I found who I am in the seemingly small.
When my prayers run deep,
I am found.
Who are you?
Perfect isn’t real. I’m a Parent
Parenting sometimes is, working your tail off for a week through illness and recovery, disinfecting, cleaning, decluttering, super major effort, and ending a Monday with a house in shambles..
And waiting for the next 18 minutes on the washing machine that holds the kids uniforms hostage before you can put them in the dryer and go to sleep, in preparation for the 5:15 am alarm that’s looming. It’s life among the living I think when nothing works like you want but everything is still okay.
They won’t die from clutter and couch sleeping and I will survive on little to no sleep but we kill ourselves in process and the pursuit of perfection. Maybe perfect doesn’t have to mean what I think it means (catch the princess bride reference because all things good in life involve a good princess bride reference).
Maybe it’s okay to just be okay. Lunches packed, clothes laid out for tomorrow minus the ones waiting for the dryer, just life…just okay…
So I’m breathing in the evening and I probably won’t clean the living room tonight because 5am alarm and I don’t wanna’ but that may be okay. Just sayin’
I’m a chef making PB&J
Well not really…but I’m a really good home cook who’s husband said he wanted to cook dinner on the grill so she waited and he got caught up
And that’s okay
And so my kids are eating PB&J
And I, though I would love to beat Bobby Flay, let it ride.
Because there’s so much more to life than sauce and technique.
And there’s more important battles to choose than dinner time
So the kids will survive and I won’t try out my latest culinary weapon
And tomorrow brings another chance at greatness…come on Bobby, I will bring you down…maybe…no comment….
But life is more than masterpiece.
Today may be the sum of mown grass and clean tile
Or smiling children and peanut butter fingers
Or mom wondering if she’s done enough.
Iced tea and vinegar scrubbed floors and Bobbly Flay smiling in the background of headphones blaring over kid noise.
This is life and my kid tells me daily I can beat you Bobby! We will never know of course, because I am me and you are you and there’s that
But regardless, I am happy with my peanut butter and jelly masses and five kid culinary accomplishments and life in the realm of dirty floors and lackluster survival.
This is me…
So bring it Bobby Flay!
Me and mundane, culinary life, clean floors and dog baths and five kid, hanging on, homemade pasta and kicking mom cuisine vs. I don’t even know what to call it.
At least my kids are happy with the me they’re stuck with as mom.
Cook on, Flay, cook on. I still win!
On falling and getting up
If I’m going to fall, can I please fall hard and hit my head?
Can there be concussion and bruising so I don’t look like a fool?
Can I rest in the “okay-ness” of my weakness?
If I do, do I have to wait for a diagnosis?
Fallen, in need of grace?
Can’t we just be human?
Wake up sleepers
Wake up church!
In the land of the living, an anchor holds
And we get to reveal it and show it to the masses
That’s enough
Love is enough
We can kick and claw and scream at the wind
We can cry behind closed doors
But we can’t stop reaching
For real love!
THAT is the anchor
Nails and thorns and mercy on a cross
And death giving way to victory
Who are you?
Who does He say I am?
Where is victory?
Can you see it today?
If not, look again.
It’s worth fighting for!
Time…in a bottle…or not…
Time is a funny thing.
It flies
It pauses
It groans for tomorrow
It longs for yesterday
It moves
In waves
While the world continues, as it seemingly stops for some
But it is.
Time is
And we grovel at it’s feet
And we wonder where the break pedal is
And we clasp onto what we can hold
And we long for bricks to put on top our children’s heads to stop the growth
All the while praying they will grow, healthy and strong, and prepared for tomorrow
I watch you grow and I beg for it to stop and continue while I sit like an Alanis Morissette lyric, contracting truths against each other.
And we grow and move
And live and have our being in the moment
Sweaters on backward and inside out and all
Until we feel the most of a new day
And breathe
Deep
Because today is wrapped in tomorrow and yesterday at once
And I am you and you are me together, bracing for the impact
Life is more than we see
Life is wrapped in the endless toil of a day well lived, and a tomorrow, begging for something
Whatever that may be
My tomorrow is different from yours
But it’s the same
The hand of God, making meaning, while we go
And that’s enough
At the end of the day, it’s enough
Forward motion makes for meaning
So RUN!
Then look at yesterday and today and smile
Knowing tomorrow is breath
And we’re all running
In the Morning …Running with what you’ve got
So, my mornings are always morning before morning should be allowed
I’m not a morning person…working on this…
But in anticipation of tomorrow, I plan.
I pack lunchboxes and clean and lie clean clothes on racks and hooks, and find shoes lost by minions (small people I’m charged to raise)
But, unfortunately, sometimes I dread the day ahead.
I’m not proud of it.
And I think if His mercies new every morning and the blessing of parenthood and employment and a life well lived.
But in reality, I go to bed knowing my alarm will sound the horror bell of having to wake up when I want to sleep.
Still, there’s a blessing when the coffee and the day kick in.
When sunlight brings possibilities that I haven’t imagined.
So I ride before the sun and do it again and again.
This life doesn’t have to be brilliant or awesome in the light of day but it has to continue to bring meaning.
So today leads to tomorrow and every moment, even the mundane, leads to greatness.
Will I be remembered for the lunches I pack and the jokes I wrote in sharpie on ziplock? Probably not. But will I be remembered for my perseverance and strength? I hope so.
Wake up tomorrow and do it again.
Just go!
One foot in front of the next, in excellence. It’s all anyone can ask and it’s more than enough.
Two cents from the routine.
Two cents to manufacture a million. Just RUN!
Glorious
What makes glorious life?
When pen and plight, too numb, collide
What beauty permeates stone?
Till I, in He, resound alone.
We talk, so often of death and pain
Yet forget the living
And here I stand with arms, waiting for direction, aiming for the target I cannot see
Or maybe I can…
Or maybe I am hesitant to step, without seeing where my feet will land
Either way, pen in hand, write my story.
I’ll go
Who am I?
If I were a mere mortal in the land of the living
You know that place where truth and grace collide
And the maker of heaven called me beautiful in spite of my ugly
And I set out to show the world the immensity of glory
And the rug beneath me failed to hold the weight
And the ground shook at the sound of Your voice
And I am me and you are infinite
What can I offer?
A prayer to the God who sees
A song to the voice of the mute
I am a disabled veteran in the land of the living
No claim to fame just a life sacrificed at the altar of service
And in my case, badly offered
Bruised and unworthy
But still showing up
Still fighting
Still ready to stand and say it’s all worth it
Bring it on world, I’m here standing on weak knees, ready for tomorrow
Warrior with broken feet…standing on hope.
Wake me up!
Confessions of a Narcissist’s Wife
I will never be myself again.
I will apologize for every statement.
Okay get it. I will walk on eggshells while the earth shatters.
I will stand alone beneath the weight of injustice.
I will take responsibility.
Nothing is anything apart from you so I will hide
And tomorrow might be better or not
And today is a drop in the bucket of eternity.
Because I can’t long for you anymore while you throw me under the bus.
But that’s life in the land of the living and the sun will rise and I will forgive and we will call it growth.
That’s just movement in the stagnant waters while the void calls for justice.
I will apologize.
I will find my own fault in your weakness.
I will stand alone.
I will bear the weight of the world while you cower.
Tomorrow, bring your anchor.
Time in a Bottle
If we can’t find time and bottle it neatly, can we walk into tomorrow knowing it mattered?
If today is a blip, is tomorrow a wonder?
What if the world stops now?
Am I enough?
I am who He says I am.
Maybe if we lived each day with intention…
Maybe that’s a pipe dream.
What is a “pipe dream”
Legit, what is the entomology of that phrase.
I’m too lazy to look tonight. And I just used “Legit” as an actual word.
Maybe tomorrow…
Says the girl at the end of the world looking out into the void.
Jesus, help me focus on today!
INSPIRED BY THE COMFORTER 