November 10, 2010

• Taking a Rest

  Time for something cheerful from this site.

   

  The baby just dumped a salt shaker into a laundry basket. 

   

  The laundry mounds in the porch might make those of you with two or three children vow that you have had your last.

   

  The glass on our main doorway is covered with smears from the licks of the heifers that got out yesterday.

   

  I awoke from a nap recently in which I dreamed a terrible dream.  There were sick kids everywhere and in the midst of the pee and the vomit my friend dropped off her girls so she could go be induced to have another baby.  Upstairs there was company that I knew would be coming down to eat soon.  No food ready.   I was mopping up something red and yellow.  I awoke with the smell in my nose and reality looked amazingly marvelous.  Even though it involved waking babies and buckling the Little Three into carseats so we could go pick up the Big Three at school.

   

  Life is very, very good.

   

  This morning Andre got the Belizean hot sauce out of the fridge and brought it to me.  “Cause Tillie was callin me a tinker.” 

   

  We use hot sauce for nasty language sometimes.  Effective because they hate it.

   

  Every morning when I take vitamins someone asks me for some Vitamin Seeds.  You know them- the orange chewable ones.

   

  This little miss now yells a plaintive “I too” about everything.  It’s tough being the youngest.

   

  

   

  After my last post on that really awful Thursday, Friday was good.  Immeasurably good.  And so was Saturday.  Which makes me wonder why I feel like posting when I feel miserable.  The only good I can see coming out of it is that someone else who is feeling blue might feel like they have company.  Because somehow when I feel overwhelmed and I think of someone who always seems to have it together I feel sadder still.  But when I hear that person say….”Oh, I struggle too” then I feel better.

   

  You know, there’s a time to empathize.  And then there’s a time to encourage by speaking truth to someone who is anxious.    And it’s a fine line to know what someone else may be seeking.

   

  But I think someone prayed for me this weekend.   

   

  Maybe it was also the cry and the talk I had with Dan.  OR the cry and talk with my sister Julia. (Thank you both!)    You both listened and sympathized, but you also said true words that I needed to hear.

   

  It might have had something to do with a cup of tea with friends on Friday afternoon.

   

  Or the comfort of making beans and tortillas and fresh salsa for supper and watching Alec eat them.  Alec-the-man, who was off to Wisconsin for almost two weeks and was so nonchalant about getting home that I wondered if he even missed us.

   

  Or the fire that Dan started in the wood stove on Saturday morning while we all relaxed and did our own thing when we should have been cleaning house.

   

  Or the walk in the sunshine on Saturday with Andre, who picked out a special rock that he planned to take to bed.  Thankfully he forgot about it and I quietly put the rock outside this morning.

   

  It had something to do with the little boy who gratefully said at suppertime when Dan brought in the steaks  (on a November day that was still nice enough to grill over the fire)….”Here’s da Steaker-man!”

   

  Or maybe it was that Dan disked the garden and those ugly broccoli plants are under the earth now.

   

  Maybe it had to do with the quiet quaintness of reading Beatrix Potter to little people.  I just love some of her lines.  “This is a tale about a tail-a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.”

   

  And the ending to the Mr. Jeremy Fisher book, which reads: “And instead of a nice dish of minnows-they had a roasted grasshopper with lady-bird sauce; which frogs consider a beautiful treat; but I think it must have been nasty!”

   

  I sometimes groan a bit when the small ones bring me a little green book from our Beatrix Potter set to read because they’re longer than the average children’s story.  But I usually get lost in the peaceful little tales and cunning illustrations.

   

  Or maybe it was the doughnuts that a friend came by to drop off for us.  They were some of the best doughnuts we have ever eaten, but the thought was what meant the most.  Thank you, Suzi!

   

  Bryant baked a chocolate cake on Saturday afternoon.  He is 8 and he makes a mess, and I groan when he wants to help, but I kind of like to see him interested in culinary things. 

   

  I sat in church yesterday and ate food at the fellowship dinner with some really nice people that I am proud to call friends.  They are down to earth and honest people.  And while we all really wish we had a few more people at church, it’s a good thing to be able to get along and work together.  There’s not another option, really.

   

  People who are real and don’t make apologies inspire me.  Like Katie, whose house we visited on Sunday night.  She doesn’t worry about everything being in place, but her house is so comfortable.  It’s one of our children’s favorite places to go.  The coffee is hot and the laughs are many and I want to be more like her.

   

  *Brag alert*:  (yes, I got that from someone else’s blog)

   

  Natalia is 4 and ½ and she plays the piano all the time.  She’ll be sitting at the table with a faraway look and then she’ll say:  “I’m going to go try to play that.”  And she tries all kinds of songs.  Like the song she heard Laurie play on Little Women CDs.  Or My Heart Will Go On because she hears Victoria play it.  Granted, Mary Had a Little Lamb and Oh Be Careful Little Eyes are her greatest hits, but she really has an ear for music and that makes me happy.

   

  And sometimes when Victoria plays For Balmy Sunshine or The Rose I am so happy-proud that I cry.

   

  I have been slogging through my one year NIV Bible and it has been good.  But it was getting really heavy.  And I was so struggling with all the wrath and damnation in the Old Testament that my underlying questions about God’s love were growing greater.

   

  Drastic times call for drastic measures.  I gave up my resolve to read the Bible through in one year.  I hope I can go back and finish it sometime.  But right now I’m looking into God’s love.  The verses that are unconditional.  Because even there I was getting tied up in knots.  So many O.T. verses seem conditional.  “IF you love Me and obey I will love you and bless you.”

   

  And the truth is, my love for God lacks. 

   

  Please don’t write me off as heretical.  Someday I might tell you the rest of the story.

   

  But for now I am planning to take a rest.   A rest in His love for me.  Because I have struggled and questioned and ranted for far too long.

   

  

   

   

   

   

   

  • 8:42 am
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