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Friday, October 28, 2011

How to Make Sense of Something that Makes No Sense

It isn’t my way to write about things too close to home or too personal. Sure, I share about the family and the day to day goings on. Sometimes I am a bit dramatic or sarcastic depending but usually not overly serious.

It just isn’t to be today.

We, that is My Beloved I, have been struggling a bit. Some weeks ago a co-worker of Beloved’s took his own life. It is a bit of an understatement to say it came as a complete shock. So much so that one person even called the local Sheriff’s office to confirm – it was just that unbelievable.

I cannot say as I was intimately acquainted with this family. We’ve met over Christmas parties and zoo outings. Beloved spoke often to and knew this co-worker well. He’d been there before Beloved and they’ve always shared the same locker room and lunchroom. He was an excellent worker, in the words of my ‘Dree (short for Husbandree).

When I heard I instantly thought of who was left behind, his wife and their 4 children. All faces that came to mind right then and there. I saw them as if they were in my living room. My heart aches. I hurt and I cannot imagine and I struggle to make sense. I wonder what in the world? And how can we help? Can we reach out to this aching, devastated family and walk life with them? Can we love on them and let them be real?

So many emotions, thoughts and feelings. So many.

My Beloved will still say he cannot wrap his mind around what happened. It is one of those situations where you have to tell your mind and heart that short of heaven it will never make sense. You’ll never know and you’ll always wonder. There is no closure. It just hurts.

The Lord is using it to speak to each of us, to draw us closer to one another and to Him. He is using it to renew the way my mind thinks of life, the way I take for granted that I have many days on this earth. How I misuse and mistreat what time I have been given. How I am not purposeful and deliberate but careless.

It isn’t morbid thinking for I am not dwelling on thoughts of death but rather of life and living this one life well. Living full and loving much and not ending each day with so many regrets over words spoken harshly and rashly. Anger that overwhelmed what could have been done in love. The Lord has gotten my attention, opened my eyes and my heart and I am seeing my need and my weaknesses and areas that need cleaning up and handing over. I am thankful He never choses to leave us as we are but always, in love, is pushing us to wear the robe of righteousness, of Christ.

I wish it hadn’t taken this situation to knock me off my feet and really open my eyes.

Would you pray with me for this family? Would you lift them up? Would you also pray for real heart change for me too – that it wouldn’t just be words? So appreciated. Thank you.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Before and After

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This little man has been needing a haircut for some time. I don’t think this pictures does any justice to just how shaggy and long his locks had truly gotten. I was thinking he didn’t look half bad when I saw this picture. I guess for us when your boy wakes up with some serious scary bed hair you have passed the point of needing a hair cut and it becomes a must.

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I put it off and put it off because I cut it myself and frankly the last time was a bit exasperating and exhausting. Well, I belted him into his seat to watch a movie with the other kids and figured there was no better time so I went to it. He really did well as a result of the distraction. Now he looks like my littlest biggest man. Something about taking an inch or so off makes Zeke look older. Such a cutie pa-tooty.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Nothing New Under the Sun

Some things run like clock work around here. The development of an infant to a walker somewhere close to 2 weeks, give or take, of their first birthday. And then from a walker to a climber a few short months later. It just seems to be the natural progression of things around here.

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I remember when Katie wrecked havoc on my days with her new found freedom. This season it is Zeke.

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Like the others he is quick to get up on something. The table is his favorite haunt. He can pull himself up on the chair (not enough friction to stop his belly from sliding across the top of the chair as he pulls) and from there it is nothing to get to the table top. He sits up there like he is royalty.

I wish I could say this sitting on tables only occurred at home. He kept me on my toes at a recent visit to a friend’s house by climbing up and sitting on her table and then proceeding to throw crayons one by one! Oh dear.

It shouldn’t amaze me or catch me by surprise, how they have each gone through this stage, and yet it still does. Maybe it is a form of hope? A crazy denial of what is sure to come? A sanity saver so the child does indeed make it to and past this certain stage? I cannot safely say anything other than he is quick and I am slow. Oh, too slow Joe! (Let’s not keep track of the number of times he has successfully made it to the top of the table, okay?)

Thursday, October 13, 2011

What in the World

I must know for fear of being locking into a rubber room if someone doesn’t share. What in the world possesses a child to wipe their nose excrement on my walls?!! I mean is the three more feet (probably an over estimate) to the toilet paper roll in the bathroom like crossing the Sahara?!!

And why do all children have this issue? It doesn’t seem to be regulated to just boys or just girls. (I know this for a fact!)

If this were only the first time I have discovered a little person using my walls as their personal hankie. It wasn’t the first time but I think it has to be the most disgusting. (Thus far. There are still two younger’s being groomed in the wings.)

Said offender spent many a minute using baby wipes and the blessing of God given nails to get that most offensive of messes off my wall. I find between those two things small offending children do not render the use of my scrubbing talents to assist in clean-up.

Deep breath, deep breath. The wall is cleaned. Children have been warned…again. No need to go off the deep end. This incident has passed and we’ll hope we won’t (knowing realistically we will) find this kind of mess again.

Until next time dear friends! Until next time.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

These Shoes

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Oh they don’t look like much, these shoes. They have been walked in for many a mile, baby miles that is. I bought this pair of shoes for Kiersten when she was just a sprite. I had the intention when buying them that they could be worn by any future sibling. They have worked their way down from the first child to the second to the third and now they are worn by the littlest member of our family.

It took some convincing that he should try them on because he was used to those soft brown  shoes handed down from Isaiah. Those were so comfy and these are a bit more restrictive.

He did his little ‘German’ walk, as we call it, the first few times I put them on. One foot would go up and knee locked come back down. He would also bend down to touch those new-to-him shoes. He just didn’t seem sure about them. So funny to watch.

I find it is a bit harder these days to not be a little nostalgic about some of the small things. I’ll miss these sweet shoes and all things baby. It has been a blessing to have been able to use so many things four times. What a smile it brings to my face to remember that she used or wore that thing, then he did, then she did and lastly now he does.

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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Bee Accepted

This story, Bee Accepted, within A Hive of Busy Bees by Effie Williams, is truly one of love. (I promised I would share after the last post didn’t I?) The first part of this story is about the love of a shepherd whose very job is to watch over and protect his flock. He takes them out to pasture but returns each evening to put them in a pen, the fold. As the shepherd reaches the pen he counts each sheep as it passes the gate, making sure he has each and every one.

Now I said gate, but the beauty is there was no gate on this pen that the shepherd put his sheep into. At night he would lie down in the opening of the pen acting as a living gate. That way he would know if anything came in or went out. He was their protector and provider and they heeded his voice.

The person telling this portion says wouldn’t it be nice to own the verse, “The Lord is MY shepherd”? Wouldn’t it be nice to be within the loving protection of the fold of the Lord, to be His sheep and He your shepherd? The invitation goes out so eloquently to bee accepted into God’s family.

The second part of this story begins with some men driving past a farm and noticing the sheep out in the meadow. One sheep looked a little off, like his coat was actually sewn on. Upon arriving at the farm they inquire of the farmer about the sheep. He tells them a mother sheep lost her baby and a baby lamb lost its mother. The farmer sees one and one and thinks why not make two? He puts the lost baby with the grieving mother to see if she will take it as her own. She goes near the little lamb and then starts to buck and kick. Before serious damage is done to the baby the farmer takes the lamb out of the pen. He puts the mother back in the pen with her little dead lamb and finds she calms down immediately. He figures she knows her baby by its smell. Getting desperate to make this situation work and to save the living baby lamb he decides to take the coat off the dead lamb and put it around the living one. Once the coat was tied on he reintroduced the little lamb and the grieving mother. She came near again and found that what she smelled was familiar and so she began to nurse the lamb. She accepted the little lamb as her own.

As the family talks over this story it becomes this beautiful depiction of the Lord and his love for us, his lost sheep. How when He looks at us and sees us, sin and all, we just aren’t acceptable to him. However when we choose Jesus, when we are welcomed into the fold of God, we are given a new coat, a new skin, the cloak of Christ. From then on when the Father looks at us he sees the cloak of His Son and we are accepted.

My retelling just cannot do this chapter justice. Such a sweet, sweet message of the love of a Father and the lengths He went to so that we wouldn’t have to be lost but rather accepted as members of His fold.