tissue-thin

there is a veil...

tissue-thin....

between the realm of all we see touch and feel..and sometimes despair and the realm of God's spirit, breathing life.

i feel {felt?}  ok still feeling, though with a whisper of hope...

i feel battered, exhausted, worried {concerned} stressed over too many things this morning.....

too many gas-guzzling trips in the suburban this week {and it's only Tuesday} and wondering if i'll have enough gas money.

too many {things} needing money from me and too little money to peanut-butter across

email notifications that my bank balance has hit that low threshold mark that i set an alert for, so i could do something about it, but there are too many days left in the week and weekend until pay day...

living too thin....

too many items on my to do list without quick easy solutions....

too much clutter in my house, and messes to clean and stains to wash and brokenness to fix....

too many issues to figure out..and problems to solve, and assistance to give...when i am tapped out....

and stress over school picture money written on paper checks

and stress over bills paid and unpaid...

and stress over how to help my son do fundraisers for school...when truly he should be doing fundraisers for us

and stress over trying to focus on work deliverables, and meetings and tasks and attention...when my whole life is clamoring...

and stress over church, the one thing i would hope would NOT be stressful...and feeling unsettled and unhomed and unknowing what to do.... 

and i sit at my desk, in this mood, tissue-thin layers of stress upon stress, trying to look deep for the blessings hidden between......

i am exhausted...

i put my face in my hands, in my little cube at work,  and my heart cries, O Lord, help me...

and i read Ann's words: 

"When did I start expecting successful Christian living to be smooth sailing instead of stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm? ...When did I start thinking Christianity was about putting on accessories instead of putting on armor? Life’s not hard because you’re doing anything wrong: Life is a battle. Put on your armor."

and i realize, even in this thin day....there is life, and there is breath and there is joy and there is blessing and there is encouragement.

i soak Ann's words in.

i soak God's presence in.  he has not forsaken me.  He will not let this stress be the end up me.

He will help me take the snarly ends of this ball of yarn, and untangle the knots and knit it back together.....

and the simple words of a of a kind soul typed out in facebook, makes my heart tears spill: 

"You are in the middle of very important work....children "

and yes...I am...and God is here....

and then I look at these four faces...dressed up for "clique" day at school:  a jock, a rapper, a nerd and a hipster...

look at them.   each so full of personality, and life and character and the spirit of the living God dwells in each of them!   How could I let anything get me down, when I can look at them...and see the faithfulness of my God?   

and i know..the veil between the seen and the unseen is so thin....and all i feel and see, and struggle with, wet with tears, makes it even more transparent so I can see God.  I can feel God.  I can take his love into my thin places....

and that is the blessing in the stress...the thinness helps me see God.   and see the four blessings out my door every morning  and back in again each night.

something's broken

A year or more ago, I read a line by Ann Voskamp that echoed me so much, that for a long time I had it on my side bar.   It read: "I am a broken momma, of broken children".

I knew I was broken.  {still am}   I was struggling so with the impact of my brokenness.  At the time, though, it was a new thought to consider my children broken.  After all, they all had backgrounds that could easily cause brokenness, and they all had me for a momma, that could easily cause brokenness..and together with me, we are all living after THE FALL, which is a world of brokenness.


and God loves us.   brokenness and all.


from time to time i forget that we are all broken.


i get judgemental of this person's choices, or life style or ways.  i think, they are a christian, they are a leader....they SHOULD NOT do this or that....

last night, my son and i were discussing a perceived misbehavior of someone we both knew....and after i complained about it, my son said: "Mom, he's just human."

ah...yes..he is.  human broken...just like me...

and our brokenness is being tended by Christ, for those who accept his loving balm.  the wounds, the cracks, filled in with grace and love.    but still broken.

and some times we try really hard to look like we aren't broken.  maybe we did not realize that we are still broken people, in a broken world.   and expect the rescue saving of Christ to presto, instantly mend the brokenness.

but it just ain't so.

he does instantly give us his life..but the brokenness of our soul and body is mended slowly, over time,  and not fully, this side of heaven.

so earlier today, I read Ann again, and her new worlds helped me resolve some judgement I was carrying around about a couple other folks.  Ann said:

"if the broken would just love the broken — this might free us all from the chains of rejection."



yes..we are all broken.  and let's just love the broken, realizing it is all of us.  it is letting ourselves and everyone else off the hook of perfection expectations.   Ann goes on to say:

 "God’s putting together all the pieces of the puzzle and He’ll fill what’s still missing with His peace."

yes.  he fills in our brokenness with himself.  he gives peace in the middle of brokenness. 

another friend shared a short passage from a novel she is reading by Beverly Lewis that said:

{{{What if we simply made it our heart's work to pray more and judge less?"}}}

and I thought..yes...yes.  how about that.  pray about those things I was judge and disliking...rather then complaining about them.

our brokenness needs prayers....not complaints

Read Anns wonderful thoughts here: Because  we all have these days: when we are just hanging on by a string.

He is hope.....

via Pinterest

searching for some words on hope tonight...i turned to God's heart expressed through Ann, and to an old hymn.

i've got a mansion

just over the hill top

in that bright land where

we'll never grow old

and one day yonder

we will never more wander

but walk on streets that are purest gold

 Ann's hope words:

When its hard to still keep on hoping: "We bury our swollen prayers in Him who’s raised from the tomb. We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him and wait in hope for God to resurrect something good. Good always necessitate long waiting."

Why its worth it to keep on hoping:"When hope is infinitesimal, that God may increase it, and when hope is deadened, that God may enliven it, and when hope is craved that it may be found in Christ alone. How in the world can the hurt produce hope? Simply: Lean into the Lord...(tharr be more)and His heart absorbs the hurt and the hope of forever with Him, this is what heals.  Even when we’ve buried pain deep, refused to expose it, and the gnawing about wears us through, us with no hope for the fruit — there’s a Gardner and there’s a miracle and there’s redemption in the barren places."

The importance of family, what he gives in the dark: "In the dark, on the brink of the unspeakable, there’s a power working in the powerless.....We just have to grab each other’s hands, press into the land of His promises. I lean into his tears. “We don’t know what’s going to happen here, Joshua. God’s got a plan and it’s good, always.” His eyebrows betray his questioning...The power that charges the dark is the grace of family. There is a reason that “God sets the lonely in families” (Ps. 68:6)."

to the moon and back...

"I stand in the lane right after the blue moon and everything brims and I wish there was a just once more. I wish it had been longer — or I had been more." 

 - Ann Voskamp

" this is their only childhood...

and my only mommy-hood."

  - me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we read these book over and over and over again, until we did not even have to turn the page to say the words that come next.   the words would spill over to our other times.  'baby owls think alot" when we were thinking of something... " i love you to the moon and back.."(.and we would try to out do each other)..."infinty times infinity"

 

first nicky...then taddy...  mei-mei was a slightly different set of books, with pink dresses and chinese girls, ladybugs and pretty ponies, less books, with the busyness of three and only me...ollie, being older, was only a few books....and then none...

 

I have shelves full of children's books.  ones worn by the love of our reading and ones worn by someone elses.  i guess i collect them.  i cannot seem to let them go.

 

it is hard letting go...

 

is a momma's heart always filled with love and pain... always aware of letting go?  did i know the last time i read nicky "guess how much I love you" that it was the last time?  or was I busy...unaware?

 

how much passes with me not present?

how much passes with my heart inside out and locked within?

 

all those other things that all those other people think are important, think i ought to be doing, that stresses me out, so i am not present...all those other things don't matter.

 

this is there only childhood and this is my only mommyhood...and it is almost gone...

4 years for one

6 years for two

10 years for the last

 

more behind me than ahead...it feels.

 

my oldest started high-school today.... so happy, excited, eager for school.   He is becoming such a godly man.  cries for his papa, love on his sleeve, learning like a dry sponge and tall as a weed. my nicky, i love you to the moon and back.....

 

taddy and ollie started six grade, a new school..one a little nervous the other a lot nervous already determined to find nothing good about the day, (maybe if i had read more books, she would feel differently.)  yet still dressed all pretty and backpack full of expectations.  taddy hoping someone will love football as much as he.   i love you son, by warrior man...and i love you ollie, by beautiful young lady...

 

and mei mei starting 3rd grade, so excited i thought her pony would run off her shirt.  all smiles and pink ruffles, by mommas choice, not hers, but happy none the less.  you can still play kick ball in pink.  love you little china girl...

 

 

 

 

all four lined up on the porch this morning for momma's first day photo.

 

  and we rush to school, i rush to work,....almost ready to go pick them up and i read ann's words and it all hits me, spilling out of my eyes... 

 

its too soon...

the book reading is over too soon...

 

and, like Ann, I feel like i am so less when i want to be so more....

 

but this is the one childhood, mommyhood we have...and even at this late day, being made aware once again, what is important, what my purpose is right now...that is good.

 

the rest is good

what has gone before is good

 

and i wonder, is a momma's heart always full of love and pain...

and i reach out to hold those perfect moments...

 

my long-legged son talking it all over with me in the car...

back-yard smores

funny movies and belly laughs
my football fiend  in his mickey voice, me in minnie...driving to the zoo

whip cream mouthfuls

sharpened pencils and full backpacks
my young lady wrapped in an apron bakng brownies
my big footed basketball player grabbing a rebound and protecting the ball like gollum's precious
my pony skipping girl trembling with excitement of a new school and new friends

 

and each night the gathering in....

to let go and gather in well...that is my prayer..

so i go to gather in, the end of the first day of school...
and enjoy some ice cream together....our little tradition.....
momma loves you...to the moon and back