No More Work

It may not be very spiritual but this gave me a good laugh when a friend passed it on to me. (Thank you Shannon :) I sure spend a lot of energy "not working." What a grand adventure our lives are!

It's Life, Not an Interruption

I am sure our HUGE following (that's right, all three of you :-) have been checking your computers diligently every morning in hopeful anticipation of another post here, and wondering where we have disappeared to. (wink, wink)

We've disappeared straight into normal life. Sometimes in the midst of doing the laundry, sweeping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, dressing children, kissing owees, cutting tiny finger nails, washing windows, making our husbands lunch, actually stopping and talking to our husband, sitting down to read a book to our children, kissing sweet baby faces, changing stinky baby diapers, cooking dinner, etc it is hard to find the time to write a blog post about "vocation" or "normal life" but we're right here living it. :-)

Just your everyday, run of the mill trip to the grocery store

When it fits into these vocations it IS fun to post on this blog - but in the long periods of blog-silence you can know that we're "right there with you", in the same position as you, fulfilling the same vocations, living the life of "continual interruptions", and serving the Lord by serving our husband and children. Peace to you as you are in your home, where the Lord has placed you, living the life with the people He has placed you with.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis

*MY* Oxen Are In

After that last post, "The Oxen Are In", I just had to share the exciting happenings of my own little oxen stall this morning.

I was feeding my 2 month old baby girl at 6:00am, after Daddy left for work. She's a very smiley, sweet baby who still wakes every 2 or 3 hours through the night to eat. Now that's a LOT of special "bonding time". Then I heard my 1 1/2 year old son's cheerful, wide awake voice calling "momma, Momma, MOMMA". Another special experience, since he's the first of my children to wake up cheerfully everyday. Truthfully, somedays I just don't feel ready for THAT much exuberance THAT early, but to continue on...  Next I heard my "just-turned-three year old" daughter moving around in her room.

Her morning ritual is to wake up and instantly begin gathering every doll, stuffed animal, blanket, bottle, and doll brush from her room to carry out to the living room. If she had a motto I believe it might be "start the day prepared to play" or something like that. but to continue on with the story...

I got my little boy up and changed his diaper, and then I thought I'd get an early jump start on the day. (good decision, considering I really had no choice in the matter, right?) so I started the bathtub filling with a nice bubble bath for the kids. As always, my little boy came in to reach into the tub and help stir those bubbles in anticipation for his much loved bath. So sweet.

From down the hall came my 3 olds wailing (yes, she "wails", doesn't usually cry or scream but moans and wails - very unique). I ran to find out the reason for her grief and alas, she had inadvertently locked herself into her bedroom, when she had tried to turn the door knob while juggling all her babies and animals... Now she doesn't know how to unlock the door by herself and try as I might I've never got that little poky metal door-unlocky thingy to work on that particular door so the only solution seemed to be to wake up my oldest, the peacefully sleeping 4 year old girl in that same very room, and have her unlock the door. Sounds like a simple solution, right? Only if you don't know my oldest daughter. She has the amazing gift of being able to sleep through practically anything, and once she does finally begin to wake up it's a few minutes before she is actually a functioning little person. I won't expand on how long I called, sang, and yelled through the door until she was up and able to understand the problem and walk over and unlock the door. Yay! A small victory.

But wait - why is my little boy suddenly SCREAMING from the bathroom? Another quick jaunt back down the hall to discover he had leaned just a little too far over the bathtub edge trying to reach that elusive rubber ducky. He was fine - just standing in the tub crying, with pj's and diaper soaking wet. The second I undressed him and put him back in the bath he was overjoyed and started laughing and playing. In went the other two girls and lastly baby girl, and tada - I had four happy children playing (or laying in baby's case) happily in the tub together.

What an organized systematic Mama I must be to have things going so well by 7:30 in the morning ;-)

This was an extreme - though not too out-of-the-ordinary - morning for me, and once again I was thankful for all the words we hear on vocation. Just last week a friend showed me another quote from the Book "Luther on the Christian Home" by William Lazareth. (same book this post is based on)

"Coming to know and love Christ does not necessarily change what we do, but rather how, why, and for whom we do it. 
~
Faith transforms our occupations into Christian vocations." 

William Lazareth

Since some people asked about this book I thought I'd let you know I ordered mine from Amazon. It's pricey but I think it's worth it. So far I've only read the chapter "The Common Life" ~ I skipped right up to it ~ but I'm planning on going back and reading the book through. (maybe during some of those middle of the night "bonding" times with my baby ;-)

Poured From A Steady Hand

I miss the Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition. One post in particular comes to my mind a lot.  Poured From A Steady Hand. You will surely be edified and inspired to thankfulness. It's a stunningly beautiful tribute to God's faithfulness and His generosity toward us.

Here's how it starts:

"The other day I sat and rocked my baby for an entire hour. My fifthborn--Can you imagine? I just sat and rocked him...." Then further in she says, "So I snuggled my nursling under a fleece blanket, and he settled, and sighed, and periodically shuddered in utter contentment." Then even further in she says, "And I thought, My Life is impossibly rich." 

     

Painting: Sweet Dreams by Firmin Baes (1874-1945, Belgian) 

My Pastor has continually over the years reminded us mothers to just sit and rock our babies and look at them. Enjoy them. Don't be too busy. 

And lately he's been asking, How rich are you? Don't be tricked into thinking about what you don't have and what God hasn't done (that you think He should have). Adam and Eve were given an entire garden full of trees--but what did they think about? The one tree they weren't given. Instead, think about all you've been given, and all that God has done for you. You are very, very rich. As one woman said, "All this, and Christ too!"

Here's a link to the complete post  Poured From a Steady Hand ,  on the CSPP blog. 

(Thank you, Concordian Sisters, and may the Lord bless you.)

The Matching Game... for Moms

Sometimes I feel like I'm playing "Matching." Only in real life. You remember the game where you flip two cards face up at a time within neatly laid rows of face down cards and try to match the cards with their doubles by remembering where each previous card you've flipped lies?

Well with me it goes like this. While taking the laundry upstairs, out of the corner of my eye I spy, under the upstairs couch, the DVD case to the "Elijah" video that we've been missing.
(Good Elijah video for kids by the way. Especially if you like opera. You can find it here or here.)

I don't have time out pull the case out at that precise moment so I move on.

Later, while cleaning my bedroom, I see the Elijah DVD that belongs to said case on the stack of books on the changing table.  The matching game begins. "Oooh! Now where did I see that case? I know. I know. It's on the tip of my brain." I mentally re-track, but to no avail. There's been too much water under the bridge since then. Too much other stuff too.

No match. Try flipping again on the next upstairs laundry haul.

It goes the same with shoes. Oh, there's my daughter's right sandal. Can't grab it now cause I have too many dishes in my hand, and of course, every available child to which I could hand over this sandal recovery mission has suddenly vanished from the room. So I tell myself, remember, it's under the side table in the living room.
Days later, I find the left sandal, in the garage.  But the memory of where the right was spotted or has been moved to since is forever beyond my reach.

Thus it goes.
So you see, moms get to play fun games too.

The Oxen are In

I am no stranger to household messes.  My husband and I had our first five babies in six years. Lots of messes there. Then we continued on, to have six more babies.   Five children plus six more children equals eleven, which equals mess after mess, and messes on top of messes!  Our oldest was 21 when our youngest was born, so even when we had older children that weren't still making messes, we also always had younger children that were. I remember sometimes, back then, I would think of  Proverbs 14:4 (Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox) and I would comfort myself those words.  Not that our children were oxen, or our house  a barn.  But somehow I drew comfort from the fact that all my hard work wouldn't be in vain. Someday much increase would come through those little mess makers. So when this title caught my eye, on the Femina blog, I had to smile. I knew what it would be about.  The Oxen Are In.  Read it here on the Femina blog.

                                                                He looks innocent enough.

                                             

Good Friday

 Painting: William Bouguereau (1825-1905) Pieta

And Simeon blessed them,

and said unto Mary his mother, 

Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many  in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Luke 2:25-35