pieces

"We will discover the miracle of servant-living when we catch hold of the enormous truth 
that people cannot take from us what we freely give away." -- Susan Lenkes

This quote.  It hit me in a deep soul-wrenching place.

I read it. Then decided I wanted to blog about it. Then tried and failed. The post would just not write. My heart would just not bend. Oh, I wanted my heart to bend, it just seemed to be stubbornly stuck in place that wills not to freely give.

Everyone wants a piece of me. This week my husband had the stomach flu and needed lots of tea and naps and to be excused from his regular child-rearing duties. My baby needed lots of holding. My 3-year-old needed lots of conversation, explanations, and direction. And our kitten decided that I am her favorite, which means she finds me for any and every need. She got the stomach flu too, so guess who got to clean that up. Why does everyone want ME? Can't someone else be the favorite for a while?

Being a mother is not about getting my needs met.  No one ever said it was.  Being a wife is not about that either.  Nor is being a teacher or a counselor or a friend.  Even though I know this, it somehow gets confusing inside of me and I want to cry out, rash and selfishly.

The quote (from a women's devotional that I am reading) reminded me that I am called to follow the example of Jesus by being a servant to those I love. Specifically, I am called to love my family by serving them. But I will be the first to say that it is freaking hard some times!! All that giving can start to feel a lot like someone is stealing pieces of me until nothing is left but a crabby shell of myself with a bad attitude.

...people cannot take from us what we freely give away.

Daily, I try not to lose my perspective, but somehow a line gets crossed and it begins to feel less like giving and more like others taking. That isn't servant-living; that is selfish living. When I give with the expectation that I will somehow be repaid, or that there will be an outcome I can view as "fair", then I am not really acting with a servant's heart, but acting in self-promotion.

The miracle of servant-living is that when our hearts are in the right place, the burden evaporates. How it works is an enigma, but truly, there is strength and freedom in the giving. Instead of feeling robbed, I can feel blessed by the opportunity to give... especially when it goes unnoticed. By refusing to give freely, I am disabling the power of joy to change my heart. 

Perhaps this is why God designed us to live in relationship with each other... to teach us more about how to love like He does. No one can steal pieces of me if I have already given my whole self away.

how does your garden grow?

Christian and Annike started a vegetable garden this year.  We always have loads of fruit growing on the farm, but this was our first experiment with veggies.  They began with seed packets, giving Annike the important job of pushing individual seeds into each seed-tray hole.  Note the importance of a proper gardening outfit.

A greenhouse was inherited when we bought the property; this year we initiated it.

 Up came the seedlings,

beets, corn, peas, squash, cucumbers, and carrots, to name a few.

Into the ground they went.

 Water and sunshine turned our seedlings into a bushy garden.

It remains a miracle to me to witness the life that comes forth from a tiny dried up seed.  All of this greenery, vitamins, wealth of nourishment, was captured in a minuscule kernel waiting, unassuming, for some dirt and a little water to help it grow.  A miracle in its simplest form, but miraculous all the same.  

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," 

declares the LORD. 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways 

and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed"

Isaiah 55:8-13

We often can't see the purpose for certain events in our lives, for conflicts that arise, for circumstances that occur wholely uninvited, or for pain. But the Lord's promise to us is that His ways are oh-so-much better than our ways.  His Word goes out and does not return empty.  It grows fruit in our lives. It produces peace. It turns thorns and briers into beauty.  It works to achieve an eternal purpose far higher than any I could have imagined.   That is the miracle of the seed.  We can't tell by looking what kind of life will spring forth with a little water.  But the Lord has declared that He will water and there will be yield.  His Word will go out and will not return empty.

How does your garden grow?  

I heart plums

Any child of ours must love fruit.

Sommer - 9 months

Annike - 10 months

And must take baths more often this time of year.

It's plum season.

independence day

No one says it better than Martina McBride...

"Let freedom ring,

let the white dove sing

let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning.

Let the weak be strong,

let the right be wrong.

 Roll the stone away,

Let the guilty pay,

 it's Independence Day."

small miracles

God's provision is so evident to me of late.  I never quite get the break I am hoping for, but miraculously, I never quite need it as much as I think I do.  Small miracles sustain me.  I call them "small" because to anyone else they would seem rather innocuous everyday occurrences, possibly no miracle at all.  But to me they are life-saving moments placed precisely by God to restore me.  

A child who sleeps in until 8:45am... small miracle.  If you have small kids, you understand.  You are probably envious.  

A magazine that entertains a baby for almost an hour... small miracle.   No, she isn't reading yet.  Simply shredding it to pieces, we have to start somewhere with our love of books though.

A child who gets dressed, brushes her hair and her teeth, without crying when we are already running late... small miracle.  You've seen the pictures on this blog.  We do actually own clothing for Annike, she just chooses not to wear them.

An ant crawling out of my baby's mouth when she has been left to play in the dirt by herself... small miracle (for the ant).  Actually, I am just glad that she didn't choke on a rock or a cricket because it has been quite a while since I checked on her.

A baby (who never naps longer than 40 minutes at a time) who sleeps for an hour and a half while we are stuck in San Francisco rush hour traffic... small miracle.

A genuine smile for friends who tell me their babies take long naps everyday, multiple times a day... small miracle.  I am truly glad for them, and seriously, that generous sentiment can only come from above.

A small girl who chooses to share and help her baby sister... small miracle.

Two overtired children who remain happy and fun to be around... small miracle.

A piece of an corner of an hour when my husband is playing with both children and I am typing on the computer, given a fleeting chance to reflect upon God's goodness in this life... small miracle.

But the real miracle for me is that as much as I am dying for a minute to myself, to express, to emote, to refresh, God sustains me.  I don't need that moment on my own nearly as much as I thought.  With two children who could not possibly sleep less and remain healthy, I am always in want of more time to          (you fill in the blank).  There is never enough for me.  And yet, there is always plenty.

I call them "small" miracles because to anyone else they would seem rather innocuous everyday occurrences. Perhaps a coincidence.  To me, they are larger than life, hugely miraculous, sanity-saving moments frozen in my mind as a divine gift from God.  They are proof that God knows me intimately and cares about my everyday needs, some admittedly mundane and insignificant in the large scheme.  He loves the way that He created me, selfish needs and all, and sometimes simply wants His creativity to flourish.

Thank you, Lord in heaven above, for the small miracles that are hugely sustaining, 

enabling me to press forward as myself in world that is 

not always what I expected, or dreamed of.  

Because of Your Provision, Lord, 

it is so much more than I would have hoped.

laughter

I often find myself daydreaming about things I will do one day when I don't have young children... like read a book in the afternoon... go shopping for an entire day without them... sleep through the night, uninterrupted... travel to a foreign country with a small suitcase... use the bathroom alone... Catching my thoughts in places like these, it is tempting to envy retirement and empty nest days as a time of freedom.  In reality, I simply have a bad case of brown-grass-syndrome.

On the tail end of three wonderful family vacations, Christian and I agree that we have never laughed so much at any other stage of our lives.  Never before have we sung so many silly songs, tickled so many knees and bellies, laughed at so many bad jokes, told so many funny stories, or giggled spontaneously so many times in a day.  Can it get any greener than this?


What, exactly, are we laughing about, you ask?  Anything and everything. You might not think it is nearly as funny as we do, but some of the expressions in these vacation photos had me rolling. Feel free to laugh along side of me as I recap a few memories from our most recent trio of travels.


First Stop:  New Orleans to celebrate my younger brother's graduation from dental school!

One thing about children is that at any given moment what they are feeling is written all over their faces.  These two girls were troopers but the significance of posing in a picture with two great-grandmothers was completely lost on them.  As disappointing as it is to have 4 smiling adults and 2 grumpy children in a photo that cannot be duplicated, I can laugh at the outcome.

 The most special part about our trips over the past month was the sister-bonding... 

Welcome to Gators-ville, Louisiana!

The baby alligator doesn't bite... yet.

The next one cracks me up.  Sommer fussed for most of the time on our hot and humid swamp tour.... except when the wind was blowing in her face.  She could hardly keep her eyes open pointing directly into the wind, but at least she was smiling!

Second Stop:  Yosemite camping in the R.V. with my parents and brother.  A cold front came through including a torrential downpour - we were oh so thankful to have the R.V.

Does anyone know who the man with the mustache is holding my baby?

Third Stop: Clearlake for a restful (mostly) summer vacation. The real treat was that my entire immediate family joined us.

Someone has recently begun to specialize in silly faces...

This is the face of a big sister who does not want to share the swing with her little sister.  I was cracking up as I took the picture... one day she might think it is funny too.

Those pretty much sum up our wonderful, short, chaotic, exhausting, kid-friendly, nap-deprived, family-centered, enjoyable, date-less, but still wonderful vacations.

With all of this fun going on, who has time to blog?  Apparently not me.  I do miss capturing my thoughts and recording snippets of our lives, but instead of lamenting the hobbies and projects I just can't keep seem to keep caught up with, I am just going to enjoy this season of laughter with my family.  The grass may never be this green again.

lost and found

Have you ever lost something dear to you?  And then spent hours upon hours trying to locate it... retracing steps, looking under every bush and rock and cranny where your precious object might be?

These kittens must be precious because my husband spent hours upon hours looking for them in our yard, around our barn, in the thorny bushes, in acres and acres of tall grass.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we found the kittens when they were 2 days old, and promptly moved them and their mother into our barn where they would be safer from the predators on our property (coyotes, foxes, snakes, hawks, and even our own chickens.)  Their feral mother, not at all warmed to the idea of us keeping her kittens, continued to care for them so long as she did not see us near them.  We were determined to handle them enough to tame them.

Despite our attempts at stealth while handling the kittens (and who can resist these fuzzy balls of kitten-ness?), every week or so, Calico Kitty (Momma Cat) found us out and moved them. The hunt would begin again as Christian spent hours bushwhacking to locate the helpless babies and restore them to safety in our barn.  Notable places he found them were in an empty cement container, in the blackberry brambles, in the chickens' nesting box, and even stuffed into the remaining ashes in our barbeque pit.

The feral mother was almost clever enough to outsmart my husband on her final move, and the kittens went missing for a week and a half... until we brought in reinforcements for a final sweep of the property and my sister found them stuffed between logs in the woodpile.

It must be nice to start life out so loved... so loved that someone would search high and low, thick and thin, not giving up until we are found.

The truth?  We are that loved, and more.  By a Savior who will search the brambles and the tall grass and even the darkest places of our hearts to find us and bring us back to a place of knowing Him.   

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.  Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.  Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep'.  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." Luke 15:4-7

We kept one... Annike has dubbed her "Kitty Soft Paws", but they feel pretty sharp to me.