A normal day… (updated)

The announcement goes something like this: “Finn is covered. Head to toe covered. He is completely naked and covered with tiny shards of styrofoam. It’s everywhere. All over the bathroom walls, the counter, the floor. And Finn.”

I take a deep breath. I’m sitting on the couch trying to drink coffee, recovering from a full weekend and our very long Monday. There is some magical thing about a mama who sits down. She can be hustling around fixing breakfast, filling the crockpot with dinner, doing dishes leftover from last night, switching laundry loads, wiping up unidentifiable smashed food and she is near invisible in her work. But sit that mama down and no one misses it. My backside hasn’t been on the couch ten seconds before one, two, then three sweet things are fighting for my lap. Good thing it’s a soft and plentiful lap. Everyone snugs in and about then is when oldest boy comes in with the news about Finn.

And these are the things our everydays are made of. Kids practicing self defense moves on the barn roof. Digging for bones in the forest and coming back with near intact skeletons. Hard working almost teenage Rylee traipsing out to the barn in her pajamas every single morning with a big milk bucket and bed head. Someone forgot to let the turkey out and she’s talking loud from her pen reminding us to set her free for the day. The pigs are done with breakfast but they are ready for second breakfast if anyone cares to oblige. Coyotes are closing in every morning and the three big dogs are on constant watch, sure to bark away any rustle from the forest. A dog shows up locked in the pantry after someone shut him inside to “clean up” an entire box of spilled granola.

A two year old whose sparkling blue eyes are sure to dazzle is happy to climb trees or climb onto counters using drawer knobs as a ladder. She is just as pleased to act as “baby” and get to “nap” in a suitcase. Only the pretend nap turned real and she lays there in the middle of the noisy kitchen for an hour snoozing. She has a penchant for “beddies” (berries) and the berry crisp someone accidentally left here last night ended up being her bedtime snack since she found it (and a spoon) before anyone else did. She loves to snuggle cousins and creatures of every sort.

Blisters on my hands now just healed from an evening of food prep and endless slicing and dicing. The sacrifice of a weeknight evening for the sake of precious friends seemed painfully small but the only thing I could do to communicate love. Their loss of new life at 11 weeks pregnant was all too familiar to us and besides praying our hearts out, food seems the only other way to extend compassion.

There are stacks of great books to be read, one 7 year old sits reading to me this very minute. The library hold shelf bears our name and inquiring ones want to know when we can go pick up the waiting books. Older ones have been enlisted by youngers to place holds so even the littles have books waiting for them today.

As for me, only styrofoam awaits me at the moment I’m afraid. Lots and lots of styrofoam…

***Updated 9:56 AM*** While I scoped out the styrofoam mess I came downstairs to the sound of Dad’s drill on the front porch. This is what I found:

When I inquired about what was taking place, Finn was quick to explain “I caught a moth, I put it in a ziploc and Audrey helped me poke holes so it could breath. I’m going to drill it into the front door to make sure dad can see it when he gets home.” To which I took another deep breath and commended him for his use of eye protection then I explained that while that was very sweet, it would permanently ruin the door. We searched for a big piece of wood and screwed the ziploc into it instead. It is propped up by Dad’s parking spot waiting for his return. The front door is scratched but not badly so.

While it might be very entertaining for me to write these posts every day (as this is very normal) – it would surely overwhelm. But for posterity’s sake I’d sure like to try every now and then!

On crazy busy life and “The Best Yes” by Lysa Terkeurst

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a review. While I have certainly read some good books, I haven’t managed to sit down and write about them. But this one requires passing on, The Best Yes, by Lysa Terkeurst. Our flurried, broken, overextended-in-every-way American culture is a living, breathing example of many examples of “you reap what you sow”. Instead of breaking down that reality, may I just say that despite very intentional efforts not to live inside the crazy…sometimes it seems impossibly hard to step back, step aside, step OUT of the continual myriad of activities. Nearly all of them GOOD things. The amount of extracurricular options is staggering. Whether you are married with kids or without, single, young or old….there is nary a shortage of ways you could spend your time and energy.

One particular aspect of this that I find it difficult to navigate is the mentality that if you don’t offer your children a plethora of options, be they flute lessons, karate, a spot on the baseball team, chess club, horse back riding lessons, 4-H, drama class, choir, soccer, art lessons and tickets to a play or five at the local kids theater, that somehow they will be cheated of a “well rounded” and “rich” upbringing. The array of “good things” here is at best mind-blowing. And at worst, well, I don’t know. I suppose I would just venture to say that this way of thinking is a plague in our culture and in fact, learning to have some white space or margin in your life is perhaps one of the very best tools parents should empower their kids with.

It sounds easy right? But its not. Even having moving out of the city into a more rural area, there are so many things one can do! I have done much quiet thinking about it this past year, a year that left me gasping for breath and feeling like I could not, would not possibly be able to continue on the same path. A wise mother said to me just last Tuesday while listening to me wrestle out loud with the too-many-options dilemma, “I have come to a place where I honestly believe, if my child has a very exceptional, genuine kind of gift at playing piano or baseball or something….that talent will well up and emerge regardless of my ability to provide copious amounts of lessons and instruction in its realm.” I breathed a sigh of great relief. And my heart agreed.

If I believe that God’s plans for the lives of my children will not be thwarted by my inadequacies and imperfectness as a parent, then I can instead invest in loving them well, building strong, healthy relationships, providing a solid, vibrant foundation for their lives. Which I’ve come to believe MUST include having a weekly schedule that has room in it to breathe. I absolutely must, as a mother who seeks to walk in wisdom, learn how to make thoughtful decisions for our family and for my own life that reflect a measure of having ‘counted the cost’ of each and every spoken and unspoken YES in my life.

This is where the book by Lysa comes in. I ended the summer feeling terribly unready for the year ahead. Still struggling to bounce back from last year. When I read the tagline under the title, Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands, my head just nodded and I clicked ‘place my order’ before the book had even been released. It is practical and so well breaks down the reality of every “yes”. Yes to one thing means a no elsewhere, this is the part I hadn’t learned to think through very well. I just kept on with yes’. I would liken it to writing a check on an empty bank account, eventually the debt is in your face and you have to deal with it. Lysa breaks down, wonderfully well, various ways to learn to cultivate this sort of wisdom and also delves into why it matters so much.

I am learning to weigh my yes and to really sift through all the implications it will have. Slowly, albeit, but learning nonetheless. Just yesterday we were at the pumpkin patch, having great fun with my sister as we have done every year for at least 8 years in a row. I started to get anxious being there, knowing that in two weeks our homeschool group is going on a group trip to another pumpkin patch. I feel obligated to go, my mind had already relinquished to having to go. But as I thought more, talked it out loud a bit, it was so clear. Yesterday was my “best yes”. Two weeks from now will be my wise “no”. And in that, I get to practice something I am not good at, giving grace to myself. Grace to say “one pumpkin patch trip with my six children is all that I can manage this year and that is okay, more than that, it is wise and good”.

If life feels a bit over the top and you aren’t sure how to proceed or how to grow in this aspect, this book is an excellent, very worthwhile read. Really, just about everyone I know fits into that description in some way! My copy is heavily highlighted and written on, which is one of my best measures of good books. Beyond that, my life is incorporating the practical wisdom from the pages and that is surely the best part.

Here are a few snapshots of our one and only wonderful pumpkin patch trip this weekend:

Update – Missions Mondays recipe

I found my recipe to share with you! If you want the full story, scroll down two posts to read the original Missions Monday post. Here is the way I make the meal packets:

1 cup brown short grain rice

1/2 cup brown lentils

3T chicken broth powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

a pinch of salt

Store in glass jar or ziploc bag.

With each packet, these are the cooking instructions – for our family of 8 we make two at a time:

Put 1 Tablespoon olive oil in medium saucepan.

Dump in “meal mix” (whole bag), saute for a minute on low/medium heat

to warm and awaken the spices.

Add 3 1/2 cups water, bring to a boil,

cover, turn to low, simmer 45-50 minutes until most all water is absorbed.

Loving our kids well

The room is bright green now and it’s been so long since I lived in it, I can’t remember what the color used to be. I remember being royally annoyed at the pitter patter of feet above in the kitchen. There must have been no insulation between that floor and my ceiling. I remember sneaking out the ground floor window one night at 17, not to go anywhere, simply to say I’d done it. No one needed to know I only sat in the cold bark for a while right? I laid on my bed in that room for hours upon hours talking till sometimes 3 AM to a boy. It was eons before texting and email. It was the days of the face to face or at least the real talking over a phone, probably one with a cord. I have no clue what we spoke of all that time or how we got up the next day for school. But somewhere in the talking, in the time spent, love unfolded and twenty years later, here we are – still unfolding.

How we have an almost twelve year old, I don’t know but I knew this summer I wanted some face time with her before the hustle and bustle of fall took off. I shared with her some of my thoughts and worries from that age, told her why it was wonderful to be a girl and to get to grow up into a woman. How we have this incredible opportunity, to get to be givers of life through our attitude, heart, words and eventually our body. Something amazing happens when you get to be alone with just one child and with the only intention being time together. No grocery list or agenda. No phone on the table beeping or buzzing away. No other siblings to share the time with. No distraction, only purpose. As they nearly always do, they know. They sense that the time is set apart and they enter in in a different way.

Once I was back home, we were talking one night about how to facilitate depth of relationship with each of our children, how to be keyed in to every one and building something solid so that as they grow and the stakes are ever higher, the losses greater and the dreams bigger – they know we’re right here. We agreed there really is only one way to do that. Time. Shared time, set apart with the purpose of listening and loving. Our six are wildly different. Unique and one of a kind. So naturally, it wouldn’t look the same for each one. We decided to each take an hour a week and each rotate through the oldest five kids. Sounds small? Well maybe. But let me tell you it was hard to find a regular one hour spot to set aside weekly where the other of us would be home to be with kids.

Our third born, he’s a dreamer, an artist and the most easy going kid of our brood. His name means peaceful and while he may be all boy and energetic as the rest of them, it really does describe his demeanor. He’s very different from me. He’s not book-crazed. He is meticulous with his pencil but not with his room. So when I asked him tonight for his choice of a spot for our hour, he said McDonald’s. And I fought every urge to say “Gross, no!”. I simply said yes and off we went. He asked if he could splurge and have two $1 cheeseburgers, I said yes. Then he asked if we could sit outside by the (dumpy, old) play place. Again, I was like really, are you kidding me? but I said a smiling “sure!”. He told me where to sit so I could watch him slide. I left my phone in my purse and sipped my smoothie. He was over-the-moon happy to have my undivided attention while he played. No one else was out there, so I thought I’d see if I could fit in the tunnel.

Oh glory. If you haven’t squeezed yourself through the play tubes at McDonald’s for decades, it’s about time. He shrieked “I can’t believe you’re doing this mom! I can’t believe it!’. He led me around and told me the best way to go down the slide. Upside down and backwards. Alrighty then, of course I want to do that. He said he’d catch me if I was going to fall off the edge. So reassuring. Once I was safely down the slide, my eight year old darling of a boy literally jumped up and down squealing in glee. He then did three somersaults on the padded floor to further express his delight. I laughed out loud and climbed back up for another round. Why in the world not?

We headed for the library to get his books on hold and he grabbed my hand in the parking lot and said with great fervor, “I llllllllloooove you mom. So much.” Mission accomplished. Though it didn’t look like what I expected, it met his needs and filled his love cup right up. And that’s the whole point.

Building meaningful relationships with my kids doesn’t have to be complicated or involve ten steps or a how-to book or an agenda. It really only hinges on one thing. Am I going to show up? Like really show up…put the phone away, turn the mental to-do-listing off, pay attention, listen with the heart, engage completely in the time spent together. When we do that, the dividends are beyond measure.

One year beautiful

It makes me choke just a bit when I answer people’s frequent question, how old is she? Because I want to say she was just born, fresh and new and perfect but the truth is her birthday was two weeks ago and I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Wasn’t it just yesterday we were walking in the warm sun with popsicles and flip flops awaiting her soon and imminent arrival, not sure if she was a he or a she…if she would tip the tide to four sons or even it up with three sons and three daughters? Could I have known it would be the year it was? That everything would feel hard and that we would never really fall into a groove that felt workable and that we would do so many “great” things that we were plum worn out and worn down? How a little pink bundle would be this beacon of all that is lovely and wonderful to this tired mama on so many dark nights?

To my Liberty Grace on your first birthday,

Freedom and grace. Two of the most critical, valued pieces of our faith, our family, our life. Your name holds such weight for me. It is a never ending reminder of truth that I need constant reminding of. One year. You are walking and waving everywhere. You have perfected the princess, parade wave and you grin a mile wide for everyone you meet. I never have the heart to tell them, be they a friend or a waiter at a resaturant, that you do this for everyone. They think they are exceptionally special based on your warm waves and smile. You have to be the happiest baby ever. At least certainly the happiest one I’ve known. Sometimes I hold your siblings back a bit, telling them it’s too much or give her space. But the reality, your reality, is you are covered, sewn in from every side, with love. So much love. They each adore you in their own sort of way. You draw something unique, something special out of each one of them. The softness that I don’t often see in the big boys, a gentleness from Finn that is wildly uncharacteristic. And a comradery, a sisterhood with the girls, that I know will only grow with age.

It’s been a long year for me. Your brother Finn has required a sort of mental energy that no other child has. The way he thinks and experiences life is momentous, fantastic really. And I’ve no doubt he will change the world, his world, someday. Another brother started the year with a major physical injury that made the school year extra hard and frustrating. It took six months before he was fully restored. It hurt my mama heart more than I can exxpress to not be able to help him, not be able to fix it and make life feel okay for him. There were so many hard days, not days that I would trade or give up for anything, but hard nonetheless.

And then there was you.

Beaming bright beautiful you. You have to know there were many nights, I would be awake nursing you that I wept over your precious little face. Hopelessly in love with your little self. Over the top thankful that you were there for me to hold. You gave hope to me time and time again. You are a simple, in-the-flesh continual gift that I feel like I receive day after day after day. A gift I don’t take lightly and one I am keenly aware I could have missed had the baby I carried the months prior to your conception been carried to term. There would not have been you, one of a kind wonderful you.

You can’t possibly imagine how treasured you are little girl. You just can’t.

All my love,

Mama

**a few snapshots of your first year, favorite summer naps in the swing or with big brother, showing goats with sisters, rides in wheelbarrows and horse carts:

Mission Mondays at our home

We’d waited and prayed for a long while for something new for our beloved brother-in-law to open up. His and my sisters’ heart for the marginalized and orphaned has only grown these past few years. So when he was asked to come on board with Children of the Nations, a non-profit that we already knew and loved, we could not have been more thrilled. And we wanted to be behind them in this faith venture in every way. As we talked about how to support them, knowing we already had our “give” dollars going several different directions, I sat down and talked with our kids. I told them how much an average dinner cost me to cook for our family of eight.

We talked about the Children of the Nations (COTN) meal packing events that we’d attended several times. Their faces lit up as usual and they bantered about how much fun it is to pack meals packs. COTN hosts these events to raise awareness and give people here on wealthy American soil an opportunity to do more than simply write a check. They are high energy and always fun. They’ve provided a fantastic conversation starter for our family multiple times to talk about how we can do more to share the love of Christ in tangible ways. I asked our kids, what do you guys think about eating the COTN meal – lentils, spice, chicken and rice – one night a week to free up some grocery funds. They said a quick and hearty yes. I perfected my own rendition of the COTN meal pack. My kids were the testers, telling me to STOP and not make any changes once the ratio was right.

So began Mission Mondays at our house. For no other reason than it was catchy so we picked Monday. The kids actually offered to eat the meal twice a week. I told them we’d start with one so we didn’t tire of it. But then quickly caught myself. Because the very real reality of the meal packs is that the recipients of the very simple food are content, dare I say crazy thankful for the food being provided for them. They would pale at a glimpse inside my organized pantry, well stocked for an emergency and a half dozen constantly hungry kids. And my kids, truth be told, sometimes don’t “feel like” eating anything in said pantry. Which is the double blessing of this weekly simple meal. It is a continual reminder of the bounty we live within. The basic comforts like grocery stores on every corner full of fresh food and a dizzying amount of culinary options.

Our Monday night table discussion centers around someone we know serving somewhere in the world. It’s no organized sort of thing. Just hearts that want to be aware and tuned in to the heart of God that beats for the orphans, widows and the poor. I always fight the urge to provide side dishes to the lentils and rice and simply serve the dish alone and everyone gets perfectly fed and full eating it.

…fast forward a bit to July this summer….we hosted a creation camp here at the house for a wonderful group of kids, all sorts of kids. It was one of those hallowed things you get to do and it almost pushes you over the top but when its over you can hardly catch your breath and you know, just know, that it was holy and beautiful and not to be missed. We have this crazy awesome, so-not-in-the-box pastor who came to play guitar and lead singing (and hang up tarps in the pouring rain!):

On our last day of creation camp, I talked about how we were created to reflect God to others, that we get to reflect his image and how completely incredible that is. Part of that is having the responsibility to be generous givers and ones who love others well, especially those in need. So I shared with them about COTN and the meals they bring and hope that a simple meal is to children who are starving. We then headed inside to prepare meal packets for everyone to take home with them so they could, maybe, start their own traditions and perhaps set aside some of their extra to share and give in some way. At one point there were 52 people inside the walls of our house. It was, literally, the only rainy week the entire summer. So our outdoor on the lawn activity all had to happen inside and cozy! It was insane. And so loud. And incredible. I hope and pray that this is one little way we can be mindful of the things that matter.

Beautiful redemption

It’s been almost three weeks and I can just now sit down to put words to this story. Sometimes it takes time to digest something enough to put it to paper.

They bounded in the back door from camping, my three sons, the first Saturday in August. It had been quiet without their boisterous selves for nearly 24 hours. But they’d had a mission: Daddy Cousin Campout 2014. It was the third year running and not to be missed. The first night was all boys (our three and my sisters’ one) and the second was a trade, all the girls (our two and my sisters’ one).

The first words out of their mouth in the kitchen were loud and crashed over me. Something about a train and Caleb and running and Finn screaming. I told them that wasn’t funny, not to joke about it but they assured me it was no joke. I looked to the Daddy for confirmation that they were indeed serious and he nodded yes, that he had waited until they were home to tell me and that it wasn’t something to share over text or phone.

There was a flurry of activity and the girls were whisked away for their adventure and I was left with my boys. Tired and dirty and eager to tell the story. Over and over again. Like their little minds needed to say it out loud to process the reality of it. I sat down and gave them my full attention as they relayed the story.

They’d arrived at camp the night before. The two dads set up the tent and the boys asked for coins to put on the train tracks they’d discovered near their camp site. They said yes and the boys went to place the pennies on the tracks. While they were there, Caleb “looked up and saw three lights coming” so he hollered for them to run down the rocky slope to the trees. The train approach was around a bend, so the sound from afar to warn of its impending arrival was buffered until it was very close.

The three oldest boys ran down the slope away from the tracks. The conductor saw my children immediately and started blowing the whistle to clear the tracks, to run. Which they were doing, except for Finn. He was scared spitless. He was paralyzed with fear. He stood there screaming while the other three boys ran. When Caleb reached the bottom, he looked up to see his brother at the track. Without hesitation he ran back up the little hill and grabbed 37 pound three year old Finn and toted him down the rocks. He only made it halfway down before the train was upon them, so he stopped and they hid under a large rock until it passed. That’s when the daddies arrived. They’d come running in an instant when they heard the whistle.

But the stark clear reality was that if Caleb had not moved so swiftly, so bravely…the result could have been catastrophic.

As each day passed they processed a bit more, Caleb told me days later “You know what is so strange mom? When I picked up Finn, he felt light, like holding a baby. And usually he is so heavy we can barely lift him!”. I cried as I explained how God does that, gives strength or ability beyond explanation in certain situations.

Finn would wake up and go to sleep wanting to tell the story, the same succinct unchanging story each time. How Caleb saw him, how Caleb ran up the hill, how the train was so loud, how scared he was and how they hid under the rock.

Last week Caleb came down stairs well after bed time, to find me in the kitchen an hour after I’d gone to bed. He asked why I couldn’t sleep. I told him the honest truth that every night when I laid down I replayed the whole event in my mind and then it would take me hours to go to sleep. His lip quivered as he listened to me tell him again, “thank you for saving Finn”. And we stood in the kitchen wrapped up in a big hug weeping for a very long while.

I am proud of my son. The same son who a year ago nearly to the day made one poor judgment call and stabbed a steak knife into the grass after dinner just to see how far it would go. A decision that would cost him dearly. The tendon severed in his finger which would require hours of surgery to repair…“it’s like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube” the surgeon said. A cast from fingertip to shoulder for the last precious weeks of summer, including the state fair and the first month of school. It was months of a sort of sad frustration that he wore, knowing exactly how he’d wound up where he was. It was days of him getting the mail and seeing bill after bill and asking “is this from my surgery too?”. I can’t honestly put words to how it broke him, the whole thing. It was devastating and he felt the weight of it so deeply. It took a solid six months before he began to find his way forward.

The beautiful, stunning redemptive nature of it all was not lost on me. As I told the story to a friend and we choked tears through the phone she whispered it’s almost exactly a year after his surgery. And it was. We don’t get the luxury of being privy to the secret ways of God. We don’t get to know how he plans to work and shape and rescue us. We simply get a choice. To trust who he is and to believe he will work all things for good.

Like my mom did, when she heard our husbands were taking the kids camping at this particular campground. She and my dad had scoped it out three years ago for a potential family camping trip. They quickly deemed it unfit for a bunch of small kids. But we didn’t know that, we simply ended up camping elsewhere that year. So when she got word about the campground selection, she went to the Lord in prayer, asked him what to do before telling us it wasn’t a good choice. He simply directed her to pray. And pray she did. She prayed her grandma heart out as our kids headed out for their weekend. She prayed fervently for God’s protection and silently believed that the God she loved would watch over her precious grandchildren.

He did. And in so doing, he gave our son this story that he will carry with him for the rest of his life. A story of courage and bravery and heroism really, in my book at least. A story that I will not forget, nor will my children forget, ever.

Pressing on

She picks pieces of clover and sits while I talk. Her wordless tears had told me that all she wanted was to stand at the fence next to the goats. So I set her there and turn over a water bucket and sit down. As she chews grass I pour out my full, raw heart. Earlier today, when I looked at the calendar my heart started to panic. I’m not prone to panic. Or worry. But it feels like suddenly two thirds of summer is gone and I don’t know what happened. Well, I do. June happened – septic pump failure/back up, ruined floors, repairs and the week at a motel and so on. Life happened.

There are so many moving parts and so much love and much talking and bursting LIFE in this home. Every day. And the sum total of laundry and hungry tummies and shoes left everywhere, its staggering some days. But those are superficial, really. It’s the deeper things that I’m spilling out with quiet tears on the lawn next to the pasture at dusk. It’s a quiet prayer for peace. It’s a plea for wisdom for hard choices. It’s a tender request that says please take care of my heart.

New things are on the horizon for our homeschool plans and schedule for fall. And there are areas of life that aren’t working well and need a course correction. But new is hard. With a half a dozen kids in the mix, two of whom have required great lengths of attention this past year, it is easy to feel daunted. Even for me who usually feels courageous and optimistic.

I say it all out loud again, as she plays in the grass. She watches a bumble bee and reaches toward it as it escapes her chubby, too-slow fingers. She fingers the clover again and does what she does most of the time…

She smiles at me while holding my leg. Her life is simple and marvelous and her every need is met. She abides in love, she is covered with love from every angle. All the time. And my heart catches a bit just thinking about it. The sibling issues and family challenges, I could probably sum up a good deal of the root of them in that one thought. Not abiding in love for one another. And the sting that comes quickly is, I see my part in it. My weary heart that’s stood up under much heartache and struggle this past year. A heart that hasn’t always been able to abide in love the way I’d like. The mama sets the tone for the home, at least for the bulk of the days when most of our day together is spent with me at the helm.

No matter how far we get, we aren’t “there”. No matter how much we grow and change, we’re not done. Thank goodness. But in certain seasons, it can feel discouraging. I read this tonight on the front porch in the dark and said out loud “YES” as it resonates so deeply as to the bigger picture at hand:

Thank God for everything up to this point, but do not stop here. Press on into the deep things of God. Insist upon tasting the profounder mysteries of redemption. Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. – A. W. Tozer “The Root of the Righteous”

I’ve struggled to welcome the God I love into this imperfect and sometimes chaotic place this year. I’ve wanted to come in an orderly fashion, quiet and early with perfectly brewed coffee and a warm blanket. The season hasn’t been very orderly and certainly not quiet. There has been much coffee but not sipped slowly during prayer, gulped instead before it was cold so that I could see straight enough to make breakfast.

God doesn’t want orderly. He just wants everything. He wants all of my heart. It’s okay if I come with hair that’s still in yesterdays’ pony tail, teeth that aren’t brushed and a to-do list twenty things long and a heart that feels defeated or not enough. He wants me to remember this truth in the darkest, longest day:

Not since Adam first stood up on the earth has God failed a single man or woman who trusted him. -A. W. Tozer “The Root of the Righteous”

He hasn’t. And I know this. So when I wonder how to move forward, when I ask what can give so I can gain a little bit of margin in my life, when I dare to hope for breatkthrough in the places I need it desperately and wonder how we’ll all fare at something new this year…He wants me to remember.

He has never failed me. He is always (more than) enough.

Coming to terms

I’d intended to write a cute post about how we came around to renaming our blog “A Place For Little Feet”. About the plethora of little feet that surround our life here, be they animal or human, there are many. But this post is all I could come up with and it may not be cute but it’s honest and honest is all I have to offer right now….

Last Wednesday found this mama of six in a mess of a kitchen trying to uncover some counter to make lunch for the hungry. There wasn’t a square inch available. Of the counter or of the mama. There were dishes and the various random somethings that inevitably get left out when eight people live in a home together and live a full, big life together. And there was the heart worn thin from ragged survival-mode days that take more than you think they do. The cumulative total effect of a year that was harder than the past several on many levels finally coming to be counted. Like it was time to pay the piper and the debt is always more than you think it is right?

Somehow, I’d been trying to keep up with my five-kid life pace despite having now six. Trying to fit in, accomplish, DO everything I deemed necessary and good and crucial whilst the reality of the half a dozen sweet things that call me mom was in the clouds and posed no limitations. Never mind the well-meaning “Well, I guess once you have a few, it really doesn’t make a difference adding more right?”. Words like that rang in my mind as the months ticked by and I kept doing and kept keeping up with my (many) friends who have two or three children. I made sure to say yes whenever it was humanly possible and worked hard to make all the moving parts of our life somehow keep moving.

Where things got off course, I don’t really know. Well, I have some ideas but that really is a whole other post. Though Liberty is a sweet thing of a baby, has been from Day 1, she is still a person. She requires attention and care and mental/physical energy. She is absolutely, unequivocally a profound gift that we are incredibly thankful to have been given and wouldn’t trade for anything. But to operate without any adjustments when someone new joins the family, is foolish. No matter how much like super mom you might feel like. When my wise friend (and mother of eight) up yonder says things like “I just don’t know how you’re keeping up with this pace….” I should do a little inventory and assess just how we are keeping it up. Instead, we just kept on going.

Until last week when we were one day away from going on vacation and I said I couldn’t go. Friends, if you get to the point you can’t handle going on vacation (albeit with the entire extended family which, though crazy fun, also requires a certain ability to function) then perhaps you can’t handle your normal life either. That same day I was in my (disastrously messy) kitchen a woman walked into my backyard. Not living in a neighborhood but out in the country this was highly unusual. I looked closer through the window and recognized her from church. I walked out on the deck and said as calm of a hello as I could muster and asked what she was doing here. She smiled and said she was here for the meeting, the VBS planning meeting that I’d offered to host. She walked into my lived in, things-all-over living room and I just tried to keep breathing. The fact that I was hosting a meeting and hadn’t a clue, was again evidence of the debt and the time had come for some re-evaluating. She told me how coming in to my house in this condition was like a warm hug, because how often her own house looked the same. I silently wished I could just have given her an actual, real warm hug instead of endure sitting through the meeting wondering how I was functioning this poorly.

I called my husband at work and told him I could not possibly go on vacation. He graciously offered to take our five oldest with him and left me at home for a couple of days. I would join him if I was able. And I had serious doubts about just what I was able to do. I had been trying to keep up with too much for too long. Something had to give. And the reality was, something had given. Me. Every day of the week, every hour of the night, living, breathing, giving. To a degree that was far beyond was was intended for any person, whether they have six children, a slew of animals and all sorts of people with needs (and brokenness) interwoven into their life…or not.

About at that point, I read this post. I sat shaking my head at my computer, which I only sit at every few days even, no time to read. Planned neglect. It sounded strange, how could neglect be a good thing, but then it all made perfect sense. I’d said yes to so much good and tried to be faithful to so many great things and needs that I’d missed out on doing the very best things excellently. My kids paid a price, as did I. The mom they had two years ago was more focused, more intentional, most aware of her own need and thus more dependent on grace to come through. The mom and dad they had two years ago did not have their hands in so many different things and they loved each other patiently, kindly. They did a few things and did them well.

There are so many great things. But we weren’t created to do them all. We were made with limitations and needs that God alone can meet. We were designed each to give and love in certain circles and to learn how to say yes and when to say no. I do know this, but I absolutely have not practiced it. The pie was sliced in so many pieces that the ones who matter the most, who are my first calling if my priorities are right, got less than best. My practical husband who often has short, simple and clear wise answers to life’s challenges heard my heart last week and agreed with my “state of the union” assessment. And he knew better than to give a quick easy answer. When a significant course correction is in order, there isn’t a quick and easy five steps today and we’ll be good to go tomorrow sort of way forward.

So, I guess that’s all today, just coming to terms here with the reality of my life with all these little feet. And its a beautiful reality. A treasured, blessed one for certain. One I need to make count every day, in the all the right ways.

Andrea Laurita Photography

When people come to our home, one of the first things they comment on is a set of four square canvas prints on our living room wall. They almost always ask for the story behind them, which I never get tired of sharing. Our friend Andrea of Andrea Laurita Photography is a talented photo journalist. She has woven her gifts with the lens into a variety of jobs over the past decade or so, allowing God to use her in all sorts of places and ways. The four prints we have are of beautiful children in Sierra Leonne, Thailand and Afghanistan. They are a constant reminder of the world around us, far beyond what we see every day on the farm. They help me remember. And if the photos weren’t enough, Andrea used the proceeds from them to help fund a college education from a girl she met in Liberia.

Currently, this darling young friend of ours lives in Portland. She is spunky and gracious and flexible. Exactly what I think makes her a fantastic professional photographer. All the photos you see on our blog, header and side bar, are accredited to her. And can I just say anyone crazy enough to take on a photo session of a family with six kids is downright brave! We’ve never been disappointed in her work. She has wonderfully captured our family several times now. If you live within a couple hours of Portland and are even considering doing family photos or are getting married or have a new baby, check this girl out! She is willing to drive to the Seattle area, especially if a few people want to book a session the same week or weekend.

Here are a few favorites from this last session she did for us, which we decided to do at home this time instead of traveling somewhere “photogenic”:

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A Place for Little Feet

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