I Thought Of You

Confession Mama this is for you.

I love your effortless honesty.

You open your heart and let your readers know that we are not alone in the beautiful mess of parenting.

I'm fairly confident nobody wants to hear that they are the person that pops into my mind when I'm struggling to carry my screaming children out of the grocery store...

But Taleah, you are that person.

I had given warnings and last chances and finally gave up on my much needed groceries.

I abandoned my half-full cart on the paper towel aisle.

I scooped my girls up, one writhing child under each arm, and began the long journey to the parking lot.

The store was full of shoppers and they were all staring at me struggling to carry my crying children.

I know it must have been a sight.

I would have stared at myself too. 

But all those people looking made me feel even more on my own and I desperately wanted a friend.

Between the paper towels and the parking lot I needed someone to come up beside me.  

To smile.  

To encourage. 

To be real and reveal their own mommy war wounds.

And you did.

I thought of you at The Kid Table. 

I guess the truth is that many of the moments you've shared with your readers that came to my mind

the times when the only thing to do is laugh

the times you have to tweak your parenting strategies

the times your children reveal the "real you"

the times it all comes together and you see the complete beauty in your messy life

I made it to the parking lot.

By the grace of God, I put my kids in their carseats without having a meltdown of my own.

It might sound silly but you really helped me the other night.

I think it's important that you know that your writing makes a difference.

As writers we ask ourselves 

if carving out the time

if transforming half-constructed thoughts into cohesive ideas

if exposing their messy core

actually means something

actually means anything

It does.

Write on girl, write on.

A Prayer For My Girls

Recently, I've found myself constantly praying this for my girls:

Please help me clearly see the gifts you have given my children.  

Please equip me to cultivate those gifts.

  

I pray this fervently because I know that sometimes our gifts are our destruction.  

I know that sometimes it is our God-give qualities that unravel us.

She stands in the bathroom, on her step stool.

Bare feet.

Pink nightgown.

Brushing her wet and tangled hair.

She doesn't want help.

She wants to do it herself.

I can tell that she doesn't like me watching her struggle with the comb and the knots

so I sit on the edge of the tub and act interested in my chipping nail polish.

She doesnt want to fail.

She wants to do this well and she wants to do it on her own.

But it's not working out.

She's huffing and puffing.

The brush gets thrown.

She crumples onto the floor.

Defeated, angry tears come.

From a messy heap she squeaks out 

"Mommy, I need help"

And I'm there.

I spray the tangle spray.

I show her how to hold the comb.

I gently loosen the worst tangles.

...and I step back and sit back down on the porcelain...

She tries again

s u c c e s s 

such a small body bursting with such pride

She is like this in every aspect of her life and she has been since birth.

In my hazy memory it seems like she cried until the day she could sit up on her own.

Her first crawling adventure took to her to the part of the room furthest away from us: the front door.

I should have taken it for the symbolic statement that it clearly was

In a stumbling walk she pulled herself up the small steps at the park.  

She sat down at the slide and shouted her disapproval as I put my arms around her waist to guide her down.

"Self!"

Wiggling from my helping hands, she went down on her own.

At  her best, she is determined and tenacious, persistent and ambitious.

At my worst, she is stubborn and obstinate, strong-minded and bullheaded.

It is clear to me that one of her God-given gifts is her independence.

I pray for her to be wise so her independence will guide her down the narrow path, not away from it.

I pray for her to be a leader so her independence will bless others.

I pray for her to be gentle with herself so her independence will not be destructive

because it can be...
...and I know that from experience.

I roll my eyes and shake my head but I know she gets her independence from me.

I know the ways it has been a gift in my life:
following my high school dreams to an unknown place full of unknown challenges
fiercely standing for what is unpopular yet right
facing choices and making difficult decisions

I know the way it has been destructive in my life:
avoiding help even when I need it desperately
pulling away from people who want to be a part of my life
going my own way even when it is unnecessarily difficult
rejecting advice that is wise
on and on
the list is long and I know this gift has been brought more destruction than good.

I think that's why I plead for my girls.
Let me be wise enough
to know their gifts
to show them how to extract the blessings
to warn them of the dangers.
Let the lessons root deep.
Let them be more wise than I was.
Let them be more wise than I was.

Gone, But Not For Much Longer

In October I started praying for a chance to get back into the arts.

Almost instantly I was presented with an incredible opportunity to write the script for the Christmas program at my church.  

Check out the premise of the show and get your tickets here.

I've spent all of November and December writing and refining and getting ready to film the show.

All of my writing efforts have gone toward the script and my blog has taken a backseat.  

But, once filming is finished this weekend, I will be back!

I can't wait to share with you what I am thinking about these days.

Dear Debbie, Week 10: Faith

Dear Debbie,

This week you said, 

"Faith  is  n o t  leaning on what we can see and understand.

Faith is relying on what we  k n o w  to be  t r u e  about God 

r e g a r d l e s s  of what we can see and understand."

Long before I started blogging, I read blogs.

One of the first blogs I began reading was

 A Holy Experience.

It is the written by the most beautiful, transparent and poetic woman

Ann Voskamp.  

 It was February 2009 and I had spent six weeks deep in the 

desperate blackness of post partum depression.

Too exhausted to sleep only to be woke up twenty minutes later by a baby with a colicky tummy,

 I poked around on the internet and found myself on Ann's blog, reading

 Loving The Beautiful Mess.

"Learning to be patient… kind… to not seek our own way… is hard business. 

Deathly business. 

It doesn’t come naturally and requires practice, scenes repeating themselves day after day. 

It takes blood, sweat and tears.

Jesus knows. 

In the utter agony of a night in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Son implored the Father for another way. 

There wasn’t. 

Dying wrung the Son of Man Himself out in trickling drops of blood, pooling in grief. 

Love is messy business.

And Jesus is intimately acquainted with the mess in here. 

It is Him we imitate when wegenuinely love, laying down ourselves."

Oh, I was there.

Smack in the middle of a beautiful mess. 

No clue how to survive the "deathly" business of motherhood.

In that lonely moment, she whispered encouragement that lit up my dark world.

She has been my dear friend ever since.

at least in my mind

she has no idea I even exist

I read and ponder and quote her blog frequently.

This past August Ann wrote a post that read about once a week.

Its a post about  f a i t h  and the  g o o d n e s s  of our mysterious God.

I want to share it with you.

How To Really Live

I hope it paints a vivid portrait of faith for you just like it does for me.

Dear Debbie, Week 9: Covenant

Dear Debbie, 

"In the Bible, a covenant is a  p r o m i s e  God makes with a person or a group."

"God's covenant with Noah is an example of an  u n c o n d i t i o n a l  covenant.  

It's fulfillment is not dependent on people's obedience but on God's faithfulness."

"Covenants usually have a physical sign as a reminder of the promise.  

God used the  r a i n b o w  as the sign of his covenant with Noah."

"What do you do when trouble comes? Do you  w o r r y and i g n o r e  God's promises?

Will you choose to 'look at the rainbow' and believe that 

G o d  is  f a i t h f u l ."

Dear Debbie, Week Eight: Arky Arky

Noah's Ark

illustration from vintage children's book

Dear Debbie,

When I learned about Noah in sunday school as a child I remember 

singing "...the Lord told Noah to build him an arky arky..."

and I remember flannel board animals marching two by two

and I remember gluing popsicle sticks onto a construction paper ark.

I expected the home training lesson to encourage the same songs and activities.

I should have known that BSF would go beyond the basic story of water and animals and a boat

and instead highlight the core Biblical truth within the story:

God expects His people to have different standards and different conduct from the rest of the world.

God calls you to be accountable for your actions.  

God forgives but God will also discipline and allow for consequences to follow behavior.

I've been heavy handed with teaching my children about the love of God...

which is essential and important and something essential that I want them to believe as fact.

But I've been a little light on the holiness of God

a little easy on the justice He will bring.

Debbie, I love how BSF equips me to study and understand the Bible.

I love how BSF provides me with tools and sometimes, the literal words to use, as I teach my children

the Biblical principles that create the foundation for an accurate understanding of God.

Day 31: This Is My Story

This is my story...

...of the ministry that I didn't choose for myself.

...of getting the news that my mother-in-law had died.

...of how we told our children their beloved Grammy was gone.

...of how we coped with her funeral.

...of our new normal.

...of why we choose to keep her memory alive even when it hurts.

...of how we help our girls remember their Grammy.

...of how we help ourselves remember Marigail.

...of how we connect generations that will never meet.

...of reminders that mourning is not always sad.

...of the truth that we will all die.

The Nester challenged me, I accepted and it has changed me.
I've developed discipline.
I've grown as a writer.
I've become more intentional as a parent.
I've looked back into the sad past (something I usually avoid) to find truths I can pass on to others.

Thank you for reading my story over the past 31 days.
In honor of the challenge that changed me, 
I leave you with a challenge as well:

Don't just leave your legacy.

Read my series here.