Posts

A post for my friend Katie

How do you be a stay at home mom without losing your mind? When I decided to quit my job to stay home with my kids for a while, I felt like I was committing vocational suicide. My inner voice raged, "what have I done, and will that part of life ever come back?" To be completely honest, I had never really enjoyed babies before I had my own. I liked kids from 5 years on up, when they could communicate and hike without whining. When my friends would have babies, I would visit them, hold them, coo accordingly and then be very glad to return them to their parents. So when my husband and I found out we were pregnant for the first time, I was uncertain as to how I would be as a mom in general, let alone one who stays home with them full-time. Good thing there are 9 months to get used to the idea. Fast forward to child number one. I adored him, and found that of all the little people in the world, he was one I could stand to be around and even change his diapers. Though, at this poi...

Advent

It's been a dark beginning to the Christmas season. Some news we had hoped for that didn't pan out. Lease on our place is almost up - lots of discussion about where we want to be, and wondering if that can even happen. Trips to the dentist with the kids, charged with emotion and fear...ending badly. Bills. Discouragement in relationships. Listening to a sermon on our hope as Christians and feeling none of it personally. The weight of leading people in worship when my own soul is downcast. I'm not ready for "Joy to the World" yet. I am still in the longing of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The choir sang a introit on Sunday entitled, By Night. "By night we hasten in darkness to seek for the living water. Only our thirst lights us onwards, only our thirst light us onwards." I loved it. It was minor and rich and full of dissonance. It expressed a truth I could honestly proclaim this week. How refreshing to begin a service with this sentiment, rather ...

Beginnings

Short and sweet for starters. Last week I was in my kitchen doing dish therapy, composing a groaning song in my head with lyrics that my soul needed to hear. I believe the refrain was, "I'm not in control" repeated several times. By the time my kitchen was clean, food made, whatever it was I was doing there, I decided I needed to remember what I had just created. Garage Band was hastily opened and I sung a few lines into the computer's microphone. That's as far as I got. So, there my song sits, waiting until I come back to it weeks from now. Maybe just the creation of it was what I needed. It's a beginning. Like this blog...