For When You Wonder if You're Seen

Photo: Cedric Lange, Creative Commons cc license

Purple and orange cream sliced the horizon in layers as twilight sank into cold winter night. I scrawled a few lines in my journal during a work lull Monday night, before clocking out for the day. Twining the black scarf around me in layers and zipping my red jacket up high, I crunched through swirling snow.

A duo of pecking fights Sunday night had left us hollow and discouraged. My heart was tired from them. Sunday night's family supper had quickly soured, and the intended bonding time wasn't. We spent the evening in different corners of the house.

Monday morning we kissed stiffly and chose to hug, trying to start fresh but still fearful of communication minefields. In my journal late Monday afternoon, I wrestled and asked hard questions.

Because what we all really want in a relationship is to be seen and found interesting. We long to be sought after. And those needs? Your needs, my needs, our men's needs? They are valid and real. And the truth is, our loves have sought us out and found us interesting. There have been times of great connection and there will be again. But in the moment, the unresolved tensions or the lack of quality time together can bring out the lonely and the missing in a heart. 

I crunched through a layer of shattered snow, skidding slightly on the ice below, praying and resolving. Asking God to help me start fresh tonight, asking his help to speak kindly, to respectfully build up, to listen better, and to see my man's heart behind his choices or words, I sucked in cold air and shoved my hands deeper into silky pockets. Rush-hour cars crackled by, and the sky turned pink and violet. Almost unconsciously, I straightened my torso, threw my shoulders back, and took deep full breaths through my nose. A hope-filled peace settled in.

Several blocks later, I stepped over a pine threshold onto a red swirled rug and walked upstairs. My husband smiled and came over. We kissed, lingering.

"Let's go out tonight," he suggested, holding me close. "Let's go right now."

We hugged longer, smiling, before I raced off to gather a few supper items for the kids. Fifteen minutes later we drove on a dark Monday night, eager for this chance to re-connect, to truly see each other, and to be seen. We talked for hours, holding hands across a booth counter still oily from drippy hamburgers, laughing and seeking each other out. Happy peace settled in.

May I encourage you today that our God sees your heart? He knows that occasional lonely and missing ache, and he longs to fill it in tangible, good-for-you ways. The God, whose very nature breathes in rhythm from within a three-in-one trinity relationship, knows you and loves you. He is at work in me and in you, bringing hope and intimacy.

The Other Woman in my Marriage

Elbows deep in a crumpled cardboard box, sitting on the wooden floor in my kitchen, I hear him. Coming up behind me, he ropes his arms around me, and nuzzles my neck. His two day-old beard and mustache scratch my skin, raising a chill down my lower back.

Surrounded by moving boxes towering high and a To-Do list just as tall, I waver.

And this is me, I recognize. This task-driven, productivity-focused woman is the one who wakes up in the morning, sees the jobs at hand, and plunges in.

But an unpacked or immaculate home is nothing without passionate loving relationships inside. A crossed-off To-Do list for a cross family solves nothing. So I'm reminding myself to set aside the lists to concentrate on the loved ones in my life. Sometimes this means a card game over coffee with my six year old and Lego battles that extend across the couch, or longer conversations with my teens about social media dilemmas.

I confess that I'm bad at this some days. Crossed-off items and a clean kitchen seem more outwardly productive than built relationships over the long run. But the payoff of a swept floor versus a sweet family connection is incomparable.

Sitting beside a cavernous cardboard box filled with random kitchen items and the guts of a spilled-out telephone drawer, I hesitate.

"It can wait," I realize and stand.

My husband and I arrange a kids' video for our little one before disappearing behind a locked door. Pulling shut the curtains and turning on the fan, we step in, fully seeing each other, smiling and leaning in.

The other woman in my marriage-- this other personality side of me-- is the fun one, the passionate and people-person one. She is the balance to my driven half.

There is a verse I have been scribbling across scratch paper, taping to my walls, and scrawling across my journal this last year or so. It rings in lyric prayer to me, and it comes to mind this morning.

May the Lord make your love increase
and overflow for each other, 
and for everyone else, 
just as ours does for you. 

May he strengthen your hearts 
so that you will be blameless and holy
in the presence of our God and Father
when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones  (1 Thessalonians 3:12,13).

He is doing it, I see, this God-head whose very Being reflects an interwoven, inter-connected ability to wrangle work and relationships harmoniously. The God of the universe is working in me, in my marriage and family, rekindling flames, making our love increase and overflow. And He gets all the credit.

This same God sees you, sees your loved ones, and can do the unimaginable. Ready?

* Photo credit: Neal Sanche, Creative Commons, cc license.

What You Didn't Know You Knew

(Photo Credit: Juan Pablo Gonzales, Creative Commons, cc license)

Six white crocuses bend and sway in the strong April breeze. We shiver and pull on sweatshirts inside the house, but can't bear to shut the windows on this sixty-degrees-in-the-sun-day. Spring has invaded Minnesota and pasty Minnesotans everywhere throw windows wide, strap on sandals, and pull out last year's shorts. And the brisk breeze lies about the warmth but none of us care. Donning a blue sweater, I curl up at the computer desk.

I've just spent thirty minutes combing IRS websites, FASA college loan pages, and working my way through automated phone services. And apparently, in this several week session between taxes and transcript stage, we do not exist. Automated messages are at their limits, and phone calls end unsatisfactorily. So, I laugh, shrug, and update my son's school.

And in this lull, my five year old and I curl up on the couch with his favorite fleece blanket. Wrapping warm against the crisp spring wind, I set him on my lap, and turn library pages. After books, we mix ice cream malts, and lick Cookies and Cream off the back of a spoon.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you," I sing, while putting away the malt powder. And there isn't really any fear there, but the words spring to mind anyway. Daniel looks up to catch my eye, a smile spreading across his face. He joins in singing, and I grin as we sing it again, adding jaunty shoulder bounces.

"Oh! Can we do my thing, Mom?"

And at first I don't know what he's talking about. "Oh, your Awana verse? Sure."

He runs to his room, returning with an orange puffy-painted fabric bag. Daniel reaches his tiny hand into the bottom of the bag and pulls out a creased book.

"I'm here," he points to the open page. We read his verse for the week. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1). Adding hand motions, we singsong our way through it several times, and speak of stars and planets. I pull out his splashy children's Bible with riotous colors across the pages.

A minute or so later, we saunter away to other pursuits, and I'm struck by a fact. There is nothing I can tell you, nothing I can teach my kids, that is of more importance than God's word. Nothing else is solid, unmovable. Nothing else is stalwart, unshakeable. And those truths that we commit to song, to memory, are what will return to hum in our hearts. 

Because, friends, what we know that we know that we know is only this: God's words are life, and truth, and they last forever. And those words spring to mind at the oddest times. Slivers of a phrase tickle my conscious (...abounding in love...) and I type it into a word search to satisfy my need to know. (You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. Psalm 86:5). Ahh, that's where it is. Abounding in love, and I grin at the pencil lines I've drawn in bouncing jumps beside the verse to help me remember.

Another verse slips in my brain, and I hum it quietly under breath. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. And I'm still learning what a heart on pilgrimage looks like in today's world, but recognizing that we're on a journey with God is step one, I'm sure. It leaves me hungry to know him more.

And fresh air blows strong throughout my house today.



(Linking with Emily.)

Hungry for the Best Day Ever?

 Flaky pastry crumbs tumble off orange-vested autumn color. He eats with a surprising blend of seriousness and gusto. Focused on the apple turnover, he nibbles and chews. Focused on him, I snap photos and realize how this wild love for my son melts me inside.

At the apple orchard, we purchase tickets for a wagon ride, pose for photos next to giant plastic apples and wooden pumpkins, and clamber onto a tractor wagon ride through the orchard. Glimpses of blue lakes, green-algaed ponds, and rows of Harelson, Cortland, Macintosh, and Honeycrisp apple trees lurch gently beside us on the wagon, and I see his face again, serious, steady, a pensive happiness.

Climbing into the car this afternoon before we had even left the driveway, though, he was ready for joy. "This is the best day ever!" he exclaimed. This phrase of his: "The best day ever!" comes up every day.

Pulling up to the kitchen table and seeing spaghetti makes him cry, "This is the best day ever!" Hearing that his college-age brother is coming home for the weekend elicits it --"This is the best day ever!" ("You can pray," he tells John at supper that night, giving him the honor of praying for our family meal)

After small things even: time snuggling on the couch, Lego battles, or even longer conversations, Daniel grins, hugs us, and exclaims, "This is the best day ever." Sighing happily, he kisses us and then ambles off.

How do you live life so free and joyful? On sunny wagon rides in orchards dripping with apples, joy comes easily to me. Or while eating my share of the fluffy frosted apple turnover and watching him eat somberly, the joy is there too.

But to keep that sense of wonder in the kitchen full of dirty dishes or amidst the petty family squabbles? It's a choice, I'm sure of it. A decision to see the good, to grab delight in simple pleasures, and to exclaim it loudly, "This is a great day!" 

Thankful for tangy fresh apple cider, for flaky popovers that leave me hungry for more, for sunshine and warmth on rainy fall weeks, for warm homes after rush hour, for a car that runs, for hot sudsy water to wash dishes, for family and friends, for God's gentle love and patience with us all, for sweet five year old sons, and for the wonder of science and seeds on this homeschooling day, I practice and learn.

Hungry for the best day ever? Take lessons with me from a sweet-cheeked five-year old and take joy seriously. Look, see, count, and thank our God.

(Linking with Emily at Imperfect Prose too.)