Tag: #liveabetterstory

Singing Frogs and Our Knowings

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The sound of frogs singing and crickets chirping always give me a strange peace and unrest all at the same time. It’s the end of April in Memphis; the season is in a state of change while days grow longer, but I haven’t flipped the calendar to summer time. The sounds remind me of new life and not quite there.

Trees have buds, and thunder passes regularly. Life and loud rushing to win the race to humid, hot days by the pool with summer reading, new goals, and more unknowns. Days turning and changing in life often rush loud, lively, but not quite there with every day being full of the knowing exactly and not knowing at all. It is a state of living in the both: and while choosing to turn my face from the either: or that brings me stinging comfort.

I ache for more days with them and long to see the adults they have become. During the summer they change. They change addresses. Some come home, but their home is elsewhere in their hearts. Some make their own homes, but remind me Momma’s house is always close to their heart. Some are in-between not knowing where they belong, but I take comfort in knowing they will settle with their own understanding of at home with themselves in the brightest and darkest places. The letting go and holding on started with their first breaths. It is a careful balance of blown dandelions and firmly planted oaks.

Singing frogs remind me of these moments of choosing and believing that seasons come and they will not overtake us even with all of the dandelion seeds and heavy blowing limbs. The chirping crickets narrow my heart reminding me to see the possibilities with dandelion seeds blown new and sturdy oaks standing with history.

Isaiah 61:1-7
1-7 The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me
because God anointed me.
He sent me to preach good news to the poor,
heal the heartbroken,
Announce freedom to all captives,
pardon all prisoners.
God sent me to announce the year of his grace—
a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies—
and to comfort all who mourn,
To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion,
give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes,
Messages of joy instead of news of doom,
a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.
Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness”
planted by God to display his glory.
They’ll rebuild the old ruins,
raise a new city out of the wreckage.
They’ll start over on the ruined cities,
take the rubble left behind and make it new.
You’ll hire outsiders to herd your flocks
and foreigners to work your fields,
But you’ll have the title “Priests of God,”
honored as ministers of our God.
You’ll feast on the bounty of nations,
you’ll bask in their glory.
Because you got a double dose of trouble
and more than your share of contempt,
Your inheritance in the land will be doubled
and your joy go on forever.
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

A Real Good Story

I spent 2 decades pouring over charts and planning meals and choosing curriculum and new starts and new systems and tiny budgets and to spank or not to spank and far too much fussing loudly.  I still go to church and clean the house and fuss and homeschool and organize and go to therapy.  I travel more and worry about new things.  The next big thing is no longer just around the corner, because I learned for this season that all of it mattered.  The big moments, the laundry folding plans, the dishwashing schedule, the curriculum choices, the grocery budgets, and weird meal plans all mattered.  It was no one big thing. It never has been.  It is all a real good story.  All of those moments and lists and hopes and routines are what meant survival and beating the odds and crossing finish lines to only face the next shotgun start.  I have spent the last 25 years with one shotgun start after another while eeeking over the last finish line and every line in the sand has been washed away just as I was expecting my ribbons.  The ribbon is that it is a real good story.  A story where the bigs are making it and making their way and finding love and themselves and Jesus all in their own relationship to the world.  I am in a new season of watching my own prize ceremony while they start their own races.  I see that I didn’t mess it all up.  Most of the choices were ok.  We are still a mess. We are still safe.  We have actually beat some odds while I was looking for the perfect system of beating the odds.  Most of it came in the next best thing next.  So many finish lines to go in the race. More unknowns than ever and sweating it out with less fear and more wondering and wandering because that isn’t so scary.  This season I think that teaching them it is ok not to know and we really never knew what we were going to do and it wasn’t awful is the best lesson.  It is possible to be as shattered and broken as a box of mismatched china that has been rattled through decades of racing with no direction and fear and still do the next best thing next and love well and serve strong and tuck littles in without shattering them.

Shattered isn’t contagious and it is a real good story.

More than the sun and the stars and the moon on every leg of the race……