while you wait

Mommy and Daddy were downcast the other morning.  Our troubled son, from whom you can  hide nothing, began acting up quickly.  It wasn't long before we piled everyone in the van and went out to visit a peach and apple orchard, featuring a community garden we love to see.  

Gardens.  I've always been fascinated by their modest beginnings--mere tiny seeds--followed soon by full glory.  Planted in faith, tiny garden seeds speak to me of the parenting journey.  We water, weed, fertilize, yet the final outcome is God's design.  He writes the script--or rather he wrote the script--long before any of us managed our first, in-the-womb somersault.  

So what of us characters?  Why do we pray or hope, if the lines are already written--published, even?

Fellowship.  Pray is fellowship.  In the midst of the fellowship, we are changed, made more lovely than the most perfect, fragrant garden rose.  And we dance, our souls dance, with The Author.  Fellowship with The Author fills our soul, brings us to life.  

If I accomplish nothing more as a parent, I want this one thing for my children.  Fellowship with God.    All other good things will flow from that.  And without that, will there be any good things?   Truly good things?

Sometimes, as mere characters, the path in front of us will look fuzzy.  We don't know what the next chapter holds, or even the next paragraph.

Sometimes the heat is on, beating down relentlessly.  Thirsty times.  Desperate times.  Will we save our house?  Will the cancer heal?

God allows characters, in his already-written stories, to lose their houses...to lose children to cancer.  We can only wait.  Wait to find out what the next paragraph says.  

Really, life is lived in the waiting.  

How do you busy yourself while you wait for your next line?  

This crisis, I've learned what we--our particular family--needs to do while waiting. 

Get outside.  Feel Him there.  See Him there.  Know His power and His majesty.  Know His love and sufficiency.

The elementary school my mother went to.  Long ago abandoned.  Grass overgrown.  Windows broken.

The apple and peach orchard, about twenty minutes from our house, is in the area where my mother grew up--in this modest-income lake community (one of ten children).  They were poor.  But this lake made them rich.  Ice skating all winter...swimming all summer.  God provided for those kids with the work of his hands.  Their fondest memories reside here.  In their early years, they didn't even know they were poor.

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Husband got the job he interviewed for last week--starting Monday.  Twenty hours for low pay, located twenty-three miles (forty-three minutes) away.  Doesn't make sense really.  But we fell behind in the mortgage so we have to take it and be grateful.  I will try to find one child to babysit on my own.  Husband will now be gone most of the time.  We're thinking someone potty-trained and over three would be the safest situation for now.

We wrote husband's father, asking for help so we can catch up on payments.  Hard letter to write.  Now, with the extra hours, hopefully we'll stay on track, barring any more van repairs.  Bank of America--who acquired our loan from Countrywide-- is not acting in good faith with us.  Two modification packets were sent, duplicates of each other, and their system hasn't even begun any processing.  The big banks would rather deal with foreclosures than forbearances or modifications.  They make money on foreclosures, oftentimes, due to new loan fees and other such details.  I fear we will have to call daily and be very aggressive, to make any headway.

In the meantime, I'll be taking lots of neighborhood walks with the kids.  And I'll structure our days so that when the van is available, we all head to a nature spot.  

To be with Him.

a time to listen

Out to play on a summer's day.

I hid in the dining room, trying to capture a slice of childhood life.  Unposed play shots.  Do you think she knows I'm there?

Play is serious business.  I noticed that as I tried to get representative shots.  Concentrated faces.

After eighteen months of cooperation with hats, my girl has suddenly revolted.

No more hats, Mommy!

What?!  Too sweaty?  Try a damp hat.  It will keep you cool.

No more hats, Mommy!

Can't see well enough?  I'll adjust it.

No more hats, Mommy!

Not the right fit?  Here are some others.

No more hats, Mommy!

They all made a John 3:16 VBS T-shirt.

Ending our day with dessert.  We haven't had time to make anything lately, until today.
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Beth's sleeping has gotten progressively worse in recent days.  She's cutting what I think is her last tooth, until we get to the second- and third-year molars.

Last night I put her down rather easily at 6:30 p.m., but she woke up five times before 11:00 p.m.  It complicated the other children's story and bedtimes, and just generally led to mayhem.  Usually, her wake ups occur after the others are asleep.

As I lay there nursing her for the third time last night, unable to get the other children to bed on time, I said to God:

"Why this mayhem, God?  When I have no help at night? My nerves are shot tonight!  Is this about you trying to get my attention?  What is the message?  Help me to catch on, God, so we can have some normalcy.  Help my little girl with her discomfort."

Then, I just lay there, trying to listen to the Almighty.  And while I waited, it occurred to me that I'd gotten out of the habit of praying for my family's salvation during Beth's nursing times.  The underemployment situation has become so worrisome that when I lay down with Beth, it has become my "quiet" worry session, instead of an intercessory prayer time.

Lightbulb moment!  He was trying to get my attention!

The message is, I think, just this:

The Almighty:  "The Earth is mine and everything in it--including your house.  And the money you need to make your house payment?  That's mine too.  Get your focus back on my Kingdom, and off your daily bread and shelter--off your own problems, to be exact."

So often, when things become ridiculously difficult, this is exactly why.

He, the Almighty, Living God, has something to say.

You best just listen up.

a present from daddy

My husband returned from work late last night, while I was doing dishes in the wee hours.  My only thought was:  I want to get these done before Beth wakes up--again.  I vaguely remember him saying something about catching a bug for Peter.

This morning Beth woke me at 6:30.  I nursed her, with the hope that she'd fall back to sleep.  Instead, she nursed briefly, and then crawled off the end of the bed, telling me in baby talk that I was to follow.

Oh, how I wanted to sleep!  "Mommy is still tired, Beth.  Do you want to lie down and hug Mommy?"

She shook her head, said na, and put out my slippers for me.

I didn't budge.  I put my head back on the pillow, hoping so hard that she'd just crawl back in bed with me.

She got back on the bed alright, but only so she could pull my nightgown toward her.

I didn't budge.

Next, she got up further on the bed and pulled my hair.

Whose the boss around here, anyway?

I guess it's not me, because at that point I got up.

We made our way to the playroom, where we found Peter carefully studying something in a bug container.

Daddy was asleep, as were the others.

"Daddy caught me a beetle!  It's huge!"

Half asleep, I said some mundane thing, like "That was nice of Daddy."

I hadn't remembered, at this point, that he'd told me about a bug when he'd arrived home last night.

My world is way more about bugs than I need it to be.  Many hundreds of creepy crawly things have been shoved in my face in the last seven years.

Did I ever tell you Peter picked up a Black Widow spider in California, when a toddler, necessitating an urgent care visit, where it was determined he'd not been bitten?  My dad had been bitten years before and was very ill for about four days.  Black Widow bites, especially in children and in the elderly, can be dangerous (although fatalities are few).

 I love nature, too.  Really.  But I draw the line, see.  Daddy and Peter?  Not so much.

When we moved to Ohio I considered the absence of poisonous, dangerous creepy crawlies (in our region) a huge, tailor-made perk for our family.

Never mind that I used to own a Chilean Rose tarantula as a first-grade classroom amusement.  The worst thing it did was release hairs from its back, which caused itching.  I also bought a green iguana and a beautiful green snake, at one time.

That all happened in my first five years, when teaching was my. entire. life.

So the bug obsession.

It's rubbing off.  Mary will now pick up any bugs she finds.  She is especially fond of catching Japanese Beetles--any beetle really.  Whereas two months ago bees scared her, she now catches them for sport (then lets them go, at my pleading.)

Peter shoved the container in my sleepy face, giving me a good look at his present from Daddy.

"Oh, my gosh!  That's huge.  Is it a cockroach!?"

"I think it's a beetle",  Peter tells me, smiling.  He must have known I was expecting some smallish, non-distinct bug.

"What does a cockroach look like?", he asks me, going after his insect field guide.

"This is smaller" I tell him, "but it reminds me of the Madagascar cockroach we saw at an animal display in California.  You were three the last time we visited that museum.  But I don't think Daddy would bring you a cockroach.  It must be a beetle."

Peter, a happy soul, sat there watching his beetle, while perusing the beetle section in his insect guide. This went on for a long time.  He kept up a steady stream of conversation, telling me why it wasn't this beetle or that beetle and maybe it was this one.

Beth and I read some board books, while I feigned interest in the beetle pictures he kept showing me--against my will.

As Mary, and then Paul awoke, the beetle remained all the rage.

Daddy, bless his soul, knows how to choose good gifts for his children.   Like Peter, he loves nature--insects, spiders, and birds especially.  Nature relaxes him, too.

The day before, I'd wanted all day to clean my floors.  Interruptions went along non-stop, though.  At night, I was too tired.

Thanks to Daddy's fascinating present, the floor got cleaned today.  The children spent two morning hours outside, walking around all the tiger lilies and the rhododendron bushes and the trellises, looking for creepy crawlies.  I guess they wanted to find something equally fascinating.  They often bug hunt, but not for extended periods like this morning.

They reported back to me later:

Twelve honeybees, two squash-vine moths, and a dragonfly--which was apparently stung by one of the honeybees, if that's even possible.

The dragonfly died shortly thereafter.

Hearts were broken.  Peter, the ringleader, got upset that Paul put honeybees in with the much-coveted dragonfly.

Much later in the day, Peter tells me this:

"Mommy, I'm not as excited about catching fireflies anymore.  Did you notice I haven't been begging you?  I think I'll do what Lorrie says--just sit and watch them."

I felt surprisingly sad, hearing this.  Even though it's a maturing, of sorts.  Come next June, will his heart be all aflutter once again?  Will he be watching the windows at 9:00 p.m., begging to go out in his pajamas, bug container in hand?

His boyhood.  I'm not ready to give it up.

Will my boy morph into a preteen, eager to sit with Momma on summer nights, watching fireflies--giving me a steady stream of commentary about this or that?

I will cling to that thought.