Artist Appreciation

For one of your birthday gifts this year, you wanted to go on CustomInk to design your own T-shirt. You knew just what you wanted the T-shirt to say: “I am made by an Artist.”

Your acknowledgement of that truth shot through my heart and struck me deeply. I absorbed the blow and considered why it hurt me so much.  Of course, I knew God made you. On your birthday last year I even wrote about what a comfort that fact was to me. But, it seems to be another thing to call him an artist because that implies he’s still making you. And this is where it gets tricky. I want you to be the way I want you to be, which in most ways lines up with how he wants you to be. But in other ways it doesn’t. Because I also have my selfish motivations in there – what I want you to do with your gifts and potential, when I think you should be over certain fears and struggles, and, sad but true, what I think will make my life easiest or me a “successful” parent.

This truth you want on your T-shirt rips that artist’s brush right out of my hands, and reminds me it’s not ultimately my work to do. And so, I see what he’s making you in a whole new, beautiful light, with new freedom to watch the Master Artist do his work on you and allow me an apprenticeship.

I see him paint you with layers of colors – color combinations so varied I didn’t even know they existed. The brightness of them can be blindingly brilliant at times and the dark, in contrast, overwhelming and perplexing. And then there’s a depth of texture he uses, showing nuances only the finest artist can depict. I can get lost in the texture – wishing it was all smooth and clear – but, oh, it’s in that texture that the artist shows his profound wisdom and the extent of his knowledge of you. So, I watch and learn from him. He knows what he’s making you. And, of course, there’s dimensions of you he depicts that show perspective beyond the here and now. They show an eternality of purpose I cannot begin to comprehend. So, once again, I surrender my brush to him.

I notice you aren’t the only artwork in his portfolio. He’s a prolific artist, this Creative Genius, and I know he’s simultaneously at work on me, often corresponding specifically to his work on you. We are part of the same collection, inseparable, linked by his sovereign design, his permanent exhibits. And the same detail your life displays, he conveys in mine too. Sometimes I resist it, but when I catch a glimpse of such handiwork, skill transcending the best romantic, impressionist, abstract, and cubist artists of all time, I stand in awe of his expertise.

And that’s right where he wants both of us to be. Standing in awe of him. Because this whole parenting thing, ultimately, is his means to the end of my knowing him better. And, really, this whole childhood thing for you, is his means to the end of your knowing him better. He’s using us in each other’s lives so we see him, understand him, love him, desire him, and know him above all else. We both must submit to the Artist and let him have his way. We can trust he knows what he’s doing with us. Because he promises, when he’s done, to put those he has saved on display for all eternity, “in order that he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. . .for we are God’s handiwork.” (Ephesians 2:7,10)

Pressing Heavenward

I didn't set my alarm this morning. Four decades and a year deserves that, right? But I hear the baby in the night and trip over my flip flops, and another child, to get to her and - gross -  was that sand I felt fall out of our sheets?!

Nights at the soccer field, evenings calling out two sets of spelling words like an auctioneer speaking for gain, throwing together dinner, and catching bad attitudes, unkind words, and spills almost before they hit the floor...or the heart. 

I don't do it all and I don't do it well. But, because of grace, I do some and I'm thankful I get to.

My friend, the epitome of health, is diagnosed with cancer and I can't help but wonder how much longer I have.

How much longer to make bottles, sign planners, sort laundry, give lingering hugs, plan class schedules, and shuffle papers? To pray, plead, laugh, correct, instruct, listen, ask forgiveness, and dance like Paula Abdul?

Forty-one years of my life already are gone. But I have this day. One tired, sometimes bleak, always imperfect day, gifted and waiting to be spent, invested, redeemed.

There's a lot of talk about not wasting your life. But I have to remind myself that starts with not wasting my day. This day. No matter how it unfolds, what it involves, and how I feel about it all.

So, this day, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sister, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

(Photo: Photos by Robyn)

Caught Between

I'm putting on my make up in the bathroom and you come in wanting to talk. You look frustrated and tell me how hard it is to be caught between being a teenager and a little kid.

Today you turn 11, and you say there are so many changes and the process is emotionally exhausting and it feels like you'll never get there. We've been through it before and I have my go-to encouragements, but this time God strikes my heart with a new compassion because I realize I'm there too. My circumstances are different but I'm still caught in between.

When I see myself in the mirror of the Word, I feel the tension between the already and the not yet, and I think I'll never be what I should be and I can relate to all the awkward in the process of change. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, growing into what God is making me, not feeling at home in my own skin (or feeling too at home there) when my spirit is (or should be, depending on the day) pulling toward heaven.

So I look at your big brown eyes so full of the complexities of where you are in life and I tell you I know. I know how hard it is, sweet girl. I know the growing pains and the long path to change that feels like one step forward and two steps back. I know the frustration of day by day wondering who you really are and what you're really becoming.

And once again, I find myself almost out of words, out of pretty bows to tie up all those concerns and sadnesses and overwhelming feelings. There are fewer quick fixes the older you get. No more just kissing boo-boos as you skip off happily. But really, that's a sign you're right where you need to be, feeling the tension, feeling God forming Jesus in you, feeling God pulling you toward him, and seeing God change you into the woman he wants you to be.

So I tell you that we will struggle together to get where God is taking us.

We have a saying as the teenage years approach, looming before us like a necessary but unwanted rain storm. It's not becoming a teenager that could make us grow apart. We remind each other: the only thing that can make us grow apart is sin. Only sin can create a wedge between us.

So as you're stuck in the middle, between your teenage years and your childhood, make a habit now of fighting sin. Don't let others tell you how you should look, act, and talk. Don't let others tell you what you need and how you should feel. Don't listen when your peers say we don't understand, are old-fashioned, and unloving.

Instead, I'll take one side of that shield of faith, described in Ephesians 6, and you take the other and together we'll help guard our hearts against the devil and all his schemes we are so prone to follow. We'll oppose those fiery darts of well-timed temptations that he's hurling at us. And I'll keep teaching you to use that sword, which is the Word of God, to combat the lies your generation and mine are screaming in our faces.

One day, Stell, we will be what we should be. And because of the difficult journey there, it will make our arrival all the sweeter. But until then, if we have to live between where we've been and where we're going, I'm really glad that we're caught here together.

Posted with Blogsy

God's Ruby

I kiss your cheek at the stroke of midnight and from a heart bursting with love and concern spontaneously pray God's care over you in this next year of life. You're another year older today and I hope we are another year wiser. There's so much inside of this bundle of Ruby and 8 years isn't near enough time to unpack it all.

You are complex and I listen to your heart open as words and tears pour out. The fears that grip you, sometimes paralyzing you. The empathy that affects you to the point of physical illness. The sensitivity to injustice that makes you put pencil to paper and write a confrontation to your class about racism and bullying. The discipline that makes you to run laps and do push-ups and practice soccer in the front yard. The continued outbursts of anger when you're told no or contradicted. The desire to control situations and manipulate them to get what you want. The compassion that motivates you to give when the rest of us turn our heads and move on. How you can seem aloof and disconnected and then unearth a profound thought, keen observation, or timely encouragement.

You say that you used to be "iffy" about the existence of God. But now you see him everywhere. All around you, in answers to prayer and how our life plays out. But you say trusting him makes you nervous. Kind of like riding a roller coaster, you say. Like you know it's going to be great and that in the end it will be fine, but it's just how you'll get there that makes you nervous.

You pray about specific things over and over and report that God doesn't take the struggles away. But when I tell you instead of asking him to take them away, to ask him to help you trust him through them and change you through them, you nod in an unexpected and eager submission that I don't often see. And I wonder what's going on in that heart of yours?

God knows though, so I continue to take those snapshots of your heart, only small glimpses I get, to him. He has you figured out and all sorted out because he made you. He knows everything about you. All those paradoxes that confuse me and all those extremes that scare me, aren't perplexing to him in the least. He's steady and sure in what he's doing in your life while I can be overwhelmed, and just plain tired.

I often think of Psalm 139 in terms of personal application, but it brings me such comfort as your mom when I apply it to you too.

You have searched Ruby, Lord, and you know her. You know when she sits and when she rises; you perceive her thoughts from afar. You discern her going out and her lying down; you are familiar with all her ways. Before a word is on her tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem her in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon her. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can she go from your Spirit? Where can she flee from your presence? If she goes up to the heavens, you are there; if she makes her bed in the depths, you are there. If she rises on the wings of the dawn, if she settles on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide her, your right hand will hold her fast. If she says, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created her inmost being; you knit her together in my womb. I praise you because she is fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Her frame was not hidden from you when she was made in the secret place, when she was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw her unformed body; all the days ordained for her were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts about her, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when she awakes, she is still with you. Search her, God, and know her heart; test her and know her anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in her, and lead her in the way everlasting.

I cannot attain to God's knowledge of you, Ruby. So I trust your Maker with you, the precious girl he fearfully and wonderfully knit together in my womb and in my heart. I ask him to use me and Daddy to keep leading you in his way, working out all those days he ordained for you even before we got to hold you and hug you and love you. We get to be used by him in your life, starting with new mercies this morning on this new year of your life. You are his first, so Happy 8th Birthday to God's Ruby. . .and thankfully, ours too.

Posted with Blogsy

You Are Strong but Not Strong Enough

 

How can I almost cry through a soccer game watching your little body sprint and muscle bound legs extend up and down the field? It's not like you're wearing a cute dress with your hair in curls singing a sweet, smiley song in a school program. You're sweaty and throwing elbows and have fire in your eyes and there's really nothing sentimental about it. But I almost cry through all of your soccer games because along with that YMCA uniform, you wear your heart on your sleeve. I see it and it pulls my heart right into my throat. You are fighting to win that game and that ball with all the strength of your 40 lb body. You want to run fastest and be the best and I see your exertion and know as hard as you're fighting if this all ends in disappointment, you'll fall hard. Your emotion usually evokes my emotion. . . for better and worse. After all, the days are long and mama's temper is short. Isn't that how the saying goes?

Godly Women are Strong Women

I've spent most of the past 7 years clarifying womanhood for you in these posts so you could be assured godly women are spiritually strong women. You love muscles and rough and tough and I think that coincides beautifully with the inner grit required of a woman following Christ's path. No flowery beds of ease. In fact, sometimes, no bed at all, just like the Savior she follows.

So knowing the foundation we've already given you in some of what it means to be a Christian woman, this past year we have been encouraging you in one of the many paradoxes of the Christian life. Strength through weakness. There's a true, lasting strength you won't experience until you are weak, at the end of yourself, undone by your sin, and realizing your neediness.

#mightyruby

Last fall, when Kacy Catanzaro became the first woman to complete the City Finals Course and make it to American Ninja Warrior National Finals, the trending hashtag was #mightykacy. You watched her 5 ft frame defy obstacles that should've been too hard for her at her height. You said you couldn't wait until you're old enough to try out! So we started calling you #mightyruby on occasion to encourage you to aim high and use your God-given athleticism as far as God allows it to take you.

#mightiergod

At the beach on Saturday, the tide was low, so we ended up farther away from you than normal. I kept my eye on you though, and couldn't help but see the contrast of your little form against the unending shoreline on each side of you. I watched the waves tumbling in, threatening to devour you with each thrust, one after another. You were for the most part, oblivious, until we we stepped into those crashing and foamy towers and then you clung onto me realizing again their power and your weakness. I told you, in so many words, that waves are one of God's many ways of flexing his muscles. And that as strong as we might feel, we wouldn't last long if we tried to fight against them. I asked you if you could strain your eyes to see where the ocean ended and you laughed saying, "No!" As we jumped through the current, I reminded you the Bible says God holds these immense, expansive and devouring oceans in the palm of his hand. Amazing. Do you see it, Ruby Jean? #mightyruby is no match for #mightiergod!

So that's why we point out the sin in your heart, so you will see your need and let him conquer all of those rebel powers fighting within. That's why we love you enough to show you the battle you're fighting is a losing one and holding onto your sin isn't a sign of strength, but foolishness because it's leading you to the grave. We don't mince words but speak the truth in love so you will know, as Hannah prayed dedicating her child who was an answer to her prayers and weeping and longing too, "It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken." (1 Samuel 2:9)

See the weakness and neediness in your sinful heart #mightyruby. And bow the knee to #mightiergod. That is my heartfelt and heartbroken prayer for you in this 7th year of your life. Because Ruby, your physical strength might take you far in this life, but you can't strong arm God to get to heaven.

"[God] said, ". . . my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses. . .For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9,10)

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Joy of You

I watch you out the window as you run to our mailbox, eagerly anticipating the treasures in today's delivery. Any mom who spends her days at home can relate to this simple highlight of the day. And just like you don't want to miss the joy of the mail, I'm so thankful I haven't missed the joy of you, my boy.

Your sweaty curls bouncing, your eyes lighting up and smile spreading wide when you see your mama's there. You wave in excitement like it's the first time we've seen each other all day and run to the door to report, "It's boring mail today, Mama."

I remember that other day watching for you, just five years - more like blinks - ago. What would it be like having a boy? How would I parent you? What new things would I learn?

And then I held you and knew it would be OK. That I'd learn about you and how to one day at a time.

And by God's grace, I have.

Since then, I've learned that you are an early riser, even beating the sun up some mornings. You are immediately cheerful and busy from that first flip of your light switch. You throw open your drawers, get dressed and make your bed right away, ready to begin the play and conversation of the day.

I say conversation, because I've learned that you are a talker. Wow, can you pile up words! And I'm not always good at it, but I make myself stop and listen and look you in the eye, trying to make sense of how you're trying to make sense of life.

I've learned that you have a tender and empathetic heart. You have ears that hear both the faintest ambulance siren off in the distance and the one blaring right next to us, and always want to pray for those in distress. Even you know all is not as it should be in this broken world and have learned to call out to the only One who can fix it.

I've learned that you are a classic extrovert. You love meeting new people and your energy level rises exponentially in comparison to the number of people in the room. The sooner you can get to know them, the better. You call our neighbors by name and make small talk with them from across the street. Your friends at the YMCA can't wait for you to get there because everything's more fun with Schaeffer! One of the employees who could have today off is actually coming into work just because it's your birthday! You love people and people love you.

Along with that, I've learned that you do not lack confidence. Before your first ever soccer game you declared, "I'm gonna be good, Dad." And when you head into a new situation with new people present, you've been known to say, "They'll like me, Mom." I tease your dad that you have what I like to call "male reality distortion" (shown humorously in the Dove ad parody, "Men: You Aren't As Beautiful As You Think"). But whatever it is, prayerfully tempered with a good dose of reliance on God, I know it will serve you well in this hard world as you take risks and enter intimidating situations.

And because of all that I haven't missed, Son, there's so much that I'm going to miss about you when you head to kindergarten in just a few months.

But the Bible tells us you are another arrow for us to send off. So we'll start with that first brave five-year-old step into a new place, meeting that new person God has already prepared for you to learn from. She'll teach you things in a different way than I will, and it will be good for you to learn from her approach and to learn to respectfully submit to her authority. You'll meet new kids God has hand picked for you to grow with. Some will make you cry and some will make you laugh (and some will make you do both!), and you can count on the fact that I won't miss the opportunity to help you through it all with the only help I and your dad know, God's Word.

We won't miss the chance to apply it to your hurts and joys, your relationships - good and bad, your choices - easy and difficult, your education - what we agree with and what we don't, and your sin - always warring within you, in school and out.

But for now, these last few months we still have everyday together, we'll keep waiting for the mail, meeting new people, and praying for hurting ones.

And as much as I love writing about what a joy you are, I think it's time to close this post. Because I hear you a few rooms away, already awake, I'm sure dressed in your superhero shirt of the day, ready to talk and play...and I don't want to miss it!

Happy 5th Birthday, to our Schaeffey-Boy!

Photos Credit to Robyn Moore

 

Birth Announcement - here

First Birthday Tribute - here

Second Birthday Tribute - here

Third Birthday Tribute - here

Fourth Birthday Tribute - here

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunshine's Blaze: A Birthday Prayer

I've borrowed breath for 39 years now. I've borrowed love, words, wisdom, rest, strength, and many other gifts. Actually, what do I have that I haven't received? And what have I shared that I wasn't given? You see, at best I'm a bankrupt borrower. And always, he's a lavish lender. So, I have a hunch the year ahead is going to be more of my needing and more of his giving. May his blaze ignite this borrowed ray of my life.

"O light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshines blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be."

-G. Matheson

Posted with Blogsy