“Mom, What Can I Do?” {The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Supervising Children}

This post and my last are an obvious departure from my typical posts. Having kids at home during the summer has forced my brain into everyday problem-solving instead of everyday philosophizing.

Now that my kids are older, it seems they’re a bit more prone to uttering the b-word {“boredom”}, which has long been a banned word in our house. And though I am enjoying having them around sans homework and busyness, I still have to keep them occupied with pursuits that are somewhat fruitful.

Because I know myself, I recognize that I will go stark raving mad if I’m the one engaging with them 24 / 7. My approach to parenting is a bit laissez-faire: It’s not my job to entertain my kids; it’s my job to teach them how to entertain themselves. I’m all about kids being independent, not because I’m virtuous that way but because I am lazy tired. I need a bit of space, not to mention time and energy to do laundry and fix dinner.

So in the spirit of the Summer Snack List, I compiled a “Mom, What Can I Do?” list. Obviously, this only works with kids who can read. If you’re really industrious, you can take pictures of activities and paste them on a list for preschoolers. Honestly, I’m not that ambitious. My preschooler does a pretty good job of entertaining himself by playing with his BFF neighbor buddy or dumping out the recycling bin.

The concept of the list is easy. Think of simple stuff your kids can do without your help. There are great things you can do with your kids like cooking, crafting, and painting. And I plan to do some of that during the summer. But I’m more interested in giving them ideas for independent play and creativity. Do what works for you. You know your kids and you know yourself. Keep those things in mind.

So without further adieu, here’s our list. I’m sure we’ll add to it over the summer but this at least gets us started:

How about you? Any brilliant ideas for keeping the littles busy this summer?

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Let the Snack List Do the Bossing {aka The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Keeping Kids Fed}

Summer brings out the lazy in me. As if that was a stretch.

I love having my kids home. But I’m beginning to feel like a short-order snack chef. It seems as though someone is asking for food or popsicles or a four-course meal every ding-dang second.

Only one week into summer and I’m tired of saying,

You can’t have that right now.

Quit pillaging the pantry. {It’s phrases like this that certainly have my kids wishing their mom was not a former History teacher.}

Didn’t you just get a snack 2 seconds ago?

Starving children would be grateful for the food we have.

So in a rare flurry of brain power, I came up with this idea…

Behold, the Summer Snack List.

I stuck the list on the door of the pantry in a clear top-loader. Whenever I’m out of one of the designated snacks, I just cross it out until I can get to the store and “replenish the coffers.” {Ugh. History teacher speak again.}

Instead of feeling like the Snack Nazi, I just refer hungry kids to the pantry door and let the list do the bossing for me.

Just one more way I’m working hard to do the bare minimum this summer.

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What are your favorite summer survival tips?

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A New Kind of Summer

It’s my very first summer to have my kids at home from school. When you homeschool, you transition from days spent with your kids to…days spent with your kids. The only thing different is not having schoolwork in the mornings. It’s a nice break, to be sure. But the day to day from homeschool to summer break doesn’t feel radically different.

But now? Summer feels positively like a holiday. I can’t remember being this excited for summer since I was a student myself. I’ve missed my kids in a good way. We’ve had enough space from one another to truly desire togetherness. My melancholy, quiet-ish daughter has been all hugs and quality time and chatter. By contrast, my sunshiney, extroverted son is still grieving the end of school but slowly coming around. As for the Cupcake, well, he’s delighted to have his big brother and sister around a bit more. There’s been a lot of fort-building and lego-creating since school got out.

As for me, I feel more intentional as a parent than I’ve ever felt. I ache to love them well and I pray for the grace that will enable me to do it.

This season of transition as a mother has made me terribly emotional. Terribly. I’m just perpetually undone. I cried at the end-of-the-year preschool program, 2nd-grade awards day, and 5th-grade graduation.

My daughter and I cleaned out her room on Friday and we bagged up {oh my word, I can barely type this}…the Barbies. But that’s not all. The American Girl dolls that had been on display were tucked safely in a box at the top of her closet. She’s not acting like a teenager yet; she’s just not acting as much like a little girl. {The whole process reminding me a bit of boxing up the bows.} I was pretty much a wreck over the packing away. I’m still pretty much a wreck.

It’s all going by so quickly and I want to boss time around and make it stand still. But we all know that’s not possible. It’s hard to make the most of the moments we do have but this season of rest has enabled some soul-searching, healing, and proper prioritization. I’m so thankful for it. And I’ll never cease to marvel at how real life re-routes us in ways that feel like failure but are actually grace.

Trust and grace are gradually replacing fear and regret. It’s slow but sure and I cling white-knuckled to the newfound hope I’ve glimpsed as we do life differently.

So here’s to a summer of long days, listening, and grabbing up the small gifts wherever they may be found. Here’s to lightening bug catching, playing wiffle ball well into the dark and reading good books ’til even later.

Sip slowness, experience rest, and love well.

May Grace be your guide, and mine, through these lovely, lazy days of summer.

Summer House Love

My house has a tendency to look summery all year long. I can’t help it. I’m a lover of all things light, clean, and breezy. If I could pick anywhere in the world to live, it would be by the ocean. It’s no surprise that my coastal love not so subtley finds its way into our home.

Therefore when it actually is summer, the season for all things beachy and light, my home is in its heyday. Come Christmas it will look like summer is awkwardly trying to make small talk with tinsel and ornaments but June has it saying, Awww, yeah.

So in the spirit of my little house that is all summer all the time, here’s a few homey updates and practices that keep me calm{ish} in my home. Which is where I look to stay. Way too much of the time.

Yep, I’m trying out new paint colors.

I swiped them on the walls weeks ago and we’re just living with them for a while while we let the right color speak to us.

Sweet succulents.

These plants make me smile. And because they are hard to kill {or perhaps just slow to die}, I can have them around for a while.

Blooms.

I planted a hydrangea bush last summer. It died. But my neighbor’s hydrangeas are loaded with blossoms and she let me snip some of her lovely blooms. {Thanks CA!} They make me so happy. If I don’t have hydrangeas, I just cut the branches and leaves off of anything I can find and stick it in a vase.

This new thing.

The TV has new digs. We ventured to IKEA to get a small Expedit bookcase to turn on its side and came out with this monstrosity instead. It was on clearance, has great storage, and it fits the TV just perfectly. But it’s large. Really large. That’s the downside of looking at furniture in a store the size of a city. The scale of things is all wonky.

And because it’s large and it sits besides the mantle, there is no focal point for this room. I’m still not sure how I feel about the set-up but we’ll just live with it for a while.

“New” chairs.

Because I just can’t have enough white and bright, I’m painting the kitchen chairs. Three down, three to go. I’m just spraying them with Rustoleum’s Heirloom White. It’s amazing what happens when you take out the dark and replace it with white. At $2.50 a can, it’s a super cheap redo.

Clean surfaces.

When two-thirds of the square footage of your home is one giant room, there are some practices that help the space feel tidier. Clutter in one part of the room has a way of feeling like clutter in the rest of the room. The absence of walls will do that. I remember The Nester talking about clearing the surfaces and I think it’s the best decorating advice ever, especially for open spaces.

I don’t have picture frames or candles or other tchotchkes sitting around and I’m ruthless about trashing paper and the rest of the junk that a family of five seems to breed so effortlessly. For me, clear surfaces = calm mama. And I’m in the need of all the serenity I can get.

So where do I put my little “set-arounds?” I house them in this hutch…

Or assemble them in a seashell “village” on the mantle.

Keeping collections of little things together allows you to enjoy them without feeling overtaken by the tyranny of the tiny.

Our great room will probably only look this clean for another hour. The only reason I could even do this post is because we had out-of-town guests passing through last night and the place is unusually tidy. It’s a lovely feeling even if it does only last for one day.

So that’s the summer vibe in this place…seashells, succulents, creamy whites, and cleared-off countertops.

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Everyday Grace: Gifts

When life feels heavy…

When the rain, rain won’t go away…

When nothing is fixed or tidy or stacked up neatly…

When the soul is weary and the body follows suit…

When relationships are burdensome and acceptance seems out of reach…

Find the beauty in your world and gaze upon the gifts.

Know that the Creator of the Universe is lavish with his unfailing love, He who did not spare even his own son for you.

All good gifts point to the ultimate good gift: Christ Himself.

Related Verses

Romans 8:32

James 1:17

Ephesians 3:16-19

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“Everyday Grace” is a regular{ish} post I’ve recently begun. In January I started praying this simple but regular petition: Father, make the Gospel of Grace real to me in tangible, everyday ways. These posts record the ways in which God is answering that prayer. Getting to share these vignettes with you is simply an added gift, one I am so grateful for. My hope is that you may also be encouraged by Everyday Grace. {To read more in this series, click on the “Everyday Grace” label in the right sidebar.}

From Homeschool to Public School: What I’ve Learned About My Kids and Myself

Sharing our journey from homeschool to public school is a scary topic for me. First of all, the way each family chooses to educate children is a deeply personal decision. We toss around words like “conviction” and “calling” because our deeply-held desires for our children flow out of our values and beliefs. And that’s as it should be.

The second reason I’m scared is because I am so all over the map on any given day. One of my closest friends {who homeschools} knows I can’t really talk about homeschooling right now. I can’t dish about curriculum like I used to. I’m still a bit fragile over the whole thing. Homeschooling was more of my identity than I’d realized.

My own convictions are not that cemented anymore, which makes feel wishy-washy. I’m afraid that if I write about how public school has been great for my kids {and for me} and then we bring one or all of them back home in the future, I’ll have to eat my words. And my big fat pride just hates that.

The third reason I tread very lightly on this topic is because when one person’s conviction is not another person’s, well, things can become dicey. Sometimes educational choices can feel like religion or politics. We can become cliquish, dogmatic, self-righteous, and graceless. It doesn’t always start out that way but it’s easy to understand why this happens.

When you homeschool, you’re in the minority and you desperately need community and encouragement. It’s hard, it’s still sort of unchartered territory, it’s not “normal.” You need your people. And in some circles or certain churches, public schooling {or private schooling} can place you in the minority. You need community and encouragement too. Because it’s also hard and you need your people.

For nearly five years, I had my people. Oh I still had plenty of friends and acquaintances who were doing public school. But for very practical reasons, our lives did not overlap as much. So now I have my people who are still homeschooling and my people who are public schooling. I know what it’s like to do both. And because my family’s “way” is very much in flux and that is so uncomfortable, I cannot even begin to tell you how unsettled I feel.

My homeschooling community was amazing. I actually had friends in various homeschooling communities but we all did that weird thing of not sending our kids to school. Being “weird” is what bonded us all. I went to practicums and conferences. I read lots of books. I researched. I felt inspired. But in retrospect I’m realizing that I was also indoctrinated. Yes, that last sentence is passive. The truth is, I indoctrinated myself.

There is a fine line between inspiration and indoctrination. It’s not always one or the other but we need to be wise in recognizing when it shifts from the former to the latter. I try to be wise. I am a natural-born skeptic. I tend to be analytical and discerning. But sometimes our emotions trump our brains. I think that happened to me a little bit with homeschooling.

I still love the idea of it. Love. I know {and envy} homeschool families who do it beautifully and who have raised the most amazing, equipped kids. And because my husband and I reserve the right to change our minds, I may be a homeschool mom again.

But I won’t be the same homeschool mom.

First of all, I know myself better. Second, I’d take my own advice and get paid. Third, I’m now more able to recognize when inspiration shifts to indoctrination and I will run the other direction. Fast.

But I don’t just know myself better. I know my kids better too. And do you know why?

Because I sent them to school.

That sounds counterintuitive. In fact, plenty of homeschool families told me that homeschooling allows you to know your kids better. And it does. But moms and kids can also fall into ruts when they’re together all the time. Familiarity can breed contempt {or at least annoyance} but it can also create blind spots. At least it did for me.

I’ve learned that my son is infinitely more motivated when he’s surrounded by lots of people. A true extrovert, he is inspired by social energy. At home, he was smart but sometimes sluggish, capable but distracted. Going to school brings out the best in him and he has a way of bringing out the best in others.

He loves his classmates and his teacher and they love him. He is full of compassion, near tears when he tells me about the kid who gets in trouble the most. He has an uncanny ability to see past kids’ behavior and analyze the ways in which home or academic struggles influence poor decisions and leave certain kids at risk. It’s almost unnerving. He’s only 8.

But in most every other way he’s just a normal second-grader. When he comes home from school, he gives me the run-down of what he’s doing in class but more importantly, how many interceptions he caught during recess.

Today he informed me that he’s #5 on the Heisman watch. Who knew that 2nd graders have a parallel football universe? We spent last week at the beach and when we returned on Saturday, he told me that he couldn’t wait for Monday. What’s Monday? I asked. School! I can’t wait to see everybody, he replied enthusiastically. I’ve no doubt he’ll be a puddle of tears on the last day of second grade.

I’ve learned that my daughter is crazy about science, a subject I did great disservice to when we were doing school at home. She recently declared that she will one day get a PhD in Biology plus a Master’s degree in teaching. And she’ll be an artist on the side. Though she will likely change her mind 17 times before she has to formally make those decisions, it’s exciting to see her so inspired.

She has become more enthusiastic and driven, thriving on the social and academic culture of school. She loves having different teachers who teach their subjects well and passionately. And here’s another quirky thing I’ve learned about her. She studies for tests by recruiting a willing family member to be her “student” and then she teaches the hapless victim her test material for as long as he or she will sit. It seems to work.

Though she can be quiet and appears shy, she’s demonstrated that she can be assertive when she needs to be, both with kids and with adults. She’s confronted meanness, frustrating group assignments, and stolen chocolates from her lunch box.

And through all of this she’s learned that plenty of kids have home situations that don’t afford them the luxuries of two parents, intentional discipline, protection from things that 11-year-olds shouldn’t have to face, and a truffle or two in one’s lunchbox.

We’ve been able to process frustrating and unfair situations through the lens of grace. And this has been such a gift for both of us. In the words of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird,

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Sharing these observations about my kids perhaps sounds braggy and indulgent. That’s not my intent. Truly it’s not. I’m simply bringing to light the qualities I couldn’t see so well when they were at home.

Juggling meals and math, laundry and language, and doing it all day long…it can blur one’s vision just a bit. I know my children have got their issues. I’m their mama and I see their mess in all of its glory. Sometimes their mess overwhelms me and like any other mama, I worry about them. I fight fear, I fret over grades, I desperately want them to do well. But that is no longer the primary goal.

Learning to climb into others’ skin.

This is more important than learning math in just the right way or understanding history from a classical perspective. It’s more important than reading the greatest of books or being a National Merit Scholar.

Don’t get me wrong, they are learning math and history and science in ways that are engaging and effective. But they’re learning so much more. And so am I. The irony is that this sort of learning, this exposure to certain influences and unsavory topics, this is the stuff I wanted to protect them from.

I still do.

But this is the world they will one day navigate without parental supervision and tutelage. So every day they get to practice being brave and true, loving and discerning. They will fail. They have failed. We all do. But every day they come home to us and we revisit the day. We “walk around in skin” and their father and I try to point them to truth and reaffirm our values.

In many ways, we’ve become more intentional about these sorts of things since they went to school.

You see, we are still homeschooling but in a way that feels surprisingly richer and, I daresay, right. For us. At least for now. And I do know that come August, I may turn tail and run headlong back into homeschooling and want to delete this whole post. It’s possible. But this is where we are today and I’ve quit trying to predict the future.

One year at a time, one kid at a time, seeking God’s face all the time. That’s the motto my husband and I have adopted.

God gave us these kids years ago and we dedicated them back to Him, recognizing that we are mere stewards. He goes with them every single day.

I had not planned it this way. I thought I knew best. I don’t regret a single day of homeschooling and the lovely, messy days of togetherness we experienced. Writing about it in the past tense makes me cry each and every time.

It’s just that sometimes real life re-routes us in ways that feel like failure but are actually grace.

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This post featured on BlogHer. : )

Intermission

We were at the beach last week with my entire family, 22 of us to be exact. It was lovely and loud and I feasted on hush puppies, fish tacos, and my baby nieces’ chubby deliciousness.

I had lots of time in the car to think and no great opportunities to write. {My thinking time was also my driving time and that makes holding pens and balancing keyboards a bit tricky. Not to mention illegal.}

This morning I sat down to write and I did indeed write a whole post. Sometimes the words flow like a mighty rushing river and at other times, they drip. drip. drip. like a rusty faucet. This morning it was the latter. And when I finished? I didn’t even like it.

So here I sit, 8 days without a post and nostalgic for the ocean air I breathed in and out for 7 days.

But in the spirit of sharing something, anything, I submit a few favorite photos from the week.

Oh I have plenty to write about life and school, God and grace. I even have a story or two to share but I’ll save all of that for the days that are less, um, drippy.

In the meantime, I give you snapshots of our lovely time on the Carolina coast.

{sister-in-law Michelle, sister Emily, sister-in-law Liz, my mom, me…all out for my birthday lunch. And why does my hair look like a mullet with a bun? Weird.}

{the 5 boy cousins}

{the 7 girl cousins}

{Poppy, Nana and the 12 grands}

{I just love this kite photo of Poppy and sweet Marlowe.}

And these 3 belong to me. Oh what a blessed mama I am. Photos like these remind me that the years are going by way too quickly…

So raise your glass to summer! May you find sun, sand, and water aplenty.

Dish: Books, the 80’s, Zip-Line Barbie, and More…

Whenever I publish soul-baring posts like my last one, I have a desperate need to write lighter fare. And since I haven’t dished in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d serve something up.

What I’m reading

I finished up the novel, The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant and it was a worthwhile read. For me it was an engaging {and sobering look} at the lives of women during the time of early Biblical patriarchs {and matriarchs.} It has a raw and mystical feel to it and I don’t know if I’ve ever read an author who is able to translate all five senses onto paper as impressively as Diamant. You don’t just read this book. You feel it.

Now overdue at the library even though I’ve renewed it multiple times, My Father’s Daughter by Gwyneth Paltrow, has been a most inspiring cookbook. I’ll probably buy it. The recipes are healthy and simple-ish and {mostly} normal.

The Man and I are excited {and nervous because we know we’ll be challenged} to read Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Tim Keller with our Sunday morning “Inklings” friends.

And because I’m always reading too many books at once, let’s throw in a parenting book shall we? I’ve started Grace Based Parenting: Set Your Family Free by Tim Kimmel. It’s so good already, exactly what my anxious mama heart needs as I come to terms with doing things so differently than I’d planned. I wish I’d read it when I first became a mama but honestly, I wouldn’t have “gotten it” way back then. The way of grace is so much sweeter when you’ve tried bullet-point, method-based parenting and failed at it a bazillion times.

Here’s a quote that sums up what I’ve read so far:

Parents armed with little more than a vibrant relationship with God consistently served as the ideal springboard for great people. So something has changed. We got scared. And I think that fear is what motivates so much of the Christian parenting advice we get.

I couldn’t agree more.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The older kids and I are finishing up Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I have sworn to them that I will not read ahead but it is hard. Still, I’ve kept my promise. And on the days I’m feeling like a particularly defunct mother, we enter Hogwarts and adventure with Harry, Ron, and Hermione and all seems a bit more right with the world.

New Stuff

For Mother’s Day I got new running shoes. Wanna see?

Whether you’re 8 or 38, new kicks still have a way of making you feel faster. Especially when the colors are a little retro.

Bring back the 80’s.

And you can’t bring back the 80’s without bangs so I went and got me some of those too. I’m pretty sure I haven’t had bangs since I was 16. Thankfully my new ones are a bit more grown-up and they don’t defy gravity like my way-back-when bangs did. {The higher the hair, the closer to God. Anybody else ever hear that one?} And do you know why bangs give you a more youthful look? Because they hide forehead wrinkles. Amen.

But new running shoes weren’t all I got for Mother’s Day. My daughter framed this picture she’d sketched with oil pastels.

Isn’t it lovely? She is a true creative soul and I just love that. Even though it means her room is messy and she loses things and her head is in the clouds. Who can be bothered with housework when there’s so much creating and thinking and dreaming to be done? Whenever I get a tad frustrated, I just have to look in the mirror and accept grace for us both. The poor girl comes by it honestly.

Honey, do you like how I’ve rearranged all the furniture while you were at work today? I realize no one has enjoyed clean underwear for a week but I’ve written a new post, taken photos of the neighbor’s flowers, and spray-painted our kitchen chairs.

You laugh but seriously, this is my life. I need to pray that my daughter’s husband loves to do laundry and has an appreciation for the color wheel.

And speaking of creative juices, I summer-fied my mantle. {Who’s excited for her upcoming trip to the beach?}

I’m also auditioning new paint colors for our great room. I currently have three different colors painted on random sections of my wall. Stay tuned…

Funnies

My kids have been cracking me up lately and I’ve been completely slack about jotting it all down but I have to tell you what my 8-year-old said this week. When invited to play with his big sister and her neighborhood friends, he said, No way. I do NOT want to catch puberty.

I don’t want him to catch it either. Eight is such a delightful age and I know we’ll be dealing with issues of hair and hormones and voice-change before we know it. For now, he loves playing with anyone and everyone {boy or girl as long as they’re not contagious with the puberty} and he names animals according to his favorite athletes. His caterpillar at school? Denard Robinson {Quarterback. #16. University of Michigan.}

Mom, Denard sure looks plump today.

Mom, my teacher says Denard will be spinning his chrysalis any day.

And one day soon, Bye Denard! Your wings are beautiful! I’ll miss you, Denard…

Sigh. This is the stuff motherhood is made of. I love it.

Long live eight! And four! As for our rising 6th grader, well, we love her too…pending adolescence at all.

And she has her own sense of funny. Today I walked into her room and observed this.

Fashionista Barbie attached to a wire hanger with yellow modeling clay and zip-lining on the dog’s leash.

Creepy? Amusing? Resourceful? I did what I always do when I come upon a vista like this one: I grabbed my camera. Because today’s ridiculous photo opp is tomorrow’s sweet nostalgia.

So that’s the scoop around here. I hope you all have a festive, fun, family-filled holiday weekend.

I love your “dish” too! What are you reading, cooking, painting? I need to know these things.

On Stories and Scars and True Transformation

A couple of years ago I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. It chronicles Miller’s own journey toward making his life a “meaningful narrative.”

The book made me think quite a lot about “living a good story” and I wondered what that would look like for me. For Miller, it meant facing his past and his fears and moving toward the future with intentionality and fortitude. But at the time, I didn’t feel like I was really facing anything except stacks of dishes and unfolded laundry.

Oh I had a story or two under my belt. I had slogged through adversity a few years prior and walked some roads I never thought I’d walk. But all of that was behind me and life had settled into quasi-stability and predictability. Which was just fine. I was tired of the roller-coaster and exhaustion that suffering brings.

Miller’s soul-searching and grueling adventures seemed great for him, a single, hip, writer from the Pacific Northwest, someone in the vanguard of all things innovative and influential and Starbucks-y. But I am not him. I’m a married mother of three living in a small town in the steamy Southeast, someone in the vanguard of all things carpool and vinyl-sided and utterly non-descript.

I should have fastened my seatbelt. One should be careful when wishing for a better story.

Many chapters have been written in my life’s pages since I read Miller’s book. And I’m captivated by the idea of living a good story more now than ever before.

Last week a friend came over for coffee and we shared bits of our lives, excerpts from our stories. We’re in different life stages and I want to be her when I grow up, not because she’s perfect but because she’s real and beautiful, a sufferer and a survivor, an encourager and a story-teller.

My friend spoke of her own dark days and the ones that still linger. We discussed the irony of suffering, how we avoid it at all costs and yet we’d never change back into the person we were before the trials came.

So how’d you get there? she asked me.

And I told her.

Unlike Miller, I didn’t choose to reinvent myself or edit my life into a meaningful narrative. But I was reinvented, and that’s the story I shared with my friend.

The two of us cried and laughed and prayed. I called my husband after she left and told him how much I loved him, how telling even just the bare bones version of our busted-up story made me want to fall on my knees and thank God for redeeming, well, everything.

Often I’ve wondered how a girl like me ended up living such a crazy life, how a young woman who desperately wanted to be a mother {and just knew she’d be good at it} would end up feeling like a failure on her very first day of motherhood {and nearly every day thereafter}, how a committed couple like us ended up getting it so wrong before things finally started to turn right. I’ve wondered how the turmoil and battles and demons we each fought did not destroy us entirely.

But those are not the wonders which leave me dead in my tracks. No. The greatest wonder of all is that a loving and good God spared us and breathed new life into us by allowing the idols of our hearts, the “good” things we wanted to glory in the most–success and stability, parenthood and marriage, righteousness and accolades–crumble at our feet so that we had nothing left to glory in but God alone and his unending grace.

We have taken journeys, together and individually, that led us far away from home but we have not returned unchanged. I’ve written about it some, but when my story is also someone else’s story and his story is also my story, well, it makes the telling careful and delicate.

And as if all of these thoughts and talks about story weren’t enough, I heard something on my Saturday morning run that nearly put me over the edge. I was listening to a Tim Keller sermon called “Resting Grace.” It’s about how the Gospel transforms character. Keller argues that technique and New Year’s resolutions don’t change our character, not in a “holistic and organic” sense. True transformation, true greatness, happens when we enter into the Story over and over again.

This is what he says:

Every adventure story goes like this: Some ordinary person, kind of going along in life, and suddenly something comes in and takes them to another time or to another planet or to another dimension or to a far, faraway land and they get caught up in some big story. And that big story has heroes and villains and evil forces and there’s always some incredible conflict and at the last minute somebody usually sacrifices their life and snatches victory out of the jaws of defeat and everyone is saved.

And then they come back home. They come back to their present time….and their character’s different. They’re never the same. Why? They’re braver, they’re sweeter, they’re happier, they’re more easily moved. They’re more noble. They become great. Why? Nothing tempts them now because they’ve seen high beauty, so celebrity and sex and money can’t hold a candle to it… And nothing bores them now because someone {remember at the end of Saving Private Ryan?) sacrificed, somebody gave their life so that they can be saved and now every second is precious… And nothing scares them now because they’ve seen greater evil and they’ve faced it down.

There’s a greatness about their life. Why? Because they’re living every day in light of that bigger story. They’ve come from a bigger story into their daily life and they remember it. Their minds are set on that. And so they move through their life with greatness and that’s the only way for you or for anybody to become people of greatness–kind people, forgiving people, peaceful people, joyful people, noble people, courageous people. That’s how it’s done. It’s not done through technique or New Year’s resolutions. You have to think that ‘I was part of this incredible, heroic story and now I’m back and I’ll never be the same again.’ And that’s what it means to be a Christian. A Christian is somebody who’s come back.

My story hasn’t been epic enough that I’m never bored and never tempted and never scared. No mere mortal will fully characterize those never’s until Heaven. But I know I’m progressing through my own story in ways that matter. Why? Because I am less bored and less tempted and less scared than I once was.

I am beginning to think and live as one who has come back.

And by “beginning” I do mean just-barely-taking-baby-steps-sort-of-beginning. But trinkets and distractions, career and compliments, know-how and getting it right…they all matter less, so much less than they once did. I cried as Keller talked about story because I’ve lived a bit of this now and I know he’s right: You don’t come back unchanged.

But it’s not always ticker-tape and Disney vacations when you return. You may be battered and bruised for a while or even a lifetime. Some scars never fully fade away for good. But is there sacred purpose for our scars within our own stories and in the stories of those we influence? Even Jesus kept his scars after he was raised to life. It’s one of the ways others knew He was real.

And maybe that’s how the world knows we’re real. They can see our scars. But they can also see that we’ve been given new life.

At times the everyday can still seem non-descript. When I’m not dangling off a cliff or feeling like a desperate damsel in distress {figuratively of course}, it’s easy to forget that I’m living a story. Laundry has a way of keeping me woefully ordinary.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, famous or influential or immortalized in any significant way. But I have caught a glimpse of “high-beauty.” I’ve tasted redemption first-hand. I know what it’s like to have been snatched from the jaws of death and defeat. These things are true of my own narrative and they are most certainly true of the ultimate Story, the one Keller refers to, the one we have to set our minds on again and again. That’s where the transformation, the “greatness” comes from.

Every day is a page, failures and victories writing themselves into chapters that chronicle a story I realize I’m not really authoring but that I am really living, laundry and all.

……………………..

When I read this post of Emily Freeman’s, I knew it was a divine invitation to scribble down all of these percolating thoughts about story and suffering and change. This post is linked up with some other folks’ stuff about living a good story at Prodigal Magazine. Join us?

This is a Job for Future Mom

On Sunday, I awoke to four hands bringing a steamy cup of coffee to my bedside. Mother’s Day could have ended right there and it would have been lovely. But it didn’t.

Amid hugs and snuggles, some of the coffee sloshed and spilled. And after bounding inside from the rain, the dog wanted to get in on the celebration and leaped upon the bed with her muddy paws. The bed with freshly-washed sheets that now had smeary paw prints stamped alongside the coffee splatters.

The Man and I looked at each other and just laughed. The rain had washed away his plans for a Mother’s Day picnic and his back-up restaurant was closed. We ended up eating bad Mexican food at a local buffet while our mannerless children bounced around in the booth and dripped queso all over their Sunday clothes.

Our life is a beautiful mess.

Most days I see more mess than I see beautiful, but as the months and years pass I feel a shift. Sometimes I pause before I erupt, survey the scene with the eyes of my future self, the one whose kids have flown the coop and whose nest is tidier but also emptier.

When Future Mom and Present Mom meet up, it’s a good moment. Nothing is perfect but everything is right.

When Monday morning showed up, I had dressed a toddler three times and cursed the dog more than that, all before 9 am. I’d gone to bed ridiculously late and didn’t get my run in. I was tired and cranky. The kitchen was a mess, the laundry undone, the paint peeling. I’d just planted flowers and yet the weeds were winning. Also? It was raining. Again.

Sometimes mess simply trumps beauty. Or so my eyes and mind would have me believe. But it’s never true. Never.

There is life pulsing hard and loud and messy in this place. Life! And there is nothing more beautiful than that.

On rainy, chaotic Mondays and messy, overwhelming Wednesdays, Future Mom stands beside me, loving and stern, and tells me to inhale all that I see and exhale thanks. And of course Present Mom is prone to look up at her with a roll of the eyes, and say something sassy in reply. {Present Mom wishes Future Mom would do a little time travel and help a sister out with the laundry.}

But she doesn’t do laundry. She only speaks truth.

Present Mom tells me to change the circumstances {or the wall color or the furniture or the behavior of my children} and life will be beautiful.

But Future Mom tells me that it’s already beautiful. Choose to see what you already have, she says. It’s everything you ever dreamed of and more.

If you’re drowning in mess and can’t quite grab hold of all the beauty, I can give you Future Mom’s phone number. She’s always available and the best kind of bossy.