RESURRECTION

As leaves dancing outside my window begin their glorious transformation I am reminded that before the end of a season first comes this amazing peak of color.  Every single year, the lush summer green trees we become desensitized to boldly transition themselves.  One can't help but appreciate the loveliness adorning autumn skies. Our attention is grabbed as each unique leaf prepares to fall away.  

This is getting me thinking about dying to old thought patterns and certain ideologies.  As my mind is transformed to one filled with grace, I hope to throw off the camouflaged same ole guilty green.  Opening up the sails of my heart to God's perfect love that is carrying me into renewal.  This change is painted in new striking hues of gold, orange, redemption red.  My soul is understanding a new found freedom, a refreshing of faith.  Constant trying, do more, be better, feel bad, beat myself up, repeat-has been a vicious cycle.  For years it was ingrained in my mind, this indoctrination of being good, holy, righteous.  And when put into place in my life, never, ever achievable but always landing me flat on my face in a pile of either guilt or self-righteousness.  This light bulb popping bright in the depth of my being shines truth that my works are filthy rags.  And  in knowing this fact there needs to be a death to a big part of who I have been striving to be.

"Nothing makes you feel deader than the death of desire.  If yours is dead, you are on the cusp of resurrection." (Sarah Bessey)

I am open, letting go of these chains that have held me back and what a glorious bright, bold place it is to be.  I no longer desire to earn it, goodbye to the pleasing...
The leaves are turning their chameleon colors in my heart as I tune my ears to heaven.  Listening to the still small yet ever present voice of God. Only He has the power to redeem, cleanse, change.

And as these brilliant revelations wrap themselves up around me, I know the next step is a farewell from the tree.  But there will be resurrection. A reviving of the tasting of unmerited grace enfolding my whole being as I free-fall into His arms.     

'Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall' (F.Scott Fitzgerald)

Firsts

Recently glimpses and tastes of heavy emotion have sprinkled into my mundane ordinary.  And these punches hitting hard and balling up deep in my gut surface at the strangest moments.  Big change is on our horizon, in only a few days we will be dropping off our firstborn to live hours by highway away instead of safe and sound a few steps down the wooden hall.  I went to see the new Toy Story a couple of weeks ago and the plot wasn't what brought swelling tears trickling hot down my cheeks but rather visions of my little blue-eyed boy dressed up like Buzz Lightyear marching in his kindergarten parade shouting "To Infinity and Beyond!".  I haven't been a mess. I actually was beaming at commencements because he was smiling ear to ear, that sweet curled up grin he's worn a million times across his face.  Looking at him just made me smile, I was so happy for him.  But these random pricks nicking this mama's heart are starting to feel like more of a deep jab edged in and reminding me that this is the end of an era.  This feeling hit hard at the pediatrician's office a couple of weeks ago.  There I was in the well waiting room not feeling well at all glancing next to me at the curly blonde hair growing all over his legs and trying to hold it in and think of a primary care physician to make an appointment at for next time because well all of a sudden he's sitting there a full grown 18 year old man.  We went into the exam room and lo and behold there was Buzz plastered on the wall and floods pooling up in my eyes and my heart shredding all at the same time.   I was wishing I could turn back the clock and re-do so much with him, go right back there to when he was 5 and dress up like Jesse and be silly and play more and worry less.

Today we went shopping for his dorm room and I almost lost it a few times.  Especially when he pointed out the trading card aisle at Target letting me know that was his favorite one when he was little.  Where did all of those precious Pokemon cards disappear to anyway and why isn't he 10 again?It's all too much to take while pushing my cart filled with bath towels and good Lord I hope he hangs  them up to dry before he launders them at school. I push thoughts of black mold growing and contaminating his and his roomates' lungs.  And while we're on the subject of lung health I make a mental note to send him the latest article about vaping causing seizures. I throw some detergent in the cart and we check out a couple hundred dollars poorer and my mind wrapped up in worry.  How will he manage? Will he continue to be our responsible, respectable, kind, humble boy?  This being a mom business is no joke.  I recall many different mamas telling me their stories through tears of sending theirs off when I was raising toddlers and elbow deep in diaper duty.  I have to admit, my empathy was lacking, I was counting down the hours to bedtime and a quiet house and did not feel too sorry for their soon to be beautifully decorated, calm, empty nests with my own chaotic, toy-filled, child-proof, home at the time.  Looking back, wishing I would listen to their prophetic words to cherish, embrace, enjoy these hard yet fleeting moments because all too soon they will be shopping with you for mini-fridges and first aid kits.  And I really wish someone would've warned me to stock up my fridge with his favorite drinks and journal about those tween years when he still needed me to pour peroxide on his cuts and bandage them up because all too soon it will be my last.

But regret will not win and I will get through this first just like I have lived so many other firsts with this eldest of my three.  We watched his first steps at a young nine months old on our Oriental rug in our first little yellow house we called home.  Next week we will watch him take his first steps of independence into his dormitory, North Hall.  I blinked and he grew up and the punch has hit hard as he takes this next stride toward adulthood but deep down overriding the harsh sting is a true reality that this man child of mine is loved so much more than I could even fathom.  His steps are ordained, every single first by a heavenly Father who holds him in the palm of His hand.  My prayers will be my peace but I will be leaving a part of my heart up in Big Rapids next Thursday, along with some soft Star Wars sheets and a little part of our life-savings.

Tied Up

Recently someone tweeted, "People who tie everything they say, do, post to their babies/children are the most boring people in the world, and that is a fact."  I started to wonder not only if I was boring but also if I did in fact tend to tie that particular bow in my own world?  After some self-reflection and honestly some major back scrolling, my fears were confirmed or at least partially confirmed.  I genuinely began questioning my voice in the world, or at least the social-media platform we all are living with.  This simple tweet I read turned into an actual conviction.  You see, my world does revolve around my children in so many ways.  These 3 almost grown up kids bombarded our lives several years ago.  They turned everything upside down,  twisting our known life into a gigantic pretzel.  A few simple words cannot articulate the magnitude of responsibility felt.  The overflow of the greatest love, physical exhaustion, happiness, sorrow, worry, joy, annoyance, gratitude, guilt and so many other feelings wrapped up all at once.  One moment feeling like you have completely lost yourself to these foreign aliens residing under your roof and the next ready to grab them all up and hide them under a bushel safe from the bullies and hurts of their world, never to return to reality.  Part of the life "B.C." (before children) seems to get buried beneath little league baseball games, dance recitals, carpool lanes, assemblies and daily mundane homework problems.    And sometimes I catch myself, (and my husband does too) living vicariously through them.  But not only with their achievements or successes but also in their tears and broken hearts.  I've noticed, parenthood rekindles our childhood constantly, the good, the bad and all of the other stuff in between. And living through this, raising up these pieces of your soul, it is extremely hard to even have a conversation without including an actual physical and emotional part of yourself.  Sometimes I feel like a stranger wondering where my pre-kid self has vanished off to...maybe I lost her at the hockey rink, I may have shivered her off underneath the broken heaters at the ICE BOX, boy they aren't kidding about that name!  But all joking aside, these 3 kids of mine are a part of me, an enormous part.  Trying to untie them from conversations and posts is like cutting out a piece of my heart.  
And maybe I'm just extra sensitive because my oldest is getting ready to leave the nest and take off flying on his own in a few weeks.  But my precious, irritating, beautiful, sometimes stinky, always loved children are a part of my world now and until the good Lord takes me from this place.  So if I'm boring, just scroll down and know I'm still my own person but I have three kids who will continue to be tied into all of my life.