And then my son says, "I love painting. It's my favorite kind of art." And on he paints, blithely, merrily, a bit messily, as I am struck down by his simple confession. I, who from this moment on, can no longer profess to love my son and loathe paint, who must realize that the joy in those blue eyes is worth any smear of paint on the table, or the stain on any shirt. How can I let my own selfish obsession with neatness and order hold sway, even in the wildly unfettered world of art and creative play? The simple, truthful answer is that, I can't. 

And so, today I am converted. Today painting has become an accepted, embraced, and encouraged form of self-expression. Today I give my son the gift of freedom, and find it for myself as well.

-Ashley

Real Life

My birthday was a few days ago. From the outside looking it, it was much like any other day. Same sweet kids to feed and read to and love on, same laundry to fold, dishes to wash, clothes to iron. My husband did a lovely job of making it a day of joy an celebration, but when you're a mom and a housewife, the work is rarely ever finished and a birthday is still a day. 

As I stood over the steaming iron, pressing the wrinkles from one of my husband's shirts, I thought about Jesus and what His days were like. I would describe most of my days as mundane. Blessed and beautiful, yes, and mundane. His were anything but. We rarely see Jesus engaging in regular human activities such as eating and sleeping. When He does those actions are part of a larger context that tells the grander story. Cogs in the machine. We know Jesus was God and man, so we know He ate and drank, and even suffered criticism for it at times. But so much of Jesus that we see in the Gospels is God - healing, forgiving, resurrecting, teaching. As a housewife engaged in every day chores, even on my birthday, I found it hard to identify with Jesus and His days, to be conformed to His likeness through the sameness and utility of my work. 

The good news in the midst of my mundane is that Jesus, through His ministry, both saved me from and to this beautiful life I live. Because Jesus is my extraordinary Savior, I am free to live an ordinary life. The work I do does not define who I am, nor does it provide my worth or salvation. Jesus does all of that. As a follower of Jesus I'm delivered from my definition of self, by losing my life in His. 

The life I'm living now, as much as I am thankful for it and as much as I invest in it, is only temporary. My real life is hidden in Christ. And we all know that hidden things are precious. Christ treasures my true life and safeguards it until the day He appears in all of His radiant glory, and bestows the best gift of all. That day will be my true birthday, when I see Him as He is and finally become who I was created to be. 

Until then I fold laundry and wash dishes and love children even as my heart whispers: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Not What I Expected

Recently, my husband has been required to work out of town for weeks at a time. Although I'm thankful for steady employment and the opportunities that have come his way because of this assignment, I was nervous about what lengthy separation would do to our marriage, our friendship, and our kids. The past six months have been a difficult time for me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Honestly, I've been a bit of a wreck. Through all of that, my husband has faithfully loved me, cared for me, sacrificed hugely to meet my needs, and shown me time and again what true love actually looks like in the corners of dark days. He's my best friend, and I wasn't thrilled about suddenly having to go it alone.

So in the face of this impending separation, I got busy. I worried. And worried some more. And sought counsel from dear friends and wise women. And took their advice and discussed my fears openly with my husband. And prayed. A LOT. And was finally blessed with the restful realization that if this is the situation I find myself in, God is here, too, and will enable and strengthen me to meet any and every need.

There have been many graces that made life easier to navigate. God has surrounded me with loving, giving people. Multiple friends have checked up on me, planned play dates, and offered encouragement. My dear, dear neighbor and friend brought me food, and fresh eggs from her own chickens, and helped me round up the garbage in my house so I wouldn't have to drag the can up the driveway in the dark. My in-laws invited the kids and I to come and stay for as long as we wanted to, and turned their patio into a play time paradise with a huge wading pool and custom made sand box. They prepared food for us, gave me moments to curl up and read a book, and provided love and affection on days when I could've been sitting at home, alone, killing a bag of potato chips while I binged on Netflix. The power of being present in someone's life should never be underestimated. Through the kindness of friends and family, God has proven Himself to be present every day.

Another blessing is that my kids have been wonderfully normal during their dads absence. They've played and fought and gotten taller. They've wailed for their dad during emotionally-charged pre-nap moments, partaking in a luxury I don't allow myself. They've learned to ham it up on FaceTime with him, but also to say "Hi!" and then walk away to play with a toy. They've shown me that it's possible to react to a major life change with resiliency and acceptance. The fact that they continue to fight and whine and drive me a bit batty has given me even more opportunity to trust God to provide the patience and love and wisdom I need every day with them. And He absolutely has. 

The blessing that has caught me by surprise and fueled my wonder at God's goodness has been how well my husband and I have been able to communicate while he has been gone. Communicating effectively is an aspect of our marriage that has needed constant attention during our 9 years together. Any time we allowed our proximity to each other to become mundane, we began to take the other for granted and failed to communicate with purpose, respect, kindness, and joy. Now that we are separated by many miles and several time zones, I was afraid that distance would work the same evil as familiarity, and we wouldn't take the time to really share with each other. Happily, blessedly,  our conversations have been open, honest, and joyful! By utilizing the many capabilities of smartphones, we have been able to continue sharing life. We've rejoiced over our sons second lost tooth, and shared in the worry that our daughter might have broken some bones in her hand after taking a hard fall outside. We've discussed spiritual things. We've encouraged each other in our efforts at our respective jobs. We've stayed up way too late (for me) on the phone, like a couple of high school kids with a crush on each other, just because it's nice to be in that moment together. Even from far away he has continued to be my biggest supporter and my best friend. 

I wonder at my God, who cares so much about my family that He would not only allow this separation, but that He would use it for our good and His glory. Because contrary to all the things I feared it would be, and through all the times it has been difficult, this separation has been good. Good because of the kindness of others toward my family. Good because of the normalcy of my kids. Good because now I know that physical distance can't ever truly separate my husband and me. Good because I have seen daily confirmation that God is wise, and kind, and active in our lives. As much as I love my husband, as happy as I am that he will soon be home, I wouldn't trade these past few weeks without him for the goodness that God has shown, and the truth He has revealed. It's only through greater knowledge of God that I can ever truly love my husband and my kids. And so I am thankful for this separation, and all the good that God has accomplished through it. And that is the exact opposite of everything I expected. 

-Ashley

Because We Love this Land

Recently my husband and I watched the movie Promised Land (2012). We both enjoyed the story centering on the conflict between the residents of a small farming community and the employees of a large mining firm, seeking to purchase leases of the farms in order to harvest the natural gas pocketed beneath the beautiful but largely unprofitable fields. The story was educational and engaging, and the actors delivered relatable, likable characters who were caught between the drive to do their jobs and advance their careers, and their empathy with the farmers who struggled to remain faithful to something that, for them, was deep and good and true. Almost every farmer in the film was working his daddy's farm, which had been his granddaddy's, and so on, so far back until some of them didn't even hazard a guess at the number of years the land had been in the family. All they knew was, that land was theirs. An ennobling privilege, a terrible responsibility. 

This film raised all kinds of questions for me, and stirred up feelings that would never have crossed my heart or mind were I not married to my husband. You see, he comes from land. 

Here in the South we are proud of our clay, even as we shake our heads over the stains that it leaves on our clothes, our shoes, our carpets, our skin. We dye t-shirts with it, and people buy them (probably mostly tourists. All we have to do is put a white undershirt in the washing machine with a pair of dirty jeans and Ta Da! Clay-dyed shirt for free.). We may hate it, but we're proud of it. That's one Southern brand of love of the land.

But my husband doesn't come from clay. He comes from hills that roll alongside a river in southeast Missouri, from acres of backyard studded with trees, from fields of his grandma's farm right next door where he walked every Sunday afternoon with his family, then went home to check for ticks. He comes from a close-knit, kissing, hugging family of aunts and uncles that lived on the land and from the land, and even if they moved away and made their lives on a ranch in Texas, or inside a church sanctuary in Florida, or anywhere else, they always came back to the land. Even after 16 years in Georgia, my in-laws still call that little town beside the river, home. You can't ever really leave the land. 

I grew up differently. I mostly lived in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by, not horses and cattle. I played outside and rode my bike and climbed trees and made mud burritos that I unfortunately sat on occasionally, but I didn't know land. I was ignorant enough that every year when my mom planted annuals, I felt sorry when they died, or maybe felt like she just hadn't been able to keep them alive. (No offense Mom.) I didn't even bother to ask her how long they were supposed to live. The greater shame is that I was privileged to be the granddaughter of the fairy godmother of plants, and I was still too dumb and disinterested to learn a little bit about turning over a shovel of dirt and watching something green and magical appear with the application of water and sunshine and hope. 

But that all changed, very gradually, over years and years, as my husband began to lovingly and patiently give me the gift of the love of land. He began by showing me what it meant to care for our property, to take pride in the form and appearance of it. He mowed grass, he yanked out ugly bushes, he tamed an entire crazy grown-over woods in our backyard with his brute strength, determined will, and a machete. I think the little saplings might've started felling themselves when they saw him coming out on a Sunday afternoon, ready to work for a few hours. I mostly stayed inside to read a book and doze. Sometimes he would come and get me to show me his progress and tell me his plans. Sow some grass seed. Dig a firepit. Maybe add some benches. I'd nod and smile and encourage and go back inside. 

After he got the woods beaten back far enough for his purposes, and dug a deep pit in the earth, and ringed it with homemade concrete bricks, he turned around and looked up the hill and started making things beautiful around the house. He transplanted a dogwood from the woods to the grass beside our patio, and tied it upright with wire to convince the poor thing is wasn't going to die. And it didn't. Then he dug a flower bed and filled it with roses and irises and lilies, and began to experiment with a few things like tomatoes and peppers and cilantro. And I think that's when I was converted, and fell into the love of things that are green, things that come from the land. Watching that dogwood stand up on its own, putting out six inches of new growth and a gorgeous coat of leaves, year after year, and seeing those iris leaves shoot up like a geyser from the ground, then those thick stalks with their buds like a purple cocoon, and finally that flower like a waterfall caught in time. Every day there was something new to marvel at. And I began to go outside just to see what had happened since the day before. To count the number of lily blooms that were sure to open the next day, to come as close as ever I have been to grabbing a rifle and shooting a deer when they came by in the dark hours and nipped all but two of those almost-blooms. I measured my son's height by how tall the iris blooms were, until our last year at that house, when he finally surpassed them. I won't ever forget that blonde boy in a t-shirt, diaper, and sandals, standing beside a blossom of Holland Sky. I could not get enough of watching things grow. 

Then I started getting my hands dirty. I got down in those beds and learned the feel of dirt and clay and the smell of mulch, and scrubbed my hands at the end of the day, satisfied. I headed outside with my husband and stayed, working alongside, standing back to survey the progress, dreaming about and planning for the future. And I took my kids with me, because this was something too important to miss. 

We've moved from that first house, where my husband helped me fall in love with the dirt. I still live in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by. My neighbors do, however, have chickens, and the fresh eggs are delicious. My husband and I don't have much land, a little more than an acre. We are the first generation of our family to live on it, but we love it just the same, and every sunny evening and weekend you can usually find us outside, wreaking havoc on the existing overgrown underbrush, clearing the old to make way for the new. Already we've planted a spring bulb garden, fifteen blueberry bushes, and six trees. We make long-term plans, grateful for whatever amount of time the Lord gives us here, and for the beautiful things He makes to come forth from the earth. We do this, because we love this land.

-Ashley

Being Southern

I have two sisters-in-law, but with both of them I leave off the "in-law" part and let it be at "sister." Even with three sisters in my family, God knew I needed these other two to round things out nicely. Every single one occupies a specific location in my heart, reserved just for her. Nobody crowded anyone else out or butted in. They all just slipped right in where they belonged. They are each of them so beautiful, and loving, and generally wonderful in every way. I admire them, and wish I was more like them. I wish I was more courageous, like the youngest one, and tender-hearted, like the one I gained through marrying my husband. I wish I had the lion-heart of my oldest sister, and the great ability not to say too much, like the sister I gained when she married my brother. And the one closest to me in age, my first (and former) frenemy, I wish I had her kindness, which runs as deep as a well. And also her skill with power tools. She is our daddy's daughter, in so many good ways. I think I got mostly his feisty-ness, and his nose. I don't mind.

My sisters are all great gift-givers. They give of themselves, of their time, of their hearts, A well-timed text from one of them can help me straighten out a really rotten day, or at least my rotten attitude. And when special occasions come around they give lovely, thoughtful, sometimes hilarious gifts. One of my favorites was the set of dryer balls that look like hedgehogs. Quirky and practical!

Last Christmas one of my sisters gave me a nice, comfy long-sleeved t-shirt with a Bible verse printed on the back. I really like it. She was kind enough to buy it in a really pretty coral color, which complements my complexion, and makes me feel a little bit pretty on days when I give in to the fact that I am a stay-at-home mom doing laundry all day, with no need to be glamorous. Her gifts are usually like that. Like the cute chip clips with sassy sayings printed on them, or the delicously scented bar of soap from a soapery. All of my soap comes from Target. But she's sweet like that. She takes a mundane thing and makes it special.

This t-shirt is from a popular line of clothing that celebrates the dual desire for femininity and comfort, as well as the region of the country that I live in. Aren't t-shirts amazing, that they can do all of that? And I really love wearing this t-shirt. I wash it and hang it up to dry, instead of letting it roll around in the dryer with my socks, because I have arms as long as a gorilla and I hate it when my sleeves are too short. But this shirt. It's got me thinking, What does it really mean to be Southern?

Any person, no matter where they came from or where they live now, can wear a shirt with a location printed down the sleeve like a tattoo and pretend that it makes them belong there. But that just isn't true. I can wear a shirt that says "I Love NY" and all it means is that I probably got hustled by a street vendor. I wear this gifted shirt, and I love it, but it doesn't make me Southern. So what does?

Is it my accent, which waxes and wanes in intensity depending on my company? Put me on the phone with my nanny and I'll prove it to you. She has the most beautiful Southern accent, and anybody that speaks even remotely like her makes me feel comfortable and safe and homesick all at once. I hope I talk like that when I grow up.

Is it how I like my tea which, contrary to what I order most of the time, is thickly, richly sweet? My mom and grandmother are champion brewers and sweeteners of tea. I've drunk gallons of it, and still I want more. A true Sunday dinner of beef pot roast with carrots, potatoes, rolls, and gravy is not complete without sweet tea. Nor any other meal, except breakfast, for that matter. I wonder if tea could be considered a vegetable, since it is the product of leaves? 

Or maybe it's the fact that I eat grits. And fried green tomatoes. On purpose. Or the fact that "y'all" is permanently lodged in my vocabulary, as well as plenty of other Frankenstein-ian creations of this Southern English language. But that's a whole n'other blog post.

I really don't know what makes me or anybody else Southern, other than being from here, mostly because I've never lived or spent much time outside of the South, so I don't even know what different looks like. Or sounds like. Or tastes like. We even fry the sushi here, y'all.

Southern, for me, is just being. It's going about my life, talking the way the words come out of my mouth, eating food the way it tastes good to me, and wishing I had sweet tea when I usually just drink water. Southern can't be commercialized or sold, no matter what that shirt says. Anybody can wear a shirt and be a faker. It takes a real Southerner to sit there at your grandmother's kitchen table with a glass of sweet tea that is mostly just sugar, talking about everybody you know and saying "Bless their heart" frequently enough to remind each other, and yourself, that you aren't really gossiping. You're just catching up with your grandma.

If that ain't Southern, I don't know what is.

Hanging Up the Cape

I am supposed to be choosing photos for our 2015 memory book. I've even made myself a cup of hot tea to try and trick myself into believing this is going to be a fun process. It's not working. With hundreds (thousands?) of pictures to sort through, upload, then place creatively into a digital scrapbook, I just can't seem to find the part of me that actually wants to do it. I figure, if I get it done by December 31st of this year, I'm not too late. Ha!

Any good intentions I had regarding my photo project were completely derailed when I came across this picture:

This is a picture of my daughter wearing her brother's Superman jacket. This picture was taken in August of last year. Therefore, this picture is also a testimony that I am sometimes a freakishly paranoid mom. I think the wind might have been blowing. Hence, the jacket. And the hood. She's wearing his because she didn't seem to have anything that fit her. Duh, it's summer. No one wears a hood in summer. 

I digress.

This picture changed my creative output from grudging photo project to overly-sentimentalized blog (fair warning!) in about 2 seconds, all because of the jacket. 

This jacket has a long history in my son's relatively short lifetime. At least it feels like it does. He received the jacket in February of 2015, and wore it practically non-stop for days. 

Here's one of the first photos of my son in his jacket:

In this picture he is doing his favorite thing in the world-playing outside and "helping" his dad work in the woods. Our previous home had a deep lot with an area of woods that my husband had cleared for a fire pit, as well as woods that weren't so tamed. My son loved all of it. Zip up his jacket, slide on his boots, arm him with a shovel, and he was ready for anything. For hours. 

Naturally, the jacket elicited a lot of admiration and comments from the general public. Our son wasn't a huge fan of the attention. He just loved the jacket. But who can resist a cute little 4 year-old boy in superhero apparel? Apparently, not many people. So, he lived with the celebrity that came wrapped up in that bright red cape. It gave him a chance to develop his people skills, if nothing else. 

My son and the jacket became pretty inseparable objects. He wanted to go play outside? On with the jacket. Target or Kroger run? Jacket. Cold in the house? Jacket. With the hood up. That kept up through all the cold months of early 2015, took a hiatus during the warm months (except for that windy day in August when his sister borrowed it for about a minute), then resumed as soon as cooler temperatures hit last fall.

And then one day, something happened. 

No, the cape didn't rip, the zipper didn't break, the large "S" didn't begin to flake off. Nope. One day, suddenly, the jacket was too short. Not so short that it wouldn't make do in most situations (see those above which don't require leaving our property), but short enough that it was time to trade up to a bigger size. I discussed it with my son, then went shopping with his dad, and found.....absolutely not what I was looking for, AT ALL. I wanted that jacket, just one size bigger (wisdom says: buy two next time). Apparently February is a great time to clearance outerwear, which means I was left with one measly option. It works, in that it is the right size, and comes in colors that my son likes and I don't take issue with, but it just isn't magical. Not in the least. There's no cape. No charisma. The replacement jacket is gray with color blocking of darker gray and just a little bit of orange for crying out loud. It's like the jacket is scared of being seen in public and wants to blend in with the sidewalk.

My son doesn't blend in. Anywhere. He lives life loud, and fast, and chatty, and chatty, and more chatty. So I think he should have a jacket that reflects how fun and free-spirited and amazing he is. 

This is ridiculous. I know. 

And it's really not about the jacket. It's about the fact that my boy is now 5, and school is much closer on my horizon than it has ever been before. As in, looming. Ominously. And I am realizing that this precious time of his life is about to go the way of the Superman jacket. It's not going to fit any more. The way we've lived life up to this point is going to change and it will never, ever be the same. And when I type that, and when I think that, it feels like my heart is a piece of paper that someone just wadded up in their hand. Crushed. 

Couldn't he stay 4 forever? Why can't the jacket fit just a little bit longer?

Longing

I'm homesick. And sad. I've been feeling vaguely unhappy as of late, and the feeling has slowly defined itself over the last couple of days, coalescing into clarity when I told my sister on the phone, "It feels like my house, but not my home." You see, I've packed all my belongings, unpacked most of them, changed my address, hung a few pictures on the walls, and scrubbed the showers, but my soul hasn't settled here yet. The part of me that likes to feel cozy, that likes to belong, is still floating around in limbo, looking for a place to perch.

We moved a month ago, and already we've lived some good life here. We've played with our kids, cut down some trees, entertained family and friends, hosted our small group from church. All the things that we did in our old home, plus some new things, we are doing here. But it just doesn't feel right yet. Maybe it's the lingering smell of......whatever that unpleasantness is. My cabinets smell funny, and Arm & Hammer can only do so much. There's a seemingly endless list of pesky little honey-do jobs that need to be done. There are three old toilets sitting in the garage, waiting to be hauled off (thankfully, they are no longer the three toilets sitting in my bathrooms. Husband for the win!). I've unpacked things and can't remember where I put them. I can't figure out where to hang my pictures (brilliant sister who helped with the living room collage, please come back!!).

Complain, complain, complain.

The way I feel right now reminds me of a story I read of a group of people who experienced incredible injustice and cruelty at the hand of a tyrannical megalomaniac.They had done nothing wrong to deserve this treatment, and they had no one and no where to turn for help. But someone knew of their plight, and because of an old promise made almost half a millennium before, they decided to save them. The process of their salvation was painful for everyone involved. It was also unspeakably terrifying, awesome, and powerful. Supernatural events brought the tyrant to his knees and the poor, oppressed people were allowed to leave their house of bondage to wander into the wilderness of freedom.

You've surely guessed by now that I'm talking about the children of Israel, God's chosen people that He freed from slavery in Egypt in order to take them to the Promised Land. Literally, a land He promised to them through their ancestors. You're also probably wondering what their story has to do with mine.

First let me say that my story is small, and insignificant, and puny when compared with the story of the Exodus. I've known this story for as long as I can remember but thanks to fantastic study material written by Jen Wilkin and the teaching of three godly, capable women, this story has gripped me and affected me in ways that it never has before. Those children of Israel have marched right out of my Bible and brought their weary, sandy selves into my living room. Those Egyptians have been hounding me, breathing threats of revenge and death down my neck, while the waves curled away from my toes. That Passover lamb has looked into my eyes the second before it's throat was cut, and I watched the life drain out of it. This isn't a small story. It's HUGE, in every possible way. My story isn't huge, but it's the one I live every day.

Even though the difference in magnitude between my story and the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt is so vast, I still find myself in that story every time I sit down to do my lesson for the week. I see my need to trust. Daily. No matter what. I see my need to obey. Daily. No matter what. I see my great God. Kind. Majestic. Powerful. Terrifying. Just. And this week, this day, I saw how I, just like Israel, was complaining instead of thanking, was nursing my discontent instead of counting my blessings.

You see, about a month after Israel left Egypt through the miraculous wonders that God wrought, they started complaining. "We're hungry. We're thirsty. We wish we had died in Egypt where they had meat pots and bread." I'm not so sure about the meat pots, but I totally identify with the bread. Even more than that I identify with the underlying emotion, and ultimately the underlying sin. By complaining about my circumstances I'm telling God that He isn't doing it right, that I don't like His plan for me and I want things done differently, preferably right away. I liked my old house that smelled nice and where I could find everything. Maybe I should just go back there and leave this smelly, disorganized soulless shell of an abode. But not really. Israel wanted a smooth transition from Egypt to Canaan. I want to instantly feel at home in this new-to-me house. We both want the same things. We want security, and we want it on our terms.

Thank God He doesn't operate that way. I'm His child, so I can always, without a doubt, know that He is working in my life in ways that will manifest and magnify His glory and will draw me into deeper relationship with Him by making me more like His most precious, perfect Son. He did the same with Israel, His chosen people. He took them through 40 years of uncomfortable and formative desert dwelling before they every set foot on promised ground. Who knows how long it's going to be, and all the things that God will do with me and for me before I feel at home in this house. Maybe I never will. Maybe this longing for earthly comfort isn't such a good thing. I can feather my nest here, but how long will that last? 20 years in this house? Another 50 or 60 years in this body? Nothing here is permanent. And so what I really truly want, and what I prayed for tonight, was that this longing I have for home will be transformed into a longing for heaven, my real home, my Promised Land.

In the end, it's all I really want.

-Ashley