THESE are awesome. He is witty, true and humorous in his approach. And his artists statement is fabulous for each one.
This could be a good time of reflection as you look at the work and read the correlating book of the Bible….great for all kinds of things, discussions, studies….
How would you illustrate your favorite wisdom?
Here’s to God as Artist……
Cousins came to visit!
My Cru Team just wrapped up our year.
This is the oldest I think Robby has EVER felt to me. Almost 5. Soccer season – he scored 5 goals! Taking after his father….
Ran in the Glass City Marathon Relay with my friend Matt – who conquered the whole marathon a few weeks ago! This training was so great for me – lost all my baby weight with it and was a GREAT race.
Olive and I at my Art Show – art for sale still!
How is she 7 months old?
Will there always be jet packs in my life? I think so. (A prop Rob made for a TV spot…which may or may not have included a harness and smoke.)
And with jet packs come superheroes.
My last post was all I could write. A little piece on change.
Graduation. Marriage. Death of a loved one. Motherhood. Haircuts (for real). Job Change. Moving…..
The art of transition involves grieving. And grieving involves just sitting in the loss. The sadness. Sitting in the dark – and just being there. Naming what you lost. (Identity? Purpose? Comfort? Security?)
No lights. Don’t let others flip the switch and attempt to usher you to daylight….. graciously tell them: “Thanks, but I’m not there yet.”
My counselor and dear friend told me a few thoughts on grief in transition as I move from being the Team Leader on our Cru Staff team to an IVSM: Involved Volunteer Staff Mother (I just made that up), still on the team, but not co-captaining the ship. 8 years of this position. If it were a baby, it has gone from helpless and diapers to reading, running, doing gymnastics, writing poetry, thinking about the world. A lot happens in 8 years.
Thoughts on grief:
-It is lonely. Even if you share the loss of a mutual daughter, a mom and dad have separate journeys with separate time lines and separate griefs. No one can fully relate. (Awesome.)….Aah, but doesn’t my God? Psalm 139….
-Figure out exactly what you are grieving. Try to make a succinct statement of it for others. Right now: “It’s hit me harder than I expected. I am grieving identity and purpose.”
-Don’t let others turn the light on in your darkness. It’s not time to dream of what’s next until you take care of grieving. Grief is pay me now or pay me later. I’d prefer removing the rock in my shoe now, than taking care of a hip issue as I compensated for the rock in my shoe all those years I refused to grieve.
-I need meds. And they are: Time and Talk. Time is just….well….time. No one can give that to me. Talk….finding safe people who will just listen to what I am thinking about.
“Grief is a necessary skill in life.” – Tim. My friend has so much wisdom here….as he’s lost one of his very own daughters.
When I found out I was pregnant with Olive, I heard God whisper….it’s time to surrender your role. Gulp. That’s not what He said, is it? I think I just have some indigestion…..not a real stirring from God in my soul on this, right? One too many burritos?
Nope.
Be “more home.” (More home – less brain space as the leader, less responsibility, less, less, less – not necessarily time) They are only young once. That’s what I heard in my spirit.
What’s next, you may ask? I’m not there yet. (wink) Well – I know a few things: I will stay working on the Cru staff team. I plan to Home School Robby and be involved in a co-op. And that’s all the “plans” I am allowed to make right now.
Some sweetness:
My dear friend, Lori Wagner put on a major celebration night for me – and it was quite healing to remember. How sweet!
Steve (referenced earlier this month) mentioned I was standing on the dock, looking out at the wide, huge ocean and unsure where I should go, what port to get off on. Yep. I feel that. But, it seems, I may be standing on the dock of a while. Looking back and sitting in all I gave up. Tomorrow’s freedom is the surrender of today.
Anyone out there currently grieving? I know there will be many opportunities – little griefs (omg – my hair!) to big griefs…..
But God (Psalm 46)
my heart is slipping into the depth of the sea
roaring, quaking, changing
everything is changing, my whole earth is changing
and I am fearing it all
But God is our refuge
But God is our strength
But God is present in this change
But God raises his voice
But God melts our fear
But God is present, near
steady my heart, cease striving my heart
like the mountains it quakes at it’s swelling pride
find the river whose streams make glad and thrive
the city of God, the River called God
But God can change my heart so cold
The God of Jacob is our stronghold
The next time someone refers to you as a “tool”, roll with it. In fact, embrace it and say: “Why, thank you! I am trying to be a big tool!” With emphatic smiling and such.
I hope to post more about our Easter soon…but this was pressing. Yet another thought from Rachel on “Loving the Little Years.” I think many moms (my very own included) would have fantastic advice when asked – but Rachel wrote it down in the very middle of the whole mess of loving small ones – and she penned it with style and accuracy. Thank you, Rachel.
Have you ever struggled with your body image? (this is a dumb question, I know – just nod and get on with it)…well, I love her bottom line: it is a tool:
“First of all, our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in it’s eighteen-year-old form. Let it be used. By the time you die, you want to have a very dinged and dinted body. Motherhood uses your body in the way that God designed it to be used. Those are the right kind of damages. We are not to treat our bodies like museum pieces. They were given to us to use. So use it cheerfully, and maintain it cheerfully. When you are working hard to lose that baby weight (as you may need to), think of it as tool maintenance. You want to fix your body up in order to be able to use it some more. We should not be trying to fix it up to put it back on the shelf out of harms’ way or to try to make ourselves look like nothing ever happened. Your body is a tool. Use it.
Also, your body is a tool – maintain it. Having sacrificed your body for your children is no excuse for schlepping around in sweatpants for the rest of their childhood…..So realize that your body is a testimony to the world of God’s design. Carry the extra weight joyfully until you can lose it joyfully. Carry the scars joyfully as you carry the fruit of them. Do not resent the damages that your children left on your body. Just like a guitar mellows and sounds better with age and scratches, so your body can more fully praise God having been used for HIs purposes. So don’t resent it, enjoy it.”
A great word to all women – and particularly mothers.
My latest fruit I carry around:
I just tucked one gift into bed and sat cuddling and doting on and melting into my other, smaller gift as she nursed and dozed off in my arms. On Good Friday. Gifts and Grace and Mercy and Good Friday all slow-dancing around in my head.
I call them my gifts. All the time. Robby often will answer when I ask: What are you, sweet boy? – “Your gift! And Olive is your gift. And Daddy is your gift.”
The best gifts ever.
And so rocking my gift, after coming home from a Good Friday service where we thought about, observed and sat in the reality that this is the somber day of remembrance….I was overwhelmed with a major fact in my life: Not only was I shown extreme, obnoxious mercy, but then I was given an extra helping of honest to goodness grace.
Mercy and then Grace. What’s the difference?
I’ve been taught so many things by my co-leader, my dear friend, my neighbor, Steve – he must be cited for this one. He once illustrated Mercy and Grace to me:
“Suppose Robby disobeyed you in a major way. Like big time. So big – spank worthy big. You have 3 choices in the matter: Give him what he deserves – his punishment. Judgement. The spank or time out or what have you.
OR sit him down and tell him you are going to extend Mercy – which means zero punishment. The removal of the punishment that is very deserved.
OR sit him down and tell him you are going to extend Grace – which means that not only are you going to give him Mercy (no punishment) but you are going to give him an ice-cream cone.(What??) Grace: the ice-cream cone where there should have been punishment.”
It’s Good Friday. I’m holding gifts. I deserve punishment for the state of my rebellion and sin and offense toward a completely perfect, holy God (even the smallest offense that is not perfection is rebellion and sin). And God not only chooses mercy - but has given me ice cream.
A life of so much beauty. So much joy. Places where heart-ache was mended. Sadness turned to dancing. Ashes to beauty. Despair to hope.
And it all centers on the “Good” of Good Friday. The horrible, beautiful cross of Jesus. Where all the wrath against sin that a holy, righteous, perfect God has against all that is not – was heaped upon his own, special Son. And the Father and His Son were separated during that moment – because that is what sin does. Separates. Divides. Breaks fellowship. Communication ceases.
I’m silenced. The “Good” is my hope. Hope that comes in 2 more days.
This is one of my pieces out of 11 that will be featured and for sale this Month at Art A Site. My art us up the entire month of April, and will be there through the Bowling Green Downtown Artwalk on April 28.
A reception open to the public will be held from 5:30-7:30 on Thursday, April 19. Would love for you to come and bring your friends who need some soft, fabricky goodness in their home.
I recently told a friend that since Olive just turned 6 months…I have felt close to running at full capacity again. Back to my size, to more sleep, to finding time for art-making (well, a little bit, not much – who am I kidding) and back to 3 things instead of one per day of my to-do list. Praise God! But I know….just as I tap these keys….I am sure I’ll hit a good run of survival in life again…..and that’s how it goes. 
But for now - let us make ART!
Another word from “Loving the Little Years” that hits my inner core each time (yes, I keep re-reading this 90 page book).
Because I am so prone to order rather than letting loose (what happened to me? many were SO excited for me to have children because they said how creative I would be with them…..working on it).
Because it’s faster to do it alone and I forget that the American efficiency trophy is not the prize. Love and fat souls are.
Because I need grace and this is so good to see.
From Rachel:
“I can clearly remember one night when I was big pregnant with Blaire and realized too late that we were out of tortillas. I figured I would just make some quickly. When I started this project I was alone in the kitchen. About a minute and half into it I had been discovered. Four chairs into the kitchen, four children anxiously awaiting a chance to help. I remember Titus actually bumping into my legs with my chair and very politely saying, “Excuse me, Mama! ‘Scuse me!” Then came the real action: Titus wildly dusting flour on the tortilla I was rolling, someone cracking into the drawer and passing out rolling pins. Everyone rolling and dusting, and rolling and wadding the dough back up and having a grand old time too. I looked out of the haze of flour and elbows feeling very ready to blow the whistle , and I saw my husband smiling and laughing. He nodded at me and said ‘It’s okay.” I knew what he meant. Fat souls are better than clean floors.
It is just that very often it is a fine time for helpers – even a good time for them, if I am willing to get the grace for it.”
my eager little helper…..
How is my daughter 6 months old?
Things I’ve learned as a Momma of 2 (that I can remember:)
-We are so much more chill with baby 2! Everything feels like riding a bike again, thankfully.
-Since Robby was 4.5 when another came into our family…we have had our fair share of adjusting his alone time with us now - but it has become really special…and he doesn’t feel “kicked out” of baby hood…..when I was initially very sad with this large gap between them
-I have really different dreams, hopes and feelings for each gender, (who knew!)
-I am completely in love with the baby stage because I know it goes so fast – with Robby’s infancy I really wasn’t confident we would ever sleep again
-I have far less time alone than I thought, but more productivity with that time – amazing how that happens
-10 minutes is really enough time at the end of the day to tidy up a house! (more on 10 Minute Tidy’s coming)
-Siblings are a true gift (Robby is so proud of his big brother status, but even more proud of Olive) and I feel so full of thanksgiving for our LONG journey for each one
What have you learned in your stage of life in the last half year?
Organizing with purpose over here….LOVE the portable, old, vintage-y wooden craft tote. I’m on the hunt. And this blog is pretty fun who posted this picture!
