Mary Consoles Eve: A Christmas Poem

(Virgin Mary Consoles Eve, 

painted by Sister Grace Remington, OCSO, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey)

I stand

Head bowed in shame, the weight of every sin upon my narrow back.

My sticky fingerprints, fruit-stained, sin-stained, are on it all,

From the bombs that fall on Aleppo

To the machetes wielded in Rwanda

To the yellow stars pinned on Jewish coats.

Our holiness tarnished now, from my fingers.

Unkind words, selfish thoughts, pride.

Fear. Because I broke the perfect love.

I cannot meet your eyes.

I did not trust

So now none of us is trustworthy.

I did not worship

Now we all worship ourselves.

I disobeyed.

I ruined His world.

I see you standing there,

Large with promise.

The mercy in your eyes mirrors the Mercy in your womb

And you say

Sister. He is coming. Feel His kicks.

He will take it all. He will kill the snake that bites our heels.

His shoulders are broad and His fingerprints holy.

And the weight of sin on us all will fall on Him instead.

You cannot break Perfect Love.

It is breaking through

For you.

Guest Post on the CAC Blog

This month, I guest posted on the Christian Adoption Consultants' blog, telling our adoption story. Check it out if you are interested! 

Jeremy and I discussed adoption before we were married. It was always something we knew we would do. We had the “adoption gene,” the desire to grow our family by asking God to place the lonely into it… Read more.

The Tipping Point

Poor, woefully neglected blog. Did I really let the whole month of June slide through my fingers without one single post? Sad, sad day. Apparently four kids is my tipping point to make me start to (inadvertently) cut out parts of my life that don't include food, clothing, and sleep. And school. And church. And some fun, too.

Okay, so the blog has suffered. But we're back in the saddle, looking back down the last month and a half and wondering how to catch up on recording memories without making such a massive blog post that it makes the internet crash.

The highlights:
--Mason is sitting up like a champ, which means he plays so much better by himself. He has this orange basket of toys that he loves. Favorites include his moose from Grammy and Papa (which also clips onto his carseat and goes everywhere with us), his fisher price phone (old-school style with the rotary dial), a stuffed elephant that is the same brand as the moose (a gift from someone very special), and a bee that sings.

--We graduated a first grader and a pre-k-er. We celebrated the end of school by surprising the kids with a trip to Cracker Barrel. Sonlight Core A: done!

--Mason is eating baby food. His first reaction was typical: What is this vile thing?!? But now he likes it.

--The three big kids and I went camping with my family in Tennessee over Memorial Day weekend. It was SO COLD. In the 30's at night. I dressed the kids in two sets of footies each, hats, extra socks, etc. And we were still cold. We only made it one night and came home late the next night, but it was still a whole lot of fun.

--We've been enjoying summer without school (much school, anyway. Still doing math and reading.). I've been doing a lot of research and have a plan in place for next year.

--Swimming! This was a HUGE summer goal for me: to get the big boys swimming. After several unsuccessful attempts on our part to teach them (found it way to hard while keeping two others afloat), we ended up bartering swimming lessons and writing tutoring with a friend. LOVE IT. The boys are doing amazingly well after only three lessons so far.

--We had a staycation! See next blog post. :) After hitting a deer (well, it really hit us), and having to pay for van repairs, our planned vacation to PA went out the window. So we tried a staycation instead, and it was a hit! We planned it over a weekend, so Jeremy only had to take a Monday and a Friday off work. We did Atlanta one day, some crazy backyard water olympics, the zoo, and the capstone event: Six Flags! (Love the reading program!) We had an absolute blast and made some great memories. Success!

--We've been doing some fundraising, but not for us this time. Three families we love are adopting (see their blogs here, here, and here), and having just walked the difficult adoption road twice, we are so eager to help them. We've done a garage sale, some childcare for an event, and will soon be bringing back the birds' nest necklaces and unveiling some new designs. Stay tuned!

--Writing. Okay, I'm not writing much. But I'm actively praying, planning, and learning how this passion of mine fits in with my crazy life. I started by making myself a place to write (Stephen King would not approve of the lack of door--but he was never a mom of four mischief-makers, either. He would approve of the fact that the desk is in the corner, because "Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.")

--My kids are still the funniest and most adorable kids in the world. See attached for proof.

(Iain and I on a date. He used his gift card to buy us both ice-cream.)

Will You Come Over?

So, I'm working on this project. A writing project. And as part of it, I started a website, a place to challenge myself in my writing, to focus thoughts, to note the ways God teaches us, to see how what we believe impacts how we live. A place to weave words together and hang them in the sunshine. And to invite you to join me in conversation about God and life.

Will you join me? I'm trying out the new subscribe-by-email thing on that site. I'd appreciate feedback on how it's working if you feel like subscribing. Come and visit! The site isn't totally done, but I'm working on it and I thought I'd go ahead and invite my friends to visit!

Look for several posts a week. Ambitious? Yes. :)

Click here to come over!

Five Minute Friday: Story

I'm linking up with Gypsy Mama today to make myself write when I don't feel like it...I mean, to enjoy writing a five-minute, no-editing piece. Today's topic: story.

Start.

I think in terms of story a lot. When I hear about an interesting story on the news, I think about how I'd like to know more about the story, and that maybe the more is what others want to know too. And maybe I can write that more, and make it into something good. When I did Nanowrimo the first time, that's how I came up with a story idea: a news article that left out too many details. So after talking it through with Jeremy several times, changing the details but keeping the basic conflict the same, a plot was born. And it was so much fun to write.

All the time, I think about stories I'd like to read and then ask myself if I could write them. So far, I've done it twice, this writing a novel about a story I want to know. The first time, the results were pretty good. The second time, they were horrible--but completion was the goal that time. 

In Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he talks about our lives as a story. I want mine to be one that God delights to read. Yes, He is the Author. But He's also the Audience of One. I want to live such an on-purpose life that He loves the story.

Stop.

Phew.

Grit

Friday already? I'm linking up with Gypsy Mama and, in her words, writing like we believe we can fly...

Today's topic: grit.

Start.

There was this movie my grandfather used to like. I think it was called "True Women" or something. It was about pioneer women, crossing the prairies in covered wagons. I think. I was pretty young at the time. But anyway, those women, those ones who marched West with their belongings in a wagon and their babies and rifles in their arms, they had grit.

Women in classic literature have it. Jo March, Anne Shirley, Laura Ingalls (again with the pioneer women), the good stories come from women with guts. To live a story, to walk that road, to cross the plains...that takes grit. Maybe, maybe to wash the dishes again, to carry the baby all day long, to homeschool, to cook dinner when inspiration is absent...maybe that takes a different form of grit. Until Jeremy decides we ought to walk out west with some horses and barrels of flour and jerky, I suppose I'll practice grit the way that is before me now. And maybe that's really how character is really formed after all.

Stop.

On Waiting

I'm guest-blogging today over at Kim Van Brunt's blog {Honestly} Adoption about the long wait before we brought Laina home:

I was unprepared for the weight of it: the absolute, soul-crushing burden of what I felt as I waited for my child. I knew it would be hard; I imagined what I thought I would feel with a daughter on the other side of the world, but I had no idea just how heavy it would be...

Click here for the rest...

Delight.

I'm joining Gypsy Mama today for five minutes of unedited writing bliss...or something like that. Today's topic: delight.

Start.

It's delight I see on his face when his daddy tells him yes, I will play outside with you.

It's delight in her eyes when he tickles her and repeats her favorite phrase, "go, go GOP!" after her a hundred times.

It's delight when he plays drums with them, pillow fights, wrestles. It's delight in the Saturday morning Looney Tunes, and the banana bread he makes with them. Who wants to do the dry ingredients this time? Who wants to mash the bananas?

It's delight on his daddy's face when he reads his new words. It's delight in his daddy's eyes when he goes down to the study to show him the picture he made. It's delight on his face when hers lights up at the sight of him.

My children delight in their father, and he delights in them. I am blessed. They remind me daily of the delight my Father sings over me, and of the delight I feel when I run to Him at the end of a long day. At home in delight.

Stop.

Real

I'm trying something new today. I'm linking up with Gypsy Mama in her Five Minute Friday. Simply, I will write for five minutes flat without editing or backtracking--today's topic is Real.

Go.

The beginning of the year brings out a flurry of New Year's Resolutions. I admit, I make them too. But it seems to me that they are a defeating way to start because they almost never stick, and you get to the point of almost not expecting them to. They do not bring real change. It makes me wince to read stuff like, "I'm really going to start exercising this year," or "I'm going to try harder to blog every day." Real change isn't happening, despite best intentions--mine and, it seems, most people's.

So what can effect real change? Change of habits, change of mindset, progress toward being who I want to be and where I want to be? The power of the Holy Spirit. Discipline. Habit. Starting small and building. Real change is long-term, long obedience in the same direction, vision for the future. If I want to exercise, it has to be for bigger reasons than looking good. If I want to blog more often, it has to be for more than upping my following. His glory in my health, His glory in my words. His will in my life (and me healthy enough to embrace it). His will in my writing (and me honing my craft by disciplined practice).

Real change.

Stop.

Okay, that was way harder than I expected, more rambling than I wanted, and I went a little over the five minutes. It's hard to write something short with a point when you start with no idea where you're going. I don't even know if that made sense or said anything worth while at all. This is hard, putting unedited words out there for the world to read. Yikes. Okay, publishing. :)

(By the way, the whole blogging more thing is not one of my resolutions. It's just all I could think of at the moment, so if you don't see more blog posts from me, you know why!)

Thanksgiving '10, Etc.

So, I haven't felt much like blogging lately. The news out of Rwanda is that there is no news, and it's been hard to feel much hope. So as we enter into the season that is supposed to remind us of Hope and who He is, I am trying to remember what I know:

--He is good.

--He is strong.

--He is Emmanuel, the God who is with us. And with our daughter. Oh, come Emmanuel.

But life goes on, and there are good things that happen in this crazy time that I want to remember, and for the boys to remember. And so:

We did shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Iain choose to pack for a girl, and Cory a boy. Iain especially really got into it. When we dropped off the boxes, Cory prayed for the boy and girl, "that they would have lots of presents and wouldn't get bites from any bugs, but would have roly-polys, and that we would have roly-polys too."

We got a dog. Her name is Posey, and she's a three-year-old sheltie that my aunt found for us on Craigslist. She's a good dog (except she sheds and she can't really help that - although she can help rubbing herself along the length of our blue couch and leaving a trail of hair behind. Yuck.), and the boys love her.

The boys and I (and Posey) took a really nice walk the other day to find leaves. They loved running down the road and finding "really gorgeous leaves."

We spent Thanksgiving in Florida with Grammy and Papa, Yaya, Phil and Kelly, and Uncle Larry and Aunt Lisa. I hardly took any pictures.

Aunt Lisa got a gingerbread house for the boys to do.

They were both sick over Thanksgiving, but they loved being there. We saw a huge gator in the pond out back (I even spotted it with a flashlight by its glowing red eyes), and Cory dreamed about him one night.

I finished Nano for the second time (Nanowrimo = National Novel Writing Month, where you write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November). My first time, in 2008, I really loved it, and I ended up with a workable manuscript. This time, it was so hard. I didn't like the novel, nothing really flowed, and it was a fight to the finish. If Alison hadn't been doing it with me, I think I would have thrown in the towel. But we both finished, so that's something.

That's about all our news here. And I can think of no interesting way to end this post...

The End.