Category Archives: mothering

the day of small things

Posted on by October 15, 2021

Our oldest is now a big fifteen-year-old. He reaches things off the high shelves, opens tight jars for me, and chops wood. He even (gasp) shaves. He was our smallest baby — now he wears Vince’s shirts that have shrunk in the wash.

the day of small things - Copperlight Wood

On his big day, Vin took him and four of his siblings on a birthday outing and left me at home with the other two kids and the task of making clam chowder for lunch. Piece of cake.

The two boys who stayed home played close by while I chopped potatoes and onions. They spun gears in the dining room, wearing the varnish off the table. Maybe I should’ve stopped them. Maybe I should’ve told them to simmer down, just a little. But I didn’t – it was a beautiful moment, them playing together like normal kids, making noise and messes and laughing memories. We need more of this.

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The music was loud and the sun streamed in, and the house was completely still except for the shrieking activity around the table and the flames under the soup pot. Maybe that doesn’t describe stillness to you, but to me it was like our house was in a coma.

What to do, what to do…I was at a loss once the soup was simmering. It’s astonishing how inspired you can be with three shots of espresso and only two kids in the house.

I could read. I could turn on the computer and open that file of 60,000 words I’m working on. I could wash the kitchen windows. I could re-pot the rootbound plant on the counter. I could do almost anything short of flying to the moon — but no, I only had a few minutes before they all came back home, and I needed to keep an eye on the stove to keep what was simmering from scorching.

I scrubbed the grime and grungus off the sink dropper – such a little thing. The hot water ran and the steam rose, and stainless steel started to shine again. The sun hit it and sparkled, and I realized this was the first day of blue skies after a week of dreary, smeary grey in the weary early winter.

We had our first frost last night – this morning the lawns are all grey, with a pale, bright sunshine on them: wonderfully beautiful. And somehow exciting. The first beginning of winter always excites me; it makes me want adventures.

– C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children

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The big boy and crew came back hungry for chowder and full of news about the new Lego store. This kid got his first Lego set when he was three years old. That was only ten minutes ago, and now he builds them into robots. Little things into big things.

…but who dare despise the day of small things, if it has proved to be the dawn of mighty ones?

– Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!

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I’ve been working on this blanket for years – you can tell, because the color scheme dates it back to the sixties (kidding, but not kidding…) – and it’s finally down to just two squares and trimming left. In this day of imported department store specials, it feels both trivial and sacred to spend time on it compared to everything else going on in and around us. There’s always more to be learned, taught, cooked, written, cleaned, hugged, and disciplined; the dishes and laundry are never done. There are pages to read, and pages to write. And there is always more stitching to do – but the difference with stitching is that you can see exactly what progress has been made.

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A finished book can go on a shelf, but there’s no way to measure what was really absorbed in the reading. The hamper will be full again tomorrow. And you can teach and lecture and assign consequences till the cows come home but those kids are still going to tie fake spiders to the tail of their little brother’s favorite stuffed animal, and try to get the cat to walk on his front legs wheelbarrow style, and color their own body parts with green marker. I’ve, um, heard it happens. In some families.

But with this blanket, I can see exactly what’s been achieved. This row, that round of colors – done. And that is incredibly satisfying in the midst of all the other intangibles.

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Our kids are big and little, busy and slow, high school and infant, and life right now is full of their needs and their changes and their noise. These days I often feel rootbound, spinning gears. I typed most of this one handed while holding this almost-four-month-old, who will be a big fifteen-year-old in about ten minutes. There are a million things I could do, but I don’t regret holding him. I don’t regret keeping an eye on these kids to keep what is simmering in them from scorching.

The dirty socks, the worn-down pencils, the minutes that fill long and short days – small things, baby steps, leading to mighty movements. It is the sacred monotony of these early days that write history.

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This is an excerpt from Work That God Sees, available here.

right of way: giving God room to move

Posted on by February 28, 2022

We’re on the highway, driving out of town to a standard six-month checkup. We’ve passed the glittering fall days that are all steel and gold with leaves scattering the sidewalks; now we’re onto the bare days, with smudged white skies and naked trees. They are empty, waiting. Most of the grass is bleached straw, but the grass around the new streetlights is still fresh and green, like the oregano that grows up against our house. It clings to warmth and stays steadfast long after the mint and plantain are withered to nothing.

right of way: giving God room to move

We’ve done this trip many times – we’re almost into three years of these vision appointments. But this time our daughter can read, and yet out of one eye she cannot see that the capital Y on the screen in front of her is a Y and not an O.  The letter changes to an S, and she says it’s an O. The doctor changes the sizes and arrangement of the letters, and the mood of this casual, standard appointment shifts to something weightier.

Remember what I’ve been telling you, Love, He says.

What He’s been telling me is to thank Him in all things, even the hard things. Especially the hard things, those things that are a result of the Fall and not of Him at all. And He is teaching me that when I thank Him for those things, it isn’t as though I’m saying, “Yes, this is so good, I’m glad (fill in the blank) has happened,” as we would thank Him for, say, a windfall of cash or some unexpected victory.

It is a different kind of thankfulness. It feels like sacrifice.

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When we thank Him for the hard things, we’re saying, I trust You. I know You’re bigger than this, and as I trust and thank You in this, I am moving out of Your way and creating a wide path for You to move in power in this situation and use it for our great good.

We are, in essence, giving God the right of way, and giving the enemy the middle finger.

The doctor changes to the letter to a P and asks her what she sees. “O,” she says.

She’s a good reader and she knows her letters, but she can’t see these. For the first time, he recommends therapy – twice a week, an hour long each time.

I know it’s not a big deal. Weekly appointments are not supposed to be a big deal. But it is a blow to a schedule already overwhelmed, and I am overwhelmed, and I don’t know how we’re going to do this. I’ve been praying for breakthrough, not burden.

It’s not cancer, it’s not famine, it’s not anyone attacking our village. It’s just a new diagnosis and something else to add to the appointment book twice a week, and we are grateful that therapy is an option. I know it’s a first world problem. But we are first world people and I want my daughter to see. Thank you, God.

I ask the doctor if the appointments could be only once a week. If we could do more at home. If there’s any way we could avoid two appointments a week, anything to lighten this.

No, he says. Without therapy twice a week, he doesn’t think they can help her.

“I know this will be a challenge with your other responsibilities.”  He knows we have six other kids, he knows some of them have special needs. And I am not going to cry in this chair, looking at this doctor and holding this baby and watching this daughter put her glasses back on. Thank you, God.

He explains that insurance doesn’t always cover the appointments, and that she needs them for six to nine months. He tells me what they cost if we need to pay out of pocket – almost the same as our mortgage payment. Thank you, God.

I’ve never understood how praise could be a sacrifice, but I’m feeling it now.

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!

– Psalm 50:23

He says that if she can’t do therapy, the other option is surgery – which sometimes helps, and sometimes makes things worse. He doesn’t know that we’ve already had two surgeries in the last six months and another scheduled for the beginning of next year. And I am not going to cry in this office, holding this prescription and picking up my jacket and patting this baby. Thank you, God.

Vince is waiting in the parking lot with the Stagecoach and the rest of the kids. I give him the rundown and he suggests we get coffee. He is good at keeping things in perspective, and there are few adversities that caffeine and sugar can’t help. But, I don’t know, I kind of just want to go home and rave incoherently while tearing my schedule book into confetti.

 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.

– 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19

Notice the order? He tells us to not quench the Spirit right after he tells us to give thanks in everything. If not giving thanks smothers what the Spirit would do in our life, giving thanks makes room for Him to light a fire under our sacrifice and sanctify our situation.

We cling to warmth, trusting Him to keep us steadfast when we are tempted to wither. He blows the chaff away, like so many leaves in the fall.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.

– Psalm 46:5

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We are coasting into downtown Wasilla when Vin broaches the subject of coffee again. “If I can get over into the far right lane, we should stop at Kaladis.”

I looked at the traffic and assumed a somber Victorian accent. “We will leave it in the Lord’s hands.”

The little red car moved out of the way, and our Stagecoach merged into the lane.

“Thus saith the Lord,” he said, “Thou shalt have espresso.”

I nodded. “It is the Lord’s will.” Thank you, God.

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This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 5: Obedience to Move Forward. Victory is always on the other side of obedience.

fermata: where we hold and rest

Posted on by June 27, 2022

It’s not for lack of material that I haven’t been writing here. In one afternoon, an entire jar of pickles shattered on the dining room floor, a shower was out of commission with a clogged drain, and I broke four dishes simultaneously during a skirmish in my ongoing war against fruit flies. Boom. Go big or go home.

It’s days like this that drain us, though, and for the last few weeks I’ve sat at the computer almost every night, but nothing came out right — too dry and stale, too flat and foggy. The hurricane is exhausting.

fermata: where we hold and rest (Copperlight Wood)

So my steady routine of night owl productivity is on hold until our little bed-buddy is a steadier sleeper. He stays a few hours in his crib and then wakes up needing to nurse and moves in with us. A queen size bed easily fits two adults and a cat or two, but the addition of an 8-week-old’s wingspan can also be accommodated as long as one parent doesn’t mind sleeping with part of their body hanging off the edge of the mattress.

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I really don’t mind. These are the tiny days, when a clean dishtowel serves as a blanket. But the house feels small, too, and the view from the couch rarely changes.

…to get away from the disturbances and influence of men, planned or unplanned, and to find a place where one is open to influence only from the sky, the wind, the clouds coming up from the valley or closing in from the mountain peaks, the sparkle of snow in the sun, the marvel of light filtering through trees, or the sound of a waterfall splashing on rocks, or birds singing before sunrise, or the crickets’ special song at twilight – this is to give one the possibility for some original thinking, for getting a few fresh ideas, for feeling inspired to some form of creativity.

– Edith Schaeffer, The Hidden Art of Homemaking

So we went where we always go. I never get tired of this place.

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There were paragliders. I had to look that up because I didn’t know the difference between hang gliding and parasailing – one is a motorized contraption, the other involves being towed by a boat tauntingly out of shark’s reach; neither are what we saw at Hatcher Pass.

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But I didn’t know that then. They reminded me of something else, something familiar that I hadn’t seen in a long while.

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They’re fermatas, Love, He said.

A fermata is the symbol in music that tells you to hold, to pause. He knew I wouldn’t have to look it up.

This is the time to rest and linger – don’t rush through these days, looking more at your to-do list than you look at your kids’ eyes.

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These tiny days, taking turns holding Finnegan, taking turns cleaning messes, taking turns making meals. The days are fast and slow, intermittent lulls in a windstorm, and we are depending on each other to keep the storm outside – we have to constantly push it back out after it wheedles its way in, via bickering, misbehavior, old wounds, fresh grievances. We sweep out bitterness as persistently and repeatedly as we do to dirt and leaves in the fall, a continual process of keeping hearts and house clean. The storm is kept out only with extreme diligence.

I shall always be grateful to that storm in Cornwall that drove us inward on ourselves. The quality of light being almost the same at ten in the morning as it was at ten at night, we lost all count of time. The soporific swaying of the wagon, the utter stillness of the moor broken intermittently by sounds of wind and rain, the glimpses of a shifting, shadowed landscape gave us the feeling of having embarked upon a long voyage.

– Joan Bodger, How the Heather Looks

I’ve been thinking on this for weeks as I sit in dullness, trying to produce something here that just wouldn’t come. It won’t be pushed, no matter how behind I feel.

We need productive time away. We need productive time together. We need time to not produce anything at all – this may be the most productive time of all, giving us the perspective and simplicity we need to handle the chaos as it comes.

I asked Vince about it. “Do you know what a fermata is?”

“No. Is it Greek pastry? Mediterranean pasta?” These are the answers he gives while cooking dinner.

“No, it’s a pause in music.”  But it’s more. This fermata is the place to hold, Love – and you need to hold for longer than you normally would. The song will pick up again soon enough.

It is a restless baby, squirming and overtired, who finally lays his head on your shoulder. It is a restless mama, overtired and fussy, letting go of the dishes and deadlines, just to listen to her Father.

He rests, and I rest. This is the place to hold and linger.