N to the C

Hello, friends all. I just realized I've been so caught up in the steady, sometimes mind-numbing, thrum of life - and have focused on my writing blog when I've had the inkling to blog at all - that I've neglected to write here. And that is my loss! Coming back to this blank page makes me realize how much I like to simply blog about life. There's a beautiful simplicity about the day-to-day that's not to be underestimated.

I was inspired to return by one of my dearest friends, Megan. Her most recent posts concern Facebook, and how it affects our perception of ourselves and our lives. Check it out, if you have the inclination!

What's been going on in the good ol' Krychocosm? Well, we moved to North Carolina. I guess that's kind of a big deal. Actually, it's almost the end of Chris' first semester at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Unsurprisingly, it's been fun and not too difficult for him, since he likes to write and read about theology in his spare time, anyway. There are certainly worse problems to have.

Of course, this threw somewhat of a wrench in my emotional machinery for a bit. Since Chris is working part-time from home and doing school, his schedule is fairly flexible. He's at home quite a bit, albeit working. So, I find it all too easy to try interact with him as if he isn't working. This was especially true after we first arrived here, since I was still adjusting and clinging to the familiar like flotsam in a shipwreck. I've gotten much better about respecting his space since then. After all, he's working hard for Ellie and me - to provide for us. I try to remember this when I feel the sinful resentment kicking in. I have to remind myself that he's not working because it's the most fun thing ever and he'd rather do that than spend time with me. He does enjoy work, but he does it for a God-ordained reason, and that is worthy of great respect.

Deer in the front of our townhouse - a regular occurrence.

Our sweet Elayne Kaylee is ELEVEN MONTHS OLD. Unreal! Her steady growth has afforded me all kinds of new domestic opportunities that seem a bit strange, at a glance. For example: I just pulled a whole squash out of the oven. It's for Ellie's baby food, but still. That may not strike you as odd, but baking whole squashes never struck me as something I would be doing as a function of motherhood. Her increasing mobility has afforded her all kinds of new opportunities for facial expressions, including the impish lip-quirk that indicates she did something she wasn't supposed to, and the bright-eyed grin with lifted chin that shows she is proud of a new skill she was able to showcase.

Proud of herself for eating a banana with her hands for the first time.

Behold, my beautiful squash.

As for me, well, this has been a period of rapid growth. As I described to a friend, there are those times in life when you go from slow and steady sanctification to a sudden leap that forces you to grow in some crazy ways at what feels like lightning speed. In reality, it's as fast as it needs to be, and there's more than enough grace to go around when it happens...but for awhile, you just feel a little bit bonkers, especially (I imagine) if you're a methodical, checklist-y person like myself.

This transition has brought sins and insecurities to the surface, forcing me to deal with them. The feeling of disorientation that came with moving caused me to cling especially tightly to the Lord, for which I am so thankful. Also, our new church has a reverence and passion for the holiness and glory of God that has challenged me right down to my bones. The clear exposition of Scripture has been nothing less than transformative...as I suppose it always is and must be. The Lord has used our pastor, Dr. Andy Davis, to address difficult issues from Scripture, and I've come out the other side knowing and loving the character of our awesome God more.

So there it is, in a nutshell (or a maybe a squash rind). Hopefully, I'll update here more frequently so that those who care can learn more about what's going on with us than what Facebook statuses indicate.   Hope you're well, dear reader. By all means, leave me a comment telling me something going on with you.

Contemplations of a Young Mom, First Part

If I build my parenting around ways I can make Ellie like me more, I'm doing it wrong.

Maybe that seems obvious, but this very problem did not come about loudly, but subtly and quietly. Oftentimes, especially when Ellie was between 3 and 6 months and began to show personality and preference, I found myself feeling jealous of Ellie's affection and attention. "She seems to like this person more than me," I would think, or, "Why does it seems like she's happier with (insert name) than with me?"

While I, at first, battled these thoughts with the self-provided assurance that "no one can replace Mom," I began to realize that I was merely dealing with the symptoms and not the disease by doing so. I asked myself, what will it look like when Ellie is, say, 13, and has a favorite female mentor she tends to confide in more than me? Will I feel resentful towards my own daughter? Towards the mentor? Will I make desperate attempts to be more fun, or funnier, or more interesting, in order to draw my child's attention back to me?

I didn't want to be that woman. I wanted to love Ellie, love her well. And though I began to tell myself, "I only feel this way because I love Ellie so much," it brought me to the question: What do I consider love? Vying for Ellie's attention isn't acting out of love - it's acting out of insecurity. That's not how I want to parent.

So, what do I consider "love?" Well, what does Christ's love look like? Sacrifice, patience, care, and compassion, despite whether the person receiving those things would end up following him beyond the grave or deserting him at their first glance of the horror of Calvary. Christ's love didn't look to what he'd receive from the sacrifice. It looked to how to obey the Father. So should my love for my daughter, and any future children should God grant them to me, look - never expecting or exacting a reward for my faithfulness as a mother, but simply growing more in Christlikeness, for that is what God calls me to.

As Rachel Jankovic -  a Christian writer and mother I much admire - comments, writing about this lesson does not mean I have checked or could justify checking it off my sanctification list. These things I write about - these are the daily battles I fight. Chances are that if I feel like I have it down one day, I'll be struggling like crazy the next. Let us pray for one another, that we fight these battles better each time they come around by throwing ourselves upon God's grace. Amen.

How Murphy Tried to Hijack Our Girls' Vacation

Murphy's Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

It was a lovely, sunny Monday, and Ellie and I were all packed up and ready to hit the road to Davis, Oklahoma, with three wonderful girl friends (and one Boy Toddler) who I'll call Sweet, Spirited and Adventurous.

It all started with it being "that time of the month."  Forgive me if that's TMI, but it really does make a difference, which all women - and any men who have spent time around a woman - know. I was desperately trying not to grump around the house, instead repelling my sour mood by baking chocolate cake, eating the chocolate chips as I went, concocting homemade wheat bread, and enjoying my baby's giggles.

Sweet, Spirited and Adventurous were on their way to my apartment, since we were going to split our group into two separate vehicles, my Lexus (aka Pretty Car) included. Just before they arrived, I checked on the wheat bread only to discover it hadn't risen. Instead it had remained a dense, rectangular brick that might or might not be fit for consumption. I bagged and packed it anyway (Ha-hah, you were my lab rats, Sweet, Spirited and Adventurous!).

Moments later, the girls arrived. That's when Spirited realized that she had left Boy Toddler's high chair at home. After she departed to retrieve it, I recalled that I owned a high chair, and she could've just borrowed it. By that time, though, she was already well on her way back to her house.

I later learned that as Spirited was driving away from her house with Boy Toddler's  high chair, she got a phone call from her younger sister. "There's a big box of food here," Younger Sister explained. "Did you mean to take that with you?"

Indeed, Spirited had meant to take it - it contained the ingredients we would need for dinner. She drove back to the house once more and retrieved the food, then rendezvoused with the rest of us at my apartment.

Finally, we were ready to go - Spirited, Boy Toddler and Adventurous loaded into one car, and Sweet, Ellie and I in the other. I turned the keys in Pretty Car's ignition, and that's when Murphy sowed chaos.

All the warning lights - oil, oil temp, engine and battery - blinked on on my instrument panel, and the car would not back out. I pressed down the gas fairly hard to make it reverse at all, and when I began to move, the steering wheel decided to go all ghost-y on me and forcefully lock into forward position, and then the car stopped moving altogether. After stopping and starting the car several times, I decided to put my money on the bet that we probably weren't going to be able to take Pretty Car after all.

Sweet got on the phone with Spirited and Adventurous, who had already started down Lindsey Street for the highway. Meanwhile, I was trying to call Chris over and over without success. As I dialed my dad instead, with Sweet still on the phone trying to explain what was going on, Ellie - who was sticking her little fingers as far inside her mouth as she could manage - scratched the inside of her mouth very hard and burst into loud, pained squalls.  So Sweet jumped out of the car to get and comfort Ellie, whose mouth was bleeding, while I talked to my dad and tried to get my dying car out of the middle of the parking lot.

Fortunately, Sweet's car was still available for use, so she and Adventurous decided to go to Sweet's apartment to get it. Spirited stayed with Ellie and I. I was so frazzled that I decided it might be nice to have a delicious Starbucks drink to lift my spirits, but just when I was about to ask Spirited if she wanted to get one...I remembered I didn't have a car (yeah, yeah, First World problems).

A few minutes later, Spirited gets a call from Sweet. She had just arrived at her apartment and realized that she had left her purse with her car keys behind at my apartment. At this point, Spirited and I looked at each other and started cracking up, because otherwise we might well have cried.

Sweet arrived back, picked up her keys, and she and Adventurous went once again to her apartment to get the car. And I am happy to announce they made it back with no snafus, and we were able to toss the bags and strap the babies into the new vehicle and go.

The rest of the vacation went great, except for the part where I decided to free-climb some rocks and take the path of most resistance back down, whence I got stuck on a ledge with the next good foothold ten feet below me... Besides that, our stay in a lakeside house near Turner Falls was peaceful, gorgeous and refreshing. We shared many great conversations and late-night laughs. Furthermore, my car is now repaired and back at home.

I guess Murphy may have his days, but someone much bigger and much kinder has my life. In the end, the dear reader, it's much easier to see how he has it under control after all.

Fear & Frontier

I can feel my blood pressure rising, my pulse quicken with anxiety. Why? One word: transition.

A new season of transition has begun. The last one began with Ellie's birth. Now, just when I was feeling like I had motherhood in hand, I turn around to see my five-month-old barrel roll across the floor to get into the Xbox wires, and eat her first solid foods (which I'm going to have to start actually cooking and storing soon), and take two naps instead of four (meaning I have less time for writing and voice acting), in addition to realizing that we're moving across the country in two months, and my husband's going to school and working part-time, and I'm not going to know where the grocery store in Wake Forest is.

It's new, and so it scares me. And while slipping into the all-too-comfortable "American Dream" scares me more, a house, white picket fence and 2.5 children certainly sounds a whole lot safer.

I mean, how will I know who I'm going to be in these new situations? I know how I am now - I can avoid the pitfalls easily. But in the future, when new stresses beset me and I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off because Ellie spilled her milk and rubbed peanut butter in her hair and the maybe-new-baby is squalling because he/she rolled over onto a sticker and I haven't taken a shower in two days and we have to adjust the grocery budget because prices went up and income went down and we're taking our first overseas family mission trip in three weeks...then, who will I be? How will I handle it? Can I accomplish every task set out for me in that dark frontier of the days I've not yet lived?

But isn't this a picture of my whole life? Have I ever really known what I was doing? I'd say no, and as it turns out, God has not failed me in staying true to his good, gracious, sovereign character to date. This doesn't make my feelings go away, but the Word does command me not to be afraid. It says to bring my requests to God in prayer and thanksgiving, instead. Friends, if you think of me, will you pray that I will turn my fear of transition over to the Lord in thankful prayer as soon as it arises? I could use the prayers, and the reminders of just how in control God is over periods of great change.