It's been over a year!  Maybe I'm ready to start blogging again?

i really started tonight looking for blogs to read, but only ended up here.
i have been writing - on and off - but just to put in my journal folder
thoughts
working through things
occ i publish on fb
but that isn't usually terribly satisfying

fb is notorious for just not showing anyone your stuff
makes it hard to really build community
the thing they're supposed to be about it

and the usual blogosphere is so perverted now
everyone wants to get their views up to make money
oh, i have no problem with making money
but when you write 7 paragraphs about a 3 ingredient recipe
and put the recipe at the bottom
just to keep people on your page
well, that gets old
cuz you just really can't say 7 paragraphs about anything of substance
about a 3 ingredient recipe

so you try to tell some cute story about your kid
or your marriage
or explain in grueling detail why you like this particular recipe
but really
we all know
you just want us to stay on your page longer

so instead of communicating
pouring out
blogs seem like another tool anymore
or maybe i'm not looking in the right places?

we are two

God does not seem to be in the business of explaining himself

but also, i never tried to explain myself to my two year old.

their capacity for understanding my motivations was simply not advanced enough.

i am convinced we are nowhere near anything resembling an equal relationship to God. we are two and He is infinite and our blankie is in the dryer.

but i always always had their best interests in mind - even when i carried them screaming to take a nap. one of our twins when he was around 12-18 months would LITERALLY run himself worn out until he hit his head and then i would take him to his crib and he would cry himself to sleep. he would not let me rock him. he would not let me soothe him to sleep. he would not be still.
so, as a loving mother, i decided to let him cry himself to sleep BEFORE he hit his head - in the best interest of his brain development.
this upset my other children - they hated hearing him cry and seeing his distress as i carried him to bed. i understood where they were coming from and met them with compassion and explained to them why i did what i did.
but i did not try to explain it to the baby
not because i didn't care if he understood
not because i was callous
but because he simply was unable to comprehend
all he knew was that he was being made to go to bed
to stop his happy playing
to cease his wonderful outside the crib existence
and nothing i could say would help him understand any other point of view - only time and maturity would do that

and that was not the baby's fault
it was not a shortcoming within him
it just was the way it was
if we don't understand God
if we are mad at God
and feel we are being treated unfairly
it doesn't mean we are wrong
it just means we don't understand
and maybe one day we will
and maybe we never will on this earth
and that's not through any fault of ours
it just is
but when we get home, we will see it all clearly
and then we will understand.
meanwhile, will we be content to wait?
will we trust our Father?
how about this? Even if we don't - He won't love us any less
and He will understand

A Little More Time to Love

By Steven Curtis Chapman

There’s a little boy looking at me in the mirror
He’s asking where the time has gone
Was it here just long enough to draw these lines on my face?
Well I’m not sure I’m much wiser
But some things are clearer
And it’s getting clear that I’m not here for long
So what am I to do with my few minutes here in this place?
And we hear the world sigh with its aches and its pains
We see the grass wither and watch flowers fade

But oh, there’s a day that is coming
When everything will be new
And oh, God will dry every tear
And everything sad will be made untrue
And oh, it’s gonna be a celebration
All of creation longs for
And while we’re waiting for that day to come
We’ve got a little more time to love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOLwfPqDaS8 

so my 14 year old daughter lays on the carpet in my room. her tiny feet sticking up in the air - her miniscule feet - and she is in the midst of an existential crisis! her head is behind the trash can, so i can't see it, and out of nowhere she begins with: "Mom, it occurs to me. . . i haven't had a lot of bad things happen. I haven't been in a flood, we haven't lost our house, or lots of really bad things. So. . . that means it is all to come right? My best years are behind me. Can i just go at 16?"

so what do you say to that one? esp when she is right and you know it?

i told her her best years were still ahead of her too. she asked how i could be sure. i told her i was sure. that life had lots of good things in store for her because from when i was 14, lots of good things have happened to me. and i assured her i would do my life all over again if i had to - even the hard parts, because the good parts make up for it.

She was skeptical.

the truth is she has actually been through a lot. but obviously it hasn't scarred her.  not because it wasn't hard - it was/is.  but i guess because she was not left alone and she was given the tools to handle it.  Her whole family has lyme disease (and other co-infections), she struggles with symptoms on a daily basis.  She lost both of her grandfathers in a 6 month period - one while she was helping to care for him.  she was the last person to see him alive.

she lost her niece when Areille was only 67 days old.  That one changed her forever.  She told me how it changed her perception of herself.  That when she sees herself in the mirror (after) she sees herself differently.  Before she was a child, now she sees herself as taller and not a little girl.  Her looks didn't change and she didn't magically grow.

She lost her innocence.

Babies aren't supposed to die in the real life we all think we live in.

Zee handles all of this with such grace and joy.  It breaks my heart often.  many things break my heart.  But i can't just sit broken.  My kids deserve better than that.  so i pick myself up when i am able, dust myself off, and just keep going.  My kids are my inspiration and my reason for continuing to fight.  My kids are the reason i am learning about rife machines, cancer, and quantum entanglement. My kids are also the ones who pick up the slack during the times i am not able to pick myself up. They take care of my kids, they clean the house, they cook, they do the grocery shopping, they run their siblings to work and pick them up.  They hug each other and support each other and listen to each other.  They let me cry on their shoulders when i am sure it is supposed to go the other way round.  They lift me and they love me.  All while handling their own lives and their own families.

I really think i have the most amazing kids in the universe!

Andrew went to our house today - and BROUGHT ME BOOKS!!!!

SCREEEE!  SO EXCITED!

i am trying to get my books moved here before summer hits

we do have a/c at our old house, but the house needs work

and i worry about my books and my pictures.

so i am trying to get them here.

i don't really have a place to put them right now

but i will just have to work on that

they still make me happy to have them

i need to go through and get rid of what i won't use

went out to check on the kids

hoping they were reading the new books

they weren't, but if i change the wifi password i bet they will

cocoa and toast sounded good

and i can't stand to just stand and wait while things cook

so i was cleaning. the kids helped.

Zee said, "do you just like cleaning or something?"

and i told her i do. i really do love to clean!

and i love to bless my family with neat tidy peaceful spaces

i just don't have the energy i used to have

not only to clean, but to hold them to standards also

esp when the 3 boys were teens - it was so crazy

and i was so sick!

but now they are twenty somethings

and delightful twenty somethings!

often they clean more than i do

some have initiative

others will do whatever i ask whenever i ask w/o any attitude

or so much as a sigh!

its a combination of things i think

they appreciate it more

and they now realize how much work it is

i do miss having my whole house clean

my pace is so slow now and my thinking often so muddled

that by the time i get it all done, the first part is dirty again

and it's time to start over

but now and then Holly will come for a day

and take care of gram

and clean the whole house!!

not the bedrooms, but kitchen, LR, hall, bathroom, and gram's

and boy is that nice to come home to!!

i pay her handsomely of course!

so, i guess God meets us where we are

if we can adjust with grace to limitations,

maybe he has a special blessing for us

that we might miss out on otherwise

i once heard it said "if you don't share your hard times,

you don't give those who love you a chance to love you enough."

it has kind of stuck with me

some people just hate to ask for help

but honestly, as a helper, i know. . .

it blesses others when you let them help you!!

I believe God created us as a needy people

for a reason.

If we were islands and enough alone,

we would all live far apart and alone.

it is our need which calls us to close in

and share

and care

and provide

and exchange.

God kinda knows what he is doing.

 Zed's Water Day!

One thing for sure i have learned in life
             you can call it wisdom if you want
is that it won't turn out anything like you planned
       wanted
               imagined.

that changed my life

i was a planner
      a thinker
             a lister

and i had been taught we should do that

now i am not so sure

now i think
      maybe
            we need to work instead -
on refining our attitude and reactions to be Christlike.

that is - for me - actually a much harder task
     than planning
              preparing
                     doing

to have life happen in a way you hate
        to be torn and broken
                  destroyed

and remain Christlike

that is not easy
      that does not come naturally

i think one's time would be better devoted
     to preparing for that eventuality
            than to attempt to control life

because you can't

at some point it surely has to occur to you
      that you are so far from in charge
                that it isn't even funny

well,
     if you live in reality
             i think it must

so ~
     my life philosophy
                such as it is
has changed

from a path model
              to a reaction model
from an action model
      to a reaction model
perhaps respond is a better word.
     reactions tend to not be our best foot forward
response seems more thought out


and that is the greatest wisdom of my 50 years
              not really sure what that says about me
but i think maybe i wish someone had told me that a long time ago