bsmiles and sunny days

  I pulled up next to this guy at a stop sign yesterday and thought, “Woah, he’s got a tire in his trunk.” When I looked again, I saw the other three tires inside his car. One in the passengers seat, and two in back. I was intrigued. What circumstances require loading your car down with four full-sized tires?  Maybe he bought them on swap and shop. Maybe he just got new tires and didn’t want to pay the disposal fee. Maybe his buddy was getting rid of them. I have no idea. I was so fascinated by the fact that this guys car was occupied by tires that I almost missed my turn to go at the stop sign. I wanted to ask him. And I wanted to tell him that    you can rent a truck from Menards for $35.  Jesus always asked. He would engage in a conversation with someone, sometimes someone that he wasn’t technically allowed to talk to, and he would ask critical questions. And then He would tell them that there is another way. There’s a way to live life that is lighter, easier...

 I have always been friendly and cheerful. I laugh at people’s jokes when not everyone thinks they are funny. I genuinely want people to feel accepted and loved when they are around me. It can be confusing, I’ve been told, and sometimes it’s misunderstood.  I like everyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. In my younger years, I was less confident. I didn’t know how to tell someone that I wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship. So if someone had the courage to ask me to out with them, I never said no. I went out one time and then avoided ever crossing paths with them again. It created an unhealthy pattern that was difficult to break. When I met Dale, he was funny and loud and tended to rally a lot of attention to himself and the people around him. I was pretty sure I didn’t want that kind of attention, so I kept him at arms length, but I liked him. He made me laugh. Then he asked me out. I said yes, we were friends, after all. I had no idea we would stay together ...

  A few months ago, one of the boys in our neighborhood broke the silence on our street with a roaring dune buggy. He raced up and down the street for about half an hour a few times a day until the gas ran out, and the roaring would cease. After about a week, my son came home with a dirt bike in his trunk, fully loaded with a roaring engine of its own.  In 11 years of living in our neighborhood, there has never been a sign at the entrance to the churchyard. As a matter fact, most of the pastors that have lived in the parsonage next door, have made a point to give us access to the playground even though we aren’t members of the church.  I’m not saying the sign was not warranted. We have had to discourage our resident drivers from driving though the churchyard on more than one occasion. It just makes me laugh because it reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books, The Poky Little Puppy.  Sometimes we just need someone to state the obvious by way of a signpost. It ...

  My mom is relentlessly hard working. I have never seen such diligence in a human being. I didn’t realize what an anomaly it was because it was so normal to me.  She babysat up to 13 kids while raising 5 of her own until she went back to school, finished her degree and became a teacher. During those years, she also worked a job and completed her student teaching    hours while continuing to make a hot breakfast and five sack lunches every morning for us kids. When I think about the logistics of making that happen along with laundry and grocery shopping and juggling all of our teenage angst, it wrecks me. I had no idea because she never complained or boasted. She just did the hard work and made it happen. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember if we even had a graduation party for her. She just went on to begin teaching full-time with meekness and grace. A few years ago, there were 28 of us home for Thanksgiving. We were stacked in bedrooms and on floors and the livin...

  I woke up super early this morning into a quiet dark awakening. Both the little boys were in our room, but they slept soundly and peacefully. As thoughts and prayers rolled through my head, there was a current of worship simultaneously running underneath. The words, “We long, we long, we long for You and no one else, could satisfy us like you do, Jesus...” The kids. Money. The house. Dale. The past. The future. All the while the lyrics rising to the surface and fading into the background like waves in the ocean. As a teenager every year at church camp I would commit myself to abandoning secular music and only listening to Christian music. It never lasted for the whole year, I couldn’t see that far ahead. But I wrestled with it. As an adult I settled into a place of contentment, listening to all kinds of music without condemnation.  What I have discovered is that whatever I am listening to will stay on repeat in my head until I change the channel. If I’m listening to Ray LaMo...

I’ve been considering changing my hair for a few months. Nothing drastic, just different. I am not consumed with appearances until someone says I should think about doing something differently because it would make me look younger. It feeds a part of me that is typically starved, not by virtue but rather from convenience. I started scrolling for hair styles and came across a meme that said something like, “Skinny jeans and side part, don’t care.” Ok. Not only did I  not  realize that those things had become outdated, I thought they were keeping me in the stream of relevance. Then I started thinking about my girls and how their shelves are stacked with a style of jeans that I wouldn’t even know how to find, let alone wear. A friend once told me that the thought of becoming irrelevant was terrifying. I said that I was dreaming of those days, and I meant it. But when I read that meme and felt the reality of my irrelevance, it hit me hard. I quaked in the depths and realized it is...

When I go home to visit, I go back to the house I grew up in. People in my town know where my house is because they know my parents or they knew my brothers or my sister. They went to church with us or dropped kids off there for babysitting . When I lived there I couldn’t wait to leave. I was wills at heart and wanted adventure. I never could appreciate our 9-5 life. It was too predictable and too boring. We all left the house around the same time each morning, and we all came home around the same time. We ate dinner together almost every night, and on the weekends, it was always the same. Saturday was for grocery shopping and Sunday was for church. On Sunday afternoons almost everyone took a nap. I knew what to expect and how things would go on most days. I didn’t live in fear of what would happen when my dad got home at the end of the day. I always knew there would be three meals and snacks at home. I had someone to call when my car caught on fire both times. I knew if I needed anyth...

Remember when you first learned how to skate? The cute teenaged instructor took your hands while skating backwards and said, “March your feet. March March March!” When it snows like this, I wear really intense snow boots. Even if they look ridiculous, I don the boots because I am afraid of falling. You get to a certain age and you gain a healthy fear of hitting the ground. So when it’s snowy outside and slushy inside, I March. Stomp my feet. No slipping, no sliding. No bounding, no gliding! I have every intention of staying vertical.  The snow is no respecter of persons. It falls where it will and stacks where it closes. You and I have no choice but to walk through it. But we do have the choice of when to, how to, and in what shoes to walk through it. If you use wisdom to navigate the slick parts, your chances of getting to your desired location are far greater than the guy that just went Willy Billy through the parking lot in his loafers without socks.  I think you know where...

 I really love to go outside and walk. When the weather is even close to tolerable, I don’t miss a day.  This past holiday season, paired with my new sourdough obsession, gifted me an unfortunate ten extra pounds. Eager to get the scale moving in the other direction, I decided to exchange my walk for a slow jog. Before I left my street, I had to give myself a little pep talk. I was going to look super dorky. It wasn’t going to be as enjoyable as a walk because it would be work. People driving by might laugh at me because I might look like a wannabe runner. With those things settled in my mind, I set out on my first jog in years.  It was embarrassing. I must have looked ridiculous, barely picking my feet up off the ground, but bouncing a little as I trudged along. It wasn’t my lungs burning that forced me to take breaks it was my hip aching. (Admitting that makes me feel so old.) Penny and Sparrow have a song called “Just and Just As.” It came up on my playlist as I was jo...

I never quite understood Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. I grew up in a church that didn’t participate in liturgical tradition, so I always thought Lent was a Catholic practice. This year Dale announced that we would be observing Lent as a family, and I was thrilled. I’ve always been curious about it, so the opportunity to dive right in would provide a wealth of knowledge and insight to the mystery. After the announcement, he emailed me from work and explained that the day before Lent, today, is a feasting day. It originally served as a way to use up rich foods like milk and eggs before fasting, so a special type of pancake was served with other sweet and savory foods. He sent me a recipe, and I built a menu around it. The pancakes were unleavened    and very similar to crepes, so we cut fruit and made syrup. Deisha made French toast while I fried hash browns and scrambled eggs. We had a regular feast!  As we ate we talked about Lent and what we each might give up during the 4...

I didn't want to believe it. We loved Ravi so much. He was one of the first intellectuals in Christian thought that I cared to read. His passion for truth was compelling. He was gentle and compassionate and understanding. It didn't seem possible that he could be leading a secret life, a life void of character and virtue. But as the old adage goes, be sure your sins will find you out. I'm not surprised that he got caught in sin, we are all vulnerable in our weaknesses. What surprised me was that he could convey the love of Jesus so succinctly and not feel the sting of separation from Him. Like a dog returns to its vomit. Like a man who looks in the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like. Out of the same cistern, freshwater and saltwater.  This situation is a painful reminder that no one is above hypnotic lullaby of sin. We have to talk about it. We have to confess our sins to one another. We absolutely must go to Jesus and repent every single day. Without that kin...

This morning I had a heart-to-heart with one of my girls about math that ended in tears. Math has never been my strong suit. As a homeschool family for all these years, with all these kids, I'm sure some people have lofty ideas about a what a day in our lives must be like. Let me just bust that myth right now. I'm not great at it. I have never been great at doing all of it. Some years I'm great at the planning, and we have all our books by August 1. Other years I'm really good at the riches, and we memorize Shakespeare and draw our own renditions of timeless works of art. Some years I'm heavy on history, and other years I'm killing it in science. Whatever else we do, each morning we start with Jesus, and then we do a lot of reading and talking and writing, then math. When the world is normal, we go to the library on Tuesdays. In the afternoons, we spend an hour in our own room reading. I do the best I can with what I have to offer and pray that God will help me ...

Christmas left me wanting this year. It wasn't that I didn't get eat enough or listen to enough music, because I really did! It was that I didn't get to see the annual Christmas program in my hometown. I didn't get to brave the Kaufman Center with my tribe to witness Tuba Christmas. Crown Center was practically a ghost town the week of Christmas and Santa was all booked up for days ahead of our visit. So when it came time to put away the movies and delete all my Christmas playlists, I wasn't ready. Usually by December 31st, I've had my fill. Some years I'm stripping the tree on the 26th. But this year it came and went, and I just couldn't let it go. I mean, I knew I had to, because cold weather was coming and the lights had to come down, but I was trying to squeeze just a little more cheer out of the season to make up for what was lost. When I finally started taking things down, I took everything down. All my photos, all the wall hangings, all the perfec...

  Last year one of my boys left home for what would prove to be a long, agonizing separation. We sent him off with hugs and tears and cheers and heartache. When Dale’s car was out of sight, the kids and I went into the house  to try to pull ourselves together. I hugged different ones in the kitchen while Kennedy went to find my little guy. He had disappeared from the herd. She found him in this same position with tears rolling down his cheeks. Instead of running to human arms, he found his comfort dog and let go of his brave facade.   I didn’t want another dog. I was up to my gills in responsibility when my people started talking about getting him. The thought of adding a puppy to my list put me over the edge. I’ve mentioned that he drives me crazy, and lately his breath has gotten so bad, I can hardly look at him when he’s talking to me. Stings the nostrils. He is neurotic and hyper and anxious and needy. He is a giant, but he’s a baby. He is smart, but he’s scared of ev...

  A few weeks ago my littles and I spent the weekend with some of the cousins. It was awesome. I had lots of junior moms in the house helping me run the show, so I could just enjoy my nieces and nephews. At one point my nephew stomped into the dining room and dragged a chair down the long hallway to block the entrance to his room. I could hear him muttering something in frustration, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. Apparently his little brother was making messes in his room, and he had had enough of it.  I felt real empathy. Every time I clean something, someone comes in and messes it up. Every. Single. Time. And there were so many kids in his space, I’m sure he felt overwhelmed and maybe a little threatened. I helped him to talk through it and vowed to help keep the blockade in tact for 2 hours, and then we agreed that we would take it down for safety reasons.  I could relate on so many levels. I am still thinking about it, how I pile things in front of me to hide wh...

My sister is notably the most fun person I know. One day she sent me a video message that was recorded from under a desk. She was whispering, "No one knows where I am! I'm waiting for them to find me!" I laughed giddy with anticipation as I watched. I could hear different ones calling for her in the background. Each time someone walked past the desk, she shook with quiet giggles. I was rivetted! I could not, for the life of me, imagine what inspired her to spontaneously kick off a game of hide-and-go-seek and wait for her husband and kids to figure out that the game had already started. I'm not fun like that. I'm fun like, I might spontaneously bake a pan of cinnamon rolls or order pizza at bedtime. Honestly. My kind of fun needs to happen on my terms and it needs to stay inside my boundaries of convenience. But she inspires me to give it all away. So, this afternoon I stopped everything to play Rack-o with my littles. Small sacrifice, big return.  A few years ago...

It was probably five years ago when my mother-in-law gave me a birdfeeder and a shepherd’s hook for Mother's Day. On one side she hung the feeder, and on the other side, a basket of beautiful spring flowers. I didn’t get it, but I graciously accepted it and it has been in the ground just outside the front porch all this time. Every time we go to her house, we sit at her kitchen table and watch the bird feeders just outside the window. It’s fascinating and so peaceful to see them coming and going. I quiets my soul. But still, it never occurred to me to put food in my own feeder. The wasps occupied it a few years ago so we were all scared to get too close. I didn’t quite understand the mechanics of the thing, so I wasn’t sure how to evict the tenants without getting ambushed. Last week, on a whim, I bought a bag of bird seed. It was cold enough that the wasps wouldn’t be around to guard their nest, so I cleaned it out, filled it up and then waited. For days I watched, but it seemed...