New Places

Well, I've come to the point in my life where I'm once again sitting in a sea of boxes. We've moved again and I'm trying to sort out where everything goes and honestly trying to sort out why we own some of this stuff in the first place. I walked into my bedroom last night, looked at the small area of the floor that is not covered in boxes and noted a newborn onesie, a wetsuit boot, and a name tape from my old Air Force days. Whoever came up with the principle of "everything in its place" was probably trying to help someone like me.  These moves make me feel as though the TV show Hoarders may show up to film my house at any second.  I imagine my reaction to the crew showing up would be somewhat indignant at first and then a shrug while saying, "Yeah, you've got a point."

Moving always makes me contemplative.  Aside from going through all those sentimental items that only come out when we move, there's something about leaving a place where you've lived an made memories that always makes me a little bit sad, even if I wasn't too attached to it or didn't live there very long. We only lived in D.C. for two years and it's not really my kind of city, but we had an amazing church there and some great friends. It is always hard to leave those things.

The other thing that gets me about moving is the kids. With my littles, two years makes a huge difference. When I moved to Washington state 4 years ago, all I had was this:

Then, when we moved to D.C. two years later, I had these:

But leaving D.C., our family looked like this:

The days seem long, but when I look at these pictures, I can't figure out where all the time went.

If moving away from somewhere makes me melancholy, the other side is also true. I love the idea of moving to a new house, having a clean slate (at least until the boxes show up), and looking forward to God's blessings and how he will use us in this new place.

Covenant and Love

Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Two!

From this:

 

To this:

Two years is all it takes, folks.

Happy birthday to my sweet Matty-Moo!

Stolen Moments

Oh what to do with my second-born child?  Adventurous and always pushing boundaries, he's much more inquisitive and care-free than his brother, and he's never known a time when mom hasn't been busy with two children, so he's able to get away with much of his inquisitiveness, often until it is too late and I am the one who has trouble.



Today we went to CVS to pick up a few St. Patrick's Day essentials (you know, silly hats and beads and what not), and we checked out at the counter where Ethan charmed the cashier and Matthew sat patiently in his stroller singing a little ditty to himself while I paid for our things.  Or so I thought.  We walked out of the store and were about 10 feet down the sidewalk when Ethan innocently asked, "Does Matthew have candy?".  I had made the executive decision in CVS not to buy any candy, even though the Swedish Fish always taunt me, so no, Matthew did not have any candy.  Again, though: "Matthew has candy."  This is when I decided it would be best to stop sorting change, shuffling bags and actually look through the little plastic window in the top of the stroller and notice that Matthew had a nice little chocolate bar, halfway unwrapped, but as of yet uneaten.  Instantly mortified, I wondered how many people in that CVS just watched my son shoplift and wondered if I was letting him do it or if I was just an oblivious, scatter-brained mom.  I actually hoped, for the first time in my life, that people assumed I was the latter.

So we immediately turned around, went back up to the register and explained ourselves.  Well, I explained myself and Matthew threw a fit because I took his candy away.  The lady sort of chuckled as I got out a couple of dollars to pay for the chocolate.  That's when it happened:  the cashier said, "That'll be $3.52, please."

Three dollars and fifty-two cents for a candy bar.  I'm pretty sure my jaw actually physically dropped while I searched for a $5 to cover the damage.  You see, my son wasn't interested in just any candy bar.  No.  He selected the dark-chocolate, raspberry-filled Godiva chocolate bar.

At least no one can say that he has bad taste.  And lets just say that after paying that much for a candy bar, I wasn't too keen on sharing it with my little thief, cute though he may be.

The Love that Covers

Someone I only know through blogging land just wrote an excellent post on one of the many reasons marriage is worth it.  The post struck a chord with me as I read it and looked up at my two handsome boys sitting at the lunch table -- two boys who just about die of happiness every night when their dad comes home from work.  So I'm sharing it here!

When Nana & Papa Come to Visit

 

Spending time together on the couch

 Nana builds a mean train track

 A lot of walks are taken around the neighborhood,

 

 or downtown.

 We all dress up and go to church.

 More walks are taken,

 nature is explored,

 Winnie-the-Pooh's house is found.

Really, the only bad part about Nana & Papa coming to visit is that they have to go home at the end of their vacation.

Book Review: One Thousand Gifts

I just finished Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts yesterday and wanted to write a short review. Looking at the title and the book description I thought this book would be primarily about keeping a gratitude journal, and that is part of it, but the journal itself is a gateway to more fully understanding God in the face of all kinds of circumstances.

Voskamp opens her story recounting the death of her sister when they were both young girls. She speaks about growing up in a household where the resulting deep suffering was the everyday reality. It was this first chapter that drew me in. I have led a very charmed life with very little real suffering, but I have found just in these past few weeks that I have been directly confronted with the deep wounds that this world can inflict on people in the faces of my friends and acquaintances. I do not know, honestly, if God is sharing these stories with me to prepare me for my own hardships to come (sometimes it feels that way), or if He is simply wanting to change my heart in some way to be more tender to those who are grieving. All that to say: I bought One Thousand Gifts almost immediately after reading that first chapter online.

My main criticism of the book, which is more about personal taste, is that I'm not a fan of stream-of-consciousness writing. For me it is much like when you are reading something out loud and realize mid-sentence that you've gotten the subject, verb or rhythm of the sentence wrong. Then you have to go back and read it again to figure out what was actually said. But, it is also in this writing style that Voskamp gets her point across: keeping a gratitude journal, however trivial it seems, is a first step to thinking Biblically, and once we can think Biblically, we can start to internalize those truths and really live them out amidst the worst kind of suffering, or the litany of our daily life, or even more fully appreciate the great joys we are blessed with. She moves deep into the idea that most Christians give lip service to: "Yes, Lord, I'm thankful for all you have given me" and insists that we need to be specific and deliberate about thanking God, not for everything, but for each thing. When we are specifically thankful for even the smallest gifts and when we are actively looking for those small gifts, our thinking about joy, life, suffering, God, and His love really changes us.

I appreciate that Voskamp quotes Lewis and Piper, as well as some more heavy theological texts, and the Bible, of course. She didn't just write a touchy feel good book about thanksgiving.  She grounds all of the feelings and introspection into Biblical principles. But the book isn't preachy. She bares her own domestic failings for all of us to see as we read how she is discovering what thanksgiving means during those moments when we are less than thankful for the kids breaking a glass door, or worse, when a precious child is injured or lost. She deals eloquently with the question of a sovereign God amidst the worst kind of pain, and these passages really struck me so that I read them over and over again, convicted of my own lack of grace amidst trivial suffering, or worse, amidst great blessings!

What do we do when we are so deeply wounded that all we want to do is be angry at the God who would have us feel this pain? How can being thankful for small things help us here? She lays her emotions and thoughts bare on the pages of her book so that we can see her transformation.  Her writings about thanksgiving show a woman wounded, wooed by Christ and ultimately transformed by His love in the little gifts He gives.

So, yes, this is much more than a book about keeping a gratitude journal, and proof reading this review, I notice that I have failed to really capture the beauty and depth in Voskamp's book, but there are many more reviews more beautifully written on Amazon, so go look at them, and then pick up a copy of this book for yourself.

(I do not know Ann Voskamp, nor is my review in any way sponsored by her or anyone else, in fact, she'd probably prefer that someone with much better writing skills review her book!  She does blog at A Holy Experience with beautiful photos and words.)