If I Can I Will

And kindness speaks and I hear it.

Spring is finally here!

Yet I suspect we will have more snow within a few days. The longing for warmths arrival never ceases to leave my mind for I would rather be by the beach soaking in the sun, walking along the shore with my boys, digging for..something (with boys it doesn't matter), planting flowers, herbs, and vegetables year round. 

Something just rings..peace.

There's so much to be done in warmth, very little in cold except to lay in haste of springs return. Unless of course you like the snow which I do for about the first two falls, then its brace for the chill.

Yellow, I am loving yellow especially the three yellow flowers my husband brought back from the sunfresh store while on break. But they were met with raised eyebrows and scowls of "how much?"  The look, the look he had when he opened the bag I will remember, such happiness met with such disdain. Yes, I should kick myself in the head sometimes. Yet he knows me.

So first of spring was spent outside where it should have been. With two little boys running around the park, laughing, and being free along with the other many children let loose to enjoy warmths short arrival.

And yes I ran and hollered and growled chasing them like a crazy old lady noticing the glares but not giving them a seconds thought. 

If I can I will.

Another new saying to go along with my ceasing to complain.

If I can do it I will and it doesn't matter how well.

If I can try I can outlive the lie that time restricts me.

If I can learn to be grateful and not fear the unknown, contentment will come.

If I can keep my eyes on God and not on others, freedom of spirit and soul will arise.

If I can push aside all the thoughts of you cant's, I can I will try.

For there's only one life, one trip to which we can't revisit.

And time hears no cries for halts or stops or take backs but present only for the now, for tomorrows days of what we choose to make it, if we can but try.

And only one God can steer this trip, better make it a good one.

On the Days When We May Feel Like Trash

So some days you just might feel like "trash" or you don't but I do. 

I do and lately there have been a little too many of them..these "trash" days. 

There's no better word for putting it at least in my book. 

All this complaining, expectations lost, grumbling, self pity, worry, feelings of failure, wonder, anxiety, and the list goes on. 

Everywhere I turn I read of giving thanks, finding joy etc it will cure all of it and sometimes I want to throw it out the window all these quotes, niceties, and just give it this thanks and its so easy..and I am thinking..right..if only.

Yes, its written I see it but I'm still working on Love I can't give thanks if I don't Love to give. 

And its easy to give thanks when you have things to be thankful for but its hard when you feel like "trash" and you don't have anything and the days go by in wonder and mystery.

Yes, I have my wonderful children, husband, health and yes, I am thankful ten fold for them over and over again but this other "thanks" I could out speak it with complaining and all my wants, wishes and should have beens.

It can swallow you up and consume you this nature of it isn't fair, everyone else has it and I don't, and what about me? Yes, I am acting like a spoiled child but humbly and honestly.

So I'm on this quest to stop. Stop my complaining and moaning for I could out wail a dog and just go with it and fly with this resting peace that comes but fades each time I open my mouth. 

I don't want to be "trash" I want to be His treasure and his treasure.

For anothers person's trash is anothers persons treasure and even the little him sees it and still loves it this "trash." 

He holds it high and lofty, parades it down the streets, around the corner; he's proud of his trash even though busy onlookers brush past, zoom by with stares. 

But he doesn't see it and keeps on loving this trash day after day.

To him its not trash but worth something much more than that for it gives his heart gladness and joy. 

It may look like trash as I feel I look but to him, its not, I pray its not that I'm his treasure. 

He find this trash thats been tossed aside, thrown out to rot, and he loves it.

I'm reminded of God and how He parades us, His children whom He loves, and shelters, and died for, unashamedly.

I may see myself as "trash" but God sees me as His beauty and He only sees me not my possessions, my surroundings, but me purely me.

The "joy set before Him," the reason He endured the cross, the reason He spoke and life entered for me, us..we are His greatest joy. 

Finding joy in Him and in myself and in my family, Loving to give and learning to thank, regardless of circumstances..hard..but this treasure.

And He loves this "trash" and forgives and forgets and builds and His Spirit comes alive in its awakening unravel.  

We are His greatest treasure, the joy set before Him.  And yes I give thanks for this love.

Ten Minutes

Ten Minutes and only ten because that's how long its going to take, it's all I can spare, and all I can allow myself now only ten minutes.

I can finally sit in silence if I choose yet classical music plays, a favorite. Ten minutes alone and undistracted except for thoughts of to do's that creep and fill the mind but I push and give way to silences stillness.

The birds are back, their chirping calls awakening the world to the presence of spring as they hop across colorless grass pecking between its folds. Nature soaks its sun as bud tipped trees awaken, little bugs scatter here and there across the pavement, beginnings of buds emerge and green grass shoots up sporadically among its brown remnants. Children run and play in its sweetness.

Ten minutes.

I feel the breeze filtering in through the open window and it reminds me of long ago little girl days and the fan that would blow on my face as I slept during hot, summer nights.

As you get older it seems as if your senses come alive with what before only sneaked past in the rush of the young excited, anticipated life.

Now in the ten minutes I praise, I worry, I remember, I rationalize, I rest, and I thank.

Grateful so grateful to live a life of chasing little boys, fixing lunches and dinners, cleaning toilets, changing diapers, doing lessons, repeating words over and over, cleaning behind little ears, holding small hands, and big ones, folding sheets, buying groceries, playing sports, reading books between two little bodies, laughing at sweetness, fixing the toilet handle again and again, ruining the dinner, misplacing things I need, the cracks in the table, breaking up bickers, picking up toys, sicknesses again, balancing the checkbook, taking out the trash, forgetting to do's, worries over tomorrows come and I complain and bite my tongue to hold back, whisper to be strong and remember Love that gives and little hearts and...ten minutes.

Take ten minutes more to sit in silence, think, listen.

It's okay and why? Because He lives and yes facing tomorrow because He does and I do and its going to be okay. It might not be what it was but it never is, it's learning to live with praise, contentment, and sacrifice. 

Learning to live not as myself but as Himself, His Spirit, not as others say it should be or I wish it be but abundantly in Him; it's hard but its what life should be lived for because its eternally present later.

And I hear the sound of wheels along the gravel road, the squeak of little faithful parts and its gone, ten minutes gone, and it's all good. 

I will miss this sound someday the creak of little wheels that need oiled and the little feet that push them and I soak and store and hustle to the kitchen...dinner awaits, thankful times, tomorrows ten minutes and more.

Giving It Up To Give Love

It doesn't look like it should.

This giving it up to give Love, to lay it all down.

Giving it up is giving away of myself and not giving in to what takes the giving away.

Lent, the six week of remembrance, repentance, before Easter where souls lay open to His voice and strip away a longing only to fulfill His.

It never passed my mind years and years ago, this Lent.

The first time I ever really knew what all the significance was about Lent I had happened to be in downtown Chicago on a cold morning years ago. 

Following throngs of early morning risers on crowded streets towards tall, thickly sky scrapers I noticed the markings. I remember thinking it was only a smudge until it seemed as if 
I was passing everyone with this dusting on their forehead. 

Little did I know about Lent that I thought the end was near and the beast had arisen. I remember calling my Mother who told me it was ash and that it was "the" Wednesday.

It was dismissed this ash and Lent until this year. It seems everywhere I look people are giving up something a liking, or a favorite, some treat, some block that if possibly moved would open time to be in His.

I'd like to think that I am always in His time. For these hands don't type, eyes don't see, these lungs don't breath without His will and in His time He has given it.

To spend time in His, yes. The need to spend time in His time, always great.

And then someone dies, someone passes away as quickly they came.

He tickled my son's belly, spoke kindness to me. We were acquaintances but yet comfortable as friends. I never knew. There was always this giving of kindness. Now his time is gone and to say "goodbye," I never knew.

This giving of loving kindness. A disregard for ones self to give. To be a giver, not a user, taker, nor a watcher, a hider, but a giver.

And Love takes time to give. Pushing aside all the hindrances, all the blocks, all the wishes and wants, and what ifs and coulds just to give.

I stumble for it's easy just to sit, soak, sink, and not to Give of oneself.

To Give of oneself takes time and what we do with the time is usually watch it disappear, wasted, snatched by the hands of earthly pleasures.

Giving when it's hard is how you know its done with Love.

But it comes with so many rewards this giving of Love, the Love that takes time, the Love that acts.

All the stuff that doesn't cost anything is what's in return the smiles, laughter, thank you's, touched lives, but it's remembered and felt the deepest.

Love leads and opens paths, paths that cannot be scene unless given. And so the giving it up to give Love always continues, for Love and giving belong and its the time that will tell.

Gone But Not Gone

I pour orange liquid down the kitchen drain the kind that fizzes and bubbles.

Remnants of a visit from a far away sister who walked by the front living room window as if she lived only down the street and had walked up the porch a hundred times. I screamed in shock, disbelief, tears.

That's how it is with sisters their presence always belongs, always exits, always found. It never really leaves.

Gone but not gone.

I kick up my feet on winter sheets of cardinals and green ferns where days ago her legs had rested and her head had slept.

Memories of childhood float into my tired, forgetful mind of young girls giggling before bed playing games quietly so mom and dad couldn't hear (but I'm sure they always did), sharing dreams and stories, and wishful thoughts while tucked in under cool sheets.

If only all the swinging, book reading, hand clapping, toilet sharing (yes), doll playing, pretend fun days could last forever even the moments of snapped Barbie doll heads, swapped spankings, and temporary pouts.

But I can still see some of those days, hear that voice, see that face young and older.

Now its conversations over coffee the good kind.

Succulent lunches and dinners that will take ten times as long to burn off as it does to eat but we don't mind.

Hopeful words of what's around the corner, whats come and gone, and what we miss from each other, all topped with laughter and the occasional glances of sadness in the eyes.

We try on clothes the big kind where the zero is now the second digit. We laugh and sigh about time.

And now we creak and crack and drag and yes sag but our eyes are still there, hearts still remember, hands still grasp.

Cutting onions on the counter I think of her wondering what she's doing.

Maybe the same thing I am.

Its happened before the same thoughts, same emotions, shared between two so close.

Maybe she's laughing, bouncing a crying baby on her lap, kissing a cheek of a child, cleaning a bathroom toilet, taking a nap, feeling lonely, helping a child do homework, drinking her orange or brown fizz.

Whatever it is I can see her.

Love.

Her, here, in this house, unexpected, made me remember that love is really all that matters, all there is. Yes her.

It doesn't matter what I want or what I wish I could be or accomplish, what I wish I could have, what I believe I could do, if only time.

To lay it all down is to love. Love takes time. Love takes giving.

Offering it all up for someone a little someone or a big someone.

The love that drives across states, faces winters lash, leaves behind bundles of joy so that a face could be seen and a laugh could be heard.

The offering is Love. 

Sounds simple but selfless love is always surrender and its never simple.

Giving some things up to love. To give love more time, drive it this Love.

I can't do it all and I don't have to but to Love.

It's dark in the early morning hour.

I'm sure she's asleep. Midnight. Or maybe she can't sleep, maybe her back hurts or the baby cries.

But she loves and I know, she lays it down.

"..let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." I John 3:18

This Is Not Only It

No, this place, earth, what we call home is NOT only it.

We want it to be.

It feels like home or it may not. 

We make it as if it is, we try oh so hard. 

All the investment, all the niceties, all the trips, all the schooling, all the degrees.

But its not only it. There is more.

To draw near is to believe, "This is Not the end."

What material is invested on earth is short lived. Temporary happiness's that fly fleeting out the window, for the Spirit finds no comfort in things of earth only things of Him.

And that is what we take when it ends and only it, the Soul.

Not our belongings, money, degree, not our friends or dear family or children. 

"This is Not only it." 

For far beyond what anyone can fathom lays a world of His greatness, beauty, power, and light that does not conform or appease the minds of material earth but abides only in Him.

To think upon His expansiveness, His majesty, His glory, undermine not His awesome Power.

For he holds this momentous sphere with various elements and rock, His creation, suspended by His power and might. 

It hangs there this sphere by invisible strength, these pulling forces where masses intersect. One cannot be without the other. But this force this pull that keeps the sphere afloat remains so because of perfect balance and this perfect balance, as in all things He keeps in the "palm of his hand."

He sits, waits, watches. He sees all things. Everything directed by His call not until "my words reach every ear." His sons feet will not trod the earth again until every ear has heard. The love of the Father towards His creation, us, His greatest masterpiece. 

He is this invisible being, this force that draws Spirits together, that touches the soul with good, that causes men to cry out in sorrow and shame, that brings out the shield and sword against sin, that speaks forgiveness, that showers healing, that gives laughter and joy, that Saves, that is Him in us. 

To hear over and over that "this is NOT only it" is to prepare His Spirit in us, our homes, families. For it is the one thing that cannot be taken from us. Flourish the Soul for the longing of His Eternity.

He is eternity and He sits and He waits for us to make Him ours.

  

The Light that Outshines

Being a Mom means never being able to sleep in, at least in our home.

There's that rapping, clawing at the door, pushing on its exterior, those soft wails, more pushing as if something or someone too great to ignore lies just outside their reach that they can't grasp.

And when they do break in they make their rounds through the room checking the drawers, surrounding areas as if they are undercover agents trying to find something and they do and it's exciting that pen, magazine, piece of loose paper, old pictures, flashlight, nail file, books.

He has today off and for the only day of the week is home all day. A few hours to myself today even if it includes banging with fists on the door by little hands.

The weekend started off with a bang, rushing kids into their seats, the screech of rubber tires, all because time vanished without me seeing it.

The word "late" applied all weekend.

If only I had opened my eyes a little earlier, gotten ready a little quicker, packed the bags a little faster, planned a little better, the "if only" words, my least favorite.

The weather breathed warmth on Saturday, the sun showing just enough of its light to tempt with a trip to the park. I envied the couple, sitting on the bench, sipping their drinks as their children calmly rode their bikes.

Mine were dangling from ropes, hanging from cliffs, and if there was a stumble or trip that could be found they would find it.

With sighs and sadness that no other kids wanted to chase or play, I offered to be the "it." That word I dread from my mouth every time it escapes.

It  used to be so easy when you were younger, the art of lifting the legs in fast movement.

I could imagine being that young girl again but I could never be her again with that same sure quickness or liteness of leg and heart.

But I could laugh and I did and they did even if it was for a short moment.

Until it bled, his hand, how and on what I wouldn't know.

Crimson red covered his thumb and fingers. With sobs from both of wanting to stay and with watchful eyes following us, we left. There were no bandages, clean tissues, or cloths.

Burdens, sometimes the days moments seem full of a heaviness that will crush, test, and trap the goodness of the spirit. 

The stresses of the day, the work, the schooling, the cleaning, the cooking, and lastly comes you. You strive for happy moments and with it, it brings disappointment.

Sometimes it's as if your the only one on this massive sphere that breaks, crumbles, crashes, and feels helpless. But your not and everyone is.

Cast it off, draw near to the goodness and joy of the day, my reminder!

Bring into light the moments of joy for the light always outshines the darkness.

And the children broke into my room this morning excited to show me their gifts of light....

Zion wanted his picture taken, his favorite plate

Josiah's traceables

His Marble Run

10 Things I love About My Oldest Son

Sometimes I dwell on the negativity, on the things I wish I could change, on the annoyances of everyday life so much that it sweeps me up, this pessimistic negative attitude, and gloats itself high and lofty over my days.

 "Change him, he's not good enough, he will never make it, other kids his age can, he can't catch a ball to save his life, your holding him back, he needs help.." And it goes on and on and can soak up the spirits faster than praises from my own lips. I become soaked and then I wring myself dry. Because I see him. There he comes in my room bright and early with a cup full of coffee proudly presenting it to me as if I had just won an award and I had, he was my award.

Focusing on negativity or pressures only ruins the soul. To stay alive by dwelling on the things that are lovely, true, and good by not conforming to the pressures of the world, is where joy is found. "Let the little children come," Let the little children live, be free, love learning all while being guided by love and wisdom.

 With swirling remarks and thoughts of inadequacies running thorough my mind of things he couldn't do during a day I decided to make a list of things I loved about him, things he could do. Focus on them, dwell on them, grow the list, be grateful and thankful for the list that I even have one! There are more and even if there were none love would surely abound, overflowing. Thinking upon, writing the list, it draws the heart out and pushes the negative thoughts back where they belong unseen, invisible, flushed out, no more.

10 things I love about my son

1). He wants to make me proud. He tries his hardest to understand a concept or do something right because he thinks it makes me happy. He longs to please me everyday, to make me proud of him. This one just breaks my heart and I tell him always that I love him and I am proud of him even if he doesn't  master everything that comes across his plate. I give him loads of praise and tell him that I am proud of him. I think further down the road this one characteristic of him may pass and so I soak it up for as long as I can.

2). He is willingly helpful. He offers help without having to be asked. He seeks out ways to help me around the house especially in the kitchen and he is proud when he does so rightly. Of course usually the helping gives way to me being restrictive due to possible messes or more work on my part but he is so happy when he sees me smile from his helpfulness. I need to relax and relish the mess.

3). He misses me. Its nice to be needed and its even more wonderful to be missed. He tells me just about every night when I turn out the light that he will miss me and can't wait until morning to see me. This is true when I go anywhere without him its the "Hug and Kiss" and I will be greatly missed.

4). He is artistic. I love this about him! And yes I am sure there are those who see nothing fabulous in his art work and think I make a mountain out of a mole hill but when I see his dedication in his work him sitting there for sometimes long periods of time to draw, paint, or create I love it. I leave out markers and pencils every morning and he would get up early and draw. Not worried about possible stains, lost marker tops, or paper being used up I wanted to see him have what he needed to express his art, be free doing it. I love it because he is passionate.

5).He wants to see the good in everything. Even at a small age he never wanted to watch TV or movies where bad people were depicted winning or dying or anything bad in general. He always wanted the bad people to be good in the end and couldn't understand why anyone would want to be evil and die evil when they could just be good and go to heaven if they believe. Even if they were bad he would always want them to turn good never giving out hope that somehow they would be good in the end. I love this sensitivity in him, his desire to care,  his concern.

6). He has a musical ear-Sometimes he can blow me away with what he can musically remember. When he was a young boy he loved classical music and still does humming to himself in perfect pitch a song he heard in his head from a long time ago. I love listening to him sing worship songs, dance, and play the piano.

7). He can build -railroad tracks, legos. Elaborately he builds his rail road track twisting the pieces around, over and under bridges until he comes up with his city scene full of paths that intersect. I am glad I never glued the pieces together back when I first bought his train set when he was three. Needless to say I wasn't happy about all the train track pieces all over the place and I had whined and complained about the mess but he suddenly began building better train tracks then what the directions showed that I decided to let him design his own and he builds different ones all the time.

8). He loves Human Anatomy. This he began learning at a young age and he has still carried the interest with him over the years and he has just astounded me with how much he knows. He was (still is) curious about each tiny detail and how it works and functions that I bought him human anatomy books and models. He knows the organs and there functions much more than I ever did and still do. I love showing him how the Creator made the human body a wonderful, powerful, magnificence. And yes, whenever we need a doctor he is here with his medicine bag to help us get better and he loves going to the doctors office.

9). He recites the Bible to me, from memory. Of course only verses here and there and they are usually right on target with my attitude. At first this irked me that my six year old son was "preaching" to me from the Bible and accurately but then I realized he was right and my attitude was wrong. I could only thank him and praise him for "pointing it out." I love how he prays when I sneak in and see him, memories to hold onto for a lifetime.

10). He is sweet, tenderhearted, curious, and loves God. Yes, he is sweet but he also has a testing nature but he still has such a tender, sweet hearted nature that it overwhelms me and makes my heart melt. If I could only hold onto these sweet moments, remember them forever, and hold them close so that when the testing comes I can remember who he truly is, good, sweet, and a gift from the Lord made in His image. He's not made in the image of evil or badness but made in Gods image! And this sweetness I pray it in him always.