Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Dear November,

I thought we had a good thing going. I liked you and your short-sleeved shirt weather. We were good for each other. I thought the feeling was mutual. We had some great times together working, jumping, and playing. Life was simpler with you around. I want you and your beautiful colors back. Is that really too much to ask? Three rowdy boys like you as well. They need you almost as much as I do. They need to be outside to run fast, play hard, throw a football, and tackle in wide open spaces. They are longing for bike rides with neighbor kids, and fires in our back yard. They're lost without their daily collection of sticks, rocks, and small creatures (dead or alive, no matter). They just want some fresh air and to get a little dirty, for crying out loud. It all happened so fast. You were here, and just like a good cup of Chai that is empty before I know it, you were gone. I know, I'm getting a little sentimental in my old age. I know you have to go... I just wish you could have stayed around a little bit longer.

With much love and affection until you come again,

~Whitney

Thursday, November 25, 2010

How I spent my evening...

"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings." ~ William Arthur Ward "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe..." ~ Hebrews 12:28

Going to bed... a little later than I had planned... but thankful just the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Thankful...

Tonight, I'm choosing to forget about:

The turkey sugar cookies...

The pies...

The Pumpkin Torte...

Doing something nice for my new neighbors...

The laundry that piled up over the weekend...

My lost cell phone...

Trey's not-yet-learned lines for his Thanksgiving play...

Traveling with a two year old this week...

The grocery shopping...

The Christmas shopping...

The Lego E-bay shopping... :)

And instead, I'm choosing to just sit still (well, as still as I get... poor Tyler, I take after my mother) and be thankful. Because if none of that other stuff gets done, no one will remember a year from now anyway.

But they might remember if I had a thankful heart.

Choosing to be thankful today. Because I have so very much to be thankful for.

And because being thankful is a choice.

"The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy!" ~ Psalm 126:3

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Friday nights...

This is how we spend most Friday nights now. Not that we were all that adventurous before kids, but still, we might have stayed out past 8pm. I remember when Tyler and I were living in Arizona early in our marriage, both working at a small retail pharmacy. It wasn't uncommon for us to put in 70 hours a week... a great excuse to eat out every night after we got off at 7pm. Sounds luxurious, until we remember how miserable we were. Even though I've only had my nails done twice in my life (one was on my wedding day!), I'd still choose a Friday night with Play-Doh stuck underneath my nails, including the one severely warped by a Chuck E. Cheese bathroom stall door.

Tyler and I were married four years before we had Jack. We're so grateful for that time that we took for each other, to work, travel, and enjoy a little more freedom (ok, a lot more!) than we have now. We poured ourselves into a decent social life and ministries galore. It didn't feel selfish to live that way at first. And then one day it happened. I remember telling Tyler that I was tired of my life revolving around me. Even though there were a lot of good things weaved into how we spent our days, we wanted to reach a little more outside of ourselves. We longed for a ministry a little bit closer to home.

There's no turning back when it comes to parenting. Friday nights will forever look different to us now. There are Friday nights that are full of contentment spent at home with our little ones. Then there are the Friday nights when we long for a little bit of peace and quiet and the chance to come and go as we please. We long for friends and restaurants with decent food. But thinking about how parenting has changed me, I would never want to go back.

I love this quote by author Elizabeth Prentiss. My challenge today for myself: to not spend too much time looking back, so much that I miss all that God has for me today...

(She had just found out she was expecting her third baby and was delighted. Her sister-in-law, however, had a different outlook; much like the one I can be so prone to have).

“She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing. Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers!”(Stepping Heavenward, p.228-229)

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Two are better...

This was my breakfast in bed last week... made by Mr. I'm-pretty-much-good-at-everything. The boys love it when Daddy's home to make breakfast. He always comes up with something new and creative and fun. And he even cooks to rockin' music and says, "Bam!" a lot when he flips his pancakes, which makes him cooler than cool in their book. He can cook, clean and even decorate better than me. When we first got married, his crazy amount of talent used to bother me. Our first fight was over a wall hanging, and whose creative eye was more, well... creative. Wasn't I supposed to be the one who excelled in homemaking? But I quickly learned that marriage is not a competition. God gave me this talented man to add to my strengths and help me in my weaknesses. And most of all? Through our relationship, to reflect Christ to a world that needs to see Him. And all of that domestic skill? I wish his momma was still around to thank for that.

One morning last week each boy trickled down one-by-one from their night's sleep - about fifteen minutes apart. So I was able to spend some rare one-on-one time with each of them. Tyler told me once that even when he was old enough to want a little space (ok, a lot of space) from his mom, he would always let her get close to scratch his back. Even though they still want me around every minute of their awake life, point well taken and tucked down deep in my heart.

So I scratched each back, and prayed for the young girls who will one day marry Jack Tyler, Trey Andrew and Chase Dylan. I prayed specifically, keeping in mind the personality of each boy. Each gift, and each quirk. The evident charming qualities, and, yes, the characteristics that will require much patience and forgiveness from a spouse. And I prayed that they would not take this decision lightly... the biggest decision they will make in their lifetimes, next to surrendering their lives to Jesus.

God knew that we'd have to forgive each other often, but He also knew I would appreciate things like an alphabetized spice cabinet and vacuum lines in V-shaped patterns...

I'm so glad He did...