When “It’s just a season” Doesn't Cut It

I really, really enjoy being with my kids. I think they are wonderful and I tell them so often.

I cherish these days.

Except when they are fighting or complaining, or screaming because they are a baby, or when all four are talking/yelling at me at once or when someone regresses in their sleep habits, or hits their brother….and then I don’t cherish that so much. That’s just hard. But hard isn’t always bad.

I told my husband recently that within an hour’s time during the day with our children I can go from a euphoric, “Life couldn’t get any better than this!” to a despairing, “How am I going to survive this?!” and they are both completely legitimate and true feelings in the moment. Anyone relate?

I know, it’s a season. Babies don’t keep. The mealtime manners will improve and they will one day want to get up at noon rather than 5:15am, and perhaps they’ll even do their own laundry.

My husband did the bedtime routine with all the kids the other night because he is my hero, and I went out running.

The lyrics to this song as I ran were so good after a difficult stretch of afternoon with a couple of my little ones. I wasn’t upset with them, I was frustrated with my own heart’s response to them. (click play for song)

"Here's my heart Lord

Speak what is true

'Cause I am found,

I am Yours

I am loved,

I'm made pure

I have life,

I can breathe

I am healed,

I am free

Here's my heart Lord

Here's my heart Lord

Here's my heart Lord

Speak what is true"

And I remembered once again that I don’t want to just survive through a season with hopes of something easier in the future. Seasons ebb and flow and come and go but there is no promise that while I’m here on earth that I will move into an easy, smooth-sailing stretch. Some things will get easier, but other things will become more difficult.

Since my older boys were very little I have quoted these words from Jesus, “I have told you these things so that in me you will have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world.”

There’s no keeping them from hardship, so I want them to know where to go when it comes.

I can offer God each day, each moment. Here’s my heart Lord. Speak what is true.

These foundations remain unchanging and, at the end of the day, it’s really all I need: I am found, I am yours, I am loved, I’m made pure.

I have life, I have can breathe, I am healed, I am free.

And the even more encouraging piece for me is next in the song:

“Cause YOU are strong, You are sure

You are life, You endure

You are good, always true

You are light breaking through.”

That’s powerful. God is unchanging, with love more faithful than the rising sun.

So, be it a season, or just be it life, I find the best and truest peace and rest and JOY only in Him, despite the circumstance. And that’s a lot more comforting to me than waiting around for the season to change.

P.S. Did I mention my husband is my hero? He is. Marriage isn't perfect. It is sacrifice and humility and apologizing and forgiveness. Over and over. And there is no one else in the world I'd rather do all this with. We only grow closer as we navigate these ever-changing seasons together. I love life with him.

Home, A Safe Place

“What is home? My favorite definition is "a safe place," a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable.”

-Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life

As we reach out to a hurting and broken world, may we cultivate a nurturing and soul-filling home. It's not about decor or the size of your space, but about the kindness and care that fill the walls. May we ask the Lord to bring those into our homes who need to feel His love. And may we readily offer grace and patience to those living within it. 

NYC: A Tale of Two Cities

The little street near the hospital where our first son was born.

The little street we lived on for 4 years, home to our first son.

A couple weekends ago I pulled a small suitcase through a New York airport terminal headed towards the bus stop. It was a surprisingly familiar feeling after two years away from the city. I was thrilled with the chance to meet Kristian for a quick 48 hour trip after he had been there all week for work. 

I dragged my stuff on to the city bus and found a place to stand, leaving "personal space" at the door. There wasn't a soul in sight who looked like me, which would have made me very uncomfortable eight years ago.

But during our years in New York there were many transitions of the heart that had made the uncomfortable natural, and good. I learned that the further I stretched the borders of my comfort zone, the broader the radius became.

The over-stuffed bus bumped along through Queens toward the iconic NYC skyline. As cabs whizzed by from the airport I remembered how tourists and transient residents, myself included, often had an impression of the city based on the best stuff available. Many never see how most of the population really lives, which is drastically different from the quaint scenes of You've Got Mail.

Nonetheless, the idyllic city scenes were available and for the weekend Kristian and I had the chance to enjoy a few.

It can be a gift to revisit pieces of our stories, the geographical narratives of life that have shaped us.

Our five years in NYC were some of the most significant of our marriage. We formed life-long friendships, experienced new cultures, and even brought home our first son. 

One of the most defining parts of this chapter was the way God transformed our perception of the poor and needy.

It began with a need to form our responses for the dozens of homeless people we would pass each day. No longer were we behind locked car doors, but face to face. I watched and learned from my husband who fearlessly and humbly began meeting needs all around him. 

After the first year we moved into a neighborhood that stretched my comfort zone further than it ever had been. There were many tears. But this was a pivotal piece in our journey and it changed us. 

We gained new perspective, new insight, and new compassion. The girls experiencing hardship who I counseled at a pregnancy center in midtown Manhattan also lived in the projects one block from me. 

We brought our first baby home in snowy January to that tiny apartment. Friends and strangers lived with us the majority of the time. Big life choices were made within those walls.

We lived 20 blocks from New York's wealthiest, and a few blocks from some of the poorest. The disparity was shocking, even when relived everyday on the walk home from work.

We enjoyed much of the beauty New York had to offer - a picturesque cafe here and there, walks and picnics in Central Park on Saturdays, and that glorious New York pizza. 

I had dreamed of living in NYC since I was 13 and so much about living there was a dream come true. 

But I love the way God takes some of our dreams and lovingly redirects them. 

With time, our goals postured towards the American Dream took on a different shape. We felt free to dream not only for our own family, but on behalf of others. Our clenched fists grasping self-made security started to loosen, and the beauty of relying on God's provision was captivating. 

Our old subway stop.

View from our apartment

This past weekend as we strolled back through our old neighborhood, memories came like a flood...

The laundry-mat where Kristian washed our clothes for years.

The hill where I slipped in the rain and still have a deep scar to remember it.

The sidewalk where I saw a woman hitting her daughter. I was shaking, but I did little to help.

Now vacated, the delightful Italian restaurant where we found out the gender of our baby over a delicious pasta dish.

The staircase where we interacted with a desperate girl for years who was caught in a drug-filled, abusive relationship. We offered assistance and comfort but it was never received. 

And we also enjoyed the more well-known hot spots, basically eating our way up the island with all sorts of tasty treats. We explored our favorite old streets and even toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The MET was hosting an incredible French photography exhibit. A roomful of newly recovered images of Paris from the mid-1800's is kind of my dream come true. 

There was one shot in particular that moved me. During this period in Paris, masses of the working poor were forced out of the inner city and into these shanty towns on the city's edge. So while the world saw dazzling development, the more authentic picture was this:

Top of the rue Champlain (View to the Right) (20th arrondissement), 1877–1878 (source)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
Image © Charles Marville / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

"The photograph conveys what one author claimed in 1870, that Paris was in essence two cities 'quite different and hostile: the city of luxury, surrounded, besieged by the city of misery.' ” (source)

And while I will always love the hypnotizing beauty of New York City, with all the opportunity it offers to many, I can't escape the importance of viewing it through a realistic lens. And I think this is the case with any story. 

The lovely and unlovely alike make up the complete, authentic picture.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to have lived and worked in that beautiful place with its contagious energy.

And I'm thankful for a chapter in our story which is marked by eyes opened to the realities of the city, and consequently the realities of the world.