bsmiles and sunny days

So many happy things happening right now... I just cleaned my shower. It's been awhile. I was scrapping the tile for hours. It's so sparkly clean, I can't wait to take a bath!!  Also, I initiated quiet reading time for one hour during nap time today. I'm alone in a quiet room, uninterrupted. This is what I need every day. Exercise, vitamins, gobs of water, fruits and veggies, as magical and healthful as they are, can never tend to my soul like a few quiet moments of alone time. I need it so desperately I can't even fully articulated it. Thank you, God! I have a self-cleaning oven that has never cleaned itself. It's doing it right now. It smells awful and Leila's pretty sure the house will burn down, but it's going to be so clean that I will want to cook something in it!!  By the way, people are preparing meals in mason jars and putting them in their dishwashers along with dirty dishes, to be cooked while the washer runs. What?! Wait... What? Are you tell

...love... Words speak Stories paint pictures I have found the most beautiful merging of the three. Hinds Feet on High Places. I have seen the title a hundred times on my mama's bookshelf, but I never even considered reading it... until the words of Habakkuk breathed hope into me. I can't not share this excerpt that I read today. It filled my dark places with color. And then-in the dawn I saw him,  He whom my heart loveth so.  I found him, held him, and told him  I never could let him go. Cant. 3:1-5 Much-Afraid ceased trembling and said to herself, "I will go to the trysting-place, and see if he is waiting for me there." With scarcely a word to the watchmen she turned and hurried southward over the field where Craven Fear had met her toward the sheep pool. Almost forgetting that she was lame, she sped toward the distant trees which fringed the pool. Just as the sky turned red above the mountains, the joyous babbling sound of cascading water reached her

This is my view for the next hour while we wait for our shuttle to the airport. Yesterday Dale asked me the name of a speaker we had heard earlier in the week. I've heard and seen gobs of names this week, and yet I was able to recall the name of one speaker. If you know me, or if you are a busy mom, you get why this is such a big deal. For 5 days I've had concentrated, uninterrupted conversation with my husband. I've had intellectual thought. I've had long stretches of quiet everyday. Please love me anyway, I've got a point here. My mind IS capable when its faculties are not clogged with sound. (I wasn't sure...) At any given time I may be entertaining 3 conversations at the same time with crying or screaming or both in the background. Now add piano, or guitar, or noise toys, or music. You see what I'm saying. On top of this, add busyness: I need to be somewhere, I have a deadline, I need to start working on dinner, I have to do laundry before morning... You

I am constantly telling my children You are beautiful. You are amazing. You are so smart! You are funny, seriously. You are my favorite. It's what I do. I'm a builder. I'm also a wrecking ball on bad days. Don't get me wrong. This mama's a hot mess on the verge of collapse a good percentage of the time. And yet, I'm a builder. Kids are funny. You know what they say in response to my building? Yes, you DO know. Remember when your mom would say, "You look very nice, sweetie." You thought, "You don't really mean it, you HAVE to say that. You're my mom." And that's exactly what my kids say to me. I started to pull back from complimenting them because of it. I figured if they didn't want to hear it, I didn't want to say it too much. However, the mercy of God has enabled me have a glimpse of how He sees me. God took the time to cut a design, specific to me, with perfection. I look at me and see flaws. But my Crea

This morning I woke up to a stunning spread of morning delight, rising over the city. Cars were beginning to fill the streets. Frustration was almost tangible as they lined up in droves down the on-ramps of the busy interstate. I couldn’t help but be distracted by their tiny images, like toys on a track, 26 floors down, until I lifted my eyes to the sunrise. Blue, pink, and orange swatches of light were layered harmoniously, high above the buildings that towered over me . It stretched east to west, dominating my view, making the busyness of the traffic seem small and insignificant. It was remarkable how calm and ordered the cosmos felt hovering listlessly as the morning rose. I have a little confession. Eight weeks ago, the bottom fell out on my marriage. You, my faithful readers, fellow lovers of words, story-holders in kind, you knew something was awry, but you couldn’t string the riddles together because the details were sketchy and vague. I can say with confidence that God

Words are my thing. Obviously, writing is my medium. It enables me to access parts of myself that nothing else is capable of accessing. I need to talk. I need to write. I need to read. Words give me flight. They give me hope. They reveal me, the good the bad and the ugly. They comfort me, give me strength.  I have felt uncovered in my writing these past few weeks. When I don't feel, I write, and I can feel. When I feel buried, I write and it gives me peace. I've always struggled with saying things. I can talk, I talk a lot. I've always had a lot to say. But when it comes to hard conversations, pass. No thank you. I start talking and I either cry or stutter, I get kabaubled, and I can't say what needs to be said. Not only that, but I have no clarity. The thoughts all get mashed up together and leave me confused and bewildered, even though I'm mad or sad or frustrated or discouraged. As soon as I sense danger, I flight. (You know what I mean~) At least my mind do

I'm in this season of self-discovery. I say a season, I mean, a journey. It's a journey that I was really excited about until I started growing. The growing part is really hard. I want to just keep going and adding great things to the parts that are really good and comfortable, but not prune out the stuff that is dead weight. I don't want to have to change things that I like but shouldn't be keeping. (think hoarder) I'm not quite ready to shine light on these vices that need to be uprooted. I was raised in a perfect house by perfect parents with good Christian morals. I was never openly rebellious. I struggled but not with anything too bad. The path of least resistance suited me. It seemed good and well. I didn't have to face demons. I didn't have to struggle to survive. It was a good life. It was a good life. I had a good life. I did. Except that I did struggle. I did fight. I did rebel. I did battle my parents. It wasn't perfect. I needed more and

It's hard for me to clean. I go flitting from one thing to the next trying to accomplish something and then another and another, only to turn around and realize that I left 42 things half done. Like... I came down to go to bed early and I couldn't find my pillow. The pillow that I sleep on every night. It was missing. From my bed. (This is a trigger for me.) I began to look around for it. There was clutter on my floor, candy wrappers, socks, toys, dishes... so I started picking things up. Trash in the can, socks in the hamper, shoes on the stairs to be taken up. And I realize I need to go to the bathroom. So I stop the cleaning up to go to the bathroom, and while I'm in there I change into  my pajamas. Might as well take my contacts out while I'm at it, and wipe down the sink and mirror. Back out, oh, the mess on the floor... and a pile of folded laundry catches my eye. Start putting it away, stack it on the table instead of on the bed so I can get into the bed, and I s

This is the first year we collaborated on a costume ensemble. Dale's idea. I loved it. It's so apropos. Can you guess what we are?$ I'd dare say, you would be in shock and awe at the sheer volumes of candy that come into this house on Halloween night. It's a mama's dream come true... It's maybe a little overwhelMing to see this crew approaching your door. Good thing we move in shifts. Seriously... There are a lot of us.  Beautiful girls. It's strange to me that Leila will be adding makeup to her life on her next birthday. Just mascara, but it's makeup and yikes. The kid us gorgeous. Where do the days go? Deisha insisted on adding ketchup and mustard to her baby costume. It's accurate, I couldn't say no. Little Minnie Mouse debated on being a regular mouse or a haunted mouse. A haunted mouse would hop on one foot and hold one arm behind her back. I was pulling for haunted mouse, but no dice. Sick monkey. So. Stinking. Adorable. Like totes adorbs.

I would dare say The noise Is the hardest part of having 9 kids. Every day. All day. Morning noon night.  Noise. Talking, laughing, screaming, crying, whistling, tapping, talking, exclaiming. Loud. Quiet. Constant.  Noise. The earplugs...  In the bedside table In the dresser. In my purse. In the car. I had a pair everywhere And then they lost them. All of them. "My water bottle! My water bottle! Ahhh!" "Your wata' bottle?"  *Giggle "Babababoo!!!!" *singing "Can I just pee my pants?" "Mom why can't we just go to hillcrest?" *baby screaming "Mom, when we get in da baff can we open dis?" This a snippet of what's happening right now, in my car, as I sit waiting for big kids to get done in the library. So. Totally. Normal. The noise. Someday I'll miss it.

I like to have things in place. Not that I always do, because I don't, but it's what I prefer. A place for everything and everything in it's place. That personality profile awakened me to parts of me that I tuck away. We have this room in our house that is piled with stuff, constantly. I clean it out, it piles back up. Most people have a drawer or a closet like that. I also have those, but this room... I need help. It's bad. So clearly, this tidy part of me is a difficult thing to reconcile with the fact that 10 other people live in this house and put their stuff around, random places. One kid leaves his drinking glasses on the half-wall in the entry hall. Every. Single. Day. One glass, two glasses, three sometimes. I walk by and retrieve a glass multiple times a day. 22 steps from the kitchen sink where dirty dishes are collected. Seriously. Help me. Another kid piles up him most valuable belongings on the shelves in our library, the entrance we use mos

This week I took a personality analysis. Like, a real one. One thing that surprised me about my results was that I may be overly concerned with my physical appearance. I keep thinking about this because vanity is sinful. And I don't want to be sinful. I also don't want to look like a frumpy mom, or a too-tired-to-care housewife. I want to give the appearance that I care. Because apparently I do. Or, forgive me if this word isn't in your vernacular, but, I give a crap. I do. I don't want to be ugly. Do people want to be ugly? This occurred to me this morning when I ran into Dollar General to get some play doh. In my pajamas. With my hair like this.  But I couldn't go into Price Chopper to get my WIC milk because I wasn't dressed appropriately for Price Chooper, only Dollar General. I know you get this Platte City mamas. Even though Jasmine assured me that all the other WIC moms go into Price Chopper dressed like this. Ha! So I am trying to be something I'm no

A few months ago I got a text message asking if I would consider being a Small Group Leader in MOPs. Funny story, I had been feeling like I wanted to step into something new, and I had considered joining MOPs, but my fear of commitment held me back. And $45. I thought about pursing a Sunday school class, but I was so in love with the one I was in, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving it. This seemed perfect. Once a month. No prep work. Scholarships available. Yes. Absolutely, I would!! I didn't know how much hearing other people's stories would change me and inspire me and speak life into my troubled waters. I didn't realize that I would make friends and feel this intense joy about attending, so much so that I would show up dressed and ready a week early. It was a gift from God, this two hour session once a month with these precious girls that He chose for our group. Enter, Brenne Brown. She's a researcher. I'm not even sure what that means, but

Who are you? It seems like a valid question, simple enough, but I dare you to answer it for yourself. I'm a mom, a wife, a writer, a sister, a daughter. I am a lover, a fighter, a ray of sunshine, a blessing. I am a builder, a giver, optimistic to a fault, an emotional train wreck. I'm waiting for your face to express, "Aha! That's it!" I like to give the right answers. I like to be approved. I do NOT like conflict, or uncomfortable situations. I do NOT like things to be undone. I do NOT like it when there is something wrecked and I can't do anything about it. I will keep trying to fix it until my fingers bleed and my brain turns somersaults. I'm a fixer. I get it from my dad. And my mom. I'm a perfectionist, only I'm a free spirit too. With all these kids, God knew I needed to be both. I had trouble answering this when asked. She waited, swaying side to side in her office chair. No pressure, just waiting. Who am I? Who is Bec

I signed up for google plus a few months ago. I don't really get it, call me crazy. I add you, you add me back, we're in a circle...? My kids have referred to it as    " kind of like a facebook for people whose parents won't let them have facebook" Ok. I'm not even sure how I was prompted to fill out a profile or really why I would need to but I do things like that, so I did. It asked me for a tagline. After a few witless attempts at awesome, this one stuck. yes, they're all mine I say it every single time I leave the house with kids, sometimes multiple times a day. Nine kids is a rarity. What's funny is that I usually only have a handful with me when people ask. If the whole crew goes out on the town, people are so awe-struck by the sheer numbers of us that they just stare, unabashedly. I don't mind. Stare. Ask questions. I love it. Not all my kids feel the same way, but I'm the mom. My tribe is my pride. With that

The sky captured me today. I've been busy, managing things and stuff and people and thangs too busy to notice the incredible handiwork in the sky. Not today... today I saw it It changed with my day. Each hour and new display of wonder. Big, billowy clouds like giant hands with fingers. A spectacular blue masterpiece with cotton balls spread in strands with no particular intention Tiny wisps of light blue lined with pink reflections of the sunset. My last trip across the city was mesmerizing. Straight ahead of me in the shape of an eye there was a break in the clouds. The rest of the sky was covered with all variations of clouds except for the eye, as if it was a window to heaven. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of God peering through the sky at me. I'm so in love with Him. Seriously in love. I see His watchful eye everywhere I look and I'm comforted. He notices everything I do. Every thought I think is familiar to Him. B

Exhaustion comes in and take me over every afternoon. I've been carrying a heavy burden of emotion and responsibility for weeks now, and I thought the exhaustion would ease up as the burden lifted, but my body is too, too tired to carry this. I find myself driving nearly every afternoon. Taking kids here, driving kids there, picking up, dropping off, groceries, errands, you know the drill. I get there and I'm fine. I turn around to come home and I can barely keep my eyes open. As a preventative measure, I take naps. Maybe we've talked about power naps before. I used to sleep 2-ish hours in the afternoon when I was tired. I'd wake up in a fog, it would take another hour to fully wake up, and then that blasted headache would come on like a siren in my head. After stumbling upon some good reading on sleep, I tried a 15 minute nap. Committing to a 15 minute nap is like committing to a 1200 calorie/day diet. It looks bleak. It gives the air of impossibility. it's

It comes from the Greek language  meaning Together living The long term relationship  between two species.  I read the word this morning in relation to a mother and her baby. Their relationship was fluid, dependent, constant. The baby's perception is that he and his mama are one and the same.  This is where I am with the Lord. He and I are one. We are moving in one fluid motion. I am in Him and He is in me. We are one. What's incredible about this is that there is no room for fear or anxiety or doubt. I feel it and I recognize that it is not from God. If God is sovereign, which He is, and if He is in control of everything that comes in and out of my life, which He is, than what should I fear? Why should I worry? What purpose is there in doubt?  He knows me.  He knows every detail of my life.  He knows the number of my days,  He wrote every one before my life began.  I'm moving in love.  I'm surrounded by love. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. I am not alone. Lvb P

Countdown to Thanksmas, right? Yesterday we were looking at the calendar, considering that it falls on a Sunday, and all the sudden the camp is split.  Thanksmas may very well be the most anticipated day of the entire year for everyone in my family. I mean, it's intense. We all love it so much. But it's on Sunday, see... and I love going to church. I look forward to it. I adore it. I'm crazy about going to church. It's not because of the music or the preaching or the class content, although these things bless my soul every single week. It's the people. It's the people, people! (People that don't need people numb their lives with lemon flavored vodka.) I'm in. I'm finally so in that if I disappeared people would chase me down. I have connections to people that live in my town, that look for me, that hope I will sit by them, that anticipate me coming to stuff. I get texts when there's something going on because someone wants to see me. And

Ok, I'll count down from three and then you all jump. 3,2,1 JUMP! Ok, try again. 3,2,1 JUMP! 3,2, snap Are you ready? Are you going to jump? Ready? Ready?? Go, Buddy! I didn't jump. Not even one time, these boots, tho... Lvb

We had and have all these milestone birthdays happening this year. Kennedy will be 18.  Micah will be 16. Tre turned 13. Leila turned 10. Clinton turned 1. I haven't been too shaken by any of them, except for Kennedy turning 18. This is chartered territory. Her mama is staring the reality of her "leaving the nest" in the eye. It's bittersweet, scary and exciting. She was never going to turn 5, remember? I thought she'd be a pre-schooler forever. And now, here she is in college, working a job, thinking about buying a car on her own; it's crazy. I just didn't realize she'd ever really leave us. Awhile back she announced that she would be getting a tattoo on her 18th birthday. I think I surprised her when I said, "Let's get one together!" I don't have any tattoos. I never really wanted one, not seriously. Not until recently.  At first we were going to get the same one. She wanted a compass. An anchor. The ocean. I

Oh my heart, what a shifty beast you are.. , While my heart is sick and aches to be consoled, I am guided by wisdom, carefully and delicately guided, around what I long for. What I ache for. Wisdom cries out and my heart curses her. Wisdom speaks and my heart recoils. Why?? WHY??? Why can the two not be reconciled? My heart and my flesh may fail, this I can guarantee. They have failed me over and over and over again. I find myself sinking into despair and wisdom calls from the wind "REACH OUT! DON'T SINK! GET OUT! CALL SOMEONE!" But my heart, deceitful above all things, lures me in. "come... sit. stay. be comforted. embrace dark sadness. drink deep of despair..." It's desirable to me. I want to go into the warm muddy swamp and let myself sink low, but wisdom reaches out. "STOP! You don't belong there, love! You are a treasure, you are royalty! Come away! Seek your True Love and find rest!" I'm conflicted. There is a war in

Writing rights things. I’m the girl that writes. I write lists. I journal. I blog. I Facebook. I have writing projects. I’m a writer. It’s what I do. The words are always there waiting to be written, and when I don’t write them, I ache. This deep ache that can’t be righted by anything else but writing. I write when I’m sad and when I’m mad and when I’m happy and when I’m lonely. Writing is near and it shines light on dark places. It’s who I am. I can’t help myself. I’ve been writing since I was a child. I also can’t help but see the heart of God in the written word. Obviously, the Bible… like, you know… it’s written. God in word-form. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword. Words are powerful, they are effective. They are able to carry you into another life in a way that nothing else can. They speak. The listen. They dance. They color your stillness. It never ceases to amaze me that writing things down is also healing. If you hav

Every morning I wake before the dawn. Sleep has come easily. I am not consumed with my thoughts. I fall into a deep slumber from sheer exhaustion. I am not exercising my body as I once was, I'm emotionally traumatized. I'm walking on water, but my feet are cold and my heart is sick. I'm standing on the heights but my eyes are weary from trying to find a path down to level ground. I'm tired from carrying the emotional burdens of so many others in a storm that does not seem to be subsiding. So we carry on. Sometimes the baby cries out in his sleep and wakes me. He's restless. I can't help but wonder if the storm has him rattled. He cries out often throughout the morning after I wake up, but he usually goes back to sleep. I project everything I'm carrying onto situations like this. I can't help it. The not knowing has me crazy.  Sometimes Mose wakes up while I'm completely out, and sneaks into bed with me. He has a terrible snore that wakes me after h

I'm taken by this picture. There is so much happening here.  Kennedy chose this day to take us to our local pumpkin patch. She loaded us all up and stopped at QT to buy us a pumpkin spice latte and drove us out to this remote location where lines of cars were backed up to see the pumpkins and the kitties. This place is known for their cats, which is why we go there,  actually. Only, the last time we went, we were the only people on the property. This time, people were spilling out of every crevice of the place! It felt like community. I sat in the middle of it, with my own little community, and felt grateful. The sky was perfectly blue with whispy clouds dragged across its face in no pattern at all, just the way God does sometimes. There was a cool breeze that froze us between blazes of hot sun. I found myself reflective as we sat. The big kids took off to explore more awesome climbing bales, but the littles were content to jump on this dump heap for hours.  There is pure joy, tota

The thing about being right in the middle of what God wants you to do And hearing His voice so clearly that you can't deny it Is that it is as natural as breathing or your heart beating or folding laundry or washing dishes. You just do it. You engage, and He starts to function through you. He says things in your words. He does things with your physicality. He moves through you and you don't even know He's doing it except that you wouldn't have thought about doing something that you did until it mattered to someone. Like in a big way. And then you know. It wasn't you. It was Him. There's this incredible "soar on wings like eagles" feeling that comes with abiding in Christ. Because if you abide in Him, and He abides in you there's oneness. It just happens. It's automatic. There's symbiosis. It can't not happen when you are His engaging in who He is and how He does things. It's not earth shattering. Until it is.

Remember when your PE teacher would announce "We're going to split up into two teams. Shane, you're a captain,  and Dean you're a captain." My heart would sink every time.  I was never chosen first. Or second.  I was always left standing in the  "who cares, what's your name? I guess I'll take you" group. It sunk me deeper into that sense of not belonging. I felt lost.  I felt rejected.  I felt like every insecurity that I had was on display for everyone to see. It was a terrible feeling. I was reading the verses of Psalms 139 this morning  being soothed by the words of a loving Father  that chose me. He chose me . He chose me for this . ...all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one began. Ps. 139:16 There's so much peace in that,  even though the storm rages on with no end in sight. The God of the universe,  created me to do something that  only I can do