Whether I’m hiding behind my kids or not. Whether I’m tired, wraggedy, or manic.

He sees me.

Not my undone laundry or my messy house. Not my fraying door mat or my futon with the chocolate milk stains.

He sees me.

Beyond the color of my hair or the size of my waist. Over the grocery lists of immediate needs I rattle off to Him every morning. Behind the worry.

He sees me.

Inside my inside dreams, my secret hopes; at the crux of where mommy meets wife and woman.

He sees me.

Over the rim of my computer screen, behind my blog posts and inside the head that spins these words in circles.

He sees me.

In the hard watches of the night when I rock her and ache and slip lower and lower down the lip of the rocker. Alone. Or so it seems.

He sees me.

When I scream with my face set in a shrill whisper at the boys to drop what they are doing and take heed, ’cause mama will be on the war path if baby girl wakes when there’s a chance of some more sleep at 6am.

He sees me.

As I scrounge for a few minutes to read a single Bible verse; to listen to a chapter on my phone as I soothe and rock and repeat.

He sees me.

Beyond how I see myself. Beyond my lens, beyond my point-and-shoot camera, beyond my life of diapers, juggling and writing. Beyond my homesickness and current dearth of frequent flier miles. Beyond my accent, my zip code and my passport.

He, and He alone, truly sees me.

And oh dear friend, I hope you know He sees You too.

His eye is on the sparrow
and I know He watches me.

Edited from the archives

::

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There’s all these things you used to love about yourself and your life. Those late afternoon naps. Those spontaneous movie nights. The tidy house and pretty things that could easily break. Lots of pretty things. Unbroken, pretty things.

Uninterrupted meals, sleep, bathroom breaks.

Children arrive and blow through what used to be your routine.

They huff and they puff and they blow your life down.

You wake up at 2am because someone calls you mother. Except they don’t say the word, they only offer the wail and you find yourself stumbling out of bed, groping for sense and the nightlight and in that moment it’s over.

The old you is left in the wake of washing out bottles and warming milk and walking 500 miles of carpet to be the one who wakes up next to new.

I’ve walked and I’ve rocked and I’ve learned to run to keep up with a nearly-seven-year-old and some days I can’t catch my breath.

Some days I miss the Lisa-Jo I used to be. But those days are rarer now than they were when Jackson was just 5 months old. I’m committed to being their mother.

There were days under the lilac jacaranda when I shook my head and couldn’t understand how I’d lost myself in the wash and spin and rinse and repeat of new rhythms I couldn’t find my groove to.

I used to dance when I was still single. Give me a bass beat and a girl’s night out and I would lose myself in the music.  I could rock myself to sleep on the beat of a night spent devoted to nothing but two girlfriends, mushroom hamburgers and french fries at Ed’s diner.

And when I was just a two-month-old mother I asked a friend when it would happen, the part where the baby adored me.

When the exhaustion and frustration and feelings of incompetence would give way to adoration. When the mini-me would want nothing but to declare his devotion to me.

Lindsey looked at me over her own sleeping babe and told it straight like mother’s do best, “It’s because of the exhaustion and the rocking and the soothing that he will come to love you. The only way is through.”

So I rocked and walked and soothed and wrangled my own confusion. And still I stood with one foot in the life I thought I loved as I waited for the baby I’d lived to start to love me.

Nonsense.

I lived a lot of nonsense before life started to make sense again.

But that’s because the breaking up can be a slow process.

And it takes time to find a new rhythm.

Micah led me and Zoe spun me around when I arrived.

Some days my head is still spinning from the rock and roll beauty of motherhood. The way it gut punch takes your breath away with the sheer exhilaration – I grow babies, hear me roar.

I spin and spin and there in the distance is the small unremarkable speck of who I used to be.

I wave.

And the dance carries me on.

For those of you in the midst of the whirl and swirl and rhythm and rhyme of motherhood – I’d love to give you this: my wee, free eBook –> The Cheerleader for Tired Moms {just click to download}.

Much hard, tired, happy love,

Lisa-Jo

Click here to download my free eBook, “The Cheerleader for Tired Moms: A Collection of Posts from the Gypsy Mama” {please give it a few moments to download… cheering for you!}

Her – over there – with the easily strung together words or the pretty blog or the stylish shoes or the way with making sense of motherhood.

We see the 4×6 snapshot and call it life. That tiny printout. We don’t look beyond its paper thin borders. We throw our hands up and shrug our shoulders and mutter, “Well, if I had what she had I could do it too.” I could be enjoying my own Polaroid moment.

I could write if I had the time.

I could craft if I had the supplies.

I could have a book deal if I had the connections.

I could bake if I had a baby sitter.

I could make music if I didn’t live in an apartment.

I could make a difference if my blog was bigger.

You know how it goes.

But here’s the footnote we too often, too easily, too breezily ignore: what she’s doing didn’t come easy to her either.

Promise.

She had to fight for it. She had to dig in teeth and tenaciously refuse to give up on what she wanted.

She had to carve out time, space, energy, determination, play dates, juggled appointments, budgets, and every other un-photogenic reality to make it this far down the path of the dream she’s been chasing.

There are no short cuts.

There is only through.

Through the hard seasons when you have no clue what you’re doing as a mother. When the baby is still an alien to you almost as scary as all the other mothers who seem to never need sleep, sympathy or chocolate.

Through the jobs that don’t have the word “dream” anywhere in the title, but pay the bills with honor.

Through the heart breaking daycare drop-offs.

Through the long commutes and desperate prayers and bad radio stations.

Through the online classes or the mentorship programs or the writing workshops or the tutoring or the practicing, practicing, practicing.

Through the lonely nights.

Through the working all day and writing late into the night.

Through the empty comment boxes.

Through the questioning it all.

No picture can do those thousands of words justice.

Through is hard and lonely. But keep going anyway.

Let’s not compare. Especially not our beginnings to someone else’s middle. No, let’s not compare.

Let’s cheer instead.

::

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On the days when I hurry them through brushing teeth and climbing bunk bed ladders and demands for just one more sip of water. On evenings when I rush and mutter and long for the solace of bed and laptop and online. On mornings when I rush to find lost shoes, chug down honey nut Cheerios and pack lunches and stuffed bears.

How much does the rush cost me?

We want to be on time, yes. But on time and frayed around the edges, on time and in tears, on time and relieved to be parting ways is no one’s win-win.

The rush is all mine. I can choose to shelter them from it or not.

The clock is all mine. I can choose to dictate from it or not.

The rhythm is all mine. I can choose to dance to it or not.

Because the melody of any day ebbs and flows around a mother’s mood.

And if I can set my mood by the desire to send them off at peace and full of the knowing that they mattered then they will have a gift to unwrap the rest of the day.

Knowing that they mattered to their mother more than her to-dos.

And yes, I hear you saying that there are things we can’t actually be late for. And to-dos must be done sometime or lives will unravel. I agree, I do.

But I am learning to tell the difference between the rush of the doing vs. the gifting of the doing.

I am learning to spot the wonder in the ordinary. Because if it is all a gift to me from the Father who gives good things, why don’t I re-gift it to my kids before we rush out the door?

Time and again I have to reel my fast, wagging, frustrated tongue in and slow down the crazy that’s about to spill out of me. And because we do still need to be on time these are the things I’m trying out in order to get us there with tempers and kind words in tact:

This doesn’t make breakfast any more nutritious than a bowl of cereal or a bagel and cream cheese most mornings. But it does make us all feel filled up in the ways that matter most. Some mornings we still snap and no one brushes their teeth and car doors are slammed. But other mornings – more mornings these days – there is time factored in for slow. Time factored in for connecting before parting.

We don’t have big prayers or profound Bible readings – but we have the heart of the thing. The rhythm of secure kids and restrained parents. There is give and take. An episode of Mighty Machines if breakfast is eaten. Time with the hamster if teeth have first been brushed. A half hour of swashbuckling in the yard if they’re dressed in full ready-to-leave-from-the-yard-when-mom-calls clothes.

If I want our kids’ morning routine to work I have to work the hardest at keeping it together. Myself first. My tongue, my temper and my temptation to dish out blame for being late.

So I take a deep breath when I’m lying there listening to Zoe start to wake up, before I can will myself out of bed. I take a deep breath and picture the hand of the carpenter who lived over 2,000 years ago – rough and strong and tender – ready to lead me into the dance. There will be crazy and whining and bed head. There will be the same red cereal bowl and yellow spoon Micah’s used a hundred mornings before.

There will be trails of socks and cries that someone is out of undies. There will be missing library books and someone who insists on wearing his camouflage pants again. There will be a raggedy toy bear and a baby that trails around behind every body, unpacking everything.

But on the very best mornings, oh yes on the best mornings, there will also be dancing at our house.

::

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To feel caught on a hamster wheel of wake up, breakfasts and packed lunches, a load of laundry, the dishes from last night, vacuum, work, write, tweet, connect, call, walk to Kindergarten to pick up kids, panic about dinner, serve it, wipe down counters, wrestle pajamas and tooth brushes and last sips of water until the wonder of 9pm arrives and a few hours of stolen time for me and him and trying to breathe creativity into the tired.

Yes, wheels within very ordinary wheels is how many days can feel.

Until.

Until someone you love gets a diagnosis you hate.

Someone who is woven into your story so tight you can feel the tug when they move.

Or maybe it’s when someone loses a job or someone’s spouse walks out or someone spends painful time on the inside of their daughter’s rehab.

Then ordinary cracks right down the middle.

And when you wake up it’s to that sense of displaced unease that has you feeling along the edges of your memory until it hits you before you even open your eyes. Yes, yes it’s still going to be as broken today as it was yesterday.

I got up every day the last two weeks and made toast or bagels or bowels of honey nut cheerios for the kids and every day part of me was watching it all unfold, unable to accept that ordinary can trickle through our fingers when we least expect it.

Ordinary is the gift we take for granted until it’s the woobie that someone’s trying to steal. Like my favorite Detroit Lions sweatshirt or ratty yellow blanket or dog-eared book inherited from my mom.

Ordinary is where the DNA of our lives is housed.

And when it’s threatened for those we love, we start to linger over our own ordinary Cheerios-crushed-underfoot moments.

Zoe took her first steps this week.

Right there in between the art easel with the cracked leg and my old Ikea desk. She stood up, swayed, flashed her dimples and took three steps into my arms. No one saw it but me and Jesus.

The whole world caved in. Or maybe it sang. I think there was an angel chorus; surely it was more than just the singing Elmo.

The joy, when it comes in the midst of the ordinary we’re remembering not to take for granted, can overwhelm. I cried so hard, Zoe and I were both surprised. I clung to my little 11-month-old life preserver.

Everything about her screams, “life!”

How her hair smells of cinnamon and her body like crackers and baby lotion and maybes. She walked and our playroom was a Thursday temple.

Tomorrows will come and cracks will likely spread but I am anchored by my ordinary and I’ll take all the Cheerios underfoot I need to remind me.

::

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He holds his heart as we wait at the red line in the immigration queue.

His face has a puzzled look. Passports slide back our way and we crane necks for one last look, one wave, one jump up and down and blowing of last kisses. Then with heavy back packs we start the long journey to gate A49.

Familiar sights and sounds and tastes line the way and my tummy hurts at passing them good bye.

He holds my hand and I’m all a rush and he’s all slower and slower until we’re finally stopped in front of the Kudu head and biltong stand. My eyes are set on where we need to be so it takes me by surprise when I look down and see the tears leaking slowly out of his own surprise.

He’s rubbing his chest. Rubbing it hard and bewildered and if only I could climb in and make it better.

“It hurts,” he says. “Mom, it just hurts so much.”

I can hardly stand to watch his face at it processes separation for the first time, since he’s not too toddler to care.

Like heart burn he keeps trying to swallow it down. But this burn, it doesn’t go out. Twelve years in and mine is still a lump in my throat that no amount of swallowing can loosen.

I put my hand over his – this unique Jackson hand that grew in my belly in this country that gave birth to us both.

“Your heart hurts?”

I get down on my knees on the cold, speckled tile floor so that I can see right into him. Watch him nod back at me over his glasses frames. Pete and Micah and Zoe are already out of sight. It’s just me and Jackson and our homesickness lost in a sea of passengers passing all around us.

I try to find the right words. He’s inherited more than my blue eyes. He’s inherited a life time of feeling lost in between countries. Would I take it back if I could?

One day I will explain the gift wrapped in all this aching. I will show him how the parts that hurt are the parts that connect him in unique ways to the God who gave up home and family to come and live here with us. One day I will share the lessons.

But that’s not today.

Today is for not being embarrassed to cry with him. Today is for hugging him hard and telling him we hurt because we have a big love.

Today is for taking off his glasses and tracing my finger down his wet cheeks and letting him see my own. Today is simply about holding his hand and his heart and his homesickness as we try to find our way to Gate A49.

As we try to map our way home.

::

::

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But it can induce a case of “I’m-not-good-enough-oh-my-goodness-how-will-I-ever-keep-up-itis” in even the best of us.

As the last night wound down and women sat around over burgers, fries and their blog cards and talked life-blogging balance, it got me thinking about this post I wrote last year. I think it bears remembering. For me most of all.

On finding social media balance

I went social media silent for almost two months after my daughter was born.

The reason that’s a big deal is because I’m the social media manager for DaySpring. They’re the Christian subsidiary of Hallmark and they make pretty, pretty things in their beautiful quest to connect people everywhere with the heart of God.

They also host the fabulous website (in)courage – where women from all walks of life find a comfy home for their hearts and a coffee table to rest feet and mugs while they catch up with friends from all over the globe.

I’m the community manager over there. And I love it. I get to work from home. It’s basically the dream job. So, I was nervous about how unplugging would go.

Two months is like two decades in social media time.

But I did it. Sort of. And was pretty amazed at what I discovered.

In no particular order:

1. Nothing online is quite as urgent as it seems.

The blog post you just “have” to write, the twitter party you “must” attend, the giveaways, blog rolls, fan groups, Facebook pages, and redesigns you “can’t” miss out on? Yea. That’s just silly nonsense. Here’s the skinny my friend: there will always be another one. Another post, another party. But there’s only one you. And your family, your friends, your church – they will, in fact, miss you.

2. If you don’t have time to pee, your priorities are way out of whack.

No matter what kind of work you do, as a student, a mom, a mentor; whether working from home, out of the home, juggling kids, car pool, plays and soccer practice, a business, or as a full time writer – if you don’t have time for your basic bodily functions, girlfriend, you need to reevaluate. I was amazed to discover how empowering deciding to go potty before I attended to kids, calls, IMs, twitter or my email has been.

This point applies to showers as well. But I realize you may have to work your way up to those – that’s some serious re-prioritizing.

3. You are the boss of your boundaries

Overwhelmed by your inbox? Stressed by requests for your time, attention, and availability? Anxious about negative comments, Facebook posts or feedback? Tired of your loud and shouty computer? Listen carefully: Just. Close. It.

Learn how to say no and mean it. Don’t waste time resenting, dodging, or fretting requests for your time or attention – you’re the only one who can do anything about them. And while saying no may take practice, you’d be amazed how much easier it gets with time. And how nice it is to be able to breathe again.

4. Beware the smart phone that makes you trigger happy

Seconds. I always feel the urgent need to respond to an email, tweet, or other online request in seconds. No matter what I’m doing. I’ve been known to pull off into a parking lot to quickly type out a response to an email ping.

Two weeks into my maternity leave and I realized that’s just plain nuts. I don’t work with nuclear launch code responsibilities. I’m not a heart surgeon. No one dies if I don’t respond in five seconds flat. And, let’s face it, any response typed out on a teeny screen in a Walmart parking lot is gonna be less coherent, comprehensive and compelling than it probably deserves.

5. If it doesn’t come next, don’t do it

This one hit me when I was crawling into bed, desperate for sleep like a dehydrated camel longs for water. And though I could barely open my red, exhausted eyes I still found myself squinting against the glare of my phone to check my messages.

That’s just wrong. After, “pull back sheets” comes “go to sleep” not “respond to advertising request.”

Do yourself a favor – kick it old school for a while and just do one thing at a time. Write a post. Respond to emails. Send a tweet. Call a friend. Just not all at the same time. Multi-tasking usually means we do a lot of things with very little attention to any of them. But that’s just my humble and ever-so-slightly sleep deprived opinion.

6. It’s not a race, it’s a calling

Over the best grilled steak and lettuce salad I’ve ever had, a friend told me that God doesn’t mean to overwhelm us with the work He’s given us. It’s His work. He can get it done. We fall for the lie if we tell ourselves that it’s up to us or not at all. Stop running yourself ragged. I’m learning He is rarely in a crushing rush.

7. There are no cool kids

The site you wish you could write for, the blogger who doesn’t respond to your emails, the photos you hate that you don’t know how to take, the conference you can’t afford to attend  – these aren’t cliques, they’re not out to make you feel small, or frustrated or unheard. They’re just figuring out how to tell their story, same as you. They may have different interests, talents, timelines, or words than you. But their stories are likely very similar to yours.

Tell the one you have. And some days you might find yourself alone and others at the center of a circle. Neither is as relevant as whose hand you’re holding onto at the time.

Seven things. I think they sum it up – what those beautiful, baby-focused weeks taught me. I’m so profoundly grateful to DaySpring for the time. Because time itself is a gift created and instituted by God. And perhaps one day we will have to answer for how we spent it.

In that case, I can’t wait to tell Him about the eight weeks I spent just doing this

Got other suggestions you’d add to this list? I’d love to hear them! Won’t you share in the comments so we can all be encouraged?

Thanks to my friend Natalie for the photos!

::

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“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast.
And when I run I feel His pleasure.”
~ Eric Liddell, Gold Medalist, 1924 Paris Olympics

I can’t cook. I can’t paint. I can’t sculpt. I can barely decorate my house. But when I write I feel a sense of purpose that keeps me up later than my contact lenses can usually stand.

My mom was 42 when she died. She was always going to write a book. And today I imagine what it would be like to have her words with me still. She was a lover of stories and my overcrowded, dog-eared, paper pages and hardback covers, stuffed three deep book shelf testifies to the many I inherited from her. Stories from the wide world over but none of them hers.

She would sit long hours with a bottle of coke, bag of chips and a computer screen writing words for work and for church and the letters home that she loved. But none of them found their way into a story that was hers alone. My hands are hungry for those pages. And as I try to find my way into a grown up understanding of the mother who left me while I was still a child, I scour through old letters to follow the trail of her words into the heart of who she was, beyond the role of mother.

Words are a road map for those who come behind.

To write is to give. To be flat out, all out generous with your story. To wrap up your words, your life, your failings, your most miserable moments and your wild and wonderful discoveries and give them to somebody else. To share them with someone, to encourage someone, to re-gift what have been the hardest parts of your story in ways that make other people feel they are not alone.

To write is to pour out your life as a love offering for people you may never meet, because when you do so you feel God’s pleasure in your fingertips.

And maybe you were made for this time and these keyboard letters to leave a legacy. Maybe you were made to connect a family. Maybe you were made to tell the story of someone who can’t. Maybe what you whisper over your kids at night or dream in the dark hours, or doodle in your head while waiting in the car pool line is essential to somebody else.

Maybe when you write it down you will discover not only your own pleasure, but the pleasure of the God who gives you the words, the prompting and the message.

Run with it, my friend. Forget the doubts and the reasons why you think you can’t. Don’t look back – run with abandon like you used to when you were just six and discovering the joy of your own strength.

Run like you used to when you believed you could fly.

Feel the wild wind of freedom as you pour yourself out onto the page and press on and into the God who created this gift in you.

Because what you write is a gift to me.

A gift to all who discover and read and find they have a friend, a challenge, a comfort in you.

::

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But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
~1 Corn. 1:27

I came by motherhood backwards.

It was never my intention or my dream. It was a slow revelation that “barefoot and pregnant” was not a phrase ever used by Jesus. It took me years and a good man to put those three words behind me. And then on a Tuesday morning in South Africa I birthed a baby boy with the sunrise and discovered that God had saved the best till last.

It was so good.

I am not a Bible scholar. I write stories. They’re not long ones and they last all of a couple days on this blog. But they are the gospel that speaks the loudest to me. Not buried in Greek or Hebrew, but lisped by baby boys who hate when I call them babies. God’s love for me is so loud when I look at my children that even my worst days can’t drown it out.

Every day I wake up knowing by the time I crawl back into bed with my laptop, a book or a favorite movie I will have learned more than I bargained for. I will be tired in every part of me. I will feel stretched out and squishy. I will often be frustrated that no one is staying in bed like they’re supposed to. But I will also know that the Lisa-Jo today has grown up. And the Lisa-Jo tomorrow will grow up further still.

Grown up, dragged up by her kids and the God that made them.

This unglamorous truth is my Gospel.

It’s where I understand why Jesus would have died for me and why the Father would have sent Him. It’s the place of Cheerios stuck to the sides of bowls and self sacrifice on repeat with the loads of laundry. A parent will always lay down their life for their child. Jesus loves me this I know, for my children teach me so.

Gospel climbs off the pages of Scripture on Mondays during the pre-school rush and reminds me that Christ lives in me. That this must make a difference in my day. It must slow me down when I want to rush and shout and gnash my teeth and wail at the child who’s lost his shoes again. And some days I snap, “see, that’s what happens when you don’t put them away like I’ve told you a meeelllion times before!” And other days I remember the Gospel buried here in my mess and I swallow my shout and instead work hard at remembering that love is patient and kind.

Because it is hard work to remember to be kind and patient when you know mere minutes stand between the kid who can’t find his shoes and a “tardy” note from school.

In the living room, between the discarded pajama pants and the left over bagel I work out my salvation with fear and trembling. And then we buckle everyone into the car and Micah tells me school is stupid.

This afternoon I will walk to pick Jackson up from school. Zoe comes along in the pink stroller all bundled up in purple layers. Later we will go and get Micah. Then there might be tacos for dinner and Tae Kwon Do this evening. Someone will fuss and someone will cry. Someone won’t be able to find something.

And tonight everyone will want to sleep in my bed.

::

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Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers.
I tell no one any story but his own.”
C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy (The Chronicles of Narnia p.176.

But what if my story isn’t important? What if it’s small and stitched together with load after load of laundry or hours spent trapped in the commute to work or nights spent wiping the hot heads of sick kids.

What if my story is ordinary?

Worse yet, what if I spend the hour salvaged at the end of the day – the one after the dishwasher’s been loaded, after the kitchen counter’s been wiped down, after the last homework assignment’s been finished up and the last lego thrown back into its tub – what if I spend that sacred hour on writing and no one shows up to read?

What are my words worth without a reader?

What am I worth if my story is uninteresting, unclick-worthy, unbloggable?

“I realized there was this other part of me, and it was a big part of me, that needed something outside myself to tell me who I was. And so [it] became obvious; I was very concerned with getting other people to say I was good or valuable or important because the thing that was supposed to make me feel this way was gone.” – Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What p.44.

Our DNA is desperate to be recognized. To be heard. To be valued. And while we might write all day in our heads, our fingers hesitate to type it out for fear no one else will recognize what it cost us, what it means to us.

So we hide our stories where no one can ignore them but ourselves.

Here’s the thing, though, your story doesn’t matter because of who reads it.

Your story doesn’t matter because of how many read it.

Your story doesn’t even matter just because you wrote it.

Your story matters because it’s part of another story; one much bigger and older than you. And any words you write will draw breath from that first story. Anything you post, anything you journal, anything you scrapbook or blog or scribble out on the back of a grocery store receipt while stopped at a traffic light – the words will climb up off the page and live.

Those words will take deep gulps of breath and exhale into the lives of anyone who comes into contact with them. And their most important reader will be you.

Because someone else is writing your story alongside you. Someone else cares about the words as much as you do. Someone else has fingers folded gently over yours as you guide pen and thoughts and life across the page.

Someone else is writing through you.

So you can just let it go – the need for someone else to tell you that your story is important. Because you are already stitched into the only story that matters; the story that starts in the dark, loamy dirt of a garden and ends in the hard won, bright, shining streets of a city on a hill.

Whether you tell it in Zulu or Russian, Afrikaans or English. Whether you press publish or only whisper it to yourself as you rock babies to sleep. Whether you write it on your laptop or longhand in your journal. Your story matters because of the Word that breathes through you:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made;

without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. John 1:1-4.

So, if you’ve only got one hour in the day to write, don’t spend it defeated. Spend it writing. Because maybe you, more than anyone else, will be surprised by what you read, by the story that the Word is writing in you, through you, for you.

His story. As lived by you.

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