These Four Souls

Today I visited with an older lady who felt compelled to share with me the story of her husband's passing. I lifeguard at a pool where a lot of water walking and water aerobics take place, so there is a plethora of older folks looking for a listening ear, and I'm glad to provide it. She told me about how quickly it happened for them - how they went to the doctor because he had a strange lump above his belly button and within a month he had been diagnosed with cancer and she was standing at his funeral - just shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. This was ten years ago, so she wasn't sad anymore, per say, but I could hear the sting in her voice, the way a thing that hurts hard in the beginning hurts less five or ten years later but still makes the scar smart, like phantom pain.

And it got me to thinking about several things. If suddenly I discovered that my days on this earth were devastatingly shorter than originally expected, what would I trim down to? What would the bare minimum, most important things be for me to embrace and pour my last days into? I know it sounds morbid, but it also seems wise to me - to make a list of what would matter the very most were my days cut short.

It was an easy list to make, really.

• Josh
• Adelle
• Marilee
• Jude
• Extended family
• Writing

That's it. These are the things that carry the heaviest weight in my life and in my heart, but I rarely behave like it. Four of the six items on my list are individual people who I have nearly unlimited access to on a daily basis. These four souls are what I wish I could write on insurance and doctor's forms when they ask for my profession. Instead I write "Homemaker" and sound like I eat bon bons all day. That's fine. I don't do it for the bon bons or for their approval. But if I could, I think I would just like to start writing, "These four souls."

These four souls who I share a space with, who I throw up with, and cry with, and dance with, and am honest with. After Jesus, these four souls matter more than anything or anyone else. More than my neighbors, more than my church, more than anything. They are God's most obvious assignments in my life. When I wonder, "What should I be doing?" They are His loudest and most pronounced, "This." He has answered me by giving them to me...my greatest blessings and my most profound challenges. 

These four souls who are direct answers to my most earnest prayers - who exist in my life because God willed it to be so - because He said, "Yes," to Josh and Emily, to Adelle, to Marilee, to Jude. And He said, "No," to two other babies in between. They are here and they are mine to serve because God said, "Yes."

These four souls who lean on me for support and guidance and unconditional everything. 

These four souls who look to me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - and every other ounce of food they consume.

These four souls who come to believe what they do - at least in part - about the character of Christ because of how well, or how poorly, I serve them.

These four souls who are protected, successful, and nurtured because I do the boldest, most powerful thing I can do - because I bring them to the feet of Jesus over and over again in prayer.

What if I treated homemaking like it was my job and I was very, very serious about it? What if I stopped acting like Esau, ready to give up God's most obvious assignment because seriously, that's nice and all but doing ANYTHING without my children around sounds way better right now? 

What if I joyfully and fearlessly pursued my marriage and my mothering? 

The holiness of our families is sacred ground, friends. It seems that maybe we have gotten so caught up in being "real" about how hard motherhood is that we have forgotten its holiness. 

Let's take that back, shall we? Let's fall back in love with mothering.

Pray That Junk Down

It has been some months since I've written. Church planting, pfh...more like soul stripping. In all the best, most painful ways. Nearly one year after moving here, I find myself, our family, never more aware of either the weakness in my spirit or the power in my soul. Everything has changed, and yet everything is just the same. There are still bills to paid, children to be raised, cheeks to be kissed, toilets to be cleaned, clothes to be washed, and apologies to be given. And in addition to that there is a church to be nourished - as an entity and as a gathering of individual, imperfect hearts. Our own insecurities, insufficiencies, inadequacies - they bob up and down on the surface of our hearts, demanding to be seen, making us weary with their dependable returns. In short, we - I - am laid bare.

But this is beauty, you see, to stand in my dining room waiting for the extra pot of coffee to brew and know that I am responsible for the rough start of the day. I am. There is no way around it. But to also know that wearing that responsibility like binding chains is exactly the opposite of what Jesus has done, is doing for me. And to, instead, bow low to the ground, eye level with the dried up cheese bits and the smelly old carpet, and whisper, "Jesus, I am out of wine." I do not self-deprecate or moan, I simply look him in the eye and state the obvious, "Do you see me down here with everything that is gross about my life? I have no magic fairy dust. I have nothing lovely or delicious to offer anyone. I cannot support a husband, raise children, keep a house, hold a job, be a friend, be part of a church-plant, and start a new ministry. I cannot. I do not have what it takes. I. am. out. of. wine. But I love you. And I believe that you are who you say you are. I don't know what that means in my particular situation, how exactly you will work a miracle, but I know you will - because you are my Jesus." And then I stand up and walk through my day, expecting him to do the miraculous.

Please do not miss that in this story Jesus first tells his mother, "No." He tells her that it isn't time. He asks her what she wants him to do about it. And what she does next shows unparalleled trust and faith. She holds his gaze, orders the servants to do what he says, and then she walks away. She doesn't kick or scream, but she does show him that she trusts his heart, that she knows he cares about every minute detail of the hosts lives, and that he is capable of doing the miraculous. She doesn't try to make a plan and force his hand. She just orders obedience and then fades out of the story, trusting him to be who he says he is, who he has proven himself to be, choosing to be an instrument in the manifestation of his glory. There is room - no, necessity - for both quiet trust and bold action in our lives, and often times they are actually the same thing

I was talking with a friend a couple of months ago and I said, "But what do you do when you know you are right but you can't see a way to make it happen?" Her response was strong and beautiful and honestly pretty kick-butt. She said, "You submit. And then you pray that junk down." So, there it is. If you are standing before the monumental task of life living, and you cannot see a way through it all, bow low, take a good hard look at the old dried up cheese bits of your life, own them. Then submit - submit to this season, to God's very intentional ordering of your life, and pray.

Pray that junk down.

This is the essence of faith, friends, and God is laying us low every day so that we can receive the rich reward of knowing this kind of life-altering faith-power!

When mercy looks different

Lamentations 3:23 - Image Source

I sat on the couch yesterday evening while, unbeknownst to me, the carrots and broccoli burned. It was a flop of a day, and I felt like a flop of a mama. At one point, the girls played outside while I folded laundry - and watched Call the Midwife. I could hear them. Someone said something about spilling bubbles all over the place. But no one was crying, so I ignored it all and watched women give birth the old school way. 

The last month of pregnancy. Ick. I am not good at much of anything. Not at motherhood, not at housekeeping, not at diligence, not at friendship, not at time with the Lord, not at follow-through, not at walking, not at sleeping, not at faith, not at waiting.

I am not good. 

As I sat there, belly high and intensely aware that my four year old was pretty effectively being the parent in the house, I heard the soft whisper of The Helper, "New mercies in the morning, Em." And He's right. He always is, but I woke up this morning and still, I am not good. 

Image Source

We are in the waiting zone. We are waiting for a house to sell, for a baby to arrive, for a house to buy, for a new life to begin. Waiting and waiting and waiting. And the Sunday shine has begun to wear off of the call. For a little bit there we were caught up in the whirlwind of God's movement, but now that things have slowed, I find myself wading into the "What if's?" The age old, classic move of the serpent - "Did God really say...?" I am amazed and disappointed at how quickly I get there - to the place of questioning. 

Seriously, though - I am not good. 

Just moments ago, I threw bowls of cereal in front of the girls and when Adelle asked my why I was acting mean, I told her to stop asking me questions. I am at the end of myself, and I find that when I get there, or I see it approaching, I feel small. I want to run fast and hard to a place of quiet rest, but where would that be? What does that even look like right now? Why does it feel so hard to stay in the thing?

I feel small when I am not good, and I'm pretty sure there's a mess of muck to sort through in that statement. 

Am I still learning what it is to rest in God's grace? To relish the fact that I am not good because He is good in me? To hang on to the knowledge that I am not good at waiting, but He is lovingly helping me learn patience - and there is a beautiful sort of faith in that?

His mercies are new every morning - sometimes they just look different than I thought they would. Sometimes my eyes are tired and just want to see the insides of my eyelids for a very, very long time.

For the Hard Days

It's not even  8 am and this day already feels like a hard one. There has been no tragedy. All is well in The Blackwell home. But I woke up this morning and plodded to the kitchen to turn on my coffee. I immediately collapsed on the couch and fell back asleep to the clicks and pops of my Joe a drippin'.

I woke up no less than five times last night. Five. Three of which forced me out of bed to pee. Again. Jude is big and dropping down into the exact position he should be in to exit my body - and also the exact position that makes ever movement uncomfortable. I am hot - when I lie down and when I wake. Hot all day long.

I do not do pregnancy well. Have I mentioned that? I don't. I don't do these last several weeks well AT ALL. I feel cranky and lazy and my poor family is reduced to extending grace to the Sea Witchiest version of myself. I do my best. They do, too. But really I just want for no one to say words to me or touch me or ask me for things before daylight has even peaked over the horizon.

I want to be selfish.

So, this morning, as I dozed in an out of my coffee brewing snooze, I envisioned myself on my knees before God begging for - I don't know - something. Eyes that see even though they cannot even stay open for any length of time. Grace enough to get through this day and handle the things that matter. When you're trying to sell a house, you, apparently, are supposed to try to keep it picked up at all times...

Hi. I have two small children whom I refuse to bark at all the time about not playing in what is supposed to be their safest space. I refuse. So, we will leave this house in two hours until lunch time. I will clean up what I can but I will not kill myself because there are other things that matter more than the Sea Witch in her worst, scary form - all big with the crown on her head. There are things like little girls who need to be seen, a soul that needs space to think and breathe and relish, and friendships that need to be nurtured and focused upon. House to sell or no - I cannot keep working to prove - whatever it is I'm trying to prove.

All I can do is not be enough and instead let Jesus be enough for me.