for the glory of the earth

and all its fullness,we give thanks.


I want to see this.

shoes

Naya has always had a shoe fetish. So I wonder why I have the shoe shelf in the kitchen with endless possibilities to be tried on all day long. She has new favorites, and they are gold, and they have beads. How's a girl to resist? Tonight she insisted on going to sleep like this...


hmm, should I be worried?

and we did celebrate

It has been an eventful few weeks of celebration in the life of our family. We had a princess party this weekend in the park for the Dove-bird who turned four. And last night we had an incredible feast in honor of Keith's birthday, the likes of which I'm still recovering from. But the most exciting thing was the engagement of Keith and Trish. I can hardly believe my baby brother is getting married. I hugged him as he left that morning and he had that nervous glow all over him. Man, time marches on, relentless. The story is all together charming. In a little field by a creek where they had their first kiss, Trish thought she was there for Dove's princess party. Rose petals drifted down the creek from the tunnel where Jade was hidden in his galoshes and tuxedo serenading on guitar. How cool is that, to have a friend who doesn't mind standing in a tux and rain-boots hiding in a tunnel for almost an hour. A ring, some champagne and tears and they begin this whole new chapter of life. Jade made a subtle exit strumming his guitar the whole way. I am blessed that my siblings are also some of my favorite people in the world and I am so happy to share in the joy of this time. The engagement and honeymoon stage is such a precious, fleeting time of newness and anticipation and I remember it well, a little stunned to be fast approaching 10 years of marriage. I can see how happy Trish makes by baby brother and I'm pretty stoked to be gaining such a cool new sister. God is good.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing
And obtains favor from the LORD.
Proverbs 18:22

reflections

I've felt like being silent lately. Churning thoughts and letting seeds find purchase and make their way from my head to my heart and from my heart to my head. I have felt the way this song sounds, if that makes any sense. I feel a strong sense that God is working in me, revealing things that hurt to look at, making old things new just as He promised. Recently, I had the privilege of attending a luncheon where my pastor's wife was speaking on prayer and fasting. I rarely go out anywhere without the kids and as I sat down my pace slowed and I listened to her. I felt myself well up and I realized that the Spirit was speaking to me through her and it was like rain to my thirsty soul. She spoke of the things we use to fill up our longings, our pain, our needs other than God. It could be anything really that gains a power over us; food, sex, drugs, perfectionism,the need for approval etc. Things that give the illusion of fulfillment but never give it, things that we think will anesthetize ourselves to the hurt but that interrupt communion with our Father. She read this quote from A Hunger For God by John Piper, "If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast:'This much, O God, I want you."
Such compelling words.
I live very much in the present. I love this earth, people, nature, the sights, sounds and smells. I drink deep of the blessings that surround me, music that stirs me, art that leaves me wistful, my kids laughter, the arms of my husband, the whispers of the ocean, the storm and the mellow skies. There is so much good, so much beauty. And it is good to glorify God in all these things. My joy in loving Josh and my children is deepened in my dependence on God to fulfill these roles. My writing reflects soft faces that I love, sweet things they say, and conversations that move me. But sometimes I fear...with so much blessing, and ease, is there a danger of becoming too comfortable, or prideful to where I don't have as much of a felt need for God? I have my set of wounds and scars that run deep like anybody else, but circumstantially I enjoy far more than I deserve. And it is easy for me to praise God for my family and the joy I've found in motherhood but the reality is, that many are in circumstances where it is not easy to understand what God is doing in their lives.
Their is such sorrow and brokenness that exists simultaneously.Sometimes I feel like May, in need of a wailing wall. I think about a woman I've known all my life that prayed to Jesus every night with her little ones, and years later one by one they developed heroine addictions. I thought about how she watched, as if in a nightmare, the sight of her daughter detoxing. I thought about the day she came home to find her first born son, dead on the floor of the bathroom from an overdose. I thought about parents that lose their babies. I thought about places around the globe where the daily task is to survive.I thought about an interview I listened to the other day about a little girl who suffered sexual abuse for years by a family friend. She had been helpless and angry and alone and cried out to God. Where was God when she was held down and helpless? In the midst of injustice and suffering does He abandon us?
These thoughts alone are enough to make you sink into a black hole you can't get out of...were it not for hope. I don't think for a second that I have all the answers but I do know He has not abandoned us. I listened to this little girl, now a woman, talk of how God had taken her on a long road of healing. At one point she said that God spoke to her saying that He had not left her and that there was a time when He was held down. Her tears were His tears. He suffered indescribably because he loved us and wanted to heal our wounds and save us from all the sin and evil in our human hearts. I thought of the power of God's love to redeem tragedies.
I pondered these things and listened for God's voice while walking through the time of year to remember His death on the cross. Every year I'm gripped with sorrow at how my perfect Lord suffered for us. Never have I felt such an overwhelming sense of His un-ending love than this year as I sat with Juden and read this on Good Friday:
"They nailed Jesus to the cross.
"Father, forgive them ," Jesus gasped. " They don't know what they're doing." 'You say you've come to rescue us!" people shouted. "But you can't even rescue yourself!" But they were wrong. Jesus could have rescued himself. A legion of angels would have flown to his side - if he'd called. "If you were really the Son the God, you could just climb down off that cross!" they said. And of course they were right. Jesus could have just said a word and made it all stop. Like when he healed that the little girl. And stilled the storm. And fed 5,000 people. But Jesus stayed. You see, they didn't understand. It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there. It was love. "Papa?" Jesus cried, frantically searching the sky.
"Papa? Where are you? Don't leave me!" And for the first time-and the last- when he spoke, nothing happened. Just horrible, endless silence. God didn't answer. He turned away from his Boy. Tears rolled down Jesus' face.
The face of the One who would wipe away every tear from every eye."
~The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones~

There are no words I can offer that can capture a glimmer of the miracle of His incarnation, death and resurrection. But I know that He knows our suffering and shares our sorrows. My heart is so prone to wander from the God I love. I am so easily distracted from Him who paid my debt.But I have a growing hunger for Him and I hope it stays. My spirit willing, my flesh so weak. He loved us enough to die and the tomb is empty. I want to shout it from the hilltops.
Psalm 73:25-26
Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

The Distribution

I knew he wouldn't stay away long. It's in his blood. Josh is the drummer for a new band called The Distribution. They have a soul,funk, gospel feel and I had the pleasure of watching their first show ever last weekend at Rhythm & Brews. Mark your calenders for April 17 at JJ's Bohemia on MLK Blvd. It's a high energy show and a ton of fun. You can check them out here. It makes me happy to see him do what he loves.

stars

"Wealthy woman! Stand up and sing, already! The treasures in your house may loudly demand a lot of attention, but they are clustered around you like stars…"
~Rae the Journey Mama~




The other night Juden and Ella climbed up on Naya's crib wanting to sing to her instead of me, so with their feet between the bars hanging off the sides, the three of them sang the most beautifully off-key version of "Jesus Loves Me" I 've ever heard.


The other day I held Juden's hand as we walked and he said," I'm finkin about something, I'm happy to have a mom like you."


One morning I dragged myself out of bed and followed a trail a muddy foot prints to the door to find an excited little Ella in her rain boots and nightgown after planting daffodills and dandelions in my freshly planted vegatable garden as a surprise.



Ella has sprouted some butterfly wings and will go for days with-out hardly taking them off. I can't help but smile to watch her winged self bouncing around.
I awoke in the morning with his warm arm around me and what can you say when thankfulness doesn't come close.

from the mouth of babes

This morning I sat Juden on my lap to play him a song. My kids love music. They want it on all the time and we often play this game where we have to name all the instruments we hear and they are surprisingly accurate most of the time. Juden has pretty broad tastes in music and likes to pretend he is the conductor when classical is on. So I scooped him onto my lap and told him to listen. I told him the man singing was blind, to which he replied,"What is blind?" I told him that his eyes didn't work and that it was always dark to him. I hadn't really thought about this aspect of sharing the song, but his expression immediately fell and he seemed really sad and said, "Oh, the poor man, why did God give him eyes that don't work?" Wow, we mommies are supposed to have the answers. I thought a minute about how to explain something so difficult and said that there are lots of things that are broken in the world and lots of sick or otherwise impaired people, and that made Jesus sad too and that's why He came and made a way to set things right. Still a rather weighty issue for a five year-old mind. I could see that he was still sad, so I told him to see how the man loved to sing and that he wasn't sad even though his eyes didn't work. I told him that we would close our eyes while we listened to see how he felt. He scrunched up his little face and sqeezed his eyes shut tight and we listened...
">
I looked at him with his eyes still shut, rocking his head slowly to the music until the song ended. His face lit up a little and he said,"Ohh, so since he can't see any pretty things, he just sings'em."
Simply put.
I love being his mommy and seeing things the way he sees them.

the baby girl

Who would think that someone who looks like this would have the capacity to wreak such havoc on my mental state? Naya has recently entered a stage that I remember well having gone through it with Juden. I am finding that Naya has the same iron will as her big brother and has been unleashing it quite a bit lately. Every child has a different temperament and personality and the discipline that is most effective with one child may not work with another child. For instance, I barely have to take a stern tone before Ella's bottom lip begins to quiver. She is just a laid-back sensitive little girl so I deal with her in light of that. Thankfully once Juden's communication skills increased, questioning, talking through and praying about behavior problems has proved very effective. I so prefer this reaching the heart of my children than purely modifying the behavior. But Naya is frustrated and can't understand reason yet. I am in this crucially important phase of making clear that she has to follow my lead and that there are boundaries and rules and not obeying them will always result in a consequence and discipline. It is just very exhausting, especially when it's the fifth or sixth temper tantrum and it's not even lunch time yet. She looks up at me with a face that says, "Why mommy, Why can't I get out of stroller and walk next to the very busy road, why can't I throw the bath water all over the floor and draw with markers on the wall?" Be not deceived by her angelic little face, she will contort herself, arch her back and scream till she's blue in the face and until I'm about to crumple on the floor. Then there are moments of grace like yesterday when almost as if she was aware of how perfectly horrid she'd been, she covered me with hugs and flashed me those brown eyes saying "I yuv you,"over and over. I love this little girl to pieces and pray for the grace to help shape her independence and strong spirit.


So in usual fashion, here are some of the brights spots as of late.

1)Juden and Ella's drawings which litter my whole house and this one which reminded me of a Shel Silverstein book.

2)My first vegetable garden is sprouting beautifully, the therapy of hands in the dirt.
3)Living somewhere with waterfalls. Skipping stones and driftwood as smooth as a bone.
4)Sundays which consist of worship, picnics, playing in the park,napping babies, getting absolutely nothing done but soaking up every last drop of sun.
5)A much needed night out at Rembrandt's with the girlies last night and meeting a precious four-day-old Juniper Mae. Ohh, I think I need another itty-bitty one.

red rover

Spring is here and what was cold and dull is breaking into life and green. Oh, it feels good. We spent a rainy Saturday in Atlanta (seemed like more fun than staying inside and cleaning our house). We popped in a few places and drove past our old apartment near Piedmont Park, went to Ikea and finished the day stocking up at Trader Joe's. Amidst the rain, the kids also kind of redecorated the house with a crafting and creating overload which I almost don't have the heart to take down. We enjoyed the rain armed with rain boots and umbrella's and plenty of art supplies. Yesterday the sun returned and I anxiously set out purging the garden of that which was dead and placing fresh soil and seeds in hopes that Foxgloves and Sweet Peas and Cypress vine will soon emerge. I watered and dug to the sound of my kids laughing and playing all around me, the glow of the last rays of sun on their dirty little faces. With the kids all scrubbed and tucked in I finally sat down in the quiet of my house and listened to this song.

Maybe my heart becomes less guarded when the sun goes down. I don't what it was but hearing this song sent me into such a sense of longing and nostalgia. I know I'm hopeless, I can't apologize for it, this is just how God made me. Thankfully my husband looks at me knowingly with love when I get teary. All of the sudden I remembered being little. The screech of the school bus pulling up to my New Jersey neighborhood. Coming home to my mom's warm smile, blond hair tucked under her bandanna, polyester shirt with windmills on it and her soft neck that smelled like tea rose perfume and lily of the valley. We'd play together on the warm grass until the lightening bugs came out, red rover, mother may I and hide and seek. All the while my dad puttering around the garden seeing what was growing, gently tending, and admiring, to the sound of our play. I couldn't help but long for just a moment for that time of innocence when the hours rolled by slowly and my family was intact and happy.

me,Scott and Amy

My dad was a strange blend of virtues. His hands spoke of strength, rough and tan with veins that bulged from work. He lived at a different time of less abundance, one that bred in him a desire to be resourceful to grow that which he could use. But he was also an artist that hungered to find beauty; an Englishman through and through. I miss him lately. As the earth breaks into new life, a time that he drank in with child-like wonder at the sight of each new snow bell... I remember. I remember how he told me right before he died in the Fall that we would all go back to England one last time in the Spring; I nodded hoping. That Spring, bulbs bloomed on his grave. It waxes and wanes, this thing called missing that never fully goes away. In this week of feeling the void more than usual, I stumbled onto a picture I thought I had lost. One of my favorites and gift from God to find it when I did. I looked at the paintings and wondered whose houses they hung in now and marveled at how looking at him was like looking at both of my brothers combined. Yet another gift, having brothers that with a glance or phrase or mannerism make me feel like he is right there.
I thought of my evening and realized how much I am like him. I am now the parent helping things grow, waiting for something beautiful to lift its head out of the dirt, while my children play all around me. I know that one day you wake up and the innocence and care-freeness that is there for a tiny window of your childhood is gone. For some this time is more brief than others and for some children, that break my heart, not there at all. Something happens that shakes your world and suddenly you are aware that the world is full of grief and heartache and loneliness. Once that line of personal pain is crossed,there is no going back to the un-knowing innocence. I look around at my children who have not left that safe place yet that is protected and happy and unknowing and I treasure it in all of its fragile preciousness. The way they paint without hesitation or inhibitions about what anyone will think, the way they openly proclaim their love, their laughter, their trueness... I drink it in and learn from it. I tuck it away in my heart, I take pictures, I string words together to try to remember. Nothing can capture it as much as living fully in the moment, but I still try. I will end with these pictures of Ella that come pretty close to capturing her spirit. My Ella is a giggler. When she gets going, the face turns red, the veins pop out and there is no stopping it. It is adorably contagious and I don't think it's possible to witness one of her laughing fits without ending up in one yourself. I thank God for childhood in all its unadulterated joy and loveliness and for my parents who made mine enchanting and for my three loves whom I can't get enough of.

her hands

This is Trish, the girlfriend of my little bro. She is a potter and sculptor and does beautiful work in a little studio downtown where she works. I dropped in last weekend to watch her work and do some throwing. The feel and smell of the wet clay brought back some good memories and I think I could have stayed there all day. It had been so long and I was pretty rusty, but it felt really good just the same.







"We're like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering in the world is not the failure of God's love for us; it is that love in action. For believe me, this world that seems to us so substantial, is no more than the shadowlands. Real life has not begun yet."
~C.S.Lewis~

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?”
~Kahlil Gibran~