Talking about dad

She was just a few hours old when he spoke his first father words over her. The night had birthed more than just the morning and the process hadn't gone as planned. I was exhausted ... certain he'd been traumatized.





For two years I had worked as a Labor and Delivery nurse. I had no personal life experience as I coached, telling all those mothers-to-be what champions they were. "Hang in there," I would whisper. "Your little person is almost here."

Now, it was my turn to do the laboring.

I knew too much for my own good in that delivery room the night before. I talked technical words with the doctor. I watched his face turn from casual to all-business ... the way he focused in, got quiet. The way the nurse's feet moved a bit faster. I had been that nurse too. And I read those monitors, told myself when to turn to my left side, when to deep breathe from the oxygen mask.

This man I made vows with sat by my side, quiet and sure. And he doesn't do hospital speak. Years before, I had stressed over thick, heavy books. Patho and pharmacology kept me up too late and I called when I needed to talk out what I was learning. He would tell me we needed to change the subject, say he didn't feel well.

He'd drive the hours to visit and then sit on my floor. I'd trace the route of blood flow over his t-shirt, recite what was going where ... superior and inferior, pulmonary and so on. I'd tell him how I could start a really great IV in the thick vein near his wrist. He would pull away, turn a new shade of pale green. 




So when our girl was close to making her entrance, we made a back-up plan ... just in case he went horizontal. But he was an all-star. When that baby came out with a vacuum shaped head, it was I who did the teetering.

"It was not suppose to happen that way," I said over and over again. I wanted ocean music and Enya in my delivery room, not forceps.

More than that, I was convinced he would never be the same. I wondered what friend we could call in ... he would need to debrief, discuss, recover.

But my Todd was shockingly steadfast.

Later, in the wee morning hours, he scooped our "dear one" into his arms. He sat upright in his green, plastic recliner and he grabbed the only thing he'd packed. With his little girl lying vertical in the crease of his lap, he opened up to the words he'd played on repeat for weeks.

Everyday I will praise ... for you open your hand and satisfy desires of all things ... One generation will commend your kingdom to one another; they will speak of you and I will meditate on your wonder.




He didn't tell her how much worry she caused or ask her why she took so long to get here. He just cradled her there, in a cocoon of pink and blue and a knitted pumpkin hat, all in orange. He turned to pages of praise and, with a new sense of awe and a bit of holy fear, he told her what she needed to know.

On the day he became a dad, He introduced her to the Father.


The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love ...

The lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made ...

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

psalm 145


























Almost without warning, this baby girl is nearing seven. Two more have joined us since. Some days I feel like the oldest one just entered our little world. With first-grade fervency, she claims to love this Father that her daddy spoke of. And what transpires between her little heart and His, who can say?

But I know this: she has seen father-love in real life, in real time.

There is a man in her midst who has modeled well and loved her in extravagant ways ... the way he still scoops her up, cheers her on, runs along beside.

There is so much of this parenting-life we still cannot grasp, so much of this dad-life he claims to not know. But, in faith, we follow his dad-lead.

We follow the precedent he set on that first morning with our firstborn. In faith, we commend His works to those in our care.

In faith, we trust that they too might tell of the Father's mighty acts.

Here's to good, imperfect days

 

 

Here's to fall days and flailing a bit, in the best kind of ways. To finding some new freedom and doing away with fear all over again. Here's to running barefoot in public, laughing too loud and skipping nap time. Letting your hair fly. Giving up the worry. 

 

Here's to regrouping quickly, managing less, praising more. Here's to getting down on her level, seeing the view from her eyes. Here's to saying "sorry" first, choosing grace, making his favorite meal. Here's to catching all things good right in front of you ... just today. And believing that tomorow will take care of itself.  

 

 

 

 

Here's to reminding myself that this life is a collection of moments. And the best days are the real days with the beautiful and the difficult all wrapped into one. Because even the best days are high jacked by real life; the rough spots and places still unpaved. We mess up, fumble through and regroup. We stop, turn back and start again.

Here's to learning all the time and realizing: who wants to live perfect when its the imperfect that makes us lovely? We take one step forward and a gillion steps back. We shake our heads, stay bent on grace-needy knees. We glance upward and acknowledge the only One who doesn't need refining. The only One who sees perfect when He sees the ones He made.

Here's to the moments before our barefoot soccer match when I argued with my husband under a poplar. Here's to just moments later, when the kids had a collective meltdown in the van. And the parts I remember?

The grass on my feet and how fast she can run and his all-boy belly laugh and, later, saying sorry in the kitchen. Swaying to the just-right song ... just moments before the bedtime frenzy.

It was a good day.

So, here's to YOU and high fives all around for journeying on, for keeping your head up, for praising when it's tough. For embracing all of this life- and all that He offers. For catching the sacred in the midst of the daily and for letting Him grow you up ... one baby step, one not-so-perfect day at a time. 

Happy Monday! And peace, friends.

Come in close for the filling

My girl climbed into our bed this morning and she wrapped her arms around my waist, pressed her little legs against mine. She brushed the bottoms of her feet up and down along my shin and calf, patted the small of my back with her teeny palm. Connecting with every limb. 

She whispered "good morning" and "I just love you, mama." Then she flip-flopped to her other side- scooched backward even closer and right into my curve. And it doesn't seem so long ago that I cradled her here every second ... all wrapped and growing in multiplying mother-love. This morning she whispered like a little pal while she inched closer, her spine meeting my chest.

Determined for togetherness.

Then she reached behind her, grabbed my dangling arm, and pulled it right over her waist. Enveloped.

My girl wore me like a blanket.




And just the night before I asked her a "would you rather ...?" It's their silly question-asking game and it's our way to get a pulse from time to time. She replied, "Oh, a hug. A hug. I would rather have a hug!" Because I'm always wondering how to best fill these little folks. And this one? She is a time and touch girl. Even more, she knows when her "love-tank" is running low.

We haven't done the communal sleep thing here, not in all six of our kid years. "This is our special place," we have always said. Sometimes, though, this wee one finds her way into our warm, close space. She seeks out proximity, the filling up that comes from contact.

We are under sheets and her wispy hair mingles on my pillow. Her back rises and falls with my belly. She is all wrapped up and hidden and when she comes in close this way? I can practically hear her little heart filling up to the brim.

'Cause I am a touch girl too, and when my Todd hugs me tight I giggle and make the same sound every time: "bloop, bloop, bloop" like a bubble rising to the surface ... it's my tank filling to the top. And he knows when I'm out of steam and when to embrace well.

My girl sat up with new purpose this morning, flung off the sheets and spun to meet me. She kissed my nose the Eskimo way and said it plain: "Now that is the best way to start the day."

She hopped out and she was off. Dressed-up in mom love and ready to go. I didn't rise as quickly and I wondered ... how do I keep inviting her, all of them, into this space? Not our bed, per se, but into closeness, into safety for the filling.

How do I stay filled up, invite them into the overflow? Because there are days when I just don't got it. There are days when even my husband doesn't come in for a hug. No ... these days it looks more like a backing away slowly.

But really? We weren't meant to fill. We were meant to spill.

And when the tank is on empty ... we don't invite in. We repel.

So how do I give good mother-love when I've simply got nothing at all?  And how, in these school days coming, these growing years passing ... how in the world do I (we) stay filled?




How do I teach them to put on God? To wear Him like a blanket. How do we all wrap up, live in, a Father embrace? How do we find him at the start of a day and then hold on, tucked inside and under?

Isn't it the closeness that fills us up and isn't it in the together-space that we grow? Secure, sure, safe.
Isn't He always inviting us into an embrace? Waiting to fill us right up and over?

I'm thinking on curriculum and a school year, what can feel like chronic fatigue, small groups, and how to go out into the world right here in my town. I'm wondering how to serve three children and a man and how to keep heart tanks brimming. I get tired.

And I've got to have something to spill. I've got to have some togetherness.





This morning I started with a fresh reminder from a girl of four who whispered it right and well-- right into my morning rising:

Just come in close and put on God.

Wear Him like a blanket today, right now, every moment. Wrap up in His sure covering.
And in the quiet space of sure love, get filled up.

Then ... go and spill over.

Yes, I am certain. This is the best way, the only way, to start a day.

"But as for me, it is good to be near God." Psalm 73:28




We do a lot of love-tank assessing around here. You can read more about Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages here. And perhaps we can begin chatting again, you and me? I know it's been a while.(I've missed you!!) Want to talk about how to put on God? How do you start your day, friends?

When unfinished is a good thing ...

She is a finisher, my oldest gal. I can't pry her away from a project midway ... I don't dare. Because when she has a vision, she sees it through to the end. And this trait necessitates my catching her before she begins. 

Or else we are all in for the long haul.

This is a wonderful trait ... the will to finish a task.

And this little gem of a girl who hums non-stop has constructed a full penguin suit from brown paper bags and established, in the yard, a nest-home from twigs for each of her birds. So when she said she would trace an entire coloring book, page by page, so that her sister would have a copy  too ... well, I should have known that she would, in fact, trace the entire coloring book. 

I love this about her. She is gentle and kind and intuitive ... and strangely tenacious with the focus of three adults. Sometimes I project myself onto her, calling her my "mini-me." And there is a visual resemblance, naturally.

But tenacious I am not.

I tend more toward the drifting along with an insatiable wanderlust. I may, or may not, finish what I begin. I assure you, He is working on me in this area.

And it is slow-going.

In my defense, what I lack in follow-through, I more than make up for in vision. Oh! There is a lot of VISION around here.

Truth is, I would like to be more like my daughter. She is inspiring at six and I am painfully (and gratefully) aware that I have a long way to go.

I am so very thankful that that my Father is tenacious too. And focused. 

He is a finisher. He followed through. He is following through. He will follow through.

For me, for each of us, this is very good news ...

Perhaps give yourself some grace today? Find peace in the knowing that you are not yet complete. Artwork unfinished ...

Surrender a bit to the process, to the vision? And if you feel you've got a long way to go?

Excellent!! Let's journey out this growth together, one brush-stroke at a time.  

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."    Phil. 1:6


Ah, friends. I have so much to say and I'm missing you! Lots of words here, all back-logged and waiting. Soon!?!

From middle class to masterpiece

My middle gal is in a phase.

I don't know for certain because my oldest sailed through these years with yes mama's and a lot of tenderness. But lately, when the middle one most needs a hug, she is more likely to throw an elbow. And I haven't read the book on elbow throwing yet ... though I recently picked up 'The Young Peacemaker."

She doesn't feel heard and she has trouble with patience. She takes what she wants by force: hitting, wrecking, grabbing ... then crying popcorn tears right on cue. Life has been a bit dramatic lately. She needs to make her presence known and she is a middle child. I could be mistaken, but I think I am watching textbook play out in real time.

We remind her to use her words, tell us what she needs. Maybe it's my job to know so that she doesn't have to ask? No one reacts as quickly as she wants when her heart has been hurt: her middle voice unheard and her middle height overlooked.

There is a blue-eyed boy who still needs a mama to pick up and hold. There is a tall, firstborn who needs help to piece letters into words, decipher b's from d's. The littlest needs my help and the oldest  is the helper and the middle one with fair skin and full cheeks ... she is known to wander a bit.

Todd and I stay up late and ask question over handfuls of peanuts, black coffee.

"How do we make her feel special?"

"How do we encourage her heart, how do we 'fill her love tank?'" 

"How do we teach her right behavior, not crush her little spirit?"

We have guesses, inklings. But who really knows? We land on the way of extravagant love.

"We just need to love her well," he says.

I think on my kids from work, how their most desperate attempts to separate were often the loudest cries for closeness. I think on my own life and how the anger and the pushing-away can grow right out of the heart-hurt.

A soul cry can look a lot like throwing an elbow. 

It's late in the evening and dad should be walking through the door any minute. The glass storm door usually creeks first and this is the hint that he is just seconds away ... bigger door separating father and the waiting few. Sometimes the wind pulls the glass door open just a bit and then lets go again. The kids are tricked every time, running for dad who isn't really there.

On this day, my middle one is aimless and she has ostracized herself from the two, no longer welcome. It is six o'clock and I have to choose: damage control or dinner. 

I see her in limbo and four year old shoulders can slump low like my own. I stop the doing and sit on the kitchen floor. At the foot of the fridge I scoop her into my lap, ask if she wants to read a book, play a round of Connect Four. Really, she just likes how the red and black pieces spill loud with one slide of the lever. She will fill and spill, fill and spill, laughing each time. She shakes her head no and she doesn't know what she wants.

I think about Peter. He was a semi-disaster and Jesus loved him well: called him a rock until he became one. Peter had to learn who he was, had to be told before he could grow into his name.

Truth spoken right into his skin. Words entering marrow.  

Someone did this for me once and who says four years old is too young to start knowing?

So I tell her she is wonderful company even though she just pulled hair. I tell her she is so fun to be with even though she just wrecked block cities. I tell her she is a wonderful big sister even though she runs with toys overhead while the smallest screams wild.

The  moment shifts and her face softens and she settles sideways into my chest. The words begin to come easy and suddenly I have a lot more to say. I tell her Truth. She listens while taco meet sizzles and the glass door creeks. The other two yell for dad and four little feet sprint.

My middle child doesn't budge and and this is how I learn it.

This is how we have to love this girl.

We have to call her loved until she knows it deep; we have to call her loving until she acts it out. I pray into her sandy strands right there on wood planks and we, just for a moment, ignore dad.

She hugs my neck and she kisses my cheek soft, doesn't bulldoze.

I think how I, too, have been loved this way for years and years ... Someone calling me lovely even though lovely is but a vision.

I hold this middle child in my lap and I let go of middle-child fears. I cling, instead, to the hope of  what and who she will be, who she really is ... because He is speaking it into her already.

He is speaking it over her today.  

When practice makes perfect ... a music lesson

She sings while she draws and she sings while she paints.

She sings from her designated spot in the back of the van and she sings from her designated spot at the dinner table.

It is constant and it is natural, this forever tune. Present when she is thinking, playing, creating, concentrating ... breathing. At any given time, there is this humming of my girl.



She wakes with music because she has always fallen into sleep with music and I wonder if this music, at some point, just sank down deep. In that townhouse where we all three shared a room -- we would open our eyes, lift our heads from pillows to find her looking our way from across the room, under her name on the wall that means "Dear One."

And the music had played all night long, that one sweet melody on "repeat."

And it makes me wonder if a song, played over and over again,
could become the undertone of a life?

In this first year of school at home, we have capitalized somewhat on her love of song. Why not do what comes natural? So we sing verses and we sing the timeline. We sing poems and we sing the months of the year. We sing our way to one hundred ... by tens and then by two's.

And my husband laughs at me because I have a song for everything ... always have. But then again, so does my mother. And don't we live out what we know by heart? As a girl I took in songs about leaves and songs about snow. A song for the wind, for patience, for fear. I am nearly thirty-four years old but when I can't sleep some nights I sing the same old words. 

Be not afraid, I go before you always ... The Lord is my strength and my song ... Unto to Him who is able to keep you ... I will go if you lead me ...

And the songs are more of an asking, really. An asking to see, to really know.
I think on all those songs that carried me all those years, even when my feet didn't follow. My heart singing out the requests, then the truths, and finally the praises. It was a slow aquisition and yes, perhaps, practice can make perfect.

And didn't Augustine say that when we sing we pray double? The prayers and the praise going up like incense ...



When she was learning to talk at one she would ask me to sing the "sad song." Not because it was a sad song but because I would sing it when she was sad.

Do not be afraid I am with you, I have called you each by name. Come and follow me ... I love you and you are mine.

When she moved into her big girl bed at two she would hold my wrist with both hands, stroke her own cheek with my palm, then down the bridge of her nose. "Sing 'Step by Step,' mama."

O God, You are my god and I will ever praise you ...

I will ever praise you.

I watch her now and sometimes I wouldn't mind some quiet. I have asked to her to stop singing. But her little tune is hard to suppress and I have learned that she is not defiant. I watch her while she builds forts and blocks and while she sets up full scenarios with animal families. I used to wonder what she was thinking.

Now I know she is ever-praising, in her child-like way that Jesus says we would all be wise to emulate. I think on this and I am reminded not to cut her off mid-song ...

Perhaps instead I should join her. Learn ... from her.

And when she went to the dentist at three and cried nervous, she had no intention of crawling into that chair, certainly no intention of opening her mouth. So when she finally decided to be brave it wasn't because of anything her mama said.

She had simply recovered her memory, misplaced momentarily. She remembered her deep down song and when she climbed into that chair, she looked right at that stranger and she sang about the fear. She did open her mouth but first she sang what she knew.

When I am afraid I will trust in You ...

And she already knew those words. She just had to act them out. Live what she believed. 
And perhaps we learn more than just words when we sing. Perhaps we learn how to really live a life: tuning our ears to the Truth, memorizing its rhythm and its meter, listening all the time for the melody.

And then the singing. Breathing out what we have long taken in.




When I asked her over and over again at five if she wanted to ride her bike, she answered "no thanks." She had tried and had wobbled scared. She doesn't crash well and she couldn't find her rhythm on wheels. Unsure.


But just the other day she greeted warm air and more falling leaves with a thrill. And when I asked again, she indulged me and she got on that bike. She let me run along behind. Told me not to let go, asked if  I thought she could do it. I told her I knew she could. Progress...

And yesterday I let go.

I ran behind, then beside. She wobbled and slowed down, sped up again and it made me insane not to grab her, snatch her right up. My first born who I gripped in fear until I learned my own mother song--handing her over again and again. And I jogged with a grin and I yelled for her, cheered for her.

"You're doing it, you're doing it! Keep going!!"



All the while she didn't scream or squeal with delight or yell. Instead, that girl pedaled down the street for the very first time and she just hummed quiet ... found her balance and sang her little song with a tiny, knowing grin.

And I suppose it makes sense, really. She's been singing quiet joy in all of the small moments all along. This quiet singing in the big moment came like second nature.



And could all of our days be lived this way? The quiet practicing of praise in the moments ... this whole life becoming one steady song?

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends. Would our life-song sing to Him today ... and everyday after.

"I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me." Psalm 13:6

A course for life's obstacles ...

They pose by the gate, laughing and waiting. Bouncing.
He yells. "On your mark! Get set! Go!"

They take off and Reese is left in the dust before they even begin ... those little legs.


It's a perfect day and the leaves are perfectly crunchy. The ground is dry and why not make an obstacle course? Cara is serious and she has already planned her route. Her strategy.

Reese ... not so much. But the boots are key. She really wants to wear the boots.

Cara is focused, precise ... way ahead.

For Reese, this is all about the moment. She is going for the total experience and I have to laugh hard when she finally kicks her ball into the goal and we scream, cheer for her to catch up with sis. But she goes back again, hand rolls each ball into just the right position. She is still on the first of five stations and she is thrilled.


She calls for help on the balance beam. Takes her time, watches her feet. Doesn't even notice her competition. She is making her own way. 

When she finally makes it to the midpoint, her only requirement is to fill the bag. A few handfuls should do it. The pile is enormous and the bag is small. Cara is finished already... up the slide. Down.

And Reese stops and calls me. "Mama! Here, for you! This one! You will love this one!"


She is holding up a leaf.

In a pile of dead brown quadruple her size she picks out one with life. Yellow, perfect.

"Mama, come take this one too! You will love it."

She finds another. Red and orange. And another.

Cara is back at the gate now, ready to go again but Reese has changed the game. She is searching now, through the pile, pushing leaves aside and digging for color. Collecting them all, for me.

And this is a sweet mama moment. She knows me. She has watched me bend and pick leaves from the ground for weeks. Years. They fall out of my purse, go through the wash. I stuff them between pages of books and this has been the rhythm of every fall.


She knows what thrills this simple heart and, perhaps she is learning ... if only in the smallest way.

She is learning to see.

The full color in the moment. God in everything, everywhere. Wonder.

Just a few days earlier, I walk down the street with a friend, through the leaves underfoot. We talk about obstacles. I bend and pick up the color and she texts me today with pictures: reds and oranges and yellows. She writes, "I picked up some leaves on a walk today and thought of YOU."

Grace in the obstacle. Is it always there? Can we learn to see it?

That evening, our home is off. We forget grace. We argue and I worry. I lose my cool. We contort our faces when we look at the bank account. We don't feel well and family is tricky and there is always something new on the horizon.

Life has obstacles.

And I am learning that the grace always comes down. It's at our finger tips and at our feet. Available for the picking up-- could we search for it, wade in it, hold it up and cheer when we find it?





When the obstacles come, could we simply slow? Search beneath the dead brown to find Him in full color?

Then press on through, toward the goal?

I am looking hard today. And pressing on. Join me?

When home gets a little stuffy...

We play this game at the dinner table. It is pointless and silly and has no redeeming quality. But it makes us laugh a lot. And it will be a good memory someday.

We wait for someone to pass an item: a bowl or bottle or plate. Then the girls laugh and giggle and wait until the server's arm is outstretched heavy, hovering over table. They yell "freeze!" and the passer stops mid-pass. They think this is hilarious...dad reaching with bowl of corn, quivering while waiting for the "un-freeze" command.

And it totally gets old, when they have yelled "freeze" for the sixtieth time in a twenty minute meal. We used to tell them there was a freeze-limit but our freeze tolerance has grown and last night Cara said: "Hey dad, can you pass me....anything?" And we all busted up laughing because she just wanted to laugh and she didn't care what he picked up as long as he played along. So he did.

And I can be the serious, over-thinking one around here and sometimes Todd's antics make me crazy. The spontaneous trumpet noises ... like a bugle reveille in my living room. And the dance parties, complete with bass and cymbal. A cappella.

I say things like, "Seriously? Can we please be serious?" And he smiles bigger than ever and, in pure defiance, takes the dance moves to a whole. new. level.

He says with a big-kid grin, "Oh C'mon, Ab."

I have walked away a time or two...only to hear the girls giggling and squealing with delight.

"Dad is being so silly!" Reese yells. And the holding back really isn't that much fun and I am missing the gift wrapped, hand-delivered moment:
You have been cordially invited to laugh really hard and make a memory...right now.

This is (usually) when I come to. Snap back into being a human and not a kill-joy.
This is not always natural for me.

Because I am capable of over thinking and over analyzing every last thing and some days my relentless, high expectations trick me into thinking there isn't room or time to be so silly.

In my uptight, parental "what if I don't raise 'em right" moments, I can crush what is real in search of something elusive and stuffy and other. Like, let's just say, at the dinner table? Aren't we suppose to talk about character and Jesus and reinforce all the day's learning and teach them how to pray, eat nicely, say "yes please", and look people in the eye when they speak?

Go ahead, feel the crushing weight....

Then enter in God's awesome sense of humor and master plan when he matched me with my mate:
this light- hearted, grace-loving, non-wavering family man.

He plows the soil in this home-- creates fertile ground for grace to take root, for love to grow. He reminds me we are doing just fine and that this home is called to be a place of refuge and goodness and joy. He reminds me of their smallness ... and that we are not in the business of grooming little pharisees.

He reminds me to put away the parenting book and just chill out. He reminds me that real learning and true obedience run over from little hearts that are loved and free and safe to just be. Taught and trained, yes. But freed up?

And lavished in gracious, sometimes too-silly love.  

These little hearts that have wrestled loud and laughed hard over dinner and raised the roof to U2 and Veggie Tales alike are the same little hearts that are willing, an hour later, to say "Yes, mama."

And there are a million ways to fill up their "love tanks." You don't have to play the freeze game at dinner. But an extra hug when they are least "deserving?" A long story before bed when their behavior warranted skipping one altogether? A favorite question (adopted from work) for when it is all falling apart: "Can you help me understand ______?"

Because aren't these really the key moments? The ones that build them up- brick over brick- into strong and gracious grown-ups? Aren't these little grab-bags of grace the gifts that pave the way for seeing eyes and hearing ears?

Like when they will learn someday that Home is actually found in a Person? What if they could look back to now with a sense and a knowing... 

...that their first experience of Home was right here within these walls.