unconditional love like invisible ink

Unconditional Love, True Love, lives in a real world, with real challenges and other real emotions. It is incredibly beautiful Unconditional Love. But it takes lots of strength, courage and faith. A little humbleness, too. A little taking the back seat sometimes and a lot of never giving up! Unconditional Love is all encompassing. It loves your husband, your children, your friends, God – even strangers. I would not want to live without it.

Even when someone does something expressly against your wishes, like dump the chicken noodle soup down the side of the sink without the garbage disposal, does not wear their seat belt when driving without you, or gets a tattoo, Unconditional Love loves.

Unconditional Love sees your child (whether little, teen or grown), spouse or parent through God’s Eyes.
If you cannot see it now – ask Him!
He will show you through His Eyes!
It is life changing . . .
Changing how you think,
the words you use,
the feeling in your heart,
the expressions on your face!
It is a liberating love.

Kind of like God handing me His glasses with Hope and Faith Lenses
letting me see
what God sees
and
it
changed
everything

Unconditional Love knows how I love is not determined by success or failure
Recognizing that sometimes failure is the biggest step to success,
resulting in my needing to step back,
take my hands-off
hold the tears inside
staunch the fear that tries to rush out with a mental and emotional tourniquet
choke off words that do not need or are not ready to be said
believing that failure is sometimes the gas to the engine of success

How do you  know when you are loving unconditionally? Unconditional Love is like invisible ink. While the invisible ink is made visible by heat, another chemical or ultraviolet light, unconditional love is made visible by uncomfortable situations resulting in pain, disappointment, anger from another’s behavior. So how do you know when you love unconditionally? When you are uncomfortable, don’t really want to, aren’t feeling it, but choose to love anyway – then you are loving unconditionally.

PPPPSSSSsssssssttttt. . . . Unconditional Love – the God-kind of Unconditional Love is not reserved just for your very favorite people. It is a type of love that is like a Spring Rain, showering on everyone who comes into contact with you.

Unconditional Love is found in a Mary Poppins-Bag-kind-of-heart that is deep enough to fill with love for as many people, not as it can hold because the Mary Poppins bag is bottomless, but for as many people as you choose to love. It is priceless!

Unconditional Love grows, and groWS, and gROWS and GROWS
over days, with months, years
in sunshine and storms
if we let it
if we don’t hoard it
Then it grows, re-seeds, spreads like buttercups in a field
Unconditional Love is a choice.
Choose Unconditional Love

(Once upon a time, I wrote about 30-something unconditional love rules in the waiting of the journey of a prayer sent out. I finally took those 30 unconditional love rules, whittled them down to 10 – and created an introduction on the definition of Unconditional Love from the shavings of those 30 rules.  This post is that definition. I did this for my boys because I thought maybe one day they would value the message that sustained me during a challenging time. The guiding mission statement for Blue Cotton Memory is the faith, love and politics of raising boys to men. Very subtly it also includes another personal mission – to show my boys how to grow old loving the Lord. They aren’t interested in the heart thoughts of their mother right now – but, maybe, one day, they will be – and one copy of this, tucked on my bookshelf, will be pulled out to encourage in the waiting of a prayer sent out.)

 

 

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Going through the Gate or Fence Jumping? Encouraging Real Relationship between Teens and their Savior

I’m the gate. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved. He’ll come in and go out and find pasture ~ John 10:9

“Jump a Fence

Climb a Tree

Homespun, he is Free”

from Blackberry Roland, by Blue Cotton Memory

From little feet puddle jumping to  muscles and cleats sliding through mud and rain-soaked tackle, these boys of mine don’t always choose the neat, tidy paths and gateways.

God placed within their tiny hearts before they were born – a desire for freedom, a frontier-kind of spirit that would lead them out of bondage, through a parting sea – and into a new land, a land where the banner of Shaddai flies high for all to see, where children are taught with their first steps that Jehovah-Rohi shepherds them through the gate, hand-in-hand with the Savior.

Through the gate – it sounds so simple. Forging new paths, to discover new ideas – like Ford with automobiles or Charles Best who discovered insulin – or Neil Armstrong walking on the moon – fence jumping sure seems a quicker way to get there. Their toes almost itch to jump fences – from the time they learn to walk.

These boys to men seem designed to avoid gates.

I see it in their desire to debate – just for the sake of debate – chewing (sometimes it seems like gnawing) their logical teeth on challenging authority or the status quo.

How many times have I said, “Don’t outsmart your common sense.”

The oldest, he taught them all the longest word in the dictionary: Antidisestablishmentarianism – and, to him, it meant not taking establishment ideas at face value. At first glance, the gate looks like establishment ideas.

Some shun the gate because their parents walked through. The gate seems to have always been there. It seems so ordinary, so every day, so already done. These boys to men don’t just go through the gate because it’s there – it often seems like a life motto they’ve worn emblazoned inside.

“I am the Gate for the Sheep,” Jesus tells us (John 10:7)

These boys to men – they gotta have Him – there’s no other way – no other way to be delivered from all that life will throw at them – from the liars, cheats, and thieves who aim to steal more than their wallets, identity or cell phones.

The gate isn’t religion. It isn’t rules. It isn’t an activity list of things we do. The gate is relationship. Relationship releases the gate latch – relationship with the one who designed you, the one who died to save you.

Real relationship. You cannot get there by fence jumping (fulfilling the bucket-list of Christian-expected behavior but not relationship) – or digging under it.

I imagine that if you wanted to spend time with Him debating – I imagine He would welcome that as the beginning of relationship. You might not be through the gate – but at least you’re at the gate with Him.

A few years ago, I hosted a an unofficial small group with some parents of teens, friends of my sons still at home – and we read Sticky Faith together, trying to figure out how to get these boys to men who have walked through that gate when they were little – to continue living through the gate – in His pasture where they live “saved from sin, the dominion of it, the guilt and condemning power of it, and at last from the being of it; and from the law, its curse and condemnation, and from wrath to come, and from every evil, and every enemy”(Gill’s Exposition, Bible Hub).

Some were frontier parenting – this was their first foray into the teen years. Others, like us, had older children who entered through the gate or were fence jumpers or tried digging under it, trying any way to avoid the actual relationship required to go through the gate.  We needed fresh eyes to break battle-fatigue habits, to re-equip, re-adjust, re-train for the next 6 years.

Sitting across the table, breaking bread – (getting ready for them to start the teen book while we went over the parent’s book) – learning ways to intentionally open the clogged conversational arteries with our children, how our spiritual gifts communicate with each other (not part of the book, but part of what we are doing) – and how to encourage real relationship with the one who created them, who loves them – who died to save them.

One of the things I loved about this group is that it included some of their inner circle of friends. As one teen filled a bowl of soup, a parent asked,”Who influences you most now – your parents or your peers?”

We were not looking for a right answer – We were looking for his answer.

“My peers,” he answered. Another answered, “My parents.” Each gave valid reasons, truthful reasons.

Maybe by pulling them to the table, bowl by bowl – with friend’s parents who they tease includes their “favorite mom” – maybe, just maybe we can mentor faith that sticks: real, life relationship faith.

How can we as parents encourage relationship building of these sons with their Savior? Real relationship building – We asked our sons to define what it meant to be a Christian?

Sometimes there was a disconnect between the logos “right” answer and the rhema (the aliveness) of their answer in their every day. They knew the right answer but their actions weren’t always in tandem with the right answer. Both were still fusing together.

Over the bowls of soup, I also wanted to ask, “Who is influencing your gate relationship with Christ?”

“What does that gate relationship consist of?”

What does it mean to pass through the gate to the pasture?

Or are you just fence jumping?”

Today, about 2 years later, those mentoring relationships are making a positive difference. Other moms and dads interacting, having real conversation – not scared-to-intrude conversation have created peers who reflect that interaction into their peer relationships.

I’ve seen hard decisions made by these young men who prayed first and put self second.

I’ve seen young iron sharpening young iron because of real relationships with other moms and dads showed them how in breaking-bread, over-the-counter real conversation.

They’re pausing at the temptation to fence jump – and instead making the decision to hang out at the gate, take ownership of that relationship found there. In the ownership, they’re discovering it’s not an establishment relationship. It’s a real, personal, one-on-one relationship – a grafting together kind of relationship.

Going through the gate? Or fence jumping?

(updated, September 9, 2015)

All gate photos except for last were taken at Colonial Williamsburg, Fall 2013

 

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Scary Mommy? Boo!

It’s just not Halloween without this post!
I used to think moms with just sons were pretty scary, until I became one of those moms.
When you’re a mom with 5 sons, no matter how big, those boys gotta think you can still take them down-no matter who’s around.

You gotta be able to call their bluff.

One day, one of my sons walked through the kitchen on his way to his room buck naked after showering in my shower.  At the same time, the oldest one strolled into the kitchen in his boxers.  I’d had it. I was tired of all this male non-challent nakedness. There was a girl in the house after-all, even if she was just “Mom.”

I started un-buttoning my pants.  I said, “Well, if you can do it, I can, too.”  They high-tailed it out of the kitchen. I didn’t see a naked butt for about 6 months. I must have been pretty Scary-Mommy! (BTW, I only started unbuttoning my pants.  That’s all it took)

It gets pretty scary in the house when I do my “Mad Mad Madam Mim” immitation from The Sword and The Stone or the Lady in the Portrait from Harry Potter when she can just break a glass “Just with My Voice.” The threat to do those immitations in front of their friends pretty much makes them toe the line.

Then, I get pretty SCARY MOMMY when I create visual lectures on relationships and stuff, like “You’re a Cake” and “Hubba Bubba” and “Are you Man Enough?”  And then I share them over S’Mores and Pizza when they bring  BFFS over or I get a chance to hang around their “girl” friends at soccer games or church. It’s so scary, they almost like it.

A truly SCARY MOMMY makes sure Santa stuffs stockings for the older sons with things like Payne’s Common Sense, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America or C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. However, for every Scary Mommy high moment, there is an equal Scary Mommy low moment, like when I reviewed every Def Leppard song with my son who disagreed that every Def Leppard song is about sex.  We were trying to eliminate the sin-with-a-good-beat music choices.  All Scary Mommy had to do was raise an eyebrow.  My son conceded victory, but Scary Mommy was rather red-faced. Def Leppart no longer blared at the house.

I am probably SCARY MOMMY when I lose my temper, my keys, and when I drive (not quite all at the same time).

SCARY MOMMY loves enough to risk pride, respect, and affection in order to be the mom my son’s need me to be. SCARY MOMMY can be meaner, but SCARY MOMMY gives Volcano kisses that slobber all over their cheeks, bear hugs that can lift the biggest one of them all off the ground, and say, “I’m sorry. I really missed it” when I handle mommy-ness wrong.

SCARY MOMMY has a pretty scary sense of humor.  When one son, whom we call “Bear” got in the car after soccer practice all cold and shivering, I asked him,” What’s the saddest sight in the whole wide world?”

“I don’t know. Your cooking?” he answered. I almost forgot my joke.

“A hairless bear shivering with cold,” I answered.  Now readers, you need to visualize that before you can truly appreciate the SCARY MOMMY humor.

The boys would really think I was SCARY MOMMY if they knew what I was like without God in my life giving me the strength, the courage, the inspiration, the never-give-up-ness to believe in their innate goodness when it’s on sabitacal, to believe they are walking in God’s plan for their lives when it seems like every plan has been thrown away, to believe they have generous hearts when they are tight-fisted with their brothers, and to love passionately and unconditionally even when they don’t want to love me back.  SCARY MOMMY drops to her knees in prayer when life is scarier than she is!

SCARY MOMMY? Bring it on! Sometimes I just plain scare myself!

See also Socialism or Capitalism: Trick or Treat or Halloween is. . .

Wishing you a day of celebrating family!

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Shifting Gears

First Gear

In his daddy’s red and white truck, this boy and I

studied earth science and college notes

Leaning against each other, my feet dangling out the window

In the Kentucky Sunshine.

Driving down small town roads

At a red stop light

He says, “I think I’m beginning to love you. What do you think?”

Looking straight ahead, down the 4 lane road, I answer,

“I wasn’t going to think about it until you said something.”

The red light changed yellow to green

and we moved on down the road

Shift, Second Gear

A few years later, our red-Ford truck climbs up

snow covered graveled driveway

Our little guy between us, enjoying

the adventure, no fear with

back wheels slipping and sliding

But he gets us home

A home tucked next to his grandfather’s farm

A red Ford truck soon to be traded in for a mini-van

big enough to hold a basketball team

worth of boys

trading outside stuff

For important inside stuff

Shift 3rd Gear

Our driveway moved

To another state, this boy-filled mini-van full

brown eyes, green eyes, hazel eyes all

Eager for nanny hugs and papaw rides

In the red and white truck for

Candy and Coke Store moments,

For farm rides through

Rutted tracks made by tractors and trucks

To the daffodil fields, grave stones

tobacco and hay fields, over creek beds

looking for tree nuts, walking sticks

or just sitting and waiting in Papaw’s

red and white truck

Shift, Fourth Gear

Teen boy wants to drive

to make life his own and daddy buys

a $500 project where hands that held mine

remove emblems, chrome and trim

motor sanding, hand sanding

sand rust harsh then fine

bondo-fill gaps,

sand more, preparing for

Viper Red

new hands at spray-gun control

daddy’s voice coaching

encouraging

even results

and they dig deeper

beneath the exterior to the heart

inspecting hoses, belts transmissions and motors

bleeding lines, filling tanks

with just the right stuff

A Viper Red Project

“It will mean more to him this way”

says his daddy. “He’ll take better care”

Readying him for the long ride

down the road

Fourth Gear

Maybe one day our mini-van will empty out

each boy driving into life

with something that means more

and he’ll take better care

and while they shift their gears

from first, second to third

just maybe me and that boy

that took me out in his daddy’s red and white truck

will find time to go down a lonely dirt road

lean against each other with my toes out the window

no more studying, no more sanding

just knowing we love this long drive together

This son, with the truck project, when he was a Freshman, he and another boy riding with me in my mini-van talked trucks. The other boy talked about his powerful Chevy truck with detailed auto language. He snorted derisively on my son’s Ford, sitting the driveway, waiting to be sanded, waiting for Viper Red to give it new life. My son looked at him saying, “My Ford truck is so powerful, Zeus called to see if I could drive over and haul the sun few hundred miles north.” I just gotta love a boy that thinks like that!

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Why Our Boys Need to Know They Are God-Designed

A soul that doesn’t recognize that a relationship with Yahweh is as important to his development as his physical DNA, cannot grow into the man they were designed to be.

Before God was stripped out of our schools, off library bookshelves, community meetings, commencement addresses, curriculum, or our government, school shootings, from Columbine to the UC- Santa Barbara killings weren’t a thread in the tapestry of our history.

Please join me over at The Mom Initiative today for the rest of my post, for why our boys need to know they are God-Designed.

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The Four Horses of Maturity

The first week of May always leaves me homesick for my growing-up home.
You can take the girl out of Louisville but you cannot take Louisville at of the girl!. It is Derby week – and Derby Week has a double special place in my heart. Yeah – it is about balloon races, boat races, and, of course, horse races. But most important for me is a time of family.

You see, we always celebrated my grandfather’s birthday on Derby Day – which meant a house full of family, lots of laughter and people of all ages spilling out all the doors, from the front porch entrance to the backyard, blooming with grandfather’s white azaleas, white and pink dogwood trees, honeysuckle. He built a make-shift tree house for us in the Rain tree. In the very back of the yard were 3 pine trees he planted. The middle pine tree was my favorite hide-away – I could climb it and read – and no one would bother me.

Derby morning, our house was a hive of activity. I would be sent up the street to cut fresh mint from Aunt Joyce’s yard for the Mint Julips. There would be dips and chips – not something we had often in the routine of regular living. And, there would be a little bowl full of  newspaper cutting slips with the horses names. Put a dollar in and draw a horse name out – I was so excited the year my horse, Majestic Prince, won – and I so wanted to draw his name. It was a lucky day – yes, I will say, it was a lucky day lined with blessing!

When we got older and my grandfather passed away, it was less festive, but still celebrated. One special year, the summer I got married, before my junior year in college, my grandmother invited my friends for dinner after spending a day at the in-field at Churchill Downs. The day was beautiful, until the skies literally poured rain on us as we were leaving. But my grandmother – well, she was amazing. All bedraggled from the rain – about ten of us, were seated at her dining room table, on her needle-point-covered chairs, and served a meal fit for anyone on Million’s Row – Leg of Lamb with her homemade mint sauce and homemade chili sauce plus all the fixin’s. I don’t remember the dessert.  I know there was one – there was always a dessert, Caramel Cake or the Chocolate Celebration Cake, sometimes Charlotte Russe!

The laughter that night was memorable, especially over the lamb. One of my sweet friends loves animals and just couldn’t quite bring herself to take a bite of that used-to-be fluffy little lamb. She made a valiant effort, but every time she tried to take a bit, everyone “baa-ed.” She gracefully gave up.

My grandmother, who in high school wanted me to pick my friends from some other place – and we battled about that – leaned over and whispered, “You have such good friends.”

People come from around the world to watch the Kentucky Derby – and to them it’s just a race. When you have roots in the blue grass, though, the Kentucky Derby is so much more than the big hats, mint juleps and fast horses.

The Four Horses of Maturity

There is a race within each of my sons – I call it The Four Horses of Maturity participating in the Race of Life – more specifically, the most important race of an individual’s life. The Four Horses of Maturity are named Physical, Emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual.

When the gates open, Physical Maturity bolts, a thrilling surge for the lead, over-powering muscle, yet without caution, without strategy to pace, without limit recognition.

After an anxious route to the starting gate, Emotional Maturity gains, passing a spent Physical Maturity, nipping it on the flank as it moves to pass. Emotions raging, uncontrolled, Emotional Maturity behaves erratically. Emotional Maturity explodes forward without reason. Hard to handle, easily spooked, seemingly confused about being ahead, possibly thinking the race won, unsure of what to do. . . .

Until Intellectual Maturity edges up, having executed a fairly smooth trip to move into the lead. Reason reigns, using logic and reason to keep Emotional Maturity and Physical Maturity in check, not allowing them a chance to gain. Intellectual Maturity blocks the advancement of Spiritual Maturity.

Down the stretch they come, Emotional Maturity and Physical Maturity trying to regain, bumping Intellectual maturity in the turn. But Spiritual Maturity, after swerving out a bit toward the first turn, continues along the outside, rallies when sharply roused on the second turn to make a way between Physical and Emotional Maturity. Physical Maturity suddenly lost momentum.

Intellectual Maturity continues along the inside in a brilliant move to take over the lead on the stretch turn, rallies gamely and gives way grudgingly as Spiritual Maturity finds a way, pulling from within amazing feats to find an opening on the inside, slips past, making a stirring dash to the finish line, winning with confidence.

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No Holiness in the Socks

The word laundry – just the word itself creates a fight-or-flight result. A sock of panic, a fold of overwhelming – and just lots of mis-matched feelings. The word laundry flashes subliminal socks, ankle, calf, leg socks. No toe socks, girly socks – just stinky, gotta where them in the yard, sweat-stained socks.

When I calm my pulse and my breathing returns to normal, the laundry story unfolds.

My grandmother tripped my grandfather on the way to a fire – that’s the romantic story of how Mary Edna and Theodore Carlin met. Country girl with a city heart followed him to the big city and grew a family. At one point, he was the proprietor of a dry cleaning. When I knew him, he was a newspaper man delivering newspapers throughout Louisville when the sun came up – to newspaper boys who took them house to house.

I remember grandmother sending laundry out – and tablecloths returning swathed in flimsy plastic, pressed perfectly, like a wedding dress from a hanger.

When we moved in with my grandmother, once a week we sent the laundry out. Mom worked. It was an old house – no room for a washer and dryer. My brother and I wore uniforms to school, so we didn’t rack up a bunch of clothes.

I didn’t learn how to do laundry until I went to college – and then I married. Now, I have more laundry than I know what to do with.

Laundry taught me about one son’s love language. A hard worker, every now and then he’d ask me to wash a shirt – one shirt for school the next day. I learned to stop making learning laundry a life lesson for these one-shirt requests. It was his way of asking for a love language hug – and I learned to hug him that way.

Another son climbed up on a stool to do laundry – He wasn’t big enough to reach without. A load or a shirt at a time, he wanted his clothes clean. He was a quality time love language – not an acts of service. He didn’t want or need laundry hugs from me.

Socks pop up all over the floor of my house, like mushrooms in a manure patch. The boys to men just drop them – everywhere.

When I married and had children – I didn’t think of sock challenges. I thought of noble things like reading classical books of adventure and Aesop’s fable, finger art, museums, faith, fighting for right.

Not socks, the seemingly impossible task of herding all these unorganized pieces of white into pairs – for 7 pairs of feet.

I could try to pin the act of matching socks to things like a mother’s sacrifice, even holiness and grace – that in the daily with things like socks, shirts and the unmentionables. There’s no holiness or grace in the socks. Matching socks isn’t fun. Laundry isn’t fun.

I’ve become more sensitive to the word, “fun” – my youngest sons bemoaning, “It’s not fun.”

Fun – “FUN, n. Sport; vulgar merriment. A low word.(Sport: To divert; to make merry; Vulgar: Mean; rustic; rude; low; unrefined)

Fun has become the measure of life – or it often seems that way. Many words devolve – meaning become more negative – like the word cheap. It used to mean good quality at a low price. Now it means poor quality – whatever the price.

Fun, though, has become a desired commodity. Friday Fun, Bucket Lists of fun, vacation for fun – it seems the goal is to live for fun.

I don’t think anywhere in the bible is fun mentioned as the sole purpose for doing anything. Peace – yes. Contentment – yes. Doing our Best as a gift to God, even work – and much of made of joy.

“And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun” (Ecc 8:15)

The 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary defines joy:
“The passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; that excitement of pleasurable feelings which is caused by success, good fortune,the gratification of desire or some good possessed, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exultation; exhilaration of spirits.

Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good”(Webster)

Fun is all about what you are doing. Fun is conditional, though. It does not extend to everything you do.
Joy is the condition of the spirit. It is unconditional. It extends to everything you do – little and big –  big – like earning the first pay-check, saving a life, the birth of a child – or little like matching socks and folding laundry.

A few of my boys are grown up, taking care of business, realizing that finding joy in the daily, in the mundane like sock matching, grows something stronger inside than living for fun.

Living fun is like trying to catch fireflies in a field while living joy is like a steady fire that keeps you warm despite the cold and dark seasons.

No – there’s nothing holy about laundry and socks.
The holiness is what’s going on between us and God while we’re doing it.
“My soul shall be joyful in my God”(Is.61).

 

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What Grandma Moses Tells My 15 Year Old

My fourth son, he turned 15 – so I gave him the card –

The Grandma Moses card – the one with the vintage automobile on the front

there’s one for each of the brothers – each of my boys -and I give it to them when they turn 15.

Grandma Moses tells them,

“Life is what you make it,

always has been,

always will be”

I wrote to my son,

Not everyone starts out their first day held in the hands of a loving God like you did – and in that holding he gave you an extra measure of something wonder – a boldness for things of God.

As you know by now, there are moments of blessing, moments of challenge and those in-between moments where a lot of living happens – sometimes moments you call “boring” – but in all those moments you have a choice

a choice to love

a choice to find goodness

a choice to be kind

a choice to forgive

a choice to walk out your faith and hope in God when you might not see evidence of his favor.

Life is not about the challenge; it is about the choice

and the choices are what defines your life

Grandma Moses gave us some good advice. Live it well,

Happy 15th birthday!

• Grandma Moses and Growing Up

 

 

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Soul Stories in Dust Jackets

In the evenings, we met, each boy and I
before they outgrew bed-time chronicles
stories, songs and tandem prayers
two soul stories in dust jackets
sitting side-by-side
for bed-time wind-downs
young stories barely smudged
the other frayed about the edges,
faded and life worn

the littlest, they recently outgrew
sleepy time under the moon
and it was a slow journey there –
a 26-year 5-boy slow, sweet journey
until nearing the end
the journey travels at light speed
to the last bedtime chronicle

The pages of my soul story remember
how we met 365 moon-downs for 10 years each
recorded in the soul stories of 6 dust jackets
met in in the quilts and pillows
book-stacks and beanie puppies
entering Margaret Wise Brown’s green room
with its red balloons and a cow jumping over the moon,
looking outside bedtime windows
to see if moon-shapes resemble
raccoon whiskers and ears
A mother following a run-away bunny
A bunny running away from mother love
Who like the tortoise to the hare
kept loving in unconditional pace
in all kinds of places
high and low places
Not giving up

The pages of my soul story remember
how we loved to the tips of our ears
past tree tops and cirrus clouds
reaching skyward to star sparkles and moon beams
And when our fingers couldn’t reach high enough
We’d stand on our heads, feet against the walls
Toes stretched out
To see who could love the fartherest
“I love you to the moon and back,” I read
And each little guy’s face would split into a grin
“I love you to God’s beard”
And I would love them to God’s beard and back

They don’t quite understand how far
A mother’s love spans
from sunrise to moondown
these dust jackets that close to sleepy sings
of Simply Gifts
Be near me Lord Jesus
Stay by my cradle till morning is near
And drowsy eyes would close
twitchy fingers that just didn’t want to pry
its tenacious grip off the day
Would still
as moon stories and moon songs
trailed off to hushed lullaby lines
I see the moon and the moon sees me
God sees the moon and God sees me
God bless the moon and God bless me
God bless somebody I don’t see
and little boys sleep quiet
watched by a Father God
who made him the moon and the stars
who reaches down
to bring him back
from the high and low places
of sunrise to moondown

Good night red balloon and bunny runs
Good night simple gifts and God-sees sings
I will remember for they are written
into my soul story,
bound in my dust jacket
the soul stories of always loving
you to-God’s Beard and Back
always loving
unconditionally as you run down your path
of your God-created story
walking out your soul story
in your dust jacket

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Not Ready!

School starts today – a senior, 8th grader and 6th grader – 3 still in the nest, 2 out – a snug balance that will change come next May.

I’m not quite ready for this school year, but I am being swept into it regardless of whether I am ready or not. Maybe next week I will be ready. Besides, who says I have to be ready at the beginning of everything?

At least the boys to men will go to school with haircuts – starting out neat and trim. Nice haircuts that seem to say, “I’m ready,” whether you really are or not.

But we’re really not.
And that’s o.k.

I’m making white cupcakes from scratch, filled with strawberry jam, topped with a chocolate ganache and pink, yellow and lavender fondant daisies for a wedding shower for my nephew and his sweet fiance this weekend. Even in that, I’m not quite ready.

And that’s o.k..

There are lots of changes, good changes, answered prayer changes – feeling like it’s a blizzard of answered prayer – and I can’t see ahead of it. I can only see as far as the tips of my toes, which really means, where I am right now.

This girl, here, the one typing – I’m used to seeing ahead of everything, even if I really can’t see: planning contingencies, even planning back-up alternatives for the contingencies – but God wants me to stand in the midst of this blizzard of answered prayer and just soak, not so much say right now.

One never quite knows where an answered prayer will take one – except that it will be ultimately lead its way into something good, something refreshing.

I’m not ready because I cannot see everything out in front of me

but I’m on the journey, even if it means I can’t see what’s beyond right now except the prayers answered – not the cause/effect, just the blessing of those answers

I am trusting Him, that these answered prayers will translate themselves to me eventually, that readiness will unfold itself.

“This is what God says,
the God who builds a road right through the ocean,
who carves a path through pounding waves,

Thank you Father for making a safe, solid path through the challenges, through the unknown, even through answered prayers that lead to places unanticipated.

The God who summons horses and chariots and armies—
they lie down and then can’t get up;
they’re snuffed out like so many candles:
“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.

Thank you for taking us forward, every closer to you. Thank you for leading us through the mine-field of challenges that reveal our measure of grace only to provide the opportunity to grow that measure of grace into something more. My history, the family history – it has already happened. I need to let go to let us grow into what He has planned. Event though much history is good, answered prayers start new chapters, leaving the old chapters behind.

“Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands.

I’m not ready of myself, Father – but if you are designing the plan, the schedule, the itinerary, if you are building the road, no matter where you building the road, I want to be there with you, to watch your plan explode! Not just watch, but to work with you! Oh, yes, to work with you, even though you don’t need my help! I just have to be willing, game, alert, present.

Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’
—the coyotes and the buzzards—
Because I provided water in the desert,
rivers through the sun-baked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
the people I made especially for myself,
a people custom-made to praise me” (Isaiah 43:16-21)

Thank you, Father, for this blizzard of answered prayer. Thank you for always being faithful to your promises. Thank you for pursuing each of my sons, each member of my family with more love and determination than I can fathom. Thank you for opening doors that lead to other doors that lead us to where you want us to be. Thank you for sending me a husband who leads our family with unconditional love, wisdom founded in you, and a hopeful, joyful, never-give-up heart. Thank you for a support system that knows my heart, loves me where I am and cheers me on for where you take me. Thank you for giving me peace, to let me know that not everything has to be done perfectly on-the-world’s schedule – or even a school year schedule – and that it is o.k. sometimes to not be ready for things like school.

No, I’m not ready for school today, or for the shower Saturday, or soccer practice 3 days a weeks, dinner tomorrow night or tomorrow’s 6:25 wake up call for boys.

He just wants me to be ready to praise Him, to love Him, to just simply follow Him one minute, one hour, one day, one event at a time.

In the following, I will find myself ready at the right time, know how it all unfolds because He created the plans – and each contingency of each contingency.

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The Story Behind the Poem: A Seed Emerging Fragile

A Seed Emerging Fragile (Click here)

I confess – I enjoy a front row seat to how these boys communicate to each other in this house of mine. Their tag-team humor, their eye-popping honesty to each other – sometimes it un-nerves me. Other times it humors me beyond measure. At times, I just want to pack up my chair and exit. Every now and then, it just wows me.

My soldier-son, he went to visit my people in Louisville. He admired the girls there. Thought he might find himself a Louisville girl.

“That’s what your dad did,” I quipped. He decided maybe he really shouldn’t find himself a Louisville girl. Those are the one-on-one, light-hearted conversations.

Then there’s the two on one talking. A brother talking about the challenges of working at a camp, a worker spitting on the floor he’s mopping, wondering if leadership realizes all the trees he’s cut down, the grounds he’s mowed and how this son is frustrated with hypocrisy but wanting to live faith.

Moments like those are sometimes the “wind-whipping- moments, when either because of our choices or others choices, we are “tromped, hoof pressed, storm weathered pressed leaf pressed, water pressed, gravity pressed,into soil blackness”

“Get used to it,” said the soldier son. “That’s life.” He paused and a few seconds later added, “Pray about it.”

We looked at him, not sure how serious he was taking this conversation. This son who rolled his eyes every time I said, “Pray about it.” This son who wasn’t sure how to handle the Prayer for a Solder son I sent him last September.

The conversation continued. In the midst of life’s challenges, living faith came in the form of a crying camper whose walking stick was broken by a bullying camper and how this joyful son struggling with challenges that threatened to distract him from what he considered his real mission – showing God’s love to these campers – searched for another stick from the stick pile, crafted it into something awesome and gifted it to the camper or how he carried a camper with a twisted ankle to the nurse and then carried him back to the cabin.

“They say they want to be like me,” he said about these campers.

That is where “the core of itself remembers light and flimsy roots push upward emerging fragile. . . reaching ever light upward.”

That’s life, I thought, the good fruit of life, that is. Where walking faith rises above the challenges like cranberries in the water in the harvest.

Soldier Son says from the kitchen, “Pray about it.”

And we both look at him, “Are you mocking us?”

And he repeats, “Pray about it. I’m serious.”

And I am just overwhelmed at both of them, these seeds emerging fragile, growing faith, using that faith, no matter how imperfectly, despite real or imagined challenges, to live hope in an imperfect world.

They both seemed so fragile to me this weekend, these young men 6 ft 3 and 6 ft 5. God was reminding me that no matter how fragile they seem in the challenges they face. No matter how they are just young men, seedlings and saplings on so many levels, God’s word, that faith seed within them, is more mighty, more strong, more than enough to grow them out of these fragile times until they are to the world what an oak tree is to an acorn –

because God is just that big, that powerful, that faithful to us.

 

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Raising Boys and Trees

A few Marches ago, we planted Hollies, Crepe Myrtles – and long-awaited Leland Cyprus trees. My teen sons helped us move these huge trees with huge rootballs, bemoaning the whims of moms but kind of proud of their strength.

I’m sure they loved being physically stronger than mom. It made them walk a bit taller.

My husband, well, he didn’t really want the trees, but he helped me plant my dream.

I spent days basking in their beauty, anticipating their towering growth. Kind of like raising sons – you know their potential. It is just a matter of helping them grow there.

[Growing in grace]they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap (of spiritual vitality) and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment] (Psalm 92:14)

It wasn’t 2 weeks later when the edge of spring revealed it’s two-faced nature – and brought a snow storm, filled with some ice – and ravaged the work of my dreams.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7)

We lost one Japanese Maple. The other, I wouldn’t let my husband tear out – we cut it back to the root and hoped.

My Leland Cyprus’s, so new to their new home, roots not quite deep enough or burrowed in enough were bruised with the onslaught. They really weren’t prepared for the unexpected.

As Spring slunk out of town like a seedy criminal, taking advantage of townsfolk shock– Famine and Drought rode into town.

The Japanese Maple with the deep roots and recently cut-back limbs – it flourished in these hard times.

One Leland Cyprus, though, it suffered, while it’s sister Cyprus flourished. Half it’s branches turned brown.

Twice daily, I pulled out my hose and left it to water for 30 minutes, pulling off the dead leaves, whispering encouragement, whispering hope.

“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains”(James 5:7)

Today that Cyprus, a bit smaller than it’s sibling tree, sways with abandon in the blustery Winds of Spring time, standing confident in the two-faced nature of Spring time. . . because its root system is deep.

It no longer needs me.

“Behold, [I will liken you] to Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and with forestlike shade and of high stature, with its top among the thick boughs (even among the clouds]. The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall; its rivers ran round about its planting, sending out its streams to all the trees of the forest [the other nations]” (Ezekiel 31: 3-4)

Last night, my littlest guy, he climbed the larger tree, upward, laid in its boughs and hollered to us, as we planted 15 burning bush and 3 forsythia rootballs.

With laughing eyes, we both looked at our son, finding joy in what we planted, nurtured and sustained in hope and faith. Raising boys and trees – similar journey’s, both facing challenges – both showing the redeeming love of a mighty, compassionate, healing God.

This week needed a moment just like that! Thank you Father!

“For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations” (Isaiah 61:11)

BTW – if it snows in the next 10 days, can I start predicting snow by my tree planting? I’m thinking so!

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Punching Urges and Other Blessings

“I’m gonna punch you,” the teen tells his younger brothers – whether it is their silly songs, their loud talking, or actions designed to provoke. I’m not really worried about the “I’m-gonna-punch-you” threat.

That’s brothers building boundaries, uncomfortably building boundaries (for post on Types of Brotherly Physical Contact, click here) – and, often, code for “I need quiet time”  – brothers communicate holisticly with an arsenal of choices: humor, story telling, warnings, helping, encouraging, praying, directions, messages, and back-off words.

In school, though – in school it’s different.

“I was thisclose to punching someone today,” I’ve heard all of my boys say. The provacation is usually someone disrupting class, someone bullying another classmate, possibly bullying them. The girl in me, that God put there to nurture, to comfort, to hug – it rebels against those words, those actions.

Don’t get me wrong – if someone ever punch my son, I’d want them to defend themselves. Sometimes I think that if the good-guys could defend, there’d be fewer discipline problems in school – but, the good-guys get suspended for defending themselves these days.

When my sons say, “I was thisclose to punching someone,” I realize they have reached the end of their rope, their buttons are being pushed, their boundaries overrun – or, maybe, someone sitting behind them tapped a pencil to a staccato beat during an entire class.

Frustration, though, is really no reason for punching.

We drove, this teen and I, to pick up his brothers. “I was thisclose to punching someone” – and I remembered a youth who wanted to hurt another son ( click here to read: Unoffical Day of Prayer to Stop School Violence), threatened to stab him in the back and kill him. At first, I wanted law-and-order justice – until God whispered what he really needed: someone praying for him.

Looking at the road in front of us, I told this son what I thought was really going on:

“The urge to punch someone is really a call from God to pray the person you want to punch – except that call has been hijacked by the devil.”

He wasn’t buying it . . . but I was.

But if I say it over and over again, he might one day live it and believe it.

56) pinking rotary cutters

57) a mother-in-law who has open-heartedly and with grace helped me cut out the pieces for my very first quilt – helped and taught, handling with dexterity and acceptance the way I learn new things.
58) blue polka dots on white cotton material
59) material with a vintage feel, prints mixing yellow, pinks, and blues
60) courage that pushed me from the safety of ignorance into the midst of a color challenge to finally make my blue cotton quilt

61) I’ve read all the Jane Austen Books, the Bronte sisters books, seen all the I Love Lucy’s – but the realization I haven’t read, seen or done all – starting my quilt showed me that – and seeing the movie the movie “Love Letters” with Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton, and holding grandbaby girl.
62) Walking up 3 concrete steps, walking toward restoration, choosing to leave behind a broken moment, refusing to let that brokenness break anything more than a moment.
63) the dinner blessing that included, “and bless the hands that prepared our dinner.”
64) My oldest son giving father words to his new daughter, kissing her before handing her over to his wife.
65) A little crease in baby girl’s cheek, between her nose and mouth
66) My husband, holding baby girl for the first time,
67) telling his son a story filled with laughter – baby girl furrowing her brow at the new sound before falling asleep in this new Papaw’s arms, her Papaw.

68) a grocery store green pepper and summertime canned tomatoes in soup.
69) a blue ottoman beside a son’s bed that allows me to lean comfortably and listen during bedtime conversation.
70) “Did you count your freckles today? Did you come home with 10 toes? What’s it like without the bully in the bathroom” –serious and silly questions to fill my question-quota my son demands at bedtime.
71) not having the boys rack up squats on the way to church on Sunday
72) a phone call about a job interview on Friday- Yeah!
73) my soldier son calling me in mistake: “Sorry, mom – I didn’t mean to call” he said. “Never tell your mom you didn’t mean to call – just say, “Love you , Mom,” I laughed. “Love you, mom,” he said.
74) sitting, knitting with a group of women at Sweet Sallie’s Bakery and coffee shop, with a sugar-free caramel macchioato, sharing a morning, knitting words and making friends.
75) going places, like the World Foods shop, ordering 2 Rueben sandwiches and a lb of pancetta, the owner, friends with my DIL’s family, asking about sweet baby girl and  saying nice words about my son who had come in earlier to pick up lunch for he and his sweet wife. Community roots digging deep – relationships grow from knowing, knowing, and knowing, loving like the Father loves.
76) the wind, though it tormented me tonight, wouldn’t let me cook my steaks on the grill, rib-eye steaks that I’d been saving for a celebration moment, when life’s ordinary sweetness was the celebration – and I turned to the wind and said, “God, can you turn it off for 5 minutes. It’s blowing out my grill.” In retrospect,  I sounded like one of my sons tattling on another son. The wind, it kept blowing – and the steaks, they kept not cooking. Stove-top steaks don’t do rib-eye steaks justice – but God has been wanting me to learn to jump tracks lately, to soften for His changes without breaking – and the wind, well, it tossled my hair, blew out the burners like a Crosby and Hope absurd scene, and I chose joy instead of pouting because I did not get my way. Plans blown amuck is how it could have ended. My plans were for blessing – so I focused on blessing instead of grilled steaks.
77) clouds that fall from the sky, cocooning my home – and me. Driving home from school, up the hill into the mists,  like the world is left behind and it is just us, a cottage in the clouds.
78) My little guy helping me carry the tall Kitchen Christmas Tree to the basement where we discovered it fit perfectly between the rafters so we wouldn’t have to hang it horizontally from the ceiling.
79) My little guy coming up behind me, as I’m typing this, sitting on the couch. He wraps his arms around my neck, saying, “Hug” – and I stop and savor!

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From Glory to Glory Challenge by Challenge

A few days later, life going on with an additional heart-beat to our family, I stand behind my kitchen counter, reaching to this amazing heavenly Father again. Challenges don’t stop rolling just because a prayer was answered, especially with a house full of boys to men growing into independence.

I see the challenge, like a barreling stone, bigger than me. I don’t chastise myself that I didn’t see it sooner, or solve the rolling of it sooner. It is what it is. Don’t think I’m flippant or irresponsible. I used to beat myself up for not knowing things before I knew them – until God took the baseball bat I was beating myself up with out of my figurative hands.

Life just burps up challenges from likely and unlikely places.

But God isn’t just interested in turning baby girl for a safe delivery (see previous post) – He’s interested in a teen boy struggling to find his place in a new school, though we had only moved away 2 years before returning.

God is not surprised by any of these challenges. He’s just waiting for us to turn these challenges over to him.

This teen son with an innate joyful spirit is not feeling joyful lately. Once I asked, “Have you prayed about it?”

He responded, “God knows what I need.”

“But God’s not like your mama who bursts into your problems unasked. God’s not like that. He waits for your invitation,” I answered.

“Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
O Lord, save the king!
May he answer us when we call” (Psalm 20: 6-9).

And so I ask and I pray, interceding through prayer, asking our Father, once again, trusting in His name, that He knows what is needed in this challenge and has already set the answer rolling from His throne, the saving might of His right hand moving to protect one of His beloved children, whether it is turning a head, pointing to an opportunity, turning an attitude, or holding us to stand. It only waits for the asking.

I am awed that He, God, the King, Emmanuel, Jehovah, I am – wants me to ask

Father, I didn’t have a parent who knew how to intercede, that they could come to you in prayer for their children in their growing-up struggles. I found you at 7, held on tight and didn’t let go. But even I didn’t know I could come to you for help, that you were there to pick me up, comfort me  – for the big and Little things, little and Big- though I reached out for you I didn’t realize I was the King’s daughter because of Jesus.

But I know now, Father, – who I am to you and who my son is to you. I know that you want me to come to you – to intercede for this son who is struggling, who feels isolated, no connections, no place here – no real home – and I intercede, stand in the gap for him, beseech you to bring him friendships that will lift him up when he is down – and open his eyes to see that friendship, that in this next 1.5 years until he graduates – that home is restored in his heart, that he recognize comfort, belonging and warmth here.

You know what he needs, Lord. You know what is really going on in his heart – and, as the daughter of the King, your daughter – not the fatherless orphan I was growing up – I ask you to work in my son’s life, restoring that which was lost.

The challenges – do they ever really stop? Have they ever really stopped – big and Little, little and Big? If you chronicled all those challenges from today backwards – what would you find?

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (Corinthians 3:18).

Maybe we are transformed from glory to glory challenge by challenge.

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Like a Caterpillar in a Cocoon

My son’s graduation from basic training left me feeling like a caterpillar in a cocoon, just soaking up the nutrients where I am, not quite ready to emerge from this cocoon that is my family.

The journey to this graduation moment, my son, marching squared, bearing the Bravo Company flag with a sharpshooter badge on his chest – the journey to get here often felt like the memory of crossing my great-grandmother’s swinging bridge.

The journey to this graduation moment reminded me of the time my 6 or 7 year old self  plucked up enough courage to cross  that bridge up high, a swinging bridge with loose rope railing, slated inconsistently.

I made it half-way before a teen cousin preying upon my fear hurtled across, his thumping feet causing that bridge to swing, to bounce raucously.

Crouched down in fear, paralyzed, I stared at the wide empty slots

where the missing slates should be,

not knowing how he would pass

without me falling off.

shaking fear, tears fell

I don’t remember how I made it to the other side, to safety.

All I know is that I didn’t turn back.

I didn’t give up.

Somehow, one-step at a time, I journeyed forward and reached safety, knee-wobbly relief, peace, contentment.

Like that little girl who reached the safety of solid ground ,

today, I can’t figure out if I feel like a caterpillar in a cocoon

or fragrant tea leaves steeping until just right

or an expectant mother nesting before birth

or a narcicuss paperwhite bulb waiting in the cool sun to bloom

or a question waiting for its answer

I just know that right now, I have pulled the blanket

of my family around myself

and burrowed, feet reaching to touch the toes of my children and husband

wanting the warm joy of my Lord to seep down into my soul

and raise up authentic laughter and smiles

that this faith journey, of seeing slates in empty slots,

has led to to the substance of things hoped for

walked out on a parade ground one cool November morning.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)

 

 

 

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When Brothers Fight, What’s a Mom to do?

I remember a long time ago, the neighborhood boys coming down to our house as the sun came up, carrying baseball bags. I’d have Cool-Aid ready and around lunch, I’d have some hotdogs grilling. One day, a couple of brothers brought their temper with them and started swinging at each other. I just stood there totally out of my element, “What do you do when brothers start fighting and punches start flying?”

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have called their mom – but this was my first foray into Brother fisticuffs. I told their mom, “If they do it again, I’ll turn the water hose on them.” I probably should have done that instead of call. But hindsight is 20/20 and the best responses are often after the fact, especially in areas with little to no experience. I think as punishment for calling that mom, God has made sure all my boys fights have all taken place away from that water hose.

This was my first son’s summer neighborhood group – his brothers were much too young for this yet. I remember thinking, “My boys will never do this.” I thought that a lot in my supercilious superiority. I have since been handily humbled.

Before church one day a few weeks ago, the teen said he wanted to hit his brother – and the minister walked by. The teen asked, “Don’t you think that Jesus fought with his brothers? Afterall, how could you have brothers and not fight?”

I said, “If Jesus was without sin, the perfect sacrifice, he couldn’t have brawled with his brothers.”

And the minister, the father of 3 sons, laughed and declined to answer.

Since only Jesus has been without sin, and, I assume, didn’t haul off and hit his brothers, the rest of the brotherly world and their mothers have to deal with fighting.

After reviewing my experience, I created 3 categories of Brotherly Fighting:

1. Wrestling: My two littlest ones would wrestle in the Oval Office of the President – they wrestled everywhere – well, until they became tweens, they wrestled everywhere. Harmless, a bit embarrassing in some venues, but it was much like 2 puppies getting some well-needed exercise. I’m sure it was not an excuse to hug, but I’m sure my mom-heart held onto that thread of hope. Sometimes what started out as high-spirited wrestling escalated into something more serious because some boundary was crossed. Boyish exuberance best describes the typical wrestling category.
2. Punching: This typically occurs between teens who are feeling playful but are wanting to inflict pain in an Alpha-Dog kind of way. It can occur in the car, in the kitchen, as they walk downstairs – and they love to mention punching each other in church probably just to see me blanche and how high my eyebrows can rise. It can either be the result of a silly Slug Bug car game – or betting on outcomes, or just plain, “Let’s punch each other in the arm and see who breaks first.” It is more aggressive than wrestling. Boundaries are more clearly defined but they taunt each other to cross them.
3. The Big Fights: This usually occurs between the older “young adults” (teens, college age).  Though rare, when it happens it is full out, fists flying, wrestling to the ground, testosterone raging, emotion-filled physical aggression. Boundaries were crossed, and it is settling time. This is where you wish you had that water hose handy. Note: In 25 years of parenting, I have only witnessed 1 Big Fight (Maybe more small Big Fights).

The trigger to a any level of fighting is contingent on the length of each individual brother’s fuse, the level of self-control and the desire to exhibit that self-control.

In our house, it seems like most fighting levels occur when Dad isn’t there, which leaves me, the mom, standing there feeling quite e-mom-sculated – meaning mom’s authority in the passion of the BIG FIGHT can do nothing. It is like trying to stop a Tsunami. I just stand helpless wishing they’d take it outside to where the water hose is – then I could release some growing anxiety.

Mom’s are not designed to referee physical aggression. Mom’s are not designed to watch physical aggression. Our nurturing nature is in direct conflict with the male method of settling grievances. Note that this physical method of settling grievances occurs after words between the two parties have failed to produce the desired results: “Stop wearing my clothes” (yes, boys! Sigh!), to “Stop Making that Noise” to whatever is simmering, ready to boil over at the slightest provocation.

Helplessness makes me feel even worse: helpless, impotent, powerless – like a queen who is just a figurehead, wielding no true authority.

The younger tweens have been feeling bullish lately, a lot of pushing and tugging, fingers itching for a swing to get someone out of their space. They came to me, “He hit me,” one said.

“Well, he deserved it,” the other argued.

And they stood in their stance, waiting for me to be the great lady Justice.

“If you’re going to fight, don’t bring it to me. Don’t do it around me. Don’t let me know about it,” I told them. I can’t quite figure if I am wiser or just worn down.  “Learn how to settle your differences because you cannot rely on a 3rd party to bring you true justice. . . . Now, give me 50 squats a piece.” (Click here for “The Discipline of Squats)

Their jaws dropped at the injustice of the punishment.

“A mom never wants her sons to fight and if they bring that fight to her, it’s not going to end to your satisfaction,” I said.

Yes, I am at that point. Sure – go ahead and fight but don’t do it around me – and don’t bring it to me to settle. You need to settle it among yourselves.

But I can teach them about the time to fight.

Like when someone messes with your brother.

As they’ve grown, I’ve said, “Even if your brother deserves to be beat up, you don’t let anybody touch him. You can come home and beat him up for it, but don’t let anybody else.”

Blue Cotton Dad – he thinks it’s important that they learn how and when to fight. Maybe that is the benefit of a lot of brothers – you do learn how to defend yourself. The protector is an innate part of being a man – knowing how to wield that inborn trait God instilled is the responsiblity of the parent to teach.

Not all traits are wielded with skill in the beginning – training is required in the hows and whens. Brotherly brawling is the training ground for the noble protector – benefits that grow from the ability to protect yourself  and others on the playground, in the classroom, from the bully in the bathroom. The ability to defend yourself often diffuses a bully who wants to assert himself and infringe on the freedoms of those around him.

If guided, nurtured and accompanied by wisdom, these brotherly brawlers grow up to protect the less fortunate and, maybe, protect our Freedom and families.

When brother’s fight, what’s a mom to do? Hope for a handy water hose and continue the effort to instill nobleness of thought and action. Nobody ever said motherhood was an easy gig.

• Treating Boys as Knights in Training:  Click Here:

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An Elevenses Birthday Prayer

Today, my artist celebrates his elevenses birthday.

Considering that this son often comments when he wants to eat at irregular intervals and I remind him we recently ate, “Yes, that was first breakfast. But what about second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, first supper, second supper.”

When my oldest son came home from college one day and commented, “You know, Mom, we’re a peculiar family” – well, he might have been thinking about moments like that, where Tolkien takes over our conversations.

It is possible he was thinking, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

I know that when he said that, I was thinking 1 Peter 2:9. My oldest son’s expression was bemused, wryly so. I opted for the most postive translation.

Caleb's Art

But back to my elevenses son, apparently born into a “peculiar” family, the heart of the brotherhood (not to be confused with the Center of the Brotherhood). When he was born, my joyful son asked, “What’s his spirit name, Mom?”

“Peace?” I asked, hopeful, frazzled at the wrestling and arguing between the 2nd and 3rd one at that time.

“No, Mama,” he said, 5 years old, leaning into the baby of the brotherhood. “He’s LLLOOOooovvvvve.”

And, he has been. He is our human resource guy – the one everyone loves, the one who manages to reach into the hearts of each brother without getting into their bubbles.

Outside the brotherhood, he is an artist, a guitar player, a soccer player, a basketball shooter, a wanderer into his own space, a prayer warrior when his friends hurt, a seeker of solitude with a saucy sense of humor.

His art delights me. He’ll go into his room, or sit at the kitchen table, drawing for hours, gifting me with them – and I am humbled by his giving, by his art, by his heart.

Sometimes he draws cartoon story lines. He drew 3 pictures for my office, which I cherish.

This elevenses boy, in this peculiar family, brings things outside that God put inside before he was fully formed. God gave him a heart for drawing, for making music, for building things – and God’s generosity humbles me more because these gifts He gave my son overflow and touch me, this mother’s heart that so struggles to be the mother I am called to be.

Caleb Art

My prayer for this elevenses son who expresses himself with the workmanship of his hands instead of words, I pray for your mind that guides your hands, that you seek to do the work of God, the work He gave them the gift to do, that your mind gives your hands honorable things to do.

I pray that your mind stay good and true, striving to learn more. . . more of the good things in life, the true things in life – and that your hands create testimonies of faith, hope and joy from your brand of peculiar humor and insight into life.

I pray for those hands that work with artist tools: hammers, pens, pencils, things that cut, things that create – that the heart of God is shown through that work. I pray your hands are blessed with strength, courage, follow through, attention to detail, care, comfort and health, evidence of the wear and tear of nobleness.

I pray that your hands reach for God in love, in praise, in worship, in thanksgiving and in times of reaching from the tops and bottoms of life, even 5th grade life.

I pray that your eyes discover the beauty of God around you – in the green eyes of a cat, to windowsill raindrop patterns, a blue sky, the cinnamon sprinkle of freckles, sidewalk rectangles, friendship smiles, bicycle spokes, the sound of wind in a fast run, castles on a hill, even the pentagons and hexagons of a soccer ball sitting on tufts of green grass, in turtles crossing roadways – that in your art, you meet God.

I pray that as your gift grows, your art praises God, calls to people in darkness, calling them into His marvelous light, in an elevenses way, a teen way, a young man way – a growing with you way.

I pray that your heart continue to find contentment in the gifts God put within you and that God send laborers across your path to help you unfold His plan in your life, to develop the gifts He gave you, and to encourage you in your journey to become the boy to man God created you to be.

Happy Birthday beloved, peculiar son nested amongst a peculiar family. I am so blessed God gave you to us.

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Not Giving Up!

When my boys come to me for  boo-boo prayers, migraine prayers, and over-coming fear prayers, I know we are going in the right direction.

When my oldest son called from the Christian camp he worked at asking me to call the sweet, older ladies at church who are such prayer warriors to pray for a camper’s mom battling cancer, I knew we going in the right direction.

When my rebellious son allowed me to lay hands on him and pray before he went to basic training . . . . and he cried – I knew  we were going in the right direction.

When they come home
and tell me they have prayed for someone else,
I know I took them
where they needed to go.

All the challenging in-between moments that wear me down are just trip-wires in the path, designed to bring down my mission.

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy” (Psalm 156:5).

I might lose my balance, trip, even fall – but I pull myself up. Graceless, awkward, wobbly, but I keep on going.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

I will not give up. . . on my children. . .

“be strong and do not give up” (2 Chronicles: 15:7).

. . . or on myself.

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A Chess & Checkers Saturday

A Chess and Checkers Saturday

Not just games. Rather challenges that encourage them to think cause and effect, to think 5 moves ahead, strategy to achieve goals, that for every action there is a reaction.

And that is the beauty of  a deceptively lazy, chess and checkers Saturday.

 

They think it is just a game.

A Chess and Checkers Saturday

 

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Trickle Down Eco-Mom-Ics

For those of you not familiar with the term “grasshopper” as a synonym for student, please consult the 70s television show, Kung Fu, for further explanation. 

My little guy is a product of trickle down eco-mom-ics x 4. The first son only had to listen to eco-mom-ics created for him – eco-mom-ics being a branch of knowledge concerned with the eduction, discipline and spiritual development of children.

The second son had to listen to eco-mom-ics lectures on both his and his older brother’s level. The 3rd one, his, and his two older brothers. It’s kind of like being forced to not just sit through your class, but each brother’s class, too.

The little guy has sat through 5 levels of eco-mom-ics.

And yesterday, the little grasshopper tried to leapfrog the Master eco-mom-ic-ist (LOL).

If you’ve hung around the Blue Cotton counter for awhile, maybe since the beginning, you might have read the following about my 3rd son, my joyful son, – about breaking the communication code:

Joyful has grown beyond snugglebuggles and telling me he loves me, but he communicates in code now. Let me give you an example:

“Mama? Can I have a pet anaconda (or warthog, sheep dog, otter, or any animal of the week)?”

That’s code for, “I love you, Mom.” Now that I have broken the code, I just smile, saying, “I love you, too.” Funny, he hasn’t asked for a pet anaconda for awhile.

Then there’s this question. “Mama,” he asks (mama is the word of choice when he wants something. Mom is for the really serious stuff). “Mama, can I have $15?”

After hearing this question for months (of course, I didn’t turn over the money), I broke another code. Money was code for hug. The amount he asked for determined how many hugs he really wanted.

He hasn’t asked for money in quite a few weeks, either.

He no longer brags on my food. Instead, he will say, “Great dinner, Mom. . . . Not.” I’ve learned that’s code for “YUM.” (Click here to read The Freshness After the Storm)

My little one who has endured eco-mom-ics lectures to his brothers from academic lectures and activities, to manners to people skills, to relationship-building with the opposite sex, to baking, grilling, house-keeping to morality and everything including apparently the foreign language of tween to teens.

“Mom, I want 20 hugs. That’s code for $20,” he said as he munched on the chocolate pumpkin bread as he sat at the counter after school.

The Eco-mom-ics Master from the podium that is the counter, cast an assessing gaze on this baby of the family who next week will be a decade and a year. This son who the Freshness after the Storm (also known as Joyful) christened with the Spirit name, “Love” – our Human Resource guy amidst the brotherhood – trying with mental agility to leapfrog the Master.

. . . and almost succeeding.

“20 Hugs is code for 20 kisses,” I countered. “Want them now?”

And for the moment, the eco-mom-ics master retained her place at the podium.

Additional Note: My teen and his sweet, ginger girl friend said this conversation took place between me and the teen. I will concede it might have – but that the little guy took the mantra up about 5 minutes later. To quote Hillary Clinton, “I don’t recall. . . .” My friends say  the slippery memory is not dementia – it’s menopause.

Recounting this conversation in the car, they said that after translating the 20 hugs to 20 kisses we continued wrangling with code translation – and 20 kisses was code for 20 compliments – and, just maybe, if the de-coding had continued, the 20 compliments could become 20 things to do to make home a nice place like cleaning your room, tidying the bathroom, mowing the lawn. . . . .

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