Finding Faith in the Mess
I have some goals this summer. Like, get my kids to make themselves breakfast and tie their shoes. I want them to be able to man themselves for more than 2.5 seconds without Mama Camp Counselor calling the shots. I created three of you. Three …
Dear End of the School Year,
You got me. Long gone are the days of a freezer filled with meals ready to bake. No longer are lunches packed perfectly the night before containing sweet little love notes to my boys. Clothes are not washed and organized on Sunday ready for the week’s wear. The alarm goes off and I do not immediately spring into action ready to tackle the day before me. Nope. You got me end of the school year. You got me good.
The snooze button is often hit one too many times. Lunches are packed in a panic as I wipe the drool off my face impatiently waiting for my coffee to finish brewing. I have every good intention to pre-make dinner stocking our freezer full, but find myself instead scrambling to make dinner because I forgot to defrost the meat, yet again. Laundry piles are high and school forms forbear to be signed. School projects are completed the night before they are due. Library books are forgotten on the shelf at home and reading logs lack a parental signature.
We are all longing for the lazy days of summer. Bare feet and sleeping in are on the agenda. I long for the days where I don’t take a shower because we have been at the lake all day not because I am running around and don’t have the time. I long for snow cones for dinner and side walk chalk covering my driveway; days where we play outside well into the night not knowing the time nor caring. I need days that aren’t demanding we be somewhere on time or have something to do. Days where we watch too much TV because it is too hot to be outside. Fireworks, swimming, and the smell of sunscreen on my skin is beckoning me. I want to eat fresh watermelon and burgers right off the grill. I am ready to feel the warm ground under my bare feet watching my kids get dirty and sweaty in the heat of summer.
I typically long for organization and activity as opposed to laziness and chaos. But this soul is churning for some rest. I need a break and I am not even the one going to school. I feel the teachers pushing through each day, all the while, the countdown to summer is also on their minds. I know because I used to be one. So, this organized type-A personality gal is throwing it all to the wind and surviving these next 2.5 days. Soon the school year will come to a close and endless summer days will be upon us. Our bodies will ache for routine to come back around in a few months. I will long for days planned out and meals on-hand in the freezer once again. But, for now, I long for summer. End of the year, you got me.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
I wanted to wrap-up my series on miscarriage by telling our complete story. It’s always helpful to get the whole story instead of just bits and pieces. My husband and I were married for almost four years before we started trying to have a baby. …
FLASHBACK POST: …a continuation of my series on miscarriage. This entry is vulnerable, real, and raw. The dead of night is always the hardest when you are going through something tough. It is when you are completely alone in your feelings. I remember this night …
FLASHBACK POST:
Lately, I have realized that I need to share what brought me into the blogging world: my story. My original blog (hello, MySpace) was a place where I recorded milestones and triumphs of our first born and our adventures in a new town. And then it happened: miscarriage. I felt trapped. I needed an outlet and that became writing and sharing my story. I have read and heard three stories of miscarriage this week. At the same time, I was able to celebrate the announcement of a healthy pregnancy of a friend who has been trying for 12 years. It’s time I revisit my story. Not to hurt again or throw it in the face of others that my story worked out. But instead, to unify us through our stories; to empower us and heal us by sharing the deepest of our hurts. I do not have answers to your questions of “why.” What I do have is hope. I always had hope even in my darkest times because I had Jesus. I hope this week helps you feel less alone and fills you with hope and peace in the midst of your despair. I am praying for you and loving on you even though I may not know your name. So is He and He does know your name. Rest in that.
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“I realized I wanted to see the whole body moving instead of just doing my part. I wanted to know the ins and outs of what I was affecting, and a little diagram of potential issues headed my way would be awesome. I wanted the scientist’s view. I wasn’t given that, and it wasn’t by accident.” Angie Smith
I was on my knees in Grady’s room crying harder than I probably ever have begging our great Lord for my precious boy. You see, I had been through two miscarriages, one being at the end of the first trimester with a baby that had Downs. Grady’s room sat empty and I desperately wanted it filled. I knew deep down in my heart that Jackson was meant to be a big brother and not an only child but after the way things were going, that looked bleak. I begged and cried and begged some more. I am sure I promised God the moon too. God did eventually bless us with Grady and then blew our socks off with Wyatt; our bonus baby that we weren’t planning on but now know we needed him to complete our family.
At the moment of my despair as I was crying over two lost pregnancies and desiring a sibling for Jack, I wish I could have had that diagram Angie talks about. I want to know what’s around the corner and that my prayers have meaning and an effect. Even though I believe with all of my heart and my very being that God absolutely heard me that day on my knees in Grady’s room, I do not think my begging, crying, and promising my everything gave me Grady. I know God designed my family well before I even knew who He was. Wyatt taught me this. Scott and I were done having kids after Grady. Literally, a month after having the conversation that two boys was plenty, I got pregnant. This, after all the issues I had trying to have Grady. God knew. He had our family perfectly designed regardless of my plans or prayers. His will.
My friend and I are doing a book study of Angie Smith’s, Chasing God. The chapter we just went through was on prayer. We had an incredible conversation about how all the begging in the world will not change God’s mind. That was a blow to Michelle and I. Not because we think we are all powerful and want to control God. No. We want to know that our prayers matter. And you know what? They do. Prayer brings us closer to the one who Created us. Prayers give us peace and hope, joy and comfort. God has a design, a perfect will, for our lives where everything is working together to create a perfect and beautiful story for our lives. Prayer connects us to that story.
“Delight yourselves in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
For years I misunderstood Psalm 37:4. I thought if I walked with the Lord and lived for Him He would give me what I desired. I have a different perspective on this verse now. I believe that as I grow closer to God my desires become His desires. I feel the same way with prayer. Jesus even prayed to the Father about how he really felt about the dying on the cross BUT he didn’t stop there. He prayed that the Father’s WILL be done. Not Jesus’ desires but the Father’s will. I believe whole-heartedly that God brings specific people in our lives to prayer over us. I also believe He fills our hearts with desires and what to pray. Do I think He controls us? Absolutely not. He gave us free will for a reason. He did, however, give us the Holy Spirit to guide us in our lives and that’s exactly what I believe happens in our prayers. The Holy Spirit is present and active when we pray.
So, what now? What does this mean for my prayer life? Angie Smith says this, “What I have been given is the ability to take in and give out. I don’t really understand the way it distributes itself throughout the body, or how it comes back to me, but it doesn’t keep me from doing what He made be to do. And it doesn’t make me insignificant. It just means I’m not always in a position to see or feel my significance, so I choose to defer to the One who does.” <i>Chasing God</i>
I will pray and believe great and mighty things from a great and mighty God. I will tap into the power of the Holy Spirit when I pray. I will ask God to transform my desires to His because they are better anyway (Wyatt is a prime example of His plan being better than mine). I will pray to grow closer to Him and commune with Him. I will walk along the way and talk with Him through my prayers about silly stuff. And I will continue praying miracle prayers as I am doing for someone I love right now. He places burdens on our heart to pray for, don’t ignore it. Instead, pray believing doing your part, my part, and letting Him worry about His.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: A Post on Motherhood to Celebrate All The Mamas Out There Ten years ago my husband and I loaded everything we owned into a moving van. We strapped our 15-month old into his car seat and headed 3,000 miles east to plant new …
I am a recovering perfectionist. Weeellll, I can’t honestly say I’m recovered, but I am working on getting there. I did have to do about a bazillion things and get them all perfectly in order before I could sit down and write today. So there’s …
He was sitting at the counter, his dad beside him. It was early; before 7am. They were working through some last minute math homework. Never-mind the fact that he had ALL weekend to complete his assignment. Who am I kidding? I would have put off my homework over the weekend, too.
There is a lot of chatter out there. Chatter about how the middle schools years are scary and really really awful. Chatter about how this world will devour your child once he leaves the safety-net of elementary school. Chatter about technology and how it will kidnap your child and lead them to the registered sex offenders list for life. Chatter. Lots and lots of chatter.
<b>Can we squash that chatter? I think so. I am here to tell you the preteen years are not to be feared. They are to be relished.</b>
I heard it all when my oldest was in fifth grade. We mamas all started thinking about what we should expect the next year. Just like when your preschooler moves on the kindergarten, the elementary to middle school jump makes your kid seem so old; so alien. We tried to determine what this uncharted territory would hold. Since we had no experience with middle school, all we had to hold onto were stories of parents who had gone before. Eek. I didn’t particularly like what they had to say.
When I sat back on my own and thought about the season we were about to enter, I was smacked in the face with one thing: the moment my son steps foot on that middle school campus, the countdown begins.
With each passing, season, time seems to speed up. The moment he begins middle school is the moment the next seven years will ignite and zoom by at warp speed. I have one chance, one opportunity, to make these years count and I was determined in that moment to do just that.
I want to enjoy my kids. Let’s face it…life with kids is extraordinary and challenging. Parenting is no joke. You need the physical stamina of a boxer and the emotional stamina of an army. What I have learned in my eleven years as a parent, however, is that parenting has everything to do with perspective.
If I enter these middle school years believing the chatter that they are the most awful years on God’s green earth, than that is exactly what they will be. Rather, if I pierce this road with the perspective of opportunity, an opportunity to love, learn, and watch my son grow from a boy to a man, than the whole season shifts.
It is time we shift the chatter. Middle school years (and high school, for that matter) is not a season to be feared. Instead, it is an opportunity to witness your child finding themselves. You get to see them become the adult you always dreamed and hoped they would become. What an awesome privilege. The moment you step foot into this uncharted territory, you get to watch them use those wings you have been helping them grow all these years. They will take a dive and fall to the ground a few times as they try and spread those wings. But, eventually, they will soar like you could never have imagined and it will be the most beautiful sight.
Do not fear the middle school years. They are precious. It is holy ground. You shift from teaching and training to guiding and walking alongside. You witness them make some pretty awesome choices all on their own without you. This is so very bittersweet knowing you are having to slowly let go a little more each day but reveling in the glory that is who your child is becoming. What an awesome privilege.
Middle schoolers are so weird and funny and goofy. You can tease them and mess with them in the very best ways. They do things that make you shake your head and make your chin fall to the floor (in a good way) all at the same time. Preteens are incredible beings full of a mess of hormones and growing and awkwardness. It is greatness!
I think you will be surprised when you enter those dreaded middle school years. You will be astounded to discover how much you love this time with your preteen holding so tightly to the precious years you have left with them. You will truly enjoy the shifting of your relationship from mommy to mom to confident and adviser.
The preteen years were never meant to be fretted or feared. They were meant to stretch you and grow you as a parent as you are learning and sifting just as much as they are. It is an opportunity to build relationship that will last and only be enhanced through their adult life. The preteen years are an opportunity to step back and enable your child to fall so that they may discover themselves, their faith, and who they want to be.
I didn’t think I would like the preteen years so much. I always thought of myself as a baby/toddler loving mom. But man, this whole getting to watch your kids grow up thing is nothing shy of magnificent. What an awesome privilege it is to witness these kids become who God designed them to be all along.
Stop the negative chatter. Don’t be afraid of the middle school years. This is sacred space.
<i>There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.
But in the end, does it really make a difference what anyone does? I’ve had a good look at what God has given us to do—busywork, mostly. True, God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time—but he’s left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he’s coming or going. I’ve decided that there’s nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life. That’s it—eat, drink, and make the most of your job. It’s God’s gift.</i>
<b>Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
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The preteen years: they are a precious gift from God .
Love & Blessings,
Meg
