You Have So Many Things To Love When You Love Everything

It doesn't take much for our children to get us thinking, does it? My oldest draws pictures all the time to express what's in her heart, and although my boy doesn't care much for drawing, he loves to tell us stories and make silly analogies that give us a little bit of insight into the way his mind works. Children are often so much more clever than we 'grown-ups' give them credit for, but what I treasure the most is how they challenge me to get back to the basics, to a simplicity that I lose when I have my head in 'the world' for too long.

You have so many things to love when you love everything.

Ever since she drew this picture, I've had her words rolling about in my head from time to time. There's so much to hate in this world. There's so much to fear. There's so much to wonder and worry about all over the place.

And yet she wrote about love. That is what sticks with her, and I'm so thankful. It's not what sticks with me anymore after innocence lost and years of words that don't match the actions. That's the reality of life as we get older and find that we have to return to love...to recall its power...to fight to remember its truth and beauty. It's far too easy to get caught up in everything else.

I am wanting, simply, to love well. I could hate that I'm not always good at it. I could be afraid that I might cause another to forget its true meaning. I could worry that I'll never be able to do it well enough. But those thoughts are NOT the ones that should stick with me.

I have so many things to love.

In The Desert

+-She can tie her shoes now. She's lost four teeth, makes her own snacks, and has better handwriting than many adults I know. No one can make her baby sister laugh like she does. I look at her sleeping, long limbs stretched out across a twin bed, and try to remember how small she used to be, like the baby I have now. And even though I know it was just as hard back then, I also know that it was long ago.

This is an interesting place where I am – at the beginning again with a new child, but knowing all too well how quickly I'll be five years down the road. So I keep asking myself why I still get so irritated. Why do I let the little things add up? Why do I allow the baby's mood to determine how my days go? Why do I still get weary even though I love them so much? The answer, I'm aware, is simply that I'm living in humanity. Perspective goes a long way, but it doesn't make the living any lighter.

When we first decided to move to Arizona, I was convinced that I would hate it. I had never been in a desert environment, and having grown up in a wet climate with lush green all around, I assumed I'd feel completely out of place in all the dust and heat that awaited me. A desert had always held negative connotations for me, like isolation and bleakness.

Surprisingly, I ended up loving the desert. It holds its own beauty not found anywhere else on earth, and there's something about its solitude that can give a sense of freedom. I can understand why U2 named my favorite album (The Joshua Tree) after a desert plant. In an interview Bono said, “Spending time in Africa and seeing people in the pits of poverty, I still saw a very strong spirit in the people, a richness of spirit I didn't see when I came home… I saw the spoiled child of the Western world. I started thinking, 'They may have a physical desert, but we've got other kinds of deserts.' And that's what attracted me to the desert as a symbol of some sort.”

Metaphorically speaking, we've all lived in many deserts. All too often I've walked paths in which I've had to reach really hard for that richness of spirit, and sometimes I just couldn't pull it off. I know deep down that there's beauty to be found, even there, but that doesn't mean I can always see it. Even in the dry path I'm walking now, with the scorching sun at my back, a cactus blooms. And I may miss it if I'm too focused on the rest.

And if I'm being completely honest, I've been missing it a lot lately.

My third child teaches me daily about the importance of letting go of expectations. It has been a recurring theme for me throughout her little life thus far – reality not matching up with my ideas for how things should go down. Babies are like that anyway, you know – always thwarting your well-intentioned plans (like naps and leisure time). This third go-round for me has revealed just how much of my hangups in life have to do with holding tight to what's comfortable and safe, of how much my joy in life is dependent on everything it shouldn't depend on. I'm still living in the expectation of what should be, not what it truly is.

Those unreasonable expectations hold disappointment on the other side. When I convince myself of how my day will go. When I make a choice, believing I already know the outcome. When I fold the laundry and expect all the socks to match up. (I'm a silly creature – you'd think I'd have learned by now.)

I believe we're meant to crave the unknown wild, but instead I run from it, afraid of what I might find there. I'd rather it all work out. I'd rather have control. I'd rather not feel so small. Or so I think.

Spend just one night camping underneath a starry desert sky, and the smallness you feel is unlike any other. It envelops you...embraces you. It can be an amazingly freeing feeling to realize how tiny you are in the vastness of the universe – but only if you don't allow it to overwhelm you first.

If only I could remember my oldest every time I look at my youngest, and think about how soon she'll fill up that bed instead of being overwhelmed by her smallness. If only I could always see that the worn-out-cranky-kid-chasing days will soon give way when the sun sets just up ahead. If only I could stop caring about lost socks. If only I could fill up on that richness of spirit instead of running on fumes and frustration.

After all, I can't spend too much time in the desert if I haven't quenched my thirst.

How Can I: A Resolution Of Sorts

Six months in and she's got my heart. She did from the beginning, of course, but that heart is only getting more deeply embedded in that fragile place where parents' hearts go, where it shatters at every story on the news and thunders with panic at every feverish night, and yet somehow keeps repairing itself at every wide-eyed grin.

Oh, Cora Ivy. I gave her that name because it means heart of faithfulness – my prayer for her – but how can I dare long for such a treasure when my own faith is ever-waning?

It's the season of faith. The ornaments hang from the tree so confidently, and those lights flicker with abandon, while inside my heart is a wrecked mess of sadness and fear and longing that's within all of us, but no one seems to talk about anymore.

How can I look into those beautiful little eyes without thinking about all that they will see?

Thinking back on my own trials, I can't help but wonder what hers will be. What theirs will be. I

know not what it is, just that it is to come. Living life in a fallen world, no one escapes the battles that overwhelm the soul. Has my path prepared me? How can I help them through it all when my own search hasn't always turned up answers and has too often left me brokenhearted?

How can I teach them about their worth when I struggle with my own? How can I tell them to be bold, that they need not worry about what anyone else thinks of them when their own mama has never learned how to do it? How can I give away patience when I've run out of it?

How can I teach them how to love when the world will never cease to throw at them every false version of love it can come up with?

How can I...how can I...how can I…

How can I sit there and tell my big girl not to be so hard on herself when Lord knows I do it to myself too? How can I encourage my boy to be strong when I feel weak? How can I give this tiny baby who strokes my face as she curls up against my body the security that she truly needs?

I sing along with the Christmas carols - “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” - and the feelings come and go. Here comes the hope. Here come the fears. And so on it goes as it has since the beginning of time.

Before bed I read them The Little Engine That Could, and I dwell on those words more than they will ever know – I think I can, I think I can – turn out the light, and keep chugging along. I keep chug-chug-chugging. It's all I can do.

Then when all has quieted down and I retreat to that place within that can get messy and harsh and fearful, I force myself to fill it with hope. I think about the story my clever little girl wrote and illustrated for me. I think about my energetic little boy proudly bringing in the chicken egg he collected from the hens all by himself. I remember the first heartfelt, unprompted 'thank you' and the last big hug I got, and I let my thoughts linger on all the laughter and joy in between. Because that's the place my heart needs to go.

It's more than how can I. It's why can't I. It's how can I not.

So I'll keep chugging along, but I'll change the rhythm of the engine. I know we can. I know we will. And we will indeed, because what more could be worthy of yearning for but the faith to carry us through?

I must pull my heart from the trenches and place it on the mountaintop. It belongs to them, after all. They need their mama's heart to soar above the oceans so they can fly too.

Grace.

One evening while we were on our beach vacation back in April, we came across a young couple who were chasing around their three small kids on the shore. Our kids started running around with theirs, so since I was expecting our third at the time, I struck up a conversation with the parents by asking, “So, what's it like having three anyway?”

The dad joked in his country accent, “Well, I woulda advised you against it, but I can see I'm too late.”

I laughed, and even though I wasn't quite there yet, I knew what he meant. It's always a little crazy adding to the mix.

My two big kids are growing up so fast, and I want to give them all I can, yet I have spent so much time in the last year unable to be at my best for them. I was too pregnant and too nauseated or too tired or too uncomfortable for several months, and now the new little one requires so much attention that I feel like this summer completely ran away from us. I think about how I want to be doing more with them right now and how guilty I sometimes feel that I have to divide myself up even more, but they don't even notice any of that. They are loving every minute of each day. They are loving their baby sister. And they hug me and tell me how much they love me every night.

Those kids give me grace.

My 2-month-old is a great night sleeper (fingers crossed it stays that way) but is a fierce little nap fighter during the day. I think my butt is permanently imprinted in the recliner from spending so much time nursing. It gets better each day, and I'm figuring her out, but I don't always know exactly what she wants. As I forge ahead, trying to meet the demands of a newborn without getting too frustrated, I don't always succeed. But at night I lie in the dark and listen to her little squeaks and contented sighs coming from the bassinet next to me as she drifts off, satisfied, and I know she loves her mama.

That baby gives me grace.

In the midst of all this activity, I often feel that I've forgotten how to pray. I struggle to put into words what I want to say to my heavenly Father and don't often enough remember to talk to Him. I brush that communication aside to meet the many needs around me and manage just fine, or so I think, until I remember that I need guidance and wisdom in order to do any of this life stuff right. Of all the frustrations I face, I have the hardest time with the ones that come from within. But He knows every one of them and loves me just the same.

That Father gives me grace.

As this little family travels along its path, I hear the clock ticking along with the steady pace of the kids' growth. I want to keep them small enough to fit in my arms, to keep them close enough to rest their heads upon my chest. I want to know what lies ahead so I can prepare them for it. But I can't, so I savor the sweetest moments, the ones I'll always have to hold on to.

Even time gives me grace.

I wouldn't advise anyone against any of it – because even in all of the messy madness, the fleeting failures, and the crazy chaos, grace surrounds us. Grace carries us through.

I wish I knew how to give it as freely as it is so often given to me.