cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
As a new mom, I’m often asked what surprises me most about motherhood. My answer varies depending on how grounded or rested I’m feeling in the moment. I’m surprised I’m here and wearing pants! is a less grounded example, but the response almost always has something to do with time.
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Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands. –Isa. 49:15-16 My iPhone alarm triggers a surge of cortisol through my weary body. The blue light flashes 2:30AM. I feel empty and anxious as…
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“Ewww, Mom, that’s disgusting,” he said as he glimpsed a sliver of the wrinkly, stretched skin of my stomach. The moment had started sweetly. Miracle of miracles, the kids were ready to go to school early which of course, never happens. So my two youngest boys and I were enjoying a few minutes of snuggling…
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He was just over two when we took the fun vacation to Greek ruins, waterfalls, and the sea. In the newness of our discoveries and the delight of our first trip as a little family of three, I snapped photo after photo of my cute blond-haired boy, always standing out amidst our Middle Eastern surroundings.…
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The boulder in my yard was rather large, covered in ferns and lichens. It rested beneath a mango tree, residing in my periphery as I toiled over hand washing clothes and pinning them up to dry in the sunlight. It perched just shy of a conversation amidst the brush, iguanas, and wildflowers, holding its breath…
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I heard my heart whisper, “I’d rather be with them.” I held back a breath, stunned by the level of satisfaction I had being wrapped in the love of my husband and daughter.
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“Do you love me?” say the blue grey eyes of my 12 week old daughter, Asha, as she stares at me. I respond, “We’ve been doing this for a while, haven’t we my love?”
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I stared at her angelic form swaddled beneath the moonlit window. She was so sweet, so small, so fragile. Who was I to bear the responsibility of her, to soothe her fevers and give her direction, to train her and teach her about God and the world? I watched her breathe, in and out, in…
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It is intimacy that gives us the grace and strength we need to push through suffering, pain, and inconvenience. –Heidi Baker
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It was a deep clean kind of Saturday. I scrubbed the boy’s bathtub and cleaned the toilet and wiped down the mirror and countertops.
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