What we do now.

The boys and I went for a run tonight, the fourth consecutive starting last Friday. It seems a little obsessive, a little crazy, but after work I just get the itch to go. The air is sweet, the sky big and full of changing colors, inviting me to chase after it, run into it.
Such a different feeling than the dark, cold days in February when the sky is a deep navy by the time we get home and the day seems over. All we do is get ready for bed it seems.
I realised on my run today that in the summer I don't run to burn calories. I don't run to train. I don't run so I can eat whatever I want (OK that's a lie.  I do run to eat whatever I want), but really I run because it feels good. I run because it's fun to run. And even though the hills, especially pushing Noah in his stroller, KILL me, that feeling of pushing into them, conquering them, is addictive in the best possible way.
It's been a treat-that's such an understatement. It's been heaven-to have Joey around in the evenings to do this kind of stuff with me. It's so so so different doing the parenting thing solo in the  evenings vs. having my partner with me. It doesn't hurt my partner has a booming voice when needed and seems to just naturally demand, and get, respect from the little dudes.
Ethan is doing baseball. He's so proud of himself. I love his confidence! I want it. I told him the other night that he has such a natural ability to argue his case, that he would make a good lawyer. I told him it was one of the talents God gave him.
"Mom, what are talents?"
"They are gifts and strengths God has given you."
"Well, I do have incredible strength."
He kills me!
Noah and Ethan are both doing their swim lessons. It's fun to watch Noah on the side of the pool, waiting for his turn, his little chicken wing arms bouncing around, blue goggles on. The other morning he crawled into bed with me, took my sleepy face in his hands, and said, "You're da sweedest mama." Where he gets this stuff I will never know;  I just know I want to soak it up, write it down, do I don't forget.

Holding On.

It's been a long while. The longer I go without writing, the more unfamiliar it seems to me, like a friend who was once a daily confidant but who moved away and I never get to talk with anymore.
So many things in my life have taken off, things I have always wanted have materialized, and instead of being in a constant state of working towards something, I am actually living day to day in the results of the previous ten years of striving.  Of wallowing through thick mud. Of feeling like their was no light, no end, but having faith it would work out somehow, at some time...
It's not to say the mud is gone; I think I have just learned to walk through it better. And I have experienced it's clearing, places in life where the pit ends and you can run...for a while anyway. Then you hit another pit, but knowing there's an ebb and flow to life, pits and non-pits, makes it easier get through those hard times. Even when they last for years.
My husband turns 30 on Sunday and we got some really good news yesterday. Suprising news.
You almost forget what it feels like to receive good news like this. Like all the muck in your head clears and OMG, the skies are blue! The air is sweet! The mountains beautiful!
And then that overwhelming feeling of "being chosen, blessed by love"....like being plucked from the middle of the pit for nothing you've done but just because of love. The resulting emotion is a deep thankfulness and gratitude, knowing there is nothing we could do to ever re-pay that kind of love...a love that is always watching out, constantly working, constantly comforting, constantly holding. A love that says, Hold on. Just hold on. You haven't seen the fallout of all of this yet....

One of Those Feelings.

Do you ever get that feeling, walking through your house, say from the laundry room back to the kitchen, that omygosh this is all mine? this house, that couch, the music streaming from Pandora, this evening, those two boys in the bathtub...this is all mine! My life. That I am almost thirty and those wrinkles in my face, especially that one that hangs out around my mole like a crescent moon, aren't going away and that THIS IS IT. This is my life. 
I am blessed to be where I am in life. With a husband who turned out, even though I said yes when I didn't know up from down or if my favorite color was green or orange. He did more than turn out, once I figured out he didn't exist to make me happy. That so many of my frustrations in our marriage was due to my shit sin, not his. This morning, again, one of those feelings that just springs up on me: He is mine. Every sexy hot piece of him, all his ways, his authority, his determination, his sense.
I feel blessed to be where I am in life, almost thirty, and to be able to say, I want nothing more. I know I've worked hard, I've tried to be as honest as I can with myself so that I can work through things in me that are broken so that they don't have to be the determining factor in how my life roles out, in what opportunities I'm given and how I handle the day to day things life brings my way. 
It felt good tonight to have that thought spring up and let it sink in: it's all mine. What a gift.

Teaching Experiences.

Oh I could use a little sunshine today. It's rainy, which was fine at five o'clock this morning as I listened, half asleep, to my better half getting ready for work. The falling rain outside was comforting, the perfect sound to drift in and out of sleep to.
But now, at four PM, I'm feeling gloomy. It's not just today- it's the season in general. March. We are at the end of winter, those cold, crazy days, but can't yet see the light of summer when I will feel the sun, that giant source of life, warming my entire body, awakening every pore on my skin.
Thinking of the sun's warmth reminds me of those long days in July or August at the Millpond, sitting in low chairs, eating jerky and drinking a cold beer, watching the boys splash and play in the water, talking for hours with Joey as the sun makes her way across the blue sky. Pure delight.
Besides the weather, life is...big. So much bigger than I had ever anticipated. I'm starting to notice connections in all the different areas in my life: the home part, the work part, the exercise part, the church part...more and more I am getting opportunities to use my passion to inspire and encourage others along the way. Not to offer solutions (who has those?), but to, as Nouwen says, "articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encourage us to face the realities of life...to [have] the courage to enter so deeply into human suffering and speak from there."
I have a passion for people.
In teaching exercise I have a passion to see people do more than they ever thought they could, and to find joy along the way as they use their bodies for what they were intended: to move! My heart is that my students would stop competing, with others and with themselves, and start enjoying the movement, the breath, the sweat. The results will follow, but they are not the point.
In church, my passion is to break down walls. Let people know it's okay to be themselves and not have to put on their church faces when they walk through the doors. That honesty is the foundation to knowing God, and letting God know you. That it's intimacy, being with God, that transforms us. Our lives flow from Him, taking our 'trying to be good' from being a noisy gong to a real, deep, love for ourselves, the way God loves us, and in turn for those around us.
At work, having compassion for our patients and the staff that is trying so hard to navigate in this changing world of health care to take care of them. It's a slow process, a process that takes a long term perspective, one that sees "interruptions" as the real work, as opportunities to recognize a defect and take the steps in order to eliminate it to bring more and more value to our patients.
And at home. Fostering my passion for people "out there" to the little people sitting at my dining room table, the two little men God has gifted to me. Taking time to be with them, get to know them, listen to them, even if it's about Star Wars this guy and Legos that. Sundays especially, while Noah is napping, telling Ethan, "I want to be with you. Let's play."
We built a lego jeep today. He's so damn smart.
Reminds me of a funny story.
So yesterday we were on our way to the park and Ethan says to me, "I don't think I should be going to the after school program."
"Why?"
"Because there are bad words written in the tunnel outside where we play."
"Oh really? What bad words?"
"Fuck."
"Oh..." and then Noah repeats it, really slowly, like he's trying to get a good grasp on how to say it properly.
I'm freaking out of course.
"Okokokokokokokok, stop, stop, stop....."
"But mom, what does it mean?"
Oh would somebody just crash into the car right now or something, an earthquake...anything would be great...
"Well..."
Noah says it again.
"Noah, hunny, we don't say that word. It's not nice. It's not polite. It's very very bad."
"But, mom, what does it mean?"
"Well, um...." Is that a trash can I could crash into?
"It said like fuck off, or of, or something...."
"Yes! Yes! so it means get away."
"Oh, Okay."
Big, deep sigh of relief from mama. And then we had a similar conversation about shit. And as we pulled into the parking garage to meet our dear friends and their little ones at the park, I prayed fervently that my boys would completely forget about this lovely conversation, especially Noah, lest he pass along his new found knowledge with his friends and then their parents would get to have the lovely experience I just had.

Delight.

Joey took me out last night, an early Valentine's treat. An excuse to have my parents take the boys overnight so we can go have someone else cook and clean and make our bed. We stayed at the Peppermill, our go to overnighter. It's so big and over the top there. The giant mirrors that hang on the wall made me feel like I was in a giant's house. So did the King crab legs I ordered for dinner. I got four or five legs and I was satisfied after eating the meat inside of one of them, they were that huge!
It was good to be with Joey. We shared a 2007 Cabernet from Napa. The label identified it as "rich and chewy"-not exactly how I would have first described it but  could see where they were coming from after I thought about it for a minute. It was full of all sorts of flavors and was a delight to drink. I could have taken the whole evening to drink that bottle with him. If that's all our date was it would have been phenomenal.
We're home now after going to church. I find myself not wanting to miss church. I have a little monk inside of me. Growing up as a pastor's kid church was always a "have to" or a "should". Sometime in the last year or so it's become a well of life to me. The community, the music, communion, the teaching.  Giving me the time to stop and and become aware, again, of God. Such a small taste of eternity, immersed in the love of God...but a small taste here is more than enough to keep me wanting more and more. So I don't like to miss it.
I'm also beginning to want a Sabbath. Protected time to rest and delight. I think in our culture we forget how to delight in anything, really. There is always too much to do. For example, I asked myself today, I have all day, what refreshes me? What delights me? and I couldn't really answer it. It was easier to just go throw some more clothes in the washer and then go through my underwear drawer and then re-organize the pantry....the problem is God created us to delight. To enjoy the fruit of our labor and relationship with others and with Him.
I want that rhythm, to know what is work and what is play, and to have time for both.
Music delights me. Playing my guitar, singing. Writing delights me. Painting delights me. Taking a walk with my family, being in nature, the sun. Reading. Sex followed by a nap with Joey. Cooking a meal slowly and eating together. Reading to my boys. Going for a run. Relishing in God's presence, knowing that it's enough. I don't have to be a hamster running my wheels with no end in sight. We were created for so much more than that. I want my Sabbath's to be a taste of eternity, keeping my pallet salivating for more and more and more.

This Weekend.

Another weekend coming to an end. We went ice skating yesterday.  It amazes me to see Ethan doing this sort of thing, on his own. In one sense you feel all this pride at watching him independently step out on his own in something so unknown and give it a whirl. The risk of it. And then my heart breaks to see him struggle, get frustrated, want to quit. Like we all do. But to encourage him to hang in there, and then to see him start to enjoy it a little, that fills me.
Noah still needed all the assistance he could possible get, breaking my, Joey's, and my mom's back as we had to hold him up all the way around the rink, all the while he tried to do "tricks": jumping, swerving, one footed shenanigans.  It's a wonder we all didn't end up on our asses, or worse, on our heads. I don't get why they don't enforce helmets. There were some people out there taking some seriously gnarly falls. It's a death wish, or at least a migraine for a day or two.
We made it though. Came home and watched the 49er's win. I've never been into football, but I know Kapernick or however you spell it and watching him play gets me excited for him and his team. He plays like a little boy, with so much passion and life. He messes up, he's not perfect, but he hangs in there and he doesn't give up. Watching him make some of those amazing plays is so inspiring.
Reminds me to do the same: don't give up, keep going for those big plays. And enjoy the game.

Stepping Out of Darkness into Light.

My church is hosting a women's group and my pastors have asked if I'd co-teach it. I'm excited to be able to be a part of a group intentionally coming together to ask God to move in our lives and then to be able to watch, with great expectation, at what He will do.
I am looking forward to watching more walls come down in my own life as I recognize fears I am still functioning in, lies that I am unconsciously living in everyday. I am looking forward to grasping even more of a solid understanding of the confidence and peace I have as a redeemed daughter of God.
What does it mean to walk in the freedom in Christ?
What do we do when we feel lost?
How are our lives affected when we know that our sins do not count against us anymore?
Where is our true identity to be found?
The world says our identity is found in how we look and what we can do.  Even the church gets caught up in this, although the demands are different than what the world demands. The world demands beauty and sexy and successful; the church demands modest and quiet and sweet.
But what does our Father really want?
He wants us to bust open and live in the freedom that comes from knowing His unconditional and steadfast love. He created us all so unique and for very unique specific purposes. Life with Him is dynamic and alive and very much a back and forth responding relationship with open possibilities.
The more I learn to draw from "I AM"; from a God who is everything I need for each moment, the less I walk in fear. His standing is my standing. His forgiveness is my forgiveness, His grace my grace. He moves mountains, and guess what, so can I.
I would not be able to make it in this life without Him, lavishly throwing whatever it is I need right to me. I would run away. I have always ran away. I despise conflict, something that comes with every life.  I've had to learn to take my emotions to God instead of relying on them to lead me. I've had to trust Him and His work, apart from how I may feel in any situation.
Here's the thing I have  found: the more I give over, the more He comes through. It's His faithfulness that has bolstered my faith. God has never let me down; He has proved over and over and over He is good and He loves me and He cares for me.
I was reading in Colossians this morning (1:9-14) and it blew my mind: "...we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will..." Whenever I come across "knowledge" in reference to God in the bible, I think of intimacy. Intimacy is to know and be known, and I believe God desires it with us and we, in the deepest part of ourselves, desire it with Him. The passage goes on: "...in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."
Stop the boat.
This just gives me goosebumps it's so amazing. It's the gospel: knowing (being intimate with) Christ  that produces a life that is lived, "in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him..." It's not the other way around, which is how I've lived so much of my christian life, thinking that how I lived my life would then bring me closer to God, instead of realizing it's being close to God that changes how we live. Knowledge, intimacy must come first. Paul finishes his sentence bringing it back to "increasing in the knowledge of God..." because that is THE most important thing.
He goes on, "May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might..." Once again, LIGHT BULB.
We have no power, no strength, except for his. And his is the ultimate in power and might. So much of my christian life has been lived off of what pathetic strength I think I  have instead of drawing from his endless, true strength.  When I try to use my own strength I fail, I get discouraged,  I lose hope. I want to give up. And I wonder why life is so hard, and why God won't just come through all ready.
When I draw upon his strength, I have exactly what Paul describes, "...for all endurance and patience with joy..." His strength is the only strength that can get us through ambiguous and shitty times with "all patience and joy." I can't get through a car wash let alone my marriage and  raising two boys with "all patience and joy"- unless I turn my eyes to God and draw directly from His strength.
The passage ends: "...giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in who we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
I love light and dark imagery. It's beautiful, easy to grasp, and so accurately describes our lives with and without God.
We can give thanks to God for "qualifying" us. We do not need to "qualify" ourselves. We can't. He has, through Jesus, covered us and gave us the inheritance of the saints in light. Our future, from today into all eternity, is set. We have the inheritance of light.   He has delivered us from the "domain of darkness". I believe this is referring to not only being delivered from eternal hell, it's also being delivered from hell on earth, life without God in the here and now.
Covered by Jesus Christ, redeemed (i love that word!) by his death in our place, we can live in light and not in the darkness anymore.
God may I understand this more and more and more.