in pursuit of happy Joy
/"What makes you happy?"
She asked it almost urgently, this dear old friend of mine. "What makes you feel like you did your fourth year in college, when you loved what you were doing so much that you couldn't wait to get out of bed in the morning, that you were so happy during the day it made you sort of sad when it was time to sleep? What fills your day with Happy? I know we talk about joy--that deep down sense of joy that rises above happy and unhappy--but I want to know about happy right now. What makes you smile and sing?"
Good Question.
Shortly after that glorious year--the year I taught in Charlottesville, graduated, got married, found myself expecting a baby--there was the Year of Knowing. I've tried so hard to tell about that year, tried to share the feeling, the knowing that comes with a cancer diagnosis in one's twenties. Things stand in stark relief. You really don't fret the small things. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt what makes you happy and what brings you joy. You understand legacy and you want to shed blessings everywhere. And you don't waste time. At least that's the way I felt.
It's still the way I feel.
Things that make me want to jump out of bed in the morning:
- quiet time with Jesus
- Morning Prayer with Sarah snuggled against me
- a new picture book to share with my girlies
- a good discussion about plots and characters with my big kids
- unhurried time to create in the kitchen
- a well turned phrase
- an excellent photograph
- a long conversation over a good bottle of wine
- the Oxford comma ;-)
- the challenge of understanding and helping to edit college papers
- being there in the stands when they play
- tutus--and the girls who wear them
- knitting, ever so slowly
- sewing, but nothing very complicated
I love these things. They make me happy and they bring me joy. These are things He calls me to do. To nurture. To make a home--in a place and in my heart.
The problem is that my list so often collides with the real world. And the times I try to tell them, to say, please know that isn't worth the breath it took to complain about it and/or that is so very worth your effort in making it happen, they shake their heads. Perhaps they don't understand. Perhaps they simply don't want to stop and think because it can be a bit uncomfortable.
It matters not. I see it all in stark relief. It's a sixth sense. Even if no one else sees it.
That's not exactly true. Mike does.
Otherwise, though, they all cock their heads to one side, look at me quizzically, and wander away.
Crazy lady. Crazy life.
Sort of alone out there with her passion to live intentionally.
But that's the crazy I bring to this space. I bring the Happy. And I bring the Joy. Sometimes, I wrestle aloud with the unhappy. Mostly though, it's that list above that finds its way here. I love those things and I like to share those things. I blog my life, as honestly as I possibly can. I bring vocation here. My vocation. My unique call. I love answering that call. I think that when it is our genuine call, we do love it. That's how He intends it.
What I don't like? I don't like the work of self-promotion. Try as I might, I can't say "Come look at my Happy!" very effectively. I don't like marketing. I don't like networking.
I love conversation!
But I don't like networking. That might be for other people, but He doesn't call me there.
So I'm happy when you find your way here, even when I haven't gone to tell you that I'm waiting. I'm happy to have this place to chronicle my thoughts and illuminate my pictures and share my Joy. And I'm over the moon when you leave comments.
I'm happy to have small ways to capture and create beauty. There is joy in beauty and it makes me happy. Pope Francis writes,
Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus.
Isn't that what life in a family is: a living, breathing, daily catechesis? Let's let it be beautiful!
I'm very glad I have this place where I can be unabashedly, head-over-heels in love with a life in pursuit of holiness for Jesus. And still. It doesn't have to look at all perfect. It's not a cooking blog, so usually there's a mistake or two for the first hour or so a recipe is posted, until someone gently points it out. It's not a knitting blog, so I'm going to tell you about my latest project for more than a month before I finish it (or not) and move on. It's not a sewing blog. My sewing time is far too short and my skills too new to emulate. It's not an advice blog. I'm not going to tell you how to live; that role will never fit. I can only share how I live: both the good decisions and the ones I regret. It's not a parenting blog, a speaker's blog, a homeschooler's blog, or even an author's blog. It's just a happy blog (mostly). Where every day, I share little of my joy and hope it meets you where you are. There's no platform, no agenda, no grand plan.
There's just me, in joyful pursuit of holy and (mostly) finding happy along the way. There are arms wide open to embrace the beauty and to reflect the Creator. There is the wholehearted endeavor to simply be a good wife and mother. There is the tenderness that comes in the moments of brokenness and sorrow. There are the dark threads of the tapestry, the ones upon which the glittering happy tones dance in joyful contrast.
And there is comfort in knowing that is all quite enough.
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November Silence
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With November comes the flurry, then the blizzard, of “holiday” exhortations: Go more, buy more, do more. At first, there are little wisps of messages, soft, light, so gentle I barely notice. Then, the storm whips into a frenzy. Soon, it’s swirling around me, making me dizzy, robbing my peace. It’s not, of course, only the end-of-year holidays that spin crazy into my life; it’s just that the holidays spin more.
It’s early November. I have a strategy and my strategy is for silence. I’m laying down the rails right now, steady sturdy tracks upon which this new habit will roll. It will be in place before the first crazy flake falls. This year, I refuse to be caught in the swirl. He will come to me in the silence. I will be certain to establish and to guard that silence vigilantly.
Our lives have become increasingly noisy. Have you noticed that? Smartphones go with us wherever we go. We’ve given permission to employers and clients and even perfect strangers to jump right up through our pockets and jangle us into their worlds. They intrude, interrupt, make noise. And we let them.
We take our music wherever we go, earbuds providing a soundtrack to our lives. With the flip of a switch, we can find ourselves in a conversation with dozens of people at once. We can share pictures, menus, and every random thought and opinion. Remember when there were only three channels on the television? Sometimes, there was nothing good on TV. So off you went to do something else, often something quiet. Now, endless channels, always something to watch. It’s noise, noise, noise. And I feel my inner Grinch rising.
God comes to us in the silence, but we increasingly are becoming a people who are afraid to be still and quiet. We can’t even be alone with our own thoughts. Next time you have to wait in a grocery line or even a line of traffic at a red light, notice how many people automatically whip out their phones. True, they aren’t making noise, but they aren’t alone with their thoughts, either. They are engaging the noise of the world. There is noise in their heads.
A friend reminded me of a time when we felt a little guilty reading a book while nursing a baby. We thought maybe that was distracted nursing. Now, moms in rocking chairs are scrolling Facebook and Instagram, illuminating the dark nights with the glare of a backlit screen. I know this, because they’re posting pictures of it. And sure, endless hours in a rocking chair can come to feel monotonous and lonely. But a few hours in a rocking chair can be a very good thing. Those are your moments to pray, Mama. Your moments to dream, to think big thoughts, or just to close your eyes and doze. I promise you will grow in those moments because God Himself will come to you in the dark and the silence and the stillness of your soul.
Silence isn’t only for nursing mothers. When was the last time you commuted without the radio on? Can you sit in the dark parking lot for the last 15 minutes of soccer practice and just watch them play without checking your phone? And really, there is nothing so sweet as the end-of-the-day silence when a restless little boy needs someone to snuggle him to sleep. Go seek your silent moments.
We look forward to the joyful season of waiting and preparing for the birth of our Savior. We invite the outdoor chill and light a fire on our hearths. We welcome the coming of the season. How shall we welcome the coming? How can we prepare our hearts for Him?
Perhaps we clear some space. We push away some of those noisy things that compete for our attention and we hush the incessant barrage of messages from out there. Together, we endeavor to bring quiet to our homes and so, to our hearts. He comes to us in the silence. Can you hear Him?
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What story are you writing?
/A week ago, my husband gathered us all in the living room to share news that would rock our world. My father-in-law, whom we had tucked into bed the previous night and left sleeping at home, had died peacefully in his sleep. I canceled all my writing obligations. The only thing I wrote all week was note or two for a eulogy for my husband to deliver.
When a family gathers at a funeral to celebrate the life of someone dear and to console one another in their grief, the words of a eulogy can have tremendous power. Eulogies are gifts, even more for the people who mourn than for the deceased. As I went about my business all last week, tending to the myriad of details I had previously never even considered, deviating so far from my original plan for the week that it was barely recognizable, I considered what makes a good eulogy—not what makes a stylistically good eulogy, what makes stirring oration, but what makes the summation of one’s life “good.” What really is a life well lived?
One thing struck me again and again. All those clichés about living like you’re dying and not being able to take it with you? They are rooted in absolute truth. My husband’s father was a few weeks shy of turning 90 when he died. He lived a long, full life of honor, serving admirably both in the military and in the marketplace. But when I took the time to ask his young adult grandchildren what lessons they learned from his life, the answers were all tucked into little and hidden moments.
I know there are people who will beg to differ, but I think a life well lived puts relationships before resumes. A life well lived is one where all of the big decisions and most of the little decisions are made with the intent to meaningfully engage in the hearts and the souls of the people God has entrusted to us. The things that matter most in life are the things that are mostly hidden from the world; the gentle movements of hearts towards one another. A life well lived is a life full of those moments.
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Often, the big decisions that frame a genuinely good life come at the expense of power or money or worldly acclaim. We have to sacrifice an opportunity or a promotion or a bigger paycheck to invest instead in a boy in a baseball cap or a marriage straining as a family expands. We choose a job closer to home, turn down the chance to travel, or perhaps we choose to stay at home and forego a paycheck altogether. The questions we ask ourselves when such decisions are to be made are questions of eternal significance and the answers often contradict the message of the world.
Did you ever stop to think what could be said about you in the first few days after you die? One of the greatest management principles going is to begin with the end in mind. I am not theologically astute enough to offer here an idea of what happens to a soul right after one dies, but I have to think that God is more concerned with the hidden moments of the heart than He is with the resume. I have to think that the peace in leaving and the peace we leave are both about the way we loved when we still had time. And I can tell you firsthand, what people remember are the ways that you loved.
One day, someone will write our eulogies. Right now, we are writing our lives. From my perspective, in the front pews, with the people experiencing great loss, the lives best lived are the ones that seize all the little opportunities offered each one of us every day to stop and have a conversation, to offer our help, to serve in the smallest, least noticed ways. What really defines the life of a truly great man are the decisions--big and small--he makes to live a life that is a genuine expression of love.
A Brand New Ending
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I remember telling a friend on my 30th birthday, “I don’t regret a thing. Nothing. I have no regrets.” I was talking particularly about parenting. I can quickly think of lots of other things in life I regretted prior to turning 30, but at that point, I genuinely had no parenting regrets. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.
That seems a lifetime ago.
Now, if someone were to pose that question, they’d better pull up a chair and plan to spend the afternoon. Now, I have a lengthy list of regrets. An “if only” list, if you will. A “How dumb could I have been” list. I do not think I am unique in this. Actually, if you have a child older than 10 and if you don’t have such a list, I invite you to contact me. I’ll pull up a chair and sit down. You can take all afternoon telling me all the things you did right and how you avoided doing something you regret.
I suppose there are those folks who look at things that aren’t such good ideas in hindsight and instead of regretting they are grateful for them. They see the lessons learned. They see the growth. They see the great potential for change. I’d like to think I do that, too. And I do. Sometimes. When it comes to my kids, though, I hate to think that my imprudence has somehow hurt them. So, while grateful for the lessons learned, I wrestle around with regret that they were learned at the expense of my children.
I try not to get stuck there. The beauty of a big family is that if a mother regrets something she did when she was young and imprudent, she might just have a chance at a redo with a younger child. The corollary is that I don’t have the luxury of doing what some of my friends are doing as they settle into an empty nest. I can’t look at the regrets, confess the mistakes, be forgiven and relax in the grace. I have more children to raise. I want to figure it out, get it right this time, perfect the process. I try to relax in the forgiveness and beg the grace for the next leg of this long journey. I long to be still and know God, but sometimes, I just keep striving and I forget that God’s got this (Ps 46:10).
A friend who understands this sense of urgency around regret and fine-tuning parenting for the benefit of the younger siblings sent me some wisdom penned by author Carl Bard. “Although no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending.” He’s right, of course.
A brand-new ending? Now there’s a hopeful prospect. How? How do I write a new ending? By holding the pen and letting God be the author.
We are sinners well practiced in examining our consciences and listing our sins so that we can confess them. But then what? Are we equally well-practiced at receiving showers of grace? Or do we think that somehow in order to get God on our sides we have to be good enough, to be free of stupid mistakes? Do we fill up with self-recrimination and think as if we must merit grace?
We don’t merit grace. Ever. We don’t have to merit grace. God promises that goodness and mercy are ours. Even in the darkest shadows, He assures us, “Indeed, goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life (Ps 23:6).” He’s pursuing us with the brand-new ending. He’s chasing after us with the story that isn’t filled with regret. This ending is the one where God sees the regretful things and offers mercy. This ending is the one where He sees the dark times and offers goodness. This is the new ending. He is hunting us down with a beautifully bound book of our lives — with the brand-new story to replace the tattered regret-filled one. And this story?
It’s entitled Grace.
