At 10:25 last night when I walked in the dark toward the laundry room I paused at their rooms.

“I can go to sleep better when the dryer is running,” my eight-year-old said a few months ago.

White noise.

It’s probably why I do a lot of my loads of laundry at night. I put one in after their bath and then change another load after they’ve gone to sleep.

Sounds of their house. Like the owls outside our windows the other night having a HOO fight. Like the dog shifting on her bed downstairs and rattling her tags. Like the dishwasher, the fan in the attic or the sound of the air conditioning clicking on during a hot afternoon. For the most part, it’s quiet here.

Before I walked into change the laundry from washer to dryer, I made a detour into Naomi’s room. Her nightlights {a string of Valentine red heart lights} cast a bordello glow in her distinctly childish bedroom. Pink quilt, minty green walls, pink hooks on the wall for her purses and a pink and white doll house all rest as she rests for the evening.

Most of her was under the quilt but the top half of her wasn’t. I know she’d get cool in the night and probably come crawl in between my husband and I somewhere between 1 and 2.

I found her blanket {the one she’s slept with from the time she cuddled with it in a crib} and pulled it up over her shoulders. She sighed, so slightly, and didn’t move.

I just wanted to make her more comfortable. More safe. But I hadn’t thought about it with intention.

I walked into her room and did what mothers do.

Sometimes during the day I get so frustrated with messy bedrooms or disheveled playrooms. I get stressed over things to sweep or things to write and I very much hate the end-of-summer squabbling that is the most common noise in my house on any afternoon.

Late at night I can’t picture the screaming peanut-butter-in-the-blonde-hair child and during the day its difficult to imagine the quiet, sing-me-a-song-Mama little girl. The girl who wants the dryer on to soothe her isn’t the same child who destroys her closet to find a single toy.

But neither am I.

As I pray each day {usually during the day} a Help-Me-Be-Patient-And-Not-Kill-These-Children prayer I am not the same Mama who scoops them up in arms and swings them in the grass. Sometimes I’m the mother who feels like I just need 30 minutes to close my eyes so please, please PLEASE let me do that. And sometimes I’m the mother who cuddles into the quilt with one of them as the are falling asleep at night even though I have dishes, blogs and unfolded clothes taunting me.

I’m not perfect. And sometimes I expect my children to be.

I expect them to be lively and happy all of the time when I can’t even do the same thing. And I realized that today as I, in frustration, asked them to just be happy. And fix that attitude.

Sigh.

Do you ever expect more out of your kids than you give yourself?

When I was a little girl I hated to miss things.

If I had to stay home from school because I was sick, I would feel anxious.

9:30 — All the kids are probably coming in from recess.

11:46 — Are they going to lunch now?

2:05 — Everyone is packing up their backpacks and they have HOMEWORK I DON’T KNOW ABOUT!

If we stayed home from church on a Sunday morning, I’d count the hours until noon when the-place-I-was-supposed-to-be wasn’t vacant any longer.

Even as  a young college student, if I had to miss class for some reason I would lay in my bed and picture my empty classroom chair, probably occupied by someone else. And I’d couldn’t really rest until the hour-forty-five had passed and everyone had filed out of the stuffy upstairs philosophy room.

I’ve always had odd anxiety regarding missing something I’m usually a part of.

My work desk would sit slowly gaining a micro-layer of dust because I didn’t shuffle my papers over it’s surface for a day. All my co-workers would go out for burritos at 12:30 without me. Voicemails would pile up in my inbox.

It’s weird and I can’t really explain it. I’m just anxious until the whatever is over and I’m not the girl-who-didn’t-show-up any longer. Everyone has moved on to the next thing and I’m just sick at home watching Growing Pains re-runs.

I have to fight this even now when my girls miss something due to illness, vacation or something else.

Sometimes I escape to Starbucks when the girls are in school or with a grandparent. I hum along with my Pandora stations, I return emails, write blog posts and then I panic. Is there something else I should be doing? I usually breathe it down but once in awhile it’s enough to make me gather up my computer and go do the “whatever” I think I should be doing.

Maybe there is something wrong with me.

So I have trouble saying “No” to things and taking a break from things like four-year-old dance class and gymnastics. I have trouble feeling like I’m letting someone down when I’ve made a commitment to be there. I have trouble doing all of this.

I have to force myself to rest. Really rest.

The kind where I drift with eyes closed and NOT mind-count the things on my to-do list. The kind where phone conversations don’t replay themselves in my mind before I fall asleep and I end up dreaming about people that I’m supposed to email.

I’m pretty sure the solution is simple.

Live each hour in the hour. If I’m driving kids to school, be there. If I’m sitting in Starbucks trying to grind down my list of things to do, be all there. If I’m staying home with a sick little girl, be 100% there for her. And if somehow in my hang-ups I’ve transferred my anxiety to my daughters, I need to do all I can to give them the tools to do the same.

So today I AM going to show up. But I’ll show up where I am. I won’t let a vision of an empty classroom desk somewhere else cloud my sight.

Do you find it hard to BE where you ARE?

The universe aligned itself last Friday night and I found myself in the house alone.

My mother-in-law had offered to take the girls over night. At 4pm she showed up and collected them with a sleeping bag under each arm. They were off to watch movies, do crafts and eat hot dogs.

Chad had a late night project to complete for work so he wasn’t expected home until near midnight.

Friday night: kids gone and husband gone.

What should I do?

Watch a friend’s baby, of course. I’d offered earlier in the week when I figured out that I’d be on my own for the evening.

Five month old Jessie showed up at my door at 5pm with her parents in tow. A stroller, bottles, diaper bag, toys and bibs reminded me that it’s been nearly 4 years since I’d been alone with a baby. Me and a baby. Alone for 3 hours.

I can TOTALLY do this. It hasn’t been so long since I juggled a baby on my hip as I made dinner, folded clothes and sent an email.

After Jessie’s bottle, we spent most of the evening in the rocking chair that has seen little use since I used to rock a fussy 12 month old Naomi to sleep 3 and a half years ago. I watched Netflix documentaries and Jessie chewed on a toy.

Then she grabbed my finger in true infant style: whole hand around my whole finger. She wrapped it tightly and held on as she nearly gnawed a hole in the corner of a toddler board book.

She didn’t know me. We’d only met an hour earlier. Yet here she sat, completely happy and completely trusting me.I could have been a bad person or at the least a neglectful babysitter. But she held my hand and relaxed her little body into mine.

Complete trust. Complete unawareness of the the evil world of possible danger in her future.

She trusted me because her parents trusted me. Her whole world of safety was based on her parents wisdom and their assessment of my capability as a babysitter. They assumed that I would be careful, loving and watchful {which I was} and that Jessie would be safe with me. Because of the trust of her parents, Jessie felt safe.

She wrapped her baby-girl fingers around my finger and cooed so loud our dog followed suit.

The same is true with God.

He has our days {and our evenings} planned. He knows, with wisdom, our current circumstances and our futures. He is a careful parent who plans for our care-taking and places us in situations  that are under His control. Our trust is based on Him and His love for us.

And we, like an infant grasping the hand of an adult, can rest in that.

Do you have trouble resting in Him?

I was thinking about something over the weekend. A lot of you have been around this blog since last August when I went public with the story of my marriage. It’s been one year this month.

{If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here}

So much has happened in the last 12 months that I can’t even begin to explain it all today on a Monday morning. Last summer, on the Sunday night before the first story post went up, I was so nervous I’d made myself sick. I asked Chad to pray for me, for us, for this whole thing.

He prayed for me and as he prayed he thanked God for the adventure we were about to take.

“I’d never thought about it that way,” I told him when he was done.

It’s proven to be true. The last year has been an adventure, to say the least, and something tells me it’s only the beginning of a grander one on the horizon.

So thank you. YOU! For coming along with me on this adventure, for loving me, for interacting with me, for reading me. Thank you for walking this crazy road with me.

My good friend Lisa is also a fellow adventurer. I wrote a short article about her {that when it’s published I’ll be sure to share with you} called “When I Grow Up”. And it’s true: there’s something about her that makes me want to see the creative swirl beneath the simplicity of life and just be a better friend. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

In honor of our grand adventures as friends and in the grand adventure we all take together on this blog, I (we) are giving something away today. To enter, leave a comment in the comment section before 9pm Wednesday night about a GRAND ADVENTURE you’ve already taken or one you intend to take.

Chosen randomly the winner will receive $50 IN ONLINE STORE CREDIT to Lisa Leonard Designs.

Browse her collection here.

Read Lisa’s blog here.

Tell me about your Grand Adventure…

I told her not to, but she did it anyway.

My four-year-old poured out all the shower gel in the bathtub yesterday morning to create a “bubble bath” or a “bubble fest” or something like that. She was floating in her own sudsy disobedience when I found her. And while the strong scent of aloe-cucumber-orchid wafted through the morning house, I got her out of the tub, I dried her off {without speaking much because I was so angry} and dressed her. After we talked about why she was going to have a consequence, I sent her to her room until we were supposed to leave for our morning errands.

She. Did. Not. Like. That.

Squeals and wails while I changed the laundry. Screams while I folded a few clothes. More screeches while I watered the plants on the deck.

We got ready to leave and I collected her from her room. We hugged and prayed and talked about why she’d had a consequence.

The upstairs still smells of orchids and I’m pretty sure I need to scrub bubble residue from the bottom of the bathtub.

Some consequences are intentionally doled out by Mama or by God, even. And some are just a part of life. And sometimes the line gets blurry. But all disobedience reaps consequences in some way.

A month ago I took the girls to the beach. When it was time to go {note: leave when three bus-loads of middle schoolers descend on the small cove you’ve picked out for the morning}, my eight-year-old was still floating in the waves. I yelled out to her, “We Are Leaving!!”

She looked at me and nodded.

I gave her the Head-Shake. The Wave. The Stern Look That Means Come Here Right Now. I gave her the Thumbs Toward the Parking Lot gesture. And then I repeated all of the above as I packed up the umbrella and the sandy towels.

Still she floated in the waves.

So I handed my youngest the bucket of sand toys and began to walk toward the car. Hope saw me go but didn’t believe I would actually leave her. She floated, and floated and apparently waited for me to call her again. My thought: life itself will dole out the consequence for disrespect.

And it did.

As I turned my back the second time, I heard her wail from the water. She stood up, sandy from eyes to toes and screamed. While she’d been floating in disobedience, an unexpected wave had sneaked up on her from behind and pounded her chest first into the beach. Sand in her eyes, sand down her swim suit, and sand e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.

I hated to admit it but life had appointed her a sandy consequence for not listening.

We brushed off what we could and headed to the outdoor showers, but she lived the rest of the afternoon in beachy discomfort.

I didn’t need to discipline her any further.

Either way, I’m trying to teach my girls that it’s always better to be obedient. And this whole summer I’ve been trying to model it to them as we are transitioning out of our church. Obedience when it doesn’t feel good.

Obedience when it feels so much better to just float.

Have you gotten “rocked” by a wave lately?

I spend a lot of time creating relationships. In fact, it might be my most time consuming endeavor.

I take my daughters to the park and sit in the grass with them. We play with little dolls and horses and make houses with sticks. I chase them and look at their artistic masterpieces with wood and blades of grass. We are creating relationship.

We hire a babysitter and check the movie times so that my husband and I can go out on a date. We try to recreate life before kids for a couple short hours but we ending up talking mostly about the kids anyway. Relationship.

Invite friends over for game night, let people sleep in our home, walk into a church building on a Sunday morning without knowing a soul. Why do we do all of these things? To create relationship.

My to do list looks something like this:

Most of my items have something to do with people and maintaining or progressing relationships. It’s all about people!! {minus the school uniform and clean playroom references}

I write and check Twitter and interact on blogs; in it’s own odd way this is creating relationships too. I offer to watch a friend’s baby for the evening so she and her husband can have a night out. This is creating relationship.

Why do we make this our full time job? Why do I make this my full time job?

I think we were all created to be in forever relationship with one another but that because of sin, we’ve been broken. Once upon a time.

And then as a result, our initial desires and inclinations for relationship have been twisted and smashed. Jesus came both to reconcile us to Himself and to reconcile us to each other. He came to put us all back together again.

Broken things fixed.

Broken people make whole.

Broken relationships healed.

So when I engage in creating relationship, especially in broken places, it’s like I’m helping in Jesus’ reconciliation process.  Making new friends. Keeping old ones. Playing with and engaging my girls — it’s all a part of God’s plan to re-establish us to each other.

And it’s so much better than living life alone.

We have had to look for a new church this summer.

And I hate it.

There has been nothing fun about the process. New Sunday schools, bad coffee, so-so sermons, worships bands. It got old very quickly.

No one knows us. We knew going into this that even when we did find one that no one would know us for awhile. We would have to put out energy and time and love into the new group of people we would become a part of.

But that’s what we signed up for. When we signed up for obedience, it was the same thing as saying, “whatever-it-takes” to God.

So we’ve spent the better part of the warm months searching.  It’s horrible to look for something that at best, we only had a tenuous idea of what we were looking for. But we realized something a couple months ago. We’d been halfway expecting  to walk into a church and see the equivalent of a halo over a pastor’s head and the sound of an angel choir coming from the worship team.

Without verbalizing it, our family had been watching the string of churches and communities file by us waiting for the perfect one to emerge.
That wasn’t going to happen because all communities are broken in some way. They are filled with people who are imperfect and subsequently the communities are imperfect..

Real halos don’t exist on earth and there really isn’t a perfect church.

Then one day we did walk into a church. There was no halo, no heavenly “choir” and certainly no ethereal glow from the stage. But something about it felt closer to home than any other place we have visited.

And there is something beautiful about that.

We haven’t made a firm decision but we feel much more hopeful than we have in months. I’d been waiting for a neon blinking arrow in the sky that was never going to appear and instead I got a handshake and a smile.

Hopefulness in imperfection, and that makes me feel right at home.

Where do you feel at home?

I hit things in my car.

Or at least I used to do that. I haven’t actually hit anything for a long time, but there have been seasons where either I’ve been the rear-ender or I’ve been the recipient of another car’s bumper.

But that is in the way past…

{Oh, there was that time last month in the parking lot of the supermarket where I just TAPPED that guys bumper. Seriously just TAPPED it. But when I got out of the car to apologize profusely, he was so nice and said he didn’t even feel it.

Big. Sweaty. Sigh. Of. Relief.}

Collisions: my paint rubs off on your paint and we leave dents in each other. It doesn’t really matter who collides into who, the affects are all the same. We change the shape of one another’s car.

I don’t know how to explain the different worlds that collided this past week when 6 of our friends from the internet {oh, yes, we are those kind of people} invaded our home for ten days.

They just left yesterday morning.

I know God is teaching me something from their love. I know it. But I think I’m still processing it all and I’m doing a poor job of it. I’ve only been able to focus on laundry, groceries and returning the athletic shoes I bought for Hope for school because the size was mismarked.

They attended church with us, they ate with us, watched old Shark Week with us, cooked for us. We ate spaghetti instead of crab and we squeezed past one another on the way to the bathroom. We went to the Hollywood Bowl, the beach, and Starbucks about 809 times. We just did life together.

Their lives and our lives collided for more than a simple weekend. And somehow it worked.

They left a serious, beautiful dent in our hearts that I don’t ever want to fix.

Has anyone left a dent in your heart lately?

The only thing I was good at growing up was school.

I didn’t play piano or hit home runs in softball. I couldn’t do a perfect toe touch on a cheer squad or hold a microphone with conviction and sing the “special music” for a church service.

I just got good grades. And I was rarely disappointed.

It was like a formula for the most part: STUDY (A LOT) + HOMEWORK + SHOW UP FOR CLASS = DECENT SCORES.

It just worked. But that was the only thing I knew how to do. If I’d ever brought home a D or, let’s be honest, even a B- I would have been devastated. I didn’t have to get used to disappointment.

I wasn’t on a sports team where the variables of winning and losing were exponentially expanded by other teammates or rain or a hot day.

My eight-year-old, however, is beginning to perform in events that are regularly plagued with disappointment. Almost identical to what happened a few weeks ago, Hope ribboned in her first event and was disqualified in her second event at the local gymkhana.

Elation melted into severe disappointment.

I watched her as she rode out of the arena, barely able to keep her tears from falling. And even as my heart hurt for her, I thought about myself. I never had to face the regular ebb and flow of performance based disappointment as a little girl. I watch as her heart soars and falls and I wonder how I would have handled it at the same age. When I was younger I only tried what I could accomplish and never attempted what I know couldn’t do well.

It keeps the averages deceptively favorable, doesn’t it?

But I also watch as she learns that disappointment isn’t the end of the world, that sometimes she wins and sometimes she loses and that there will be other races.

Sometimes I feel like God is teaching me the same thing He’s teaching my daughter. That life will end just find as long as I keep the most important things in mind: what I do, do with honor and respect. And above all, try something that is hard and uncomfortable and that I might fail at.

She is learning to try hard things. She is learning to do things that she doesn’t exactly know the outcome.

And I love that about her.

I watch her walk her borrowed horse around the outside of the arena after her failure. Her shoulders hand a little lower than they did five minutes ago. I see her father approach her and put his hand on the bridle. They stop and talk and I see her nod. I can’t hear what he says to her but I know she’s still a little sad.

It’s alright because some disappointment once in awhile is okay. In fact it’s good. It builds something in her that is beautiful.

And all of a sudden it makes me be like her.

She’s gaining the confidence at eight that I think I am still learning to cultivate.

Has disappointment ever helped you gain confidence?

When CBN contacted us several months ago because they’d heard about our story and wanted to do a short feature, of course we said YES.

But as the time got closer to film and there were talks about film crews and lights, I got pretty nervous.

There is nothing special about me to warrant this.

What if we get hate mail/ nasty phone calls, etc?

I have to trust that someone else will do this story justice.

It came down to simple TRUST for me.

But what I realized was that in the end, I wasn’t placing this story in someone else’s hands, but in God’s. I was trusting HIM with our words and feelings and desires. I was trusting HIM with our integrity. I was trusting HIM with all of this.

And I am so glad we did.

Thank you to Kristi Watts and her amazing crew for being so gentle with TV newbies like us and for treating our story with such respect and tact.

(If you can’t view the video, click here)