I Live for This

Clearly, I cannot write about anything for 31 days in a row. I keep reminding myself that failure to blog 31 days in a row does not consitute failure. The whole 31 Day Experiment for me was to explore mission. I can write on something for 31 days, but that "in a row" thing just isn't my mission. Since last we chatted, another child--not the one who totaled his car, nor the one who got crutches for his 18th birthday--has acquired cast and crutches. So, my days have had more of this

And still more of this

Last night, Mike and I hung baptism pictures of nine sweet babies on a newly painted wall. Then, we snuggled in for the last little bit of the Nationals game and the first little bit of the Orioles game. Post-season baseball in DC--hooray! I fell asleep remembering the week after Birthday Week six years ago and this morning I retrieved this post from my very early blogging days. Because there's no chance I can write anything more today (I can't even find my own computer) and because I think this fits the mission topic, I beg your grace and post an oldie.

When I met him, my husband was a baseball player--not just a pick-up game kind of guy, but a serious ball player, the kind who looked ahead to college baseball and talked with Major League scouts. We watched a lot of baseball during our courtship, snuggled on a couch in his parents' basement, eating Haagen Das ice cream and rooting for the Baltimore Orioles back when both Cal Ripken and Mike Mussina were in Balitmore. My husband grew up, but he didn't leave sports behind. Now he's a "player" with ESPN and his real life job is still games. We watch a lot of television sports in this house.  We tell ourselves it pays the mortgage.

I guess it only makes sense that major sporting events stand out in my mind as benchmarks along the way in the history of our family.  We announced to the world that we were expecting our first baby at a Super Bowl party, 1988 (the Redskins won). Patrick was born on a Redskins-Dallas Sunday. Stephen was born hours after Super Bowl XXXIII; Mike barely made it to the hospital. And Mary Beth stayed awake her first night in the hospital for the second longest game on record at the time--an Orioles-Yankees postseason heartbreaker.  I have never been so tired in my life, but she was determined not to sleep until she knew the outcome.

Really, postseason baseball has permeated the homecomings of five of our babies.  It just seems that babies and baseball are what we do.  One night last week, I settled in with my little boys to watch grandma's team (Detroit) win a World Series berth.  I fell asleep to Tommy Lasorda exhorting us all to watch postseason baseball.  In a voice that sounded eerily like one of my uncles from Brooklyn, he intoned "I live for this.  You live for this.  We all live for this." And I was out like a light, baby Karoline snuggled on my chest.  I awoke two hours later to a squirmy baby and Tommy again: I live for this he insisted. I sure do, I thought as I bent to kiss a sweet-smelling downy head and then to settle my newborn at my breast.  I sure do.

I live for the way she makes a perfect "O" with her mouth, the way she shudders a bit and sighs contentedly when she has finished nursing. I live for the tiny hint of a smile I see when she sleeps and the promise of grins and giggles to come.

I live for the two little boys who stayed awake while I took my baseball nap and are eager to fill me in on the details, since it is now the eighth inning and I've missed almost the entire game.

I live for the chance to watch my four-year-old former "baby of the family" cuddle her new sister and croon, "I just love, love, love Karoline." I live for a twelve-year-old tough guy who acts like all he cares about is soccer, but tries to hide his tears when it's not his turn to hold the baby.  I live for the daughter who witnessed her little sister's birth and still reflects that unparalleled joy.

There was a time when  "I live for this" was not a television slogan; it was not hyperbole. There was a time when I left a tow-headed baby and went to the hospital again and again to be drugged with poison in order to save my life.  And every day, I'd wake up and face those challenges with a single vision: my baby. I live for this. I live for him. All I wanted was the privilege of watching the baby grow into a little boy and then a big boy and then a man.  All I wanted was to get him to eighteen.

And I did.  We did.  God did.  I was granted the great gift of being present for my child, the gift of mothering the baby.  The baby is eighteen now.  We made it!  And there is a new baby.  Her lifetime stretches before me like a story begging to be written.  I know now how foolish it is to think I just need to get to eighteen.Mothers are never finished mothering their babies. I also know that God has a plan and that there are no guarantees--we don't know how long we have to live for this.

I have a better understanding of vocation than I did way back then.  I know that these children are God's children and His plan is what I want to live.  I know that as important as I thought I was to that baby all those years ago, the children that God has entrusted to me are my path to salvation, not the other way around.  Sure, I will teach them diligently and I pray that they will know, love, and serve God, but it is me who will learn the most in these relationships.

I know the sweetness of a newborn.  I know the joy of seeing a child grow.  And I've seen all the stages between brand new and full grown. 

I also know the gift of every single day, each little tick in time.  Every moment, really, every breath.  It's all such a miracle--that I'm here, that she's here.  It's utterly lovely. I live for this.  I really do.

This post is part of 31 Days To Remind Myself of the Mission. I'd love to hear your thoughts about mission and vocation in the comment box. Find all the posts in the series here. And please, help yourself to a button if you want one for your blog. I'd love to read what you say there. 

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I'm subduing; that's what I'm doing

And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

I didn't blog yesterday. I got up early, started to read, and the painters arrived. Half an hour before the agreed-upon 8:00 start time. From there, it was a day of not-so-controlled chaos. I also apologize for being absent from the combox. I assure you I read each and every comment and I am so, so grateful for you all!  Columbus Day is a big tournament weekend for soccer families. I had boys to drop off and boys to gather into my home for sleepovers before Saturday morning sendoffs. Kari's birthday fondue was scheduled for yesterday so that she could share it with Stephen's best friend, Jack. How cute is that? She wanted Jack at her birthday:-). The painting is all happening out of order and at one point yesterday, as my three-year-old stood crying and tinkled on the floor, I recognized that access to every single bathroom was blocked. (There you go folks: I just posted a potty complaint. There's a first for everything.) Anyway, blogging slipped my mind entirely.

Throughout the day, I carried on a sometimes phone/sometimes text conversation with a dear and trusted friend. We were trying hard--amidst the interruption of two households and 16 children--to make sense of what the mission is for moms in the suburbs of America. We never finished the conversation.

So this morning, I was pretty much amazed at the God timing of this quote from The Mission of Motherhood, where Sally shares about the building of their Colorado home:

The interior of the home--architecture, paint, and fixtures--would not only suit our tastes but also fit the needs of our large family, with a spacious kitchen, wide-open and well-lit rooms, and low-maintenance wall and floor surfaces that could stand up to the tromping of four children, their friends, and their pets...All these plans took awhile to come to fruition. Turning raw land into a home required years of saving our money and investing our hard labor. But gradually, under our watchful eyes, it became something useful, beautiful, and suited to our specific needs. It is also, we hope, through the raising of our children and an ongoing ministry of hospitality, instrumental in bringing about God's kingdom on earth. Sally Clarkson--The Mission of Motherhood

Since March 15, 2012, I have prayed a very specific prayer every day. I've asked God to help me to make my home a beautiful witness to the living of God's will in our family's life. Every day, I've called to mind the vision of Mary, merciful and sweet, making a home for Jesus. I beg God to let me make a home for Him here, too.

It hasn't been too pretty here the last few days, both interiorly or outwardly. I'm trying mightily and failing miserably. There have been lots of rants about ungrateful children and their mother-teacher who has utterly failed at inculcating grateful stewardship. Some of those rants I've actually voiced aloud. Also, there has been that tension, with me since reading so many social justice books. How can we spend money on this home when people wake up in unsafe huts with mud floors every day?

That tension is mine to live in for now. It is so easy for me to berate myself, to look at every ding in the wall, every pile of mess found behind furniture that hasn't moved in years, every dusty blind, and see my failures. It is so easy to go back to that place where I was two summers ago and lament time wasted and lessons unlearned. But God won't let me go there. He's made very sure of it, today especially. We thought we'd blessed some people with work as we undertook this renovation project. Turns out they're blessing us back.

My home is filled with strangers. They are bringing to life a vision similar to the one that Sally shared. We are providing for them a job and money to take home to their families. One thing I hadn't counted on though, is the young man who wears his rosary every day and his friend, the really good ceiling painter, who smiles as he works. Smiles. Ten hours  a day. What we got for the price of a painter is a witness--a witness to hard work, to finding joy in even the most tedious of jobs, to gratitude for the chance to do a good job and so to gain another job. And a T-shirt that reminds me I've been absolved.   God + Grace. I'm going to just go with that thought.

"The Hebrew word for subdue implies making something subject to your authority. It means being responsible for making it useful and beautiful, caring for it rather than exploiting it." Sally Clarkson--The Mission of Motherhood

We have such a vision for this home--a vision for hospitality and shelter and education of children and familiy and ministry. That vision and the work that it will take to bring it to fruition is under my authority. It's my mission.

Are you thinking about the mission of motherhood, too? I'm going to join The Nester for 31 Days. I'm going to host a 31 day "retreat"here  to remind myself (and anyone who wants to come along) of the mission of motherhood and matrimony. If you want to do your own 31 Days on anything you choose, head here and join! If you want to retreat from the noise of the 'net for a month and focus your own sweet home and family, grab a “Remind Myself of the Mission” button and curl up with a candle, your Bible, and this good book! Let me know your thoughts below. We can help each other hear His mission. You can add a Remind Myself button by cutting and pasting the code below.

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The One When Titus 2 Finally Catches Me and Makes Me Look it in the Eye

The Bible study verses from Chapter 1 of The Mission of Motherhood really grabbed me and made me Pay Attention. One, in particular, forced me to confront something I've long been avoiding. Sally asks us to read Titus 2: 

Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, (4) so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, (5) to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Let me back up a moment. A woman for whom I have a great deal of respect once told me that she will never give advice. Despite the fact that she has a large family that includes older children and certainly qualifies as a midlife mom, she will never teach other women and she will never suggest to them a certain way to do something. She said that she would never endeavor to offer someone else mothering or homemaking advice since she's a work in progress and she can't be sure that she's doing it "right." Her oldest children haven't turned out perfectly, so she believes she isn't qualified. Furthermore, she said, she'd never endeavor to write a book. In her judgment, authors of mothering books have imprudent audacity. She volunteered this perspective right around the time my second book was published. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. For about two years.

Ahem. 

After her comments, every time I set about to write or even speak casually to someone else, I checked myself. I wanted to be sure I wasn't teaching anything or even suggesting anything. I was determined to follow her good example and refrain from instructing anyone except my own children ever. In hindsight, maybe she meant exactly what she said: that she couldn't  do it or she wouldn't do it. I took it to mean that I shouldn't do it, even unintentionally.

One day, recently, someone local asked me if I'd teach a parenting class to mothers of newborns. Ladies, I've had nine newborns. I don't think there's anyone in my neighborhood with more firsthand newborn mothering experience than me. But I disqualified myself, because I was holding myself to my friend's standard: don't offer anything unless you are sure you know all the answers. Using my friend's criteria, there would be no books. No classes. And surely, no blogs.

Every once in awhile since my friend admonished me, Titus 2 would pop up and I'd have the sense I should read it carefully and ask myself some hard questions. Then, I'd stuff that sense. All I could hear was the voice of my friend. 

I talked to Sally before undertaking this 31 Day project. I'm so incredibly grateful for that conversation. Furthermore, I'm grateful that throughout my mothering experience, Sally has had the courage to write and speak and profoundly influence my family life for the good. While we didn't address my Titus 2 hesitation directly, she did speak to the biblical mandate during the course of our conversation. And then, there it was in the first chapter. If I were to be true to the mission, I needed to read it and pray about it. 

So, yesterday, in the shower (where God often speaks--it's usually quiet, my morning offering is taped to the glass, and well, I'm vulnerable in there), it hit me. When I was a brand new mom, 24 years ago this week, someone gave me a copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding in the hospital. It literally changed the course of my life. What if the founding mothers, who were young enough to be nursing, decided that they couldn't offer their guidance to anyone else because they weren't qualified? They didn't know how their children would turn out. Those women were between their late twenties and early forties and they stepped out and taught the younger women (and probably some older women, in some cases).

The founders of La Leche League were of my mother's generation. I wasn't breastfed. My husband wasn't breastfed. Most of my friends weren't breastfed. It was a dying art. Good, faithful women at a church picnic revived it. They sacrificed in a huge, courageous way and blessed generations, but I was silenced by false humility when someone asked me to help a handful of local moms.

This whole stumbling block might seem silly to you, but to me it is a symptom of my tendency to too easily believe someone is wiser than me and I'm doing it wrong. For two years, I've been walking around believing that somehow it was sinful to write a book of encouraging meditations and prayers for other mothers. I believed that my blog would offend if it ever seemed to "teach." Furthermore, I bought into the false prophecy that I should never offer advice again, because that was only to be done by people who were sure their homes and husbands and children were "good enough." 

Read the verses. God doesn't say that. He doesn't say "qualified women train younger women." He doesn't say "mothers whose grown children are all gospel perfect train younger women." He doesn't say, "Be sure your theories are proven, perfect, and failproof before you open your mouth." He also doesn't say, "Do this teaching if you feel like it, if you have spare time, and if you are unafraid that someone will criticize you." He says do it.

It's part of the mission. Mothers have a mandate from God to encourage and enable one another by training each other in the ways of a good and faithful woman.

Until recently, I told myself I didn't qualify as an "older woman." Then several twenty-something moms kept telling me I was a Titus 2 woman (and I don't think they were calling me the "younger woman" in the verse). I have a hunch it's time that I accept that I am, indeed, older. We have to have the courage to reach out to one another in our weakness and our vulnerability and to trust that God can take our feeble offerings and our honest expressions and do good things with them. There is a biblical mandate to genuinely share.

I've been writing for twenty years or so and I've never been comfortable being didactic. I think my style will always be more an offering of my thoughts for whatever they may be worth and a sincere hope that the reader will be blessed some way. I think that, mostly, I write because I feel things and they want out through my fingers. I've learned I rarely feel things unique to me and sometimes the blessing is merely articulating. Every once in awhile, I learn a lesson. I'd like to believe that I live out Titus 2 by expressing what I've learned, not because I've got it all together or I've figured it all out, but because we're together on this long journey and I'd like to help someone else up the same hill.

So, perhaps it is my mission to offer my perspective and write about my experiences (including my mistakes). Maybe God can use me, imperfections and all. Thankfully, He is very specific about exactly what to teach. We are to teach "younger women to love their husbands and children,  to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited." That about covers it, I think. It's part of our vocation to pass on the ways of godly womanhood, as best as we can, despite our imperfections. 

There's a mission statement in Titus 2, isn't there?

Are you thinking about the mission of motherhood, too? I'm going to join The Nester for 31 Days. I'm going to host a 31 day "retreat"here  to remind myself (and anyone who wants to come along) of the mission of motherhood and matrimony. If you want to do your own 31 Days on anything you choose, head here and join! If you want to retreat from the noise of the 'net for a month and focus your own sweet home and family, grab a “Remind Myself of the Mission” button and curl up with a candle, your Bible, and this good book! Let me know your thoughts below. We can help each other hear His mission. You can add a Remind Myself button by cutting and pasting the code below.

<a href="http://ebeth.typepad.com/reallearning/2012/09/31-days-to-remind-myself-of-the-mission.html" _mce_href="http://ebeth.typepad.com/reallearning/2012/09/31-days-to-remind-myself-of-the-mission.html"><img src="http://ebeth.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c543553ef017c323f2b90970b-pi" _mce_src="http://ebeth.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c543553ef017c323f2b90970b-pi"width="125"height="125"border="0" alt="31 days Misson"/></a>

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On the Last Night of Being Five

Dear Sweet Karoline,

This night is fading into morning and soon it will be your birthday. You're curled up next to me and I watch you sleep. This is your "last night of being five." In the morning, it will be your sixth birthday. We'll go to tea together. Nicky will make you a four layer cake, exactly to your decorating specifications. Will that other front tooth come out? I think it might. 

But right now, in this moment, I want to capture you on the brink of tomorrow. Your sweet face, framed in curls, looks just enough like it did the day you were born that I can take myself back. Perfect baby. Every answered prayer in a sweet bundle with rosebud lips. You captivated everyone that day. We were forever changed. 

There is a collage of four black and white photographs of your newborn days that hangs at the top of the stairs. I stop, even if for only a moment, every. single. time. I never want to forget how I looked at you and knew that God had seen straight into my heart and smiled big when He handed you to me. 

For six years, you have danced your darling way through the life of our family. You are the first to soothe a hurt, whether it's a little sister with a stubbed toe or a big brother with a broken heart. You feel them all and you work your magic to make it all better. 

Ever generous with a hug and a smile, you exude genuine friendliness to every one you meet. You expect the best of people and you look for it so hard that you are rarely disappointed. Sarah Annie considers you her best friend. She is one really blessed little girl. There is no better friend.

You love creation and you love the Creator. You've never met a turtle or a bug or a bird or a bunny that you didn't want to adopt forever. Most nights, your pockets are full of acorns and pebbles and you are always Most Likely to Hide Sticks in the Car so you can bring them home. Sometimes Daddy tries to stop you. Usually those big blue eyes persuade him otherwise.

And God. Oh, how you love your Jesus! He is real and dear to you. You are our walking reminder on the ordinary days, in the ordinary moments, that God is near; God is here. Very matter-of-factly, you just beam it. And we believe it because everything about you says it's so.

Every night, you fall asleep with your feet touching mine. Usually, you start in your bed and then, sometime before morning, you and your kitty pillow find their way into the big bed in my room. You curl up in the middle, seeking Daddy's comfort, and you manage to stretch out across much more than half the mattress. And we don't mind. No, we don't mind at all.

Because we know how blessed we are to linger for a few moments in the loveliness of five and to awaken in the morning to the hope and promise and utter joy that is six.

 

needle & thREAD

Real Quick. I'm up to my eyeballs this week. No sewing at all, but I'm touching a LOT of fabric.

Mama in a fabric store with a dear friend.

Better than being a kid in a candy store.

I chose fabrics for drapes for six rooms in my house and a bunch of pillows and cushions and made major paint decisions about every single room above the basement. And then, we threw in some tile for good measure. (That chart looked way prettier before the painter wrote all over it.) My sewing is more than queued up for the next three months:-). My friend Cari promises to help me through this drapery thing.

And I skipped Yarn Along this week. I learned today that I have to tear out and re-start my Sunday Sweater. So, yeah. negative progress, because all I did was make the yarn "used."

I haven't started reading yet, but my advance copy of Desperate arrived today. I had to laugh at the timing and the title and the fact that I wished I could stretch out like that girl on the cover. It's been quite a week.

Does autumn call you into your sewing space? Are you thinking flannel pjs or cozy quilts? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and thREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and thREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-)