Steady Mom

can't help but see the beauty

If there was ever a year when my neighborhood and town needed a white Christmas, this was the year. I prayed along those lines for several days, in fact. On Christmas Eve Steve and I tucked excited, slightly hyper children into bed, did a little "elving" around the house, then headed to bed ourselves--not a flake in sight.

But we woke to beauty--a coating of snow just big enough to cover the ground and make everything look magical. And we need a little magic around here. After opening their stockings and eating traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast, our three bundled up (they can bundle themselves up now--moms of littles, take heart! Your day will come.) and spent an hour sledding in the backyard.

Jonathan said the snow was one of his favorite presents.

We had a perfect Christmas day--slow, joyful, exciting, beautiful. I'm finding that even in the midst of sorrow all around, I must acknowledge the beauty. I can't help it--it's everywhere. It feels good to remember that.

There is trouble, yes, deep darkness around me--and around you in some way I'd wager, too. But when we allow ourselves to get stuck in the darkness we help no one.

We must move past the shadows and worries to discover how we can help, how we can grow, how we can serve, how we can love.

This day, these children, this snow, this home, this community--all beautiful gifts. I receive them with awe and wonder, and thank the Giver.

“I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as coloured glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling.
But I'll wager it never happens.

I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are' - her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone - 'just what they've always seen, was seeing Him.
As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.”

~ Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory

we need this

We need:

to see little faces light up with joy and wonder

to make and eat pecan pie with cream

to stay offline and live in the real world

to light candles and remember

to welcome the One who came to save

to hear laughter and the loud chatter of family

to laugh ourselves

to stop reliving what we cannot change

to love and comfort those God has placed before us

to lift voices in song

to worship

to celebrate.

Peace and hope to you and yours. Merry Christmas!

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle these three things:
a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."
~ Maya Angelou

on gratitude and grief

For most of you, life goes on--as well it should. There is, after all, a big holiday coming up with presents to wrap, dishes to cook, family to visit.

But those of us in Newtown falter between two extremes. We begin to pull our daily routines together again, but then we drive pass a hearse with a tiny coffin inside.

We get calls and emails from concerned friends--and even online stores where we placed Christmas orders. They've noticed where we live and ask with sadness, "Are you okay?"

Our address alone is infamous.

We can't drive through our teeny downtown area--because it is plastered with press and mourners coming to pay heartfelt respects. Signs everywhere read "We love Newtown" and "Keep Sandy Hook in your prayers."

And since my three little people still have no idea about what happened less than five miles away, this means we are staying home a lot. Waiting for time and distance to give some space before we have to address it--if we must.

I teeter between gratitude and grief:

I can't pretend that I'm not grateful my children were not in that school building--because I am.

Yet I can't pretend that I'm not heartbroken for the parents down the street and around the corner--because I am. Devestated for this town we've grown to love.

Those of you who read here know I usually write short posts--snippets from my own life with a takeaway you can hopefully apply to your own. That's not easy to do this week, which is why I've stayed away.

Right now I am, along with many in my community, living someplace in the "in-between"--a pendulum of emotions swinging wildly from one side to another.

Instead of fighting against them, I'm trying to follow their lead. To not demand "normal." To weep and ask the hard questions. Then to laugh, smile, make cookies, hug my babies tighter.

In the midst of grief, I'm grateful.

Desperately grateful that in a world turned upside down my family can cling to One born to bring life and hope to us all.

I can't pretend I'm not thankful that Christmas is around the corner--because I am.

"A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born"
~ O Holy Night

 

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.
They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love."
~ Washington Irving

 

Newtown as I know it

I never intended to write about my current location here, or in any online space. I crave privacy and am tiger-mother fierce about protecting that of my kids. But when you see the town in which you live and love plastered across national and international news, the time has come to open up.

I make my home in Newtown, Connecticut–scene of last week’s 2nd deadliest school shooting in US history. If we had not chosen to homeschool, all three of my babes would have walked through the doors of Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday morning.

Who knows if all three would have come home again.

This tragedy hits close, shockingly close, to our home. Within walking distance families currently nurse a private grief that I find unimaginable.

What disturbs me, though, is that most of you are hearing about Newtown for the first time. Please know that there is another side than the sheer horror of what you’ve seen.

There’s the truth–what life is really like here. And though we’ve only lived in this town for a year and a half, this place will be part of our family’s heart, and history, forever.

This is Newtown as I know it:

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