The reverence of remembering and reflecting...

    
 Last weekend, husband and I had the honor of fellowship with husbands and wives whose marriages reflected glory.  We are a team of marriage mentors...guiding, encouraging, and inspiring those who come behind us.

We are NOT perfect in any sense but we were all perfectly planned to join together that which no one should put asunder.

Husband and I are humbled, being the least experienced, least learned, so maybe the most challenged within this circle.

So, we easily stand to gain, grow, and glean from these marvel of mentors in marriage.

As I listened and learned as each spoke in turn, I realized the art, their art...that what they have practiced all these years together in their union.

They each remembered and reflected on the reminiscent.  It was lovely...

Dave remarked he married "up" when he married Mary.

Terra reflected on Jeff''s first invitation...it happened to be on Valentines Day.  So timely...yet unplanned.

Paul and Peggy reminisced of the basketball game after vows exchanged...then chuckled together...delighted.

Rob and Betty roared in laughter as they remembered the wedding gift...burial plots.

Rich beamed in reverence as he admitted he married the Beauty...in every sense of the word.

I remembered the boy I fell weak in the knees and madly in heart...charming, chivalrous courtship.

Ahhhh...I see...

                   ...the value of reminiscing, reflecting, and remembering
                   ...wraps the years in reverence.
                      

Love letters for Valentines

When I wrote my first love letter, I was 18 years old.  I didn’t know that my first love letter would be one of many written every day for a whole year and beyond.  And that the one whom I would write several thousands of miles away would be the one whom I would marry.  I just wrote and wrote and poured out my heart on pages with words...until my heart was completely poured and completely his. 

When God created the Heavens and Earth, He spoke…with one word of his breath it came to be.  With word upon word, you can “agitat molem” move mountains…with the faith of a mustard seed.  With words you can build and encourage…

…and sadly, you can tear down.

So with every word I breathe, I have a choice to build or tear down.  What will you choose?  Will I take this Valentines Day and every day for that matter to speak words that build and encourage…I'm reminded that encourage means to bring courage.

Praying my words as wife builds and speaks courage to my husband as love letters.

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." Proverbs 14:1

What I commit to do the year of the Rabbit...

          
           For the very few...and I'm sure very few... of those I know that follow my ramblings, you'll know that I seem to be very inconsistent in "blogging" and that I follow really no theme or purpose...therefore, they are all truly random ramblings but random ramblings that I care enough to record and remember.

           I started to blog because I always seemed to have a sweet story to share or funny tale of adventure usually about my four rambunctious, rowdy rugrats.  I hate name calling...I really do...but I thought that I throw in "rugrats" because in this case:
           it's one, used as a term of endearment and
           two, it fits this "alliteration".

          An alliteration is a phrase with words that start with the same sound...not necessarily the same letter, but same sound.  Just like the phrase "rambunctious, rowdy, rugrat".   And, oh I love my rugrats.

          Anyway, as I mentioned, I always had something to say or some chuckle to share with my husband in the middle of our days. One very busy afternoon, he asked me kindly and lovingly to write about it and assured me that he would take the time to read it when he got home.  I know that he's very busy at work.  He works at Intel as a project manager and can be in three different countries in one day...not necessarily physically but virtually.  He is always so polite and considerate with me but sadly, may never really count on the fact that I might take his suggestion.

But in this case, I did.

He was surprised.

And that's how I started blogging...upon my husband's suggestion.  See, husband dear, I do listen to you.

          So, being in the first weeks of the year, I've committed to blog at least once a week.  C'mon, this is a huge step for me...You see, I'm a bit cyber-shy and two, I've never been much of a writer, let alone, a blogger.  But with noble efforts to record and remember the random ramblings of my rambunctious and rowdy rugrats, I endeavor to visit here more often.  Here's to the year of the Rabbit in 2011!

When moms embarrass their teens…

First day of school after a long holiday break…first morning, first rising, and first moments into the break of another stretch of school.  How would one expect to greet such a moment?  With ecstaticism, joy, and elation?  Or mope, drudgery, and gripe?  Or instead how about a heart of hope of good things to come?

Sadly, I lacked the heart of hope as I awoke to greet my son with a barrage of inquiries and annoyances…of what he forgot to do or neglected to do. 

Yet, I forgot about the great weekend we enjoyed and that Friday, New Years Eve night.  You see, we punctuated our year with time at Avamere Retirement Home.  The boys had the best performance…ever, over the coarse of the 6 years we’ve served.  Despite Margaret taking her teeth in and out of her mouth and twirling it in the palm of her hand next to him, Jeremy remained laser-focused on the score of the music and continued “without skipping a beat.”  The audience was captivated, engaged, and delighted by these young boys who filled the space with Gershwin, Beethoven, Chopin, Pachabel, Bach, and others.  I was impressed. 

But the Mom’s morning greeting reflected the mood of the Monday with drudgery and pessimism. 

“Did you get your chore done last night?”  “And what about vacuuming the foyer?” “Jeremy, I told you to pick up your socks…didn’t I?”

Why didn’t I think about saying this instead?...

“Good Morning Jeremy.  We sure did have a great Christmas break.  I hope you have a great start to your day.  When you get back from school, let’s talk about some of the chores we can do…and maybe together.  By the way, I’ll miss you today because I sure did enjoy you at home these last weeks.”

There!  That would have been a better start.  But it didn’t happen that way.  So conviction set in and a mom had to do what a mom had to do.

I packed up the youngers and headed back to the middle school.  Checked in at the front desk and headed for the lunchroom.  Yet even within the sea of teens, I spotted him right away, smack in the center of the lunchroom.  I shuffled over, hesitating for fear of embarrassing this young teen.  You know how teens are and especially with their parents.  Dare they be seen with us? 

But the school secretary encouraged me that mothers were suppose to embarrass their teens and I decided that temporary embarrassment would be trumped by a humble apology.

“What are you doing here?” with a surprise inflection and startled look in his wide eyes.  Not accusatory, just surprised.

I bent close to his ear and held his shoulders firmly yet lovingly and whispered so no one would hear, “I’m sorry about this morning.  Will you forgive me?”

“Forgive you…uh, for what?  But yeah, I guess.” Still startled and wondering.

I handed him a little baggy…inside, two pieces of bite-sized Milky Ways and one fun-sized Million Dollar Bar, left over from Halloween…convinced that sometimes even sugar and sweet can minister to a growing teen.

But also included in the baggy, a little note from mom.

Still holding his shoulders firmly yet lovingly, I gave him a squeeze, kissed his temple, turned and walked away with three littles following close behind.

When he arrived home, I apologized again.  Yet again…

“I’m sorry that I embarrassed you by coming to your school and dropping off treats.  I guess I could’ve waited for you to come home.  Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Yeah, ok.  I forgive you.”  And that was it.

Five minutes later.  “Mom, you actually didn’t embarrass me.  I, uh…(pause, pause) kind of liked it.” 

“You did?” I squeeked, surprised beyond the moon.  “But what about Ryan.  When I said hello to Ryan, (his friend sitting next to him) he seemed embarrassed that I said hello.”

“Yeah, he was, but I wasn’t.  I actually wanted to…err…brag.”  “Yeah, brag.  I wanted to say, hey, look everybody, my mom’s here! Because I was happy to see you!“

He was happy to see me. 

My teenager was happy to see me.

By the way, here’s the note I left in the baggy:

To my son, the one whom I loved the longest, the one whose

birth I anticipated with the greatest of heart and who first

 gave me the title of mother,

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ Jeremiah 31:3

I love you dearly, my son.  Love, Mom

So glad I decided to embarrass my son that day. 

For the One who gives breath...

Today, first Saturday after Thanksgiving, as tradition holds, we headed to the tree farm.  It isn't always the same one...the tree farm, but it's always a farm and never a lot, a tree lot that is.

The drive was winding and swerving through the hills of North Plains, several miles from where we lived.  Forests and fields filled these soft farmlands with familiar comfort and majestic awe.  I always love this drive and love the fact that its only minutes from our home, close enough to regard it as home.

The air was stiff with chill and we were still recovering from below freezing temps from the days prior.  We finally landed to our destination and all filed out with hand saw and bundles of coats, jackets, and hats.

But this particular day, I wondered if I had bundled them tightly enough.  The poles seemed to squeeze more tightly upon us, and I realized why I never got into snow skiing.  By the way, I love to water ski and basically "popped" up upon my first try...at least that's what I remember.  But I wondered if I ever would take up snow skiing...ahh, I'm reminded now.

And on this particular day, Gabriel skipped along the path and then stopped short in his step.  He searched around and realized the air around him had seemed a bit lower and a bit heavier than he remembered.  And he noticed something he had never noticed before.

Then I giggled to myself as I marveled over his marvel.  In his pause, Gabriel gasped and blew out...gasped and blew out...then wide eyes watched what floated gently from between his lips.  Soft puffs of white streamed sweetly and dissipated magically away.

Ahh...Gabriel had discovered his breath.  And, I, in that moment, gave thanks for the One who gave him his very breath.

.

Runaway

Well, I almost did, but I didn't, but I threatened to...


Ok, I threatened to run away tonight.  Yes, run away.  No, I'm not a feisty, rebellious teen bucking rules, order, and everything "parent".  I'm a 41 year old  SAHM.(Stay at home mommy)  No, I'm not hormonal, at least not right now.  And, no, I'm not in any danger, threat, or duress.  I've just had it to here. (pointing my arms above my head)...


Ok, I realize my threat was idle, but it was there.  I just needed a break...and a girl needs a little appreciation.


See, I can talk about it right now because my wise and peace-making husband can diffuse any of my myriad of emotions.


So, here's what happened...


I've got it all planned out.  By the way, I'm a planner, an organizer, and my pantries and linen closet are the organization gestapo.   That gives you a flavor of the OCD tendencies I've prayed, agonized, and wrestled with.  And, now I've actually come to terms with this shortcoming and have embraced it with zeal...


So, in character, I've decided to plan Advent events for the family for the next month.  The first one began today.  With tradition, we loaded the Suburban (that doesn't seem big enough for my brood of boys) with matching button down shirts, cameras (three of them), tripods, snacks, books, balls, and boys.  Off to the Pittock Mansion for our annual Christmas picture session in picturesque Pittock nestled in the Northwest valley with the winding Willamette below.   Ahh, doesn't that sound so Norman Rockwell?


Little did I know...with all that we brought, we also tucked in some grumble, complaint, and nag.


"Mommy, are we done yet?"


"How long will this take?"


"I don't look good in this shirt!"  "I'm hungry!!"(By the way, they're always hungry; they're boys.)


"My feet hurt!"  "My nose itches."  "But we just took 30 pictures."  "Do I have to?"


So, here we are taking happy? pictures....you get the picture.  If you have a household of children, you've probably experienced a scene like ours.  If not, tell me how you do it:)


So, at the end of our jaunt, I calmly and stoically announced to my dear, sympathetic husband that I was running away.


"Running away?" he asked.  "From what?"


"Oh, my love, I think you know."


We bantered back and forth about the pros and cons of me running away.  He finally convinced me that I could, if I wanted to...


...and so I did.  I ran away for the night...into the other room, my office.


I had a lovely evening.   And reflected on the sweet moments we had at Pittock tonight.


I love my boys, my husband...and wouldn't dream of being anywhere else right now but home.





No other place, but home

Soli Deo Gloria...

Thanksgiving #40 Thanksgiving Day


               Soli Deo Gloria...For the glory of God, His Glory Alone.  I am humbled, awed, and grateful.

"Enter the Lord's gates with Thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and Praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."  Psalm 100:4-5