talking mouths and yellow-y bananas

I took Jane Bradley to the store a couple of days ago, and she asked for a sucker on the way. Of course, I immediately opted for bribery – a sucker in exchange for good behavior inside the store. Well we get to the checkout and cannot find any suckers, so we look on every other checkout shelf in Kroger and come up empty still. So I decide against my better judgement to head to the candy bag aisle, where the only suckers to be found in the store was an entire bag of dum-dums. We get in the car, Jane Bradley super excited about her total score of the bag of suckers and:

Jane Bradley: This one is for me. This one is for you. I’m going to save this one for daddy because he likes blue. This one is for Raffi, but he can’t have it.

Me: No, Raffi better not eat any suckers. They might make him sick.

Jane Bradley: Yeah, he’s too little. He can’t have suckers. But when he grows up and gets his talking mouth, then he can have it.

Me: Okay, we’ll wait till he gets his talking mouth before we give him any suckers. (I am laughing to myself that she currently believes that the animals that don’t talk just haven’t gotten their talking mouths yet. Just like babies. And I decide not to tell her…   )

Oh, one more. Today:

Me: Jane Bradley, if you aren’t going to eat any more than this of your banana, then I’m not going to give you whole bananas anymore. I will give you cut bananas from now on.

Jane Bradley: Mom, I don’t like that banana anymore. It’s too yellow-y.

hmmm. What do you say to that?

funny. real funny.

Last night Brad received a phonecall from a friend thanking him for a favor. The friend’s wife owns a tanning salon, and he offered in return free tanning anytime for me. Brad tells him (WHILE I AM SITTING IN THE ROOM) that right now I am pregnant, but as soon as I get my beach body back, he is sure I will be interested. He looked up to find my saucer-sized eyes glaring at him as he wraps up the conversation.

Lacey: I can’t believe you just said I don’t have a beach body.

Brad: Aww, babe, you still have a beach body – There’s the beach ball right there!

Brad cannot dodge the slap right in the stomach from me, but to it he replies with a cocky smirk, “Don’t hurt your hand.”

the funniest things i don’t want to forget

I love the imaginative stage of a 3 year old. Everything comes to life. The jump rope in my car is the mean snake. Every baby doll that rides in the car must be properly buckled in her own seat belt before we can put the car in gear – its so they can be safe, mom. Monsters don’t come in our house because Raffi, our super-intimidating yorkie, scares them all away. Oh, and all of the plastic animals/toys are currently in swimming lessons with Jane Bradley, the instructor, which take place in the bathtub during bath time – only on the days that she doesn’t have her rainboots on and umbrella opened as she pretends to swim in rain puddles (still the bathtub). She also teaches those toys her own version of P90X (Brad’s morning workout routine that she trys to copy). These things I really hope I can store up in my mind – I don’t want to forget!

This one today, though, was truly classic. We went to our neighbors’ house for swimming and dinner. They have a two-year-old that Jane Bradley has had some fun playing with. Usually Jane Bradley is the younger of the playmates, so she follows their instructions in whatever game they are playing. This scenario, however, allows Jane Bradley to show her friend exactly how to play babies, which is what her mom and I found them doing in the front yard. The boys were playing kick ball, and the little girls were playing babies in the outfield. The game had come to a mysterious stop, which is where my neighbor and I entered the scene. We walk outside to check on the game and the boys were congregated at the pitcher’s mound in discussion. I noticed Jane Bradley and her friend in the outfield with their baby dolls folded into something white. They were rocking them back and forth like little mommas – adorable. Well, until I realized what was going on. Jane Bradley and friend had literally stolen second and third and wrapped up their baby dolls – the bases being the closest things to blankets that they could find outside and of course, it was the babies’ bedtime. The boys (age 6) had stopped the game to figure out where the bases went and how they were going to play with only first and home – Im not sure they realized the theft at that point.

After alot of laughs and replacing the bases with real blankets so that the girls could feel comfortable giving them back - the game was back on and the babies were quickly on their way back to bed.

Really Funny… Great memories.

tap.tap.tap… Is this thing on?

So. I added a subtitle to my blog. I have not blogged in a year and a half. My problem is that I get an idea and then I think that I have to for some reason have a need for the rest of the world to know my idea and I don’t have a reason so I don’t do it. For example, I always think to myself that no one really needs to know that I got new curtains that are so spa today. Or, actually, that the people that really care already know because I have been telling them about the agonizing search for said curtains for about 4 weeks now. Most of the things I get ideas about are about the little things in my life – like curtains – and I don’t really think it’s that big of a deal to put a memo out to the planet.

The only thing that  sort of changes my mind is that – i hate to say it, this is going to sound arrogant - but I sort of like to go back and read the quirky things that were in my head a while ago. Also, I read The Time Traveller’s Wife and I think about it all the time. I think about how it would be if I met future versions of myself on a regular basis and would I spend more time trying to tell my past self the right thing to do or would I spend more time trying to remind my future self of things that I was afraid I was going to forget?

I decided that this is not a blog to the world. These are thoughts saved for my future self. If the world wants to read it, be my guest. 

I went to Walmart on Monday. It took me twice as long to wind through the store that I used to have memorized because they are in the middle of a huge renovation and I am one of the many brainwashed Madisonians who believe that it somehow will be all back to normal the next time I go and so far it isn’t. This would be irrelevant except for being super pregnant makes the motherload Walmart trip a little more cumbersome. Not a complaint, just a factor. So I lug everything I can’t live another week without to my car and I’m saving all of the heavy things for last because I hate picking them up when the coolest thing happens. This nice older gentleman is pushing his buggy past my car and sees that I have a 24 pack of water and a big thing of gatorade in the bottom floor of my buggy, not to mention the fact that I am currently double-wide. “Can I give you a hand with that case of water, ma’am?” I looked at him as if he had just offered me the hundred dollar bill that he picked up in the parking lot. Seriously? He didn’t mind, so he picked up the water and the gatorade and loaded them into the back of my car for me. Then he returned my cart to the cart-parking-spot. As I am typing this I am thinking that if anyone reads this they might think – what if that guy was really trying to steal my purse? Or steal my car? Or kidnap me? Or hold me up at gunpoint? Hmmm. I don’t know. All I can say was that he was just a nice old guy (whom I will say I knew i could outrun even at 6 1/2 months pregnant) who noticed something he could do for someone and took the time to do it. I commented that he was my angel of the day, and he said, “Well, we are all angels to someone.” cheesy? nah. I really left there thinking – who does that? That man’s kindness really stirred up my thinking. One thing is – I hope that my future self will notice the case of water on the bottom floor of the pregnant girl’s basket and not be in too big of a rush to stop.

why me?

I was having a supercheap lunch with my sister today. You know the phonecalls that start out with, “Hey, you wanna go to lunch?”… “Yeah, as long as we go somewhere cheap…”… Everybody has those. For me it usually means that I have already blown my dining out budget for the month and it’s only the 11th, but I really don’t want to stay home and eat the nothing that is in my cabinet, so I call someone that I know well enough that won’t be offended when I set a superlow standard for our meal… And visa versa. Usually you can call that person because you know that they are comfortable enough to do that to you. Sidenote: if you don’t have someone you’d be comfortable enough to do that with then your missing out.. there’s some really good cheap food out there. Soulshine has a $3.75 8in pizza. Nice.

Anyway, so we were talking about friends, none specifically, mainly girlfriends in general and Nikki said that she has this awesome girl group that meets once a week where they can just be their real selves. They can drop whatever bombs they have on each other, but they receive support and prayer and acceptance from each other and they aren’t judged for measuring up or not. I mentioned to her how good it feels to just see everyone else around you being real. That got me thinking about how “real” life has been for me lately, and I thought I would share:

Besides running over my cellphone with my car last week… no, I’m not kidding..no, I didn’t do it on purpose. I left it on the bumper and we drove away.Then I had to go sign another two-year contract and get another phone. that had a rebate. only if you send in the box top with this paper and my receipt. No, it didn’t come with cereal. yes, I think I accidentally threw away the box that was worth $50…nice.

this is what happened to me today. I am building a house. I really like how it’s turning out, and if Brad and I have been really picky choosy about anything it has been the brick. We chose Old Chicago which means that it was actually ripped off of an old building in Chicago, driven down here on a big truck, and glued onto the front of my house. Neat. Well, my mom called me this morning to tell me that she had just driven by and loved my new brick. I was pulling up at Walmart when she called, so I did what I always do and stayed on the phone while I one-armed the shopping event. I got Jane Bradley out of the car, put her in the cart, got into the store, and headed down the aisles picking up things all the while telling my mother all about the fabulousness of my decorator’s new ideas. Meanwhile, I am choosing cheeses and Jane Bradley wants to get in the back of the buggy. No problem with me as long as I don’t have to hold her because then I have to get off the phone. Raw honesty here, folks. So I put her in the back and head for the mini-pizzas in the frozen section. As I am cleaning up the 5 that have just landed all over the floor in an avalanche due to the one-arm strategy, I realize that something is a little weird in the back of the buggy. Jane Bradley is pulling the eggs out one by one of the carton. “Egg!” She says… Only she’s only ever held a plastic egg that breaks in half on purpose. I look down at her hands and, yes, she has eggs all over her hands and they have dripped through the bars on the buggy and have made a little but growing egg puddle on the floor. in Walmart. in the middle of the aisle. of course, I’m still on the phone. So, I begin to tell my mother my dilemma, but the situation’s beginning to get way to complex for one arm. Plus, I’m not in just some little back aisle somewhere. I am in the main walmart highway between the clothes and the food  – pretty much everybody that comes in the store has to go down this aisle at some point. Plus, we’ve dropped egg on the floor, so there’s a big mess and I don’t have anything to clean it up with because I came in there to buy baby wipes. So my mom tells me to get off the phone. I am embarrassed that I had to be told…. Then she says to go get some help. I did come to that one on my own, I am proud to say. Problem is, there is a line of people on the highway, and I have become the traffic director around the egg spill. So I stand and direct traffic until one of the traffickers is a Walmart employee and as soon as I find that lucky individual and flag him down and plead my case to which he laughs hysterically. and makes me stand there to direct traffic while he goes to get maintenance. Well, maintenance was gone. So he brought back a paper towel. At that point he said I could leave although it took him several trips to clean up all the egg. I cut out as soon as he gave me the green light with much appreciation.

If our conclusion today at lunch is correct, that it helps when people share their whole life and not just the perfect parts, then I hope this has helped…

hearing voices cont’d…

I am constantly reminded that I am an exceptionally loud person. My mom loves to tell the story about how when I went to college all of a sudden their house became suprisingly quiet. They had always known they had a fairly busy and loud home, but they didn’t realize that the bulk of the soundwaves were coming out of my mouth. I will say that I like myself loud, although, It wasn’t until recently that I think I received a jolting lesson in appreciating the slower, calm, unhurried, peaceful, quieter possibilities in a day.  Here’s the story:

I have a new haircut guy. And he’s not gay. Seriously, he’s not. He has a wife and two daughters, and I have met the daughters. And he’s a complete hair freaking genius, so I really wouldn’t care if he was. I just say that because that’s what everybody always asks first. Anyway, the other thing about new haircut guy is that he takes 3 months to get an appointment with, so cancellation is not an option. Seriously, short of the rapture, I am making that appointment. I had my last haircut on Wednesday, and I was supposed to take Jane Bradley to my mom’s to keep her because the haircut takes 2 hours… I know…

Anyway, I was my chronically late self, and I was trying to get out of my house, and I had two stops to make on the way to my mom’s, and I had lost my keys. Seriously lost them, like already been back inside and back outside and then back inside again.

The lost car key rage was about to set in. I could feel it creeping up my neck. The high-heels were about to come off, laundry was going to be thrown, and I was about to start getting mad. at my keys. for getting lost… I know.

 Then all of a sudden I heard the voice that said, ” Slow Down. I know where your car keys are. Maybe you’re being detained for a reason.” sidebar: Did your mom ever tell you when things go wrong before you leave  that the timing could be on purpose and what if you were being kept out of an accident on purpose? It was always an attempt at consolation, but sometimes it worked. I thought about that for a minute, and then I asked God to show me where my keys are. As I went back to my car to check on Jane Bradley, there they were. In the door…. funny. You’re real funny…

Off I go to make my stops, drop off Jane Bradley and put my social fate into the hands of slightly neurotic brilliance. And of course, he did not disappoint. The only thing that did was that when I tried to make my next appointment for his recommended 6 week time span, the soonest one available was 9 weeks away. Figures. Seriously, these scizzors are magic…

Okay, so I leave the man and I’m sitting first in line waiting for a left turn arrow, checking my voicemail, feeling my new superchic cut, still not in a hurry. I hadn’t been in a hurry all morning since I fought the rage and calmed down about the dumb keys. Well, I was putting my password in to get my messages and the arrow turned green. I didn’t see it until a couple of seconds later, but the car across from me saw his left turn arrow. He turned and I watched a man in a white panel van to my left crazily run the redlight and T-bone his little orange hatchback about 15 feet from my car. – Man, my heart is racing a little bit just typing this…

Anyway, I don’t know if anyone was hurt, but I do know that if I had been in such a huge hurry in my normal tazmanian devil style, the way I was turning would have put him hitting my driver’s side door head on.

I truly believe that God hid my keys that morning for a reason. I believe that first of all, He wants me to get used to recognizing HIs voice. Secondly, most often He speaks as soft as a whisper, and if I am too loud then I can hear only myself. And after that experience, I’d much rather hear what He has to say.

Hairbrush experience at the airport

I once wrote a blog about feeling a little bit like noah when God told him to build an ark to prepare for the flood. Everybody thought he was a lunatic, especially because of the size of the thing – not to mention the fact that it had never rained, ever.

On another note, my heroine whom I’ve never met but with whom I am a little bit obsessed and absolutely convinced I would stalk if she lived within qick driving distance is Beth Moore. She gets to feel like noah all the time, and I just got an email about one of these times. This is a true story, and I only hope that if He ever chooses me for something like this He gives me the guts to get out of my chair!

HAIRBRUSH EXPERIENCE OF BETH MOORE AT THE AIRPORT

For those of you who do not know Beth Moore, she is an outstanding Bible teacher, writer of Bible studies, and is a married mother of two daughters. This is one of her experiences:

  April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville , waiting to board
  the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon
  what I was doing. I’d had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I
  say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have
  the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing
  some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the
  Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least
   of which is your ego.
  I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight.
  Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in
  clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds
  heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his
  shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt.
  His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

  The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray
  hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back.
  His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on
  an old man.

  I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort
  burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might
  have been, I found myself wondering if I’d just had a Howard
  Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this
man in the airport…an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us
somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to
keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served
on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my
heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for  him.

  Let’s admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true
  concern and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this
  bizarre-looking old man. I had walked with God long enough to
  see the handwriting on the wall. I’ve learned that when I begin
  to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural
  feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be
  embarrassing.

  I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working
  on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. ‘Oh,
  no, God, please, no.’ I looked up at the ceiling as if I could
  stare through it into heaven and said, ‘Don’t make me
  witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I’ll do
  anything. Put me on the same plane, but don’t make me get up
  here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience
  . Please, Lord!’

  There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness,
  ‘Please don’t make me witness to this man. Not now.
  I’ll do it on the plane.’
  Then I heard it… ‘I don’t want you to witness to him. I want
  you to brush his hair.’

  The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my
  thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his
  hair?
  No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said,
  ‘God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to
  witness to this man. I’m on this Lord. I’m your girl! You’ve
  never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What
  difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not
  redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.’

  Again as clearly as I’ve ever heard an audible word, God
  seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind.
  ‘That is not what I said, Beth. I don’t want you to witness to
  him. I want you to go brush his hair.’

  I looked up at God and quipped, ‘I don’t have a hairbrush. It’s
  in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his
  hair without a hairbrush?’ God was so insistent that I almost
  involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came
  to me from God’s word: ‘I will thoroughly furnish you unto all
  good works.’ (2 Timothy 3:17)

  I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one
  myself.  Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel
those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked
as demurely as possible, ‘Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing
your hair?’ He looked back at me and said, ‘What did you say?’

 ’May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?’

  To which he responded in volume ten, ‘Little lady, if you
  expect me to hear you, you’re going to have to talk louder than
  that.’ At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out,
  ‘SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?’

  At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was
  the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr.
  Longlocks.

  Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched
  him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, ‘If
  you really want to.’

  Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t want to. But God didn’t seem
  interested in my personal preference right about then. He
  pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, ‘Yes, sir, I
  would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don’t have a
  hairbrush.’

  ‘I have one in my bag, ‘ he responded.

  I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my
  hands and knees and unzipped the stranger’s old carry-on,
  hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started
  brushing the old man’s hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was
  tangled and matted. I don’t do many things well, but must admit
   I’ve had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls.

  Like I’d done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a
  condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands,
  remembering to take my time not to pull.

  A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that
  old man’s hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared.
  There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me.
  I brushed and I  brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of
   that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I’ve never felt that kind of
  love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I – for
  that few minutes – felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had
  overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and was
 making Himself at home for a short while.

   The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God’s.
   His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant’s. I slipped the brush back
  in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees,
 put my hands on his knees and said, ‘Sir, do you know my Jesus?’

  He said, ‘Yes, I do.’

   Well, that figures, I thought. He explained, ‘I’ve known Him since I married my
   bride. She wouldn’t marry me until I got to know the Savior.’ He said, ‘You see,
   the problem is, I haven’t seen my bride in months.  I’ve had open-heart surgery,
  and she’s been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what
 a mess I must be for my bride.’

   Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we’re
   completely unaware of the significance. This,  on the other hand, was one of those
   rare encounters when I knew  God had intervened in details only He could have known.

   It was a God moment, and I’ll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were
   not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I’d acted earlier and would have
  been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
   I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess
   returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, ‘That old man’s
   sitting on  the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?’

   I said, ‘Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!’ And we got to share.

  I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re
  exhausted, you’re hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or
  it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He
  knows if you’re hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you’re
  sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you
  just need your hair brushed.

  He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

  I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how
  many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the
  way. . . all because I didn’t want people to think I was strange.

  God didn’t send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

   John 1:14 ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We Have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’

  Life shouldn’t be a journey to the grave with the intention of
  arriving; safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but
  rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn
  out, and loudly shouting, ‘Wow! What a ride! Thank You, Lord!’

  Be Blessed!

“you are never behind… Just jump in where you are”

This is a quote from www.flylady.com – a website that I totally recommend visiting if you are anything like me and a clean house seems like something that I will receive when I get to heaven, but clearly not before. I wanted to share it because I have gotten so many of the same responses from my earlier post – there are two kinds of women apparently. Those who make clean houses look easy, and those who carry their dirty one around like their thorn in the flesh. I will go ahead and say that I am totally the latter – which is why I repeat this quote to myself so often. I am the one who put myself on the hook anyway, so I’m the one that needs to let myself off.

Why does it seem like the thorn carriers always get paired up with the easy cleaners as friends? One of my best friends is so the picture of what I wish I could be – her house is always clean, she has a two-year-old and a newborn – she makes it look so easy. She’s not one of those seemingly perfect people, though, she struggles with her own assortment of things, it’s just that keeping a clean house isn’t one of them. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a talent, and some people have it and some people don’t so much.

 I do have to share with her permission, her story of yesterday.

She is still nursing her 3 month old, and she has a 2 and half year old who is only a little bit interested some days in potty training. Yesterday was one of those days, so she got to wear the big girl panties since they were staying home. Well, baby Eli wakes up and wants his breakfast, and 2 year old Anna Young has been prancing around in her panties for a few minutes now. Except this is the second pair because she already wet the kitchen floor and ruined the first pair. My friend puts baby Eli on her bed to wait for her to continue pumping so he can eat, when she hears Anna Young in the living room saying, “poopee…poopee…”. My friend is on the floor hooked up to the breast pump, so this couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Well, She unhooks, runs in the living room, Eli is still in the middle of her bed at a mild wail at this point because he only has about a 3 minute waiting period before he gets really impatient.

The scene in the living room is this – Anna Young is standing on the stairs and yes, she has pooped all over them. She is now trying to clean it up with her hands but she is just spreading it all over the place. Upon trying to pick up Anna Young and get her clothes off and into the bathtub – The doorbell rings. (She lives in Kosciusko, so people just drop in all the time with no warning.) It’s the interior decorator. She wants to come in. So my friend runs to the door, opens it and tells her that she can come in, but she just wants to warn her that she’s in the middle of a small crisis at the moment – the baby is screaming for his food, and Anna Young has pooped all over the stairs and rubbed it everywhere.

You would think most people would come back later. Nope. More Bad Luck. ..It’s okay, I can wait… Okay, well Anna Young gets washed off in the bathtub – (“Lacey, the TURDS were still on the steps! And she went over to look at them! OOOH My Gosh I was so embarrassed!! .) Baby Eli is wailing to high heaven, and she goes back to clean the poop off of the stairs. The decorator watches. Then she points out that she missed a spot. My friend must have received an extra portion of grace yesterday because the decorator is still alive. So she cleans it up, gets a baby bottle in the baby’s mouth, and begins to help the decorator.

And I thought my yesterday was a little bit difficult. INSTANT PERSPECTIVE!

One other thing. It is common knowledge among men rarely shared with women that they would rather come home to a messy house and a smiling happy wife than a pristine house and a tired, stressed-out one. So if you struggle with your house like I do, turn on some Sinatra, cut off the overhead lights, light a clean-smelling candle, turn on the lamps, and pour yourself a glass of wine. “You are never behind… Just jump in where you are.”

And now, the photo of the day:

Three-inch heels and a double stroller

When you pass a certain age, maybe it’s different for everyone, maybe it’s after motherhood or marriage or some life-altering mile marker, whenever it is, women go through “the change.” I’m not talking about anything hormonal, maybe I am and don’t know it, but I’m talking about when girls stop looking at the other guys primarily, and we all start obsessing about other girls. Maybe it’s when you’ve found your man, maybe it’s some point in your life when you encountering a major insecurity. The starting point is not the issue de jour. Here’s my story:

I was going to this new program at a friend’s church for young mothers. Really, the poster made it sound like a support group, and let’s face it, Leci, you need corral all the support you can get. So, friend and I had just signed up her two-year-old for the child care, when in walked an old friend of mine from college – make-up not just on which is what I claim most days, but all in the right place, hair done in a cute bob, cute outfit with a skirt, three-inch bronze heels, and two blonde-haired boys one about a year older than the other dressed to match pushing a double stroller. Oh, and the kicker… she’s about six months pregnant.

She’s wearing a huge smile – still as sweet as she was in college apparently – asks me how I am, tells me that she heard I was coming, and she’s really glad to see me – do I have girls or boys?

I probably looked like I had just seen an alien because I know my mouth was open and I eeked out something about having one 14 month old little girl. What’s the age difference in yours? Oh, he’s two-and-a-half, his brother is 14 months… We said goodbye while she made a double-wide turn with the stroller and friend and I started towards the elevator.

My comparison had already begun. I just don’t understand. She’s here. early. dressed. kids dressed. pregnant. energetic. matching. IN THREE INCH HEELS! My mind is reeling. what kind of a woman is she? How can it be done? If she can do that then so could I. Right? Leci, don’t kid yourself. If she can do that, then you should have way more extra energy than you do. She has two and one on the way. You have one that’s really not that difficult. Why would you ever have a hard day? Maybe you should rethink more kids if this one is difficult. You know it’s not going to be any easier.

You know I fought with myself for 2 days at least. I just couldn’t understand it. Her looking like she handles it so well, makes me feel so inadequate. This should not be hard for me. Why is it hard? For real, some days are hard.

Well, that was Monday, and Wednesday morning I go to a Bible study at my church where we are studying Beth Moore’s “A Woman’s Heart.” She taught the video lesson on manna and how God’s grace is sufficient for whatever you are going through. But she said have you ever had a friend going through something and you think, “God, I could never go through this. Seriously, Please do not let this happen to me because I wouldn’t make it. I couldn’t handle that God. Please spare me from that.” She said that she went through a friend losing a child and that’s how she felt. However, her friend handled it with such grace. And this is what she learned from God at that point. God said to her, “No, right now you couldn’t handle it. I have given her my grace that is sufficient for her in her trial. But I haven’t given you the same amount of grace. I have given you enough for your own situations. You will always have sufficient grace if you have faith in Me.”

This really took my fears away when I heard this. I don’t have her situation. I am not supposed to be able to handle what other people are going through. I am not riding the mommy short bus! God has given me sufficient grace to handle what I have right NOW. That’s all I need. When He gives me more to handle, I can count on more grace to be available and renewed every morning. Good news to me.

I’ve promised a very special person a photo a day for as long as they are away. So, here it is. Photo of the day

wind

“But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him and said to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’”
Matthew 14:30-31 (emphasis added)