Bird watching (while eating M&Ms)

It was just past siesta time, a glorious time in our day when both boys rest and I succumb to a twenty minute nap.  I was standing in the kitchen, snacking on my post-siesta M&Ms (just how this 5 pound bag managed to find its way into my house and take up residency in my pantry is a mystery to me, considering my great weakness for small, crunchy chocolate objects) when I looked out my kitchen window and spotted the tiniest of birds munching on some food from the bird feeder that is perched on our window.  Not four feet away, our eyes met.  I paused, anticipating the bird to quickly flee.  It didn't.  Continuing to watch me, the bird took several more mouthfuls before it turned its back on me and gave itself fully to its seedy feast.   

Nothing extraordinary about this interaction, really.  Many birds frequent our feeder throughout the day so I am sure they are accustomed to the humans who dwell on the other side of the glass.  Yet I was struck by the naive trust that this particular bird had in me, a grown human 200 times its size.  Although I wouldn't, I had the capability to cause irreparable harm to this tiny creature.  The bird, however, seemed ignorant of this fact or just chose to ignore it and carried on with its business.  Indeed, by allowing me to share these solitary moments of its life it was offering me a sort of gift.  Recognizing this I exercised extreme caution, not wanting to make any sudden movement that would scare the bird, injure it in some way, cause it to lose its trust in me.

This little encounter with the bird got me thinking:  What if we recognized the naive trust that our beloved sons and daughters exercise in us, despite the extreme power we have to harm their little psyches?  And acknowledging this, what if we cherished the moments we spend with our kids as the gifts that they are, doing everything in our power not to scare them, injure them, or cause them to lose that trust, but rather doing our prayerful best to build them up, love them, and cause their trust in us to be founded?  Because--and more and more the reality of this is sinking in--the time we have with our kids is brief, and our window of opportunity to influence them--either positively or negatively--is closing quickly. 

Obviously, we all love our children and would never intentionally hurt them, yet through carelessness, impatience, negligence and sin we undeniably do.  I wonder if some of those instances in which our children get hurt by us could have been avoided had we as parents simply paused for a second, held our breath, taken a mental snapshot of whatever scenario had led to that point and viewed it with eyes scanning for a gift, a blessing.  Because if we do this, if we look for the beautiful, the rare, the precious in our kids, we will certainly find it, even in those moments where it is not expected.  Children are a blessing from the Lord.  Let's treasure every moment with them, even the difficult ones, as such.

What Sunday Mornings Shouldn't Look Like

Until recently, our Sunday mornings closely resembled any other day of the week except Saturday.  In fact, as any member of my family could attest to, Sundays were probably worse than most weekdays since we all actually had somewhere to be and a time at which to be there.  (My husband's job is one that puts the "flex" in the term "flexible").  Because we love God, and because God places a premium on worshipping Him, we consider attending church to be our duty.  So, on Sunday morning we'd all get up early, get dressed ("No, you can't wear sweatpants to church!"), be ushered out the door by a huffing mother who appreciates "start times" and other such conventions, drive half an hour to church (usually in silence since some do not appreciate early morning tongue lashings about getting to places on time), and arrive...late.
After being ushered to a parking place, we'd rush the kids through check-in, hastily throw them in their classrooms, and attempt to find a suitable seat in our church's sanctuary amidst the throngs of people who were basking in the beautiful music being played by the church's band.  At the end of service, we'd weave our way through the same throngs of people who were now convening in the lobby, yell a hasty "see you soon!" to our friends, nod at the familiar faces, try not to spill coffee on or run over the strangers, and grab our kids.  We'd reweave our way out the door and into our cars in order to make the half hour drive back home.  Then we'd sigh and attempt to enjoy our Sunday.
Please don't get the wrong impression of my church.  We've attended this place for seven years.  During that time I've worked with the youth group and volunteered in the children's ministry, both attended and lead a small group for women's Bible study, and been heavily involved in a community group that we call our family. I've seen the church grow until it was bursting at it's store front seams,  contributed to its capital fund for a new building, and followed when it made the pivotal move to its new home. I've been challenged and moved by the continued quality preaching I've heard throughout the years, and can testify as to the authentic faith of the many attendees I've formed relationships with.
But this church...it is big.  And getting bigger. Which is not a bad thing. Growth means life (certainly biologists can attest to the truth of this statement) and there is certainly a lot of life in this church. But in our current m.o. Kevin and I were not experiencing the fullness of this life.  We were missing that sense of intimacy, that feeling of togetherness that I want to experience when walking through the doors of my own church, the one that our church, because of its size, has not been able to offer us.
Maybe its because my own family is so far away, but I yearn for a place where people embrace me as a member of their church family, where they notice my absence and welcome my return.  The small town girl in me is pushing back against the bigness of this place in which I am living and is trying to be more local.  Our old church does a great job loving the people in the community, but for the most part the community they are ministering to is their community, not mine.  And I know there are people right here in my neighborhood who need ministering to.  And there are plenty of churches to partner with in order to do so.
So this weekend I attended a different church, one right here in my neighborhood within walking distance.  And not only was it close, but this church was small, with a total of 25 attendees (I counted).  And, bless their hearts, with the exception of three of these attendees (again, I counted), all of them were over the age of 70.  There was one child present.  One. 
As these sweet seniors invited me to come back, I tried to imagine the chaos that would occur if I actually took them up on their offer and came back with my family in tow.  Imagined the ruckus that trying to keep two small boys quiet for an hour would induce.  Imagined the utterings that my youngest--who inevitably chooses quiet church settings to practice projecting his voice (he must appreciate the acoustics)--would emit.  Imagined the internal stress that would start to boil while I practiced my miming skills in an effort to keep my kids occupied.  And then I imagined the resulting heart attacks that all this chaos would produce in the attendees, and thought how if just one person died it would reduce the size of the congregation by 5%. 
Sigh.  Let the search for a new church begin.

Happy Father's Day (2012)

Several decades ago the sports' community grimaced as I donned a tie-dyed t-shirt, laced up whatever athletic shoes I owned, and began dribbling a ball.  Thus began my dismal three year stint of playing middle school basketball.  There is no way to sugar coat it:  I was terrible.  The technical act of dribbling a ball while moving down a court was coordination far too advanced for my lanky, clumsy self.  Zone defense, man-on-man, setting a pick--these terms were lost on me and just couldn't replace my narrow view of basketball as one of awkwardly working the ball to the end of the court and chucking it somewhere in the vicinity of the basket.

Sadly, my team was no better.  We were a rag tag bunch of girls from a small parochial school who had been recruited mainly because our school wanted a girls' basketball team and we were the few who fell into the category of "girl".  Technically, the team was supposed to be comprised of seventh and eighth graders, but because our numbers were shy we enlisted the help of our fifth and sixth grade friends.  The combination of youth and inexperience, together with a large degree of unathleticism, rendered us winless for my entire career.  Wins: zero.  Win average: zero.  Talent:  not quite zero, but pretty darn close.

Found in the middle of this gaggle of ineptitude was our coach, who just so happened to be my dad.  I don't know why he decided to coach the girls' basketball team.  Very likely he was the only one willing to take on the challenge (humility?) of coaching a Lutheran middle school girls' team.  Perhaps he saw it as a chance to spend some time with his two oldest daughters, who were quickly slipping away into adolescence and all the comes with it.  Whatever the reason, our coach he became and our coach he remained.

And remain he did.  Through the musty old armory practices he remained.  Through the cheerlessness that losing over and over again brings he remained.  Through the petty eighth grade girl squabbles he remained.  Through the drills that we repeated over and over in practice only to be forgotten the second the referee's whistle blew he remained, yelling at us from the sidelines, throwing his hands in the air at the debacle that was occuring on the court, but remaining, always, throughout.

And despite the dolorous activity that was happening on the court, my dad could always be counted on to point out the positive.  "I saw some good playing out there."  "You guys showed great sportsmanship on the court today."  "We didn't lose by as much as we did the last time we played that team."  There weren't many highlights to be found in our Immanual team, but the ones that existed my dad always managed to uncover and lay bare for us to see, so that no matter how discouraged we were or how much we (ok, I) hated the sport of basketball, for my dad's sake we were always determined to get back on the court and give it our all, even if our all didn't amount to a whole lot. 

Because we were his daughters, my sister and I had the privilege of riding home with the coach following practice and games.  Mostly we'd sit in silence, listening to whatever classic rock was playing on the radio at the time.  Occasionally, however, my dad would use the time to flesh out what happened in practice or during the game.  Despite my total lack of basketball ability, my dad still believed in me and told me as much.  He expressed his confidence in me as a leader and reminded me to never give up.  He didn't get too involved with my adolescent life away from the court (and I really can't blame him), but I think he used basketball as a means to teach me lessons that could be applied to every day life.  I remember a particularly difficult period in eighth grade when school events left me questioning my worth as a person.  My dad took advantage of the quiet car ride before returning to the chaos that is life in a family of six to remind me to stay true to who I was, that I was valuable no matter what other people thought.  He followed up by giving me a big hug and telling me he loved me. 

He can still be counted on for those hugs and "I love you"s.

Dad, I've thanked you for many things (although probably not enough), but this time I want to thank you for being my basketball coach throughout those middle school years, for the time you spent in practices and at games, for the pride it cost you to coach such an unsuccessful team, for the patience it requires to bear with large numbers of hormonal pre-teens, and for the lessons and love you dished out along the way.  Along with being a #1 dad, you were definitely a #1 coach.

Be still

Be still, and know that I am God.

Be still?  I've been doing that quite a bit these days but lately I've been struggling with it, God.  You know me so you know things are going pretty well, but my tendency has always been to look to the next thing...

Be still, and know that I am God.

...like when my freaking hydrangeas are going to bloom.  Everyone else's have and although I give mine water and food and didn't overprune them and planted them in part shade, they just sit there with that outside ring of flowers while the inside cluster obstinately refuses to do anything which, now that you remind me, sounds a lot like my children...

Be still, and know that I am God.

...who aren't really listening to me these days, either.  The little one just looks at me when I tell him to do something and laughs and says that he's a baby dolphin which he might as well be because at least then I wouldn't have to deal with the problem of getting the child to poop IN THE POTTY and the big one continues to have his meltdowns and probably will  never learn to write or color in the lines like his teacher wants him to and there always seems to be some issue to deal with...

Be still, and know that I am God.

...but these issues pale in comparison to the problems others are facing, like the one whose husband is traveling all the time while she sits lonely at home with her toddler and newborn baby, or the one who is trying to keep the bitterness at bay because she just wants to have a baby and can't, or the one who just wants a husband but had all hopes of that dashed with last month's breakup, or the one whose family member's pain has turned out to be cancer and the only course of action is to make every day count from here on out, and I just want to help these people but there's so little I can do...

Be still, and know that I am God.

...which puts everything in perspective, of course, but I can't help thinking about THE INJURY and about how everything was finally feeling really good so I decided to go out for a spin on my bike, which was amazing but later on in the day I again felt THE INJURY so I have no choice but to wait some more and I know you've been teaching me a lot during this time but I'm getting really impatient and just want to go out and get MOVING, for goodness's sake--

BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.  And don't forget: I, the Lord Almighty, am with you; I, the God of Jacob, am your fortress.

....

Dear Facebook

First off, I have to tell you that I am definitely a fan of yours.  I love the way you give me access to the lives of people I barely know, allowing me to know where they work, letting me see pictures of their children graduating preschool, teaching me that they do not think favorably of the latest referendum taking place in their state, which is likely miles and miles from my own.  I especially like the time you save me.  In a short, often witty sentence, you quickly catch me up on the details of my actual friends' lives, so that I can be all, "I saw on FB that you went to that new restaurant," thus saving me the pain of having long-winded conversations:  "Oh hey, how are you?  So what have you been up to?  Oh, how was date night?  What new restaurant?  How did you like it?"  Such tedium.  I think Entertainment Weekly summed it up best when it said, ""How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"

So it causes me great pain to inform you that I am going to have to take a break from you, dear friend, and from the 333 friends, relatives, and other acquaintances I can spy on--I mean, "continuously stay in touch with wherever they are in the world!"  (Whew.  Thanks, Wikipedia!)  I know others have done the same, stating "I'm taking a break from FB" on their status and going MIA for a month or so.  Their reasons vary, but when pressed they'll tell me (through FB, I don't actually talk to most of these people in real life) that they just wanted to disconnect for a while, they didn't like the time FB took from them, or they wanted to live more intentionally.   I, on the other hand, am perfectly content answering your siren's call, oh wonderful social media tool. I don't think that ooccasionally checking my neighbor's status while ignoring my kids' pleas to play with them makes me a bad mother. And who among us hasn't checked FB while going to the bathroom? It's no different than reading a book on the toilet.

No, my break stems from something else entirely and has to do, of course, with THE INJURY.  As you may know, Facebook, summer is a good time for physical activity.  As the weather warms and the days grow longer, people venture outside and start moving.  They discover that moving makes them feel good.  Before long, they decide to move toward a goal, so they sign up for different athletic events:  5ks, triathlons, fun runs, marathons.  And then the postings begin.  "Look at me!  I just signed up for the such and such triathlon!"  Or, "I'm going to run the Mud Run!  Am I crazy or what?"  Or, "Here's a picture of me having just run my longest run ever!  It was awesome!"  Nothing whatsoever wrong with this.  I used to do the same thing myself.  Except that now, of course, I can't.  THE INJURY has disqualified me from training for any such races and I'm not going to get too many "likes" with posts like this: "Just took my dog for a really slow 30 minute walk.  Got to clean up his poop.  It was awesome!" 

So I am left to read about everyone else's pursuits.  And this is when Bitterness creeps in along with his close friend, Envy.  They make themselves comfortable in my heart as I am perusing you, Facebook.  And I get mad at my friends, who (let's be honest here, FB) aren't even my friends.  But some of them are, and instead of applauding their efforts and encouraging them, I am envying them and somehow holding them responsible for my inability to do the same things they are doing. 

After a while I am forced to ask myself if this sort of behavior is healthy, which, of course, it is not.  I feel lousy enough not being able to run or do anything else without having to deal with the ugly feelings that come about every time someone mentions physical activity.  1 Corinthians 13, the Bible's golden chapter on love, states that "Love does not envy, and is not easily angered."  Rather, "Love is patient and kind."  I know the kind thing would be to write something encouraging on my friends' statuses (surely this isn't the plural form of "status") and patiently wait for the day to come when I can join them, but right now I'm not there.  So it's easier for me to just walk away, to stop checking you, to--(gasp)--DELETE YOU FROM MY PHONE.  (No, silly, I am not going to delete my account.  I enjoy our relationship too much for such nonsense as that.)  In the meantime, I will pray for healing of THE INJURY and of my heart, will spend some more time playing with my kids, and will look for different reading material for the bathroom.

Amazing

My children are amazing.  I don't mean that in a delusional sort of way, where I hold onto the believe that my own offspring are far more superior than everyone else's.  The fact that my youngest stuck a toy car into his bare buttocks today proves otherwise.  Being their mother, however, I get the chance to observe them far more frequently than most other kids, so it would follow that they are the ones who constantly amaze me, although my observations, I'm pretty sure, can be transferred to most children.  Because this is my blog, however, I am going to discuss why my children are amazing, and you can relax  knowing that most of what is said about the amazingness of my children can be applied to yours as well (with the exception of the car/butt incident.  Nothing amazing about that).

Why my children are amazing #1:  They are made out of rubber. 
This is the only reason I can figure as to why my children aren't in full body casts.  The things they do to their little frames is truly frightening: sliding down the stairs face first--on purpose (I had to clarify because if I ever did such a thing it certainly would be an accident, a very terrible accident), racing across a field full throttle in a bent over position while pushing a toy dump truck and not breaking a sweat (how can that not be painful, let alone fun?), playing tornado on a daily basis (directions:  spin around as fast as you can for as long as you can until you are impossibly dizzy.  Fall.  Repeat.), and other activities that attempt to defeat the laws of physics.  Sure, we go through a fair number of bandages (one of the items, along with batteries and diapers, I wish I would have bought stock in prior to having children).  But these cuts and scrapes heal.  The fact is that children just don't pull their groins or their hips or whatever impossibly dumb injury I have.  Because, like Tigger, their tops are made out of rubber, and their bottoms are made out of springs.  (It just dawned on me that A.A. Milne must have had children of his own.

Why my children are amazing #2:  Their youthfulness.
"You can only by young once.  But you can always be immature."  How right you are, Dave Barry, but I'd trade that immaturity in a heartbeat to have the perfect, smooth, blemish-free skin that my boys have, to eat a cupcake without worrying how many calories you are going to be sending to your rear end (we all know kids metabolize food differently than adults, sending any calories that enter their bodies directly to their legs, arms, and mouths, turning them into little energizer bunnies that talk), to have a face that expresses "innocence" rather than "haggardness."  There was a time when I wasn't getting injured every other month, where I could almost get away with going makeupless and not scaring people, where I could eat pretty much what I wanted, when I wanted.  It was in my twenties.  And it has definitely expired, leaving me to spend more time looking less attractive, to eat less and have to exercise more and still not lose weight, and to work at temporarily displacing the look of exasperation that has become a permanent feature of my face.  I should probably stop here, I'm depressing myself even further.  Which is another amazing thing about my kids:  they don't get depressed.

Why my children are amazing #:  They can surprise you in the most wonderful ways.
Having dealt with my upper limit of temper tantrums today, I was mildly peeved (read: about to lose my mind) when my oldest started crying AGAIN, this time after he had gone to bed, because HE wanted to sleep with the train book, not the rascally little brother who had thought of it first.  It being well past the hour where I mentally punch out on the parenting clock, I hoped I could just ignore the intermittent cries until he just gave it up and went to sleep.  45 minutes later and the cries continued.  Desperate for some quiet, I marched upstairs with the resolve to end the crying--just resolve, no plan.  Duct tape?  Smothering with a pillow?  I was gonna wing it.  "WHAT DO YOU WANT???"  I stupidly asked, fully prepared to hear something about train books and little brothers and the unfairness of the world.  "I just want to give you a hug," came the quiet and teary response.  Well, what do you say to that, except to snuggle with the little guy, who quietly told me he loved me (even though at that point I was just about as unlovable as you can get), and to thank God for this quiet and beautiful gift to close out  my day.

My children are amazing.

The Beauty in Personal Dormancy--or Not

Ugh. 

That about sums up my feelings on what seemed like the longest day ever--a  little alarming, since it's only May and a month away from the summer solstice.  The alarming part has to do with the fact that nothing really out of the ordinary occurred today.  The weather was beautiful.  The boys--now 4 and 2 (YIKES!!)--were their usual boisterous, busy, and all-things-boy selves.  Just another typical middle-of-the-week Wednesday.  With one glaring exception. 

THE INJURY has returned.  For the second time in half a year, I've injured my hip, rendering me unable to run.  This time around my body has put a unique little twist on the injury, however, in that I have also mysteriously pulled my groin as well, thus prohibiting any of my usual cross training.  My primary care doctor told me to--surprise!--take some time off to let it heal.  So that's what I'm doing.  Taking time off.  No running, biking, swimming, step aerobicking, yogaing.  Can't even power walk.  So what's a girl to do but give painfully slow walks to her dog, who coincidentally has a colander around his neck because of his own injury and probably looks even more ridiculous than I do.  What a pair we make.

And although the bulk of my days looks pretty much the same since the majority of my workouts occurred in the morning, the absence of working out is taking it's toll.  Prior to THE INJURY, when I was able to get up before my people, put on my running shoes and head out the door, it was like giving myself a present.  I'd tuck my little gift away as my real day began and wouldn't think about it much throughout the day.  Every now and again, though, when I began losing sight of myself, as the distinction between me and the all-encompassing job of mommy would blur and I'd meld into "Mom: the person who watches the kids all day, sacrificing herself for their growth and development", I'd revisit my little gift and be reminded of my secret, that time I had carved into my day just for myself.  It was reassurance, even if it was false, that I was someone else outside of my kids.

And now I've been robbed of my present, bringing me back to the "ugh" at the beginning of this post. It's been over two weeks now, and I've tried hard not to wallow in the inevitable depression that THE INJURY brings about.  I've tried putting my trust in God, knowing that He has plans for me, plans to prosper me and not harm me, plans for my hope and future (Jer. 29:11), and that somehow THE INJURY might even play into His plans.  I've been forced to rely on Him to supply that which running used to provide--stress relief, weight control, endorphin rushes, sanity.  I know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:3-4).  But right now I feel like I've been robbed of something that makes me who I am.  I have nothing to claim as my own, and it's certainly taking it's toll.

So I wait.  Not sure what I'm waiting for, I wait on God, who acts on behalf of those who wait on Him (Isaiah 64:4).  Perhaps He's refining me, working on my character, using this time to prepare me for something new, something better that He has for me.  But I hate waiting.  In my convoluted mind, waiting equates to doing nothing.  And in today's world, doing nothing is frowned on.  We are supposed to work in order to produce! produce! produce! 

And so my little devotional today really struck a chord when it brought up Psalm 1:3, reminding me that I am to be "like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in season."  Huh?  Oh that's right, trees don't constantly produce fruit.  If they did, the trees would have nothing left--no branches, no leaves, no beauty. The writer called on us to embrace the beauty of personal dormancy (doesn't that sound lovely?): "We must allow for it and accept it joyfully...A time of inner strength-gathering for a better bloom later."  Is this what THE INJURY is for me, a time of personal dormancy?  A way of preparing me for better blooms to come?  Sounds a heck of a lot better than sitting on the sidelines getting fat because of my bum hip. 

So I have nothing to do but wait. And pray that I can see THE INJURY as a time of personal dormancy.