There is a Time for Everything August 18, 2009

I have been struggling with this blog for awhile because I’m not posting with the same focus I had when I first started to write here.  When I first started this blog I was in a period of immediate, deep grief over the illness and then loss of my mom to cancer.  Along with that came the wonderful gift of gardening — something she had loved and I had just found — to carry me through some very, very hard days.  All of this poured into and fed the growth of my faith and a period of discovery about both myself and, more importantly, my God.

Solomon (not the Beetles) had his heart set in solid truth when he wrote Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

I think that this is part of why I’ve felt very unfocused in my writing here recently.  I have entered a new season of life.

This is not to say that grief is gone — I can’t think of a day that goes by without some thought or longing to be with my mom in heaven, worshipping our Creator.  Time has a way, though, of softening sharp edges and the Spirit has a way of using Christ’s redeeming power to take every sorrow and draw from it joy.  As this process has happened I have slowly shifted my focus to other needful things:  my marriage, my son, my home…

As a result, the gardening posts will likely be fewer (though I do have a new plot to sink my hands into at this late part of the growing season), my posts about my mother likely farther in between (though my life with her informs every part of life after her going home).  You’ll hear me talking dollars more than any girl who hates even thinking about money ought, and struggling through the fast-paced adventures of raising my little boy.  You’ll likely hear about a lot of apologies made to my husbad, though I hope those become fewer, too (out of peace, clearly, rather than a hardening of heart).  Cooking?  Well, I’ll never stop talking about that.  And my Savior?  As the old hymn tells us, “Lord I need thee every hour.”  And I do.

But yes, my focus has changed.  And having said just that, I feel more free to post the things I’m dealing with now.  I hope it’s interesting and helpful to you — because it’s interesting and helpful to me.  Indeed, there is a time for everything.

Ten Widdow Mon-teys, Yumpin’onna Bed August 18, 2009

Today I had a blast with Eamonn.  Do you know what we were doing?  We were cleaning.

We’re in week two of no channels on the TV and a lovely thing has happened — he’s started not to miss TV.  This morning he asked me, “Mom — would you play music on the TV?”  We don’t have a stereo and my iPod really only plays through headphones or in the car.  But we have a game console that will let me stream music from my computer or play off of a CD.  So we listened to worship music while he played with Legos and I put dinner into the crock pot.  Later in the day when we got home from running various errands around town neither of us even paused at the TV as we came through the door.  Rather, we lugged a toy cubby that I’d gotten from my sister-in-law in trade for a trike Eamonn never rode into Eamonn’s room and began sorting his toys into the various cubby holes.  He loved it.

“I have a ball!  This is an instrument, Mom!  Here is another train piece!”  We sorted through his toys which were in a big jumble in his wagon and gave them all homes.  As we rifled through his things we began to find monkey from a long-forgotten barrel of monkeys and started singing the “10 Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed” song together.  When Eamonn sings it, it goes, “10 widdow mon-teys, yumpin’onna bed…”  My heart nearly exploded with love several times and I kept thinking, “How did I miss the nuances of how much fun all of this could be?”  I’d fallen into this bad habbit of rushing through every aspect of the day and using TV to babysit while I did things quickly that, given a little more time, we could have done slowly and joyfully together while we talked and laughed and played.

I am not looking for reassurances that I’m a good mom or that everyone makes mistakes like this and gets caught up in the hurry and bustle.  I do know those things are true.  But here’s the other thing that’s true:  My hustle and bustle was a sign of some grave sin that has needed to be dealt with for quite a while now, and the Lord has gently and graciously let me see this as He’s also gently and graciously shown me some ways I could change the pattern.  I know we don’t like that word, “sin”.  But let’s call it what it is in my case.  Waste is a woeful category into which I so often and so easily fall.

The overall message that’s been ringing loud and clear in both my heart and my ears the last few months is that I have much to learn about stewardship of my time, my monetary and material resources, and the gift of a child.  This has come in various ways: realizing how much food waste was going on in my own home at my own hands without my realizing it; the natural progression from that realization to a hard look at the rest of my money flow; struggling to find time to sort these things then causing me to realize how much time waste there is, as well.  I want to learn to use my time and resources more effectively so that I am able to accommodate Eamonn’s pace rather than setting him aside in order to accommodate mine.

There are several resources I’m considering that I’d like to go through over the next few months as I work on getting some of my life in better order:

C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries did a series on time management earlier this year and I guess I should have raised the white flag immediately when I starred all of the posts in my Google Reader for reading later and then could never find the time to go through them.  However, in searching around and thinking about stewardship, I was reminded that he took the entire series and compiled it in a PDF for free download.  I’ve been praying for a study to do because I’m much more consistent with my quiet times when I’m working through something and I think this may be it.

In addition, my friend Beth and I have agreed to work together on our household budgets.  Amidst kicking, moaning, a few tears and some grumbling, I’m sure, we are going to be working through Budgeting for Dummies and Managing the Money Maze.  I think it will really help to have a friend with whom I’m totally honest about our finances and who will ask me how I’m doing with the budgets my husband and I agree on as I do the same for her.

Last, a natural categorizing of my son’s activities and interests began to emerge as we sorted toys today.  He has so many different kinds of activities that he’s interested in.  Previously when they were all jumbled together I think it was hard for him to figure out what to play with or what to do with his things.  But as we sorted things (I asked for his input on how he thought we should group some of his things and was delighted with some of his decisions) a post from Owlhaven that I read just yesterday on Homeschooling with Preschoolers came to mind.  In it, Mary shared an idea for play stations for kiddos my son’s age (3-and-a-half-but-almost-4-thankyouverymuch) and even younger.  In my jumbled mental store of notes I thought, “okay, must buy different kinds of things for him to play with…oh but the money…think about it later…”  But no.  We have everything we need already between puzzles, train tracks, building blocks, activity books, and art supplies.  I just didn’t know it because it was all jumbled together.  Already ideas for how we could play together and work together through our days at home has begun to emerge and I’m really excited at the time I’m anticipating spending with him.

This seems like a long laundry list and I think I’d easily panic if not for this thought that keeps threading itself through my mind and other considerations today, “You can’t do it.  But I can make it possible.”  And I trust Him, and He will.  I want to honor my Lord and I know He will help me to do it.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
²Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
³though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Selah

⁴There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
⁵ God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
⁶ The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
⁷ The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah

⁸ Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
¹¹ The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah

Humorous Happenstance August 16, 2009

I am giggling a little bit right now and I don’t know that anyone else cares really but…

I have a new friend whose name I kept forgetting until we realized my first and middle name were here first and middle in reverse.  I am Mary Catherine and she is Katherine Mary.  That helped.  Then, today at church, she approached me about my boss’ wife who raised 7 children while hosting a home church plant in France with her husband in the 70s and 80s.  In that conversation I thought of two articles I wanted to send to her by two different bloggers.  It dawned on me tonight that their names are our names:  Mary and Katherine.

See?  No big deal.  But I had a laugh.

Crying to the Cable Guy July 30, 2009

Well, with a frantic week of work, activities, heat, and hormones, my resolve about writing every day flew right out the window. Didn’t it? And I am sorry about that. So here I am, picking myself up, dusting my keyboard off, and climbing back into the blog saddle again.

What I want to write about is tomorrow. Because tomorrow a very little thing is happening that is going to make very big changes in our home. I’m both thrilled to the tips of my toes and scared to death. Tomorrow, the cable guy is coming. We have a torturous two-hour window time frame. If you hear a high pitched keening wail between 4:30 and 6:30 PM Pacific Time, it’s likely me watching the cable man shut off all our channels, packing up our DVR, and taking it with him — stopping to block our line on his way out.

Yup. We’re giving up TV.

Now don’t get me wrong. We are going to still have a DVD player and a handful of hand-picked videos to watch on it (what would life be without an occasional episode of 3-2-1 Penguins, I ask you??). And I know there are plenty of shows you can watch online. But we are severely limiting the ease of access to these things and I’m really quite thrilled about it all.

When I can think through the panic.

It’s not a monetary issue. The money we save will be nice for sure. But it’s an issue of value. We were paying for a whole lot of stuff that we loathe and a whole bunch of other stuff we didn’t want at all to get a limited few things that we sort of enjoyed sometimes.

The main adjustment will be for my son and I know that’s going to be hard for us. But frankly, I’m looking forward to that, too. I’m looking forward to my default NOT being turning on an “educational” baby sitter while I finish the dishes.

I’m going to have to plan my days better, build in longer times to get things done with his help, and I have a feeling I’m going to have a LOT more conversations in which the other participant responds only with one word, “Why?”

And hopefully, a month from now, it’ll be really normal and I won’t remember what it was I thought I’d miss about having channels.

But in the meantime…would it be SO bad if I walked crying through the courtyard and waved goodbye to the cable guy?

Seeing and Being Seen July 25, 2009

When she was a senior in high school, my mom was nominated for and then won the Miss Elsinore contest in the little town she grew up in.  She went on to get a runner-up slot in the Miss Riverside contest that same year.  I remember being agog at the fact that my very own, every day, utterly normal (only in a kid’s eyes!) mom was a beauty queen!  I would press her for all sorts of details and was constantly left a little disappointed because she seemed so completely uninterested in it all.  She would say things like, “Well, it wasn’t ME on that stage.  I had on 10 pounds of make-up!” and “Oh I hated that picture…but you know, I DID get to leave class one day for that photo shoot and that was pretty fun.”

The first time what she was saying to me really started to make sense was when I was a teen.  I’d brought the story up again and begged her to drag out the photos and she told me a few details of that week to make me happy.  “Mom, were you SO popular then?”  She laughed.  “Well, I had a date every day that next week!”  The thought of it made my toes positively curl with glee.  “And did any of them end up being your boyfriend?”  “Oh, love, NO.  No.  They didn’t want to go on a date with ME.  They wanted to go out on a date with Miss Elsinore.  To say they’d gone out to dinner with the local beauty queen.”

And there, plainly, was the crux of the matter.  Mom did not feel like, when she won that contest, it was based on real things.  She did not feel that she had been really seen.  She didn’t feel that it really had anything to do with who she really was at all.  Any real piece of her that had been there for judging had been slathered under pounds of stage makeup.

When I fell in love with my husband, I barely remembered how to put makeup on.  It was in 2001 at the tail end of my mother’s first bout with cancer.  It had been a grueling year and I felt stripped of artifice of any kind.  When we met I wasn’t looking for a relationship at all — I was utterly unprepared to be charming or beautiful or socially acceptable.  I was in a stage of my life where I grossed people out inadvertently by just explaining the day-to-day basics of our lives.  What we found funny at home other people in non-cancer world did not find funny.  When people asked, “How are you?” I couldn’t gracefully tell anymore whether they really wanted to know or if they were just asking because that was how conversation was supposed to go and the next line was supposed to be “Oh, fine thank you!  And you?”

I remember walking toward Ryan one night at a little dive we used to go to after coming out of the ladies room and realizing that for the first time of any that I could think of when he looked over and saw me and lit up with a smile, he was smiling at me.  All my cracks and dings and rawness were right there in front of him and he was delighted to have me coming over to slide back into the seat across from him.  As much as I loved him for so many wonderful things, I loved him for that.

There is something, I think, about being laid bare, recognized for who you are, and loved in the face of it all.

This is, in the end, what makes the love of my Savior so intoxicating and breathtaking when I stop in day-to-day business and ponder him.

Think about it:  There are stars in the sky so far away that our very strongest telescopes can only pick them out as specks of light in the vast distance.  Yet our physical beings are determined by 25,000 human genes that were not fully mapped until less than a decade ago and are contained in such microscopic detail that no human eye could ever decipher them without powerful aid.  Romans 1 declares that what can be known of God has been made plain to men and that His eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in the things that have been made.  What creation tells us is that our God is unfathomable.  He is greater than we can even begin to comprehend.

With the greatest of care and imagination He knit each of us together in our mothers’ wombs.  He named us before we had names.  He knew us before we could be known by any other being and knew us more fully than we even know ourselves.  Every hidden dark place, every decision made wrong, every hatred, every cheat, every selfishness, every slight given was before his eyes when he then chose to love us with a deep, never-ending, fierce, perfect love.  He holds back nothing in that love.  Nothing at all was too great a sacrifice — not even the cross.

If, tonight, you are needing to feel love — ponder on this for awhile.  As unlovable as you may feel you are loved beyond what you can possibly imagine.  If you are God’s and springing to the front of your mind is “Yes but you don’t know what I…” — I can tell you that no matter how you finish that sentence, no matter how dark the ending, God knows and he loves you anyway.  If you acknowledge him, if you love him, if the darkness of the things you keep tight in your heart make you understand your need for the cross and, therefore, thankful for it then I can assure you that He knows and loves you still with a love that makes all things good and new.  He sees you and He has allowed himself to be seen.

I’m just a little bit agog about all of this tonight and so I thought I’d share.  Maybe now my brain will quiet down enough for me to sleep.

Date Night July 17, 2009

We had a date.  With a babysitter and everything!  We hung with friends and had very excellent mojitos.  Then we came home and made a sign.  The sign says “NO Monsters Allowed!!” and hung it on my son’s door with blue tape.  And that’s why he’s willing to sleep in his room tonight.  On the floor.  In a sleeping bag.  He won’t sleep in his bed.  Three year olds are wonderfully weird.  And dates are fun.

On Losing My Religion July 15, 2009

Anyone who knows me at all probably knows that I spent a good few years of my life outside of the church — angry and resentful at God when I was even willing to admit that I thought He existed.  By God’s grace, I was shown my need for Him and the utter disaster I’d made of things when willfully pursuing my own desires and ideas about how things “should be.”

I think a lot about that period in my life — about how a girl raised in a loving Christian home by very dear parents could have gone that far astray.

I will develop this better at some point, and there are a lot of aspects to this that I’ll need to think about deeply.  But I am more and more aware of how bad theology really failed me — it could not bear the weight of what the world had to throw at it.  I had, at that point in my life when I threw up my hands and walked away, become convinced (though I likely wouldn’t have been able to put words on it at that point) that I had a hand in my own salvation.  That somehow or other I was worthy or able to add to its quality and surety by my own actions.

The reason I bring this up is because so much these days I hear things like “Deeds, not Creeds” or denigrating comments about dogma and doctrine.  But let me tell you — good theology is important.  Knowing what scripture says is really, really important.

Deeds or creeds…why do we have to choose?  It is my contention (and I know I’m not the only one) that our creeds — if they adhere faithfully to scripture — will lead us to extravagant acts of good and love out of thanks for the perfect example that was shown to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Believe it or not…this whole thought process is stemming from contemplating hospitality.  Sorry, it’s the brain I was given and it just works this way sometimes.

The Good, the Bad, and the Sunburned July 14, 2009

The Good:

Starting my job last year I had this fear that working in the Christian community would turn out to be…well…the same.  You know?  I was scared that I would go in and expect it to be different working with other Christians and that it wouldn’t be at all.  But I have found, wonderfully, that the environment in which I work is VERY different now and the direct result I can point to is the sincere love for Jesus shared between us all.  It doesn’t mean that things are perfect or that things always run smoothly, etc.  But it does mean that when Christ is the sincere focus of what we are all doing, it is a beautiful thing, indeed.  We need to get some more things squared away before I announce it.  But there are some really, really exciting things in the works for the ministry I work for and a partnership/working relationship that’s come about.  God is good and he is faithful.

The Bad:

My poor husband spent his entire birthday alone because I had serious meetings.  We celebrated the night before.  But still!  No wonderful hub and daddy really should be THAT alone on his birthday.  I’ll have to make it up to him.

The Sunburned:

You know, especially when you live in a beach town with tourists, how you sometimes see one of those sunburns?  The ones that, when you lay eyes on them, just look so darn painful you can’t help but wince?  Well, I have one of those as of today.  I took out a couple who were down from Seattle for our meetings and we went to the beach.  My pastor met up with us and took the husband, Mike, out surfing and he actually managed to catch some waves!  Jen and I spent that time on the sand with my son while he played.  I remembered HIS sunscreen and I managed to do my shoulders and arms.  But somehow I left out my legs entirely and then forgot to reapply to my face save for times when my hands were covered in sand and I couldn’t do it.

It’s embarrassing in this town to walk around with a burn like this because, you know, locals should just…well…KNOW better!

Solarcain is my best friend right now.  That aerosol can that evenly coats you and requires no rubbing at all is just one of the best inventions ever.

A Family Day and a Rock Song July 11, 2009

This is a very boring post about a fabulously boring and perfect day.

I got a call from my pastor’s wife, Wilma, this morning, informing me that they were at a clothing sample sale near our neighborhood.  We had no plans at all and Ryan and I have both been needing some new clothes pretty badly of late.  So we rolled out of bed and packed into the car to go hit the sales.  Clothes shopping is usually really frustrating for me because there aren’t a whole lot of clothes out there that fit me — or rather, there are a whole lot more ladies needing my weird size than there are clothes for all of us.  So finding them is hard and then finding them on SALE…well, that’s just unheard of.  But today I managed to find a pair of size 6 jeans with a 34″ inseam for $15 bucks!!  And the waist isn’t so low cut that I can’t sit in them.  They FIT!!  We really did score today — both of us, did.

And you know, let me tell you something sweet.  Sitting in the car on our way home I was overwhelmed with thanks for this man of mine sitting next to me who gets up every morning faithfully and goes to his job, works his tail off, and comes home to spend time with our son and me every night.  He provides for us and allows me to stay home to care for our family and then thanks ME with appreciation for good food and a clean house.  And then we go out and have the luxury of buying new things that we need.  We are so very well taken care of.  And when I expressed my thanks to him his response was, “Oh, babe, I’m so glad we found what we did.  It was high time for both of us to get a few new things.”  Like it was nothing at all in the world.  But he works SO hard.

God is very, very good in his provision.

On our way home, my son made up a song.  This was the song:

Chorus: I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW!  I DON’T KNOW! x5,000

WHERE DO I PUT THIS? WHERE DO I PUT THIS?
THIS THING? I HAVE IT HERE. WHERE DOES IT GO?

Chorus: I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW! x 500,000

Bridge: WHERE TO PUT THIS THIIIIIIIING!

We let him sing it three times and then put the kaibosh on it because apparently it is to be sung only at the top of one’s lungs and there is just so much we can take.

So punk rock.

Lastly, the little man took a 4 foot skate board ramp by himself when his teacher looked away for two seconds on Friday.  To put this in perspective, he’s 3′ 4″.  He ate it at the bottom and this is how he repeated the story to his dad:

“Today I was at the top of a big ramp, and then I had a BAD idea…”

A bruised up nose was well worth it for the skate cred, apparently.

See?  Boring.  But I loved it.

What a Way to Spend a Day June 29, 2009

This is short and I’m positively flowing over with things to share but I have to use some restraint for at least a few more hours. (Nope, not pregnant…yet.)

However, today I:

Went to the park and swung with toddlers, chased my boy, and helped my niece across monkey bars.

Then after daddy got home, we watched Narnia with our son.  I was Captain Mommy and he was I Boy (we don’t know but it’s his super hero name of choice).  We held drumstick swords and every time a bad guy came on the screen we shot them with our swords.  (That’s what I said.  Stop asking questions and just go with it!)

Then we ate leftover chocolate cake with fudge icing.

Then we sang songs.

Then bed.

It’s been a good day.