Belated Mother's Day Thoughts

I heard (read) someone say in a mom's magazine that "motherhood is the highest calling." I can agree that it is one of the highest callings (as is fatherhood), but come on, let's not be completely narcissistic.

This Mother's Day (or the week after) the thing I appreciate most about being a mom is captured in the song Nicole Nordeman wrote for her little boy.

The gate is wide
The road is paved in moderation
The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in
Welcome to the middle ground
You’re safe and sound and
Until now, it’s where I’ve been

‘Cause it’s been fear that ties me down to everything
But it’s been love, your love, that cuts the strings
So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave

The reality that I am the role model in my kids' lives with the most air time compels me to take my commitment to follow the way of Jesus more seriously. I am grateful for that. I am grateful to be a mother.

Good Friday Songs

What are your favorite Good Friday songs or songs about the cross? I want to create an itunes playlist and need some help.

Ah, Resolutions!

Those who refuse to make New Year's resolutions because they always break them anyway miss the point. Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.
- Eric Zorn

I love this quote. In my humble opinion, it is true. There is something very humbling about the moment when you do the very thing you'd resolved not to do, and it's January 2nd. On landmark days such as New Year's I believe God does ask us to reflect on ourselves and our lives with honesty and humility.

Psalm 90:12 has popped up on my radar two years in a row on New Year's. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Another version says it this way: “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.”

As I've been reflecting these first few days of 2006, I've been asking God what he wants to teach me this year. I'm sure there will be an ongoing answer, but for now I know that he wants me to be more present to my children on a daily basis; to live in the moment with them and soak in this all-to-short season of their lives.

I'm happy to have a new song that speaks to this theme. It's by one of my favorite artists, Sara Groves, from her new album Add To The Beauty. It's called Just Showed Up For My Own Life.

Spending my time sleep walking
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing
Hoping the changes would take
By working their way from the outside in
I was in love with an idea
Preoccupied with how a life should appear
Spending my time at the surface
Repairing the holes in the shiny veneer

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real
And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here taking it in
And it sure looks bright

I'm going to live my life inspired
Look for the holy in the commonplace
Open the windows and feel all that's honest and real
Until I'm truly amazed
I'm going to feel all my emotions
I'm going to look you in the eyes
I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear
And it changes our lives

Oh the glory of God is man fully alive

Whatever circumstances the year may bring, may I be fully alive and present to the Holy in the commonplace.

My Favorite Christmas Song This Year

Each year one particular Christmas song reaches out and grabs hold of me. This year it is Welcome to Our World. Chris Rice, Amy Grant, and Michael W. Smith all sing this song but I'm not sure who wrote it. I only have it on our ipod, rather than a CD, so I can't look inside to see who wrote the song. If you know, please leave a comment.

Take these lyrics in and linger in the awe of this familiar, yet wonder-full story.

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

"This Peace"

I listened to this great song by Sara Groves recently and then had one of those "linger" moments with the kids the next day.



So many words to say, but I'm opting for silence
So many days to live
I thinking I'm sitting this one out
Cause something I've been chasing
Finally stopped to let me catch it
Something I've been longing for and dreaming about

It's a whisper in my ear
It's a shiver up my spine
It's the gratitude I feel for all that's right
It's a mystery appeal that's been granted me tonight
This peace

It's something so elusive
Something close but far away
It's the home that I can't live in yet somewhere in outer space
And sometimes I barely miss it when I walk into the room
The curtains are still swaying and I feel the air move

No time to grab a camera
No time to write it down
Just time enough to breathe it in
And linger