A Garden Tour, Part Final

There's so much in my mind and heart to write, yet so little.

Someday maybe all my thoughts will come back in coherent sentences instead of random ramblings I think of like taming kittens and how that compares to our showing God's goodness to children.  Thoughts like James and Paul talking for hours about their experiences with Jesus.  I hope I can see a video of that someday.

And like how my little nine year-old gardener/farmer got to experience his ultimate dream last week....seeing the largest pumpkin at the state fair.  Over 1200 pounds is what I've been told.  I've also been told the goal is to grow his own next summer.  It requires basically a swimming pools' worth of water a day to accomplish.  And taking out our side yard.  Hmmmm.

So here's the young farmer's garden this year:

This is a tunnel leading into a teepee.  The tunnel is made of wire grid with yard long runner beans

growing over it.  And birdhouse gourd vine taking over.

One of the only times I've felt like a good mom is when the kids and I bought the wire and poles and I took them out to the parking lot and hoisted them onto the top of the van, secured them, and drove home.  I was proud.

Walking stick kale

Last night we sat on a hill and watched thousands of swifts at dusk fly into a chimney. As we waited for them to circle into bed, along with a couple hundred other people, I joked to my husband that he should get up and preach.

He looked at me and said, the swifts will do the preaching.

And so might the pumpkins, and the kale and the birdhouse gourds....speaking to our humanity the intricate wisdom and creative authority of our Creator.

Canned Thanks

My farmer parents and family bless us with lots of beautiful, ripe fruit.

Food preserving is hard work.

I leave for a lunch meeting and when I return, I am fully reminded of my great blessings.

One of them is a husband who reaches into the deepest parts of me and speaks to them.  With love and gentleness.

There are dahlias on my desk he's brought me, each color and shape specially chosen.

Today on my bed are five cards.  The children have made them while I was out.

I don't deserve such a man, such a family.

I'm incredibly thankful.

The Greater Goal

Goals.  Yesterday was a reminder to me.

We (the kids, my mom, and I) had just returned home after a morning of errands.  We had groceries to unload and my sister and nephew were here to say goodbye to my mom.

Just a few minutes after we got home my mom's friends came by to pick her up and take her away for the weekend.

Six kids.  Three women.  Two friends.  Groceries.  Quick goodbyes.  Lunch time.

How to go from chaos to eating lunch is nearly like preparing to climb Mt. Hood.

So after a half an hour of spinning my wheels, it felt like, God broke through to me.

Two children were fighting and crying about the injury during the argument.  One child was sobbing wildly on the couch because Grandma left.  The three year-old was probably in the middle of the street, and the fifth was attempting to make sandwiches for everyone while creating a huge mess in a kitchen filled with bags of groceries and library books.

I pulled one child away to a side room and we started talking about what was going on.  As we finished I began to help him see where we needed to be going.  My mind was on getting lunch on the table, so I purposed to say that the goal was lunch.  Now.

Instead my mind changed directions and I heard myself say..."my goal is to...teach you all to love God and love each other."

Oh yeah.  That's right.  As much as I'd love order and calm and peace and joy, the reality is those qualities only come by choice.  They don't naturally happen.  (At least at my home they don't.)

But the goal is there, and it's the choices I make in the chaos that will determine whether we arrive or not.

I wish I could say we quickly got lunch together and peace ensued.  Not so.  Lunch ended with a talk on lying and considering others before ourselves.

It's a battle.  A daily battle.

Fixing our eyes on the greater goal.

Identity Defined

It's easy to get lost in the "stuff of life."

So often I'm struggling to keep perspective on the most important stuff.
A continual struggle to align my family's life with Truth.

One way I'm attempting to combat this war recently is through identity prayers.
Just three right now to keep on the top of my brain, in the center of my heart:

I am a child of light. (Ephesians 5:8)

I am clothed with Jesus Christ. (Romans 13:14)

I am surrounded by his favor like a shield. (Psalm 5:12)

They also look like this:

( I fill in each child's name, my name, my husband's name.)

____________ is a child of light.  

____________ is clothed with Jesus Christ.

____________ is surrounded by Your favor like a shield.

Then, when refereeing an argument, feeling discouraged, or combating fear, I return to these identity definers. 

It's hard to keep arguing with a sibling when you are walking around believing you're a child of light.

It's hard to think your powerless to accomplish the task when you trust you're clothed with Jesus Christ.

It's hard to be fearful of the "what-ifs" when you remember you're surrounded by God's favor like a shield.

Praise be to our God Who has in His kindness defined  us in Him and given us hope!

Identity Truths taken from the book Powerful Prayers for Your Children by David and Heather Kopp, p. 57.

Being Mommy

Last night a group of ladies met in my living room.

One of them is single, past childbearing years, and lovely.

She's cared for each of my children in the church's nursery.

When the meeting was through, the children were already in bed but the one who just turned two.

He's in a "needing Mommy" phase.  So he came calling to me as soon as Brian knew were were adjourned.

"Hi....Mommy."  "Mommy."

And that precious single lady standing next to me said, "Oh, it must be so nice to be called Mommy."


Healing, blessed words.

How easily I forget the amazing privilege of being called Mommy.

Boys...

As a little girl I thought boys were very mysterious.  I wondered what it was they did with their time.  What did they do for fun when they played together?

Understandably so.  I am the oldest of three.  A younger sister and then a brother eight years younger than me.  We have three girl cousins who lived right down the road.  Another two girl cousins as well.   The three boy cousins lived far away until I was older and busy with my own life.

So when we played, we played house, doctor, school, travel agency, dolls, had our own store, P.A.S. (If I told you what the initials stood for you'd know my maiden name and then you could steal all my stuff).  And the brother, well, we dressed him up as a girl and named him Jennie.  He kind of had to follow along. 

Poor boy.  When I brought my future husband home for the first time I was telling him about my brother, how even though he was raised with so many girls, he was totally a boy.  We entered my parents' home and he came to meet Brian donning a tutu.

My friend Amanda was born on March 19th.  Every year she'd have a slumber party at her house.  Garrett, also in our class, was born on March 17th.  He'd have a slumber party a few houses down on the same night with all the boys.  Sometimes we'd meet up for a bit, but mostly I just wondered what they did while we watched Girls Just Want to Have Fun and painted our nails.

Now I know.  Six boys in my living room this morning (which is not terribly uncommon) and the mystery is solved.  It's not nearly as romantic as I thought it might be.

And my little daughter?  Well, she'll never look with rose-colored glasses on the life of a boy.   More likely, she'll wonder what all the little girls do with their time.

This is Monday.

She fell face first into a bog.

Her face and hair are also green and brown but you cannot see that as she is crying and I felt it would be too mean to ask her to look up so I could take her picture when really what she needed was a mommy who would sympathize and help her get cleaned up.

This is Tuesday.

A ballerina dressed in white.

Clean through and through.

And smiling big.

What a difference a day can make!

p.s.  do you see all the leaves on the ground in picture one?  they were crunching under my feet!!

p.s.s.  homeschool update:  tomorrow's the start date, but today C and I schooled in the bathroom...
he learned some important concepts: top to bottom, what cleaners work where, how to hold a spray bottle so it sprays, the importance of occupying the baby, and maybe, though I won't get my hopes up, why it is always easiest just keep the bathroom clean in the first place!!!