Blessings and Raindrops

seeking joy in the midst of the ordinary

meet Trixie.

I have a history of visiting our neighbor’s sheep and bottle feeding the babies. I think he finally tired of my littles and I dropping by every time babies were born and asked yesterday if we would care for one of the orphaned lambs.

In a moment of temporary delusion, I quickly, enthusiastically said YES! — I’m now bottle feeding this sweet thing every few hours, forgoing sleep and holding her in my lap while she sleeps {otherwise, she cries and cries…}. I’m trying to determine how strange it would be to bring a lamb on a leash to the boy’s soccer game tonight. Otherwise, we’ll miss a feeding. I’m seriously considering this, you guys. Bless.

What a sweet, tangible visual ‘Trixie’ will be for our family this Holy Week.

Your God is coming! Yes, the Sovereign LORD is coming in all his glorious power. He will rule with awesome strength. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young. {Isaiah 40: 10-11}

Come, let us worship and bow down. 

Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,

for he is our God.

We are the people he watches over,

the sheep under his care. 

{Psalm 95: 6-7}


“‘God, the Master, says: From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I’m going looking for them. As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I’m going after my sheep. I’ll rescue them from all the places they’ve been scattered to in the storms. I’ll bring them back from foreign peoples, gather them from foreign countries, and bring them back to their home country. I’ll feed them on the mountains of Israel, along the streams, among their own people. I’ll lead them into lush pasture so they can roam the mountain pastures of Israel, graze at leisure, feed in the rich pastures on the mountains of Israel. And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest. I’ll go after the lost, I’ll collect the strays, I’ll doctor the injured, I’ll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they’re not exploited. {Ezekiel 34:11-16 MSG}

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. {Luke 12:32 ESV}


“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.”. {John 10:14-18, MSG}

As I care for this innocent, fragile little lamb, I’m reminded of words I wrote three years ago after a weekend sitting under the rich teaching of Beth Guckenberger:

“God will always provide. Strength. Peace. Joy. One moment, one step, one day at a time.

Like a Good Shepherd leading his sheep, we can trust that He will guide us to green pastures. We can keep our ears tilted toward Him, listening for the next place to place our feet. The next stop. The next fork in the road. Ours is meant to be a position of dependance on Him.”

Time to Linger.

 “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
– Margaret Atwood. 

Rather unexpectedly, I am now proudly wearing the battle-worn badge of homeschooling momma.

After our month away in January, the boys lost their spots at their public elementary school. We were faced with a choice: an overflow school for the last four months of the year or I could homeschool them. I decided to suck it up and do it. How hard could it be to teach first grade? (Sarcasm, people. That is sarcasm).

For the sake of remembering this wild season of life, let’s review the highs and lows of homeschooling first graders for the past two months with zero curriculum pre-planning, or, let’s be honest here, the faintest clue of what I am doing.

The obvious takeaway: This is Hard. 

Mornings are slow, which I adore, yet, they tend to be flanked with whining, groaning, and debating the need to do anything involving a pen, workbook or, goodness forbid, the empty-paged journal. {The horror!}

I begin patiently, resolved to approach the day with gentle words and a calm demeanor.

I pour my coffee.

Resolute, I encourage my offspring to open their journals. In a sweet Mother Teresa-esque voice, I gently remind my pupils of the importance of proper sentence structure. “Poop” may inspire laughter from your brother, however, it is not a complete sentence.

I pour more coffee.

And, thus, our daily rhythm ensues. Groans and dramatic full body flails, followed closely by excitement over a new skill mastered (!), then, more complaints and utter despair when confronted with yet another subject matter – it appears thirty minutes should suffice for a full day of learning.

I pour more coffee.

In the midst of all of the coffee and the complaints and the surprisingly sweet moments interwoven throughout the morning, I’m also wiping my newly potty-trained toddler’s bum {isn’t bum the cutest word? Note to self: use it more often}, washing dishes {apparently sitting at the kitchen table produces ravenous little people all.morning.long}, never-ending piles of laundry and mopping up the dog water spills and all the things.

Unavoidably, I am no longer speaking in a Mother Teresa-esque tone by the end of the day.

The other obvious takeaway: I cannot do it all. 

Alas, the balls I am attempting to precariously balance in the air are dropping left and right. Rapidly. I am behind on returning phone calls, paying bills, responding to emails, writing deadlines, photo organization {my favorite photo album printer – MyPublisher – is closing it’s doors at the beginning of May and I have two years worth of photo books to organize, upload and print. The clock is ticking, people}, event planning {we had to cancel an event tonight, in fact. Not actually my fault but I still feel like I let a whole slew of people down with my inability to manage small details at the moment}.

I’ve had a cathartic ugly cry and am accepting my limitations.

I don’t like feeling inept.

Yet, I’m leaning into the crazy idea Jesus presented that in my weakness, His strength is magnified. I am trusting that, somehow, He will use my inability, my unpreparedness, my lack for His glory. 

The not-so-obvious takeaway: Lingering is a lost art.

Because we have temporarily stepped off the treadmill and checked ourselves out of the race for a season, we have this glorious opportunity to create whitespace in our days. Unplanned, unhurried, unscheduled minutes and hours set aside simply to linger.

To stoop down and scoop up a handful of freshly sprouted spring flowers. To roam freely outdoors – awakening imaginations and senses gone dormant under academic and time-constrained pressure.

To linger over a new book from the library, saying yes to the enthusiastic request for one more chapter.

To linger after dinner, on a long walk, without the incessant pull to rush back home and complete the bedtime routine in preparation for another early morning.

To indulge the endless stream of  “why”… to pause our schedule for an impromptu shoe-tying lesson… to play games and dump piggy bank contents onto the table for a math lesson…to build forts and plan out April Fool’s tricks {per our plan, Nate hid all of the spoons this morning and CRACKED UP when Dave opened the drawer in search of a cereal spoon}…

In my exhaustion and inaptitude, I’ve been given the chance to step back and evaluate what matters most to me as a mother. If I imagine my grown children in twenty years, sitting around a table with their friends, how do I want them to describe their childhood?

I know I want them to have warm, fond memories of long days outside. I want them to remember dirt under their fingernails and laughter on their lips. I want them to remember the sensation of sunshine on their faces. I want them to remember the affection and responsibility they gleaned from caring for animals. I want them to remember a home with vases full of handpicked wildflowers on every surface and refrigerator doors covered in homemade Picasso’s. I want them to remember a childhood framed with sweet, content moments of lingering…

Mercy.

Yesterday, I wrote a few words from a place of brokenness. I wanted to record my commitment to release expectations and renew hope in my heart. And, wouldn’t you know, God met me right then and there. After I closed my computer and got on with my day, He gently pulled my eyes upward.

Through one of the sweetest evenings Sylvie and I have shared together in a long time, my Abba reminded me that Hope is most assuredly alive. No matter how many times I have tried to bury it, Hope will always remain. My declaration to search for it, to unveil the light in every dark place, simply opened my eyes to see it once again.

My girl hugged me tightly last night, completely unprompted, and said, “I love you, mommy!” as we snuggled together and read our bedtime story. It was a small, quiet, far-from-flashy, moment. A simple treasure for my heart, tucked away, a reminder of His mercy, His healing hand, His redeeming nature.

Then, for the fourth time in the past week and a half, the boys invited Sylvie to sleep on the mattress they made for her on the floor in their room. This, my friends, is monumental. They invited her into their space; willingly, lovingly.

My tender-hearted boys have a bond stronger than words could ever describe and their worlds were absolutely wrecked when Sylvie came home. They were only four and they had just become big brothers to baby Charlotte eight weeks earlier. They were still adjusting to their new roles, when, with only 48 hours notice, their toddler sister arrived on a plane and walked into our home, disrupting everything and everyone with her terrified, unpredictable behavior. Our home went from a place of security and love to one of chaos. For months, we felt like we were walking in a mine field, never knowing which step would inadvertently set off a land mine buried in the sand.

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Celebrating daddy’s birthday this past weekend. 🙂

Ever so slowly, healing has occurred in all of our hearts. We saw so much healing and bonding occur during our time in South Africa for the boys and Sylvie. Oh, how that trip was worth taking, if only for the deep bond the three of our kids now share. There is genuine love and affection where I once questioned if it could ever be so.

And, that my friends, is Mercy.

So, as Lent begins tomorrow, I’m going to keep on releasing my expectations and my frustrations and my disappointments. I’m going to keep on digging up Hope and focusing on where the light shines, no matter how dimly. I’ll keep on seeking out that light and exposing it. That little light will disperse and keep on spreading and spreading until all of our dark corners are lit up with bright, beautiful, shining light.

a season of release.

I spent the weekend purging unwanted items and unworn clothes from my closet shelves and bathroom drawers. I filled seven (seven!) trash bags and three giant totes with “things.” Things that caused me stress and frustration whenever I entered the small, cluttered space. Why have I held onto pants that no longer fit and heels I’ll never wear?  Now, the space is a little more barren and I feel a lot less frazzled upon entering. I feel physically lighter after releasing the things that have gone unused for so long.

As Lent approaches, I find myself drawn to this concept of release.

My soul longs for a season devoted to the release of rushing and anger and frustration and comparison. How I desire to fill that space in my life with intentionality and white space open for spontaneity and gentleness and loving words of affirmation.

A season of contentment.  

Rising fastest to the surface of this murky pool of release: expectations.

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I continually find myself striving to find a way to fix my relationship with my daughter. A relationship rooted in brokenness and loss, a foundation in desperate need of security and trust. I’ve read the books and watched the seminars, I’ve attended conferences, and logged hours upon hours in a therapist’s office working on attachment. Yet, still, I feel the shaky ground beneath my feet, ready to give way at any moment.

My expectations for where we should be by now, nearing three years home, are unmet. My expectations for how I should feel, always fall short. My expectations for her behavior, rarely become reality. My expectations for affection and response to strangers and learning … missing the mark.

I’m fed up with the brokenness and the hurting and the mess. I know, I agreed to step into the pain and the hurting, but enough already. I want my comfortable, predictable life back.

Ahh.

The crux of laying down our lives and picking up our cross daily is that we actually have to lay down our life and pick up our cross. We have to release our own expectations based on earthly, temporary things and seek His. Jesus never promised this life would be easy and, in my humanity, I often forget that important detail. I want to read the verses promising good things and light burdens and rest for my weary soul and overlook the ones that remind me that I will face many hardships in this life.

He drew me out of my comfortable, predictable life for a purpose. A purpose He had planned for me long, long ago. A purpose bigger than me and my silly expectations and smily instagram-worthy photos. His healing hand is always at work. He is the author of life and redemption is His finest display of glory. Yet, redemption doesn’t come swiftly or easily.

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We want God to do a big thing, while God is planning to do a small thing. We are impressed by the big and loud. God is not. We are in a hurry. God is not. We want God to act fast, but Godspeed is almost always slow.  — Brian Zahnd

This season of Lent will find me daily releasing my expectations (more than likely, this will be a moment by moment release). I’ll spend these forty days digging up hope from the hardened soil where I’ve been slowly burying it, one shovel-full at a time. I will believe God for the impossible once again. I will trust in the abundance of God’s loving kindness. And I will remain absolutely convinced that God can heal and redeem every single bit of brokenness. Not in my time, but in His: slowly, gently, purposefully; Godspeed.