The Perfect Storm

This morning was to be an important moment in the life of my oldest daughter. She would take a step in her faith journey by receiving her first Bible at church. First thing, I worked to have my family out the door on time. The girls were in new dresses, everyone's hair was just so. Then AP lost it in the car over a missing book and everything tumbled apart. My nerves were on edge, my patience nonexistent.
We parked and made it inside only for it to get worse. I accidentally hit AP on the head with a door in my attempt to square away MP's belongings in the nursery before service began. She started to cry. I could get into more detail, and there was more, but basically I raised my voice at her and dragged her upstairs towards the sanctuary. What's worse, I blamed her for the accident.
There are so many excuses I could give for how this happened. Some would show you how I got to the point I did. But none of them really matter. What matters is that my quest for the way I thought the picture of this morning should look like turned me into a monster.
How often do we work for perfection and in the process miss the point?
I wanted both of my girls to be beautiful, with no tears on their faces or wrinkles in their dresses. I wanted smiles. I wanted my husband to miraculously decide not to take the last few minutes at home to himself like he always does, to do more than feed the kids breakfast and buckle them into their car seats (which he did).
Meanwhile, how did I look? There I was, yelling at my child in public, snapping at my husband when he tried to intervene.
I'll tell you how I looked. Ugly. Anything but the perfection I was striving for.
Later, during worship time, a line in a song hit me over the head:
"I want to love you when the blood in my veins doesn't know how to."
Blood in my veins. I'll tell you, the blood in my veins was running hot today. There wasn't much love going on in there.
So how do we love God, and in turn others, when the blood in our veins is so....human. How do we love like a perfect God when we are so imperfect? How do we love in those moments (and you know we all have them).
I think we start by acknowledging that He first loved us. And does now. I am humbled beyond words that God loved me through the poor decisions I made this morning. If He could love me through that, shouldn't I be able to love my family better than I do? If He could love me when I failed so miserably, shouldn't I do better next time?
Ah, there it is. His love, His grace, should drive us to do just that. To strive for perfection. But not our idea of perfection. Do you think God cares who wore what this morning? Do you think he cares whether AP's face was tear stained or her hair was combed? Surely not. God wants us to come to Him as we are. No primping beforehand, just raw and real and honest. That is the point. And as we do, and we experience His love, we are drawn towards a more perfect life. A life perfect because of and through Him.
There simply is no other way.

Fresh back from an extended Christmas vacation in sunny Florida, I'm relishing the fact that we're all healthy. Some of us even got a tan, yours truly excluded. The girls swam, KP had a full 10 days to relax, and I was able to come up for air after the whirlwind that the holidays always bring.
The trip gave us time to spend with both sets of parents. This was, for the most part, quite enjoyable. Through the gift giving, cooking, eating, and football watching, I realized that KP and I truly have our own family now. Through the years, we created a home and we run it and our lives differently than our parents. We both found humor in the subtle -and not so subtle- differences between us and those who gave us life. KP can't stand his parents blatant ignorance of expiration dates on food. My parents live in the middle of nowhere and you can't step outside for two minutes without getting locked out of the house. Generally, these things just make us laugh.
But in all the adjustments to each other there is something that kept the season bright, or rather two things: AP and MP. The joy that children bring to a holiday is undeniable. People tend to put their differences aside as they celebrate with the young. Part of it is surely the excitement, but another is their unshakeable faith in the unseen.
This weekend at church we took a look at Psalm 8. This song of praise has a verse right at the beginning that floored me. Verse 2 says: from the mouths of infants and nursing babes You have established strength (NASB). I saw this verse literally personified over the holidays in so many ways. Our youngest, now nearing 2, loves to pray. The moment we are all seated before a meal the smallest of the KPs is sitting calmly, hands clasped, ready to thank God for the bounty before us. It is so adorable that I found Kevin's not so religious parents excited for the dinner prayer every evening. MP allowed what could be an awkward situation (praying in the home of someone who doesn't practice such things) to become the norm, expected even.
When Jesus was teaching, his disciples attempted to keep the children who wanted to touch him at a distance. They saw no place for them there. Jesus saw otherwise, he was "indignant" (Mark 10:14 NIV). He knew the importance of the faith of a child. In fact, he spoke of our very salvation as tied to it.
Small children don't just think God loves them. They know it, in a way we as adults lose sight of. Sure, we can think of a long list of reasons why we lose it. Life happens, the world happens, hurt happens. But when anyone encounters a child's demonstrations of faith, their own faith is changed. God often uses small things to show His strength. Little people, little moments, little steps - this is where one will see God.
My favorite pose in yoga is the child's pose. A resting pose, it is the most comfortable position I've ever found for my earthly body. It stretches the right places and provides a place of peace. As I sat in it this morning, I realized how perfectly named it is. The pose, like a child's faith, just feels right.
Through the holidays, the time with family, and the break from the norm, my children reminded me to just accept the gift of God's son. Accept it fully, with abandon, and most of all with joy.
May we count our blessings all the way through 2012.

Insert Name Here

I've been thinking about something lately. As mentioned in my previous post, with KP away I am attempting to adopt a more thankful attitude. If I approach life with a thankful heart I am sure I can live a better, stronger, more peaceful existence.
Of course shortly after this decision, and my prayers to follow, God answers. There's been more than one instance, but I won't bore you with my little daily assurances that God is real. I'll just bore you with one.
At the start of this week a dear friend of mine referenced Psalm 136. This Psalm is a liturgy of praise to the Lord, listing the things He made and the things Hedid for the people of Israel. I found myself drawn to this Psalm the morning she shared it. After each acknowledgement there is a refrain. The NIV Bible uses "His love endures forever." The Message version says "His love never quits." Suddenly I found my version. "His love never ends." I realized I could easily insert my life story into that Psalm.
Right after praising God for creating the sun and moon and stars, I could thank him for loving me. Always and always.

The God who brought me KP
His love never ends.
Led me to our church
His love never ends.
Used His perfect timing to send us our beloved children
His love never ends.
Keeps us clothed and sheltered
His love never ends.
Remains patient despite the mess that is my life
His love never ends.

His love never ends!

How many of us heard a song on the radio in the last week and related it to our lives? Perhaps we thought of a loved one, a memory, a hope. We tie stories, songs, and the like to ourselves all the time. Simply put, Psalm 136 is a song. And in inserting my story into its lines, I made it personal. In the end, that's what God wants. He wants us to take His story to heart so that our story will reflect Him.

Peace of My Mind

This weekend we headed to the mountains. For the girls and I, it was an escape. For KP, I fear just more travel.

Which has me thinking about the new direction of our lives. The two of us, the founding members of this family, will have to see the give and take we attempt to balance now rise to a new level. There will be times I just want to get out of the house when all he wants to do is stay home. Our idea of a break may take on different meanings.

One thing I’m working to do in this new life is to be proactive in the way I will handle the inevitable differences. In a recent look at peace, I pondered the difference between the peace that stems from faith versus peace the world brings.

Our culture sells peace to us in many ways. Just turn on the television or open a magazine. If you take this trip, drink this beer, listen to this music, you will be able to escape from it all. But these escapes are temporary. We yearn for a private stretch of beach, a break from it all. If only we had a quiet night, some sort of retreat from normal life.

But then we come back to reality and nothing has changed. The temporary peace is gone, and often the little nagging issues seem magnified. We are never satisfied.

Enter true peace. This type of peace is eternal. We can take it with us from the grocery store to the beach and back. It is there from home to the road, from the road back home. And all the way to our eternal home.

This seems easy enough, but how do I gain that peace? When the kids need one more thing before I can sit down and join them for dinner, when that person cuts me off in the car, when I haven’t seen Kevin in days, how then? The answer is Jesus.

(By the way, here’s a little hint the high school girls at church gave me – the answer is always Jesus).

Expanded, the answer means that we can’t find that peace alone. We can try, but think of it this way; you’re on a journey, you’ve packed the essential necessities, you’re making good time. Then you reach a river and there’s no way across. It’s deep and rough. Yeah, okay, you get it. Jesus is the bridge! I know, pretty amazing.

But nothing is that easy. We do have to start the journey. And don't forget about the essentials. They include the good book, regular chats with its author, time to rest both our bodies and souls, and an often overlooked attribute: thankfulness. If I stop for one moment and think about all I have, the blessings in my life, everything takes on new meaning. A grateful heart foster peace.

For this week, I'll attempt to start there - to be grateful wherever I am.

If I'd known you weren't coming to dinner...

I definitely wouldn't have made this enormous roast.
The past couple of months have been a state of limbo. Our paterfamilias, KP, took a new job as a consultant - a traveling consultant. Waiting for his first commission, KP geared up for this new fragmented life. We waited for the news of his first assignment. It came, and it was local. The luck of the draw! We began adjusting to life with KP at home. Not just home. Working from home.
Then start of this week, I'm minding my own business, running errands while the kids are in preschool, and my beloved phones. "I got a new assignment," he says. "I fly tonight."
All I can think is, what about the roast in the Crockpot? Who's going to eat all that meat?
He packs, he leaves, and I'm setting a table for three. Our girls, aged 3 and 1, are mostly oblivious to the change. But I feel like I've experienced whiplash of the heart. I instantly miss my husband with an intensity I didn't see coming. Probably because when I said my prayers Monday morning they didn't include asking that he have a safe flight before we even sat down to dinner.
Five years ago, I could not have imagined this life. I had just returned from a mission trip halfway around the world. I had a promising career. I was the adventurer, the dreamer, the doer. Then AP came along, and turned my world upside down. I looked into that sweet little face, and gave my heart away. I knew in my bones that my place was with her. Meanwhile, KP's career took off. Now here we are.

I keep imagining KP as a modern-day explorer. Which leaves me as the wife pacing the widow’s walk, waiting for some sign of his ship on the horizon. I didn't see myself as the one to stay behind, tending the hearth, children tugging on my apron strings while I cook dinner. Yet somehow in that imagery, the roast I put on Monday morning fits.
You never know where you’re going to be sent. As I learned in my Bible study yesterday morning, God calls each one of us to an extraordinary life. But, like David the shepherd before us, that doesn’t mean we leave the field we’re in. David was anointed to be king, yet his trade was tending sheep. He didn’t leave that call until it was time. The time in the field is what prepared him for everything to come.

I am now the person by the hearth. I am the rock in my family's lives. I know my new role is to keep a light on for them. To do my best to keep it lit so they can always find their way home.
This is my adventure.