“I love it when you laugh, Mama.”

My six-year-old, who mentions mythical creatures like pegasus-unicorns in the same sentence as astronomical facts she’s picked up from staring at star charts, tells me this a week ago Sunday morning.

Before our day begins, before hair is combed for church and before tempers flare. Before dishes are washed from breakfast and before impatience takes root in my heart. Before my schedule steps to the head of the line, edging in front of my children and husband. Before my to-do list forms in my still sleepy mind, my daughter jumps into bed with me.

In a rare occasion of letting her tickle me (I usually try to maintain my job as tickler), I let out a belly-deep heart-laugh. She lets me go and I continue to giggle.

That’s when she says it. In a moment of pure and simple first grade honesty, “I love it when you laugh, Mama.”

And I realize she’s saying it because she hears my heart and belly laughing not nearly enough. For some reason I’m not laughing so she can hear me. I should be laughing with those I love the most, but instead I am reserving it for other things.

I giggle at TV show, at movies, at blogs. I laugh with my friends and the jokes we tell together.

It seems (and I agree) according to my daughter, I don’t let my joy bubble up and over enough at home. So she has to tell me, in her own way, that my true laughing self sounds foreign to her.

I have built some really bad habits. I have taught myself to hold in my laughter when my husband tells a joke in the place of an apology. Even if it is funny, I punish him by not laughing. I worry about my two-year-old’s spilled crackers on the carpet than about the simple humor found in watching her try to clean it up herself. I try not to laugh at my daughter’s one-liners (she takes after her father) when she’d rather tell a joke than obey me. Obedience first, laughter later (but often there is never laughter later).

I’ve taken a six-year-old’s observation deep to heart. That my concern with household cleanliness or disobedience should override my capacity for joy. She’s telling me to be happier. She’s telling me to smile more and to let out the joy.

I am trying to teach myself not to punish my husband but allow him to offer an apology on the wings of a joke, if he must. I’m learning to vacuum up the crumbs alongside my daughter and giggle at the silliness of it. I’m letting my six-year-old tickle me and letting out belly-laughs just for her.

My family deserves my unashamed laughter, not a joy that has conditions placed upon it or is based on performance.

So, I am learning how to laugh again. At 33. And I’m letting a six-year-old teach me.

Mandy wanted to help me on my Monday video, but instead of offering the moral support she promised, she threw me under the bus.

She just reminded me of all the food I’d forgotten I’d eaten. But then she also reminded me that I had run. In the leaves. In the autumn. In Massachusets.

There is always grace, it seems, because even though I’m sure I didn’t lose any weight on my vacation, for some reason I kept my eating in check.

If you minus the two scoops at the Cherry Hill Creamery and the roast beef sandwich at Nic’s. There was also some business with chowder and lobster on Saturday too.

Thank you for your support, Mandy.

Flat Stanley from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

And…I’m still working at my weight loss journey. Its just taking longer than I’d hoped.

Last week, during the shuffle and chaos of getting 4 people ready to spend 4 days 2 different places, I spent an entire morning with my two year old without even “doing” anything with her.

I made sure I was in the same room with her (mostly) but while she was playing a puzzle in my room, I folded laundry. While she painted watercolors at the kitchen table, I did the dishes. When she played in the front yard, I cleaned out my car. I settled her in to watch a video, and I jumped on the elliptical machine and tried to squeeze in a workout.

As I was trying to motivate her to get out the door to leave to pick up her sister from school, I realized I hadn’t really done anything with her today. I’d just worked around her.

I forget daily that my long days with her are numbered. These are days when I get to pick what we do together – I enjoy her company all day long. And so often, I slide her to the side to get done the things I think are more important. Or I somehow equate “playing” with her to a non-productive or lazy time.

I try to make her promise me that she’ll never go to school or that she’ll never get big. Even at two she’s too smart to do that.

What I need to do is promise her that I’ll live in her moments better, not my own.

When I began a blog, some people looked at me like I was crazy. It wasn’t even that long ago; I’m semi-late to the blogging scene. Even so, I got questions like,

What’s a blog? (oh, great, like a online diary, sort of)
What do you write about? (not my kids’ poopy diapers, that’s for sure)
Why??? (that was the best one)

I began blogging in July 2007 (first) because I wanted to see if I just could. I didn’t think anyone would read. I really didn’t care. I was concerned about exposure, vulnerability, about others judging me.

Blogging very quickly turned into a theraputic writing discipline for me – something I USED to get out all of my words and to try to become a better writer. 300ish words every morning or so, like a task to be finished, like a physical exercise to build a bigger muscle, I was trying to bulk up my writing skills.

And I do think I am a better writer than I was 468 posts ago.

Now, however, blogging is something different for me. It is my primary writing discipline each day (as I try to squeeze time in to write what I REALLY want to write), and it is theraputic. But, it has begun to fill a need in me that I really didn’t know was there to begin with.

Fellowship.

We’ve gone to the same church for a decade. I have a lot of friends at church and at my daughter’s school and at my mother’s group. And I participate in solid female Christian friendships on a weekly basis. There are only a few women I count as very close, however.

Blogging has created an amazing sense of fellowship with other bloggers I’ve met only through the “1s” and “0s” on our computers. And most of them I’ve never met in real life. Most of them have never really heard my voice outside of my videos and I’ve never met their kids. It isn’t like I am closer to my blogging friends than my “real-life” friends, but it is a different kind of friendship-intimacy. There aren’t as many expectations in the blogword as there are in real life.

I’ve gotten to know so many women through the words they diligently write day after day. And I’ve laid my heart bare so that they can get to know me too. I’m always amazed and encouraged when someone tells me I’ve written the words they were thinking but couldn’t get out themselves; that they know there is someone else out there like them. I feel the same way.

And now I need this fellowship every day. It helps to feed my soul.

Through this now-basic, but previously revolutionary medium called blogging, the world is so small and its crazy-easy to find other people like us. Connection. Christ-followers connecting and working toward the same goals. That is fellowship. No matter how “real” or “not real” the relationships are or how and where the connections are made. Fellowship is connection.

And call me wild, I jumped on a plane this morning to visit and hug a blogger I’ve never met.

But am I the crazy one?

(Mandy and Drew are completely insane to have two people stay with them who’ve they’ve never met. More insane than me. What if we’re obsessive compulsive nose-pickers or argue with each other all weekend? What if we pilfer sugar packets from restaurants and then blame it on the worship leader and seminary student…)

Today I go to meet her.

Right now I am boarding a plane. And I’m a little nervous.

Meeting Mandy from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

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I’ll be sure to update more than is humanly normal.

Now is the time more than ever to give.

That sounds really backwards, right? Think: If I am making less money, facing layoffs, worrying about investment value, watching my home plummet, going back to work after I’ve stayed home with my kids, etc. isn’t now the time to save, pinch and worry? Right? Not necessarily.

I would suggest that NOW more than ANY OTHER time is the TIME TO GIVE.

I’ve never done this before: said something so bold on my blog or asked people to give to a ministry or cause. But today I am.

Raising money, asking for money, especially in these roller-coaster days, is very difficult. But I am trying to gather support for Youth For Christ. YFC is an evangelistic, outreaching, need-meeting, Kingdom cause. Different from money raised to fight breast cancer or research Alzheimers (not that those are not excellent causes), money donated to YFC goes directly to campus and student ministry.

YFC’s vision (from their website):

“Our vision is pretty simple: To see every young person, in every people
group, on every campus, in every institution, in every neighborhood, in Southern
California have the opportunity to make an informed decision to become a
follower of Jesus Christ.”

Youth For Christ mentors student leaders and trains them to lead Bible clubs on their secular junior high and high school campuses. They provide emotional, spiritual and physical support to teen mothers. YFC leads student groups in the heart of urban and lower-income areas in the southland. Youth For Christ is helping to train the young men and women who will be leading our churches in the next 20 years.

I can trace my adult decision for Christ to a Youth For Christ even when I was 13 years old. At a large youth event sponsered by YFC, I led another boy to Christ. It was then that I chose as a (semi) adult, to be a Christ-follower.

My father has worked for Youth For Christ for over 40 years. And, like every other ministry and cause, YFC has been feeling the economy’s tightening more than most.

Next Saturday, the 26th, my family and I will participate in Southern California YFC’s annual fundraiser. We will be walking, jogging, running or sprinting (Hope will be the only one sprinting) for one hour to raise money.

So I am asking you to give. I’m asking you, even though I may seem stupid to even pose the request right now, to donate to a ministry that is hurting financially, but is dedicated to seeing the cause of Christ worked out here in our cities, in our suburbs and in our schools.

If you choose to donate, if you can partner with this cause, please email me at sarah (at) markleytech (dot) com. Include your first and last names, your mailing address and the amount you can pledge. YFC will send you an envelope to return in a few weeks.

And, if you decide not to donate to YFC, please give to someone else. Give to your church. Give to your neighbor. Give to the man that always asks for money on the corner. Give from your abundance, even if you don’t feel that you have “too much”. I assure you, you have more than most.

So maybe, what I am really asking, is to give from your need. Because I think that now, more than any other time, is the time to give in order that we can see God’s people do the work they were called to do.

(If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.)

Why is it when I know I’m leaving on a trip I want to hug them a little longer?

When they ask me to read a story, I drop everything to criss-cross on the carpet with one on either side. When I’m asked to get out all the craft supplies, I stop washing the dishes and pull down the giant box and search frantically for the glue sticks that used to be in there. When I know I am going to be gone, each moment in our lives seems sweeter, and shorter.

I’m only leaving for 4 days. My husband and I try to get away by ourselves for a weekend twice a year. We just need it.

But it never fails that the week up until pack my own suitcase for the plane, and their suitcases for their grandmother’s house, I am more sentimental, more willing to put their tiny needs and desires first.

Why can’t I do that all the time?

In my own defense, I do work on crafts with them and read them books; I make Lego castles in the bedroom. But often my own things supercede theirs. And they get the leftovers.

I don’t want my kids ever to get the leftovers. Ever.

So today, I am going to get out the extra stickers and colored paper to make new art for my refrigerator. I am going to stack the blocks high and see who will knock them over. I’ll put down my magazine and let them pile on my lap to watch a video. I will give them my firsts rather than my lasts.

And next Monday when I get back from Boston, I’ll try very hard to let the laundry wait until they go to bed and allow them to help me in the unpacking. I’ll try to give them my firsts even then.

I almost threw up a few weeks ago.

I wasn’t sick with the fall flu. I hadn’t eaten too much. It wasn’t even a morning when I was faced with the prospect of cleaning up cat vomit on my way to the shower.

I simply cleaned out my pantries.

A long overdue job (that I usually hate), I began to pull out boxes and cans of food that had been shoved to the back of my cupboards. I realized that most of it had spoiled.

BEST BY 29 AUG 07
BEST BY 10 OCT 06

2006? Was that really the last time I’d done this?

Here is the truth:

• I buy too much.
• I am disorganized.
• I don’t use what I have.

So my food spoils. And I am forced to put it in the garbage. I do it with produce too. But much more often than every two years. The squash looks so good at the market. I buy it. On the way home I remember why I usually throw it out. It takes so much effort to practically force feed my children vegetables that I usually don’t bother. I get lazy. It sits in the crisper and spoils. And, I can’t really eat 2lbs. of zucchini by myself.

In the midst of my pantry organizing I dragged several bags of post-dated cans of soup, tuna, and pasta sauce out to my garbage cans. I heaved them up and over and then I almost became sick.

I realized how many people could have been fed by my spoiled food. I decided that I was never going to do this again.

That was about 8 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve thrown away less fresh food. I’m cooking at home more and making my girls eat the squash. My shelves are still organized and I’m trying very hard to use what I have. I am buying less at the store too.

I know that this by itself does NOTHING to actually fight world hunger or combat poverty. But I want to be a person who CONSUMES LESS in order that I may GIVE MORE.

Every night I tuck my daughters into bed with clean sheets, washed hair and full tummies. This is a luxury I take for granted. When I cook dinner, we usually have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. This is also a luxury. We had been wasting so much because of my laziness and disorganization.

We have heat. We have clean water in our faucets. We have doors that lock and a safe neighborhood.

How many mothers don’t know what their little boys will eat tomorrow for breakfast, or if their babies will have milk? How many mothers cannot afford to seek medical care for a sick child?

I am beyond rich compared to most of the world. In fact, I am abundantly wealthy.

I know I need to do more. I want to do more.

What do you do? What will you do?

A few months ago, around the time my husband went to band camp, I made a promise to myself. One of those tell-no-one-inside-resolutions that you carry deep with no real need to talk about it unless someone asks.

I resolved that, in regard to music (my husband’s passion and lifeblood), I would try to always say YES. I wouldn’t try to keep him home if he wanted to go to a practice. I wouldn’t try tear him away from the guitar or piano to ask him to wash the dishes or engage the girls. I wouldn’t balk at him making music or worship plans without considering our family schedule. I would just simply say YES.

He’s played with a pick-up band made from friends and musicians from church a few times at our local Starbucks, and most recently, at a Mexican restaurant last Friday night for a friend’s birthday party. When he talked to me about the practices and the times he would have to work on the music with the other guys, I didn’t say NO. I said, SURE.

Chad’s strengths, however varied, do not include organization. And this “impromptu” concert was the brain child of the birthday girl’s husband, so my own husband was just along for the ride. He would be singing in front of a full band complete with girl backup singers and a set list on a spreadsheet delivered a couple weeks before the event:

“Island in the Sun” by Weezer
The Wallflowers’ “6th Avenue Heartache,”
“Crazy Love” by Van Morrison (which he dedicated to me),
“Southern Cross” by Crosby Stills and Nash
and Costello’s “She”.

He HIT it. Normally, he performs with his guitar (an easy shield to hide behind), but Friday night it was just him and his mic stand with the rest of the musicians behind him.

By the time he got to Southern Cross it was as if the spirit of classic rock itself has possessed him and his voice was the best I had ever heard. It was smooth and easy and comfortable, like he’d been born for it. His voice melted perfectly with Heidi’s and Michelle’s and it was ideal for his vocal range. He almost laughed while singing because he was having so much fun.

After the concert/birthday party, one of the girls who sang backup for him walked over to us and asked me,

“What’s it like being married to butter? Because that’s what his voice is – butter…”

I had to agree. His voice was smooth like butter. And I was glad I said YES, and that I could witness it bring him so much joy. I was glad I said YES to him 12 years ago and that I said YES to him about what he loves so much.