A Serenity Prayer...

God grant me the serenity....

To accept the things I cannot change...

...like the 7 loads of laundry I've done in the last 4 days.  Like washing all of the bed sheets on Sunday only to wake up Monday morning with Lawson's bed wet from a diaper leak, and Sienna's bed needing new sheets because she was sick to her stomach.


Give me patience with my children during these tumultuous years.  The exhaustion is almost more than I can bear at times.  I'm not just tired physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.  God, no one ever told me it would be so hard just to keep kids alive and nourished and clothed and entertained.  I have no idea what I ever thought parenting would be like...but it wasn't anything like this.

You've "blessed" me with one of the most strong-willed children imaginable.  It takes the smiles of the other three to cancel out the screams of this one.  She cried and screamed the other morning when I offered her a pancake for breakfast, insisting on a donut.  When I found one in the freezer, warmed it up and offered it to her, she told me she didn't want it anymore...

I've had these glimpses, on a daily basis, of what it feels like to be a parent with future-seeing wisdom, and watching my children go down the wrong paths.

I've been challenged by moments of complete chaos...like this week when I was in the middle of changing a poopy diaper only to hear the other kids SCREAMING from downstairs, "Momma come QUICK!!!"  I raced downstairs to find that a mylar birthday balloon had gotten twisted around a ceiling fan that was still running.

I've been challenged by the irrationality of a toddler who will no longer sit down in the bath, by another kid who refuses to let her Daddy put her to bed without the most violent temper tantrums.

God...nowhere was it ever promised to me that this would be an easy road.  So I'm not sure why any of this surprises me...but some days it still does.

But you give me these moments of hope, Lord...moments that buoy my spirits and keep me going through the really tough times.  Like tonight at dinner when Reese told me how she gave some of her Shopkins to Sienna just to be nice.  And how she told me that she asked a neighbor girl if any of them belonged to her...ones she had found on a walk along the sidewalk.  I was blown away that a 7 year old would, unprompted, offer to give up something she found in the chance event it might have belonged to someone else.

I gave Carter and Reese the challenge of memorizing Ephesians 6:11-18 for this school year, thinking it would take them months and months to memorize the entire passage.  Reese had it down pat in 3 weeks.  Every day now, she says the verses to me, and I am overwhelmed/amazed by her accomplishment.  This was another moment that brought me hope...a reminder of the faith that is growing in my children and the way you will use it to gird and protect them as they forge their own way in the world.

Serenity is not a word I'd usually use to describe my days.  When I've got a food-flinging toddler, sneaking half his lunch to the dog and smearing the other half across his shirt and pants, a daughter who wants a "Peanut butter and jelly sandwich...WITH PICKLES!!!" Well...let's just say I'm not always able to handle myself with as much grace and composure as I should.

A 3-year-old photo that popped up on Facebook tonight prompted me to reflect back on this crazy journey I've been on and see how far we've come.  It may not be a serene existence here for many years to come...but I accept the challenge...

This is for you!

This is for you...

The discouraged, the weary, the broken-hearted...

This is for you...

The one who is striving for more, but can never quite seem to make it, for the one whose heart is heavy-laden...

This is for you...

When you cross a great milestone, only to wake up the next morning with a feeling of "What's next??"

Feelings of great triumph, followed shortly after by feelings of total defeat.  Promises made but not kept...confidence destroyed...

There is a place I turn for absolute security, total peace, and guaranteed hope.  As much as I find joy in special memories created, in my family, in the beauty of the world around me, there is just one place I can turn to find real and lasting
joy...

This formula seems far too simplistic for the complex world that we live in.

The Joy of the Lord is my Strength.  

This isn't just a statement...it's a promise.  My strength disappears faster than a puff of smoke in the wind.  But the strength I find in the Lord is lasting and endures even the most intense opposition.

Nature's Classroom

Swainson's Thrush

 We took a field trip today to Powdermill Nature Reserve...in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.  We were so fortunate to see many new birds that we'd never seen or even heard of before.  The kids got to see the amazing process of weighing, measuring and banding these birds in record time due to the large numbers they catch during migration season.

Magnolia Warbler

Gray Catbird

 One of the staff members took us out for a short hike to see the nets they have set up all over the Reserve...67 nets in all!  We saw a few birds in the nets that he removed for the kids to see up close.

Oven Bird

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

Tennessee Warbler

Cuckoo

 After the banding experience, we got on our boots and visited the nearby creek where another instructor talked to the kids about invertebrates that live in the water and all the special kinds of bugs that live there because the water is so clean.  The kids spent an hour catching many interesting insects as well as 1 fish and a lot of crayfish.

 Sienna caught the largest crayfish of all.  She did NOT want to part with it at the end of the class and was in tears about letting him go.  The instructor was kind enough to let her bring it back to the nature center with us so she could release it in their indoor stream exhibit.  I hope he enjoys his new home!

Layers...

Now that birthday season is upon us, Derrick and I have spent a lot of our "free" time working on the kids' favorite birthday tradition...pinatas.  I know you can buy them at the store, but there is just something special about a homemade pinata.  And the fact that ours have been known to outlast the beating of a metal bat and 12 adolescent boys for almost 30 minutes...well it's well worth the time spent to see their enjoyment that day.

I woke up early this morning to do my devotions...and work on the pinata...of course!  Crouched in the humid garage at 6:30 AM, applying strip after strip of sticky newspaper to the growing ball...I had to laugh.  Six layers down...about 4 more to go by Saturday's party.  I set the pinata outside to let it dry in the sun.

Later this afternoon, after shopping for pinata "prizes", Sienna and I spread everything out on the kitchen table and I cut a small hole in the pinata.  I admired the many layers of now- hardened newspaper that made up the shell.

I saw a parallel today...my life (everyone's life) is a lot like a pinata. You start out with only the thinnest shell of protection...your life experiences are very limited and you don't have much knowledge at all.  With each milestone, each experience, each skill learned and each trial faced, a new layer is added.  My faith has had to endure many experiences, tests and trials to reach the point I'm at today.  And I'm certain there will be many more tests, many more layers, still to come.

This process of adding new layers is a long and hard one.  For the pinata to stay together properly you can only really add one layer at a time and you have to give it the time to dry properly before adding another.  I've tried to add a layer before the previous one is dry...it's not a good decision.  I've had a pinata I spent hours on completely cave in because I tried to rush it.

 It's messy work too, building a pinata....the flour and water mixture has to be made just right...not too thick and heavy and not too watery and thin.  You've got to plunge your hands right into it and not be afraid to get it all over you.  Working on the pinata with Sienna yesterday resulted in not just messy hands, but sticky flour-water splashed all over our legs and clothing as well.  In the same way, spiritual maturity can be a messy and difficult process...it can't be rushed or forced along.  It is a slow and steady climb that lasts for the full measure of one's life.

I was thinking today about building layers of faith...the strengthening that occurs when we are made weak....the time we must allow for God's Word to soak into our hearts and souls and change our wayward spirits to conform to His will.  A verse came to mind this evening, James 1:2-4

I read this same passage in The Message and it reads like this...

James 1:2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

Lawson had the experience of learning how to turn on the weed wacker yesterday.  This was both thrilling and simultaneously terrifying for him.  The addition of ear protection did help to ease his fears but he was definitely still very tentative about pressing the button to make it turn on.  He had to endure a test...a test that his father was watching out for him and that he wouldn't get hurt...a test that something difficult and scary could be mastered, a test to go outside his comfort zone and try something new...

I hope by Saturday the pinata for Sienna and Lawson's birthday party will be finished and ready to go.  I'll watch the kids smash it to bits with a satisfied smile on my face and remember that my own life journey is so very similar to the process it took to make it.  I'll remember that my own Father is watching over me, urging me through the often painful process of adding new layer upon new layer.  I'll trust that these layers will all serve an important purpose someday...so that someday I can be "complete and not lacking anything."

Birthdays and Battle Plans...

We celebrated another birthday here this weekend...Sienna is now 4 years old and it's really hard for me to believe.  Four years of chaos...OH!...I mean pure joy!!! Hehehe  She's been "that child" in our family...the one who knows how to press every one of my buttons from the minute she wakes up in the morning...the one who pouts even on her birthday.  But I figure she's taught me a lot of lessons about patience and consistency and keeping my cool under pressure.  It hasn't been easy with Sienna, but it's hard to imagine our lives without her!  Besides, isn't the child who tests boundaries, breaks rules, and defies what his or her parents tell them a perfect picture of how we often behave as adults too?


I've always had this thought in my mind...I could never run a marathon.  I admire and respect the people I know who have run one...or many.  It's just not something I feel my body could handle...that my schedule could permit...or that I'd even want to do.  Running a marathon sounds so unattainable to me...like something in my wildest dreams.

Making it to this point in my life journey has taught me something...I really am a marathon runner...of sorts.  No, not of the actual footrace sort...but I'm in a race of perseverance and physical testing, plodding along at a pace that seems oh so slow at times, but I'm slowly and steadily making progress toward that promised finish line...

Gumballs...who knew that'd be her fav gift!?

The kids are memorizing Isaiah 40:29-31 this year...I often don't even reflect on the words as we recite it together, but this week I began to really think about what it means to "run and not grow weary" and "walk and not be faint."


I also read a beautiful Psalm last night...Psalm 71.  Verse 14 caught my eye.  "As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more."  That's the kind of runner I want to be...that's the kind of persistence and drive and motivation I want to have as I battle my way through the good and bad days of this life-long journey.  Sometimes I have to remind myself to cling to Hope with a tenacious and unrelenting grip...hanging on for dear life.  What does it mean to praise God more and more?  I must resist the urge to feel sorry for myself...I must reflect not on the things I don't have, but all the things I do.  I've got to stop dwelling on what-ifs...and meditate daily on the promises of God.

September 11th is a day many of us remember a terrible and horrific National Tragedy...for me too, it is a day that I'm reminded of new beginnings, and having Hope.  It's the day my Sienna Hope was born...a reminder to me always that we can't ever give up on God...

7 Jars of Jelly...

 I read this quote the other day...

Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. 

I will have reached the point of greatest strength 

once I have learned to wait for hope. 

~ George Matheson

Just a couple of years ago, I would never have understood the full weight of this quotation...I would not have had the life experiences to fully grasp that concept of waiting for hope.  Today...I understand it all too well.

When you experience a loss, when the thin facade of good health, financial security, the family unit, stability and predictability is shattered...that is when you fully realize what it means to hope...even in the face of adversity

Derrick and the kids went out and harvested our grapes yesterday afternoon.  One very large grape plant yielded over 6 pounds of shiny purple grapes.  There was just one problem though...the edibility of the grapes was not nearly as good as their outward appearance.  Every single little grape, when bitten into, revealed a center with at least 2 or 3 or even 4 seeds.  The skin was rather tough and the taste was a sour/sweet mix.  All those months of waiting with a certain, desired expectation...only to be disappointed.  Or maybe not?  Perhaps there was another purpose for them...grape jelly.

The grapes had to be washed and sorted, the bad ones thrown out, then pulverized and boiled, then all of the skins and seeds strained out .  It was quite a process...hours of work...all for 7 small jars of grape jelly.  

The final form of those grapes shared no resemblance to the original tempting bunches growing on the vine.  It was a long and arduous process they had to go through...

I liken my own life and experiences to that process as I sit and mull over it this morning. Who I was a few years ago is not the person I am today.  I've had to undergo a total redefinition...am still undergoing that redefinition...my life has taken on a form unlike anything I would have expected or planned for.  The things I expected to happen and the things I hoped for previously have changed dramatically.

There have been many dark days...hopelessness in the things that are completely outside my control does take over at times.  I long for answers that don't come, I long for an end to the pain I feel daily.  Trusting in the Lord, even when it seems there isn't any hope is the hardest lesson I've had to go through.  

In a few moments of quiet reflection today, Romans 8:37-39 came to mind.  Nothing...no NOTHING can separate me from God's love.  I still have a hope...a promised and wonderful hope.  The refinement process may be far from over.  There may still be years of waiting, questions unanswered, pain to endure... My weaknesses and insufficiencies and inability to find hope on my own all remind me to keep going back to God...the Sustainer of my hope...the Refiner of my soul.