Like A Rainbow.

"Mommy come look!  There are rainbows!"

I step into the small corner she's found, where the early morning light reflects off the standing mirror, making lines of colorful prisms across the wall.  She kneels down, catching her purple gown under her baby knees.  

"Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.  I love rainbows, mommy.  Aren't they beautiful." 

I murmur my agreement, but it's not the rainbow that catches my breath, it's her child wonder.  Her face that lights up, as a treasure greater than jewels, sparkles before her.  Her hair falls in brown waves and she is sleep, and baby, and innocence in a package that amazes me.

Perhaps it is how temporary I get her.  Each stage rushes by and I am constantly wondering where my baby went and marveling at the young lady growing before.  She will never be mine.  Like a dream that you don't want to leave, you pause, trying to return to the moment that came in your innocent sleep.  You linger in the early morning, holding close that soft feeling, even as it slips away and you wake, but through the day you catch the memory.  

We pause on the stairs.  The window panes casting their light on the white wall behind her animated face.  

"This is what I wished mommy!  When I held my eyelash on my finger, before I blew, this is what I saw."

I stop to listen, to enter her world, to hear the fleeting hope that youth and emotion will share, before superstition and age keep it hidden.

"I thought of rainbows and then I blew.  I got it mommy, I got my wish."

Just like that the magic is real.  It trembles in it's belief.  

She is like a rainbow.  When you get the chance to see one, you stop and stare.  You marvel at it's curve, the colors, the storm that is fading behind, and the promise it reflects.  Perhaps you take a picture, or crane your neck as your car speeds past.  Even so, it is fleeting beauty, it is a moment that can not last.  It is never yours to keep, but when you are given a glimpse, be brave enough to look.

Hold to the instant, when promise, and perfection, and life pause in your hand.  When you have the chance to touch wonder, be present enough to believe the magic.

*Photo Credit: the amazing Erica Bartel

The Heart Of A Mother

The air is sweet and warm.  A perfect summers day, the birds call back and forth, and the air moves with the electricity of life.  There is hope and promise and yet I feel the emptiness.  This swelling in my chest that these beautiful days of quiet are coming to an end.  School is around the corner, we're no longer in the five year gap.  Life is picking up the pace and my hands are losing their grip.  Already my son is desperate for the chase of friends, the screaming, laughing games that boys create in their wild imaginations.  I'm the mom standing by as he moves full throttle into his life.  It's what I want, my children to be their own person, to live well, and joyfully, but I already feel the cut of independence.  The sting of watching them grow.

So many things you wish on the other side, my if only's, and failures want to haunt me.  I dream sometimes of the two year old boy who broke me as a mother.  I see his angel face and wish so many times I'd been more gentle, more fun.  I wish that I could savor every moment of his baby chub and wild hair and ways.  I wish I could hear his raspy voice and feel the weight of his catapulting body.

I brush my hand over my six year old's coarse hair and breathe his dirty stench.  I love every moment he lies quiet in my arms.  I would treasure this more if I could.  I would capture every day in a bottle and stare into  these moments when I'm old.  They are the cherished fleeting breaths that come to quick to steal.

School will start and he will run to join the boys in play.  For a while he'll kiss me until he doesn't and I won't remember when it stopped, I'll just look back and wish I had it, a little longer.

Motherhood.  This journey of desperate joy and wrenching pain.  We judge ourselves so harshly, wishing always we could give more than we gave.  There is nothing perfect in our ways, but being there means more than we could know.  Loving is better than games, and child grace forgives even our deepest shame.

We will fail them, we will yell when we should be gentle, we'll scold when we should hug, we will push them aside for dirty dishes, and we'll miss so many moments.  Voices will come, as they do, to point out every place we wasted.  They will taunt and tear apart our fragile mother hearts.  Yes we could do better, but what really matters most?  When all are grown and the house is empty.  Despite our failures, our resignations, and our shame - did we love them deeply, did we kiss their dirty cheeks, did we fill their hearts with courage, and remind them of their skills.

Let go of all the whispers, stir up your mama heart.  You're doing great, no matter what.  You are the only mother that they have, the one that means more than any other.  While your counting out your mistakes, their watching the curve of your smiles, and folding the skin across your hands.

Yes, it is fleeting and yes it breaks us apart.  It is the life of a mother.  It is the courage that fills our hearts.

Spring Has Come Early.

Here, now I stand.  I look and survey this life.  It's ups and downs, mountains and valleys.  All of the trials and joys that break and sustain us.  They come in waves.

The last few months have been beyond difficult, they have pulled me to my knees and broken me apart.  It was the grand finale to years of being displaced, waiting and hoping to settle, to find a home.

And home is coming.

I am excited, beyond terrified, blessed, and hopeful to announce that we are finally moving to Redding.  This week.

God has opened huge doors and rained blessing over us.

We are coming home with joy and celebration.

The long season of emptying and loneliness has ended.

Spring has indeed sprung.

I am amazed at God's goodness, his provision.  To credit this new transition to anything other than God's hand is to miss his opulent love, his unwavering faithfulness.

I have walked through the last few years, staring at God's face.  Eye to eye, ear to ear, desperate, hungry, and constantly unsatisfied.

I have grown in my ability to trust.  To rest, when hope has evaded me.  I have learned to let Jesus come close and breathe when my breath has gone out.

The last few weeks, as I have doubted and grown discouraged, I have been faced with a choice; wallow or choose joy.  As I delight in the goodness of God when nothing in life has changed, there is a mighty strength that sustains.  Grace has met me when I was most undeserving.

I am so excited to settle.  To stretch out our roots.  To give my children the joy of stability, the delight of family and friends.

I am terrified to relearn my place here, to find myself, after wandering in the wilderness.

Yet, in all of this, I have learned to walk, hopeful and trusting.  To rest when life comes, to laugh in chaos, and delight in the ache of waiting.

Looking forward to getting some consistency in our lives and sharing with you some of the lessons I've learned over the last four years of hardship and transition.

I may rest for a while.

Blessings to you in whatever season you find yourself.

In The Night.

There has been a lot of holding on.

A lot of breathing deep.

The last few weeks, stretching into months have been an unending seam of hope and waiting.  It is said when hope is deferred the heart becomes sick.

I have felt that sickness, felt the sinking into my bones of nothingness.  When life becomes motion and joy a memory.

How do you fight what weighs you down and hides the sun?

Each night as we lie shoved on mattresses pushed together, hot bodies of our children cuddled close, and suffocate a bit in the room piled with what we've deemed necessity - our hands find each other.

They say when you get married you will wed this person in richer or poorer in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad times.  You build a life that seems blissful, yet everything they do or say is wrong and you chip and chip at each other.

Then hard things come and all those chips either tear down or mend.

It never comes when it's expected, this thing called life, that shows up at the most inconvenient times and throws you in the sand.

When you're struck with a battle you hope you've learned the skills to fight successfully or the wiles to survive unscathed.

In this season, I have neither been successful nor unscathed.  I have weathered and feared.  I have hoped, lost hope, and chosen to rest, to trust when my eyes can't see.

I have shattered.

And this man, this person I married, so many years ago, has stood ever faithful by my side.  He has endured, he has believed, he has not broken or despaired, he has strengthened me and encouraged me, he has loved me and held me, he has ministered and supported, all the way through this.  There is no greater hero to me than this man I call my husband.

He is a dream I have never deserved.

I hear often, women talk of their husbands and how they are not like their fathers.  I remember even thinking similar thoughts when I first married.  But, I have learned that great men are not born, they are made through the chiseling of life.  They are created by choice and perseverance.

The man you marry on your wedding day will fail you, disappoint you, anger you, and irritate you.  And if you stand there long enough - he will amaze you, sustain you, honor you, defend you, and love you deeper than you have ever hoped.

I used to tell this man, when we would fight, 'well at least we're getting stronger'.

Now, here we find ourselves, in a storm of life, the crashing and the breaking, and I have to share, I am more in love with this man now, than I have ever been.

As I watch his strength, his character, his tenacity, I am honored to be his bride.

And when we sleep in what is not our home, when all of life hangs in the balance, and we wonder if an end is near, he pulls me close and whispers I love you.

I kiss his sleeping lips in the dark night and listen to the rhythm of his heart, for a moment I breathe his breath, then I close my eyes and rest.  Here I am safe and here, I am found.

When Life Does Not Go As Planned.

I had these fabulous plans of filling this New Year with blog posts from a warm corner in my kitchen.
Steaming coffee or tea in my hand while I regaled you with stories of my children's antics or delicious recipes.  I wanted to inspire your heart and refresh your mind.  This would be easy enough as the long awaited dream of my heart was finally coming true, my family was heading home and we were going to settle and stretch out our roots and enjoy all of the fruits of a life planted.

Then our plans fell flat before us and we stared at our dreams sinking like a long awaited drink into the every thirsty sand.

It was a little like the cartoons where they look at each other and shock, fear, anger, hurt, and grief run rampant across their expressive face.

We had to move, and all of our lives were packed carefully into boxes and placed into storage.  Necessities were tucked into suitcases and for the first week the kids and I stayed with family, hoping against hope everything would work out.  When the week stretched on we came to stay with Eric who was bunking with some friends.  We pushed our suitcases against a wall, grabbed mattresses out of storage, and have been walking daily through a season that is the aching epitome of waiting.

I had planned on going through this season like a brilliant star showing everyone how to exist when your expectations and plans crumble.  Then as the reality of what this looks like, keeping my children quiet, watching too many movies, living as carefully as we can in a home that is not ours, in a world we barely belong - I have crumbled.  Everything that was so important has been pushed behind me and my focus is on our hearts, how to go through this without being destroyed.  We have pulled in and are clinging to hope.

I have been cut off at the knees and I suffocate with my lack of power.

And here lurks the truth.  It is not in our stunning moments, it is not when everyone looks at our brilliance and points, to how effortlessly we maintain.  It's in our weakness, here, where pain and discomfort writhe, that we are made strong.  I don't like to share the hard things, sometimes I feel as if I play like a broken record.  But truth, in the moment, is better, than a story of hardship told on the mountaintop.

This is where we are.

A little room, tucked away in San Jose.  Waiting against hope that we'll be settled before spring.  That these seeds we're cradling in our hands will stand the test of time and we'll be planted as the weather warms and stretches and the dirt is ripe to hold our sacrifice.

A Year of Dreams.

This life is full of uncertainties.  It will swirl you around until you can't take any more and then demand that you walk a straight line.

It is unbearable and exhilarating.  It is a ride that you have one chance to enjoy.  You either spend your time clinging desperate to the side, learn how to fake it, or actually find your bliss in it's dips and peaks.

We have allowed our lives to live us for far too long.  We have followed in it's wake of demands and fallen short repeatedly of what we think it wants from us.  As we pause, take stock of our yesterdays and hopes for tomorrow, the brevity of our future looms.  It will either flatten us or persuade us to push higher, farther, and deeper to our passions and longings.  This life is worth living.

I hope that you decide to take complete hold of yours.

As you are staring at your long line of resolutions, goals, or hopes for the new year, I hope that what tops your list is not lose ten pounds, get healthier, sleep more, exercise constantly, rather I wish that you would place first and foremost a desire to live fully, each, and every day.

That your goals would be to pursue your desires until they become your realities.  To not let go of your dreams based on your circumstances or your fears.  Go out there, pursue your hearts greatest wish.  It can only come true if you make it happen.

No one will ever 'discover' you, it is up to you to make yourself known.

Be your own shooting star.

Peace joy and love in this brilliant and fabulous New Year.  Here is to 2014.

New Years Day.

Happy New Year!

What an exciting day.  I love the start of the new year, the freshness that comes from a blank slate.  I plot out my goals and hopes for how I want the year to go.

This start is the most interesting I've yet to experience.  My house has been placed in storage, my husband is 4 hours away, and we have no idea what is going to come next.  We thought we had everything lined up and then all of the doors that seemed wide open, shut in our faces.

It's an adventure and I am looking forward to enjoying every moment.  My children and I are up at my parents house, enjoying the fresh mountain air, and the soul cleansing that comes from being in the country.

We have no idea what this year holds, but we plan to find a landing place, to settle, to cultivate deep roots.  There's a lot of blind faith and trust happening in our hearts.

I am not clouding my new year with resolutions.   I don't want to tip the scales toward failure.  I've set some goals that I look forward to reaching and I hope to take you along the journey.  I'll be blogging regularly about health and wellness, reaching goals, posting recipes, and living a rich and satisfying life.

I'm excited for this year and I hope that you are, too.  I wish you well, the fulfilling of your dreams.