Oh, Sunday

It's 5:30pm and I finally got the baby down for his first nap.  He's been fighting his rest time like a maniac child, and he clearly thinks there is way more entertaining things happening just rooms away.  What is really happening is two adults and two tweens who'd like a break from chasing him!

Do you feel the summer fading?  How the air has become dry, scorched, tapped out?  Though the temps have fallen to the just the high 70s, late summer fires are rolling up and down the west coast, turning the sky to hues of amber.  Our upper field stands pointed, dried slivers of wheat grass and Queen Anne Lace crying mercy in the daylight hours.  The apple trees in the front yard are full, drooping with bushels of green goodness, and the deer have been paying their daily visits to devour what's fallen, too heavy to hold on.  In the evening, Toby, our rottie bursts into action at the noise of their hoofs.  During the day, he lays resting, hardly glancing their way.  He knows danger when he sees it, and it is not his precarious, apple grubbing, hoofed friends.

I've been hanging onto these final hours.  The hours that feel like infinite rest and slumber and choice.  When the day moves along as it needs to, in the way that I need it to.  Of course the babe demands and requires much of me through the daytime, but I still have a good amount of choice, and ease, and the demands are sweet.  The summer is a time when replenishment fills and fills what feels like the well that continuously gives throughout the school year.  Thankfully, it never goes dry.

Though...

There's irony in what I'm saying, as this morning we woke to no water.

You don't realize all the ways you use water until you're faced to live a day without it.  No dishes, laundry, flushing toilets, hand washing, showers, drinking water, cooking, filling the oil diffuser.

And until about two hours ago, we sat desperate, beneath hazy skies, with no water.

So dramatic.  So dramatic.

But it wasn't the well that had gone dry.  No, it wasn't the well that plunges some 220 feet into the earth.  It was the nuisance that are little, chewing, nest-building mice, that caused the electrical short, and had Husband running around for the last four plus hours, and caused us to cancel our dinner party.  If need be, we are willing to live off the grid, but we assume our guests are not.

They happily agreed to a rain check.

But it reminds me, in these quiet moments before the school-year-weekday-alarms begin to regulate our days, of the stillness that fills me and is necessary to seek.  There's plenty to get frenzied about, and enough questionable events to spiral us down the rabbit hole--or mice-ridden well, if we let them.  We must protect our time, our hearts, and keep our well in full operation.

So while the babe sleeps, I sit here cross-legged, listening to a heartbeat monitor, and stare out the window at the parched summer haze and the corner of the property that holds the well that keeps our daily lives flowing.  I've got my books, and I'm peeking through into the lives of some old blogging friends.  It's respite to my soul.  And I welcome the rest of this day with ease, in quiet, for what it gives.  Another opportunity to slow down and rest.

How have you been spending this late summer Sunday?

Rest to you today, friends.

Dominoes

I've been a struggling soul lately.  I've been moving through the motions with as much grace as possible, yet, I feel cracked and bruised.  It's been a series of events--the collateral damage type that really dominoes out over the course of months.  With each tile that falls, the weight has pushed me deeper and deeper.

I've been doing the best that I can in the name of self care to keep my head up.  I've been reading a lot.  This morning, while filling the dishwasher, I was thinking to myself: I've been reading a lot.  This might be the summer of books.  I'm always complaining that I don't have enough time to read, now here I am reading close to an hour a day.  

And it fills me.

I've been running about 4x a week.  It's the first time that I've been regimented this way.  I'm finally making some speed and distance gains.  On the days that I'm struggling hard, I crank up the worship music.  I've had some interesting conversations with God while on the treadmill, road and trail.  There's been times when I've wanted to ditch the worship music and turn on Black Eyed Peas, instead, but because I often cling to the thing I most want to avoid, I keep the worship music cranked.  And what do you know?  God always gives me a word.  It might be the last 200 meters of my 4 mile run, but He shows up.

Yesterday, I took my oldest two downtown Portland to see a Pastor speak.  Pastor Frank was the lead pastor at the church we've attended most since Nate and I have been married.  He has dramatically changed my life in the way of Christian living and my relationship with God.  Last year, he stepped down as President of City Bible Church, and now spends his days writing, travelling the world, speaking and training up other pastors.  I went to Portland yesterday to hear from him.  I knew it would do my spirit good to hear from him.  And it did.  His sermon was on Expecting Supernatural Turnarounds.  Yes.  Exactly what I need, exactly what I'm praying for.  Being in the presence of God, hearing worship, worshiping, singing praise eased the weight on my heart--as rigid as it felt.  I could have stayed there all afternoon.

At the close of the service, Pastor Frank happened to come to the side of the ballroom where we were seated to give away some of his books.  It didn't seem that too many knew he'd be signing and giving the books away, as many had filtered out of the room before he made his way over.  I was the third in a short line and when I met with him he took my hands and offered to pray with me.  His words were comfort to my tired soul.  We agreed, I knew what to do.  Before I stepped away, I told him that his was the first church that I attended when I left the church that I was raised in.

"The first time I attended, I felt like I was home," I said.

I've thought about my saying that many times in the last 24 hours.  How many times has he heard someone say that?  How many people have finally come home during his years of preaching?

A multitude.

Today, while scrolling Instagram--not long after the fleeting thought that I should step away from social media for a time, I came across a post from a woman I went to grad school with.  The image showed her on top of a steep, rocky, mountain ridge with deep focus.  In her caption, one particular line stood out to me--"We train our bodies, but if we don't train our minds, we are missing an essential part of being successful at whatever challenge is in front of us."  It reminded me of all the years that I've pushed my body to conquer my latest challenge.  A half marathon, a Crossfit Hero WOD, hot yoga in a dank 105 degree carpeted room.  Gross.  I've always expected more from myself--the most from myself, and perhaps the cracking comes when I can't control the external.  The shitty hands, and having no recourse.  It's in this place of surrender that I fight so well, that I'm forced to wait, cling to grace and eventually, whisper Jesus.

God is training me in the area of my mind.  I know there's strength being summoned, and it's the strength that will carry me through the rough spots--now and in the future.  I've held some real shitty hands, and been in some terribly low places, and I know there is a silver lining.  The ability to connect with others, a compassion that has been placed within me for struggle when I see it, but also a toughness that pushes back and refuses to be taken down completely.

I'm not sure that the last domino has yet fallen.  The collateral damage is still fresh.

But like Pastor Frank said:

I know what to do.

Right now, it's self care and quieting the voices that don't sound much like grace.

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