THE Seat...

Getting me to this spot, on these keys, has been a week long event.  I knew at the start of the week that I wanted to write something (a lot from the encouragement of my honey to write with intention), but I just didn't have anything making my heart beat enough to spill out of my fingers~until now.  I like to write about a lot of things and hopefully those 'other things' will be blog worthy at some point, but currently it really has to be about my kids...HIS kids.  If you read my last entry you got a little introduction to my Hallie-girl...oh man she lights me up and makes me melt almost simultaneously!  Soon I will introduce you to my Parker-man too, he is literally (it's sappy and corny) my heart walking around outside my body! Today...it's just them...together....making me a mom....giving me an opportunity......and me taking it.

I have said all week that my 'mama-heart' was super tender for no reason that I could pin down.  It occurred to me that all those non-pinable moments are for that very purpose in and of themselves~to be experienced, not to be explained. I am not sure if you have heard of Ann Voskamp, but she is my new best friend (she just may or may not actually know that) she lives in Canada, with her Farmer husband and 6 children and she writes.....amazing spirit inspired words that speak always to the precise non-pinable moments of my own heart.  I recently finished her book "One Thousand Gifts, A dare to life fully right where you are" and it redirected me in a AH-HA moment way!  It's a must if you love words, want to learn how to live Echaristically, or just need a jolt.  She also has a blog called aholyexperience that I would recommend in a knock-down-your-door-tie-you-to-your-computer sort of way!  This week she is writing about her oldest leaving for college and the process of holding tight, letting go, and being brave all at once.  It is so worth your life to read her September 6th, and 11th entries (although all of them are good,these are the ones that ripped me open this week).

It could be that I am for the first time in my mommy-hood, alone at home during school hours that my heart is extra tender in reflection these days.  With my Hallie-girl starting Kindergarten this year it is the first time in 8 years that I get to walk back in the door alone.  I walk into silence, poor a cup of coffee, sit down either in my so comfy chaise or on my patio equipped with a crisp breeze and enjoy uninterrupted completely glorious time alone with my Bible and my Creator (that was the longest run-on sentence of my life, but just go with it).  Can you tell I didn't have a clue what to do with myself??!!!  Oh whoa is me, I know.  Whatever it is, I have sat with my own tenderness this week.  I have soaked up every word read from Ann's blog, or my Bible, and heard words that pierced me from one of my Pastors just yesterday and asked, 'What is it, God, that you want me to experience in this?"  

It's a seat.  THE seat.  God has pulled up a chair that fits no one else but me in the lives of my littles.  I have spent 8 years 'making' things good for them, protecting them, sheltering them from harm or 'bad people' and molding them into tiny little versions of crazy adults.  BUT, have I ever sat in the THE seat?  The seat that says, "I love you deep...even when you mess up" OR "I will cheer you on when you do something that is different than how I would do it" OR "You are worth every bit of fight I have in me to always point you to the Cross"  I think there are LOTS of times that I bumped into the seat and  made a valiant effort of trying to sit down, but I am not sure I have owned it for it's purpose.  Mama's we have a front row seat of INFLUENCE with our kids.  As my Pastor said yesterday, 

"the hardest part of parenting is the part when taking away the TV (behavior modification) is replaced with bruises on your knees (spiritual modification) because of how much you get to beg Jesus to do only what he can do in the lives of your children."  ~Pastor Helen Musik

She was referring to parenting 'Adult Children', but I was hit square in the nose with what she said.  Boy I can behavior modify until I turn purple, but why aren't I bruising my knees??  My littles are 8 and 5; even though I panicked this week about having ONLY 10 more years with my Parker-man (Lord willing), I can start bruising my knees NOW.  Hard work creates callouses, Girls!!  

One of my Hot-Mama friends who is the Queen of her castle of 4 men-in-the-making, said it so sweetly this morning.  I was telling her how I couldn't believe how everything that my heart had been hearing through my Ann-friend and my Pastor Helen-friend this week were so connected and spot on. She said this (well she posted it in response to my facebook post because cool moms talk to each other through postings~ha!) 

"It is Grace that our hearts are so in tune with this while there is still time."  

Wow!  That's it.  We don't have to wait until they are packing for college or even until they start to face 'real world issues' before we sit in the seat! If we do, it could be full of regret and we will beat ourselves up with worry about did we do enough? are they prepared? please just let them be 8 and 5 again!!   WE HAVE NOW!!!! 

'So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.  We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.  All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.' Colossians 1:9-10

The seat is being saved for you, Mamas!  Own it!  Occupy it!  Sit that pretty little behind in it and REFUSE to give it up!  Be present in letting your eyes soak up what needs to be stored in your heart! We have to stop being consumed with the unimportant tasks and start being intentional with the purpose of a lifetime. We haven't missed our chance to come alongside God in his will for their lives. Something I pray all the time is "Lord, don't let me get in the way of what YOU want to do in Parker/Hallie's lives".  I am so so thankful that my tender, non-pinable heart has direction today with a  new eye-opening, seat-owning, opportunity with my littles.  Here is ONE of my favorite lines from Ann's Sept 6th entry:

'Be brave. In all your crazy, be brave, boys(or girls~added by me). And I’ll be there, in heart or in body, to witness the first dates and the failed dreams and it’s okay to cry, boys, your tears are safe with me.

Because the truth is: Life’s a trial and everyone needs a witness — someone on your front row, someone on your sidelines, someone to clap you across the finish line when everyone else has gone home.

Everyone needs a witness — and I’ll be yours.'  ~Ann Voskamp

Get comfy in The Seat....will you?

He gave me a GIRL

"What in the world just happened?" Is the question I have been asking myself lately.  You see, it's like this; God in his infinite wisdom chose to make me the MOM of two perfectly beautiful children~yay!!  I love being a mom, pj days, popcorn for breakfast days, no rules days, breakfast for dinner days, and my favorite~snuggle in bed days.....and then there are other days.  Like today for example (or any day this week to be honest).  Those days when after you have, only by the grace and protection of God, dropped them off at school dressed, with clean teeth, and at the very least hair that is a step down from the witch hazel look they got up with, that you ask the question, 'WHAT in the WORLD just happened?!"  

Back to the infinite wisdom of God.  He gave me a girl.  I am not sure why HE thought I could handle this, or how He thinks I will emerge after 18 years with all of my sanity (and maybe that's not His plan at all).  Nonetheless, He gave me a girl.  Not just any girl!  Nope because He has unexplained, never to be understood reasoning and knowledge about my level of tolerance that I am not privy to.  This girl is gorgeous with huge brown eyes that daddy shared with her, long eyelashes (also thanks to daddy), a creative imagination that blows me off my feet, and a red-button connection with her CREATOR that this mom stands in awe of...AND  EMOTIONS (which are 150% derived from the genetic swimming pool of her mother).  This being said, I have no idea why He picked me to steward His girl.  Her daddy has a way with her that is like a warm knife cutting through butter.  She ADORES him and the feelings are mutual.  I can watch him talk her into wearing tennis shoes for gym day before she even knows what has happened; while green envious smoke starts shooting from my ears.  Just moments before there was a five star fit with me about combing her hair (I'm not talking about 'let mommy make it adorably cute with curls, and braids, and a big giant bow on top' combing), literally just combing the hair no accessories involved...nope, just a combing.  This five star fit is complete with shaking, screaming, flinging the head back and forth in an effort to give me "hair-combing" target practice; and I still have to tell her she has to brush her teeth....CALGON take me AWAY.  

Somewhere during the combing fit, teeth brushing, and the tennis shoe bliss we are 4 minutes late.  FOUR!  So don't get all, "seriously, Summer it's four minutes" on me.  You know what happens when you are FOUR minutes behind schedule at the exit ramp to school...instead of being number 2 to turn left across two lanes of traffic you are automatically number 4,325!  That's right and then there's the line to wait for the nice police officer who risks his life every morning in crazy school traffic to tell me I can turn into the school.  Said line is now stretching back over the over pass when FOUR minutes earlier I could have been the next in line.  AND don't even get me started on the line that actually leads to the drop off doors of the school....seriously!!  

FOUR minutes earlier she would have already been walking in the doors on her way to her class where she would be putting away her Hello Kitty backpack, sitting nicely at her desk with a coloring page ready to start her day...

BUT

FOUR minutes later, she is walking in the doors on her way to her class where she will be putting away her Hello Kitty book bag and sitting nicely at her desk with a coloring page ready to start her day.

  Well, okay so FOUR minutes doesn't make a hill of beans difference, but the point is to a mom who has had an EMOTIONALLY charged morning..you better believe that it does!  I am sitting in that car in that line wondering how many times I could actually bang my head against a wall before I was out cold, and begging Jesus to teach me how to be her mom because I am clueless.  I can feel tears stinging my eyes (you remember the percentage of emotions my girl got from me don't you) the grip on the steering wheel is getting tighter as I replay all the events of the morning~every last star in the five star fit....and I have labeled yet another morning with this girl as a Mommy-Fail.  She sees my ugly face more than she see my loving one, and she sees selfishness more than she see Jesus shining through her mama sometimes.

And then as we are in the line waiting to approach the doors to her school, you know that one where FOUR minutes didn't really matter.  This gorgeous girl, unfastens her seat belt, leans forward from the back seat with elbows on the armrest, looking at me with those daddy-inspired brown eyes and says "Mommy, I can't wait for tomorrow, it's P.J. day in my class".  

REALLY?  Just like that, when I took the 10+ minutes of driving time from home to school to let my emotions infuriate me more (and just when I was about to give the MOMMY is in charge speech) this girl, the one HE GAVE ME is over it and not only over it, but over it with a heart exploding with the excitement of wearing pj's to school tomorrow!  

Immediately, I have peace.  Peace that Jesus gave her to speak to me.  A permission to "just get over it".  She gave me grace in the way she called me "Mommy" with a sweetness in her voice and the way she wanted to share with me the most exciting thing in her little 5 year old life~It's p.j. day at school tomorrow....

I won't admit that my mind is already orchestrating tomorrow mornings combing event as I try to convince her that wearing PJ's to school doesn't really mean you can also sport the bed-head hair do.  I will admit that asking the question, 'What in the world just happened?' was one of the best ones I could have asked myself.  I still don't know what HE was thinking when He gave me a girl, but he surely knew I needed her.