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Flipping through the pages of Drawing Lab, the corner of page 81 caught my eye, a little box with the suggestion to illustrate a quote from a child. Words arrive in such interesting ways when you have a myriad of ages in the house.

“My eyes are snowing Mommy,” my daughter exclaimed as the snow passed over our faces.  ”You’re eyes are snowing too!”

I’ve been thinking lately about my limitations.  Only small bits of time or energy leftover from full-time mamahood, no money to lend toward a trip out of the ordinary, no particular doors beckoning for me to walk through.

But the blank page page in front of me?

The blank page is unlimited.

Reader, maybe what you do have, is actually, limitless.

“Honey, I’m so glad that I can create something and enjoy it!” I flop down next to him on the couch with my painting.

He continues reading his book.

“Not because I think the outcome is so great,” I explain quickly, “but because I can enjoy the process and not be so worried that it’s not going to come out right.”

He marks his page and looks up.  He doesn’t have to say anything, because I know he knows exactly what my frustration has looked like, up close and ugly.

“Don’t you remember trying to paint pottery with me one time and I got so angry with myself because I couldn’t get it just right?  Or scrapbooking? Or, well, you know it’s been a problem for a long time.”

He agrees with me, gives me the smile that tells me he really has been listening, and heads back to his book.

But I still linger on the miracle that I can sit down and work on something creative and not kill the whole endeavor with my self-doubt and perfectionism.

Talk about freedom to play and explore!

If I only I had the miracle of a lot more free time, but I digress…

Two arts books are making me very happy right now and I’d like them to make you happy too, so let me tell you about them.

Drawing Lab: 52 Creative Exercises to  Make Drawing Fun

First of all, this is a well-designed book, which is an inspiration in and of itself.  It has a great cover, the layout of each page is sharp and appealing, and the examples of the projects make me want to do art! Also the materials and directions are clear and easy to follow with the eye (and eventually the hand).  This is a user-friendly book. It’s also user friendly because the author wants to free you of the exact issues I just mentioned above, perfectionism and self-doubt.  These aren’t “the right way” exercises, these are “come on in, get your coffee, and start your fun” exercises.

Several times I’ve taken this book with me to a coffee shop (along with some pencils, pens and watercolors) and enjoyed an hour and half of play (and therapy, because the process of art is very therapeutic).  I’ve also added in a husband or a child, who have done the art exercise with me.

Here’s some of the art that has arisen from this book, at our house:

Water Paper Paint: Exploring Creativity with Watercolor and Mixed Media

Thanks to my very generous sister-in-law (that’s you Robin), I got another book in this series last weekend. Water, Paper, Paint: Exploring Creativity with Watercolor and Mixed Media is also a feel good art book.  No, I mean it literally feels good in your hands, the cover feels just like watercolor paper.  Like it’s sister book, it’s filled with art that makes me itch to get a pen and paintbrush in my hand.  And just from flipping through the book I now know that there is a process with special tape to prevent wrinkling and bowing of paper (something that’s been driving my crazy since falling for watercolors).  I also know now that salt on wet watercolors creates texture, something I’d wondered about when I saw an artist do that on a video a while back.

I will say that the directions in this book look more involved then Drawing Lab, but then again it might have to do with the process being explored.  I haven’t decided if I can do as much “take and go” with this book, but I know that it is going to take me further into the world of watercolor, and that makes me very happy.  This would be a good follow up book to Drawing Lab if you have the itch to keep going.

Here are two exercises my 9 year old daughter and I tried out together.

This is the first exercise in the book, an experiment of working wet watercolors onto a still wet watercolor surface, trying out similar and contrasting hues.  Also, it was fun.

Here’s my daughter’s:

In this next exercise we tried many different size brushes, working with a range of hues.

Mine,

Hers,

I’ve got my eye on Art Lab for Kids by Susan Schwake, which releases in early February. The older kids have adapted well to the other books even though the target audience is not children, but my six year old often gets frustrated by some of the abstract ideas. Hoping this will make a third treasure in my collection.

From Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter

“I began to know my story then.  Like everybody’s it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead.  What is the thread that holds it all together?  Grief, I thought for a while.  And grief is there sure enough, just about all the way through…But grief is not a force and has no power to hold.  You can only bear it.  Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”

As our family drove home last night we passed the engorged parking lot of Target and it was then that my world cracked wide open.

I thought about the men that we’d sat with around the table a few hours earlier.  Having no car themselves, these men had been driven in a stranger’s car to the church.  They’d been offered toothbrushes and soap, a place to put their laundry if they wanted their clothes washed. Passing by the cots that would be their guaranteed bed for one night, they sat down at the tables we’d set up.

We started bringing dishes out.  ”That looks good,” one man said. And the empty plates were filled.

Here were the men we’d been preparing for all week.  Making christmas cards, decorations, and gift bags with things as simple as a hat, a stamped letter to get in touch with a family member.  Unlike so much of America’s shoppers, we hadn’t purchased Ipods or Kindles  (how would they connect those) or a large screen TV since, unlike everyone else I knew, they didn’t have a wall to hang it on.

All week we’d had a project.

We read all the right verses about how Jesus said what we do for the least of these we do for him and how he came for the hungry, lost, and oppressed.  (All truth.)

But until we sat down with these men, it had remained a project with a whole lot of unknown.  This was the part we’d been nervous about.

But then we saw what this meal, a meal that we could have any night at our house, meant to them.

We saw the toiletries and the laundry bags and watched them stand in a circle and listen to a list of rules for their one night at the church.  Were they just glad to have a bed, or was their self-respect brought even lower by the dependency on a bunch of strangers just to eat and sleep comfortably?

Now we had faces.  Now we saw hunger. Now we saw them at the mercy of a bunch of strangers.

Suddenly each object we placed in their gift bags was no longer theoretical-we saw one gentleman put his new hat on before he headed out for a smoke.

We were past “family christmas project” and stressed out mom who had worked hard to get things done that day, to privilege.

What a privilege.

And the glowing sign of Target flashed in my head again and we continued to drive through the crack between two worlds.  There was the world getting all of their last minute shopping done and there were these men who were back at the church getting ready for their one night before they were driven somewhere else the next morning.

In the back the kids were asking, “Can we do this again, can we please do this again?”

But the elation of pulling off the whole evening had dissipated and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that these men weren’t a project.  Tomorrow their day was going to be just as challenging as this one.  We served them one meal out of how many that they need to eat in a year?  And it made me sad that it was privilege.  It made me sad that one meal or one bit of kindness should be a big deal for them at all.

We live in a small home, our kids share rooms, we don’t own big gadgets, and yet we are so rich.  I think if we have enough food to complain about what we’re eating for breakfast, or be annoyed by the pile of stuff blocking the door, or the ability to depend only on our own selves for what we need, then we’re stinking rich, actually.

But this isn’t a post about guilt.  I’m not asking the question, “how can we all feel bad enough about our stuff?”.

It’s a post about how we weren’t designed for this world.  This isn’t our home.  This is a place of pain, hunger, longing and brokenness.  We were made for a perfect world, but sin changed all of that.  The world actually broke a long time ago but we’re pretty good at being blind.

We’re all just pitching our tents here in this world, but this world is like the cots those men slept in last night. Temporary.  The more time I spend here, the more I realize it doesn’t have anything I’m really looking for.  The more time I spend in the nursing home with my Dad and the others who live there, the more I long to pitch my tent in heaven.

Until then, yes, we’ll try really hard with the help of the Holy Spirit to discern between the lies of this world (success, money, keeping up with the Jones’, it’s all about you, everyone man for himself), and we’ll try really hard to fill the brokenness with food, kindness and love.  But we already know it’s only a patch, because this broken world will always be broken.

Thank goodness God in the flesh came to save us all.  I can’t wait til we all go home.

I was a good friend in school.  I could be so funny, I have the notes from seventh grade to prove it.  I could be helpful, compassionate, ready with an extra hand or a car ride.

Okay, sometimes I could be a good friend.

And sometimes I could be manipulative.  Kind, because I needed help fixing my car, funny because my teacher might let me out of an assignment, thoughtful because the person might open a door for me. The friends that felt like I had more of an agenda than a relationship didn’t stay my friends for the long run and who could blame them.

Now let me introduce you to my dear friend, Pride.  She’s not anything like I used to be.  She is so kind, always saying really encouraging things to me.  The other day she was at the house and she said:

“You’re such a great mom, listen to how your daughter prayed just now! That’s because of you.”

I blushed and gave myself a checkmark on the mom scorecard.

One time, after a difficult day of taking care of some issues with my Dad, she said:

“You’re really wise you know, how mature in your faith, I really admire you.”

I felt the tiredness ease back and I lifted my head a little higher.

And just yesterday she sat beside me while I worked on some art.

“You’ve got talent you know, you should find a way to show off,” she coughed quickly,  ”I mean, use your gifts.”

I just love spending time with her, with all her affectionate words she’s got to be a really good friend, right?

I mean she wouldn’t have an agenda, any reason to lift me a little higher in my own esteem, all the while setting the stage for my fall.  I feel ashamed even suggesting that of her.

It’s just that lately her friendship’s become a bit of a burden.  (Okay, a lot of a burden, just between you and me.)  I’ve been trying to figure out how to focus on Christ during this month of celebration and I’ve talked to her a few times about how overwhelmed I’ve been feeling.  But she seems to think I should shove that feeling aside.

“You know those people at the nursing home are really impressed when you bring them gifts each year.  Remember how the one lady said she couldn’t believe all that you do and that you have the time to think of her as well.”

“I don’t know if I can this year though,” I answered back, hoping for some understanding.

“But you look like, I mean, you are such a great mom when you go in there with your troop of kids and hand out handmade gifts, of course you have to do it.”

“I know, but we’re so busy and I’m having trouble settling down with Matt in the evenings and I still have to think about family gifts and I have to make sure every day that we do school is filled with amazing advent activities.”

“Oh, of course you have to do the family gifts.  And they should all be handmade, you can’t pass up an opportunity to impress someone.  And you definitely have to have the perfect plan for school activities, I mean you need some things to post on your blog right?”

At that point, her friend, Works, joined us for a Peppermint Mocha.

“Oh, are you guys talking about Christmas?  Have you gotten all of your service projects lined up, you know you’re kids will be selfish for the rest of their lives if you don’t get better organized.  My family is going to do the Angel Tree, and serve dinner at the shelter, and we’re going to go ring the bell for the Salvation Army, even our two year old is getting involved….”

I drifted out of the conversation as they continued to list off their service projects.  Are they really going to do all of that stuff?  How do they handle it all?

I really like these guys, I tell myself, I can learn something from them.

And they seem to really like me, I respond back to myself, a little less certain.

“What in the world does any of this have to do with preparing your heart for Jesus,” an entirely different voice joins in my own private dialogue.

“I have to do all of these things or Christmas won’t be special, or spiritual, and people will think less of me,” I venture to this new voice.

“You seem to have forgotten something on your list,” the voice calmly answers back.

“What?  Let me look: service projects, handmade gifts, the Christmas choir at church, meaningful family advent… is there really more I have to do?” I ask wearily, but with my pen ready to make the list complete.

“You forgot love.”

“L-O-, ” I stop writing.

“You can do all of these without love.  And you can walk through the next month without experiencing any of Christ’s love for you.”

“You mean,” I paused, trying to sort it out,”I shouldn’t do any of the things on my list?”

“No, you should let love shape how those things look.  Maybe your gifts for family have more to do with thoughtfulness than how impressive your hand-made gift looks.  Maybe the Christmas choir is a gift to your children out of love because they’re excited about it, maybe you’re loving the nursing home workers by choosing to bring them a card and a small gift.  Maybe you don’t do these things because they make you feel really good about yourself and a little extra spiritual this month, but you do them because you know a love that so great you can’t keep it to yourself.”

I think back to Pride’s words and try to reconcile them to the words of this new friend.  Pride and Works made me feel the potential to be lifted high, but they also made me feel incredibly heavy, so heavy I didn’t know how I was going to get up the rickety pedestal they put in front of me.  But with this friend I felt no desire to climb, instead I wanted to lift others up with this love he was talking about.  And something akin to peace was settling around me.

“Hey, what’s your name, ” I call out.

“Spirit,” he said.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over may body to hardship that I my boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

I Corinthians 13: 2, 3

 

There is a husband leaving on business.

There is a mama in denial,

hoping for better than the worst.

 

There is throw-up all over the wall.

There is a mama who texts a picture to the husband.

There are more emergencies,

there is the last straw.

 

There is,

finally,

quiet.

 

There is a peaceful corner calling with its orange and yellow view to the outside.

There is a sketch book, pens, paints and brushes.

There is mama, caught in an act

Of creating.

There is prayer through painting.

There is painting that is prayer.

There is a gift.

Not what is brought to the page,

no,

the gift He gave of my enjoyment

in the act and of His delight in me,

enjoying.

A gift that doesn’t feel like

love through discipline

but rather love

for love’s sake.

The painting is done and then

there is more life.

 

There are groans and the Holy Spirit moving.

There is the Word, living and active.

There is the hand that delivers trials

and then delivers His people from them.

There is (a little more) faith.

From the throw-up

To the panic

To the paint

and the prayer

To the Spirit

and the Word

to the peace,

It is all Love.

 

Unfailing,

Unceasing.

(for more about His unfailing love read Psalm 107)

Welcome to our girls only weekend.

With three extraordinary girls, that’s quite a treat.

It all began with a game night and the perfect, gooey chocolate chip cookies shared with their Aunt.

Saturday morning brought pajamas until eleven and this spur of the moment photo shoot.

I didn’t make a grocery list, plan school, or do anything else required on a normal saturday.

I did make homemade applesauce.

And we all tasted a persimmon for the first time.  Standing in the middle of a small grove of trees brimming with petite orange fruits, we peeled the skin and ate the insides, looking up at what I imagined to be dozens of tiny pumpkins dangling on the branches above us.

Our final girls’ night included a dinner of butternut squash lasagna, sauteed kale, some of that fresh applesauce, and good friends (girls only, of course).  Mix in a classic movie, way too much popcorn, and another late night.

At some point I recognized a strange feeling called being relaxed.  I haven’t felt it in a while, but it suits me just fine.  The constant smiling, the looking at my kids not just as a set of tasks to make sure we accomplish, the staying present in the moment.

Now that I have the feeling, maybe I can find it easier the next time-with a little help from my girls.

The Setting: The swing at the park

“How old is your daughter?” asked the portly but athletic gentleman in the baseball cap two swings over.  I’d already noticed a few glances our way, but I knew the glances had nothing to do with me.  His eyes traveled eagerly from my daughter to the similiarly sized pink and braided toddler of his own.  For a new parent, seeing a child within a sixth month age range of his own is the golden chance to compare achievements (can he walk, talk in a full sentence?) and stats (height, weight, bottle or sippy cup). I could see him mentally rubbing his hands together.

“Two and half years,” I answered compliantly, “and yours?”

“She just turned two,” he paused as the swings squeaked on and then, “Your daughter’s really doing great on that swing.”

He looked down at his own daughter, tucked safely into one of the enclosed toddler swings, while mine sailed toward the sky on a “big-girl swing”.

Seeing his dismay, I tried to reassure him, “She has older brothers and sisters and she tries to do everything like them.  My first child didn’t swing on this kind at two and she definitely didn’t go as fast.”

Hearing the word fast, my Squishy yelled out, “Faster, Mommy!!”

I pushed her into higher gear and I heard, “Wow, that’s high,” from the Dad and then, “Honey, look at this little girl, don’t you want to try one of those swings?”

Obviously my attempt to reassure had crashed and failed and I cringed as I pictured his already tired wife when they got back home to her. “Honey, we saw this other two year old and she could swing much better.  We better work on it….”

After a few minutes we went in search of the siblings and eventually ran into the Dad and daughter on the slide.

“So is she potty-trained and all that?” his tone working to sound casual as his eyes narrowed in on the smooth lines of Squishy’s shorts as opposed to the bulk of his daughter’s sweatpants.

Thinking of his wife, I tried hard to lower the bar. “Well, yes she is mostly potty trained, but only because she wanted to, and probably because she sees her brothers and sisters go all the time.  She’s not like any of my other children,” and just in case there was still wiggling room I added (truthfully), “My others were older, closer to three.  With our first we started trying at two and potty trained her for the next year.”

He tucked this away for a later analysis and switched focus, “Samantha, look at this little girl, look how she can climb the slide, don’t you want to climb the slide too?”

And a few minutes later it was time for us to gather the stragglers and head home.

It’s too bad we didn’t run in to him at Trader Joe’s today.  If his eyes had followed us through the store he would have found one pink croc on Squishy’s left foot and one black mary jane with a purple sock decorating the other foot.  Then, later, he could have celebrated with his wife, “At least our daughter knows how to match her shoes, and she’s six months younger!”

For myself, I had counted the cost of fighting the mismatched shoes (which I knew would be noticed and judged in favor or against by other grocery shopping mamas) with the foreknowledge that eventually she would match her shoes, just like every other child.  So for today we went with mismatched shoes and some fly by-the-seat-of-your-pants swinging.

If I made a list of character traits I hope we’ve instilled in our kids by the time they’re eighteen (at least the foundation of these traits), it would look something like this:

Wise, Loving, Graceful, Creative, Joyful.

All admirable things to pray for and work toward, right?  That’s what I thought, until this week.

I thought I wanted to teach my kids to “make good choices” and avoid some of the crap I’ve been through from my own sin or the sin of someone near me.

I thought I wanted to teach my kids what it means to love other people well and live for a purpose beyond their own needs and wants.

I thought I wanted to teach my kids they are and will always can be creative, to prevent that from being taken from them, and to watch them use their gifts to the glory of God.

I thought I wanted to teach my kids to know joy-not a just a life of seeking happiness, the shallowest (and most easily lost) form of joy.  Joy in the small moments.  Joy in the imperfect, messy moments.  Joy that originates and ends in the knowledge of the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth.

I do want all of those things.  But I don’t think it’s the Lord’s goal to make them feel like “pretty good Christians”.

One day when they’re 34, like me, they might get one heck of a reminder of their sinfulness (pretty much a guarantee, right?).  It will come along right when they are feeling a bit wise, a bit removed from their old self, and the reminder might not even be because of something they’ve done.

But no matter what, they will be stunned, probably angry at the interruption to what they viewed as their growth and maturity.

Later, by the grace of God, they might look beneath the anger and realize they’re angry because they’ve turned being wise and “a pretty good Christian” into an idol, and someone just messed with their idol.

And from it, like me, they might realize that all of their wisdom, love, grace and joy is completely imperfect and forever will be until the very end.  When that happens I hope they already know that all they really need to is to desperately know their need for the Lord. And accept that they’ll need Him forever.  And to have their hope in Him, only Him, and not in their own anything.

Then, like me, they can stumble along, a little stunned, but also thankful for the reminder.  Thankful beyond words.  For it was his His love that brought the reminder.

So I take another look at my list.  And think about what I can say to them when they are not 34, but still measuring below my chin.

I can say, “Do better, do better.  Get it right.  Make better choices.  Be wiser.  Stop loving so imperfectly.  Don’t mess up so much.”

or

I can say, “Grace to you.  It’s okay.  Call to the Lord.   You need him.  You’ll always need him.  Don’t try to stop needing him. You’re not trying to get it perfect.  You can’t get it perfect. So receive love and grace instead.  Let Him do His work. And you-you hope.”

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you my overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13