Five Minute Friday: Rhythm

21
Jun

Today’s post is part of Five Minute Friday. Lisa-jo Baker gives us a word prompt, we set the timer for five minutes, and write. Let go of perfectionism and overthinking, and just write. You can jump in too — check out the website: http://lisajobaker.com

Today’s word: Rhythm

Summer takes on a different rhythm.

Kids stay in their jammies until lunch.

Dishes can wait.

From http://mrg.bz/L5RyFF

Drop everything for a last minute trip to the park to meet friends.

Going to an activity at 9:00am, even one they want to do, feels like the crack of dawn instead of being an hour later than the bus’s arrival during the school year.

Getting anywhere on time seems more difficult because we’re all in slow motion.

But this is the rhythm that allows us to blow bubbles on the front porch,

Read one more story,

Repair the fort made of sheets and cushions,

And snuggle a few minutes more.

It’s a slower pace that lets us spend our time together and everyone gets their moment.

STOP

What changes for your family during summertime? How do you balance down time versus planned activities?

Five Minute Friday: Rhythm (aftertheecstasythelaundry.wordpress.com)

My Kids First Time At Camp

20
Jun

It was 1:30am. My husband slept peacefully beside me. The dog snored from his spot on the floor. The breeze gently stirred the room.

Something was wrong.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

No fans producing background noise.

No nightlights.

No sound of someone flipping over in the bed down the hall, no sound of a hard-backed turtle toy bumping into the wall as someone shifted the sheet.

It was unnerving.

As I tried to make myself sleep, I kept thinking about my two oldest children, Rex and Bobo (special names for them), away at camp for the first time.

Were they going to fall out of their bunk beds?

Were they going whizz in said bunk bed?

Were they going to wake up disoriented in the middle of the night, wonder where they were? Would they cry out for me?

Would their counselor know how to comfort them?

Yeah, and let’s talk about this “counselor” guy anyway.

Who is this child who happens to be taller than me? He looks like a eight year old, with his adorable sprinkle of freckles and quick smile. I bet he hopes he’s setting my fears to rest with that confident conversation and quick demonstration of kind authority, but he can’t do that while looking like a boy dressed in his father’s business suit. How can I entrust my children to this baby? His brain isn’t even fully developed yet!

This is all coming from a person who attended or worked at camps from the age of 9-25.

When I look back at who I was while I worked at camp, I am forced to concede that my boys are probably going to be fine while they’re away over the next few days. The people I worked with at camp were some of the most dedicated, creative, passionate people I’ve ever known. They bent over backwards and literally drove through fire to make camp a spectacular event for each child there.

[I mean it when I say fire. For some reason we thought it would be a great idea and dramatic entrance to a skit to have someone zoom a motorcycle through a line of fire, skid to a stop, and have the passenger, sans helmet, jump off the back. Let’s just say there were a lot of guardian angels flying around that summer.]

That’s the other thing I am quick to forget…

It isn’t only humans at work at camp. God is at work too.

So while I reorganize and try to distract myself from worrying they’ll come home covered in mosquito-bite welts, God reveals more of Himself, draws them closer, independent of the guidance my husband and I provide at home. And this is one of my greatest prayers and desires: that my children would invest in and cultivate their own dynamic relationships with God, independent of my own faith.

Camp is a great way to take that first step of releasing them to do this.

Even if it keeps me awake every night all week.

I’d love to hear some favorite memories of your experience with camp. Do you have any coping suggestions for the mom of some first-timers? How did you and your kids handle it?

Our Scars Are Our Testimony

17
Jun

Life-saver after work (Photo credit: CoCreatr)

I have an energetic, adorable young friend. Let’s call him Crash. Crash has had a number of thrills and spills, many of which have landed him in the emergency room. He is six and a half years old and has already broken both arms and each of his legs. He’s crazy like that. Actually, he’s not crazy — he’s just an active boy who happens to fall in very unfortunate ways. One of his falls was particularly dramatic. He was staying at his grandparents farm for the weekend. Mom and Dad were away. There was a rock pile that just screamed his name, and he had to climb. It was marvelous fun…until he descended and the boulder descended quickly after. It fell on him and crushed his foot. It could have been so bad. It could have done long-lasting, serious damage. It could have required reconstructive surgery on his ankle. In the worst case scenario, it could have been fatal. So although Crash had to wear a cast on his leg for most of the summer, his parents felt blessed. It was the way they communicated that blessing and awareness of God’s protection to Crash that impressed me. They taught Crash the concept of an “Ebenezer” from the Bible. In the Old Testament, people would pile up some rocks as a makeshift monument to God after a milestone experience. Then later, when people saw the pile of stones, it would call to mind God’s faithfulness in difficulty. An Ebenezer served as a testimony to the people who experienced the event that demonstrated God’s faithfulness, and those who heard about the event. My friends rejoice in the scar on Crash’s foot because it is in the perfect place. A little further up, he would have had serious damage to his ankle, which has a difficult and long recovery time. A little further down and his toes would have been jeopardized. The boulder fell on a soft spot of Crash’s foot, the perfect spot for a boulder to fall. They physically brought the boulder back from the grandparents house and placed it in their yard, calling to mind the protection Crash had from further injury. Crash can even articulate how God was watching over him and points to his ability to jump on one foot (the foot that was squashed) as proof of God’s goodness. ******

Plaster cast on forearm/wrist/hand. Picture ta...

Not a leg cast, but you get the idea.

This really got me to thinking. How often do we hide our emotional scars and see them as a sign of weakness, rather than celebrating the healing, recovery and humility they produced? Instead of showing off our scars and testifying to God’s power, we hide them as a source of shame. We messed up, we miscalculated, we didn’t think before acting, and something unwanted happened. We could be upfront with this, but usually our instinct is to conceal our screw ups. Somehow we think people have an image of us as infallible. We think will disappoint them if we even admit we are capable of mistakes; imagine how bad it would be if something actually happened. But if we are honest about our shortcomings, we discover that, like scar tissue, we are stronger in that area than we were before, more aware of the dangers or the growth we need. And our relationships are stronger and deeper because they are based on mutual honesty and understanding. [Brene Brown has a lot to say about this (http://www.brenebrown.com), and she’s written books and traveled the country talking about shame and vulnerability. I highly recommend learning more about her.] Too often Church is a beauty pageant, with people prettying themselves up before they arrive, hiding their hurts behind a smile and a handshake. Do we think we will let others down if we admit we are the sinners Christ came to redeem? Isn’t that supposed to be common knowledge? As we continue down the path with Jesus, we get a few things sorted out, but we are still human and still fallible. Sometimes we start to think we’re not. Maybe we even start to become more like the Pharisees from Jesus’ day, the ones who thought they had it all figured out and were quick to point out other people’s shortcomings. We must fight this, no matter how secure we feel in our faith and relationship with Jesus. Because as much as we want to deny it, we are still in need of further transformation. We can always become more fully liberated to be the best version of ourselves. When we get cocky and condescending, it is a hiccup in this process, whether we are aware of it or not. No matter how much we think we’ve got it figured out, there is always more growth we can do. Do you have scars you could celebrate rather than hide? What do you communicate to others about their mistakes? What relationships can you trust to make more authentic and how?

Five Minute Friday: Fall

7
Jun

This is after it’s been tidied. Scary.

There are tumbleweeds of dog fur in the corner next to the buffet, the surface of which is covered in papers, pencil boxes and mail, rendering the buffet virtually undetectable.

There is an un-emptied suitcase at the foot of our bed from a trip taken three weeks ago. It’s not that I don’t need the clothes that might be in the suitcase, it’s that I’ve worn the same jeans every day this week, and that makes for a much lighter laundry load.

The children are required to make a path through their rooms from the door to their beds so I don’t trip on stuff, should they need me in the middle of the night. But as for putting away these items, it hasn’t happened lately.

My oldest son was supposed to have a friend over but I forgot to call the parent and solidify details. The gift we bought for our favorite teacher is still sitting on my kitchen counter — school was done last week.

If you wash the rugs in the bathroom, it makes it look like you have probably washed the actual floor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67774014@N00/7438145050

Why do I get bothered by these and other things I see as indicators of my own shortcomings?

Why do I expect certain things from myself that I wouldn’t expect from any one else?

In reverse, I make excuses for the things I have done. I made scones for a friend’s visit this week. She complimented them and I downplayed it. Even though it has been raining and generally icky outside, I have managed to split hostas, remove grass and replant or pot up at least 20 plants. But it doesn’t seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the other things on my list, so I decide that effort doesn’t count.What if we all, specifically all of us women and/or mothers, decided to cut ourselves some slack? What if we admitted that we don’t have to have it all figured out every moment of every day? What if we stopped expecting perfection from ourselves?

If that happened, I think we would start to realize no one expected it from us, that it was self-imposed.

And besides, no one was buying the image of perfection we thought we projected.

Let’s allow the façade to fall away and reveal the real imperfect us – quirky, overwhelmed, loving, strong, flawed, fully-human us. And we are amazing. We are beautiful.

This post is part of a link up with Lisa-jo Baker and Five Minute Friday. Check out all the details here: http://lisajobaker.com/ It is open to anyone. Come shake yourself out of the shackles of self-critique and write for the sheer pleasure of it. Today’s word prompt was Fall.

Disney Princess Realness. (Photo credit: partymonstrrrr)

Some people have a problem with princesses. They think princesses are fluffy, vaporous, weak, voiceless or inconsequential. Maybe they think of a prissy girl who whines to get her way or is spoiled and adverse to work, ala Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie. Remember Nellie and her Nellie curls?

I can see their point. Princess conjures up images of a child in too many crinolines who turns up her nose at cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

We generally don’t think of princesses as being people of power or influence. They’re more people of manipulation, pawns to be traded in marriage for treaties with other lands, demure fragile creatures who frequently made use of smelling salts and schemes to get the prettiest ribbons.

Not exactly a flattering picture is it?

It’s no wonder the idea gets dismissed.

There are a lot of women in Christian circles trying to reclaim their self-esteem and identity by taking on the mantle of royalty. The idea is that if one follows God and identifies as a daughter of God, also called the King of Glory, that relationship makes her a princess. In a lot of ways this shift in attitude helps people have more self-respect and approach the world with more confidence.

If “princess” conjures up fragility, fickleness or being trapped in a tower waiting to be saved by someone else, this role will not work for you.

Super Blast Princess Daisy, Flicker

When I think of princesses, sometimes I imagine someone more along the lines of one of the Charlie’s Angels or Lara Croft. Powerful, feminine, intelligent and strong…okay Cameron Diaz’s character wasn’t too smart, but she had other strengths.

When female Christians try to claim an identity as princesses, I admit it rubs me the wrong way. It sounds corny or as if they didn’t get to live out their princess-y dreams of childhood. And with all the glitter and “Pink” written across in velour across shapely backsides, I can understand the hesitation to identify with the old version of princess.

Plus, I’m an adult. I don’t need to regress into being a sequin-clad toddler diva who gets animal crackers with pink icing, picks out only the giraffes because they’re my favorite (they’re not – I tend to favor the hippos and elephants) and throws tantrums to get my way.

However,

I don’t know of many women who don’t want to be made to feel special.

Valued,Beautiful,

Worth listening to,

With a perspective that is worthwhile and valid.

There are times when we who follow Jesus need to have an attitude check about how we view ourselves and whether we’re accurately honoring our heritage of being adopted into God’s family. Most times that has to do with relation to the world around us, but it is an internal exercise as well. How do we view and treat ourselves? Are we treating ourselves with respect? What kind of messages are we giving ourselves during that internal dialogue that’s constantly running in our heads?

Maybe princess isn’t the right term.

Maybe queen…

Hmmm…that might not work.

What about Secretary of State, or Madame Speaker? Madame Pope?

None of those are quite right either.

CEO doesn’t do it, nor does Mother.

So until someone comes up with a term that adequately sums up the struggle of being heard despite being a female, being seen as having a relevant voice despite having breasts, being intelligent as well being able to express emotions, princess might have to do it for us,

For now…

Unless the word “woman” is the term we’ve been looking for all along. Then it might be staring at us from our own mirrors and we’re just not able to recognize it yet.

Do you think “princess” is the right word to identify the women in your life? Do you ever have to wrestle down negative messages about yourself? How do you accomplish it? How can you treat yourself with love today?