Golden Day of Summer

Today, it felt like summertime around here.  We celebrated our rock star who is soon-to-be-five-years-old with an easy bash at the pool.  Friends and moms and dads hung out, had treats, and cannonballed off the diving board with wild abandon.  We lounged in the water all afternoon, surrounded by sunshine and smiling faces.  Heading home we showered and lounged some more, indoors with screentime for a break from the heat and sun.  Tonight was family night, spaghetti for dinner, a quick Wii contest, and mint chip ice cream for dessert, just to really bring that summertime feeling home.

As I gave Brynnlie Grace her breathing treatment and rocked her to sleep, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for all the goodness we had today.  No sooner had I begun reflecting on how perfectly summery our day was, and how glad I was that we could share it together, than I started to become plagued by guilt and worry thoughts.  Why should I get to be so blessed? How can I enjoy all of this luxury when someone is starving, or grieving, or less fortunate? Shouldn't I be *doing* more with my life, or at the very least, doing a better job of what I am doing?

I stroked Brynnlie's hair and kissed the top of her head.  No, I thought.  I will not be robbed of the joy of this day.  God has given me this life, and it is an incredible gift, and I am meant to celebrate it.  It is OK if I don't spend my life solving world hunger, or looking for grief, or feeling guilty that I have been blessed.  That is the opposite of what he has for me.  I am meant to rejoice in today, and to know God's great love for me, and to look for ways to love those around me.  It is enough.

Days like this one are rare.  All of us will have days that are not so blessed. This is what makes it even more important for me to celebrate the day we had.  Our family.  Our friends.  Our love.  Our blessings.  

This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

There are only a few of them left, you know.  These golden days of summer are fleeting.  I'm making memories around here.  I'm celebrating the goodness of God, the heat of the season and the grace of the moment of life that we are in.  I'm going to remember this day, and I hope my children will too. I'm going to try to do a lot more rejoicing and being glad in the day the Lord has made, and less worrying about whether or not there is something else I am supposed to be doing at the moment.

Loves, friends.  Go grab a golden day.

Bread & Wine: A Recommendation and A Review

One stunning realization that has echoed in my brain since acknowledging that i. am. not. strong. is that my inherent weakness requires that I must care for myself.  I must nourish my body.  I must give myself rest.  I must build up and stretch the muscles needed to carry me through my work as a mother.  I must go to the source of all strength to sustain me, continually.  (If God's grace is sufficient for my weakness, I must learn to understand that grace.)  It would seem these are basic requirements for a life well lived, but they are tasks that have eluded me as of late.  I have skipped so many meals, and given my body a poor excuse for food when it grumbles.  I have not slept when needed, and tried to force sleep when fresh air would have been a better choice.

And then...

Right in the beginning of this season of relearning what it means to nourish myself, I was given the incredible opportunity to read an advance copy of Shauna Nieuquist's newest book, Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table.  As soon as my copy arrived, I tore it open and began to feed my soul from this book celebrating food, love, and doing life together. Shauna's words nourished my soul and fed me something I was hungry for--an affirmation that the little ways we serve our family and friends matter.  The meals made for friends in celebration after having babies or in comfort after experiencing illness or loss, those meals put something of substance where we cannot find words. Bread & Wine showed me that Tasty Tuesday family meals around the table, trying new foods on our fanciest plates, are a way my children and my husband experience my love for them.  It reminded me that Coffee & Muffins morning playgroup with moms is that space--that table as a safe zone--that so many of us desperately need.

"The heart of hospitality is about creating space for someone to feel seen and heard and loved. 

 It's about declaring your table a safe zone, a place of warmth and nourishment."

The most beautiful thing about this book, for me, is the way Shauna's hospitality shines through the pages.  As I read her stories, I feel seen and heard.  Although our stories are different, the feelings she shares are universal.  The association between food and shame, the ways food is tied to both giving and receiving love, and the fears that hold us back from new experiences--these are pieces of each of our bigger stories.  Shauna inspires me to try new recipes, to invite more people into my home, without overwhelming me or making me feel guilty or like a failure because I haven't done it before.  She shares game-changing roasted broccoli and simply and perfectly prepared scrambled eggs right alongside elaborate dinner parties featuring printed menu cards--and I feel as though sharing love through each meal is not only possible, but the only ingredient that is truly necessary in any preparation.

If you are looking for encouragement as a home cook, a friend, a sister, a wife, a mom--you will find it in the pages of this book.  Leafing through these pages, I feel as though I am at Shauna's table.  I am sitting in her safe zone, and it is a place of warmth and nourishment for my heart.  Not only is my heart encouraged, but Shauna opens her heart to me as well.  She brings me into the hard places in her own life, the moments that catch you off guard and steal your breath and don't represent your best.  She shares with so much honesty that I am drawn deeper into her story, and become more wiling to examine the darker places of my own story.

"That's what shame does, though.
It whispers to us that everyone is as obsessed with our failings as we are.
...
Shame tells us that we're wrong for having the audacity to be happy when we're so clearly terrible.
Shame wants us to be deeply apologetic for just daring to exist.
...
But I want to dare to exist, and, more than that, to live audaciously,
in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory,
because the alternative is letting shame win."

Bread & Wine may begin as one woman's love letter to life around the table, but somewhere in the middle it became a beacon shining on my own loves.  It continually reminded me of times where I did more than exist, where I have lived, at my own kitchen table.  My table is a well-worn hand-me-down from my husband's late grandmother.  It is a simple wooden kitchen table that held lovingly homemade dishes every Sunday afternoon for years, served to my husband's family and friends in his grandmother's dining room.  When we first married and the table passed to us, it mostly supported heavy textbooks and bowls of popcorn through late-night study sessions in our college apartment.  The first holidays I hosted revolved around that table, though, and then it was crammed to bursting with friends and food.  I have spoon fed babies there, admonished toddlers to sit still, listened to children roaring with laughter over their own knock-knock jokes, and shared in the first "real" conversations of growing big kids.  Although it is beginning to show signs of wear, I cannot imagine ever parting with that kitchen table; that table is where I have lived.

Shauna's words remind us of the way of food.  She brings us back to our need for nourishment and our need for one another.  The table is one space we share our common needs.  Shauna's invitation, throughout this book, is "Come to the table."  As I closed the book and began to digest her words, that is exactly what I wanted to do.  In my first reading of the book, I was ravenous--so hungry for soul nourishment I could not slow down enough to taste the nuances of each section.  I cannot wait to begin the book again, and this time consume it slowly, as you would a favorite meal that has been lovingly prepared, returning now and again to the table for a bit more of this or a little of that.  And as I reread it, I have every intention of coming to the table.  Bringing my family and friends, and preparing the recipes along the way.  I plan to make Shauna's Breakfast Cookies for playgroup and host a get-together that will involve trying Mango Chicken Curry--a whole new genre of food for my family.  I plan to revisit favorite recipes and freshen up our staples, being mindful and aware of the work that I am doing.

"...there's no replacement for what happens when we make something with our own hands, 

directed by our own senses, 

motivated by our own love for the people we're serving."

I look forward to sharing more of this journey with you, as I try recipes and share moments from around my own beloved kitchen table.  I encourage you to "Come to the table," as well.  Read this book and be inspired to try something new.  Read this book and be reminded of the places you have lived, the food you have enjoyed, the life all around you.  Read this book and be encouraged to love those near you well, by sharing your home, your heart, your food.  Above all else, friend, read this book and be nourished.

May I Never Forget

It's been 19 years...  How can that be possible?  19 years since the dark and rainy April night when I really learned how to put my life in His hands.  Almost two decades have gone by.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  Truly, it is only a blink, a tiny blip on the radar of eternity.

Our days on earth are like grass;

like wildflowers, we bloom and die.

The wind blows, and we are gone--

as though we have never been here.

He always remembers.  Somehow, it sneaks up on me.  I forget what a significant day I am living, but he remembers.  It is grace straight from heaven when he walks through the door, with arms full of those fleeting wildflowers.  Yellow flowers.  Beautiful cascading shades of yellow flowers that remind me of liberty, faithfulness, friendship, happiness.

The Lord is like a father to his children,

tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

For he knows how weak we are; 

he remembers we are only dust.

I am weak.  I am only dust.  And yet the Lord remembers me.  He thinks of me.  He sent a man to be my husband when I did not believe I deserved one.  He sent a man who would remember when I forget.  A man to remind me who I am and what God has done when I have all but forgotten.  

Let all that I am praise the Lord;

with my whole heart I will praise his holy name.

Let all that I am praise the Lord; 

may I never forget the good things he does for me.

May I never forget...  I will remind myself of what it meant to be a fourteen-year-old girl.  I will remember adolescent emotions and hormones and uncertainty wrapped up in too-long arms and legs and feet.  May I never forget that young girl, abused from the start, unsure of how much to take, wondering when she would find the courage and the strength to say, "Enough!"

I will remember her on that night, 19 years ago.  How she felt that day while being berated, enduring the hours of lies and deceit.  She listened to her father's voice tell her she was a liar, she was broken, she was wrong, she was unworthy.  I remember how she struggled against the binding he tied around her wrists.  How her face stung when he hit her. How her resolve strengthened within her as another voice began to rise up from deep inside her heart, combating the lies and overcoming the pain.

The Lord is compassionate and merciful,

slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

...

For his unfailing love toward those who fear him

is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

I will not forget how the promise of that unfailing love filled her heart as she laced the white tennis shoes on those early teenager feet, too big for her body.  How every breath was a prayer as she made her preparations to leave.  I will remember how her heart pounded as she placed her hand on the doorknob, "Trust in. The Lord. Trust in. The Lord."  Thump-thump, thump-thump, steadily pounding so hard and so loud in her chest as she turned the handle and threw open the door.

But the love of the Lord remains forever 

with those who fear him.

His salvation extends to the children's children

of those who are faithful to his covenant, 

of those who obey his commandments!

May I never forget that I am here today because 19 years ago a young girl encountered God in a real and tangible way.  The love of that incredible God filled her fragile heart and broken body with the courage and strength to choose another way.  God gave her the immediate strength necessary to race through the door, out into the dark, rainy night and he sustained her through the years of pain and struggle that bold move initiated. The Lord gave her a husband who reminds her of how great God's love is toward  her.  The same God gave her three beautiful, precious children and continues to extend his grace to those children now.  He continues to faithfully honor his covenant and gently guide her toward his commandments.

Praise the Lord, you angels

you mighty ones who carry out his plans,

listening for each of his commands.

Yes, praise the Lord, you armies of angels

who serve him and do his will!

Praise the Lord, everything he has created,

everything in all his kingdom.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

It's been 19 years for me...  19 years since I placed my life fully and completely in God's hands, walked away from the abuse and out into the storm, and began to walk toward completely trusting him.  19 years of yellow flowers reminding me again of his continued faithfulness.  

Maybe for you, it is still a dark and rainy night.  Perhaps you are trapped and bound and beaten down by circumstances or people in your life.  Maybe you're still waiting and praying for the strength and courage to say, "Enough!"  Today, as I remember the good things God does for me, I will earnestly pray for you that this will be Day One.  I will pray he sends his armies of angels to steady your hands as you lace up your shoes, place your hand on the doorknob, and throw open the door to your future.  It may begin as an all-out sprint through the mud on a dark and rainy night. It will not end there.  I will pray that he sends you an angel who will not let you forget the good things he does for you.  He will be faithful.  You can trust in him.  

May I never forget the good things he does for me.

All Bible verses are from Psalm 103, New Living Translation.

Good Good Good Good Friday

Today is Good Friday.  For those who believe, this day is essential to our understanding of all that is salvation.  It is the real, tangible measure of God's grace and goodness to each one of us.  Any hope of a future with God, any belief that we can be united with him in his love and goodness, any tiny thread of faith in what he has promised hinges on the reality of Christ's sacrifice for us, and our willingness to acknowledge our great need for that sacrifice.  Good Friday is a day where we rejoice that an overwhelming surplus of love and grace and forgiveness has been squeezed out of an overwhelming amount of suffering and sacrifice and pain.  It is a day of reflection, a day to remember that tiny flame of hope in the midst of a darkness where it seems all has been lost.  There are not enough words for us to understand the enormity of this incredible gift.  I am a sinner.  I am broken.  Yet he loves me.  So he gives himself.  So he forgives.

By God's grace, I have called myself a Christian most of my life.  I have believed that "God so loved the world he gave his only son" from a very young age.  I have acknowledged that I am a sinner, that we all sin, that we all fall short of the glory of God.  I have understood that the price for sin is death, even spiritual death that separates us from our creator God.  I have rejoiced that the story doesn't end with our sin, but is interrupted and rewritten by his sacrifice.  I have been glad that Jesus paid this death-price and made a way for us to come into God's kingdom, with forgiveness.  I have tried to walk in love to others because of how great his love is for me.  I have worked to comprehend the enormity of this amazing, unprecedented, unmerited grace.

Yet I have struggled.  I have questioned God's goodness and wondered about the truth of his love.  I have wrestled with a question that so many before me have pondered.  If the Bible is true, if God loves us so much, why on earth does he allow so many awful things to happen?  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life...God's light came into the world, but people loved darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil."  (John 3:16, 19) God sent his Son to save us, and yet evil remains.  When I consider God is offering eternal life and forgiveness to everyone, including those who choose evil--those who have betrayed the trust of a child, stolen her innocence, changed the entire course of her life, or refused to protect her--I am angry.  I question how this can be, that God loves me, and yet allows these sins to go unpunished.

And then I remember.

But he was pierced for our rebellion,  

crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole.  

He was whipped so we could be healed.

These sins have not gone unpunished.  Christ's death, his pain and suffering, not only forgave the sins I have committed--lies I have told, the covetousness of my heart, or the ways that I, like a sheep, have strayed away and left God's path to follow my own.  His pain and suffering, and ultimately his death, was also punishment for the sins that have been committed against me. When I ask, "God, how could you forgive this awful wickedness?  How could you not cry out for justice on my behalf?"  He answers, "I did."  

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;

it was our sorrows that weighed him down.

And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,

a punishment for his own sins!

I am looking for justice, seeking to understand how a God of love could allow such a thing to happen, and it has been in front of me all along.  My weakness, my sorrow, the grief I carry because of the sins committed against me--Christ took the punishment for those sins, too.  How have I not ever seen this before?  He did not abuse me, and yet he bore the whip and the crown of thorns and the weight of the cross in the place of the man who did.  Every swing of the hammer toward his nail-pierced hands bears the weight of the sin and sorrow and grief inflicted upon me.  When Christ is beaten and mocked for crimes he didn't commit, and offers his forgiveness, how can I withhold it?

He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone.

But he was buried like a criminal;

he was put in a rich man's grave.

Although he was innocent, Christ took the punishment for those sins.  For the sins of a sick man, who abused innocent children.  For the sins of a mother, who did not cover her young.  For the sins of a father, who sought only his own will.  Christ was beaten, spit upon, and mocked for the pain and the suffering that these sins brought into my life.  Oh, my beautiful Savior.  Oh, that I might cry out now for the injustice you suffered.  Blessed, blessed redeemer.  Beautiful one who took the weight of shame that I might walk free and at peace.  Your punishment sets me free from harboring a need for justice.  I can let go of the pain from this wickedness, at peace in knowing that you have paid the ultimate price.  

When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,

he will be satisfied.

Let me be more like you, Jesus.  Let me understand greater the depth of your love.  Let me be satisfied by all that was accomplished by your anguish.  Your death has brought me forgiveness for my sins, yes.  But this Good Friday I am overwhelmed by your sacrifice, for you took the punishment for the wrongs done to me, making it possible for me to offer forgiveness, and I don't have to look for answers to those questions anymore.  

This story is very personal for me.  I do not know that I have the words to convey how the Holy Spirit brought this precious realization to my heart.  I do know that I am not alone.  I know that there are others, struggling to believe that God loves within the messy fallout of a broken world.  I know that we all question at times the truth of his love for us.  This world is full of sorrows.  But there is a man well-acquainted with sorrows.  He is not unfamiliar with grief.  Ask him where the justice, love, grace and forgiveness can possibly flow from.  Question how you are to go on, walking in love, under the weight of so much darkness.  This Good Friday, consider the man on the cross.  I believe he will answer you. 

Two Years...

Can it really be two years?  Two years since I first held you, first glimpsed your chubby cheeks and tiny, folded ears?  Two years since your Daddy whispered, urgently, "Grace.  Her middle name must be Grace."  Two years since this song played over and over on repeat and I prayed, "You hold, God. You hold." Two years since you entered the world, purple and screaming and real and finally here.  

Brynnlie Grace, our sweet Baby Girl, two years ago you were born into this life; into my arms.  I remember holding a one-day-old bundle of you tightly to me in the hospital room, sunlight pouring through the second floor window, while a hymn was streaming on the computer.  I remember tears pouring down my face.  Your Daddy wanted to know why I was crying.  I couldn't answer.  I didn't know.

Maybe it was hormones.  Baby blues, coming on strong with this third baby cradled in the crook of my neck.  Maybe it was lack of sleep, since hospital beds never do provide all the rest a new Momma needs.  Maybe it was the fear about how I would manage three kids and how you would eat and if we would sleep and all the many possible challenges that we might face in the next few days, weeks, months, years...  I suppose it could have been so many things.  

But I think maybe, Baby Girl, the tears I cried that day were the beginning of admitting that I have been living a lie for a very long time.  It is a lie that has been a part of who I am, how I have defined myself, and what I have believed for as long as I can remember.  I have been living a lie, and with the beautiful, miraculous, wonderful arrival of you in my world, I am learning how to admit the truth.  

This lie carried me.  It brought me through dark nights and ugly days in my childhood, days that were filled with struggle and abuse, nights where my very soul was torn apart and my innocence was lost.  The lie has sustained me through grief and through chaos; it has bolstered my body through the daily need to just. keep. going.  Somehow, your very presence is helping me to find a way to admit the truth.

For two years, I have clenched my fists and gritted my teeth and still held on, against the wave of emotion that washed over me in that hospital room.  The same emotion that has threatened to unravel me some days, as I have fought an inner battle between holding on and letting go.  I have clung to the lie, but you are teaching me and helping me to see the truth is much more beautiful, although it has tried to bring me shame.  

The lie...  The simple statement I have believed and lived and fought with, the proclamation that seems good, that others affirm in me, the mantra I have needed in order to survive is simply this: I. AM. STRONG.

The truth...  The wonderfully broken and difficult and humbling truth, the truth that brings me to my knees, that I cannot say aloud, that threatens to break me in half when I admit it is this:  I. AM. NOT.

I. AM. NOT. STRONG.

i. am. weak.

As I held you in my arms that sunny January day two years ago, the hymn that played in our hospital room proclaimed, "In Christ alone, my hope is found.  He is my light, my strength, my song," I think somewhere, somehow, in that moment I knew: I cannot live this lie anymore.  It has been hard to speak the truth to myself, and to see the truth as good.  I am tired.  I am weary.  I am not strong.  I am weak.  These true statements make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.

I want to be more for you and your brothers.  I believe somehow that being strong would be better.  Yet the good news about the truth is right there in your name, Baby Girl.  Brynnlie Grace.  Grace.  Your Daddy knew that it must be your middle name, as God whispered this word to his heart that day:  "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV)  

I am trying to believe that I can boast about my weakness, that grace really is sufficient.  I am still struggling to admit my weakness and find my way to grace.  But when I speak your name, when I call you, "Brynnlie Grace" and you smile and laugh and fling your arms open wide toward me, I think I am getting closer.