Erma Bombeck once said, “It is not until you become a mother that your judgement slowly turns to compassion and understanding.”

She also said, “Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.”

I’m convinced Erma and I would have been good friends.

I’ve learned a lot on this journey called motherhood and I’m thankful for people who find humor in each day.

I’ve learned that if  your child asks you to smell their hand… you don’t do it.

If your toothbrush is wet BEFORE you go to use it…you open a new one.

Little ones left unattended for any length of time will come up with ideas that include glitter or microwaving metal.

It is impossible for a ten year old boy to hold a paperclip in his hand without bending it into a weapon.

…and watching your oldest pull out of the driveway and down the highway for the first time forces you to let go of that child like never before.

Nobody told me how much of myself I would have to give to walk this road.  There are so many nights when I fall into my bed feeling broken and certain I didn’t do it right. It’s in those moments that I’m thankful for people brave enough to share that sometimes they feel broken, too. The beauty in that brokenness is that we begin to see we can’t do this on our own…nor do we have to.

I’ve learned there is no shame in asking for help and admitting I don’t always know what I’m doing.  To tell you the truth, some of the people I trust the most…do just that.

Stories of those who have walked before me cause me to lean in and listen even more intently hoping they’ll tell me just what to do. The question lingers…Above all else, if you could do it all over again, what would you do?

I’ve left the days of bottles and diapers behind me, but there is still much work to do.  Suddenly, I’m surrounded by young people balancing schoolwork, ball games, and friends.  Daily, they are faced with making choices to do what’s right even when it isn’t easy or popular.

There will be days when they will fail and Lord knows I hope they do… only to truly see they can’t do any of this without a Savior.

Lord, remind me to lift them up to you in constant prayer.  The older they get, the more I’m reminded they’re not truly mine and their time spent under my roof is short and so very precious.

Help all of us to see past the piles of laundry and the crazy calendar to realize that maybe we already know the answer to the question we ask.

Above all else …we’re simply to point them and each other to You.

It’s been a long time since I’ve visited this place. It’s here where my heart echoes through a pen and paper or rather a flashing cursor that begs me to simply tell the truth.

And for a year now, I just couldn’t.

I was too busy listening to those voices that tell me I’m not enough.   Those voices that make me feel alone in a room full of people, making everything in me want to leave the party early or not go at all.

They’re right, you know. I’m not enough.

But, He is.

And He’s in me… so I’ve come back to this place.

I’m not a writer, just a lover of words. Words that paint a picture of a Savior that loves me too much to let me stay in my brokenness.

So, I will write.

I will write for One.  I will write for Him.

I will refuse to move through this life ignoring the beauty that not only surrounds me, but is in me.

After all, God’s extraordinary beauty really is most often seen in the most ordinary of people on the most ordinary of days.

And that, my friends, is worth writing about.

There were days when I would grumble about not having a dishwasher and other days I just wished she would take a nap so I could get something done.

Then there was the day when she climbed up on the counter so I could watch her color while I washed. We talked about whether or not elephants sneeze or if bubbles can freeze. Was the chicken surprised when the chick came out of the egg or did she know that little baby was in there all along?

And wouldn’t you know it? By the time we had thought up two new crayon colors and she listed five things she wanted to be when she grew up, the dishes were done.

It was a Monday and we were late.

I stepped outside thinking about how the fog was going to slow us down.

But, not her.

No, because when you’re six and off to another wonderful day in Kindergarten, the world looks bright and shiny even when it’s not.  She bounded off the step not knowing that being pessimistic comes with Monday mornings and she certainly did not see the fog as any sort of inconvenience.

No, not her.

As if she’d just unwrapped a gift, she exclaimed, “Yay, the clouds are on the ground today! Sometimes, God puts them there so we can touch them, Mom.”

And so, I suppose when we change our way of looking at things, our attitude changes, too.

Like clouds on the ground,  look for all the good things God has given you today and don’t miss the miracles found even on a Monday morning.

Years ago, our family started something at meal time that we have grown to love, especially now that all of us don’t get a chance to sit down together as much as we would like.

When we do all gather at the table…someone has the special plate.

The plate itself is not all that special.  It’s not valuable, just a red, plastic plate.  What a happy day when it’s your turn to sit down at a meal with this plate in front of you.  The rest of the family each takes a moment to share a quality about you that makes you special.

“You are a great artist.”

“I like when you play games with me.”

“You tell funny jokes.”

“You make really cool things with your Legos.”

“I saw you play with “Sally” at recess when she didn’t have a friend.”

It is within those words, we find much joy and a reminder that we are loved and noticed by those God chose to put at our side. It’s good to hear nice things from the people that are sometimes the hardest to love.

I remember a day when my oldest daughter was 10, beyond annoyed with her siblings, and she said…

“We should make a comment cup.”

A comment cup?

“Yeah, if someone has the cup, we can tell them what they need to work on.”

Oh, my.

If that wouldn’t create peace, love, and joy around a pan of tator-tot casserole, I don’t know what would!

So, for the sake of family unity and to avoid one giant food fight, we never established the ‘comment cup’.  But, make no mistake, there are days when those thoughts are expressed through glares, shouts, and an occasional ” Well, then you can’t wear my shirt!”

The little things blow up into big things…

when they take the last piece of pizza.

when someone tells them not to sing, so they hum loudly instead.

when they don’t put the cap on the toothpaste.

It’s on those days when tensions are high and patience is scarce that we need to be reminded of grace.  Help us, Lord, to show grace to one another the way you show it to each one of us everyday.  Help us to love each other well, even when it’s hard.  Remind us of those good things said around a red, plastic plate and to be thankful that we have a family to love.

Have you ever wondered if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do or if you were meant for more?

Years ago, I sat on my living room floor with a lap full of children and a Dr. Seuss book that I had read a hundred times before.  As I turned the pages, the lamp on the table next to me caught my eye and my mind wandered. It was a Tiffany lamp with a stained glass lamp shade covered in beautiful flowers of many colors.  My mother had given it to me one Christmas after I moved out on my own and I loved it.  Not only did it remind me of her, it seemed quite fancy in the midst of toddlers and toys.

I wiggled out from beneath that cute little pig pile in an attempt to switch the laundry and my son handed me another book.

“One more,” I said with a smile, squeezing back in between sticky fingers and little feet.

I thought back to a discussion my husband and I had a few years earlier.  Our decision for me to stay home with our children would mean that same Tiffany lamp and the bed we bought when we got married would be the only new things we owned for many years.  Shopping would be reserved for groceries and God would meet us at the end of every month with a bag of  generously handed down clothes for the kids.

I was grateful…not only for His provision, but for the time spent with my children.

But on dark days, I sometimes listened to a voice that told me that the work I did inside my home didn’t really matter to the world around me.  I spent everyday with my children, trying not to miss a thing, but I can think of two of them that took their first steps in the time it took me to run to the grocery store.  At the end of the day, though I had crossed things off my to-do list several times, I would fall into my bed with the house looking as if I hadn’t done a thing.

I had put my dream of being a teacher on hold and started up a daycare in my home to help supplement our income.  This meant more mouths to feed and more messes to clean up, but it also meant that we would meet wonderful families, my kids would have countless play dates with great friends, and of course, there would be more hugs for me!

Some days I would feel a little jealous of the moms and dads that dropped their little ones off at my house.  I wondered what it was like ‘out in the world’ and I couldn’t remember the last time I wore a pair of dress pants on a Monday.  These loving parents were no less than amazing. Their children adored them and they juggled everything so well.  I often wondered if I could do the same.

Then one afternoon, I sat doing a puzzle with a three year old little boy that I had been taking care of for about a week and half.  I mentioned that his mom would be coming soon to pick him up and he said to me…

“Why doesn’t their mom ever pick them up?”

He was pointing at two of my own children playing with blocks on the floor.

I laughed at the thought that he didn’t realize that I was their mother and this was their home.  And then it dawned on me…he could not tell the difference between the way that I treated my own children and himself. We all played together, laughed together, painted, and read together. He was loved the same as they were.  He felt safe and cared for, just as they did.

In that moment, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.  What I was doing DID matter.  It mattered to those children and it mattered to those parents who I’m sure would have traded places with me on many mornings to be able to share snuggles with little ones and wear jeans on a Monday.

And so, this past fall, when I kissed my youngest daughter good-bye and watched her walk into a school building carrying a backpack bigger than herself…I had no regrets.

There had been moments when I had felt like I wanted things that were newer and better.  But on that day, I realized the old stained carpet didn’t matter.  It had been good for my kids to share bedrooms and they didn’t know their clothes weren’t new, nor did they care. The dorm room furniture that I had so desperately wanted to replace had been perfect for baby spit-up and juice spills.

In fact, Darrin would joke about how nice our furniture was because…we just kept it at the store.  To this day, no one has spilled or jumped on it!

It was on that late summer morning, when I watched my last kindergartner walk into school that I could have wondered…

What now?

Who am I without all of these children?

And what am I going to do?

But that’s not what happened.  I just felt peace. I felt happy for the time I had spent with each of my kids and a quick reality check would remind me I needed to come back and pick them up at 3:00.

My time with them was not over, it would just look different now. A chapter in my life had ended and a new one was beginning.  I just didn’t know the title of it.

Our lives are a lot like those pieces of stained glass.  Maybe you are at a crossroad, in a time of transition, or even stuck in a rut.  Like my lamp, some pieces are dark and dull while others are bright and beautiful.  But, remember, when the Creator puts all of those pieces together, it’s an amazing and stunning creation for us to enjoy.  Those moments that were hard for you to understand, they shaped you.  Those joys that made your heart burst, they are part of you.

So…go. Let His light shine in you and through you. Share your story so that others might see His beauty through the stained glass pieces that make up your life.

High school.

The year, 1990 something.

It was Valentine’s week and the student council had us fill out computer generated surveys to see which boys and girls were most compatible. Genius! Cut to the chase and just narrow it down!  I was excited to see which young men would be on my top five list.

And wouldn’t you know it?

#1 on my list…

My brother.

MY BROTHER!!!

Oh, the disappointment.  As if high school isn’t hard enough already?!?

But, time marched on, we both managed to find prom dates we weren’t related to, and I learned you can’t find love through a compatibility survey that lists people with your SAME LAST NAME?!?!

I’m not bitter.

If you ask me, Valentine’s Day has never been all it’s cracked up to be.  A week and a half ago, we were all scrambling to find the perfect (not too expensive) gift. Today, the flowers are starting to droop, the chocolate is long gone, and no one actually eats those conversation hearts anyway.  Everything in the stores is now 75% off and we could care less because, “Ooh, look! They have Peeps and Cadbury Eggs!”

In my own life, I’ve seen this holiday evolve from roses and romantic dinners to Elmer’s glue and shoeboxes in a matter of just a few short years.  Life looks different than it did twenty years ago and I’m not going lie, sometimes I miss the roses.

But here’s what I get instead and I’m convinced it’s why I fall in love with my husband again everyday…

For the past fifteen years, each morning before our feet even hit the floor, he has taken my hand and prayed, “Thank you, Lord, for Jess.”  There is no doubt in my mind there were mornings when those words were hard for him to say. There were days when we loved each other a whole lot more than we liked each other, but still, we prayed.

The newness faded a long time ago, but there have been stories written in it’s place. Some are happy and some are sad. From newborn babies, to dying grandparents, and everything in between, I am continually amazed at how he directs my eyes away from the storms of this life and shows me the steady hand of Jesus instead.

There is something to be found in this season of life that I would not trade for roses on any given day. I know that at 3 am when somebody throws up, I give the bath and he changes the sheets.  We don’t have to exchange any words, we just know.  He knows there probably won’t ever come a day that I let the microwave run down to zero and I’m still baffled at how any human could hate peanut butter, but he does.

He unloads the dishwasher.  I put up the ponytails.

He helps with math.  I help with reading.

He cleans the gutters.  I mow the grass.

We’re finding our way through this life…together.

We laugh.

We cry.

We argue.

We forgive.

It’s messy and it’s fun. It’s hard and it’s worth it.

It’s not anything I could have imagined and it’s everything I’ve always wanted.

It’s now that I’m beginning to learn what love really looks like.  A lot of days it looks like work.  A lot of days it looks like sacrifice.  We’ve been in this marriage long enough to see each other at our best and our worst.  The lines on our faces are more defined, the gray hair is harder to hide and let’s be honest, gravity is no one’s friend.

And yet…he stays.

He stays because he thinks I’m funny.  He stays because I listen well.  He stays because he thinks I’m beautiful.  He stays because he has a thousand reasons that I’ll never understand. He stays…because a long time ago, he promised he would.

In the midst of a crazy morning, when there wasn’t much money and even less time, Valentine’s Day looked like two plain pieces of paper, folded in half, and exchanged over a table of sticky hands and spilled milk.  Two pieces of paper saying all of the things a four dollar card never could.  365 days of  “I’m sorry’s and I love you’s”. Promises to keep trying, to keep loving, and to keep praying.

So today, in the midst of candy and chaos, love your family well and love God even more. After all, it was God who loved you first and He gave this family to you as a beautiful and precious gift.

When my youngest daughter was four years old, she was convinced that the train that runs near our house carried circus animals. Dancing bears, prancing ponies, and tigers lulled to sleep by the sound of the wheels moving along the tracks.

Should I have told her otherwise?…Probably.

Did I? No.

Why did I let her believe such nonsense?

Well…because I knew that someday she wouldn’t.

Someday, she wouldn’t run with excitement to the window shouting, “The train is coming!”  There would come a day when the sound of a train would simply mean being three minutes late to a meeting. She would forget how fun it was to count the cars that went zooming by and instead, she would be frustrated by having to wait in a world where waiting isn’t an option.  All too soon, she would talk on her cell phone instead of rolling down the window to hear the clickety-clack of metal rolling against metal. 

As my children grow older, I can feel the magic slowly leaving my house.  You know what I mean.  The magic that turns a cardboard box into a race car, a stick into a sword, and a blanket fort into a mighty castle.

It pains me to think that these days will soon be over, but I have no regrets.  We’ve spent many days traveling to the moon and back.  We’ve ridden horses over high mountains and dove deep into the sea in colorful submarines.

Oh, the places we’ve been!

We’ve been super heroes and lions in the jungle.  We’ve been doctors and princesses, hair stylists and bank tellers.  We’ve prepared feasts for kings and cowboys.  We’ve slept under the stars and next to friendly dragons.

I’ve been invited into many card table houses for pine cone soup and coconut tea. Good thing, too, as the blustery day would soon turn into howling winds blowing pale pink snow and lots of it!  100 inches in only five minutes!  Truly amazing! No one could have predicted this beautiful blanket of cotton candy that would force us to stay inside our little house and read book after book until the storm passed.

We would cuddle up with flashlights and pillows giggling until our faces hurt from smiling.  We’d have some more soup, wash our dishes, and put the babies to bed. We needed our sleep as we would be off on a space mission to Mars in the morning.  We’d shut our doors tight since the big bad wolf was prowling outside and then, we’d turn out the lights and say, “Good night.”

No worries…we had our wolf spray, just in case.

Friends, if you have young children, I encourage you to do everything you can to hang onto this magic.  It is so easy to hand those little ones a device or turn on the TV, but I promise you…time is ticking.

I beg you to drape a blanket over a chair.  Hand them some pots and pans.  Give them a giant spoon for a microphone and a towel for a cape.

Give them a box.  Better yet, give them three.

You’ll see.

Step back and watch all the magic that comes from using that wonderful imagination God has given both of you.

And that circus train, you ask?

Well, on that day, I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

After all, what if that had been the day the elephant lifted his trunk high above the train car and waved, as if to say…

“Hello, Paige! It’s always good to see you.”

It’s a new year and you have resolved to make some changes.  Changes for the better.  And today, on day seven….actually, it’s not really day seven, is it?  New Year’s Day was on a Friday and nobody starts anything life changing on a Friday!

You began this new life of yours on Monday.  You started out strong. You were up and going!  But today… on, let’s see, day four?

It’s hard. Really hard.

I know this because I’m right there with you.   I’m no stranger to resolutions.  Move more, eat less.  Make more, spend less.  Seems simple, right?

If only it were that easy.

The story I choose to share with you today is one that some of you may have already heard.  It’s a story I take from a Facebook post of mine that I shared this past summer.  It’s a story about lies and deception. (Lies that I believed and lies that I told.) It’s a story about love and forgiveness. Ultimately, it’s a story filled with grace and strength.