Finding your sweet spot...

Watching this girl with a crayon is like reading an early chapter of a long, long story.

Who she is now is who she will be. It is how she is made.

This is what she does and when she sits at the table and peers out the window ... picks up a crayon ... I can see her little mind go. She wants to capture something: a moment, a memory, an idea, a dream.

And I can relate.

But I am not an artist and my drawings now look a lot like hers at age 5. No, I pick up a pen and a camera. And I used to feel silly. I am learning to let that go.

But I think on who we are-- all of us-- and how we try so hard to be something other ... to be like someone other.

I think on how exhausting this way of living can be.

How I can wander sort of aimlessly, heavy-limbed, feet dragging. All out of sorts. Like when I try to be on a planning committee or wear the big bangle jewelry. I am terrible on a committee. And the jewelry is heavy and awkward on my neck and it just makes me insane.

And when her dear teacher said she had difficulty "moving on" from a project, I nodded and grinned. "This will be a great trait for academics," she said. "But socially, she may have a hard time when others go on to new activity."

I nodded some more. I know this about her too, how she doesn't like to be rushed and how, when she has an idea, she makes a plan and then follows through until it. is. finished.

It is very cool to witness. And it requires a lot of patience, on my part.

So she is only five and she will grow and learn and change in so many lovely ways. I can hardly wait to see. But this need to capture and re-create won't change. I believe it to be a gift. And when her teacher said that my girl hums her way through her art, I smiled again. Yes.

Always the humming and the creating. She is in her "sweet spot" and I dare say it is her five year-old form of worship ... a giving-back of a gift. With delight.

Oh, what if we could rest in that sweet spot? Maybe take a breath and remember for a moment who.we.are. What if we could stop trying so hard, wanting so bad, to be something other...

What if we could just be fearfully and wonderfully us? All the while, with a little hum, giving away the gift. 

Praying you find rest this weekend. And delight as you find what makes your soul sing ...

When grace is passed along...

As with any little family- when the temperatures spike and the noses run, we sort of screech to a halt.

And it can  feel a little like shut-down.

And so while dad continues to saw and haul and pile the fallen wood, I remain inside. I soothe and sing and entertain.

I do my own hauling and piling of little bodies into van. I pay the co-pays. I wait. I drive home and offer home comforts. But when this house goes viral, there isn't much to do but wait...

And for a few days, nothing changes. The fevers remain and these little, hot bodies still end up in my bed midway through short sleep. I am up. I am down. I am kicked in the ribs.

And today the fatigue is long. I miss church again. I'm short and feeling sort of shredded and this isn't the labor day weekend I had planned.

I  drive to find cough meds and pass a goose and its mate. They are stitting in tall grass and their heads pop up as I pass. And they don't know it but they become my invitation back into the joy. They jolt this heart awake and I have my own mini-worship service behind the wheel.

Two fat geese remind this tired mama of some theology I am learning to live:

All is grace.

Yes. This life, these moments, these days that often go all jabberwocky. The days inside and the coughing and cuddling and their little round faces asleep in night-light. All bits of grace to take in and it is everywhere and all around if we will slow to see.

I want life to be this simple. Couldn't it be? Joy in nuzzling this sweaty boy and joy in carrying this tired girl up stairs. Joy when babes are sick and trees are down, when friends are sad and calendars are full, when fatigue is heavy on my shoulders.

We roll into evening with no fevers and my little guy is covered in tiny spots.  I know this virus is on the way out so we pack up and go. We drive and talk about how life really could look different through these grace lenses... permanently.

We don't have suits but the breeze is cool and the sky too blue. We pull the car over into grass and we run down the hill to seize another bit of it ... this grace that surprises and changes and makes us smile big.

He is all good. And He is all around.

All is grace.

And you need to know, these words are not mine. But they have changed me. And this lady who I love dearly and this guy- they have joined up to share.

I have camped out with these words for a week now... these lyrics just following me around. I figured it was time to pass them along. I pray you read her story... because giving it away this year has been one of my great joys... now seventeen weeks on the NYT bestseller list.

I pray you support his music that has been somewhere.

And I pray you, too, might learn to live these words -- this "deep theology" wrapped up in one tiny sentence.

Be blessed, friends.


All Is Grace (With Ann Voskamp) from Shaun Groves on Vimeo.

Work on a Wednesday... when a story becomes so much more

I'm at work on a Wednesday and it is bedtime.

These kids on this unit are babies. And these halls will officially close in a matter of months and around here we are in high gear ... trying to get these babies out of here and into real beds-- under real roofs.

Because on this hallway everyone is between the ages of 6 and 11 and the higher-up folks would prefer they move out of treatment centers and into families. I can't say that I blame them. Don't get me wrong-- we treat these little people like our own and what they have here is good. For some, it is the best they've known. But this isn’t the place for the long-term and they do need to be in homes-- where meal trays don't come on the hour, where life is larger than this hallway, where they can sprawl on the rug on a Saturday morning and just ... be.

Next door, the hall is filled with big kids twelve and up. And I'll be there permanently when these doors close, when we get these guys settled elsewhere. And over there they are too grown in so many ways, wise beyond their years and it is sad to see their true age in their eyes.

But here, it's just like my own house in a lot of ways. Behaviorally speaking, many of these kids stalled out around age three or four and so they throw tantrums (really good ones) and they throw objects and they kick and bite. And they scream when they hear “no” or “not now” and they are picky eaters and bedtime can be a full-on disaster.

We know that routine and consistency and patience and compassion go a long way-- allow for security and decreased anxiety-- and so we do our best to stick to these ideals. And at bedtime I have become the nurse who reads stories. The staff says it isn't in my job description … that I have important paperwork to complete, official people to call.

I think about my own little people at home, secure and sleeping sound. And this story-reading is a no-brainer, really.

I can offer this.

For thirteen weeks back home, I show up on Wednesday mornings at church. I walk through that open door to be with all-star women and learn about Esther. At noon, I pick up my babes from the nursery, then rush home to feed peanut butter and jelly before leaving again in scrubs.

And my shift starts at 3 and I am there for the bedtime disaster. The air literally changes as the anxiety creeps up the hall. And as the lights go low, little faces appear at doorways needing water and snacks and hugs and a little assurance. The staff and I, we feel like the crazed woman in that gopher game with the giant rubber hammer and just when one babe settles in another pops his or her head into the hall … “Can I have some milk?”

We talk and figure out how to lessen nighttime tension. We find they are simply being rushed. Their peace can’t keep up with our adult pace. They can’t transition well and when we rush them into bed the anxiety rushes in as well. They just need more time to let minds catch up withbodies. They needed tuck-ins. They need stories.

One boy loves Magic Tree House. This little wispy, whimsy guy can’t sit still for a million bucks but he can tell you about bats and sonar and lizards and dirt.

Another stuttering sweetheart loves Spider Man. For another, it is Junie B. Jones and it is worth every minute to watch her giggle at Junie’s antics.

And one little gal just loves the classic tales: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Gingerbread Man. So when I ask her what we are reading I already know and I chuckle to myself before we start because it just doesn’t get old.

She is seven and a tiny tank of a girl with mini biceps and a belly and braids in rows with beads … and a mouth like a little sailor. She falls asleep with the radio too loud on a too grown station and I wait ‘til she snores to turn it down, or off. So many of them do this-- fall into sleep with loud music in ears, radio literally propped on pillow. And I wonder what they have trained themselves not to hear in the background.

When we read the Ginger Bread Man she changes it up a bit and we sing together every few pages ... after that deviant dough-man meets the farmer and the cow and the sly fox.

It sounds like this … more or less.

Run, run as fast as you can!
You can't catch me I'm the-
Wiggity- wiggity- what- what!?
You know’! I 'm the ginger bread man!

And we say it loud and we bounce a little with for-real rhythm, our hands in the air, fingers pointing and punctuating each wiggity-what.

But when I leave bible study the first Wednesday and head into work, I wonder if they know the story of a girl named Esther.

When bedtime descends, I ask this little darling if she would like to hear something new. I tell her it is, in fact, a classic. I pull a chair next to her desk and I tell her what I know from that morning back at home.

And she is hooked.

For the next three months I come in on Wednesdays and tell a little orphan girl about an orphan named Esther ...who lost her parents, was raised by an uncle, who was esteemed for being true to herself, who became queen, who saved her people. And this tough little cookie is taken by a girl.

And she waits for bedtime and she grabs my arm and she brushes teeth too fast and forgets to flush the toilet and dives into her bed on the first prompt.

She needs to know what happens next ... so long ago.

I tell her it can be her story too. Not the queen part … or saving her people per se ... but the part about being alone and brave and a little lost, wondering what will come of all this mixed up life.

Because even a seven year-old needs to know she has a purpose and a hope and a future.


A seven year-old needs someone to tell her to hang on for the good part … that she is worthy of a story with a good ending.


That the God who wrote that script is also writing hers.


That she has not been forgotten.


And long after the thirteen weeks are up, she is still retelling this tale to me. She knows this story-- Haman and Mordecai, the decree, the fasting, Xerxes and the scepter...

When we finally close up our doors in February, we have spent the last few weeks with just 3 or 4 children on the unit. It kind of feels like family and one by one, they are placed in new homes.

It is hard to say goodbye.

They are so small, this bunch, and it's impossible not to wonder ... what will become of them?

So when a co-worker feels a tug on the strings of her heart, she is brave. In an uncommon but heroic staff-act, she trades in her badge for this little Esther-girl and they walk out on that last day together.

I watch her leave with her little family and there is a little skip in her step and they are sort of simpatico.

And I smile and laugh out loud as it rings in the air here...

wiggity- wiggity- what- what...

I marvel at her story that is already written and I offer her up with the thanks.

Because with this job there is always the prayer.


And there is always the thanks.

For what higher privilege is there than to be a teeny side note on a page of a great and timeless tale...?




----------------
Thanks for grace, friends, as I post my Wednesday post on a Thursday...eek! Still learning how to do this little life and keep self-impoed deadlines too!

if today...

If today you are running a little low on power ... seems as though everyone nearby is just humming along ... plug in to the source that makes this world go 'round.

And if it looks (feels) like a storm rolled through this place, broken limbs and wreckage all around ... remember the One who is able to mend all life's fractures.

He's the same one who uses the broken things for good, the bare spots for new growth, the inconvenient for fresh perspective. Ah, if you believe ...

And if the clean-up feels daunting, the air too warm, the lights too dim, the kids too restless--

remember this life that is but a breath.

Because it all comes and goes too soon like a breeze ... yes, somedays, like a hurricane.

And this, today, is what we've been given.


Wishing you power and peace, friends! the warmth of light and the good company of family and friends. hoping you are making memories together, with or without the modern comforts of home. praying that you are safe ... that we are all up and running again real soon ... with new stories to tell.     

When the storm comes ... Go camping

 

When Isabelle tore through our town eight years ago, we had just been married for two. In between jobs and states, we were home again-- living with my parents. We had no children … just a crazed kitten. My sister was home too with a child and a cat. My brother as well-- here for training nearby with a family back in Alaska. The house was near full for the first time in years. We were job hunting, house hunting, life-hunting... 

And I took my first job as a nurse- night shift on the ICU- and I was all backwards. Craving dinner for breakfast and packing lunch at 6pm-- missing my husband while I slept through the light hours and he through the dark.

We knew that storm was coming and I finished my shift to drive the interstate home. The sky was hazy, eerie green and that little blue Saturn moved alone across empty lanes of road. Everyone all tucked in at home … waiting.

And I got home just in time to join husband and company. We took front row seats at the kitchen table while the clouds rolled in. We stayed right there for hours.

And when it all picked up and the dark sky grew darker, the mood felt a little ominous. The wind howled ugly and the trees bent and stretched. In our woodsy neighborhood, those trees started to fall under the weight of the wind-- just cracked and crashed to the ground. We all sat quiet with wide eyes. When the trees groaned and leaned, we shrugged our shoulders up to our ears—ducked and winced in unison—then waited those few seconds while trunks fell heavy through others before landing with a THUD.

My Army dad, ever assessing the risk, looked nervous. And that made me the most nervous of all.

Because when dad isn’t certain … no one else is certain either.

And what do you do when your rock starts to feel a little shaky? When everything around you points to a potentially wild ride? When you can’t will the elements to behave?

I sat in my corner seat at the table and we braced for a storm-- lanterns lit, supplies at the ready.

And when I couldn't take my eyes off of those trees, the fear got the best of me. 

So I decided to go camping— under the only roof that doesn’t collapse under too much rain.

I flipped through the Book that doesn’t break and looked for Him who can’t be undone.

I built a tent and while the storm raged outside, I sat quiet under words. 

Praise the LORD, my soul.

LORD my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind... (from Psalm 109)

Because it helped to know that He knew...
 

And we rode it out and all was well and it could have been much worse. We lost some trees and we lost all power and for a week this town was unshowered. The lawns looked like lumber yards;  the men stayed out too long with chainsaws.

And today this little family is perched at the kitchen table, bracing for a gal who goes by Irene. The yard is too wet and later tonight, the wind will howl wild. The trees are tall and too close to this home. I'll try not to jump ahead to "what-if."

We will likely camp out again, with flashlights and little girls and that Book that reminds me He is bigger. I'll sit tight with the knowing that He isn't nervous ... and that even this whirling-dervish girl isn’t out of His control.

There’s a storm coming around these east-coast parts. Have a camp out too?

Stay safe and we will see you when we see you, friends?!

At work on a Wednesday ... if you're living like a fugitive

I'm at work on a Wednesday, logging details on each kid before clocking out to drive the forty minutes home. It's eleven o’clock and the news is on.

The lights of the community room are off and it still smells of burnt popcorn. There are black and white bits strewn on the floor, cradled between plastic couch cushions. I am half listening and half typing-- documenting medication administration, bedtime compliance, group attendance...

I hear on the t.v., "Fire, robbery at 7-11, an endangered runaway missing tonight..."
I glance up and catch her picture. My chin drops with my heart and I feel it in the gut.

She is one of ours. She is sixteen.

This gal on the run is no stranger to these halls and I have witnessed, firsthand, her ability to flee.

And I’m not surprised that she is on the run.

She's been with us several times-- in and out again. The last time she resided with us, she jumped up and over that chain link fence while kids and staff stood frozen-- basketballs and tennis rackets in hand.

She hit the concrete and just kept going.

We called the police and they found her, claimed her. Then a family member claimed her too …
but only briefly.

I thought she would have come back to us by now.

Because she usually calls to “check in” around this time of night, when the lights go low and the anxiety turns way up. We always answer, pass the phone, and encourage her. We ask her where she is and what she is up to and is she taking care of herself? She tries her best to shock and stun us but there is nothing new under this sun and we simply stay kind and objective.

We remind her all that she learned here.

And then she asks if she can come back.

But she hasn't called lately.

And I am surprised by this--

because she was six the first time she moved in and I wonder if this place, though sort of sterile, was the best place she ever laid her goth-black hair. She lived in nearly every room on this hallway and bits of her-- like that burnt, smelling popcorn-- are scattered all over, hidden in cracks.

Often here for a year at a time, she passed full seasons and stages of her life on this hallway.

In the piled-high 'donations' room there is box labeled with her name. Every time I rummage through that space I catch a whiff of her: loose papers with dark words, worn through black jeans, black composition books, black spiked belt, sketchbooks in black ink that make me wonder if she ever drew a rainbow or an apple tree ... or a puppy.


And there’s the baby doll-- the one we gave her at Christmas when she admitted she had never owned one. She painted that baby’s fingernails black and tattooed her fat little arm in ink on the night she unwrapped her.

And then she carried that baby everywhere.


She ate good food here and she slept in safety. She went to school and worked through near-debilitating trauma. With all-star therapists and lots of time, she waded through her past in safe space. Her countenance softened and she stopped wearing black around her eyes.

We cheered her on but she felt unworthy of the praise and every time she made major progress,
she panicked. She was afraid to think of things getting better… for fear they would just get bad again.

During these times we watched her close-- logged her every move on a yellow caution sheet-- because we knew her patterns and how fast she could outsmart us.

And more recently I find, in a pile of girl- things labeled MISC: a black underwire bra with no wires.
I assume it is hers, because she just wasn’t safe and we had to take every precaution. Despite all our efforts at safekeeping, that mastermind girl wasn’t daunted by hovering staff.

I'm still typing on the computer and I'm in my head. I'm with her on a night not too long ago. She panicks again and I find her in her room. Follow my gut and do premature check-in. I see what she's done and I grip her hands and grab raw wrists- stinging arms- and escort her to safe room. I scrub her down in silence and wrap her in gauze and then I do what they say not to do.

I plead with her to deal with her "stuff."

I tell her again ... how she has high value, how she is loveable, how she has a purpose and it won't always feel this bad, cut this deep. She drips red onto white tile and paces four steps one way, four the other. Back and forth, over and over. Tears fall hard and saltwater dilutes this wine and in the moment I don't know which is thicker.

She rants about fathers gone and mothers who should have protected from step-fathers. She yells why and she looks right into my soul ... hurts so deep and she is numb to tears and sting alike. I am feeling it for her and I have to turn around for a minute and breathe. Because there are no good answers and I can’t cry like this and how do I stay therapeutic with my mother heart bursting?

I just want to hug her tight.

But this girl doesn’t do hugs and the hurt is here for the taking-- wide open, visible, gushing--

only I'm not the one who can bear this burden.

And in this room I pray she might meet the One who can.

But that was then and she isn't under our roof tonight. I wait to clock out-- hoping the phone might ring and I wonder when this grand chase will end. She is a fugitive and I know full well that she is wanted.

WANTED

The news has moved on to other news but I am static, praying the Hound of Heaven on her heels.
She is on the run and being pursued. If she only knew by whom, this charade could cease.

I stand up to go and I call to her in a whisper … “Come home, girl."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are on the run, I pray you might cease this game of chase. Run home. And should you chance upon a girl in black,  or any young soul whose appearance may offend ... I pray you might look closely. He/she has walked a long road. Might you see, instead, a young beggar just like you ... and then graciously offer the bread.

if your roots feel shallow...

My earliest memory is walking in the woods with my mother.

On a hill overlooking the Hudson River, we called it the Readout Trail. And I was the youngest of four with five years between me and the third. So when that yellow bus pulled up and drove away with brothers and teenage sis, I had my mom all to myself.

The trail started across the street and catty-corner to our front door. We would step off that sidewalk and dip down into trees, lower and lower... hand in hand. And a tiny-girl memory can be skewed but some things stick in hyper-color. And that green patio awning would disappear up and to the right and out of view as we descended. Together. We would talk and listen and discover.

And growing up all I ever wanted to be was a mother ... like her. Full of peace and that calm quiet trust. And the way she reminded me always that "faith is a gift, Mary Abigail." I would catch her whispering prayers. And she always believed that we were "little people" with little spirits and she didn't usher us out of her presence. She was safe.

And I think on legacy now, this little clan under my roof- and I wonder if they catch me whispering prayers. If they know they are safe with me, that I value the little space they occupy.

Because security in my mother’s space taught me about security in His.

Later when I didn't feel safe in other places ...was sure I took up too much room ... I knew He would not usher me away. And in the years that followed, when I so often chose wrong, I was not afraid to go to Him, grab that tender hand.

When my mother was young, she went to church alone. Her father would drop her off on the sidewalk and pick her up again, at her second-grade request. In all of her growing up, she managed to get there ... to meet Him in the sanctuary. It wasn't until those West Point years, all those years and children later, that she joined a bible study and met Him in the Word.

And I wonder about this too. How does a person with little spiritual heritage find one? Aren’t' we all bound up in family roots and how does a new root spring up from a place where there wasn't one?

Cara and I, too, have been woods-walking since she was tiny. A part of me feels compelled to get out there and hold her hand under the trees. But I know she is logging her own memories-- not recreating mine. And from what I can see, this Jesus heritage we are passing on is so very young and I fear we won’t get it all right.

And I rest in knowing that He knows how far it reaches. Perhaps all I need to know is that we- right now and everyday- are reaching straight to Him.

From there we are grafted straight into His heart and this family tree becomes ever-so-simple ... and  beautifully complex…

us claiming Sonship from the Father direct while we join the most beautiful expansive picture of family.
Far and wide and ever reaching-- binding soul-branches all over the globe to one singular Tree.

As we walk these tree corridors I ask to be a little more like my sweet mother, and a lot more like Him,

because these days are vibrant and they will stick in little girl minds.

I ask for grace and peace, kindness, goodness—



and I ask that this little girl's reach, because of her roots, would extend far beyond this little family line.

if you need a change of scenery...

There are days when you just have to get out of the house. Not away from the people, necessarily, but out from under the roof. Today I'm tripping over plastic pirates and diving to rescue tiny gold chests and parrots from toddler grip and that ever-slobbering mouth. The cheerios have overtaken me and an ant or two have come in from the rain. I redirect them to the strawberry jelly under the highchair and go about my business of picking up baby dolls, dinosaurs, and tea cups. Did I mention the cheerios and how do they migrate to every room!? The couch cushions are off again. Pride Rock is in my living room. Someone is unclothed and growling at me from the armrest; the nightgowns are in a heap; someone else is smelly...

It is time to go.

Hoping you might find a space to breathe deep today.
Find your home in Him again-- then return to those walls and embrace love.