We spent yesterday at Disneyland for Chad’s birthday.  It’s easy because we basically live in Mickey Mouse’s backyard.  (Well not really, but close enough).

And I brought a stroller.

My girls are seven and three and both of my girls stopped sitting in strollers promptly at age two.  So even my youngest hasn’t ridden in a stroller regularly for at least a year and a half. Unless we go to some place like Disney.

Eighty percent of the day, the backpack rides in the stroller seat and twenty percent, Naomi sits down and watches the world go by at about 30 inches from the ground because sometimes her three-year-old feet just get tired.

In fact, most of her day at the amusement park is spent looking at the legs and rear ends of strangers.  Not a great view if I think about it.

So she sits in the stroller and she’s even shorter.  Even more engulfed by the pressing of the crowd, even more dependent upon me, and even more limited.

I take my own 5′8″ perspective for granted most of the time, as well as my own independence and my own freedoms.

But sometimes, she asks to be carried.  I sling my backpack in the stroller seat and hoist her up into my arms.  My older daughter pushes the empty stroller and I carry Naomi through the crowds, despite the lines, and eye level with the rest of the adults.  Her perspective changes because she is sitting on my hip and not so close to the ground.

She notices different things, looks over at her father and tries to kiss him on the cheek from my own arms. She sees the tops of the heads of other children, noticing their name-emblazoned mouse ear hats or princess tiaras.  She watches the clouds in the sky and sees the immaculate trees in the planters.

But I don’t think this is why she wants to be carried.

She wants to be carried because she wants to be close to me.  I don’t think she really cares about the stroller’s proximity to the asphalt or the jeans-view of ten thousand strangers.  Instead, she wants me to carry her because she wants to feel my arms around her and put her head on my shoulder.  She wants to be next to me, so close that she could reach up for a cheek-kiss if she needs it.

So I carry her and try not to complain that the stroller is easier to push than it is to carry her.  I understand she needs to be near me.

And sometimes I need to be carried too.  By Him, who is big enough to.

I need to be lifted in His arms to be near Him.  He picks me up from where I am close to the ground and then He carries me.  And the most amazing thing happens at the same time:  I begin to see everything differently.  Suddenly I’m above the crowd and everything changes.

I notice people differently, I see situations in a new light and I even understand Him better.

What do you notice when you are carried?

Tea Cups from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

He wants me to tell you that he isn’t perfect.  He does.  I’m not just saying that because I can and it’s my blog.

Maybe he isn’t perfect, but he’s the guy who gets up to answer a nightmare-cry from our three-year-old at midnight.  He checks on her when I don’t ask.  He walks from her room to the one next door to cover up our older daughter, kiss her cheek and pull up her quilt over her shoulders.

He might have ADD, but he remembers to bring back coffee for me when he visits Starbucks without me on Sunday mornings.  He knows what I get and sweeps in the door with a skinny vanilla latte in one hand and his keys and wallet in the other.  He puts them all down on the counter and tells me good-morning in the middle of me making a weekend breakfast for the girls. He’s left us to sleep in a little.  But now we’re up, pajamas still warm from bed, and he hugs the three of us in one motion.

Sometimes I tell him he can forgive me for the hugest of transgressions but not the tiniest. I’m really sorry I leave the AC on when I leave the house. And I’m sorry I forgot to close the upstairs window in the 100 degree heat.  I know it faces the hot side of the house (actually every side is the hot side right now).

He really isn’t perfect, but he’s walked with me in the big things:

The lawsuit that almost destroyed us but didn’t.

The births of babies, the nights with newborns who wake the neighbors, the afternoons spent waiting for naptime to come.

The death of one marriage and the rebirth of the same marriage with new energy, new love and new eyes.

And he works a lot.  Not because he wants to but because he has to.  The difference between him and some men is that he actually wants to come home at the end of the day.  I don’t take that for granted.  I am blessed because, even when he does come home and explodes his gear and papers all over my clean table, he is home.  And he loves being here.   Even in the chaos and the kids with grimy hands and faces, with unfolded laundry and an occasional three-year-old tantrum during dinner.  He still wants to be here.

He isn’t perfect.  Not at all.

Even then he wasn’t.

[But then neither was I.  I never have been.]

But he loves us.  And he belongs to us.

He’s as perfect as he needs to be.

He’s writing today about confession and changed lives over on his blog.  Go visit him and tell him “hi” for me, and then tell him HAPPY BIRTHDAY because he’s 35 today.

[You can also follow him on twitter and you can follow me on twitter too if you haven't already.]

When we named our seven-year-old, Hope, I never thought that sometimes only speaking her name would wear me out.  That the word, Hope, would become so common to me that I might even forget what it really means.

She asked me when she was a little girl what her name meant.

I told her,

“Something good’s about to happen.”

Boiled down and simplified, this is what Hope is…the fact that in Faith, we know and trust that something good is always about to happen.

Because of Christ.  Of His promises.  Of Grace.

Hope Overused

At the time I needed something unique.  I didn’t want to be like everyone else naming their baby girls iterations of “Hannah” or “Katelyn” or “Madison”.  There is nothing wrong with those names, I just (selfishly perhaps) wanted my daughter to stand out from the multitude.

Not Ruth.
Not Charis.
Not Gracie.

I was pulling for all of these names at one point or another to name our baby girl who would come early in January of 2002.  None seemed right.

I know some parents wait until the baby is born to see which of the hat-full of names fits.  They look into her dark blue eyes and search for the name she was meant to have.  Sometimes they leave the hospital with “BABY _________________” in the name field.

Not us.
We knew from the 19-week ultrasound what she would be named.
Hope….

Read the rest of  “Hope Overused” over at (in)courage.  Click here to go!!

And if you are new to my site today, click here to read my whole story.

What does HOPE mean to you?

3:36 am.  Every morning give or take about 12 minutes.

I can hear her little feet shuffling on the hallway carpet before I see her in the darkness at the end of my bed.

I know exactly what she needs.

Us.

I half-lift her and she half-climbs up and over my feet to nestle in between my husband and me. She falls back asleep almost immediately.  Regular breathing and her cool-to-the-touch little arm flung over my own face in the dark.

I don’t know why she wakes up. It might be the strange sleep cycles of a three-year-old or merely the fact that she’s thrown off her quilt at the coldest point of the night.  Sometimes she has a bad dream.  But whatever the reason, right before 4 in the morning, she’s up, down the hall and in our bed before I can even wake up completely.

So regardless of the reason, when she appears at the end of the bed, I welcome her.  I cherish the time because I know soon she’ll be as tall as my seven-year-old  (when she sometimes finds her way into our bed) with legs and arms too long to fit comfortably between us.

When I put Naomi to bed at night, after I turn on her music and nightlight, and her teeth have been brushed and her bare feet are cozy in her blankets, I tell her that I’m at the end of the hall.  She knows I can hear her from there.  She can call out and I will come to her.  She can get out of bed if she needs to and find me there in my own bed.  She knows that she is close to the ones who will always protect her.

Even so, most nights, she gets up early in the morning and comes down the hall.

She’s come to us for comfort.

For warmth.

For dispelling fear.

Or simply out of habit.

She knows that she’s welcome even if she just doesn’t want to be alone.  It’s so basic.

Just like I can always come to Christ.  When I start out alone but don’t want to end there, when a bad dream becomes real life, when I am scared, I can come to Him.

He hears my feet pad down the hall, and welcomes me before I even get there.  He smiles and cherishes the time I’ve spent walking and searching for Him.

Even if I come out because I simply don’t want to be alone, or because my sleep cycles are off, He opens His arms to me.

He’s there.

And even when I don’t, knowing He’s down the hall gives me rest.

Sometimes I feel like this is all manna.

Like if I try to plan for it or even save it for later, it will go bad like meat left out overnight.  I’ve only been given enough for today and that’s it.  If I try to work out what I will write for next week, it all falls flat on the page.  So I have to wait for the today and use it up today.  Manna.

So lately, I’ve been writing my blog posts in stolen minutes between dance classes and soccer practice, while water is boiling for pasta on the stove and at stop lights when I’m driving the girls to school in the morning.  It would be so much more tidy if I could sit down on Saturday afternoon and write out five, perfectly edited article-length blog posts for the upcoming week and be done with it.

But it doesn’t work that way.  At least for me anyway.

It’s like milk or eggs.  If I could buy our perishables at the beginning of the month in one big shopping trip I would.  But they’d go bad before our little family of four could consume them.  So I go back to the little market each week and buy milk and another dozen eggs because it’s what I need for now.

And that’s all God seems to give me.

What I need for today.

I can’t bear to think about my daughters’ teenage years (sooner than later) but I’m sure the strength will come at the right time.

Or in the nick of time, maybe.

I don’t know how I will survive my parents’ deaths someday, but I will. And God will give me courage then for that time.

And when I become a widow (because statistics say that most of us will be) how will I walk through that valley?  I don’t know.

But I will.  Manna.

And so for today, here, this post is the manna I’ve been given for you.  For us.  For today only.

Because I don’t know what I will write tomorrow.

And know that this manna is fresh, raw even, because its what God gave me for my today.

And I have to trust that He’ll show up again tomorrow.

What is your manna today?  Do you try to save it up or plan out your worry for tomorrow?

My second-grader brings worksheets home for homework most nights.

It isn’t new information.  (At least for now…)

But it is a reinforcement of what she’s learned between recesses and after lunch when all the kids have peanut-butter hands and are battling playground comas.

Her teacher simply asks her to use what she’s learned to complete a new piece of work, bring it back to school the next day and show what she’s done.

She sits down at the dining room table at four o’clock.  Gets out her pencil and says, “I know how to do this…”

So I hover near, reading a magazine or cleaning the kitchen while she works.  I watch, and I check and she gets it right.  And if she doesn’t, I sit down with her and help her correct her mistakes.

She learns during her school day because she’s forced to sit in the front row, get out her language book at the right time and “carry the 1″ during math.  She is in a place of learning.

And so am I.

How do I tell her that she’ll never stop going to school?  That I still have homework?

God teaches me about grace and then the next day I’m forced to extend grace.  He wants me to put into practice what he’s taught me.  He says…

You have the tools. I’ve taught you this, now go and do it.

He teaches me about joy from my three-year-old as she runs toward the preschool playground.  I learn this right before I sink toward depression and I’m asked to USE joy, just like He’s taught.  I learn about peace or patience and then I’m unsettled.  God asks me,

What did you learn today? You’ve seen Peace and you know how to be Patient.  You can do this…

It’s all homework.  He doesn’t throw me in the way of disappointment or bitterness without trying to teach me first what my response should be.

So, I need to pay attention.  I need to sit in the front row, take notes and do my workbook when the teacher asks.  I need to raise my hand, answer questions and want to learn so that when I go home, I have the right tools.  Because I will if I do well in school.

Do you hate your homework?  Maybe you should ask Him to put you in the seat right in front of the Teacher’s desk and then open your eyes.

You will learn.  Life teaches you.  Just watch your kids, your friends, your husband, the leaves falling down from the the maple trees.  You’ll learn. He’s created this world to teach you.  Me.

And then go home and do your homework.

What is God teaching you today?  Did He give you homework?

I used to be scared of getting the oil changed in my car.

After all, isn’t Jiffy Lube the dominion of all things male?

It used to freak me out.  It smells like “car” and looks like man-world.  The magazines spread out on the table in the waiting room are not woman-friendly:  Golf, Sports Illustrated, Motor Trend and ESPN.

It’s just not a girl place.

And I never wanted to go there. I’d really never been there so I didn’t really know, but I just knew I didn’t want to emerge smelling like old engine grease and wiper fluid.

I made excuses.  I asked my husband to switch cars with me on the day that we needed to take my car in.  I claimed I didn’t know where the Jiffy Lube was and that I couldn’t speak car-language.  (I know NOW that the only difference between normal and synthetic oil is about THIRTY DOLLARS).  What if they asked me a question I couldn’t answer?  Air filters?  Fluids?  Tire pressure?

So for years, Chad took the car in for me.  Without whining or complaining.  Just because he loved me.

Until a few years ago and I offered to take that errand off his hands.

So I jumped into the oil-smelling, bad-coffee brewing man-world of the oil change station every 5000 miles.

It wasn’t because Chad got tired of it or that suddenly the oil place installed spa chairs and burned aromatherapy candles.

No.  It was because I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.  I didn’t want to be limited by my silly fear of man-world.

I didn’t want my distant perception of something I’d never experienced to color my thinking and then affect my actions.

So I went to get my oil changed.  And it wasn’t that bad.

Sure it smelled like oil and there was a strange gray residue on the chairs in the waiting room, but no strange men hung out in there leering at me.  No weird anything at all.  And they didn’t speak car-language, at least not in my presence.  (and for the record I chose normal – not synthetic – oil because who can seriously afford 70 dollars worth of OIL?)

And now I’ve been going for a few years now.  I roll up with my three-year-old, get her out of the car, tell them NOT to give me a new air filter and go to the waiting room. I don’t pay attention to the magazines (NFL Fantasy anyone?).  When they are done, I sign for my car, grab my keys and go home.

Easy.  No big deal.

And silly that I was wasting time being scared of something I knew nothing about.

It’s like jumping into a cold lake.

Or writing my story on my blog.

It’s like making THE phone call to the person I hurt I don’t want to make.

Or letting what I’ve heard about someone affect what I know about them…

I’m not going to let my perceptions of something I really haven’t experienced myself affect my actions.  I can’t.

So brace yourself.  Get the oil changed or tell your story.  Jump into the lake or make that phone call. You might leave smelling a little like car exhaust and oil, but you’ll be better for it.  You’ll be stronger because you’ve gotten over the fear.

When I was first married, I though I needed to “teach” my husband that being hurt was never wrong because it was my personal feeling. And you can’t argue with a feeling.

And while that is partially true, it always turned out badly.

I’m hurt.  What you said hurt my feelings.

You’re wrong.  You can’t feel that.  What I said was no big deal.

But I am hurt.  And it’s just how it is.  You can’t argue with that.

Frustration.  Yelling.  More arguing.  Tears.  Slammed doors.

And then this happened.  And here we are today, having created new routines for communication and arguing.

We still hurt each other sometimes.  Never intentionally any longer, but usually because we are tired or aren’t thinking of the other first.  You know how it goes.

But hurt, big or little, sometimes feels safe.  Like a bandaid.  It feels good to wallow in it, feel like I deserve this hurt because the other person wounded me.  I’m a victim…

A woman emailed me a couple weeks ago in response to my story and (with her permission) I’d like to share her take on hurt.  Her husband has been unfaithful to her, has repented and they are now on the (slow) road to healing.  She emailed me this about her own struggles with feeling hurt and wounded:

“I had an epiphany recently one evening while I was up late cleaning the house, of all things.  I was dwelling on how angry I was that I had remained faithful and what good had it done me?  Angry that I was being gracious and staying when I didn’t have to.  Angry that my husband seems to get grace and mercy and I get to suffer and be ill treated.  Just angry.  And I was telling myself how the bottom line seemed to be that basically I loved [my husband] more than he loved me.  And that knowledge really sucked.  I kept thinking and thinking about how much it really sucked to be in a relationship where I so clearly loved someone more and better than they loved me. How utterly unfair.

“And then my head about spun off.  Because I realized.  I realized that EVERYTHING I just described was EXACTLY how God felt about us.  About me.  He loves me so much more than I love him.  My goodness – he sent his son to DIE for me and I piss on that extravagance and grace every day I live and breathe.

“And for the first time in my life I felt a small portion of what the suffering of Christ feels like.  I was invited into Christ’s sufferings. They are very very real to me now.

For years, my husband, Chad (the victim of MY unfaithfulness) has said this about feeling hurt or an it’s-not-fair attitude…

We lose the right to say “it’s not fair” until we’ve suffered as much as Christ has on the cross. When that happens, we gain the right to say “it’s not fair.”

Pain isn’t fair.  Neither is adultery.  Or people who hurt children.  And death.  And miscarriage.  And lost jobs. Or abuse.  None of it’s fair.

But neither was the cross.

Because He lived without sin.  He deserved none of the burden he carried on the cross.

In my own marriage, I’m the one who committed the bigger HURT.   I’ve been very open about that.  And even last Friday when I wrote about some of my own pain (paling in comparison to others’).  However moving forward includes a distinct giving of hurt over to Christ, allowing Him to help feel it for us, and gaining perspective that He has been hurt far worse by the sins of the world (and of each one of us) than we could ever feel.

I’m not saying we deserve the pain.  Or that my husband deserved what I did to him.

But I am saying that Christ deserved none of it.

And that is where we find perspective on our own wounds.

What do you think?  Do you wallow in hurt?  Do you say “it’s not fair”?  What do you think about Christ’s pain on the cross?

My seven-year-old’s heart is so soft.

Unnavigated.

Fresh.

She hasn’t fallen in love.  Yet.

She hasn’t been ruined by a friend.

She hasn’t been blamed wrongly in for someone else’s bad choice.  She’s pliable.  She’s not broken yet.  She’s intact.

But the problem is, with such a soft heart, she is wounded easily.  Small words, tiny glances, simple requests hurt her.  Her skin:  penetrable and thin.  They sink in and move directly to her heart.

I had the same problem when I was little.

But by the time I was 25, my heart had become so hard that I didn’t need a thick skin to protect me.   Anything that might have hurt me was deflected by the brick that sat in my chest.

So I lived with that hard heart, allowing it to become stiffer and more like stone with each month and year.

Eventually I broke.  Or was crushed.

(a hard heart like that has to be pounded to granite dust in order to be broken)

And then I was soft again. And I felt seven.  The unprotection, the youth and newness of being a child.  I felt it all.

And I cried all the time.  I needed protection from the big, wide world for a little while in order to heal correctly.

My friends have been asking lately how my heart is, with all that has happened recently.

And I say that it’s battered, but I’m developing a thicker skin.

My heart, it HAS to remain soft.  It has to.  I won’t carry a brick around again.  It’s so heavy…

But with hurtful words, emails, comments; articles returned with “not needed, thank you” and misunderstood intentions — all of it thickens my skin but doesn’t harden my heart.

So these days, I’m keeping a flexible heart, one that still weeps and hurts.

But I’m letting my skin help protect it.

Every time I close my eyes at night to sleep, I exercise faith.

When I turn the key in the car ignition.

When I kiss my husband “goodbye” in the morning.

When i lace up my running shoes to jog.

Faith.

I usually think Faith is some huge, hard-to-describe thing that I’ve never really seen, but am somehow expected to show, use, have… It’s like the Grand Canyon or the Ocean if you’ve never been to visit. Or Mount Everest (sometimes I wonder if its really there between Nepal and Tibet or if film, photos and people lie to me).

But Faith can be small too.

When I close my eyes at night, I trust that I will survive until morning:  my heart won’t stop, a wildfire won’t overtake my house, no one will break in.

When I turn my car on I exercise small bits of faith that we will get to our destination in one piece, that a happy-hour drunk won’t sideswipe me and my kids, and that my car will actually start.  Faith.

But I never think about these these things, and I never think about this kind of Faith being, in actuality, real Faith. The kind of Grand Canyon Faith, Ocean Faith, Mount Everest Faith.

Lacing up my running shoes (and trusting that I can run to the top of the hill) is small Faith, but it is Faith.

Today I realized that it doesn’t feel like Faith if I move through my day without realizing I am trusting God and others for every safe and sound moment of my life.  When I sit and think about how much I’m not in control, my Faith grows. Little pieces at a time.

I understand that

I’m watched over.

I’m protected.

I’m cared for.

And because of that I trust. Recognizing it brings me closer to that Grand Canyon type of Faith.

The Faith that moves Mount Everest.

What makes you realize you’re not in control?  Do you have Faith today?