From the Inside Out

So apparently, I am on a bloggy break (smile). However, I am interrupting this break for a post. I know. Surprised me a bit also. It is not that I don't have a hundred posts twirling in my head, it is that I feel the need to get certain things in order and fortunately or unfortunately, I am comfortable allowing the blog to take the blow until the timing is right.


Of course, I'd love to post about back to school because this year, three in our family went back. I accepted a long term sub opportunity for a third grade class, Emily headed back in the second grade and Hannah is now a big three year old in her preschool!




Our littest ladybug is on her new school induced schedule and even those weekend days don't prevent her little body from waking very early in the morning. So, as we wiped the drowsy from our eyes this beautiful autumn morning, I sought to be productive. I felt led to clean the windows! All.of.them.

The windows should easily fold in so that the inside and outside can be cleaned with ease. Some of the windows did not yield easily. And it caused me pause...I thought about our own inability to yield to the process of getting clean from the inside out. It is pretty simple to clean up the outside, polishing up our seen and visible places and carefully hiding away our unseen places. The thing about a window is, they are or should be transparent. So, it stands to reason that even when the outside is clean, the inside needs to be polished as well.

Who would think a task as mundane as washing the windows could evoke such deep thoughts? But it did. And I considered all the ways the Lord wants me to clean up the inside just as pretty as I clean up the outside (most days:) I am excited to begin a new year of Bible Study with a host of amazing women. What a blessing to know them, pray with them, parent with them and walk our walk together. We will be dealing with brokenness and blind spots. To some scary, to me, another path I'm led to travel and hopefully windex away the grime and dirt that clogs up my life.

The actual act of cleaning also brought about some awesome thoughts. The first window remains home to a mother spider and her babies. As I folded out the window, I caught a glimpse of her and her many offspring, as they scrambled away from my enemy hands. I thought of how miraculous life is, all life, even tiny lives. The second window had a giant knothole in the wood below the transom. It reminded me of the endless hours Rob spent building each and every frame. Our great room is some of his finest work and it made me extra grateful for Rob's gifts, his devotedness to his family and the many ways he has made our life beautiful. Each window was a glimpse into another place in our life; where Emily's mural once was in her nursery...where the sunlight trickles in on an antique tea cart handed down to us from Rob's parents... the window I stare out when the children are not well and I am awake all night... the one that holds a suncatcher Hannah made just for Emily, Tinkerbell, to be exact...such peace each window gave me. Content peace, not just happy, it reminded me how content our family is with our many blessings. Perhaps, not glamorous, but most definitely blessed.

So today, I leave you with this thought...is there a window that needs to be polished in your life? Are you transparent? Or does the dirt and grime of life clog up the view? My prayer for all of us this day is that our windows will sparkle from the inside out!

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." Psalm 51:10

The All American Pastime

Baseball.

Yep, who doesn't love a great baseball game? Well, truth be told, I am not CRAZY about them, but I do enjoy the occasional run around the diamond. Up until now, the little ladybugs had expressed no interest in being taken out to the ballgame. But, as we all know, they grow, they learn, they hear...they wanted to live out the words to the tune..."buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks, I don't care if I ever get back."

You get the picture.

So, in a very impromptu decision, we headed off the city of brotherly love to catch an evening of good ol' American fun. Or so we thought.

We walked through the parking lot holding hands and singing (yes, really we did) but alas the story turns ugly quickly. We crossed the threshold to the ticketing center, everyone is all smiles. We are dressed accordingly in our cherry and white. The children appeared downright eager and a bit shiny, happy, if I do say so myself.

Rob steps up, he swings, and it's SOLD OUT!

We had not once taken into consideration the team we were about to try to see were world champions. Can you hear the crickets chirping? Dead silence, as Rob turned and looked at me. We felt like Chevy Chase in a bad scene from Vacation, and the happy, shiny children were not yet aware that we were being turned away.

And then, as she processed what the ticket man had said, Emily looks up at her daddy, makes contact with the reality, and busts into yes, THE UGLY CRY!

Oh no.

This was NOT the evening we had envisioned. Something inside of me wanted to assure her that peanuts and crackerjacks were really bad for her teeth, and the team might lose anyway, but I kept my silent vigil and slowly began to inch toward a concrete pillar, so I could just hear her sobs. Hannah, following my lead, stepped quickly to stand on my feet, as her sister was beginning to scare her. What is up with the little red-headed girl? I knew what was up with the little red-headed girl, she wanted to see her first baseball game, so I prayed. I did not pray we would get in, I prayed Em's heart would be soothed, and that His will would be done that night; and I prayed He would forgive me for my sports ignorance and poor planning.

Gleeful people passed us as they went to the will-call booth and other ticket windows only to be turned away and assured there were no tickets. After what seemed like an eternity, Rob stepped back, placed his arms around Emily and began working his way toward Hannah and I, when he stopped him.

The ticket man in window 6.

He said the little red-haired girl was "breaking his heart".

Rob stepped forward. The man was whispering, then he was up and moving, then he was discussing, first with one person, then with two, then he had an assortment of persons discussing at box 6. Then, as quickly as we had been denied, he waved us forward, issuing "standing room only" tickets.

A manager came to escort us in, he showed us to the customer service area to get "MY FIRST GAME" certificates for the girls. We promptly bought some very-bad-for-you cotton candy and a token stuffed bear that plays "All-Star". We settled in right behind the third baseline, where the little red-haired girl, in all her glory, watched the entire game and cheered that team, regardless of the score. Even telling those award winning Phils, "It is okay." when they lost miserably.

There are many morals to this story and some may begin with tips on perfect parenting and planning, however we all know no perfect parent exists, and that lesson in and of itself is incredibly valuable. Yet, I must offer, I am far more intrigued with the kind man in ticket booth six. His willingness to allow his heart to choose his path was rather moving. It was obvious that he chose to speak to his superiors not because we insisted or stomped our feet, but because he saw in that child, his own child. He knew he may get refused, but he tried anyway. And he blessed a family he did not know.

Consequently, I wrote the baseball organization with a personal thank you detailing the events of that night. And I got a personal response from the ticket man in window six. I will just say the only strike-outs that happened that evening were on the field, our family and the man in window six were blessed beyond measure.



"Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up our neighbor." Romans 15:2

The Merry-Go-Round

"Childhood is a short season." ~ Helen Hayes


It is a short season. It seemed like when we were young we were invincible. Ghosts in the Graveyard and Run the Bases occupied our summer nights. Teachers and tests replaced our games in the fall. Trips to the amusement park never seemed to get old and certainly the carousel was never too childish. After all, gathering the most rings was really fun :)


An afternoon spent under our big pin oak in our side yard was utter joy. My dad would scoop up hoards of leaves in the fall and we'd roll down the hill, landing straightaway in the middle of that mountain of dust and mold...and we called it fun! My cousins and I played endlessly with the classic Barbie dolls, we played Make me Laugh until we cried, we laughed so hard.



I would be lying if I said I didn't miss those days. Most definitely, my days have been replaced with a different kind of fun...I now see delight through the eyes of Emily and Hannah. But, every now and again, when the wind whips through my hair and I run like a child, I remember the moments of my own childhood. The ones that shaped me and blessed me more than I ever realized until I had children of my own. I noticed as I rooted through pictures that some of my very favorite shots were taken on the merry-go-round. I thought of how ironic it was that Rob and I had our favorite wedding picture captured on a spinning carousel. Foreshadowing? Nah.



When we are little we enjoy the cacophony of music and motion as the carousel moves round and round, up and down. Adulthood is not so different. Round and round, up and down...can you relate? It is just a different sensation now. I think I'd choose to go back to my childhood love of the carousel, which does not include the complexities of worry and fear that our adult version includes. Simpler...it was simpler. And it was indeed, short.

A Window of Time

Max Lucado said the following about marriage, speaking of his parents married over 40 years when his dad went home to the Lord...

"What they had was a forever marriage - a marriage in which two people, eyeball to eyeball, say I’m going to love you when I don’t feel like loving you. I’m going to love you when you’re sick. When we have money and when we don’t. I’m going to love you forever.
Marriage demands the greatest level of tenacity and talent and tenderness that any human being can summon."

I don't know about you, but that is the marriage I want...it is the marriage I vowed to live. Forever.

Eight years ago, today, I said "I do!" to my sweet husband. And he said the same to me. I love this picture of my nieces and I, as we waited in the bridal room for our guests to arrive. If I could have taken a peek into our future, just as I glanced out this window, I would have been surprised at some of the things we would face as we began our married life.

These eight years have had their share of difficult circumstances, but overriding all of that has been a tremendous amount of joy. We have weathered financial strain, joblessness, death, construction, accidents, family turmoil and illness. In fact, the summer we were married, I removed myself from an annual mission trip to tend to some serious concerns with my Chrohn's disease. As I recall, it was my soon-to-be husband who took on that storm and never once left my side. Several of our grown-up youth recently reminded me of this. Why was it so important to them? They told us with weepy eyes that it set the standard for expectations in suitors for themselves.

In these eight years, we began sharing a home, a life...we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, blessed again with a little beauty from China, added a roomy addition to the home Rob built, made new friends, restored ties with old friends, honored one another, and our children and are seeking so much more. We have learned about communication and cooperation. We have learned about disappointment and navigating the curveballs thrown our way with grace and dignity. We have learned about resting and renewing. We have learned acceptance, in it's truest form, and the meaning of unconditional love. All that to say, we don't always do it right ;) but we are striving for it every single day.

So, as I peek out the window to see what is out there for us now, I see so many more years in this life that we love. I see us better, smarter, stronger, definitely older but hopefully wiser, more faithful and prayerfully more in love than ever.

Happy Anniversary, honey. I love you!

What Every Mother Wants to Hear

Emily just completed a science class at our local library. She loved it!

The first day, my goggle-faced girl came running breathlessly to me and proclaimed, "Mom, we are going to grow bacteria!."

Oh. Yay. Rock on science girl.

Purell anyone?

The Narrator

First, you put on your leeeeotard. Den, you get some shoes, but any shoes are okay because the teeechhr makes you take dem off anyway. Den we get into the car, no, wait, Mommy gets a yoyyipop and some gum as a reward, when I do good, and she puts them in her purts (purse) before we leave, because we know how hard it is for me to go in that room by myself. Otay, den we get in de car and Mommy drives past de pretzel place to my gymnastics bildin (building). Den we go in the door and wait til the teeeechr is done wif his odder class. Den he says my name and I go to gymnastics. I yike de jumping and flipping, today I did a carwheeeeel (well sort of). At the end, we get stamps and den I run to Mommy and Emmy and dey give me my yoyyipop. It's all good! :)

Hannah's newest thing is to narrate even the simplest of tasks. One would be amazed at the number of steps involved in getting a glass of juice or loading the dishwasher. I asked her the other day if her tongue ever gets tired from all the talking and surprisingly she said, "No".(smile) Then, I suppose my ears are not tired either!

The Painted Sky

This past Fourth of July, we did something a little different. Unplanned. Spur of the moment. Fly by the seat of our pants...and it worked!



Some years, we have watched fireworks from our porch, some in my brother's back yard; my sister-in-law can shoot off a mean bottle rocket :) However, we have never actually gone to see them. We had been to the parade, hosted family for lunch and after the girls were bathed and getting ready for bed, I suggested it. How 'bout if we ride up to see the fireworks? We were all for it. The traffic there was unbelievable, all I can say is thank goodness we had Hannah's potty in the car! And the traffic home was way worse but it was well worth it.

On the way, the sun was setting and we hit a stretch of road where the sky above us was huge and this gorgeous orangey-red. Emily noticed it first and she and Hannah discussed how the sky at that moment may very well be BETTER than fireworks. After all, God must have painted it just for them. Imagine the size of that brush! I assure you, this was part of the discussion from the rear of the car.




We found a good spot to park, we popped the tailgate and the fireworks began! It was perfect timing. Emily noted when we were leaving, "He painted the sky for us and then lit it up, pretty good." To which Hannah replied, "Yay God!"



Yay, indeed.