encouragement

Alternators and Roses

/ amylynw / Leave a comment

Everyday joys in my life include sunny days in February and water-gun fights.  Water-gun fights that lead to washing the van with buckets of water.  My oldest daughter wearing my rain boots and they fit.

 

Little helpers and sweet by-standers.

Big brother who knows just how to make little sister smile.

This week, it was time for Betty to try her sweet self out in the cozy coupe car.  Even though her little feet didn’t quite reach the pedals, I mean, ground, she still had a blast.  Elsie is a good play mate and loved pushing her up and down the sidewalk.

 
I am reminded, however, that we all have a breaking point.  A time when life gets crazy and our hair stands on end and we just want to say, “Aaaaaah!”

I’ve had some of those hair-standing-on-end kind of days this week.  Matt’s truck broke down again and after a state trooper pushed it from the Schuylkill Expressway (Sure Kill Distressway, for those of you locals) to the King of Prussia Mall, he was rescued by my brother-in-law.  The next day we spent a couple hours in the parking lot with the wind blowing furiously at us.  He successfully changed the alternator and now it’s purring, or at least working again.  I can still hear him coming home from about a block away, but it’s a comforting sound.  Sometimes hard days produce lovely endings, like when Matthew comes home from work with a handful of these beauties.


There are many many busy hours in my day.  I love sitting down in the evening with my herbal tea and flipping through pictures in my head or on the computer.  It’s quiet.  The noise is somehow frozen into silence in those pictures, but I can still hear their voices and squeals and chatter.  Last night we baked two cakes.  The boys decorated one and the girls decorated the other.  We enjoyed the special treat and made a mess.  Jack’s mouth turned blue and my fingers are somehow pink.  It was so much fun!

 Life is beautiful, especially when it involves a snazzy blue cake and pink deco cupcakes loaded with red-hots.  My life is full of ordinary days sprinkled with extraordinary joys.

A Host of Ordinary

/ amylynw / 4 Comments

“If we were never depressed, we would not be alive.  If we were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation.”  I think depression is one of those things that is both never talked of, or spoken of too much.  It is debilitating, but it is also used as a crutch and a homey little corner to hang out in while the world keeps marching past.  I’ve been in both places.  It is comforting to know that depression is in fact confirming that I’m alive.  I am not something material, I am someone with a soul.  I have been silent on the topic for the most part, thinking that if I admit that I’ve been depressed then that equates having lost my faith in God.  Not true!  I have also used depression as a crutch.  Not peeling out of my pajamas, not showering, not eating correctly, basically nursing this depression in my heart in order to feel something.  If I feel like a failure, then at least I feel like something.  Those are depressing words, and they’re words I’ve believed.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had just come off a very enormous high.  God showed Himself so powerful.  Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal, prayed until it rained, and then the power of God came upon him so that he ran 17 miles from Mt Carmel to Jezreel, arriving ahead of Ahab’s chariot.  After all these incredible happenings, he became afraid of a threat from Queen Jezebel and ran for his life, about 90 miles away.  Then he left his servant and ran one more day into the wilderness alone, before collapsing into a bitter state of depression.  Elijah?  The same guy who “prayed earnestly that it would not rain for 3 years and it did not rain”?  The same guy who again “prayed earnestly that it would rain and it rained”?  The Bible says he was a man just like us.  He was alive.  He felt highs, he felt lows.  That week he pretty much went from the highest high, to the lowest low.  He wanted to die.

What did God tell him to do then?  “Here, do something great for me and you’ll snap out of it.”  Nope.  God told him to get up and eat.  Simple, right?  Well, if you’re anything like me, those simple instructions from the Lord are the ones that are often the hardest to do.  I’d rather do something that looks good on the outside, or maybe even go to a Bible study to make myself feel better.  The antidote for depression is obeying what God is telling us to do.  “Get up,” might be the first step.  “Get dressed,” might be step two.  “Splash some water on your face,” might be step three.  It’s one step in front of the other.  It is ordinary, non-spectacular acts of obedience that meet depression where it rears its ugly head.

Every day God inspires us to do the ordinary.  I see and hear it all. day. long.  SURELY there is more to motherhood than another poopy diaper, or dirty bowl, or broken plate, or teary naptime, or sleepless night, or messy room.  Surely there is more to my life than the host of ordinary things that pepper my life each day.  But God is in them.  He inspires them to happen each day.  He is the God of the ordinary and spectacular.  Every once in awhile we might have a Mt. Carmel experience, but generally speaking, our life is more like a drought or a run through a desert.  How awesome it is when out of the depression comes a gentle voice encouraging us to “get up and eat.”  He always provides what we need.  He didn’t tell Elijah to eat without first putting the food right there beside him.

There is no excuse for me not to get dressed… I have clothes.  There is no excuse for me not to shower… I have running water.  There is no excuse for me not to exercise… I have all my faculties.  There is no excuse for me not to eat… I have food.  There is no excuse for me to eat too much… I have self-control.  There is no excuse for me not to do every single one of the things depression tells me are impossible to do.  When we do what God’s Spirit simply tells us to do, depression is gone.  However, because we’re still alive, it will always come lurking.  May you be encouraged to fight this horrible beast with the most ordinary, God-inspired tasks that He puts in your life each day.

Snap-O

/ amylynw / 1 Comment

Today, after a wonderful morning with my kids, unexpectedly meeting delightful friends in a parking lot, and filling our fridge with much-needed food… something went snap.  Was it the thirtieth time of stepping over that puzzle on the dining room floor?  Maybe the crunch under my feet of the seventh goldfish meeting it’s demise.  Perhaps it was the picking of the the lock in the front door with a jack knife.  No, I bet it was that last time someone said they were hungry, even though they just ate eleven minutes ago.  Whatever the case, this mama went “SNAP-O!”  Snap-O.  Sounds like a fun game!  It’s not.  It’s dreadful, really.  It’s when your mouth opens and things rather loudly come out that aren’t nice.  It often leads to tears.  It must be followed up by apologies, or snap-o becomes contagious.

A wonderful admonition came when I was talking on the phone to Matthew and he reminded me (again) that they are children.  I thought maybe I got that by now.  Sometimes I forget, though.  Sometimes I expect so much out of them or myself and before I know it, “SNAP-O” comes flying at me like a deck of cards being released and I stand there blinking and confused.  I get tired of picking up the cards again, but thankfully forgiveness deals me another turn.  God is so gracious.

Then there was rollerblading through the kitchen,  a crying baby who wanted to be held, and multiple requests for food.  Relief came when Matthew walked in the door and offered to take the kids to the park so I could finish making supper.  I didn’t realize how much I needed that break until it came.  Peace reigned supreme as he called from the front door, “I have all of them!”  Even Betty?  Even Betty.  Twenty minutes later they came back with rosy cheeks and Betty was all smiles.  She knows she’s hot stuff doing big girl things like playing at the park with her brothers and sisters.  Her grin couldn’t be erased.

This weekend was fun and relaxing at the Weldon’s.  We enjoyed a walk, good food, and being together.Outside, the sidewalk chalk scrawled out just one request: snow, please.
The snowman lights echoed the request.

Cozy warmth beckoned me back inside, where the sound of Adele filled the kitchen and the sight of busy little chefs were hard at work.Elsewhere, the boys found things which their hearts enjoy.


Family is so incredibly special to me.  I have to focus in on these amazing moments of love…especially when I feel the Snap about to fly.

>No training is easy…

/ amylynw / 1 Comment

>In two weeks we will be running the Broad Street Run in Philly!  So, on my training schedule I was up for an 8-mile run today.  I donned my bright green shorts and a jacket and headed off in the 53 degree windy morning.  I wanted to quit at mile 1.  Matt & Nadine drove past me on their way to her soccer game and cheered me on!  Then I wanted to quit around mile 3.  There were so many hills and I really really wanted to give up and walk.  I kept thinking of the end and how I’d have to say I had stopped “x” many times and so I decided to not quit.  I wanted to say I did it, so I did it.

The reward of seeing Nadine hooping and hollering “Mommy!” when I ran up to the soccer field was worth the pain.