Summer Snapshots

18 Summers.
Thats all you get!

My summers with my littles are flying past faster than I can bear, but we’re making the most of each and every one!
   “Loosening the apron strings” has been a theme this summer as the older kids start jobs and start driving and grow in independence.  They’ve ‘gone to college’ for soccer camp and flown cross county for summer internships.
Its been a summer of “firsts”.
First drivers licenses and first jobs for big kids.
First time at camp and first spend-the-nights away from home for the little kids.
This raising toddlers and teens stretches my over-protective mommy heart daily! 
 But Im treasuring the fact that they still love time together as a family and that they truly are each others best friends! 

 We’ve woven in some sweet family moments even while scattered all across the US!
Today we’re returning home after 3 weeks on the road. We’ve clocked over 7,000 miles and eaten too much fast-food.  Its been a long and travel-weary journey, but sprinkled with joyful rekindling relationships all across the US, opportunities to share about the ministry, and beautiful scenery from coast-to-coast!  We love roadtrips and exploring the vastness of His creation!  Each new mile and new state boarder and thunderstorm and sunset painted an exquisite canvas as we drove from early morning to late at night.
Highlights included:

• Reconnecting with friends we haven’t seen since high school
• Family reunion with California family and a little time at the beach.
• The beauty of God’s creation enjoying a day at the Grand Canyon in Arizona and a night camping in Colorado
• Opportunities to share in women’s groups and homes about the ministry of SCP and encouragement through a few new supporters coming on board.
• The big kids getting to connect with cousins on a road trip with grandparents and a spiritual retreat hosted by Chads parents in CO.
• Celebration of Chad’s parents 50th anniversary with children and grandchildren gathered to honor them.

  …..Enjoy our little photo-journal of our journey and memories!

Why Shalom?

“Why Shalom?” a new friend asked me last week.
“Are you Jewish?”

For a decade now, this word has been a deeply significant part of our family’s faith journey.
Our daughter ‘Evangeline Shalom’ was named on a bitterly cold January afternoon in the middle of snow flurries, with great intentionality, (and we felt, at the time, a prompting from the Lord.)

The word ‘Shalom‘ means ‘peace’.
Evangeline ‘Evie’ Shalom, our angelic 9 lb. bundle, completed our perfect little family and ushered in a season of 5 children 5 years old and under (gulp!)
Peace.
Yes please.  We could use a little peace in our lives.
And this sweet, passive, easy-going baby was just that – perfect peace.  Peace for 10 blissful days.

…..then the storm.

A storm that rocked our world and shook my faith to the core.
At the bedside of our baby, we faced the near certainty that we would never bring her home from the hospital or hold her without tubes and probes and drains and monitors.  Chad and I had gut-wrenching conversations preparing for a funeral and making decisions that no parents should ever have to consider.  I remember a wave of bitter confusion when the meaning of her name came to mind while I held her bruised, blue, cyanotic hand in the dead of my darkest night.

Why Shalom?

Why did we name this child “peace”?  This child whose little life was anything but peaceful!!
I wrestled with the notion for the next days….weeks…and then months as she took two steps forward, and one step back on a long, grueling road to stable.  For the next two years our life centered around more surgeries, sedations, monitors and medications, diagnosis and doctors appointments, blood draws and biopsies, intubations and infections that I can count.
But her name wasn’t a mistake.
…and it wasn’t some cruel cosmic joke.

God taught us through the messiest, most painful, stretching, agonizing, disruptive season of our lives, that peace is not reflective merely of harmonious circumstances.   We learned what it meant to be at peace….at peace in the storm!   To cling to the only unshakable thing – Him – when our world was unraveling.
To trust His unchangeable qualities when our life was in disorder.
To hold fast to the promises of who He is, when what today brings is only uncertainty and heartache.

Not circumstantial.  Not emotional.  Peace is not the lack of a storm, but a lifeline in the storm…..a sunbeam of hope and glimpse of eternity when the agony of this world has been too much to bear.

“Shalom” is inscribed above our breakfast nook where I see it 1,000 times a day as I serve our family and clean our messes.  Reminding me, over and over, of His peace.  In the ugly.  In the uncertainty.  In fear.  In the storm.

He is unchanging, unwavering, unshakable.  His character is compassion.  His plans are for good.  He’s not bound by space and time and circumstances.  He is eternal and he sees….he cares….and he redeems all things.

Grateful today for His shalom of peace for every storm and season, past, present and future.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace Igive you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
John 14:27

…..Beautiful “Shalom” sign crafted by my friend Jerri!
Go to our Instagram page where we are GIVING AWAY an identical sign with your word of choice!

Just Go With It, Momma!

The census is way down at our house this week with 4 of our 7 children visiting family out of state.
That leaves “only” three at home.
(Practically a vacation for me!)
I figured I’d have a record amount of uninterrupted time and I planned my to-do list accordingly.

With overcast skies as an excuse to not leave the house today, my best laid plans included staying in my yoga pants, working on my business from home, and filling the blow-up-pool to entertain the two youngest.

After we finished a pancake breakfast on the patio, I employed by teenage son to blow up the kiddie pool (no small endeavor).  After which, we realized that the backyard hose wasn’t working.  (Do you have any idea how many rubbermaid containers filled and carried outside it takes to fill a kiddie pool? )
While Tristan worked on re-plumbing the backyard hose system, I heaved 10,000 buckets and basins of water outside.
Whew!!
That was a lot simpler in my mind that it ended up being!

Well into the late morning now, I settled myself on the patio in my adirondak chair in blissful 79 degree weather with my bible, computer, pen and paper, journal, juice and sighed deeply!

No sooner had I cracked my computer, Eden wanted his sunglasses.
90 seconds later later, Gigi needed a towel (you know….so she could dry off and then get back in the pool again!)
It’s now been at least an hour since breakfast, so they are “staaaaaaarving” and requesting a snack.
Eden stubbed his toe on the concrete….tears.
Gigi needed her hair pulled up in a ponytail….again.
When I told Eden to stop drinking the pool water, he then of course needed his sippy cup.
Gigi was grossed out by grass that got tracked in the pool and Eden was mad she wouldn’t swim with him anymore.

What a neurotic notion on my part that they’d play contentedly for hours!
I think we stayed outside for a total of 27 minutes before Eden’s teeth were chattering and it started to rain.

The pool toys are now strewn all across the patio, towels are soggy, my journal is wet from splashing, and my creative juices are the only thing that are not flowing!

Im pretty sure this is where the term “throwing in the towel” comes from.
As I dried everybody and everything off, I silenced my headstrong tendencies to pound out some overdue correspondence and polish off projects, and instead, I climbed in bed with my cranky toddler.
And Gigi too, snuggled in saying she was tired and cold and just wanted to “rest, not sleep“.
Lying in bed with an unproductive morning behind me, and my arms full of cold, cuddly babes taking naps, I couldn’t help but smile.
How many moments like this do I miss by striving to “do” instead of being content to just “be”?

Grateful for these end-of-the-rope mommy moments that readjust our life and realign our priorities and remind us….
Remind us that our children are not just little comrades of chaos to disrupt our day and shake our sanity.  Their requests, demands, dirty diapers, needs and interruptions are all a means by which God is sanctifying us.  Our pouring out for our kids weeds the self-centered gardens of our hearts and gives us a gift we dont know we need…..that of laying down our lives for our children.  A sowing that will bear fruit and that makes a difference.
In the daily grind.
With dish-water nails and messy bun.
In the moments of feeling unproductive and measuring our worth by measuring our accomplishments.  It’s then that one more sippy cup needing filled can drive us to our knees, slow our distracted pace, and focus our weariness on the wonderful gifts that are ours.

Give yourself a break.
Just go with it, momma!
Go snuggle those little loves and pull the covers over your head for a while!