What a season... An exclamation point could do here, but at the same time, it doesn't fit. Life has slowed and stilled on the blog front because it seems like the five lives with me in the house are growing and going at race pace with all the regular.... which I know well, is far less for us here than "the regular" stuff and pace of life in America. But it makes me question my own soul- life and rest and growth in me- to see how halted life has been here- where my heart lives, where I love to pour out some overflow in the edge hours, once all the tucking in is done.
My desire and aim for our home is to be a loving, lively, living place.... A place for tender embraces and long looks into other's eyes to listen to tellers tell stories. A place for exuberance and silly and we-live-here kind of messes and hopefully enough manners learned and practiced to keep a mama sane and keep us somewhat doable for welcoming friends to come in. A place for green things drinking in air and water and sunshine, for fresh-baked smiles and licking our fingers, for songs sung loud and for Words written living, deep in our hearts, together. And by the grace of God, I think we do live like this most days... along with the ever-present backdrop of pretty continual bickering. sigh.
This blog hasn't been so loved, or so living. There are seasons for that. And there's grace for that. But I do look forward to cultivating more growth here again. I long for soul growth in me again... for reading and writing and finding and creating beauty, for celebrating living.
I've missed birthdays... I don't think I've ever skipped any blog record of kid birthdays in our home before. But I have now. Isaiah is ELEVEN and Vivian is SIX (she's even memorized A.A. Milne's poem for the occasion). Isaiah had a great crew of young men over to our place for fun games and play and dinner and then they watched Fantastic Beasts. I didn't snap a single picture and I woke up that night like my heart was stabbed when I realized it. Vivian had an "easy party" (for mama's sake) the next day and we took her and two sweet girlfriends to Beauty and the Beast and beef noodle soup for lunch. We even had some of our dear friends over that evening for cake and play to celebrate both of them together... a sweet first.
And my man, my dearest and bestest, my admired and delighted-in husband turned 40. It went completely unmentioned and he's glad for that. We're hoping to get the six of us to some mountains nearby for a first family camping trip and we'll mark it as Dad's (and Mom's since it will be right between our b-days) Fortieth celebration.
The two of us got lunch out -noodles too spicy for the kids to eat anyway- to celebrate our 13th anniversary too. Still can't believe I get to be married to him.
***
When we were in the states, I got to be in a Wednesday morning Bible study with a group of saints and story-tellers and beautiful lovers of Jesus that I came to love deeply. I think it was the youngest one there, who told us, teary-eyed, how her own soul felt a bit lost since she'd become a mama to two tiny ones.
I've been there. (Hasn't every mama?) But after that, for me, I was grateful to return to some more years of growth and awareness and expansion in my soul again. It seems the cycle has come full swing though, and again, the past near-year or so has been a new stage of pruning. Like the branches in our apartment complex that our kids grieved over: "Why do they have to be cut back so much!?" "When will it ever have branches and leaves and fruit and flowers again!?"
Today I cleaned the house and decided I'd let the time spent wiping and washing be restful, take pleasure in the beautifying of this place we're blessed to call home. Let it be slow and enjoy the transformation. No need to race through this too as if efficiency at all things is the only way a thing matters. I planted seeds too, on our patio, that I feel like royalty to get to have here in a packed and run-down city. I'm going to put out the hammocks this evening and watch the clouds.
Tomorrow is another day for work. There will be plenty of it and it is of eternal value and our labor in this is not in vain. This I trust. But a day off is good. God took the day off after he had worked six good days and how can I do any better?
I can't.
Matt told me a few months ago that it seems like I assume a thing doesn't exist unless it's been spoken or recorded... What he noticed was sadly true in me and I need to recognize it's untrue to believe. There is so much in him, in me, in our home and kids and life all around us that is living and growing even if I don't have words that can hold it, a shutter that can capture it, eyes to recognize it at all. Give us grace, Lord, to live it. I want to give all that I can to live every moment the fullest full for God's glory- even when there's no pencil and paper or blog to type on or camera to record it. But too, it is in the naming of gifts, the counting them, the remembering them and celebrating and pondering and recognizing anew... that life is stirred in the depths. It doesn't have to be everything, every time... but a record of graces, a place to ponder these gifts, is for me, itself a place of birthing and beholding life. (HT: Ann V.)
So here's to renewed reading and writing, to some homemade sangria on the patio on another day off, to guitar strumming and listening long and serving each other, and capturing still shots of all this living, this growing grace I'm so privileged to see and to serve.
Now for the rest of this day to be restful in ways that allow for the stirring up of life under the soil in me too.
May it be, Lord, for Your glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment