When I pull out of the driveway on Friday night, the house is in chaos, and my heart makes a match set.

I know a handful of the beautiful women at the baby shower. It’s mostly family; I suspect everyone but me is related, somehow or another.  But I am happy to be there anyway, to hold somebody else’s content baby, and know my exhausted ones are being blissfully riled up and tucked in by their amazing Dad, and I am here, all by myself. I need to get out more.

The sun sinks behind the barn across the street and it occurs to me that I’ve been to few baby showers so casual, all raw roars of laughter and sweet stories and sangria. Twilight gives way to evening, and as the barely-little girl who’s been kicking dandelions comes in from the field, the large moon dances upward, climbing through branches bearing new life.

And after dessert we file into the living room. A little bag of beads is passed around, each member of the circle threading a colorful orb onto a thread strong enough for a laboring woman to wear in remembrance. With each bead a prayer is spoken: for a healthy baby, for joy to mark the early days, for the delivery to be speedy, or at least feel like it is. All hopes are simple, true, the most necessary elements of birthing a baby and surviving those first few grueling months.

The beads are passed to me and I speak flowery, like I do when I’m nervous, and I wish I hadn’t: my words are earnest, but they hang there a moment,  like a lone overdressed adolescent at a middle school dance. But this circle of women is wide enough to envelope my awkward, to laugh and nod and affirm and keep moving ’round.

On my way home the light of the moon lands, mingles, gets lost in heavy fields blanketed in fog, and a new spring’s worth of peepers raise their song into the heavy air. I think about this business of babies and birthing, and how all of it starts in the first place. A mother becomes what she is because of her willingness to let a miracle grow and expand and exist within her.

At best it begins with love and vulnerability, and it grows, day by day, in womb swelling to make room for new life. We are enlarged and able to sustain wild, beautiful life growing because of a miracle conceived in vulnerability. (Even in adoption, this rings true.)
And as women, isn’t this always our greatest work: to open our very hearts and make room for miracles, to let life grow in the circles we find ourselves, to welcome and nurture? And how we long to be found in those sweet places, to find an arm around our shoulder, a word of truth spoken boldly to our wobbly hearts, the encouragement to press on. 

I am grateful, this near-summer night, to have been enveloped into this circle of laughter and simple heart-cries, speaking life over a beautiful woman, belly swollen with growing miracle. And I think of the mother who carried me well past my due date, and the home she created. And my mind wanders through the faces of all the women who’ve held my heart and created wombs of love, sacred spaces where miraculous could grow into flesh and bone and beating heart.

It’s late when I pull in the driveway and slip through the backdoor, home again. This night, I sleep deep, and wake to pitter patter feet, just slightly more ready to resume the daily litanies of mothering and making, holding and swelling.

And how much joy does it bring the heart of a woman,
whose memories have been stripped by Alzheimer’s,
who doesn’t even know they’re her great grandchildren,
doesn’t even know her own name?
Quite a lot.

And how much good does it do my heart to step away
from the piles of laundry and projects unfinished,
from endless chatter online and on the phone and in my own head:
to just slow down and be here, fully present for this one afternoon?

And it’s just sunshine and conversations on repeat from all parties present:
“Would you like a cup of tea?” again and again and again,
from little hands holding tin teacups of luke-warm water; and
“Look at them. Aren’t they precious?” echoed back all afternoon long.

And I have a lot to learn from these three.
Quite a lot.

Are you here, too? Learning to slow down and be present (she typed as her daughter called her back to the table for more play-dough…) What does it look like for you to unplug, to be fully present, even for a few minutes today?

It’s freezing outside today, and we pretend it’s summer. It all starts when the little one strips down and the older one asks for ice-cream. And all week the weather’s been oscillating between the tease of spring and full-blown winter, and to be honest, the temperature isn’t the only unstable variable around here.

In the beginning of the week we drive the long beautiful road to the children’s hospital, where we learn that Laura’s spine is doing better than we understood it could be, a revelation followed by jubilation, confusion, and eventually, acceptance of the long, hopeful road ahead. After the appointment I drop my husband off at the airport and drive home for a long week with my two girls. And it is exhausting. But all week long, friends’ names light up my phone screen and people pop over and I am grateful for truth I need to hear and the kind of conversations that stay with me for days.

When he gets home, he brings chocolate. He gets the kids riled up, more wild than they’ve been all week, and I don’t mind so much just now.

And yesterday morning, my little toe-walker gets fitted for AFO’s: ankle-foot orthoses. And she is brave and curious and compliant, and I am a worried mama, overwhelmed with inadequacy. And it’s a part of our story that we’re in the middle of, with no neat little bows to speak of. But I am learning from her bravery, fighting fear with lots of help from the listening ears and truth speaking mouths of friends and family.

So that’s been our life this past week. Thank you for your prayers, for Laura, and for my Dad, who is scheduled for heart surgery tomorrow, and for reading along with all these ramblings. As we start this new week, I’m longing to strive a little less and simply abide more, to be present and grateful in the little moments. How about you, friends? What are you looking forward to this week?

Joining Ann to write out words of gratitude:

• for late afternoon sun flooding in windows
• for Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, and the women who read it with me
• for a brave, creative, beautiful little girl
• for access to excellent medical care
• for the Charlotte’s Web audio book on a long drive
• for two girls learning to play together
• for broken glass and brokenness
• for a slow Sunday to ease into the week
• for a Lenten service and quiet meditations on the 23rd Psalm
• for long talks, the tears when she tells me about how her heart is being healed
• for eggplant and soup and comfort food
• for a rare afternoon nap
• for heavy snow
• for middle of winter ice cream antics

But some days silence is needed, and I am still a learner in this. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but it’s true: I regularly delete the twitter and facebook aps from my phone, and then re-ad them again, once I remember that I can live without them.

And today it will be quiet around here. I’ll be restoring order to endless laundry heaps and hosting a tea party for a bunch of dolls and hoping for a few minutes of silence to linger in this new book.

I’ll leave you with a few things I’ve read that have stuck with me & inspired me this last few weeks, in case today is a day you’re looking to turn up the music and dance. Either way, be it in quiet (just ignore all this beautiful noise below) or in the music, I hope your day is full of sharp focus, friends.

Photography :: I’m pretty psyched about learning to use my camera well, but my lack of interest in reading the user’s manual has left me shooting in manual mode. I think I may have stumbled onto a gold mine here… Check out this and other posts via Michele (aka SomeGirl)

Art :: It’s like a little peak into intriguing exhibits at the art museums all over the world. Feeds this little creative soul. The stickers and toothpicks were particularly fun.

Marriage :: John Gottman’s book has made a big impact on our lives, and I was pretty psyched to see Corey at SimpleMom.net sharing a little about the book today. And, ahem, it would, perhaps do me good to revisit some of the concepts.

Mothering :: I had the privilege of spending a few serendipitous hours with Kristen this fall, and came away so inspired to know and nurture my kids. Her heart and her blog are beautiful, and she shares one of her time tested anchors for mothering here.

On What Single People wished Married People Knew :: It’s lengthy, but I hear her heart cry, and have sat long talking with single friends, and I agree, it’s time to stop offering formulas and start to listen and walk with. And while we’re on the topic, this too. Found both of these via Leigh‘s suggestion – she shares the best stuff.

Food :: And, finally, the recipe that blew my mind this week. Two words: *avocado fries* That’s right people, avocado fries. This recipe has beautiful pictures, this one has cilantro dipping sauce. Be still my heart!

The first Christmas we are married, my parents give us Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus.  These little unbreakable people, abiding quietly in a woodsy creche (that looks little like what historians tell us that first stable resembled), these were the playthings of my childhood Christmas memories.

Each year my parents add a piece – a shepherd, the wisemen, their camels, an angel, then the camels again when their wiry legs melt in the unbearable heat of a summer attic... (click here to continue reading)

Merry Christmas, friends! I’m guest posting over at Momma Day By Day.  Won’t you join us?

We rise through the clouds and my heart takes flight.  Soaring at 30,000 feet, and I am relieved at our departure: life has been crazy here.  Tiny fingers wrap around mine, and we sit together, quiet.  This little one, she has thoughts, and there are days when they pound out like firecrackers, erupting steadily, each bang and burst somehow still surprising.  And then there are days like this, quiet ones, hold-my-hand-mama ones, where she just is, and we just are together.

And I am amazed at how these children grow, how this life that once formed inside my womb now grows out here in the wild, utterly unpredictable and outside my control.  And to this heart, it causes wild wonder and ferocious fear, deep comfort some days, and harrowing trepidation others.  And my children, they are not even old enough to tie their shoes, but I have seen the weary wonder on the faces of mothers of teenagers, and I have seen my own parents and my husband’s, and I know this is an endurance race, and these tensions will only grow larger.

And this is the wild place we live – in the story of a kingdom coming, the hope of a promise, and the sin and brokenness tearing and deceiving all that is good and pure and lovely- this is the backdrop of our story, the setting of our lives.

And there are days that I live shouting aloud, and days that I simply lean in and quiet.  And as my baby’s lashes fall heavy and rest overcomes her tired little body, I remember another mother holding another baby, and I think of the way that baby, grown and living in the tension of this broken world, thundering out the kingdom come and retreating to be still and listen, how that baby expressed the Father’s heart for His Holy City.

And I think of David, and wonder if he held a sleeping toddler when he penned these lyrics.

And as we wait for Christmas and celebrate, with expectancy, the coming this advent, as we join in the waiting and hoping, may our hearts be stilled and quieted, before the King who came, small and vulnerable in a manger, and who comes to us today, in our flights and messes, in the midst of laundry and grocery stores, heartache and deep joy, firecrackery diapered wonders bouncing on dining room chairs and all.

Joining Emily P. Freeman, at Chatting at the Sky, to look close into a little moment, and unwrap the gift of the wild beauty all around, this Tuesday. Join us?

And linking up a day late to count thanks with Ann & others today.  Join us!

- For a week with Mimi and Papa, our first visit to their beautiful new home, and the sweetness of being together
- For lunch and later tea with a dear friend, who lives out thanks-living and challenges me
- For the compassionate airline representatives who saw a sick baby and put us on a direct flight, free of charge
- For a car waiting, already warmed up when we landed last night, in the middle of the night
- For neighbors who check mail and turn the heat on, thank you!
- For a four pound nephew breathing strong and learning to take a tiny bottle, and my sister and brother in law getting to hold their tiny baby now.
- For a house barely ready for Christmas, filled with little hearts full of hope and wonder
- For friends and sisters who make me laugh and keep me grounded

The first week of Advent, we haul out the manger, really a creche, filled with beautifully unbreakable figures, and set low for little hands to embrace.  And as they take hold of each character in the greatest story ever told, I whisper prayers  that the story will take hold of their tender hearts.

When the novelty wears off, I notice little hands setting Mary and her baby wrapped in swaddling clothes off to the corner, behind the stable, making some scenario of her own, so I inquire as to the change in scenery.

“Mary just wants to be alone with her baby,” she tells me, her, all of five, and me now the child, eager to learn. “There were too many people stuffed in that manger.”

And I nod; this makes good sense to this mother’s heart. And solid logic to a girl of five.  And I find longing, even now, to find the quiet.  Even as they grow, little delights my heart as much as simply holding a contented child. And while I love to talk, I have a need to breathe deep in sweet silence with the man I love, to be in the company of such kindred friends that silence is a welcome melody in the song of conversation, and yes, more than all of this, my heart finds rest when I come away and simply be in stillness with the Word Made Flesh.

And these days, those quiet moments are rare, and I am learning that it is worth it to carve them out, to trade in the elusive hours that never come for the actual minutes that are right now. To still and to be.

Tell me, how do you carve out quiet? What does it look like in this season, for you?

Joining Emily P. Freeman, at Chatting at the Sky, to look close into a little moment, and unwrap the gift of the wild beauty all around, right now, this Tuesday.

I passed by two landscapers, huddled over cold earth, mesh bag in hand, planting bulbs that will lay silent all this cold winter long.  And gardeners know that the silence and the stillness hold value, and that roots must grow deep, and germinating has no appearance of glory at all.

And I watch and listen, over coffee and by phone, as my friend waits in silence – not actual silence – for life is full, and distractions are anything but quiet, but in the silence for the one voice she longs to hear, the one that says, this is the way, walk in it.  And I doubt she feels the roots deepening, or the glory in the everyday putting one foot in front of the other.  But to me, where I sit, I can imagine crocuses, now but a dream, and smell the bouquets, gathered from a garden of plenty.  But we don’t talk of this, because sometimes it doesn’t help to know it will come someday. We talk of dirt and grubs, and look for beauty in the present, and let hope grow quiet.

Linking up again, this week, with Lisa-Jo and the sweet community at Gypsy Mama.  Join us, writing for just five minutes, unrehearsed & unedited, or enjoy reading other’s responses to the prompt “growing.”

I remember talking to my Dad about him, just days after the first date, expressing concern that I had big plans, and this guy seemed really… I searched for the right word, and stated it with repugnance : He seemed so stable. It didn’t have a positive connotation, like so many qualities we shun during those immature, enlightened years: the costly gifts that form us, that we throw off in disgust, only to grow thankful for later.  My Dad, who chooses his words carefully in matters such as these, thought, and said only, “Stability is not a negative quality in man, Annie.”  His wise words have proven true, as has the steady, intentional love of the stable man I married, eight years ago today.

In eight years, I have learned that marriage is hard work.  That keeping short accounts, making repairs often, and keeping honest, heart connection a high priority are of utmost importance. I have learned how often I fail, and how healing it is to experience forgiveness, and how freeing to give the same.  I am learning that vulnerability and commitment are worth the cost – usually an automatic withdrawal from my pride and convenience account.

These eight years have not gone according to my calculations.  And I am thankful.  Looking back, over my shoulder, I see beauty and purpose scrawled over paths that seemed to scream disappointment and roadblock. I see grace in the grey days, redemption in unlikely places, and a steady, stable, intentional love written over the whole messy thing.  I am blessed beyond measure to have his hand to hold, a man who speaks and lives the Gospel to me each day, whose own steady, stable, intentional love has drawn me home.

The littlest member of our family turned two this week!

In the rare quiet moments, I’m reminded that it is such a humbling, awe-inspiring privilege to watch these little people grow, their personalities emerge, to witness language development and the never-ending firsts.  I love it!

Happy birthday, sweet girl.  You fill our home with your belly-laughs and our hearts with wonder. We love you.