Family

Father’s Day

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Things don’t have to be perfect to be thankful for what you have.

My dad and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on things and our relationship has been difficult at times, but this weekend I am choosing to focus on the things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for a dad who always checks in to make sure we’re alright.

I am thankful for a dad who lets me know that he prays for me and our family every day.

I am thankful for a dad who expresses his love for me with words of encouragement.

I am thankful for a dad who reads my blog faithfully and is interested in what’s going on in my world.

I am thankful for a dad who loves the Lord.

Dad, you are a gift, and I am thankful for you!

Happy Father’s Day! I love you.

tree in park

True Thanksgiving

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“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)

There are toys strewn about the living room. The dishes are piled, the lawn needs mowing and the laundry hamper seems bottomless.

Life is very full and rarely goes the way we plan. It’s easy to find myself muttering under my breath as I go from room to room, putting things back in their place and making mental notes of what needs to go on the grocery list this week.

In this busy season of family and work, it’s often a struggle to find the time to process life, let alone allow my heart to move into that place where I realize that no matter what is going on around me, I can rest in Jesus.

More often than not I am “giving thanks in all circumstances” because my circumstances are manageable or better than someone else’s. But that’s more of a “feeling relieved in all circumstances”.

The truth is simply this: I can give thanks in all circumstances because no matter what those circumstances are, the One I give thanks to is who He says He is, He will do what He says He will do, and He can be trusted.

Wow.  Want to turn your worries into worship?

Give thanks.

Even if you aren’t quite there yet.

Even if the problem isn’t actually solved at the moment.

Even if you really can’t see the tidy ending, or there isn’t or won’t be one.

Give thanks.  In ALL circumstances.  Because the ONE you thank is so much more than ANY circumstance.

Thank Him that He never changes, like shifting shadows. Thank Him that He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. Thank Him that His grace is sufficient for you and that His power is made perfect in weakness.

Thank Him that He is good and His love endures forever.

forest through trees

Image: Ricardo Gomez Angel

The Gotta-Do’s and the Good-to-Do’s

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Sometimes the grind really grinds you down.

All the Gotta-do’s get mixed up with the Good-to-do’s, and it all gets out of whack.

Gotta do dishes.  Gotta do laundry.  Gotta do e-mails and texts and fb messages.  Gotta put the dollies in the dolly box, crayons in the colouring bin and random socks in the sock basket.  Gotta get to the lawn and water the garden. Gotta fill the van with gas, gotta take the garbage out, gotta get the shower sparkling, gotta, gotta, gotta.

Gotta-to-do can really take its toll.

But the Good-to-do’s are life-giving.

Good to stand beside a bright 7 year old who is determined to make her dad’s morning coffee just right with as little help as possible. Good to stop and listen to the chatter of a funny 5 year old who is constantly informing me about all of the things she is thinking and learning. Good to read “The Sneetches” to a beautiful curious 3 year old snuggled up beside me in the most deliciously comfortable way. Good to play on the floor with a sweet 10 month old flashing his irresistible toothy grin at every turn. Good to stop my dinner prep to kiss my dusty husband when he walks in the door from a long day at work.

Good to praise the Lord and forget not all His benefits, every moment of the day.

Like the heavy scent of springtime lilacs, they are that fragrant breath of fresh air you need but forget to take or REFUSE to take because the Gotta-do’s are in the way.

Loosen the grip on the Gotta-do’s and grab the hand of those Good-to-do’s – that’s the goal this week!

lilacs in spring

So fragrant!

Dandelion Bouquets

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The dandelions are popping up everywhere.

That’s how I know it’s almost Mother’s Day.

As a little girl, I wandered the yard and picked the biggest, brightest ones. I bunched up as many as I could curl my small fingers around and carefully carried them inside, leaving a trail of yellow bits behind me.

“Here Mom! Happy Mother’s Day,” I’d say. As soon as she saw the bouquet in my hands, her eyes lit up, face filled with joy, and she’d kiss my cheek and say, “Thank you, my sweet petunia.”

Then she’d take them and set them in the clear, short-stemmed, pressed glass water goblet on the middle of the table, as if they were a dozen long stem roses.

There they would stay, on that brown table in our tiny kitchen with the matching turquoise appliances, Mother’s Day evening sun streaming in the small west window, until they wilted.

And in the springtime of my teens, right in the middle of that long brown table in the farm kitchen with the strawberry plant wallpaper and brown paneling, Mother’s Day morning sunshine streaming in that east window above the sink, until they wilted.

Year after year, I picked dandelions for my mom. And year after year, they went on display, filling my little heart with joy and pride.

Our dandelions appeared this week, and they don’t stand a chance of going to seed because as soon as my own girls see one, it gets picked… just for me.

The tradition continues.

Without fail, they bloom in three generations of hearts, as a sweet shared memory of the most beautiful Mother’s Day bouquet of all.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

dandelions for ma

Dandelion bouquets

I Want You to Be With Me All Day

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“I want you to be with me all day!”

When our oldest daughter was a preschooler she would say this to me, around the time her second little sister appeared.

“But I AM with you all day,” I’d reply, laughing.

There were days when we were literally in each other’s space every moment and at bedtime, the refrain was the same. “But I want you to be with me all day!” she’d repeat.

I knew what she meant. She didn’t want me to just be there in the same house with her all day, she wanted me to stop doing whatever I was doing – be that nursing a newborn, cleaning up a potty accident, making dinner or other various household tasks – and be present with her in her moment.

It was her way of saying, “I need you mom.”

I remember being a kid and going to bed before my mom got home from her evening shift. That feeling of knowing she was out there somewhere in the world instead of safe and warm at home with me was unsettling. I always tried to stay awake until I heard that front door open and her voice sounded from the next room.

It didn’t matter what was going on around me, things were all right with the world when she was near.

Now I am the mom, and my kids want my full attention and presence. They want me to “be with them all day”, so to speak.

How often do I say the same thing to God? “I want You to be with me all day, Lord!” my heart whispers. And I wonder if He’s there.

“I AM with you,” comes the reply – through His Word. Through His beautiful created world. Through His provision.

Except He’s not whispering, He’s calling. He’s never distracted and always available.

Regardless of how we may feel today, we can be sure God is with us. Instead of “I want You to be with me all day”, let’s pray “thank You Lord that You will never leave me alone” (Hebrews 13:5b).

mom and kids

How Could He?

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We sat on the soft couch in the early spring sunshine, huddled around a storybook Bible for kids.

“How could he?” she cried. Our five year old was hearing, really hearing for the first time, that God looked away from Jesus for a moment while He was on the cross.

“His own son! How could He look away from His own son?” Her bottom lip quivered and her brow sunk low. I could see tears forming behind her glasses. “Why, Mama, why did He do that?” She covered her face.

I put my arm around her. “It is very sad, isn’t it?” I said. I tried to explain how Jesus took our sin on Him, and that God couldn’t look at sin, so He had to look away. “But why did He do that?” she wailed.

She wasn’t asking for the theological explanation.

She was asking why it had to happen like this – why even the Father left Jesus utterly alone.

At our house, Easter always brings out the toughest questions about why Jesus had to die and how He could take away all of our sins. It’s this strange mix of egg hunts and execution, bunnies and burial cloths. And then, the great exhale of wonderful relief when we learn that Jesus, who was once dead, has come back to life again.

We live in this tension between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

We suffer the fallen nature of the world and the effects of sin while we await the glorious fulfillment of His promise of eternal life.

In the between time, we work to stay faithful to Him and build His kingdom in a world with a kingdom of its own, the kind that shouts you are a dangerous fool if you believe in anything other than the tangible and material, if you stand for something other than yourself, if you entrust your life to Someone instead of your emotions and feelings.

“In this world you will have trouble – but take heart, I have overcome the world!” – Jesus (John 16)

Jesus, as we remember Your sacrifice and victory this Easter weekend, let us be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to worship You in the face of doubt and questions. Let those questions and struggles remind us that while we don’t know everything, You do. And that is precisely why we bow in worship -You are God, Your love is unchanging, and You will never forsake us.

Jesus Storybook Bible

Image: “The Jesus Storybook Bible”, Sally Lloyd-Jones/Jago

On Palm Branches and Dashed Hopes

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palm leaf

As we were pulling up to church one Palm Sunday a few years ago, we realized we forgot something.  Time was tight, so I dropped the kids off with my husband and took the baby with me to run back and get it.  I thought I might be able to make it back in time.

But I missed it.

My favourite part of Palm Sunday:  the Kids Palm March.

On the Sunday before Easter, the kids get to wave Palm branches and march around the church during the first few worship songs.  When they get to the front, the branches are placed in a glass vase of water sitting under a wooden cross draped with purple fabric.

Amid the frustration of running back home, the disappointment of returning too late, and the general isolation of being a mom of a little one who is too noisy and busy for the service and too sniffly to play in the nursery, I felt sad.

My heart was heavy as I followed my little one around the back of the gym, praise music filling my ears.  My eyes scanned the front and settled on the cloth-draped cross with the large beautiful palm branches sitting beneath it, and strangely, I understood.

Those palm branches held such hope for the people who had waved them by a dusty road into Jerusalem so long ago.

Hope that never came to fruition.

The King of Kings riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, welcomed by crowds expecting a political revolution.

Only days later, the King of Kings, mocked, beaten, left to die on a rough wooden cross.

Here’s what a palm branch looks like the day AFTER it has been waved with great enthusiasm.

shrivelled palm.png

Spent.  Tired.  Shrivelled.

And rightly so.  Palm branches are not meant to last forever.  Our hope was never in a palm branch.

Our hope is in the King of Kings.

And the rest of the story is still coming.

The Winter is Over.

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The sound of melting is music to my ears, peppered with little boots splishing and splashing alongside stroller wheels on the sidewalk.

The first walk of Spring is underway. I can hear birds twittering and flittering from tree to tree, preparing for a long season of growth and change.

The winter is over. We breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, we know that more snowflakes will fall before summer arrives, but in the meantime, sun bathes our neighbourhood in warmth and beauty. Even the runoff, meandering down the middle of the road, is sparkling with life and hope.

“Look at the way this one curves back and forth,” I say, pointing to a small stream trickling down the sidewalk in front of us.

“Wow!” they shout, zigging and zagging through it, pants wet to the knees from all the joys of puddle-jumping.

One bends down and fishes three soggy pinecones out of the mud puddle, tossing them happily into the middle of the road. “Here ya go, squirrels!” she shouts. “Some food for you!”

Simple joys.

Thank you Jesus for the beauty of this moment.

tulips

White tulips growing in my living room!

I’m Typing With One Hand

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Frozen mornings and warm afternoons.

March sunshine is powerful here. It melts away a landscape full of snow and cold, and brings the hope that one day soon it really will be a new season.

These sunny days are a balm for winter-weary souls. We are the hearty, the strong Canadian kind who look forward to snowstorms and can’t wait to play outside. But come March, even we long for the tradition of swatting mosquitoes around the campfire.

I am learning this simple truth: there is beauty in every season.

Winter’s frigid cold brings pastel skies and pale sunshine that makes the air sparkle with diamond dust.

Spring holds the beauty of birdsong and budding trees and flowers.

Summer’s heat grows our gardens and offers us long, warm evenings to play in.

Fall’s glorious colour is a second Spring of sorts, and its crisp air refreshes our senses.

Every year we receive these blessings without fail.

In my life I tend to see the glaring difficulties of the season I am in. And in my haste to focus on the negative, I sometimes miss the little lovely moments that really make this season beautiful. This morning, for the very first time in her seven years of life, our oldest daughter, our early riser, sleepily asked me to “wake her up in ten minutes”.  I got to kiss my husband and we laughed together before he left for work. I have a small silky-headed boy in my arms, gnawing on my shoulder, chattering away, slowly tuckering himself out for a nap. And the middle two girls are currently wrapped up in a world of their imaginings, creating a story out of thin air and random household objects.

I kiss my boy’s chubby little cheek, knowing that before long, he will be right in the middle of all if it, running to keep up with the big kids.

I’m typing with one hand. It is taking me three times as long this way, but I don’t mind.

This is the beauty in my season – all the ordinary moments that are extraordinary to me.

Bluebird sky

A Bluebird Sky in March – my view from the backyard.

Seeing with “Grandma Eyes”

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I wrote this when my first two daughters were just 3 and 1, in Spring 2014. These memories are so close to my heart! And I still wish I had “Grandma Eyes”, but I know that it often takes the passing of the years to bring the important things of life into sharper focus.

***

I came across a photo this evening from my trip to Tanzania nearly six years ago.

woman in tanzania

She was waiting for treatment outside an HIV clinic in one of the villages we visited.  I have no idea what happened to her.

In fact, I had forgotten about her until I saw this.

She said it was okay for me to take her picture.  I was grateful.  I never thought that six years later I’d look back on it and wonder if she was still alive.

Six years.

We spend our lives wrapped in the small moments.  Then suddenly something from the past appears to remind us that time waits for no one.

I was thinking about what happens every night at bedtime at our house:

“Mom.  MOM!  MOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!”

I enter the darkness and lean down over her little pink and yellow bed.  “Yes?” I whisper, and kiss her little plump cheek.

“There’s one thing I want you to do for me.”

“What?”

“Ummmm…” (quickly thinking of something) “…can you turn up the story?”

“Sure sweetheart.”  I move the volume button on the iPod dock one notch up so she can hear the story-on-tape a little better.

“Thanks Mama.”

“You’re welcome sweetheart.  Goodnight.”  I lean down for another kiss on her cheek, and stroke her hair.  “Time for sleeping.”

And then a cry from the other room, and a little one who just wants to throw one arm around my neck and rest her sweet head on my shoulder with her pint-sized stuffed Snoopy tucked under the other arm – the perfect position for the night.

Absolutely THE best.  And I slowly set her down with a kiss on her squishy cheek.

And then I stand up from the sides of their beds, and suddenly she’s three and she’s one and here we go into month 4 of another year.  My half-birthday has come and gone, and we’re nearing Easter celebrations.

Wasn’t it just Christmastime?

I’ve often said I wish I could see these moments with “Grandma Eyes” – with the wisdom and perspective of all those wonderful women who have gone before me.  The ones who know better than anyone that they sure do grow up fast, so don’t sweat the small stuff (and there is ALOT more small stuff than you realize, young mama!).

I look again at the woman above.

Time is short.

We must make the most of the moments, because the milestones come faster than we realize.

Oh Lord Jesus, help me savour the sweetness instead of sighing with heaviness.  Give me even just a glimpse of life through Grandma Eyes!