in the middle of the night

who knew that there was a whole world of activity in the middle of the night? not me, i am a morning person. i am that person who falls asleep in any movie that carries on past 9 PM. for those of you who are night people, you know that a whole world exists after 10 PM, 12 AM, and even later. i still think all of you are crazy.

against my will i find myself awake at some of your crazy hours because emma is teething. last night, i found myself halfway down the hall before i woke up and realized emma was screaming. poor little girl. sadly i am so disoriented, most of the time, the best i can do is stand over her bed and stare at her while trying desperately to think of how to help her. thankfully shawn, a card carrying member of the night people's society, comes in with all his wherewithall and says something like "maybe we should give her some Motrin" "good idea" i mutter.

a few months ago some young guys were walking down our street around 2 in the morning yelling at each other at the top of their lungs. emma must have been crying as well because those two sounds joined together in my head and i started dreaming that those boys were abandoning a baby in the bushes in my front yard. the next thing i knew i was standing in our doorway yelling "WHERE IS THE BABY" at the loud boys on our street. i have a vague recollection of one of the boys saying "he is fine" meaning the other guy was fine, to which i yelled "I DON'T CARE ABOUT HIM, WHERE IS THE BABY?".

it was when i started yelling that shawn woke up. ah yes, the adventure of being married to Keri, anywhoo...within short order shawn is standing faithfully at my side saying "keri, there is no baby, leave the boys alone". by then the boys were long gone and i am pretty sure they will avoid this street and the crazy lady who lives on it in the future.

all of this to say that if you are a night person, you can have it. give me mornings and sunrises, a good cup of coffee and a full day stretching out in front of me.

and for the record, shawn is going to put a lock on the door that i can't reach in the middle of the night.

as if that will stop me.

funny man.

i am willing

Jesus was approached by a man with leprosy and the man simply says "Jesus, if you are willing, make me clean" Jesus says "I am willing". Matthew 8:1-3

it just struck me today. He is willing.

He is willing to reach out to my bruised emotions, to my unbelieving heart, to the places of my life that have been eroded by the leprosy of the world we live in.

He is willing.

isn't it a great question that the man asked? i wonder if he thought he was being polite. "if you don't mind, it is a bit uncomfortable to have my fingers falling off, it would be wonderful if you could find it in your heart to take a moment and shake some of your kingdom power on me. you are awesome, i know you can, but will you? will you for me?

for me, i suppose it is not so much a physical thing. it is more an internal job and i don't want to be a whiner, you know, someone who plays the victim. but yes, i struggle with unbelief, fear and anxiety. it may not be a disease in my flesh, but it is eating my heart alive. it kills the faith i want to have and reduced my desperation into a polite little request from one who has forgotten in the midst of it that He is for me. 

I can see Him. smiling, reaching, a light in His eyes. "Yes, I am willing. and i will cure more than your body. I will remind you that I care about you - and I haven't forgotten about you" There is no rebuke, not with this one.

thanks Lord for the sweet reminder that each of us are in your heart and you know how to love each of us, right where we are.

"they got me!'

we love the series "band of brothers". it is an amazing mini-series about WWII. One of the characters, a writer and a man who hated war, gets shot somewhere along the line. when it happened he yelled out "they  got me". you definitely get the impression that he had practiced what he would say in the event of getting shot. "they got me" was not in his plans. he was actually quite embarrassed about it, like he was in an old spaghetti western and a guy named "black-eyed pete" got him good.

anyway this is the memory that came flooding into my mind the other day when Shawn and I were walking out of a restaurant. He had Emma and i had all the stuff. as i walk up to the car i hear shawn yell (really loud) "My Knee!!!" i turn around, and in my memory this is all in slow motion, to see shawn stumbling to the ground doing all he can to not land with his full weight on our daughter.

i have a horrible habit- i laugh at the most inopportune times. i wish i could stop, honestly i do.

my husband just sacrificed his knee- threw all of his body weight onto it- to make sure that emma's little organs didn't get squished. i wish, in retrospect, that i could have felt more like a MASH nurse, that rushed to his side and did something STAT. instead i grabbed Emma, had to turn around because i couldn't stop laughing.

this is very embarrassing for me.

mostly because when he yelled out "my knee!"and then started to roll back and forth on the ground,  all i could hear was "they got me!" and it felt like the whole world instantly turned into a john wayne movie.

shawn is fine, emma is fine. and i did truly care about his well being in between fits of laughter.

i am grateful that he knows that i am like this - he didn't even get mad at me. good man.

the mom's club

i was at costco tonight - a little diaper run, they are on sale - i went by myself because emma is teething and was cranky pants all day. it is not normal for me to be relieved for a little alone time, usually she is such a pleasant little girl. but today, i was grateful to get in the car and drive around with no one depending on me for anything. once i got to costco, i noticed another lady with her little girl. a little knowing smile passed between us. two moms.

there was a time about two years ago when i melted down - another month with no baby - and i remember telling Shawn with tears streaming down my face that it felt like there was an exclusive club for moms and i couldn't find the door and no amount of money would get me in. it was a terrible feeling. to sit at gathering after gathering where the main topics were about birthing, teething, bowel movements, and general celebrations about every achievement of all the kids. it wasn't that i minded the conversations, i was happy to hear all of the fun news, i just had nothing to contribute. there was no common ground.

i hated that feeling of total isolation.

the worst part was that every friend and family member would have done anything to get us into that season. but it wasn't time yet. and for whatever reason, it was ours to wait.

and so we did. we waited and cried, every month that we thought there was hope, we would ride the rollercoaster. maybe...maybe this time. and then no. not this time.

but then, one day, out of nowhere, a phone call. a chance. a maybe.

and then a few months later another phone call: "we are on our way to the hospital - meet us there" two hours later, a miracle was passed into my arms. and my love for her is fierce. so strong it rips me apart sometimes. it is like she was birthed in my heart. my heart was her womb and she was birthed there in those months when our answer was no, not this time.

it was a different kind of labor. i didn't require stitches, and i didn't have post-partum, but i birthed her, of this i am sure. it was the birthing of my heart.

so, teething or not, i am grateful for my little girl. and i can say now, i am grateful for the waiting. it has made everything on this side sweeter. my daily selfishness is swallowed in the gratitude of her every breath.

emma means "complete, whole". when we named her that it was a faith statement that she would be lacking nothing. instead, she came to complete me, my marriage and admit me one ticket into that exclusive club: i am her mom.

too serious

i decided today that sometimes i am too serious in this blog. i shall work on sharing more lighthearted things as well as my "deep end of the pool" thoughts.

let's start by saying that there are times that i come home and shawn is playing his favourite video game - in an earlier post i had mentioned he was a little flying man with a propeller on his head. well, now his little man is wearing a penguin suit trying to forge through and icy wasteland. i cant imagine why this is more interesting than talking to me.

there is not much to report today - other than shawn is a penguin and i am trying to convey happier thoughts. so i will just say that i had a lovely day, we picked out Emma's dedication dress today. and i am pretty sure there has never been nor will there ever be a lovelier little Emma Harvey in the whole wide world.

i think i shall find a way to capture my husbands attention now. goodnight.

a requiem for gratitude

editors note: woman on a rant, about to appear here -

how has it happened? when did it happen? didn't our parents teach us to say "thank you?", to bring an apple to the teacher? when did it leave? how did entitlement swallow courtesy? i find it painful, hurtful, when you throw your heart and soul into something and it is left like a dissonant chord hanging there, waiting for someone to come along and say "thank you for making my world a little more beautiful, even for five minutes"

am i selfish? that we should do things without thanks is a given. of course, i know this.

i don't get, nor do i expect, a standing ovation for sweeping, doing grocery shopping, changing that poopy diaper and cleaning the outfit that it spoiled. i don't expect it. but when it is out of the way...extra, you know heart and soul poured into it kind of stuff, don't you think there should be a little moment, an exchange that says "your sacrifice was worth the effort".

just so this doesn't feel like a guilt trip,  i am not meaning the people i counsel or mentor - i feel their gratitude in the way they live their lives. i have a special grace to not need any special awards for that.

it is just the ins and outs. the things we do that take a special effort, and it is met with an attitude of indifference and familiarity rules with the expectation, "well, that is just what you do". it makes me want to say "well, what if i didn't?"

did Jesus feel this way when He healed 10 people and only one came back to say "thank you"? where are the other nine? well, they were probably thinking "well, Jesus, you are the messiah, that is just what you do." but He wanted thanks. and we ought to give it to Him.

i am not in a messianic delusion here, i know He deserves the praise and my little offerings are ridiculous in comparison, but i am grieved by the lack of gratitude in our hearts as a culture.

it reminds me of a time when i was in the bulk section of the grocery store and i walked by a lady who was outraged that the store had run out of prunes - on and on she went, and i of course, was thinking "yes, you need them" - but there she was tearing a strip off of this poor fellow who was simply trying to re-stock the peanuts. once she was gone, i told the guy that people should travel to other countries and see what it feels like to be in line all morning for a loaf of dry bread only to reach the front of the line to realize it was gone for the day. no bread for their family that day. too bad. yes, that happens. and we, so full, so satiated have the nerve to be angry over prunes being out of stock.

anyway, tonight i will search my heart on my bed and repent for the areas of my heart where i am ungrateful, because God knows i am sometimes. and tomorrow i will continue my campaign to all within the sound of my voice to acknowledge others efforts, great or small with a simple "thank you" - that costs me nothing, but could mean the world to them.

rant over. thanks for listening.

say to this mountain

shawn and i hiked up teapot hill the last two mondays. don't let the name fool you - yes, it is a hill, but it is a steep one, at least for me. why i do this, i don't know. but there i find myself, donned with hiking shoes and all ready to climb and huff and puff my way up this hill. there is no little trail that leads to the steep part, it is steep right from the parking lot and it doesn't level out until you are about 15 minutes into it. i dont know why i always feel closer to God when i am out there - maybe because every breath feels like a gift. first i lecture myself on being out of shape and then i just have to concentrate on putting one foot in front of another.

so once it did level out, we stopped for a minute to catch my breath - shawn didn't need to catch his, he is a stud. but while we are standing there, me, panting like a dog on a hot day - a lady RUNS up and past us. as she passes, i say "good job!" and she replies "I am 50, everyday i can do this is a gift". that's right folks, 50. and i feel like such a withering reed.

break over. breath caught. we proceed. and then i start thinking about the verse when Jesus says - "if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain 'be thou removed'" and i begin to wonder - is the mountain moved? or are we just in better shape to get past it?

maybe there are times when the mountain moves, a temporary barrier like a car when you are trying to cross the street, but, from my own experience, i think i just get better at climbing over it. issues that used to be mountains have become more like speed bumps. but other issues that i have right now in my life still feel like mountains. history shows that even these mountains will shrink and i will be able to step right over them once they have taught me the lessons i needed to learn from them.

so, once again, it is all a matter of perspective. a hill that is hard for me to walk up in my thirties, is the mountain that lady can run up in her 50's. it is simply a matter of endurance and discipline. the more endurance and discipline, the smaller the mountain seems, the easier it is is to climb. when my faith is disciplined and i have learned to persevere, i can leap over mountains that used to stop me dead in my tracks.

ok, so don't tell shawn that i am getting inspired while we are hiking, he will find bigger hills just to see what i come up with.