Weary Wonder

These days. Messy and muddled. Fast and too slow. We adore all this blessing but ache to run away sometimes...

Maybe being a homemaker is this rhythm. Maybe it is this messy. This muddled mass of moments. Silly ones and exhausted ones. Moments, when as a mom, I am so aware I am not enough. 

When I am on the phone and doors are slamming amidst high pitched screams... 

When I am cooking and three year old beauty is far too quiet. Messes. Her. Going potty in the trash can and then getting that little bum stuck! Oh and is the soup scorching? Heart can't help but laugh all delight watching her try get out...only to moments later be crying over the soup. Cause I can't do it all. 

But I have to keep going. For them. For Him.

Potties stuffed with full packs of wet wipes. Dog hair endlessly all over the floor. Sticky counters and laundry mountains. Phone calls and mocking cluttered closets. This? Maybe.

Maybe this is what it is. Maybe if we let go of what we think we are supposed to be.... Just maybe we can grip thru the grime and find grace. Grace that keeps going when we just can't.  Because no mom is perfect. Because clean closets can still mean a dirty soul. 

Grace strong enough to help us see the sweet things. The boy who drops salsa but fixes problem on his own. The little man who knows his Mom's fetish with broken seals on food... 

Him placing art there to let me know he broke seal so I wouldn't worry. Who knew juice mustaches could calm a heart? 

I wish desperately I would take all those slow down and remember moments. The ones that remind my heart why I love being a mama. Why I am blessed to be his wife.

Remember! Remember. That today, it's your kisses that take their pain away...a picture of this incredible trusting faith.

That their sticky hands leave such precious small handprints that soon enough will grow and be gone.

 That those giggles you hear coming down the hall is the bubbling brook of heaven. 

These dirty dishes mean God did it again. Another day your babies sleep with full bellies and smiling hearts.

Remember how it feels to be the one in his arms each night. To be the one he thinks about at work, and comes home to each night. Remember you know how to make him smile just so. And how to pray because your the only one who really sees his battles.

I know sometimes it feels like we are the haggard giver. The endlessly unseen striver. I too, mark my food to protect moments of hideaway 1 minute vacations. As if dark chocolate in a closet and dried mangos in the laundry room can rejuvenate the soul. I know what it is to reach to rest. To cry alone in effort to get back up again. 

I just kept thinking today that maybe all this we feel is abnormal and ugly...is upside down beauty and grace. Maybe our messy rhythm days are normal. And in fact ripe for God to show that HE can.

Because as moms, lets face it. We can't raise these babies right, not without divine intervention! But that's just what he wants to do. To show you He never intended that you and your dark chocolate closet getaways could raise these crazy kiddos on your own. That maybe we are meant to feel worn right thru so He can be seen as people look right thru us. Maybe worn out jeans and a hole in the heart become windows. To anyone passing by that needed a glimpse of God. From someone who was comfortable enough to say, " I can't do this." 

When we thin out tired, miracles can happen. When we rub down to mere strands light can come thru. Maybe being the stay at home wife and mom is Chiffon grace.  For God and all this glory. Just maybe.

Maybe if we risk rubbing raw we will rest in not having it all together. With our houses. Our babies. Our health. Our social life. Our marriages. Our hopes and our helps. Because us not having what it takes makes us perfect. Perfect for God to show His muscles. For testimony that's raw, real, and genuine to fly out of our homes.

Because God can raise our babies to love Him. To love the least of these.

Because God can heal our marriages in areas that feel hopeless.

Because God can calm the restless baby, and change the heart of the angry mom.

Because God can make piles of laundry, mountains of thanksgiving.

Because God can make a dirty, cluttered, messy house...a safe place for souls in need. In need of love. Hope. Or a cup of coffee. In need of people who will leave the task and choose the person.

Because God sees beauty in the tired tears of a mother's heart. Poetry in the prayers of the beseeching wife. 

What He can do with the raw of heart. 

Our messy moments. Our clogged toilets, and crusty pots... Lost shoes and musty closets... These can be windows of grace. Opportunities to know Him true. Witness Him in the messy homemaker life. Make that your goal instead of the cleanest house and poised children. Because there is no greater happiness, or joy, than seeing glimpses of God. 

"He who has received His witness has set his seal to this, that God is true." ~ John 3:33

Live in the messy and tell your kids that story. Love when it hurts and sing that song to your husbands heart. 

God. Is. True.

I reach to organize because I want to feel in control. But really, I just crave peace.

When we see glimpses of holiness, we can't help soul's change. He moves us. All this mess can become this magnificent ballet of hope. This story that tells others it isn't perfect people that make good kids, it's a loving God. It's real people living raw. This thin Chiffon grace.   

So let them see. I cannot raise my babies on my own. I rely on my God and all His crazy grace. I cannot respect my beloved man in the way he craves without God and his sweet revealing to my frail female heart. I will not have a perfect house and an immaculate microwave...but i hope my home is a safe place for many. I am thin. Raw. Tired, but true. I am in need...and I delight in His answer.

" For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be cultivated and sown." ~ Ezekial 36:9

Dirt can be beautiful when it receives the seeds. 

So smile at the dirt you see all over your house this week. Your home is garden. Your heart is garden. Dirt is grace for the growing. 

You are loved tired Mamas'. And always noticed. Be blessed, the Cultivator is near.

Cracked Grace

All month long. This struggle. Been there? This willingness and want to know the right way thru, but your blind? Fog. A smoke screen. This thick that seems to stumble your step.

Those marriage discussions that seem to topic dizzy. Round and round we babble without resolution and seeming oneness. 

Children. Those given us, so different one from the other. How to truth nurture each soul to HIS design of them. To teach and raise them up. To make them hungry. For Jesus. 

Friendships. We hurt when they do. Because love matters. Wishing we could do more for their burdens. So we pray. Hearts full and heavy.

Extra expenses, because this health we crave, will not cooperate. Will not make a permanent home in these bones. 

It all just comes, too much sometimes. And when we have a willing heart to obey thru, but He stays quiet, what do we do? We must keep seeking. Never stop friend. It's the seeking that keeps our eyes open to God in the minute. We can witness Him true even when we can't hear. He can be seen in the "just wait". Tasted in the famine.

Sometimes He has to build our hunger. For Him. 

Us desperate and ready.

Ready to still when His voice does come. Ready to awe at His accuracy. Ready to open our hands to Him in this now.

In the tired.  In the "I can't take it anymore".  In the sleepless nights.  And the tear filled days. In the "I don't understand."  In the soul agony of feeling alone.

  Hands. Open. Hungry to just have Jesus. 

Because He cannot be near without the filling. And contrary to our flesh's rational, open hands are never empty. 

Whether letting go, or receiving. We hold a gift.

This upside down way of living. Not clenching tight to maintain order. Not knuckle white to keep safe. Rather palms up to be given life. Life that slows us when everything else says to cram in and speed up. Order rarely comes from the fast and lurching heart. It is gift to remember He is king of backward beauty. 

Insane sensibility.  Awkward composure. Un-bordered safety.  With Him, open hands that would seem vulnerable to no good, become embraced in His holy "Yes." 

We are never safer than when we receive the manna.

Life has these deserts. These places of scorching heat that sear soul. Wind whipping sand so hard upon us we raw. Thirst so constant it may kill us. But God....  Water comes from the rocks. Food falls from the sky. Shade comes from a tree that had no right to be on that desert floor.  When we look up. Past the noise, messes, pain, and loneliness... Look up beyond the hard things... We will always see manna fall. Snow bread landing light nourishment on our soul. Life giving provision that meets lifted hands again and again. 

Say yes to what He allows. Thank Him because He is always good. Because He is worth it. Because you are always loved. Because open hands lead us in to what we ache for. This haven. This place to breathe again. This perspective altering refuge that just might heal us whole. 

 

Today he slowed me with cracking glass. Sweet boy, playing all joy, makes picture window crack. Maybe that was divine. Cause I feel cracked too. That noise of popping glass filling me today... What if I shatter? What if I can't do it all and my shards cut people on my way down? But my upside down Savior stops me sweet. I had to see the glass cracked to bend the knee. To lift up blind eyes and see. 

Sometimes we have to get hungry enough to slow.

Today I am thankful for little hands and cracking glass. For rhythms that don't make any worldly sense. 

I lift up open hands and soul breathes. Because with my Jesus, shattered glass mine as well be diamonds. He's just that lovely.

Be blessed today. Say yes to manna on upturned hand. His provision never ends.

" For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be cultivated and sown."  ~ Ezekial 36:9

"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Thy consolations delight my soul."

~ Psalm 94:19