Once Upon a Time, Amen.

A lot of people around the blogosphere (and gah, how I hate that word) talk about "a new normal" as they learn to embrace this or that, an unexpected hand dealt them. I tried to think of a less cliché way to check in with y'all today than under the pretense of "learning to deal with our new normal" but I come up empty, so please, forgive the triteness here, as you also forgive (I hope) my absence lately.

We are learning to deal with our new normal with the foster babies and the book project, learning to morph what started out as survival-mode chaos into functional, adapted, thriving life. I am learning how this thing works and how to roll with the punches around here in the interest of not-just-getting-by.

I know now how to do dishes and take a shower every once in awhile without my house being burnt to the ground, and this alone is progress. I know that shooing them out the door after breakfast to play before the air gets thick and hot is the key to getting my daily bearings, that a bunch of stickers and safety scissors and washable markers will get little feet off the carpet just long enough to vacuum. I know which one gets diarrhea if they drink apple juice, which ones have seasonal allergies, which ones hit when no one is looking, and which items around my home are shockingly edible. 

I know that (surprise!) the 2-year-old can dress herself completely and climb up into the car seat all by herself if I can exercise the patience to let her do so. I'm working on it, and my back is grateful. I don't (apparently) know how to find time to blog or write (yet), but I'm working on that too. 

I know that teeth-brushing time is a highlight of the evening for them and for me. For them, the splash and giggle and spit business is just too fun to suppress a squeal and for me, it signals bedtime, which signals breath and Husband and I have even found time to giggle and watch a movie or two. That feels a lot like my old normal, and I'm grateful for a few small anchors like that while this ship spins and swirls, even while we're learning to "Wheeeeee!" about it all the while.  

I know, too, that the little one will say, as I close every storybook's final page, "Amen" instead of "The End" and that I won't correct her because there are days where this alone keeps me from unraveling, the tiny, squeaky reminder that every one of these stories is just a prayer out loud, just living this out loud… Once Upon a Time… Amen. 

When It's All Too Much

Our church's outdoor service. <3

I grit teeth and I say it too loud, too edgy. Please, be quiet. Eat your dinner.

And I mean it but don't say it, For the love of all that is holy, stop driving me mad.

It has been a hard day. A frustrating, two-steps back kind of day with the sort of adoption news I was praying against and this just-fine-sized home feeling awfully crowded with chatter and stained clothes, today. 

Too much buzz, too much energy, too much old jelly plastered in fingerprints to the side of refrigerator like purple glue globs. I glance my own face in the mirror and my eyes won't even rise the whole way, drooping over worn skin, freckled like my mother's, tired eyes green like my boys'. There is no life in mine to speak of, no love. Somehow they look paper thin like my skin and the rest of me melts into transparency too.

I will it but the chatter doesn't stop, the skinned knees, flushing toilet, flickering lights and slamming screen door. Crashing bikes. Skipping sandals. Bickering brothers. 

Loud stadium voices, train-station voices, cacophonous circus voices.

It feels like assault and all too much.

It bubbles in and up and out through my mouth. I need to get quiet. I need to hear, to listen.

I think we'll skip church tomorrow to get it, to get quiet. I need quiet before the Lord, I think, over and over and over, just quiet. Just quiet.

Be quiet.

I flip open pages and by no coincidence I happen upon it.

"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."

And a glance to the opposite page sings the tune of my heart.

"Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him."

It rips open and I know we will go. We will go to lift hands and sing loud and sing long and marvel barefoot at the open sky because in summer, this is the way we worship. It is the single thing I love best about church these days. We will get loud before the LORD to quiet the sounds which steal our postures of praise. We will savor wafer and wine and let it transform. We will go out weeping and return with songs of joy.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Indeed. 

Rush, Rush... Hush, Hush

There is a laundry pile in my bedroom requiring a harness and ropes to scale. Scattered Legos lay like landmines across the living room floor and graham cracker crumbs wind a trail through the kitchen like Hansel and Gretel's roadmap. Little C munches on licorice sticks while last night's spaghetti pot still soaks in suds and dishwater. Girl Child's hair is tangled but her fingernails gleam with freshly painted purple sparkles.

This is what we've chosen, today.

Don't worry. The mess will be tidied, the dishes and laundry and landmines will be cleared… but not today.

The lot of us is up to here with busyness and interruptions – dental appointments and conjunctivitis, volunteer commitments, adoption paperwork, book reports, ear infections, dirty floors, church functions, birthday party plans and work to be done.

When I visited my mom yesterday, fiddling with email on my phone while we chatted, she joked, "It's okay to rest, you know." I flinched. "You don't have to be busying yourself every second."

I chuckled and she did too – knowing me and my penchant for distraction, constant motion, attention deficit disorder. Juggling with both hands and both feet and burning the candle that I hold between my teeth. It's just the way it is. And while I wish I didn't have to be deliberate about rest, I realize that even Jesus was, and how wise He was to be. In a world where otherwise normal people spend hours with thumbs jumping across the screen of their cell phones, electronically hurdling animated birds at neon pigs as if we needed one more pointless thing to occupy us, it's hard to remember that it's okay (it's necessary) to sometimes... just. be.

I scan the landscape before me, three prone bodies draped listless over couches, feet in the air, carefree giggles like soft music. The shades are open and the air is still, soft gray, not cloudy and not bright, as though the sun and rain and wind are resting too. All is quiet and calm and comfortably still, until C pops up from the couch in a concentrated tuck-and-roll, hopping across the carpet, exploding in imaginative play. A tickle war ensues, we catapult toys across couch-pillow barriers, and rescue make-believe princesses from make-believe dragons. We blow bubbles and eat marshmallows and talk about Jesus and hide-and-seek like we were born for only this. It's serious business, this rest stuff.

It amounts to refocusing, honing our eyes and ears to the vitally important. Filling our insides with laughter and love and peace -- fuel for the journey ahead. Tomorrow we'll be back to school, back to work, back to learning cursive and washing dishes, feeding the hungry and encouraging downcast friends. Tomorrow I'll gear up and scale the laundry mountain and these moments… these bottled giggles and captured yawns will course through me, strength for the road.

Is your family too busy? Your house too harried? Check out Little House on the Freeway, a resource for getting busy families off the rushed freeway of life.