5:42 am. No sooner do I sit down for morning quiet time than youngest comes out of his room. He’s crying.

“Momma, I pee-peed in my bed.”

So this is how my day begins, not with coffee, quiet, and the Word, but with stripping beds, bathing children, and washing clothes.

What I’d like is a long, deep quiet time. What I get is mere moments, snatched here and there, nothing extraordinary or mountain-top about them.

Days turn into weeks and weeks to months and I wonder if a momma can survive like this.

I’m so hungry.

It’s early on another morning that I read a little phrase from the book of John, Words devoured before the madness starts.

“A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.”

It strikes me, how we can only receive what is given…and if I don’t see something as given, a gift, then I can’t open up and receive it. I will withdraw, reject, close off. Push away.

But if I see all as a gift, as given from heaven, then I can receive all.

I wonder when I stopped seeing certain things as gifts and started seeing them as inconveniences instead…sort of like a Plan B for my life?

Plan A, what I’d like, would be a long, meaningful quiet time every morning. Plan B, what I get,  is mere moments.

What I’d like is fun loving banter at the table. What I get is spilled cups, arguing, untouched food, and talk of passing gas.

And on and on it goes.

Yet what if I have God’s permission to receive it, however it comes? As a gift from heaven?

And what if I accepted it - however small, messy, crazy, ordinary, undignified it seems? All the mundane mommy moments, the interruptions, the squabbles, what if I received them all and stopped expecting things to look a certain way, to live up to some sort of self-imposed standard?

Expectations are blinders.

Truth is, even John the Baptist didn’t recognize the Gift when He came.

It’s our nature to expect the Messiah to be great and mighty, to show up strong and glorious with a major Wow factor.

But He came to earth small…as a blood-covered babe birthed in pain.

It was all a bit ragged and raw and messy and maybe this is how Christ comes and maybe we just miss it? Perhaps the greatest wonder of all is that Jesus comes to the messy, the small, the difficult, the lonely, the pull-your-hair-out moments of life.

We can see it if we’re looking.

We look for the mountain tops, expecting that’s where He’ll be. But He enters the lowly, lays down in trough, sleeps on hay, hangs out with animals.

Next morning, I snatch a few more Words, picking up where I left off, in John 4. This time Jesus shows up as a dusty, thirsty traveler to a loose woman.

She didn’t recognize Him either.

It’s what He says to her that stuns me: “If you knew the gift of God and Who it is that asks you for a drink…”   

And surely women throughout time have known neither His gifts nor His appearing.

I marvel.

Ann Voskamp wrote a whole book about it, about all being grace and us accepting all with thanks. I’ve read it and nodded agreement but truth is, when my morning time was interrupted, I’d sigh. Or when sleep was non-existent, I’d grumble. Or when the noise and clamor and bickering escalated, I would too.

I still didn’t see.

I could make a list but I knew not the gift or the appearing.

It is easy to see God in the goldfinch, the Christmas lights, the sweet sloppy kisses. It’s not so easy to see Him in the cold lonely stable of life, when sweat clings to the brow and dust cakes the body and Plan B seems to be one major fiasco.

Yet if one can’t see the gift of God and Who it is right there in the mess, then one can’t receive.

Can’t worship.

Can’t enter into fellowship with the Savior who stoops low and gets messy.

Could this be what He asks of mothers, asked it of His own mother that night in the barn? To trust that these messy, hard places hold the Christ child?

He asks us to trust that Emmanuel, the Great I AM Himself, has entered in.

With eyes of faith, I see clearly.

I do trust. I receive.

This morning when a child stumbled from his room…early, much too early…tears in his eyes, I gently put down Word and journal and I take that wet, sticky little boy into my arms.

It’s as if I’m holding Christ.

Simply Trusting Thursdays

And a sneak peak at what’s coming in January? The entire eBook, Complete, will be posted during January as a series. To see what prompted this eBook and series, read Joe’s story here. More details soon!

In Christ, you are complete. Believe it, live it.

{Make sure you are subscribed to Arabah Joy to receive free updates!}

 

So. It’s a typical morning of madness at our place, me flipping pancakes in the kitchen while simultaneously packing lunches, oldest shoving papers in my face to sign, Little Bit crying over a belly ache, the other two running around turning the lights out on everyone.

I run~ literally~ to the bathroom for an ultra-quick pit stop only to discover that Sunshine Girl has tee-teed all over the toilet seat. Unfortunately, I don’t discover this until after I sit on it.

I need a thorough body scrub following the encounter with the toilet…but who has time for that? That’s what perfume is for. Right?

Welcome to high octane mornings, momma! Who said we need wait til the holidays for full-on madness? Just try motherhood.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, a little phrase pokes it’s way through the noggin: “When the crowd pressed in on Him…”

Jesus was pressed in on.

He is here, in the middle of a mad momma morning, telling me He knows what it’s like. He lived in the pressure cooker of life and was hemmed in on every side and He knows how to do this.  If I’d like to listen, He can show me a thing or two.

Really? Well yes, that would be just what my mornings need.

How exactly did Jesus deal with it all? I do a search to find out and start reading in Mark 5. I reach verse 39 that reads, “He said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing?”

I laugh. Finally a way I can claim to be like Jesus.  How many times have I asked the kids that very thing?

I finish the account and honestly, nothing earth shattering jumps out at me. No tip or trick or strategy to make my mornings go more smoothly.

I have to read the passage a second time before I hear what He is trying to say. I jot down phrases that begin to jump out. Phrases that describe what Jesus did as the crowd pushed Him and the people scolded Him and the disciples advised Him every which way…

“But Jesus kept looking around…”

“He turned around in the crowd…”

“Ignoring what they said…”

“He did not let anyone follow Him…”

“He made them all leave…”

It becomes clear to me that Jesus, in the middle of the rush, He stood strong. He did what He needed to do. He didn’t get swept into the flow.

Instead of letting life carry Him along, He made life happen.

If He’d caved to the pressure, a woman who had bled for years wouldn’t have been healed.

If He’d listened to what circumstances dictated, He’d never have gone to Jarius’ house.

If He’d heeded the commotion and wailing, a little girl wouldn’t have been raised to life.

He lived against the flow.

And He invites mommas everywhere to live the same way.

I want to know how? How does a momma stand erect in the midst of a tidal wave? When everything and everyone is pushing you, this mad cascading free fall?

Jesus saw what God could do in the situation.

He kept His eyes on the divine work. He stayed intent on a divine call.

He knew exactly what He was there to do.

That’s it, isn’t it? To know exactly what we are here to do in the lives of our children. If we don’t have a clear target, how will we ever hope to hit it?

Jesus never lost sight of His reason for walking among men, to seek and to save that which was lost. When the pressure was on, Jesus focused in on that purpose and He nailed it.

Jesus mothering means we know clearly and succinctly what God has given us to do in the lives of our children.

When the craziness begins, the more focused on it we become.

This week, I’m filling in the blanks: God gave me these children to ________.

My mission for mothering. A motto in the madness.

Simply Trusting Thursdays

Today and for the next few Thursdays, we are talking about trusting Jesus in our mothering… what does it look like to adopt habits in mothering based on the life and character of Christ? You are welcome to join in as we learn together!

I never planned 3 kids in two years, it never entered my mind. After all, I was a sane, organized, well-planned person who was also “infertile.”

Least that’s what they said.

So when the 3 littles came along in under two years time…well, it wasn’t a bad thing but it was a personal tsunami and how does one ever recover what life was like before something like that? How does one ever learn to stand on shifting sand again?

That’s when fear started creeping in.  Dread of what lay on the other side of those closed doors every morning. Dread of Little Bit’s tantrums and biting herself and of Sunshine girl’s proclivity towards danger and dread of the amount of time I’d spend wiping bottoms with three in diapers. Dread that I was losing connection with my oldest since he had to take a backseat to The Daily Rodeo that had become “home life.”

There was always this steady diet of anxiety… I couldn’t be enough, couldn’t do enough, wasn’t smart enough for all this. I simply wasn’t enough.

Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s not, I really don’t know. But a mother can dread mothering.

She can want to run sheer clear of it.

And a mom can do one of two things when she’s under the gun. When the dread pumps in the veins and she feels a bit frazzled and topsy turvey. She can push or she can pull.

She can push children away, push them off on someone or something else, push back against their demands, push them to just behave. Or she can pull them close, pull up a chair, pull down on grace, pull out the snack tray.

For me, well it always happened at the dinner table. The time we sat together to eat. Talk. Enjoy one another. Read together. Or die trying.

Cups would spill and food would smear and kids would overturn chairs and bump heads and cry and need lovins and another would ask for more and then not eat it and then…. always, always, Sunshine would come climb up in my lap.

And I got tired of it.

I got tired of trying to salvage another spilled cup when she hoisted herself up. I got tired of trying to feed baby and hold her too. Tired of not being able to eat in peace, of balancing bites on a fork and aiming for my mouth like a kamikaze pilot.

So I told her she had to stay in her chair at dinner.

She would look at me with puppy eyes each night. I’d shake my head at her. No, she couldn’t come.

A mom’s got to keep her sanity. Right??

But then one day a very random verse came to my mind at the dinner table. The one about Jesus at His last supper.

“There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples….” John 13:23

And can’t you just imagine it? A grown man leaning against the bosom of Jesus? At the dinner table!

And Jesus welcomes it.

For weeks I said, “Good for You, Jesus. I’m so glad You welcome us. I’m glad that the cultural norm was to lean on each other at meal times. But I’m really about to lose my ever lovin mind and I can’t handle a kid hanging on me at the dinner table.”

But then I remembered the next part of the verse.

“There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,”

Here is a man~ who is writing the book of John~ who doesn’t call himself by name, just describes himself like this: “loved by Jesus.”

It wasn’t his past or his upbringing or his ancestry or his talents or his success among peers that defined him.

He had a new self-acclaimed identity. A new self-worth.

His very identity had completely been re-made when Jesus showed up…when Jesus showed him that no matter what and no matter when, even at the dinner table, he was welcome. He was accepted. He was embraced and enfolded. He was loved.

And what identity can I give my child? What rock-solid core can they have on the Isle of Peer Pressure? On the Journey of Adolescence? On the night of betrayal?

What can mothering like Jesus do for them? I’ll tell you what: it can give them an identity and security that they are deeply, unconditionally loved.

When we let our mom bodies be His arms and His bosom and His embrace and His words, we can give them the single most important truth we all need to know.

It’s a reflection of Truth Himself… of Christ… that we are deeply, unconditionally loved and accepted by God.

Here’s the amazing part. It all happens by saying ”Yes. Come! Really! You are welcome.”

In the midst of folding laundry, come! In the hot steamy kitchen, come! While I’m at the computer working, come! While I’m in the little girl’s room, why not? You come in anyway. And yes, at the dinner table…especially then…come!

That day I wrote it in my journal: “Lord, with Your help, never again will I turn a child away. I will find a way to say “Yes! Come!”

Maybe sometimes it takes a bit of creative juggling and lots of praying, yes? But

“Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

and

“He who comes to me, I will in no wise reject.” John 6:37

So when little ones come and I droop weary, or an older one invites me into his world with a comment, I smile heavenward. Because being a push-mom is my way. But being a pull-mom is His, and He will do it. He’ll provide the way.

And He does.

Simply Trusting Thursdays

Join us for Simply Trusting Thursdays? For the next few weeks, we are talking about what it means to trust Jesus in parenting like He does. Welcome to join in! Last week’s post can be viewed here: When a child sins, we die…

I told him we’d have to wait until the weather warmed back up before he got the water toy out of storage. With that, I tucked the box away and out of reach, not giving it a second thought.

But I heard him playing in his room last night and come this morning, I find the water toy in there, water all over, pieces scattered.

He’d snuck out of bed and fished the toy out of storage.

This isn’t a toddler, this is a ten year old.

It’s disobedience and it isn’t cute or funny.

And what does a momma do in the rush to get breakfast on the table and homework folders signed and little ones dressed and kids off to school? What does she do when she sees a son headed down a road he doesn’t know any better than to go down?

And sometimes I wonder if people think missionaries have everything figured out… think that since we take the gospel to hard places, we automatically know how to live the gospel in hard places.

Our own hard places.

And I have to say, no… no. We don’t know.

There’s just this desperate reliance on God, yes?

I pull son aside and tell him I’m taking all toys out of his room. He doesn’t have much but the ball track and a snap circuit kit. “You disobeyed, son. If you were a driver and abused driving privileges, you’d have your license revoked. It’s the way things work. So you lose your priviledge to play with your toys at will.”

I rejoin the morning bustle but I can tell he’s bummed. Not in a good way, either. He isn’t receiving correction joyfully. He’s heaping on the condemnation, lying thick in self loathing.

Sometimes it’s all we know to do with our sin.

As we walk to school I tell him, “Buddy, I’m not upset with you. I’m not trying to punish you. I’m trying to teach you. Don’t give up, learn from it and let it make you better. Don’t be discouraged, son.”

“It’s kind of hard not to be,” he replies. He scuffs a shoe against the sidewalk.

And I don’t know what to say because I know…oh how I know…that the discipline of the Lord can feel like His hatred and the Law of the Lord can feel like an impossible burden and what exactly are we to do with our sin?

Because we are all sinners and we inherently know that God is just and our sin deserves punishment and are we just doomed to a perpetual cloud of shame and condemnation and self hatred?

I drop the kids off at school and sneak in a few moments to open the Word. I need a reminder. I feel the weight. I know the answers in my head, but my heart needs reminding.

It lies open before me, I John 1:7:

“And the blood of Jesus, His son, purifies us from all sin.”

It’s what we do with sin. We remember that it’s under the blood.

I remember then…Another missionary told me once of a time when she almost died. She was having dinner with friends and a man approached her. He asked her to try a flavorful dish. The Spirit spoke to her and told her not to eat it, that it was a trick.

Turns out, the food was poisoned.

Her mission work was intruding on the darkness and the darkness was pushing back.

But then, she got lax. She was out again with friends and she sensed the Spirit warn her again but she ignored it. She kept enjoying the company she was with and did not follow His lead to go get her jacket from the coat room where she had left it.

Her phone was in her jacket and unbeknownst to her, someone placed a detonating device inside her phone. On her way home, the explosion occurred. She was almost killed.

While unconscious she had a vision of sorts…she was in heaven and although she couldn’t see anything, she heard voices talking. “See, look at her! She is here because she didn’t listen to Your Spirit. She didn’t heed your voice. She disdained your word. She didn’t fear you. She valued her comfort more than you.”

And that missionary and I, we were standing together, alone, in the dorm hallway one night close to midnight when she told me this story and this is what she said: “After each accusation, I felt myself stunned, like I was being hammered into the ground.

“And then, after each accusation, another Voice spoke up and said, “My blood has covered that.”

And that is how we deal with sin: we hear the Voice of our Savior from the pages of His Word because they tell us His blood has already covered and the solution has already been provided and the way has already been made.

From the foundation of the world. It’s covered!

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.”

“Everyone who sins breaks the law. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins.”

It’s right there in I John, that love covers and love reconciles and love restores and most amazing of all, Love removes sin.

And I know that whatever I do, I have to parent the gospel. I have to preach the gospel in my mothering. I must relay the good news, show this Love…even in sin and disobedience and rebellion and hard heartedness.

Because  “Even while still sinners, Christ died for us.” {Romans 5:8}

This is how we parent the gospel: when a child sins, we die.  We die not to redeem that child but to re-direct that child to the Redeemer.

We die to anger…because we know the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.

We die to irritation. To condemnation and shame and harsh and haughty words….because we know there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

We die to desires for instant gratification and results and quick fixes and easy children who never present problems and resentment and lost hopes and dreams…because we know the flesh profits us nothing, oh haven’t we learned that by now?

We die because we know that when we parent the gospel, that gospel message is the power of God unto salvation. {Romans 1:16}

{Think of it! The power of God unto salvation! We can parent the gospel!!}

Oh Glory!

 It starts right here: “While sinners, Christ died.”

So will I.

When they sin, I will die. I will uphold the gospel, exalt the Lamb, speak of blood.

And when that boy comes home from school, I take him aside again and I parent the gospel. “Son, there’s something God wants you to know. And there’s a story you need to hear…”

Simply Trusting Thursdays

For the next few weeks, the topic for Simply Trusting Thursdays will be parenting like Christ. The challenge is for us to trust HIS way of shepherding and adopt it as our own…to lay down our own baggage and beliefs and take up truth.  ”I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it IS the power of God unto salvation.” I’m trusting. I’m believing!