doing battle(ships) at night

photo credit here

Amber and Seth Haines started a Monday series on marriage, penning letters about the grit and the grace of it all.  this week's topic is "nightly routine."


one day, we’ll come blinking out of the grad school bunker and squint in the light of the workaday world,
and i’ll beg these nights back.

sure, our checking account will be stretchier, and i won’t spend my days alternating doses of black coffee and B-12, but there is a bit of magic in survival mode, too, that i'd wager i'll miss.  how the war stories and the love stories intertwine.  i play Penelope to your Odyessean adventure.  we are Hemingway’s revolutionaries, hunkering down in the hills. 

each night, we trade off reading Narnian voices and humming lullabies over white noise, then set up camp on the couch we scored for forty bucks with a frosted glass of nightcap and a sigh.  we face each other and the life we signed up for -- moving here, doing this.  laptops open in tandem, i sink your battleship, then grade an essay or two.  you flirt with one foot on an undercover reconnaissance mission, then resume your wrestling match with Plato.   his Complete Works are … errm, complete.

i’m exhausted.  perpetually.  but never alone.   we toy with the idea of knocking off early, trading in the tapping of laptop keys for salty popcorn and spooning by the light of the screen, but one of us wants Downton Abbey, the other Dukes of Hazard, so we settle for the ol’ YouTube favorites, then work some more.

that’s the thing about the work:  there’s always more.  we set alarms in the Google calendar to remind us to go to bed, then wink at each other in a medicine cabinet mirror strewn with ragamuffin quotes.  did i tell you that i never used to floss before you?  sad, but true.  we dance the tiny bathroom bedtime routine: the face cream my mama still uses, a nightlight flicked on, two big toothbrushes squeezed between two little.  in the dark hall, your hand on the small of my back, you whisper to me:  don’t look at the clock, it’s best not to know … 

oh, the life we know – right now.   how nostalgia will paint it so pretty one day.

one might think hard times would make us adversaries, but we’ve giggled our surprise that the opposite is true.  the kitchen is a mess hall, indeed, and we wear our fatigues for certain, but each night, under cover of darkness, we do battle, side by side.   i pull the shrapnel of discouragement from your furrowed brow (and the comma errors from your term papers).  you tiptoe landmines to rescue me, again and again, from an enemy who seeks to devour.  we find His grace, even in retreat, and we learn to trust Him – and each other – in the trenches.

our pearL, in pictures

last week some type of swamp virus sidelined my husband, and though he wasn't  fit for philosophizing,he cuddled with his laptop on the couch and finally finished the video he'd had planned for miss neLLie pearL's first birthday.

once he was on the mend, we piled the whole family on the couch for its premiere.  the kids fidgeted and wiggled to the beat, i cried, and ryan exhaled a sigh of relief ... six months late, but right on time.   such is the case of second kids.

since this is mostly for the grandmothers (Mom, click the box at the bottom right corner to make it BIG), i included a link back to beckham's video, too.  my, my  but those parents in that one  look mighty young.  too bad they don't know half of what we do.

[musical credits (in order of appearance): 

Jon Bonham; Emily Gimble (two Indie artists who should be on your Ipod); 

Willie himself; classic George; and Salt n' Pepa]

to be the phoenix

photo credit here

oh, little neglected Thoreau-bred.  in the spasms of life as we right now know it, i’ve missed the discipline of coming to you, of weaving words on to keypad that have been fermenting within.  mostly, i’ve missed the souls of those who will catch this in their Readers and pop over to say:  “where have you been, sister?”  how much i’d love a potluck with all those faces stretched down the table …

but this morning, the Word broke me open, left me feeling like all my nerves were exposed, and i knew if i didn’t write about it, it would become just an ashen ember and  not the real fire.

so i spill.

and, as is always the case, there is backstory – a long blogging hiatus of backstory where we’ve wrestled hard with what this life is supposed to look like:  where we are called to serve – that funny word, “call”; what marriage asks of you, in the desert place; how the wrinkles reflecting back at you in the mirror are really  battle scars.

this season, i’m participating in a bible study of the book of Acts.  i tried the same study years ago, but i was mostly distracted by the aesthetics of the group:  the ladies with crocheted bible covers and suntan panty hose, the awkward, high-pitched singing before class began.  i had a nose ring then -- and an attitude.  their Gospel, spoken about with hands folded primly in laps, didn’t sing to me.

these days, i’m hungry.  i know now that those suntan hose cover varicose veins of years spent walking, Phoenix Jackson-style, toward the hope  - on the hard road - of medicine that heals.  and i want to walk with them.  i want to hear the clod of my cowboy boots against the click of their sensible heels and sing along to that beat, awkward and high-pitched and spirit-filled, to boot.  i’m standing roadside and thumb out, searching for fellow travelers with Truth.  i’m waiting, expectant.

and Acts does not disappoint.

though my cerebral nature has long relegated the Holy Spirit to an idea – one best left to scholars and such – that particular word is becoming flesh, right before my eyes.  i’d call it Damascus, but i’ve read too much of Paul, and i can’t quite slander him with overreaching metaphors.

it was Paul, the guy i spent a great deal of time in grad school creating in a false image of Hemingway bravado, who gave me a glimpse of that world – “call” – that seems  both simple and hard, as the Gospel tends to do.

In Acts Chapter 14, Paul is preaching, healing, and doing amazing work in the lives of people he barely knows … and for his trouble, in verse 19, he is savagely beaten -- by people he barely knows.  they “suppose him dead.”

and though the language isn’t much on aesthetics, if i were the brave, tattooing type, i might get verse 20 printed somewhere permanent.

²⁰But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on

He went on.

Near death, he grabbed the arms of those gathered about him, and he went on – not to a safe place, but back to the hard road.

Our study goes on to talk about Timothy, who Paul refers to, in 2 Timothy 1:2, as “my beloved child.”

and in the crib in the next room sleeps my own “beloved child.”

And just as Timothy’s whole ministry of missions was steeped in being a witness to Paul’s bloody determination to get up and go on … our children – and our neighbors and maybe even the people who hurl the stones in our direction – will be forever changed by our conviction to stand back up.  by our faith that when we are “supposed dead,” there will yet be Spirit within us, pumping life.

i’m spilling today because i’m so encouraged that it doesn’t matter for eternity that i still haven’t posted photos of my big boy 4 year-old’s birthday … that I still haven’t given the grandparents video of my sweet Pearl’s first steps.  all that condemnation is hissing serpent speak. 

and Truth speaks up:  my kids are video cameras set on record.  and every time i feel the exhaustion and the discouragement and the injustice of it all – and still get out of bed, they’ve seen a mama missionary at work.  God’s work on the hard road looks a lot more like a bloody nose than a Photoshopped family photo.

be encouraged today, friend, whatever tough road you’re being asked to walk.  each feeble step you take – even if it’s sandwiched between stumbles – is seen.  it matters.  and even if we barely know each other, we walk it the same.  then… we fly.

peneLope and the party that almost wasn’t …

what do you give a total carnivore for her birthday dessert?  a choice.

oh, my little pearL.

how you fit your name.

from day one, you have stirred and spurred and stretched this mama of yours into a shape she barely recognizes. 

our young diva tries to hide from the paparazzi

you talkin' to me?

peek-a-boo!

and so it came as no surprise, on the cusp of your very first birthday, that i found myself once again trying to squeeze into those Perfect Mommy pants, only to realize, before they were even knee high, that i wasn’t going to fit.

so:

i threw a fit.  

[you come by it honest, as my Paw Paw would say]

i railed against a world without enough hours in its days, against the sad, sad state of our first birthday budget, against  the collapsing ceiling of self-doubt  that assured me you’d need therapy one day because we didn’t give the guests handmade party favors.  and, though i’m not proud of it, for a moment there i crossed my arms and vowed that if i couldn’t throw you  A PROPER PARTY, well then we wouldn’t throw one at all.  

did i mention how lucky you are to have your daddy?

because he doesn’t throw fits.

and mine don’t phase him.

and so when he held my gaze, like that first time i laid eyes on him down in biloxi, and told me that none of it mattered … that you’d never, ever remember turning one, but you just might remember that you had a mama  who sang Johnny Cash  while making the breakfast, a brother who never let you out of his arms’ reach, and a daddy who loved you powerful and pure … 

the fists unclenched as truth presented itself, plaintive, in my palm, as a lucky penny.

you are mine.  and His.  and every. single. day. of the past 365 has been a celebration, from hearts that know what a God-gift a first birthday party truly is.

you are

poetry

in motion...

please note the cutest headband EVER (hand-made by the super-talented Greta from Gremadcha)

so i sat down and scratched a 2 a.m. email giving the “y’all come!” to a small group of seriously fabulous St. Louie friends.  i bought a tacky tablecloth and juice boxes and only handmade the cupcakes because i savored all that time in the kitchen with my sweet mama who (insistent, though she was, that you wear pink ) had made my heart full when she made the drive.

and though you know where this story is headed, i’ll say it anyway – for the record ...

that the very best part of  giving up on the perfect party is that you actually get to enjoy the  nothing-to-write-home-about-really party that ends up taking its place.

and so i got to see you ride a swing for the very first time – smiling up at the trees like they were in Narnian song.   and i got to watch your big brother accost total strangers over at the sprinklers because his extroverted-ness knows no bounds.  and i got to saunter around making small talk with women i feel lucky to know.

the money shot:  at least it's carrot cake, right?

and with every click of the camera – all of your new little friends  gettin’sugared up  real good – i gave thanks for the ways that this motherhood gig renders me frazzled and helpless … 

and the ways that the Creator of all our birthdays is ever faithful to step in, to slather His grace  like cupcake frosting, and to model what real Paternal love is supposed to look like.

tacky tablecloth and all.

Daddy getting all her sugar

basking in all of the attention

Big Boys being Boys

... and girls being

super sweet

girls ...

Don't Mess with Poppy (or Texas)

Lincoln awakes from a nap to the smell of cake

Penelope questions my parenting skills as I set fire before her

Jameson on his second cupcake ... this might have been the fault of my lapse in supervision (Sorry, Rebecca!)

please take a moment and absorb the cuteness here

a rare photo of Big Brother -- I needed the sports lens to capture him most of the day

Nothin' says summer like wet hair and sweet treats

these two cuties belong to my pal Susan, from Frugalouis

the best part of being the 2nd kiddo?  since you have a gazillion hand-me-down basics, you get super cool toys

With a mischievous smile, my wee one crawls toward toddlerhood 

 

 

 

Here's to celebrating the ways that our best laid plans fall to rubble around Better Ones ... 

and how  the party that almost wasn't?

Totally was.

 

 

[swoon]

the man at the bottom of the  puppy piles  around this place ...

is the very bees knees  of fatherhood.

that is all.