I'm Not Her

Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again.  I love Peter, Paul, and Mary.  If you didn't sing that when you read it, please go back and do it.  Makes you smile a little.

Actually, I do know when I'm coming home.

Funny how we assume things.  My flight is scheduled to return on Sunday evening.  As I was preparing to go, I wondered what if something happened and I didn't make it back.

Did I make a difference in the lives of my family and friends?  Did I leave them with spiritual wisdom that would get them through the rest of their lives trusting the Lord for His faithfulness?

Would I wish I had spent more time holding and less time cleaning?  More time speaking life and less time speaking death?  More time listening and less time talking?

So as I've been packing and marking things off lists,  I've been reflective.  By the way, sometimes I get reflective when I'm about to go in to town to Walmart.

What treasures have I stored up in heaven?  Storing up treasures is not marking off letters on a list.  It is holding daughter who is overwhelmed with worldly acting people who don't care who they hurt.

I want to be the momma who is selfless.

I'm not her.

I want to be the momma who is patient and loving, even when the house is a mess and I'm trying to prepare for a retreat a few hundred miles away, then another one five days after I get back.

I'm not her.

I want to be the momma who isn't looking at the watch when daughter is telling something important to her heart.  I want to be momma who doesn't get frustrated when the help is minimal.

I'm not her.

I'm not her, but I'm working on her, and hopefully she'll be the one getting off the plane on Sunday night instead of me.

Be All There

There probably hasn't been one day in the last 40 something 100 degree plus days that I haven't mentioned that I can't wait for fall.  I'm so ready for the cool in the air and the smells and the leaves and the colors.

Especially the cool in the air.

It seems I am always looking ahead to something.

Always.

Several weeks back I was reading about Elizabeth Elliott.  Ms. Elliott was one of the first christian authors I ever remember reading.  As I was reading, I came across something she said that has honestly stayed with me and I remember on a daily basis:

"Wherever you are, be all there."

I constantly think ahead.  To the next project, chore, or meeting.  When my body is one place, my mind is usually already on to the next.

Sometimes when I'm really busy Hannah will come in for a hug.  I stop what I'm doing and give her a hug.  Then I do the "pat on the back because I'm busy" so I can get back to work thing.  To which she promptly replies, "Don't pat, Mom".  It's not a real hug unless I'm all there.  And she knows it.

Who am I fooling? 

 She knows it, others know it. 

 God knows it.

If I could only hug without pats, listen without glances, study without distractions, pray without interruptions.

Matt 22:37 says that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our strength and with all our mind.  

To BE ALL THERE.

I kind of think that if I do it right with Him, I'll do it right with them.  I want to do it right.

I don't want to thrive on the busy.  I want to take advantage of every minute.

So bad, I want to be all there.

Sittin' by the Pool

Michael and I came up yesterday for his family reunion in Fredericksburg. I love this little town. I've been enough that the stores are not new and exciting, but maybe that's why I love it. It is familiar.

I came out this morning to sit by the pool and really don't have a thing to say. At least anything that would make anyone get introspective or anything.

This really couldn't get much better. There is new furniture out here, so I'm sitting at the end of the pool on a new little couch. With my feet up on the cushions. Smelling the chlorine which smells like barefoot in summer.

The sprinkler is watering the grass. The kind of sprinkler I like that keeps time as it shoots out water in spurts, then goes back real fast. Love it. The crepe myrtles are pretty in pink, the birds are singing, I just spent some time reading a Bible study by a lady named Mary Elizabeth Baxter born in the 1830's. Pretty special.

The manager of the motel here just came to put water in the pool pushing his 2 year old twins in a stroller. Made me miss the girls. I get to go pick them up tomorrow morning and I cannot wait. The part I'm looking forward to the most is all the stories told at the same time. I usually hear three different perspectives of the same story. When they would come home from Mother's Day Out when they were four, they would talk all the way home and part of the day. My head would go back and forth as each picked up her part of the telling.

I never feel like I pray enough for them and their older siblings. So often I wake in the middle of the night, knowing I didn't get enough "on my knees" time during the day.

Praying they be set aside for His use. That they realize He wants all of them.

All of Each of them.

I honestly don't think we can ever do enough on our own to prepare them for all the hurts of this fallen world.

I don't ever want to stop trying to do enough. Whether I'm on my knees, on my face, or sitting by a pool.

It was interesting this morning that when I was reading the Bible study of Mary Baxter

that there was an old hymn she had typed out. What was interesting about that is that it is the same hymn that I have had on my mind since last Sunday. It was on a worship CD I was playing on my way back from dropping Leah off at camp. I played it many times during the week, and then, wa-la, here it is again this morning.

This hymn is about giving ALL.

Total surrender.

That is what I want for my husband, my children, and my grandchildren. BUT, and that's a big BUT: I need to desperately want it for myself first.

So, here goes, take it in slowly:

TAKE my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

Take my moments and my days;
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and ‘beautiful’ for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.

Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure–store.

Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, ALL for Thee.

Now that is total surrender.

Never gonna stop trying.

I

Serving Up Mercy

The mornings were always the hardest.

At night I would turn the timer on the television to go off after I was sound asleep. The bathroom light was left on just in case one, two, or three of the kids came in sometime in the night and crawled into the bed big enough for all of us.

I needed noise and I needed light.

The mornings were hardest because I woke up as the only responsible adult in their lives. There wasn’t another around any more, even for every other weekend visits or holidays traded. I hated to wake their little heads from a peaceful sleep to the reality of one parent. Hated it.

They slept content and tranquil. I didn’t want to be the one to mess it up.

I’m not sure how I got there - to the scripture He breathed to me that gave me so much comfort.

How I got to the promise that I did not have to be consumed in grief. Consumed in fear or loneliness. Consumed in the seeming finality of death.

Not only was I not to be consumed with those things, I was also supposed to rest in the promises of His mercy new every morning. Every morning. His promise to me--straight from His heart to my heart. And I believed Him.

I trusted Him when He told me I could. I believed His faithfulness was great.

Some mornings I knew I would need more than other days. It was there. For awhile I spoke His words back at Him as my bare feet touched the floor first thing every morning. As months passed I would just remind Him of His promise. I didn’t have to tell Him which promise, He knew what I was talking about.

We were that close.

As “You promised” came through my lips, I think He smiled. No, I know He smiled. I know He smiled because it brought Him joy that I trusted Him and I knew He and only He had what I needed. What the kids needed.

He was Father to the fatherless. He was strength to my weakness.

I learned so much from Him during that time. So grateful for that journey.

Now. Bring on the morning.


Lamentations 3:22-24

A Mom Blessed

I’ve started this several times, wanting to write about Mother’s Day, but I ended up beating myself up each time with so many regrets that it was flat depressing. So I deleted.

Yesterday morning I was going to work some on my porch, but went to pick up 200+ roses to give to mommies today at church, then went home to cook for supper with Michael’s family. As I was doing my running around, I started thanking God for different things that remind me of the greatest job in the world – being a mom.

Thought I’d share.

I’m thankful for . . .

. . . stretch marks that remind me that I carried 4 children until they were fully done.

. . . a scar down the middle of my tummy that now resembles a loaf of Split Top Mrs. Baird’s bread because the twins couldn’t stay until they were completely done, and needed help getting here. Sorry for the visual.

. . . sleepless nights when the older three were little, then more sleepless nights ten years later when the younger three were little, because it reminds me that I had babies to hold.

. . . sleepless nights when all of them are now much older, because it reminds me that I’m supposed to be praying for them as they walk through situations that happen because we live in a fallen world.

. . . laugh lines because it reminds me that there was lots of laughter. So much laughter that Leah would sometimes throw up at the dinner table because she was laughing so hard.

. . . a white plastic bag tucked away in my drawer with 9 little wrenches in it because it reminds me that the kids think it is funny that I can’t find at least one of their stocking gifts. Every year.

. . . reading glasses that slide down a ways on my nose because they remind me that I am now called Lollie as well as Momma. I look like a grandma.

. . . the words “coke” and “hot sauce” instead of “pop” and “salsa” because it reminds me they love tradition. They want to do it like we’ve always done it and never change, no matter that the whole state may say it different.

I won’t continue this out loud to spare you a long boring story, but I’m not going to stop thanking God for the every day reminders of why I am so blessed to be momma.

So very blessed.

T is for the Tears

Mrs. Oden stood behind the piano with one hand on the keys and the other up where all her sixth grade students could see as she directed us in music class.  She taught her students from the time we entered the room and took our seats until the time we lined up to return to our classroom. She taught us all the classic holiday songs.

One of those songs has been going through my mind the last week or so. You will probably remember it.

M is for the million things she gave me
O means only that she's growing old :(
T is for the tears she shed to save me
H is for her heart of purest gold
E is for her eyes, the love-light shining
R is right and right she'll always be

Put them all together they spell MOTHER
The word that means the world to me.

It's kind of a funny song to me now. "A million things" seems like a stretch. I know I'm growing old, I really don't want to be sung to about it. The next part is where I've been stuck the last few days: "the tears she shed to save me". We probably never really thought about what we were singing when we were 12 years old. Save from what?

Now that I'm a mom and think back to the times when I was brought to tears for the sake of my children, I can see how that phrase can apply. Save them from everything. There have been times of weeping over physical things, but many more times of weeping over spiritual things. I don't know this for a fact, but I kind of think that all those tears will go into that bottle talked about in Psalm 66. Then my mind keeps going and I think that maybe they those tears are the precious stones that will be poured out of that bottle and stacked up with the gold, silver, wood, hay, and straw that will be tested by fire when I stand in front of my Jesus. If I don't shed tears of joy, of frustration, of petition for my kids, there may not be any shed. I believe there is power in those prayers that are poured out from our hearts like that.

Tonight I went through 16 dozen roses and took the thorns off before we give them to our moms tomorrow. One thing I noticed is that the ones that smelled the best had the most thorns. Interesting, huh?

To Kyle, Adam, Kayla, Hannah, Leah, and Rachel: I'm so very proud to be your mom. I love you more than life.
To Jade, Kevin, and Amber: even though I didn't give birth to you, I pray for you as if I did. I love you that much.
To Eli: you are amazing. Lollie loves you Baby.

I'm so grateful I have something to cry about.

The Watch

You cannot walk into my closet. You can lean into my closet. I have photography stuff, sewing machine, old school books, shoes and, oh yeah, clothes - all thrown in there because there is no other place. And because we were having young adults over last night so everything was hidden in my closet - and under the bed - so it would look like my house was clean. I'm not the poster child for being a "keeper at home" like Titus 2 tells us we are to be. The sad thing about that is that I don't have a job outside the home that keeps from being here to make sure things run smoothly. I know some girls that have a full time job and family and can still put their hands on anything that is needed at home because she is a "keeper at home". When I looked up the definition of what being a keeper at home means, one of the words that caught my attention was to be a "watch" over her home. She is to make sure things run smoothly as far as knowing there is clean underwear in the drawers and where the screwdriver is, but also to know what is going on spiritually. We've talked about that before. She looks well to the ways of her household. I'm telling you, the Lord tells us in several ways the importance of knowing and fighting off the enemy from our homes. If you don't dust and mop once a week, I kind of think the Lord won't ask you to be accountable for that when you stand before Him. If you don't watch and pray against the sin in your home, you will answer for it.

I love Nehemiah. He was a Jew that had been taken into captivity and had been assigned to be cupbearer for the king. Nehemiah got word that the wall was down around his beloved city Jerusalem. He was able to take a leave of absence from his cupbearing resposibilities and take materials back to begin the rebuilding of the wall. When he got there he was walking over the rubble of the wall and two men (Sanballat and Tobiah) came up to him and basically told him the job was too big - there was no way he would be able to get the wall rebuilt. That is how the enemy gets many of us when we are trying to do something to fortify or protect our temple, whether physically or spiritually. He discourages us and we give up and quit. Nehemiah didn't quit. He positioned a person with a horn to be able to alert him of enemy threat. He circled the city with people who carried weapons, then he had others that worked on the wall and carried weapons, and some that just worked on the wall. They were all ready to fight off the enemy while the work was going on.

When we lived in Stillwater I planted a garden and had eight tomato plants. They were planted on their little mound and then I put a circle of dirt around each plant. The girls were helping me one day and I showed them a few little weeds coming up around the tomatoes. I told them the story of Nehemiah and how he was rebuilding the wall around the city. I showed them the circle of dirt around each tomato. Told them that each tomato represented one of us in our family. There was the daddy tomato, mommy tomato, down to the Rachel tomato. We had to watch it closely, and whenever we saw a weed coming up we had to pull it up so it wouldn't swallow up our daddy, mommy, etc. I explained that is like sin in our lives and if there are a bunch of weeds (sin) the tomatoes would be choked out and we wouldn't have fresh hot sauce. The weeds were the enemy. It was so cute to watch them yank out the weeds while yelling for them to "leave us alone!" There were a couple of times I remember specifically being out there with a hoe, chopping like a mad woman. Just me and God. Even when the weeds were cleared I kept chopping and crying that the enemy would leave my kids alone. That, my sweet one, is keeping a watch over your home. I wish I was always that diligent, but I'm not.

Forgive me, Sweet Jesus, when I get tired or too busy to keep a watch over my home. Burden my heart to listen for the Holy Spirit to be the alarm when there is enemy attack on the ones I love. Then to hoe until there are blisters on my hands and I see You clearly and beautifully in their lives. Oh, my heart loves You!

Supermom to the Rescue!

When my big kids were little, the word "supermom" became a new word in the world's vocabulary. It was my quest in life to one day own that crown and scepter! Kayla was born on a Friday. On Saturday morning we left the hospital, went to the mall for a couple of hours, then to another store and finally rolled into Snyder right in time for Kyle's soccer game. When she was 10 days old, Adam fell and broke his leg. He was almost three years old and, with that body cast, weighed about 100 pounds. My daddy brought me a refrigerator dolly and let me borrow their car with a hatchback. I would prop him up on the dolly, roll him to the car, lift the hatchback and lay him in the back. We didn't miss church, a soccer game, or one of Kayla's feedings. As the boys grew, they both loved baseball and I was their pitcher. I noticed when Kyle was in the 2nd grade he didn't ask me to pitch as much. I asked him to go out one day to play and he told me I couldn't throw hard enough. I was a little sad and a little relieved, because they were beginning to throw pretty hard. They all got bigger, had more games, events, and eventually three little sisters. They had their own little cheerleading squad. We took the girls to everything, knowing how important family is.
Now with just the three younger ones in the house, I hadn't thought of the "supermom" thing in awhile. Until the other day when Leah ran into the house to tell me there was a snake outside. A bolt of fear quickly ran through my short body as I realized I was the adult in the house. It was the day before Thanksgiving and I knew all the kids would be in that night. Kyle hates snakes and Adam hates spiders. Kayla hates both. When I know they are coming, I make a concerted effort to rid the premises of anything that could possibly resemble either of the two. The fear in me turned into adrenaline, and I ran out and grabbed the shovel. I raised that thing high above my head and came flat down on that snake. That booger turned back and looked right at me. Scared me to death. The shovel came down again. And again. And again. I honestly don't know how many times I hit that serpent. I was in a frenzy. I had to save my home.
When I was positive it had gone to be with the Lord, if that is where snakes go, I picked it up with the shovel and was going to throw it in the pasture. With all my might, I twisted back with the shovel to sling it as far as I could. It hit the tree right in front of me. Reminded me of my cheerleading days when we threw the little footballs up in the stands. My daddy asked me to never stand in front of their section because he knew if I did he would never get a ball. I would hit the fence in front of me, I believe now it was because of the "follow-through". Sometimes I could get it up to the second or third row. Anyway, back to the snake. I threw it so hard it wrapped around a vine and just hung there dripping blood. Not looking at me any longer. That evening after the kids were here I went outside and called the boys over to the tree. They both (approximately 480 pounds) drove up in the girls little go-cart. Envision the Incredibles, if you would. I showed them my trophy snake, much like David probably did with that melon trophy head of Goliath that he took back and placed at the Jerusalem city limit sign. I, like David, had defeated the enemy. The boys thought it was quite funny, I was quite proud. The enemy had gone down. That snake is now a symbol for all other snakes to know this is protected property. Tremble snakes, tremble! They can't pass through our place any time they please. Not this place. No enemies allowed here.
I haven't always done the MOM thing right. I've made many mistakes. There have been times, though, that I fought off the enemy successfully with the Word of God. I know the importance of that now more than ever before. If I take that job seriously, protecting my family, through prayer, from the evil one, there could one day be a crown and scepter set aside for "Supermom - Snake Killer".