A Day Without Time

A few days ago, I had a little homeschoolin' momma/house wife epiphany. What if I could do my days without time?

Some days there are things we have to go to at a certain time, but actually, that's not the norm for me and my kids. We protect our days and evenings, because of my fatigue and sleep situation, but also because we want to not be running around busy. We want to be intentional in what we're doing, who we're with...

For me, this means that I get up when I get up (within reason, there is an alarm clock set at the latest possible waking time!) Then I have a little list of things I want to do, each taking between 5 and 15 minutes. It has been so awesome to actually do these first thing in the morning instead of wearing out and not having time for it later in the day. Here's my personally muy importante steps: Open the Word and spend some time in reading, specific prayer, giving thanks. Make the bed. Grab the mini-vac and clean up a little dog hair! (So simple but it makes me really happy to not have to see it all day!) Hit the mat and do a few stretches and exercises. (Don't be impressed, we're talking 5 minutes here.) Put on clothes and shoes and coat and take the dog for a romp outside right in front of our house since the kids are home. AH. So many issues taken care of head on! All this time, the girls have a list of things they can be doing on their own to help their day run smoothly. For all you morning people who are thinking, "Lyn, where's the epiphany? This is what normal people do..." I am telling you, I am not normal!

Then it's some hot tea and breakfast, and school with Selah/Yemi however long it takes. Because we ate breakfast whenever, then lunch can be eaten when school is done (because we would never ever do schoolwork for longer than 3 hours). Lunch is simple and we get at least 3 of our F & V servings in. After lunch, I just want to play and spend time with my kids. I fail at this A LOT. When they're playing or watching a show, I do work...but I want to change that. I remind myself there is time for that later. So when we're tired of playing, a snack and then it's what I like to call Soul Restoration time. We go to our rooms and do our thing...Sleep, chill, play quietly...For me, I might rest, blog, sing, spend more time in the Word, exercise. All good things for my little introvert soul. This is usually when Selah has her quiet time, but she might start having it first thing since she'll have some free time then.

When we're done with that, we need to focus on housework and cooking dinner. I think my kids should have things they can do to help. Working on that. We eat supper with a devotion, do game night or movie night or just hang out, and then it's been dark for a little while already and it's time to go to bed! After they go to bed, Jack and I are so blessed to have some time to chill...and not looking at the clock, when I feel tired and sleepy I am not fighting it. It's fun to get in bed and see what time it is. :)

What I Am Thankful For

November is almost over and I haven't written my thankfulness list yet...But I am ever and always pondering on the list, because it is long and I am truly grateful. Here are a few things I daily am thinking are lifesavers and lifechangers...

*My dear Jesus. He is my Life. I feel like I am truly blessed because I have embraced, fully believed and accepted, His great love for me. I am His Beloved and so I'm happy!
*My husband. He really accepts me for who I am.
*My darling little girls. They make me smile so much! They have a future of hope and destiny.
*Our house which is a home. This home enables us to have freedom to serve the Lord more. It's a refuge. It's our home base. So thankful God didn't allow us to move like I asked.
*Our vehicles, both of which were a gift! Wow, I know!
*The renovations and stuff we have gotten to do to the house this year, some out of necessity, some just because it would make our lives more functional and easier. The newest one is a fence. We don't have a backyard so the kids play in the front and I can't leave them alone for a minute; it's stressful. Now we are having a fence made...It's beautiful and a perfect corral for kids, friends, dog, whatever!
*Our extended family being near and wonderful. My mom watching the kids once a week so I can work.
*Oh, that reminds me...My church and part time job worship leading! Yes! God has surprised me with this blessing and I am growing in several ways through this opportunity to do more with music.
*Homeschooling, FAITH, and My Father's World curriculum.
*Knowing that in my least favorite season (because when I'm cold, my muscles get really tense and my skin gets really awful) I have a warm bed, home, hat, gloves, and coats!
*My friends!!! I am thankful to have so many people I can turn to for prayer, fun, talks, love! Old friends, new friends, they are from the Lord.
*And last...but not, well, yes, probably least, but still nice...Jack got a new computer and that means this laptop stays home now!! So great! That's why I've been blogging more, and it's a nice little luxury to have it when I want/need it.

So, happy belated Thanksgiving, and I pray we all remain in AWE and remembrance of all God has done for us.

Forgiveness

I think that in accepting ourselves, our pasts, our ups and downs, we grow a greater capacity to accept others. As much as it goes against my natural grain, I am learning to look at my own life and my own failures and what I lack personally and just kinda say, "Yep. That's what it is." With a bit of humor, with a bit of hope, and with a lot of acceptance of the fact that not every loose end is going to be tied up nicely and not every relationship is going to stay strong and not every goal is going to be realized. We can just be. And when we come to that place for ourselves, it's pretty neat how we can feel a peace and acceptance about how others have wronged or disappointed or even sinned against us.

In forgiveness, it doesn't mean we are agreeing with those people or saying we are happy those situations happened. It isn't saying, "Oh, I understand why you did that" or even "It's okay." Forgiveness, I think, just means that we are letting those people, ourselves, even our judgement toward God Himself, off the hook. We hold people up on this hook, we do. Call it a grudge, call it self protection, but we have people on our hook. And at any point, we can let them off of it. We can say, "I no longer condemn you for that" and we take them to and leave them with our Father who will deal with them however He sees fit. Wouldn't you want someone to do that for you? Set you free from their hook, with all the baggage, miscommunication, events preceding the conflict, that came with it? For someone to take me off their hook, love me despite what I may deserve, and carry me to Jesus in the privacy of their own prayer life and let Him deal with me how He sees fit, my hands off...I think that's Kingdom living.

Also, in forgiveness, I think we come to the place where we realize we are capable of just about anything. Given the right (or should I say wrong) circumstances, upbringing, indoctrination, pain, sleeplessness, and the list could go on, I must realize I am capable of the very worst. I'm capable of thinking I deserve something more than someone else and there selfishness breeds...I have no love, no patience, no kindness without the Lord constantly being my Source...I can be angry, prideful, and hateful, and not only can I be, I have been! This realization that we all come to, friends, is called humility.  It's called agreeing with the reality of what is. It's not giving up on being who God has called us to be, it's simply living in gratefulness and awareness of His grace... and our daily need for it.

Life is just too short. Sometimes you just have to say, "Bless your heart...I'm moving on...Thanks for this opportunity for me to learn about giving grace from the Well of grace I've received."

My Whole Life

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! We had a beautiful day with family. One of our family traditions at the Mulhalls (my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, there are about 80 of us) is to stand in a big circle and say what we are thankful for. Selah thanked God for her parents, Grandy and GP, and her little sister, and said her life was wonderful. I thanked God for His Word, which has been such a foundation and refuge this year, for my solid and awesome parents, and for my husband and girls! Jack thanked God for how real He has been to us through the passing of his mom. And Yemi sort of took the cake...She said, "And I bless You, God, for my whole life."

And I bless You, God, for my whole life.

I get very swayed by my feelings. By my tasks and chores. By my frustrations about the house being dirty, my allergies going berserk, feeling too busy or too lazy. Feeling too alone or too overwhelmed with people, making plans and lists in hope of not making the same mistake twice. I often think about my past 34 years, or the 20 I remember well, and I feel sad about mistakes and some relationships, but I also feel so thankful for the stability and chances that I've had. I look ahead and think all kinds of crazy thoughts, like "I want to adopt more kids and focus just on raising a family" or the polar opposite, "Let's send these kids to school and we'll embark on a whole new world of work." Sure, these thoughts are real...these feelings are real...but they just aren't that important. My "whole life" just is what it is. And it is so much to hold deep gratitude for.

I can be thankful for the craziness...the times I lose balance...the running back to Truth...forgiveness and understanding of loved ones...new starts...what is instead of just what will be. I feel a renewed hope to just be what I am where I am, and I needed that. I tend to be an overachiever, and I need to take a deep breath every day and see what God has put in my lap and not try to create more. I made a list the other day (of course) of the basic necessities of my day. Since then, I haven't fulfilled all of them in one day but I truly believe that for my mental, emotional, spiritual, social, physical health, I should prioritize these things most days of the week. It's going to take some work and self-control, but in order to have the life I believe God wants for me, I have to put first things first. Those things are my "what is"...and everything else just may not be meant to be.

I bless you, God, for my whole life.

Christ In Us

So...I am finding myself awake and angry in the middle of the night. In the past couple of hours, I have prayed and poured my heart out to God. I'm too tired to cry and I'm sure my words are more like knowing glances. He hears and sees it all...what a sweet God we have. And I sense in return that right after a time of intensity with the Lord and family (such as this past week, with Jack's Mom's passing) this is when the enemy is going to attack. He is attacking with several familiar swords...but I have some pretty decent armor myself, and I'm writing right now to remind myself of this fact.

I come to this place, in the face of my enemy: I will choose to love and I will rely on the Lord for that love. When someone asks me for apples, I will go to the Lord and get said apples and bring them to that person. So many times I have thought I knew what "God's will" was for me, and I would come up with neat ways to "serve Him." But right now, even in this place of sadness and raw honesty, I know His will, really, is that I learn to love in the most difficult situations with the most difficult people. If I can't choose to do this in the private realm, what hope is there for believers like me out there trying to love and serve in the public realm?

Is it fake? No, it's Christ in us. It's choosing to not live by feelings. It's choosing to somehow care about someone else more than we care about ourselves. Sure, there are boundaries...and this choice weighs on a person, it's really heavy sometimes to bear up under...and it has to be chosen every new day, sometimes many times a day. So many scriptures come to mind the very moment I begin to think I don't have to choose to love: Accept one another, bear with one another, forgive one another...The alternative is not an option.

I put on my helmet of salvation to protect my thoughts. No self pity allowed, no "I deserve..." allowed. I put on my breastplate of righteousness. Fill my heart with love to overflowing, that will be my protection. An overflowing cup physically cannot allow anything else to take residence.
I put on my belt of truth.
I put on my shoes of the gospel of peace!  I will live out the gospel of peace.
I take up my shield of faith.
I take up my sword which is the Word of God.
Amen. Thank You, Jesus.

Give Me Jesus

Early this morning, Jack came home and woke me, telling me that his mom had went to be with Jesus. On Monday, the doctors had made it clear that her body couldn't take anymore and that we'd need to say our goodbyes. We took the kids with us and not knowing whether or not she could hear us, we poured our hearts out to her. And after we had all spoken, tears running down our faces, we heard her voice. She said, "I love you...I'm gonna be alright." A day or two later, she was talking more--even asked for tea, her favorite, which her dear son was willing to go buy an entire gallon of :)--but we knew, she was going to be alright in a different way than ever before.

I think I can speak for Jack, even though he has more of a grief process to go through than I do, and say that we are truly amazed by the presence of the Lord, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Paul in the New Testament speaks so much about death...let me paraphrase a bit. He says: "If there was no resurrection of Christ and therefore no resurrection of believers, how pitiful are we? Do we really just have hope for this life? No way, Hosea. Death, the worst thing the world can throw at us, is actually total victory for us. We are going to cross the finish line of this life and at that moment stand in the unspeakably perfect presence of Jesus. Don't you feel your body groaning in this tent? Your new body is waiting, at the right time. So live your life with Jesus here while you wait and you'll have no regrets when your time here is done." And as Jesus said in the book of John: "I have gone ahead to prepare a place for you! Oh, how do you get there, you ask? Well, no one comes to the Father except through me. I am the only way Home."

So, I just want to say--If you are reading this today and you aren't sure what it means to live your life with Jesus here, or when someone dies you do not have anything to hold onto, or if you aren't sure that you will go to Heaven, will you please email me and let me hear your heart? There is Life ahead, and I want you to have it confidently and joyfully. I don't know how to make it through life without Jesus...and He died so that none of us have to!

lyndsaytaylor@mac.com :)

Potential

I have had a good day under the circumstances. It is abundantly clear that when there is anxiety or waiting or things just being out of the ordinary, I will either eat a lot or clean a lot. Thankfully today was the cleaning a lot option. The last time I cleaned this much I was nesting and was rewarded with a baby a few days later. :) I think I'm not going to get anything this time besides clean windows and a raked yard.

But, actually, I'd like to take a minute and talk about a different kind of work going on...

Jack's mother is still in the hospital, and family is surrounding her. She has been in for about a week now. I know there is a process her body, mind, and spirit is going through right now...and everyone sitting by her side is going through a process of their own as well. They are working through things they may have never taken time to work through. Now is the time to do this: the hard work of acceptance, surrender, gratefulness, forgiveness. We aren't used to things happening outside of our control. Usually if we care enough to do something, we can get it back under our reign somehow. But there are certain things in life that just totally strip us bare and we realize we have just a few things that matter, and even those things are not ours. Our life that we feel pretty sure we are entitled to isn't even ours, so these processes we have to go through in grief are sometimes things we have to work out with loved ones but more often they are things we have to work out with God Himself.

We have such frustration, disappointment, and anger when we don't get what we think we have coming to us and I think the root behind it is that we can't stand to see potential unmet. There is something in us that just cries out, "That's not fair! That life could have been...that life should have been..." We have an expectation of what a good life should look like. There's nothing wrong with feeling this way. Perhaps we feel this way because we were created in the image of God and He also cherishes potential.  But we get misguided into thinking the good life must happen to us here. We say that we know this isn't all there is, but...

I was reading to Selah from 1 Corinthians 15 this week, and I have read it again and again to myself. It says a seed must go into the ground and die before it can get its new form...a little brown apple seed, through giving up it's little brown apple seed form, becomes a large and strong apple tree with big, tall branches and bright, red fruit. I love seeing good thriving fruit trees! And each seed God ever made has it's own personal, unique potential of what it's "new body" is going to look like. The same is true with us. What will our form look like once our "seed", our shell, is laid down once and for all? I think it will look like the potential we never reached, the potential we could never obtain in this sinful, broken world.

What if we made that our new expectation: That we will be seeds ready to take on our new form when the season is right, that we will expect and allow those we love to also get to be clothed in something new.  Something imperishable.  Something with no barriers or boundaries.  Something right smack in the middle of the visible presence of the Lord forever and ever and ever, if they are in Christ. 

Knowing this...believing this...rejoicing in this...it doesn't make us stop missing someone. God made us human. We're gonna hurt. But the joy and the sorrow are equally deep. They are equally deep. And we can handle it. We have the potential to hold both at the same time.

Hallelujah

We are in some hard but necessary days right now as we pray, love, and release  my husband's mother to Jesus. The hope of Heaven, the truth of Paul's teachings in Corinthians, the suffering that we wouldn't want her to continue to endure...her words to us and our opportunity to offer our words to her...we don't skip the grieving process just because these blessed things are present. But we do forge through it with peace and purpose.

So I was writing a song before this all began...and now I have my verse two. Verse one was about the difficulty of this world--but having Jesus--and now verse two is about leaving this world--and having Jesus.

Hallelujah

Putting out fires, calling out liars, falling apart, breaking my heart
I'll come in, I'll come in

Tired of talking, never resolved, arms not so careful breaking my fall
Come in, I'll come in

And stay til I can say-

Hallelujah, Your steady love for me, Your all consuming peace
Hallelujah, Your friendship magnified, the Refuge of my life
Hallelujah, this world shows me how differently You love
Hallelujah

So I could question, turn and blame
But I could never separate from You, or You from me


You are my Healing, You are my Hope
When I am broken, where else would I go?
I go Home...

And stay til I can say-

Hallelujah, Your steady love for me, Your all consuming peace
Hallelujah, Your friendship magnified, the Refuge of my life
Hallelujah, this world shows me how differently You love
So Hallelujah

A New Day

Strangely enough, although it is still on my mind, I don't feel like writing a blog entitled "A Sad Day Part Two"! Who would? Sounds really sad.

So I will just talk about my sweet little girls and maybe later will talk about what I was going to write.

What is going on with these little chicas?

Well...Selah is seven years old and just a couple months away from finishing up the 2nd grade curriculum in homeschool. She loves homeschool, homeschool friends, field trips, sleeping late, and being home with me...but at the same time, she oftens says she misses school. I understand. She's certainly an extrovert and likes to get dressed in cute outfits every day and see friends. We are open to whatever we need to do, and praying for what is best for her. I love being with her. That's my number one reason for homeschooling. :) The 2nd reason is that she is getting to learn at her own pace, and that's a great situation. She pretty much knows her multiplication tables, reads several books a day on the 6th grade level, does Science games and experiments online by herself. If she went back to school, I fear she may be a bit bored and certainly wouldn't have the chance to hang behind or fly ahead.

And Yemi. Oh, sweet Yemi. She is a hurricane. A handful. A sweet, sweet mess. She's four years old and she is going to preschool 3 days a week. It's her favorite thing ever! She just loves life, and she loves making people laugh. I was reminded this week that I MUST write down the funny things the girls are saying because I will forget them. Gotta get out that journal that I haven't written in since Disney! Yemi never stops singing, humming, or talking, and she's usually in her own little world. Therefore when a task is assigned, it takes some work to get her attention and get her on track! We say FOCUS a lot. Sometimes I'm just about to discipline her and I see this look on her face that says, "Momma, my brain. Have mercy on my brain." I don't think she has a defiant bone in her body, she's just in left field most of the time and doesn't remember to do what she's told. (BLESS HER HEART!) My favorite thing right now that she does is call the dog. She pats her knee and says, "Come here boy"-never "Teddy", always "Boy"- and when he comes in full force she giggles and squeals and gets in trouble for having him chase her down the hallway. The first thing she said to him when she met him last month was, "We don't lick people! No licking people, boy!"

I don't like how busy I've been the past couple days. When Yemi came to "help" me get groceries today, she said, "Is this Yemi and Mommy time?"  I said, "Yes, I guess you could call it that." She said, "So you're not going to be busy, you're just going to be with me?" OUCH, that smarts. I get it. I get the message. Not sure exactly what to do about it, but message received...and thank you!

Sad Day Part One

So this morning, I woke up and told Selah: I don't even know who the President is going to be! So I googled it, and for some reason, I burst into tears. I know others who would have burst into tears if the vote had gone the other way, but I didn't see myself as someone who would cry over this. It's not like if someone else had won, the issues that I cared about would have been automatically resolved or even resolved at all.

Anyway, so why did I cry? Two reasons I have figured out throughout the day. One here, and another in the next blog. (Trying to keep them shorter!)

One, it was a reminder that no matter who is in the White House or the Supreme Court, this place isn't our Home. Waking up to a new administration (or the knowledge of a new one in January) wasn't going to change the fact that God's Kingdom has not come yet. We pray that God's will will be done, that His Kingdom will come, on earth as it is in Heaven. But is that really going to come through government? I highly doubt it, at least not in full. *

But His Kingdom, the way of life He has called us to, is something His Church has the responsibility of living out and bringing to earth. I think this means that Christ followers need to know the Word of God well and have a growing relationship with Him so they can be light and salt here...to the point of setting aside whatever other goals and desires we have for our time on earth. We should be different, but I think we miss the mark when we think those differences are mainly and merely external. The Kingdom of God is how we act, how we treat people, what characteristics of God we show!

*Just to clarify: I believe it does matter that we vote for people who stand for Biblical values as we understand them, if we can find such a person, because they are supposed to be our representative and we should certainly make our voice heard. We just have to realize that in itself is not fulfilling our responsibility of bringing "Kingdom" living to this place!

Election Day

I feel like I have personally turned a corner in regard to disagreeing with people about certain morals, views, standards, candidates, etc. There have been the "ugly words" people, that quite frankly anybody with any sense doesn't listen to or take seriously. There have been the "sweet but meaningless words" people, whose efforts to keep the peace by having no convictions whatsoever leave me feeling a little confused. There are people who are genuinely good at hearing opposing sides and not feeling upset about it, who are respectful and can have a good old debate and then laugh about a new topic together five minutes later. Then there was me...and many others like me...that have to remind themselves to breathe during conflict.

I am so passionate about certain things, and I've never been good at understanding differences of opinion on some of the more serious issues...

Anyway, all that to say, through digging in (instead of running away) and reading, praying, and talking with people who hold differing views on things from the time of the "Chick-fil-A incident" to now, I have changed. My stomach still kinda plunges, but I feel like I can respect people who feel and believe differently than me. I always would have loved those people, meaning I wouldn't treat them differently or talk about them badly, but I may have wanted some distance.  But now I feel like it's important to realize the lives people have lived up to this moment in time and what makes their perspective their perspective. I think there's room for all of us, and God will be the judge. I still think it's extremely important to say out loud where I stand, at appropriate times, but I don't think it's extremely important for me to proclaim myself as "right".

Here's some lyrics from one of my newer songs:


"I'm painting a picture of who we are
a stroke of acceptance the hardest part
'cause I don't want love to become a lost art on me...

We're watching the Master create
He's digging His hands in the hardest of clay
and I've been set free to be me
and I offer this grace to you...

'cause I've seen the beauty of love
my longest list of all I should fix wiped off
this thing called love doesn't work how i thought
but still its enough
I'm learning to love..."