An Unexpected Journey

The sky grew black as the eastern hemisphere   rotated into the darkness.   Away from the light of the sun the night became cold.   The hearts had grown cold long ago.   Plunged into darkness by a wayward choice.   A stretch for power beyond ourselves. A taste had sentenced the generations to darkness of heart and coldness of spirit that even the   warm morning sun   could not drive away. Except that night there was a rather brilliant star intruding on the inky blackness.   The   dazzling twinkle taunted its pale brothers in the sky.   And it drew the eye.   Captured the gaze.   And for centuries before there had been twinkles of light that seemed to point the way.   Signs of hope given in the midst of despair.   The light of miracles and divine intervention.   Dotting history, they had grabbed the heart and drawn the gaze.   Illuminating the path and giving hope of ...

I have had one Thanksgiving with Maddie Grace, two with the twins, Abby and Alena, and four with Makiah.  I don’t know what it is about the holidays that makes us want to look back.  I guess memories of love and togetherness, good food and fun all roll up into a sort of intangible slice of heaven.  Despite the chaos  and perhaps even wreckage we may pull those memories from.   I mean its messy down here for sure.  Just in our family this week my grandmother had emergency brain surgery (she is doing great though).  My parents new house didn’t get built in time for us to get into it until this afternoon despite my mom’s lovely plans of being settled in weeks ago.  Two of the four littles here with the family have been sick so we are quarantined from the older folks and other littles.  Even though we are here in Alabama, we will likely need to have a separate Thanksgiving and miss out on visiting.  I mean, it’s just plain messy.  ...

Sitting in church with music swirling all around... it seems so clear who I want to be.  I want to be that person who gets up with the sun to read my bible (consistently).  I want to dig deep into scripture and uncover truths that bring life to the soul.  I want my house to be blanketed with peace because it is filled often and in many ways with worship.  I want to be my husband’s biggest cheerleader.  I want to be a patient and present mother who effectively disciples my children’s hearts and disciplines their behaviors.  I want my life to be marked by God’s presence and not the absence of it. It all seems so clear. And clearly unattainable.   If I depend on me.  I just can’t seem to change myself.  I just can’t seem to get it all together... to juggle the balls without dropping one.   Not in my own strength.  And I, of all people, should have learned by now that to live is to be desperate for God.  I sat in t...

We are finally getting settled in our permanent home here.  And I am exhausted. From unpacking a house.  With three babies.  And working a job.   I wish I had an amazing post full of deep things to share, but to be perfectly honest I can barely keep my eyes open as I type this!  Nevertheless, I have not shouted to the world how thankful I am even in this difficult season of Makiah’s heaven day to have a reason to celebrate...  my reason came as a complete and total surprise.  The BEST surprise of my life (my other kids weren’t surprises so I can say that).  She has blonde hair and blue eyes, and she loves to snuggle.  She cuddles and kisses and ends every night tucked in our bed where she has to be touching both of us.  She is vibrant and full of life and joy, and I can’t tell you how many times I have thought that she was sent to bring kisses from heaven!   She is my Maddie Grace.  And she just turned one!  In case...

Dearest Makiah, Some days I feel like I am living in a different life.   New town, new church, new house,   new job, new kids.   (I did keep your Daddy, though! )  But the signs of you are still all around.   I folded your pink princess blanket and put it in our hall closet last night.   Yesterday Alena came out of my bathroom wearing your old rain boots.   She stomped around proudly in her diaper and your aqua blue boots with white polka dots.   In the move this past week I stumbled on a big box of size 5 clothes I had bought for you.   Tags still hanging forlornly.  I guess we had tucked them away after you left us, and I forgot.   And of course there are four sets of rainbow toes in our house today.   Eye catching.  Bright and wiggly.    Just like you. At school I find myself looking for the second graders.   Imagining what you might look like now.    Would your legs be lanky and you...

Three days and counting!   Soon I will be counting the hours!!   For what you ask?   Until we move into our house here in this new town!   We have been staying in a temporary rental for the last 2 and half months… complete with air mattresses, playpens,   and paper plates!   It’s not so much the living out of a suitcase for weeks that bothers me.   It’s more the being unable to really settle in… and well, I admit the little critters that seem to own this house bother me just a bit.   And maybe the dirty carpet does, too. Ok, so true confessions of a “pocket perfectionist” (i.e. I have areas I am a perfectionist about but others I am completely disorganized!)…   I can’t stand grunge!   You know the kind when your children’s feet turn black from crawling across the carpet despite your cleaning efforts.   It has made me a wee bit crazy.   Just a tad.   Ok, I admit, I try to stay gone as much as possible, but when I a...

(Written last Monday night…) I admit to feeling a wee bit queasy.   I have been anticipating this day for almost three years.   Even before the twins were born I wanted to fast forward my life   to get back to the place where I had a little one in preschool again.    It’s not that I wanted to miss the sweet moments, but I did want to skip the painful barely breathing days and just be a normal mommy of a preschooler again.     There are no emotional microwaves though, and in our humanness we are locked into time.   I am certain that the last three years have been the slowest of my life.   And now that the big day is here, I can hardly believe it! Tomorrow morning I will pack my little ones up and take them to their first day of school in the two year old class.   They cannot wait!   Just like their big sister.   Their teacher’s name is Mrs. Robin.   Just like their big sister (even though we are in a new t...

    A sigh of relief escapes my lips as we drive into the eastern Atlanta metro area.  The car rumbles heavy with babies and toys and snacks and all the household goods it can carry.  A heart a tiny bit heavy with the weight of our decisions.  The first hour of the trip Abby screamed solid.  Begging to go back to “my house.”  I had a fine moment of parenting.  I was alone with the three of them so it seemed like a good time for a first… to let the toddlers each have their own big bag of cheddar sour cream potato chips!  I am happy to report that the next hour on the road was quiet except for the sounds of eager crunching.  Then droopy eyelids won and the little, cheesy, orange fingers finally lay silent across bellies full of saturated fat.  It’s true that standards do come down a bit by the fourth child, you know!   The grey sky begins to drizzle and I squint to see through the blurry swish of the windshield wiper...

About 6 weeks ago, I started thinking through all the things I needed to do for us to move.   Perhaps this was crazy, but I thought the transition would be smoother if all my babies were sleeping through the night in playpens or cribs.   The twins have this down pat, but little Maddie Grace has been sleeping her whole life in a sleep and rock (which is, by the way, a fabulous product!).   She has bad reflux and she has slept well in her cozy little propped up position.   Ironically, Makiah slept the same way in a car seat forever it seemed.   They both like to cross their legs and prop their arms up behind their heads like old men in recliners!   Maddie has been getting too big for this little seat she sleeps strapped into and has been waking up a lot trying to move around. So I determine it is time to do the deed and teach her to sleep flat in a crib.   She is my fourth baby and all of the others have made successful transitions to cribs, so ...

Moving to our new house, Mama?   Will we take baby?   What about Daddy?   And my books?   Will we take my blanket and my soft pillow?   Little hearts are processing this transition as well as they can.   Moving is hard to understand when you are two. Cardboard brown is everywhere.   Things disappearing as the days wear on.   The screeching sound of tape as we seal the boxes shut.   So many things hidden in this house.    Some things I had forgotten.   Others never discovered.   All to be uncovered in the moving, The box of size 5 outfits with tags still hanging forlornly.   The hairbrush full of long blonde hair that tumbled down from the closet shelf.   Her pink silk pillow.   The bag of rocks she picked out when we visited the Grand Canyon.   Her rainbow colored clip dancing in the bottom of my makeup drawer.   Her art table hiding in the back of the pantry.   The bottle of her f...