Happy Spring from a God Who Creates

I lay in the green grass of our backyard, staring at little purple flowers, bathing in sunshine. This, my friends, is why I love living in Georgia. I nearly lose my mind in the short few months that truly are our winter. The dawn of March finds my heart, soul, mind screaming in unison: Get. Me. Outside.

And keep me there, thank you very much.

It’s hard not to think of creation, sitting out here in it. The other night I felt like reading Genesis, just for the fun of it. I like doing that. Just picking up something to read with no set agenda, no high expectation of earth shattering revelations, just reading.

And what I saw, with fresh eyes, is just how much God enjoys creating. He likes it. He wanted to create and so He did, a lot. I’ve never thought of it that simply before. Oddly, He refers to it as work, valuable, heartfelt work. And yet He also says throughout the scriptures that there is nothing better than enjoying one’s work. How interesting that a God that could simply BE chose instead to CREATE. Creating is a mighty, meaty calling, and I am beginning to believe that we, made in His image, enjoy creating too.

I never used to think this. Creating was for other people, those that were off doing more beautiful things than I. Never mustering more than a “C” in Art class, I believed that creating was not my thing. Now I am a new convert to this creating process: blooming with a new belief that even though I may not have shined like other classmates, I am also not meant to be dull.

I am a parchment paper Momma. For this is how I am branching out creatively. The other night our daughter proposed making homemade pretzels. Homemade pretzels on a Thursday night with a “not very domesticated mother?” It is just these kinds of nudges out of my comfort zone that continually surprise me and delight me as a parent. Why would we make homemade pretzels on a Thursday night? Or more importantly, why shouldn’t we? So, off to Publix we went for the ingredients, and at 35 years, I bought my very first box of parchment paper. It felt a little sacred. For until then, parchment paper was for other people. You know, creative baking types. Behold! I have a parchment paper, people. This is a big deal. We made the pretzels. They turned out pretty well. A couple days later, I tried a cake recipe. It did not turn out well. Yet, for the first time, the fun in the opportunity to create outweighed the reality that it did not taste good. For the first time, I didn’t feel the weight of defeat, I felt the surge that comes with answering the call to create.

I love watching our children align with the call to create. They do it so effortlessly and joyfully. They don’t over-think it or over-analyze. They are rich in their use of colors. They have big plans, even if left with half dried play dough and broken crayons, almost dried out markers and scrap paper.

They have no sense of how their art measures up against that of other people; free to bask in the glory of the process of thinking something and then living it, however they picture it in their minds.

I am getting better at it. Creating beyond the limits that have lived in my brain for too long. Stickers are a safe place to start. I simply adore scrapbooking stickers. I stick them everywhere. Everywhere the call to create takes me. Sometimes I position them however feels right on card stock and I frame it. And I smile. I take a little break, and simply celebrate creation. And then I smile and sigh, contently, because in this moment, I am like my Creator.

4 Things I Tell Myself on Writing

1. Write what is meaningful to me. Writing should change me in some way.
2. Don’t rush it or fake it. Be authentic even if that means slow.
3. Every little bit counts. Today’s sentences may be next month’s blog post.
4. Have a small window of time I think it’s good. I give myself about 12 hours.

I’ll Take a Generous Dose of Writing, Please

I’m not sure how writing invests in my mental health, but I know it does.  Psychologically, something good goes on there.  It’s a mystery I am at peace with not understanding.  Like watching my cholesterol, or drinking enough water, writing is just something that helps me to operate better overall.   Maybe it is the invisible battle that attracts me  –  the muse that teases me to explore and then share thoughts that don’t otherwise come out right unless written.  The tension comes at the sharing point – I seem to have two strong willed and opposing personalities – one is dogmatic and quite assured that the thoughts that what springs from my keyboard are only meaningful to me and not worth sharing.  The free- spirited one says “who cares? Push publish, PUSH.”  It’s ying and yang.  Maybe they are my mischievous inner twins.  At the end of the day, freedom wins and I tell that stodgy pessimistic one to take a hike.

There is something in writing that gives me energy, and fills me with hope, and makes me feel a little bit like I am flirting with another world, maybe a dangerous one.  It’s the siren wail of vulnerability and the suggestion that people may read your words and think you’re not what they supposed, or worse, nuts.  The call to vulnerability leads one to do crazy things.    Why, just the other day, fresh from thinking about writing, I only unloaded half of the dishwasher! My, I am living boldly.  In so doing, I am only inviting confusion and conundrum.  The next poor person in the kitchen will be inevitably be lost as to whether those dishes in the top rack are clean or dirty!

Or maybe the true high came because I intentionally choose to stop the chore and to go write.  There is something akin to a jolt, isn’t there, when the brain succumbs to the call of creation?

 

The Writer and the “Non-Schedule” – Where Does Writing Fit?

I recently heard an interesting conversation with two authors and had a light bulb moment.   Brooke McGlothlin and Stacey Thacker are busy married moms with active ministries.  Through an online presence, speaking, and writing, they encourage and inspire this gig called parenting.  Their meaty websites make me think and laugh – sometimes to keep me from crying (see bottom for the links!)  They blog, they write books, and they are all over social media.  Most recently, they are authors of soon to release “Hope for the Weary Mom, Let God Meet You in the Mess,” coming February 3, 2015 from Harvest House Publishers.    As part of a conference call as a pre-launch party, they answered questions from readers.  One helped me in particular – the million dollar question that every aspiring writer wants to know – “How do you do it?  How do you juggle the marriage, the child-raising, the home, with blogging, writing books, and maintaining a social media presence?”

Brooke and Stacey both openly shared some practical techniques.  What resonates with me most is their firm stance that writing fits along with their families’ needs.  Writing is interwoven with the needs of the household and the marriage and the parenting.  Their families are aware of, and indirectly a part of, their writing routines.  There is ongoing communication to meet all the needs, including that need to write.  No magic formula, no short cuts, but ebb and flow, give and take, they love as wives and moms, and they write.

This approach is special to me.  Probably because the actual act of writing can be such a solitary activity (picture Mommy holed up in the closet with the laptop, or bathroom…you know…anywhere, she can get a few minutes to herself.)  I hadn’t much thought about how my writing time relates to the rest of me – the house, the husband, these two little “mini-mes,” and my work.

So what?  So, their answer was like sweet manna to my writing recipe.  For the past two years, I have grappled with having a writing schedule.  I have a need to write.  I also have three very important ongoing commitments: a sweet husband that I vowed to put second only to God, two precious young children that very tangibly need me, and a full time job that I really enjoy.  Where does this writing schedule come in?  Every successful writer has a schedule.  They make it happen.  I couldn’t make it happen.  What was wrong with me?

Absolutely nothing.  I have come to peace with the reality that given my three other commitments, I will not have a writing schedule right now.  In fact, I am on the “non-schedule” schedule.  I simply write when I can.  This means brief moments late at night or early in the morning, lunch breaks, the occasional mellow weekend morning or naptime.  These are my schedule.    I call them pockets of perseverance.  Sure, what I create today may not be much.  But I own those few words along with the decision to honor those three other commitments first.

I’m kind of fond of order and organization.  I like things to be concrete.  To find peace with a “non-schedule” for me is a pretty big deal.  Sweet peace comes from accepting a sober estimation of where I really am right now – while still having an ability to believe that reality and dreams can merge and come true.

Evan as a gal with a “non-schedule,” there are two things that I strive to do to stay in touch with the concepts of consistency and discipline: have something new on one of my blogs each weekday and connect with other writers. For blogging, what could I realistically commit too right now?  About 50 words.  Yep.  That’s about it.   I picked something that I really enjoy thinking about and decided, over the past year, to try and write about that topic.  For me, my topic is the book of 1 John in the Bible.  I just like chewing on it.  The slow, deliberate study has opened my eyes to new insights and helped me make new connections throughout the Bible.  And having a topic that I can share something with consistency allows me to maintain writing momentum when life happens.  (You know, when the stomach bugs and flu hit, when there is ballet class and recital to get too, when t-ball season starts, and the baby has yet another sleep regression.)

Secondly, I’ve got a writing buddy.  Or more accurately, she is my encouragement buddy, my dreaming buddy, my prayer and laughter buddy.    She lives on the other side of the country; we’ve never met in person, but feel like we have in spirit.  We met in a Facebook discussion group, realized we had similar aspirations, and have been cheering one another on ever since.   Our conversations, all online, prompt deep thinking and we borrow faith from one another to keep going on our writing journey.  We aren’t totally sure where we want to arrive, and we surely haven’t the foggiest how we’ll get there, but we are in each other’s corner, checking up on writing goals and projects.  It was even her question, the other night during that call, which opened the forum for how real writers do this.

I still believe in the writing schedule.  I believe some day I will have one.  To put off writing until I have that pretty, consistent block of time would be a mistake.  Write now, writing is just that.  Something I do now, if that works with life, and otherwise, I choose hope: my time to write will come later.

Meet the two authors I mentioned above and check out their new book:

www.hopeforthewearymom.com

Brooke McGlothlin

www.brookemcglothlin.com

www.themobsociety.com

Stacey Thacker

www.staceythacker.com

www.mothersofdaughters.com

It Can Be Fun To Remember – Note to Self, Remember That

I’ve never been big on “reminiscing.”   It’s not that I don’t like too.   I guess I’m more the type to be intensely in the moment, or in continual preparation for the next.  Imagine my surprise  as I stumbled on some texted memories from my three older sisters of growing up in a century old house in Upstate New York.  I haven’t thought of that place in a forever!  (Or maybe a good 25 years :))  I’m not sure what was more of a surprise, – the fact that their memories made me  feel connected to them, or the concept of memories itself.

As a parent, you can’t help but wonder what your kids will remember when they are adults.  My sisters’ texts have me wondering, what thoughts our two will be exchanging someday?  Memories that my husband and I may never be privy to.  Memories that, 25 years from now, will give them pause from their busy adult lives and make them laugh and feel close despite the miles that may separate them.

In our family, I was a beloved last hurrah, the epitome of a splendid surprise, which is a fancy way of saying an “oops! baby!”  I was another rousing rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the wall,” when everybody else thought they had all fallen down and been passed around.

This timeline of events meant that as I grew old enough to have memories, my older sisters and brother were rapidly adults and leaving the nest.    I remember them, but I had no way of knowing who they were as kids or teens.  Outside of long sessions of playing “Scrabble” with my brother, I largely met this family in their early adulthood and as twenty-somethings.

These memories are passages to knowing them, in a forum otherwise impossible: my sister’s text is a gateway to meeting three young girls, now three adult women whom I deeply respect.   And, this is how rich memory concoctions are made, even with the most basic of ingredients:

“it was usually on Christmas Eve when the heat came on before the Auburn group arrived that we would stand on the vents with our long skirts and watch them puff out”

Three young girls crowded on a black vent in the dining room floor, their hearts full of eager anticipation of what to come, giggling about their skirts puffing up from the heat.  At least 30 years later, this memory warms each of us, and creates 4 smiling women in the 4 different states we reside.

Reading this, I inevitably think back to my times in that wonderful old house.  It had a tower and a chimney.  Bats used to fly down the chimney and swoop in and around the living room.  We would take tennis rackets and gently escort them outside into the night.  I honestly and sincerely thought that this was perfectly normal.  Bats were our friends who sometimes got lost in our living room.  They were not to be feared.  Catching rabies or some disease never crossed my mind.  I believe I was in college (for the first time, but that is for another post), when I first realized that years of serving bats out of my home made me come across slightly odd.  (I lost no sleep over this however :0)).

And another favorite:  visits from “Hot Hand.”  Hot Hand is our Dad (though I think he has retired Hot Hand for a couple of decades now.)  It was his motivational encouragement to get our tails upstairs and ready for bed.  He would be in hot pursuit, as we would charge up an old, rickety set of back stairs, inevitably banging our shins in a mis-step.  What surprises me most of this memory, however, is the innocent childhood laughter that would come next, instead of the expletive that clamors to escape from my adult lips now when I merely stub my toe.

I am comfortable with the concept that each day is a gift.  I believe it.   A new enlightening concept is what memories may each day create?  I  personally may not know of them, but I am confident those opportunities are there.   And they can be beautifully simplistic.

Creating memories, enjoying memories, sharing memories.  Note to self: do this more.

Famous Last Words: “My Mom’s Working on It”

Writing with Vision: Having Many Courtships

When it comes to marriage, I am very pro-monogyny.  Pick one and commit with everything you have.

Writing, on the other hand? A different story, altogether.

I’ve decided that a motto that keeps me writing now is “to write with vision.”  Naturally, after sharing this recently, one asked what this means.    Part of writing with vision means that I have several different writing projects going on at once, some long, some short, some I have no concrete idea for, but I surely felt led to begin.  Some days I may as well be speed dating with ideas.  Most days, my “saved draft” folder is a crockpot – it quietly sits there and marinates my ideas until I hear the metaphorical timer go off – its done!

Writing with vision is a pro-active positive approach.  It means I may have just 15 minutes any given day, but those 15 minutes are a valuable deposit to my writing future.  Sure, the outcome may not look all that great today.  That’s okay.  Writing with vision, I no longer focus solely on today.  I can scrapple up confidence that today’s deposit into the crockpot can really mean something next week, next month, next Spring.

Writing with vision means I have a variety of courtships going on simultaneously. Each one may not know where they stand, but I am comfortable with this arrangement that doesn’t’ require too much too fast.  Someone recently asked if I am working on a novel/book.  “Oh no,  I couldn’t possibly handle that commitment, that relationship right now,” I replied.  The person asking is also an artist: he gets it,  “Okay, it is a two way commitment, for sure.”  How true, any long term writing project has to like me as well, be in it for the long haul, move in, and take up residence with the rest of my family.  It’s  a big deal.

So, for now, I write when I can and sometimes share and sometimes just save for later.  Writing with vision means that later will come.  Just like with humans, strong, healthy relationships with writing don’t do well with control freaks.  Writing with vision means you don’t force “later”, you don’t fret “later”.   You and the words continue to dance and celebrate later at the appointed time.

A Mullet is A Metpahor for Life

We had a case of little boy bangs in need of trimming.
And a bunch of cute baby boy blonde curls.

How did this end? Business in the front, party in the back. I’m not ready to part with the curls.

“What do you think?” the guy with the scissors asked me.
I half sighed, half laughed.

“I think you did just what I asked for and now our son has a mullet!”
“It’s okay, everybody can rock a mullet until their two, you’re good.” I’m not sure how convinced he was of his own advising, but I went with it.

Yes, our son, pretty much, kind of, has a developing mullet. He has a ‘do that makes you tilt your head to the side and wonder a little bit.
And I’m okay with it.

Because the truth is, when he looks back on the pictures capturing these priceless days, he may ask what is up with his hair, and I’ll have an answer. For this is the season where I am embracing the “tween-ness.”

For him – at 20 months, he isn’t quite a full blown little boy, and no longer a full blown baby. He is a tweener. Simultaneously, he grows both fiercely independent and attached. Tonight he ran through the house on his own, only to return just as quickly to plant kisses on my face.

For me – three and half decades in – I’m finding peace with concepts of progression in motherhood and finding my path as a writer. I am less likely to require absolutes. No longer do I feel a need to constantly categorize everything in life as either good or bad. There is gray. God helps us through the gray. God’s truths are absolute, but His creation seeking them are messy, complicated, emotional beings. We do best to cling to grace during the times of gray- the times of tween-ness when we don’t quite feel we’ve arrived….anywhere. We aren’t quite ready to fully forget the past, and we aren’t quite ready to fully embrace the future. So, we sit calmly right where we are and breathe deeply and simply be. We have a 20 month old with a short straight line up front and a sporadic, joyful grouping of curls in the back, because that is where we are, right now.

It is okay if some days, we appear to be business up front and party in the back. What’s important is to know why we do what we do, why we make the decisions we make. The older I get the less I feel an automatic need to provide explanations. Certainly, on all matters of life, I would love to know what to say if and when you ask. Surely, you are certainly entitled to your opinions and comments. I may or may not agree with them. But, I do purpose to, with grace, love and humility, live 1 Peter 3:15, to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” I have no desire to shove my hope down your throat. But if/when you ask, I pray to serve it up as quickly as the hair cuttery guy served up our son’s mullet.

Hope is very powerful. Some days you may not have much, but if you can muster up some hope, you have some jingle in your pocket. Hope purposes through the gray. To be without hope is a sad and lonely place. If I could freely give any commodity, I would make hope tangible and hand it out.

Our little one has curls that sprout from the side of his head like wings. They tease you as little beings of themselves that tickle life and question whether they should really be there or not. I’m learning to extend those same kinds of wings each time I step out in my writing. Learning to fly is frightful. Perhaps we are not all meant to – perhaps, we will not know until we try.

Life will present situations where there is business up front and a party in the back. Some are easier to digest than others. You will be tempted to feel lonely and misunderstood in your mullet season. Press on, Beloved. Those curls can stay as long as you want them too.

Good Morning! Reflect & Piss-a-tate

There’s a quality in our pre-Ker that I adore.  It pushes me in my writing.  If she gets to a word that she is unsure of  that uncertainty only shows through in her pronunciation. In terms of use, she goes for it. She doesn’t hold back. Muti-syllabic words don’t cause her to back down. Timid on the soccer field? Yes, but with vocabulary, she owns it. Which means she’ll have an entire conversation with you that leaves you scratching your head and going “wha?”

Like today. She was explaining in vivid, exciting detail her new public school routine. “A lady comes over the ceiling and says Good Morning!” And then we have a quiet moment of reflection and pissatate!”

I was sure I had just heard her wrong. Piss-a- wha?
It turns out, that in reality, the lady over the ceiling invites the students to have “a moment of quiet reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.”

I think this is the substitute for prayer in schools.
We are having quiet moments and pissatating instead of praying.

Yes, that makes sense.

I am Working Writing Mom, Hear Me Roar

Hear me roar, whimper, cry, pray, laugh, sing. Working motherhood is a complicated rainbow of emotions. In one regard, it is really freeing to be out of my house for a solid day. In another, I tend to constantly feel under the gun, I am running a marathon that refuses to end. Will there be enough Gatorade? How will I continue?

Add writing to the mix. Putting it out there for others to see is volunteering to play “Truth or Dare” – continually choosing Dare, and continually streaking through my neighborhood. It is nudity of my soul, it takes courage, bravado, authenticity, humility, a little bit of sass and a lot of confidence. Isn’t calling myself a “writer” the nerdy equivalent to puffing out my chest, beating my fists against it, and bellowing ferociously? If I bellow in the jungle and no one else is around to hear it, did it really happen?

Or maybe me hearing it is enough. Enough to keep going, recording, capturing life in words. And what about the interplay between writer and “the working in the office motherhood?” Nobody really likes a roaring lion in the office. Roaring lions are only limitedly effective in raising children as well. Gentleness, kindness, humility, assertiveness, a spirit of cooperation, organization, a stand for truth, and denial of people-pleasing timidity. This is the stuff of working motherhood. A willingness to meet a variety of needs from a variety of people at any given time without muttering profanity. This is working motherhood. Surprising yourself through depths of exhaustion and selflessness. This is working motherhood.

Sharing it with others out of a “non-competitive -able to laugh at- myself sense of this is me.”
That is working writing motherhood.