Salt and Light and now I want popcorn in front of the fireplace.

We are called to be salt and light. What does that look like? Are we the single flame of a candle at dawn or the roaring fire in a fireplace on a snowy afternoon? Or both? First one, then the other, depending on need and our own resources and energy. Are we deep, rich Hawaiian Alean sea salt rubbed on a roast or are we fun, pink Himalayan salt sprinkled on honeyed popcorn? Are we ordinary table salt, healing a sore throat? 

It depends on time and place. 

All we know is that every day we are called.

Gospel

 Matthew 5:13-16

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”

Think

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you. 

~Mother Teresa

Pray

Dear Jesus,

You tell me that I am salt of the earth and light of the world. It sounds so huge! And then--I am overwhelmed. Help me to see that I am called to be salt and light every day, even in the small, dark spaces of my own home. Let your light so shine in me right here today that every person who is near can't miss its warm glow.

Act

Sometimes it's just a smile, a hug, an encouraging text with the promise to pray. One small flame casts a warm glow. Even one crystal of salt has flavor. Do the small things. Do them with love and faithfulness. Do them all day long. 

The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-filled people pray for one another.

Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.

How about this idea? What if I pop in here every week, share Sunday's scripture and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?

{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.} 

 How can I pray for you this week?

Time to Unplug

A very small peek at RESTORE

I've got a real quick needle & thREAD this week. Most of my reading has been related to a burnout recovery workshop I'm writing called RESTORE. I'll have lots more to share with you on that next week (God willing). This morning found me deep in the book of Job and C. S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain.

Katie and I played with beribboning towels yesterday, in advance of receiving some brand new unbleached diapers destined to become very pretty burp cloths. Let the baby sewing begin! A tutorial for those and for the embellished, quilted towels will be part of the RESTORE workshop. 

That's all for today here. We've got a busy weekend ahead and my front door will be revolving with comings and goings of a half dozen people or more. Off to prepare!

What are you sewing and reading this week? I really do want to hear all about it!

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The Impossible Becomes Possible

We have soccer goals set up in our backyard year ‘round. It’s a big backyard relative to most in our neighborhood and I’ve always imagined a gigantic garden all planted to bear goodness at least three seasons a year. Instead, we have a very small garden shoved up against the side of the house and a great, big soccer field.

I’ve spent hours (maybe cumulatively months or years) on the sidelines at soccer games, watching children of all sizes play the game. Looks simple enough; run and kick the ball. Night after night, when our boys were mostly smaller than me, they’d play “family soccer” outside with Dad. I was grateful for my pregnant and nursing excuses, but still I thought it looked pretty simple.

One day, I tried. The biggest of my boys were teenagers then. I had a girl well old enough to mind the baby and I got out there to run and kick with them. It was hard. It wasn’t even close to easy. I was wheezing in the middle of the backyard before long at all.

I’ve been thinking about that afternoon a lot lately. When all my babies were little, the days were long and sometimes the nights were longer. There were most definitely challenges. But I didn’t really consider it “hard.” I loved the long days and challenging nights and relating to small children came naturally to me. Truth be told, I understood people who hated the baby years about as well as my 12-year-old future National Team player understood my inability to execute a pass to him while being guarded by his brother. There was such joy in wee ones! It’s not hard! It’s a “good tired”—the kind you get after playing hard and scoring the winning goal in overtime at the State Cup.

Then we hit the teenage years. Sometimes I think I’m as suited to being a mother of teenagers as I am to being a forward on the National Team. I still liked being outside, wind on my face and fresh grass under my feet, but I wasn’t all that equipped for the game. Mothering teenagers, for me, takes a good deal more work and persistence and concentrated effort than mothering six children under twelve did. It doesn’t come naturally.

I watch as my children attempt new skills. This one can draw and it seems effortless. That one, six years her sister’s senior, struggles to capture same image, never satisfied with her result. This one has run rings around his competition, always, always confident with a ball at his feet. That one melted into midfield one day when he was six and swore through hot tears that he hated everything about the game. But they each have strengths in their own places.

The thing about motherhood if we are called at all, is that we are all called to be strong in this vocation. We cannot dissolve into a puddle on the soccer field and opt out in favor of a basketball court. We’re in this thing for the duration.

When it becomes difficult, when we are being pushed to grow and change and learn well beyond the curve, we tend to wrap ourselves in self-criticism and guilt. In begins almost imperceptibly. A little voice in our heads, reminds us that we aren’t doing it right and we didn’t do it right. Other mothers seem to manage effortlessly. We stumble around this age or that new stage and seem to do nothing but mess things up.

Take heart! I remind myself every day. Take heart! We cannot put on the mantle of self-criticism and guilt. If we do, our days are cloaked in fear and self-loathing. The reality is that being a good parent doesn’t come naturally to anyone. It’s not effortless. God doesn’t call us because He knows we’re capable. He calls us because He knows that His power is made perfect in our weakness. He speaks into our hearts the words of St. Paul, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Content with weakness. Not to give up and sigh a wistful sigh of regret. Not to berate oneself for being insufficient. But content to know that He comes to us in the weaknesses and it is then that He strengthens us. It’s in the struggles that we grow. And it’s in our weakness that we lean most heavily on Christ.

God is all about making the impossible possible. He’s all about taking the woman who’s been afraid of teenagers since she was a teenager and equipping her to raise up to four at a time for 26 consecutive years. (See? He knew it would take me a long time to get it right.)

God makes the impossible possible. God takes the things that don’t come naturally and infuses them with grace. In the end, whether it’s soccer, or pencil drawings, or raising children, it’s not about us. It’s about Him. 

Thanks, Mom.

Stephen celebrated a birthday last weekend. It did not go unheralded in our house, but it did get delayed online. I am determined to guard my time from internet distractions. Even on birthdays--especially on birthdays. 

There was Pioneer Woman's French Toast Casserole in bed. And there was soccer with his buddies. There were cheesy tater tots for lunch. His biggest brother took him to dinner and a movie at the Alamo. All was good. And then, of course, there was the Super Bowl. This is our Super Baby, the boy who always celebrates around the Super Bowl. Always will. And it's just so perfect for him.

It wasn't a perfect year. Fourteen never is. Fourteen is hard work for my boys. Stephen is my fourth boy so I didn't freak out very much the way I did with the first three. I just held on tight and prayed that when the storm passed we'd both be better for having lived through it. And it did. And we are.

Stephen's a great kid. He's the most studious of the bunch of them, eager to learn and disciplined enough to thrive in a relaxed environment. He's ever the philosopher, a great lover of deep conversations about literature and theology. Yet, he still insists we call him Superman, so there's little doubt that, despite his love of logic, he's got quite the imagination. 

There is something else about Stephen: he notices. And he is grateful. No matter the storm of the day, no matter how many times we butt heads, Stephen is the child who, without fail, will turn to me as we pull up in the driveway after driving to and from practice and say, "Thank you, Mom."

Every. Single. Time.

And I am so, so grateful that he is grateful, that he notices, that he knows that this soccer mom gig is not for the faint of heart, that he appreciates the sacrifice. 

I've often wondered if his godfather whispered to him one day that "thank you"was a balm to a soccer mom's heart. Or maybe the idea was prompted by the Holy Spirit. I don't know. I just know that this boy, throughout all the tumult that was early adolescence, was always deep-down grateful. And he made it a point to say so. Some days, those words were bright spots of hope on an otherwise stormy journey. 

Every four years, my Super Bowl baby sees his birthday as a segue to two glorious weeks of Olympic fun in this house. In a family of athletes, where dad goes to work every day at ESPN and  people grow up to be sports media big shots, the Olympics are a Big Deal. Not a World Cup status big deal, but a big deal nonetheless. Nick will get all up in the stats and Stephen will make a case for staying up late. The girls will all want to be figure skaters and it will be a grand celebration.

 I'll watch the moms in the stands.

I'll have a pretty good sense of the time and energy and emotion and money invested in those few moments of competition. And I will hope that at the end of their long days, all along the way, they had a kid like Stephen, who never, ever forgot to say, "Thanks, Mom."

Here's a little Olympic Mom Mush to get the party started.