Of all the mommies in the whole wide world …
I tuck his quilt up around his chin, kiss his forehead, lean in and rest my cheek against his, inhale that puppy breath. He smiles, sleepy eyes dancing as he asks,
“Mommy will you do the thing where you pick me?”
I smile.
My friend Heather had taught me this last year…
“Oh Dutch, if I took all the little boys in the whole wide world, and I packed them all into a giant football stadium; and if I went through one-by-one and looked at every single little boy in the whole wide world. I’d look at each one and say Nope, not this one; Nope not this one; Nope not this one. Then I’d say, That’s the one! That’s the one I want! Do you know who I would pick?”
He can’t contain himself he’s smiling down to his toes, giggles erupt.
“Me! Me! You’d pick me!”
“That’s right babyboy, I’d pick you.”
He grins, content. “Will you do the girl one?”
I share the same story about all the little girls, then narrow it down to one. “Do you know who I would pick?” Again he’s giddy: “Heidi!”
“That’s right. I’d pick Heidi.”
Heidi perks up her ears from across the room. “Mommy will you do the thing where you pick me?”
I go over and repeat the story for her. No matter how many times they hear this they still just bubble over, they love it so much.
When I finish I hear Dutch say it softly from across the room.
“If I took all the little mommies … uh … big mommies in the whole wide world and I went through every one. I’d say Nope not that one, nope not that one, nope not that one. Do you know who I’d pick?” His grin stretches to his ears, you’d think he held the biggest secret in the world.
“You Mommy! I’d pick you!” I shake my head, laughing.
These kids heap love when they are loved.
Heidi wants to join the fun and pipes up in her bird-chirp voice:
“If I took a’ the li’l mommies in the whole world, I would look and say No not that one. No not that one.” and of a’ the li’l mommies in the whole wide world I would pick …
Daddy!”
We all erupt. Heidi’s won the day.
—-
{Where can you heap love today? Who needs to know that you’d choose them every time? Thanks for reading.}
A Realistic Look at Living on Less
Every email my friend sends from Africa contains her signature quip:
From a distance it looks like an adventure … up close it is filled with challenges.
Isn’t that always the truth? It’s easy to look on the lives of others from afar and simply see the adventure. The success. The end-result. But making meaningful changes in our lives involves far more than adventure, right? It involves challenges. Obstacles. Hard things. The key is looking honestly and realistically at these challenges and still believing it’s worth it in the end.
We all would probably agree that “living with less” is a worthy goal. I doubt that any of us made “buy more, consume more, eat more, spend more” a New Year’s Resolution this year. We all want to live on less, but statistics show that few of us really are. Americans are spending more, weighing more, and consuming more than ever before. Where is the disconnect? Could it be that we romanticize this “living with less” lifestyle, making the reality of it so surprisingly disagreeable that we jump ship before making much headway at all? … {Find the rest at FrugalLivingNW…Thanks for reading!}
Life in the blender…
When we pray for God to pour us out we never intend that He might blenderize us first.
I told the girls in my mentor group: “I feel like I’ve been in a blender.”
A God-ordained blender that’s chopping me, pureeing me, perhaps preparing me to be poured out? Or, just making me less chunky, easier to swallow. Whatever it is He’s doing, I can feel it.
Have you been through blenderized seasons before? For a few months things felt pretty still. We still had the whirlwind of ministry, Dutch’s birthday, and holidays, but my walk with the Lord felt pretty stable.
Then, as I’ve mentioned before, we began this study Discerning the Voice of God. Perhaps all His messages had been built up over the past few months of not listening carefully because they all seemed to come tumbling down at once. I shared with you already about Him saying to finish the book. Even though I reminded Him that there is no publisher yet. He keeps reminding me, I don’t need to know the end, just obey Him along the way.
Then this 4am thing. Really, Lord? Really. Ok. We keep getting up, day after day, week after week. It’s been 3 weeks now. The first few days were awesome, a sort of high. Then on day 3 I get up, do the study, and would you believe what He says?
Don’t drink coffee.
What?! What on earth? Where did that come from? I feel like it’s God (that thought would certainly not come from me!), write it down, but I put a question mark after. I want some straight-up confirmation before I swallow this word. The next day it’s the same thing, then again, then again. Our study that week?
How God repeats Himself in our lives until we’ll listen.
Ok, fine! I put the coffee pot in the back of the pantry, hide the coffee behind a can of beans, and brace myself for the 4am alarm.
Then the kids get sick. SO sick. Almost two full weeks they are sick and not sleeping at night so we’re not sleeping and I keep asking if I can quit this writing/early morning/no coffee gig and God keeps saying No. Gently, lovingly He says No.
Keep going.
Really, God? I feel like a child. Asking just one more time if I can have something. I find myself taken aback at His firmness. Really? I’m reminded of my children when they’re trying to process a firm No. Really, Mommy? Really we can’t get out of bed a single time? Really you mean I have to finish every single bite of peas if I want a treat?
Something else comes up. Something I don’t want to do. Something I have the perfect excuse for not doing. In fact, outwardly it makes sense for me not to do it. But you know what? He visits me in prayer — tells me to do it. Tells me He knows my heart and even though I have the perfect excuse He knows my heart. I can’t use an outward excuse to cover what’s really in my heart.
Ouch. Can You turn off the blender please?
No answer.
But then the week goes by and I go for my weekend run. I don’t want to. So tired. Not enough sleep. I go, and somehow feeling weakest I run the farthest. Could when I am weak then I am strong be more of a reality than I think?
And it’s on the hill when He says it. Or when I feel it:
That most of the time we don’t know what we’re training for.
God has the perfect preparation–training plan–for whatever it is that He’s called you to. Only He knows. Your training plan is probably not 4am and no coffee. Yours might be an ongoing commitment to a relationship you’d rather avoid. It might be living with your parents and living on pennies while you put your husband through school. It might be staying at a job you hate and working with a person you struggle to love (and struggle to not strangle). It might be a sick child or parent you’re called to care for despite the emotional and physical exhaustion.
You’re training for something. And it’s as if He’s placed dumbells by our bed. And each morning we’re supposed to pick them up, lift, do reps, train and strengthen ourselves. For what?
Only He knows.
But He does know. Nothing’s wasted. The struggle is making you stronger and there will be a day–like my 5+ mile run today–when you’re surprised by how strong you have become.
Because He’s been training you … in the blender.
{Are there ways your life feels like a blender today? Are you unsure of what He’s training you for? I pray for the grace to trust Him along the way. He’s so good, amen? We can trust Him. Thanks for reading.}
On Mothering: A Beautiful Waste
I tiptoe in the dark, kneel down by Heidi’s bed, gather her up into my arms, then ease into the rocking chair. Her coughing eases into sleep as I remember these words …
—-
Mary tiptoed into the room, quietly knelt, and broke her alabaster flask, anointing Jesus’ feet.
The cost of that flask was almost a year’s wages–equivalent to 40-50 Thousand, dollars–all contained in her flask. It was probably her dowry, her worth as a marriageable woman.
All she owned.
Broken, poured out, wasted on Jesus’ feet of all things. The disciples, very logically and wisely, insisted there would certainly be a better use of those resources than dumping $50,000 on Jesus’ feet!
I would have thought the same thing.
Or, wouldn’t it have been so much smarter, to pour the oil into three containers, use 1/3 of the money for the poor, 1/3 of the money for her dowry, and a 1/3 of the oil use to offer to Jesus? That seems wise. Or, she could have worshiped him with words, she could have hugged Him, kissed Him, praised Him. Come on, I mean, really?! You have to waste all that good money by dumping it on the floor?
But Jesus thought it was a beautiful waste. He commends her, and then amazingly chooses to record it in Scripture, so that this woman’s story would be told around the world for the rest of history to know.
He thought her waste was beautiful.
Before she died at 95 my dear Aunt Lois shared these timeless words of truth:
But the important qualification for that truth is that nothing’s wasted that is given to God. Lots is wasted. People waste their lives all the time. The woman in the story could have dumped her alabaster flask into the trash and it would have truly been wasted. Utterly wasted.
But “wasted” on the feet of Jesus meant that not a drop was wasted, it was invested with the highest return–the glory of God, the worship of Jesus, the love and praise of the Savior.
That is beautiful waste.
And the beauty of the anointing wasn’t in the value of the flask’s contents–it was in the value of the sacrifice. We know throughout Scripture, from Abraham to David to the widow with the two mites to Mary and her flask, that the value of our offering is not in what we give, but in what we give up. Yes, there is a double meaning there. What we give up is what we sacrifice, which is the true measure of our worship. And, what we give up is given upwards to God, with His glory as the intended aim.
The value of our worship is what we give up, what we waste for His sake in response to His extravagant love for us.
What is my sacrifice? What is your sacrifice? What is our alabaster flask, what it is we can waste on his feet?
I had asked this. Waited. Asked God to show me.
The one thing He mentioned made tears slip silently down my cheek.
Giving up my time, my ambitions, my dreams, my preferences, to lay down my life for my kids, to giving every ounce of my being to investing in them to be Christ followers, Kingdom advancers, lovers of God. That seems so natural, but for me it’s not. Often it’s hard. Giving time and energy to writing and teaching God’s Word is not a sacrifice for me. It’s fun. Thrilling. Rewarding. Studying, reading, learning, teaching—all of those things are good and I’ll keep doing them, but they are not really a sacrifice.
Mommying.
A silent tear slipped down my cheek as I realized that was my alabaster flask. How appropriate that as I prayed those words I was holding my sick daughter upright to keep her from coughing, bouncing her softly and letting her pat my face with her soft, doughy hands, kissing her feverish, sweaty head.
Right there in my arms was the answer to my question.
Where is yours?
What is yours?
I’m praying for God to show me how to live this beautiful waste, how to fight the gnawing hunger for productivity, turn the clock to the wall, and wastefully invest in the two precious souls He’s entrusted to my care. One of them is coughing, so I must go. Let my life be a beautiful waste, O God.
{Soaking up these words from a few years ago … true today just as they were then. Thanks for reading.}