Thursday, May 7, 2015

Grace Like Rain

I remember back when I just had my Siah and The Dancing Girl. I had a friend who was pregnant with number five and I had asked her one day how she did it? How did she cook and clean and homeschool and grow another little one?

What I really wanted to know was how on earth she could function like a normal person?

Now I know.

She didn't.

There are so many seasons in life where you just do what you've got to do. I'm far from being super woman over here. Nearly every time I sit down I fall asleep. I throw up in my mouth nearly every time I try to cook anything__ so we eat a lot of cereal and oatmeal and yogurt. Somedays, I feel like I'm barely gonna make it through. I don't say that so you'll feel sorry for me. I say that because it's what's real. And the beautiful part is that in the midst of it all the Lord sends the best kind of reinforcement in ways that I simply could't have fathomed until I got to this place.

The truth is, I couldn't make it through these days without my older kids and the way that they help me. I woke up on Sunday morning and my Siah was in the kitchen washing dishes and unloading the dishwasher. I asked him what he was up too and he said, "I know you're tired and I just want to bless you Mom." What kid on the planet does that?

All week long, I kept falling asleep when the Spunky Girl was reading to me. My Dancing Girl would tap me on the shoulder and say, "Mom, I'll set the timer for 30 minutes and take the baby outside to play so you can sleep in the quiet." then she'd put a blanket over me and go outside for a half hour. When the timer would go off, I'd peel myself off the couch and we'd start school again.



{All four of them taking turns reading to each other on the couch in the sunroom while the rain is coming down hard.}





{My Charmer will be five in a few short months. He's been into making his own snacks lately and he's pretty proud of himself. I'm proud of him too!}

On Saturday night I went to bed at 7:30 and on Sunday morning my Joey let me sleep in. When I got up, he made me breakfast and helped me get the kids ready for church, fed the animals, changed the baby, packed the snacks and made sure all five treasures had wiped breakfast off their face.

Do you wanna know what grace really looks like in a marriage? I'm far from being my normal self these days. I feel like I'm not keeping up on my life. And yet my Joey, he goes out of his way to point out the things that I'm doing well {however few things that might be}, and he never bothers to point out all the things that I'm so obviously lacking in. We don't pretend that the hard thins aren't there. We simply chose to affirm one another with the good things.

That's grace.

That's kindness at it's best.

Some seasons in this life, we thrive. Some seasons, we just work together to make it through. And there is somehow genuine beauty in both.

This growing a baby business has become a group effort under the farmhouse roof. It's a group effort to keep the littlest boy out of the toilet everyday. It's a group effort to get food on the table and dishes in the dishwasher. It's a group effort to get ourselves out the door all fully clothed in something that matches {there has been a time or two when one little boy went to town without shoes on and another time when no one could find a clean pair of matching socks so all five kiddos had mismatched socks on}.


{I may be super tired these days, but not too tired to be the hero. Snake season is upon us and as I chopped this snake's head off with my machete, I had a whole slew of kids cheering me on from the front porch... "Chop it Mama! You got it Mama! Yay Mama!!!"}

Life has not been very glamorous lately.

But it has been gloriously grace-filled.

I'm humbled. I want to be able to do things on my own, to keep up, to "have it all together."

But I'm finding that there is somehow a sweet joy that comes when you become brutally aware of the reality that you can't do everything on your own.

When "on your own" is no longer an option, you get the privilege of watching your children become servant leaders before your very eyes {and not because you're making them serve you, but because they have decided on their own that that's the way they want to live their life, thinking about others above themselves.} When "on your own" is no longer an option, you get the privilege of being selflessly loved and graciously cared for by one seriously hot Cowboy. When "on your own" is no longer an option, you get the privilege of eyes wide open allowing you to see beauty in this ordinary everyday life.

A few weeks ago we sang this song in church and tears just streamed down my face... Grace like rain is so sweetly falling down on the farmhouse these days and it's changing me for the better.