Coffee Break

I am troubled by the paradox of loving my kids with painful intensity, while longing for the peaceful times before my house was filled with their noisy existence. As Hannah chases Ben in screaming circles around the living room, I try to focus on the slow sipping of my coffee, inhaling its welcome fragrance, like the comforting presence of a faithful friend. I miss the days when I could curl up like our cat in the sun, savoring my coffee and the silence of the morning… Ah, but like so much of my life, I only truly appreciate the silence in its absence. Long days alone in a quiet house once left my heart feeling like an empty cup – nice enough, I suppose, but so much better when full of my favorite brew. These days, my cup is filled to the brim with noise, just a touch too full for my liking. I can’t quite squeeze in as much cream and sugar as I used to. And some days, even a loud radio can cause my cup to overflow, and I spill a little of my own noise out onto my poor kids…

“I know you like the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” but can’t you sing it a LITTLE softer. And can’t you find a new song after you sing that one a HUNDRED times?”

“Yes, I know your screams are playful and that your fun can’t help but overflow in raucous laughter… but can you laugh a little more quietly PLEASE? Mama has a headache!”

As I drain the last few swallows out of my cup of coffee, having enjoyed as much of a break as I get these days, the empty cup looks achingly sad. How long until my home is empty again, with only my memories of their heartwarmingly joyful and dramatically distraught noise remaining like the dregs of coffee in my once overflowing cup?

Creative Birthday Party Ideas

Some of my best birthday memories as a child include the creative parties my mother used to plan. Instead of simply purchasing supplies from a party store, she used our birthday parties as a chance to be creative and to encourage creativity in her children. Original party ideas not only stand out, but also usually cost less than parties using standard supplies.

Listed below are just a few ideas to get your creativity flowing.

1) "The Hungry Caterpillar" (book by Eric Carle) Party:

• Bake a cake using a bundt pan. Be sure to follow the bundt cake instructions on the back of the box of cake mix. Slice the cake in half and line up the edges to form an "S" shape. Decorate with red and green icing to look like the "Hungry Caterpillar," and use pretzel sticks for the antennae and legs.
• Make sugar cookies in the shape of the caterpillar’s food. Before baking, poke a hole in each cookie to make it look as if the caterpillar has eaten through it. Decorate with icing or paint with food coloring.
• Serve food items from the book, such as watermelon, ice cream cones, cupcakes, and pickles.
• Make a centerpiece by placing one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges on a nice platter.
• Write "But he was still hungry...," on the edges of paper plates and napkins.
• Decorate the walls with pictures of butterflies.

2) Construction Party:

• Decorate with small orange cones (like the one that kids' soccer teams use for drills), and use yellow caution tape instead of streamers.
• Place food, plates, napkins, or silverware in the back of a Tonka dump truck
• Crumble Oreos on top of the cake, and decorate with toy construction trucks. Make a construction site by shaping crumbled Oreos to look like rock piles, making "roads" in the icing with a knife, and using pretzel sticks to look like logs.

3) Princess party

• Have guests to come dressed in pretty dresses, and make paper crowns for each child to wear. Or, have the guests decorate their own crowns with glitter and rhinestones at the party.
• Make a castle cake by baking a sheet cake, cutting it in half, and piling the two layers on top of each other with icing in the middle. Ice the cake and use iced sugar cones as turrets. Decorate with gumdrops or other candy.

4) Candyland party

• Make grab bags containing the candy and treats from the board game.
• Use colored construction paper to make a multicolored path around your house, even on the walls and ceiling, as a decoration.
• Make a Candyland cake. Bake a sheet cake and frost it with white icing. Use sweet tarts or other colorful, flat candy to make the path. Place candy canes, gumdrops, and other candy around the board in the appropriate places.
• Make placemats that look like game cards. Glue one or two squares of colored paper in the center of a larger sheet of white paper. Laminate, if desired.
• Play Candyland!

Above all, have fun! With just a little creativity, you can design an easy, inexpensive birthday party that your children will never forget.

I am an artist

I am an artist. Made in the image of the Creator, creating deeply satisfies me. I delight in stringing together words to create a beautiful thought, picking out an original melody on my guitar, and delicately transforming the strokes of a pencil in my sketchbook into a lovely image.

Ah, but now I am a mother, with little time to pursue my passion. Must my artist’s heart give way to the demands of motherhood?

No, motherhood has merely changed and shaped the artist in me. My new sketchpad is often a Magna Doodle, and I delight my preschoolers with my masterful drawings of shapes, animals, and characters from their favorite books. I make music on a green plastic recorder as my toddler squeals and dances around the living room. I create activities and metaphors to teach my children about life and about the Master Artist who loves them and put the spark of creativity in their own hearts. And, I praise their beginning attempts at exploring their own inner artists.

Yes, even as a mom, I am still an artist, and the lives of my children have become my most challenging work of art.

Enjoying Autumn

Autumn seems like a dreary season. Damp and cool, the days grow shorter, and darkness descends well before bedtime. Plants and trees begin to wilt and turn brown, ushering in the death of winter. I often forget that autumn also is a season of bounty and splendor. Farmers gather in their harvests, and trees display vibrant shades of crimson, orange, and gold. Pumpkins, squash, apples, and pears fill autumn with sweetness and spice. How wise of the Creator to bestow autumn with brilliance and bounty, one last hurrah before the winter freeze! He gives a season of plenty to provide for the barrenness of the months ahead.

So many times in my own life, a "mountaintop experience" precedes a long period of trials. That season of goodness contrasts sharply with the difficult days that follow it, and I often wonder why the vibrant and showy times cannot last forever. Perhaps that season of excitement and splendor prepares me for the winter in my life. The harvest of fruit that I reap in such times provides nourishment and encouragement for my spirit during the season of barrenness.

I am learning that autumn is a season both of delights and preparation. Now, when the colors in my life become dazzling, I know to store up truths about the brilliance and goodness of my Creator to feast on during the times of trial that surely will come. But, I have learned one other important lesson.

The autumn harvest also produces seeds, and although they lie dormant through the frost, the seeds of autumn burst forth into new life at the first sign of spring. What a blessing to know that the seeds of faith scattered in the fall survive the cold and produce life once again!

So, now, instead of simply dreading autumn as the precursor to a long, dreary winter, I rejoice in the bounty and beauty God has given me to sustain me through any hard times ahead.

What a tragedy

To a two-year-old, everything is a tragedy. A lost sticker, the last sip of milk, the cat sleeping in "her" chair, and her brother drooling on her toy all provide sufficient cause for my daughter to erupt into a violent storm of tears and fury. Though I empathize with her frustration, at times I chuckle at the insignificance of the event which precipitates her tirade. If only my biggest frustrations involved drool or toys, problems I could easily remedy...

So many times, though, my anger and frustration rise over similarly insignificant events. My daughter wets the bed or deliberately spills her milk. My son spits up all over the carpet or cries when he should sleep instead. We run out of milk, or I open the cabinet and several cans fall on the floor for the third time that day. My heart begins pounding, my head aches, and my patience begins to wear very thin. Do any of these events genuinely matter in the long run?

Our compassionate Father must chuckle sometimes, wondering at our lack of perspective. Imagine losing a Son, executed for a crime he did not commit. Imagine trying to save a loved one's life, only to have that help rejected, resulting in that person's death. And I get angry over wet sheets and spit up.

As my daughter learned to say, "Mama, don't cry over spilled milk."

Raining Inside and Out?

A gray drizzle and a gusty breeze outside remind me more of a fall day than the middle of July. I pull my blanket tighter around my shoulders, sip my tea, and enjoy the warm yellow glow of the lamps in my living room. The light notes of a classical dance soothe me as I relish the sheltering warmth of this room compared to the chilly night outside my doors.

A week ago, a similarly unseasonable day wrapped its fingers around my abode. This time, however, I sat shivering in a nylon tent, as gray inside as the rainy predawn sky. As I huddled with my family on this camping trip, my daughter announced, "It's raining in my tent!" Sure enough, the constant downpour had found a weakness in the nylon and the rain began soaking our bedding and our clothes. We packed up quickly and escaped to the drier shelter of my in-laws' house.

Tonight, as I sit in my cozy house, I ponder my outlook on life. Am I more like my house or my tent? Does the warmth of joy fill me from within, keeping the dreary rain of difficulty at bay? Or, do life's storms gray my spirit, wearing away at weaknesses until the rain falls both inside and out?

The rain will fall, even in the midst of summer. I have a choice. Will my spirit only warm on sunny days with cloudless skies? Or, will the joy I have come from within and shine brightly as a haven on a cold and stormy day?

A Letter to My Kids

Dear children,

I pray that, in spite of my imperfections, my life may teach you three lessons:

1) You do not have to earn God's approval or love. Conditional love is not love at all. Romans 5:8 says, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us," - not once we had achieved perfection, but while we still sinned. A baby can do nothing to earn approval. Instead, a mother loves her baby simply because he is her child. Similarly, God also loves us solely because we are His children, His precious creations, on whom He chooses to bestow love. He gives it freely, and we can do nothing to deserve it. I pray that my unconditional acceptance of you mirrors that of God and allows you to feel safe in His arms, trusting His unfailing love for you.

2) Learn to speak God's "love language" - obedience. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." You cannot earn God's love, nor do you need to earn it. However, if you truly love God, you will show Him by obeying. Furthermore, just as I cannot neglect you if I genuinely love you, you cannot neglect obedience if you love God.

3) Lean on God's grace. No matter how much you love God and seek to obey Him, you will never reach perfection. Because you are human, "sons and daughters of Adam" (as C.S. Lewis writes), you will disobey God. But, God loves you too much to abandon you to sin. When you fail, you can always rely on God's grace. Jesus died and took your punishment for sin, and when you call on Him, you get a fresh start - every time. He does not say, "But you've done this twenty times before!" Instead, He welcomes you into His arms, wipes the record clean, and sets you free to try again. Never become so bogged down in your failure that you forget about God's grace. Pride says, "Christ's death could not cover my sin," or, "I expect myself to be perfect, so I cannot admit my mistakes." Humility, on the other hand, confesses sin and accepts God's grace to continue living for Him.

I truly desire to model each of these lessons for you, and I pray that when I fail, you will see God's grace in me. I love you, and God loves you so much more than I do.

In love,
Mom

Burning Words (One more post inspired by Les Miserables...)

"The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever." (Hugo, Les Miserables, "Cosette," "Book Eighth," IX, p. 495).

The souls of other people both reflect and magnify our actions. When we delight another, we receive greater delight; when we wound, we inflict greater harm on our own souls. Perhaps even Jesus expressed this truth in his most well-known prayer, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."

What pain I have inflicted on my fellow souls! My tongue lashes out. Set on fire by hell itself, it singes and scorches those who get in its way. But others only touch the edges of the flames, while I am consumed. Those who are burned heal in time, when I repent and they forgive. I, however, can only heal through extensive grafting and painful reconstruction. In reality, I need a new, unscarred heart. Only the most skilled Physician can accomplish such a feat.

In contrast, when my words bring joy to another, how much greater my joy becomes! As music swells when a second voice sings harmony to the first, so joy swells when shared.

My heart longs to magnify joy, not sorrow; to spread the music of angels, not fire from hell. Not only will others benefit, but my own soul will rise in song rather than shrinking from the pain of my own burning words.