Love Is...

When I was little, I remember looking through my mom's wedding album. Interspersed with wedding pictures and invitations, there were little cartoons from the 1970s called "Love Is...".

I thought the little couple in the comic strip was so cute, and they just fit so perfectly in my Mama's wedding album.

This weekend, I thought of a few of my own "Love is...." moments.
1. Love is a husband who takes the bathroom sink apart at 1:00 a.m. because you just lost your ninety-dollar contact down the drain. Thankfully for our budget (but kind of gross at the same time), we have had a very stopped-up drain for a while, so he figured the contact had to have gotten stuck. He was right, and I've never been so happy to find a gunky contact in my life. Such love....

2. Love is spending the day with your family at some of your favorite places. No schedule. Just together.

3. Love is a five-year-old girl who goes to Walmart with her daddy and picks out a necklace for her mommy for Mother's Day. It is a silver heart with pink rhinestones around the edge and says "Mom". And it has matching silver heart earrings with pink stones in the middle. And she gives it to her mommy, thinking it is the most beautiful piece of jewelry ever.

4. Love is the mommy who wears the necklace and earrings to church on Mother's Day, thinking it is the most beautiful piece of jewelry ever. Even if it cost five dollars and very well may cause her ears to have an allergic reaction.

5. Love is my own Mama who lets me spend Mother's Day with my husband and girls and tells me to have fun.

6. Love is an older lady at church who I admire so much, giving Abigail a book about mothers that her son had given her when he was a boy, and telling Abigail to give it to me. And inside was tucked some money for us to go out to eat because she is just one of the most thoughtful people I know.

7. Love is a husband who misses his mom so much on his first Mother's Day without her, yet does about a million things to make it a special day for his wife.

8. Love is a styrofoam cup of wildflowers picked by your daughter's Sunday School teacher to give to all the mommies.

9. Love is hurting for a friend who miscarried a couple of weeks ago and knowing the path she is walking right now.

10. Love is rejoicing for friends who have newborn babies at home right now.

Most of all, love is coming to the end of weekend and believing you could possibly be blessed beyond measure.

Time

Do you feel like you are pushing against time? Either it is moving too fast or too slow for your liking (I think too fast is usually the consensus). I've been struck lately with the passing of time and realizing that it is one thing we cannot control. What we DO with the time, yes, but the passing of it in general, no.

Time has always baffled me. There are some things that will just never really make sense in my mind, but I just accept them. Honestly, I don't really "get" how time works....time zones, mostly. I know it has to do with the sun and the moon and the earth's rotation. Whatever. Other things I don't understand? How faxes work. Why the country can't just print more money if we need it so badly. How Abigail remembers details from when she was two. It's okay if you think I obviously missed some really important lessons in school. I'm good with the not understanding.

I have been learning about God being outside the confines of time. And I think by learning this seemingly simple, yet profound, concept, we can understand the character of God better. I remember Paul preaching about this once. He kind of drew a line with his hands to show Time from beginning to end. Then he showed how we are somewhere in that line. Then he showed how he was standing outside of it, like God being able to look at the line and see the beginning to the end. He was outside of it.

Our church is currently in the process of building. It is seven years in, and we are getting to the point of having to make some pretty big decisions. A friend of mine, a wonderful prayer partner, emailed me the other day to tell me that as she had prayed for our church, it was impressed upon her that God already knew the decisions that needed to be made for our church. It wasn't our job to "make" the decisions, only to discern them from God's plans. His plans had been set for our church before the foundations of the world because GOD IS OUTSIDE OF TIME. He wasn't waiting for this moment, for these few years, to start the planning process. We didn't get the idea to add on to the church and ask God to climb on board. This was part of the plan BEFORE TIME.

My friend Mandi passed away on Saturday from a battle with cancer. She was only 34. She leaves behind a husband and two young kids, tons of family, and friends who will miss her dearly. We don't understand why someone as faithful and loving as Mandi would have to leave this earth so soon. Didn't she have so much left to do? There are so many questions as we grasp to know why. But God...He is outside of Time. He could see before she was born when her task would be finished. And even though her physical task is now finished, we know that God can see all of time....years ahead, and people who will continue to be changed because she lived. Time has not stopped. We grieve because we cannot see what He can.

I am finding comfort in a God of heaven and earth who exists outside of Time. He is not limited by us or by worldly events or circumstances. He is not surprised by our ideas, our illnesses, our questions. That makes me know I don't have to understand it all, and to me, that is comfort.

Wildnerness Mama

Last year, after having Sadie, there were times when I felt a little bit like I was sinking. And that was so hard for me because I had done this whole baby thing before with Abigail. I was crazy about our new little one, and still felt all of those "fluttery, make-me-melt" feelings when I looked at her as I did when Abigail was a baby. There was nothing about having Sadie that made me love my role as a mommy any differently than I did the first time around.

And yet, I felt like life was chaotic, at least in my own mind. It felt like all of the little tasks of the day that should be considered normal were suddenly giants in front of me. Laundry? Toys on the floor? Getting the kids ready to go swimming? Time to feed the baby again? It felt like ocean waves in my ears. My confidence as a mother was plummeting quickly, and I was listening to little whispers of lies in my head saying my home was no better off that day for me having been there.

Then a friend of mine told me a story that has since brought a smile to my face many times....not necessarily because I have considered it, but because it shows the desperation a mother can feel sometimes. She told me about wives of the early American settlers who lived out on vast frontiers....no neighbors, no family, no Wal-Marts for miles. Their husbands would go off in search of gold, or to hunt, or to, um, settle things, and leave for weeks or even months at a time. They were home with kids. Lots of kids. No electricity. No running water. No McDonald's Playplaces. Every possible chore you could think of with none of the helpful appliances we have today to accomplish them. And they would lose it. They would just wander off in the vast wilderness around them, never to return again.

Okay, that is so depressing. And sad. But I told this story to my friend, Angie, and it has provided a quick little synopsis of what we see around us, or even how we may feel that day.

"She just wandered off into the woods."

"She chose the wilderness."

"It's a wander to the woods kind of day."

And we laugh at how silly that seems, take a deep breath, and get back to the (comparatively, to pioneer women) cushy, piece-of-cake work of our day. But we feel a little bit better knowing that we wouldn't really ever wander off into the wilderness.

This morning I was reading in Acts chapter 13 about when Paul addresses the Jews in the synagogue in Antioch. He is telling them the story of God delivering His people to the Promised Land, the lineage of David, and Jesus being sent as Savior. And he said these words, "And for about forty years, He put up with them in the wilderness." (v. 18)

Some translations say "He carried them in the wilderness." But I LOVE that my translation says God "put up with them" in the wilderness. Not because it was a proud moment (or forty years) for God's chosen people. Not because God was pleased. I'm quite sure He was not. But I love seeing God as Deliverer....that no matter what your "wilderness" moment (or forty years) is, God is NOT DONE.

My prayer is for more moms....working outside the home, working inside the home, whatever....to be strengthened in their wilderness moments. To NOT wander off in the wilderness to never be seen again. Let's look to God as our strength that whether you feel lost right now or not, God is a patient God. He can carry us, and thank goodness, He can PUT UP with us. Let that encourage you today and make you smile as it did for me.