Dear Timothy,

You turn one today.

This year has seemed long in some ways—lots of adjustments, fitful sleep, figuring out how to be two people’s everything. But my how it has flown. The days are long and the years are short, as they say.

It always amazes me the difference a years’ time makes for a little one. You have gone from a tiny, blinking, crying, sleeping, pooping newborn to a smiling, giggling, crawling, playing little boy. Your personality is certainly in full bloom.

To describe you at a year is a touch difficult. If you were a girl I might describe you as dramatic or feisty, but neither of those adjectives seem boyish enough for you. Let’s just say that you are a rascal. Your impish grin, your mischievous chuckle, your playful spirit all testify. You do things to make us laugh and even play practical jokes. Honest.

Take your current refusal to say “Mama.” I have made peace with the fact that you said “Dada” first. Thing is, I know that you can say Mama. I plead with you: “Say Mamama.” You reply, “MaDADADA.” I repeat: “Say, “Mama.” You chuckle. I entreat: “Say Mama.” You smile and shake your head no. Joker. You’re teasing me, I know it.

Even so, if I know anything about you, it’s that you love me. When I appear again after a few minutes absence, you squeal, crawl to me, and demand to be held. When I pick you up, you giggle and shriek and your whole body flails and rocks and bounces. You bury your head in my neck and pat me on the back as if I’ve just told you a good joke. You grin at me, plant a big, sloppy kiss on my mouth, then grin at me again. It is good to be loved like that.

You love a lot of things, little one. You enjoy life more than anyone else I have met (with the possible exception of your Daddy). You love your Daddy, your sister, playing with toys, unloading baskets, putting things in your mouth, eating, climbing, baths, and exploring. Your mobility provides lots of opportunities to explore your surroundings. Though you are not the least bit interested in walking, you find plenty of ways to amuse yourself. You open cabinets, try to climb in the bathtub, climb into the rocking chair and rock yourself back and forth. You even love to dance. When the music starts, you get to your knees and bounce up and down to the beat. You throw your hands to the air and wave them around. Your daddy says that you have developed an air of confidence in the last few weeks. I think you have realized how much you can do and just how darn much fun it is.

I pray, my dear Tim-Tim, that you would keep that unhindered joy in life. This broken world has remnants of glory in it. Your beautiful little soul is one of them. I pray that the brokenness you undoubtedly will encounter will not squelch the joy you find in its beauty. I pray ultimately that you would find Jesus, the source of all joy and beauty. And I pray that I would be faithful to love you toward Him, to show you what his love is like, and remind you daily of His beauty and His love.

Happy Birthday, Tim-Tim!

All my love,

Mama

One.

If we didn't have birthdays, you wouldn't be you.
If you'd never been born, well then what would you do?
If you'd never been born, well then what would you be?
You might be a fish! Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of hard green tomatoes!
Or worse than than all that...Why you might be a WASN'T.
A Wasn't has no fun at all. No, he doesn't.
A Wasn't just isn't. He just isn't present.
But you.. You are YOU! And now isn't that pleasant!

~Dr. Seuss; Happy Birthday to You!

Giving Oneself Over

"To parent, to truly love anyone, is to give oneself over. I’d like to think that this “dying to self,” as my Protestant friends call it, will yield wisdom, a peace-filled spirit. So far that’s not been my experience. So I consider instead the likelihood that without these little ones demanding to consume me, I would consume myself, and be far worse for it.

Still there is the parent’s vulnerability, that we are consumed day after day, utterly beset in the flesh yet too often utterly bereft of flesh. I can spend a full day immersed with my sons, and cook for them and feed them and tend their wounds and wrestle them into bed, all of this culminating in a physical state where even the slightest peep from a pint-sized miscreant seeking a sip of water makes a vein in my head begin to thump ominously.

I can reach a point of overstimulation known only to air-traffic controllers and the combat-traumatized.

And yet I find myself longing for touch. It’s a curious state, to be overstimulated and isolated, overcrowded and lonely, and yet I think many parents have felt it. It’s an argument for partnership in parenting, but it’s an argument from the flesh, rather than doctrine or propriety.

We parents need refuge in one another, to shore ourselves up for another day of pouring ourselves out. We all of us need refuge not just for our spirits, but for our flesh."

~Tony Woodlief

Read the whole thing here.

P.S.

Did I mention that the last month has been a thoughtful one?

To Love is to Risk

"Jesus followers join churches because they want to be like Jesus and will risk loving others deeply. Don't ever deny the pain of this risk and naively think that truly living in community as the church with sinners is easy. Church squabbles do injure innocent people. Church leaders to disappoint when they don't live up the their calling. Other believers do betray trust and cause disillusionment. Every Christian both suffers these pains and causes others to suffer them. To love is to risk and grow through pain, and those who want to love well choose to suffer pain rather than self protect by abandoning the church." ~Mark Driscoll, Doctrine.

To love is to risk. Each of us comes to relationship with our own sinfulness, history, and hurt. To enter into relationship with other broken people is to risk (if not to guarantee) pain.

I believe that we all have both a fear of being known and a yearning for it. God said that it was not good for man to be alone. We were created for relationship with God, with our spouses, with other people. We all hunger for community and acceptance. But I am convinced that however much we want and need it, true community is rare.

True community is more than hanging out, sharing a meal, talking about the week, or discussing the Bible. It is more than occupying the same space. True community requires vulnerability.

It is difficult to be vulnerable with those truly dark places in our hearts. We allow people to come only so far, but no further. We are afraid that if others truly knew us, they would reject us. True community requires faith that others will be gracious with what they find in those broken places. It cannot exist without grace. Only grace gives the freedom to truly be known by another.

Being known is good for us. Our sin surfaces in deep community. We have a tendency to minimize our sin and deceive ourselves in regard to it. Jeremiah tells us that the heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick." Other people often see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Conflict and confrontation in close relationship draws out the sin that we either fail to see or fail to repent of. This confrontation, while painful, refines us. It also allows other people to show us grace, driving the gospel deeper. If imperfect people can bear with one another in love in spite of sin and weakness, how much more a loving and perfect God? That another has loved us in our unloveliness helps us believe that God can and does.

These blessings, however, are unavailable to us if we do not allow ourselves to be known. To love and be loved. That's scary because people are sinners. True community gets messy. But if we guard against the hurt, and don't allow people in, we lose an opportunity to be love and be loved in a way that helps us believe the gospel. In the end, I believe the blessing is worth the risk.

I choose community. Even when it hurts.

Love in the Chaos

The keys are in the ignition in the on position, and the battery's dead. Again. The microwave door is always open. The house is a mess, the smoke alarm is going off, the kids are screaming, and the iPhone's in the toilet.

The chaotic nature of my brain exacerbates the chaotic nature of this season. I'm just not good at this. There are too many moving parts. I was absent minded before children, but since becoming a mother, trying to maintain some sense of order is impossible. I'm going to lose my mind.

And in those quieter moments, I am pensive. I fear what other people think about me. I worry, over-think, wonder if I'm beyond grace. I am high maintenance.

But when I'm exasperating, he doesn't yell. He doesn't get angry. He is patient and gracious and wonderful. He chooses to chuckle. Not a condescending kind of chuckle. More like an "I love this woman even though she's crazy" kind of chuckle. He delights in me and tells me that I'm beautiful. When I'm having another "dark night of the soul," he patiently reminds me that God loves me not because I get everything done (I don't), not because my kids behave (they don't), not because I earn it (I can't), but because of Jesus. He cherishes me in my imperfection. His love reminds me of how Jesus loves me. It helps me believe that Jesus loves me.

I love him. And I love the God that gave him to me.

So Happy Together

I caught them playing together the other day. Actually interacting! They were passing food back and forth; Ava even taught Tim how to pretend to eat. I can't wait to see them playing together like this more regularly. So fun!

"Have a grape."

"Pass the succotash"

"I like you."

"Gimme your face."

Picture Potpourri

I know I've been absent from the blog for a while. In many ways, February has been a thoughtful and introspective month. I simply haven't known what to write. But life has gone on, so I thought I would give you a sampling of life around here.

He has enough hair to mess up!

What happens when I let her dress herself

Ava feeding little Brother. She's a good helper. She tells me herself.

Amy and Jon came up to visit a few weeks back. They had fun playing in the snow. Two weeks after the blizzard there was still enough slow left to make a seven foot snow man, with tons to spare.
I had a little time to spare last weekend, so I got away to visit my best friend and her little boy, born Christmas Eve. What a blessing (and a cutie!)

Shadows of Glory

I believe there is a brokenness inside of each of us that only the gospel heals. There is a sin that entangles, a wound that festers, a history that haunts our quietest moments.

This brokenness is a remnant of the fall. It is, in part, due to our own propensity for sin and in part, inflicted by those whom we have allowed ourselves to love. And undoubtedly also due to the interaction of the two. This past pain and sin can come to define us and shape us if we let it.

It causes anxiety and self destructive behavior. It isolates us. It causes us to hide in our despair. It keeps us from fellowship with God--we either shake our fist at Him or shrink from his presence.

The gospel we need is this: If we indeed declare that he is Lord, we are his children. Dearly loved. Our sin is paid for, and we have been given his righteousness. Our heavenly father loves us, not because of any merit of our own, but because of the perfection of His Son. This kindness leads us to repent of sin, to run to him, because he is a loving father, who graciously forgives. And he gives us a new heart that is free from the bondage of sin. He breaks its power in our lives, giving us the freedom to say no to sin. We will not do it perfectly until glory, but he promises that he will complete the work he started in us. And all of this, all of it, is to the praise of his glorious grace.

But here we are, between the already and the not yet. We already redeemed, but not yet glorified. We have a new nature underneath this sinful flesh. We are broken people, but we have been made new. The flesh still wars within us. Paul says that we "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). If we do not keep our eyes fixed on the cross, we can become disheartened.

For this reason, we need the gospel desperately, not only at the moment we believe, but every moment thereafter. It saves, sustains, and sanctifies. We need scripture to remind us. We need to remind ourselves. We need someone to preach it us, when we won't or don't know how.

I've been a believer for more than twenty years, but I've never been able to get my mind around God's love. I can believe that he would forgive me, but not that he would adopt me as his daughter. In the past few months especially, I have become so discouraged. I feel as though I reached a clearing and have seen how much farther I have to go. I have seen wickedness in my heart, the depth of the sin that I fight to minimize. I have tried to keep the rules, to earn God's favor, but I have realized it's just not possible. My righteousness is like filthy rags. I am like the foolish Galatians, beginning by the Spirit, now trying to be perfected by the flesh. I can, to some extent, control my actions, but only God can drive the sin from my heart. I need Him. That's hard for me.

My spirit is groaning. I want so badly to be whole. I don't like being broken. But thanks be to God, because as I wait here, between the already and the not yet, I have His promises. I have a church who keeps the gospel ever before me, calling me to repentance every week. I have a community of people that are broken but fighting sin together, pouring grace over each others' weaknesses and deep hurt. I have a husband who models the gospel for me, who has seemingly infinite stores of grace, who presents me "without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." And I have wonderful kids, who teach me that it is possible for a parent to love in spite of stubbornness, rebellion, and foolishness. These are shadows of glory in a fallen world. And I am thankful.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. ~2 Corinthians 3:18

The Wedding.

We were just in Dallas for the wedding of Daniel's little sister, Amy. What a blessing it was to see her matched so well. It has been a pleasure to know her, to see her grow and mature. It will be a pleasure also to have her (and her new husband!) just an hour away from us. Congratulations Amy!

A few pictures from the rehearsal. Sorry! No actual wedding pictures. The kids were uncooperative.

Ava waking up from a nap. "I don't want to be a flower girl!"

My handsome men.


All dressed up.

The photographer trying to coax Ava to walk down the aisle alone. Didn't work. Her Daddy had to walk her. But she was still beautiful.




I didn't think I'd see Daniel walk her down the aisle for a while yet. Next time, he hopefully won't have to push her.

Deja Vu

I happened across this picture today:

It reminds me of someone else I know:

Someone has some dominant genes.

Actually, yes.

This morning, as I corrected Ava for whining:

Me: "Baby, I love you, but you're being silly."
Ava: "I'm NOT being silly. I'm being dramatic."

Teachable Moments

Daniel and Ava took the train to long-term parking together yesterday afternoon after we arrived home from Dallas. Out of nowhere, Ava began to quote to herself a snippet of the Lord's prayer: "Deliver us from the evil one." She then asked, rather loudly: "Daddy, who is the evil one?"

Daniel, beginning to feel the stares of those around him, quietly replied, "It's Satan, Ava."

Ava immediately parroted back, innocently, but even more loudly: "Is it SATAN?"

I guess you seize the teachable moments, regardless of who may be listening. But there isn't much that feels more awkward than answering a question about Satan in front of a train full of strangers.

11 months

You are getting to be such a character. One minute a sweetheart, the next a mischievous little devil. Exuberant giggles or flailing and screaming. There is no middle ground.

You are loud. You have discovered the optimum pitch to get anyone to bow to your every whim. You use it when you want to be held, when you want up from a nap, when the food does not appear on your plate quickly enough. After you get what you want, you giggle. It's mostly for show.

Speaking of food--you're getting to be a picky eater. You like a wide range of food, but whatever you're eating must have flavor. No oatmeal, bread, bananas, rice cereal for you. It's chili, tacos, beef stew, and jambalaya. This pickiness, coupled with your love of the dramatic, leads me to believe that you will grow up to be a very temperamental celebrity chef.

Though you can be a little (shall we say) passionate, giggles are your most common utterance. You enjoy life. I love to see how much fun you're having cruising around, looking at books, taking things apart, playing with toys, laughing at your sister, flying with Daddy. You seem so amused and excited about all the things you can do.

I don't say this to brag, but your favorite thing in life these days is me. I'm soaking it up. I know that, before long, you'll be trailing your daddy around the house, fixing stuff, wrestling, mowing the lawn. But for now, you are my little buddy. You love your Daddy and your sister, but you are happiest when you are perched on my hip. If you're not there, it does not take you long to "request" that I pick you up. You make similar "requests" when someone besides me is holding you or if I dare leave you with someone besides Daddy.

In those moments, the intensity of your love for me can be rather exhausting. There are certain tasks I simply cannot do with you on my hip (i.e. chop vegetables), and the volume of your screams often causes spikes in my blood pressure. I would like to eventually be able to leave you with a baby-sitter or at least let someone else hold you. But then you press your lips against mine and give me a big sloppy kiss, and I remember what a blessing you are. I know that I would never trade it. Too soon, you will be too big for snuggles and kisses. It is good to be loved so freely.

I love you, son. I love who God made you to be. I love your big, brown eyes, your dimples, your laugh, your hugs and kisses. I love your exuberance and the joy you take in (almost) everything. I look forward to seeing how God will use that beautiful personality for his glory and your good. But for now, let's just cuddle.

Mama