Mama Challenges

"Back to life....back to reality....back to the here and now."

My husband and I think it is hysterical to sing this song in the car on the return drive from any sort of trip. It embarrasses the tar out of our kids, which makes it even funnier to us. It is one of our secret joys in being half-crazy.

This week A hit the ground running, playing catch up and flying and driving here and there for work. Meanwhile back at the ranch, our sixth grader told us that her glasses were broken again and she had discovered that her biographical presentation on Sundar Singh was due...on a book that she hadn't finished reading and couldn't understand. Plus, she needed a costume!

Solidarity, Jenn Hatmaker! We read chapters out loud for hours before whipping up this sadhu get-up. One pillowcase, one flat sheet, and two safety pins from a no-sew mama!

My son announced at 9pm after his baseball game that he needed pictures printed of himself since he was the kid of the week at his school, and could I please bring ice-cream to his classmates and not lame snacks like I did last year (which I know is against the healthy snack policy, being in our 8th year at this school)! His head was itching, so could I check for lice, and could his friend spend the night on Friday? (Happy to report that we are louse-free.)

My daughter needed a poster board and a hot glue gun for her project and a lithium battery for her violin tuner and two bags of candy for a church retreat, and could we drive her friend home? We cracked up in the carpool line at a slightly irreverent Dave Barry column that her language arts teacher had modified to teach hyperbole. We just happened to have some poo-cappuccino in our pantry as a gift from friends who work in Indonesia. I sense a teacher gift coming on.

 

If you are in a punchy mood, check out this column from 1997:
http://www.davebarry.com/misccol/decaf.htm

(Please disregard all drug references)

A colleague needed someone to cover her class since she had a meeting she couldn't miss. My friend took my daughter home so that I could then cover for my colleague. It was a little circle of giving. I was thankful to be able to call upon people for help and to be able to help in return.

My biggest challenge spiritually on any given day is to shut off the inner logistics chatter in my brain. Even on a day when I am at home alone while the kids are in school, my thoughts are still very noisy. I have grown to love silence and solitude when it comes, folding endless loads of laundry like a nun who has taken a vow of silence. But, even if my environment is quiet, my thoughts still race 100 miles a minute...things to do...things I'd like to do...things I'm trying hard not to forget like the lithium battery and the CD's I requested from the library and the shirts that are now getting all wrinkly in the dryer.

Linda Dillow has a great chapter (3) on quieting the mind, soul, and body in her book Satisfy My Thirsty Soul. She writes:

" In this age of constant stimulus, clamor is pervasive and comes from many sources....My tiredness comes from the frantic pace of life around me....I fear we are becoming nervous, anxious, overactive people who don't know how to be still. We rarely give our attention to anyone or anything. We are always thinking ahead to the next thing that must be done, the next person we must talk to and check off our list. We do the same with God. We hurry to our "quiet time", which is anything but quiet. Our bodies sit, but our minds race." (p. 53)

I sat my Bible and journal down on a raggedy ottoman early in the morning thinking that I would momentarily be still before God...just after I made some coffee and threw the sheets in. Seven hours later, I did. Seven HOURS of laundry and email checking and check-writing, and taking care of business.

When I finally forced myself to "be still", I laid down on the carpet and stared at the ceiling exhausted, when I should have come for centering and refreshment all along. Sometimes I wake up with a crazy button of "let's clean the house and get some order around here" switched on. It's almost manic (and it's not even near spring)! In such a state, all I can offer God is my desire to sit still before Him. I can wrangle my body into an armchair, but then corralling my thoughts is a whole 'nother ball game. Yet, He is faithful. When I come to Him even with a frustrated cry of limitation and weakness, He helps me want Him. And then I remember that I want and need Him most.