unedited thought dump

3.05.2016



Our life is in a bit of a whirlwind season. Ben is in the throws of overtime. Our kids are growing leaps and bounds and motherhood is doing its number on me. It is a season of trying to accomplish the bare minimum of food on the table and the kids in the bathtub somewhat frequently. We've got a good dose of hilarity and heavy. Kids pooping where they shouldn't, fights over legos. boogers. crushed up crackers. The usual. Shouldn't be too hard but yet it can be weary. I've all but given up the fight of peanut butter vs. couch. Guests be warned.

We're getting to see why we need Jesus and trying to sort out what we're capable of. It's a laying in bed at night remembering that we forgot something we really needed to get around to doing, and then waking all too tired and forgetful in the morning. Cue the "Just need Jesus & Coffee" t-shirt.

I feel a bit like a chubby little hamster. huffing. puffing. ready for hibernation.

In this season, it's easy to sigh heavy and to wish for a different one. I'm catching myself though. Although the weary is digging in deep. God is near the weary. Of this I am sure.

It's easy to write about seasons, about the blur that they were, postdate. Write about it when we're finally through. When the dishwashers fixed and the kids are past that rough stage.

Right now though, I want to remember the way even my fingers feel weary from typing. I want to remember the way that the mundane feels weighty and the clock on the wall daily can feel even heavier. The way my glasses are smudged and I've got crusty something on my shirt and I don't really care enough to clean them. 

I want to remember this hard, transitional, weird, whatever-this-is-season because it's far too easy to downplay once it's over.  We all have easy seasons. We have hard seasons. My easy, may be your hard. My hard may be your easy. But we all have the easy. We all have the hard. I will forever live my life searching for ways to look you in the eye and say 'me too.' Life is too hard without those two words.

Ben and I took personality tests recently for a thing for our church. Ben and I are actually very similar in personality. Yet, it hasn't always been this way.

For instance, we took a 'spiritual gifts' assessment and FAITH (gasp.) showed up on mine. It's always been on his and it's been the lowest on mine. always. I'm the cynic of the family. Ben has had to talk me back over a few times from the dark side. I, for many years, have questioned God at every slightest breeze. Faith and God and Jesus and the whole lot of it has been hard for me. Why? I think in large part it was a lack of suffering, which allowed me to think I had all my junk together and would be fine if he didn't exist.

But I don't believe that anymore. 

Other than just concluding that God did it (which, short answer, he did.) I think the reality is that God has allowed us some pretty awful circumstances. We've been super blessed with a job that allows us to move, and provides for us during those seasons. This alleviates a very large amount of heavy. I know. But, our marriage and life have gotten to be hit from other sides. Really tender sides. I've told ben before "I would rather anything but x, y and z" and now we've gotten to experience the x, the y, the z.

Funny thing is Ben and I both grew up with parents that had to work long hours and live tight. Money Management is something we both have seen and been raised valuing. Funny how the 'heavy' I feel able to conquer, isn't the heavy we get. 

That's how it goes though. Eh? God often allows us the things that will most certainly break us. 

How's that for prosperity gospel? 

The reality is this, we've gotten to drink from a lot of bitter cups. But as we drink, we see a Jesus who has suffered much. We get to join him in suffering and get to see heaven and earth and us in the context of his story. While it's easy to think that a life of comfort, of a 'village', of a well balanced life is all that my heart needs, the reality is that I need jesus. Not coffee. Just jesus.

The more I get to see him in these weary, heartbending seasons, the more I feel convinced of him. The more I feel so much more tenderly to the outcast, the broken. the more I see myself in the mess the more I see a jesus who saves messes. 

and in that bitter drinking, as we form more into the likeness of Him, I start to see all the sweet I get to drink as well. We've got it so, so good. bittersweet.

In the weariness that he's allowing us to experience with this season, I know, that just as he did previous, he's doing good work. I keep having the mental image of how a rough rock goes smooth with turbulent waters. 

Perhaps the reason why Ben and I are so similar in temperament is because the same waters have rushed over us. Our rough spots have ran smooth and here we find ourselves similar. A bit weary. but more tender. A bit more ready for rest, but both with this wild 'spiritual gift' of faith.

Sometimes we'll look over to each other and say "I miss you." This is a trench work season of working side by side and figuring out parenting and perpetually talking over what feels like life changing decisions. We say those three words because, hidden under all the to-do's, there's these two people that have the same wild love for tacos and love stupid humor.  It's a grasp at our future reality.

I know that there will be seasons when the tacos and the stupidity run rampant. Where we laugh easy and sigh less. I'm determined not to rush to get there. I know too well that the sparkle in the eyes come much like the sparkle to carbon. Under weight. If done right. 

Lucky for us we have a lead who understands heavy. Lucky for us sacrificial love is what we're after and this season is thick with it.

and so we carry on.

But the best bit of it all? The grace smeared all of over it is this: Never before have we been able to say to each other or to others so often "me too."


Note: nakedness abounds at our house with these ragmuffins. So, at the very least, we have glimpses of Eden. Fear not for us. For he who started will be faithful to complete his good work. Of this, I am most sure.



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