Salt and Sugar

Most days I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve been blessed beyond what I could have ever imagined but somedays, somedays I don’t feel blessed. Some days the voices whisper and tell me lies.  But being a mom with twin girls and a boy who is only thirteen months older than them sometimes makes me weary. I see a mom with a two year old and a newborn and I feel like I’ve lost something, I’ve missed out. I’ve missed the ability to treasure each moment. What would it be like to only have to clean two bottoms or only have to carry one child everywhere you go while the others walk on their own?  It would be so nice to only breast feed one child at a time. When the twins were born my son was in the throws of cutting his one year molars. As a result of the combination of post c-section pain medication, hormones and my sons unrelenting screams there was one or maybe two nights where I was convinced that he was actually being tormented by an evil spirit. I would try to hold him and comfort him and he would scream and violently writhe in my arms and then unintentionally kick my c-section wound. My husband and I would head into the nights with very little hope of sleep or even rest from lying down. In those early months a three hour stretch of sleep was very seldom and was the best we could get with a teething one year old and twin newborns. On top of all this I was grieving my dads death quite frequently. Unless you have experienced loss you may not know that grief is quite physically taxing. I speculate that weeping actually burns quite a few calories. We were very, very  tired.  I barely remember the first nine months of my twins lives. I had no energy to play with my thirteen month old and even before the girls were born when he was nine, ten and eleven months I was on and off bed rest and when I was off I was still huge and tired, so so pregnant with two babies at once. I feel confident that I am not being dramatic when I say that the last two years of my life have been very, very hard. Kenturion was five months old when my dad died. We watched his body and the doctors fight and cut and sew and pump fluids and drain fluids and hook him up to grotesque machines for almost three days. None of us slept the last 24 hours before he died. I don’t think I stopped praying out loud for the last six hours before his death, on my knees with my hands stretched out on the floor as they wheeled him past us through the hallway into his last surgery, the last effort. I can remember perfectly even now how I felt as I prayed, every muscle in my body was flexed and to the max because of the great petition I was making for God to save my dads life.  I spared no ounce of energy, no fraction of personal dignity as I petitioned for him to live. I refused to risk standing on the other side of his death and questioning myself about whether I had prayed enough, whether I had cried out to God enough, weather I had become undignified in my posture enough, whether I had worshiped well in a time of suffering and loss. When it was done and we viewed his body for the last time I asked my mother if I could pull the sheet back to see where they opened his chest. They left it open in hopes that his heart could swell and heal. It was the size of my hand and I rested it on the wound. His body was swollen, like it had been awash at sea for those three days because of the amount of medicine the doctors gave him.  I got shingles and the flu that week, likely due to a weakened immune system from grief. I was struggling hard with breastfeeding my son who we now know had a tongue tie. That week after dad died Reed and Kent and I slept in the camping trailer on the side of my parents house as we planned the funeral and Reed helped my mom begin to dive into the mountain of a financial mess she had been left in.  I would wake up in the night at times and cry and then run outside to throw up. As I knelt in the gravel and leaned against the garage and Reed held my hair, I wondered in a small thought in the back of my mind if I just had the flu or if I was pregnant. I was terrified that I was pregnant, with a five month old and a dead dad to grieve.  We found out the night of my dads funeral that I was pregnant and then a month later that it was twins, identical twins who shared a placenta. The house we lived in at the time had quite a few stairs and we knew preterm labor was a potential and that we would need help when the babies came so we resolved to move, another thing to make us tired. Kenturion weaned against my efforts and wishes. We went to over thirty doctor appointments and E.R. visits in the duration of the twins pregnancy. I had pre-term labor issues and every ultrasound was a potential for us to find a development surrounding the girls shared placenta. Stressful is the word I would use to describe the last 23 months. Weary is the word I would use to describe how I feel in this moment with a child that needs to be potty trained and twin girls who lack discipline simply because I am not physically able to be consistent in teaching them. My house is messy, my hair is messy, my skin is dry from lack of drinking enough water and every week there is a five foot wide by three foot tall mountain of laundry that has to be washed, dried, folded and put away and every week there are three mouths that need to be fed with nourishing food and enough water so they aren’t dehydrated. Every week their bodies need to be washed so they don’t get sick. Every day I carry at least two twenty-five pound kids around ten times each day. I lift them at least a hundred times a day. My back hurts all the time. I try to go to the chiropractor but don’t have time or want to spend the money. Kenturion has a rash around his mouth most of the time because I don’t wipe his face after meals. The girls have dread locks on the backs of their heads because I don’t brush their hair. My kids always have muck under their finger nails because I never wash their hands except a quick wipe with a cold dish rag. Mara almost always has a slight rash on her bottom because I don’t have the energy to go find the diaper cream each of the six times I change her each day. Kenturion is  almost two and a half and has never been to the dentist. I see plaque forming on three of his front teeth. He still sucks a binky and I think it’s ruining his teeth. He still drinks a bottle before he goes to sleep because I don’t have energy to fight that battle right now. The girls are in carseats that don’t quite fit right in the car. My car is a mess. My shower hasn’t been cleaned in at least a month my floors have not been mopped in at least six weeks. I literally scrape my kitchen floor once a month with a metal spackle knife because I haven’t been able to teach my kids to not throw food on the floor when they eat. Most of the time I feel like a failure. My house is a mess, my life is a mess and my heart is a mess too.  But..…but   …..in this very moment……. there is a white haired, blue eyed boy under the covers at the end of the bed that I am nestled in. He is popping his head in and out of the covers saying with a huge grin, “I am silly! I am silly mamma!”  His coral colored gums flash at me over the computer screen. There is snow on the grass outside my window and the bamboo bushes are five green metronomes sweeping peace into my heart. A friends kind gift left on my porch of tea and chocolate is kindling to start a fire to warm again my weary, weary soul. And in my head a song starts to rise, “oh…….how he loves us so….oh…..how he loves…..how he loves us so.” How does He love me?  He loves me with arms wide. He loves me with blood spilled and flesh torn. Weary, if ever I felt to have been weary it is therefore that I know Him more deeply, the man of sorrows. Weary but weighted. The trials of this world are producing in me an eternal weight of glory. A weight of worship.  In other words…. My life is exalting the one who is so worthy to be praised. My weariness is my worship just as well as my hands raised and my voice in song….if not more so than sweet chapel praises. My weariness is my worship because I do not fray, I chose not to run from these curses, these trials and in my heart of hearts my soul bows to King Jesus. I want His way more than any way. I choose to open my hands to the gifts as well as the gray skies and ask God to use them for change. I need change. There are few things that I know with complete certainty and one is that I know I’m sinful and another is that I know that Jesus is the cure for that sin. And He did it! It is finished , redemption accomplished and I am in love! So I ask… I ask again and again, “Lord reveal yourself to me. Show me more of who you are.” And this is His road of revelation for me right now; snotty noses, dirty hands an aching back, and JOY….. buckets full of joy. The giggles heard in my house could be used as substitute for the most potent depression medication. The three bouncing naked bums running for bath time are almost too much to take in terms of the oxytocine levels they induce. And the little voice of my son whispering as he repeats every word of my husbands prayer at meal time is barely tolerable until I hear a tiny two year old squeaking, “I love you Jesus, we worship you.”  And my heart explodes out my eyes. Unspeakable joy amidst trail , fatigue, grief and pain. I’m a mom and like so many moms I am so weary… yes I am, but balanced and then outweighed with joy. Salt so we can taste the sweet as so much sweeter, and in the beauty of evening sunsets… what be it that makes them yet more beautiful, but the gray clouds in contrasting sky.

Night Song

-Kelsey Pitney

Nocturne, nocturne, the night rages on

Through  war upon war to raise the sun

Globe roll, roll through to night anew

As all saints pray, “come quickly”

Our song is low in heartfelt tones

So weary of wanting and waiting

For  high King to fly, rip open the sky

In wind His bloody robe waving

Oh Holy night become holy day

Set us free from these crypts of flesh

Make haste the day when it is true to say

The world of sin is dead

Put this song in the grave oh Jesus

God put this nocturne to death

Ring in the age of the Ancient of Days

Sing we lone lyric song, Hallelujah 

But wait, we will wait unto death

Unto torture and martyr and slander

Stone us, they may, crucify one each day

But for saint this can only bring honor

For by death our lives cannot be taken

With our hearts anchored loft caelum

Mortemed flesh sets us free, for our hearts to be 

 Loosed to the bosom of Abraham 

Nocturne nocturne the night rages on

Though the faithful petition for glory

For heaven we long, and so this our song

Nocturne, nocturne, Hallelujah!

Unburden Me

What can I pray to bring you near? I have but a small moment to solely seek you so I desire efficiency. “Mother” some days the word is the antithesis of efficiency. Though it could be used as a supporting adjective to describe you, you are not the God of efficiency. You are love and sometimes that is being the opposite of efficient. Clothes in the washer, dryer and on the floor while little boy is rocked and sang to an extra ten minutes before nap. Dirty windows still let in light while I lay and tumble with cooing babies. Efficient, maybe this is the last thing a mother should want to be, but I am also a daughter and I desire to feel your presence. You woo me with two squares of chocolate and a cup of steaming green tea under a down blanket. This is my daily temple, the chocolate and tea, my bread and wine. I use them to remember you, dwell on your word and your promises. Then efficiency taps me on the shoulder again in this moment of relationship. There is no time. I write through small fingerprints on my eyeglasses because the moment taken to clean them is too precious to waste. Many duties get ignored in order to gather up spare moments to be spent with you. A baby went down for nap with spit on her shirt, a boy was not made to pick up his toys, the dishes from breakfast are still on the table and I am in my pajamas. But I love you and long to love you more. You are my sweet solace, my only source of hope from my sin. My sins pile mountains high, especially when I make laws up that aren’t even yours, laws of efficiency and chores and a clean house and a smiling face. Your law has not made it a sin to mourn, or to have crumbs on your floor but I still tally them up and lay the guilt squarely on my shoulders. The weight is so heavy I can’t afford to miss this time with you.  Any sacrifice is worth making in order to have a moment to kneel in your throne room that you made available through blood and death. And I cannot be efficient here. I must be anything but. I must close my eyes and listen and wait for your presence to wash over. How impatient I am. Twenty minutes seems never enough. It seems so insignificant, some days I don’t believe it will be enough to unburden me so I carry my curse all day long saying I will have time tomorrow, maybe thirty or forty, surely that will make my time with you more efficient.   My phrasing is ill put when I say that I desire to bring you near for it is my own heart that has gone wandering.  It is me who has created a distance, not you from me. And yet again you are my only hope. Jesus draw me near to you for I have no ability to conjure affection and obedience. I rely on you for even the will to kneel. So make me kneel Lord. Unbind me from these laws I have made for myself about ritual and consistency. Set me free with love. You are LOVE, Holy maker of all things, Healer of my heart. Unburden me and bind my wandering heart to thee.

Two Truths and a Lie

Two truths and a lie. I remember playing this game. I’ve been playing it this week with my own mind. Ever since we almost doubled the size of our family by welcoming our twins, the reality that I now have more children than hands to hold them has been calling me into fear. I am struggling with two truths and a lie. As we drive through town I think “what if we got pushed off a bridge into water. How would I save all my kids from drowning?” or, “ what if there was a fire? Could I really get all of them out safely?”  I’m sure these are thoughts that cross every parents mind at some moment or another but when you have three under thirteen months the responsibility for their safety combined with the reality of their helplessness is a  sum that can sometimes leave one breathless. I’m sure I’m not alone. Another “every parent “moment was had the other night. It was late and one of the twins chose to reject all attempts of us getting her to sleep in her crib next to her sister who was snoring. How can you argue with a cute little double chin that just grins with sparkling eyes when she says, “I just want to be with you!”. So we brought her to bed and she immediately fell asleep; arms flat up over her head that was turned to one side with the most delicate little eyelashes resting on full cheeks, so still until they momentarily raised into a smile. That smile punched me in the stomach with pure undiluted love. It pressed up through my chest as I said through sobs to my husband, “I love her so much!”. This is when you become a parent. There are many people who “have kids” but you become a parent when the love you have for your child wrestles your desire for self gain and self comfort to the ground and smothers it dead. Your brain is changed from that moment forward. But you can dwell in that moment a little too long. If you dwell in that moment long enough and you allow yourself to fully comprehend the frailty of that child and your lack of ability to control this chaotic world combined with that desperate love you  have for them, your heart will be filled with  fear, terror, at break neck speed, because babies are made of so easily destructible flesh and bone but we feel they are more valuable than our own lives and the lives of many others.  It’s terrifying to love so deeply. And you know where I am going with this… That’s how the Father loves us. He so violently loves us that he threw himself onto a torturing cross to pay for our wrongs. But back to my point, there are two truths and a lie here. It is true and right for me to love my child, it is true that this world is full of sin and pain, and death really is coming for my child at every turn but it is wrong and it is a lie that I should have fear, that I should feel helpless in light of those truths. The answer is “no”, I may not be able to save my babies in an unforeseeable accident. I may not be able to keep them safe all the days of their lives and even if I do save them death WILL come for them unless it pleases the Lord that they are of the single generation who will never see death.

Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ""Abba," Father."

So I have been crying “Abba, Father.” More lately… actually three times more than usual. I say “Abba Father, align my will with yours. Your ways are so much better than mine, even when they include my suffering or the suffering of one who I love.”

It has been one year since God broke my chest open through my fathers and made my heart more His own. He died after a heart surgery in which there was only a one percent chance at loss of life. The doctors sawed my dads chest open and God gently opened mine making a wound that will not heal in this lifetime. I feel selfish talking about my wound of a dead father when so many walk around this earth never even having known their father or worse never being loved by their father, when my father was one of the best who loved his bride and his children with a passion that mimicked the Lords. How can I even call what happened a tragedy when the fifty three years we had , including his death was nothing but blessing. I have a wound now but it was put their by a surgeon. It was put there so that God, the Great Physician can mercifully grab hold of my heart whenever He needs and say directly to my heart with nothing hindering “Hey my love, are you desiring me?!  Hey do you remember how you loved me that night I took your father home? Do you remember how you told me to have my way and not yours even if it meant his death? Please love me like that every second of every day my daughter! It’s for your good, it’s for my glory! Remember, don’t forget while you’re sweeping up snack time and Satan says your work is meaningless. Don’t listen when he tells you your actions are dramatic and uncalled for when you kneel on your children’s bedroom floor and pray for their souls and ask that I would protect them but that I would ultimately have my way, that you love me more than them. Remember how I cared so much for you that I wounded you. I cut you to heal you.”

Do you ever forget about things? You tie one of those red strings around your finger and write seven sticky note reminders and still forget about that dentist appointment or that thing you had to do? Do you ever forget about the cross? Do you ever just go about your day and then your week passes and you haven’t dwelt in the presence of the Lord, haven’t meditated on His glory and His word? Grief is that red string around your finger for the Lord except it works every time. I start thinking about my dad and drift into thoughts surrounding his death, like how his blood had to be passed through a machine that looked like a slurpee maker at seven eleven and I’m undone, I have to seek the Lord, and when I don’t, I spiral out, until I find myself on the floor asking “why am I so bitter? Why am I being so mean to my husband!?” and then I remember that I have a wound …….and I weep and worship”

So we can’t fear these hardships that life will bring. We can’t walk in fear of what is coming for our kids and those we love because God is in control. God is the ultimate deciding factor in what happens to your kids and if tomorrow I go in to wake up little Mara and Phina and find they have gone home to Jesus it will be for my good and for the glory of God. He is making me new….. and it’s messy. And sometimes the level of wickedness in my heart has to be matched with an event that cuts me so deep I have nowhere to go but to the Lord for help and for healing.

Oh the unwavering holiness of God. If I could see it in an image it would be a tsunami wave with a great metal blade spanning the crest, buildings high.  It comes for those that run from it and those who stand on the shore with arms wide. It crashes and crushes and once you drown in it your free.  I’m still swimming, breathlessly treading water, bobbing and fighting  to keep from that one last moment before I inhale the wave. I’m fighting against freedom.

I imagine myself as the one on the shore with arms wide but now that I am awash in God’s ocean of teaching I flounder, I fight for one last breath of air, of control, my will, my way.  That must be what drowning is like; you fight and fight until you come to a point where you must choose to take a breath and fill your lungs with water. I’ve read from those who have experienced it that at that point you are set free, euphoria sets in and calm.

It’s been one year and I am treading water. But one year ago I did drown. I stood on the shore with arms wide and let the blade wave run me through. I did let my will and my way die for one night. I said, “have your way King Jesus.” when it actually did cost something dear. And now I’m challenged by that woman I was every day to say it again and again and again. “Have your way King Jesus, I love you more than my money.” As I give it away. “Have your way King Jesus, I love you more than my body.” As I spend it on people. “Have your way King Jesus, I love you more than my husband.” As I kiss him goodnight. And over them in their cribs with my hands stretched out to one on each side I reach and I bow so that my hands can touch both their hearts, I cast off these sweet little cherubs that at times become my false God, my own children my idol “Have your way King Jesus, I love you more than my babies”

Oh Lord give me strength to continue to say in every moment, in every circumstance , “I love you more, I love you more, I love you more.”  Two truths: God is good and God is in control, no lie.

Expect Suffering

 I fear that I am beginning to be a one note song in my head and my heart. Maybe it’s just the season of life that I am in but as I dwell on my thoughts and how they reflect scripture I am drawn to think it’s something more. I think that suffering is more than just a season. “This too shall pass” everyone's grandma once said to them. But what did she really mean, or did she even know the gravity of that sentiment and it’s deep ancient truth that “Heaven and earth shall pass away”(Matt 24:35) and all things will be made new (Rev 21:5) . We were created, we fell, redemption came and covered retroactively and proactively, we are being sanctified and one day it will all be finished and eternity can begin. Right now we are being sanctified. What else could that mean except suffering? Now this may sound funny but I think that suffering has gotten a bad reputation. We shouldn’t fear suffering, we should expect it and maybe even something more than just expect. “In this world you will have trouble but don’t be afraid for I have overcome the world!” ( John 16:33) I’m not a runner but there was a time in my life where I did enjoyed running and at the beginning of a day with perfect weather I would get excited about running. I knew I was going to sweat and breath hard and at times my ankle that I sprained really well a few years ago was going to hurt but I also knew that at the end of the run my body was going to be harder, more lean, better than it was before. I was excited for that feeling. I have also had times in my schooling where I was just so excited to learn; I looked forward to class. I felt this way about my world religions course with Dr. Domani  Pothen at Multnomah Bible College. I knew that her brain was going to ring me out in that hundred and twenty minutes. She was going to tell me I was wrong and challenge me to grow and study but I also knew that at the end of that course I was going to be more knowledgeable about God than I was before. I was excited to have these trials that would better me.  Can I say it? Can we as Christians be excited about suffering? I know this is probably not a popular idea that is going to catch on anytime soon but I think it’s catching on in me. I think this truth has been about twenty years in the making in my life. I have always anticipated suffering. I have waited for it, always asking God, “ok is this where I get to suffer?” When I was a teenager, “ok Lord, am I supposed to be alone my whole life and never find a husband? Is this where I am supposed to suffer?”, when I was a wife, “Ok Lord, he is deployed to a war zone. Is he going to die and me become a widow? Is this where I’m supposed to suffer?” when we wanted to have a baby, “Okay Lord will I always long for a child? Is this where I am supposed to suffer?”  I prayed that God would change my heart. I asked him to make me like that old woman who knows and loves and just rejoices in Jesus at every moment and then one day driving home from the hospital where my dads chest was sawn open in hopes of saving his life I asked again, “Lord when are you going to start hurting me to heal me? Is this where I get to suffer?” and he said yes. And the suffering that came from that day and the months to follow has been the greatest blessing of my life so far. No, you didn’t hear me wrong… BLESSING. My dads death, it took him three days to die, we were jerked back and fourth about whether he would live or not and when he did die his body was swollen and chopped up, his chest left open,  he left my mom with a pile of bills and properties that were under water and a physical mess, totally disorganized and no will, he left my son to never know him, my sisters to have no one to walk them down the isle at their weddings, my niece and nephew asking, “where did papa go?” and me pregnant with twin girls that were conceived the week before he died, never to see their papas face or to be held by his strong, rough hands and still ……it was a blessing.  There was no other way to bring about the kind of change in my heart that occurred this past year and I am beginning to believe that there is no other way to truly know Jesus except by way of suffering, trial, pain and loss. This has been the hardest year of my life AND the most blessed year and I hope only that Gods plan has more years like it to come because I’m being made new. 

What I didn’t think about or realize in my prayer to change my heart is that the only difference between me and that little old lady who has such great faith is years and years just like the one I had. Suffering does that when you know Jesus, it crushes you into a position of constant kneeling and praise. I know that this notion of getting excited about suffering may seem almost rude to some who have suffered much more than me and maybe much more than I ever will but I still think I should be bold in laying it before us and say that we can look forward to the rest of our lives. We can be excited about the suffering it will bring and look back with joy on what it has brought because it will draw us ever closer to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It has drawn us closer to the heart of Jesus who suffered far beyond any other individual. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”(Isaiah 53:5)  “Behold I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5) Expect suffering and not just, but anticipate and rejoice in it for the sanctification of God himself is in it and he is making us new.