Toothpaste Tears
I just finished crying real, stinging tears. You know, the kind that feel like you have a hot tube of toothpaste being squeezed through your eyes? (Well, maybe not. I just came up with that right now on the spot, so bear with me.) You get what I’m saying, though. It’s the kind of sobbing that hurts and ranks right up there with the worst kind. Sorry for all the drama. I just feel like the worst mother.
Today was really hard. The whole week has been hard frankly. I won’t go into all the details, but it has been one of those weeks that makes me feel like our kids are teaming up to see who can wear us out first. On top of rounds of sickness were numerous battles and attitude problems all around (and within), and our dining room wall now boasts a rather large, impressionist mural (“de Sharpie Marker”) mastered by my older two children. Yes, we will have to repaint. There have been crazy things like 30+ shreds of wet paper found in the sheets, a new toilet paper roll thrown right into the toilet bowl, and “innocent” “wrestling” with their 11-month sick sister. I just didn’t know if I could take much more tonight when I asked Lydia to bring me Steven’s pj shorts from downstairs and she disappeared with Steven for at least 10 minutes. Finally I came downstairs and found them getting into more trouble, and I just let them have it. I scolded them and got so angry and told them to go right upstairs and they were going straight to bed. When I tucked Lydia into her bed, she kept wanting to pray, and honestly I didn’t want to. I was still mad about the whole day and how testy and disobedient they had been. I’m always begging God to give me the wisdom to discern between childishness and foolishness, and I was sure all I saw today was foolishness. After I left her room I wrapped a few things up to prepare for our trip tomorrow and walked back downstairs, still murmuring.
I stopped on the carpet. On the couch there were several little stacks of folded towels, underwear, and the socks lined up with their mates. She had even attempted to fold a few of Eric’s shirts. I had not even asked her to do it, and my three year-old daughter had been folding the laundry for me. I’m still crying right now thinking about it. God held up a huge sign to me reading, “Wake up! Stop complaining and look right in front of your nose at how much you are BLESSED.”
I hate writing posts like this because they’re humiliating, but I am sure from past experience that there is someone reading this who is going through a hard time and battling contentment and sinning in the wake. Let me come with you, brother or sister, and put my arm around you. We are most blessed who know Christ! We only need to look around and see the ways that God is tenderly loving us every day.
In the morning I will ask forgiveness of my Lydia, but I’m sure with her childlike heart, she will offer no pause and throw her arms around me in wholesome joy, just like God.
Baby on the way!
I love writing that! Sorry, not me this time….
My sister’s doctor moved her induction up from Labor Day (aw, would have been neat) to tomorrow! Yahoo! We are very excited and will be spending the weekend at my parents and seeing our new nephew/cousin Noah! Eric still has to play in his “Battle of the Bands” concert on Saturday, but at least he can hopefully be there for the birth! Please pray for my sweet nervous sister. She is tired, anxious, and above all READY for her first baby to come into the world! Pray for Blair, too, who is obviously excited about his first son.
God is good, and we trust in Him!
Sick
It stinks that I’m home sick with a couple of sick kids, but it’s also nice. Meredith is so active that she never lets me snuggle with her much unless she’s tired. Today I held her on my chest for 2 hours in the rocker…. boy, it was sweet!
My part-time job
I think I can officially call my web design projects “work” now. After almost a year I have slowly emerged from the books and started putting my learning into practice. “God, please bless my efforts to help others!” That was my original motivating prayer behind starting web design coupled with my passion for “decorating” the pages of my internet collaborative ownership. The last few months my prayers sounded more like, “God, please help me not to mess this up!”
By God’s grace I have found the time to study and work hard when I’m not giving kids “mommy’s attention,” and I have finished my first three big projects.
1) ECBC Women
2) Good Like a Medicine
3) CCD4Kids
I also got to take a break recently and give Ann a redesign to her blog. She stayed with Blogger, so it was pretty familiar to me to design and code it for her less than a week. It was a fun project. She wanted to clean it up and give it some spunk. Here is a shot of the transformation. I love before / after photos!
Here are some things I have learned from the last 12 months:
1) “Web design” is not easy. True web design involves stacking many building blocks of education on top of each other, and the blocks are sometimes eroding and changing form. Web designers who are of any value don’t just sit down and “make” a site like you make Word document or an email. It involves databases, hosting, domains, reading, linguistics, scripting, coding, debugging, communication, and determination. It’s hard, but even some of the best have been self-taught. I have a lot of respect for all of the talented designers out there.
2) There are so many web and programming languages, and it can be daunting to learn. Once you really start to understand the relationships and rules, however, any language can become so much fun to practice.
3) The internet is an amazing educational tool particularly forums. I have found an amazingly helpful and encouraging community of brainy lovers of God over at Godbit, thanks to an initial plug from Nathan Smith. I cannot thank God enough for the way he is using that place as a tool for Christians in technological fields. I’m in the forum at least 3 or 4 times a week asking questions and learning from others.
4) A few weeks ago I almost felt so overloaded that I wanted to quit. I kept telling Eric, “I feel like I’m in college, and I shouldn’t be.” He has been so wonderful to support and cheer me on to pursue this, and I am thankful. I have decided I’m going to keep learning, praying, and taking on projects because God has given me this avenue to bless others and bless our family, and I love seeing Eric’s excitement in this.
5) That is the last thing: I am learning that this can continue to be a win-win for us: a creative outlet for me and another way to bring income into our family. I cannot think of another way at this time that I could use my hands and mind to do this because during the daytime hours they are pretty full!
I am going to be finishing up the redesign of Good Like a Medicine and Poco Creative in the next few months, and I will be learning a lot more (mainly about CMS options for clients) as I develop these and push on with other projects. Please pray for me if you would, that the God who rules would give me wisdom and guidance in continuing this education. Thank you!
For the record – a counted blessing
You know, it’s so easy to complain. I do it probably too much. I’m getting better, but it usually only takes me about two minutes in the morning to forget God and start complaining about the most trivial matter. Well, today I just want to say I’m empty-handed. I don’t have a single complaint. I am sitting at my desk (messy desk, actually) with my laptop, design books and magazines, papers and project notes, staring up and outside a huge window that overlooks our street. All I can see is a huge oak tree enveloped by a friendly mixture of hardwoods and the tips of the Crape Myrtles at the edge of our yard. The sky is a brilliant, whimsical blue, and the pregnant clouds are receding just slowly enough for me to make a dragon or a boot. (Why is it always a dragon or a boot?)
Most days I could write out my contentment in the afternoons and chuckle at myself. “Sure you are. Try saying that later when happy-hour is meltdown-hour!” Ha. But today truly has been a marvelous day – inside and out. Lydia and Steven have been so tender to each other, even though Steven seemed to have woken up on the rotten side of the bed. All of my efforts to turn their attention towards kind words and Christlike gentleness have been blessed with the truest, happy response. I smiled more. We made bread, cleaned, and worked on some Scripture and alphabet lessons together. Even Meredith participated in today’s lesson: the letter “M.” “Mmm” is so easy and funny to say, and all three of them wouldn’t stop laughing at how Meredith kept saying, “Mmmmmm.” I laughed pretty hard. Later a spanking was given, and it made my heart sink to have to give it, but that precious heart could not have received the discipline any better. The discipline was blessed by God, and it did not threaten the happiness of our morning at all. We rolled in the floor laughing at all the different ways we could crash Steven’s cars into the bottom of his bed, and the most beautiful, bright orange butterfly visited us on a bush for at least two minutes near our porch while we played in the driveway and grabbed the mail. I have worked inside my home and felt the very near presence of God, so much so that I almost cannot contain the joy.
The day started out dark, and a phone call threatened to loom over us when Eric learned that his car repair was going to be a pretty (or should I say ‘ugly?’) penny from our wallet. But you know, when things like that happen, if I just smile and think, “God already knew this. He already knew, and He’s going to be faithful,” then it is so easy not to complain. It is almost incomprensible how God turns a sinking heart into the fullest well of joy, isn’t it? The blood of Jesus is a cleansing elixir.
I just felt like I needed to write this. Just because. Because some days (like yesterday) there is paper and plastic and dirty underwear all over the floor, and someone’s dripping milk and sweet potato everywhere as the arguing and selfish squeals tempt me to pull out my hair. But on this day I praise God, and I know I need Him just like yesterday. I just wanted to take a moment to thank Him, to praise Him, and rest in his peace.
Not gone
Perhaps I should post something, so that people don’t think the almond mocha killed me! We had a busy weekend in our family, and there were some great times.
First – WORSHIP! Yesterday I leaned over to Dean, our worship pastor, and said, “I love our church!” He, Eric, and I led the services in the gym with David on cello and Rick on keyboard. It was an “acoustic preview” service during our regular worship hours to give people a feel of the style of the kind of music in which they will participate for our church’s new corporate worship setting at 8:15 on Sundays. God has given us the wonderful challenge of making more room since the other four services are full and will be increasingly maxxed-out next month since our congregation pulls a large collegiate population from our city. This is very exciting. The reason I love our church is because Jesus is supreme. The staff work together so hard to keep Jesus as our head and to line everything we say and do with our minds, hearts, mouths, and bodies with the word of God. I’m pretty much falling off my chair every week to hear how our pastor is going to bring the Word of God to us next. This week’s message (full audio here) was so rich with the challenges involving the Christian’s discipline of clothing himself with the character of Christ.
Among other things one pratical challenge I took here was the concept of my daily life’s margin. Margin is what I have left after all the demands of the day have been met, and many times I can be “operating in the red.” (Young mothers know this all too well. Agreed?)
“As we have seen, Jesus never seemed in a hurry… [Many times] he was conspicuousy absent. Creating a margin (or that space between our load and our limits) is perhaps the best way to create a Christlike spontaneity and interruptabily back into our lives. Margin blunts hurry [sickness] and allows us to focus on the divine appointments God sends our way.”
Getting the margin back in my life, so that I can commune with the Savior in His Word, may mean saying, “No,” to outside commitments, zeroing in to the needs of my family and organizing my time, bowing on my knees for a few minutes instead of folding the laundry or answering the phone. It may mean getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. But this margin is key, and it is first in my battle with sin and obedience to God’s commands to clothe myself with compassion and kindness towards others. Our pastor likes to say, “We are leaky buckets.” If we don’t go the well every day, we will be dry and fruitless and weak against the arrows of the devil.
I think God has really helped me become better at organizing my time and implementing a family schedule in the last nine to twelve months of our family life. What a blessing it is that our children take naps and sleep at night, and that allows me a regular “margin.” The issue is not that I find the margin but what I do with that precious margin. Lord, help me guard this time and make it your own!
SECOND – “Battle of the Bands” My husband played with some other guys in a contest in Myrtle Beach, SC this weekend, and I’m happy and proud to say they will be playing at “Shoutfest” on September 1st! So if you’re down this way, drop by Broadway at the Beach and hear the Marc Collins band! The kids and I were their “roadies,” and we had a great time.
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