Immanuel - God With Us

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm alone in the house while the rest of the family has gone to the evening church service.  Nathan has a bad cold and wasn't going to make it through the 45 minutes that started past his usual bedtime, so I elected to stay behind so I could have a shower and some peace amid the bussle that is the holiday season.

I know it has been quite some time since I've posted.  I figure that could say a couple of things.  I'm probably very busy...maybe even too busy.  Which is definitely true.  Getting Reuben out the door for the bus by 8:00 every morning definitely makes morning blogging impossible, and by the time the kids are in bed at the end of the night, I'm just ready to crash on the couch.  Or maybe my brain is in one of those dim places where I don't even think in blog posts any more; the inspiration to write is dulled out by busyness and life.  My hiatus from blogging is probably for both those reasons.

But today?  Why the post?  I have a few moments of rest.  True rest where I've told myself I'm not doing anything work related until after Christmas (maybe even after New Year's...)  I don't have any deadlines looming over my head.  The house is completely silent, and I don't have anything on TV distracting me.  It's amazing how my brain can suddenly kick in when there is quiet.

Christmas is my favourite time of year.  I love the time spent with family, the fun of decorating the house, the yummy goodies that get baked and shared, and I love that I have a reason to celebrate, a real reason, that this Jesus I love came down to earth, and we get to remember that in this special time of year.  I was reminded a few weeks ago while driving to work how He is called Immanuel - God With Us.  And it was like I had a little light go on and I felt the true meaning of how important and wonderous it is that God came down to earth in the form of a baby, this baby, Jesus, to be God With Us.

It feels me with joy to know He is with me.  He reminds me that He has loved me with an everlasting love, and His love keeps me going, through the busyness and the hard days, and through the quiet and the good days.  May you, dear faithful readers, remember His love and the reason we celebrate Christmas.  He is with us.

Not much to say

In some strange fluke, it's 6:30 and Nathan is still sleeping.  Of course, there's also a thunderstorm so Reuben had me up bright and early, and I'm not taking advantage of any extra sleeping time.  If I'd known he was going to sleep so long, I'd have hopped in the shower, but one of Murphy's Laws of Parenting states that the baby will always wake up once Mommy is in the shower with shampoo in her hair.  I didn't want to risk it.

So I figured I'd throw a quick blog post out there.  I wish I had something a bit more inspirational to say, but it's been a rough week since Nathan spiked a fever last weekend that went for three days and has developed into a nasty cough/runny nose.  He's been miserable and clingy, and it's been difficult to get anything done, which presents a challenge because we're having Reuben's birthday party with his friends today, and by Friday the house was a disaster.  Things are mostly back under control at this point, except for the basement, which I'm hoping to get to later this morning before the boys show up.

Sorry it's not more exciting, but anyway, it is what it is.  Happy weekend, everyone!

Counting Gifts: Week.....???

So clearly, I have not been very disciplined in my posting about counting 1000 gifts.  I confess I have been equally undisciplined in actually counting the gifts and doing the daily readings in the journal to go along with.  I've let fatigue be my excuse to let myself get ho-hum about going through life.

I need to stop making excuses.

So I'm renewing my commitment to the goal to count 1000 ways God shows His grace to me, 1000 little ways and big ways throughout my day that He sends me His love, gifts that are brand-new and gifts that have been here the whole time but are new every morning.  I'm praying He opens my eyes to see them and that I can keep up the momentum to do this each and every day.

...and I think I had more to say, but I got interrupted by waking up children, and now it's time to get the morning before-school routine going.  Here we go, counting gifts along the way...

Randomness

The sky is clear, and it looks like it should be a beautiful day today.  But I know the truth - it's cold.  I had to add an extra blanket to my bed last night, and no, I didn't have the window open.  I am not like all the people out there who love Fall.  I hate to be cold.

Motivation is hard to come by lately, as evidenced by my lack of posting.  I'm still working on finding a good routine with the kids in school, and while I'm enjoying the quieter days, I've never handled change well.  It's funny how as much as sometimes we long for change and get excited by it, the reality of adjustment is often harder than we want it to be.

Counting 1000 gifts is going slower than I expected.  I'm really just not good at remembering to think about looking for graces God gives me throughout the day.  I thought it would help to leave the journal out where I can see it, but I've become too good at ignoring where it sits by the microwave.  This is something I need to work on, and I have a sneaky suspicion if I can figure out how to get this habit going better, it might help out with that whole lack of motivation thing.

Nathan keeps me on my toes.  He's a climber in a way that the other kids never were.  He's gone from climbing on kitchen chairs, to climbing from there to the table, to getting stuck on the chairs when he climbs on them when they're pushed under the table, to figuring out how to pull the chairs out so now he can climb up whenever he wants, and he climbs up on the office desk, and he climbs on the table in the living room that we've been using to block his access to the entertainment unit, so now he has access to the DVDs and everything else on the upper shelves of that piece of furniture -- I throw my hands up in frustration!  And I am really not looking forward to when he figures out how to climb up on the couches...although he might not get into quite as much trouble up there...

Anyway, that's all of that.  I'm still here, still plugging along, and one of these days I'll get more motivated to post more frequently...

Changes and trusting

My little girl got on the bus yesterday for her first day of school.  I thought sending the first one off was supposed to be the emotional experience, but I feel like this year's been harder than last.  Don't get me wrong - I have to be completely honest and say that part of me has been really looking forward to the kids going to school.  I'm getting really tired of them always complaining that they're bored.

But then it hits me how much of a change this is.  How I'm going from three kids home all the time down to just one.  How I'm not going to be as much of an influence in my kids' lives anymore - especially Reuben going every day to grade 1 now.  How I have to learn to trust God more than ever as I let these pieces of my heart walk out that door into the wide unknown - a wide unknown that has such potential to cause great hurt.

It's hard not to worry about what might happen to them when I'm not there to make sure they'll be safe.  I have to put them in His hands and rest knowing that He'll carry them through the joys and the hurts.  All part of this thing called "parenting"...

(Side note: I had more thoughts, but my brains has suddenly shut off and the children are getting restless ie. Nathan wants breakfast, so that's it for now...)

Five more sleeps till school starts

I've been meaning to sit down and get a post out for a couple of days now -- I missed my Monday "Counting Gifts" post again, but Tim let me sleep in that day, so I have a good excuse.  I'll probably just keep this short because I'm not feeling particularly inspired to say anything specific and my brain hasn't quite kicked in from the coffee.

I'm tired.  I know I say it a lot.  I hate that it seems to have taken over my life, this tiredness.  And in this learning to say "all is grace", I have yet to determine how being so constantly fatigued is a grace.  If there's a lesson here, I'm too tired to see it.

I have to get back to a better morning routine yet again.  No, I haven't gone back to my Candy Crush addiction.  I've actually done quite well with that.  But I haven't been as consistent with my blog reading and writing and starting the day trying to focus on Him.  More often than not, I end up on Facebook or some other website and fiddling around until I realize the kids are hungry for breakfast, and I've wasted my morning time.

So, time once again to fix my habits.  The never-ending battle...

(And for the record, the title of this post really has nothing to do with the post.  I just couldn't think of any other title that worked.)

Hearing Him

I think today might actually end up being one of those short snippet posts I keep saying I'm going to start writing.  I feel a bit obligated to post because I haven't done as much lately, which I know is a silly reason to post, but there it is.  We take our motivation where we can get it.

Have you ever heard God speaking to you?  I mean, more than just a sense of His presence or a general leading in a certain direction?

Last night on my way to work, I was coming around the curve at the top of the Red Hill Parkway, and I don't know if it was the music I was listening to or the way the sun angled through my windshield, but I suddenly and very clearly heard Him say to me, "I love you.  You are mine."  It wasn't audible, but it sure was clear.  It was one of those goose-pimply moments where I felt so close to Him, a closeness I haven't felt in some time because sometimes you're just in one of those seasons where you're walking more by faith than by sight.

It's in those seasons when the brief moments where you walk by sight are that much sweeter and more precious.  So today, facing another day of caring for the kids by myself after Nathan got me up for the day at 4:30, I'm remembering His words, that moment from last night.  He loves me.  I am His.

The day begins...

Morning starts a brand new day, and I am woken by a small son and a bigger son, and we go downstairs.  My coffee flows down, liquid warmth, and slowly my brain begins to function.  This morning I find myself thinking random phrases, putting into unending run-on sentences a description of what goes on around me. 

I slice peaches and bananas to feed these hungry few, and I think about the hungry many that I read about on the Internet.  The TV plays in the background as my hands get covered in slimy mess - peaches are hard to cut when they've been peeled - and I peek out the window to see two small birds hopping around on the grass outside under the birch tree.  A gift?

Interruptions are a constant part of the every day.  Children are hungry, bored, tired, just need a cuddle.  I pick up this small one, now finished his breakfast, and we walk to the toy room.  He leans his head on my shoulder, and we look out the window to the backyard together.  He loves to look outside, and the wonder on his face as he sees God's creation melts my hearts.  "Paaa," he whispers, because that's his answer to everything.  I leave him standing at the door as I try to come back and put the words onto paper that fill my head with a constant flowing stream.

I stir the oatmeal.  I notice that the clock on the stove reads exactly 7:00 as I wonder how it's possible to feel so extremely lonely while at the same time just wanting to run away from it all and become a hermit.

Life is hard, and the encouragement from those around and those online helps, but there is still this day to day living and the plodding on one day, one step, one moment at a time.

I watch this little one as he plays with a ball, pick it up, put it down, watch it roll away and chase after it.  His smile and curiosity brings such joy...

I reach for the forgotten oatmeal, not quite yet burned, but definitely done, and I find myself noticing how this allowing myself to think in sentences helps to find the grace in the small things.  It slows my brain to think with words instead of feelings and reactions, and it becomes easier to live in the moment because life suddenly isn't an emergency, but this naming of it all...yes...that is what this is, and Ann speaks of it in the "One Thousand Gifts Devotional", page 57, how naming gives identity and meaning and solves mysteries.

I wish I could say this is easy to keep doing.  But the truth is that to keep my braining running on like this is also tiring, and I have limited stores of energy in my sleep deprived state.  So for this morning, I enjoy these brief moments of higher functioning.  Too soon, the children spill from the living room to the kitchen, words running cacophony, jumbled, drowning out whatever thoughts still percolate, and I'm back to reacting, providing for needs, one moment at a time.

Seeing gifts while camping

I know I missed my Monday update for counting gifts this week.  You'll have to forgive me.  We went camping from last week Friday through till Wednesday, and I deliberately left my laptop at home so I couldn't even blog if I wanted to.  Our trip was as relaxing as camping with a one-year-old can be, but I was pretty ready to come home when we did.  The waves on Lake Huron were ridiculous this year - only one day where it was actually calm, and the ensuing noise from the surf started to drive me batty and made sleeping difficult.

It was interesting, though, how much easier it was to find gifts from God while surrounded by His creation.  Along with this, life slows down significantly while you're camping, and it was that much easier to breathe deeply and take the time to really see what was going on around me, not to mention I love all the smells that go along with camping, so half the time I was breathing deeply just to enjoy the fantastic scents filling the air.

Another lesson occurred to me that needs to come out of this journey of 1000 gifts - connecting those gifts with their source, and seeing God's love for me through the graces He gives, and being thankful to Him, not just being thankful to be thankful, but actually being thankful to the One who gives the gifts.

There is so much to learn!  Sometimes I feel like it will take a lifetime to learn everything I need to.  And maybe another lesson there is that I don't need to learn it all at once, to go slow and pick one lesson at a time.

So for now, I continue to focus on seeing the graces around me as gifts.  Maybe once I get that down, I can work harder on being truly thankful to the One who gives them to me and recognizing His love through them.

Some highlights from this week's list:
- shooting stars
- sand under my feet
- a seagull
- a ladybug
- the many smells of camping
- splashing running into the lake
- a little boy, breathing
- fresh cucumbers

After a particularly rough night

After a particularly rough night with Nathan (up at 1:30am...for some reason I thought it was 4:30 and I got prematurely excited until I came back to bed and saw the clock for real...and then he proceeded to be awake till after 3), my morning devotional speaks of trust.  Trusting God as being the source of joy and something we must do to combat anxiety.  Ann quotes Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

And she points out how God has already given us the greatest gift, his Son Jesus, and if He gives us this amazing and wondrous gift, how can there be anything He would withhold from us?  "How will He not also graciously give us all things He deems best and right?" (One Thousand Gifts Devotional, p.34)  He is worthy of our trust because He has already given us the greatest of all gifts.

I'm struggling with this today.  If He truly gives us all the things we need, why on earth am I not getting enough sleep??

........

I allowed myself a long tangent of mindless ramblings that ended up spiraling out of control into some pretty deep cynicism.  So I stepped away from the laptop for a moment and walked out onto the back deck with Nathan.  The fresh air reminds me to breathe deep and clear my head, and I come back and delete what I wrote because I didn't like it, and most of it didn't make much sense anyways.

The long and short of it is that today is a hard day.  And I know I still need to choose joy and choose to see the gifts, but it is so hard when I'm just trying to function through this fog of sleep deprivation, and the struggle to trust God's goodness and His grace is following close behind.  One step at a time, just doing the next thing...