Hi! How was your summer?

That’s great!

How was my summer?

I plead the 5th.

Nothing — and I mean nothing — about this summer is what I expected it to be. I got awesome at sweating and stressing and my kids got awesome at iPad apps and watching Minecraft videos. My boys now know that you can actually get rich playing video games professionally and posting YouTube videos about it.

This is information I wish they could un-know.

A week ago I ate dinner at 12:30 in the A.M. So technically, I skipped Sunday’s dinner and ate a way early Monday breakfast of lukewarm beans and rice. I share that random bit of trivia because it’s sort of a barometer of life as I’ve known it lately.

Summer was moving right along and then we decided in early July to get our house ready to sell. We hadn’t planned on it. But as we considered the future and took a squinty-eyed look at some things, we decided that yes, we could actually try to sell our sweet abode and perhaps move closer to where much of our living takes place so that my primary place of residence is not a crumb-laden, high-mileage Toyota Sienna.

And so we said yes and hired some stuff out and worked our fingers to the bone and that’s when Crazy and all her relatives decided to show up and prop their grubby feet right up on the coffee table. Major appliances broke. Minor appliances broke. All sorts of things that are much bigger than appliances also broke. Things like plans and expectations and budgets and having a clue. And in the process, my sanity and confidence broke a little bit too.

Apparently so did my sweat glands because I felt like I lived in a state of perpetual perspiration. It’s like menopause swooped in for the summer and stole my deodorant just to show me how fun life is going to be in about 10 years.

I’ve cried nearly every day of the summer. Because stress makes me cry but so does nostalgia. I’ve lived longer in this house than any house in which I’ve ever lived. Some of the best days of my life happened in this house and also some of the very worst. It’s a mixed bag but it’s ours. This house and this ‘hood have been our home for 9 years and when I visualize another place, it feels like I’m cheating on this one.

When the house finally listed, I couldn’t bring myself to put the sign in the yard for two days. I couldn’t even talk about it.

And all of this is why I haven’t been able to write or blog or think. The loudness of life has drowned out the quiet and numbed my ability to listen. Rest has seemed laughable. Stress has skewed my perspective. I’ve insulated and isolated and not exercised and eaten an array of new Ben and Jerry’s flavors {win}. My clothes don’t exactly fit and my nerves are rather frayed and I’ve told myself that I’ll put this old girl back together again once the kids start school.

Because how do you make a house look not lived in when five people live here? How do you make needful headway when three children and a dog are home all day and they need things like food and water and band-aids and baths and a nice mom?

I wouldn’t know. I have simply survived. We all have. We’ve also helped that sector of our local economy which specializes in prepared food that passes through windows.

And all of this has a way of making a mom with hopes and expectations for the summer feel like quite a failure by summer’s end.

Summers can be the best of times and the worst of times. I doubt our foremothers were wrought with as much expectation as we modern moms. They were too busy canning vegetables and not getting sucked into the internet. Meanwhile their children were milking cows and then playing unsupervised until dinnertime. They didn’t have Pinterest and blogs and social media vacation photos to make them feel like their lives didn’t quite measure up. I kind of envy those pre-internet moms.

All I can see is the good and the fun and the plans left undone.

All I can ask for is forgiveness and redemption.

Yet in the midst of the crazy and the dashed expectations and the disappointing outcomes, God has been here and He has been so good.

He has sent such personal help and kindness. He has reminded me of who He is and what He can do, usually in the midst of very broken moments. He has been my God here in what feels like Chapter 197 of “The Unfixable Life.” He has kept loving me even though I’ve chosen badly on any given day and I don’t always know if I’m making the right decisions and I feel overwhelmed and so much of life seems “off.” He has seen what I lack but reminded me to be grateful. He has shown me some messy truth that I’ve needed to see even though it’s hurt and I’ve wanted to look away.

He has sustained all of us even though our little world has felt flung into chaos.

I keep coming back to this verse in Hebrews:

and he upholds the universe by the word of his power…

Each time I read it, my shoulders loosen and I exhale the deep breath I don’t even realize I’m holding. I let go of the control I never had to begin with and I know that I have one real job to do. And that is to trust.

To trust the Universe Holder with everything from rioting cities and broken people to the houses we live in and a summer that desperately needs redemption. To trust Him with their school-year that feels scary and my faith that seems fragile. At best.

To simply trust Him with all that has gone before and all that is yet to come because He upholds it all.

And therefore we don’t have to. We simply carry on, one day at a time, knowing that we can plan our way but it’s the Lord who establishes our steps on this spinning globe. When I really believe that, it changes everything.

Seasons end and new ones begin.

Disappointment fades a bit as acceptance and hope take root.

I count the gifts of all that is good and right. I look back and choose to see the lovely days and moments in the midst of the messy ones: finishing our two-year journey together with Harry, Ron, and Hermione; watching my boys play golf; precious visits from far-away friends; spending time with family; eating too much ice-cream; sleeping in…oh the sleeping in.

I accept that big decisions can heave our everydays into stress and chaos from which we feel like we will never return. It happens. It’s hard. But it is temporary and we’ve all been in it together. It may not have felt like “quality time” but it was time together and that matters more than we think.

I especially acknowledge that children will see these summer days far differently than I probably see them. And that my boys may well declare the Summer of 2014 as the Summer of Minecraft Domination / The Summer I Decided to Give My Life to Professional Gaming / The Summer I Quit My Brain. / The Summer of Win?

We can only go up from here.

/////

I loved this post yesterday by Gina Detweiler: For the mom who feels like she failed summer.

And then there’s this classic post from last summer — Worst End of Summer Mom Ever {A Sequel} — by Jen Hatmaker that’s so worth re-reading {while not sipping a fizzy beverage because it will surely come out of your nose and burn your mucous membranes while you are laughing and crying in agreement.}

Moral of the story? You’re not alone.

As much as we’re all ready for the freedom from schedules and routine by the end of May, most of us are equally desperate for the order and structure of a new school-year and the consolation that formal education will save our sweet children from a future of professional Minecrafting, lucrative though it may be.

So if you see me at my local Starbucks today, eyes glazed over despite my second macchiato, just pat me on the back and say, “You made it through the summer, soldier. Now go take a nap. You’ve earned it.”