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Showing posts from July, 2019

LORD OVER THE FLIES

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“Stop! Stop!” I yelled, but only my attacker could hear me, and with a growing, glowing gleam in his eyes, he ignored my cries. Despite my plea, he kept at it. As no one responded to my screams, I felt silenced and powerless to resist. I don’t know who he was or where we were, but I woke up and realized it was 4:40 a.m. I rolled over to recover, resting next to my husband. After ten minutes, I knew it was pointless and I might as well creep downstairs and use those morning hours, the sleeping hours, to write before my trail of children would appear. Entering the kitchen, I saw them. Bigger than average house flies, with beady red eyes shining on the sides of their finely crafted heads, they rested their articulated legs on my window pane and hid in the lamp, wings ready to fly in first response. I counted at least three. Make it four if you add the one lying dead on the bathroom floor I passed on my way downstairs. Who knew how many more we’d encounter that day? Two tho

MOMMY’S CRIB

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Sometime after midnight I rouse. Through our closed bedroom door and over the hum of the fan I hear our baby’s cry, “Mommy’s crib!” As she still learns to put words together, I interpret her meaning. She wants to get out of her crib and climb into bed with me. In mommy motion, I whisk off my sheets, round the bend of the bed, and make a beeline to pick her up before she wakes her sleeping sister. As I whisper reassurances in her ear, “Mommy’s here. Shhh, it’s alright,” I seek to relieve her fears, maintain sleep in our home, and assess the situation. Is she feverish? Did she have a bad dream? She burrows her head under my chin and clings to me. I think she would climb back inside of me if she could. In the day, she delights to explore, play hide-and-seek with her brothers, and be Miss Independent doing everything by herself. I try to hand her to my husband, but as much as she adores him in the day, in the middle of the night she only wants me. I sigh, sleepless, a

GOING GLUTEN-FREE WAS EPIC FOR OUR SON

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This July marks two years since our son’s diagnosis of Celiac disease at nine years old. It’s hard to believe so much time’s past, but I realize that what seems short to me represents nearly a fifth of his life. “Going gluten-free” was epic for him. Part of being a parent and loving our kids is recognizing and communicating God’s grace to them, and I want to see and celebrate how God’s helped our son on his journey. This good trooper lives with at least three realities: 1. The Complete Removal of Gluten for His Future Our son’s clear diagnosis after blood work and an endoscopy meant the complete removal of gluten from his plate. The word “cross-contamination” entered our daily vocabulary as he avoids even trace amounts of gluten. Even though his sister outgrew her dairy and corn allergies, and we’ve been able to add countless foods to her diet, our 11-year-old son knows that foods with gluten will never be safe for him. 2. The Memory of Gluten Unlike many kids w

WRITE WHERE I AM| Beyond Writing, Part 3 of 3

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(This is the third post in a series, "Beyond Writing." Click to read part one and part two .) Jogging jogs my brain and offers some of my best thought space. It was on a neighborhood run while reflecting on writing that I thought, “Write where I am.” I was in a "babies and bottles" season. Exclusively pumping milk for a little one because of feeding challenges, it was all I could do to keep my head above water and my older four children afloat. I’d written a book a few years back that had been immensely helpful to me personally in getting perspective on how to apply the gospel to every day motherhood, but because of a number of challenging life circumstances, writing sat in the backseat of my mental minivan. I’m learning that my capacity for work and ministry that extends beyond my family ebbs and flows, expands and contracts. During an intense season of care for our children, my primary calling clearly has been directed to our home. Any extra ener

WHAT’S THE POINT?| Beyond Writing, Part 2 of 3

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(This is the second post in a series, "Beyond Writing." Click to read part one   and part three .) I’ve loved to write since I could hold a pencil. I wrote and told stories to my younger sister growing up, usually about children caring for one another because their parents died. Occasionally I’ll use a pencil to write a list or jot down an idea that I’d lose otherwise, and my children still use pencils for much of their school work. Most of my writing is done on a laptop or desktop computer, though. Whether my point is on the blunt-to-sharp scale of a pencil tip or an exclamation point on my keyboard, the bigger question I’ve been asking during my writing experiment of the past several months is—what’s the point of writing? We can ask that about anything we’re doing--what's the point? This is especially true if our activity involves a significant investment of time, emotional energy, and creative juices. Why do we do what we do, and is it worth it? Our a

STRETCH MARKS| Beyond Writing, Part 1 of 3

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(This is the first post in a series, "Beyond Writing." Click to read part two   and part three .) I guess I should be proud of my stretch marks, those remaining lines that zigzag across my belly, leftover from the contraction of my skin related to carrying six growing babies, five of whom survived to see light outside my womb. I’m really not, though. Seeing the beauty in flapping skin is elusive to me. It’s a concept in my head that I know I should embrace, but the truth is I wish I could erase them all. Not the babies, just the marks, but I can’t—they come together, and I keep them both. As those first tiny movements burst like bubbles inside me, as I sensed the karate kicks that caught me off guard any hour of the day or night, they reminded me of the life I carried hidden inside me. I planned and labored and delivered, and then we tested the car seats and strapped in each baby…one at a time…most of them roughly two years apart. My husband and I would glance at o

Use Your Words| Part 3 of 3

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(This post is the third in a three-part series. Click to read  part one   and part two .) I’m an introvert, and this means that I’m also an introverted mom. This became shockingly apparent the day my husband returned to work and I stayed home alone with my newborn son for the first time. He wriggled on the changing table as I reached for a clean diaper and stared at him. It’s not that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. My son’s gurgles and cries filled in the gaps. He wasn’t concerned. He just looked back at me and smiled. But I knew it was important for him to hear my voice, and I wasn’t sure how to use it. Whether or not it has anything to do with being an introvert, learning to use my words and teach my children how to use their words is a theme in my life. Maybe it is in yours, too. Communicating with my children in a meaningful way isn’t something that always comes naturally to me, yet it’s something that God clearly teaches parents to do. Moses’

Use Your Words| Part 2 of 3

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(This post is the second in a three-part series. Click the link to read part one   and part three .) I worked as a youth leader in rural Pennsylvania for a couple of years after college graduation, and I heard kids using the word “awesome” to describe everything from a sandwich being eaten to a concert they’d been to. “This is awesome !” “That was awesome !” I did it too, but the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I became. Awesome? A sunset over the mountains is awesome. An eagle soaring to its nest in the high trees is awesome. God is awesome. But a sandwich or a concert? I knew what the kids meant, but I resolved to reserve “awesome” for truly spectacular things. It's the first time I remember thinking so carefully about the theological implications of my language use. My oldest son took a school course a few years ago that gave monetary value to various words. Descriptive ones like “kind-hearted” or “generous” were considered more valuable (and bett

Use Your Words| Part 1 of 3

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(This post is the first in a three-part series. Click to read  part two   and part three .) My two-year-old daughter is learning to use her words. At the kitchen table after dinner recently, her older brother pointed to objects around the room and she named them to the best of her ability. We saw the light bulb turning on and her pure pleasure at the game. Big brother pointed to the glass pitcher in the center of the table and she murmured, “Water!” He affirmed her answer and then pointed to the lamp. She smiled and said, “Light!” She named her bowl and her spoon. She named each of us, and then she started naming her body parts. Despite her rapidly expanding vocabulary, sometimes her emotions take over and a tantrum follows. In those moments, I remind her to use her words . “What do you want? Do you need something? Tell me.” Sometimes she points to a bumped elbow and I kiss it. She tells me she wants juice, and we find a cup and fill it. Or, she re

Seeing Through the Storm

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This past Saturday, I corralled our five children into the car along with bags of brightly-colored beach towels, water bottles, snacks, and all kinds of miscellaneous kid stuff. A few minutes later, I picked up my sister from her house and we continued the nearly two-hour drive in the jam-packed mini-van to the Atlantic coast for an afternoon in the sun. It was a beautiful plan until the billowing clouds grew taller and darker and about two-thirds of the way to our destination, the heavens opened and deluged us so relentlessly that the cars passing me on the left sprayed such an abundance of white water onto my windshield that it was all I could see. The flash-flood waters were rising, and we pulled into a parking lot to check weather radar on the phone. We could call it a wash and simply turn around and drive home. Or, we could hope against hope and keep driving. Yes, I was a crazy lady and chose the second option. One of my optimistic sons reassured me from the back

Hope in the Midst of Your Hard Reality

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Hope that is seen is not hope at all. By definition, we hope in the midst of hard realities while we wait for what is unseen. I’m learning that now, but in 2013 I was a basket case while my known world was being turned upside down.  Over a brief two months that felt like forever, three of our children were diagnosed with the serious form of a rare genetic condition called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency following one child’s illness. The diagnosis of one child led to the diagnosis of two more, and with each diagnosis, my husband's and my grief grew exponentially. I wasn’t thinking about hope when I began compiling Bible verses and pasting them in the front of my journal. I was coming up for air and taking gasping breaths between the waves of grief that washed over me. The child whose sickness had prompted the genetic testing was still recovering from the same unknown virus that had landed him in the ER at a children's hospital, and I was separated and

Cast Your Cares Because He Cares

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“…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”  -1 Peter 5:7 God is bigger, and God is greater. He is powerful to protect and keep, and he is able to do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. He reaches places I can’t reach, and he sees what I can’t see, behind doors and into hearts and minds. He loves farther and he grieves deeper than I do. He stays awake and keeps being God when my restless self falls asleep. These truths are my comfort when the weight of this world lands heavily on me, whether it’s the burden of my own anxieties or the cares of those I love. Sometimes the storm rages within me and sometimes it rages around me, and sometimes it’s both. I’m impacted and the heaviness settles…in my heart and on my shoulders. As I lie in bed, my thoughts drift and I feel depleted, empty. Too tired to be articulate or pray anything lengthy, I begin to cast my cares on Jesus, one at a time, simply and specifically. I imagine a vast expan