To the frazzled young mother on Mother’s Day

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I always did pretty well in school growing up, at least until high school. I loved grade school, loved everything about it including the teachers, and I even wanted to be a teacher. When I hit the teenage years I changed my outlook a bit. Boys were a little more interesting than teachers but I still had many interests that kept me busy. I loved Sunday School, reading, the clarinet, and babysitting. The latter because it paid!

Then I met The Sweetheart and I knew I had fallen and fallen hard. Of course you will say I didn’t know what love was as a teenager. That’s what The Parents said too. But when July 20 rolls around it will be 39 years and whatever it was has lasted a long, long time.

I have never been happier than when My Three Sons were little and in school; the house was busy, messy and crazy. I dearly loved the daily routines, fixing breakfast, getting them ready for school, seeing them off to school, enjoying the little ones that were still at home, and trying my best to keep the house clean.

I miss that big old two-story, four-bedroom house with the wood floors that made so much noise when the three boys were chasing each other up and down the hallway. The memories of the wild things they did like duct-tape four-year-old Korey to the wall, pretending they were Tarzan only to have the vine break just as they soared halfway over the gully, or slamming doorknobs into each other’s foreheads…at least we kept the ER busy.

I miss riding the tractor for hours, the growing grass was just an excuse for quiet time! I could watch the world go by and see everything the boys were doing while the lawn was getting manicured: the softball and basketball games, chasing Molly the Beagle back onto her own property, or trying their best to pull a catfish out of the pond.

I couldn’t wait until they came home, even though I may not have gotten everything finished that I had intended. Even though they were going to pick at each other and there would probably be some punching and name-calling before the night was over, this is what I had chosen for my life. I didn’t want a career in the corporate world, nothing wrong with that, it just wasn’t for me. I had helped to get The Sweetheart there and he promised I could stay home with the boys. We never regretted it.

But seasons change and…

  • All of that time that I wished for a clean house?
  • No laundry flowing out of the basket and into the hallway?
  • No dishes in the dishwasher?
  • No dirt on the floor?
  • No Legos puncturing my tender feet in the middle of the night?
  • No calls from the schoolteacher?
  • No sound of little fists pounding on the bathroom door?

Those wishes have come true and I would give anything to relive them. You don’t know what you have sometimes until you are missing it.

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I remember when I was a young mother so many older women would say to me when I was frazzled and chasing three little boys, “Oh, you had better enjoy these days! They will be grown before you know it!” And I would just want to turn around and smack ‘em! I DID love my boys and I DID love everything about my life but sometimes it was just plain hectic. It is hard to realize that when you are in the middle of it.

And you know what? It is true…it does go by so fast. It is such a wonderful time in your life that you would love to be able to do over again if you could. Now I am the old lady saying the same thing to young mothers in the checkout line!

But God has given us seasons in our lives for a reason. And I am learning to enjoy every single one, even if it is sometimes painful. I didn’t know then what I know now and I didn’t have the relationship with HIM that I do now, which is so much to be thankful for.

And if you ARE that young mother who is so sleep deprived you can’t stay awake through church, remember they are only little for a short while. Drink in the smiles, the mischievous antics, the endless “Why’s” and “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!” God has entrusted you with His most important treasure and most important task: to bring up your child in the way he should go so that when he is grown, when she has children of her own, they will remember a frazzled mother who even made mistakes but they will also remember the time you spent with them and the love that surrounded them.

For God is in control of each new day and if we let Him, He makes every season beautiful in its own way. And, don’t forget, the grandchildren are coming!

(photo courtesy of Shelby Fannin Photography)

 

 

Peonies, Surgeries, Seasons and Mother’s Day

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I’ve heard it pronounced several different ways. Depending on where you are from, you might say, “Pee-OH-nee” or I have even heard “Pie-nee” but I have always called them “PEE-uh-nees”. It doesn’t matter how you pronounce it, I will know what you are speaking of if it is early May in the South or a bit later up North!

I will immediately be transported back in time to a bank on the side of the road at my Mamaw Cammie’s house. She had rows and rows of the gorgeous bushes that just beckoned you to sit and fight the ants for a chance to drink in the aroma. My grandmother had pink peonies, white peonies and the gorgeous dark pink, almost a raspberry peony.

Simply a rare treat that only came once a year and much to my dismay, only lasted a short while. In Indiana, where I am from, they were wise enough to make the peony the State Flower. Go Indiana! I discovered that it was also our national flower until 1929 when it was replaced by the plum tree. Someone obviously didn’t have a Mamaw Cammie or a row of peonies from their childhood to remember!

Peonies and Mother’s Day go together like peanut butter and jelly. I have always enjoyed the entire season. Florists around the globe are saying that the peony is still the number one flower in a Mother’s Day bouquet. And, with the admission from another future princess-bride-to-be, that the peony is also her favorite, Meghan Markle, who will soon marry Prince Harry, will push the love of peonies over the top in 2018!

This may well be the first season I will miss smelling a peony, holding a peony or chasing ants that have invaded my kitchen table because of a peony. I have been house-bound since having major back surgery April 4. I had a lumbar spinal fusion of my L4/L5 and L5/S1 with lovely instrumentation (my ortho surgeon says not to call it hardware as it sounds as if I went to True Value for a quick fix!) 

If that wasn’t enough, the day I was to be discharged from the hospital I decided to break out with shingles! That is another blog post for another day. Drama, drama and more drama!

I have been overwhelmed with help from family and friends. In fact, this week is the first time I have really even been alone for the last 35 days! My wonderful church family brought meals the first week, my mother has been here twice from Indiana. My sister stayed ten days and my sister-in-law also drove from Indiana and cooked up a storm! My daughter-in-law Alicia and grandbaby Lark came and stayed several days to help even though she was fighting morning sickness herself (Baby Elkins is due 11/16/18!) My good friend and Norah Jayne’s other favorite Nan-Nan, Tonya, also came and spent a weekend taking care of me while The Sweetheart was out of town. Rachel, Kyle and Norah Jayne have been here constantly. If she wasn’t cooking a fabulous meal she was cleaning and I am forever indebted to them all.

And of course, that same Sweetheart has babied me and cared for me the last five weeks even when I might have, possibly, been a little difficult. Ahem.

Needless to say I have not been around a peony bush or bouquet this year and I can hardly believe this season will pass and I will not experience my favorite thing about spring. But sometimes we don’t get everything we want, things do not go our way or life just hands us difficulties we hadn’t planned on.

Missing out on peonies? Bummer.

Missing out on what God was trying to show me the last five weeks? Tragic.

This is a season, just like the peony. It came and it will also go. The pain will eventually subside and I am trusting I will be walking and moving like I haven’t been able to do in years. And in this season of pain, as the song says, Through it All, I’ve learned to trust in my God. I’ve cried His name in the middle of the night and He has been there for me. When no one and no medication could help, He was my comfort and my strength! Sometimes the pain would remain but His presence brought peace and sleep. He has been faithful.

Mother’s Day is also a difficult season for many. Some of us look forward to the celebration and remembering of our mothers who may have gone on to be with our Lord. But there are precious friends and family around us who dread the day because their hearts are broken and empty. Whether it is the unbearable loss of a child, the emptiness from not being able to conceive, the death of their own mother or possibly their childhood was not a happy one and their relationship with their mother was not one they even want to remember, not everyone is looking forward to this Sunday. (Read my post What if it isn’t a Happy Mother’s Day)

God knows when our hearts are hurting and He is One that can heal the hurt, fill the void and send comfort and peace, which sometimes comes on the feet of another. Be that one! If you know someone who dreads Mother’s Day, don’t ignore their hurt and pain. You don’t have to say anything if you aren’t good with words but a squeeze of the hand or a hug if appropriate, goes a long way in letting that precious soul know you care.

We face seasons all throughout our walk with God. Some we delight in, like the blooming of the peony, others we do our best to stay away from such as surgeries, shingles or the approaching Mother’s Day celebration. But whether it is sunshine or hard times, our God will always be there. We whisper His name and He is present and that surety of His presence is better medicine than any flower He has ever created.

Until next year, dear peony, until the next season, until the next trial, Amen.

So, there was that time I was STUCK

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So, there was that time I was STUCK….It’s #FiveMinuteFriday and today’s word prompt is, you guessed it….STUCK!

Years and years ago, my mother, grandmother, youngest brother and first of My Three Sons and I took a trip to Florida. The Sweetheart was working and my inlaws owned a place in the Ocala area. Free vacay!

Everything was great, the weather, the place, the company, until we decided to go to the beach.

Now, in my defense, I have been to the ocean many, many times. As a young girl growing up, my family vacationed in St. Petersburg for many years and even if we weren’t in that city, the ocean was our destination of choice.

But…as an adult…the designated driver and sort of Leader-of-the-Pack, I had never driven to the beach.

Again, in my defense, everyone else was doing it. Parking their car in the sand on the beach. This was the early 80’s, maybe things were different then, maybe it was a secluded area, I can’t remember particulars. All I remember is that I was following The Crowd. Until I didn’t notice that The Crowd had all moved their vehicles OUT of the sand and onto the parking lot.

There was no notice. No text message. No Guy-in-Charge-of-the-Ocean that came around and said it was TIME.

Time for what you ask?

Tide. Not the kind you wash with or eat either. The kind that comes in every evening and causes the ocean to envelop everything in its path. If that happens to be a vehicle? Too bad.

I was kindly alerted to this impending disaster when a group of young people come running to me saying I needed to move that car and NOW. I jumped in the driver’s seat but it was already STUCK. It wasn’t that waves were lapping at the car but the sand was already wet and those tires were digging in fast.

Intent on saving the day and impressing all the teenage girls, this group of guys began to push and push until they had successfully gotten my new Buick out of the sand. Yes, I said NEW BUICK because it hadn’t been too long since I had totaled The Sweetheart’s beloved little truck, hit head on by a little old lady in a tank. (You can read that hilarious story here!) So, we had a nice new car that was about to be carried out to sea.

Have you ever been STUCK? So much so that it seemed as if all of life and the world around you was about to suck you in and drag you into oblivion? That might seem a little extreme and even a stretch for a spiritual analogy but it happens. Every single day.

We become STUCK in routines, STUCK in relationships, STUCK in financial hardships, STUCK in so-called friendships that are sucking the life right out of us.

Sometimes, we just need a push.

Jesus came to save, to deliver, to give us that PUSH that will help us become un-STUCK and encourage us to make the right decisions. To leave unhealthy relationships, to manage our finances better by putting Him first and to even help us to realize that our routines are time-wasters and show us a better way to manage that time!

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 ESV

If STUCK describes you today, turn it over to jesus and let Him give you life abundant!

For the kingdom