for mel

I am hereby making a commitment to post SOMETHING this week. Now, I will try my hardest not to let that something just be a single sentence, but I am fully aware of my tendency toward procrastination and forgetfulness, so no guarantee!

maybe one word will help

Looking at the date on my last post makes me intensely aware of just how good I am at ignoring the obvious. I still think about posting at least once every week, so I am able to think of myself as a blogger who hasn't written in a little while. Yeah, right. I don't really have anything to say right now (or, conversely, I have too much to say about nothing in particular, and I don't have confidence in my ability to spend the typing time with arthritic fingers and a very sleepy brain). I am hereby posting this paragraph in an attempt to jar myself into action. I don't want to be silent forever.

thankful

Living,
Breathing,
Cackles,
Groans,
Rivalry,
“m-o-o-o-o-ms”

The fact that I can’t even finish a list of thanks because the act of appearing to do anything for myself immediately draws all children under the age of 13 (which is only three of them, but still).

The fact that I listed that as something for which I am thankful even though it often pulls me straight to the brink of sanity.

In everything, give thanks.

combined influences may be hazardous to your health

Last Sunday, the pink one came home from church with a Noah’s Ark associated craft and various flashcards with different animals on them. Earlier this week, she could be found curled up against her father watching the closing few minutes of Rocky Balboa. On the surface, these two things might not be related, but be warned. Your five year old, when exposed to these influences may begin asking multitudinous questions about death and cemeteries. She also might be inclined to make up interesting flashcard games. What begins as a simple flashcard memory game might turn into the following musical:

Setting: The pig card stands before the assembled animal council near the entrance to the ark.

Pig: I came back because you missed me, missed me.

Other animals (chanting): Missed me, missed me, missed me….

Pig: I was sad because my mommy died.

Other animals: She died, she died.

Pig: But now I have a new mom, and she’s cool, and she’s a robot…a robot.

Other animals: Robot pig, robot pig…

I am sorry to say I missed the closing scenes as it was at this point that I had to quickly excuse myself from the room.

eighteen days

Just eighteen days…

You came out kicking. It was the strangest sensation to feel you pushing your way out of me so fiercely after taking your sweet time working your way down the birth canal. You let me push for two hours before you got frustrated with me and took matters into your own hands (or feet as the case may be). You have always had that fiery independent streak (and the habit of ‘humoring’ me).

I have watched you grow – have been astounded by the beauty of your greatest strengths – have been saddened by the lingering nature of some of your greatest weaknesses. You certainly inherited the best and worst of both your father and me. I can’t decide which frustrates me more. But overall, I am so very proud of you.

In a moment, the gift God gave through His Son was made more tangible to me – the very moment of your arrival in the world.

Some of the subsequent days took eons to elapse - perhaps most notably those days filled with colic, temper tantrums, and natural investigative curiosity. But suddenly, I look back and you are no longer behind me or looking up to me as you hold my hand. You still hold my hand from time to time, but I look up to you as I struggle to keep up with your rapid pace. Suddenly you have a driver’s license, business cards, a college I.D., and a voter’s identification card. Suddenly you are about to be…

Eighteen.

raisin bread

Gosh, it’s been awhile since I slept with bread. I wasn’t even sure I remembered how to do it until I reread the recipe over at Mary’s place. I guess it is a bit like riding a bicycle – it comes back to you as you go through the motions. Even so, those first few laps back on the bike are usually fraught with wobbles and uncertainty. I mustn’t expect too much of myself until the dust loosens from my joints.

Oh, desolations and consolations, where art thou?

So much stirs under the surface. My desolations would seem so small: My oldest started college classes this fall at the community college; he was accepted elsewhere, but chose this option as best suiting his schedule. The instigator is back to school in the real world. The remaining four are schooling at home. Yes, indeed, the pink one has begun the journey. All of these things add up to a multitude of small stresses and a return to morning person status (not my favorite rotation). My father is still in an assisted living facility, but things have been up and down in that regard due to administrative changes. In the current incarnation, he is feeling unsettled due to the return of an aide (who is not his “favoritist” person in the world), thus he has lately been requiring extra energy on the part of my sister and myself. My mother, love her as I do, lives alone and requires (daily) a sounding board for all of her tangents – usually during the school day.

Shriveled, the “me” cowers on the inside – taking less time than I should to pull my eyes away from me and onto God, away from me and onto my family, away from me and onto others. Yet ironically, I spend so much time focusing on me that I somehow manage to convince myself that I am spending no time on me at all. Like a grape in the sun, sustaining hydration seeps away. I am raisin.

There’s a funny thing about raisins, though – when properly stored, somehow they maintain their juiciness. The sweetness on the inside is compounded.

The environment I would store myself in would dry the raisin into nothing but a shrunken pebble. How great the consolation that my God knows a thing or two about hydration – a God who can even bring dry bones back to life. That knowledge might not always seep as far as my heart, but the conviction never falters in my mind. I do not presume it to be true; I know it more surely than I trust the earth’s rotation, the ebb and flow of tides, or even gravity.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Romans 8:37, KJV