Ripped in the middle...

If it is not enough, (and it is overwhelmingly feeling like it is more more than enough)...in the middle of it all, THIS book I ordered came to day.... and I started it reading it.

Almost couldn't put it down...but the pebbles started falling (the grey ones), and squabbles and meals and chores and stuff made it so I needed to stop and attend to life in the moment.

We have been enjoying life on the porch....as we all gather there in the evening, one sewing, one drawing pictures, one on the lookout for pirates through the spyglass, one rolling hot wheels...and momma rocking in the breeze with an aching heart. So much is pulling on my heart right now....so much of it in and between those four bodies on the porch and me so broken for the task.

And then in the middle of my aching, inadequate heart, I am ripped up the middle with more ache upon ache. Olivia asks about the cover of my book. I try to explain what the blonde woman on the back is trying to do. She asks a couple more questions, then says.."good momma. Like you momma." Oh, I wish. I am far from good. So far from good. (I wanna be good, though, but keep stumbling over my own broken pieces scattered about, the jagged edges cutting me and cutting them.) So many words today, that broke my heart, and momma did not have the energy(strength of heart) to mop up the mess, at least not very well.

and in the middle of this a ripping heart.... and then I read Ann's words to day and thought...she echos me...she echos me..... " I pound on heaven's door because I have got to figure out how to best spend this one life. This is all I have got to figure out. ..." and how is a mother of six {Ann} (me, four) suppose to do that.....?

while our hearts are all aching and our broken pieces jabbing....

and questions not yet answered.... and lives not yet transformed...

and reading, Is it Okay with you? ...my brokenness seems very small and my whining very pathetic, yet the needs of my broken children very real and my God VERY needed.

and I know I am in for even more trouble as David Platt's Radical is enroute.

I have thought today, how, I have read in one form or another, that when we come to the end of ourselves, is when God steps in, and His word says, He is strong in our weakness. Well I have felt at the end of myself over and over these past few days {weeks}, but I have not sensed the stepping in happening. Maybe it is a long, slow, deep step, and what I am feeling is the depression on the ground as He moves in..... I hope.