Author Archives → Danica

August 15

That weekend sort of killed my daily writing thing.

But today is feeling all sorts of fresh week and new day-ish. Maybe because the first thing I saw was the chubby baby in bed next to me wide awake and beaming at me with so much love and joy — that’s a hard start to beat.

The weekend was:

— a few new bouquets from my (meager this year) August flowers — and such things used to be as “daily” as brushing my teeth, but this summer, remembering to cut flowers is suddenly an event to be celebrated!

— food, of course, including my new obsession: banana with salted cashews and unsweetened coconut. It’s almost as good as Kettle Cover salted caramel ice cream. (I’m such a liar, I know. But I’m pretending, okay?)

— an oldest son deciding to build the hand-me-down playmobil castle, which meant gluing pieces, finding directions online, and getting creative when pieces were missing. He literally spent all day working on it, and it was the best rainy summer day thing to do. It was all set up, at last, at nearly 10pm, and he was proud.

— being absolutely smitten by a delicious baby who is suddenly so old (for instance, sitting and playing in the family room all morning without any need for me!)

— being thrilled to see the rain clouds moving in, watering the thirsty earth. But catching some lovely sunshine here and there, too.

— deciding to just do it: empty the incredibly awful corner of chaos formerly known as the school cupboard, and start sorting. Three (3!!!!) huge trash bags later, we’re starting to make some progress toward an orderly beginning to a school year. (How do you just, you know, have three bags-worth of garbage just hanging out in your house??)

Okay. Photos are dumped; back to my regularly scheduled writing tomorrow.

august 11: Beatrice

Today Beatrice and I watched the sun rise, the air already heavy with the sticky humidity of the day. She brought books outside and read almost quietly while I spent a few minutes with my Bible.

She wants to help me cook all the time. Even when I’m trying so hard to just bang something out, she’s there, asking. Yesterday morning I wrote in my journal, “Help me to draw [the children] close,” and then had to laugh when the opportunity presented itself at the wrong moment. You know, the way God seems to do. I thought you wanted to be stretched, to embrace them more in each moment? Is this not a good one? No, God, it’s not quite what I was thinking, but the joke’s on me. I get it.

And I pull up a chair for the eager little girl next to me. She painstakingly puts each cucumber slice into the bowl, and I do my best to resist the urge to hurry her along. Her eyes sparkle and her dimples appear when she pops a slice into her mouth. I shake my head and laugh.

She has a birthday in six days. She’s been on cloud nine ever since the calendar page flipped to her month, and she is just bursting with anticipation. On August 2nd, I brought her on an errand and she very confidently walked next to me in the parking lot without holding my hand because, she asserted, she was nearly five, you know.

School books just for her are collecting, along with the boys’, in the corner of my room. I can’t imagine how excited she will be when she sees them all, just for her. Her very first CFA uniform came in the mail (had to grab that sale price in July!), and it’s been tried on and carefully hung. Each sock is rolled and tucked into a little navy blue shoe.

And tonight, she told me her tooth hurt, and when I touched it, it wiggled. “Oh my! You have a loose tooth!” Her eyes turned round as saucers, and then the biggest smile. “I have a loose tooth?! I’m getting to be such a big girl!”

These little people. They grow so fast. The circumference in which they travel around me grows wider and wider each year, and Beatrice is slipping into an orbit that is just beyond my perpetual reach. A little bit independent. Thinking about life a little bit more on her own. Laughing and singing and playing and doing it all without me much of the time.

So when she fingers that loose tooth, I grab her into my arms and give her a long squeeze. She’s growing, but she’s not grown quite yet. Still my little girl, still just right for a story on my lap.

august 10

This was in my devotional a couple of days ago — so well put (of course; leave it to Mr. Keller.)

“Lord, you hide yourself in history, but you don’t hide yourself in your Word.”

In other words, experience does not need to dictate my theology; the Word of God needs to shape my expectation and hope.

When asking what the will of God is, or how to pray, I need not look at history or my experience, but instead, look at the Word. There I find a rock that will settle my feet quite firmly in the truth of His unfailing goodness, His unflagging power, and His boundless compassion. Hope, pray, expect in the light of that abundantly clear revelation.

august 9

The last week of July, Ryan and I bit the bullet and started Whole30. Probably you know someone who can’t speak highly enough of this 30 day food cleanse/healing program, and so far, neither can I. After years of adding this, cutting that, modifying that, measuring pH levels, yadda yadda, and still suffering from digestive troubles, we decided to try a strict regimen with the road map predetermined. No cheats, all in. No almost grain-free except those two nights I ran out of time and made pasta. After eating bagels for breakfast because I forgot to buy eggs. (Oops.) None of that.

True, I spend a solid hour each morning chopping vegetables and making them into breakfast and lunch, and I have to actually have a dinner plan concocted prior to 5:45 (some of us have made an Olympic sport of totally winging it when it comes to summer dinners!), but I’ve loved it.

Step One: Pull every ingredient out of the fridge and just start chopping. When the pile on the left is all on the right, you’re done.

Step Two: Put two salads-in-jars in the fridge. His and Hers. Awwww, so cute. (Those are just missing greens. Gotta pack that lettuce in firmly with so much other goodness going on!)

Step Three: Start eating…

and eating…

and eating…

and just when you think, holy cow, I’ve consumed SO MUCH PROTEIN and SO MANY VEGETABLES, you have to eat dinner.

*****

Yes, we feel good, I have more energy mid-afternoon (thanks to lunches that are actual meals and not just Mom picking through cupboards as she moves laundry), I haven’t had a single sugar craving or ANYTHING, and we’ve not really been hungry or “munchie” feeling.

But more than that, I’m just feeling thankful.

People around the world will live and die having never eaten a well-balanced meal. Not once! And here we are, able to procure wholesome food for three meals every single day. It’s like complaining that we can’t drink plain water — we need strawberries and lemon and a sprig of mint, or ugh, who wants to drink water? — when children walk miles and wait hours for a few gallons of amoeba-ridden rainwater.

I love ice cream and potato chips and flavored seltzer, so no judgment there. Just perspective. We are rich to even have the option of pursuing healthy choices.

*****

Self-care: at first, I was a bit disappointed to give up a big chunk of my morning — the very best of my day, really — to food prep. I want to be outside! I want to walk! I want to journal! At the very least, I want to get some laundry done.

But having a really good lunch made for myself each day, it turns out, feels very nourishing. Not just to my body, although there is certainly a huge change in my energy levels come 2pm, but also to my soul. I love good food, I love pretty food, and that giant bowl of salad just for me gives me pause each day. Yum. Thank You, God, for giving this to me. For this reminder to stop and fuel the body You’ve given me. Feel the nutrients wake up the weary parts of me.

*****

So this month of continual food prep: it’s been worth it.

Also, I’m already dreaming of Jameson’s birthday cake in September. Just being honest.

August 8: fret and faith

A couple of weeks ago, I left all my kids home with Ryan and got a massage.

Okay, so, it was in a dentist’s chair. But since their chairs are fancy Brookstone massage chairs, I’m gonna call it a spa day.

Your molars show a lot of wear, she said. You clench your teeth a lot. Relax.

And since then, I’ve realized how often I’m chomping down. Relax. So many times a day — RELAX.

But my soul — it’s the same. A constant state of tension, waiting for it all to fall apart, feeling like it’s held together by a thread, a thread I have to keep tense, or it’s all over. We fall to chaos. I notice my clenched teeth, and I relax. I notice my clenched soul — but how do I relax? How do I dare to let go?

“Take my fret…
I will worship You Lord
Only You Lord.”

We sang that in church a few days later, and I realized the clenched teeth and the clenched soul — it’s a worship problem, ultimately.

Sometimes I’m hurrying to get us all ready to go somewhere, and Ryan will call me. Come look at how cute the baby is, or come read this email I’m trying to send, or just come and say hi for a minute. And I think, I can’t!! I can’t stop, or this will never get done. You don’t understand. I just can’t. But over the years, I’ve tried to learn to just pause and come.

And that’s part of how the Holy Spirit illuminates this worship problem.

Come to Me, I want to speak. Come to Me, I want you to rest. Come to Me, I can show you how.

And my soul screams, No! You don’t understand! I can’t come right now, or the food will never be ready and our house will never be tidy and these kids will never be dressed and don’t You see that it all falls apart faster than I can hold it together?

Clench. Grind.

Worship, but not the kind I want.

****

I make a list of the things I love:

Peace. Order. Faithfulness. Work. Calm. Beauty.

Sweet things, things that clearly are of God, created and exemplified by Him. But when any of those are on the throne of my heart, ruling my moments and my spirit, the fruit looks more like fret and frenzy and less like order and beauty. Ironic, yes?

I will
Worship
You Lord
Only You Lord.

August 6: Fiona

This morning I’m up bright and early with my little Goldilocks. We are watching the sunrise together. It’s fantastic, and she is even more so.

Nearly three, she is. One of my very favorite ages, learning how to laugh and joke and ask questions and be a little person.

This little person, it turns out, is pretty brave in the water. Crazy, actually. Watching her plunge with total abandon, come up sputtering and spitting and laughing, has been a highlight of my summer.

She is incredibly spunky, laughing and giggling all the time.

And suddenly she has an opinion about clothes, too. I love when a 2 year old has favorite clothes — such a reminder to me that they see life through different eyes than I do. It’s continually fascinating to me.

And so pretty. Wow! God makes such beautiful people. He really does.

My favorite thing about Fiona is the way she plays. Always with a baby doll somewhere, probably in a stroller loaded with blankets and “snacks”, probably walking that baby to “church” in the living room, or to “Aunt Weasa’s” at the fireplace, or on a really long walk to Meme’s pool. She loves being the mama, gently rocking her baby to sleep. Most of the day, she’s not really Fiona (she tells me); she’s Aunt Beans, and that baby is Vivian. (There’s always room for me to play, too, as Margaret’s grandma.)

But our baby is the one she loves best of all. Sweetest sisters.