posture - part 1

This has to be in several parts - because i'm still in the process of sorting through... Y'know that awkward feeling of 'wrestling out your faith'?  Sometimes there are moments when you realize you believed wrong, and you need to change direction - and sometimes there are moments when you need to look a little deeper into whatever it is that's making you feel uncomfortable - because there is truth there - & you don't want to ignore it.  Well, i'm gonna share a bit of that wrestling process here - & see where it takes me. 
For today... a short introduction :) 
i think i mentioned before that we're reading in Exodus - well, one day we were reading, and we came to the place where the Israelites were told to offer a 'wave offering' to God. One of my littles stopped reading and asked what that was. i wasn't really sure - but i said i gathered that it was the offering being "waved" by the priests to God. They thought that was a funny thing to imagine - the priest waving an offering in the air... to bring glory to God. i told them it reminded me of growing up in church - and sometimes - in a moment... someone would say, "Let's give a clap offering to God!" and the room would ring with applause... My littles thought this was even more curious and asked if we could - right then - offer a clap offering to God. So we did. We clapped, and a tiny voice offered, "yay, God!" i couldn't help but laugh - it felt strange - and yet right - to follow their lead in a spontaneous moment of praise... in the middle of Old Testament reading.
It changed our posture.

text me

i'm getting ready in my room - which is adjacent to Cai's room.  As i bustle about, i sneeze - & like any good sneeze, it's one of triplets. 
Suddenly my phone starts buzzing. 
i've got a text. 
i glance at it, "Someone has the sneezes."
It's from Cai.  She's no more than 20 paces from me... & i think if i listen hard enough, i can hear her laughing gently at me in the next room. 
i'll take it. 
i'll take Ephraim's baby gibberish when he grabs my face and whispers his baby secrets into my ears.  i'll take little hand scrawled notes, phone calls, emails, facebook messages, eye contact, hugs, and yes... even texts. 
i'm all ears, little ones - let's communicate.   

holyday

Part of the stage of life we're at right now is that we rarely take a holiday with just us...
The only night Neil & i have been on our own away from children in the past 15 years is the night i started to miscarry baby hope... i dyed my hair brown in a hotel bathroom and cried myself to sleep.  It's not really the romantic get away memory that one would want to carry... but it's mine. 
Our family holidays usually entail visiting family - which is great - but i find i come home for holidays hungrier for Neil than ever.  Often leisure time is split - men doing one thing - women & children another - so i find "holidays" often = single parenting...
On this set of days away, we got 1 day.  It's my favourite day.  It was *our* day. 
Neil had booked a room at this out of the way resort on the ocean - in Washington.  i had no idea where we were going - & we ended up driving down a thickly treed road for hours to get to our destination.  The little ones watched a movie in the back and i propped my feet up on the dash and kept Neil company as he drove. 
Suddenly...
Suddenly - the trees finally parted - and my heart leaped to my throat.  i sat up straighter in my seat, scrambling to see a little clearer - drink a little deeper. 
There was a cry from the back seat as the little ones caught sight of the wonders outside - and the movie was immediately silenced. Voices soon broke into a spontaneous cheer for the beauty - and the daddy that brought them to it. 
"i'm gonna cry..." Mollen murmered from the backseat... and i thought i was too. 
You see, i have been struggling lately.  i don't love writing about struggling, but there it is.  i have been blue - confused - feeling a little crazy... teetering more than i'm comfortable with - & suddenly here i was... immersed in more beauty than i could take in at a glance. 
i felt like a starving man - who is so frail that it takes care and broth to revive him...
And how is it that i come to feel so starved? 
Me, whose life is abounding in beauty - loved, and giving love - embraced, a part, found?  Could it be that i had refused to partake? 
& so i sipped my broth - i let the tears come... i slumped against my door and drank in the richness of God's creation. 
We pulled up to our accomodations - and finding a kingdom in our ancient abode, we left our belongings and flew to the beach - drawn. 

Isn't it interesting how we're drawn to beauty?  What did He put in us that draws us like a magnet to aching melodies - to richly coloured sunsets - to scents that feed us? 
Amidst this - Cai and i wondered - would you become a better writer?  A better artist?  A better human being?  How could you not?
And my children scattered on that unpopulated beach - with the wind ripping our hair - and the roar of the surf dulling their cries of delight. 

& seeing my baby son throw up his arms - and dance - i couldn't help but do the same. 
Too tired and full of sadness to care if i looked foolish. 
Is this how you want me, Father?  Laid bare?  Dependent?  Broken? 
& my arms reached to Him - the salty air filling my lungs.

20 hours later - we reluctantly gathered our things into the silver fox, and followed that heavily wooded road away....
But that....
That...
was our holyday. 

travelling with young sons

"Mom.  Ephyum falled asleep."
"Oh, thanks, Gagey."
"Moooom, LOOK, Ephyum falled asleep.  He sleeping now."
"Mhmmm.  i see that Gagey.  Ephraim is asleep."
"MOM!!!!!  EPHYUM ASLEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!"
Me, whispering frantically, "shhh Gagey!  i know that - i'm just trying to talk quietly so we don't wake him."
"Mom.  Ephyum wake now."
"Oh, thanks, Gagey."

conversations...

i'm at the beach with my cousin.  She's actually my cousin's wife - but we get mistaken for sisters as frequently as we're together.  She's a kindred spirit when we connect every year or so - with her blonde brood of seven similar aged children - homeschooling in the peripheral, seeking God in the fore-front - type girl...
"i was saying to someone the other day..." i start... but then remember and correct myself... "No, actually, i was just saying to my own self in my own small mind the other day..."
& we laughed over my realization. 
But it's an often lonely trail - this journey through life. 
i'm flocked by my little ones - and a husband i adore - & yet i enter His presence... alone.
The still small Voice meets me in the loneliest corners of my mind - where all the rough edges are naked and exposed. 
& when i speak out loud into the vast silence that exists in that small mind of mine - He hears.

Father - meet with me - converse with me - bring out my frailty, and delight in any beauty you bestow.  Be the company - when i think my conversations. 

i have been a little more absent lately... i have pages of notes for *tough* blogposts... i just have to decide if i'm tough enough to actually write them.  i feel perched on the edge of transitions - & it makes me realize what a funny little bird i am - with my constant fluffing of feathers and exasperated readjusting over the disturbances of life.  Growth - like any good thing - is so very costly. 
But - the end of August is coming... Fall is coming - & i'm getting ready to grow.