Am I pretty?

"Daddy, am I the prettiest girl?"
"Yes, Amelie you are very pretty."

She twirled in front of him showing off her new dress. The dress spun out in a bubble around her legs and she smiled confident that she looked beautiful.

I regularly see evidences of Amelie's deep desire to be recognized as pretty. She no longer wants to be called cute but asks if her clothes, jewelry, shoes, hair, ultimately her very beautiful self is pretty?

Of course I reassure her that she is SO pretty! Often I also remind her of the other amazing qualities that make up Amelie. She is funny, sweet, caring, smart, creative, kind... While she lets me list these other compliments, she ultimately asks again, but am I pretty?

Oh how that desire to be beautiful in someone else's eyes is so deep.

Before Christmas, after I had already spent over an hour in the kitchen, Amelie came behind me while I stood at the sink deep in a pile of dishes. Armed with her pink feather boa and a flower petal headband, she asked me to bend down. With sudsy hands that crack and bleed all winter long, hair pinned back in a mess just to keep strands from falling in my face, my mom uniform of jeans and a comfortable white shirt I knelt down.

My sweet girl wrapped the boa around my neck and pushed the petal headband onto my head and exclaimed "Now you are more beautiful than just wearing that ugly white shirt."

And so I continued through the pile of baking sheets and bowls with a feather boa and petals that made my face look like a flower. I admit I did feel more beautiful.

It seems like not long ago when I twirled and whirled in my Sunday dress wondering and hoping that it made me pretty. Deep longings of wanting to be a beautiful princess filled my imagination and I wondered if I was pretty enough and if I measured up to everyone else. I remember hoping to be pretty enough, wondering how I measure up to everyone else and trying to figure out what I could do to become more beautiful.

Honestly those questions never end. The questions have matured and moved beyond the basic "Am I pretty" to
"Why am I not able to lose just a few more pounds?"
"Why don't I look as good in these jeans as the model looked?"
"Why doesn't my hair look fun and cute instead of sticking out and silly?

As an adult the pretty question has translated beyond just my own person to my house, my kids, my life in general. Am I pretty enough? Do I measure up to everyone else and this vision I have of what the standard of perfection is?

My critical eyes generally suggest I don't measure up. I'm not the prettiest girl, my house won't win a prize for being beautifully decorated, and my style these days leans heavily on the practical without much attention to beauty.

But Amelie's innocent desires for beauty have reminded me that pursuing beauty doesn't have to equal vanity. She changes to wear a special necklace for naptime and a different sparkly headband for getting in the car to pick up Asher from school, and then different shoes to wear waiting for Daddy to get home. Dressing up for these mundane daily activities when no one will see her other than her family fills her with joy simply because she enjoys the beauty.

She doesn't wait for a special occasion, and doesn't save her favorite sparkly beautiful things so they don't get broken or ruined, but she enjoys them in the everyday for the pure delight of beauty.

This delight has challenged me to go ahead and wear my favorite shirt rather than saving it for a special occasion. Look for sparkly scarves and necklaces to dress up the plain. Wear the knitted treasures because really I will enjoy them more now rather than next year when I want the next latest and greatest.

I have been taught by Amelie's pursuit of pretty. Sparkly, glittery and beautiful still have a power to bring me joy and remind me of how enjoying beauty can be pure delight.

Careless in His care

Asa is in love with his stuff.

At 1 1/2 his "stuff" consists of two blankets - the blue Winnie the Pooh one and the yellow dotted one, Snoopy, Eeyore, knitted bear, Llama, elephant, Mouse, Hedgehog/Elephant, and owl.  Over Christmas Jingle Bear and moose joined the club and occasionally Amelie decides she doesn't want frog anymore so Asa gives him love until Amelie suddenly needs to take him back.

He loves these friends and insists they follow us throughout our day.  They all need to come out of his bed every morning, be taken downstairs, then a few select are stuffed into the backpack we take in the car. At nap time we reverse the craziness and take everyone back upstairs into his bed. Of course they he can't go back downstairs without them and you guessed it back upstairs for bedtime.

I feel like a Sherpa. Someone needed simply for my abilities to carry the stuff.

The stuff is organized on the couch and five minutes later looks better on the floor but then not much later and they are reorganized back onto another couch.  We spend a lot of time moving his stuff around.

Through this new job of mine I've recognized Sherpa tendencies with my things as well.  Way too often my mind is trying to figure out where to put something.  Clothes need to be sorted in closets.  The Christmas stuff just got put away and the everyday things put back out.  We have bags of stuff to go to Goodwill in various closets and then there are all of the things for a garage sale someday. 
My boy may be simply modeling what he sees the rest of the family doing...loving our stuff.

Honestly I'm so sick of the stuff and despite my love of shopping, I find great pleasure in throwing things away.  (Asa has joined me in this love as well although I'm usually not ready to throw away the things I often find he has put into the garbage can.)

This morning I was reading about God's provision for us.  Matthew tells how Jesus asks us to let go of our worries and frets about our food, clothes, and all of the other things that consume too much of our thoughts.  Rather than spending so much time worrying over our stuff God asks us to be "careless in the care of God."


What freedom to be free of caring for all of our things.  God cares for us and provides what it is we need. What would that look like - to be careless in God's care?
Freedom.
Peace.
Contentment.
Oh yes, Careless in His care.

Petty prayer?

In a moment of desperate tv watching, we tuned in to a show I previously recommended myself  never watch. The show was mildly entertaining, but I found myself judging the people on screen for something I didn't expect to be judging them about.

Their prayer.

In much the same way as I would pray, I watched as they asked Lord Jesus to "bless" a creation they had made with items stolen from around the hotel because "we promise to return them when the pageant is done."

Seriously? Asking God to bless something they had stolen with a seemingly trivial end purpose??

Immediately I felt bad for judging their prayer request because I know God does promise to hear us when we call out to Him.  I believe He wants us to talk to Him about all of the things we struggle with.  I spent the rest of the show fighting with my judgement as they continued to ask God to bless things that seemed obviously out of God's plan.

Theologically I think God always hears and also always answers.  He always answers according to His will, which might not always fit with mine, but is ultimately best.

This morning my usual over analyzing mind flipped back to that prayer and the way it seemed so trivial to me - but clearly not trivial to them and therefore still heard by God.  My mind wandered to the question of what in my prayers is trivial, petty, clearly not in God's will?

Is it my cries for meaning to days?
Or my pleas that I will have opportunity to sit a read for 20 minutes this afternoon?
Maybe it's crazy to ask that Amelie will get dressed without drama today.

A Chinese believer who is suffering for owning a Bible or a woman living in poverty whose daily chores never ever end might equally scoff at my struggles to maintain a consistent Bible reading plan or my regular battles over finding worth in the daily routine chores in that fill my days.  They might judge my prayers to be ridiculous as I sat in judgement of the tv show prayers.

From my perspective my prayers are heartfelt outpourings of where I need God to intervene. The people on the show also felt they needed God to intervene. Suffering Chinese believers need God's intervention and so does the hard working woman around the world. 

We pray to request, to thank, to acknowledge, and to connect with our Creator.

Wouldn't it be cool to hear all of the prayers that reach God's ears? As a human, I would laugh at how trivial some are and be burdened beyond comprehension at the pain in many others. But I imagine God, Abba Father, listening with concern each time a prayer reaches His ears.  He would gather the tears into a bottle, maybe smile at the sweet requests of a child, and nod with patience at those that are seemingly less important.

No matter the request, there is a promise that God does hear and also RESPONDS to us all.

That is amazing love and individual caring beyond my comprehension.

But Emmanuel...

"I want to dream about kitties...and puppies...and butterflies."

What is that poem? Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of?  Amelie's description of what she wants to dream about fulfills all that you might imagine for a sweet little girl.  I can't remember the last time I thought for more than a few seconds about kitties and puppies and butterflies, let alone had a desire for dreams about them. 

But really I can't put a value on this innocence and wonder in the world's beauty.  Her sweet mind has no blackness when it stops and thinks.  Past hurts, bitterness, unforgiveness, knowledge of atrocities in the world, none of this clouds her mind.  She loves and dreams freely without any comprehension of bad guys in this world.

I pray for the students in Newton who had this sweet innocence sucked away in moments.  Those survivors now know bad at a level beyond the scariest Disney movie they've ever seen.  Adults know evil at a new level perhaps greater than we could imagine. 

I am still horrified. Each day is a new morning and there is a brief time between when I wake up and when my mind reminds me of the past days happenings. And then... heaviness sets in again.  For the families and friends of those lost last Friday I doubt they have even that moment of oblivion. I can't imagine they have been able to shake the reality since the moment it happened.

And now Christmas is next week.  The biggest celebration of the year is almost here. Although I am  far removed, that cloud of sadness hangs low and evil regularly threatens to steal away the season.
We sang this verse from the familiar song, O Come O Come Emmanuel at church on Sunday:

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, o Israel

Never before during a Christmas season have I resonated so intimately with the hatred of evil and the celebration of God's power to defeat it. 

The birth of Jesus kicked off the death march of our enemy. 
Jesus was born into this world to defeat evil. 
His birth brought victory over Satan's tyranny. 

Even though the world has been shaken by an awful display of evil's ugliness, there is good news that evil doesn't win.

The pain is real, unimaginable, and really too much to bear.  I almost hesitate to say a "but," because I don't want to minimize any of the suffering. 

BUT Emmanuel has come and that is the only hope I find any peace in.

O come, Thou Day-Spring
Come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, o Israel

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, o Israel

Discovering

Last night my boy stayed up until "midnight."  And I am so delighted!

There would be no delight if these words described my littlest boy, but when Asher tells me he stayed up until "midnight" reading, that thrills me and stirs something giddy inside.

Still a boy at six and a half, but Asher regularly reminds me of his progress to maturity.  Now granted the Captain Underpants series is hardly the highest in literature nor what my idealistic imagination saw him reading for his first solo books, but I couldn't be happier that he is falling in love with reading.

I might be slightly biased because of my own passion for reading and writing and everything related, but this joy of seeing him discover the worlds available inside a book could be my best Christmas gift (although I am open to challengers!).  From the time of his conception, I read to my boy hoping he would become a ravenous reader. I don't know if he is quite there yet, but the way his toothless smile lit up his face when he described his late night adventures has me believing he might just be hooked.

Earlier this fall, I watched Asher discover a love of swinging.  Maybe he is getting a bit old to delight so openly in the freedom of soaring into the sky, but I simply couldn't get enough of watching him swing as high as he possibly could from my kitchen window.  Even in the dark of night, he would ask to go swing.  I know he felt like he was touching the stars and that feeling of being able to touch the stars is what I want him to always know.

Although I remember loving to read and constantly devouring books, I can't remember my own discovery of reading to myself.  This discovering of new good things that we love spreads out further and further as we get older.  But I am realizing that possibly even greater than discovering for myself is watching the wonder and excitement in my kids as they discover things they love.  Daily I lead them to places I want them to love on their own and when it clicks, when they show that they get it, my job is a success. 

This opportunity to witness when they "get it" is possibly one of the best side benefits of parenting. 

I wonder if this is a piece of how God receives the glory He deserves.  Watching His children discover what He is leading them to must bring joy to Him. Does He feel as giddy as I do when we finally "get it," when we stop and wonder at how perfectly His plan fits together?   If this discovery does bring Him honor then I pray for great discoveries into more and more of His character and the hope He promises to us -- especially this Christmas season.

Celebrate!

Have you ever planned a full-blown celebration?

My wedding was the biggest party I've ever planned and oh my goodness did that require a lot of preparation!  Some of the planning was so much fun as we picked out invitations and registered for gifts. Other jobs were more tedious but even monotonous work like assembling programs didn't seem quite as bad when I remembered what I was preparing for.

It was going to be a celebration of a lifetime and with that attitude even the busyness was fun.

In recent years as my responsibilities for Christmas preparation have multiplied, I find it nearly impossible to get to the point of having time to remember that this is all about the birth of Jesus, Savior.  As much as I want to eliminate the stress, busyness, and unfocused craziness, there are some traditions I'm simply not ready to let go and often my attitude goes down with it.

So this year I'm wondering if maybe I need to work with the flow of life rather than wasting so much thought on trying to fight it.  I need to find another way to get to the peace and joy and meditation on what it means that Jesus was born into this messed up world.  And so this year I hope to continue to work on minimizing and not adding too much to my lists, but in the middle of it all while I'm wrapping and baking and adventing and I hope to remember the CELEBRATION.

My responsible self often chants "Get your work done first and then play," but in recent years I never get around to this playing - or celebrating.  And so this year the preparation is going to be part of the celebration.

After all there is nothing more worthy of celebrating than Christmas.  The birth of Jesus represents God's promise fulfilled. When He arrived in the world God affirmed that all He has promised is true.  He does have a plan to save the world and that hope deserves the biggest celebration ever!



 

A Halloween Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess named Snow White.

Snow White lived with her impatient step mother who always hurried her along to get dressed, brush her hair, eat her food, and always to get her seat belt buckled.

A dwarf also lived in the house with Snow White.

Most days he vacillated between Happy, Grumpy, Doc (the one in charge!), but this day he was Sneezy. Complete with runny nose and droopy eyes. Snow White loved her dwarf and the mother couldn't imagine another six dwarfs running around the cottage so they enjoyed the seven personalities of this one dwarf. The dwarf gave Snow White someone to mother. She took off his shoes and coat when he arrived home, brought him his blanket when he turned grumpy, and generally hovered over him ready to meet his every need.  If he did not have a current need, Snow White took away a toy or gave him a big squeeze until the dwarf screeched with a new problem.  Yes, Snow White and the Dwarf lived happily together on most days.

Then one day a handsome prince ninja decided to come play at the cottage.

He wanted Snow White's attention but was not prepared to love on the dwarf as Snow White did.  A charming ninja he was and simply with focused attention he easily enticed Snow White to join him for a time of building their own castles in the lower cottage. Without a backward glance at the Dwarf, Snow White followed the ninja with dreamy eyes and proclamations that she would help the ninja in any way he asked.

After their fortresses were secure, the ninja decided they needed to validate the strength of their walls.  For this he remembered the dwarf. Luring the dwarf near the fortress proved to be no challenge when he turned his charming attention towards the dwarf with a sweet voice and the promise of a ball.

The moment the dwarf arrived in the lower cottage, the ninja's charming facade disappeared and he dashed away behind the fortresses walls. Snow White appeared and the dwarf once again felt safe remembering the fun the two of them shared.

As in all true fairy tales, the story suddenly turned ugly.  From under her beautiful dress, Snow White pulled out a light saber and proceeded to attack the surprised dwarf with bonks and jabs. The impatient mother bounded down to the lower cottage and rescued the dwarf with kisses and admonishments of the ninja and Snow White. 

She reminded them of the prospect of trick-or-treating and everyone quickly reconciled. The dwarf agreed to wear his hat and everyone lived happily ever after, ringing door bells, gathering Reese's Peanut Butter cups, and ending the evening by watching It's a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. 

Yes, all fairy tales do have a happy ending.