right in the middle

It was one of those days. again. Or maybe it was one of those months.... or years. Or maybe it was just my life. I sat listening to four of my five children play the piano for their sweet piano teacher, Ms. Barbie. As each of my children played through their lessons, I felt myself getting more and more irriatated. With each missed note, I felt my frustration grow. We were playing staccato when we should be legato. Our eight notes were quarter notes. Our finger weren't curved and we needed haircuts.

We are a very average family. No special talents except burping and making great big messes. Sure we're gifted in our own special ways...we are very loud people, we have an aversion to naps and we don't like canned spinach. Pure talent.

The more I listened to my kids plunk on the piano, the more I realized how lacking we are were. The simple request our sweet Ms. Barbie ask is that we practice five times a week. How hard is that? We have seven days in each week. We homeschool. We are home. Our piano is at our home. We live and sleep in our home and did I mention we homeschool? So, it should be a natural and easy relationship. Somewhere in in each of the 24 hours that make up the day each of my four children could find a 30 minute window to PRACTICE. How hard is that?

After each child finished their lesson, I looked up at them and forced a smile and sank back into a deeper depression. We were sorely lacking. And besides that we needed hair cuts. Ms. Barbie didn't let on. She is amazingly positive and lovingly corrective. In our eleven years of weekly lessons, she has never raised her voice or hinted at a smidgen of resentment. She's never ripped their piano music into shreds and told them to take up yodeling. She's amazing. Ms. Barbie would be my idol (if I had idols). I want to be like her. Patient. Loving. Affirming. Kind. Always pushing for excellence. She smiles a lot (not forced like mine) and she's bubbly. She's such a weekly example to watch her tenderness and joy each week. I don't know how she does it. It's a gift. Pure talent.

As I sat there, I made a mental notes to set up a counseling appointment with Ms. Barbie and this would be my agenda:
1. to ask her how she stays so patient and would she be my personal mentor to help me be more patient, loving, affirming and kind
2. to ask her to finish raising my five children because they deserved her more than me...and besides that she would make sure they practiced the piano each week and I know that she would make sure they got haircuts

This was a great idea and it made perfect sense to me. So as I packing up my delinquents to leave, instead of my well thought-out agenda, I blurted out with a tears in my eye " I'm a failure and can't get it right and should I just quit"? ( just so you know...I have great self-control and waited until the kids had left the room).

Ms. Barbie simply replied, " You're right in the middle of it all".

"What...?" I replied, she obviously didn't hear the desperation in my voice. Nor, did she understand what I had said..."I should just quit!".

"You're right in the middle of it..." she again repeated. "You can't see the end yet because you're still in the middle. All you can see is today, you need to look at the end".

I was personally hoping for a little more of a counseling session. I needed at least another 3 hours with her to confess all of my faults and failures...I had just started my list and I had not yet asked her to take over as my children's mother to help me out with all of those missed practices. I had never heard her burp, maybe she could fix that area as well.

As I left, I took to heart this older friend's advice: Look at the end.

I was consumed with all the work of raising a family. I couldn't see pass the missed practices and the wrong notes and the outgrown caesar cuts. I was looking at the things that weren't perfect. And believe me, if I tried I could fill a college-rule sheet of paper front and back. And the longer I thought the longer the list grew.

My focus was misplaced. It was on achievement and perfection. Oh...the dream to have it all. Perfect children. Perfect humans. Perfect weeks with perfect piano practices. That was my struggle and the source of my frustration, I was looking at all that we weren't instead at looking at what we had and where we were going.

I started the car and glanced in the rearview mirror to back up and I saw something that stopped me. It was my child. My adorable cute, shaggy haired child. I could see in his eyes the pride of music that his eight year-old fingers had just created. I could see the joy on his face that he had pleased his Ms. Barbie. He eyes also revealed the expectancy that soon those same hands would be found digging in our backyard to grab what living critters he could find to stuff in his pockets. I looked at my seventeen year-old boy in the passenger seat next to me and realized again that there was no boy left in him. His jaw was squared and he was a music lover who's hands spent hours at the keyboard lovingly pounding out worship songs that filled the rooms of our home. I glanced at my fourteen year old who was quickly leaving boyhood and was just beginning to see the possibilities before him. He hands were discovering the joy of making music to worship as he played the keyboard and strummed his guitar. My eleven year-old's diligent hands were consistently faithful to follow through. And I don't know if he actually had missed many practices...he is a rare one in the bunch who actually does what he's told the first time. And then there was my little five year old girl who loves all things beautiful and lovely. She has not yet begun her official music lessons, but her life is music and song. And I so love the fact that in her short five years of life her world has been filled with the music played by her big brothers.

Yes, I needed to be reminded to look at the end.

And today, I was right in the middle and that's where I wanted to be.

And, now, off to get haircuts.

happy books...

I own a library. Do not ask why. I’m such a wimp when it comes to books. I am addicted to books. I love bookstores, libraries and anything book related. It's a mutual love affair, just look at my bookshelves. We read books to our babies before they can talk. We start with cloth books that become slimy chew toys. Then, we move on to board books, which become soggy cardboard mush (fiber). Our babies beg to read in our laps and we've spent hours at a time combing page after page reading the words they often cannot yet understand.

“See Spot Run” or “ The Cat in the Hat” became favorite books that I now can read with my eyes closed. As babies grow older, we read bigger books such as “Charlottes Web” and “Mrs. Piggle Wiggle”. We read historical biographies and missionary stories. Stories that spark our imaginations and take us to places and times we could otherwise never know or go. Hour after hour, I sit on the couch with my kids lounging around me. I try hard not to fall asleep, and many times I’ve asked the kids to give me a minute to rest my eyes. Eventually somebody shakes me to see if I’m still alive. I wake-up and keep reading.

I love those days. The cuddly, toddler body snuggled in my lap as I take a 10-minute power nap in between chapters of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. The eight and 11 year-olds building Lego’s as I read adventure after adventure. We take a break and I go make a cup coffee and hot chocolate and then the reading-fest continues. I must be honest there are days, when I secretly wished my children could read to themselves. I wondered, if I could hire a professional "reader", so I could do something productive like a load of laundry or take a full nap.

How long the days seemed. Yet, the books cried out and I read on.

Our books are loved, slobbered, and chewed. Their bindings are broken and pages are dog-eared. What started out as beautiful picture book is missing pages that are tapped back into place. Proudly they adorn our shelves knowing they belong and they’ve been read and will be read again. Happy and tired these books sit in their baskets next to the beds waiting for their next venture with the grimy hands that will pick them out. Contentedly they rest, knowing they belong and are loved.

Turn off the TV (OK... you can do it after American Idol) and go grab a book and read it to your children. Keep turning the pages. Don't worry, the laundry isn't going anywhere and sleep is overrated. Read like there is no tomorrow. Work hard to make your books happy…

Happy books make happy children...and happy children who's imaginations are ignited and who's minds are alive and who's hearts burn are the children who will one day change the world.

Go read.

Why I sit here in my pajamas..blogging.

I have wanted to blog forever. Well, as soon as I realized about 3 weeks ago what a blog is. I knew immediately three weeks ago, I would someday blog.

Yesterday, after I dropped off two of my stallions to church (no, I didn't skip, we all went the night before), I did a new-normal ritual and stopped at Starbucks. I needed some study time for a group of middle school kids for later that night. And with a half-caf Americano, I had my ahh-haa moment.

Why not start today? So, sitting there with a new laptop my husband got me for Christmas (he's thoughtful in that way), I sat there listening to Bohemian rap and I began to write. So if the writing is hard to decipher, we can blame it on the rap music...or we could blame it on the man sitting next to me who was wanting to discuss how much the barista's loud voice drowned out the music...or we could blame it on me wanting to cut out caffiene and going half-caf and the blood to my brain was not fully flowing yet...because it wouldn't be that this is all new and I'm not very good yet.

So that's how I started. Yesterday, March 1, 2009 I posted my first blog and now it hangs out there in cyber space somewhere. It's important that you know how I started and it's important that you know where I started.

But why I started is most important. And this is why:

to inspire girls everywhere in their journey to live life fully, freely and fearlessly

to passionately pursue an intimate relationship with God

to be all that He has called us to be as women, wives, and mothers

to embrace our children (and other people's children) with great joy

to nurture others in a way only a mother can and to protect and guard of our children's hearts

to challenge our sons and daughters to live with courage and faith

to inspire them to dream about how they can change the world in which they live and

to draw them into a deeply personal intimate relationship with their Savior Jesus Christ.

Let's dream and inspire others to do so...over a cup of coffee, or tea or my healthy friends, barley green.

43,680 diapers changes in my lifetime. For this I am proud.

I was almost 30 when I had my first baby. It was an unplanned pregnancy, and yes, I was married to the baby's father. Greg and I were in Mexico City leading a team of college students on a 2 month mission. I was a "cat" in a street drama and I did cartwheels over and over each day. That may have confused the normal signs to a woman that she is pregnant. Because, I had no clue.

That summer I had a special love affair with coffee. I loved coffee. Our team ran hard and fast on the streets of Mexico during the day.Then at nights we would minister in little village churches only to find ourselves getting home late and starting all over again early the next morning. The hotel where we stayed served us wonderful cafe au laits at breakfast. My love affair grew. I woke up each morning and that cup of coffee was my carrot. It helped me crawl out of bed knowing that within in minutes I would tenderly hold that luscious 'cup of joe' in my eager hands.

One morning in July, I woke up and for some unknown reason my love affair with coffee was over. Just like that. The coffee stunk. The thought of it made me sick. In fact, just the smell made me want to throw up. I thought possibly the roasters had burnt the beans. Or maybe, my head was caught in continuous "tilt a whirl" from my 29 year-old body doing cartwheels on a daily basis. Or maybe I had a stomach flu. Whatever it was, the coffee I cherished each morning was reluctantly replaced with tepid water bottles.

The nausea continued. I returned to Tulsa to pick up another team and thought it'd be a good idea to check and see if I could get something from the doctor for the dizzying feeling that still lingered. Maybe it was a blood sugar thing. Maybe I was anemic. I'm sure it was something curable, like...stop doing cartwheels. The doctor checked my vitals and took samples of my blood and then had the gall to ask, "Could you be pregnant?"

To be completely honest, the thought had never occurred to me. We weren't planning on a baby at this time...a baby wasn't on the calendar for a year or two. I had too much to do and a baby was not on the agenda.

I sat there appalled. And stunned and unbelieving that he would even ask such a question. The dizziness and nausea came from cartwheels or bad coffee beans or a stomach virus or low blood sugar. Pregnant?

With the busyness of summer missions training and overseas travel, I had lost track of my cycle. I was a no-nonsense type of girl and generally had no pms symptoms. I was responsible. I would know if I had conceived and it would be when I was ready and prepared...and not before.

Pregnant?

I remember sitting in the waiting room as they ran the pregnancy test. I had no thoughts. There was no brain activity. I couldn't breathe. I needed air. I didn't have time to be pregnant. Where was the trash can? I needed to throw-up.

Time stood still as the nurse came to find me..." Congratulations! The results are positive, you are pregnant!" Her words jarred every cell of my 8 weeks pregnant body.

Those words hung. The color left my face and then my skin grew hot. I started sweating like no girl should. She wasn't talking to me was she? Surely, this was a mistake. I was just picking up high school kids for another mission trip. This was wrong. Really, really wrong. Now, I felt dizzy. Really dizzy. The room spun around me and the only rational thought I had was "How could this happen?"

And my second thought was this, "Oh....no, my life is over".

43,680 diapers later. Yes, my life was over in more ways than I could have ever have imagined sitting in that waiting room. But the part that I didn't know, was this:

My life was also, just beginning. Hudson was on his way and so where the diapers.

ps. With each of my next four pregnancies, coffee was always my first jarring to reality. I loved it one day and the next day I hated it. From that point on, before I could take a pregnancy test, my passion for coffee had already had begun it's pitiful, downward spiral as the love in my heart was making room for another... another much sweeter, another much cozier and one much more yummy than any cup of coffee!

pss. I still love coffee, but I'm not pregnant!