Held Together

I did something today that threatened to take me down.

We are going on a mini-vacation in a few days (more on that to come), and Leah and I made a trip to WalMart this morning to get some of the essential things for the trip. We wandered around the store for a long time, looping back over and over to get the things we had forgotten, and finally made it to the checkout line with everything on our list (and only one or two things that weren’t on the list). I waited my turn in line, since they had only one register open. I piled my finds on the conveyor belt and inched forward so the people behind me could do likewise. I handed my coupons to the cashier…

…and I realized I had left my money sitting on the kitchen counter. I had planned to pay in cash – the cash we have reserved for the trip – but had left it at home.

Desperate, I wound up putting the bill on the credit card. (Don’t tell Dave Ramsey. I’ll be in big trouble.) As I paid and gathered my bags and walked to the car, I muttered a series of words under my breath.

“Stupid. Idiot. Thoughtless. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Careless. Idiot.”

That’s right. An innocent mistake – one that can easily be remedied with a trip to the bank and a deposit slip – was enough to knock me down and cause me to fling words at myself that I would never, ever fling at someone else. Words that God certainly would never fling at me. Words full of hatred and contempt and lies.

I’d love to say that I made a choice at some point and said I wouldn’t think that any more. That I prayed for peace and it came. That I replaced the toxic thoughts with healthy ones.

I didn’t, though. I got into the car, still grumbling at myself and trying not to take it out on sweet Leah, and turned on the radio. As the music filled the car, so did truth. Christian radio to the rescue. As I drove, I began to feel peace come over me. Truth washed over me like a tide, and things came into perspective.

What if I had turned on the radio and found negativity there, mirroring my hard and bitter and angry heart? I can tell you one thing: my day – and I, myself – would have fallen apart.

The Sixth Leaf

Several years ago, when I took a position as youth minister at a local church, some of the sweet girls in the youth group gave me a plant for my desk. It was a money tree, they told me, and would nicely add a feminine touch to the bulky desk and cinder block walls of my office. That plant has been with me for nearly 6 years now, traveling with me from one job to another, from one house to another, and now sits at the window over my kitchen sink. It has grown and flourished, despite my propensity to kill plants with my negligence.

It has no flowers, but its blossoms (as I suppose you’d call them) come in bundles of 5 leaves. Every time, there are 5 leaves. For the past 6 years, it has produced 5 leaves every time it has budded anew. Every time….until last month. Last month, a blossom appeared with 6 leaves.

That was fascinating to me. A fluke? A mistake? How could that happen?

It is still there, growing larger every day. The sixth leaf. And as it has grown, it has taught me an important lesson.

The newest blossom is not like the others. It is decidedly different, having an extra (and very large) leaf. It stands out from the rest of the plant, but no – it is not a fluke or a mistake. God made that blossom the way it is, and He made it that way for a reason. It was made that way on purpose. I can’t imagine what that reason might be, but God had a reason for making it that way. Perhaps His reason was just to teach me something. Bear with me.

I am different, too, and have my own unique traits that make me stand out from the crowd. Those are not anything to be ashamed of or to dislike about myself. God made me the way I am on purpose. I need not hide or criticize myself but, like the bold sixth leaf, I can stand proudly in who I am. Learning that is a process, and I can’t promise the change will be instantaneous, but I, for one, am grateful for the sixth leaf and the lesson that it holds for me.

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8)

“Sleepy? Me? Never!”

“Mommy and Me” Monday

Not too much to say this week. We had a playdate, and I got my sister to take a picture of Leah and me together on the slide. Leah, um, was not too excited about being held and kept from playing. She wanted to be free!

Want to see more mamas with their babies? Head over and visit with Krystyn today.

Belize

Do you know the feeling of being terrified and excited? Thrilled and skeptical? Being eager and, yet, full of dread?

I do.

A couple of months ago, my church sent a small team to Belize for the purposes of scouting out opportunities for us to develop a long-term missions relationship with the people there. We want to go to the same place, visiting the same people, several times a year over a long period of time. That’s the goal: to share Quest’s mission of experiencing God, experiencing relationships, and experiencing change with the people of Belize.

The team found our contacts. The team found where we are needed. The team scheduled a trip for this November.

And…I’m going. I am going to Belize for nearly a week. This year. In a few months.

I can’t lie to you. I’m scared. I’ve never been on a mission trip before, and I’ve certainly never done anything like this since being married and becoming a mom. My fears cover the gambit: scared of going without Scott, scared of leaving Leah, scared of traveling to a new place, scared of taking on a leadership role in something I’ve never done before. I’m scared of being a bad mom and a bad wife because I’m leaving my little girl and my husband for so long.

I’m going to be a co-leader of the worship team that’s going. What does that mean? I’m not entirely sure myself, but it could mean speaking and teaching in worship settings. Preaching. Me. In Belize.

So yes, I’m scared. But I’m very excited. I’ve felt for a long time that this is something I wanted to try, and I’ve felt recently that God is doing something big in my life and in my church community. I'm sure that God is telling me to go, and I’m excited to see what’s going to happen…though yes, I’m very, very scared.

Do I sound a little confused and flustered?

It is a sad day for some.

It is a sad day for this little girl, but she doesn’t know it yet.

Actually, it might be more sad for her mama, as her mama is sad for her…but regardless, it’s sad.

Today is the last day of school in our county. That would be good for some people. (It’s not so good for other people, but I guess it depends on your position in life. We’ll debate that later.) The last day of school is sad, for this little girl, because it means that the school buses are going on vacation and will not be around for awhile. This little girl loves school buses. She is going to miss the school buses.

It usually works out that we are running errands at the same time that the schools are letting out in the afternoon. The school near our house always has a fleet of buses parading out of its parking lot, and from as much as a mile away, the chant begins from the back seat of my car.

“Buh? Buh? Buh, mama? Buh?” She points and she chants. She chants and she points. “Buh? Buh?”

The same is true if we’re at home when the neighborhood kids are dropped off. Everything stops – chalk drawing on the driveway, chasing Kitter, climbing on the porch – until the “buh” is gone. If we are inside, mere mention of the word “bus” sends her to the nearest window, and the chanting and pointing begins anew. “Buh? Mama? Buh?”

So yes. Today is sad for her, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Best friends can be sisters…but they don’t have to be.

These two……goodness. My heart melts as I watch them together – I can’t help but remember how my sister and I were when we were little, and can’t help but think of the cousins that are missing as they play.

It’s going to be so fun to watch them grow up together.

Because His vote is the one that counts.

It’s been a struggle. Not today, or yesterday, or even this past week, but every single day since I was old enough to know that I am not the same as everyone else. Some days the work of the struggle threatens to take me out, knock me down, leave me on the ground forever, unable to stand or fight or breathe. Some days, though, the struggle sits quietly in the background, awaiting the perfect moment to come back into the sunlight.

But the struggle….it’s always there.

It’s the struggle to simply believe. The struggle to look at my reflection or think about who I am and just believe that I am okay. Just the way I am, I’m okay. Because while this is what you all see when you look at me…

….that is not what I see. All too often, there is a sink full of dirty dishes that have lingered for too long, or an unfolded pile of clothes, or a supper that I (and no one else) deem unsatisfactory, and I feel as though there is a big, bold declaration of my inadequacies imprinted on my forehead. A reminder to myself – lest I ever should forget – and to anyone else that I’m just not all that I could be. I’m not as good as I should be. I am…

…a failure. Big and bold and insistent, it presses into my head as though it were real. FAILURE. The statement of hatred that really comes from no one but myself. Jess, you are not good enough. You’ve fallen short. Again.

If I were content to sit in that, there would be no struggle. If I were content to simply believe that and allow myself to be defeated from the inside out, there would be no fight. I would sit and slowly die from the poison that creeps in from my own mind.

I refuse to be taken out, though. I refuse to believe something that cannot be true. I will not sit idly by and allow myself to be crushed by something that is so contrary to everything my God tells me is true.

I am loved. I am cherished. I am beautiful, and I am wonderfully made. I am God’s child, and He created me the way He did on purpose. When He saw me, He was pleased, and though I am not perfect, He still is.

He loves me.

I am favored, and when He looks at me, that is what He sees. FAVORED. Precious. Beloved.

I don’t always feel it, but somewhere inside, I believe it. I do, and so I struggle. I fight against the lies that I am not or ever will be what I should be. I fight the lies that tell me that there is something wrong with me. I struggle and I fight it because – as I was reminded by one of my dear friends recently – His vote is the only one that counts.

An Unexpected Blessing

Scott and I have really been working on our “spending plan,” as we like to call it. (I believe the rest of the world calls it a “budget,” but we’ve decided that we don’t like that word. “Spending plan,” at least, implies some shopping.) We have designated amounts of money each month for each category of our spending, and we’ve been doing pretty well at sticking with it. It’s taking a lot of discipline, but if we want to continue to be a one-income family so I can stay at home with Leah, it’s more than worth it.

Because of the spending plan we’ve put ourselves on, we’ve definitely cut way back on our meals out and elaborate date nights, and even our vacations are included in the spending plan. I didn’t think we had broadcasted this change in our lifestyle, but apparently someone saw fit to pour out a lavish blessing on our little family.

This randomly appeared with our things at church this Sunday. Inside it was $50 in cash. We have no idea who it is from.

We aren’t hurting for money. We have food on the table and clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. We have no reason to complain. I am ever so thankful, though, that God prompted someone to generously bless our marriage and allow us to spend some special time together without concern for the spending plan.

Whoever you are, thank you. I pray God blesses you hundredfold in return.

“Mommy and Me” Monday

Whenever she is given the chance, Leah loves to be in our bedroom. As soon as she gets in, she heads straight for my makeup table and her little hands start groping and grasping for anything she can reach. (You know the toddler rule of possession, right? If they can reach it, it belongs to them.) Of special interest to her are my hairbrushes and, to my excitement, she knows how to use them. Sort of.

Want to see more mamas with their babies? Head over and spend some time with Krystyn today.

I’d wish for just another day with you…

I had the chance to do some more maternity pictures for my sister yesterday, and we had so much fun. It was blazing hot, but she was such a good sport about it and never complained. (I think a stop at Zaxby’s helped, too…) I got some shots I’m pretty proud of, and would welcome the chance to do more! She’s a fantastic test subject for me as I experiment!

The baby’s name is Cadence Rose…which explains some of the stuff here and in the last batch. (The wild pink roses we happened on yesterday were a godsend!) Also, the pictures are to be a surprise for my brother in law for Father's Day, which explains his conspicious absence in them.

Here is a teaser sampler:

If you see a cow on the sofa, you know he didn’t get there by himself.

She lo-o-o-oves this cow. She drags him all over the place, hugging and kissing him as she goes. He wears her beads and bracelets…..watches Elmo with her….reads books with her…..has snacks with her. It’s pretty precious.

Elmo and Daddy make it better.

Nothing breaks my heart like when I know Leah doesn’t feel good. I can’t make it better, no matter how much juice or Tylenol I give her. I can’t fix it, and that kills me.

She’s got some kind of a virus; if it’s what her cousins just had, it could last a week or so. She has a fever and, probably, a headache – though she can’t tell me her head hurts. She just keeps rubbing it.

Last night she kept laying down on the floor with her blankets, I knew she was just not feeling right. Daddy and I put her Elmo movie in, though, and they cuddled and watched it for awhile. She still had a fever when she went to sleep, but I think she was feeling better. Elmo and Daddy have that effect on little ones.