A Confession

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I recently found out that a friend whom I haven't seen in well over a year is a fan of my blog. I found this out because I was talking with her husband, and he said that she loves to read my blog. Then he said something that I'm still contemplating several days later. He said that his wife is really impressed by me . . . because I have three small kids AND I still manage to brush my hair. I don't know how she can be so certain that I brush my hair, since she never sees me, but she's right: I do, usually at least once a day.

I know, it's amazing, isn't it?

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Guest Post for Sprouts en Route

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Just prior to our recent move, I wrote a guest post for Sprouts en Route, a blog by Kristin Spencer, another mom and missionary who writes about how to travel with kids and still enjoy the journey. It was part of her Ultimate Family Road Trip series. I wrote about how to keep order in the car. I mean, let's face it, keeping your kids in order when you're at home can be difficult enough. The mere thought of trying to do it on a road trip makes many parents cringe. But it doesn't have to be that way. Our family's lifestyle necessitates regular road trips where we spend ten or more hours in the car in a single day. But we enjoy it! Road trips can be fun for the whole family. You can read my tips and ideas for car travel with kids here.

Okay, So It’s an Excuse . . .

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I've been scarce in these parts for some time, so I wanted to show my virtual face and offer an explanation. One and a half weeks ago, we moved. It was just from an apartment on one side of the street to an apartment on the opposite side of the same street, but still, we moved. And in my opinion (and I've moved 9 times in the last 8 years and 8 months, so I should know) any move is a huge hassle, regardless of the distance involved. And when you move from the 4th floor of a building with no elevator to the 5th floor of another walk-up, it's potentially more of a hassle than moving across the country, even if those two buildings are on the same street. So our life is presently chaotic, and our living space is in a shambles, but we're t-h-r-i-l-l-e-d with our new place. And as soon as I locate the USB cable for the digital camera, I'll post some pictures . . .

Out of the Mouths of Babes and Infants

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My husband's grandma died last week. My 4-year-old son overheard us talking about it. "She died?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows. I held my breath involuntarily, wondering how to explain this to such a young child. "Yes, Great Grandma died," my husband said, "and now she's in heaven with Jesus." My son started to giggle with glee! I was shocked and disturbed, until he exclaimed, "How she got there by she's self??" (Translation: How did she get there by herself?) Then I understood.

Lately he has been preoccupied with heaven, often asking me when we can go there. When I explain that we have to wait until Jesus takes us, he says, "But I want to go now!" So when he heard that someone he knew had made it to that wonderful place, he couldn't contain his excitement, and he wondered, How did she do it?

My first instinct was to dismiss his irreverent laughter as merely the result of a lack of comprehension. He didn't really understand death, so he could be excused for thinking that this was a time to rejoice. But suddenly I realized that he understood the big picture much better than we did. In his mind, the specter of death was nothing in comparison to the joy of heaven. His thoughts were not of losing a great grandma but of her incredible good fortune to get to go where he so desperately wanted to be. I looked at his glowing face and smiled through my sadness. All of us adults with the long faces could learn a thing or two from the glee of my 4-year-old.

Changes on the Horizon

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When I started blogging on October 23, 2005, my goal was two-fold: (1) to give myself the chance to write something that might be read by more people than myself and my husband (he’s super supportive of my writing efforts, but I wanted a larger audience) and (2) to give my friends and family in the States a more intimate look into my life (since missionary prayer letters don’t always provide the details that loved ones crave).

That was almost six years ago. (Wow!) I’ve seen a lot of changes since then. I’ve gone from being an American abroad, paralyzed and frustrated by the language and culture, to someone with a deep appreciation for my adopted country who has learned to drive by the rules of the road here. I’ve gone from childless housewife with a part-time job and several ministries in the church to full-time stay-at-home mom with three small boys! And I’ve gone from occasional writer to committed blogger.

Over the years, my blogging frequency has been erratic. I’d didn’t write at all in 2007 (the year that began with the birth of our first child), and 2010 saw another hiatus (perhaps because that year began with morning sickness and ended with a 3-month-old infant in my arms). But this past spring, I made the decision to begin writing again, with the goal of adding a new post here once a week. It’s been a rewarding half year, and connecting with you, my readers, has definitely been the main reward!

So I wanted to let you know that some changes are coming to this blog. Now that I’ve sort of got the hang of writing regularly, I want to become more intentional about blogging. I’ll be moving my blog to a different hosting domain, and you’ll be seeing a new name, new look, and new format.

To pursue my blogging dreams, I’ve been reading a variety of resources. I just finished reading Bryan Allain’s hilarious eBook 31 Days to Finding Your Blogging Mojo. It was so funny that I was having trouble getting through it, because every few paragraphs I had to stop to fend off my two older kids, who kept running over to find out what I was laughing about! But beyond Bryan’s off-the-wall sense of humor, what I loved about this book was its imminent do-ability. The chapter-a-day format breaks it up into manageable portions, and each day’s reading ends with an assignment that is both practical and feasible. By the time I complete all 31 assignments, I know that I’ll be well on my way to meeting my blogging goals. I can hardly wait till the kids are tucked in for the night and I can grab a pen and do the first day’s assignment! If you’re a blogger, check out Brian’s book on Amazon Kindle or as a PDF, and then come back here to let me know what you thought about it!

Nightmare Inspiration

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Not long ago I had a nightmare. In my dream the Nazis had taken over the country where we lived. Because my husband was Jewish (he isn’t, but in the dream he was), we knew that he and our children were in great danger. We were all taken to some sort of compound and left in a room with bunk beds. We slept, but in the middle of the night, a seemingly friendly official awoke us to tell us of the regime’s plans to create pristine factories to be staffed by the expatriate Americans still left in the country. He seemed to be seeking our advice or approval for this plan, and we nodded our heads as he described how good the conditions would be and showed us pictures of a prototype. It looked wonderful. Everything was clean; even the floors were a gleaming white, and the workers were dressed neatly in starched white uniforms. But in our hearts we knew that it was all a ploy to gain our compliance; our captors did not intend any good for us. Our fears were confirmed when this same official returned to our room to inform us that my husband and I would be taken immediately, and we were to leave our children behind. “This will be the last time you see them,” he said, “so make it good.”

My two older boys, ages 4 and 2, were standing there, sleepy and a bit confused, and as I looked at them, my heart was in agony. I wanted to cling desperately to them and sob out my heartbreak, but I knew I needed to keep my emotions in check, because I didn’t want to frighten them, and I wanted their last memory of me to be positive. Above all, in our final moments together, I wanted to impress on their young minds the importance of clinging to Jesus. He would now be the only one caring for them and our only hope of one day being reunited. How do you communicate to such young children all that is necessary in such a short amount of time? I stood still, trying desperately to form my swirling thoughts into words that their little minds would understand and remember long after I was gone. The tension of the moment was too great, and I woke up.

Sometimes when you wake in the middle of a nightmare, your heart is pounding and your mind is racing. It takes a few moments for you to realize that it was all just a dream, but when you do, profound relief and sometimes even elation immediately flood in. This waking was not like that. My body and mind were calm, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I understood that I had been dreaming. But though I was relieved, the terror of the dream remained with me, and I lay in bed praying earnestly that, no matter what happened, my precious children would follow Jesus.

Hours later, the effect of this dream was still with me and was subtly affecting my interactions with my children. What if this were the last time I would see them? Had I taught them everything I could about the things that really mattered? Resolving their fights now centered more around teaching them that they were brothers and best friends who needed to take care of each other rather than finding out who was at fault. And I found myself frequently stopping what I was doing just to hug them and tell them that I loved them and that Jesus loves them even more.

This was a little over a week ago, and my eldest son already seems to be developing a different, more caring attitude towards his younger brother. And I think that perhaps I’m learning to enjoy my children more intentionally, even in the midst of the confusion and chaos that they generate. Though I would never want to revisit it, one day I may look back on this nightmare as one of the best things that ever happened to my parenting strategy.

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What about you? Has something extremely unwelcome ever turned out to be a blessing in disguise?