When I'm Starving

I sit, somber, and take a bite of supper. I look at the empty chair in front of me, the one where the father of my children is supposed to be sitting. And instead of missing him, I resent him. I know I’m not supposed to harbor these feelings, but right now it gives me someone to blame for my own deficiencies.

I look around at four little people. I hear their voices with my ears, but my heart isn’t listening. I stare at my newspaper and read words without really comprehending. I attempt to escape my feelings of stolid indifference.

Where is my joy?

Cold coffee goes spilling across my newspaper, snapping me back to a reality in which I don’t feel like participating. A pair of expectant, almost fearful eyes look into mine. I know I should calm his fear by showing grace. After all, it was just an accident.

But I choose sin.

I yell. I confirm to my dear second child that his fear was founded.

I hate myself.

“Why?” I question. “Why am I this way? Why do I choose these sins that hurt the ones - and The One - most precious to me? Why?”

Moments later, boys argue and mini-blinds snap, toppling to the floor. My fury seethes. It matters not that these impressionable souls need to be taught a gentle lesson in respect for personal property, in getting along, in conflict resolution. It only matters that I’m frustrated, angry, exasperated, joyless.

I yell. This time, the filth that spews forth from my lips is enough to make even my own skin crawl.

I send broken-hearted children to their beds, and I feel their pain because my heart is breaking too.

“Who am I? Why am I so out of control? How can I act this way? How will my children ever know the Savior if this is how I raise them?”

My anger fizzles, the smoke clears, and I know what I have to do.

I trudge wearily up the stairs and lower myself to the Lego-covered floor, equidistance from the beds where my wounded victims lie.

I confess.
I apologize.
I sob.
I make feeble attempts to build their souls back up, to reverse the damage I’ve done.

And then I spill my soul and tell them that I wish more than anything that I could be a better mom, that I hate how much I hurt them, that I don’t know why I do the things I do.

Then the knowledge comes pouring out.

First from the left side of the room, out of a seven-year-old’s mouth, “Mommy…maybe you could pray that God will help you walk with the Spirit?”

Then from the right, off lips that are barely five years old, “Yeah…and maybe we should read the Bible after lunch and supper too? Not just breakfast?”

And I remember.

I remember that it’s not my job to save them.
I remember that I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to point them to the Savior.
I remember that I can’t give when I’m not being filled up.
I remember that I can’t grow when I don’t sit at His feet.
I remember that I’ve been neglectful, yet He’s been there waiting.
I remember that I am unworthy of these children, yet here they sit.
I remember that I am unworthy of His Grace, yet it covers all.

I remember. And I resolve.

I resolve to start participating in the Work of the Kingdom, here in my home.
I resolve to become clay in the Potter’s hands.
I resolve to let my children be a witness to God’s power to change even me.
I resolve to accomplish all of these things by doing one basic thing:

I resolve to stop starving, to partake in the Bread of Life as if it is more important than the very bread that feeds my family.

Because it is.

Book Review: You Can Be Everything God Wants You To Be

I was surprised when I received the book You Can Be Everything God Wants You to Be by Max Lucado, because it’s not a full book, but rather a small book full of brief excerpts taken from his book Cure for the Common Life. Despite my initial disappointment, I did enjoy this book. I would recommend giving this book as a gift, such as a teacher’s or graduate’s gift.


As is typical for Lucado’s books, it is full of fun language and wordplays. Lucado writes “Once you know your verbs, look for your nouns.” The verbs are the areas in which you are naturally gifted – things you’re good at doing – and the nouns are the people/things for whom/which you enjoy doing them (people, animals, statistics, etc.). I loved the way he worded that, perhaps because I’m a grammar lover. :) He later asks the question, “When do you look up into the heavens and say, ‘I was made to do this’?” It was great for me to reflect on this question and realize that the main things I’m doing in my life (being a wife & homeschooling mom) cause me to look into the heavens and say, “I WAS MADE TO DO THIS”, even if it doesn’t fit society’s mold. It’s so easy to focus on the mundane and get discouraged. It’s so easy to compare my gifts to the gifts of others, or my accomplishments with the accomplishments of others. I’m grateful for this reminder from Lucado that God created me unique, with a special purpose, and nothing will bring me more joy than to remain in the center of His will, using my gifts for His glory.

Since having children, I’ve hesitated to tell them, “You can be anything you want to be”. It has never felt right, despite the fact that our culture (including a popular children’s program theme song) seems to scream it to children and adults alike. I’ve told them, simply, “If God wants you to do [such and such], then you CAN do it”. This book encouraged me to continue withholding the more socially acceptable words in favor of the words, “You can be everything God wants you to be.”

Disclosure: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze book review program. All opinions expressed herein are mine.

Before & After: Emmersyn

I've got this photo of the three oldest kids, and I love the photo except for the fact that Pierce is blinking.  I decided that my favorite part of the photo is Emmersyn, particularly her blonde tendrils. She was sweaty and dirty, but her damp hair was all curly and girly.

So I took the photo from this:
(Canon Rebel XS - f/9 - 1/200 - ISO400)

To this (using PSE7):

In the original photo, her eyes were a bit washed out because my flash went off for some strange reason. Probably because I had the flash open. Der. So I sharpened her eyes as well. I almost "fixed" her dirty face but then I realized that's part of the reason I love this photo so much. It tells the true story of my little girl, who can be "all boy" when she wants to be! :)

Make sure you check out the REAL talent over at Pixel Perfect's blog hop!

Five Question Friday

I really like doing these five question Friday posts! I like the idea of my kids being able to read these one day to learn even more about who I am apart from being "Mommy". :)

1. What is your favorite thing about summertime?

There's no way to narrow it down to THE favorite, but here are A FEW of my favorite things about summertime:

Baseball games (even though I haven't been in a long time),

seasonal ice cream places (like the Dairy Barn, Jersey Freeze, Kone Korner, etc.)

swimming and water play

my kids' sunkissed cheeks

less school-time (this one might actually be my favorite!)

2. What is your ideal retirement location (if money didn't matter)?
Heaven. And the good thing is, money doesn't matter. Phew! :)  But when we're talking specifically about earthly retirement...I would love it if God called us to retire some place close to where my children and grandchildren are living!


3. Do you live in the same town you grew up in?
Up until 18 months ago we did, and now we live about 45 minutes away. I'm not sure how well my kids would handle living too much farther from their grandpa & grandma!

4. What nervous habit did you have as a child that you kicked to the curb before becoming an adult?
Does sucking on a pacifier qualify as a nervous habit? If so, I did in fact quit doing that before I became an adult. And I just got a funny visual of myself still sucking on a paci as an almost-31-year-old. Heeheehee...


5. What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you while on the job?
Well, nothing super embarrassing every happened to me while working outside the home. So I guess I'll share AN embarrassing thing that has happened to me while on the "mommy" job. The first thing that comes to mind is the time that Xander, who was around 4 years old at the time, decided that he would drop his pants and pee outside. At church. During outside fellowship time. Or maybe it was the time we were at the grocery store and the bag of sugar I was buying split open a bit, and two of my children started lapping the sugar up off the floor with their tongues while other patrons watched.

Mommy-hood is a humbling job.
 
 
This post linked to the 5QF blog hop over at Five Crooked Halos!
 

Before & After: Old Building

A few weeks ago we headed south with the kids and ended up in a town about twenty minutes from our home, yet I had never been there before.  I seriously need to get out more...

This town had some of the most gorgeous old buildings. They're in the process of restoring all these old beauties, and this was one of several that caught my eye. I especially liked the lines and thought it might look good in black & white. I was right!

SOOC (f/13, 39mm)

First I cropped it a smidge, hopped up the contrast quite a bit, removed the color, then added a subtle vignette. All of that gave me this, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

 

 So I added the "old paper" effect to the photo, and that gave me the look I was going for:

I just love the moulding around the windows. Isn't that amazing!? And notice the date at the top: 1875. The year it was built. WOW. The name above it is the Architect who designed the building, I believe. So much history has been made inside those walls!

I'm participating in the before/after blog hop at Pixel Perfect. You MUST check out the talent of these other people. Amazing!

I really have no words...

what my husband is doing at this very moment

Five Question Friday

1. What do you think makes a good friend, or friendship?

Authenticity, accountability, & trust are the most important components of a friendship for me. The authenticity is important because that's where true growth happens, and the accountability is important because I want to know that my friends are willing to tell me when I'm not making wise decisions. 'Cause I make a lot of unwise decisions. ;)  And trust is important for obvious reasons.

2. What is the last thing you bought & later regretted?
Tanning sessions at a local tanning salon that I paid waaay too much for, just so I could get a little bit of a tan for a wedding I was in.

Or maybe the candy bar I bought the other night.

3. Have you ever had a prank played on you?
My kids play little pranks on me all the time, but I can't think of one in particular. The only prank I can think of would be the one my mom played on me almost four years ago. She had completely forgotten about it until I reminded her the other day. Silly lady better be careful about letting her guard down like that. :) Here's the story...

On my 27th birthday we were staying in a hotel in Minnesota after my cousin's wedding. Almost everyone in my extended family was there. The kids were down at the pool with Chris, I had just gotten out of the shower, and my mom knocked on the door and said, "Danielle! You need to come down here! Something's wrong with Xander!"

I obviously went into instant panic-mode, which is why I'm thankful that I was already dressed because I probably would have run out of my room naked. Which would have been really bad, because when I got downstairs, I didn't even notice the slew of my relatives sitting there. I was trying with all my might to spot Xander, and I finally found him. And he was fine. Just fine.

And then all of my relatives broke out into a chorus of "Happy Birthday to you....."

And then I realized I had a towel on my head and no makeup except for the mascara smeared down my cheeks.

And then I swore to myself that I would, at all cost, get revenge on my mother one day.
I'm still scheming.
Ideas are welcome and encouraged.
Thank you.

4. What is your favorite theme park?
Hmmm...well I haven't been to very many theme parks, but I remember how much I loved Worlds of Fun. In fact, we're going to Worlds of Fun & Oceans of Fun at the end of July (at the expense of my husband's boss! Yay!), so I'll call those my favorites. :)

5. Have you ever seen someone else give birth?
Not in person. I used to think I wouldn't want to, but after giving birth four times now, I think it would be very cool to be a witness to such a miraculous event. So many emotions. Wow.


"Five Question Friday" is hosted by Mama M. It's fun!

sad but true

Courtney over at Storing Up Treasures posted this article she found, and I find myself feeling so sad that it is so true. It is written by someone of a different faith than my own, but the article is still true. Let me know what you think! I'm mulling over a post about my own thoughts... :)

A funny thing happened to me the other day when my wife and I had, thank God, another baby (a boy). Many of my friends didn't seem all that happy for me. Sure, they went through the motions of smiles and congratulations. But it was evident that many thought me insane. Why would a young man and his wife ruin their lives with eight children? Who could afford the Jewish day-school bills? Didn't we want to live life a little, and not just be burdened with kids?


It got downright surreal when a European film company, pressed me, while my wife was in labor, to finish shooting a segment that had an urgent deadline (I obviously told them they were insane). And the next day, I was mildly criticized by a Jewish organization which was supposed to be hosting me for a lecture for having to cancel on them because the lecture clashed with the baby's bris.

I don't mind that the world doesn't really love babies, just that it pretends to. It's time we got honest about our priorities. Most people get a new car every two or three years, but one or two babies through the life of their marriage is plenty. You can get drunk on an airplane, laugh hysterically with your mates, and still not really anger people. But if you dare bring a crying baby on board you will be given malicious looks as if the little thing is a package that ticks. If you walk your dog along the street, people will stop you to tell you how cute he is. If you walk down the street with a baby, you might find a woman or two who coos, but for the most part, you'll be utterly ignored.

Indeed, the contempt shown to parents of many children is the last acceptable prejudice in our society. As a father of a large family, I find myself apologizing wherever I go, as if I committed a crime. The frequent and loaded stares from scornful onlookers imply that the famine in Africa was caused by my selfish insistence on overpopulating the earth. Long ago my wife and I discovered that few hotels were prepared to accommodate so many children, even if we took three of four rooms, which is why we bought an RV for travel.

How strange to live in a world where loving children casts one in infamy. Having a family with many children implies a backwardness and primitivism that is deemed unbecoming in the developed countries of the West. Large families, it is thought, exist only among religious weirdoes or the teeming hovels of the Third World.

Rich countries, by contrast, prefer to increase their standard of living rather than the number of the living. Looking at Western birth rates for the year 2001, the United States averaged only 14.2 births for every thousand Americans, and the birthrate among white Americans is so low that the United States will soon lose its white majority. Indeed, one can go for days in a wealthy city like Manhattan without encountering a single pregnant woman. Riches and children have become inversely proportional such that the more of the former, the less of the latter.

Hence, the high birth rates of extremely poor African nations like Uganda – at 47.52 births per 1,000 – or Niger with 50.68 births per 1,000, are deemed to be prime causes and indicators of their penury. The abundant fertility and unconstrained sexuality of these countries confirms the unspoken Western mindset of these country's inhabitants as being just one step above savages. Contraception has become a synonym for civilization.

A Christian mother of six once wrote to me, "I find it troubling to worry about getting pregnant again ... because I don't want to face the criticism of friends and family. Why do people not see children as a blessing?" A fair question which deserves a fair response.

Why is it that even many synagogues today are not children friendly? Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?

Let's not finesse the response. We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings who are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off to the idea of more dependents who consume resources. And a world that mistakenly believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who "tie you down."

They can go fly a kite.

By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free. I work hard to support a large family and I give up no pleasures in doing so because my children are my foremost pleasure.

I am often asked by women dating men how to tell whether they are marriage material. I tell them, "See if he enjoys children." A man who loves children is playful. He will spend his life joking with his wife because he loves to see her laugh, and will flirt with her because he loves to see her smile.

There was a time when husbands and wives worked hard to ensure they could afford the blessings of a large family. Today, the higher your earning bracket the fewer children you have, but then we always knew that many turn money from a blessing into a curse.

Before he died, the Lubavitcher Rebbe launched a campaign asking parents to have one more child than they originally planned. It is a campaign that a dwindling Jewish community should revive as it continues to disappear.

Posted: March 02, 2006
1:00 am Eastern
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
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