Vocab Tests and Prayer Time.

My schedule during this pandemic has been sporadic -- some days I have 12 different projects going on, and some days I am a blob on the couch willing myself to do SOMETHING productive. Little Red's return to school, albeit a completely different return than we have ever had, has at least provided structure for my day. I like structure. Structure helps me schedule the things that are most important, things like having an early morning time dedicated to reading my Bible and praying for the needs around me.

Today, my girl needed help with her vocabulary words so I abbreviated my devotion time to help her.And so it was that my prayer time after was a congruence of Bible scripture and vocab.

I had been reading about worth -- and how as Christians, our worth is directly linked to Jesus and his love for us. It doesn't matter if we are spurious -- Jesus loves us. It doesn't matter if we are mediocre or spasmodic. I mean we could even be a brigand and Jesus would still love us.

In a world where we shout at each other over social media and judge one another about politics and mask-wearing, isn't it comforting to know that our worth is not based on the validity or invalidity of our arguments? My worth is unchanged whether you like me or not. My worth is unchanged if I have a thousand readers here or two (my mom and MIL).

If you will excuse me, I have 36 more words to memorize....

I'm not crying.

To my Little Red,

You start high school tomorrow. I am trying to play it cool. But there are just a few things I need to say. I told you today that I am so proud of you. You asked me why and I know it sounded so lame to you when i said "for being you." But oh Cate, I need you to know that my answer wasn't lame. I am proud of who you are....

1. I am proud of the way you climbed off your high chair as a little bitty thing so you could wipe the ice cream off your brother's face. You climbed up on the wheel of his wheelchair and gently wiped his chin. You KNEW already that we needed your help. And you were willing to give it graciously.

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Remember that over the next four years, you are going to meet people who need you. Remember to always take the time to help them.

2. I am proud of the way you meet new people with an open heart, always. You were barely three when you made a best friend waiting at Disneyland for the Fantasmic show. I had to introduce myself to her parents because y'all were inseparable! You moved across country twice in five years, and have made the most amazing friends wherever you land.

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This year will look different due to the COVID stuff -- but remember to open your heart as you meet new people and make new friends. 

3. I am proud of the way you go after what you love. Watching you find your softball team in Delaware and make them your people has been such a great delight! 

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High school is going to throw all sorts of things your way -- I know you will hit it out of the ballpark. But listen, if you don't always hit it out of the park, that is totally ok too. And Cate, I will be here in your cheering section no matter what. Always.

4. Ok, this will be the last one, I promise. I am proud of the way you embrace adventure! Your future is bright, my girl. You have picked a fabulous high school and even in this strange pandemic season, I know you are going to have a great four years. Seize all the moments, and take advantage of every opportunity!

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So yea, I am proud of you, Cate. And I can't wait to hear all about your first day of HIGH SCHOOL!!

I love you so.

Mom.

Love your neighbor. For the love of God.

" 'Teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' [Jesus] said to him, 'What is written in the Law? How do you read it?' And he answered 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.'  But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ' And who is my neighbor?' " Luke 10:25-29 (ESV)

Last night I woke up in the wee hours and checked my phone (I have terrible sleep habits, I know.). There was a message from a former neighbor in Arizona with a question about our house there and the alarm code. He needed to help the current owners. It was good to hear from James and as I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, I thought about his sweet family and how our little girls learned to ride their bikes on that cul-de-sac.

My girls and I have spent some of our time during this stay-at-home season running the neighborhood behind our house. Although we are still newcomers here, I feel like we have gained some insight into our neighbors. We know, for instance, who has seniors graduating this month from the signs in the yards. We know who has dogs and how many. We know who is working on landscaping projects, pool builds, and who has the cutest pillows on their front porch. And if these new neighbors have looked out their windows at all, they know exactly how many times I can pass their home before my legs slow to barely a crawl. 

I don't yet really know my neighbors here. So the admonition to love them as I love myself seems a bit challenging but also, perhaps because I don't know them, it doesn't seem impossible either.

I knew my neighbors in Mississippi a bit more. We didn't talk often, but when we did it was pleasant and prior to learning we would be moving, I looked forward to getting to know all of them more. 

Except perhaps on Saturday mornings.

Our direct next-door neighbor's garage was on the master bedroom side of our house. And apparently Saturday mornings were his ideal time to test the engine of his sports car. I honestly am not sure exactly what was happening over there except that earlier than I wanted to be awake on Saturday, the revving noises from his garage would rattle the walls in our bedroom. The whole love your neighbor thing might have felt like a bit much in those waking hours.

I am making light, but in all seriousness, I have had these verses on my mind all week. As the world re-opens and we all attempt to resume some normalcy, I have been astounded at the outrage over wearing masks in public. Astounded at the sheer volume of people who flat-out refuse because they say their rights are being violated in the asking. I can't even.

Truly, is there a better way right now to love our neighbors? Wearing the mask protects us from unknowingly spreading a virus that you might be strong enough to fight but you are preventing the spread of your germs to those who might not be as strong. You are preventing the spread to vulnerable populations....like my sons. And your refusal, while certainly within your "rights," will force my family -- and so many others like us --  to have to continue staying home.

The form of the word "love" used in this verse is agape (ἀγάπη). Agape is an unconditional love, a selfless one. We are to love God with our heart, soul, and mind in a selfless manner. In other words, with no conditions, with no reservations. And wait. We are also supposed to love our neighbor -- to agape our neighbor -- with the same selfless love. Oh wow. 

And if I had not watched the news once this week, I would spend a couple of paragraphs encouraging you to selflessly wear your masks (really, I need you to). And I would say Amen, and be done with that. But.

But apparently, we live in a country where asking someone to put their dog on a leash, results in a 9-1-1 call using skin color as a bully tactic. Not exactly love of neighbor there.

And then the video of George Floyd. The heart-wrenching video of George Floyd has made even that incident in Central Park look blasé.

My heart breaks.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Love your neighbor. Love.

And I realize how ridiculous it is to ask people to wear a mask -- to personally inconvenience themselves -- in order to think of others first, when, apparently, we can't recognize the rights of anyone beyond ourselves, especially not anyone who looks different than the reflection we see in the mirror. We can't recognize how our neighbor might possibly not be a mirror-image of our own face. How is it possible that in 2020 this is still happening? 

The lawyer talking to Jesus wanted clarification of who exactly his neighbor was. In reply, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. (Read Luke 10.) See, the Samaritans weren't a people the lawyer would have recognized as a mirror-image reflection of himself. Jesus knew we needed point-blank admonitions to love those who aren't exactly like us. 

Jesus told us to love our neighbors. He equated the love of our neighbors with love of God.

And it is exactly for the love of God -- and all things godly and good -- that I feel the need to shout that it is time for my fellow white people to stand up and scream that enough is enough. We need to join hands with our friends of color, and with our neighbors of color, and, for the love, with strangers of color, and assure them we stand with them against the horror of what happened to George Floyd. We stand with them in demanding justice, as well as in committing to end the violence. We stand with them. We kneel with them.

We need to love our neighbors.

Do you know what halcyon means?

Halcyon Days.

I read a book once, when my big kids were very little, where the narrator used that term to describe the season where her children were young, running around her backyard. I remember thinking I knew what she was saying but had never heard the term before so I looked it up.

According to my search, halcyon, in its adjective form means:  Denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

That word has echoed in my thoughts for years -- are THESE the halcyon days? Oh no wait, THESE must be the halcyon days.

The truth is with three children all the same age, then an added fourth -- peaceful was never an adjective that popped into any one's head to describe us.

Further, I have been chasing idyllic my entire life -- picturesque and blissful! I remember this house in the neighborhood between my mother's work and my great-aunt's home (those were my exploration boundaries as a child.) that I rode my bicycle by daily. It had a cute little front porch. and the windows had quaint little shutters. And the sweetest white picket fence. In the spring, daffodils would fill the flower beds and in the fall, the leaves on the tree just inside the fence would rain down on me as I drove past imagining the sweet little life of the family that lived within the walls. I was convinced they were living my idyll. I wondered how I would ever convince them to sell me that home as soon as I grew up.

Of course, life would take me far from my bicycle boundaries before I could buy a home. And my family of six would have been hard-pressed to fit into that sweet little house from day one. But the dreams of a little girl form the idyll of the big girl, right? And so I have sought porches, shutters, and picket fences for a long long time.

But happy? Oh we have had happy! Three bouncing babies with the sweetest smiles and a capacity to love that far exceeded their little bitty size brought more happy than I could ever imagine. And then when eight years later, the cutest little redhead was born to us, I thought my heart might burst with happy.

Happy has never been in short supply in our house. Of course, neither has pain, or heartache, or sadness. Over the years, I have longed to minister to other mothers with premature babies. And yet, I am aware that my family's road from prematurity is not idyllic, it isn't dream.

And so part of me was guarded when the triplets were young about reaching out. But as my amazing children have grown, I have become bolder -- knowing without a doubt that my trio can offer hope to those moms. Because hope and happy are only possible when you have been through the pain, the heartache, the sadness.

Perhaps you know that I just had a big birthday. Big. Huge. I turned 50. We have celebrated for almost two months and embraced and praised God for the years. But as the celebrations wind down, I can't help but once again wonder about the halcyon days. With one foot in one state and one in another as we continue the long distance commute for another school year, I feel overwhelmed by hard good-byes, exciting hellos, and the exhaustion of packing, unpacking, and making a home. I wonder about finding the idyllic. And then reprimand myself that happy and peaceful beat idyllic all day long. (And then I continue only searching for homes with a front porch -- some things are just hard to change.) 

I mean maybe halcyon days are beyond me. And on woeful days, I think yeah, maybe. But I am a girl who rather hates dwelling in the woeful. And so in my optimistic moments, I rather think we are on a grand adventure with more idyllic days ahead, more friends to gather, more memories to share, more porches to rock on.

But still. This summer I feel burdened that far too often we are submerging ourselves into a social media-minefield of what appears to be everyone else's halcyon days. We post the photo that captures the best of our best. We post the kitchen without any dirty dishes and a smiling family. We don't post the challenges of eating for our son. The smiling birthday party shots don't tell you that the air conditioner malfunctioned moments before the guests began to arrive. The vacation shots that show our smiling family in front of a picturesque fountain in a delightful piazza in Rome does not tell you the story of the angst of navigating the wheelchairs into oncoming traffic because the sidewalks were not accessible.

Far too many of my friends are finding pain in looking at only the idyllic right now. Far too many are hurting and fighting for their very lives while we fight for the picture-perfect dream. And so I desperately want us to keep sharing -- oh, you know that photos are my love language -- but I also want us to be more real with each other, to share the hard and the struggles, to remember that a good friend celebrates with us when we celebrate but also cries with us when we cry.

I am going to keep searching for my front porch -- but I promise to be real there. Ya'll will come rock with me? Won't you?

I'm here, I'm here!!

Mercy, there is a lot of dust gathering on this page. Did you think I had left and was never coming back? Honestly.

There are reasons of course -- it wasn't that there haven't been things to say, I have no fewer than three drafts in my inbox proving otherwise. No, that isn't it. I have things to say but between speaking engagements -- which have been such an honor and a privilege -- from Colorado to Florida and even a hop over to Israel!! -- and a home-renovation and subsequent move, coupled with this stupid awful very bad election season, I have just been too tired to formulate cohesive sentences. Or at least too tired to coordinate cohesive sentences that weren't full of whiny frustrated emotions and adding to an already over-political newsfeed. So rather than hit "publish" on any drafts, I decided that perhaps the season called for being a "Thumper"...you know, if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.

But I missed you. And I have things to say. And honestly, I can hardly process life without typing it out and sharing -- and oversharing...so here I am, back with my fingers poised on the keyboard in anticipation of letting the sharing begin.

Whew.

First, moving is hard. I am a seasoned-expert in moving, and really as such would assume that I am just so good at it that I make it look easy. Nope. Not even a little bit. Four kids. Two adults. And two dogs.  We accumulate a ton of stuff. A. Ton. Of. Stuff. And moving is hard. Renovating a house even harder.

Kitchen before.

Kitchen almost done.

Kitchen after renovation BEFORE move-in!

I actually hired a lady to help me organize. I told her I needed her to pack Little Red's room and help me organize it in the new house - Cate has great storage space in the new house and I want to ensure we maximize it!

The lady quit after a day. She said she couldn't go up all my stairs. (I'm sorry...I assumed she wouldn't be in the business of organizing if she wasn't up to some stairs....) I felt so mad at myself for seeking help and trusting her. And then, then, she criticized my parenting -- "This child has too many toys. I would never give a child so many toys."

I was sad and mad and overwhelmed.

I was sad someone would pass judgement on our parenting without even knowing how awesome my kids are. (And come on, I have FOUR kids...it does appear Cate has more toys than most toys stores but that is because she inherited ALL the triplets' stuff too!)

I felt mad that she would accept a job and then quit before she had really made a dent in the project.

And I was completely overwhelmed because without her help, I knew the majority of the move would fall to me -- hubby was busy at work, big kids busy at college, and that left me.

Foyer before.

Foyer after.

My sweet friends, however, saw a sweaty, overwhelmed friend and stepped in.

Paige came over one Sunday afternoon and worked to pack breakable pottery pieces and help me move them safely to the new house. She gave up her whole afternoon for me.

My friend's sister, NeNe came to discuss staging my house for sell and ended up staying to help me organize and move and then unpacked enough to surprise my kids and husband with a semi-settled home when they came in to the new house! (You bet that NeNe is no longer just the sister of my friend....I adore her!)

My Bible Study group came and moved the kids' closets and our pantry just so I wouldn't have to. How dear is that? They loaded their cars and moved clothes like a machine getting the kids' closets put away!

Family room -- with actual ROOM for Benjamin to drive around!

And still....I spent five hours there last Wednesday and again today trying to get the last bits packed up and out of that house. I swear our junk is multiplying in our absence. Cate used her first day of Thanksgiving break boxing and loading and unloading.

We aren't completely finished. The garage has boxes that we will have to move. But the house is empty tonight and clean and ready to go on the market. Sometimes being an adult is hard and requires tackling the ugly dirty sweaty jobs in order to make things better. And this move is doing just that -- the new house is more accessible, more use-able for our family. We have space for visitors -- something very important to me. And we have room for a certain Little Red to run and play and throw softballs!

A street in Jerusalem. My very favorite!

And sometimes being an adult means amazing friends who walk beside you, wonderful opportunities to share our story, and incredible experiences that make being 40-something the absolute best!

Happy Thanksgiving, dear ones! I won't be gone too long this time, I promise.

Balancing the Walls of Smiles.

My new friend was commenting on how happy my family is as she looked at the walls of photos in my home. I gratefully thanked her at first. But then she continued -- commenting on their smiles and even adding that we must be amazing parents for them to be so happy. At this point, I gently patted her arm and said, "You do know I don't frame photos from our bad days, right?"

The conversation stayed with me after she left. It occurred to me that much like the walls in my home, my social media walls reflect the very best side of life.  I mean let's face it, on my hard days, I might post a prayer request, I might post a photo (or three) expressing outrage at people blocking the handicap accessible loading zones, I might even share my heart about surgeries, college kids moving out, and flat tires. But I don't tweet out other photos. I don't open Instagram and catch the moment for all time. I don't point my Canon and say here, let's capture this and share it with the world.

Photographs for me are therapeutic because they do capture our very best moments, our dearest times together, our special occasions. Photographs allow me to walk back through time, reliving, remembering and reflecting on precious days.

And yet,  I see how dangerous that can be. I know that on my hard days, scrolling through Friend X's photos and seeing her picture perfect children running, jumping, climbing can cause me to covet in my heart.

I know that on my hard days, scrolling through Friend Y's page and seeing her amazing date nights with her hubby and what seems from my computer screen a perfect marriage can cause me to compare my own marriage.

I know that on my hard days, scrolling through Friend Z's page and seeing her workout goals, her food pictures and her dressing room selfies can make me feel discouraged and dowdy and cause my self-esteem to plummet.

I don't take pictures on my hard days. And can I assure you that no one else does either? Can I hug you from here and assure you that no one has a picture perfect life? Pictures capture the best. They save the moment for us forever and oh how I do love photographs. But sprinkled in the mix, we all have hard days. We all have days completely unworthy of a tweet, an Insta or whatever the newest social medium.

And just because sometimes we do take pictures on our hard days....

Today, there are bags under my eyes begging for more sleep, less worry and perhaps a little coffee. I tried to snap a selfie but good-grief that might prove an even bigger point cause nobody needs to see THAT. :)

Will you promise to do me this favor: scroll through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with a grain of reality that no one is posting their baggie-eyed selfies. We are putting our best foot forward, our best chins up and our best angles only.  We are posting the happy days. We are tweeting the fun moments. But that doesn't mean we DON'T have bags under our eyes. Or that we don't have some double-chin action happening. Or that any of our days are perfect. What it means is that we are opting to take a deep breath and thank God for the gifts in our life. You know counting our...

It is important to find your people.

When the triplets were looking at colleges, I just kept saying "please, go where we have people." I didn't want to limit them to driving distance from me. But I also didn't want to see them somewhere where it would take double-digit hours for a loved one to get to them in case of emergency. Our world is colored different than most, remember.

When all three fell in love with schools in Mississippi, I confess that my heart soared. And yet, even I underestimated the value of being within arms reach of each other.

Never have these three been apart. Not really.

When they expressed loneliness in those early weeks of first semester I tried to encourage them. First semester is chocked full of adjustments, I said. And being away from home tops the list. It is huge. I repeated and repeated.

I received more than one of those phone calls before it hit me: Of course they were lonely. Good grief. These three finish each other's sentences. They shared a womb. They shared cribs. They shared every single toy every purchased (Except when the "first day, you don't have to share" rule was invoked.). They had never been where other people close by to them didn't understand their innermost thoughts -- and share them for the most part. They are triplets. Of course, three different colleges felt lonely.

Mason was the last one home from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit when they were born. He was barely four pounds the day he came home. It was still a week before his due date. And yet, when we placed him in a crib between Benjamin and Claire he laughed out loud! And then kept smiling as he looked from one to the other as if to say "I had been missing them!" It was beautiful.

Mason was also the one who was crying uncontrollably right before his first birthday when we traveled to Tupelo for the first time. I couldn't do anything to help. Claire -- sitting in her high chair between Benjamin and Mason -- reached over and touched him and said something totally unrecognizable to me but Mason smiled at her and quit crying. The three just sat -- each boy holding onto Claire's outstretched hands -- for the longest time, perfectly content.

So yes, the transition to meeting new people has been wonderful and yet, being away from their people has been a challenge. Having the ability to get to each other on the weekend has been huge. And so I am thankful that God directed their paths this way.

Having said that, it is a beautiful thing to see relationships developing on their respective campuses.

Benjamin says Phil Collins' song "Easy Lover" is our theme song. He thinks it is hilarious. Because of course, it is a reminder that Mom sometimes gets her tongue completely twisted around upside and  backwards! In one of our discussions about last semester he was sharing that he isn't sure if his new friends like him yet as much as he likes them. I immediately went into pep talk mode and in an attempt to remind him that he and I (and his siblings) tend to love people easily and quickly I said "You know, we are easy lovers."  To which he busted out laughing. And I quickly tried to switch around to "I mean, we love easily".....good grief.

Now we have theme song at least.

Benjamin and his cast from "Ghost Stories of Mississippi".

Both Mason and Claire went through Rush in the fall. I trusted the rush at Mississippi College where the girls pledge "social tribes" not sororities to be kinder and gentler for my girl. And for the most part, it was. She found a sweet place to be and I loved the glee-filled pictures of her on "squeal day."

But Mason and fraternity rush at Millsaps was a different story. I was a mess the week of rush. I had to suppress a strong need to take my books on Cerebral Palsy and go do an educational lecture at each fraternity. I wanted them to know that he is an amazing young man. I wanted to tell them that even though he is using an electric scooter to get around campus, he has always only used crutches to ambulate. I wanted to tell them that he has to overcome so much every single day. I wanted them to see videos of his theatre productions, his graduation speech (Have YOU seen that? You can click here to watch now!) . I wanted them to KNOW him.

I wanted to ensure they saw past his disability to his many many abilities.

In reality, I am probably the only one that needed the lecture. Because even without all that (all that interference from Mom that COULD have been but wasn't!), Mason received the bid of his choice -- Lambda Chi Alpha.

And as if to underscore how accepting this group of young men are....how vividly they recognize the abilities of my son.....on bid night, one of Lambda Chi's leaders urged Mason to hang back as the other members raced into the fraternity house courtyard. After they had all passed, this new friend jumped on the back of Mason's electric scooter and told him to GO...and these two triumphantly roared into the middle of the courtyard (as fast as the scooter can race) with letter jerseys flying in what was described to me as a glorious entry filled with thunderous applause, screams and shouts!

I wish I had been a fly on the wall.

No doubt transitioning back this week will take some getting used to. We spent the break fairly on top of each other squeezed into hotel rooms and ship cabins. It was wondrous.

But I am praying that just as I embrace joy for 2016, these three amazing college students will embrace new friendships, new experiences and the opportunities God places in front of them.

And then when they come home I'll have Phil Collins playing in the background with arms opened wide.

Oceans, Reservoirs, and my son in a tux.

The van windows were down as I sat in a parking lot under a balcony that looks out over the reservoir. I couldn't help but think about perceptions. In my childhood, I thought this big body of water was the same as an ocean. I would get excited every time my family ventured south to the Jackson-area. I would crane my neck, hoping for a glimpse. The sun hitting the waters still fills me with joy, but today, I have a bit more experience with oceans. I know that my perception of the Ross Barnett Reservoir doesn't compare with the majesty of the blue waters of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In my van, I was waiting on Benjamin at his first Belhaven homecoming dance. He wasn't sure how long he wanted to stay and in order to be there when he was ready to leave, I needed to stay near. My initial feelings -- beyond exhaustion at being up so late -- was the knowledge that I was most definitely the only parent sitting in the parking lot. I wondered what the college kids were thinking about this mom opening doors and lowering ramps and trying not to hover. My perception was that this had to be having a negative impact on my college kid.

I confess that as I sat listening to bits of conversations happening on the balcony above me, I strained to hear Benjamin's voice over the crowd of collegiate voices celebrating homecoming. I so wanted to know that he was having a good time even as I sat waiting on his dancing wheels to tire out. Benjamin and I are finding our own dance, figuring out what college looks like today for Benjamin.

And so far, in spite of my fears about the perception of me as a hovering mother, it looks like this:

And this:

Belhaven 2015 Homecoming Court

And a bit of this:

Benjamin with Belhaven president, Dr. Roger Parrott.

And just in case you wondered....there was this too:

And of course, of course, there was this:

And so the reservoir is not an ocean. It is, however, beautiful and amazing and I could sit and enjoy the light reflecting off of it for hours. And Benjamin's college career is not an easy path. It is not one filled with complete independence or exactly the same things that Claire and Mason are enjoying on their campuses. But it is filled with honors, opportunities and some amazing new friends in his fellow students and staff.

And Saturday's homecoming was a wonderful reminder that once again I need to lay down my perceptions, assumptions and expectations. I need to let Benjamin lead the way -- he is perfectly comfortable with me in the parking lot letting the ramp up and down. And so I am too.