Bloom Season

Spring is here. Where I live, spring is basically summer, but still. It is the season for blooms. In the several pots on my deck and patio, flowers are blooming. Some have just begun to show their colors after the cold (all right, cool) weather, and others are fading now that the heat is kicking in. One planter in particular is preparing to showcase a blaze of color within the next few days: in it are a gerbera daisy and a geranium side-by-side, their blooms to be deep orange and hot pink. These plants came through the winter, to my surprise, and I am excited to see their little buds and the small beginnings of petals.

Enter my daughters, nearly-four and one. They have a wading pool on the deck. They have a hose with gushing water. They have buckets. Do they want to play with these things? No. They want to pick flowers. 

At first, I ask them not to. What a reasonable request, right? The few blooms on the geranium are gone within about three trips of my one-year-old from the plant to the pool, where she is dropping the flowers one at a time into the water. They look pretty when they float. My last hope is the buds on the geranium that haven't started to open yet (they aren't showing any pink, so maybe my daughters won't see them). The single bloom on the gerbera daisy, I know, is doomed.

The gerbera daisy has a blooming pattern that I have found requires patience. It produces about one to three flowers at a time, and each bud takes what seems a painstakingly long amount of time to open completely. Once the blooms open, they remain for a while, making them worth the wait, but when they fall, there is a long period of waiting again before the next round of blooms appears.

On my daisy plant now is a single bloom that has barely begun its work: tiny petals extend from the center, pale orange and narrow, like squat embroidery needles. I know that in a few days' time, the petals will stretch, unfold, and deepen to their full orange color. I am looking forward to seeing the flower. But my children do not understand this expectation.

I try to explain it to my older girl. Maybe she can understand, but she doesn't seem very interested. She's more interested in the here-and-now (I can't blame her; she's only almost four). She is learning to be patient, but she would rather pluck the flower now, early, to play with it, than wait for it to bloom fully. 

In my frustration at the loss of most of my blooms and potential blooms, I have a choice: I can get upset, yell, and sweep the girls up and take them inside, ending play time with the fury of my dragon-mom fiery wrath (dragon-mom is a real thing), or I can patiently let the children be children. They are exploring. They want to enjoy examining the flowers, picking each petal off and feeling it in their fingers. They want to see how the petals look in the water. They want to play with pretty things. Their actions are not malicious. 

As I sit in the lawn chair, trying to enjoy the outside play time as much as my daughters apparently are, I remember words from Paul David Tripp's Parenting, the book I'm reading with my care group right now. He asks, "Do physical things get in the way of, or create needless tension in, your parenting?" I take a deep breath and look at the flowers. They are, indeed, physical things. They are objects, not people. My daughters are much more valuable than the orange and pink blooms. I can relax. This summer, the world will not come to an end, even if every single bloom is plucked early from my plants. And I doubt even my industrious children could manage that feat.

My children are learning patience, and so am I. Tripp writes that "[i]n every moment as you are parenting your children, the heavenly Father is parenting you." I need to hear this truth: I need God as my parent every bit as much as my children need me as a parent (I suppose even more so). God is teaching me to be patient and gracious with my children, and I am a slow learner. He reminds me here on the deck, as my girls pluck flowers, that the true blooms to wait for are not growing in planters. They are running around naked in the backyard; they are little now, but will be grown-up some day (sooner than I imagine), their deepest, brightest colors yet to be seen.

Petals plucked and dropped on the dirt in the pot.

Peppermint Lemons

Once when I was a kid my cousins from about eight hours away came to visit during the summer. My aunt, who happens to be one of the neatest ladies I know, gave us a special snack one afternoon while we took a break from swimming in the pool in the backyard. She cut holes into unpeeled lemons and stuck soft, fat peppermint sticks (the kind that dissolve easily) into the holes. The candy sticks acted like straws after we started to suck on them, because the acidic lemon juice worked its way inside and made holes through the candy. Those simple lemons became especially refreshing sweet and sour treats through the creative addition of sugary mediators.

My two-year-old daughter came down with a nasty stomach bug this week and was vomiting for a night and a day. She could hardly keep down even simple liquids. Ice chips saved the day that first day of sickness, keeping her hydrated, at least. The second day, she stopped throwing up and was able to keep down some liquids and food, though she was still zombie-like (definitely not her usual, energetic self). The third day, she finally showed signs of returning to normal levels of talking and activity, a huge relief.

Though the first couple of days of her sickness were trying and we lost a lot of sleep on the first night, I rather enjoyed the lazy and cuddly quality the days took on. My daughter and I spent a lot of time situated comfortably on the couch (which I now need to clean), either listening to music or watching a baby animals show, and dozing on and off throughout the day. We both benefited from the catch-up on sleep and rest, and I greatly enjoyed the way my daughter relaxed with her head in my lap or stretched out flat while I rubbed her back. Touch is one of my strongest love languages, and usually she doesn't sit still long enough for me to even brush out her hair.

Uncomfortable, sour-tasting events make us wince, like sucking on a plain lemon. But if we can find something sweet in the midst of the situation, our perspective can change. The hard thing may not go away, and we will still have to deal with it, and dealing with it may not at all be easy. But the flavor of the day can be transformed, even though we still have to eat the sour part of it.

Sweetness in the middle of sickness.

Rest when we needed it.

Cuddles make everything better.

Emptiness of a Clean Manger

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. - Proverbs 14:4 

I like to be tidy and organized. I wish my house were cleaner than it ever is (having a toddler running about making messes defeats my efforts most of the time). I desire orderly days and routines I can count on.

Change? No, thank you. Spontaneity? Only if it's planned.

Whenever there's a trip looming in my future, even just a short drive up to visit my family in a nearby town, I tend to feel stressed. The routines I have established at home will not be there and I am not exactly confident in what I can expect, so I worry. I'm currently in the midst of a travel-intense season, and each trip is for a wonderful purpose (visiting family and relaxing vacation), but I am a tightly-wound stress ball. I know our routines related to meals and bedtime and sleep will be disrupted, and I know emotional strain and tiredness will ensue, and I know there will be messy challenges. Long car drives with four small children (my daughter and three nieces) are hard, and airports are hard. No matter the approach, I know these trips will take lots of flexibility on my part.

In the first half of the proverb about the oxen, I get the sense that the writer is being ironic. How can one have a manger with no oxen? If one has no oxen, then what is the manger for? Of course one must need oxen if one has a manger or one wouldn't have built the manger in the first place. It's an odd image, an empty manger. But the manger is clean. Isn't that appealing? Also, with no oxen, one doesn't have the expense of feeding and caring for the oxen. That sounds easy.

But, as the writer states, how else can a farmer sow and reap an abundant harvest except through the help of the strong ox? The farmer desires an abundant crop, so he puts up with cleaning the messy manger. The benefits of having the oxen outweigh the challenges.

Similarly, if I desire an abundant life, I must deal with the inconveniences that come along with children, a spouse, family, friends, travels, cooking, etc. Relationships are messy, but they are worthwhile. Building a home focused more on flourishing lives than on sparkling cleanliness is frustrating at times, but can influence my family and friends for the better. Travels for the sake of spending time with faraway family and vacations that allow reconnecting with my spouse are challenging endeavors, but they also provide abundance: deep conversations, games, laughter, shared meals, new experiences, future memories, rest.

I could stay home, furiously maintain an organized, spotless house, and never change the routine, keeping the manger empty and clean. However, I would be robbing myself of the abundant life that I can have if I let in that ox, enjoy the feast from the bountiful harvest, and, with a grateful attitude, clean up his poo, perhaps with a grimace on my face.

List 10: On My Wishlist

1. Several books
2. It's mostly books
3. Dreaming of some updates to freshen and lighten the bedroom
4. Dreaming of some beautiful plants and trees for the new yard, though we're not in it yet!
5. Beautiful ceramic loaf pan
6. Christmas with Solid Brass (CD)
7. A couple of board games
8. I'm not joking; so many books! 

As you may have guessed if you've seen any of my posts before, and from this list, I quite like books. My parents tell me that as a little girl, if I opened a gift that came with an instruction booklet, I'd hold up the booklet and delightedly cry, "books!" 

Follow along with the list prompts I'm using here.

Storms and Safety

Well, having closed my chapter as an instructor, here I am now, at home most of the time, doing at-home tasks like laundry, cooking, and kitchen cleaning. For the most part I like taking care of my little world here. A common piece of advice we might hear from time to time is not to get too attached to temporary things, like the little objects one finds to take care of around a house. This is good advice in the sense that we shouldn't rely on material things for happiness, but this approach, if taken too strictly, may also prevent some vulnerability that it might be good for us to experience.

In the past week or so we have had some severe amounts of rain and areal flooding. One night when the weather was particularly bad, my husband and I brought in some of the items from our balcony so they wouldn't blow away. We couldn't bring in the potted plants, and I sat there looking out the window with concern. I just knew that my little precious growing things would be destroyed by morning, either by wind or too much water. When I expressed my fear to my husband, his response (after surprise that I would feel so strongly about plants), was a wise one. He told me that when he was growing up in the plains of Colorado, every year farmers would plant their crops. They would tend their crops with diligence. They would hope for a good outcome so they could make a living. And every year, it seemed, some magnificent storm would come through and destroy at least one farmer's crop fairly completely. That was just the way things were. My husband reminded me that ultimately, the things we care for and try to protect are not guaranteed to be safe.

Does the lack of guarantee mean that I cannot invest in loving and caring for temporary things, such as plants on a balcony? No, I don't think so. To protect ourselves from all hurt we would have to close our hearts to all love (C. S. Lewis talks about this in The Four Loves). Loving is not "safe."

Jesus treated children and child-likeness (not childishness) with respect. He said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14). He also said that "whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all" (Mark 10:15). Children often seem more fully open than adults are to loving and accepting a cherished thing and also fully grieving it if the thing is lost. In a wonderful memoir called Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel recounts some poignant memories from childhood, one of which reveals the full embrace of unfiltered love and grief that a child is capable of. She tells of her pet chicken:

Speckles and I loved each other. Dad never had to tell me to feed her - I couldn't wait to see her every day. . . . [A]s I marched past Dad's tilty tool shed all I noticed was the quiet. When I got to the cage I saw why: one whole side of the cage was ripped apart, and inside there was nothing but feathers. . . . I turned and ran into the house, . . . and threw myself onto the couch. I wailed and sobbed with such abandon . . .

Could receiving the kingdom of God like a child look like this girl's response to her pet chicken and its death? Should we receive our relationship with the Lord (a thing that actually is guaranteed not to be lost) so absolutely, with such lack of self-consciousness, with such matter-of-fact recognition of the goodness of this relationship and its impact in our personal lives? There is no hesitancy, false humility, or self-conscious embarrassment on the part of this little girl as she loves and then grieves the loss of her sweet pet.

As I navigate life and become attached to little beloved things, whether they be plants or even new family members, hopefully God will be teaching me this child-like loving and, when necessary, grieving. There will be a day, though not in this life, when nothing will be lost again, and the open loving will be completely free. I guess watching my plants go through the windy storm without closing my heart to them is just practice.

Feeling at Home

I recently finished reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L'Engle, called A Circle of Quiet. The book is basically a journal; at least a lot of the writing is taken from L'Engle's personal journals, she explains. While reading any book, I find myself thinking, analyzing, making connections between whatever I'm going through and feeling at the time and what the author is saying, whether through fiction or non-fiction, and in this particular book, thought-provoking ideas abound. My idea for this blog (at least as a starting point) is to take intriguing ideas from reading as leaping-off points and write about my own reflections in response to those ideas.

So, I'll just leap right in! I love the question L'Engle raises after she shares a story about living in a small town and not feeling quite part of the long-standing community there:

But where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anybody ever feel completely at home?

I want to say, "Yeah! Where? Nowhere, really." At least this has been my experience.

Growing up, I used to read every night at bedtime, snuggled into my covers with a cozy pillow and the soft yellow light of a bedside lamp. (I still try to read at bedtime now, but exhaustion often takes over!) The feelings I had during those bedtimes were secure, comfortable, peaceful, at rest, trusting, calm. I've often wondered as an adult where those feelings have gone.

It seems like as children we tend to trust that our parents have things under control and everything will be fine. I don't think these are even conscious thoughts for children - they might just be ingrained, automatic. Then as we get older, of course we gain more and more responsibilities, but we are still at home under our parents' roof. Not too much really changes. For me, life changed most rapidly and drastically after I graduated from college and moved to a new town to start grad school (I had gone to college near my hometown and lived at home for good portions of the time). The day after my college graduation, my parents moved to a new town a good five hour drive from the place I had lived for my whole life up until that point.

Changes: New town, living with my sister and then on my own, new friends, new church, and eventually new (first) full-time job. Perhaps the decision to "move on into the vastness of maturity" had happened, or at least the move had been effected in my life regardless of my choice! There are many questions that one has to ask and actually answer at this point in one's life: Who am I as an adult person? What's my place in the world? How am I defined? These are hard questions to answer.

God's word and prayer, and also many talks with close friends and family, helped me immensely in answering these questions, but I still think L'Engle is right in questioning whether we can ever feel at home in the world once we are aware of the broadness of life, the bigness of the world around us, and the complicated nature of relationships. That feeling of complete security I had as a child at bedtime may not come back in its totality anymore, though I think God grants glimpses of it from time to time.

The most significant way I've seen God grant some feelings of "at home-ness" and stability in my life is through marriage, which I believe is a gift from God that serves many purposes, greatest of which is to show to people a sort of picture of God's kind of unconditional love in a way that is, to a great extent, tangible. Another purpose, I think, may be to show His children a glimpse of the security and feeling of being at home that they can have in His presence both now and ultimately with Him outside of their earthly lifetimes.

The truth is, I don't belong here. Many things in earthly life testify to this truth: I feel despair at the lack of having enough time for valuable things; I am saddened by death, which seems so drastically wrong; I long for something somehow closer.

The longing, the lack of feeling at home, help point to the reality of an eternity beyond this life, and a citizenship in heaven. This verse from Paul's letter to the Philippians is a good encouragement and reminder to me:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20-21)

I am waiting for something different and better, something that cannot be found here and now. The lack of feeling at home in the world reminds me to keep looking forward to my eternal home with the Lord. Then finally those feelings of childhood security will grow again.