Life Is Short. Let's Quit Messing Around.

After hearing that a 3 year old little girl had left this life after a battle with cancer, I crawled into bed with my 3 year old boy and wept.  This week a family lost their grandfather that lived many years in the town where my parents met.  That connection to Healdton, OK flooded my mind with all kinds of memories of days gone by with my own grandparents.  This morning I got a phone call saying one of the sweetest girls I've ever known lost her dear husband to a car accident on the way to work this morning.  They are younger than us and have 5 beautiful children together.  I have cried all day, off and on, for them.  And none of these events had anything to do with politics, a virus, or social injustice.  

I know that what is happening in the world is scary and significant, but even in the face of all these factors, life is terribly short.  Everyday more things get shifted around and more foreboding for the future, but life is still marching on.  That 3 year old boy of mine that I cuddled the other morning has now graduated from a tricycle to a bicycle.  Life is short.  Why are we messing around with so much of this foolish debate when we have people to love and lives to be living?  I may not get to go on a single vacation this year (and trust me when I say we are missing it!) and some of my favorite events may be cancelled, but there is work to be done in the hearts of my children and growth to be had in my relationships.  Sin is still destroying lives and souls still need nourishment, no matter the cause of their pain.  We have to quit being so distracted and realize there is nothing new under the sun.  It may feel like it, but in reality God's seen all this many times before and ultimately told us everything we need to know, if only we'll listen..

I had only met our friend's husband a time or two, but his legacy of being a kind and generous  Christian man is well-known.  The tragedy of such a loss is only out shined by the comfort of his ife security in the Lord.  His beautiful children have been given a wonderful example to strive for.  

Are we doing that for the children and young around us?  With our razor sharp responses and condemning eyes, are we giving them Godly character to imitate?  When we thought this little shutdown and bizarre living was temporary, most of us learned to make the best of it.  Now that things aren't exactly wrapping up in a bow, have you started to get really cranky? I have to work on myself, to be honest.  But, as I am reminded today, life is beautiful and incredibly short.

While our heads are glued to the drama in the screens around us, life is still happening.  Did you notice?  

I'm praying that I will soak in all of the movements of the souls in my home.  I'm praying that we will go on that adventure today because no one knows if it will be possible tomorrow.  I'm praying that whatever is needed to make our souls ready for life after death, that we do it now.  

If you are interested in helping my friend and her precious children, there is a GoFundMe account set up in their honor.

Honor the Past by Honoring Others

I'm not a person who has a past riddled with pain and tragedy.  I've lost 3 grandparents, an uncle, and then a handful of friends, but nothing so personal as a spouse or a child.  This week marked an anniversary of a sweet Roscoe's passing and then we received word of a sweet family's loss of a precious little girl.  Miss Z is just a little bit older than Carly and that combined with my overactive empathy bone, I'm just over here sobbing during nap time.

The pain we endure, directly and indirectly, is usually ugly and for little profit.  I know nothing of a parent's painful loss so I will not pretend to offer some cheap quote that presumes simplicity and order.  I never actually met either child and I'm a blithering mess over them both.  Clearly I've not mastered simplicity and order.  Still, my heart wants to do something and so I write.

So, as an introverted mother who is homeschooling, gardening, working (from home) part time and a lousy housekeeper in the first place, I've seen why moms need a break from their kids.  It is challenging to be everything to everyone in every situation.  But today as I weep for families who have lost, I'm convicted to honor the little innocent souls who look to me and every other adult to make sense of their world.  It's so easy to communicate annoyance to our kids.  They pester and whine and argue.  It's so tempting to diminish their needs or experiences because we have weightier matters to worry about.  They are messy and complicated.  But so am I.

While we have today with tiny fresh souls (or even the jaded, old souls), let's do more than just survive a moment.  See it through the window of the future when, whether through loss or maturity, these trivial moments will cause your heart to swell with yearning.  Give those you love more honor today.  The past cannot be changed, but you can honor it through the relationships you feed today.

Right before Miss Z was born, we planted a peach tree in our yard.  My parents used to have one before their home was hit by a tornado a couple of months before that so we were hungry for it.  This year was the first season we had peaches.  The tree was full and we had already had 5 or 6 - delicious!  The other day I went to pick a few and I felt disoriented.  There wasn't a peach on the tree.  Not even on the ground half eaten!  Apparently, squirrels can and do wipe out a harvest over night once everything is really ripe.  I cried and Mr. Butler was ready to kill some varmints.  The taste we received of the sweetness of peaches wasn't enough.  It was delicious but it was over too soon.  These precious babies' lives were only beginning to charm us with their purity and joy.  And yet.  So, what can we do? What I can do is desperately try to live this way:

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say, Lord
Blessed be Your name

What You Do Matters

The life you are living today is so powerful and may have effects so lasting and far reaching that the direction of families will be changed for years and years to come.  In some ways, that might be a little daunting or overwhelming, but it's not meant to be.  There are a couple of families on my heart right now, one awesome kid in particular that is facing a big mountain to climb.  The struggle and anguish this world often gives us is heartbreaking and ugly some days, no way around it.  Personally, I hate it so much not to be able to heal a child or bind a marriage back together.  With God all things are possible, but His will sees farther than we can.

But no matter what the future days hold, we can change the world today.  Whether it is being diligent to get that trash out to the curb on time, staying away from a drink just one more week, or showing others why the life and death of Jesus matters, you can change the world for good.  And that's what it's all about.  It's easy and tempting to get caught in the lie that we are islands to ourselves or that carving out a picture perfect life is what's important.

The beauty of our world is that in so many ways, it is open-ended.  We have choices, opportunities and at least a little bit of time today.  Use today up for so much good.  Got mountains of paperwork?  Do it with a smiling attitude.  Kids driving you crazy (this is directed at me)?  Cherish the time you have with them.  Absolutely unhappy with your life and circumstances?  Make a plan to change your attitude or direction.  Here's the most important one: Do you see someone hurting and a way to help? Do something.

The life you live today will influence somebody.  They inturn will be more inclined to act or not.  They might conquer because they saw you do it.  Or they might never attempt that mountain because of something you said or never did.  We can't control the choices of others certainly not any more than we can control everything in our own life.  But we know this is true, in giving or receiving: What you do matters.  For good or bad, it's going to make a difference.

Lately I've been more easily consumed with other people's pain and struggles, especially where I could do nothing but pray.  I needed the reminder to live life and spread the good of Jesus in all circumstances I'm in, not just suffer away over the things I can't change.  Whether it is your own personal tragedy/struggle or the pain of others, let's glorify God in all things.  Without that option, what else is there?

Mark 12:29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The New Normal

Has your month/summer/year been a bit chaotic?  Have you seen a lot of emergencies? Maybe experienced a lot of loss?  Perhaps it is regional or something, but all around me has been event after event.  Not all of them negative, but certainly all powerful and overwhelming.  Lots of sickness and tragedies, as well as my own beautiful blessings that find every possible way to make every day feel like its been served up from a blender!  'Normal' life seems like a nostalgic joke or something.

On paper I realize that moving from one kid to two is always going to have this disorienting effect.  It's just like we know that as we get older, things are going to change.  More earthly adventures come to an end.  But despite knowing that, when it happens, we just have a hard time.  If we needed balance before, it's desperately so when our life makes a drastic shift.  So, what should we do - when our world changes and 'normal' may never happen again quite like before?

I'm sure it's different for every person and situation, but I guess we start here.

When parents of your friends pass away much too soon, this is a hard task.  When lives are uprooted in a matter of moments, this is a hard task.  Even in the early morning hours when laundry needs to be switched and a baby to feed, this isn't a casual assignment.  But that is just when we need this reminder to go along with it!

Lots of parents are sending their babies off to school for the first time.  Many people are starting new jobs right now.  And lots (and lots) of us are looking for a new normal because the old one has been taken away.  Whatever your old normal was, I pray we can all find some (no matter how slight) joy in the new normal you're experiencing this season.  And normal or not, hug those that you love.  Smile big.  And let it go, even if it's just for a moment or two.