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Showing posts from 2014

Noelle's 1st Noel: A Christmas Bucket List

12 Days of Christmas Fun to complete BEFORE December 25 in no particular order:  1.  Meet Santa  ✔️ 2. Watch "Elf" & "Rudolf the red nose reindeer" 3. Go to Monticello Christmas parade 12/6 and Warren Christmas parade 12/4  4. Go to Santa train December 13 5. Purchase first Christmas ornament ✔️ 6. Go Christmas Shopping ✔️ 7. Read the Christmas Story as a family 8. Make Christmas Cookies 9. Pajama ride to look at Christmas lights  10. Decorate the tree ✔️ 11. Camp out by the lit Christmas tree as a family and watch Christmas movies  12. Make birthday cake for Jesus 

Abundant & Free

Bad days happen. Bad weeks hit us. A month can accumulate a number of these days and weeks, and it seems like the other shoe has dropped, there has been rain at our parade, and the doc says the camel's back is broken by that pesky piece of straw.  Lawn mowers break down days after weed eaters bite the dust two weeks after the starter goes out in one vehicle when the air was already out and the battery was just replaced in the other. And so the grass is growing higher while responsibilities pile up at work, and homework is assigned, and students die, and new coaches have long nights away from home, and a string of (thankfully) minor illnesses/infections hit the family requiring appointments and driving and medication and stool samples and explosive diapers and days missed at daycare and work. And life seemed normal and then one day you wake up and it is all of this and one ounce too much.  But then she's giggling. From her gut. And grinning. With those two bottom teeth sticking

Thank God I Don't Know

Lately. I can't tell you how many people in my life lately have asked. They've asked now that we've had one child (because by all means, she IS already four whole months old), do we know if and when we will have more and how many more while we are at it? Harmless questions. All keeping in line with the stage of life we are now in.  Evidently there are only multiple choice options for questions to ask an-almost-30-year-old married couple and this question is the old favorite, option C. But in reality, the question misses the mark with me every single time. It just doesn't line up with how my story is going right now. And I am sure others could say the same thing.  But me, I have become excited about the fact that I don't have answers anymore. Six or seven years ago in my life, I took pride in how many answers i already had for my future and how a led so clearly to b which naturally gave way to c and ended up with d in a perfectly symmetrical timeline and har

a mother's prayer

Let her see us listen Carefully to you Let her see us follow The path you lead us to Let her see us thank you In good times of blessing Let her see us trust you In bad, get on our knees Let her see us love the ones Who haven’t known Your love Let her see us overflow With new life from above Let her see us cling to peace When life just falls apart Let her see us love fully The shattered, broken heart Let her see us sacrifice Pour our lives out for you Let her see us find ourselves In You, not what we do Let her see us open doors To those who are alone Let her see us share our life And our hearts and our home And let these things that she sees Bring her to a place Where she will grow to follow you And live by your grace.

Sufficient Insufficiency

Can I get a witness? Am I the only one who brought a baby home from the hospital and felt, at least for a second, that her cries of need were the first signs of weakness in my parenting?  That I might just not be enough for this gig? Am I the only one who was already kicking myself by the time my sweet little baby was, oh, two days old, that one day this sweet helpless babe would inevitably be failed by me and hurt by my own insufficiencies? Am I the only one who has turned around and walked out of Walgreens after the first whimper cry out of my 3-week-old's mouth?  Because, after all, what does a crying baby in line at the pharmacy scream to the world? Am I the only one who has spun myself into a tizzy worrying about whether or not my infant would stop breathing in her sleep or catch deadly pneumonia from a common cold?  And that if she did, it would ultimately be my fault? I have realized it is beautiful how much I can love. More than ever before. One little per

Mundane Dependence

I'm not sure if you will understand.  Most of you will probably shake your head.  I'm not sure if there any of you out there like me.  But in case there are, I will share these recent ramblings.  I believe they do reveal the backwards-freakish nature of myself so if you have never felt the struggle or this particular tension, have no worry.  I've always liked a challenge.  I remember as a high school student asking the Vacation Bible School Director at our church to switch the group of youngsters I was leading with another because my group was not challenging enough; the children were "too good" for my taste.  See?  Freak point numero uno.  I remember actually getting excited when I had the super-clingy, attention-needy, nerve-wracking behavior-filled little boy from the group home moved into my group.  *Teachers all over the globe flinch in disbelief.*  I know, I know...what?!?!?  But this was me - "Finally.  My whole group is no longer hanging from my e

A year in review: 2013

A NEWSY POST : reflective posts to follow at later times  January : The year began with Michael and I fresh in new roles at Vera Lloyd. I was entering my second month as a House Supervisor / Case Manager / Training Coordinator, and Michael was working at the on-campus school in a para-professional role with the at risk youth on our campus. Another post will have to contain all that I have learned through that transition. We were also settling into our new home, which we love, about 20 minutes from Monticello in a small town called Warren.  We were missing the house-parent life at Barton but trusting and finding that God had purposes for His glory and our best.  March : We hosted some family visiting our new home and seeing Vera Lloyd for themselves throughout the month.  We, along with my sister Molly, saw and met David Crowder in Memphis for my 28th birthday. Besides being our all-time favorite artist, it's always been a dream of mine to have meet and greet tickets for

Refreshed to be Broken

An appropriate reflection on 2013 written on December 2, 2013: In the last year, I have learned a lot about making difficult but ethical, professional, and necessary decisions. I have been challenged to find a place for the pockets of compassion, empathy, and love in my heart amidst the "business" of ministry at the administrative level. I have been concerned that I would "lose" a part of who I was amidst the "growth" into someone equipped to handle even more complex and complicated matters and make the hard calls that are not comfortable for anyone. I guess you could say a year of lessons in leadership in a whole new way for me as I stepped into the leadership team at the children's home I work for where I now both supervise employees and manage youth's cases. And as I've worried about losing my heart while growing in functionality, I was refreshed today in the saddest of ways to find that my heart was still capable of breaking. In half. And s