Marian Vischer

The Laundry Low-Down

I’ve been line-drying my laundry since March, not for some noble cause like being “green” or taking up homesteading or saving money.

My dryer broke. That is all.
In the spring I wrote a post about “Life on the Line” and it sort of put a positive, perhaps even existential, spin on the whole thing.
But it is August in the South and I don’t have to tell you that it’s hot as Hades down here. I do laundry at the risk of heat exhaustion and fire-ant bites. A couple of days ago I was chased by a wasp. Also? Tiny spiders build itty bitty webs in my clothespins. For real.
My clothes have been rained on and covered in lawnmower dust. They have been washed and pinned up only to be rewashed and re-pinned. I have left them out overnight, found socks in the fairway, and strewn clothes across the kitchen table, desks, and countertops to dry on rainy days.
By the time I finish clothes-pinning a full load of smallish shirts and shorts, I am sweaty, seeing spots, and may or may not be muttering expletives {mostly} under my breath. So yeah, the nostalgia may have faded a bit by the end of May.

As I was pinning clothes today, however, I did think of some line-drying perks. So in an attempt to look at the bright side {and in case inquiring minds want to know how the clothesline experiment is going,} here’s my list:
Less laundry overall. When you work hard for every article of washed and dried clothing, you wash less. We’ve all become a bit more conscious of whether something really needs to be washed. And I’m realizing that we could all survive just fine with far fewer clothes.
A quiet time to pray and think {unless I am too mad at the sun for being so hot}
Crisp, folded clothes & completed laundry. Because I have long been sort of slack with the laundry, it often sat in huge piles until someone ran out of underwear or until I lost a toddler in a mound of towels. And once I washed it, I had a tendency to not fold it. I’m not sure why. Laundry has simply been my most dreaded domestic task.
But now? I am terrified of getting behind. You can’t procrastinate and do 8 loads in a day when you depend on daylight to dry it. I am actually, finally keeping up with my laundry. It’s amazing. 1950s technology has somehow made me more efficient.
Also, the clothes dry flat and crisp. My folding time is cut in half. I fold them as I take them off the line, stack them according to person, and put them away {usually.} And because it is hot, I hurry.
Heavenly linens. Nothing beats the smell of line-dried sheets. Even after I get a dryer, I may dry all the linens outside in the warm months.
Exfoliation. Kiss your loofah goodbye. A line-dried towel serves as a great exfoliator. And if you dry off vigorously enough, you may never have to shave your legs again. What you lose in softness, you gain in smoothness.
A better tan, a slightly lower electric bill, and {sort-of} exercise are a few other perks.
Along the way, I’ve found a few shortcuts. If you spin your clothes a couple of extra times before you dry them, it really saves on drying time. That’s true if you’re using a real dryer as well.
Also, do not waste time and energy and line-space hanging underpants and socks.
This is my current drying method for undies, socks, and other unmentionables.

Yes, it is a lawn-chair / drying rack on my deck. We are classy around here.
So, those are my thoughts on line-drying. I’ve been doing this for a solid 4 1/2 months now and the bottom line is: it works. It is both better and worse than using a real dryer. Like most things, it all depends on how you look at it.
Am I still drooling over a shiny, stackable, front-loading ensemble so that I can turn my tiny laundry closet into a laundry closet / mudroom like Kimba’s?
Of course I am.
Electrolux, you have until the first frost to make that happen. Call me?

Note to Younger Self


This is my friend, Susan, in 1986. Isn’t she adorable? She recently posted this picture on facebook as part of a joke about big hair. I left this comment:

Oh girl, you are rockin’ that hair…a true 80s diva!


She commented back:

Haha! That just goes to show that pictures can mean whatever we want them to 25 years after the fact. The truth is that I was an insecure 17-year-old who thought that I wasn’t cool enough, thin enough or smart enough. I wish I could go meet that girl and tell her that she was really all three.

Susan is a really dear friend. She is also ridiculously impressive.


She is married with two kids. By the age of 26, she had completed a PhD in Neuroscience from Emory.

A full-time professor, she’s been her daughter’s Girl Scout troop leader and the student government faculty advisor where she teaches. Two years ago she was voted “Professor of the Year.”

She spends time throughout the summer with her best and brightest students in the lab…just because she wants to help them get into good graduate schools.

She’s also finishing up a Master’s Degree in Bioethics. {Because clearly, she needs to bolster those credentials.}

I’ve often told Susan that she has better time-management skills than any person on the planet.

As if that’s not enough, she is witty and creative and multi-talented. She cares for others and personifies devotion. I love Susan because, well, I just love Susan…and she has been a precious friend to me over the last 9 years.

When I read her comment, I was immediately struck by how someone like Susan ever thought she was anything “less than.” And then I was immediately struck by how I thought so many of the same things at that age. You probably did too.

Now I am not as accomplished as Susan, but I still never came close to measuring up to my own standards. At 17, I did not consider myself noteworthy. I longed to be someone impressive but felt forever relegated to the land of mediocrity.

Looking back, I would have told my younger self that there’s so much more than popularity, beauty, athleticism or having the highest GPA.

Yet here I am, at 38, and I still struggle from time to time. There will forever be those who are more “popular” and likable, those who are lovelier {and have less gray hair,} those who run further and faster or complete triathlons, those who are smarter or better writers or more accomplished as mothers and “domestic engineers.”

In a way, do we girls ever really graduate? Do we ever “measure up” in our own eyes?

There is, however, one thing that distinguishes me now from my teenage self {besides stretch marks.} I may not totally know who I am, but I’m finally learning who I’m not. It’s something I’m learning to embrace actually. I can admire others’ talents, gifts and attributes without wishing they were mine.

Please tell me that’s a sign of grace and maturity. Please. Because the process of acceptance has been painfully slow and hard-fought.

But I can say that there is finally less striving, not as much wishing, and a whole lot more accepting.

My friend, Katie, and I were sitting in my driveway a few days ago discussing this very issue. She figured out who she wasn’t long before I figured that out for myself. I envy that. She also told me that one of her favorite quotes is from the great philosopher, Dolly Parton:

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

Don’t you love that?

So in light of Dolly’s wise words and Susan’s wishes for her younger self, here’s a note to my younger self:

Love your skin. And your body. And your hair. Because it all sags and stretches, grays and thins faster than you can say “Botox.” It really is what’s on the inside that counts. Sunbathing on the trampoline in Crisco is a bad idea. You can thank me later. Most importantly, quit wishing you are someone you’re not. Get to know yourself and embrace the God-given uniqueness that is you. I could tell you more but you’re 17 so this will probably go right in one ear and out the other.

P.S. : Your parents are smart and usually right after all…especially the part about nothing good ever happening after midnight.

P.S.S : Forty will be here sooner than you think and it’s not as old as it sounds.

Love, Me

A Call to Rest, Part 2


I wrote the first installment of “A Call to Rest” a month ago and had planned for this one to be an immediate follow-up. But life has a way of interrupting and other things were on my heart. I’ve learned that I typically write best out of the moment.


But I’m ready to revisit this issue of rest and priorities. Maybe it’s timelier now anyway as we consider back-to-school schedules and count down the remaining lazy days of summer.

“A Call to Rest Part I” talked a lot about acceptance and surrender.

But there’s another piece to the puzzle of finding rest and it deals with “opportunity cost.” I’ve written about that before too. But I think the simplest way of explaining it is this: Every yes is also a no.

Emily was the one who really made me think about this issue in a post entitled, “how saying yes (and no) shape a life story.” Consider her wise words: When you say yes to things, you automatically say no to other things whether you mean to or not.

For days I processed that simple and astounding truth. It was a total “A-Ha moment” for me. And I realized that much of the stress and frustration with myself and with others was because I refused to accept the reality of opportunity cost, cause and effect, yes and no…whatever you want to call it.

It looks different in all of our lives but for me I’ve often felt tension between creative or intellectual pursuits and domestic or work-related duties. Whether it’s a call to write or an itch to make something, I bubble with some sort of creative juice nearly every day.

What’s a girl to do? How can duty, art, and motherhood all peacefully coexist?

To complicate matters, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I want to be creative in a clean house with clean laundry. I feel like I should make healthy, delicious meals with ingredients from the farmer’s market or purchased for pennies with my stacks of organized coupons.

I’m just getting started. It gets worse.

In my ridiculously perfect world, I get up in the early morning hours to run and have quiet time before the kids get up. And after we feast on eggs from our chicken coop and muffins baked from freshly-milled grains, we begin our day of classical education at home.

We always stay on schedule. {Cue lightening bolt.} My toddler plays quietly on a rug with blocks. And as the older two kids work independently, I teach said toddler to read. Even though he is three. And then he obediently goes back to the blocks.

In my overachieving world, I am also able to weave soccer and golf and music lessons into our days…as well as afternoon rest time and classical books that I read aloud to the children each evening.

And in the midst of these well-managed days, I find time for coffee with friends, weekly dates with my husband, and all of my creative pursuits. My house is beautiful and orderly.

Because my perfect world is also a charitable one, we volunteer as a family. And do service-learning projects. My kitchen remains clean and my floors stay mopped because I have trained my kids to cheerfully and dutifully help out around the house while I bake lasagnas for new moms.

And for the icing on the make-believe cake, we are debt-free and donate a substantial portion of our income to missions.

At this point you are rolling your eyes and so am I. Because these expectations are clearly ridiculous and too much. But that big ol’ list is just the tip of the iceberg. I have at one point or another expected and even demanded that I live that impossible life even if I didn’t realize I was carting around such a heavy load of expectation.

It’s easy to look at everyone else and what they’re doing, craft some sort of a composite superwoman, and then try to wear the every-woman-super-woman costume every day.

That’s just sad. And delusional.

I can’t tell you how to prioritize but I can encourage you to take inventory of your expectations. It’s what I have to do every single day.

Recently I said “yes” to an all-day Saturday excursion with my daughter. We had some important coming-of-age things to talk about so I wove it into a non-threatening day of lunch and shopping. We didn’t get home until dark and even then, she still wasn’t done talking. Our time together had encouraged her to open up about some things. So I said “yes” to all of that too.

When Monday morning rolled around, mocking me with a messy house and the absence of bread and milk, I remembered that I’d spent all day Saturday building a relationship with the most precious girl in the world to me. I still bristled as I surveyed the disarray and inventoried the fridge, but I also experienced a sort of acceptance, reminding myself that “yes” to relationship meant “no” to domestic productivity.

This rings true for the less consequential decisions as well. When I say “yes” to writing, it probably means I’ve said “no” to a tidy kitchen or folded laundry.

Come fall, when I say “yes” to soccer for two kids and piano lessons, I accept that I’m saying “no” {for a short season} to calm evenings together as a family and lots of leisurely dinners around the table.

For our family, saying “yes” to homeschooling means saying “no” to a host of other good things. And for homeschooling to work for us this year, we’ve decided to say “yes” to childcare for the youngest. Instead of wrangling this active and extroverted 3-year-old while educating the older two, I’ve decided to send him to preschool from 9-1…four days a week.

Homeschooling older kids while occupying an active preschooler works just fine for some people but last year about did me in. I decided to say “no” to crazy and “yes” to a more peaceful and productive school environment for the older two and their mama.

There’s no wrong…but there is a choice.

And it’s tough to make peace with our choices but we must. If you’re a stay-at-home-mom you’ve said “yes” to staying home and “no” to an extra paycheck and the personal pursuit of a career. And if you work outside the home, you’ve said “yes” to a paycheck and the rewards of your profession while saying “no” to lots of time at home and volunteering at your kids’ school.

I should know. I’ve done both and I’ve struggled with balance and guilt and acceptance in every season and with each decision.

In recent months, I reluctantly said “no” to two part-time jobs even though I enjoyed them and they helped us financially. But my family has some special needs right now and I need to be focused on marriage, children, home, and healing. Those “no” decisions have ushered me into a place of peace and prioritizing.

Sisters, we can’t do it all but we live as if we can. And then we wonder why we’re guilt-ridden, tired and lacking.

Sometimes rest simply begins with accepting the yes and the no for each day and for each season. I repeat this sentence to myself multiple times every single day. Because I said “yes” to ________, I’ve said “no” to _________.

These days, I aspire to do less and to live more. To tidy up less and to rest more. To do what I can, when I can, and to accept the undone and unattempted. And I’m learning, ironically, that being an intentional “underachiever” is actually a great accomplishment.

Eternity in Our Hearts…


She came into my bed at midnight and her brother snuggled in tight at 4 am. There I was, wedged between a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old, both struggling with bad thoughts and bad dreams.


Normally I’d resent their bony limbs and tossing, turning selves precluding my sleep. But not tonight. Tonight I breathed them in and thanked God for their warm bodies nestled against me.


Once I knew sleep would elude me the rest of the night, I put on the kettle and sat down to write. It’s a post I began scrawling out a week and a half ago but writing has taken a back seat to life.

It’s ironic actually. The message of that half-written post foreshadowed the week that was to come in a way I could have never predicted.

I’d planned to write about how it’s the tapestry of triumph and tragedy, joy and despair, hope and heartache that make life the rich experience that it is. How joy and the gifts of the everyday are so much more celebratory, so much more intense when we’ve walked through darkness and wondered if the light of the morning would ever come again.

I was reflecting upon the past year of my life and how that’s been true. Well, really the last 10 years if I’m being honest.

I penned those thoughts in the wake of joyous news: the birth of my newest niece on July 3rd. A lot of tears and prayers have been offered up on her behalf these last 6 months and I can’t tell you how special she is. We drove 9 hours to see her just a day after she came into this world.

Life is worth gathering together and celebrating like that.

Last night I gathered with different family…my mom and dad, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles and cousins. And once again, we offered a lot prayers and a lot of tears but this time for a different occasion. My cousin passed away suddenly on Saturday. He was 26.

And that half-written post from 10 days ago now seems trite. It made me question if I really believe what I say I believe. When belief and reality and eternity all collide in the rawest sense, can I actually say that it’s all sacred?

I still believe it’s true, that moments of happiness and gratitude are richer when they’re experienced on this side of real despair, that somehow the intensity of joy and pain are directly proportionate to one another. And that it’s all filtered through the loving hands of a good and sovereign God…

But what do I really know? I’ve never lost a child. Or a spouse. Or a sibling.

At the funeral home I held the hand of an acquaintance I haven’t seen in a long time. I walked through the visitation line alongside her because she has a tough time in situations like this. She lost her husband suddenly just three years ago and she is too young to be a widow.

But she beamed through the tears, told me how God is so good and so faithful. She is one who just radiates the beauty of Christ every time I talk to her. Her son is getting married in two weeks and she will cry tears of joy for her son and his bride while she cries tears of sorrow over the empty seat beside her…joy tears and grief tears mixed together and running as one stream.

That is life in this fallen, beautiful world.

It’s a web of love and loss, of grand hopes and shattered dreams, of brokenness and redemption.

And it’s all sacred.

The silly, inconsequential things of this world tend to pile scales upon my eyes so that I can’t see right, the temporal outweighing the eternal until something shatters the scales and I can finally see clearly again.

I can’t help but think of the truth in 1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…

It’s times like this that make me want to trade the the broken now for the perfect then.

My friend said to me, Doesn’t this just make you long for Heaven? And I tearfully nodded Yes, more aware than ever that this world is not our home and that we weren’t created for loss. Death is so unnatural because we were created for life, for perfect communion with the Creator and with one another that never ends.


Loss uncovers the longing for Heaven that’s already there but that’s too often dulled by the cares and distractions of the everyday. And loss also forces me to grab hold of the good gifts in the here and now that are a taste of what is to come. There are a million of them every day if I’ll just look.

Last night I hugged my uncle who has just lost his son and he said to me, Love on your kids.

They did. They loved their son well for 26 years. And you better believe that I came home and loved on my own three kids. So when two of them needed my bed more than I needed my sleep, I cherished the opportunity.

Because they are among the most precious of all the good gifts in this life…sweet, sleeping reminders of the good and perfect that is not yet but that is to come.

So love on your kids. Celebrate life in all it’s forms. Drink down every gift you can find today. It’s those good gifts bestowed by a gracious Giver that shift our gaze upward and point us toward the perfect place that is to come.

A Call to Rest, Part 1

{So tired, he couldn’t even make it to the bed.}

…………………………………

I’m writing this on the heels of a 3-day practicum with some of my fellow homeschooling mamas. It’s always encouraging and energizing to learn and share and laugh with these other crazy, likeminded souls. We homeschoolers all tend a bit towards over-thinking and stressing about curriculum choices and a million other things.


But we’re really not different from the rest of the moms on the planet in that we simply fret. A lot. About our kids, our husbands, our laundry.


A couple of my friends talked honestly and openly with me about how they can’t just sit down and relax until the house is tidy and the laundry is caught up. They feel the need to have all their ducks in a row before they allow themselves any rest or creativity or fun.

Their husbands want them to relax. Their kids don’t care so much about the state of the house. Their own moms tell them to enjoy the fingerprints on the patio doors because one day they won’t be there. And they know their mamas are right…

But they just can’t seem to give themselves permission to rest. And honestly, I could relate to every word of their lament. Not all of us have Type A, perfectionistic tendencies. Some of us may feel inadequate because we don’t. But I think most of us as wives and moms and women struggle with inadequacy and guilt and control regarding what we do or don’t do, how we task or fail to task.

So what’s the deal? Why do we spin our wheels like crazy and make so many {unnecessary} demands of ourselves? Why can’t we relax, much less rest?

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these conversations and naturally, I have some thoughts on the matter. As is the case with everything I write, the thoughts are for me most of all.

If God doesn’t call us to a clean house or finished laundry, why do we obsess toward these ends? There are no scriptural laws about housekeeping, are there? {Please tell me there aren’t.}

For those living on this side of the cross, God has written his law on our hearts and given us his Spirit, but we override his Spirit-penned laws with our own laws and requirements. We tune out the Spirit with our endless toil. And in so doing, we neglect an important thing he does call us to: rest.

In her devotional book, Jesus Calling, Sarah Young writes this:

Glorifying and enjoying Me {Jesus} is a higher priority than maintaining a tidy, structured life. Give up your striving to keep everything under control–an impossible task and a waste of precious energy.


We trade God-peace for visual peace. We attempt to find rest in clean-house righteousness instead of in Christ’s righteousness.

Believe me, Jesus does not judge you for dusty baseboards and popcorn kernels in your couch cushions. Why should you judge yourself?

In fact, when Jesus was given the choice between the hostess slaving away in the kitchen and getting everything just right {Martha} and the supposed slacker who simply “sat at the Lord’s feet” {Mary,} He affirmed the latter. “‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her.'” {Luke 10:29-32}

I would never claim to know more than Jesus but functionally, I live as if I do.

And believe me sisters, I do feel the tension. I can see and touch and bask in the loveliness of a “tidy and well-structured” existence. I am positively giddy over a clean kitchen and neatly-folded stacks of laundry. These are tangible things that make me feel better and in control of my environment.

But like Martha, I become consumed and “distracted by all the preparations.” Jesus calls me to rest at His feet.

I get that it’s unnatural to live by faith and not by sight. Faith feels vulnerable and dependent and scary, like driving a car without a steering wheel. To rest in someone else’s sufficiency instead of our own? That just seems plain weird, foolish even.

We love to quote Matthew 11:28-30, the verse about Jesus inviting those of us who are “weary and heavy-laden” to come to Him for rest, that He wants to take on our burdens.

But really, is Jesus going to actually show up and clean your house because you’re “resting in Him?” Is He going to physically do your work for you? Probably not. But it did happen to me one day about a month ago.

It was a grueling day among a string of grueling days. I was emotionally drained and spiritually clueless. I had nothing left. Nothing. It was 5:00 and I literally peeled my tantrumming 3-year-old from my front lawn, placed him in his bed, and shut the door. And then I flung myself across my own bed, crying and heaving and praying, “Jesus, I don’t know what resting in you looks like but this is my attempt. I’ve got nothing. This is me giving up. You’re going to have to take over.”

A friend was coming at 6:30 to take me to dinner and she was bringing a sitter with her. I desperately needed to get out and step away from my own mess. I was walking through a trial of real consequence and my crazy house just seemed to mirror that mess and chaos.

Though it was the end of May, I still had winter clothes in my kids’ drawers. The bins of summer-wear lined the hall and every size and season was strewn about the place. I mean, I really needed to get it together. But there I was, limp as a dishrag across the bed, unshowered and undone and unable to do much of anything.

My dishwasher was broken and stacks of dishes were teetering on dirty countertops and I still needed to get supper ready for the kids. At that moment, dishes and supper and showering and parenting felt like climbing Mt. Everest. And then the phone rang. “Maybe this will be good news,” I thought, “something supernatural and divine.” {Seriously, I was grasping for anything.}

It was the student loan people telling me I had not paid the right amount on that month’s bill and asking me for money. “Really God? This is how you answer me? Showing me I can’t even pay a bill right that is the same amount every. single. month?”

And then the phone rang again. Begrudgingly, I picked it up. It was my friend and neighbor, calling about something I can’t even remember. And then she asked me how I was doing. I blubbered and sputtered and probably sounded like a lunatic.

“I’m coming to wash your dishes,” she declared.

Five minutes later she was standing at my suds-filled sink, a bundle of energy, speaking Truth into my empty soul.

As she cleaned my kitchen and talked some God-sense into me, my heavy spirit lifted and I felt a bit of energy return. I cleaned myself up, put a frozen pizza in the oven, and spent the evening eating Mexican food and catching up with my dear friend {not to be confused with my dishwashing friend.} My kids had a ball with the babysitter and were safely tucked into bed when I returned.

And what had I done to accomplish all of that? Nothing. I simply received what was offered.

And because this particular friend loves to help in tangible ways, she convinced me to let her help me with a project I was just too tired to conquer. Three days later we put away the aforementioned winter clothes and I breathed a sigh of relief and thanksgiving.

So yeah, sometimes Jesus does show up and clean your house. He calls others to be His hands and feet and dishwashers.

I know that none of this changes the world. And it may all seem ridiculously inconsequential to you. But God, creator of the universe, is teaching me so much about rest and trust and broken appliances here in my own little corner of the world.

Here’s the thing. I could have just soldiered on alone. That’s what I normally do. But in giving up and falling backwards into His arms, He showed me that resting in Him is actually the most productive thing I can do.

I gave up. He came in. I received. Stuff got done. I found rest.

I could tell other stories of the ways in which He’s provided at just the right moment. But for every one of those there are countless moments far less dramatic. Moments when I rest and trust and call out to Him…but I still have to wash the dishes and take care of my children.

Sometimes He provides me with strength to complete the tasks I need to do. These days, He often shows me that rest and trust simply lead to acceptance.

Accepting imperfection in the form of toothpaste globs, smeary mirrors, dust bunnies, and dirty dishes.

Accepting that even though I function best in an environment of visual peace, God is teaching me how to experience His peace in the midst of chaos.

I don’t have a pat answer for my fellow friends who are tired of striving and aware of their perfectionistic ways, yet feel unable to be any other way. I can simply tell you what I know best and that’s my own story, what I’m learning on this unpredictable journey towards rest and imperfection and hard-fought surrender.

Hopefully we can glean from and encourage one another. And sometimes wash each other’s dishes.

My next post will pick up where this leaves off. It’s about yes and no and opportunity cost. Make sense? Probably not. Join me anyway?

The Unfixable Life

unfixable life w text
I’ve worked on this post here and there with equal amounts of frustration and dismay. It’s one of those seasons in which I have both too much and nothing to say. I read what I type and think to myself, “That doesn’t even make sense.” And so I hit delete.
 
As I type this time on a Monday, I think about all the undone I had planned to get done: a run on the loathsome treadmill, some quiet time and journaling, the making of beds so that things look a little more, well, fixed up.
 
But it’s after 10 am and I leave for an appointment in an hour and have checked not a single thing off the list. Hooligan boys run and squeal and wrestle while I make empty threats and drown them out with Today Show and too much coffee.
 
I have nothing to show for my day thus far and I feel lassoed by shame, wondering why I can’t snap my fingers and arrive at a state of togetherness.
 
Now it’s a Tuesday, late morning. I sit down to write, thankful that my blog is not a pet. Otherwise it would have died of neglect weeks ago. I’m still in my pajamas {again} and need to change one kid’s pee sheets before I make another attempt to climb the treadmill and drag squealing kids to the pool.
 
Anxiety, exhaustion and the undone are constant companions and I blame it on the “unfixable life,” the intersection of real hardship and real life and real questions.
 

In a recent e-mail from a friend, she told me that’s she praying for me in the midst of my unfixable life. I haven’t been able to get that term out of my head.

It’s such a perfect description. Fixing what’s broken is just our natural response. Embracing the broken feels ridiculous. And lazy. It feels like failure. Life in limbo is just plain uncomfortable and weird. Unfixable days feel maddening and slow.
 
So every moment requires a surrendering of self to the One who saves the broken and sees a masterpiece in the shards…even though all I can see is mess. I’ve always had plans and to-do lists and quick-thinking at my disposal. Others come to me for counsel and words. That’s because I mostly usually know what to do.
 
Until now.
 
God, could you just give me some where-with-all? Could you make me less dependent and vulnerable right now? Because I am sort of missing my resourceful, know-it-all self.
 
It is simply not my nature to not know how to fix something or clean up a mess. I am a mom. I fix and clean up for a living.
 
I know that God could breathe fixed into the unfixed right now if He chose to. But He’s showing me that the real fixing requires real living. Real rolling-up-your-sleeves and wading into the mess.
 
He doesn’t give me fixed but he does give me hope. And it’s hope for you too: He’s in the mess with us. In fact, He is closest to us in the mess, whether we feel Him there or not.
 
That is so comforting to me. Feelings lie and emotions are untrustworthy, but His promises are true, always and forever. I write to remind myself. Knowing that “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” comforts me in the midst of these unfixable days.
 
Knowing He’s close even helps me not to be quite so hard on myself. He gives me grace to give to myself. Grace to accept the dirty dishes and clamoring kids and Today-Show-instead-of-quiet-time, lazy Mondays.
 
In the midst of the unfixable, I gulp down this sobering reality: He doesn’t save us from the mess. He saves us through it.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. {James 1:2-3}
I want fixing. He wants completeness. I want to be less lacking. He says to hang on, that one day I won’t lack anything…when perseverance finishes its work.

Flower Power: Embellished Lampshade


Creativity clears the mind. So in an effort to clear my own, I indulged in a bit of fabric flower deliciousness on Saturday.


I drooled over the positively adorable flower tutorials that the lovely Emily, from Jones Design Co., offered several weeks ago during her “flower week.” I couldn’t wait to fire up the hot glue gun and get in on some flower fun of my own. Now that school is over, I’m dying to to get my craft on.


I made lots of fun flowers but here’s one to share for today.

I followed her great tutorial and made a giant flower to embellish this sad, lackluster lamp. The base I’ve had and the shade was a $2 or $3 number from Ikea.


I think it’s super cute. I hot-glued a few beads to the center. Now I can’t help smiling every time I walk past it.


Sort of makes me want to add ginormous flowers to every plain thing within sight.

See how layery and dimensional it is?


Embellishment can become habit-forming.

Go check out all of Emily’s great and simple tutorials for everything from fabric flowers to embellished tees. She’s a genius.

Life on the ‘Line…


I am not naturally patient. I tend to tap my thumbs on the steering wheel restlessly as I sit in a drive-thru line. When I’m loading kids in the van, it feels as if I’m herding turtles: “C’mon, hurry up. Get buckled.”


So when my clothes dryer broke a couple of months ago, my response surprised even me: “I’m getting a clothesline.”

We nicknamed the dryer we’d used for ages “the fryer” when it began singeing and shredding our clothes sometime last summer. By November, I was fed up and I gambled on an inexpensive replacement for it, an $80 refurbished Whirlpool from a guy who sells fixed-up appliances in his used tire shop. It lasted 3 months.

Refusing to buy yet another lemon but not having the cash on hand to purchase something reliable, I uncharacteristically looked at the bright side after my neighbor told me how much she loves her clothesline. “Alright,” I reasoned, “It’s spring. It’s warm. It’s breezy. I think a clothesline will be swell.”

I’ve already learned a lot from drying clothes in this vintage, unhurried fashion. Some days present perfect clothes-drying conditions and our heavy knits are dry within an hour, crisp and fresh and bright. Other days the air is still and stagnant. Clothes remain damp and not so fresh. I swat away gnats and hope I’m not standing near any fire ants.

Perfect days that get that job done and not-so-perfect days that are burdensome and seem to yield nothing…that’s what life is like on the ‘line. And that’s where I live right now.

I don’t boss the weather or stir up the air or tinker with the humidity. Someone else does all of that and I simply accept what is. I’m glad for the days when I can dry 2 or even 3 loads to perfection. And I have no choice but to simply accept the stagnant and unproductive days.

This current life of mine feels just like that; every day is a gamble. Some days I make great strides…God moves and does and I rejoice. I finish the day feeling like that perfect load of laundry: complete. Other days, progress is slow if at all and I get mad, wanting the Wind-maker, Life-changer, People-healer to hurry up already.

But God is showing me grace and communion in the slow. Instead of that quick toss from the washer to the dryer, I spend a good 15 minutes shaking out towels and Spiderman underwear and grass-stained jeans, clothes-pinning shoulder seams to the line…unfold, shake out, clothespin, repeat. It is slow and rhythmic, laundry as liturgy, my face to the sun. I’ve begun using the time to pray and think and escape the rivalrous kid voices that I can still faintly hear through the walls.

Who knew that a busted-up clothes dryer could help heal a soul?

As I tend to other things, the clothes wave and flap and I’ve determined to never take breeze for granted again. Amazing how something I can’t see or touch can get the job done if I’ll just be patient.

So much of life is beyond our control. Trying to make His will bend into ours will forever be futile…sort of like trying to boss the weather. I’m learning, ever so slowly, that there is rest for the soul who gives up control, who trusts in the One that blows the wind enough to get the job done in a day and who also has purpose in the seemingly stagnant and undone.

Because in His time {and rarely in ours} the job will get done. God promises in His word that He will complete it. And He has never broken a promise. Never. But in the meantime, the waiting time and trusting-in-promises time, there is sweet communion as we rest, hope and keep lifting our faces to the sun.

…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. {Philippians 1:6}

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I’ve been a little absent from here lately. It’s been over 3 weeks since my last post and in blog time, that feels like 3 years. I’ve missed this place and I’ve missed all of you who come by and visit. Lord willing, the words are coming back and my fingers long to type away again and to find fellowship here. I have sure missed it.

Boys and Poo, the 8th Wonder of the World


The boys and I field-tripped to a goat farm today with some friends of ours. We could also refer to the event as Adventures in Poo. The sheer variety of excrement thrilled a posse of little boys to no end.


Brownie is seven but has long been peculiarly interested in the world of poo. Between the pot-bellied pig, roosters, chickens, goats, cats, horses and dogs, he delighted in a wonderful array of literal field samples.

Our sneakers bear witness.

We loved on huge, fluffy, herding dogs. Yes, that is the official name of the breed. Genus: Fluffy. Species: Herding Dog. My 7-year-old asked me, seriously, if it was a lion. Oh, I am a fine and upstanding homeschooler.


We also gazed upon all sorts of prize-winning goats. This one is due to give birth any day. Bless. Her. Heart. Clearly, you can’t blame her for not wanting to be photographed.


The good news is that mama goats apparently lose their baby weight super fast. This one just had babies days ago! {That seems downright unfair. She’s probably a celebrity goat who has a personal trainer and weight-loss pills at her disposal.}


Also? Baby goats start walking around within 30 minutes of being born. I was thanking the good Lord that my own babies did not do that. 
And though we oohed and ahhed over newborn goats, marveled at a 3-legged cat, sampled goat cheese and fudge, and tickled this ginormous pig with a chicken feather….


What did we talk about the entire way home?

Poo.

Mommy, are flies the only animals that eat poo? Why do flies like poo? Did God make them to eat poo?

He went on to describe each animal’s specific size and shape of poo and told me he is really, really interested in learning more about poo.

And after he queried about loftier subjects like how God made us from the dust of the earth and how, exactly, God made our eyeballs, we returned again to the topic of poo.

The world is just full of wonders, he sighed.

Yes, yes it is. And a certain little boy’s fascination with the world of poo is certainly one of them for me.

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{Tell me I’m not alone. For those of you with boys,
please reassure that all of this is within the range of normal.}

For the Girl Who Just Can’t Pray…


Sometimes the soul sits silent. Overwhelmed by the pain that would sear too deeply if it succumbed to feeling, the soul instead goes numb. And when a soul sits catatonic in order to protect itself, the girl who houses the soul becomes figuratively paralyzed, unable to stretch uplifted arms to God.


It’s ironic that then, when the soul most needs communion, it simply can’t. Though the girl can undeniably feel the grace of His strength, she can’t feel the comfort of His presence.

And then guilt {because she’s prayerless,} adding spiritual insult to literal injury, coats the numb soul with a shell. So with a trifecta of hurt, numbness and guilt, the girl walks through the day with a pulseless soul wrapped up in a prayerless spirit. Funny and pathetic that when the girl can’t feel anything else, she can still feel guilt.

And there the girl sits, right in the middle of a string of near-prayerless days yet needing it more than ever. And what do the saints do when a sister needs a hand but can’t raise her own? They do it for her, raising petitions on her behalf to the One who always hears.

And what does God do when He sees that numb, broken girl who loves Him but can’t always feel Him? That girl who needs to talk it out but she’s gone all mute? He sends the Spirit to intercede for her, “with groanings too deep for words,” because the girl is weak and just doesn’t know how to pray.

But God loves that girl with an everlasting love and even prayerless days can’t separate them. He loves her enough to send perfect gifts at perfect moments because He is, after all, the consummate gift-giver. His gift to her on a melancholic, prayerless Saturday was a song that expressed just how she felt but couldn’t speak.

And this song became her prayer, is her prayer as she walks the hard road. She imagines Him with strong, outstretched arms reaching down to the weak, mute, limp-armed girl, saying, “Sweet child, I know you are empty and prayerless but know that I’m writing your story into my song.” There is divine purpose in all of this.

So thank you, Ann, for sharing this song with us. And thank you, Christa, for writing it. It was the perfect gift for a prayerless girl. And of course, thanks be to God who lovingly gifts songs as prayers when our own words just don’t come.

{Italics note lyrics in Christa Wells’ song, How Emptiness Sings.}


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I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, scribbled thoughts on scrap paper and stuffed into the tangled abyss known as my purse. I almost didn’t publish it because I have an annoying tendency to write only from where I am, expression pouring out of the moment. And thankfully that string of prayerless days came to an end–numbness replaced with emotion, healing, hope and finally, prayer. So these thoughts don’t feel as current and worthy of expression. But maybe you’re in a string of prayerless days yourself. If so, this post is for you. Know that there is One who intercedes for you.