For. Real.

As today came to a close, my mind started replaying some of the craziness that took place under our roof today:

15 fall festival fish found belly up in several of my kitchen bowls that are on our back patio, serving as temporary housing for the poor, unlucky goldfish. I found myself scooping them out, throwing them into the bushes and consolidating the breathing fish while two suspicious children looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't throw out any live ones.

3 rounds of the cooking competition  "Chopped" were played out in my kitchen. I had three kids cooking pancakes, then egg-concoctions and finally the dessert round (which closely resembled the pancake round because all they had to work with was Bisquick. The result: frosted pancakes.).

 And then there was the pigeon. Yes, the pigeon. My oldest son noticed a pigeon hanging around camp today and thought it was unusual. He thought the bird looked lost and disorientated and ended up catching it and bringing it inside the house. Turns out it was a banded racing homing pigeon that took a detour on his way to pigeon racing glory. I am not making this up. We looked up the number on our feathered friend's ankle band and found out that he belonged to a fancier named Oviedo who didn't speak English. So we were on our own with the pooping bird.

We won't mention the throw-up that landed next to a bed in the night due to too much spinning on rides at the fair yesterday.

Between the 75 dishes used in the season premiere of "Chopped", the mixing bowls designated as fish tanks and the bowls appointed for feeding the pigeon, I tackled more dishes than an elementary school cafeteria lady today. And we won't even talk about the vomit covered and bird-poop infused towels that I laundered today.

Meanwhile, my oldest daughter missed her flight to NYC and spent her afternoon waiting to get on a stand-by flight. Of course, I could do nothing but pray for her as I scrubbed my way out of my kitchen to start on baths.

This is for real. My For Real life. Never predictable, never sane, never dull. But always real. Really crazy, really messy, really exhausting and really worth it.

For Real.

Who's the Fairest of Them All?

"Which one do you like best Mama?" she asked about the young women in the workout video. I was on the floor doing leg lifts, trying to keep up with the 20-somethings on the screen.

"What do you mean? I don't know any of the girls in this video. I just do the exercises. I've never met them." I breathed out.

"I mean which one do you think is the prettiest?"

"It doesn't matter which one is the prettiest."

"It doesn't?"

Ugh. I felt something in my stomach even though I was working out my legs.

"No. God says that what matters is on the inside. You know, how you treat other people, what you think about and how you love God. It doesn't matter to Him if you're the prettiest or dressed the nicest."

This idea seemed foreign to her. 

After my answer, I realized that I was telling this to one of the prettiest little girls I've ever seen, bias aside. This little girl has had people stop in their tracks to compliment her eyes and tell us how stunning she is. Not a day goes by that we aren't commenting on her external beauty and I often find myself mesmerized by her smile and her eyes. Oh, her eyes.

She's a typical five-year-old girl in that she never ends the day in the same outfit that she donned in the morning. She twirls, she spins, she prances.

She's a typical female in that she not only longs to be lovely, beautiful and desired but she wants to be the most lovely, beautiful and desired. Without any intentional instruction, she has learned to compare herself to others and has created a beauty measuring stick in her mind. What steps we take next may determine if she uses that stick to measure others for the rest of her life.

It took her mama nearly 40 years to finally break that stick over her knee and pick up a new unit of measurement. As a young girl, I studied Sport's Illustrated swimsuit edition and made subconscious mental notes of what made those models beautiful. I knew all the supermodels of the era and learned their features. I stood on stages in beauty pageants and was measured by my beauty and poise. I still step out of my bedroom when going out, waiting to hear a compliment on my appearance from my husband (fortunately for me, I married a man who dishes them out liberally.)

Something clicked in me in the last few years. I'm at an age where I can see beauty fading. I realize how temporary it is and how little return is made on an investment in it. I also realize that comparing is toxic. That doesn't mean I'm immune to its poison but I'm at least trying to take it in smaller doses. As women we compare looks: hair, eyes, skin, weight, nails, lashes, lips, hips and breasts. But we don't stop there... we compare men, houses, decor, clothes, purses, jewelry, success, holiness, relationships.... I'm getting exhausted just writing this list.

So now I intend to give my daughter something else. I want to give her a new ruler. I want to compliment her thoughtfulness, her cooperative nature, her initiative, her smarts, her creativity, and her gentleness. I will have to dig deep for some of these at her age and stage but I intend to find them and magnify them. Make miles out of these attributes and make inches out of her mesmerizing eyes and charming smile (not centimeters though because we will always want to be beautiful!).

And then, with the grace of God, when I look into those eyes, something deeper will have developed inside, something that will extend beyond the temporary and limited measurements of man and extend into something eternal.

The Power of Words

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
Proverbs 25:11 

Some days are harder than others. 

Some seasons of life are harder than others. 

I try to put on a smile and keep my hard days and hard seasons to those close to me as I've never been one to hang out my dirty laundry for all to see. But in the midst of potty training our newly adopted son, I had a lot more dirty laundry than one mama could bear. The potty training also gave me daily doses of dirty toilets, dirty floors, dirty mattresses, dirty hands... you get the idea. 

This was my 8th go-round of potty training. Yeah, I should be so experienced that I could write a book on it. (And if I did, it would have one chapter, one page, one sentence: Wait until they're ready.) But for some reason this round of toilet training was bringing out things in me I didn't know were there. And they were dirty, too. 

I was overwhelmed, short on patience... I was struggling.  After 15 years of having kids in diapers, I went from thinking I was finally done with the waste management of others to being thrown deep in the trenches (pun intended). And it all happened overnight. 

So maybe I wasn't wearing this season of struggle particularly well. Maybe others could see the exhaustion in my eyes. Or maybe, because God knew He sent an angel of encouragement to me at just the right moment- right in the midst of the hard and ugly. Whether she saw it in my eyes, or the Father put it in her heart, I'll count it as a divine appointment. 

I had my new little guy at the post office. We were going in and she was going out. But before she put the exit door between her and us, she looked back at me and asked, "Is he yours?" My son is black and I'm white, so was a fair question but I shrank back as I answered, "Yes", not knowing why she was asking. 

With compassion and intentionality, she looked straight into my tired eyes, and said, " God's gonna bless you for that." 

And with that, my big brown eyes were brimming with tears. 

"Excuse me?", I managed in reply.

"God's gonna bless you. He will. Just hang in there. You hear me?"

Tears escaped. I thanked. She left. And I'm sure I saw wings flash as she rounded the corner to the parking lot.

I left encouraged and full of hope, ready to tackle whatever dirty came my way. All because someone, mortal or angelic, chose to slow down and cast some uplifting words my way.

That's the Power of Words.

One Year Open Heart Surgery Anniversary: An Update

I found this post as a draft that I wrote just a few months after my surgery. (Read on to a more recent update):

"How's that heart?"...That's the question I am getting so much these days. My loved ones all want to know how I'm feeling. And since those who see me in person are asking, I figured I'd answer that question for my buddies who I don't get to see very often.

I. FEEL. GREAT.

I literally feel like I have new heart. What a difference a little plumbing makes, when it comes to the ol' ticker:)

Obviously, my heart condition was life threatening so I'm glad the surgery has eliminated that risk. But life-threatening or not, my heart was giving me problems on a daily basis and it was only getting worse with time. Chest pain and severe palpitations had become a part of my everyday and while sometimes random, there were certain activities that were sure to trigger problems.

I obviously didn't finish or post that update so I thought I'd include it with this new update:


As time went on and more time passed since my surgery, I began to have more issues with my heart. While my symptoms weren't as bad as they were before open heart surgery, they were still bothersome and seemed to be getting worse with time.

After some tests, we recently discovered that my heart has developed scar tissue where the surgery was done. This scar tissue develops over time which explains why I felt so good after surgery but got worse with each passing day.  It turns out that the scar tissue was interfering with the heart's electrical system. This didn't sound too good but the good news is that the doctor had two fixes for the problem.

The first solution is a procedure is called ablation,  where he would go into the heart via catheter, and burn away the scar tissue. But before trying that, he suggested another option: medication. I'm not a big fan of medication but I'm not a big fan of another heart procedure either so we decided to give the meds a try. And...

My chest pain and irregular heart beats are now a thing of the past! The medication has taken care of 99% of my symptoms and all that with no side effects from the medication. I am so happy that I think I tell someone every day about how good I feel.

So here I am, 1 year later, and I feel AMAZING!! I'm running almost everyday and am even thinking about training for a marathon again...  I may be pushing 40 but I feel 20! 

Thanks everyone for your prayers and encouragement this past year. I have been so blessed.


*I also spent the last 6 months having my varicose veins in my legs treated so my legs feel great, too!!(I'll do a post with before and after pictures soon)

Heartbeat

There's nothing in life like going for a prenatal check-up and hearing your baby's heartbeat for the first time. It's awe-inspiring and invigorating at the same time. And after you've heard the evidence of a little life hidden away inside of you once, the promise of hearing it again keeps you excited and focused month after month.

That heartbeat is one of the few connections you have to your unborn child so you listen deep and hard at every OB check-up, making the most of every second. Once the baby is born, however, hearing the heartbeat is no longer a priority because you can finally see your precious newborn. Instead of listening intently to the heartbeat, you're listening to him breathe and cry, you gasp at his every sound and carefully inspect every inch of his tiny being- from head to toe. It's rare to hear the heartbeat again after he's born.

I am blessed to have gone through this mind blowing journey seven times. Through seven pregnancies, each just as exciting as the first, I was able to feel connected to my child by hearing those racing thumps being amplified on the Doppler tool that's on my swelling belly. There was one pregnancy, too- my eighth- that came with all the same anticipation as I went in for my first appointment to hear those heart tones. I left that appointment heart broken beyond repair after learning that there wasn't a heartbeat. So I know the emotions that run with the absence of the rhythm, too.

All this came to mind as I was washing dishes late one night while my littlest ones were sleeping peacefully in their cozy beds. Suddenly it hit me that I had this soon-to-be-adopted son and I had never heard his heartbeat! Of course, I didn't get to feel him grow inside of me, carry his weight inside of my womb for the better part of a year or, with purposeful pain, push him into life and those things I can not change. But his heartbeat? Well, it's been there all along and I had never heard it. Sure, I see the evidence of the blood pulsing healthily through his veins as he plays, sleeps, dances and yes, even as he screams. But I had never actually heard it.

I stood at the sink stunned, dropped my dishes, dried my hands and headed for his room. Tiptoeing quietly, I navigated through the toy maze and made my way to the side of his racecar bed where he was lost in sweet dreams of motorcycles and mac n' cheese ('cause he loves them both). I slowly laid my head down on his little heaving chest and tuned in. Ahh. There it was. That heartbeat. There all along but only audible when I slowed down, tuned in and listened. What a joy to hear it! And now what a joy to know that I've heard the heartbeats of all of my children- except the one in heaven- and I'm thinking that I'll have to repeat this scene with that one too... when I get there.

My Baby Girl

Having a four-year-old girl in the house means...

...someone telling me multiple times each day that I'm "pwetty".

...hand-picked flowers, flowers and more flowers!

... I'm often the subject of large-faced, stick-legged drawings (..."This is you and me, Mommy, swinging"... "This is you and me, Mommy, picking flowers"...)

... I get to hold a soft and tiny hand anytime I want.

... cuddles, cuddles and more cuddles.

... princess dresses.

... I always have a kitchen helper.

... I better enjoy every moment because she's growing fast!

When God Paints the Sky

When God paints the sky... it takes my breath away.

When God paints the sky... I feel spoiled

When God paints the sky... I have to stop what I'm doing to drink it all in.

When God paints the sky... it reminds me of parenting because it all happens so fast and you will miss the best parts if you don't slow down and notice.

When God paints the sky... I see colors that I can not name.

When God paints the sky... I am so captivated by God's glory that I can not even imagine heaven, when God's glory is all we will need for light. 

When God paints the sky... a photo can NEVER do it justice. 

When God paints the sky... it's always better when you take it in with someone you love.

When God paints the sky... I call to everyone  to come see it.

When God paints the sky... I tremble at His greatness.

When God paints the sky... it's never the same twice.

When God paints the sky... it's deep, high and wide.

When God paints the sky... I want to run into it.

When God paints the sky... I thank the Lord that this is the nightly view from my front porch.