"So God Made a Mother..." (Ann Voskamp)

I've got some planning to do. School planning. Life planning. Meal planning.

Just kidding on that last one.

But I should do it.

I spend a lot of time wishing I felt more at home in my house. I bet if I thought of this house as my home, then I would feel more like it was. (Sometimes when I think of feelings, I just think,"Blech!" They can be such liars.) I'm always wishing I were somewhere else. But what if I spent that time making this my home, our home? Maybe there would be more peace?

Instead of peace, there are a lot of pieces, like so many different puzzles tossed into the air on a windy day in downtown Chicago. Scattered. Mixed-up. Upside-down. But what if it's one puzzle in the end, one puzzle made up of many different puzzles that all fit together to make a bigger picture?

I read this on Ann Voskamp's blog tonight (it's from a couple of days ago):

Someone who knows that in every hard place is exactly where you extend grace, who looks a hopeful child in the eye and says yes, even though she knows every yes means a mess but this is how you bless, who has the courage to keep letting go because she’s holding on to Me.

God said I need somebody who can shape a soul and find shoes on Sunday mornings and get grass stains out of Levis. [This made me giggle because her son's name is Levi too.]

And make dinner out of nothing and do it again 79, 678 times, and keep kids off the road and out of the toilet and in clean underwear and mainly alive though she’s mainly losing her mind and will put in an 80 hour week by Wednesday night and just do one more load of laundry.

And one more sink of crusted burnt pots.

And keep on going another eighty hours because raising generations matters and weaving families matters and tying heart strings matters and these people here matter.

So God made a mother…

And you know, sometimes (read: most of the time) I just plain ignore my most important, best job. And it's time to stop doing that. I am no fool (Stop laughing!) and I know that big changes don't happen overnight (usually)...so I am going to pray for patience and change and more presence. (The kids would really like it if that read "presents".) (But maybe my presence can be just as good as so many presents?)

As she says, God made me a mother...now may he make me a Mommy. (Even Michaela still calls me that, and the miracle is it's often preceded by,"I love you.")

Bubbles

While I was loading the dishwasher tonight, I remembered a story, a story about me and my dishwasher in Kentucky.
On a bright spring afternoon in lovely Louisville, I set about the task of unloading the clean dishes. However, I faced a challenge as soon as I opened the dishwasher door. Suds greeted me: bubbles from top to bottom, side to side, back to front...I couldn't see a single dish for all the suds.

I stood, surprised, staring, and startled, quite honestly, because I knew very well that one never puts dish liquid into a dishwasher. And I had most certainly not put dish liquid in my machine.
I shut the door and started it again, this time running just the rinse cycle. When I opened the door, the bubbles happily fizzed and sputtered at me.

Clearly, the rinse cycle was not long enough.

I checked the racks to make sure I wasn't missing something, but found nothing unusual. Glasses, bowls, my dish scrubber...all things I washed on a regular basis. I started the dishwasher again, this time setting it for the longer wash.

I opened the door when it was done and ruefully looked at those bubbles, wishing they would just go away.
I did some trouble-shooting at this point, and discovered that tossing salt on the suds would make them disappear. I had my salt ready, and I sprinkled it liberally throughout the bubbles. Whoosh, like a magic spell, they were gone!

I ran the machine once more, thinking surely this would be it.
I opened the door and the bubbles cried out,"We're still partying, and don't call us Shirley!"
I tried the salt trick once more, frantically, and then, before running the dishwasher again, I pulled the drawers out to make sure that somehow I wasn't missing what could be making these bubbles. Something caught my eye on the top rack. Something that had escaped my observant, hawk-like gaze before. My scrubby wand was lying there, trying very hard, and quite unsuccessfully, to look innocent.

For the wand was full, but not entirely, of dish liquid.

A Hero for a Hero

I have a cousin named Brett. He's a Marine. He served in Iraq when he was young. Really young. (He's only 29 now.) And I don't think I'd be off-base to say he had to grow up fast.

All the stuff that you think about when you think of someone fighting in a war? He lived through that. He witnessed...well, what you and I would never want to. Now he's home, doing his best to live in the here-and-now, he has a precious family, and he's making it, day-by-day.

He made it home with minor physical injuries, but war takes a toll on you otherwise. He, along with so many others who have served in the military, deals with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During the years since he has been back home, he (and his family) have struggled through many difficult moments and circumstances. One of the things that is helping to make a difference these days is a sweet companion named Eliza...she's a service dog, trained to help with PTSD symptoms, and personally matched with him. I read his Facebook updates, and I am so delighted to see what pictures and stories he posts about Eliza and himself each day. I can literally hear him smiling as I read. I can only imagine what it's like (and honestly, I don't think I could do that very well) to return from combat and have to live a regular old life, when you have just been through some of the most significant and life-impacting circumstances that one can experience. Having a stable, reliable friend like this Great Dane, Eliza, is making the days more manageable for him. I'm so grateful that he survived the fighting, and that he is surviving the living. 

This kind of therapy is relatively new, and (apparently) a bit controversial. There are several organizations which are passionate about raising and training service dogs for veterans, and I hope that they are able to continue their work. I'm throwing this out there because I bet many of you know of someone who has served in one of the branches of the armed services. Maybe knowing about this aspect of therapy might help someone you know. It seems to me that pursuing methods of treatment which do not wholly rely on drugs for those invisible wounds that soldiers come home with makes a lot of sense in the long run. I don't know what the future holds for these service dogs, but I can tell you that Brett loves his dog. She goes with him wherever he goes, and from what I can gather, she is his hero.

And he's one of mine. 

Unyielding, He Yields

From striving to stricken
The need is the same;
My can-do can't do it,
My I-can't feels shame.
Despair drags me down,
But pride makes me swell;
The folly of each
My heart knows too well.
It aches from the knowing
How dark it can be.
It aches from the knowing
What love comes from Thee.
My goodness before you-
Filthy rags, dirty clothes, 
Flung frantically forward-
I'm fully exposed!
Your grace burns them up,
Consumes all that stench.
Holy fire at once
Will clothe and will quench.
Radiant robes replace rags,
Clean for unclean;
His goodness is mine,
On him I will lean!
For he is my refuge,
Defender and shield,
A tower of faithfulness
Who will not (cannot!) yield...
But for mercy and grace,
There he bends to his knee,
And then yields indeed
This great love for me!

Isaiah 64:6

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Isaiah 61:10

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Less Complaining, More Thanking!

Apparently Old Granny Crankypants got a hold of my blog yesterday. So sorry.

I've been thinking I need to start counting blessings (a.k.a. gifts), you know, up to 1000 (at least). I was thinking last night that I complain entirely too much, and Ann Voskamp is 100% on target with her proposal that giving thanks is the fastest (and most biblical...hmmm, not a coincidence, I think) way to find joy, have joy, know joy, radiate joy. Complaining is a joy-robber. 

So I am going to start a list. I have a new journal which I can use for the list. Maybe I'll invite the kids to do it too? 

I just wanted to apologize for cranky Granny being such a fusspot. Today I made sure to have a productive day, which helped readjust my attitude. You can see the floor in the back half of my house!

I even vacuumed back here. The school table is, ahem, a work in progress (and if you could see it you might wonder if I mean in progress of being clean or in progress of being a piece of funky modern art) (I mean progress to clean, by the way). I have to brag on my Precarious Placement skills, though...it's pretty impressive. I am sometimes known as The Stacker. 

What else? Entryway-cleaned up; schoolbooks/area in front of bookshelf-cleaned up! I've got the kitchen's number, and the laundry...well, something had to take the back seat. 

Cooking. Cooking also took a back seat today. My poor kids...they will have to be happy with frozen pizza tonight. I'm afraid it's that or blah chicken enchiladas (take note: leaving the chiles out of enchiladas will, in fact, make a difference in the flavor [I didn't have the chiles, but I didn't know it until too late]) (I really thought the cream and the cheese would make up for it) (FYI-they did not). While we were eating, I did look at Michaela and say,"But we're not going hungry, right?" And that really is a very good thing, for which I am so grateful. 

Less complaining. More thanking. Go!