A Serious Commitment

….for almost 2! years I have been walking.  Not just a little stroll in the park, mind you.  I have been WALKING in the rain, in the snow, in the cold wind, after a good day, after days that hit so hard that I could barely breathe, while I was pregnant, and while I was greeen with morning sickness, and with muscle aches and pains, and when I was in LABOR! I have been walking for 1.5 years…every night…5 miles a night after the kiddoes are in bed and with a sitter.

The police around town know us…

The people that I see in the supermarket point and say “hey!  its them! and boy is that baby getting big!”

Do I know these people?  Nope.

But I have prayed for them.  Round and round our town past their houses and cars …with a friend from Church and my dh.   We have been walking, and talking and praying and trying to make sense of our world, our vocations, our gifts, our unique calls, and whenever possible…to laugh…out loud! ….for a loooong time….YES! Even in LABOR! (although I am sure it made our friend a little uneasy as I thought the laughter would just evict that little man 2 miles in the middle of no where..and me gasping for breath as my stomach shook up and down and my eyes rained tears for the unexpected joy of friendship!   I tell you, that boy should have been named Issaic!

Today we tested our commitment a bit…

We followed the Letter Carrier’s creed.  We put that to the test.

Neither rain nor gloom of night kept us from our appointed rounds. AKA: “THE Walk”

The rain (I should clarify that, the word DELUGE comes close) was unabaiting, coming sideways…the wind pushed us off course (ok, so there was no wind)

The first thought I had was rather girly of me….“Oh no, my hair!” and “Thank God I didn’t wear a white shirt!” But, once I was in that shower for about 5 minutes and nary a bar of soap in sight,  I started wondering how hard God was laughing….pride be dammed, I decided.  I was going to ‘test the waters a bit’.  We walked on…we took that walk God was leading us on.  We didn’t want to stop.  We wanted to stay strong and finish strong.

…no hat, no raingear, no umbrella to block the view(not that I could keep my eyes open too much).  The puddles turned into rivers (and some nice swimming holes).  Something funny began to happen as the icy rivulets seeped through our soggy clothing and down our necks.  We lost our stress of the day…we lost many years and tried every forgotten yearning of our childhood.  “let’s check the depth of this puddle now…!!” We learned how to play again.

Can you imagine what people were saying??  Here it was 9 something at night…. “why are you doing that??!”

“Because we can!” (and because our kids weren’t with us.)

Truth be told, I had to imagine that I was my 10yo son to figure out what to do with those puddles.

I have to say our friend from church has been such a bad influence on us.  No matter what the stress, what weirdness this world has thrown at us during the last year and a half, his laughter has made it all so much more bearable.

We thought many a day “HOW can we do THIS?”

I think that the correct answer is what we told people in the rain…

“because we CAN!”

and

“This is COMMITTMENT, Baby!”

These beautiful pieces of art work are among my favorites by Morgan Weistling:  Walking With God and The Promise

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Cleanin up my heart….

Darn those kids!  They show you so many things about yourself that you have to work on.  I am so old…(ok I only feel old)…that I find I want to throw a temper tantrum like a three year old when it comes to too much change.  What is wrong with me? 

Growing pains.

The house is getting too small…What’s wrong?  Weeeelll….I need to seriously re-look at my surroundings and declutter.  (and include a novena for a larger home 😉 and try not to feel claustrophobic while we are all in the same room.

My little kids are now getting to be BIG kids…the little kid noise…down there, has become the NOISE up HERE and over my head!

I feel tired…what’s odd with that?  Well,  I am doing so much at once trying to “better myself”…

…that the inner me…again

…wants that darned tantrum.  It is begging for some GOOD chocolate now...

(woah…hope that isn’t addictive behavior there)

…and the inner me says..who cares?  I WANT IT NOW

….hmm inner-problem child??

I can’t tell you how much I have grown in the past year.  God has had His hand on my back propelling me through the last year saying “Good job (or read Job as in the Old Testament), but you need to be holier…faster…THEY need you to be…how about this wonderful method of sanctification….the refiners fire“

gulp…the “they” is my family.  We had so many changing needs this year…lots of unexpected medical bills, a new baby, new growth in body (13yo ds is now 5ft8 1/2″!!) mind and soul.   We have to make do with less money, although we are eating more (see last sentence), and the bills all around are so much larger??  I needed heroic virtue to do my job.  I would rather prefer just plain virtuous now and then, just for the break!  Heroic virtue takes so much out of you…eventually you grow into a new normal…but you FEEL like giving in or giving up juuust before the JOY hits (yes Job, you have learned this lesson before 😉

I have learned SOOOO much.  I can’t tell you how creative I can be …even in the kitchen.  With a few onions, some garlic, cilantro, lime and ginger…..think cilantro pesto-type sauce…and herbs are my best-friends..they can add pizazz to any bean to make it sing for joy!  (I finally made my peace with beans after many fouled attempts, although dh claims that it wasn’t THAT awful…)

Dh is praying the rosary with us now… I can tell you one thing, the evil one that deserves no name, hates it.   he lets me know here an there that I am on the track where I need to be…LOL…those unprovoked attacks are a dead give-away….and it only took me some thirty some odd years to learn that trick.

I have good days and bad days.  Three gallons of tears today have passed and later I can tell you I feel a little better.  God is asking me to change so many things at once that sometimes the lack of “MY” control bothers me and I want to do something impulsive…like delete this blog…or paint the livingroom red(oh, only 1 wall over the fireplace…)..or scour clean the basement steps (to which the kids replied:

“Wow, I never saw her do that before!” …ouch!

(btw, the only impulsive thing I did was the stairs…not the other 2…)

…and  I am praying like mad, even though the words are dry as toast in my mouth and I can’t pay attention no matter how hard I try.  I figure that I couldn’t be doing anything better at the moment so praying done however badly is better than none…

…and I am praying through my work.  My work comes close to an escapist job but it isn’t…I am finding God there.  I have to make hard choices de-cluttering our learning spaces…it is a penance and a mortification that frees me…oddly enough.    I thank God for the gift of things even though I cannot afford to purchase the curricula that I really want to get this year.  I have to rely on the library even though I hate the looks they give me when I am there…we are just plain odd ( I mean why be so picky about a book about the life of a plant?  Umm…the book that you have is rather..boring and the one I am looking for isn’t?)… another mortification…arg  So it looks like I need to be HEROICALLY creative…even with our curricula!

…and I am smiling at the baby a lot!  He is so funny and sweet and innocent and he gives unconditional love…even while he is pinching my skin reaaaal hard trying to get my attention while I blog….

so I am off to do the right thing…cuddle my little man…and pray and work..and pray and work and find peace amongst the chaos of trying to put my heart and home in order.

what did I start off saying??  oh yeah…kids.  They show you the things about yourself that you have to work on. Ds(6) came up to me as I was upset today.  He wrapped his arms around me. “It’s ok mommy.  You are my best girl.  Now, do you want me to show you how to play?  I will teach you how to play with my cars. Don’t worry, Mom.  I will go slow!” The lesson I learned is this:  I can’t get so caught up in my own inner struggles and growth that I forget what is important…passing time with a child.  I think I learned more in my son’s arms today than I have in a long time.  Through the heart of a son, this foolish woman learned much today.

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