Back and Forward

As long as I'm glancing and not gazing, it's all good.

Back at the past, that is.

That's the theme God's been driving home to me of late. And, He's used Moses, Timehop, and Easter to do it.

I'll start with Moses.

I'm studying his life this spring through Bible Study Fellowship. (Two thumbs up for BSF and their method of study. Highly, highly recommend). Moses is nearing death, and he is giving the Israelites, who are poised on the brink of the promised land, his farewell talks. Some of his words have to do with where they've been, but more of his words are to prepare them for what is ahead. I highlighted these words on page 1 of the notes BSF printed about this very thing.

"There are brief looks back to where the people had come from; then, the focus shifts forward again. The land to which God was leading His people and the future He had promised them always takes center stage."

When I read those words, I thought of a quote about where our focus is that I've heard somewhere down the line.

Glance at your circumstances. Gaze at God.

It doesn't fit perfectly - the past is behind you and circumstances are before you - but those words from BSF and that remembered quote made me start pondering my focus. Am I focused more on where I've been or where I'm going? Do I look more at my circumstances or at my God?

The routines of life beckoned after reading those notes and thinking that quote. But a "focus" pot was now simmering on my mind's back burner and it tagged along when I got busy doing what I normally do.

And, one of the things I normally do?  Check my Timehop.

In fact, every morning, an alert pops up on my lock screen.

If it's ready, I'm ready.

Timehop takes me back to this date, one year ago, two years ago, and so forth - for as long as I've been on social media - and shows me what I was up to.  It's a completely delightful daily walk down memory lane.

That simmering "focus" pot just rumbled a little - Timehop just joined the stew.

Not condemningly, though. Just mindfully.

Glancing is what you do on that fun app.  I smile, and thank God for the (mostly) good things I'm reminded of there. He has been faithful. Where that app takes me is not a time and a place I find myself wishing was back, but a time and a place I was glad I was in.

Ok, sometimes I might wish those "easy" times were back.  Sometimes, today's hard makes me either morph yesterday's hard into easy, or it makes me forget yesterday's hard completely. But I try to remind myself as I look at pictures of my smiling, adorable children that yesterday really did have its share of hard. I swallow any lumps, and go on.

Easter week 2015 rolls around. I didn't realize it at the time, but my focus pot was about to start boiling.

My Lou and I have been celebrating Easter together since 1987. We've been taking the family Easter pics since the early 90s.

If my friends told me they liked my hair, they were lying.

Since our youngest was born in 1998, Easter activities have been fairly predictable for two decades.

We'd get messy and artistic and dye eggs.

 We'd dress in our new Easter outfits and go celebrate the Resurrection with our friends at church.

Mary Grace's hat and gloves -- on point

"Can we do a silly picture?' Always the question at the end of the "real" picture.

We'd eat a special Easter lunch and then hunt Easter eggs.

Sorry, Hannah...couldn't find one of you hunting!

As I type all that and glance at those pictures, I'm smiling. I'm smiling because I'm tempted to write just how much fun it was - and stop there. Don't get me wrong. It was fun. Those were precious, precious times. But as I think back to those times, I know they weren't easy and innocent like they sometimes look in pictures. I've forgotten how much work it all was and how tired I know I was. I've forgotten the sibling squabbles I had to referee because somebody found more eggs than somebody else. I've forgotten how somebody got upset with me because things weren't going exactly like they had thought they should go. I've forgotten how under appreciated I felt at times when all I was trying to do was make sure everybody had a good time!

(Yikes. Maybe I haven't forgotten like I thought I had.)

This year looked quite different than those Easters. Four of our six kids were home, which made this mama happy. We did like we do when we are all gussied up for Easter and took pictures.

There was fun conversation around the lunch table. I like my adult children a lot. But as sweet as this Easter was, every once in a while, in the middle of it, I found myself thinking back to Easters past.

Now there's nothing wrong with thinking about the sweetness of past events in your family. I know that. But I also know my heart, and I could feel it longing a little bit for those days - gazing at those days in my heart - as if these days were somehow lacking.

These days are not lacking. This day, this moment in time, with these people, at the age they are, is right where I'm supposed to be. It wasn't better back then. The past was what I needed then and the present is what I need now. The past makes this present even more sweet. They are both a gift from the hand of God.

And God is using the past and this present to prepare me and you for the future. He has good work for us to do!

We are to glance at the past for joy, instruction, and encouragement. We are to live, prepare, and hope in the present. And we are to focus on and follow God into the future.

This is what I preach to myself when I'm tempted to think my past was better (happier, more fulfilling, easier) than my present. This is what I preach to myself when I find myself staring at pictures of times past and almost aching for those days back.

He wants me to glance at my past, but gaze at Him and be doing the good work He has for me to do!

I remind myself God was faithful then and He is faithful now and He still has good work for me to do.

He has good work for you to do. In your family, in your community, and in your world. Work that matters for eternity.

So let's glance at the past, remember, and smile, but let's gaze at God, rejoice, and...get busy.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

Spring Break 2015

You know all the energy and excitement that surrounds the first day of Spring Break?

Last night - the very last hours of Spring Break - were exactly the opposite.

It was low key around our home. The college kids had gone back to their colleges, and our high schooler had checked her books to see if she had any loose ends to tie up before today.

Today we are back to the routine and rhythm of "normal" life.  When I read a Lent devotional this morning, I came across these lines describing the Monday of Holy Week:

This particular Monday may have felt like the proverbial Monday morning in the modern Western world — a time to reengage the grind and get back to work. Jesus, indeed, walked into Jerusalem to take care of business.

To hear that twist on a 2000 year ago time made me pause, but I liked thinking through it. Today, 2000 years later, felt more Monday-ish than usual, though, because we were coming off Spring Break.

Spring break is such a welcome event. It doesn't even matter whether you travel anywhere or not. The focus has shifted from winter and doldrums, to spring and break.

We planned a little trip to warmer climes - that "whole nuther country," Texas. After packing our faithful 2004 suburban here in Bolivar, MO, with luggage and two beautiful daughters, we hit the road toward Fayetteville, AR. It was time to pick up another beautiful daughter, who was going with us, and to say adios to our David, who was going skiing. Of course, I made them pose for a picture.

Then we headed southwest toward Dallas.

As I was planning this trip, I looked at the little towns we'd be passing through in OK, and googled "interesting things to see in ____, in hopes of finding something that was Instagram worthy in at least one of the HWY 69 towns.

Durant, OK, boasted:
The "World's Largest Peanut" is located on the Southeast Corner of the Durant City Hall. The monument is a must see for visitors to the Durant area. 

Alrighty then! To make the event even more exciting, I bought peanuts and was going to pass them out in the car a few miles out of Durant to add tasty drama to such a must see.

Well, it turned out, nobody was in the mood for peanuts when I offered them and the statue was a little farther off 69 than I'd thought. Questions like, "What exactly are we going to see?" were coming from the back seat. Sitting at my kitchen table, this had seemed like such fun, clever planning on my part. Sitting in the front seat of the suburban describing what we were detouring for felt like the dumbest suggestion I had ever had.

I still felt pretty lame when we eventually found it, but we ended up laughing about it. I'm sure it will find its way into future teasing when I tell them I've found something worth detouring for.

Dallas was our first stop and we packed good stuff in those 3 nights and 2 days. First order of business was dropping our Mary Grace off at the home of a Kanakuk friend, Nicole. We'd shown Nicole all around Bolivar for a couple of days at Thanksgiving, and now she was returning the favor with Mary Grace.

We don't have Cupcake ATMs in Bolivar

We don't have Alamo Drafthouses in Bolivar, either. #dinnerandamovie

Nicole's family not only treated Mary Grace like royalty, but us, too! They took us up 48 floors and let us see Dallas in all its nighttime glory.

Very cool

Sunday morning, we visited The Village Church, where we ran into a friend from Bolivar! I love completely unplanned, unexpected happy reunions!

J.L. West and the girls!

The afternoon was spent touring the The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza. It's worth a visit.

That open window...

Early Monday morning, we hit the road again - this time for Austin.

First order of business there? A nap by the pool and a dip in the pool.

Then, we saw the capitol,

Another unexpected happy meeting with Kaden Burlison

hiked the Barton Creek Greenbelt,

checked out the bats on the Congress Avenue Bridge,

Daughters are more fun to take pictures of than bats

and played putt putt with our dear friends from Llano, who drove to Austin hang with us.

That's a seriously big Peter Pan

All that looks pretty fun, right? It was. But it was mainly fun because I was with some of my people. If I'd spent my Spring Break doing the exact same things, but all alone, this blog post would have a decidedly different vibe. It might be a little more Edgar Allen Poe.

Thanking God on this post Spring Break Monday for the gift of time away with people I love. We made some good memories and ate a lot of desserts.

I hope you're making good memories with those you love, too.

And...before we're done, here's another thing we (thankfully!) don't have in Bolivar, MO.

Blessings!

March 4th Mary Grace!

Yesterday was March 4th.

I like March 4th.

I like it because when you say the date you've got a little word play going on. Believe it or not, I'm not the first person to pick up on this. One of the national day calendars I checked said yesterday was

March Forth (Do Something Day)!

Who doesn't want to march forth and do something good and meaningful and helpful? Just saying the date spurs you to get up and get going! Cue some grand march music!

Even more, I like  March 4th because it reminds me of the caboose of our little family train - Mary Grace.

I think of her because "March forth" is an imperative sentence, and when I think of imperative sentences, I think of Mary Grace.

Here's why.

Back when I was homeschooling, grammar time often consisted of quizzing her about the four kinds of sentences. One day, when I asked her to name them for me, she replied:

"The four kinds of sentences are declarative, interrogative, exclamatory...and....(pause....thinking)...   demandatory?

Demandatory. She may not have named it correctly, but she understood it perfectly.

It's actually a better name than "imperative." We laugh about her cleverness to this day.

There was also snow on the ground yesterday, which spurred my memory about a little barefoot marching forth that a preschool Mary Grace did on a similar snowy day many years ago.

On that particular day, I was in the thick of homeschooling the 5 oldest. Mary Grace was still too young to "do school."  She was, however, old enough to play by herself for periods of time while I was teaching one of the others. One day, while I was on the main floor working with one of the kids, she went down to play in the basement. 

She played there for a while, but I guess the beautiful white snow on the other side of the glass door was beckoning. She ventured out the basement door, coatless, barefooted, and took a little trek through the snow. For whatever reason, she didn't turn around and go back in the door she'd just exited, but walked around to the front of the house to the locked front door and started crying for someone to let her in. I remember stopping what I was teaching and saying, "Do y'all hear something?"

I felt like a terrible, negligent mother when I saw my preschooler standing outside our locked front door barefooted and in nothing but her play clothes. That passed pretty quickly, though, because after we scooped her up, warmed her up, and dried her tears, I headed out to take a picture of her adorable tracks in the snow.

I was lucky to capture these sweet footprints in the snow - and this before the handy cell phone camera. I actually had to go to the trouble to get the "real" camera. I'm glad I did.

I'm glad these fun stories marched forth from the back of my mind yesterday and made me smile.

You've got some of your own stories that are just waiting to be summoned. I hope you can take some time in the next few days to remember them and smile.

Blessings!

The Preschooler - complete with scratched up nose;)

The Homeschooler

The High schooler

Love.

A Note to My Sons: Of Mustaches and Men

Through my Audible membership, I'm listening to The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough. I'm all over anything David McCullough writes and having words like "Great" and "Epic" in a title make it a done deal. I look forward to the day when I can go back to NYC and re-visit the Brooklyn Bridge. I've been to it once, but I can tell you, after reading about it,  I will appreciate it in a whole new way.

Recently, I heard a couple of sentences from that book that made me think of my boys.

October 2013: Hannah's wedding

They are men  (Luke's 25 and David's 21), but I still call them my boys. Mother's prerogative, right?

The sentences from The Great Bridge that stopped me described a George McNulty, and after googling his name and the words "ablest men on the job," the following page magically appeared on my screen.  I put a blue box around and underlined in red the section that impacted me. (I'm not sure what the yellow highlighted words are about.)

When I heard those words about the not yet thirty George McNulty, (my boys are not yet thirty, too), I stopped the audio, and replayed it a couple more times. 

Then I thought/prayed/whispered the following for my boys:

Lord, may my boys be known as "unquestionably one of the ablest men on the job" whatever job they do. Let this be said about them because they are this kind of man.

It's a mother's hope, prayer and blessing, all wrapped up together.

Followed by and also wrapped up in this, was a little humorous reminder for this mama.

McCullough mentioned that “McNulty…managed to grow an imposing handle-bar mustache.” While neither of my boys have grown that, it’s not because they couldn’t. They’ve both been blessed with their father’s good gift of beardicus plenticus and have proven that fact over the years.

Luke: 2014

David: 2014

Those two used to look like this:

David and Luke: 1996

Not anymore.

My two boys can grow facial hair. It may seem silly, but God used George McNulty's imposing handle-bar mustache to remind me of a simple fact.

My boys are men.

Men I love and pray for.

I'm praying that they are the ablest of men.

This Week, I've Found Myself Thinking...

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I’ve been feeling an itch to blog about it - or at least to blog about what I've been thinking about in this week leading up to it.

Last year, I took a lighter, yet darker, more chocolate approach to the day and wrote Valentine's Day.

But this year - this week - I’m feeling a little more thoughtful. And, slightly all over the map. I've felt a little nostalgic, a little weak, a little (a lot) thankful, a little prayerful, a little serious, a little Snoopy.

Hold on. I'll show you what I mean.

This week, I’ve found myself thinking about Valentine’s Days past. 

When we were homeschooling, we threw some fun Valentine’s Day parties for the girls. We planned and decorated and celebrated and always bought a big balloon.

I’m sure those were some slightly stressful “how am I going to get it all done” days, but I don’t remember a bit of that. I just look at these pictures and remember perfection. Isn’t that what we do? Why do we do that? Is it because we are so busy navigating today’s “hard," that yesterdays all seem relatively easy? That selective memory gig is so interesting.

This week, I’ve found myself thinking about my Mom. 

Mom died 7 months ago on July 13, 2014. She was 88 and sick and tired, and tired of being sick and tired. She was ready. Knowing that gave (and gives) great comfort, but for some reason, especially yesterday, I missed my mother. I wanted to talk to her. I missed her voice. I replayed a couple of voicemails that I've kept on my phone where she asked me to pick up some juice for her at the grocery store. "It's real good juice, not watered down like some of them..."

It’s good to have loved someone so much that you miss them, isn’t it?

This week, I’ve found myself thinking about my Lou. 

He’s a good man. A really good man. He loves the Lord and me and our crew so well. 

1987 - I've always liked this pic of us

A few completely random things about him that make me smile are:

His voice.

How much he loves tennis.

His knowledge and love of cars.

How he loves technology and all it does for us.

How he can't stand still.

His love of bike riding.

His cooking!

How much his patients love him. When they tell me they love him, I think I'm pretty clever when I come back with, "I do too!!" 

This week, I found myself thinking about my kids.

This week, I found myself praying for my kids.

How I love our crew. Five of the six are scattered to the four winds, but all are in the thick of figuring out what is what, and where they want to be, and how to do what they want to do, and can they really even do what they think they want to do? God has gifted each one of them so uniquely, and I long for them to know how to be and what to do with the gifts given to them. Even more, I pray that they know the Giver of the gifts and love Him with all their heart, and soul, and mind.

The almost ready pic

This week, I've found myself thinking about Kara Tippetts.  

Her blog, Mundane Faithfulness, is chronicling her journey from life to death, which is more imminent for her than most of us think is imminent for us, as she is on hospice care. I first became aware of Kara back in October 2014 when I read this post she wrote on Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience. I am drawn to Kara's beautiful faith-filled life. I want to love and trust my Jesus like she does when the suffering coming my way comes. We are told in John 16:33 

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." 

Suffering - tribulation - and death are coming to all of us eventually. I don't know if we are ever ready for it. The coming of most of the really hard things that I've gone through have completely blind-sided me. But so far, in these 53 years God has given me to live, He has been faithful in and through the tough times. He has helped. He has loved. God has given the strength and hope needed. He has kept His word.

That's heavy stuff, and I know sometimes our tendency is to shy away from heavy stuff. It's not fun. If fun is our goal, we are going to have a life time of fake. It's only in really dealing with and thinking through the heavy stuff of life and death can we be authentic and have the joy, peace and stamina to live out each day. We lean hard into the truths of God's word knowing He will give all of Him and the truth and the hope and the joy that is promised. When we do that, we will have all that we need for a real, authentic, joy filled life. The weight and wonder of it all astounds me sometimes.

This week I've found myself thinking about how I procrastinate.

How can I ever procrastinate after writing the previous paragraphs? I'm ridiculous. Aren't you glad God's love and faithfulness is rock solid through all our ridiculousness?

I still haven't bought my Lou's Valentine's Day card (or gift). I think I put a little pressure on myself to outdo all other Valentine's Days to date. Good grief. Just stop.

This does, however, take me back to some previous Valentine's from my Lou that I've kept. I really liked Lou's Snoopy phase...

I'm seriously impressed that you've hung with me through all these meanderings. Well done. Here's some parting Snoopy wisdom - not from my stash of Lou cards, but from the internet after I googled, "Snoopy wisdom."

Many, many blessings to you as you love on those nearest and dearest to you.