When your little boy says please – without being reminded.

A warm fuzzy blanket and a sleeping baby.

Cooking for the people you love.

The last few orange leaves of autumn against a blue, blue sky.

Spending your life with your best friend.

Not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

Sometimes forgetting about all the things that ‘must’ be done, and enjoying the moment.

I’m happy.

A ‘fancy drink’ is a tall glass of water – without cracker crumbs in it.

‘Sleeping through the night’ means 12-4. (well, doesn’t it?)

You can’t find your cell phone, keys, or purse, but you can spot a marble on the ground from across the room.

You want a nap for your birthday.

‘Multi-tasking’ is not something you do – it’s how you live.

You choose your clothes based on how well they can hide spit-up, graham cracker crumbs, and apple juice.

You can do anything with one hand.

Any more ideas?

It’s been a long time – a hot, busy, uninspired summer, where I just didn’t have much to say. But yesterday I was musing, not for the first time, on what really makes the difference between poetry and prose. Is it not the unexplained?

In prose, at least well-written prose, everything is laid out for you. There is no guessing at meanings, no mystery. It’s all there. The beauty of good poetry, on the other hand, is what is left unsaid – the implied, the felt.

Life is often full of the unexplained. Mine has been, particularly the last year. Unexplained health challenges, relationship struggles, emotional upheaval. The ‘why’s’ sometimes overwhelm. I don’t understand, and I desperately want to, think I need to. But life is not prose. It is poetry – beautiful, and unexplained.

Now to remember that next time my heart is crying “why?”

Yesterday I was reading one of my favorite passages in the Bible, John 12, which tells the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with ointment. For some reason, it seemed very new and fresh, although I have read it probably hundreds of times.

There are 4 main characters in the passage. Jesus, who came to Bethany 6 days before the passover; Martha, who is (you’ll never guess) serving, and Lazarus, who is a sort of secondary guest of honor, having been raised from the dead. Oh, did I say four? Yes, there was Mary. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.”

So here Martha is, serving the Lord as usual. We all know Martha’s. They are a blessing – they make meals and fix roofs and give rides and, well, serve. And here is Lazarus, of the spectacular testimony – “I was dead, and now I am alive!” We know some of them, too. They were thieves, drug addicts, rebels, God-haters – and now they live in Christ. They love to share what God has done for them and glorify Him for His saving grace and love.

And here is Mary.

Really, when you consider the fact that the only remarkable things that Mary did were to not help Martha serve and to waste a whole year’s wages on Jesus’ feet, well, it is no wonder that those around treated her like they did. All they saw was someone whose values seemed foreign to their world.

And that’s what Jesus saw, too.

I am not trying to discount the worth of the Martha’s and Lazarus’s in the church, but it is worth noting that it was Mary whom Jesus commended. It was Mary who was so close to His heart that she alone, of all His friends, understood why He had come and what He was facing. It was Mary who stood by when all the world turned away in disgust and confusion. Mary was the friend of Christ.

I long to do that, to be that, for my Lord. But I have to confess that often I lose sight of those other-worldly values and wish I could be a Martha or a Lazarus. Just sitting at Jesus’ feet and pouring out my love and life to Him seems like such a …waste.

Let us remember that “the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

Learning to sit…

Last night I was meditating on Psalm 23 as I was falling asleep. I didn’t get very far – the phrase “He leadeth me beside the still waters” caught my attention.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but “still waters” always makes me think of calm, peaceful circumstances. Not the wild, raging, storm-waters that so often make up our lives, but orderly, peaceful, everything-makes-sense happenings.

My life isn’t like that. It doesn’t make sense. Often there are storms, misunderstandings, difficulties, illness, and pain.

But the longer I thought about it, the more I was sure that David couldn’t have meant the still waters of circumstances. What was he talking about? When he was left to watch the sheep and had to kill a lion and a bear? Or maybe when he was in the palace and Saul tried to pin him to a wall with his spear. Running through the wilderness for his life? Scrabbling at the gates of the enemy? Returning from a battle to find wives and children gone and his own men wanting to stone him? Bringing the Ark to Jerusalem and having God strike his servant dead? Fleeing from his rebellious son?

Really, I couldn’t think of a time in David’s life when all was smooth sailing. He was known as a ‘man of war’. He spent years as an outlaw. The one period of his life that could have been golden he smeared with the sin of Bathsheba. His own sons tried to take over the kingdom. His subjects cursed him. His wife despised him. No ‘still waters’ of circumstances here. David’s was not a ‘happily ever after’ story.

So what did he mean? I think the secret can be found in the story of Ziklag when David returned from a successful campaign only to find that the enemy had struck in his absence. We read there that “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”

David had a source of ‘still waters’ that was not dependent on outward circumstances. He had a place where he could go, no matter what was going on in his life, and find peace and calm and refreshing.

Oh, that I would learn the secret of the ‘still waters’!

Children are a bit like mirrors for us mothers, I think. How many times have you found yourself looking into a little echo of your own heart and life in the shape of your child?

My little man has his mother’s handicap of result-dependant laziness – of getting easily frustrated and disgusted by less-than-desired results and giving up, prematurely and often in tears.

He is learning to crawl – or, rather, he gets himself halfway across the floor by means of some rather ingenous movements and positional contortions and then gives up, three ‘steps’ from his destination.

I wonder… How often do I give up so close to the goal?

Just a touch of humor…

The other day I was trying to get something done – a very small something – and Paul seemed to have set himself the task of hindering me to the best of his abilities. He had to be very close to me, in my lap, touching me, having my full attention, or he fretted. At that frustrating moment, my sense of humor prevailed and I imagined him starting a society – the Society for the Prevention of Productivity in Mothers. This will explain the folderol that follows.

Letter from Paul Weaver to his aunt and cousin:

This is to notify Miss Nancy J. Hansen and Miss Lilias J. Mollman that they have been selected as charter members of the newly founded Society for the Prevention of Productivity in Mothers. The Rule and Purpose of the Society is simple: to coerce Mommy for at least 8 hours a day to feed you, change you, dress you, put you to sleep, play with you, or, if all else fails, just hold you, to the detriment of any other planned activity she may have had. You are free to sleep the other 16 hours if you are successful. On successful completion of this course, you will be promoted to the Society for the Perpetuation of Panic attacks in Mothers, aka toddlerhood.

Paul N. Weaver

Letter from Nancy to Paul:

lol, count me in

Nancy Joy

Letter from Lilias to Paul:

Dear Sir:
I appreciate your consideration in this proposal, it shows extreme generosity and kindness to your fellow babies. However I do present one complaint, namely that with my elite skills you only offered me charter membership when I would easily stand as Vice-President. I would have you know that I fully succeeded at coercing my mommy to stay up walking me till approx. 3:30 this morning, a trying task to be sure… and arose when my daddy did at 6:00 thereby also forcing my mommy again out of bed. Now, I do think you should consider the prospect of allowing for a position of higher standing than that which was proposed. Otherwise I see your organization as capital and imagine we can all benefit much from the ideas and antics of the other.

P.S. I don’t think you would blame me to know that I have retired for the moment to rest from my long night of work.

Reply from Paul to Lilias:

Miss Lili,
I beg your pardon sincerely. I did not realize you were so advanced. I will certainly consider your promotion.

Paul N. Weaver
President, SPPM

Hope it give you a chuckle… Mothers certainly are benefited by a sense of humor. Now off to get some things done…

Or, my top ten favorite things about being a mother.

10. Seeing my brothers and sisters playing with my baby – lots of fun! Who knew teenage boys could be so gentle?

9. Giving a baby a bath – one of the most relaxing things I know to do. Soft baby, warm water, baby shampoo… aaah.

8. Having a good excuse to leave the dishes in the sink.

7. Knowing that I don’t have to grow up – I can build block towers and snowmen and dams in the creek and gingerbread houses and have a good reason for it.

6. Baby smiles – just for Mom. Nothing sweeter.

5. Having someone around when my husband is gone. No more loneliness!

4. Entertainment – free. No more boredom!

3. Realizing again how wonderful everything is as I re-discover it through the eyes of a child.

2. A new perspective on almost everything that being a mother gives you.

1. Joining the ranks of Mothers and suddenly understanding why my own did all the mysterious things that baffled me as a child.

I’d recommend it – having a baby, that is – it’s great. I wonder how much better the second one is?….

I’m beginning to think that I should have named this blog “Lessons from a Baby” instead; who would have guessed I could learn so many? Yesterday we had a lesson in patience – a 2 hour wait in a doctor’s waiting room. (Is that why they call them that?)

Paul, of course, was reasonably good in the waiting room. He had Mommy and Daddy, a few nice toys, a doting aunt, and a quiet room. When he was hungry, he got to eat, and there were usually interesting people to talk to. What more could a baby want?

The office staff, of course, commented on how ‘good’ he was, and one made the comment that he was “a lot more patient than some of our adult patients”. (Is that why they call them that?)

I thought to myself, of course he is! There was nothing at all to make him unhappy or uncomfortable, (it is really a very nice waiting room) and, perhaps more pertinent, he had no expectations – of how long he would be there, of things he intended to get done afterwords, of what would happen that afternoon at all. He was being a baby and living in the moment.

My mother always said that it was Expectations – with a capital E – that made a lot of life’s disappointments and frustrations. If you did not Expect a certain thing, she would tell us, you would not have trouble being content when it did not come.

Paul’s sweet acceptance of our re-organized afternoon reminded me of the verse where that other Paul said, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content”. He had learned – to live in the moment, to not Expect any particular thing out of life – to be content. He had learned to accept what his Heavenly Father gave him, as sweetly as my baby accepted playing in the waiting room instead of his own living room – without question, trusting the mind and heart of one greater.

I want to learn that too.