On Dreams-Come-True & Everyday Stories

Today I am slogging through the trenches of the everyday here at Casa de Hot Summer & Sibling Rivalry. It is a far cry, my friends, a far cry from the dreamy two-and-a-half days I just spent at She Speaks, an event that I received as a 40th birthday gift from husband, friends, and family.

She Speaks is a conference for writers and speakers, a conference that I’ve dreamed of attending for years. This year was finally my year and I am here to tell you, it far surpassed my hopes and expectations.

For two-and-a-half days I connected with other women whose hearts are shaped a bit like mine.

I learned about writing compelling non-fiction messages and how to use stories in public speaking.

I took pages of notes and wept with gratitude and laughed ’til my belly ached.

I pondered and dreamed and cheered on fellow writers pitching book proposals.

I raised my hands in worship and sensed God’s personal message to me through Michael O’Brien when he said, Never let your giftedness get in the way of your calling. Yes, I’m a wife and mom first.

I wore a name-tag and something other than my usual fare of running shorts and t-shirts.

I reconnected and roomed with one of my dearest college friends and made precious new friends, some of whom live on the opposite side of the country and some of whom live just 30 minutes away.

I felt God crystallizing my own message and I outlined it as fast as I could scribble.

I had a complete stranger speak a “word” over me.

I asked Michael Hyatt a question in a conference ballroom in front of hundreds of women and thought I might throw up into the microphone. And because he was seated two feet from me after his Q & A session was over, I asked him yet another question. {One may as well take full advantage.} He was gracious and wise. And God, in his mercy, allowed my jumpy innards to remain in place.

In a word, it was amazing.

I am more thankful than I can say, full of affirmation and inspiration but not urgency. And I think that if I’d gone to She Speaks before this year, I wouldn’t have been in a place to receive it in the way I did.

Upon returning I have refereed more than a few sibling squabbles.

I’ve scraped Fruit Loops off my kitchen table.

I’ve lost my temper.

I’ve not done laundry.

I’ve miscommunicated with my husband.

I’ve shaken my head in embarrassed resignation that my driveway looks like this on any given day. {You think I’m joking.}

I’ve hurt deeply and wept freely for loved ones going through unspeakable pain.

I took my kids and three of their friends to a free summer movie, Disney Nature’s African Cats. Within 20 minutes, I had two girls bawling and my youngest asking, “So Mommy, why did you bring us to such a sad movie?” Innocent animals die, people. This is information I wish I’d known ahead of time. #funoutingfail

And this is often how it goes, doesn’t it?

We teeter from elation to depression.

We get a taste of our dreams and rub shoulders with despair.

We get it right one minute and have to repent the next.

We idolize the things of this world and also long for the perfect world that is to come.

And this is the stuff of life. And this is why I write.

Because life is hard but God is good and we claim this even when we don’t feel this.

Because we were created for the ideal but we have to grapple with the real and this is a desperately hard reconciling indeed.

Because for some of us, we can’t make sense of all that we experience until we put it into written words and in doing so, we help others make sense of all that they experience too. We write our stories, both the everyday ones and the epic ones and in doing so, we help others see that they too have stories and those stories are worth something.

Our stories are often not the ones we would have chosen but they belong to us nonetheless and we can live them with courage.

Whether today is a “living your dream” day or a “trudging through the trenches” day, it is all sacred.

It is worth living.

It is worth lamenting.

It is worth celebrating.

It is worth surviving.

It is your story. And it is His story too.

What’s New at the Blog? {and some posts you may have missed}

Notice anything new around here?

My five-year-old blog got a facelift. Five blog years is equal to ten human years. It’s a fact. The facelift is sort of a temporary fix, one I did myself even though I don’t know code or have photoshop or any skills whatsoever with this sort of thing.

I can pick out many things here that aren’t what I would choose if I had more options. {Blogspot is easy but limited.}

But. A certain blogger–the very first one I began reading way back when–her mantra kept ringing in my ears: It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. Or, in this case, It doesn’t have to be perfect to be better than it was. {The Nester, God love her.}

Honestly, I felt like a preschooler attempting calculus. I did everything using the ready-made stuff that Blogger already has and I made my header using Picasa and this tutorial. Sort of. The tutorial didn’t exactly work for me but it gave me the idea and I hacked my way through the rest.

Just seven short hours later, I had a finished product that would have taken a real web designer about seven seconds to produce. Yay for continuing education and steep learning curves!

A more comprehensive overhaul is still in the works but we are having blog-naming issues. Like I said in an earlier post, naming one’s blog is proving to be more difficult than naming one’s child. {Suggestions welcome.}

I’m happy-ish with it, considering my lack of expertise. And I hope you’ll like the cleaner, more organized space.

At the top you’ll notice that I have “pages.” Apparently blogger has had that feature available for years. I just figured it out a month ago. You can find everything from booklists to my 31 Days series to the craziest “About Me” section you’ve ever read.

Also, if you’ve never subscribed to the blog, I invite you to do that. If you want. No pressure at all. {I am the worst self-marketer ever.} When a la mode moves or renames herself or whatever it is she’s going to do, I think that I can simply move over the subscriptions at the same time. And if we can’t, well, I’ll just have to sheepishly invite you to subscribe again.

Here are the ways you can read or subscribe:

Subscribe through a “feed.” You’ll see that option on the right sidebar.

Have the blog delivered to your inbox each time I post. Just enter your e-mail address in that option box on the right sidebar and voila, a little fairy who lives in the enchanted forest of the internet hand-delivers each new post with love and pixie dust, directly to your inbox.

Subscribe through bloglovin. Ever since Google Reader shut down earlier this month, I have loved reading my favorite blogs through bloglovin. It’s a very user-friendly “reader” that receives new posts from your favorite blogs and displays them all in one place. If you don’t already use a “reader,” I highly recommend it. You don’t need any tech skills whatsoever. Simply go to bloglovin and set up an account. {It takes 10 seconds.} Then you can enter in the addresses or names of your favorite blogs that you want to regularly read. You can even search for them if you’re not sure of the correct web address. I especially like the mobile app for bloglovin. It’s free and so very easy. You can sign up through the bloglovin link on my right sidebar.

Hey, Scooper, I’ve subscribed via e-mail or through an RSS feed and it looks like you haven’t written a post in two months. What’s up with that?

I am so glad you asked. Apparently there was a glitch through Feedburner at the end of May. It is now the end of July and I just fixed it. And by “I,” I mean my husband.

I develop a nervous twitch at all things numeric and code and techie. But my husband does not. And he is infinitely more patient than me at figuring out things like computer glitches that Satan himself invented just for me.

In case you haven’t stopped in since the feed broke, I’ve listed all of the posts since the end of May. Thankfully, I am not prolific so you haven’t missed much. Here they are, listed in order of most recent first:

True Consolation

The Space Between Where You Are & Where You Wish to Be

10 Things I Learned in June

When Your Little World Conspires to Love You Big {my surprise 40th birthday party}

Because Forgetting the Pull-Ups is Just What Happens This Time of Year

Today I’m 40

So there you have it. A new look. New features. And some new posts that are actually old posts…but new to you. You’re welcome.

True Consolation

I only want to leave a post like my last one up for so long. I mean, it wasn’t exactly an easy-breezy summer post about popsicles and fireflies and the slow and lovely rhythms of summer.

It was about suffering. And suffering does not take its cues from seasons, trends, or the whims of a writer. Suffering comes when it comes; this I know.

But there’s something else I know. Hope. Hope comes when she comes and we’re good to grab on as if our life depends on it. Because, it kind of does.

Like the sureness of the morning, Hope slid up next to me last Thursday, the very day I wrote about her absence. She showed up in the form of counsel and prayer and acceptance.

And she brought along her favorite companion. Courage. They travel together often. So Hope and Courage, they sidled up next to me on a rainy Thursday and told me that I can do this, that I was meant for this road even though I’ve tried to say, Um, no thank you. May I have another?

There’s a quiet strength that accompanies acceptance. And there’s a subtle weariness that accompanies resistance. Ironic, isn’t it?

I’ve done a bit of study and found that the words comfort and consolation in Scripture don’t simply mean sympathy. That’s a good thing. While sympathy certainly makes us feel better, it leaves us in the same place.

A Greek word for comfort {parakaleo} actually implies strengthening. God’s comfort doesn’t just pacify our pain; it makes us strong. Similarly, the Latin word for comfort {fortis} can actually be translated as brave.

I can’t tell you how much I love the layered meanings of these words.

Though consolation found its way into my heart last week through several means of grace, it ultimately pointed me to the One who is both the person and the power of comfort: Christ.

The power of the bravest of the brave–it resides in me.

The perfect love of the Savior of the world and the Savior of my rotten days and crazy stories–it’s mine.

Though the world {and my own psyche} can offer sympathy, self-help, and supposed solutions, it cannot offer me true consolation.

I don’t normally do this but today, it seems fitting to simply end with a prayer. It’s for all of us.

Because of Christ, may Hope be more than “the thing with feathers that perches in your soul.” May it be a furious wind that blows you away with the power of its pursuit. And may this Hope bring along Comfort so sweet and so strong, that you are empowered by its sacred courage to press on with purpose, grace, and fortitude.

If you’d rather not walk the road you’re walking, may God give you the grace for acceptance and the discipline of gratitude. If you’re feeling blessed by the goodness of your life, receive the gifts, give thanks, and be generous. Whatever your story tells and whatever this day holds, know that the Father loves you with an everlasting love and an everlasting purpose. He’s got you and He’s got this and He is good. All the time, He is good.

The Space Between Where You Are & Where You Wish to Be

It feels like a chasm, this place.

It feels like you’re that crazy man who started on one side of the Grand Canyon and tightrope-walked to the other. Except that you’re not him and you don’t know how to tightrope-walk so you’re just stuck on that one desolate side of the canyon and getting across will take a miracle. Or at the very least a helicopter.

I write about “receiving your own life” and the “unfixable life” and some of you might be thinking by now, Sheesh, Scooper, get a hold of yourself. Either you really do have some crazy in your life or you have a flair for the dramatic.

And really, both of those things are true.

There is crazy, both the normal kind of crazy when you’re a mom with young-ish kids and you’re running a home and balancing the budget and wondering about dinner and fire-hosing sibling squabbles like they’re relentless wildfires.

And then there is the deeper stuff and you just want it to be fixed and resolved already but it’s not. Life is not okay. You are not okay. And because all of this brokenness has been wonky for so long and you’ve been fighting so hard, you are simply tired. So stinkin’ tired.

You stare at the other side of that canyon, that elusive finish line that also feels like the starting line because if you can just. get. there then you can finally begin to live the life you really want to live.

I hear the unmistakable whisper: This is your story, child.

And I do not whisper back. I yell with clenched fists and hot tears: This is NOT the story I wanted. I don’t want its storyline or its scars. Also, God? I’m tired.

I want God to make like a super hero and swoop down to save me, to fly me across that impossibly large canyon and plant me securely on the other side.

Sometimes those who are close to me, the few brave souls who know me and love me anyway, they tell me that God will use it all. They remind me of redemptive value.

And I think to myself, No thank you. My truth-telling has its limits. And our stories never stand alone anyway.

Do you ever get to this point when any redemptive purpose of your story feels irrelevant? A point when well-meaning consolation and redemptive hope fall flat?

You just want to wish the current struggle away.

You want to erase the past.

You hope for a different future.

So what do you do…when you can’t really do anything? What do you do when you know all the right answers but you’re encased in a self-imposed armor and those truth-arrows fall to the ground in vain, deflected by your steely shell?

What do you do when you know the truth but you don’t feel set free?

I guess you’re left with two choices:

The truth isn’t actually true.

OR

You don’t really know the truth you thought you knew. Or perhaps you {and by “you” I mean “I”} confuse knowing the truth with feeling the truth.

Sure, I can spout off the truth I say I believe. Even now, I’m tempted to tie up this melancholy, soulful post in a satin bow of comforting Christian speak. But that’s not being honest with you or me or God.

I’m wired in such a way that truth sometimes doesn’t seem true if I don’t feel it. Yes, I’m an over-thinker but I’m also a over-feeler. And so it’s tempting to just flush all the truth away because I don’t feel it helping and also I’m mad and when I’m mad I sometimes just want to stay all armored-up.

I know, my maturity amazes even me.

So what can I tell you today? What can I tell myself?

This is what I’ve got:

It’s okay that life is messy and that certain things in life are simply quite broken. It is okay.

I don’t have to do anything today to try to fix what I cannot fix.

God loves me so much, even though I’m melancholy and mad and not wanting to pray or read my Bible.

Because I feel too frustrated to pray, I’ve asked other people to pray for me. And they are. And this is such love.

Hormones certainly don’t help. Just accept this.

That “better life” on the other side of the canyon? It is not perfect. And because I want it too much, it is probably an idol and I need to do business with that.

There is hope. I don’t know what “hope” looks like in my particular life. The hope I’m speaking of isn’t the perfect-life-on-the-other-side-of-the-canyon hope. It’s a you-are-going-to-be-okay hope. Eventually, you really are going to be okay.

Waiting is hard. Simple pleasures like coffee and mint-chocolate anything and an evening glass of red wine can be sweet graces. I’m not talking about escapism; I’m talking about receiving good gifts for what they are: gifts.

Helping a friend helps me. Yesterday one of my dearest friends asked me to help rearrange all of the art and pictures in her living and dining room. It took us all day and it was such fun and I teetered on top of a piano and kitchen chairs and forgot about my big, sad self.

Just be where you are. Now, if you’re in a pit I do not recommend staying there. But if you’re mired in some mess and it seems like everyone else is not quite in the land of cuckoo that you are, just accept that this where you are today instead of fighting against it. Make peace with what is {as best you can} and know that you will not always be here.

{Can you tell that I did not do so well in my college philosophy class? Did that last paragraph even make sense?}

And that is what I can tell you {and tell myself} today, friends. What can I say? You get what you pay for.

No Bible verses. No scrawled out prayers. No mantras.

God loves you and He loves me and He has good for us. He does. It just may not look like someone else’s good who lives on the other side of the canyon. But He has good. He is good.

This is truth that I know, even if it is truth I cannot quite feel today.

Hang in there.

10 Things I Learned in June

Today I’m linking up with Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky. For several months she’s been doing a post at the end of each month entitled, Things I Learned in {Insert Month.} This month she’s invited the rest of us to join in.

Look out. This may just be the most life-changing post I’ve ever written.

……………………………

1. You know how you sometimes see celebrity men wearing their hair in a bun? It’s usually sort of a half-up / half-down sort of do and the “up” part is in a tiny bun. It’s weird, is what it is. Well, the “do” has a name. It’s called…The “Mun.” Don’t believe me? Just look in People magazine. {Why yes, I did sit on the beach and devour quality reading material on vacation.}

{via}

2. And that brings me to my next “thing.” I can go to the same place for vacation every year for 18 years and it doesn’t get old. Eighteen summers ago, two newlyweds went to Hilton Head Island for their honeymoon. They fell in love with the place and told the wife’s parents that they needed to go there as a family for vacation. The parents listened to their newlywed daughter and her husband and as it turned out, they also fell in love with the place. They loved it so much, they bought some time at a condo there. There were 7 of us then. Each summer we venture back and it feels like home. Only now? There are 15 more of us than there were way back then. And three condos instead of one.

3. Forty feels happy. I’ve been 40 for a month now and even though it felt like a slightly unwelcome milestone when I was still 39, I’ve found I’m actually cool with forty. Except for when I say, “I’m 40.” That’s still super weird. {You can read about my 40th birthday and all its goodness here.}

4. Brennan Manning and I share the same Enneagram type. I read his memoir, All is Grace, while I was at the beach. The Enneagram is a personality test that I went through several years ago and it was huge for me. I go back to it time and time again. From the first Manning book I ever read, I loved him. I felt understood, a bit less like a misfit. His words resonated with me in a way that no author’s ever had. Well, now I know why. We’re both 4’s.

5. Good product really does make a difference when you have curly hair. Yes, my hair is naturally curly. These days I wear it straight at least half the time but when I don’t, I’m loving Deva Curl. {My husband cracks up every time I say “Deva Curl.”} Yes, the name sounds a little ridiculous but I don’t care what it’s called; the stuff is fabulous. You have to follow their directions for washing and styling your hair. My curls are looking a lot more like they did before babies {and the hair-altering hormones that accompany babies.} I bought the “Get Started Kit” of all the products from amazon or you can probably buy it at your local salon.

6. Kelle Hampton wrote a book. It’s called Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected. Okay, so a lot of people already know this because apparently it’s a NY Time best seller. But I just found out. I don’t follow her blog regularly but I’ll never forget reading her story for the first time on Donald Miller’s blog. I may have gone through an entire box of Kleenex. Her raw and beautiful account of giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome was one of my most moving stories I’d ever read.

Little did I know, our own family would welcome two beautiful baby girls with Down Syndrome into our midst only months later. And though these sweet girls are my nieces and not my daughters, I feel like reading Kelle’s story helped prepare my heart a bit. On my husband’s side of the family, we welcomed Bree.

On my side of the family, we welcomed Naomi, just 3 weeks after Bree came into the world. It was all pretty unbelievable.

Like the Hamptons, my brother and his wife had no clue their baby had Down Syndrome until she was born. That was almost 2 years ago and I can’t imagine our families without these beautiful girls. I read some excerpts from Bloom on-line and I’m thinking I’d love to read the whole thing. {Have any of you read it?}

7. Sandra Bullock is crazy fluent in German. {And yes, I’m aware that “crazy fluent” is not even remotely a technical or proper term.} I saw her on Kelly and Michael yesterday morning and she was speaking German like nobody’s business. It was impressive.

I don’t see it as much as other people do but I am sometimes told by complete strangers that I look like Sandra Bullock. {Do you see it?}

{Today her hair was in a messy bun, not to be confused with “The Mun,” and I thought, Yep, messy bun. That’s me all right.} Also? I like German because my sister lived in Munich and speaks German and I had the most memorable time visiting her there nearly ten years ago. So basically, Sandra Bullock is an amalgamated doppelganger of my sister and me. {That sentence may have just tapped out my vocabulary for the day.}

8. A friend of mine from high school just won Mrs. Utah America. She was always effortlessly beautiful and incredibly sweet in high school. She still is. Congratulations Stefanie!

9. Chaco sandals are way comfy. I used all of my birthday money to buy a pair of black {aka “boring,” according to my daughter} ZX2’s. I love them, mostly because my back and knees don’t hurt by supper-time. {About #3. Forty is not always happy; sometimes 40 is achey.}

10. Naming {or renaming} your blog may be harder than naming your child. Yes, I’m hoping to roll out some long-overdue changes in the coming months. And one of those changes may involve changing the name of my blog. I’ll dish more about all of this later but let me just say, I have labored over a name. Labored. {I seriously didn’t spend this long on any of my kids’ names.} It’s kept me up at night and invited a whole host of hilarious fake blog name ideas from friends. I welcome any and all suggestions, including the funny ones. Especially the funny ones.

………………………..

So that’s what I’ve learned in June. Told you it would be life-changing. What have you learned? You can tell me in the comments or if you have a blog and want to scrawl out one of these posts too, link up over at Emily’s!

When Your Little World Conspires to Love You Big

Early in the week he told me we’d go out Friday night. Nothing fancy, just a casual dinner for two in order to kick off my birthday week. I couldn’t wait. We could eat tacos for all I cared.

I was turning 40 in a few days and a girl needs all the celebration and consolation she can get; I’d relish every birthday opportunity that came my way.

Friday finally rolled around and so did my giddyness. A birthday dinner, just the two of us. And my parents had the kids for the whole night. Even though it was casual I changed outfits five times like a fickle and fussy 20-year-old instead of the resolute and “mature” 40-year-old I was fixin’ to be.

“Reservations aren’t until 7:30,” he told me, “you’ve got time.”

“Great,” I said. “We can just leave early walk around downtown. You know I love that.”

We got in the car and when we reached the interstate he went south instead of north. North would have taken us to my favorite neighboring big city with the perfect downtown and the strolly streets I was hoping for.

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought we were going the other way.”

“Yeah. Um, I know you love going downtown but I have other plans. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

And truly, I wasn’t disappointed. I was just happy to be together and happy that he’d made plans days ahead of time and so thrilled that the birthday fun was beginning. Plus, he told me a few weeks prior that he’d already gotten my present so I was about to burst. {Even though, in my mind, we were only having tacos.}

“We have some time to kill before 7:30 so I’ve planned for us to go look at some houses.”

“Houses!” I shrieked. “We’re going to look at houses?!? I love you! We could just look at houses and call it a night and this would be the best date! I can’t believe you mapped out houses for us to look at!”

I have this thing about looking at houses and I’m always trying to drag him into my little world of crazy house love. So the fact that he planned for us to look at houses? Well. It was positively awesome.

After we’d looked at several homes and I was high on house love and birthday air and date night, he pulled into a nearby park and told me he just couldn’t wait to give me my present. Wide-eyed and pulse racing and terribly sweaty, I just stared at him as he handed me a brown envelope and said, “Here it is.”

My 40th birthday present. In a brown envelope with “Hallmark” embossed on the back flap. It obviously wasn’t jewelry or my dream dress from Anthropologie or a new house. A million ideas flashed through my mind and my hands shook as I read the hilarious card about turning 40 and the beautiful note he had written inside it. I was crying already.

Inside the card was a folded piece of paper. Fingers trembling, I fumbled with the tape and unfolded the white letter and read the words and could not speak.

Which was ironic. Because I was going to She Speaks.

Some backstory. I’ve wanted to go to the writing track of this conference for five years. I’ve prayed and begged and dreamed and written scholarship contest entries. Every year the conference would come and go but I could not.

To make all of this even more unbelievable, I’d gotten a message two months ago from one of my dearest friends from college. She lives half-way across the country and does a lot of speaking. She was flying to She Speaks and wondered if there was any way I could go and we could room together.

My heart sank when I read her message. I knew I couldn’t go. And honestly, I was mostly at peace that once again, this was not my year.

But I did pray. I prayed right in the middle of the attic I was cleaning out when her message lit up on my phone. I told God that I wanted to go, that He’d have to work a miracle to get me there, that I’d be fine even if the answer was “no” but that please, if there was any way and if the timing was right, could He send me this year?

We sat in the car and I wept. Shoulders heaving. Tears streaming. Mascara running.

I had no words, only the raw emotions of someone who had been given a gift that seemed too big and too impossible but there it was in black and white, for real.

It took some time to get my wits about me and clean up the drippy cosmetics that had run off my face like a river. My husband told me that we had one more house to look at on our way to dinner but he wasn’t sure exactly where it was.

As we wound through a neighborhood I said, “Oh I know where we are. This is right around the corner from so and so and what’s the address again that you’re looking for?”

We rounded the corner and there, stretched across our friends’ driveway, were people that I knew. My sister and my brother-in-law, women from my book study and their spouses, friends from our small group…

And eight of them were holding a sign and each sign was a giant letter and the letters spelled:

It took a split second to register. And a few seconds to catch my breath and then the nervous giggling came and I started hitting my husband on the arm, squealing, Shut. Up. And then more laughing and some tears and finally, finally I got out of the car and hugged our friends.

All of these people! They {and my husband} had conspired to throw a surprise party for little ol’ me. I’m not sure if I’d ever felt more loved than I did that night. It was humbling, a tad embarrassing, exciting, but mostly overwhelming in the most wonderful ways.

For a girl who loves a party and loves surprises more than anyone else I know, this surprise birthday bash and the She Speaks gift felt like a lottery win.

But that’s not all. In lieu of regular birthday gifts, these friends and our families had chipped in to send me to the conference. I guess it takes a village to raise a writer.

It was all a bit much to take in but I did my best to savor the moments and to be grateful instead of sheepish and all, “You shouldn’t have done this!”

Everyone brought food and there were fun drinks and cupcakes with Pioneer Woman’s frosting and the cutest decorations you ever did see.

How cute is this? Paper straws with flags to label your beverage
and tie-on paper tags to label your stemware.

The party planners actually had a craft night to make all of this cutesy stuff. {What?!?}

And my sister scavenged my parents’ house for old photos of me across the years.

We all munched and sipped and laughed and made s’mores down by the fire-pit. Friends came and went and when the evening was over, the hostess sent me home with birthday cards and cupcakes and those adorable decorations.

I couldn’t have asked for more.

……………………

Though the party has come and gone and my 40th birthday is now behind me, the love lingers. I didn’t deserve the fanfare or generosity. Even now, it’s so very humbling.

Like most women I know, I have many moments of insecurity, I struggle to know my place, I have dreams and hopes and an equal number of fears that try to quash those hopes.

But in the most unexpected ways, the party and the love and the community effort to send me to the conference–it’s made me braver. Bolstered by so much support and goodness, I feel a little less afraid, a little less insecure, and a little more willing to take some risks.

I tend to wince when I feel like something is over-spiritualized and I don’t want what I’m about to say to be that. But here it goes…

This whole 40th birthday experience was like a divine gift, a message from God himself that said,

These last 2 1/2 years, they threatened to swallow you up, steal your joy, and smother your spirit for good. But I had other plans. I love you more than you can possibly know and I’m showing you tangibly, in ways that you can appreciate because they’re so personal and so real and kind of ridiculous in their bigness. I’m loving you through all of these people, my people and your people. Just receive it and receive them and know that it’s all love.

And so I have. And I am. My birthday will sort of be this ongoing gift because the conference isn’t until late July and I hope that the fruit from it will continue long after it’s over.

Perhaps there’s one more take-away from all of this. Celebrate your people. Not everyone loves a surprise or longs for a big party or a writing conference or book-page accordion decorations. But I think we all long to be loved in big ways once in a while and loved regularly in little ways that surprise and delight and keep us going.

Because you never know, cupcakes and celebration may be just the expression someone needs to show them just how much they’re loved and to make them just a bit braver.

Because Forgetting the Pull-Ups Is Just What Happens at This Time of Year

We are trudging through the eternal school year. Tomorrow is the last day and honestly, I wasn’t sure it would ever arrive.

The year has flown by but the last few weeks? Not so much.

I identified with every hysterical word of Jen Hatmaker’s “Worst End of School Year Mom Ever” post that has probably gone viral many times over.

We too are “limping across the finish line” folks. These are things I just didn’t understand during my oblivious years as a homeschool mom. There were no end of year gifts and festivities. Some years, when I was especially exhausted, we simply quit altogether and I hid under my bed while the kids supervised themselves in the yard. That was our end of the year party.

Between many, many parties and cheerleading tryouts {two words I never thought I’d find myself typing} and appointments and my own hangover {figuratively of course} from my 40th birthday festivities, I’m kind of done with virtuous motherhood and its many polite responsibilities.

My youngest is eating Apple Jacks {Apple Jacks!} on top of the kitchen counter while I type this.

Why? Because the kitchen table is covered with laundry.

Needful things are not making it on the grocery lists, some of us have given up wearing underpants altogether, and my kids had FroYo for dinner last night. Swear.

But perhaps the most shameful confession of all? A certain youngest child in our family has been forced to wear “special diapers” to bed for three nights because I cannot for the life of me remember to purchase pull-ups.

Is the “special diaper” an overnight maxi pad adhered inside Spiderman underwear?

{Yes, we are putting away money now for his inevitable therapy.}

Somehow I have no recollection of yearbook orders so this mom failed to order her very sentimental, very social son the elementary school yearbook he so desperately wanted. The yearbook company is shipping me one and it will hopefully arrive today. {Yay for paying shipping costs on a $20 yearbook for your 3rd grader!}

I have a sneaking suspicion that summer breaks were created just so moms could have a respite from the relentless administrative responsibilities of the school-year, 90% of them which seem to fall during the last 3 weeks.

There’s so much to tell you about my birthday celebrations and the ridiculously amazing gift from my husband {and friends and family} but I just can’t. string. words. together right now because I am seriously and completely tapped out.

Brain fried. Calendar clogged. Nerves completely and totally frayed. If a terrorist showed up at my home and said, “Get your act together or I’ll have to kill you,” I’m afraid I’d have no choice but to take the bullet.

So if you’re already enjoying your bless-ed summer vacation, just be prepared for me to make snarky comments on your Facebook and Instagram photos that show your kids jumping off diving boards and playing in the sprinklers.

Why? Because I’ve got to pack for a 3rd grade pool party and not forget the plates I’m supposed to bring and get the bunk beds ready for a sleepover and do something with that laundry gracing the kitchen table and remember which kids I’m supposed to take home and which ones are coming with me…

and for the love, not forget to pick up the Pull-Ups.

Today I’m 40

It’s true.

Today I’m 40.

It feels significant and crazy and surreal and I daresay, a bit empowering to write that sentence.

I don’t feel forty. Sometimes I don’t even feel like a grown-up.

I’ve been married seventeen years and have three kids, yet part of me still feels like this life of mine is just a long-term babysitting gig and at any moment the real parents will arrive and pay me three dollars an hour for my time. I’ll drive my stick-shift VW Rabbit home, sing along to my mix tape, climb into bed, and stare up at my Benetton posters while I drift off to sleep.

I was a teenager, I blinked, and now I’m forty.

I’m a sucker for milestones and all things nostalgic, sentimental, and celebratory. So it’s only appropriate that I commemorate this personal milestone with a 40s-themed post.

………………………………

Forty Things: Lessons, Observations, and Resolutions on my 40th Birthday

On Motherhood

1. One of the best gifts I can give my kids is an authentic life. A life in which I mess up and ask their forgiveness. A life in which I inevitably fall short of my own parenting expectations and start again the next day. A life in which I share my own stories {the good, the bad, and the ugly} so that they know realness and redemption is alive and well in their own family.

2. To thine own parenting self be true. Our God-given personalities show up in our parenting. Sometimes this is awesome. Sometimes it is ugly. But trying to parent my kids in the same way someone else parents their kids has been nothing but a train wreck for me. Things go better when I’m honest about who I am and who my kids are and what our life looks like.

3. All they need is love. And yes, love looks like discipline and it looks like grace and it looks like helping with homework and repentance and picking them up from school. But truly, if my kids know in their core that they are loved beyond measure, not because of who they are or aren’t or what they do or don’t do but simply because they are mine–well, that’s everything.

4. Play is the smartest thing kids can do. It is their work, their education, their brain-power. It’s okay to just let them play. {Types the mom who stepped over a train track, a car show, and a line-up of super-heroes to get to my bedroom and finish this post.}

5. There’s no formula. Twelve years into motherhood and it’s so freeing to realize this. There is the Holy Spirit and the law written on my heart. There is the God-given common sense wired into my brain. All things being equal, there are parenting principles and precepts that may yield great kids. But all things are never equal and our kids will ultimately make their own choices.

6. Only God can change their hearts. This is liberating and also terrifying, depending on the day.

7. When I pray for wisdom and I feel like it’s not coming as quickly as it “should,” I do the best I can and fall back into the hammock of grace, knowing that it will catch me and catch them and cover a multitude of missteps along the way.

On Marriage

8. I love being married and I desperately love the man I’m married to, the man who has known me over half my life. Marriage, however, is challenging. In my humble opinion it is a miracle that any marriages stay together. But here’s the beautiful truth that rises up out of that bleak reality: Miracles happen. They really do. I should celebrate every day in light of this miracle.

9. The only way to extend grace is to first recognize my own fierce need of it. I receive it and pour it out every day, as many times as I need it, as many times as he needs it.

10. Unforgiveness is poison and doesn’t do anything but empower a hardening heart toward greater bitterness.

11. Forgiveness. It is excruciating and beautiful, sacrificial and sacred, ridiculous and revolutionary. It changes everything.

12. Growing old together may not seem sexy or exciting or the stuff most movies are made of. But every time I think about growing old together, I cry. I just do. See? Just typing this…tears.

13. Despite what all the marriage seminar people tell you, it’s possible to have a lovely marriage without the luxury of a weekly date night. Date nights are amazing and I wish we had more of them, but date nights will not make or break a marriage.

On Myself

14. At 40, I’m bolder in speaking my own mind and not the mind I think others want me to speak. And when I do speak, it feels stronger but more graceful than it once did…a “softer” strength as opposed to my younger, prideful, self-righteous, ax-to-grind mind-speaking.

15. I feel more comfortable in my own skin {even though it’s saggier, frecklier, and veinier than it once was.} My mom used to say, You be You. I didn’t listen. Besides, I didn’t really know who I was. But here I am at 40 and I’m finally getting to know myself, who I am and who I’m not. It’s comforting to make peace and friends with both.

16. I’m more comfortable with the gray and less resolute about the black and whiteness of life. Yes, I believe in absolute truth. No, this isn’t a statement on the virtue of relativism. But I hope I die with plenty of unanswered questions. I hope I’ll always keep my eyes and ears, mind and heart open to the grace and freedom of life lived outside the box.

17. Honesty trumps pretense every time. Vulnerability invites kindred, wounded souls. Be who you are and not who you think you’re supposed to be. God wants you in this world, the real you. And the world needs the real you too. {Listen to my mom’s advice on this, okay?}

18. I knew nothing in my 20s {but it was a fun decade.}

19. I began to get a clue in my 30s {but it came through a lot of un-fun experiences.}

20. Though I had a sense of dread about turning 40, I’ve changed my tune. I’ve no guarantee that my 40s will be a decade of peace, health, or happiness but here’s the thing: my 30s were hard. Yes, they were full of many blessings and two babies and countless lessons. But those lessons were born out of grief and a whole lot of crazy. Why wouldn’t I want to see this milestone birthday as a chance to begin a new chapter? It feels good and right to see it this way.

21. I’m happier {albeit wrinklier} as I begin my 40s. I strive less. I receive more grace. I give more love. I’m less judgey. I feel more content. I don’t rely on the opinions or approval of others. Certain things I used to value now seem superficial.

22. I’m an introvert, an INFJ to be exact. For years I thought I was an extrovert. Eventually I realized that I “needed” to be around people simply because I got my worth from others. I’m so glad that’s no longer the case. A lot of people are surprised that I’m an “I” and not an “E.” I can chat it up and be outgoing but only in limited doses.

23. At 40, I can admire and appreciate others’ strengths and gifts without feeling envious or less than. This is so freeing.

24. Overachieving is overrated and usually comes at a cost. That’s why mediocrity is looking better every day.

25. I don’t regret the things I thought I would. I’ve learned that certain failures don’t define me like I once believed. Yes, immature decisions and momentary recklessness can sometimes have significant consequences. But memories that use to dredge up shame now dredge up acceptance. I was human. I am human. I acted {and still act} out of my humanness and its many passions and weaknesses. It’s covered by grace.

26. I don’t regret being a PhD dropout. Not for one second. You know, I thought I might regret this one. At the time, it was the biggest, most grueling decision of my life. But sometimes our gut is totally right. {And so are the people around us who tell us it’s okay to take a break or just quit altogether.}

27. I regret the stuff I thought I wouldn’t. I wish I’d skipped youth group or church or even school every now and then when my teenage / college schedule was overbooked and I was overtired. Downtime, reflection, and rest would have done my weary self a lot of good. I also wish I’d been more serious about writing in my younger years. As I wrote in this letter to my teenage self:

Write in your diary as much as you can. It may seem like a waste of time but for you, writing down your insides has a way of calming you on the outside.

On Rest

28. Fruitfulness and productivity are not the same thing.

29. Sometimes rest, the “art of doing nothing,” is the most fruitful thing I can do for myself and for those I love most. I’ve quit comparing my life, schedule, and responsibilities to that of others.

30. Every “yes” is also a “no.” The concept of “opportunity cost” influences almost every decision we make as a family and as individuals. Our time, resources, and energy are finite. I wish I’d learned this years ago.

On Beauty & Aging

31. One day I’ll wonder why I ever begrudged the “flaws” I currently fret over. In the same way I once wished I could change certain features on my 20-year-old-self {such insanity}, my 60-year-old future self is probably having a fit that I’m fretting over anything at 40. I’ve resolved to celebrate and appreciate what is. Stretch marks and laugh lines mean that life and laughter are etched into my very being like sacred tattoos.

32. Perfection is off-putting and alienating.

33. Real beauty truly does come from the inside. It’s absolutely true. The most beautiful people in my life are the grace-givers and the grace-livers and the unconditional lovers. Their outsides don’t matter to me. Actually, their outsides are beautiful to me because of their insides.

34. I obsess about the external far less than I did in my younger years. Thank God. Yes, I still desire loveliness but more and more I see it as a waste of time, money, and worry.

35. Despite what I just wrote in the last four points, here’s the ironic thing: I still care. I kind of wish I didn’t. And even though I know that real beauty is the inside stuff, I have six tubes of chapstick, lip gloss, or lip stick in my purse at this very moment. Why? Because I have always been girly, a lover of pretty clothes and sparkly baubles and lip gloss. It’s okay. This is who I am. {Please, when I die, do not bury me in old-lady shoes or let a bumbling mortician with man-hands and cakey cosmetics do my make-up. I beg you.}

On Grace and Other Stuff

36. Greatness is not what I once thought is was. God destines some for public greatness. But I’m seeing that most of the greatness in this world happens behind closed doors, beside hospital beds, alongside a sick child in the middle of the night, stirring soup on the stove, enfolded in the tightly-gripped hands of one wounded healer whispering her broken story to another. Grace-infused humility and a life lived out of the spotlight may not go down in the history books or gain the most followers, but it has great and glorious eternal value. {Not to mention the value in the here and now, whether it’s appreciated or not.}

37. At 40, I’ve just stumbled upon this amazing “secret” that’s revolutionizing my relationships. See others as Jesus sees them: flawed but forgivable, struggling but savable, broken but beautiful. No, I’ll never be able to love them just like He loves them but simply seeing others the way He sees them–it’s a big step down the road toward loving better.

38. I‘m wondering if grace is what makes the world go round and when the world’s going ’round in a wonky, sand-in-the-gears sort of way, perhaps it’s due to an absence of grace: war, famine, oppression, abuse, schisms, self-righteousness, fractured relationships. One day all will be made right but in the meantime, a heavy downpour of grace could fix so much. What are we waiting for?

39. As Winston Churchill once said: Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Courage doesn’t lead most of us into battle or inside a burning building or onto a campaign platform. As I mentioned recently in The Upside of Failure, courage in the everyday is simply this: falling down and getting back up.

40. And finally, 40 feels like permission. Permission to take all that I’m learning and actually do something with it. Permission to tap into some of God-given loves even if I don’t have the training or degrees or clout. Because y’all, forty is legit. I’m a bona fide grown-up now, old enough to have some credibility, experienced enough to have some stories, tired enough to have some needful restraint, and brave enough to say yes to new paths.

Or, in the immortal words of “Towanda” from Fried Green Tomatoes after she rear-ends that red convertible {six times} driven by brazen twenty-somethings:

Face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance. {One of the best movie moments ever.}

Yes, forty feels like permission indeed.

And it also feels like you better not take my minivan’s parking spot with your convertible.

Home Updates: How My Mistreated Windows Grew Up

So. This is the last post of the unofficial “Home Updates Series.”

If you’d like to catch up, here are the other posts:

Dresser Turned Entertainment Center

Anatomy of a Gallery Wall

Bookcase Bling

Today I’d like to show you how my adolescent, mistreated-but-just-fine-windows got a makeover.

My poor windows sat naked for years. Window treatments can be spendy, especially when you have five of them in one room. And I’m sort of a perfectionist. So I simply did nothing while my sad windows sat victimized by my frugality and perfectionism.

When I first started reading The Nester about six years ago, she inspired me with her many ways one could “mistreat” a window.

So, armed with my glue gun and Wal-Mart fabric, I decided that something was better than naked. I spent $20 on fabric and a little bit more on ring clips and upholstery tacks.

I figured it would be temporary fix but those make-do mistreatments remained tacked to the walls for four and a half years.

After we painted and spruced up our great room, I knew it was time for my windows to grow up. A few months ago I found 8 sheery panels at a local antique shop. I risked $25 for them, not knowing if they’d work and not knowing when I’d ever get around to putting them up.

I’d also been holding on to a lovely vintage curtain rod with crystal finials I’d scored years ago at a thrift store, but I only had one. I was determined to use it so I told myself that all the curtain rods “don’t have to match, they just have to go.” {Channeling the sage advice of Clinton and Stacy.}

I found some in a similar finish at {gulp} Big Lots. As it turned out, they look just fine in the same room with their different but fancier sister who lives just further down the wall.

Want to see what a difference sheery panels with real curtain rods make in this room?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

{This tiny child is in middle school now. What?!?}

AFTER:

I know. It may be my favorite change to this space. I love how they still let in the light but they add a softness and finished-ness to the space. In my husband’s words, the room looks more “sophisticated.” {I didn’t even know he had decorating adjectives in his vocabulary. He has so been holding out on me.}

Thanks for letting me show and tell all of these fun changes to our main living space.

I’m a house junkie and a homebody and I think about our home’s spaces a lot. But…I’ve realized that I do not really love to write about my home. I like it, but I don’t love it. It feels like work, especially posting all of the photos. {I don’t know how all of you home bloggers do it.}

While it’s fun for me to do a house post here and there, I am so very ready to get back to the writing I love most.

So stay tuned. I already have one scripted for tomorrow. It’s kind of a special day.

Home Updates: Bookcase Bling

Last week I made a quick stop at Lowe’s. Several employees asked if they could help me find what I was looking for and I replied with fake, cheerful, confidence: “No thanks. I’m fine.”

I marched the aisles like I knew exactly what I needed even though I had no clue and was too embarrassed to ask where the tiny, pretty, brassy, corner thingys were.

How could I tell the savvy home-improvement gurus that I was looking for jewelry? For my bookcase.

Months ago I found a humble wooden bookcase at an antique store for $25. It was the perfect size for our foyer.

When you are living large in a small space, everything has to do double duty. I can’t waste space on a lovely occasional table that holds lamps and picture frames and candles. Form and function rule the roost around here. It’s just the way it is.

That means my entryway is the library / art gallery / foyer. My “occasional table” is a hardworking holder of books. Lots of books.

There’s a bit of a shelf shortage in our home.

I have books stashed in the hutch, on the nightstands, beside the kids’ beds, and in baskets amid the Playmobil and Legos.

And there’s still a box or four in my attic from my old office. Believe it or not, I’ve actually gotten rid of a lot of books in recent years. Still, it’s just sort of bookish around here. I hope it always will be.

I dream of this:

{via}

And this:

{via}

Let’s face it. I really just want to live here. {My heart skips a beat. The Abbey Bookshop, Paris.}

But in the meantime, I’m content with my $25 slimline shelves. And while she’s practical…she’s a bit plain.

Back to my story. I remembered seeing some brassy hardware recently as I strolled the aisles of Lowe’s and it hit me: “Those hardware thingys would sure look pretty on my Plain Jane foyer bookcase.”

Here’s what I bought.