adventure

Where Is The Happy?

/ amylynw / Leave a comment

Yesterday, as we celebrated Elsie’s 5th birthday, it marked the end of my birthday week.  I actually thought her birthday was today.  As she went to bed on Sunday night she told me in her sweet little voice, I’m not going to be grumpy anymore!  When I asked why, she told me, Because the day after tomorrow is my birthday!  I was pretty tired and took her word for it.  Not until I woke up yesterday and saw some special birthday emails for her, did I realize that yes, indeed, it was her birthday.  Please tell me something like that has happened to another mom out there.  So, I scrounged in my secret trunk trying to find and hang up the Happy Birthday banner I made for such occasions.  All I came up with was BIRTHDAY.  Where is the HAPPY?!  I kept asking myself.  Before I go into more of her surprise (for me) birthday, let me back up a week and divulge all the fun that was had the past week.

It all started on my birthday, when the three older kids came with Matthew & I on a road trip to NJ.  We drove 3 hours there and 3 hours back, with about 45 mins in NJ total.  It was work-related, so nothing too exciting.  The highlight was hitting the beach for fifteen minutes.

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I had some wonderful friends over that night for tea and snacks and a whole lot of fun.  The next day I was served breakfast in bed by my oldest.  She loves to do this.  The rest of the week was full of dentist appointments, Betty learning to put the car windows down with her bare little toes streeetching across her carseat, sweet sleeping children, lincoln log creations, school, tea, and much more.

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Then came Friday.  After dropping off the kids, Matthew and I spent the weekend away.  What a wonderful time.  Becoming disconnected happens so quickly!  As it should be, we have both changed and grown, and sometimes we miss that happening and we look at the other as if they are a stranger we should know, but don’t. It was a treat and a blessing to have this time.

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From the beautiful inns where we stayed, to the memories made, it was a weekend to remember!

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The week was completed with an impromptu meeting with dear, old friends.

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There’s the Happy.

 

 

Bright Hope

/ amylynw / 1 Comment

I can’t shake the chill from my fingers.  This is the umpteenth time I’ve warmed up my daughter’s heart-shaped rice bag and snuggled it close.  Was it really a week ago that my legs were burning as I bushwhacked my way up a thorny hillside to behold a sight so beautiful it made every scratch worth it? DSC_6488 DSC_6516-001 Was it really only a week ago we were on the beautiful Haitian shoreline, snorkeling in the ocean, and crisping under the Caribbean sun? DSC_6582-001 DSC_6597-001 I remember our last night there but it collides with my today so jarringly, I wonder if it really happened?  Ocean breezes collide with winter chill.  Adventure seems to have made way for monotony.  New sights have been replaced by similar surroundings again.  As clichéd as it is, last week feels like a dream.

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My body is jet-lagged not from time, but weather.  It’s impossible to write even a summary of our week in Haiti.  I could go through my journal and tell you each thing we did or ate, but I don’t think that would be profitable.  I’d rather reflect on the ways God worked in my heart and showed Himself to me. Before leaving, our entire family was plagued with the great throw-up bug.  In between washing sheets and blankets and every conceivable surface, I attempted to pack.  How it got done is only by God’s grace.  I had pictured myself cleaning our house and leaving it pristine and tidy, with love notes tucked in different places for Matt to find while we were gone.  I left the house a complete mess.  Not one single love note, not even scribbled on the mirror.

One of my worst fears was getting sick while we were in Haiti.  The second our plane landed, Nadine threw up.  The day after we arrived, I was hit with terrible diarrhea.   I prayed for God to take it away and He did, just before we left on our first outing into the village.  The next night I was hit with a fever and went to bed shivering and sweating all night long.  The next day we traveled to the Moringa field where CPR-3 is working.  I was not about to let a fever get in the way of  the day. The moringa tree is literally a miracle from God.  Check out the amazing benefits it provides, here.  Revelation 2:22 paints a little picture of Heaven and describes another miraculous tree:  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. DSC_5533-001 This verse implanted itself on my mind the entire day we chopped down moringa trees.  I ate their leaves and prayed for healing from the fever.  The whole day was a blessing.  We sweated and learned more about each other, and eventually I did get well.

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God took my worst fear and showed me that His grace is sufficient in our weakness.  I felt His care through my team around us, encouraging and caring for Nadine & me.  There are many fears that throw themselves at us each and every day.  This week I was reminded: you are still here, because God wants you here.  Not that I feel as if I was facing death, but many are, and we never know what tomorrow may bring.  If we rest in God’s promise of now, and do not fear what we can not see, our hearts can be at peace.Haiti Day 6

That is enough to jump for joy and be full of hope.

Strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow;
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand besides.

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Empty Suitcases

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Recently my prayer has been to change, to grow.  So He challenges me.  He pulls out all the stops until I’m left with nothing but His grace alone.  I’ve come face-to-face with the hard reality that our enemy isn’t after Christians who have everything to lose.  He’s after those who have nothing left to lose because they’ve given it all up for Christ.  Jesus is after total surrender.  I assumed that because we’re traveling to another country this week, God would keep us from sickness.  He is more concerned at honing my trust in Him than He is about keeping me comfortable.   As I washed sheets covered in vomit at dinnertime, then bathed another child reeking in their waste at midnight, I had to praise Him for the strength to do these things.  The water to wash.  The clean sheets to replace.  The comfort I could give.  As my tummy gurgles uncomfortably tonight I have to praise Him.  The other choice isn’t an option, because it will just keep me where I am, and I want to grow and change.

The suitcases sit empty, and I anticipate their filling soon.  As they are filled, I pray I would be emptied of myself so I have nothing but Christ to offer those He puts in my path.suitcase

Terrifical Twos

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Click.  The dreadful sound of Betty locking herself in the bathroom.  Again.  It is futile to describe to her how to turn the old-fashioned lock on the other side.  One inch away, yet so very far.  So I don my imaginary cape and slip out Nadine’s bedroom window onto the steeper-than-I-remembered roof.  Again.  I’m sweating profusely in the January air.  I really hope I don’t start to slide.  Carefully, I crawl to the bathroom window, praying it’s not locked.  It’s difficult to open, but not impossible.  There she stands, in her baggy pink panties, yelling at her siblings through the door, oblivious to my presence behind her, climbing very awkwardly through the window.  I think if I had a real cape on, it would have looked more impressive.  I show her (again) how to turn the lock other other way, and we’re out in the hallway again!

Not a bad way to remember her 2nd birthday.  Little miss has been strutting around in panties too big for her, held up by a giant safety-pin.  She wants to sit on the potty all the time, but nothing comes out.  Every few minutes: Mommy!  Potty!  Then nothing.  Finally, about the fifty-third try: success!  That chocolate chip never tasted sweeter.  She loves to talk.  She, like her two siblings preceding her, loves oats.  Opes with bananas!   She loves to help unload the dishwasher with Nadine.  After they’re all finished, they bump the door closed with their bottoms.  She laughs every time.  We just love our Betty Ann.  Happy birthday, darling Betty!

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I’ve never liked the “terrible twos” title.  I think it boxes them in to being a certain way.  She has certainly found her voice and exerts her will, but are those terrible things to learn?  I can’t allow a stereotypical label dictate how I perceive or train her.  She is not trying to frustrate me, and I need to respond to her challenges with love and firmness.  It’s an hourly, sometimes moment-by-moment work.  It’s sweaty, tiring, and sometimes takes me away from my personal to-do’s.

We recently switched bedrooms around, and she is now sharing her little pink room with Elsie.  They are both thrilled with the arrangement.  Now the boys share the attic and Nadine has her own room.  She has been craving her own space, and feeling the age gap between her little sisters very keenly.  Other arrangements throughout the house have been an improvement on our space: switching the dining room table with the kitchen table, adding a shelf here or there, throwing more things away, doing a little tidying every day throughout the day.  Sometimes I feel like I’m growing up.

Maybe one day I’ll get that cape.