these moccasins were made for mothering

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes? Mine are here immortalized:

I rescued them from a free bin. The fact that they were moccasins and made me feel a little like Tiger Lily won me over. Since then they've molded to fit my feet; once too tight, now they fit perfectly. 

They were worn on long walks with my son in the umbrella stroller as I walked the neighborhood around our apartment, walked to the post office, walked to the grocery store, walked to just kill time till AJ came home. 

I wore them to the coast this summer and brought my weeks old daughter with me for a high school girls beach day. Newborns and beaches don't necessarily go together and sometimes you need to apply sunscreen twice, yes, even though you don't think to because you're holding a baby. 

If you look closely at the left moccasin, there's a little smudge of Blue Zircon paint from this week when we painted Ransom's new/used/big boy/toddler bed.

I sense our family is in a season in which one day we'll say "Those were some golden years." We're in the happily chaotic time of parenting a toddler and a baby. A close friend lives with us, providing important community and an occasional babysitter for scoffed quick coffee dates when AJ and I need to hear only the other's voice. We're renting a house now and working on paying off debt. On account of that I'm becoming resourceful to a fault or maybe a hippie.

Looking at the wear on these moccasins makes me remember these times. When I see them I recall the story of how God provides, how surely His goodness and unfailing love is pursuing our family. We aren't fabulously wealthy, but we are. They are my thankful shoes. 

Beauty and the First Lady

Politics aside, I have a heart for the First Lady, Michelle Obama. It's not just because of the pretty dresses she wears, the importance she places on military families, good nutrition, and exercise. It pleases my romantic sensibilities whenever I see a picture of her with her husband and they're holding hands; I want their marriage to succeed. Something tugs at my heart when I think of her and her family of four. I see pictures of them dressed up and going to church and my heart hopes, but at the same time sinks. I want faith in Jesus to be real for them, not a veneer to impress potential voters, which is what I fear might be happening. I want a Jesus revelation to move the hearts and actions of the President and his Lady, not political game strategies. But I don't know the hearts of Barak and Michelle. What I see isn't the whole picture. So, I'm reminded to pray for them, something I don't do often enough.
Jesus, please stir things up in the Obama family. Place strategic relationships in their lives. Protect them, and let them know it is you who watches over them, who gives them breath and life. When they get dressed up and go to church, make it a physical representation of their desire to bring their best to you, to offer themselves to you as living sacrifices, doing the good works you prepared in advance for them to do. I pray for Damascus road experiences for both Barak and Michelle, and that you will open their eyes to see your plans at work. Let them align themselves with your plans, Jesus, not their own, not a political party. Bring people in their lives who are true friends to encourage them and to challenge them, who will stick with them when things are messy. Let them be dazzled by you, Jesus, not by big names, big money, big titles. Make their desire be to honor you.
God, may the glimpses of beauty I see in the First Lady become more frequent, coming from a deepening love for Jesus and a desire to let it be unto her according to Your will.
Your ways are higher than ours. Amen!

(Picture found at: http://mrs-o.com/newdata/2009/2/25/isnt-she-lovely.html )

Romance

Recently I've been re-reading my journals and I've noticed a few of things:

1) I can be very long winded
2) It is splendid to see in retrospect how God answered prayers I journaled (for instance...)
3) God created a good romance for AJ and me

It's been fun to revisit the specific ways that God answered prayer. How he redeemed days & places I had associated with other boys by giving me precious memories with Andrew in those same places, on those same days. How when I was journaling prayers specifically for my future husband, AJ was really getting refined, and even though we weren't aware, our hearts were being prepared for the relationship God was getting us ready for. It's cute to see how I meticulously recorded dialogue & texts that were exchanged.

This all makes me love and appreciate the man I've been blessed with.

Have a prayer, a romance, a journal that's been collecting dust? Let this be my encouragement to you to brush the dust away & to revisit those hopes & desires (I'm getting all sappy...) and to give the glory to Jesus for how he answered (or graciously didn't answer) those prayers.

Thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas & some Christmas "do's"

Merry Christmas from our family!
(Our photographer friends took these photos. They highly exceeded our expectations & we couldn't be more pleased! We highly recommend them.)

With Christmas almost here, I've been thinking about how to celebrate it meaningfully with our little family of three, and here's some "Christmas do's" I scribbled down today:

-Christmas light viewing drive & good eats or drinks (Loved that this year. We ate at our favorite Mexican grocery store deli & with warm drinks we drove up to the ritzy neighborhood with the amazing city view to look at lights. We took Ransom out of the car to look at the most impressive house at the top of the hill. We also visited the spot where AJ proposed to me & got out & hugged & kissed for memory's sake. There are houses being built there now, in what was a previously almost empty lot overlooking the city. I joked that someday we may have to live in one of them to have access to the precious spot.)
-Advent celebrating with a calendar (I didn't get my act together in time, so I'll have to try to be better prepared next year.)
-Play Christmas songs on the piano (My mom sent me a Christmas songbook that I've loved using this year!)
-Make pulla, a.k.a. Finnish coffee bread, a tradition in my family (Haven't made any yet, but there's still time. Actually, I need to hunt down the recipe.)
-Read Christmas books with Ransom (We're getting a little collection of them.)
-Play good Christmas music (This year it's been Charlie Brown, Sara Groves, Chicago, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Sufjan Stevens, and I discovered a new mini album by Hue & Hum that I might get for next year)
-Be intentional about giving $$ to the Salvation Army bell ringers who are parked outside store entrances, especially because I want to cultivate generosity in our family & model it for our kids. (I need to get better at this one.)
-Get Christmas shopping done early (Yay for avoiding the mall the week before Christmas!)
-Send Christmas photos to loved ones
-Go on an date with AJ for my birthday (Dec. 26...have yet to follow through with this one)

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

"God chose to have his Son enter the world in a stable and be laid in filthy slop so we could know our sinful hearts are not too lowly of a place for him to occupy." --Jen Smidt, from an article called "The Dirty Manger"

when Jesus was showing off, part 2

Tonight, I'm continuing on a theme from the previous post about how this week has been altering my attitude. Let me explain more by telling the story about an innocent thrifting trip AJ and I had at Goodwill today, and how Jesus used it to, again, show off His crazy love for me.

If you would be so kind, note the shiny, orange family of cookware posing for a picture at the front of our stove. These caught my eye as I was casually scoping out the housewares section, and I flipped them over to check their quality.


Well, they're good, very good quality. Le Creuset. Three lofty Le Creuset pieces resting on the shelves of an ordinary Goodwill. There's a Dutch (or should I say French) oven with a lid, a small saucepan with a spout, and a nice little skillet that begs for some butter to be melted in it. The skillet alone, on the Le Creuset website costs $75 new. The Dutch oven, over $200. We paid $70 for all three pieces.

Andrew bought them for me for my Christmas & birthday (Dec 26) present because after we happened upon this extraordinary discovery, he wanted to really bless me.

I'm still amazed at this find. I'm not used to having really nice things, and I don't expect to get them. So when something like this happens, I'm caught off guard. It feels like a miracle.

(Today I'm linking up to her library adventures, sharing the find.)


Tonight I told AJ how this week has been so much better than I could have hoped. With the band recording the album this week, requiring his absence in the evenings, I expected a lot of loneliness, feeling overwhelmed with the baby, not having the car, the rainy weather & simply missing my husband. But it's been great. Just as the girls prayed on Tuesday, I have been able to be creative (there are still lots of ideas ruminating in my cranium, waiting for action), to have quality time with friends, to have little reprieving pockets of good time with AJ, I've been able to simply enjoy my almost 1 year old son, and I've seen expressions of God's grace poured out on me this week. Like finding Le Creuset cookware that I'd never imagined I'd get to own.

Jesus showing off again.

I told AJ I almost expected to be resentful about the time he'd be away during the recording. It'd be so easy to gripe "He's off doing the band thing while I'm stuck here..." but that hasn't been the issue at all. Looking back at the last several days, I see God's kindness toward me each day has been instrumental in forming a new attitude in me. There's been joy in knowing Andrew's hard work, his faithfulness at pursuing a dream is going to be rewarded soon with an album. It's been a long time coming, and I told him he can rest assured I'm sending him off to record with my blessing, rooting him on from home.

It's not about the luxury of being able to cook with fancy pans. I'm simply aware of the undeserved love Jesus has sent my way & how this week it's doing it's beautifying work in me. He is good.

when Jesus was showing off, part 1

This week I feel as though I've been enveloped into a different life, finding random pockets of peace, spurts of creativity, & unexpected favor. It began humbly, Monday morning, with my expectation that this would be an extra trying week. AJ's band is recording their first album this week (hooray!) but since all members are working men with day jobs, the majority of the recording is done after work hours, 6pm-midnight or later. Since evenings are usually when we get family time, I was prepared to be bummed and to have to get used to a single mom lifestyle.

But, I couldn't see the whole picture. Jesus had a different attitude He wanted me to adopt, and through His kindness, I'm humbled to now describe some of the sweet things that have been happening this week.

First, Monday morning we got the knock on our door from our friend & neighbor Kristin, telling us our dear friends Chris & Lysha, who now live in Colorado, were there for the day & a bunch of us were able to & have lunch, hang out and keep happy company together.

Tuesday, as normal, I hosted a girls small group at my house. Each evening, we end our time by sharing prayer requests and praying for the person on our left. First, I was feeling challenged to ask for prayer for something specific (thanks to encouragement from my sister Liz) and different than usual. I asked the girls to pray that while AJ's recording this week that the time he's away would be good for me, full of creativity & good time with Jesus. Second, those girls blessed me by not sticking to the "pray for the person to your left" guideline & a couple of them prayed for what I asked along with my regular prayer requests.

Wednesday afternoon I got a text from Lysha, inviting me to dinner at her in-laws' house two hours away. I got the ok from AJ, packed up the baby, invited my friend Anne to come along, and we were off. We returned to town well after 1 am and I felt grateful for the company I kept that evening, spurring me to creativity & godliness in my roles as a Christian, wife, and mom.

Thursday AJ has a long lunch & we had some great family time. I accomplished laundry. :) One of the sweetest things was playing with Ransom that day. There was a point before bedtime when I was on back on the floor & he was on my tummy & he quietly rested his head under my chin for several minutes. I just held him, gratefully. Between work & recording AJ came home, was there to witness Ransom climbing all the way up the stairs for the first time and was able to read him bedtime stories before he went to the recording studio. When AJ got home, (12:30 a.m.) we watched the latest Terra Nova on hulu together while I finally finished putting together our birthday banner.

I'll finish by telling what happened today in another post, but what I want to express by all this is that Jesus is showing off. He's taking my lowly, downright pessimistic expectations and by many kindnesses, making my attitude more beautiful.

Thrice show in P-Town

As an early third anniversary celebration, AJ & I left the baby with our Poet family overnight & drove to Portland to see Thrice, a favorite band of ours.

There was a moment when Dustin was singing the song "Treading Paper" and he stepped away from the microphone but the crowd/fans kept singing the words:

If anything means anything, there must be--
something meant for us to be, a song that we were made to sing.
There must be so much more than we can see.

It was one of those moments when you HOPE the gospel's getting through.
These sort of shows aren't really my scene (I'm no mosher because I'm pretty sure my 5'3'' self would get crushed) but I really enjoyed it, especially Thrice's bit, and the whole being with my husband part. :) Even the long, late drive home was lovely.

Other items: at the venue, called the Wonder Ballroom, they had a restaurant underneath called Under Wonder and I had the best French dip I've ever had...with no napkins. Intense.


Also, before the show we made an IKEA stop to dream a little, and to pick up a birthday present for a little boy who will be one in a just a couple of weeks!

All Saints' Day and updates

Happy All Saints' Day! What's that, you say? It's a day on the church calendar set aside to remember saints of the faith. Thanks to my previous job as a church secretary at a Covenant church, I know about this holiday. This year AJ & I decided to do a little something to celebrate it.(For more info on this lesser known holiday on the calendar, you can go here.)

This morning AJ & I shared about a Christian saint that had made an impact on us in some way. Our criteria was that the saint had to be a person whose life & ministry was Gospel centered, but we didn't limit ourselves to people who the Catholic church, for instance, beautified as saints.


AJ chose Count Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (yay!).Count Zinzendorf was one of the most influential and controversial spiritual leaders in modern history. He's also considered the pioneer of continuous prayer. (source)


My choice was Lisa Borden. Lisa's a wife, mom of three boys & a girl, author, blogger & a missionary in Tanzania, Africa. I stumbled on her blog a few years ago and was struck by her authenticity, her love for Jesus, and her ability as a wordsmith to describe sometimes ordinary circumstances in a way that turns them into life's sweet moments, glimpses of the kingdom.

In other news:

-We were the Roosevelts for Halloween. AJ=Teddy Roosevelt, I=Mrs. Edith Roosevelt
Ransom, a Teddy bear.

-Andrew had a day off yesterday and it was lovely.

-I could live on squash & sweet potatoes, especially this sweet potato recipe with cinnamon &
garlic that I've made three times in the last week!
-We have really been enjoying the Cosby Show on Netflix lately. It's like lessons in parenting.


Thanks for reading and again, Happy All Saints' Day! What saints have inspired and challenged you?

when Jesus used Coldplay to say "I love you"

Things haven't been specific for awhile. Do you know what I mean by this? I mean, I haven't asked Jesus for anything really specific in awhile and gotten a response back.


Today was different. This afternoon my I was driving my lovely family to the library and as we were on our way in the heart of downtown, listening to the radio,
I spoke aloud to AJ a desire I'd had for a little while that was bursting at the moment.
"You know, I'd really love to hear Coldplay right now. Viva la Vida..."
We were at a stoplight. AJ fiddled with the radio.
Not five seconds after I had spoken, a song from Coldplay's Viva la Vida album began playing. One of my favorites from the album.
We happened to catch the very beginning of the song as it was being played
on a random radio station he tried.
Love.
Jesus was showing me specific love right then.
He didn't have to, but I knew it & felt it and was appalled. Delighted. Blown away.
AJ laughed. I gaped and marveled for seven blocks.
We drove a longer way to the library to hear the entire song.
It's not that Coldplay is so amazing. It's simply that when AJ & I first married we played that album a lot. It brings back memories of being newlyweds and being broke and making things work and the first Christmas together, apart from our families.
Jesus was showing off for me, and He didn't have to, but I loved it.

How has Jesus showed you how He loves you lately?

notes

Notes regarding life lately:

-My baby boy is growing up and becoming more independent! Okay, he's not even officially crawling yet, but he got on all fours today and rocked a bit, and he turned the pages as I was reading to him tonight (with his left hand, mind you). Baby steps... Maybe listening to Nat King Cole on the record player and playing on the floor with Ransom will slow time down.


-We have acquired a record player and music sounds really good on it. Favorite music thus far: Eugene Bible College's Simple Faith (an album from the 70s, I think), Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and some Bill Cosby stand up comedy excerpts.
-I am learning how to be a youth pastor's wife. It is scary & unknown territory for me, a job I didn't ask for or expect but find myself with. Balancing priorities is hard, but I know the order goes:
-God
-Andrew
-Ransom
-ministry/work
Often I'm off balance, but right now feels like a good time where I'm learning a lot & am hopefully remaining teachable to see how God wants to keep shaping me into a daughter that honors Him.
-Sort of related to the last note: did you know homemaking can be an idol?! What?!! Um, yeah, so, I'm beginning to get that. Homemaking=good thing. Wife=good; mom=good. But, if any of these things take more attention away from God, they're not so good things. Ouch. But, good to know, and to watch out for.
-October came very quickly. It is very important to me to savor this fall season (Ransom's first complete one) and to enjoy this precious season.
-We have identified the need to not just say we're on a budget, but to live it. We're doing a lot of math lately, and it can look scary sometimes, but having a plan is liberating even in its limits. I'm inspired.
-Two families (each family with five kids!) are inspiring me lately. The Driscolls are so encouraging in their love for Jesus and the ways they're living that out, and the Soules inspire me with their simplicity, creativity, and appreciation for the seasons (Amanda makes me want to learn the purl stitch).
-Tomorrow I'm looking forward to coffee with a sweet girl in her first year of college and to a date with my husband while the Poets babysit Ransom.


(This picture is from September 28th, tanniversary of our relationship's start. We're sitting at the table of the patisserie where AJ & I officially became a couple. )

four years ago today...

Four years ago, today Andrew & I became an official couple.
We had been getting to know each other the previous spring through cribbage games, a group date, and phone calls while we were in separate states that summer of 2007. When we returned to college for the school year, we wanted to make sure we followed God's plan and not just our own desires, so we took a day to pray and fast & on September 28, 2007 over peppermint tea and vegan peanut butter cups (because I'm dairy free and he honors that) we talked about what the Lord responded to us with.
Happily, we heard similarly that yes, it was time to date as long as we
1) moved slowly and
2) were open to correction.
We went to a movie and I wore mittens the whole time, not making my hands available to be held just yet. It was in the car ride on the way back to campus that Andrew brought up the topic of physical boundaries & that he was comfortable with us holding hands, but nothing beyond that. I'm sure I smiled right then and thanked Jesus that this guy I liked so much really wanted to honor God and me by making sure he was establishing healthy boundaries that would permit us to really work on a friendship and to not get too physically attached before we were ready for marriage.
And when we returned to campus, I took my mittens off and we held hands. We still like to hold hands.
This is what we looked like in those early months of dating:

And this is what we look like now:

How thankful I am for the man God gave me. Aside from the gracious gift of Jesus he is the most precious gift I've ever received.
Still going steady. :)

party planning as a ministry

This past weekend was a blur of parties. We had three graduation receptions to go to & I had one baby shower to attend. Add these parties to an already busy Sunday (a work day in our home), and hokey Pete did I feel like a party animal by the end!
Hokey Pete.
This post is about the baby shower. It was a glorious change of party pace. A thoughtfully put together celebration put together by my friend Rachel to bless my friend Laryn and her daughter-on-the-way Lux.
Rachel & her husband just moved into their house a couple of weeks ago (if that) and the house is charming. I was inspired and so I took lots of pictures of the party details & also some of the decorative things Rachel did around the house to make it beautiful.

I've been to a handful of parties that have blessed me, even though they weren't for me. A few girls I know, Rachel being one of them, have such a way with party planning that being part of one feels like I'm being ministered to. Presenting food in a simple but pretty way, thinking of quirky not shower-y games to play, making even the little details beautiful, all to make the bride or mom to be know that she is loved & supported and that life is worth celebrating.
I think this sort of thing makes Jesus happy because it's like I feel a part of his joy when I'm a witness to people being blessed in this way.

oh, his eyes...

I love his eyes. They're a stormy blue color that is different from either of his parents' eye color. He studies his surounding so intently with his eyes, I wonder what he's thinking.

I think the quilt in th background helps showcase his eye color, too.

(Thanks, mom! You're an artist!)

It amazes me that this beautiful baby boy was woven inside my womb so intricately & intentionally by God. God is familliar with all of Ransom's ways. We'll get to know his personality more as he grows into a boy, then a man. Miraculous. And to think Jesus took on such a shape to come save us! A vulnerable, dependent baby boy housing the Creator of the everything. And to think that God entrusted such a precious life to us. Fumbling, imperfect, insecure, weak=perfect candidates for raising a man of God. I'm thankful and aware of the joyful weight of this, dependent on His grace for the task.

dedicated

March 6, which also happens to be my sister Moriah's birthday, Ransom was dedicated to the Lord in the same spot his dad was dedicated nearly 25 years ago.

It is sweet to have married into a legacy like this. Andrew's father Jon was on staff when Andrew was dedicated, and history repeats itself with Andrew working the same job his dad did as Ransom is dedicated to God.

a son!

I've been a little busy lately & have not had the time on hand to liberally blog & post photos of our baby boy Ransom. He was born fifteen days before his due date. On Thursday night we were watching It's a Wonderful Life, when Andrew started getting excited (about what, he didn't know, but he felt anticipation for something, "as if Christmas was the next day") and my water broke, but I didn't realize it till the movie was over & I went to the bathroom. Even when I went to the bathroom, I wasn't sure my water had broke; we had to call a doctor to ask.

I had expected a little more nesting time so my suitcase for the hospital was not completely packed, I didn't have a birth plan written down, we had not yet toured the hospital, I hadn't painted my toenails yet (hey, that's an important one!), my mom wasn't in town yet, and there were several unfinished projects I'd hoped to work on, etc. We were thrust into parenthood earlier than we expected but I see God's timing in it & felt Him working through the labor & delivery & the events afterward.

At the hospital it was confirmed that my water had broken & that in order to avoid infection I'd have to deliver the baby within a certain time window. My contractions were five or so minutes apart & I was dialating slowly so I was allowed to rest during the night & to get labor going I was given pitocin at 6 a.m. as well as a sedative that knocked me out till 8 a.m. (it was blissful rest, indeed) when I started having harder contractions. I was able to walk the halls a little, I labored on a birthing ball & in a jacuzzi but after awhile the contractions were hitting me one intense one after another intense one after another one with hardly any break. I was getting discouraged because whenever the nurse checked my progress, my cervix seemed to be dialating slowly. AJ was with me the whole time, allowing his hand to be death gripped by me whenever a contraction hit, offering me encouragement & comforting touches.

I had purposed in my heart (just like the way that phrase sounds right now) to get as far as I could without an epidural & then maybe getting one toward the end, hoping that would make for a quicker delivery. I got to that point, AJ told the nurse, and the anesthesiologist was SLOW in coming... I was trying to think kind thoughts and not mean ones about this anesthesiologist, hoping the pain would soon be over. And then my body had the urge to push. We told the nurse, who checked me & informed us that I had dialated to 9 3/4 cm. The doctor who was on call said I could start pushing to see if that gave me relief, or I could take the epidural (the lovely anesthesiologist had by now shown up). She, the doctor, also said that the epidural could slow things down but if I wanted to push, the baby could be here within the hour. I opted to push because it felt SO much better than riding through the contractions.



Ransom was born at 1:24 p.m. on December 3rd. Because of a new hospital policy, as soon as he came out he was placed directly on my bare chest, both of us covered with a blanket, to allow for bonding time between the two of us.

Bliss. Joy. Skin on skin. Praise Jesus for this policy!

Having been thrust into this parenting adventure so suddenly, I am thankful that there seemed to be a blanket of grace surrounding everything that happened, whether it was a helpful nurse, or a hospital policy that allowed for me to feel the feelings of being a mother immediately after having labored for our baby.

Andrew got his bonding time with Ransom too, taking off his shirt & cuddling Ransom for an hour with a blanket over them.

I know so many people were praying for us & I felt the influence of those prayers throughout the whole day. Thank you SO MUCH if you were one of those people!

The afternoon really is a perfect time to have a baby, I think, because the adrenaline hit me as soon as that little boy was placed in my arms & I was fresh as a daisy till 9 p.m. to take in all of the newness of him & to enjoy the visitors we had at the hospital.



He's four weeks old, will be a month old tomorrow & I can hardly believe it! Time has flown by. Will post more pictures soon.

11.23.10:anniversary two

As you can see from the pictures, we awoke to a dusting of snow on the ground the morning of our second wedding anniversary. It was a present! It had snowed, briefly, on our wedding day, too, so I was enchanted!

Here we are, having just discovered it. I'm still wearing my pajamas!

The snow slowed the day down & Andrew had an extra hour before he had to drive to work, so I made oatmeal on the stove (not the microwave, for once!) and we busted out the Christmas music. Chicago's Christmas album, if you're curious. :) It's a tradition in Andrew's family & has become one in our little one, too.

Here are a couple of pictures of my commute to work. I had to take a couple of pictures to get the "11/23/10" on the little digital sign up at the front of the bus. This picture is the best of the ones I took.

It was, again, enchanting to see the snow covering everything but to still see colored leaves on some of the trees. I was so thankful for the bus system this day & that I didn't have to drive on the ice. Andrew ended up heading home after trying to drive to his job that day, but an hour later things had cleared up enough for him to get to work. That's what it's like here; the snow makes a fuss in the beginning of the day & then melts with hardly any remaining snow for the next day.

The evening of our anniversary we went out to eat (thanks, Mike & Gina, for the gift card!) and had a blast! We had a coupon & ordered an appetizer & were basically full before our meals arrived so we had LOTS of leftovers to take home! It was a luxury & we had such a fun time!

Happy anniversary to us. I love you Andrew J.