I knew it would come…
…Eventually.
I’m pretty genuine (at least I think) on this blog for the most part. There are some gaps, like most people’s blogs, just because I have a reality outside of this computer that is to be fed, tended, and lived. I try hard most of the time, however, to write about what God is teaching me and the joys I have in Jesus Christ.
Despite all of this there are some deepest innermost parts of me that I find difficult to share, perhaps not because I don’t want to but because my heart’s cries cannot be easily articulated. Sometimes, still, I wonder if it is truly because I don’t want to make myself more vulnerable for the sake of sharing…vulnerable in the face of my sins in the past and sins of the present and sins I will commit in the future…vulnerable at the risk of being accused of naievete or hypocrisy.
I knew it would come, though, the day that the seams would burst at the intersection of my religion and my desire, an act fully foreknown and foreloved by my Father, and it would spill out and over my most dignified efforts of restraint.
The truth is there isn’t a single day that goes by that I don’t ask God, “When?” It’s the almost hauntingly reoccuring nightmare in my mind and not because it frightens me but because I wonder what it’s going to be like when he answers and because I’m so content here in the comfort of my family and my church and my life here. The question is about when he will move me to that place I dream about, where I live for the rest of my life, among the people I do not know, the people I nor God has yet to meet.
I told my mother I knew God had called me to be a missionary when I was twelve, and the calling came so strongly again when I was 18. It took her by a small surprise, but the assurance I had then has not waned even a tiny bit since. I know without a doubt that God has called me to wash the feet of villagers, to hug the lonely, and feed the hungry, to take love and truth to the lost sheep of his fold. I feel so certain that it will be in a very poor country, and that I will live with my husband (and hopefully children) and plant my body to work, to help, to touch, to be the hands and feet of Christ. I feel especially drawn to the hurt, struggling women, and their children. I know it may sound silly or foolish, but I can’t explain it. I just know. And I’m not talking about the motive, here. I know the reason is for His name, for His glory… but the thoughts I always have are when and where we will be, and what are these peoples’ names. I don’t know when, or where, but I know that God has called my heart and put in it such a strong passion to live with the needy of this earth and to come alongside them, so much so that it is almost debilitating at times. I truly struggle with living life in the present to the fullest and not letting my mind wander away from me.
Like tonight, when I watched this clip. I wept and wept thinking of the mother’s compassion for these children, and how she gave ALL the she had to rescue them. She and her husband “forgot about” themselves completely in the face of such need. I took a screenshot of the disgusting irony I noticed as I watched the video. The iPhone ad reads, “Talk about Impressive,” and in my opinion, it is this family, who is bringing glory to God and embodying his compassion, that is truly impressive. How can we sit by and have all that we have and be impressed by material things, when there is such amazing bounty found in the washing of feet and the sharing of suffering?
I’m not asking that question to you or anyone else except myself. That is one of the reasons I cried as I watched. I have strayed far, far away from my hearts true passion in recent months; even as I have tried to help others, I have forgotten to pray and stay informed about the sufferings of people in some of these places. That mother made me weep because I want to do what she is doing. Yes, I am serving my family, and I think that is wonderful, but I don’t feel like our life will always look like this. I know there is a work out there in a foreign land, and there are people who I am destined to comfort and love with the compassion of Christ in his name. I don’t want to just come for two weeks. I want to live with them, befriend them, to help them feed their hungry and share the joy of the sacrifices of a contrite heart. I know I am called, and one day, He will send us. Until then I pray that God would help me to obey and love the dear ones around me right now who need his compassion and love.
I know this was a lengthy and somewhat scattered post, but it’s such a essential part of my heartbeat that I cannot hold in much longer. I know some may say (because they have to me before) that I am blinded if I think I need to go outside of the country to see these people and needs. Those people are correct, but I know I am not blinded. I am so sure of this calling, that the only way it will go away is if I rebelliously ignore it or if God takes me Home instead.
Keeping us on our toes
Oh, how sweet our 2 year-old Steven is! He keeps us on our toes, and he certainly keeps us entertained. I hope you’re ready to laugh. This one’s pretty funny.
The other day Eric and I were down in the kitchen with the kids, and he was trying to explain some mp3 conversion solution to me for a problem I was having. We were hovered over my laptop, which was plugged into the wall and set on the desk in our kitchen. To our rear were three happy kids at the kitchen table. All this was fine and nothing out of the ordinary. Steven and Lydia were playing with play-doh, and Steven kept pushing his finger into a pear located in the bowl on the center of the table. Eric finally said, “Steven, just eat the pear if you’re going to keep pushing your finger into it. Nobody wants to eat a pear with finger marks all pressed into the skin.” We turned back around and were occupied with iTunes for maybe 2 minutes tops, and the kids were playing so well and just humming to themselves. I glanced behind my shoulder after that and noticed some drippy, sugary juice on the table and thought, “Hmmmm. Weird. I thought he was going to eat the pear.”
Eric asked, “Steven, what did you do with the pear?”
“I ate it,” Steven replied.
Eric, looking confused (I think it’s so funny when he gets like this), “No, Steven, there’s no way you ate that. Mommy and Daddy just said you could eat it about 2 minutes ago. Where’s the pear?”
“Daddy! I ate it,” Steven said matter-of-factly.
It hit me – hard – and I began to burst out laughing. Eric was still confused, and I just kept giggling until it grew into a roar. I knew exactly what he had done. I looked to Eric. Eric looked to me. It was one of those hilarious husband-wife moments. “Honey, he ATE the pear. All of it. I’m sure. Look under the table,” I said, knowing that everything Steven leaves behind is inevitably under the table. Eric kind of rolled his eyes like, “You’re silly, Kristi,” and he bent over looking for the pear.
There it was: the lonely stem, the only remains of the green fruit our little man had stuffed into his mouth and devoured in less than a few minutes. But that wasn’t all. In his madness he was actually careful enough to peel off the sticker!
You just have to know Steven, and perhaps you had to be there for it to strike you as amusing as it did to us… but at least I grabbed the camera and captured the look on his face. After I took the shot he asked, “Mommy, can I go play now?” wiping his juicy mouth with his sleeve.
Moral of the story: Feed your children.
Moral of the story for new mothers: Feed your children, and keep your camera at arm’s length at all times. You will regret it if you don’t.
Happy Birthday Merr Merr!
On this day one year ago I was walking around wondering if “this is the day.” Our little baby girl came into our lives, and we have never been the same since. God is so good to us, and today we celebrate her presence in our lives.
Happy birthday to our baby girl, who lights up the room with her smile, stops the entire family with her cry (!), who is sweet and fragile, petite and gentle, and still has no hair at twelve months old! Happy birthday to our sweet blessing from God.
A mother’s prayer for you…
Dear holy Father,
Your ways are perfect, and You are the giver of life and all good things. You have given us this beautiful child, and I know she is Your possession, entrusted to us, to nourish and tenderly love with our eyes on You, our faith in the finished work of Your Son Jesus, and our love fervently planted in Spirit-guided hearts. Please place Your favor on our baby girl, and draw her heart to You every day of her life. Open her eyes to the richest knowledge of Your love, and may the world around her always know that she belongs to You. Give her hope, joy, and great work to do here in Your world with her hands, and feet. Protect her from the evil one, and build a foundation of Your Word in her growing heart and mind. I pray for a man to one day be her husband, that even now he would be living in a loving family and learning about Your Son. Bless our sweet Meredith, in the name of Jesus, and may the rain of Your grace fall on her life like an early-morning shower.
Here are some pictures of Merr Merr’s first year at-a-glance. Enjoy!
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BBQ Pork Sandwiches
My husband raves over this, and he even knows how simple it is for me to make it. I love to put it in the pot on Saturday night and eat the sandwiches with chips and beans after church for lunch! We have experimented with various sauces to get different flavors, too. Our favorite seems to be “hickory smoke” flavor. We tried “honey chipotle” once, and our little kids quickly let us know that they did NOT like it!
1 pork roast
1 bottle of barbeque sauce
10-12 whole cloves
1 onion
Cook pork roast on low for 12 hours. Drain fat and juices. Chop onion. Mix into roast (the meat will just fall apart as you stir) along with cloves and sauce. Cook for 2-4 more hours on low. Serve on buns for yummy sandwiches.
Poco Creative
I finally have Poco Creative, my web design business site, up and running. It has been exciting to learn more about WordPress through this project. WordPress is pretty powerful, and you can run almost any kind of site on it if you can plug the code into the template files.
I’ve had lots of friendly advice from designer Natalie Jost as I have gotten further into the new world of PHP, and she has been so helpful. She’s an extremely talented designer, and what I love about her is she loves God and loves being a mom. God is adding twins to her family in a few months! I have enjoyed talking ‘design shop’ with her over the phone in the last several weeks and hearing her explain some things to me in plain english.
I still have a small sideblog to add to the front page, a few CSS issues and tweaking to do for some bugs, but mainly it is finished. Thanks for your input in the logo as it has come together in recent months. I appreciate your feedback!
Itsy Bitsy Spider
It has been a busy couple of weeks around our house, and describing it will likely only appeal to the grandparents, but I feel like catching up a little. One of these days I’m going to get that new blog up and gather my thoughts concerning all the things God has been teaching me during the last several months with three little ones. Thanks for the feedback. I want to get some articles on paper, so I will not forget these days and perhaps will encourage some other mothers who are along the same path.
That reminds me…. the other day I was folding clothes and thought to myself, “How sweet… All of their clothes fit nicely in their own individual stacks in one laundry basket. One more child and this won’t be possible.” Our laundry mountain seems to be getting bigger, but hey, I’m not going to complain if it means less diapers to change.
I love how blogging opens up doors that otherwise would not be possible for new friendships. This week I finished the blog redesign of a new “bloggymom friend” over at Seeking the Old Paths. She wanted something new and fresh to reflect the theme of their family’s journey. Take a look around her blog sometime, and I’m sure you will be uplifted as I always am.
The dining room has been a mess with fabric everywhere. I finally (after a year!) sewed some curtains for Lydia’s bedroom closet, and it made a world of difference in the peacefulness of her room. Our slipcovers came in the mail from Surefit, and I happily say that I am now converted. I never knew how much I would love the look and feel (and price) of slipcovered furniture. I really like the “fluid” relaxed look and the soft, brushed cotton. It’s quite cozy, but now I’m tempted to snuggle up with a big pillow every time I walk in there….”But wait!” I say. “We don’t have any pillows.” Back to the sewing room it was for me, and now I’m just going to go all-out and make lots of pillows and a wall quilt to spruce up the room. I was inspired by this adorable and this beautiful pillow idea and got right to work. I’ve always favored warm hues, especially red and beige and ginghams, but I branched out this time and went with something marvelous that was love at first sight! If you can follow some pretty simple sewing instructions, you should definitely check these out and spruce up your favorite room.
Our church small group started again last week at our home, and we are participating in a congregation-wide study entitled Seeking Him. Our pastor preached his first sermon related to it this past Sunday. We have 8 new members in our group, so maybe we shouldn’t call it “small group” anymore! We are so excited about this.
Probably the highlight of our whole week, however, has been Mr. not-so-little Spider outside our kitchen window. We have watched him for over 4 days spinning his gigantic web and now resting (I assume?) from all of the hard work. We think he is just waiting for a big bug to land in there, so he can have some dinner. I got some really good close-ups. Want to see them?
Okay, okay, I’ll spare you, but you can see them in this week’s sidebar album. There’s more that is going on in our family, but this post is getting too lengthy as it is, so I’ll save it for another time. My prayer is that the weeks and months ahead would be full of celebration, purpose, and the joy of the Lord in our family and yours. This season of the year can get so busy, and I am tempted to become so me-focused. I don’t want that to happen this Fall and holiday season.
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