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One Word.
I always find it sort of funny to write “I have a friend” when I have not met the person in real life. (Even though I do have friends whom I have never met in the flesh. Yet.) But I have met this person in real life. At Story. (Even if the meeting was short and I was afraid that Alece did not remember me from our e-mail exchanges. And I maybe acted a bit like a tongue-tied teenager. I mean, that might have been how it went down. Maybe. You know.) Ahem. Alece writes this beautiful raw and compelling blog, Grit & Glory. And she has this lovely idea.…
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bitter vs. me.
It’s a battle. Maybe mine alone. (But I kind of doubt that.) It’s me in one corner and bitterness in the other. And sometimes I just want to lie down and hand my opponent the title. You win, I’d tell him. Just standing in my corner looking at you makes me weak. It’s a fight I’ve been in before. And one that I particularly am bent to repeat, it seems. I’m about as tired of bitter as I am of fear. Except I don’t seem to be fighting it nearly as well. I don’t think I know where to start.
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shema (sh əˈmä)
A while ago we had our children memorize the shema. We say it together as a family before dinner each evening. With our pinkies upraised. Which serves as a handy visual reminder of the strength God has even in His smallest finger. (Exodus 8:19) (And also – it’s just pretty cute to see Willow’s little pinkie upright and Otto’s two-inch fist as he tries to imitate us nightly.) The shema is no Hebrew mystery. It’s no magic incantation. The shema is just two verses from the Bible that Jesus declared sum up the whole book pretty accurately. Hear O Israel. The Lord is your God. The Lord alone. Love the…
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perspective.
Cuddling with Bergen before bed is sweet. And fleeting. I know. In a recent cuddle-fest, I kissed his ear and whispered, “I love you son.” “I love you too, Momma,” my pint-sized reading machine replied. “Berg – do you know how much I love you?” “No, Momma. I don’t know how much.” And he probably doesn’t. He really can’t. Because he’s five years old. So by his very length of life, he lacks what it takes to understand. He lacks what only age and time and experience can bring you. He lacks perspective. He won’t really understand how much I love him until he’s older. Until he has seen more…
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(in) courage post
Out of the bazillion sites that exist online, I have found one that is a pretty neat little community of women. (Maybe men read over there – I don’t know.) But the focus is women. And community. And building up one another. It’s run by Dayspring and it’s called (in)courage. I like what I read over there. And here’s the fab news for me today. I was able to post my stuff from here over there. Today. I’m pretty stoked! Here’s how it begins …. Maybe it’s taken all of my thirty-seven years and maybe it’s been a winding road but I think I am finally beginning to know me.…
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Story. The Middle.
I keep talking about Story. (The conference we attended. Not just “story” in general. Or – maybe that too.) It was so much good information. And so much good information takes me a while to process. One speaker – this guy – talked about the similar nature of every story. How every story follows the same pattern. Beginning. Middle. End. Usually the middle is the largest part of any story. And the middle usually includes some inciting incident. Some story line, some ordeal, some tragedy, some event, that propels the action of the story. That moves along every other detail. An inciting incident. And after the speaker shared his inciting…
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easy resolve
The quick fix. The no-hassle solution. The simple way out. Do these exist? I just want one situation in my life – one impossible situation in my life – to have an easy resolve. (I don’t even care which problem, really. Pick any of them.) Kind of like a Get out of Jail Free card in Monopoly. One easy resolve. And I just slap that orange card down and say, “there.” Resolved. Easy. Does anything work like that? 37 years of life tells me the answer. No. No, nothing works like that. Problems do not have quick fixes. Issues are not speedily mended. Solutions do not materialize out of the…
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don’t buy juice this month.
We have those weeks at our house. Like everyone else I assume. Weeks where the grocery budget has been spent and we end up eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (at an estimated cost of less than 80 cents per family member) or tuna casserole (a throwback from the quick, easy, low cost dishes of my childhood). I cut coupons and am currently trying my hand at the whole CVS game. And I’m not doing it because I like spending several hours huddled over newspaper ads or searching websites for great deals. I’m cutting coupons and planning low cost meals for the same reason everyone else is doing it.…
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I’m Just Like Bergen
Sometime in the less-than-distant past, this event occurred at our home. It was bed time. Some friends were over. Bergen wanted Nate to fly him to bed like a superhero. (Because Nate can do that, you know.) But Nate was busy. So Bergen began to wait. Impatiently. He cried out Nate’s name. Loudly. Repetitively. Nate told Bergen he would be right there in just a minute. But Bergen didn’t care. He just kept crying out in a sobbing voice, “Naaaay-Aaaate”. Over and over. Increasing in volume each time. Nate was not ignoring Bergen. He had every intention of entering the living room, scooping Bergen up Superman-style, and making a grand…
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remember
You know how sometimes you just want a sign for what you should do? You ask God to make it clear what direction to move or to let you know what He would have you to do or how He would have you act or whatever? You know how we pray like that? (Or, I pray like that.) But then we (or, wait – I) don’t even look for the signs that I just finished asking for? I don’t even listen for the voice. I don’t keep my eyes peeled (as my kids say) for what God is showing me. Do you ever do that? Well. Okay. This isn’t about…
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Farewell Old Friend
You know what I am through with? Pretense. Maybe it’s my age. (I did just officially get older last week.) But I don’t feel the need (nor the desire) to appear to be what I am not. If you ask me how I am – I will tell you. I won’t say “fine” when I am not. No, I don’t plan on giving you more than you asked for or disparaging people in my path to being “real”. But I don’t care to be pretend any longer. And I don’t want you to be that way either. You don’t have to share your deepest secrets with me when I ask…
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today
What day of the week was today? I don’t remember. Do you ever have days like that? I awoke to chaos in my room. It came to meet me in my bed, actually. In the form of a two and half foot screeching two-year-old who had experienced a bad dream about lions and monkeys and tigers. And here it is – some 14 hours later. I don’t think I heard anyone call me by my given name. What did I even do today? Uh. I watched Otto conquer two steps. And then I watched two steps conquer Otto. Twice. Little bruiser. For 14 hours today 14 hours in a row…
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Alone
It was late. I was lonely. I called my brother. And we talked. And that was nice. We talked about things and stuff and all that. But as I was talking and as I was listening another part of me simultaneously was realizing that although I was reaching out trying to connect through distance and space and time (another time zone) and the miracle that all that really is I realized that I was trying to avoid being alone. To stave off loneliness. But I couldn’t. Because really I actually am all alone. We all are. All Alone. Right now. In the end. Here. Then. Always. Alone. When we…
