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.

When What You Have to Work with Is a Tangled Mess

I've been knitting a lot lately. Sometimes the yarn runs smoothly from the center of the skein, like it's supposed to. But sometimes, the dreaded tangle appears. It may be small at first, just a tiny snag in the straight line of yarn, but usually at such a warning sign I sigh in frustration. I know what is coming: a tangled mess that interferes with my serene knitting experience. It takes more time to clear up the tangles and get a length of workable yarn than I end up spending on the knitting itself. By the time my brief window of free time is over (during my children's afternoon naps), I've worked my fingertips sore trying to loosen cotton yarn from its matted knots and probably knitted about three rows.

The tangled mess experience teaches me patience, I suppose, sort of like sitting in traffic. Though I feel like I'm getting nowhere, I know that in reality I'm getting closer to my destination. In the car, crawling along at 25 mph on the highway, I am still facing the right direction. I'll get there sooner or (in this case) later. Loosening the tangled yarn, I know I'm freeing the strand I need to finish my project. I just have to let the project take more time than I had anticipated.

Knitting and detangling yarn is like investing in a relationship; let's say a marriage. The yarn you're using is the yarn you have. You already bought it and you've tied it in little looping knots onto your needles. You've committed to it and you've already put some amount of work into completing the desired object when the tangle appears. That tangle stops you in your work and you face a choice: work at undoing the tangle so you can keep going, or cut your losses and start over with a different skein. I've personally done both. With knitting, the stakes are pretty low, in terms of cost: a skein of yarn is pretty cheap. But with relationships, the cost is higher: the value of a person cannot be measured.

In marriage, you've already committed to a person, through vows and through building life together to some extent before tangles appear. Your spouse is knitted to you and your two lines of yarn are now inextricable. All people have tangles (both spouses have nasty knots that will appear at some point). The question is whether to work on the tangles or to cut the yarn and lose the work you've already put into your pattern. The two of you together form a knitted project, and you build it stitch by stitch one day, one decision, one meal, one conversation at a time.

You can't cut off the person you've tied yourself to or all of your hard work will be lost. You can be assured that any other person with whom you might start again will have tangles, just like this one. The two of you must stop in the midst of whatever work you're doing and untie the knots together. It might feel like a waste of time. You may think you're not making any progress. But if your project, the pattern the two of you are building through your whole lives, is ever to be completed, you have to take the time to face problems and work on fixing them.

Marriage is good at showing the tangles of our lives, our personal messes and failures, and forcing us to stop and sort them before going on. It feels slow. It feels tedious and painful. But it's worth doing because the very fibers we need to complete our work are hidden in that mess. We just have to free them.

My current mess.

Special note:
I have seen, through the example of someone close to me, a time when a marriage cannot go on and the yarn has to be cut. I will simply say this: a marriage involves two people and it requires both to willingly remain in order for it to continue.

Obedience: True Freedom

January seems an appropriate month to write about change; the expectation of welcoming a new baby to the family within the next few weeks makes it even more so. In The Young Unicorns, Madeleine L'Engle has some challenging thoughts about change and acceptance of our roles in life. She argues that "only obedience . . . is perfect freedom." At times it seems counter-intuitive, but perhaps accepting our roles and what is demanded of us does provide a sense of freedom in our lives.

One of L'Engle's main teenage characters, Vicky, struggling with change, complains to her father that she wished they had never moved from the country to a big city. Her father responds that "we aren't free to remain static, to refuse to change. That isn't freedom. That's death." L'Engle is not arguing for change merely for the sake of change; rather, she suggests that when requirements are placed on us, we must respond appropriately, which sometimes requires great change. A wise and trusted Rabbi in the novel states that "to be demanded of gives us dignity." Refusing to respond is not freedom, but "apathy," a loss of one's humanity.

Sometimes the demands made on us seem trivial or less prestigious than what we could be doing otherwise. I can relate somewhat to Mrs. Austin, a mother in the novel, who gave up a singing career on stage when she married and had children, choosing instead to work in her home and be present with her family. She herself does not view the change as a lessening of her potential or a waste of her talents, though others think so. Instead, she sees it as one of those necessary changes placed upon her by the demands of life. From L'Engle's perspective, these demands come from a sovereign God who ordains the plans for our lives and requires us to respond humbly with obedience.

Staying home with small children, changing diapers, sitting still and nursing a newborn for the better part of the day, interacting with a two-year-old and her baby doll as though that baby doll were alive, cooking, grocery shopping, folding laundry, and taking naps may all seem like small and insignificant tasks when compared to the types of work that are generally lauded in our society. We value intelligence, creativity, ambition, hard work, and making a "mark" on history or leaving a great legacy. These are fine things. A quiet and simple life is also a fine thing (1 Thessalonians 4:11). I struggle with change, like Vicky, when new chapters begin in my life. Having a new baby gives me trepidation (to put it mildly). I need others to remind me, and I need to remind myself, that the demands of life can bring dignity and freedom when I accept them obediently, setting aside my own agenda and routines.

Since a loving and good God sees fit to place on me the demands of new motherhood, I should accept the changes brought by the newborn with as much flexibility and energy as I can muster, rather than stubbornly kicking at the goads, as it were. Whatever the yoke He places on me, He's taking part in pulling with it as well (Matthew 11:28-30); what a wonderful promise! What restful and dignified freedom, to do my work actively with Him rather than struggling in vain against it.

Homemade Mistakes

The other day I was able to finish sewing my toddler a new dress. I've made a dress using the same pattern before, so the process was not completely new to me, but I'm still no expert seamstress. While I was able to sew comfortably without making as many mistakes as the first attempt (during which I had to rip out many seams and start over many times, as well as contact customer service for the pattern I bought to ask a question about how to do one of the steps), I still could not execute the project as cleanly as I would have liked.

When sewing the slightly puffed sleeves onto the dress bodice (one of the most finicky parts of the dress, along with the dreaded placket), I could not get through without puckering parts of the bodice on the front of the dress. I had to cut out one part and start over, but then the same thing happened again anyway, and then again with the second sleeve. Frustrated, I held up the dress to my face to examine my error and sighed. Should I cut the threads and start again, probably with the same result?

pucker one

pucker two

before hemming

In a moment, I decided to leave the mistakes as they were and abandon my impulse to make the dress look "perfect." The dress is homemade, after all, I told myself. It has more character with a bit of mess-up in it. And who's going to notice these small puckers once the entire dress is complete and my goofy, friendly, sweet daughter is inside it?

Homemade life, by which I mean real life (not magazine or Instagram or Facebook life) has flaws. As much as I want to be in control, organized, and on top of things at all times, I'm human. This lesson seems to return to me over and over: I will make mistakes, it's fine to make mistakes, and mistakes can even be good as they teach me important things. Making mistakes shows me and the people around me that I'm a person just like everyone else; mistakes invite openness and trust. Can people be comfortable with someone whose life is essentially a Real Simple photograph?

Furthermore, as my mom always told me (and as experience has shown to be true), people aren't looking that closely at me; they are too busy worrying about themselves! If someone is getting close enough to see a tiny pucker in my life, I am probably returning the favor and we are having a constructive chat about our problems. If that person is secretly judging me in private, then it's not my problem at all.

However, if someone does look at my life, flaws and all, I hope the sweetness of the heart of Jesus can overpower any impression of my personal faults. I'm not perfect, nor can I be in this lifetime, but Jesus told His disciples to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The perfection of God's intentions, desires, mindset, and plans should be visible through my own motives, mindset, and actions, even though I mess up. The puckers and ripped seams are mine; the finished beautiful garment, which will in the end be perfected (Romans 8:22-30), is God's.

Charm Bracelet Wisdom

I have a charm bracelet somewhere. It's silver and jingly and a bit too heavy to wear comfortably. All those memories! The problem is that I can't find it. Since I cannot remember the last time I wore or saw it, I am not sure if it would have been packed into a moving box from my college days, from the time my parents moved from my childhood home to a new city, or from one of my many moves since getting married and living in three different cities and several apartments. Is it tucked away in a little white cardboard box with gauzy padding? Is it hiding at the bottom of a drawer underneath assorted items unrelated to jewelry? Did I drop it in a random parking lot?

If my charm bracelet had been a staple part of my daily ensemble, I doubt that it would now be lost. It is such a noticeable piece to wear, due to its weight and the sounds it makes, that if it had fallen off somehow, surely I would have been aware immediately and been able to pick it up. During each of my many moves, it would have been packed with care and attention. I would have been able to unpack it and wear it again after settling into the new place.

The silver charm bracelet makes me think of the proverbs that compare wisdom with silver, gold, and jewels. Wisdom, personified, speaks:

Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. (Proverbs 8:10-11)

Wisdom and knowledge in themselves are more precious than tangible, physical wealth. Additionally, what results in a person's life because she seeks wisdom is more precious than riches: 

My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. (Proverbs 8:19)

What are the results of seeking wisdom? Proverbs 8 mentions many qualities that wisdom possesses, such as nobility, truth, insight, strength, justice, and righteousness. To wrap it all up, wisdom declares that "whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord" (8:35) rather than "injur[y]" and "death" (36). Yes, life and favor from the God of the universe seem more valuable than silver! I would like to find those things more than my missing charm bracelet.

Proverbs further explains that the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (9:10). The way to start seeking wisdom is to revere and acknowledge the sovereignty of the Holy God who made us and knows what is ultimately best for us, trusting and submitting ourselves to His loving care. But Psalm 111:10 suggests that the fear of the Lord is not just a decision to be made in one moment and then forgotten:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

To seek and to attain wisdom, we must continually practice the fear of the Lord. It is an ongoing choice we must exercise as we make decisions, talk with people, and work at our jobs. The fear of the Lord should be part of the daily ensemble with which we dress ourselves. "His praise endures forever," and we can make our lives a part of that forever praise.

It is a big challenge to daily practice the fear of the Lord in my own life, with a toddler and a house to keep up with, and when even getting enough sleep is difficult to achieve. But I know that I don't want my relationship with God, and the wisdom and blessing that come with knowing Him, to be lost in a box somewhere. I want to keep these precious things close to me, like a piece of jewelry that I wear every day. I want them to be so habitual that if I drop them, I notice something missing. I'm praying that God will help me see the small and simple ways throughout the day that I can seek and honor Him.

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.

Hold Her Hand

The Texas mountain laurels are blooming right now. Full-grown, they are gorgeous trees covered with purple blossoms that make all the air smell like grape sweet tarts. Wouldn't you want to be so beautiful if you were a tree?

photo courtesy of Matt Kolodzie

A few weeks ago, I held my daughter's hand as she took tenuous steps along the rock border of our small raised garden bed. Seeing her watch her feet and carefully step so slowly reminded me of something that happened to me about seven years ago, when I was in grad school and feeling extremely unsure of myself as a person. During the Christmas break I visited my mom and dad and went to their church for the Christmas Eve service. There in the peaceful sanctuary, when it was time for Communion, we had a silent, individual prayer time. My prayer went something like:

God, I know I need to be more like the woman who twirls around in big, flowing skirts at the top of bright green hills with blue skies all around her, her face shining as she looks up and laughs at the clouds. She's so exuberant and full of life. I need to be like that, and I'm not. I don't trust You enough. I'm so anxious all the time. 

Suddenly, in the midst of my insecure ramblings, a vivid picture came into my mind. It was a picture of a small girl wearing dark-colored clothes that fit her well but were not flowing skirts. The girl was walking along a pathway that wasn't lit very well, and the whole background was fairly dark, too. The girl was holding a hand, though. She was taking steps slowly while holding a hand whose owner was not visible. God reassured me with this vivid picture by telling me that, though I was going slowly and might not have an outgoing, exuberant personality, I was trusting Him and walking faithfully as the woman He made me to be. That careful woman was just as beautiful as the spinning woman on the hill.

When my daughter walked along the garden border taking slow, careful steps, she was trusting me to catch her and to guide her in this new adventure she'd just discovered. She was being completely herself and completely lovely in doing so. If she'd been running along recklessly, I'd have been a bit frustrated, and she probably would have hurt herself.

Some people are quick to settle in, establish "roots," find their niches, make friends, and adjust to new roles. Some are slower. The Texas mountain laurel is notorious for being a slow-growing tree that may not bloom for several years after being planted. We have one in our yard that we planted almost right away when we first moved to our new house in our new city. It's been a year now, and there has barely been any new visible growth at all, and certainly no blooming. My husband told me just the other day, when I was feeling a bit down regarding my ability to feel settled in my life as a new mom in a new place, that I was like the mountain laurel, slow to become established, but with potential for beautiful blossoms after a time.

Looking closely at our little slow-growing tree, I can see some brighter green new leaves at the ends of some of the darker green branches that have been there for a while. When I look closely at my life, I can see improvements and growth - perhaps small, but there nonetheless. Praise God, who always holds my hand, for causing all kinds of growth, whether fast or slow, big or small, joyous in purple blooms or deliberate in tender stems and leaves!

our small mountain laurel

Covenant Marriage: Freedom to Fight, Fight to Freedom

I first read about the concept that covenant marriage provides great security for the spouses in Timothy Keller's excellent The Meaning of Marriage a little more than three years ago, when my now-husband and I read the book together during our engagement. But I've never experienced the truth of the idea so explicitly as when, recently, my husband and I went through a couple of difficult weeks during which we got into a nasty pattern of fighting and being angry with each other over some fairly insignificant issues. I suppose that after three years of marriage we have reached a point where we are each trying to figure out what marriage and parenting look like and how we should navigate our relationship through the little trials that daily life brings. Sometimes, as I'm sure every married person knows, tension, tiredness, and frustration can spill over into shouting and resentment aimed at your spouse.

When this pattern of anger happened between us, my husband and I felt confused as to why it was happening and how to fix it. But we did not feel confused about one thing: we are married, which means we have a committed covenant relationship with each other. And that reality is not going away, no matter what we might feel. Having a covenant between us means we are not in this relationship "at will," leaving a back door open for either party to walk out. Instead, knowing we are together as long as we both live means we aren't thinking of leaving as an option. The only option is to work it out.

As we struggled through our bitter fights, we periodically reminded each other that we were still married, and that we still loved each other. I can tell you that we did not feel in love at the time! Far from it. But hearing those words, "I am with you. I do love you," from my husband meant that I had freedom to be myself and work through our fighting and the terrible emotions we were both experiencing without fear of abandonment. There is amazing security in the covenant.

However, the covenant commitment also means that we did not want to stay in our pattern of anger for very long. How awful would it be if we felt anger with no positive change or hope for the rest of our lives? Instead of resigning ourselves to the "fact" of our emotions, we recognized that, precisely because we are committed, we needed to work to make things better. What worked for us in this case was simply setting aside our complaints against each other for a time (not to sweep them under the rug, but as a temporary "truce"), and focusing on being affectionate through basic things like encouraging words and hugs. Maybe this sounds too simple, but it has been helping us. As we let ourselves (through choosing every day to be affectionate) have a break from the habit of bitterness, we found ourselves being more and more able to productively talk about what had been bothering us. Fighting to maintain affection is possible, and emotions can be chosen, though not always easily.

Let me say as a final note that my husband and I believe covenant marriage truly works only when God, who created marriage in the first place, is a party in the commitment along with the two spouses. In such cases, marriage is truly the best blessing and the biggest way God can shape a person into being more like Himself.

The Hinge

She works - silent, invisible -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

The children move her
back
      and
forth;
she pivots, affixed to
their flexing muscles and electric minds.

Her husband - standing still -
      stills her.
She has so tightly pressed into him
that an indentation in her own shape
now marks him.
Except he splinters, or
she erodes, they are an inseparable
      one.

When she wearies - sore -
she groans, complains, yet still turns.
What she needs:
      free
      cashmere touches,
      free
      orchestral words.

With or without,
she remains - moving and working -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

List 26: Books I'd Like to Read This Year

1. How Right You Are, Jeeves
2. 7 Women
3. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
4. The Aeneid
5. All the Light We Cannot See
6. Dead Wake
7. Middlemarch
8. Orthodoxy
9. Jane Eyre
10. Go Set a Watchman
11. Portrait of a Lady
12. The Hollow Hills
13. The Last Enchantment
14. Miracles
15. Anne of Green Gables
16. And Then There Were None
17. The Count of Monte Cristo
18. Bird by Bird
19. Van Gogh: The Life
20. The Jane Austen Guide to Life 

Authors are listed in my photo. I'd actually already made this list before the new year started, with eager anticipation. So far this year I've listened rather than read, and I have enjoyed it! Also, some of these books are old familiar friends I plan to bring out into my new place to make it more a home. You know how reading favorite books again can uncover sweet memories? I'm hoping that remembering will facilitate the tender cultivation of new memories, too.

List 16: Places to See in Your Town

Yes, I've missed a few days of lists, but I have a pretty good reason! Incidentally, this list topic is quite timely, for the same reason. And that reason is: We've moved! I'm currently sitting in the new nursery in our new house with the baby while my husband does some unpacking before starting his new job on Wednesday. This weekend has been long and tiring but also fruitful! We thank God for providing so richly for our family and we can't wait to sink our roots into the soil here.

Now for the list. I bet you will have a hard time guessing where we have moved based on this list. (Not.)

1. The Alamo
2. The Riverwalk
3. Natural Bridge Caverns
4. Pearl Brewery
5. Witte Museum
6. King William Historical District
7. Fiesta Texas
8. Sea World
9. San Antonio Botanical Garden
10. San Antonio Museum of Art
11. Aztec Theatre

My list includes some of the well-known places; I'm not familiar enough to have local favorite hidden spots! Hoping that soon enough that will change.

Keep up with my list prompts here.

Christmas Beauty and Home

This week I've been reading a devotional based on Christmas carols (if you know me you know I love Christmas time!). Yesterday's was about being home for Christmas. Last week marked my return to my little apartment with my husband after being six weeks with my parents in a different town. It's funny how different these two places are, and yet both feel like home to me. 

I'm at home with my husband because this is where he is, and he's my closest friend. He knows me better than anyone else. Here is my cat who has been with me through all the ups and downs of grad school, teaching, moving a few times, and having a baby. Here is the little balcony with the little plants I like to care for. Here are all of the books, familiar friends, that have stayed with me even since childhood. 

I'm at home with my parents at their lovely house because, as you know, one is never too old to be welcomed and cared for as a daughter or son. My sister and I can always relate as we used to when we lived close to each other; our relationship is only richer with age. 

No matter where I am, where those home-cozy feelings wrap me up like a worn quilt, the place and feelings are only a tiny glimpse at the true home I have in heaven. Christ has made the way for me to be brought home to my Father as His own daughter, welcomed and cared for. My relationship with Him is based on all that Christ has done rather than my own failings (or successes!). What a home. 

At Christmas I always feel a deep longing that is difficult to express in words. It's something about the beauty of the trees, the lights, the eggnog and mulled cider, the cookies, the gifts, and the music. All of these evoke that sense of home that I know will be truly fulfilled when I get where I'm ultimately going. 

Out of the Laboratory

. . . spent so much time in laboratories that the world when he came out seemed to dazzle him, so that he walked slowly, lifted his hand to screen his eyes and paused, with his head thrown back, merely to breathe the air. - Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Most days I stay inside and take care of a baby. My laboratory consists of a nursing spot (the couch and a well-placed pillow), a changing table, and a laundry station (have to keep up with those cloth diapers!). But on the weekends, when my husband is home, we like to enjoy some variation in the routine. This morning we took a walk and I decided to document my own "out of the laboratory" experience. Taking time out of the normal structure of things is crucial if I want to continue to endure the ho-hum nature of the everyday! Being outside in God's fresh creation is especially rewarding.

Ready to embark.

She's not too happy about the bright light.

Through the avenue of oaks.

First view of the pond.

Happy walkers.

Light in the fountain.

Overgrown mushroom.

Fishers stand in the breeze.

Watchman.

Tree waves at us.

Looking like firecrackers.

She likes dappled shade better.

Ducks.

I like ducks.

I plan to make time for more dazzling outings from the laboratory soon. 

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.

Known by Name

Names have been a predominant topic of conversation around here for the past several months, thanks to pregnancy. As soon as my husband and I knew that we were expecting a baby, of course we started narrowing down our list of favorite names (which we had already been compiling for some time, because we are planners like that). When we learned we were expecting a girl, then our name decision became solidified. This process of naming seemed to gain more and more gravity with each step. Dreaming of future baby names, narrowing down the list to our most favorite names, then "officially" naming our little daughter and starting to call her by her own name even though she hasn't arrived yet: in each phase, the importance of a name became more apparent to me. It's fun to imagine names when there isn't anyone really being affected, but then as soon as a living person enters the picture and is going to be identified by the result of our decision, the name seems pretty serious! Are we sure it's right?

I'm not second-guessing our choice (which we are keeping secret until our little girl arrives - shh!), but I am struck by the observation that a name can carry so much weight. I don't know if it's even the name itself that brings this weightiness (the meaning of the name, etc.). Instead, I think it's the simple fact of being named. To speak of and to our little girl by name has created a new and closer bond between not only us and our baby, but between my husband and me as well. We alone and together share this knowledge of her; to know a name is to know, in a sense.

This knowing goes the other way, too: to hear my own name spoken by friends, family, my husband, brings a kind of delight. I hope it's not a self-centered pleasure, and I don't think it is. I think it's just the pleasure that comes with the feeling of being known. My husband has a few nicknames and pet names for me, which are all special because they tell me he knows me in a way that's particular to him alone. Also, when he speaks my name I feel like he's speaking me, and I feel like I belong with him.

These thoughts about names have been percolating partly in response to a section in Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (which I'm still reading):

My rightful first name is Jonah, but I had not gone by that name since I was ten years old. I had been called simply J., and that was the way I signed myself. Once my customers took me to themselves, they called my Jaybird, and then Jayber. Thus I became, and have remained, a possession of Port William.

The fact that the members of Jayber's town give him a special name indicates their knowledge and acceptance of him as a part of their lives. He also feels connected and welcomed because of this naming. He knows he belongs in the town, that the town has truly become home.

On a similar note, Jesus prayed to the Father and said, "O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:25-26). We can know God's name: we can know God through Jesus, His Son! God also knows His children and even gives them special names, according to Revelation 2:17. Naming a whole new person who's coming into the world is a small picture of this naming by God, and for that I am thankful. It helps me understand in a new way that to be known by God and to be given a particular name by Him will indicate a true belonging, a true being at home with Him. What joy!

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.