Category: Thoughtful Thursday

Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for the warm afternoon sun, and the way it streams through streaky windows and mingles in the never-washed, dingy and cheap curtains we inherited with our house – effortlessly creating beauty in inconspicuous places. In a year wrought with many losses, I find it so natural to turn inward, to mull and to fret and to over-think. The act of thanksgiving turns my heart from my complaining and judging and self-loving and loathing.  The practice of thanksgiving – of actually offering thanks for the countless gifts He offers and gives – softens my heart and clears out the muck to make room for the Truth. And reminded of Him, I am quieted, stilled. Thanksgiving makes room for reflection, for repentance too.  It opens the windows of my heart to receive the Grace he longs to extend, moving me to praise. I begin with thanks for what He gives, and am hushed in praise for Who He is.

I’d love to hear how you practice thankfulness and especially how you teach your kids the art of gratitude.  Hoping your hearts (and mine) are postured in thanks and in praise as we celebrate this weekend. With thanks for you, dear reader!

If Grace Grew on Trees

It had been sitting there on the window sill for days, one of the many little apples she picked with her own little hands from the orchard just a short drive north. So she surprised me when her eyes got wide and she announced “Look, Mama!  That little apple has a leaf starting to grow out of it!”

I chuckled, and explained that the leaf was not sprouting out of the apple, but that the apple grew on the tree near that leaf, and when she picked the apple, she had picked the leaf too.  She looked at me as if I were clearly delusional – had  all together lost my marbles, and said, without missing a beat: “Mom, apples don’t grow on trees!”

We’ve done more apple picking this year than any other.  We’ve read Apple Farmer Annie and she learned about apples at preschool and we’ve driven by the orchard dozens of times, seen branches weighed down by clusters of ripe red apples.

But I’m thinking today that (forgive me) the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Something she had seen and touched and experienced and tasted had zero impact on her understanding of it. An apple growing on a tree: absurd! And how often do I live unaltered by the grace I’ve received, apathetic to the power of God’s Word, ignorant of the rest offered in repentance?  These costly treasures I’ve experienced are left forgotten – to be conjured up during quiet times and Sunday services and times of desperation, but dismissed in the everyday – where I need them most.

I forget that I’ve been given a new name, that I’ve been set free, and I live like  a slave to fear again- defaulting to pride and coasting into gossip and people-pleasing, hurting those around me and living ignorant of grace, until I’m dead in my tracks again, all of a sudden desperately aware of my need for it – reminded that there’s nothing I can do on my own, nothing I can even begin to change on my own – that it’s by grace alone that I can stand before Him, that I can be made new, that relationships can be restored.

And the grace that poured down from a tree centuries ago bears fruit in my heart as I give up my striving and quiet my soul and receive undeserved. I’m humbled that He loves me because He is love, regardless of my successes and failures. And I pray that this love would transform my being and thinking and doing into something beautiful in His eyes.

On Falling Leaves and Pressing On

I spent the day off the beaten trail with my little adventurers. It was spontaneous, unplanned, and absolutely what I needed.
Fall has always been my favorite season.  But this year has been different.  I will never cease to be amazed at the way things in the natural world around us are wired and created to give visual clues and methodology and language to the reality of our experience. In the last few weeks, as life has begun to settle down and routines have begun to form, I find I’m confronted with the grief that has lingered these last few months since the whirlwind of our spring: primarily the death of my sister and our moving away (albeit not far) from the community we’d established for most of our marriage back here to my hometown.

Seeing fall, experiencing the slow decent, the unabashed beauty that preceeds what will inevitably be cold and harsh and devoid of visible growth, has served as a little whisper in my ear, reminding me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep hope alive. In the change of seasons, the death of dreams, even the most searing losses, there is always hope. Winter always follows fall, but spring always follows winter. Summer lingers beyond that. And fall will come again.I once heard a man who had traveled a little farther down life’s journey say that if he could do one thing differently in his youth, he would have pushed into the pain and the trials and grief, rather than expend all his energy working to avoid it.  With the help of some amazing listeners, and the rich, deep grace that seeps in to my life again and again, even when I least expect it, and when, for sure, I am undeserving, I am pressing in.

I am holding out hope that Jesus, who came to bind up the brokenhearted, to give freedom and bring light to the darkest corners of our world and of my heart, to comfort and provide for those who grieve, will shape me into an oak of righteousness (Isaiah 61),  that His life will be more evident in me because of these losses.  That the fear and mistrust and control that the loss exposes in me would be changed by His love, and made into something beautiful. I am hoping.

Meditations From the Farmer’s Market

One of my favorite things about this summer has been our town’s farmer’s market.  It’s become part of the rhythm of our week, as we seek to establish some routine in our new home and community. Sundays: church.  Tuesdays: library class. Thursdays: Farmer’s Market.

Beginning to work in our gardens and buying local produce as it’s harvested is giving me a whole new perspective on time and seasons.   It’s resetting my heart’s gears to a slower pace, causing me to acknowledge that growth requires gestation, that weeds are quick to grow and even faster to choke the life out of beauty, and that the harvest happens at an appointed time. Appointed, that is, not by me.

I am learning to quiet my heart.  Yearning to keep in step with His timing, His seasons, rather than digging my heels in and insisting on dressing in bathing suits for a snowstorm or heavy rain gear for a starlit summer night.
The disciplines of thanksgiving and repentance (confession) are weeding out the contempt and bitterness and entitlement that so effortlessly shoot up like strangling vines around my heart.
And I find myself longing for more of His rhythm in my life.  And not just in the slowly passing seasons, but in the minutia. I want to create spaces for our family to gather & soak in His Word.

I’m learning to let the ordinary, normally dreaded tasks of every day serve as catalysts to interact with the Holy, just as Jesus took on such ordinariness when He came down and dwelt among us.
I hope you have time to work in your garden today, weeding or harvesting, sowing or reaping, or maybe just waiting. To quiet your busy heart and encounter the One who makes all things new, all thing beautiful, in His time.

Update: I thought it was worth mentioning… If blogs had bibliographies (blogliographies?!) these would be on my list of inspiring things I’ve been reading & listening to this week that were steeping in my mind as I wrote this:

• Kathleen Norris’ Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women’s Work
• This post by Ann Voskamp
• Ron Walborn’s lecture (available on itunes, but I can’t figure out the link!) on the Gardening Concept of Spiritual Formation. I cannot recommend the series highly enough.

The Bread of Idleness & the Spinach of Rest

Oh, those long gone days when my babies would fall asleep anywhere, anytime, all the time, and transfer without stirring from person to person, from carseat to crib and back again.  Such thick, deep sleep.  Such trusting rest.  Ironically, even as I’ve been mulling over thoughts of rest today, even as I rediscovered this sweet old photograph, these same dear children have joined forces to wage ultimate war against nap-time and bedtime. But I digress…

I got thinking about rest, and the concept, after reading this last night. (It’s good, check it out.) I know my blog has been a big cheer-leading camp for Ann Voskamp lately.  But there’s something about her writing that both surprises me and resonates with feelings I’ve yet to articulate.   So I was thinking about rest, real rest, and then I came across these words today, concerning a wife of noble character: She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. -Proverbs 31.27

And it occurred to me, how often, in need of rest -genuine restorative rest, I opt for idleness instead.  My heart longs for connection, for meaning, for purpose in the midst of the often mundane tasks of housekeeping and mothering, and instead of allowing myself to enter into the rest that would fill my heart with life and ease the burdens and shed the light of grace on those tasks, I take a break to check Facebook or (my newest addiction) Craigslist.  I make another cup of coffee or, if I’m lucky, like tonight, escape for some retail therapy to recharge.  Not bad, in and of themselves- coffee, shopping, social media- but not life-giving, burden-lifting, or grace-filled either. The bread of idleness. The carbohydrate of idleness – the most common source of energy, but no essential nutrients.

I’m weeding out these lesser loves. I am longing tonight for a heart that rests – with the trust of a newborn baby and the fierce intentionality of the Proverbs 31 woman.

Love is the Color Orange

Do you know what this is? Love.

“No, no,” you say, “this is a too-orange room, with cheap inexpensive vinyl flooring.”

Oh, no.  This room speaks of the kind of love I share with Ted.  The kind of love that loves my favorite color because he loves me. The kind that works side by side.  It’s a product of hours of labor, occurring almost exclusively between the hours of 9pm and 5am – which almost guarantees bickering, giddiness, and a less than perfect paint job!

We worked all last week on it.  Taking on this project together reminded me how much I love working with Ted.  I love the satisfaction of our very different personalities and approaches getting into a rhythm.  I love the small talk.  I love accomplishing together.  It reminds me how patient he is, and how much we have to talk about.  It makes me so glad he’s mine.  And I’m his.

Sometime in the middle of the week I read this and this, too (from what is quite possibly my most favorite blog to read) which only inspired my thinking on the gift & mystery of marriage further.  It’s not that we don’t have our problems and mis-communication at times, but this week reminded me of a few of the many reasons we choose in, and still are.  So this Fourth of July, I’m celebrating Valentine’s Day instead too.  And changing the color from red to orange. Happy holidays!

p.s. When we’re done with the laundry/mudroom (hopefully soon!) I’ll put up some before & after pictures – we just put the washer & dryer in and are waiting on the shelves & counter top to finish the project.

Easter & Life

In the wake of the heartache I’ve experienced these last few weeks, I’m finding such comfort in the gift of Spring – harsh, driving rain that pounds down with permission- even expectation- to grieve, followed by the first truly warm, jacket-free, flower-blooming days – an invitation to get out, be grateful, and keep living fully.  All this coincides with Easter, too:  my favorite holiday, an opportunity to stop and dwell on the person who matters most to me, and the gift of life He gives.

As you think about Easter, I want to share a two little gifts with you, both of which I came across through friends.

The first is a blog.  My friend Larissa introduced me to the idea of an Easter Garden, pictured above.  It was created by Ann Voskamp, and after reading her description of the process, I was quickly drawn in to her blog, A Holy Experience. I’ve been so comforted and re-centered by her writing.  Ann’s blog sets out to be “a still chapel” and it has been that for me this week.  Her writing has such a pure goodness to it. Take a minute, and read it when you have the time to soak it in, not in a frenzy of internet blitzing.  It’s good.  Also, check out her heartfelt and beautiful ideas for celebrating Easter, and more details on making your own Easter Garden- steeped with meaning and hands on learning for your family.

The second little gift is a song, that I discovered by way of one of my favorite blogs, b*spoke.  Bethany posted this just today, and it brought me to my knees.  The words tied my grief up into a tangible parcel and placed it right where it belonged, at the foot of the cross. It’s called Out of the Depths, by Sovereign Grace Music.  Here are some of the lyrics, or listen to it here.

The secret mysteries belong to You/ We only know what You reveal / And all my questions that are unresolved/ Don’t change the wisdom of Your will/ In every trial and loss / My hope is in the cross  / Where Your compassions never fail

As we embrace Good Friday and Easter this weekend, I hope your heart (and mine) is soft and open to the whispers of God – His mercy, His faithfulness, the gift of His life.

With Thanks

I snapped this photo while little Ellie-bean was sitting pretty in the morning sun, surrounded, no doubt, by the slew of baby toys her helpful sister saw fit to arrange meticulously around her.  She started to crawl this week, as in move forward, intentionally, even occasionally lifting her belly off the ground. These last eight months have flown by.  I remember telling my husband, just before Christmas, that it was all down hill from here: that six months was the ideal baby age – blissfully immobile but fully engaged with smiles and coos.  No tantrums, all cuddles.  But I think I feel that about each stage (tantrums and all), that each moment we’re in is the sweetest, and that I don’t want to give it up, only to be surprised at the new joys around the corner.

We’ll be moving in a few months.  Ted started a new job this week, our normal routines have been thrown to the wind, and we’re in the middle of the complex chaos and waiting game of attempting to purchase a short sale. So many of the things that have been constants during the formative years of our life together are changing. But somehow, the simplicity and contentedness of little Ellie’s sweet presence has reminded me today that I have a lot to be grateful for.

I’m thankful for these sweet girls.

I’m thankful for a husband who shares his heart with me freely and loves me deeply.

I’m thankful for family & friends who love and encourage me, despite my many shortcomings.

I’m thankful that regardless of this house, I belong, and have found a home in Christ.

I’m thankful for the sunshine pouring in my windows, and that my girls took naps today.

I know it’s easier to be thankful in some situations, or seasons, than in others, but I want to encourage you today to embrace a posture of thankfulness.  It’s like a good sugar scrub for your heart: exfoliating the grime and sweetening up your perspective. So, tell me, what are you thankful for?

A Lesson from Laura

I was driving with the girls this week, listening to the news to find out just how much snow was expected (a foot, it turns out), when a report came over the airwaves regarding an explosion at a gas plant in Connecticut.  As I reached for the dial I glanced in the rear view mirror, hoping to see Laura spaced out or tuned into to something other than the words streaming over the radio.   “What does it mean that two people were killed, Mommy?” Of course.

I try to be straight forward and simple in my answers about the tough things: honest, but age appropriate.  After a fairly simple explanation, only slightly complicated by 37 “Why, Mommy-ies” I asked if she wanted to pray for the families of the men who had died.  I often pray about things as they come up throughout my day, and recently I’ve been making it a practice to do so aloud, and inviting Laura to join me if she wants. It seems like a simple way to show her my faith lived out. And as she usually does, Laura said she wanted to pray with me, “but with just [me] talking.”  So I prayed a simple prayer, asking God to comfort the families of those men, and with amen, thought I had ended our little conversation.

“So what did God say?” Laura asked after a few seconds. It hit me like a ton of bricks.  All this time I’ve been praying with her, she expects that I am hearing answers back, that prayer is a two way street. And she was right! Scripture says that God’s Word, written throughout history, is living and active (Hebrews 4:12)- it applies to our little lives and questions and requests.  And it also says that Jesus’ sheep know His voice (John 10:4). Perhaps the question is if we’re listening.

That moment, those words, that brutal innocence, is exactly why when some of Jesus’ followers tried to prevent a bunch of kids from bothering their master teacher, he chided them:

But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” Luke 18.16-18

Perhaps the single, greatest gift of motherhood is the opportunity to see life through the eyes of your child.  For me, rediscovering faith, through Laura’s perspective has caused me to confront the places in my faith that have become routine or stale, instead of the beautiful, life giving relationship He offers. So today, I am praying, and I’m listening.  Thanks, kiddo.

Love Letters

Are you working on Valentines at your house?  Yesterday I went rummaging through end table drawers and my antique trunk, hunting for letters and scraps for a project.  Given my affinity for the past, I shouldn’t have been so surprised by the number of dear, sweet letters I came across.   Okay, I admit, I do not have a mile high stack of love letters, per se.  Some are from my grandmother, a college roommate, my childhood pen-pal.  I’ve always had a love for the correspondence, and these letters are a slice of my personal history, representing seasons of life and the people I love.

Reading through my little stash of stamped treasures brought me back to an age old truth that has encouraged me again and again as I spend my days pouring into the lives of my daughters and those around me.  In Scripture, Paul writes to the church in Corinth to affirm his credentials for his work:

Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:1-3)

Did he rely on his achievements and success? His performance review report or his gleaming resume? No, Paul’s letters of recommendation were the lives of those he had impacted with the love of Christ.  This week we’ll be pasting doilies on paper hearts and sprinkling glitter into pink envelopes, but my real love letters are those I write each day, not with my favorite Sharpie pen, but with love, written on the hearts of my children, my husband, the woman walking in the cold that I offer a ride to, or the friend who needs to vent. And my heart is overwhelmed with thanks for those who’ve “written not with ink” on my heart over the years – mothers, sisters, mentors and friends. (Hmm… maybe some letters of appreciation are in order!)

Happy letter writing, my friends, with ink & without!