Just a slice of peace....please.

Lately I feel like I have had a hard time putting a finger on my heart. You know those months seasons, or just days that are rich and sweet times, but just as you get one situation or issue dealt with there is another one waiting in line for it's due time to be dealt with. That is how life feels lately. I make for small snippets of time to pray or read the Bible then I'm off...on adventure.. sorry.. Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat is on in my house right now. I feel like each child and issue in life has me on an individual adventures with each one of them. So what I am getting at is that peace has felt absent. Peace has not felt attainable. It's the rolling tumbleweed feeling of tossing and being take here and here, over the rocks and stuck behind a tree feeling.

As I was reading this morning, while drying my hair..."My peace, however, is such an all-encompassing gift that it is independent of ALL circumstances. Though you lose everything else, if you gain my peace you are rich indeed." -Jesus Calling

Independent of all circumstances, I turned off my hair dryer at this point to reread. Foolish, I know this, loosen the white knuckles amanda on the adventures I am on. Getting it all sorted and completed, folded, washed, tear wiped, correcting whining instead of words, dirty bodies, hurt little hearts, my addie heart, disobedient sinful little hearts, ugly walls to paint, dog haired hardwoods, broken off teeth, fevered children, schedule of a pastor as a husband, homework check list, errands to run, .... I can't see the peace through all dog hair.. No, it really has been a feeling of, when I get these things sorted and dealt with, I will then feel a sense of peace. Its a ridiculous idea but so easy to buy into. Jesus says I can come to my naked tantruming child with a peace that is not found in that situations. My goodness how my approach to life with this peace in hand would so be full of the love and grace of Christ. No wonder I can't put words to this full heart... I am not letting myself past the circumstances and into the independent peace.. I can have it.. The gospel says I can. I want it for me.. I want my kids and husband to see it in me. So, I want lots of the gospel today. Loads.

Words are just so good.

I have mentioned before how at church, during worship, I can do a lot of my wrestling. Wrestling out my heart of pain or just the everyday struggle of a wondering heart. These words today really moved me. I feel like they made my heart swell and overflow to actual worship, so here you go....

Words to Build a Life On

Chorus:

These are words to build a life on

These are Your words how can they be mine

These are words to build a life on

These are Your words to build a life on

These are Your words I want them to be mine

Blessed are the poor

Blessed are the weak

Blessed are the ones

Who can barely speak

Blessed in your hurt

Blessed in your pain

Blessed when your teardrops

Are falling down like rain

Blessed when you're broken

Blessed when you're blind

Blessed when you're fragile

When you have lost your mind

Blessed when you're desperate

Blessed when you're scared

Blessed when you're lonely

Blessed when you've failed

Blessed when you lose your

Own identity

The blessed when you find it

And it has been redeemed

Blessed when you see what

Your friends can never be

Blessed with your eyes closed

Then blessed you see me

Words & Music: Mike Crawford and the Secret Siblings

Soooo good. good for the heart and soul.

I have been reading. Yes! I have found this hidden place somewhere down deep where I have always been a reader but perhaps never still long enough to figure that out?? I am really enjoying to read. So much so that I finished a crazy good love story about vampires all of which was over 800 pages! Proud of me. I jumped on the late Twilight party bus, but that is not what is sooo good for the soul. Although I did really enjoy that book.

Ann Voskamp's new book One Thousand Gifts...A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. I am gleaming wonderful truths from this endearing book and I have only really just begun. Actually about to jump in bed and read it now. You don't have to wait to connect with Ann. Her blog, The Holy Experience, has been a delightful daily read.
My heart felt harpooned by today's post.

Her words about feasting on the mysterious as did the Israelites on the manna... Grieving and processing with the attempt to feast on the mysteries of my loss or the awareness of sin in our world everyday. What can and does that look like? Processing those tender words tonight.. What a great topic to discuss with the Lord when I get all still and quiet. :) Click on over there and get quiet with me..

Silence that Hurts

I have been silenced in the past day. Strep was the culprit, but my heart enjoyed the rest. Doesn't that sound insane. Sickness providing heart rest??? Well I can't say I am now completely refreshed ready to tackle what my home and children can throw at me. But more that I almost needed that peace to see that it is exactly what I need to run after. I don't know how to rest...Even when I have had an afternoon to do as I please, I more times than not choose to run errands to meet family needs. Uh.. I thought I would not be that kind of mom. Well it's happened to me and I have to put a stop to this. I had the opportunity to sit with a counselor this past weekend. One of the over arching themes in my life right now is that I have run off the path.. afraid of rest and quiet because it can be painful there.. hard to bare. BUT if I don't take my shoes off and stay awhile I miss hearing from God completely. Completely.. I said. In return I am missing the nuggets of gold only He can offer me. The healing that only He can give...the binding up of my wounds that He talks about in the Bible. I want in on that. This season has been full and somewhat obvious as to why I have not slowed down. I have enjoyed life lately bonding with my jude.

The past 4 months with my little boy has been truly healing. I have enjoyed caring for this child as I have had to throw out the only rule book I've had to figure out this new world of boy. I am learning and laughing a lot. As I changed his diaper the other morning his manly parts were double the size...freak OUT!!! Who knew it was diaper rash and yeast infection. A little confused that yeast infections can happen to boys, but what do I know? Not much about boys, obviously. That is besides the point, that was just a funny aside that needed sharing. This boy has brought deep joy in my heart to a place I felt hopelessness. A place that I wasn't sure joy could fill again, knowing all the wonderful joy of firsts with my addison would never have a place there along side of her sisters. That is indeed healing and I continue to be grateful for that.

But as my kind and truthful counselor reminded me that my journey of loss must continue. I expect that the silence might still hurt but I have to let it in. I have felt that tension... I have felt a neglect at times and even feeling like I was at a "what's next" grief rest stop. I must sit and listen. It is where God does the work in me that He intends, beauty from ashes...its there. The funny part is I know she is right. The quiet reflective times are where He does the work. When I reach out he already has his arms open. The part that is hard, the part that I struggle with in my heart is that the pain is SO big...the loss is a lifetime of losses and misses...I feel like God can't handle that. I know the christian side of me says Yeah.. of course He can... But I have never had to trust Him with something this big and this hurtful. I am hesitant to believe that... I am messed up. broken in a million pieces. gun shy, following after a God that allowed my child to die. That is crazy to read back to myself after I typed it.. Who does that? To live in that mystery of loving a God that allows that pain can only be a God work in this broken remade heart. Only way.. So pray for me as I struggle like my 3 year to sit still tonight even after I finish these words.. I must listen and wait patiently for the Lord to speak to me... to remind me be still and listen.

I'm back for real this time, really....

So yeah, I am living off the grid for starters... Trying to get my grip back on our little Buck world and my fingers feel slippery.
I am learning that, that is exactly how God wants it. Another wonderful self acknowledgment, wow big word, is that I need to make a habit of getting things off my heart and off my mind by writing more often. I think the writing helps the process along and also keeps the anxiety from building, if it's heavy stuff. I have this uncanny way of pulling the microscope over and getting it turned down really really low only to zoom in on everything heavy or hard going on. As if this viewing of issues will help me handle them all better as I try to figure out ways to get it all under management.. Na, just isn't going to happen.

I escaped out of the house today to what was intended to be a trip to publix but instead a detour to a local boutique to clear my head. As I drove I was thinking and praying for God to forgive this momma. I was easily frustrated, wanted to just cry, angry... and just unpleasant to be around today. And why was I acting this way?? I felt exactly like I described earlier. The microscope turned way down a lot of things heavy... frustrating relationships, 3 year old tantrums, my "what if" mind, (that ones the kicker) I can plug any fear into that one... needy house, sensitive 6 year old... oh what to do with all of this. Same habit and seeing that the lesson has been around before. These are just issues, I will awake to these in the morning and there will be some new to add to the list and maybe one marked off. The task of taking all of these things to the Lord is a familiar path that I have made my own detours off of.

So I prayed my dirty heart out. Left all the figuring out to the Lord. Here's these messy things... I am incapable of having a handle on this. Help my remembering of this Lord. I seem to have forgotten since yesterday.

He gets me.. thank goodness.

I apologize, I already said that I'd be back on the grid and then I went and fell off again. Grace, I know grace..
But I am seeing that this heart needs to write and maybe not writing is me not dealing with something. Avoiding pain, avoiding hurt. Quite possibly so.

Christmas last year was an awkward mix of emotions... sweet to watch the girls embrace Christmas and strive to celebrate as a family. Yet also the hurting and pain was there. So as this Christmas is quickly approaching... with a sweet son in my arms, it is indeed sweet, deeply sweet. Oh and deeply healing. I look at him and am just amazed by this precious boy. So amazed at the Lord for blessing me with him, and for the new journey into boy-ness. My heart is celebrating.
But.. traveling to the other side of my heart this momma is one less. My heart has been hurting lately maybe even without me knowing it. Over the Thanksgiving holiday while at my moms, it hits me... There is suppose to be a little girl in my lap eating table food and playing with her sisters... We are missing a sisterhood. Watching 3 girls run and play, eat at a table, play dress up.. Which dress would she prefer? what would her little face now look like? deep breath.. It's a lot to think about all at once all that we are missing. Too painful but my heart has to go there. I have to think these things as it is at my core to miss her.

Several days after jude's birth bryan and I had the quietness to process our last stay at that hospital. How completely opposite our stays were with Addison and Jude. It was hard quite honestly as we left the hospital. The ride was all too familiar and we passed by my old room. I climbed in the little transport wheel chair and just fought back tears all the way to meet bryan in the van. I road on a wheelchair once before deeply broken apart, then there I was wheeling away with a sweet blessing.. oh the pain and the joy.. such hard contrasts but there was something to grieve there. So once jude was safely buckled and I sat beside him, bryan and I just wept. I barely had to recount my journey from my room to the car with him. His eyes were full of tears as soon as I looked at him. Oh the pain of all that we didn't get to have. All those deep tears needed a path out of my heart and needed to get out, be let out... Our addie hearts had to grieve. It felt like such an appropriate and obvious time to cry for her. Even in the midst of a beautiful day of bringing home my son. Strange yet normal. My normal. :)

So I share that coming home story to now share how that same double emotion is hitting me now. It's christmas! I love celebrating and singing these hymns of praise... yet I have this new heart with new rules. I have to wrestle out the pain and hurt so I can rejoice and worship the Lord. He knows this about me, it's just me that is surprised. I must miss my daughter. It hurts to know that I always will. There is not an escape but a rescuer and a Father that is after me. Thank goodness... but I know that as we celebrate Christmas I can bring my broken heart, my hurting heart, my thankful and grateful heart to the altar and worship the King that gets me in the pain and the joy.

"joy to the world, the Lord has come"

Oh so thankful he comes to the hurting, the broken and needy.. only He can bring the JOY..

ThankFULL heart

I am finally a small bleep back on the radar of life and evidently my blog. No intentions of being MIA, just happened.
I forgot how consuming life can be with a newborn. I mean that with all the good of consuming. I have been so eager to be with this child. SO loving when he wakes to feed and for me to get that feeding cuddle time. SO far, this boy is true to his busy self in the womb. He was oh so busy even to the point that the ultrasound tech, during one of my weekly visits could not get a good read on his heart. He was too busy flipping away from the doppler. Hilarious.. but not always laughing past midnight when he is just letting out the nightly fusses, but again.. thankful.. SO thankful.

Jude Anders is deeply loved by his sweet sisters so much so that I have to remind graceyn that he needs to breathe, "thats enough sweetheart." :) Ellie doesn't want to miss one bath or diaper change. She is on top of him saying the things she hears me say, so sweet to watch that happen. All the girls in this house are little mothers... all of us loving him so well and so deeply.

I could not be more thankful.. grateful...and left speechless and amazed at his rising and falling chest. To see life in this sweet boy and get to look into his deep blue eyes... SO much sweetness to acknowledge. Because of Addison's short life, his life seems all the more amazing and miraculous. A friend reminded me that worshiping with Jude in my arms for the first time will be so sweet. She was right. It was and continues to be my favorite part about Sunday worship. To praise God for having him in my arms moving and kicking instead of feeling his movements on the inside, wondering what God had planned for Jude. God heard my cries and answered the cry of my heart. He didn't have to, yet in His compassion He did. Have I mentioned that I'm thankful...Oh I can't communicate the half of it.

Glad to be back as a bleep on the radar.. Thankful to have a place to write and process... as the heart is always full.
much love.