This picture makes me laugh. So much personality in this split second, which, now that I think about it, is consistent with every other split second of my life: SO MUCH personality.

My house is full of people, not just kids. People. And some of them are 18 month old babies determined to make a statement and show me who’s boss, while others are nearly my height and beginning to straddle childhood and mature responsibility.

My head spins. It really does.

And there are moments of calm, but here’s the thing: I can’t just go into survival mode between those moments, because my real, actual life and their real, actual lives are being lived all the time. I love sitting at my picnic table for a few minutes, just listening to the birds, but God hasn’t really called me to be a bird-listener. He’s called me to mother these children. The often loud, sometimes chaotic, always active, full to overflowing life is where I’m to pour myself out.

And I am a leaky bucket.

I try to create systems and patterns and habits that keep us all moving together in harmony, but it’s easy for me to go into autopilot, never stopping to notice how I’m not really heeding the admonition to be filled with the Holy Spirit — or be being filled, which I learned is a more accurate translation. Constant, never stopping. Because our hearts are leaky vessels and we always need more of Him. He gives me wisdom and strategy, but He wants to be with me in each moment as we flesh it all out. I need Him. So much and so much more.

These are my thoughts tonight.