“Are you going to get married someday?” I ask my three-year-old.

She scrunches up two little eyes and a nose in disgust and stomps, “NO!”

“But what if it’s Prince Charming?” I ask, hoping to memory-jog the recent emergence of Prince Charming and Snow White in our video library.

She thinks, relaxes her face and asks, “Is he three?” Apparently an age near hers and a proclivity for watching Strawberry Shortcake top her demand list for a future husband.

However, my older daughter wants to get married. In facial distortions and hand gestures she answers all of my questions.

“Who are you going to marry, sweetheart?” I ask her.

She motions wildly hoping I’ll understand without making her answer with real words.  “Oh, I know.” I tell her, “Garrett, right?”

Her face lights up at the mention of a playmate she’s known since she was 4 months old in the nursery at church.  I want her to tell me her reasons.

“Because we’ve…” and then she uses her hands in an elaborate pantomime of

I

have

no

idea.

Oh no! I hope she’s not saying they’ve KISSED!

Evenly I ask her to explain.  “Because we LOVE EACH OTHER!” she half-whispers, obviously embarrassed by having to talk to me at all about it.

Well, now that we have that settled, I think.

I guess Garrett is her Prince Charming.  Through almost eight-year-old eyes he’s everything she could ever want, most of all the perfect Star Wars conversationalist and Wii opponent.  And that’s okay with me as long as he grows up to love God more than her.

A lot can happen in the next 13 years.

But in reality, Prince Charming is a fake. He’s a tenor-voiced opera singer who waits around(only God knows where)  for Snow White (or Cinderella – two timer?) while she gets chased into the forest by the knife-wielding huntsman, is abandoned in a house with 7 tiny men and falls for the witch’s evil apple.  All by herself. Where is he when the dwarves and forest animals are mourning her death around the glass coffin?

I know, I know. He eventually comes around, kisses her (morning breath) mouth and she wakes up.  All is well, a song is sung and she dances off with a giant diamond on her hand.

It doesn’t happen like that, right?  There are good men.  Amazing men. Men who adore God and serve Him first, treat their wives well and are great fathers.  But even they burp at dinner and leave their jeans in piles around the bedroom.

So how do we prepare our children with high expectations for their future spouses, but at the same time not perpetuate a lie that life will be roses and singing squirrels after they say “I do”?

What do you think?

One morning we set out in search of Fall but instead found something much grander.

In the woods, we crunch through  leaves and scare a flock of crows that have made their new home near the brook.  Less people are walking now so they aren’t ready for us to crash through the dryness toward them.

Up and down the stairs.  Over the bridge. Through the tunnel of branches.

Tears because we’ve left a much-loved dolly back on a bench.

Collected acorns in a small hand.  Some left on a tree that hint of animals who might need them.

Sunlight and shadows. A too-big sweater borrowed from her sister because that was all we had.

Shedding burdens for a few minutes and I’m aware that all of this is a gift.  That I don’t deserve the least of it: the tiny hand in mine, the deep breath of a cool morning, the surrounding of family and watching the world through eyes that aren’t mine.

We looked for Fall and together found glimpses of other things:  each other, peace away from the norm, and joy in this small moment.

Where have you found joy in the “tiny” lately?

Little girls make friends so easily.

On the playground it consists of nothing more than shared interest, inhabiting the same place in the space/time continuum and a tag-you’re-IT mentality.

Naomi walks right up to two little boys near the slide, Can we be friends? Let’s play on the swings. I’ll show you how to swing on your belly...

And off the three of them run.  Together.  No gender issues. No worrying about status or name or race or worldview. They don’t even try to beat each other to the swing set: they know there is more than enough playground equipment to go around.

It’s just three preschoolers happy to be at the park, happy to find someone else to share the morning with and happy to look eye-level at another kid.

Three-year-old community.

And an example for us.

So often I feel like I’m in the search for community.  There isn’t much community in suburbia unless I look for it.  And somehow, in my search, I seem to want to look across the table from people exactly like me.  I’m going to be honest, I never actually think this. But on this lofty search without thinking about it I set out for people who believe like me and in some ways look like me.

I know I’m not alone in this, so I’m going to be vulnerable.  Sometimes, before becoming friends I conduct an “interview”: I weigh comments and ideas and beliefs of the other person and in the depths of my brain, I make some kind of judgment about how close we can become based on these ideas.  Less like me, less close.  More like me, we can be bosom buddies.

But this isn’t right.  It’s horrible, I know.  And I realized this when I watched the three-year-olds swing on their bellies at the playground.  They were different. They didn’t come from the same place. But they all just wanted to play.

Friendships are richer when we are different.  They can actually be better when we find those people who are our opposites.  They rub off our rough edges.

Churches are stronger when we come from different backgrounds. We all add our wisdom to the work, wisdom that has come from vastly different experiences and lives.

And because of this, I think community is better when we aren’t alike. Our lives would be so much sweeter if we were less consumed about the what’s and why’s and more concerned about being friends and letting others into our lives and hearts without worrying about the outcome.

I need friends who aren’t like me. It’s important.

I need people around me who don’t think like me.  I need blog commenters who disagree.  It’s good for the community.

So, even if we don’t all think the same or look the same, let’s jump on the slide and play tag for the morning.  Let’s be friends, no matter what. We’ll be better for it.

How do you find community?  Am I alone in this?

I just have to give it up that no one is going to love my kid as much as I do.

Not any teacher.

Not a sister.

Not even a grandmother or an aunt.

It’s just that way. I tell my oldest that I love her. And she asks, maybe testing, How much?

To the moon and back at least, Mama?

Yes, to the moon and back.  How about to Pluto and back?

That’s far.  How about to heaven and back, she asks.

(but she doesn’t know that heaven is closer than she knows).

And then I say to her, You won’t understand how much I love you until you have a little girl yourself.  And then you will see just what I mean when I tell you that I love you. Pluto, the moon, heaven…all of it is too close.

God gives a special heart to mothers and fathers.  One that looks past dirty diapers, flu symptoms in the middle of the night and possible H1N1 infection.  This heart doesn’t care about three-year-old morning breath or fingernails so dirty they should be clipped instead of scrubbed.  A parent’s love doesn’t worry about sweaty soccer shin guards or tantrums in the preschool classroom. They kiss the dirt in skinned knees and the picks up pieces of shattered hearts.

Love covers these. And makes up for them.  Love lives in the chasm between selfishness and selflessness.

When kids are loved like this, they are free to run and make mistakes and ask hard questions. They can cry and hurt and open little hearts to be healed.  My girls know that they are loved, they know that they are prized and they know that even if everyone else in life is against them, I will stand up for them. In this kind of love, there is a freedom.

This protect-at-all-cost love is the same that God has for us.

We test Him all the time, How much do you love me?

What if I do this?  Will you still love me?

And He says, Yes.

He looks past our grimy fingernails and our intentional sins.  His love covers our gossip and our hurtful words and the lies we tell.  He doesn’t take it personally when we forget to thank Him or don’t give our lunch to the hungry.

His love for us is like no other.  No husband or earthly mother can love us the same as He does.  His is fierce and strong and does not waver.  He never thinks twice about the cost of loving us, the people that damage one another and so often forget that we need someone to bridge our gaps.

Between our selfishness and selflessness.

Between bitterness and forgiveness.

Between anger and mercy.

His perfect love lives in the chasm for us.

How has God’s love “lived in the chasm” for you lately?

I’ve never been so thankful for an hour.

(Not since last November’s fall back time change).

Because I hate it when I’ve packed our family schedule so tight that none of us can wiggle.  There is no space for mistakes, no leeway for lateness and certainly no time to take off our shoes in the backyard and feel the new grass. It’s during times like this that I struggle to write because I have no time to think, no time to hear anyone else but myself recite our daily schedule in my head.

Weeks like this are rare, but when they happen, we all have to fight to function well.  We move from school to lesson to dinner to event without much stopping.

This is one of those weeks.

But yesterday, I had an unexpected and undeserved hour of quiet.

The second grade field trip ended by 1:45 and I asked Hope’s teacher if I could take her home.  What were they going to do until 3 o’clock.  Could she finish her work from there?

Absolutely.

So I piled Hope and her backpack back into the now empty car (still echoing with the memory of six seven- and eight-year-olds 15 minutes before) and drove her home.

I drove slowly and she was quiet in the back.  We both needed this extra space in our day.

At home she finished her work quickly and then we played together.  Her sister wasn’t home but had spent the afternoon at her Mimi’s and it was quiet in the house.  Hope noticed this,

It’s so quiet, Mama. I like this.

Away from the classroom.  Away from the other kids. Away from the TV or the Internet. Free space.  In our day and now inside us.

A chance to wiggle our toes and take off our shoes for a little while.  We both needed the time to rest and to be restored.

After a few minutes of arranging horses in made-up family groups on the floor of the playroom Hope got dressed and we headed to our next thing. We both felt healed in small ways.

When I don’t have wiggle room, I can’t hear anyone. My schedule grows up and over my ears and I’m deaf.  I can’t hear the needs of my girls or my husband because they are all heard through the filter of what I need to get done. I can’t hear in they way that I need to in order to sit down to write every day.

And I surely cannot hear God.

Only during retreat, during the quiet can I hear Him.  I have to quiet the noise, the schedule and the doing in order to be calm enough to hear. It kills me that I’m the kid with her nose in a book when God is trying to talk to me.  He calls my name ten time and I’m never concerned about what He’s saying.  I don’t want to live like this.

And I don’t want to live my life deaf to the lives and needs of those who are most important to me.  I want to hear and to hear I must stop and listen.

How’s your hearing today?

Believe it or not, once upon a time I used to be really in shape.

I’d spend hours (you read that correctly) in the gym not trying to lose weight (I’d already done that) but trying to build muscle and tone my body.  One hour of cardio and then one or more hours of weight lifting EVERY day.  I’d usually take one day off a week.  Let’s just say I was overtraining. But for a very short amount of time, I had great muscle definition and a low body fat percentage.

The amount of time and energy I poured into this was deafening. I’d arrange my day and my life around my gym time.   If I took time off or my schedule was interrupted for something (vacations, illness, etc) within the first week I’d notice a distinct difference in my fitness.  Mainly, my muscle tone.  I know it sounds silly, but it’s true.

And then when I got pregnant with my first daughter taking months off of the gym, was when I really began to notice the atrophy.

Atrophy: the degeneration of something from disuse.

A few months’ vacation from calf raises and squats and all of a sudden my legs felt like jello.  Some time off from curls and I couldn’t see my biceps any longer.  Triceps?  They were the first to go.  To keep it up, I would have had to spend nearly the same amount of time devoted to exercise and weight lifting for the rest of my life.

Now, I’ve settled into a routine of working out when I can, jogging a few miles a few mornings a week and squeezing in squats and lunges at the kitchen sink.  I no longer have triceps that I can see or definable quads.  I simply don’t have the time (or the motivation) to spend 14 hours a week in the gym.

Anything atrophies if we stop using it.  Including relationships.  Especially relationships.

Marriages and friendships are either getting better or getting worse.  There is no hover posture for relationships.

We are either taking steps to repair, restore and increase closeness and intimacy, or we are not.  And when we do not, it begins to atrophy. The relationship loses effectiveness and impact.

Of course there are natural times for relationships to cycle in and out of uber-excitement and crazy joy (read: my time off from the gym for pregnancy).  That’s just life.

But, I don’t want to get flabby in my friendships or my relationships with my daughters.  I don’t want to lose my intimacy with my husband.  I want to fight this. It seems like a lot of work, right? It is.  I can’t lie.  There isn’t any one-word fix for it, or “Eight Steps to Intimacy” e-book I can send you.

I can’t ignore the needs of my husband for months and expect our relationship to be at the same place it was.  I can’t.  I can’t put off my daughter’s requests for time spent with her just one-on-one and hope that our relationship will be better for it.  I need to pour time and energy, at a deafening intensity maybe, into the relationships I deem important if I want them to flourish.

Unless you don’t want them to flourish.  Unless you want to be flabby.  In which case you will be.

You won’t get fit by sitting on the couch.

How do you fight relationship atrophy?