Author Archives: melissafed

Country Chronicles: Spring Break

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J took the week off. It has been glorious. We explored land that has been covered in snow since we moved in. We did projects that have been making Joel itchy to complete: the shed that met with a runaway trailer and sheared off the power, the playhouse that needed to be started, the car port full of outdoor goods waiting to find homes here. It was the perfect mix of productivity and family time.

Family time that was defined an awful lot by siblings becoming ever more intense in their love for one another. You know the kind of love I’m talking about don’t you? The kind of love that would have you throw yourself between a crocodile and your little sister when outsiders threaten but would also throw her off the coffee table sooner than share your Buzz Lightyear doll? Yah…thats what we are living over here.

I read a novel this week (for my book club tonight) and it was pretty good.  Emerging from this though was a new passion for mothering my daughter well…for sistering my sisters better…for sitting around  tables, sipping tea and honouring what it means to be women. I was putting lotion on sweet Ems skin after her bath and all I could think was how I wish I could rub courage into her too. Courage in her skin, so that it would grow with her and so that she would be fearless. That she would know that there are some who are scared and so they don’t, some (like me) that are scared but still try their best to DO IT, and then there are those like her father who are fearless…I pray the later for her.

Some friends visited too. I had wanted to have a big party and had many names on an email list, but then when it started to snow I deleted a few knowing we would have to party in the house…and the regret I had for not inviting more dissolved into the chaos of more than enough children on my staircase!!!  It was absurd and fun with the children running to every corner of our home. We got a sitter and we went bowling and it was fun to catch up with old friends. Funny how I get out of practice with socializing though…I’ve become clumsy and started like 70 sentences that drifted off before I could finish them. I am one who needs plenty of practice and who could easily hide in the cabin for the rest of my life. I am so lucky to have friends who put up with a klutz like me!

So now we prepare for the week to come. Prepare to have commitments again, appointments to go to, preschool to attend, coffee dates to book, meetings to have.

We are ready for it…rested and fearless.

 

 

Trail Blazing

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The morning filled itself with winter, holding on fast, but afternoon opened herself up to sunshine and snow melted off and we couldn’t keep ourselves from the back wood. We slash trails and we make plans for hiking and campsites and little boy fights dragons that look like trees and little girl sits on daddy shoulders and she is queen of this world..

Sun beams filter through the trees and somehow I know this moment is important.

I’m transported back to the wilderness of my childhood where I traced deer paths and the triumph of mountains conquered. I hear the sounds that will define home for my children; there are no meadowlarks here but stellar jays call loudly and pine trees sing.

I sing too. I sing praise and I make promises over this land…

May we bring glory to the One who made it.

May the children who conquer it glory Him too.

 

 

Waking Up

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It’s easy to sleep walk through days. To wander through your home, to stumble over children, to stare at television or computer screens. Sometimes we forget that moments are precious and fleeting. Sometimes we forget that these moments that seem so ordinary are the only ones we have and that these children are being shaped by them. That these little people who are only little one moment and grow to big the next will be defined by these not so ordinary, ordinary moments.

How do we embrace today? Eyes wide open? Heart all here? How do we wake up and not let sleep walking be the order of the day? How do we face it when we want to hide for a few minutes? When the day feels nightmarish and not sweet dreamish?

We do our best to splash the water of awareness on our faces and remember that it likely is the only time he will spill an entire bowl of mushroom soup on my freshly washed floor…

But also the only week he will learn to ride his bike and to wear pride (and a brand new cape that Gummy made) like a banner:

Remember that while she has grown irritable and feisty this last week, that she has also grown more like me. That she has grown into very good best friend material and that she will likely never again wear an apron (or super hero cape), read a cook book and lean on my shelf full of cook books:

We might never again have matching shoes this cool…

That those gorgeous geese will never again fly over when I have my camera at the ready..

We remember to take the good with the bad. To grab gratitude by the throat and to wrestle it into submission. That all can be received as very good gifts….even when he pushes her off a coffee table. That will never happen again right?

 

 

5 minute prompt from Gypsy Mamma

 

March Break

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There is nothing quite like tucking your baby into your old room and cuddling in bed with little boy. Nothing quite like waking up to the smell of coffee brewing and finding little girl tucked into grandpa’s arms for a morning cuddle (while I slumber). While everything changes, some things don’t. Our Almond Gardens Road is still the best place to learn to ride a bike. These three acres are the best to be a kid (or a grown up).

541) SO glad to be here while husband is off adventuring in Los Angeles with our youth group.

542) Beautiful things

543) Face of pride of little boy riding bike

544) Moon gazing with niece

545) Flipping channels with same niece and finding Les Miserables with Nick Jonas…both of us are thrilled.

546) Husband finally arriving in LA

547) The sweet bits of two-year olds (when the sour parts seem a bit overwhelming)

548) New baby cuddles

549) Impromptu park visits with friends. Plasma cars rule.

550) Littles behaving on solo road trip

551) Herb garden

552) Stealing photos off daddys computer.

553) Melting snow man cookies (mine didn’t turn out picture worthy)

554) A quick work trip to Vancouver and seeing niece I don’t see enough and dear old friend. Hotel room by myself and sleeping all night didn’t hurt much either.

555) Phone calls…I miss you!

On Waiting

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There are birds here this morning. Two robin red breasts and  a stellar jay dance on the crust of snow that has not yet realized it is time for her to go. We’ve been waiting on spring over here and I want to stamp that snow into the ground and watch something grow out of it. The icy grip is stubborn though and that crust seems to really love it here.
The birds chatter in the trees I’m sure they are saying “it won’t be long now friends. It won’t be long now!”.

So we wait.

We wait on sun to heat our slopes. We wait to see what this new home has to offer us. What this land will produce. What we can do with two toddlers and ten acres of wilderness to make into home. We wait.

I can hardly wait.

 

(5 minute prompt ‘on waiting’. No edits.)

 

Friday Funsies

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We’ve been raising a ruckus over here today. Daddy is heading out for the week tomorrow and so we jam packed the day with…well nothing except lots of fun and cuddles. Which really are the best kind of days. Speaking of which, I think the world needs more delightful things don’t you? Here are a few of my bright spots this week:

1) Flannery O’Connor. Wow. Hadn’t heard the name until three weeks ago when all three of the books I was reading (this, this and this) mentioned her. I am now obsessed. It is one of those strange moments where I can’t read enough bios and history. I’ve ordered all of her writings (which aren’t a ton as she died young and just when her writing took flight) and I am in LOVE.

2) I got to hold baby Mae on Monday. What a doll. Emily is in LOVE. So am I!

3) I bought this plate for Emily at I can’t wait to put food on it each meal. So cute.

4) Reading this out loud to my kids and thinking there is nothing new under the sun.

Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus
By Madeline L’Engle

There is too much pain
I cannot understand
I cannot pray
I cannot pray for all the little ones with bellies bloated by starvation in India;
for all the angry Africans striving to be separate in a world struggling for wholeness;
for all the young Chinese men and women taught that hatred and killing are good and compassion evil;
or even all the frightened people in my own city looking for truth in pot or acid.

Here I am
and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;
my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love
for all your lost and lonely ones,
your sick and sinning souls,
but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.
Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you wants where you are going?”
Your love for the long-haired, gum chewing boy who shoves the old lady aside to grab a seat,
Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,
to tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.
Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain,

the corrupt policeman with his hand open for graft,
the addict, the derelict, the woman in the mink coat and discontented mouth,
the high school girl with heavy books and frightened eyes.

Help me through these scandalous particulars
to understand
your love.

Help me to pray.

5) Petty I know…but some people have asked…here are the photos of our new home.

6) Dinner with my brother and his family and watching sweet Nene dance and sing.

7) Lunch with a dear old friend. She asks good questions and she listens well and I always talk to much. She makes me want to be wise and passionate.

How about you??? I would love to hear the beauty spots of your week!

Heart in a Bottle

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When the ground we stand on cannot be trusted. When our best technologies fail. When everything that could go wrong, does. When watching the news makes our ears want to stop hearing, makes our eyes want to be blind. When the quake shakes your core too and your very spirit is shifted 2 meters to the right. When we are afraid our hearts will rip clean out of our chests… its tempting to just to let it happen. To stop up that heart and tuck it away somewhere less risky than planet earth…

. 

Today I did. Today, I place this heart in bigger hands. I choose to remind myself that it is all His and that it is still His. That though I cannot see my way to peace with it yet, I will trust that those in the midst of it will find some. I will pray fervently and I will do all I can to be one with those muddling in their broken hearts. I will read this book to my kids over and over to remind myself the point of a soft heart. Remembering that the best and most beautiful are also sensed by that same aching chunk in my chest. Reminding myself to let go of the need to control and understand…Those are the responsibility of a mind much greater than mine and a heart much softer (even if today that is hard to reconcile).
Linking today with:

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Enough?

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I stopped my singing. I couldn’t force these words out last night at church. It felt like a lie, felt like it was something that just wasn’t true.

For every thirst? For every need?

This Lenten season I can’t help but realize my own substitutions. All the ways I self medicate instead of approaching throne with confidence. All the ways I soothe myself instead of bringing it to God who could make something out of this, all the ways I forget and take His grace for granted. Daily in this fasting I accidentally indulge. I crave my anaesthetics and in that realize that these are idols in my life…

But then what if failing at lent is really succeeding? Isn’t the point to look long and hard at self? Isn’t the point to realize all the ways we fall short? To look long enough at ourselves ‘to see that what seems to us and to others as normally attractive is actually as graceless as a scarecrow and even repulsive. It is an easy matter for the physical eye to spot physical deformity and blemish in others and in oneself. It is not so easy for the eye of the spirit to spot spiritual deformity’ (Hong, Bread and Wine).

What is it I desire from this life? Is it to be neat, tidy and easy? Or is it to be dynamic, growing, thriving, dying away so that there is room for more truth, more passion? Do I dare descend off my comfortable seat and do the hard work of recognizing where God wants to till and weed out?

540) So today…I am thankful for his matchless Grace. So thankful today that he keeps running after me. Thankful that he still loves me in all my failings and flounderings.Thankful again that this season he wants to teach me how to walk with him, to find my strength in him to awake me from my sleep walking. How he longs to “draw me towards an ever deeper skepticism about myself (that we may have all the more confidence in God), toward an ever deeper self-distrust (that we may trust in God all the more)”(Hong, Bread & Wine).

That He can and wants to be all of my ‘enoughs’.

I feel most loved when…

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When the sun kisses my lips when I am just waking up. When spring breeze whispers sweet nothings in my ears as it rustles the pine trees. I feel His love when I am five feet under clear blue and water caresses skin.

I feel most loved when small hands take hold of my face in the night and whisper secrets. When husband watches me across crowded rooms or when I hear him talk about our family. When love incarnate of my family gathers in tight, pile on the couch to read. When we work side by side to build for our family. When we push other things aside to make space for each other the way we really are and the way we remember each other before kids, ministry and LIFE struck…

These are the things that remind that I am loved.

How about you? What does love look like to you?

 

Joining in Gypsy Mamma 5 Minute Writing Prompt…