Watch.
I watch her watch the world. Her sister. The cat. With her three-year-old gaze, she watches the garbage truck and the school bus with intensity. She watches the letters on the signs and locates N’s where ever she goes. She has keen eyes for noticing detail. She watches far closer the world than I even seem to watch her. My eyes glaze over and I see only the big things, or the wrong things. She sees it all, or at the least, what is important.

Run.
She runs to the car, the park, the door when her father comes home. She runs laps around the living room five minutes before her bed time. And so many days I run to keep up with her… or I run right past her. I try to get everything done by running, and I miss her. Her running, unlike my own, is purposeful. Intentional. She has goals: a snack from the kitchen, a trip to the toilet, a trip down the slide. So often I run without meaning.

Rest.
This little one knows how to rest. When she’s tired, she asks to be picked up, lays her heavy forehead on my shoulder and sinks into me. She stops on the sofa and picks the softest pillow, drags her blankie down from her room and goes to sleep. I only rest when I can, at night, and even then I still work: making lists in my head for the next day as I drift off to sleep. I don’t rest like she does.

I have so much to learn.

I don’t always have my laptop open.

But I do more often these days, being propelled by some inner compulsion to move forward in my writing. Most days I write to the soundtrack of a Barbie guitar from the playroom or Tim Allen diaglogue with Tom Hanks as Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

But to really write a book one needs some level of focus. Focus that I can’t really get watching an updated Strawberry Shortcake DVD or listening to my girls bicker over who gets to play with the pegasus and unicorn figurines.

So I try to escape once a week. For two hours. It helps, but its like climbing Mount Everest and stopping to rest after each new step up. Constant readjustment, repositioning of my mental powers to continue to move forward is nearly impossible. But not quite impossible.

So lately, I try to work at home when I can. When they aren’t arguing. When the TV isn’t running. When they are playing quietly in their rooms. When they chase each other in the backyard. And then sometimes, like last night, I work as my little girls sit next to me and we wind down the day together in front of a movie.

And a Care Bears stare invades my thinking as I try to write… memoir.

But then my three-year-old asks me if she can lay her head in my lap. And my first-grader who has forgotten to do her homework cuddles up on my other side and I can smell her clean showered-hair.

So I shut the computer. I suspend the blog post or the chapter outline and I place the computer on the table. I gather them next to me, glad that there are two of them and that I have two arms, and I watch with them. I become interested in what they are interested in and our laughter mixes.

Mother, daughters and a closed laptop.

Where is your faith?

Right now. Where is it?

Do you trust that the trial you are
walking,
crawling,
dragging,
skinning your knees on the ground through
is a result of God loving you and wanting your transformation?

Do you believe that
not being able to pay your mortgage,
not being able to give your children what you want to give them,
having to decide which bills are the most important to pay
is actually part of God’s grand idea for your life?

Where is your faith?

Do you pray knowing
God will hear you,
God will think your words are important,
God will actually stop, bend and watch your agony as you pray.
Have you stopped praying altogether?

Do you have faith that
your children will be protected,
not knowing the future is actually better,
and that disappointment and pain are necessary parts of the Journey.
Do you want to control?

When your children will not give you a moment to rest, and you don’t understand why everything you try seems to end in failure…when your husband is here but absent, when your relationships are broken…where is your faith?

Where is my faith?

My faith is tiny. Minuscule. So small at times I can’t see past the hurtful word, the tired heart and the blistered hands.

I want to control.
I want to lock the door so my children never leave and get hurt in the world.
I want to stop praying. I have.
I want to let broken relationships stay broken.
I really want to have faith…

But, my faith is in a God who is big enough to make up the difference. My faith is in Him who has given me life, and food on my table. My faith is in Him, even when I worry about my daughters and the mortgage. My faith is in Christ when I don’t know the future and I don’t even know the next hour. My faith is in Him when I am disappointed, crushed and trampled. I have to trust that He heals all that has been broken in me and around me.

My faith sometimes stands still. But most of the time it grows. Knee-scrapingly slow, but still grows. By inches. By millimeters.

I lost most of my running fitness last month.

Between my one visit to the gym at my writer’s conference and my sad attempts at running with a sinus infection while I was in England, by the end of April, I think I had only worked out a handful of times in the whole month.

At the beginning of last week I could only run a mile and a half before my lungs started to burn and my legs felt like weights. I thought I was having a bad day.

Two days later I tried again and I could barely get past a single mile without feeling the same. In March I had been pavement-pounding 4 – 6 miles a few times a week.

A trend, rather than a one-time occurrence. April had ruined me.

So I’m running again. With a friend who doesn’t mind my lack of fitness and is ready to slow down for me. Or by myself on a flat route (rather than the hilly roads near my house). And I’m taking it mile by mile, trying to build my endurance back up again.

On Saturday, we set out to run four miles. At the end of the first mile, we came to a stop light.

And it turned red.

My prayers had been answered. I would have the time length of the light to rest, allow my lungs to breathe, and stretch out my tight hamstrings. It was a forced (short) time of rest when I wasn’t allowed to cross the street and move forward.

I had to stop.

Now of course, I had to force myself to keep jogging again after the 20 second red light had turned green.

I find myself struggling so hard between “red lights” in my life, these natural times of quiet and rest. I look forward to them, I wait for them, and I can’t seem to focus on my “running” well when I’m waiting for the short respite coming up at the top of the hill.

Sometimes I wish for the short time each evening between my girls’ bedtime and my own, that I miss what is happening during story time or dinner. I look ahead to the rest and I miss the now. Or I wait for Saturdays that I miss what is happening on Wednesday and Thursdays. Sometimes I just shut my brain off when the girls are arguing and think about how I’m going to let my husband handle it when he gets home in a couple hours. I fail to be present because I’m waiting for the future.

Red lights are good and needed and natural, however, maybe I should just settle into the (difficult) running with a friend, talk with her, enjoy the morning and not worry so much about when I will allow myself to stop.

And then the running might just get easier.

These are girls that I’ve known since college. We ate dinner last night: Chrissie, Deb and Michele (minus Lisa who couldn’t make it), and me.

Within a couple years of finishing school, all of us with our new husbands decided we would form a Supper Club. Each month one couple would host the other four for dinner. No potluck. No last minute phone calls to help bring something.

It was all up to one of us to cook for 10 people.

As semi-newlyweds we struggled to pull out new-bride’s cookbooks to and try new things for 4 other women plus our new husbands in our tiny dining rooms. One autumn I made different soups and breads for the group and served them in my china bowls. We fought to find seating for ten.

We had failures. We had successes. It was at a Supper Club that I decided to become a vegetarian that ended up lasting for five years (as a reaction to another member who had jumped on the Atkins train). We had Valentine’s parties. And Christmas exchanges. I once had to MAKE a gift for another person and the only thing I could MAKE was a poem. I’m embarrassed now, actually.

Eventually we began to announce pregnancies at Supper Clubs and when the group had added about four kids (now there are 13) to the group, our houses suddenly became too small and crowded to accommodate. It was right around this time that one couple went into full time ministry and moved to Russia, and another couple moved 4 hours away.

After about 4 years of eating together, Supper Club was disbanded.

Since then, we’ve gotten together a few times as a group and small sub-groups of us have made a go at it, but its been awhile since it was just the ten of us: the dynamics, the laughter and the familiarity that comes with a group that’s known you for so long.

So last night, when I saw some of them (again, minus Lisa) and we talked about homeschooling, horomones, depression and ministry and all the other things women do. We reconnected.

It was wonderful but a little imperfect. We needed Lisa, and we missed the mens’ low rumble of laughter and conversation from another part of the room.

We have a winner!

Kim said:

“This book (and writer) sound awesome. I’d love to be the “randomly picked” winner! I very much appreciate reading and learning about other peoples’ takes on the trials and tribulations of life. Thanks for the chance to win!”

Thank you to all who commented to win Holley’s book, Rain on Me. If you didn’t win, go buy it now!!

Congrats Kim! Congrats for being the random number 10 out of 20 comments (I had to take one away from the 21 comments because Holley was nice enough to comment. But, she can’t win her own book, so…)

My mother is turning 60 this year. And if I look half as good as she does at that age, I’m going to be a serious senior-discount card wielding hottie.

Fast forward 25 years into my future and this is what my 60 year old self might say to my 34 year old self:

1. Your daughters will someday be your best friends.
2. Children’s school days speed by in two blinks so keep your eyes open. And so does their innocence.
3. You’d better get your eating habits under control because its gonna get real hard real soon to lose any weight.
4. Pay attention to your husband. You don’t want to stand next to one another at your daughter’s high school graduation and realize you don’t know him.
5. You are young. I know you already see the laugh lines, the ones around your eyes and the few grey hairs…but trust me, you don’t know what it feels like to age yet.
6. Take some lessons in courage from your daughters. They are already far braver than you.
7. You are only beginning to have influence. Use this power wisely.
8. Your seven-year-old will stop holding your hand soon.
9. And your three-year-old won’t always ask you why you are wearing gummy vitamins around your neck (see photo). Soon she’ll be able to understand the complexities of Calculus (and while we are on the subject of necks…).
10. Be the best mom and wife you can be right now with the time and resources you have. There are no do-overs here.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m learning all this stuff now. Or maybe I’m going to need reminded in 25 more years when my hips hurt and I’ve long ago switched from jogging to walking.

All I know is that I spend time more quickly than I spend money. And that time is more precious than any diamond rings or paid-off mortgage.

So I hope when I am 60, I wear my age as well as my mother, proudly and without excuse because I know I’ve done well, lived well and not wasted the time.

Collars first.

Sleeves second.

He told me plainly, “That isn’t how you do it.” In the middle of newlywed bliss of our tiny apartment, my husband stood over the ironing board and showed me the right way. The way his mother had taught him to iron. “Collars are always last,” he explained as he firmly took the iron from my hand and finish the correct way.

We were both in the habit of ironing shirts, skirts and pants for our semi-professional office jobs as a young married couple. An open ironing board was a common sight in our small living room.

In my opinion, he should just be happy I was ironing for him in the first place. I had my own office attire to de-wrinkle and I didn’t have a lot of time for his rumpled shirts. And to be honest, I’d rather clean the toilet and pick up stinky socks for the rest of my life than participate in the tedious task of ironing.

He was adamant and so was I.

But instead of allowing the other to iron the way we each new how, resulting in the same pressed shirt, we both tried very hard to be right. We each wanted our way…about something as unimportant as the correct method of ironing a shirt.

As newlyweds thirteen years ago, my husband and I argued passionately about this. We didn’t have things like mortgages, preschool choices and parenting methods to fill our discussions so we evidently thought something as mundane as how-to-iron-correctly was essential to propelling our baby marriage forward. In order to stay married and remain harmonious we must also agree on ironing shirts, right?

We simply did not want to submit to one another. We thought ourselves (and our opinions) more important than our love for each other.

A simple admonition is hidden in the middle of Paul’s chapter to the Ephesians when he discusses wives submitting to their husbands: “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ” (Eph. 5:21). And in Philippians he encourages the church to, “…in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).

Not only was I not practicing God’s intended model for submission in marriage, I wasn’t even submitting to him as I should as Christian brothers and sisters. We were both guilty of championing our own way and demanding the other adhere to it. No humility. No selflessness. Only pride, stubbornness and unwilling hearts.

Eventually we moved past arguing about collars and spray starch and moved on to bigger and better things: the way to fold bath towels, how to poach an egg, and the best recipe for pancakes. Every argument ended in tears, slammed doors, and yelling. All because we were unwilling to submit.

That was just in the first year.

We didn’t understand that mutual submission in the Lord is necessary for harmony in relationships and is the basis for unity. In our families. In our churches. In our relationship with God.

Thirteen years later, we still argue about insignificant things. However somewhere along the way we realized that damage caused by arguing about pressed shirts was not worth it. We loved each other too much.

I’ve learned submission can be as tedious as ironing shirts, but much more productive. The kind of submission we are learning is a mutual sort, the kind that is important in friendships, on a one-day-at-a-time basis. We make steps forward, loving each other a little more each week, fighting about a little less, learning a little more how to put the other first. Sometimes we make big mistakes, but eventually we get it right.

Or righter than the day before.

Do I still iron my collars first? Yes, I do. Does he still iron them last? Of course. But not because we are stubborn. But because we decided it didn’t matter.

Olympic Day at Hope’s school is over three hours of pomp and circumstance, tournament-style elimination and same-gendered competition in sports like Shoe Kick, Carpet Ball Throw, Bean Bag Toss and Eraser Race.

Its exhausting. And all I did was tote 8 seven-year-old girls around campus all afternoon. I didn’t actually have to kick my own shoe halfway across a gym like they did.

With only 50 first graders and nine different events spread out across ability ranges (the kids who did well in the Shoe Kick didn’t do so hot in balancing an eraser on their heads across the gym), most kids secured a first through eighth place position in something. Most kids walked away with 2 or 3 ribbons.

Except Hope.

Every time she went up to compete, she’d do well in the “practice round” and then score less than her classmates when it really counted.

Over and over again. She never won or was runner up for any of the events. And it about killed her.

And I watched the whole thing. I had to watch the peaking and dipping of her emotions throughout the post-lunch tournament. I held her on my lap as we watched all of her friends win multiple ribbons, and then spread them out across their hands as their parents snapped away on their Nikons.

As we left the gym, right shoes securely back on size 1 feet, she noticed another one of her friends crying. She hadn’t won anything either.

Almost immediately she forgot her own misfortune and ran over to put her arm around her friend. Katie needed a hug, her mother wasn’t there, and she was feeling as sad as Hope had been. She told Katie that she hadn’t won anything either. And all of a sudden, Hope was smiling and trying to make her friend laugh.

Caring for and ministering to someone else distracts us from ourselves. It distracted my seven-year-old from her own self-pity, to pay attention to her friend’s distress.

And by dinnertime? Hope had all but forgotten her ribbonless Olympic Day. Her heart was healed by hugging a hurting friend and by an after school stop at the frozen yogurt shop.

Yes, I’m doing it again.

It’s only because I’ve been meeting such amazing women writers these days. Meet Holley Gerth.
I met Holley on a path (Annie introduced us and Lisa knows her too) at Mount Hermon. She was actually there representing Dayspring Cards but is a writer in her own right. She’s written several children’s books and her latest is a beautiful women’s devotional book called Rain on Me: Devotions of Hope and Encouragement for Difficult Times.

A day later, I found myself sitting next to her at the coffee shop and in the ever present glow of our laptops, we started to talk. And we clicked.

You know what I’m talking about.

I’ve only clicked instantly with another woman like that a handful of times in my life, and we did. Something like that is precious.

So after a long weekend at Mount Hermon, late night conversations in the common area, and many emails since, we are good friends. I only wish I lived in Arkansas.

In her devotional, Holley writes candidly about her struggles with infertility and how God has taught her to “redeem the rain” in her life.

So, I’m giving one away. A signed copy of Rain on Me to one of you. Leave a comment here before 10 pm PST Wednesday, May 13 and I will announce a winner at the end of the week.

I know! So many giveaways, so little time. I hope you win!

If you don’t win go visit Holley anyway and buy her book!

**PLEASE NOTE: This devotional is not about infertility, but about how God “redeems” ANY trial in our lives for Him.