What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like stars at night.
No time to turn at Beauty; glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

W. H. Davies

There is straw beneath and around me as I sit and read out loud to a laboring doe (mama goat).  Blanchette is unbothered by the computer in her midst.  She is merely happy for the comfort I bring to her in her labors.  A neighbor is mowing and the boisterous two year old is sleeping.  There is a list inside of all that needs to get done by nightfall.  But I’m here.  Reading to a goat.  Reading to myself.  She nibbles on my wedding ring and makes softest sounds that she will only make for the babies that are about to be delivered.  Mama Hen stands nearby and since she’s special to me, I don’t shoo her away.  She is our hen who likes to lay an entire clutch of beautiful blue eggs “off the reservation” ie: not in the coop.  She too clucks in a most maternal way and somehow I feel most at home in the world, right here.

Blanchette paws at the nest she’s made and I rub her back and keep reading to her.  But when I get to the poem quoted above, my eyes brim and spill.  The book is about family and what a home is.  Something I’ve learned much of just from experience and life.  But something I know I’ve still room to grow into and grasp stronger.  A barred owl just called from a tree nearby, he must live directly behind the goat pasture.  And he always calls mid afternoon.  Every day.  His one-of-a-kind voice is ominous and strangely comforting to me.  I never see him.  But his presence is as real to me as anything.  I breath deep and loud and keep my feet propped up on the milk stool for just another minute.

If I don’t have time to stop and stare and engage fully in this one and only life of mine, then is it really life at all?

I am such a slow learner.  But I’m figuring out that my ability to multi-task like most moms isn’t always a gift.  It can fragment a day and a life right up into pieces until what’s left is devoid of the richness intended.

Maybe multi-tasking isn’t all it was cracked up to be.  Maybe we weren’t meant to have it all.  Maybe we can only have and do just a few things with excellence and we get to choose.  A yes here means a no somewhere else.

One of my kids came to me this week with emotions and words that were incredibly tough to swallow.  Vulnerable and real.   I had just communicated I didn’t have time to look at cute puppy pictures online.  I needed to send a quick note back to someone about something.  But in that moment that seemed small and totally insignificant to me, there was brokenness.  “Mom, sometimes it seems like you just don’t have time for me.”  There were tears.  I listened.  I received all the emotion and words to follow.  And took some serious inventory.  What needed to change?

Hence the poem above and how poignant I find it at present.  Time to stand and stare.  Time to shirk the rest of life and sit in the goat pen.  Time to go for a walk.  Time to listen for owls.  Time to look at puppy pictures online.  Time to listen to ridiculous quotes from a movie I find annoying but my boys love.  Time to stop and kiss my husband in the kitchen.  Time to sit by the fire instead of do dishes.  Time to let go.

Yes, life may be brimming ‘full of care’.  But there is still time to turn and glance at Beauty.

**more soon – a minute or two more and the first baby goat of our kidding season will be here…pics soon to follow!!!**

**updated: 5:30 pm**

A few months ago, Chris said to me ever so timidly “You know, I haven’t wanted to say anything…(long pause)…but, the way you are interacting with the kids, its just off a little.  Like it’s not “you” and I don’t know why.”  If I wasn’t also so aware of what he was speaking to, I would have been tempted to be gravely offended.  But I felt it too.  Like things were one step off.  We talked long and tried to trouble-shoot.  We wondered together about what could be amiss.  Depression?  No, we both agreed we knew what that looked like for me, not like this.  Over-committed?  No.  Maintaining pretty good boundaries on time and life stuff.  We didn’t pinpoint it that night we had talked.  I just did what I knew to do and kept pursuing Love.

December rolled around with all it’s extra activity and bustle and expectations.  It was one of those holiday seasons (maybe you’ve never had one like this) that just doesn’t feel ripe with meaning and beauty.  I’d poured out a great deal of heart and soul and prayer on some matters very dear to my heart….and by Christmas was feeling discouraged and disillusioned at the reality of things.  Instead of looking forward with great anticipation at the respite that was coming my way in January as I’d planned a weekend away with a friend, I grew intensely fearful.  This trip loomed larger than life instead of being a bright spot in my days to come.  Anxiety hasn’t ever really been a big thing for me, other stuff tends to trip me up.  But I was undone with a sense of worry and fear.  I couldn’t talk about going on the trip with anyone.  When I did I would usually cry.

I began to wonder what in the world was wrong with me.  I knew I’d encountered some major losses.  I had hoped beyond hope for some big things that didn’t come to fruition.  That is never easy.  Ever.  But still, this unexplained dread took over my days and I pictured myself getting on a plane and hyperventilating in my seat as we departed.  I finally told my friend I wasn’t sure I could go.  She was of course kind and said we would do whatever we needed and if I couldn’t manage to go, that was totally okay.

It was finally a conversation with a lifelong friend that turned the lights on.  As we talked over text (which I don’t usually love but wow, with 14 children between the two of us, talking is hard to come by!), I spoke words into my phone in a quiet whisper sitting in the garage one afternoon.  I sat on the back steps and wept in the cold air as I realized why I was so beside myself in this uncharacteristic way.

Just waking up and getting out of bed every single day, caring intentionally for my husband then loving, educating, serving and equipping my children…all the while trying to help make sense of life for a child that is struggling in big ways….it feels like just doing that requires all the bravery I can find.  Each day I’m living takes every ounce of brave this heart can muster.  So I suppose, that’s why I can’t do this trip and leave my kids for three days.  Plumb out of bravery.

And that was it.  My every day took every bit of brave.  So of course none was left.  Knowing this was what made it so easy for me to walk up to the sweet older grandma at a Christmas event that same week and pour love over her with my words.  As she cared with such patience for her autistic grandson I told her boldly how precious her obvious love for him was and what a gift it was she was giving, even if he didn’t know.  When you can’t make life feel doable for a child whom you love and would give your life for, it takes such a toll on your heart.  But you don’t quit.  You just keep loving.  And it is brave, the loving.

January came.  Days passed fast and Sunday before the trip came.  My kids didn’t even know there was a trip coming up.  More anxiety bubbled over as I wondered if it was one of those gut feelings you should trust and I should stay home.  What if I cried on the plane?  What if I had any sort of unpleasant mama meltdown whilst on this supposed wonderful getaway/conference?  What if something terrible happened with the kids while I was gone?  What if I summoned myself to finally go and the time was disappointing?  Then the clearest words came to my heart as I pondered what to do.  What if I go on this trip, believing there is something great for me taking this time away, and nothing happens?  What if despite my desperate expectation for God to meet me there and make some sense of things, He doesn’t?

The what if’s.  Oh the life they can steal right out from under us.  So I stared them in the face and packed my suitcase (but not until 9 pm the night before the departing flight!).  I didn’t feel brave.  I just literally shoved a few clothes in an old backpack and got in my car and left.

What I encountered when I finally had space and time and quiet would literally breathe life into my soul.  I had utterly no idea how desperately I needed time away.  Time with no agenda.  No activity.  A beloved speaker to listen to yes, but lots of time and room to not need to do anything for anyone.  This felt so radical for me.  So indulgent.  But it was life.  I took a birds eye view to my life and could see clearly things that had pressed in too hard on my everyday for me to be able to sort out.  And with the view came a lot of emotion.  But there was space for that.  Space to listen to my own heart and give myself permission to grieve and room too for hope to seep in to every broken place.

I haven’t written in so long.  And I didn’t really know where to begin (again).  So I decided to just start with this little window into the last season before getting to the next one.  For you precious few who still read, I am thankful and hope that you can find space if you need it, to do something brave.  Even if that is just getting out of bed tomorrow and living your one and only life you have to live.

My first memories here are from my tenth year of life.  It was the third and last childhood home I would claim.  I felt grown up then.  And strangely, though I’m now freshly 37, I feel less grown up than ever.  The weight and responsibilities of life weight heavy and most days I am under-equipped for the tasks of this “grown up life” that belongs to me.  There was a gray bunny with floppy ears that hopped around one summer evening while our parents read books to us on a blanket in the backyard.  Perhaps we only did this one time, perhaps we did it a hundred times…regardless, it would be emblazoned in my memory to this very day as one of my favorite childhood memories.

There was the place at the top of the stairs where I chucked a tuna fish sandwich at my mother as a hormonally-overwhelmed preteen.  This was shortly after I’d slapped the elementary school principal and been suspended from sixth grade.  My fourth grade teacher, the first year we moved to 116th Place, was such a treasured woman I spent the weekend at her home once.   Maybe you shudder when I write that.  But it was another time.  And it was the purest kind of grandmotherly love I received under her nose.   Fifth grade net me a double win in the teacher department, a back to back blessing, another amazing older woman who told me I could do hard things and I believed her.  But by sixth grade, the tuna fish year and the year Lance “pantsed” me (do kids even do that still?) in the kickball field (I never wore leggings again, only reliable pants that wouldn’t give), a different teacher fresh out of college was my all day companion.  Something in my heart shifted that year under her harsh leadership.  Sure, the hormones of a 12 year old girl played a part.  But when I was cleaning recently and found apology letters written from that teacher, it reminded me that she certainly had played a part, and she knew she had.  She crushed my desire to learn and the confidence that had grown so richly the year before.  She made me feel like a problem and I absorbed her perception of my life in a huge way.

There was the unfinished basement where my parents allowed us incredible freedom.  They provided us with wood scraps and sawhorses and an old door to use as our table.  We spent hours upon hours on that concrete slab.  Making things for all the neighbors, cutting wood up and painting it, gluing yarn to it….just generally being as creative as we wanted to be.  We gathered neighborhood kids and practiced plays and performed them for our patient parents.  In December we called it Santa’s workshop.  But it my mind, it was still that even for the rest of the year.  They let us demo the poorly placed wall with hammers and I remember my grandpa bashing the wall with some heavy tool and it felt so cool.

My room looked out to a cherry tree.  Small at first but as the years passed it was magnificent.  I would try to draw or paint it but never did any justice.  And of course this was before smart phones and digital cameras, so I have probably not a single photo of it.  Just my memory.  Which is somehow, wonderfully, enough.  My two sisters and I shared a bathroom and clothes (although often unwillingly) and were each just about as different as three girls could be.

Many times over the years there would be an unwed pregnant teen or young woman living downstairs.  My parents put action to their faith and provided love and direction for girls in such difficult circumstances.  One was 16.  Tanya.  She taught us to open our Christmas presents and then re wrap them so we wouldn’t get caught.  It was not as fulfilling as I’d imagined.  One we bonded so much with that we traveled late at night to the hospital to be there when her baby was born.  I still remember sleeping on the floor of the hospital waiting room.  She gave that baby up for adoption and it seemed to me like the bravest thing in all the world to do such a thing.  One was named Jennifer and I would wake up early for school and write her a note on a post-it most mornings.  She lined her walls with my notes and took them with her when she left.  I see now that this was the breeding ground for many things, but especially my intrinsic, God-given gift of encouraging others and also a deeply held belief that life, all life, in every form even unborn, is precious beyond measure and is always worth standing up for.

As time went by the downstairs room underneath the kitchen, the room with its very own bathroom became my dwelling place.   I would sneak out that ground floor window and simply sit in the dirt bed outside it, only to be able to honestly say I had snuck out of my house at night.  I had a phone.  One with a cord.  That plugged into the wall.  A boy dialed my home number and had to contend with my parents or sisters to talk to me.  And talk he did.  Sometimes until 3:00 AM on a school night.  About nothing and about everything.  He would keep calling.  For the next four years.  Until one spring evening he would walk up those front porch stairs and knock on the door to find my father in his pajamas already.  He would muster up all his courage and ask for my hand in marriage.  The answer was yes then and then yes a month later when he asked me and yes again a year later when we said our marriage vows in front of 436 people just five days after my twenty-first birthday.  The answer is still yes today, every day.

Love is all tied up in that place.  Almost three decades of love and memories.  So its no wonder that this week when processing some tough issues related to one of our kids, I was sharing with someone about my parents selling their home, and all of the sudden I couldn’t even choke the words out.  It had all been very matter-of-fact until then.  But my mind had dared to remember.  And the remembering took me somewhere I hadn’t planned and the emotions completely overwhelmed me.  The house on 116th has been a place of life and nourishment for me for the majority of my 37 years.  It holds a lifetime of memories.  It is a place that has grown me, grounded me, given to me.

With each passing year as I continue into my own journey of motherhood and nurturing a family, I understand more the richness of what we were given.  Faithful parents who devoted their lives to loving Jesus,  each other, their daughters and countless others…which about sums up really all I hope we can offer our own six children.   A sense of place grounds the heart in such an impenetrable way.  As we cultivate our own family culture and build our own memories, that is at the top of the list of what I long to offer them.  A haven from a crazy world full of hard things.  A place of respite when life disappoints and crushes.  A place where love lives and is a constant, unconditional gift given without expectations or strings attached.

We have the most amazing gift of having my 92 year old grandfather living near us.  In my idealistic ways, before he moved across country to live near my mom and the rest of our family here, I imagined we would see him all the time.  And we did at first, it was easier a year or 18 months ago.  He could join us for church and then we could go out to eat after.  Then it became more challenging to work out visits.  Alzheimer’s is a thief of the mind and the daily work of simply existing is getting harder for him.  So we go to him.  After church.  And eat the same cheeseburgers and have the same sweet conversation.  And we love him.  So much our hearts might burst.  He says a few things the same every time and they are every bit as precious, every single week….

Just keep doing what you’re doing.  You’re doing such a good job with all those kids.  I don’t know how you do it.  You just keep doing it…

In response to me walking in the door and asking how he’s doing today…

Well I’m a whole lot better now that you are here.

He tells me he’s going downhill.  The loss of mental sharpness when you’ve dined at the White House and been a powerful man most your life in Washington DC is felt keenly, daily, no doubt.  And I tell him no matter where he is on the hill we love him.  He tells me he’s not making much of a contribution right now, this from a man who has made incredible contributions in policical arenas as well as leaving a rich legacy of faith to our whole family.  I tell him his life well lived is contribution enough and that we’re blessed to get to sit with him.  He prays the same prayer every Sunday lunch, always ending with “Lord use us in your service”.

The kids just smile when they answer the same question four times in one lunch about what grade they are in.  They are learning this kind of love that we seem to forget in this busy land of ours.  A slow loves that says no matter what you are able to accomplish, you are valuable and precious.

He always marvels over how I’m there, always mumbles about how my life is busy and full and how do I find the time.  And I answer the same every week:

You make time for what matters the most Grandpa – and you matter to me.

If there is any life changing take away from our sudden loss incurred five years ago, when Chris’ dad didn’t return alive from his hunting trip one January weekend, its that our tomorrow isn’t promised to us.  We have today to make choices that reflect our values.  We have this one life to spend how we want.  Only one.  So we spend our Sundays and they are worth more than gold.