Do We Meet Here?

I hardly recognize the woman who sat down to write this out.  At least not until about two thirds through...then I start to see myself.  But, just like this post took some time to write, it's taking me some time to see it. Furthermore, daring to tap the "publish" command has me a little in knots.  As my proof reader puts it, "This sure is a lot about you." (Thank you firstborn farmgirl for your caution and insight). She's right on.  I dare to post knowing that although I'm talking about me, perhaps what I have to offer meets you where you are, and we see into each other in humility and love.

For perhaps ALL of my growing up years, and maybe most of my adult years I've been one to see and seize opportunities.  Search out possibilities.  Look for chances. I usually wake most mornings with fresh hope, optimism, and am ready to take on the day.  (After some deep dark cups of coffee and quiet time that is...)

My training, and in many ways my early experiences, was the opposite.  My parents come to life aware of boundaries, respectful of limits, and cautious.
Furthermore, we seriously depart in the coffee department.  They're more of the tea type. I digress.
Regardless of what's in my (or their) morning mug, my view of my origins is shaped by what I remember as tight close fences around life, growth, and opportunity.

Can you imagine the differences of perspective, disagreements, conflicts, and issues presented by my teen years?  Oh. My.

I was always stretching for the next thing.
Eager and waiting for the another door to open, ready to walk through.
A rejector of self imposed limits, I chafed at the many things I was told I couldn't do.

I haven't changed that much.

Until recently.

I'm hard up against needing to respect limits.
Only a little fuel remains with still many miles to travel.
Often putting one foot in front of the other, with (literally), just enough oxygen for the next step.
In circumstances that I cannot influence that have profound influence on me.

Much of this influence is very good, wildly, wonderful parts of life.
-Adult sons living at home getting ready to make their own way.
-A house full of teens.
-Youngsters still underfoot.
-Barns and pastures full.
-Renovations of this old farm slowly, and in fits and spurts, progressing.
-Gardens STILL burgeoning.
-An excellent beginning to our homeschool year and many confirmations that our affiliation with Classical Conversations is timely and perfect for us.
-Tutoring in Classical Conversations has awakened my brain and I'm enjoying teaching again.
-The ups and downs of necessary restoration (and sometimes backsliding) of key relationships requires time and commitment, but we are hanging on for our very lives and praying for a good yield.

You see?
Abundance.
It is the good things that have created limits.
And, I still chafe.
Conflict arrives.

Mostly it visits me.
(Sometimes others when I'm selfish and careless.)

This time, and maybe I'm lucky, is the first time that I've not had wiggle room to do anything - I can't change it up.  I'm powerless to extend boundaries or make more space. Whether the causes are negative or positive, I'm left with no choice, except to yield.

I'm having to say "no".
To extra activity.
To selfish pursuits.
To the unnecessary.
To the self gratifying things I love to fill up on.
And, this is the one that has me in a dither, "no" to worthwhile good things too.

And "no", although plenty uncomfortable all by itself, has opened the path for other more pointed discomforts.

Like the realization that I continue to crave (idolize?) recognition and so can all too easily get busy with things that build me up, and even though sincere love and service is involved, there's always a little slice of that pie just for me.

Or, the smack dab pressed up understanding that I'm creeping daily up on a substantial milestone birthday.  It's not 30.  It's not 40. Been there, done both of those.  It'll be a couple of years yet, and although I'm as fit and as strong as I've ever been, I need more sleep, take more time to weigh decisions, move more slowly. Giving myself over to slower means I've got to wrangle with my paradigms and our culture's penalties for aging.  I can no longer meet my "normal" production marks, which puts my comfortable habit of measuring myself by performance goals in a stranglehold.

Without performance, shockingly, I find myself insecure about appearance.  Yes, there's liberty, attractiveness, and even relief in embracing a kind of beauty that can't be bought, that comes from the gift of years. But, when the gray hairs make the curls a crown, I find myself wondering.  When the pretty has faded all away, when what I look like is less and less of an issue, will what I am be enough?

Identity as a writer, mother, wife, farmer, friend, teacher, Christ follower - every role- has felt the bright glare of introspection.  The light has revealed many pure and good things.  Excellent and praiseworthy pursuits populate the chapters of my life.  Contrarily, so has bitterness, lack of courage, failure to love and forgive - common to all, but personal to me, the population of these behaviors and characteristics has come to light and I can't just breeze right past them.

Gulp. I could go on and on.
And, in fact, in the daily-ness of life I have.
It can produce at first, a frightening kind of insanity, as going round and round with oneself only leads one to, ahem, the same old same old staring back from the looking glass.
Then, the fright shifts, because whereas the above cycle used to spur me on, it's the new normal.

I wrestle with it all.

When I'm spent, I come to this:

Does there come a season when all the effort, stretching, reaching, leaping through open doors shifts to cultivating, maintaining, and then harvesting what for so many years has been planted as new growth?

I'm beginning to think so.
Little quiet parts of my memory speak into this space.
I'm reminded that so many times before I've been ushered into something or someplace new and although I knew it was coming, once I was "there", initially I was ill equipped to understand and respond to the newness of the experience.
Even if I'd prepared.

Like laboring and delivering a baby.
I'd read books, watched (back then) videos, talked to doctors and nurses, and consulted my mom.
But, until I pushed head, shoulders, body, feet, delivered life through that burning portal I understood not what was my due.
And, each time I learned, lost, and gained something new.
Something that whether I perceived it or not made me ready for the season I was (am) in and what I was (am) to do and be.

So all this good is good enough.
And the faults are not too many.
And the "no" along with its limits brings more courage, humility, peace, and love.
Beautifully, limits produce less fear, stress, self seeking, and harm.

Not because I say it is so.
No, my own insight, strength, experience is not nearly enough to reach into and equip for the contrast of what is life right now- the fullness and its limits.

What then, to return to the earlier metaphor in my question, cultivates, maintains, and brings the harvest?

Gratitude and grace.
Far better than "good enough", these companions, concurrently cultivated and given as unmerited gifts, shine into this time with greater brilliance than introspection.
Their purpose and redeeming power overcomes not only the true cost of the mistakes that have been revealed in the hours of self absorption, but the weight of guilt is lifted.

By grace I can be grateful.
Through gratitude I learn to receive and give grace.
Grateful for grace I don't deserve, I cultivate deeper gratitude and receive richer grace.
All gifts.
All grace.

More than enough.

xoxo,
Laura

Edited to add:
Oh, how deeply I have struggled with failure to write regularly.  I had "told" myself that I would get it together enough to participate in The Nester's 31 Days series this year, and if I did only one thing well as a writer in 2013, that would be "it". 
Well, you know the outcome of that.  And I've participated in self loathing and condemnation.  

Thank goodness, (see- a tiny bit of gratitude) for good friends, Holy Spirit counsel, God's beautiful word The Bible, and wild grace.  They've had a greater grip on me than any unprofitable thinking.

So, settling into limits, I've not been writing.  But I have been reading. And I wonder if you'll be as blessed, challenged, changed, and loved as I've been when you click over to Edie's and Ruth's blogs and join in their journey during October's 31 Days blogosphere event?

Come back and tell me won't you, how you're being changed and restored by weighing more and less in your life, and daring to balance the scales?

And this- a little breath of thanks for reading this far.  So many words.  I have so many and so few opportunities to release them.  How you gift me to read to this very last mark. 

(Thanks to @jbkcyclist for sharing iPhone instagram photos for use on Liberty Farm Chronicles)





















 

I Did It Again, And He Will Too

Every year it comes around, but somehow as the years accumulate, it gets sneakier.
I was never good at remembering, and with the increased complexity and demands of all that I've been given in this life, I'm only getting worse.

Seems like it should help me that it's the same day, the same month, every time, without fail.

Bam! There it is.  A huge red ring might have been drawn around the date, but the calendar square is accusingly empty.

First, I struggle with remorse.  The "shoulds" try to move in.
I should have programmed it on my phone, monthly, weekly, hourly reminders.
I should have shopped ahead, bought a card, signed, addressed, stamped, and then put a card in an accordion file near the door to make it easy to drop a perfect sentiment in the mailbox, flag up.
I should be a better - oh, whatever, go ahead and fill in the blank.

Then, the fussy neighbor "shouldn't" tries to move in too.
I shouldn't be so forgetful.
I shouldn't be so distractible.
I shouldn't waste so much time.
I shouldn't - well, the endings are endless.

The ongoing struggle for mental and emotional real estate doesn't seem to affect the outcome.
It snuck up again, and I'm unprepared.

The ache of wishing I'd been something I've not is heightened because my circle on the calendar follows his at the stroke of midnight.  On the inhale it's his day, on the exhale it's mine. It's hypocritical, because when the big red circle on the calendar should be for me, I wrestle with feeling unloved if it gets forgotten, or necessarily pushed lower on the priority ladder.  I secretly hope for my day to be made much of, and by extension, me too. I love parties, and presents, and feasts, and gifts of words...The very things I wish I could (or is it would?) extend to the one(s) I love.

He's never made a big deal of it.  In fact, my mom, who always made a big deal of us, makes very little of him when it's his turn.  She would probably like to, but he would probably prefer her to not.  The day and its honoree is not ignored, it's just kept pretty quiet. A nearby sister will likely generously open her home, or bring a little something to him, and grandkids will be a blessing.  He won't be entirely left alone.

When I call and confess that I missed another Hallmark moment, he won't waver in reassuring that it doesn't trouble him in the least that there's not going to be a commemorative piece of cardstock in his mailbox. But, still I feel it, some sense of having failed.

So, why this discomfort?
Truthfully, I don't know.
I wonder if it's because our close days threaten me a little - if it's so easy to forget him, is it easy to forget me? Consumed with thoughts of myself I don't recognize him? This only partially fits, but selfishness often plays a principle role in my shortcomings.
Maybe all it is can be summed up as false guilt, and I'm a little bit prone to being its victim, so the familiar cloud looms closer.
And, although those are likely both true, I think it might be something else.

I think it's the messy grace of it.

We're broken, imperfect, lacking people and we disappoint ourselves and one another.
And we fail.  Really big.  Many times I've done greater harm than being tardy with a card.  I've judged harshly.  Elevated knowledge above love.  Demanded with selfish gain in view, not caring what it cost.  I've required much grace.

And in spite of the mess I am, or the mess I create, he just, in his imperfect but proven way, gives me grace and loves me.

And the angst comes because I don't deserve it. Grace or love.
I know, because I've lived it myself, parents don't require children to do anything to be loved.
Parent love is profoundly powerful.
But, still, the longer I parent, the more I know we, (my children, I, any of us), do not deserve to be loved.

We make deep unlovable grooves in our track record of relationship.

And still, he loves the undeserving.

I don't imagine that writing this is better than a cake, a present, or a thoughtfully chosen and timely sent card.
But, it is my offering on this day.
My discomfort brings me up against my mess.
I profess it publically with words and images.

And he meets my mess with love and grace. Again.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Thanks for fathering well, and for helping me know in your way, the abundance of grace and love that is ours in Christ Jesus, who has saved us from both from the undeserving heap of mess that is you and me, and has redeemed us through His deep love.

xoxo,
Laura

It's all so Daily

Long before her art and style became internationally recognized and quickly popular, I had collected a few prints of Mary Engelbreit's work. Her lively, whimsical, and color saturated style has always been appealing to me and when combined with my first love, words, the draw remains irresistible.

Many moons ago she released a calendar with the title, "Life is just so Daily".  True Dat.

Image found here.

I may or may not appear to be and actually function in a less frazzled manner than the image suggests, but nonetheless, this picture and these words resonate!

Continual adjustment to this season of two adult, two teen, one elementary, and one preschool age offspring in our home challenges me to my outer limits.  But, please, oh please, do not hear that as negative.  It is a JOY to share these days with them.  

Family life, farm life, professional life - all of these currents ride like rapids and the thrill factor is high.  As you might imagine, life as a constant white water ride requires all our attention.

Fortunately, in all this "dailiness" it's easy to snap photos along the way.

Confession - I haven't taken pictures of the messy barn, the boys laundry pile teetering over six feet high in the corner of their bedroom (so not kidding), the overflowing kitchen sink, or the stinky pile of shoes right inside the back door.

You all know about that stuff, right?

I wouldn't withhold it from you if you really want to see it.  I am never ashamed or wishing to hide the impact of our daily life.

But, we do get to choose what we think about, yes?

I have a tendency toward the negative.  I'm critical.  I am too quick to judge.

And I miss beautiful messes.

When I miss the beautiful mess, I miss all the other kinds of beauty.

The camera keeps me connected, and helps me to see tiny but real slices of our life and the breathtaking beauty of an abundant life.

Join in, won't you?  Savor the light.  Drink deep of the colors.  Remember these sweet fleeting days, and let the images cultivate gratitude for the beauty of the earth, the glory of the skies, the undeserved gifts of relationship, and the grace upon grace that persists at Liberty Farm.

xoxo,

Laura

Pssst- might you like to follow along on Instagram? It's a fun easy way to stay connected in all this dailiness!

Less

Funny thing this Monday habit.  All week long I think about what I might write.  Content spins, turns, sorts in my head.  Stories weave and moments stand out as "possibilities".  Most of it is probably too personal for my comfort and won't ever give shape to words here.  And then, when in the quiet space of the afternoon I'm free to be here...nothing.

Like the flattening wind outside, something in the day has pushed all thoughts away and no words rush in to fill.

Compulsion to have something of merit - something of substance - causes me to push at keys.  Still nothing.

It's not writer's block.  And, it's not that I have nothing to say.  Certainly any of you who know me in real life bear witness to the flow of words.

No, it's different.  It's quiet.  And it's welcome.

Busy. Difficult. Challenging. These have been the markers on the path of late.  Threats push from the outside in - will the barn hold?  Work for Weekend Farmer Husband - the income kind - has made a deep crease even deeper between his eyes.  Children have had difficulty, (and parents), adjusting to new medicines that help with chronic conditions.  Just when we make one tiny step forward on lingering expenses, another bill arrives. Sweet friends are facing heartbreaking struggles and offering prayers and providing meals don't seem like enough. All these and more clamor, and quiet is elusive.

Yesterday was loud celebration.  Easter "Alleluias" rang boldly in sweet fellowship and joyous praise.  And the day was rich with feasting - food, family, new friends, lingering fellowship.  No more messy Lent with it's struggles and self filled with shortcomings.  Only a neat napkin folded and left behind in the tomb, purposeful, silently shouting "He is not here!"

Purposefully making less of myself here, on Facebook, Pinterest - all the online places that compete with my attention that likely should be elsewhere, I had a noisy rebellious struggle.  With myself, that is.  With time - the gift of a day.  With craving recognition, wanting an identity here.  With my willingness (frightening) to feed my family scraps and pretend that I might thrive in a virtual world with plans, dreams, accolades that noisily make more of me.

It is not magic that on Resurrection Sunday, sitting amongst the saints I'm stunned by quiet. I realize I'm right upon "re-entry". My lenten practice of less is lifted by the turn of a calendar page.  In the storm of our spring with so many demands and trouble enough of its own, I've been hoping - praying - that the practice of less of me will make way for more of Him.  And, I wanted it to be obvious.  Loud even.  The answer like the struggle.

Not even a whisper.  I'm jealous of Moses - while he hid in the cleft of the rock the breath of God made sound.

Just quiet.

And, it's not uncomfortable.  If I try to describe it, I have to use the word "full".

Really, this many words to finally uncover it?  If the quiet is Him, then the lesser is me.  It is my voice that is no longer clamoring.

So, come Monday.  Even if I've "nothing to say", I'll be here.  Being quiet here gives voice to thanks.  Giving thanks gives weight to contentment.  Contentment, currently hard fought and bought at great price, brings me to the cross where He made all things new and I am daily restored by His good grace gifts.




-The post "Exceedingly Abundantly" on my Dad's CaringBridge Site shares good news of a stellar stem cell count and gives yet another reason to chronicle thanks for God's tender care in his life.
-"Play Instant" on Netflix for the times when the youngers and the momma need a break.
-Liberty to worship freely and proclaim the Risen Lord!
-Deep green grass blowing in the wide open wind.
-Privilege of spending extra time with a "new" family from church.  What a blessing hospitality is.
-Yum! Savory leftovers, making supper easy tonight.
Weekend Farmer Husband's regular Monday morning call with Firstborn Son - staying connecting, urging him on.
-Four brand new mewing kittens in the barn - so cute.
-Eastery finery - girls in dresses, boys all tucked in.  No, I didn't get a photo.
-Playroom sounds - a tiny space carved out of our home for girls to play house, babies, blocks, and build friendship.
-Constant friend who takes my kids to a park for a "rare" treat. (Playground equipment makes me jittery... weird, I know.)
-Safe return to MI for snowbird Gramma.
-Looking forward to a spontaneous visit from a far away brother, sister, and their family later this week.
-Fresh flowers throughout the house.  Lovely gifts from Weekend Farmer Husband and a new friend.

Didn't Expect to Learn This from Pinterest

Fingers curled toward palms, fists clenched in tight balls.

 Eyes shut tight, breaths coming rapidly.

Thoughts racing, whirling, condemning, loud.

Hello again perfectionism.  Self recrimination.  Making me want to crawl right out of my skin and hide from this messy, risky, flawed life.

I made a mistake this morning.  I doubt that many people even know.  Possibly no one.

I was enjoying my morning routine, and was feeling optimistic about all the creative and productive things I could do today. (Interpret this to mean I had logged in to Pinterest...)  I saw an image that I pinned to one of my boards, and described it naming the blog where I think I saw it.  Don't really know why I did-after all, the magic of Pinterest is that you don't have to keep track of sources.

Fast forward hours later and I'm just settling the little one down for a nap, and f.r.e.e.z.e.-the realization that I'd typed in the wrong blog paralyzes me.

WHAT?

 Really?  Paralyzes?  Sadly, yes.

Unable to function, I quickly move to my computer to right my wrong, and before I know it, I'm following old and unproductive paths more concerned about getting things right than savoring sweet afternoon nap time, or more importantly having maturity enough to remember there's grace enough for the likes of me.

See, I profess to live for Christ alone and by grace alone.  If that's true, why is a little speck like me so concerned about her presence in the vast cyber world?  The God of the Universe has covered me and made me righteous, and instead of letting air fill my lungs and peace restore my mind, I rush to log in, click, delete, edit - phew.  I've made things right.

Have I?  Seems to me there's only One who can get it Right.  And I think, because He loves me, He sometimes draws me hard up  against my lurking sin problems and imperfections and compels me to hide myself in the shadow of His wings.

Because that is the only right place, in His shadow.  I create structures, routines, personas, constructs-all kinds of "Laura Made" places that with a few careless key strokes crumble.

What mystery that God takes my failing frail life and uses my weakness to show Himself strong.

So, now that I can breathe again, I understand that there is an appropriateness to giving credit where credit is due, and taking care to properly cite sources.  I'll be quite a bit more cautious in the future, and that seems an okay position since I believe that it's good stewardship to guard intellectual property for others and myself.  Obviously, my fingers have uncurled enough to type.

Why write it all down so publicly? Well, I started all this to mark the days of authentic living, messy grace, sincere relationship, faith forming, struggle, abundance producing life together.  Perhaps I'll come to learn that marking the dangerous and difficult parts of the path is where grace and God's goodness is most generously evident, and that should always be public.

(And, following all of this, I've removed the pin.  I don't want any evidence to remain of me trying to do anything right...Less of me.  More of Him.)