TTFN
I feel like love and thankfulness are muscles, in a way, and we get better at them when we practice them even, and especially perhaps, under the weight of hard times.
TTFN
And I can now add usher to my resume (wink)! Being behind the scenes at a musical was a fun experience. Thanks to my sister I had an in to this cultured world! She was one of the nuns in this theatre groups last play, ‘The Sound Of Music’.
It felt strangely unreal for me as I sat stuffing programs. I realised I can romanticise just about anything! Here I was at the ground level of theatre culture and I had been swept into it so easily and unexpectedly. The offer came up and I grabbed it. The evenings work began and I seized the moment! I ate up every menial task! Starving artists remember their stuffing programs days, do they not? Not that I am a starving artist but I was peckish after stuffing and standing most of the evening.
The ushers leader was a feisty older woman who had a knack for being tough and hilarious all at once. I instantly liked her. When she handed me the flashlight and an usher name tag it all felt so official. I shall for ever look at ushers in a new light.
Perhaps a tad over zealously I threw myself into handing out the programs. A few times I offered the same people a second one and when I offered the stage manager one I almost laughed aloud. He looked so unimpressed with me and even huffed! His reaction make me giddy and I couldn’t help contemplating doing it again just to mess with him… but, after all, I thought better of it, I am not that brazen, I am a think and laugh at the thought kinda girl.
Seated at the back when the curtain went up, we ushers where removed in more ways then one from the actual audience. I felt set apart but also important, people asked me questions! We observed the play and the audience from a servants position.
At half time… oh theatre biz calls it intermission, my sister and I where placed at the main doors to do some bouncing… more correctly, to act as bouncers. No food or drink was to make its way in for the second act. We may have not been on stage last night but this was our opportunity to do a little acting. I don’t believe either of us are really bouncer types.
Even picking up bits of trash after the show was fun for me. This affirms I may have been over board with my enthusiasm. Above all else I felt very thrifty! It has been a goal of my sister and I, of late, to seek out clever thriftiness in life. To get into a show (we enjoy going to plays and musicals) for free by volunteering to usher was indeed cleverly thrifty!
Here’s to theatre! Here’s to being cleverly thrifty and here’s to new experiences!
TTFN
A little embarrassment goes a long way:) And I am not talking about the sting of it staying with you. It is strange how you can feel so very very flustered and embarrassed one moment and the next realise it was worth it. Taking ones self pride down a notch rarely is a negative.
Though we feel protected behind pride we are actually damaging ourselves, lock ourselves away from opportunities to love and be loved by others. Self pride is a wall that keeps us from getting beyond ourselves. To move beyond that wall and toward others we have to risk this thing we believe protects us.
The more that wall of pride comes down the more we see those around us clearly. We will value them more and interaction with others will lead to relationship.
Is that wall, that pride really worth being lonely? We lock out the risk but with it we also prevent relationship. If we are busy taking care of our pride we prevent others from getting to know us and often even prevent their love from reaching us.
Vulnerability leads to embarrassment, but as our pride wains our embarrassment over our own humanity will wain as well. Showing flaws, pains, true emotions and feelings for others will actually make us stronger then any wall of pride can. We will forever remain weak and vulnerable behind pride’s disguise.
I am thankful for embarrassments reminder that pride is not ever a decent replacement for love. Love makes me reflect on the truth that Christ is love incarnate.
TTFN
(Baby Boy and his cousin roaring through the maze.)
I meet up with family at the local straw maze. It was a lovely morning full of fun and just TIME with one another.)
One little girl panicked when she couldn’t see her parents. They where only a few feet away but a wall that she couldn’t see over was between them and she just wasn’t sure which way to go to find them. With almost terror in her voice she screamed continually ‘MOMMY! MOMMY!’ not hearing her Dad return her call until he reached over and touched her from the other side of a straw bale.
I still feel like that girl some times. Even as an adult there are walls that block vision… my way out of problems and I can sometimes get pretty panic-y. Everyone wants to know the way out as soon as they feel like they just can’t find it. Fear, frustration, anger can all kick in, and quickly. I hope as I get older I will practice more the understanding that seeing isn’t the only way to find your way out. Sometimes taking a few steps will lead you in the right direction. Other times being patient and standing still is the best way to avoid panic; who knows, a hero or an idea might just present itself.
I am thankful for who I trust in and I am thankful Christ will reach over and touch me in a reassuring way even when I am too panic-y to realise how very very close he already is.
TTFN
(Yes this is a picture from last fall… with no camera I have to try to enjoy my favourite season without picture taking and so I have been looking through last years collection.)
Baby Boy, Riddick and I walked the big kids to the bus. As the bus pulled up my littlest guy yelled ‘LOOK a clue!’… he had been watching “Blue’s Clues” just this morning so I suppose he was still hunting down clues. It was so lovely that we walked slowly home kicking at leaves and talking about the wind… Baby Boy doesn’t like the wind… “Iz nice out Mama. Iz windy dow.”
We had to kick around at home for a while before going for our walk. We had decided to go to ‘Tumble Weed’, a thrift store just down our street, but it wouldn’t be open till ten and we where home by 8:30. When we did head out Riddick had to stay home so we could shop. My boy lead the way and so we took it very very very slow. I was such a well behaved Mama today and even pointed out possible distractions for him. “Look honey a big bunch of leaves! Throw them at me!”
Some how we still arrived at Sherbrook half an hour before the store was going to open!
Thank goodness for Bonny and Clyde! They are the residents bearded dragons and are still little and very social. They where watching my little man just as much as he was watching them. The lady who takes care of them noticed how nice Baby Boy was being and so showed him how she gives them a bath. “It is more of a shower,” she explained as she sprayed them down with a little spritzer bottle. They obviously thought it was cold as she blinked at her and tried to get away from the spray. She then set out their morning salad and we enjoyed watching their sticky tongues pop out and snatch food. She then got them to jump for us, a cute trick of theirs and petted them and carried them cradled in her hand. You could tell they just loved her, for as soon as her hand was in the pen they ran and climbed up her, even rubbing at her wrist almost like a cat or dog would. One of the few lizards awake during the day and even friendly when wild I could see why they where a popular pet. We decided we will have to come visit them again.
We did a little shopping and my little man found a noisy 50 cent truck while I was tickled over the two pretty tea cups I got (only a buck each). As we left Baby Boy thanked the volunteer at the store and said good bye to everyone we passed. He is a very friendly guy to all the residents there and we will have to pop in more often.
Walking home was just as slow but also just as lovely. Crisp fall air, beautiful colors and me and my boy holding hands meant I was in no hurry to get home. By the way we where home before eleven and so still have so much more loveliness, in this day, yet to come.
TTFN
My Dad is a fisherman… a seriously devoted FISHERMAN! 
One of my favourite phrase of his was a fisherman’s word of wisdom, “Jesus catches his fish before he cleans them,”.
I always gleaned two main points out of this. First, Christians have no place in judging and demanding people change their ways when they aren’t Christ followers. If and when Christ calls us and blesses our heart with his presence he will do the changing. Even he didn’t come to judge but to heal.
Second, there is a very good reason why he doesn’t clean us before or right away after salvation is restored to us, and that is relationship. If we changed before, we would miss out on gaining understanding about who our saviour really is… AND what would we learn about ourselves, about our saviour, if we had perfection handed to us on a platter immediately after our conversion? We are healed and freed from our sins in a process of relationship with Christ. We struggle in this life, but NEVER alone and NEVER in our own strength. Christ does the catching and the cleaning; we just need to be in love with him and ready and obedient to the process he takes us on.
Watching Dad clean fish was a messy messy process… so too can life in Christ be. It isn’t suddenly more sleek then our walk before we met our Lord and we need to be honest about all this. The perception we put out there about needing to be perfect to be part of our club has always and will always be unhelpful to others and our selves; besides being an all out lie.
Like any metaphor used to help explain Christ and his way, this bit of fisherman’s wisdom is only a partial aid to a complicated and infinitely awesome God.
The first time I saw the picture, seen at the top of this post, my dad’s phrase flowed to my mind in a gush and I am thankful for his hearty and sound advice into my life over the years. My God fearing Dad was, and is, a huge blessing in my life!
P.s. May we all gain from this discussion another piece of understanding; that we are focusing too much on what we see when we judge others and try to force change on them before they meet Christ personally. May we remember that Jesus is concerned with OUR HEARTS!
TTFN
I knew I wanted a baby. He knew he wanted a big family… and of course that starts with babies. We were both young. We didn’t live as a married couple for more then a year before we had our first child and so we grew up raising kids, in a way. I was ready…him… perhaps not so much.
The first think I noticed about children is they push you, to be more patient, to be more selfless, to sacrifice. They also push at moms and dads. It is easy to loose touch with your spouse once there is a new member of the family to get to know and to make welcome.
Marriages can be strained by the arrival of children but I think a sure fire way to avoid that is to be one anothers best friend. Garnet and I started out as friends and have remained best friends as well as lovers. Parenting made that more tricky and at first as he continued to do his young man thing we drifted apart as I did my young mom thing. The best thing we ever did for our marriage, during that time of life, was to start integrating him into every little thing in babies world.
By baby number three he got it, that there was plenty of things he could do with the baby too and the attachment becomes stronger faster for him the more he is involved. I also got it, to let him help and not be too controlling about how I wanted things done. He had to brave a world more familiar to moms perhaps and I had to share our babies.
Not only did this increase the quality of his relationship with our kids, girls and boys alike, but it brought back that best friend relationship between he and I. I wasn’t doing it all and he wasn’t feeling put on the shelf. We were working together, trouble shooting as a team. Conversation between us and time together was far more frequent as he became more a part of my busy baby filled world.
The marriage relationship should never be put on the back burner, even for the kids, because it will hurt them long term too if mom and dads relationship suffer. We found it can be tricky to find time and energy for one another OFTEN ENOUGH if you divide the mom and dad work strictly and traditionally. New mom and dads need to find their parent groove together. Don’t be too worried about how you always thought it should be and instead worry about being in one anothers day to day world. You are going to need one another!
TTFN
(The family meeting assembly, even the dog is welcome to attend.)
We started having family meetings a few years back. It was instated as family habit when we realised the kids where old enough to get it, and we where all needing to talk about more as our needs became different and more complicated. Often they are called when we feel like the kids aren’t getting enough time to share with us… more often they are called when communication and cooperation have broken down between us and the kids and so we need to remind everyone of the rules and lay down some punishments when needed.
The meetings are always based around one statement that has been essential to running this crew and that is ‘we are a big family and MUST work together and help out so that everything runs smoothly and for the betterment of all.’ At the meetings everyone gets time to share concerns and just stuff… even our two year old… who usually just talks about Lightning McQueen or the adventures of some other favourite character. Everyone is allowed to say exactly what they feel before things are resolved and dealt with. We all practice sharing and also listening in this way.
Last meeting I shared that I don’t like birthday parties. To my surprise all the kids replied was ‘we knew that already mom’. I explained how I just wish we could come up with something that still makes them feel special but doesn’t involve so much expense, stress and creativity… I am not a creative birthday party mommy. The idea of a sleep over with one friend after a day of playing and a cake and present time came up and all the kids loved it.
Well that was easier then I thought it would be…
In a matter of minutes something I had been wrestling with for some time had been resolved. The kids then wanted to direct the meeting toward school stories they had to share. That was it! The conflict I had felt, the stress, the worry about letting my kids down was all washed away and I realised they where fine with the truth and so should I. Don’t have to be like all the party planning mama’s out there, who are gifted in that area. I am different; my kids know it and like that about me.
Why am I feeling like writing this today? Well I just survived my last planned and themed birthday bash, relying heavily on my husband to help me through it, and I am super happy it is the last. Keeping it simple from here on in:)
Feeling thankful for our family meetings, for open communication with my kids and for being different and having kids who don’t mind that at all.
TTFN
Hours… I have been rocking for hours. The night is old, the house is still, with the exception of my whole body moving the rocker back and forth back and forth. All would be silent if I was not still humming a lullaby softly, almost mechanically, to my baby girl.
She is my first baby… I am a first time mommy… but the transition from woman to mother was instantaneous. The learning curve steep, the hours long… the stress unlike anything else I have faced… I am bone tired, my brain is on autopilot most of the time and I am often weepy BUT I am a fighter. I am devoted. I am with out a choice and yet I still choose to be her long suffering mommy.
There is a fire in my chest that was lit the moment we began our relationship and each subsequent sibling would add to that fire. It is a unquenchable passion for my children that is beyond the physical. It doesn’t require me to be loud and proud or to express enthusiasm physically… it is deep and constant and certain.
For the first time ever I listened to a message on passion in the Lord that didn’t involve PROVE IT techniques . It wasn’t driving us to be loud personalities or vibrant movers and shakers. The speaker compared passion in the Lord to that calm solid passion I just spoke of… a mother for her new baby… I was completely able to identify and it made me think long, feel deep down, about what kind of bonfire is in my heart for my Lord… how unquenchable and consistent, even more then that, constant is it…
Some of the most passionate Christian brothers and sisters that I have know in my life weren’t necessarily loud and proud, but they had a solid heart ablaze and that warmth flowed from them as they moved full of peace, grace and dedicated devotion to love… to love their Lord, love their brothers and sisters and even love their enemies. They have spoken much into my life with their passion for Jesus.
I am thankful for encouragement to fan the flame of passion in my life… to dig deep and find it still there, burning in my heart for Jesus.
TTFN
