She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come. Prov 31:25

I have an amazing mother, who raised me and my sister on her own, working hard and relying on the family of church and neighbours when her own lived wide across the state. It's a testimony to faith, really, that when she was alone in a big city with two little girls, men of God came alongside her. Women of God looked after her. And we were not alone, raised by our mother, and the Church.

The Church, she is not perfect. There was a time or two when she was found terribly wanting and absent, when we were in crisis and the hand of help was withdrawn. My mother was not a widow, you see, and we were not orphans. Not in the technical sense, anyway. And though she grieved and cried, wounded, my mother held on to faith. To God. She forgave, and waited for the Church to come around.



My mother's story is the story of a million mothers. And our story, my sister's and mine, could've been told a million different ways. Runaways and lonely girls longing for a daddy's love, and now that we know better - the world knows better - we see those runaways and lonely girls for what they were: taken and abused and trafficked and worse. That could've been our story, too, for girls without fathers at home are easy targets. And who's to say that we did not have a bullseye on our backs a time or two?

But we had our mother, and the Church, and we were saved in more ways than one.

So when I think of mother's day, I think of my mother who held on, holds on still. Giver of life and love, firmly fixed on Him. My greatest champion and my oldest friend.

I think of the women in our church, who watched me walk down the aisle with tears in their eyes. I think of the men who took us mother's day shopping, helped us pick out necklaces and bouquets. I think of Matt who was prayed for by dozens of saints before my shoelaces were ever untied.

I think of my grandmothers - all still living - who mothered us from near or far, asking for strength and mercy, forgiving. I think of my aunts, who made room in their homes and hearts for two wild girls. I think of my stepmother, who is loved, adored by a mess of grandchildren. I think of Matt's mom, who filled in some of my chipped edges, still rising with the sun to hold a grandchild on her knee.

I think of all my sisters, brought together by pain or circumstance, flourishing through grace, my best friends and fellow warriors. I think of so many women, mothering me and my children in service, in teaching, in song, in prayers.

Women of valour. All of you.

That's the thing about mother's day. In one way or another, we are all mothers. We're in it together, not meant to be alone.

Reading equilibrium

A lot of things get put on hold when you move: organizing, cooking, and cleaning, to name just a few. Also on my hold list these past few months? Reading. You know I love to read, whether I finish the book or not, and I've missed these down times of quiet reflection (or late nights of page turning thriller).

But as we've begun to normalize over here, I've found that I have a bit more head space and emotional energy to put into my first love: books. Here's what's gracing my nightstand, nook screen, and library check-out/overdue bill:

Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel // Confession: I've seen several episodes of The Tudors. I'm sorry. It was a moment (month) of weakness (boredom), and I utterly regret it. I do love me some British monarchy historical fiction (go, therefore, and watch Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth) and Cromwell is a fascinating character study. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but Mantel is a beautiful writer and has fleshed out a complicated and cunning Cromwell. And her descriptions of the English countryside in late summer... breathtaking. Fingers crossed I finish it! (ooh, fun fact: Bring Up the Bodies won last year's Man Booker Award. Do you know who was on the judging panel? Matthew Crawley! (may he rest in peace...))

Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young // I was turned on to this devotional (I cringe to even use the word, as I'm notoriously terrible at keeping up with devotionals and moonwalk away from typical women's ministry-type things) by Sarah Bessey, who is a trustworthy reviewer of the legit spiritual genre. A couple of girlfriends and I are reading this together, and so far I am really just loving it. Jesus Calling is written as if Jesus were talking directly to the reader, so when I find a spare moment for the day's reading, I am immediately quieted and stilled (not an easy task for me).

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn // I wanted to love this book. Everyone seemed to love this book. And truth is, I couldn't put it down. It is an utterly engrossing book. But it also left me with a major no feeling, like I was duped into a story I did not want to know about, with characters I did not care to see survive the finale. Flynn has a gift, to be sure. And she's a Kansas City gal, so I do want to support her and her "local art," so to speak. But, no. I hated it.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood, by Rachel Held Evans // Another one of my blogging favourites, Evans spent a year trying out several supposed biblical mandates for us ladies, ranging from covering her head to sitting on her roof. I purchased it on a great Nook sale this weekend and look forward to sharing my thoughts with you after I read it. (Spoiler alert: I may end up being biased, and as I've read a lot of review of this book, have a fairly good idea where I'll stand on it... but I want to actually read it before I rave about it.)

***

What are you reading these days? Any recommendations?

2012 Favo(u)rites : That caviar is a garnish! (and other things I learned from Nora Ephron)

You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn't feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you're not. You are marching into the unknown armed with... Nothing. Have a sandwich.

Nora Ephron, You've Got Mail

I was just thinking last week that I should write a post on my obsession with the You’ve Got Mail apartment. 

You know the one: Kathleen Kelly’s shabby chic brownstone walk-up, home to the lone reed and upright piano, walls covered in books and mementos, and open window overlooking a beautiful autumn New York City morning. I’ve laid awake at night, trying to figure out this apartment’s dimensions (Is it a studio? U-shaped? Does the kitchen lead into the bathroom?), imagining where I would put my mother’s secretary or the wall shelf my husband built me six Christmases ago.

image source

I love that apartment. I would be happy in that apartment. I belong in that apartment, in the city, in the Autumn, with a bookshop around the corner.

So yes, I had formatted in my mind this beautiful ode to the You’ve Got Mail apartment. And then Nora Ephron died.

Nora Ephron, to quote the younguns, was a beast. She was a writer, in every sense of the word. Journalist, essayist, playwright, author and screenwriter. She nearly literally did it all. And then she started directing movies, where she created girls like me - independent, quirky, proud, loud, naïve, flawed, sensitive - and a world girls like me could inhabit.

Her genre was “romantic comedy,” but her stories were so much more than that. They were about messing up, and someone loving you anyway. They were about taking a chance, and getting let down. They were about discovering your true self, and falling all over yourself in the process. At least, these are the ones I remember.

I’m too young (yes, I get to use this phrase!) to know about Silkwood, and maybe a bit too young to really appreciate When Harry Met Sally, but I remember crying along with Annie in Sleepless in Seattle as she first heard Sam’s voice on the radio. And I remember the first birthday after we were married when my husband gifted me with a VHS of You’ve Got Mail hidden inside a brand new grey felt messenger bag.

Oh, I so wanted to be Kathleen Kelly. I even worked in a book shop (on the corner of Oak Park and Lake Street), wore black tights and black skirts, and sadly, experimented with an ill-advised short haircut.

(Side note: no one, in the history of the world, will ever have Meg Ryan’s hair in that movie. I don’t care who you are.)

But back to Nora. Her movies made me feel like it was ok to be weird. In fact, I could be weird and smart. Weird and smart and loved. Weird and smart and loved and imperfect. I could lose my temper, make a mistake, try again and conquer the world.

And now, at 33 and a mother of three and in the midst of so many life changes I can hardly stand it, I’m realizing that loving her stories doesn’t mean recreating the Meg Ryan look or working in a book shop. Loving her stories means I’m embracing my own. Loving her stories means I go forward bravely, confident in who God made me, believing that my loudness or weirdness or sensitiveness isn’t a mistake. Loving her stories means acknowledging that the world is messy and we are messy, but still, somewhere, there’s a place for us in it.

Oh, I love the You’ve Got Mail apartment, but no matter how I try to bend it, I’m not sure it’s possible for the pictures on the screen to match the dimensions in my head. Still, I’ll take solace in the world Nora Ephron created.

In her stories, it’s not about the apartment, anyway.


***

I'm reposting a few of my favourite bits and pieces from this year. God worked me over hard... I want to remember. Leave a comment with a blog post of your own, a favourite or a new one. Let's remember together.

My top 5 not-so-messy-parent bloggers :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 30}

I'm so tired of writing about parenting! Clearly I've still got loads of things to work through, and seeing as how I could use all the help I can get, here are some of my favourite not-so-messy-parent bloggers (though they might try to refute that!)...

Katie @ Branson Family Blog :: Katie taught me how to make banana bread and embrace simplicity, literature and British dramas.

Nearly Natural Nicole :: My blonde alter ego who encourages me to try new things (sushi, cooking), allows me to edit her writing, and won't put up with any of my crap.

Jen Hatmaker :: For obvious reasons (i.e., 7, her love for the poor, hilarity, and her prophetic voice for Jesus)

Pam @ I think I missed the class on... :: Pam taught me how to menu plan, follow Jesus anywhere (even to Iowa!) and to not take myself - as a mother, a ministry wife or an imperfect homemaker - too seriously.

Sarah Bessey :: Oh my, how I love her heart and her fire and how she makes parenting, writing, and advocating look effortless, yet profound.

Yeah, these women are awesome. The ones I know in real life have impacted my life in epic ways I can't even begin to share here... and the ones I don't yet know (though I pretend to, whatever) inspire me to keep looking upward and moving forward.

Thank you... for contributing to the mess.



Who's your top go-to resource for all things parental and/or spiritual?

A diamond jubilee

Four years ago, my mother and I climbed a large hill; many hills, actually. She came to visit us in Ireland, and we walked and walked, visited the sea a dozen or more times, drank tea and ate scones. All of my favourite pictures of her were taken during that trip.

As you can see, we kept her on Ella Duty.

Thank you for helping me become the mother I needed to be, for sending me where I needed to go, for showing me how to be simultaneously independent and wholly dependent on God. 

We wish you, Queen of our tiny tribe, a happy diamond jubilee. And many more.

Vintage cursive loops of faith

Do you know what's amazing? Two grandmas circling 90, with a few dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren between them, remembering to send a birthday card on time - nay - early, even!

Eleanor and Gail, two women who had their own set of dark curls back in the day. One gave me the strong will and the outspoken nature. The other gave me the maternal spirit (some might call it "fretting") and the super sensitive skin.

Apart from the curls they are as different as night and day, but I belong to them. I bear their image and carry their legacy. Resilience and hope, courage and humility, grace and mercy.

I don't think I deserve them. In fact, I know I don't. I don't send birthday cards, I can be ungrateful, I am impatient with my children, and I am prone to wander. 

But they point the way. Imperfect and true. Vintage cursive loops of faith.

I open one of the cards and out drop a handful of pictures: me and my grandpa, grandma laughing, matching grandbabies in receiving blankets. Her gift to me on my 34th birthday. I tell my sister and we sigh together, remember grandpa's laugh, think how perfect and generous it was for her to send them to me.

"Although..." my sister says, suddenly very suspicious, "I am kind of worried she's starting to dole out her precious belongings."

Well, yeah, there's that.

UPDATE // I'm forced to print a retraction: one of my dear grandmother's is only circling 80, not 90. But that would've made my sentence longer, and not as flowy. You know, poetic license and all that. Besides, as my sister says, she's circling closer to 90 than she is to 20. :) 

That caviar is a garnish! (and other things I learned from Nora Ephron)

You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn't feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you're not. You are marching into the unknown armed with... Nothing. Have a sandwich.  

Nora Ephron, You've Got Mail

I was just thinking last week that I should write a post on my obsession with the You’ve Got Mail apartment.

You know the one: Kathleen Kelly’s shabby chic brownstone walk-up, home to the lone reed and upright piano, walls covered in books and mementos, and open window overlooking a beautiful autumn New York City morning. I’ve laid awake at night, trying to figure out this apartment’s dimensions (Is it a studio? U-shaped? Does the kitchen lead into the bathroom?), imagining where I would put my mother’s secretary or the wall shelf my husband built me six Christmases ago.

SOURCE

I love that apartment. I would be happy in that apartment. I belong in that apartment, in the city, in the Autumn, with a bookshop around the corner.

So yes, I had formatted in my mind this beautiful ode to the You’ve Got Mail apartment. And then Nora Ephron died.

Nora Ephron, to quote the younguns, was a beast. She was a writer, in every sense of the word. Journalist, essayist, playwright, author and screenwriter. She nearly literally did it all. And then she started directing movies, where she created girls like me - independent, quirky, proud, loud, naïve, flawed, sensitive - and a world girls like me could inhabit.

Her genre was “romantic comedy,” but her stories were so much more than that. They were about messing up, and someone loving you anyway. They were about taking a chance, and getting let down. They were about discovering your true self, and falling all over yourself in the process. At least, these are the ones I remember.

I’m too young (yes, I get to use this phrase!) to know about Silkwood, and maybe a bit too young to really appreciate When Harry Met Sally, but I remember crying along with Annie in Sleepless in Seattle as she first heard Sam’s voice on the radio. And I remember the first birthday after we were married when my husband gifted me with a VHS of You’ve Got Mail hidden inside a brand new grey felt messenger bag.

Oh, I so wanted to be Kathleen Kelly. I even worked in a book shop (on the corner of Oak Park and Lake Street), wore black tights and black skirts, and sadly, experimented with an ill-advised short haircut.

(Side note: no one, in the history of the world, will ever have Meg Ryan’s hair in that movie. I don’t care who you are.)

But back to Nora. Her movies made me feel like it was ok to be weird. In fact, I could be weird and smart. Weird and smart and loved. Weird and smart and loved and imperfect. I could lose my temper, make a mistake, try again and conquer the world.

And now, at 33 and a mother of three and in the midst of so many life changes I can hardly stand it, I’m realizing that loving her stories doesn’t mean recreating the Meg Ryan look or working in a book shop. Loving her stories means I’m embracing my own. Loving her stories means I go forward bravely, confident in who God made me, believing that my loudness or weirdness or sensitiveness isn’t a mistake. Loving her stories means acknowledging that the world is messy and we are messy, but still, somewhere, there’s a place for us in it.

Oh, I love the You’ve Got Mail apartment, but no matter how I try to bend it, I’m not sure it’s possible for the pictures on the screen to match the dimensions in my head. Still, I’ll take solace in the world Nora Ephron created.

In her stories, it’s not about the apartment, anyway.


So what's your favourite Nora Ephron movie, character, or apartment? Tell me your Meg Ryan haircut story. I know you have one.

Soul Sisters (alternately titled: "my blonde alter ego buys me a plane ticket")

My twin lives in Chicago.

Though not technically my twin, but more like a blonde me, three kids and thick frizzy hair and all. And not even really a sister, but more like the person you've spent more than half your life with, loving and playing and heartbreaking with. And not actually Chicago, really, but more like the farthest northwestern suburbs of Chicago, beyond the reaches of the Blue Line but not yet to Wisconsin. 

We share a birthplace and a home church, slight spiritual and political rebellions, and a deep love of books and Jesus. We started here in Kansas City, but then she went to the University of Missouri and I went to the University of Kansas, I went to Chicago, and she went to Wisconsin, then she went to Chicago, and I came back to KC. Then I went to Ireland, and she held steady. 

She's holding steady still, while I flit and float all over the place. This is actually how it's always been. When I wander, she keeps the light on. 

And when I need a break and a quiet glass of wine, or when she needs a laugh and a change of pace, she says, "How about I buy you a plane ticket?" and I say, "Oh, yes, please! I miss you." She asks me, "What do you want to do?" And I say, "Let's just be in the city, look at art and feel alive." 

Because a twin knows when she's needed, even if not really a twin. Even with half a gaggle of kids between us. Even across all the miles. 

apparently we need a more recent picture.

***

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a God-given twin... who fits that bill in your life?

Diets, politics, and homeschooling (oh my!)

Found myself back to being a curious bystander to a lot of blogs and articles this week. Here's a round-up:

Simple Mom : Is your "healthy" diet making you sick, tired or fat?

Note: the girl and I suffer from eczema big time (and she seems to have several food intolerances). we're too cheap to do allergy testing, so I've recently started eliminating some suspicious foods, as Camille prescribes... but I'm afraid of cutting out dairy, cuz, you know, i need it!

Her.Meneutics : Why we can all opt out of the "war on women"

Frankly, I’m tired of both sides using violent imagery to describe the difficult decisions that I, and my sisters, make every day, and I’m tired of seeing those decisions reduced to bumper sticker ideologies that can be exploited for political gain.

This Is Our City (Christianity Today) : An Unexpected Choice: Why We Traded the Public School for Homeschooling

My initial reaction to the nudging I sensed in my heart—that God wanted us to give homeschooling a fair evaluation—was unequivocal: "No way, God." But the more I struggled against it, the more I sensed his answer: "Just look into it."

A Deeper Story : Stupid wait time

Tears began to stream down my face as the pastor continue to speak about how it takes only a momentfor God to speak His promise and it takes only a moment for the promise to be fulfilled, but the time that passes in between those two moments – the reversal time – is time immeasurable. It’s always the longest. Agonizing, hand-wringing, soul-stripping waiting.

Matthew Paul Turner : I'm tired of... God?

Tired of being pigeonholed or labeled or categorized or limited because my conversations about God aren’t the same as other people’s conversations about God…

These last two posts hit me deep in my uncomfortable heart. Anything do that for you this week?

Am I really already amazing?

My discerning heart and my critical spirit spend loads of time duking it out with eachother, trying to see who will say uncle first. I like to think that I come to new books with a discerning heart, but more often than not my critical spirit gets there first and it can take chapters to put that spirit in its place and discover the true, beating heart of the author's message.

And in You're Already Amazing, it took me till chapter 5. Keep reading...