Perfect Love

If you know me at all one thing that is clearly evident is this: I LOVE MY HUSBAND. Period. The end. I love him. I could extol his virtues all day. If you know him, you'll understand, if you don't then I'm sorry. He is an incredible man of God who loves Jesus, his family and his work. He pushes me in surprising ways and is never afraid of self-valuation and recalibration. 

All that being said, he is not the most spontaneous man. He thrives on analysis and planning, two things I am honestly surprised are even in my vocabulary. He keeps me grounded, I keep him guessing. This why I was so surprised when, on the way home from some random meeting one evening, he turns to me and says, "I think we should get a tattoo." Ummm...excuse me?! Do you know who you are? I was floored! Mostly because the last discussion we had about tattoos ended with basic sentiment that tattoos were not the sort of thing he desired for his wife to possess.

You see, God has been pushing us lately. Testing our limits. While the topic of tattoos is still controversial in some Christian circles, it seemed as though God was using this to push us closer together and challenge us to embrace the freedom of Christ in different ways. So when my husband asked me to get a tattoo with him I knew immediately what it should say.

photo credit Laura Wills Photography

Jesus has been revealing Himself to our family in great ways. In specific, I have spent the last few years becoming deeply acquainted with a Jesus I thought I knew, but had no clue about. He has uncovered truths about Himself hidden to me in the past and has blown open the idea of who He is in history, in the world and in my own heart. Study of Hebrews, Romans, 1,2 & 3 John and John's gospel is beginning to revolutionize my heart in ways 5 years ago I would have condemned. Jesus is showing me who He is and who He's made me to be.

With this in mind and having just finished up a study in 1 John 4, specifically 1 John 4:18, I turned to Tony and said, "It should say 'perfect love'". To my utter shock without missing a beat he agreed! We were both on the same page and we both knew immediately what this meant. Although none of it had to be explained, we conversed at length about how "perfect love" had transformed us, not our love for each other but rather the love that Jesus had blossomed in our hearts over the past 9 years of our marriage and is continuing to cultivate.

It wasn't until we got home and spent some time digging through exactly what John meant by "perfect love" in 1 John 4:18 that we found God was truly revealing Himself deeply through us and this was a sentiment we wanted to permanently mark our physical bodies.

The Greek words for "perfect love", which is how Tony's tattoo reads, are "teleia agape". Agape of course refers to Divine Love. This is the kind of love that God has for us, unending, never-failing, unconditional. Teleia or it's root Teleios is the real kicker for us. This word is so delicate and intricate it makes the English equivalent of "perfect" seem small. Teleia, in this context is defined by Strong's as mature (consummated) from going through the necessary stages to reach the end-goal, i.e. developed into a consummating completion by fulfilling the necessary process (spiritual journey).

This therefore, means that the "perfect love" described by John is indeed complete and being completed. It is finished yet active. It is in process to a goal that has already been achieved! How lovely and Divine! And how well these two words illustrate the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. How perfectly He loved us! He accomplished His goal and is loving us toward the same goal. He has restored all things to God and IS restoring all things to God. I love the way God has conquered time through Christ and yet lives within it in His people. It is no less than "perfect love".

So one random Tuesday night we left our 3 kids with my desperately cool younger sister (who, by the way, had just had her quarter sleeve filled in with gradated color) and walked into our neighborhood tattoo parlor. Nothing will make you feel more uncool than being a 30-year-old couple getting wrist tattoos as you sit across from your artist with the word EDGE scrawled in permanent ink down the side of his face (my super cool sister and her hipster husband did try to explain this to me, I still don't really understand it). Paul (who also wore a tweed newsie cap, by the way) was awesome and patient with two tattoo virgins one of whom was beyond chatty and excited and the other who quietly endured the process - I'll let you sort which was which.

We walked away with our cool tattoos. His a perfectly metered Greek rendition of "perfect love". Mine a scribbled sentiment in my husband's handwriting. We know that to some people it reads cheesy. We're okay with that. We know that other people will be annoyed, if not miffed that we desecrated our bodies with ink. That's okay, too. We're okay with all of it, because that is what it's all about! 1 John 4:18-19 reads, "Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first."

The rest of the chapter is pretty awesome, too. But that will have to wait for another day. For today we stand in the promise and the hope of His perfect love. Accomplished and active yesterday, today and forever.

Family Affair

Our house is a ball of chaos. From 6AM until 7:30PM we are a whirlwind of little hands, feet, and stomachs. It can be hard, if not nearly impossible to get all of our teeth brushed much less study and apply the Word of God in our lives. We are not sitting down for long family devotions or gathering in our living room for discussions about Jesus. Our kids are 5, 4 and 16 months old. We're lucky we're alive some nights as we pour ourselves into bed and mutter goodnight to one another. 

Our season of life may be chaotic, we may not have devoted "God time" in our home, and our mealtime prayers may often be hurried and repetitive, but God is teaching us that through His Word our family can stay focused and centered on His truth and through memorization and meditation He is working His heart into our hearts. 

The beautiful thing about Bible memorization is that through planting God's Words in our hearts and minds we are able to see more of Him throughout the day. We have given up the Rockwellian ideal of sitting around the Big Bible in our home and have instead found freedom in slowly dissecting bits of scripture as a family. Whether in between bites at the dinner table, or at stoplights, or, my personal favorite, while pushing our kids through the supermarket, by memorizing His Words we get to communicate with and about God openly throughout our day.

One very helpful thing that helps keep me focused is to not only learn the scriptures myself, but to practice boiling each passage down to its pure essence to teach our kids. While I completely believe that our children are capable of memorizing large chunks of scripture I have found it helpful for them and for me to get to the root of the passage and dig into the true meaning. I think this is especially helpful for kids when applying what they are memorizing.

So here you have it. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 distilled into the hearts and minds of our children looks like this: "Choose joy, pray, be thankful! This is God's plan for you!" As they grow in wisdom we will revisit this truth. For now these are the things I want my kids to know and absorb into their hearts.

Here are some ways to start memorizing with your kids this week:

• Print and hang the picture above. More for you than for them!
• Any time you have down time in your day review the verse with them. A few of my favorites are: In the car, at the lunch table, while running errands, during cuddle-time or baths.
• Talk to them about what each piece of the verse means. What is joy? How do we pray? To whom and why are we thankful?
• Express what the verse means to you and how you have seen it in your own life.
• Work it into your discipline routine. "Let's 'choose joy' instead of whining". "I know your afraid, we should pray about that." "Let's thank God for a fun time with our buddies."

You'll be amazed how quickly your kids pick up verses. They have a great capacity for memorization and understanding. The thing I love best about memorizing scripture with our kids is that it releases me from a lot of heavy lifting. If I don't know what to say or do I can often recall a verse we've studied that applies to a situation. God longs to speak to each of our hearts and He does so through His Word. Why would our kids be any different? Truth calms, it soothes, it disciplines, and it heals. There is no greater truth than that of God's very own words. 

On: Dreams

I don't know about you, but this picture terrifies me.

Last night while waiting for Tony to come home from church I had the rare opportunity to watch a complete episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, a disturbing look at the life of tiny pageant contestants and their mothers. Last night's show followed a three-year-old baby and her stage-crazed mother, a four-year old toddler and her somewhat less crazy mom, and a 6-year old girl and her seemingly down-to-earth, if not a little batty, mom. After about thirty minutes of watching the preparations for the Southern High Glitz Open State pageant during which mothers took their daughters for modeling and dance lessons, fitted them for false teeth and trotted them into spray tanning booths, Tony arrived home and surprisingly joined me in my open-mouthed gawking at the audacity of parents to mutate their precious gems into little replicas of creepy porcelain dolls.

We watched together in awe as little girl after little girl was paraded across the stage in all their High-Glamour glory. We stared wide-eyed as parents pinned in hair-pieces and outlined their daughters eyes with heavy liquid liner. Stunned, we watched as tiny toddlers were squeezed into even smaller costumes that showed their bellies and their bloomers and were sent to "shake it" across the floor.

It was hard to watch as girl after girl was called for crowing and the little ladies we had become so fond of were winning menial prizes, until that is, we realized that the Supreme Crowns were reserved for those who hadn't already won their division titles (a bizarre crowing ritual that even the parents of the toddlers didn't seem to understand). In the end each of our tiny tots received top honors for their efforts and were awarded 3rd, 2nd and 1st place.

All of this, well, pageantry was literally making my stomach turn, until I heard a passing statement made by one of the judges to the mother of the Grand Supreme Queen. As she leaned over the table to pat the mother on the back she looked her in the eyes and told her "she's just so beautiful, you know what I mean, so naturally beautiful, just wonderful..." And there it was, I turned to Tony and I said, "I get it. I totally understand why mother's do this. It is the most validating thing in the entire world to hear that your child is perfect, because you did it!"

This was an interesting look into my own life and the Psyche as a parent, and I think most of us have it in us. That is why we post pictures of our kids on Facebook and brag to our parents about what Junior did today. That's why there are magazines, blogs and websites devoted to doting on our children. Because in some weird way, when our children succeed, we succeed. When our children are the best we're the best. When our children win Grand Supreme Queen, we win Grand Supreme Queen.

It made me really think about keeping my dreams for Roman at bay. At 8 months I already have so many aspirations for him that I know if he attains will reflect well upon me and Tony. It's hard not to dream a life for your child that will build up your reputation and allow you to live vicariously through them.

Perhaps this is why Roman is not a girl. God knew that a girl would be too much for me. I'd want to rewrite my life all over her. I have dreams for my girls that aren't even born yet, I've had dreams for them since I was 16. And until having my own baby, those dreams included pageants. Pageants and dance classes, gymnastics, acting, salons, and big (I mean BIG) poofy dresses. I have always wanted a girl to pick up where I left off and fulfill my dreams of stardom for me.

Yuck, even writing it down makes me realize how easy it is to fall into the trap of letting your should haves control the rest of your life. Of letting your past rule your future and becoming a haunting ghost of what you wish you would have done, instead of pursuing your dreams for yourself.

After I had expressed my validation for these women Tony turned back to me and said some equally profound words. He held out his hand in exasperation and said, "why? It's all fake!" Truer words had not been spoken. I realized that any aspirations for myself that I foisted upon my own children would be just that, fake. A sad, tin life lived out for the pleasure of a mother, and that is not a good life.

I think I realized that I need to pursue my dreams myself. If Roman wants to play baseball, great, if he'd rather do his math homework really well, that'd probably serve him better in life, although it wouldn't be quite so glamorous. If my future little girls want to take ballet, I'll love it, but if they'd rather go out in the backyard and play in the mud with their brother, that's okay too.

on MEMORIES

Memories are an amazing thing. It doesn't matter how deeply buried they are in recesses of your brain one smell, taste or touch of them creates a waterfall of rushing images that immediately bring you back to that exact moment in your life. There is something about a good memory that can make you feel like you have left the earth and that you are inhabiting an entirely different dimension. A good memory is like a long satisfied sigh.

I say this, because just a moment ago, as I was bent over a stemming pot of "Snow Day Soup" in my kitchen. I had just finished browning the turkey, adding the beans and dumping in the carrots and celery when I dipped in my spoon to retrieve the first taste test of many. And there is was. Dancing on my tongue like a long lost friend. I'm not sure if it was the celery or the broth or if the carrots were mixed just right with the other spices but that simple teaspoon of piping hot liquid sent me flashing back into my 12 year old body, standing at the stove at Chelsea and Caroline's house watching a pot of veggies and water bubble and steam as we prepared to subject our parents to another "special dinner" (our parents were very patient people).

It makes me wonder how many memories are stored up in this brain of mine, that one so random can leap out at any given moment. I have no pictures of this event, no ticket stub or scrapbook page to remember it by, just a taste and smell and there I am in all of my brace-faced-greasy-haired glory pretending, along with my childhood friends, that we are some sort of prairie pilgrims that have to make our dinner from scratch or die in the cold long winter (yes, we were a little strange, but we had a lot of fun).

This all eases my mind a little. It helps me to know that I won't forget every detail of Roman's childhood without a picture or keepsake. And although I've already taken over 2,000 pictures of him in his short life it helps me to know that, because of a bad diaper rash, the smell of Destin will probably always remind me of the day the we got snowed in under 14" of snow and that the feel of a fleece blanket sleeper will remind me of the days he was learning to crawl.

I worry all the time that my mind is no good. That I'm terrible forgetful, which I am, and that I'm not all that bright, which I'm really not. But that one taste of "Snow Day Soup" helps me to know that my memories are still in there and that I'm building more. A picture can't do the things that my mind can do and, while I'm thankful for all 2,000 of them waiting to be printed off the computer, the most important memories are the ones that can't be contained on a piece of paper.

on LIES

My best friend has been lying to me. For the past 6 months my BFF has been telling me that I am a gourmet cook trapped inside the body of a young housewife, that I can make my holiday tablescape look like a picture in a magazine and that I have a limitless amount of money to spend on self-improvement if I just arbitrarily call it a "budget item".

My best friend has been lying to me. Since the moment I found out I was pregnant my Besty has been telling me that I need a special baby food processor or my baby will hate everything prepared for him, that developmentally appropriate gadgets with complicated buttons (and price-tags) are essential so my newborn won't have stunted brain growth and that My Baby Can Read by the time he's 8 months old.

My best friend is a liar.

For years now every time we sit down to spend some time together my best friend does all the talking. Every day I get pumped full of celebrity gossip and new ways to feel terrible about myself because I can't make that complicated recipe or my hair just doesn't look that good when I get out of bed in the morning. My best friend tends to point out all of my worst flaws and shines a big high definition light on all the things about me that I hate the most.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom by best friend has become my television. I'm not sure when it happened or why I've allowed it, but daily, unwelcome intruders parade through my living room. Matt and Meredith prattle off nearly unintelligible news as I groggily pump each morning, Rachel produces saliva-worthy meals in ten minutes as I sip on my lunch of Beef flavored Top Ramen, Ty and the gang hoist up a beautifully decorated Architectural marvel in one hour while I fold laundry and Oprah, Tyra and Ellen rub elbows with celebrities while I'm up to mine in baby poop and screaming infants.

Recently we've been studying the book of Titus in our Sunday morning services at church and I have been asked to speak on the Roles and Responsibilities of Women as outlined in Titus 2. While studying the verses and commentaries related to these verses, and dictionaries containing the words of these verse, I've come to realize again something I've known for a long time. The television is a liar, and the bigger problem within: The world is a liar. And while I feel I don't always allow the world to lie to me, I've come to realize while studying the Word that more often than not I am taken captive by the teachings of this world rather than the precious words of Scripture and the prayerful guidance of a good friend.

Amidst the rumors of Tiger's infidelity and the inane speculation about the White House Party Crashers I have been confronted with the completely counter-cultural revolution of Titus 2. Perhaps because most of the conversations I have as a stay-at-home mom are the one sided rants of my T.V. Titus seems all more rebellious to worldly norms. Here's the gist of the instructions that Paul gives to Titus on how to instruct the women of the Church at Crete:

To Older Women: Be reverent in the way that you live, worthy of being called a woman of God, don't gossip about people and, oh yeah, don't drink so much that you can't live without it. Also, teach what is good by the example of your life so others will want to emulate it and don't let your younger sisters and daughters get caught up in the things of this world, lend them a helping hand and prayerfully guide them through the process of becoming a Godly woman.

To Younger Women: Choose to love your husband and kids, control yourself in every way and be a woman of purity. Don't become lazy in your home so that all you have to do is sit around and focus on yourself, be kind and here's the kicker, submit to your husband as he submits to Christ.

The instructions in Titus seem pretty straight forward, but they are terribly difficult to follow if we are not tuned into the Word of God and carefully filtering the words of the World.

I love the reason Paul gives Titus for teaching the women of Crete these things. He says to make the women in your church are living this way so that "no one will malign the word of God." Not, so that they will live their Best Life, not so that their husbands will be more attracted to them, not so that their kids will like them better or everyone will want to be like them (although these may be fortunate side-effects of living this way), but to promote the cause of Christ to the World.

It's interesting to me that it's so much easier to accept the lies that my "Best Friend" tells me than to daily follow the commands of Christ. Everything that the TV has told me has proven to be false. I'm not a gourmet cook, I can get a meal on the table that tastes decent, but I'm no Martha Stewart. My tablescape is old magazines and unpaid bills, and spending $6 on mascara still feels like a major splurge. I'm sure Roman will eat something out of the blender, a mirror and a sock are still his favorite toys and if he's still not reading by the time he's 7 years old, then I'll start to worry...

For now I'm going to try to focus on those things that are truly important. On the things that my really Best Friend tells me to do. To choose great love for my husband and child, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at my home and kind to my family and friends (and even that stranger that watched me struggle into the mall without batting an eyelash to help open the door). I will focus on giving my husband the respect he deserves and daily cling to the Truth of God's word instead of the lies of this World. I will accept the guidance of Godly women and promote the cause of Christ in my life.

I'm sick of the lies and the gossip and the unreasonable self-assessment presented to me by the box in my living room. It's time to live outside the box, outside myself and inside the love of Christ.

on COLD COFFEE

10:15 am: The last swig is down. It was grainy and cold but I've finished. I guess that means my day can officially begin. I remember hot cups of coffee. Ones I drank from the moment they came piping hot out of the coffee maker until I finished the last creamy, full-bodied sip that still left the tingle of a hot cup on my palms. Now, I can't remember a cup I haven't microwaved twice and gagged on the last icy drop. At least I have yet to give into my temptation to substitute a good creamer with breast milk, although my eyes do linger over the refrigerated bottles a little to long some mornings as my body cries out for just one good cup!

It's funny, these little brown pools of liquid that remind me so much of my "adult" life. It kind of makes me laugh how much I thought this bitter concoction would make me a real live "big girl". In middle school "going out for coffee" seemed like the most grown up thing a person could do. My friends and I would pile in one of our mom's SUVs all dudded up in our skirts and curled hair, with the newly found appreciation for eye makeup and lip gloss that didn't taste like anything and just looked pretty, and spend an evening at Jitters giggling over our sickeningly sweet mochas filled with creamer and at least 4 packets of sugar. A fistful of chocolate covered coffee beans at Timbuktu signified the end of eighth grade and being asked out to coffee with a friend and her boyfriend to "get to know each other better" cut the ribbon on my freshman year.

Throughout high school sucking down a bottled Starbucks Frappucino on our way to basketball games ensured that our squad of eight bubbly cheerleaders would fizzle out by half way through the 3rd quarter and in college cup of coffee on our porch would signify that two strangers had become friends.

Coffee never became as important to me than during my first full-time job out of college. I'm pretty sure you can't spend 24 hours awake on bus with 90 Jr. High students and not cry for coffee on Tuesday morning when you drag yourself into work because you've still got to plan Wednesday night activities for those same Jr. Highers who seem to have boundless energy, because a can of Red Bull does so much more for a 12 year old body than 5 cups of high-voltage brew can do for a 23 year-old woman.

Coffee does begin to loose it's charm when it's made by me in my own kitchen and drank over my infants son's head while we're reading a book. It helps to warm up the water in a kettle and steep it in a french press, it makes me feel, very...grown up. I guess I never realized how much coffee represented my adulthood to me. Not until I realized how very few adults get to drink coffee. At least coffee the way they like it, without it getting cold or having a few crystals left in the bottom of their cup. Not without thinking "yikes! this batch is bitter" or forgetting that these little beans once held any romance at all.

There are times when I'll get a great cup of coffee. When I'm out to dinner with my family and I get a great dessert cup with cream and sugar. Or when my mom and head out for a date and we sip Pumpkin Lattes in the front seat of her car. There are those times when I'll enjoy a full hour long conversation with a friend over the hot steam of a coffee house cup or those precious rare times when I'll look over the rim of my mug at my husband while he sips a smoothie. It's funny because these are the times I feel most like I did as a kid. The most free and care-less. There's something about a special cup of coffee that makes me remember what is was like to love shiny lip gloss instead of menthol chapstick and curly hair rather than a braided ponytail.

The times I feel most like an adult, most like the mom that I am are those 10:15 drops of ice cold coffee. Those are the drops I couldn't have imagined as a teenager. The chilly drops I wipe off of my baby's head after they've slipped from my cup, or the ones I clean up after I've bumped the coffee table for the 13th time. The rings left on the glass and the old grounds that are starting to stink up my sink. These are the tiny droplets I treasure.

I know I won't always have to reheat my cup while I wait for a bottle to warm up. I won't always have to put down my piping hot mug to change a blowout. I won't always choke on the last few grounds after fighting with a five month old to go down for a nap. One day, I'll sit with a steaming hot cup as I watch him board the bus, or watch my tears drip into my brew after I drop him off at college. There will be a time when I'll long for cold coffee because of all it represents.

So, here's to being a mom! Here's to dirty diapers, snotty noses and babies who try to eat Kleenex! I'll drink my nasty, gritty coffee to that!

on GIANTS

Tiny shoes, tiny pants, tiny toys. I never thought I would categorize myself as a giant, but as I wade through the sea of ity bity t-shirts, super small socks and baby sized blankets I am forced to reconsider my assessment of myself as a "small person" over the last 26 years. My 5'3" frame towers over the variety of baby paraphernalia strewn across my living room floor and the more times I bend over to pick up a discarded pacifier flung from a manically swinging reclining bucket seat, the more I'm forced to remember, I am the mom...

It is unbelievable to me how much a life can change in one year. Last year at this time the only thing smaller than me in our house was our 6 month old puppy and her string of half chewed nyla-bones. I was drenched in a sea of over-sized, out-dated t-shirts and a giant pile of ironing thanks to Tony's new job. Life was about me and the slice of earth that Tony and I had carved out for ourselves. I was awash in new hormones and fears and little did I know just how much I would grow, in so many ways.

One year later, everything seems different. Not only do I as a person feel extraordinarily large in my own home, everything about me seems bigger.

My heart must have grown three sizes. I picture it like the ending scene of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. If you put the x-ray over my chest it would bust the sides of the frame. Every time I look down at Roman's little face I feel the pulse of my aortic muscle growing larger and larger.

My sense of smell has heightened incredibly. I can smell a poopy diaper from across a crowed room, sense spit-up from ten feet away and tell if an outfit needs to be washed or "can make it another day" just by sniffing a whiff. I look more forward to the intoxicating cocktail of Baby Magic, Purex and pee in the mornings than I used to savor a good cup of coffee in the middle of winter.

There are a few things that seem smaller. The time in a day doesn't seem so long, especially the 45 minutes between cranky Roman and my smiley baby known as naptime. My arms don't feel as big anymore, now that Roman has grown past the 15lbs mark I realize how little muscle mass I have and how short a time he will fit in the nook of my arm. My tears are smaller now. Where before I they could obscure the vision of the future and cloud what was right before me, now they are small enough to be kissed away and forgotten before they've barely begun.

I guess I don't mind being a giant. I like the stray bright green baby sock stuck to my hand-me-down sweatshirt. I don't mind that all my clothes fit slightly askew thanks to my post baby body. I love finding a stray paci on my bed side table and having to move the tiny baby bath every night. It reminds me that I'm worth something. It reminds me some one cares for me. It reminds me, I'm the mom...