when the buzzer rings, I get up

I am weary.

Yes, life is good, in the sense that, at any given time, I can list a dozen things for which I am deeply grateful. I am still able to view the world and my circumstances through the eyes of a poet. I can rejoice in sunshine and birdsong, and find good even in sleep deprivation and strained friendships.

But it takes a lot of effort. Someone recently told me that I've been a drag, and although it stung that she would say it, it didn't surprise me. I am literally dragging. It must not be pleasant to be around.

In some ways, I'm okay that she felt that way. I want to be alone. I crave solitude and stillness in which to quiet my soul, listen, receive nourishment from God and the good gifts with which He has surrounded me.

But her dig also came packaged with the insidious suggestion that I should just choose happiness. “Just choose.”

Well, I wanted to say, I've been choosing. It's gotten to be dreadfully difficult work, this choosing. I've been choosing and choosing and choosing. I spent the better part of a year listing over one thousand gifts. I've prayed away anxiety more times in the last couple of years than I can count. I've read Scripture when it seemed bone dry, searching for consolation and guidance. I've chosen music to minister to my spirit. I've read book after book on depression and perimenopause and Christian cheerfulness. I've talked to friends and asked for prayer.

And I'm still weary.

But you know what? When I'm tired beyond my bones, into the depths of my spirit, and my children need me, I get up and go to them. When I'm exhausted and longing for peace and quiet, and the buzzer rings to tend supper or change the laundry, I get up and take care of it. When I can't remember the last time I had enough sleep, and the alarm clock jolts me out of the only complete respite available to me, I get up and start my day. When I'd rather sleep just twenty more minutes, I shower and go to my Bible.

When my children's sweet piping voices pierce my eardrums and threaten my sanity, I (usually) smile and answer calmly.

When an anticipated weekend away unexpectedly falls through, I trust that God has better plans for me.

When a friend's “counsel” sounds accusatory, I believe the best of her intentions and thank her.

When one appliance after another needs repairs, I smile and thank God for a skilled husband and the money for parts.

When a friend incomprehensibly turns vitriolic toward me, I seek restoration.

When the children beg for Christmas decorations and I feel less than jolly, I bring down the box and make room for Christmas (and let them use those awful multicolored lights again).

When the internet connection becomes unreliable for over a month, I read & crochet & play my forgotten guitar.

When the car threatens to leave me stranded in the middle of my errands, I change my plans and head home early.

I am choosing happiness, I truly am. It just might not look quite the way you think it should.

And as much as I would love to end by quoting Scripture, what actually comes to mind is one of my all-time favorite quotes, credited to Philo of Alexandria (whoever he was):  "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."  Which, come to think of it, is not all that different from Jesus himself saying (in Matthew 7:12) that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated.

A friend told me recently that "her" verse had changed as one season of her life began to segue into the next. When I first got on facebook, I posted Galatians 6:9 in that little box that used to be under the profile picture on my own page, so that I would see it frequently and benefit from the exhortation:  "Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  While that verse is still very real to me, a different verse comes to my mind often of late:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Jesus says these words at the end of chapter 11 of Matthew.  The chapter starts with John the Baptist, then in prison, sending disciples to ask Jesus if He is really the Messiah.  I think this ending clinches it.

Jesus saves - from sin, from sickness, from soul-weariness.

I am ready for some rest.

Monday music

Instead of diving madly into my week (per usual), trying to get seven days' worth of to-do done in a Monday, today I am choosing to sit, purposely, listening and observing a bit, soaking in what is before jumping into what might be (and, further, remembering that there's a vital difference between what might be and what should be).

Since my ears are my most acute sense this morning; I'll start there.

I hear ...
... Nice stomping, and slamming doors at her sister
... Lil' Snip blowing on a harmonica and shaking maracas
... piano music on the stereo
... the phone ringing!

I smell . . .
... Comet cleaner where Spice is cleaning the bathroom
... coffee from what's left in my mug

I see . . .
... studious Sugar, practicing typing
... "nap" and "read" on my to-do list
... Tinker Toys as far as the eye can see
... Lil' Snip's ambitiously long Lego "fire engine"

I feel . . .
... comfy crop-length sweatpants
... the sofa under me, weary-seated, but still with good back support
... contentment for the chaos of busy children, home with me
... not hot or cold - thankful for autumnal weather, early

I'm looking forward to . . .
... lunchtime!  (and then - O Glorious Quiet - naptime!!)
... my nap!  my book!
... mid-week visit with sister
... family week in September, when we live outside together
... and further on, a women's retreat and some days in the mountains with family
... much, much further on (I hope), Heaven.

feeding sparrows

I'm looking out the window at the bird-feeder hanging in the crabapple tree.  Lil' Snip had noticed that it was empty, so we got a scoop and carried the bags of birdseed out under the tree and took the feeder down and, scoop by scoop, taking turns, we filled the feeder.  Hung it back up.

And now who is eating that seed?  Sparrows.

My Farmer works hard for a living.  I work hard to be frugal.  I did not spend his hard-earned dollars on birdseed to feed the sparrows.  I bought it to feed the bright birds - the ones listed on the birdseed bag!  I want to see cardinals, titmice, bluebirds, chickadees, an indigo bunting!!!  Even a blue jay!  Not sparrows.

[Not to mention the other-feeding bright birds I want to see, like the orioles who spurn our orange feeder, the goldfinches I can hear but never see, the hummingbird that the rest of the family has spotted, and the nuthatches and woodpeckers that are staying further down in the yard this year.]

It's true, some wrens come, too.  A robin picks up the droppings on the ground.  But mostly we get sparrows.  It's discouraging.

And, alas, allegorical.

Life is like that birdfeeder for me just now.  I want bright flashes of success - accolades from others, children who rise up and call me blessed (instead of showing me the "tips on how to be a good mother" that they wrote, for instance), a husband who brags about me (preferably in my hearing), friends who flock to me for my wisdom and fun nature (sigh), artistic prowess in my chosen pursuits, household & home schooling running like a well-oiled machine, beauty everywhere.

Instead I see brown all around me:  a barely-clean, sometimes tidy house; knowledge of nutrition but not always follow-through; endless ideas born but not matured; thwarted or abandoned efforts at organization; broken and leaking things in all directions.....


"Do everything without grumbling or complaining."  Philippians 2:14
(except blogging, right??  oh wait, I can't seem to find any translations to support that ...)


*sigh*


I, who despise sweaty weather, can rejoice in the cool summer we've had so far.

Because there were no blossoms on the crabapple tree, there will be no apples littering the ground, either.

Although I cannot see the titmice, orioles, cardinals, goldfinches - I can hear them.  Finally, somehow, I've learned their songs.

I am made to run on bursts of inspiration - and when I get a burst, I sometimes astonish even me at what I can get done.  It's okay to rest between bursts.

There is color and beauty around me, when I choose to look at it.

God has blessed my hands to make things.  He is also blessing them to rest from making.

Perennial ornamentals - God's gift to sporadic gardeners like me.

Upholstered furniture.

Fun, wholesome novels.

Others who have walked this path before me.

Truth, a bedrock foundation under all the tumult of overgrowth.

Hope - a gift of vision in the darkness.

And last, but not least, the little brown wren, who turns out to be a beautiful singer!


I can learn to love brown.  I love my colors, but brown, after all, is a color in itself, and perhaps, if I look very closely, and with great patience, I will learn to love all the shades of brown.

in quietness

"... in quietness and trust is your strength ..."  Isaiah 30:15

The children are at Grandma's this weekend.

My Farmer and I are rediscovering some elemental luxuries.  We've completed whole sentences.  We've stayed out after bedtime.  We've been noisy and turned lights on after bedtime!  Slept till the sun & the birds woke us up.  Ate meals in the livingroom.  We've sat in the sun and let time tick by ... 

It's been grand.  I'm remembering, again, the importance of rest, and thought I'd share with you a post from the archives, called "de-throning the Protestant work ethic":

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The past few days should have been restful ones.  Outside of basic homemaking (cooking, laundry, overseeing chores and schoolwork) and a very small handful of "special projects", I have had a good bit of free time.  And, feeling I needed a rest (July was one scheduling crisis after another for this homebody), I spent most of that free time divided between my laptop and my Lazy Boy recliner.

When I occasionally surfaced from my books and my blog, I felt guilty.  I should be spring deep cleaning.  I should be weeding flowerbeds.  I should be taking my children on fun, educational day trips.  I should be freezing corn.  I should be canning peaches.  I should .....

I've been undermining my free time by underestimating its value.

Work is good.  If you never work, you can't truly enjoy leisure.  But leisure is good, too.  If you never rest, you can never truly enjoy your work.

I want to be able to enjoy both, so now that I'm fully rested (after a mind-clearing evening at the pottery studio last night, where I figured all this out), I think I'll go find some work to do.  Seems to me I saw some cobwebs somewhere recently ....

(and when I've finished with that, Frederick Beuchner's sermons beckon....)


[first posted August 2011]

focus

I've had a sore throat for over a week.  I'd had enough by day three, when I lost my voice.  Waking myself up at night coughing did nothing to improve my attitude.  Despite leading a talk on home remedies at our moms' group earlier this winter, I could not kick this cold.

It's Monday, after a full Easter.  My throat still hurts, and I'm drowning in hormones and breaking the yoke in my egg brought the tears this morning and boy, do I want to wallow.

But it's sunny outside, a glorious 50 degrees, and the Brandenburg concertos chirp exhortingly from the livingroom.  My son is bringing me Lego cars, and towers he's built for me.

It's time to re-focus.


Count them with me?

1- daffodils

2- bluebells!!

3 - sunshine & WARMTH

4 - in his own words:  "My stuffy nose is getting better, Mommy!"

5 - a flat tire, noticed close to home instead of halfway there

6 - that a cancelled meeting means a nap for me

7 - the first day of our spring break!!

8 - a filmy scarf from Italy (handed-down)

9 - my husband, calling from work

10 - hot tea for my throat

11 - a prayer for me

12 - one for a friend

13 - courage to ask about crowns

14 - a line-up of Lego creations, all made for me!

15 - his precision in naming colors, already

16 - that color exists!

17 - Glennon being brave on the Today show

18 - anticipating a "drop-in"  :)

19 - curly garlic

20 - tiny bare toes

21 - a boy who asks for snuggles

22 - sisters

23 - laughter

24 - Southern Comfort for a cold (?)

25 - colored glass

26 - shoes for all their feet

27 - wool yarn

28 - crayon art

29 - embroidered tea towels

30 - wooden cutting board

31 - brilliant smile of a cancer-fighting friend

32 - indigo, aquamarine, teal, cobalt, french navy - all the blues

33 - buttercup, sunshine, tangerine, Kubota - all the yellowy oranges

34 - Isaiah, running pell-mell toward the trashcan:  

"I've a fuzzy!! Catch 'im, catch 'im!!"

Well, my throat still hurts, but my heart is happier for the hunting.  God always does show up.

"You will seek me and find me 

when you seek me with all your heart."  

Jeremiah 29:13

pre-victory

I'm in one of those dry, battle-y spots where I keep waiting for the win,
so I can write about it.

But it doesn't come.

And here's what I decided to do:  write anyway.

There's been sickness.  Weariness.  Irrational irritability.  Hormones are suspect.  Flu viruses may play a part.  Brokenness, woundedness, yes.  And at the bottom of it all is the wondering, can I do this??  Really?

Love, I know, is a choice.  Someone told me that, once.  Or maybe I read it somewhere.  Poetic, isn't it?  Bracing in a pleasant, theoretical way.

But then there I am, folding his underwear when I am furious at him for being himself and not the implausibly perfect version of himself I've invented.  Cooking his breakfast when his touch makes me bristle.  Looking at him in the bathroom mirror, trying to smile ....

But look!  Just typing this is tilting the balance.  I can hardly think of what annoys me for the shaming flood of things I realize he does for me.  {And so, once again, the victory comes through a step into mid-air, by faith.  And gratitude, the footing for it all, shows up sturdy.}

He fills the pellet stove daily, to keep me warm.  

(and keeps it set higher for me than he would for himself).

He feeds the chickens in all kinds of weather, trading my kitchen scraps for their eggs.

He faithfully goes to work - on days when he's excited about his job, and on days when he'd rather be anywhere but there - to provide for us.

He prays for me.

He thanks me for breakfast, every day.

He snuggles close at my request, to keep me warm.

He purchased, cleaned, assembled & cleaned again, prepped & re-prepped a site, and cleaned yet again a pool "for the children" (when it was really me, maybe, all along, who so wanted a place to swim).

And he put it in the greenhouse so we could swim pre-season.

He comforts me when I am sad.

He counsels me when I ask his advice.

He encourages me to try new things.

He fixes my washing machine, my kitchen faucet, the wiring in the space heater, and whatever else needs to be fixed - not because he's experienced,

but because he loves us and can learn.

He loves me enough to let me grow, even by making mistakes.

Even when they affect him.

He forgives me.  And keeps loving me.

And there's the win I sought.  Gratitude brings it, as usual.

"Love never fails."

time

Breathe in .... breathe out ....

Two weeks ago our family took a break from life's everyday pace,

to better experience life every day.

For half a decade, maybe, we've been doing this in the fall.

We call it "family week."

We un-attic (& de-stinkbug) the tent ...

... build a fire, and see how long we can keep it going ...

... coffee sets the mood for relaxing ... 

(with an impromptu science lesson regarding coconut oil & cream)

... eat outside every meal that we can ...

... make the most of the new "living space" ...

... learn new skills ...

... smile a lot ...

... firegaze a lot ...

My Farmer took our daughters to the county park to hunt mushrooms.

They also found a grapevine big enough to swing on!

... and a covered bridge ...

One night for supper he made arepas - 

two corn fritters fried with cheese in the middle.

We ate them so hot they burned our fingers.

We didn't care.

Spice & Sugar made dyes from pokeberries, walnut hulls, and pulverized grass,

to color corn husks for corncob doll clothes.

Off on another mushroom hunt, this time in our own woods.

... puffballs ...

... gleaned corn, more mushrooms, and a snail!

Can you see him?

Nice shelling her corn.

... and Spice claims the snail for a pet!

We gathered chestnuts from the treeline, 

roasted them over the fire ...

... and created the Perfect S'more!

... went fishing ...

... looked for beauty in the ordinary ...

... lounged on the hammock ...

All week, we breathed, in & out ...

... talked, read, sat in the sun ...

... drank in the outdoors God gives us for our inner calm.

It stilled our souls,

readied us for "regular" again, 

made it easier to say no, thanks to things that steal our still,

our gratitude re-birthed.

Better than a vacation in the tropics

was this week at home.

glimpses

Just looking closer, these last few days, I see an abundance to spur gratitude in me:

a rock vase, from a friend ...

... recipe dividers made with new markers ...

... a pot of chili to eat by the campfire ...

... one of Lil' Snip's favorite corners ...

... a towel I find eye-pleasing ...

... creamy homemade body butter ...

... the wonder of metamorphosis, every time ...

There is much.  I am grateful.

a curious rest

Today it is quiet in my house.

After my Farmer laced up his work boots and drove off in the Box (our Scion xB), I sat a bit and thought about my day.

I could run errands.

I could lie on the hammock.

I could read.

Or, I could give that door to the garage another coat of paint.

Which I did, my paintbrush stilling my mind to give ear to a sermon on renewing the mind by Bill Johnson.  I wanted to hear more (and don't listen well without activity), so I painted the doorposts around another door, listening to the next sermon in the series.

I scrubbed the sink mats and the kitchen sink while listening to part three.  I washed the dishes to part four.

I drove out for more paint - red, this time, working up my courage for bold color.

Home, I contemplated.  Red - really?  What if I was wrong?  What if it was too much?

[what would my Farmer say?  I asked myself.  He would say - you can always paint over it.]

I dipped my brush into the red ("Wow, that's a lot of red!" the man at the hardware store had said, admiringly, as he added pigment to the can) and ran it along the window frame.  Bright!  I brushed down the side to the sound of Bill Johnson's voice:  part five.

I finished the frame and moved on to paint a door red.  Then doorposts to another door (we have a LOT of doors in our kitchen - nine, if you count empty doorways, too).  Part six.

I took a break to grill a sandwich.  I scraped a screen door (but need outdoor paint for that one) and looked at a new-to-me budget website.  Retired to the hammock to call my Farmer about supper plans.

My day is nearly over, now.

Somehow, despite the work I did, despite the listening, and listening, and listening ... I had a day of rest.  I am still inside - "I have stilled & quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me."  Psalm 131:2

Curious.  My mind feels renewed ...

choosing to see

I must have sneezed dozens of times today, violently, and used dozens of tissues.  The insides of my elbows and knees now boast an itchy rash to match the one on my neck.  Since I'm waking up with red, seeping eyes, my contacts are on vacation until further notice, and my glasses, while far more attractive than the 17-year-old fossils they replaced, are rubbing my head where my head is not used to being rubbed.  My throat is raw from what isn't dripping out my nose, and of course no drippy nose would be complete without congestion to go with it.  The thinner skin on my face reacts to all the pollen by becoming puffy, sensitive, itchy, or all three.  Last night's sleep was interrupted not only by my various allergy-related ailments, but also by a terrific episode of RLS (restless legs syndrome:  if you've never heard of it before, be grateful).

In short, I am miserable.

But ... I am choosing my focus, again.

Here's what I saw, today:

tomatoes, ripening

that precious little face

old books, good books

Ginger the cat, and her new kittens

fragrance of paradise:  lemon blossom

farm boots and comfy crocs

sisters, sometimes friends

fresh duck eggs

Spice and her butterfly collection

Spice's nest and egg collection

terrarium made by Sugar

Carolina wren chicks, hatched in our greenhouse, in a bag of peat moss

"Open wide your mouth and I will fill it ... 

... you would be fed with the finest of wheat;

with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

Psalm 81:10, 16

The beauty is there, and even my tortured eyes can choose to see.  The gifts go on . . .

minutes

It's 8:42 p.m.  In about fifteen minutes, I'll head upstairs to get ready for bed, and by 9:30 (in my ideal world), my head will hit the pillow and I'll drift off to a mother's only vacation:  sleep.

Tomorrow morning I'll get up with my Farmer, approximately half an hour after his alarm rings at 5:20 a.m.  (This is a ten-years' compromise between jump-out-of-bed-at-the-first-ring me and hit-the-snooze-button-a-dozen-times him.)  I'll shower and head downstairs to make coffee, have my first quiet time of the day, and then eat breakfast . . . and another day is off and running.

There's so much the same, day after day.  So little to remark on when someone asks me, "what's new?"  And yet, as a friend reminded me today, it's what we have.  This is the life we've been given, the life we'll look back on one day, in wonder that it was so quickly over.

                    Will I have really lived?

I spend so much time in the past - berating myself for mistakes, shortcomings, regrets - and yet again so much time in the future - planning, worrying, imagining, dreaming.  What about the present?

I wrote out my one thousand gifts.  I do see the present, when I'm thanking.  It's ingratitude that shifts my focus back, or on ahead.

I will make my minutes count:  I will see.  Lil' Snip's twinkling eyes as he learns to make a joke; Nice's beatific smile as she hugs me for no reason; Spice's confident smile, offering to watch Lil' Snip - "he'll be happy after a bit"; even Sugar, crying her disappointment, then laughing over video footage of her beloved little brother.

I will see:  my Farmer, giving up his night out so that I could go (and then both of us happily staying home together); Sugar's knowing eyes as she assures me that I do deny myself for them, and gives examples; Spice's joy to have a doing project instead of a writing one.

I will see:  Nice shyly showing us the motions to a song she learned; Spice delighting in the delicacy of Bible pages; Lil' Snip putting on his sisters' tiara and saying "hansum boy!" to our laughter.

When the end comes, I will have lived.  And, with God's help, my eyes will be open to see all the minutes.

the last gift

Seven months ago, I started a list. 

Twenty-six pages of my composition book later, I am loathe to end it.  I have listed, in the last 200-some days, nine hundred and ninety-nine gifts:  noticings, lifted up from the ordinary into glowing shafts of gratitude, till their origins are obvious:  they are good and perfect gifts, showered down on me from the Father of lights, gift after gift after gift.

Seeing each gift required a stopping.  A stillness.  A savoring so difficult to come to
in life's swirling current.  Each gift was an island of quiet.  

They didn't come gift-wrapped.  No bows to alert my attention.
Some days I wrote nothing down; I never stopped to see.

Other days, craving more proofs of His love, I'd stop a long while
and write out a dozen or more.  I averaged four or five a day.  

How many did I miss, intent on other things?

: : :

My gratitude goes on, whether the list does, or not.
Maybe I'll just stop at #999, to leave room, always, for one more.