to-do list

June, and almost 37 weeks. Everything summer is happening here: sprinklers, popsicles, heat waves, wildfires. Forget-me-nots blooming by Sophie’s grave, starflowers and dogwood, star-shaped tiger lilies almost ready to bud. Dinner is dandelion fritters, and pasta salad with peas and chickweed.

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We are hurry-up-and-waiting, slowly plugging through our summer term, getting over colds, and purging closets.

Lately we spend most afternoons outside, but a few weeks ago we sat on the couch during a rainy spell and did this sweet survey that was flooding social media. The instructions were something like, Ask your child these questions, write down their age and what they say, and try not to laugh so hard that you choke on your coffee.

How old is your mom?

Chamberlain, age five – Twenty-something. (haha!!)

Iree, age eleven – Thirty-nine or thirty-eight. (yes, one of those)

Afton, age nine – Thirty-nine. (but not that one)

How tall is your mom?

C – Taller than Mattie. (wrong)

I – Less than five feet. (wrong again)

A – I dunno…five or six feet? (Close enough. Give a broad enough answer, and you’re a winner!)

What is her favorite thing to do?

C – Eat cookies with a baby in her tummy.

I – Drink coffee with Dad.

A – Um, maybe ask us questions? (sarcasm runs very deep in our family)

What does your mom do when you’re not around?

I – Kiss Dad.

C – She cries.

A – I dunno because I’m not there. (logic runs very deep in our family, too)

The evenings are normal, mostly. Which means we still spend the first two or three hours after bedtime sending kids back to bed in between drinks for water, trips to the bathroom, and sudden appearances of ailments that did not bother them during the 12 hours previous to bedtime. The main difference is that now I make as many trips to the bathroom as all of the kids do combined, and we’ve decided we could probably never live in a house with less than three toilets.

What is something mom always says to you?

C – She calls me Bunny.

I – “Drink water.”

A, frowning – “Wash your hands.” (at this point he decided not to answer all of these pesky questions)

What is your mom really good at?

C – Keeping chocolate off her face when she eats cookies. (I’ve had some practice at this)

What is your mom not very good at?

C – She’s not very good at zipping her coat because Finnegan’s too big.

Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?

C – To sit on the couch and drink coffee with dad.

A – To bed.

I – To STAY in bed.

These kids are brilliant. I thought for sure they’d say “church” or “Kaladis” or “Hatcher Pass” for places I like to go, but no…they know me better than I know myself.

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What does your mom like most about your dad?

C – She likes him because he helps with babies and she loves babies.

A – ‘Cause he makes coffee.

I – She says he’s a stud.

(all true)

How tall is your dad?

C – He’s, like, about as tall as the ceiling.

I – More than five feet.

A – Six feet, maybe?

What was your dad like as a child?

C – He loved his mom. (Still true. She’s a pretty great lady.)

What makes dad sad?

C – When he has to work and paint. If he had to paint the whole inside of the house, it would make him cry. (probably true)

We still haven’t settled on a middle name for Finnegan yet. I haven’t finished his blanket yet. I feel woefully unprepared in so many ways and actually had a moment of panic the other day wondering if I had (ahem) appropriate birthing undergarments and such. Those. You know.

We need to pack our grab-and-go bag. We need to choose the wee little outfit to bring him home in. We need to paint, in spite of the trauma this may cause my husband.

And we’re still not sure where to put that yoga ball.

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What is your dad really good at?

C – Touching the ceiling. (which is a good thing, considering those painting projects)

I – Making me happy.

C – Yep. That’s true. He made you special and he loves you very much.

I – GOD made me special…

What makes you proud of your dad?

C – Because he loves me and he made me special…

I – He makes sure that we let mom sleep.

What do you and your dad do together?

C – We um, we go…drive to places and get slushies…and drive back home…and then go outside on a nice sunny day…slurp, slurp.

What is his favorite thing to do?

C – Sit with you and drink coffee.

I – Yep. Sit with you and drink coffee.

C – Huh. There’s a lot of coffee in here.

We need to slow down and speed up all at once – we need to rest on the couch with coffee and each other, and then run to the store and buy necessary postpartum supplies. We need to spend time with each of the kids in rambling talks and prayerful questions. But we should probably also teach them how to order pizza.

We need to decide urgent necessary things, like…who will stay with our kids during the birth? What music should we bring for labor and delivery? And, oh my goodness, hold on just a minute – what color should I paint my toenails??

Just kidding.

I mean, I can’t even reach my toenails. That’s another painting job for Vince.

thrown a curve

Don’t hate me, but my husband is amazing at doing the laundry. He tackles most of it on Mondays when I’m puttering around the house with other projects — and I guess I never noticed this before, but even though he does the bulk of it, I’m usually the one who folds the fitted sheets. I finally realized this because as I was getting fresh sheets out of the closet, they looked…well, not like I had folded them. More like they’d been used to loosely mummify someone’s forearm, and then firmly stuffed into the shelf to avoid unwrapping. Vin later confirmed that this was exactly what he’d done.

thrown a curve: navigating unfamiliar territory without fear (Copperlight Wood)

Now, if the fitted sheets in your closet look like that, I’m not judging you. I never thought fitted sheets were actually supposed to be folded once they came out of the package, but that for the remainder of their days the owners must resort to wadding them up like a fat gauze bandage. Or, like a huge replica of a salvaged roll of toilet paper after Knightley has unrolled approximately three miles of it.

But I was nurtured by a sweet and savvy grandma who not only introduced me to Jesus, but also taught me mysteries of the gospel including, but not limited to, old hymns, soup on Sundays, and the art of folding a fitted sheet. And no, height wasn’t an excuse, because she was just a wee nudge past five feet tall. Despite the fact that I had grown up thinking that it just isn’t done, she au contraire’d me and showed how simple it was:

It’s the pockets. Make sure they’re empty – no straggling socks or unmentionables hiding in there – and just tuck them in each other. Fold over, retuck. Fold in the curved sides. Fold again, with straight sides, and done – a beautiful rectangle of linen closet goodness.

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It was not impossible. It was amazing. Anyone can handle a flat sheet with straight sides, but the fitted sheet throws us because of the curves. Like so many tasks in life — dumb stuff, big stuff, life-changing stuff — what seems to be impossible is usually just unfamiliar territory.

Buttercup: We’ll never survive!

Westley: Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.

– The Princess Bride

Every endeavor that we tackle has innumerable details and problems that we don’t know how to solve at first. Starting a business, starting a family, starting a mission, or just starting over – we quail too early, too often, when thrown for a curve. So much is at stake in our wavering.

We all know the stories about how the American Revolution was a difficult and often desperate struggle. But we forget in hindsight how unlikely it was that our forefathers would succeed. Many times defeat seemed all but inevitable. Yet that small band of patriot-statesmen achieved a victory against a long-established ruler of seemingly unlimited power and authority. They did so by remaining dedicated to America’s cause and to each other…fighting hard at every turn…knowing that their success or failure would determine whether they, or possibly any people, would ever fight again for the great cause of self-government.

– Paul Ryan, quoted from Imprimis, July/August 2014 (reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College)

I get confounded over the dumbest things sometimes. Most of them involve technology. When we formatted Upside Down to paperback, it took me an embarrassing amount of time just to learn how to delete a page that I couldn’t even figure out how to access. That done, I had to remove a footnote separator that had been plaguing me for months. Little details left undone, pockets left with unmentionables hiding in them, stalling the clean look of a finished product.

It’s a learning curve, and sometimes I don’t want to learn. But after some tense touch-and-go strife with the lens cap, I even figured out how to use our new camera. 

We tend to mistake the unexpected, unknown, or inconvenient for the impossible. But…au contraire

And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

– Judges 6:14-16, ESV

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

– Joshua 1:9, ESV

More than fitted sheets, more than irritating technology (or whatever your personal bane is), we face circumstances and events not bargained for on our knees. We do not know how to do this, we don’t know how it’s going to work out, we don’t remember signing up for this. We don’t know if we’re strong enough.

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But we do know that champions aren’t made on the easy paths, where every plan goes perfectly. Roads with curves are far more beautiful than straight highways. And maybe this is just my Alaskan bias, but rugged mountain landscapes always trump the flat, treeless prairies. People don’t stop in wonder while driving through flatlands like they do when they see the mountains and valleys wrought by tension that made the earth shake and change its shape.

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Your story, and my story, is more breathtaking with curves.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

– Ephesians 2:17-19

What we really need is someone to show us the way through the unknown. We fight the feelings of it just isn’t done with the au contraire of the Father who loves us and has good plans for us in the midst of the unexpected.

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This is from Resilient, book 5 in Work That God Sees: Prayerful Motherhood in the Midst of the Overwhelm.

epic: when God redeems your story

You’ve probably heard of this guy, Maewyn Succat.

No? Trust me. You’ve probably celebrated him, even. Here’s a hint: shamrocks, green clothing, beer. Well, maybe green beer. He has a holiday named after him, often involving green beer.

epic: when God redeems your story

See, I told you. We know him as St. Patrick. But his story — most of us don’t know what happened to make a kid named Maewyn Succat become a saint named Patrick. It’s worth knowing, though.

St. Patrick was a Roman Briton of good family dwelling probably in the Severn valley. His father was a Christian deacon, a Roman citizen, and a member of the municipal council. One day in the early fifth century there descended on the district a band of Irish raiders, burning and slaying.

– Winston Churchill, The Birth of Britain

It was terror. The enemy was up to no good. It’s an awful part of our history.

The young Patrick was carried off and sold into slavery —

It gets worse and worse. But I didn’t give you the rest of the sentence, and the last two words reveal much about the rest of the story:

The young Patrick was carried off and sold into slavery in Ireland.

And we know that God was up to something, too. Regardless of what the enemy was trying to destroy, God was doing what He always does – creating redemption in an all-things-for-good, beauty-for-ashes, Romans 8:28, epic kind of way. In between the kid and the saint, God was hovering over: protecting, watching, guiding. Taking every attack from the enemy and turning it on its head, He was making history through this young man.

For six years…he tended swine, and loneliness led him to seek comfort in religion. He was led by miraculous promptings to attempt escape.

Although many miles separated him from the sea he made his way to a port, found a ship, and persuaded the captain to take him on board.

After many wanderings we find him in one of the small islands off Marseilles, then a centre of the new monastic movement spreading westward from the Eastern Mediterranean…

He conceived an earnest desire to return good for evil and spread the tidings he had learned among his former captors in Ireland.

– Winston Churchill

He didn’t just sail back to Ireland immediately, though. He obeyed, waited, and let God mold him into the saint that would save a nation.

After fourteen years of careful training by the Bishop and self-preparation for what must have seemed a forlorn adventure, Patrick sailed back in 432 to the wild regions which he had quitted. His success was speedy and undying.

– Winston Churchill

Some of you are fighting discouragement over terrible attack, an awful history, or an uncertain future. The man we now know as Saint Patrick endured all of those. The enemy can try to spin a plot twist, but God writes the best stories for those who let Him.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

– Colossians 1:24-28

There is nothing He can’t do with a person who trusts Him utterly — unflinching in obedience, uncowed by the enemy, unchained to the comfort zone, and unhindered by society’s expectations.

The world does not need super-men, but supernatural men. Men who will persistently turn the self out of their lives and let Divine Power work through them.

God Calling, edited by A.J. Russell

Jesus, I’m praying tonight for all of us in the middle of the story, between a rock and a hard place, not sure how this thing ends. I pray for encouragement that breeds an increase of faith in each of us.

God isn’t done with you yet. He is hovering over you: protecting, watching, guiding, and taking every attack from the enemy and turning it on its head.

Prepare for something epic. It will be the story of your life.

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This is an excerpt from Work That God Sees: Prayerful Motherhood in the Midst of the Overwhelm.