Thankful Tree

So when you look around craft sites or pinterest you will discover dozens of beautiful, artsy, decorative, mature ways to help your children discover being thankful for the month of Nov.

Well, every year, we as a family usually just write what we are thankful for on a leaf that I previously cut out and then we hang them from our fireplace. On Dec. 1 we usually take them down and then I keep them in a box to look at the next year. We put them in a jar and then read them the next Nov.

I always liked this idea until I realized I had to not only cut out leaves but then also hang string, cut string and tie up each leaf. It seemed really high maintenance to me all of a sudden.

This year I decided to cut out a tree with branches and then we can just tape up the leaves after we discuss what we want to thank God for that day. I am trying to find ways to streamline my life more each day and only do the important things, whether they be big or small.

Well, here is our tree.



As you can see it's not just a tree anymore. What I love about my kids is how much they LOVE arts and crafts. When we were preparing for the Thankful leaves again this year, the kids decided they wanted to help "create the scene". So while I cut out the trunk of the tree, the kids were busy cutting out the grass, the sun, the clouds and moon and stars. Every tree should have have these things around them right?



I would like to point out the absolutely perfect star at the top. Yea, that is my best work. The boys called it our wishing star because it was pefect. Maybe I should make a career out of this.


After we cut everything out, Little just ripped a bunch of paper and threw it all over the floor, but she was trying to be helpful, we went to work tapping everything up. This is also part of the project that I let the boys do. It was their idea, so they can put the stuff wherever they wanted. In the meantime, I read about five different verses on being thankful and this is the one they choose.



"So then just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, being rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith you were taught and overflowing with Thankfulness." Col. 2:6-7

They told me the reason they picked this verse was because,

"It says rooted and trees have roots!"
"It says faith is taught and you teach us!"
"We are being thankful and the verse to be thankful."
"We have Jesus in our hearts."

It was fun to have this moment with my kids. I LOVE beautiful and artsy and creative projects. Martha Stewart even.

But my kids got to make this make project with me. It wasn't me who took time to do it in the evening and then presented to them. We did it as a family and got the chance to talk about our faith and giving thanks to God in the midst of family fun.

So, it's not very pretty to the outside world, but its beautiful to me. Our Thankful tree.



(What I love the most is that on the second day, Big was thankful that all our friends in Haiti were safe after the earthquake. That reached down and grabbed my heart.)

Cheers to all of us learning to give God thanks in all situations, good and bad.

Living in extreme's

It's funny, this weekend revealed to me how much my life is lived in extremes.

I left a house partly under construction, toys and laundry and dishes brimming. My kids were loudly playing batman and the regular chaos was well underway. I arrived to a pristine upper class hotel that was quiet, clean, and WAY too quiet.

I have over 100 hundred questions hurled at me a minute in my house. My daughter trying to keep up, just keeps yelling, "Mama, mama, mama! Um.... Mama, mama, mama! Um...." I sat in the car in complete silence for five hours while I drove to WI. (OK, I drove in silence for awhile, but then had hours of listening to a book on CD without engaging with anyone. I talked to no one and no one needed me for FIVE HOURS!)

I can't get my kids to listen to a word I say it feels most days. At the event I went to this weekend, I had a kid come up to me and tell me he wrote down one of my quotes and it still hangs on his wall to help inspire him. Crazy right!?

I wear my sweats most days dreaming of a shower. I put on jewelery and took a half hour shower while away each day.

There are bars on most of the window's of the stores and apartment building's where I live. Boards grace people's window's, mattress lie around in the alley, and there is graffiti scattered throughout. I arrived downtown Appleton to this gorgeous hotel that I could never afford on my own. Most of the time I don't feel I belong in either place.

It felt like whip lash this weekend. Everything about my time away this weekend was different than my normal life, but speaking is part of my life.

Loud to quiet.
Unappreciated to overly praised.
Unseen to the center of the spotlight.
Scrubby to dolled up.
Craving peace and quiet to needing noise.
Feeling claustrophobic to feeling lonely.

I wish there was some way to find a balance to these extremes of my life, but in the meantime, I will just try to cherish each place I find myself, knowing that it won't be there for long and will change again soon.

Things I love...

* Having family come and visit and deepening relationships
* Beautiful days full of sunshine, sunglasses, scarves, and flip flops
* Sharing experiences with my kids that involve pumpkins, racing, and picnics
* Shrimp stir fry
* Bonfires
* Someone doing my dishes
* Someone making my coffee
* Someone making me a drink
* Dates with my husband
* New adventures on my date
* Family snuggle time
* Watching my kids carve their first pumpkins
* Eating pumpkin seeds for the first time of the season
* Time with my Aunt Carol and Aunt Barb, two women who I grew up admiring and loving and watching them love my kids and my kids fall in love with them.
* Middles obsession with collections and small puppies
* Baking with my kids
* Finding recipes that work with our diet so we don't have to sacrifice tradition
* Sleep
* The warmth and smell of fresh clean sheets
* Watching my middle son's love of homeless people, experiencing his choice to introduce himself and find out who they are
* Special time with middle grocery shopping
* Holding hands with my husband
* Giggling with my kids
* Reading stories with my kids
* Praying with my kids
* Conversations with big when he is not under the influence
* Big's tender heart and compassion
* Little's silly dances
* Little's five dimples

This weekend, I was reminded of why I love my Aunt's so much.
This weekend, I fell in love with my kids a little bit more.
This weekend, my heart opened for my husband even more.

It was a good weekend, filled with so many things I love.

(One thing I don't love? Teething. Colds. Buggers. Poop. Crying. There was a lot of that this weekend too.)

Fullfillment

I haven't been out speaking in about six months.

It's been a long time, and I have been able to tell. However, God knew exactly what my life would become and I believe it was intentional. There was no space in my life, my head, or my heart to be a leader to others. To inspire others. To even put normal clothes for others. It wasn't my time.

This past weekend I got to go away to MO to a camp and retreat I have spoken at before. I fly into KC and then drive for three hours down to camp. This not only provided an opportunity to do what I love, but to also reconnect, refresh, and unwind my soul.

I decided to only bring my bible, Thomas Merton's, "No man is an Island" and "The Shack" as reading material. I was hoping, planning, and expecting to get some good time talking and listening and reconnecting with God. My daily life provides a whirlwind of activity and constant cry's out to God, but this was going to be long winded and dedicated time. I was excited and nervous, as I always am when I try to listen as God speaks. He usually has love to pour on me, but I haven't ever come away from time listening to God where I haven't seen some place in my life that could change for the better.

This is what I learned this weekend.

I have noticed how often I pray for wisdom. I pray for myself, my Paul and I as parents and I especially pray it over my children. I want them to be wise in their choices and living. As I was reading scripture in my cabin, I realized while praying over what I was reading that as much as I ask God for wisdom, I am not searching his word for it. When I read scripture most often it is for praise or encouragement or just to read anything to get his word in my heart. I don't intentionally seek it and search it for wisdom. It seems kind of elementary, but God revealed to me that he wants to speak wisdom into my heart and into my parenting, but I need to be reading and searching for his wisdom.

Lesson learned. God was kind as he showed me my missing piece to this puzzle.

The second thing was how often I pray for myself or my issues. This came about in two parts. First, that it would be good to pray not only for myself and my family but for all of those who I love and even those I don't know. I need to be pulled out of my own little life and remember so many others who need to be lifted up in prayer.

The other piece of this is that I often struggle alone, talk to God alone and pray alone over my issues. This leaves out my partner and best friend. After I have struggled with an issue and God has helped point me to an answer, that is when I inform my husband. He usually gets taken off guard and it's hard for him to catch up. I want to remember and need to include in my struggles. But more than that, I want to invite him in the prayer process with me. When we pray, it is most often just for our children and daily strength. I want to pray over things that God is doing in my heart, open our conversation to see what he is doing in our marriage, and if one of us is being led in a specific way, that God would keep us united in that process.

I can't just assume that what God has told me, he has told my husband, unless we are talking and praying together.

Two fundamental foundational practices, but I had forgotten. Time away this weekend, provided the opportunity to reconnect with the basics, and fall in love with the Lord all over again. I mean this in a way of spending quality time with someone, not just frantic, crazed, cry out for help kind of way, even though that is still good, it's not the same.

God has a way of providing what we need to keep taking the next step. One step at a time.

Moments make a difference

Most days I can look around and you would have no idea what I had accomplished. OK, most days I look around and I don't even know what I accomplished. I think most of us can say that.

When we measure life by what we accomplish than we will forever be disappointed, depressed, and unsatisfied with life.

Does what I say really matter?
Is what I am doing really making a difference?
Am I contributing anything to the betterment of mankind and the earth that God created and entrusted us with?
What am I doing with my life?
Does anyone see me? Does anyone hear me?

Almost exactly one year ago my husband and I were on Mackinaw Island with my parents at an adult retreat. They host this retreat once every three years and we get to stay in the grand hotel, and it is MARVELOUS! I spend three days digging out all my fun clothes, accessories, and jewelry that doesn't fit in my normal life, and I let it live in the fantasy of fancy. It's lovely, and romantic, and refreshing. (Paul just looked at me today and said, do we get to go back next year? No honey, two more years, but I feel the same way!)

Last year we took a bike ride around the island. Here's my folks.



And here's Paul and I. Yes we are on a tandem bike, its the romantic thing to do. (And lazy thing to do for the person on the back. Yea, that's me. I'm no fool, but the view is nice.)



On our way around the island, which is an 8.2 mile ride, we were talking, laughing and enjoying each others company. Then each of us individually were noticing these rock statues.



I remember seeing my first one, and thinking, "that's fun. Someone created a fun statue and its still standing."

Then we saw another one.



Which lead to dozens more.



It was beautiful. We all felt the same thing and stopped to take it in. For more than two miles the statues just kept showing up. Then we saw some folks building their own. Paul decided to do one too.



Some folks built their own. Others were adding to what previous artists started. They were continuing the project.

I don't know who started the rock project, but here is a small look at where it went and where it is going.



The horizon is filled and scattered with one idea transformed into hundreds of interpretations. I don't know if one person or one group of people started the rock project, but in its idea and execution, it inspired others to participate.

To move.
To act.
To add.
To create.
To be apart of something.

Mile after mile we saw these rock creations. Dozens turned into hundreds and then we stopped counting. We built our own. We added to others. We watched others stop in awe, take photo's. We listened as others talked about it. We witnessed dozens of others be moved to create their own. To be apart of the project.

To be apart of the idea, with their own creativity put in.

I'm not sure that the original creator(S) thought this would catch on as it has. Rumor has it (according to the web) that the rock project also exists on the east coast and in other countries along their coast.

One idea.
One action.
One creative moment.

It's turned into island wide project, that went global.

I give and give and give. I pour out into my children and youth groups. I try my hardest to be there for friends in need. I talk and talk and talk, and wonder, truly if any of it matters.

I, like you, have no idea where my words and actions land. I can't control what memories of me my children will choose to hold onto. I have had people repeat my own words to me, and nothing is scarier to me than that. Hearing from them, what they gained of what I said or did.

We are creatures that pour out ourselves into others to strengthen life, but most often we have no idea about the effect of our pouring out. What result does it provide? Did it do anything?

A life is filled with small moments. The moments that make up the whole of our life. I think often times I am weighed down by the grand gestures, or looking at someones whole life instead of the moments that lead them there. This is how ridiculous it is. I saw the movie, "Social Network" and was struck by how one person changed the course of history. I thought, what I am doing with my life? I think of Mother Theresa whom I admire with the depth of my soul, and think, can I love and live like that? What about all my friends who travel the width of the world and are giving up everything to love and serve those in need. I see all these great and grand lives and I feel small. I wonder if what I do matters at all.

But I think of this huge art structure and how one person inspired hundreds by one moment.

This is the truth that we need to hold on to. It isn't in the grand scheme of life, but in the moments that make up our life. Those are the moments that inspire and change the course of history. When I pour out into the people around me, I will most likely never know what effect I had on their life. I will not know how God uses me to help, love, inspire, change others. Just as I can think of dozens of things others have said to me that have influenced my life, and they don't know that.

If I live for the grand idea of the whole of life, I will miss the moments I live in every day. The moments where I hold my kids tighter. When I can sit on my stoop and then neighbors start gathering and we start talking about life and faith. When my kids want to give money and pray for the homeless man on the street. When I pray over my children. When I talk to customer service and we have a nice chat and we both feel blessed by it. (not usually the case) When I can weep and share my burden with my mom and her encouragement and listening ear is when I can feel God sharing life with me.

I may not get to Haiti this year. Even putting that our there, I want to take it back. I am starting to cry already. Going to Haiti each year feels grand to me, and when I feel sad a little depressed about it, I have to remember, that I can serve, love, and pour into anyone and all people. They don't need to be half way around the world.

The important thing to remember is that we must pour out. To give. To love. To listen. To invest.

I believe compassion is mercy without judgement. Getting to know someone. Loving them for the sake of love and letting God take care of the rest.

Make your moments count.

You never know when loving someone catches on. When listening to someone becomes all the rage instead of giving advice, give your ear. Give your heart even if its scary. Give your honesty to yourself and be free from expectations that only you hold to yourself. Give your life to Christ and find the fulfillment of loosing yourself to one who loves you more than you thought possible.

To find this truth, one must pour out and live in the moment.



When we add up all the little things of life into the whole of life, that is when the picture becomes complete. We see all that our moments of our lives have made a difference.

Be encouraged today that God is working through you whether you believe in him or not, he believes in you.


God is in each moment.