Blessed v. Lucky
Life has been a little unlucky around here lately. We’re just not finding our groove, and lots of little things seem to be going wrong. We ordered tadpoles, for instance, to begin our spring study on metamorphosis, and our two little guys arrived limp and completely lifeless. The girls had waited months for them and were so disappointed by their lot in life. Those poor tadpoles were the real unlucky ones.
I always like to incorporate studies about metamorphosis during Lent. It just seems fitting since we’re all trying to work toward being new creations during these 40 days of soul pruning. But what does it say when there was not even a chance for transformation? Maybe I shouldn’t use feeble polliwogs to teach spiritual lessons.
Then a certain little someone who is always fidgeting with everyone else’s stuff broke my super cool, booklight-equipped Kindle case for the second, stinkin’ time. (I should be thankful I even own a Kindle.)
Oh, and yesterday we could not find my keys to the van (they usually are hanging on a set of hooks we have in a hallway), and the spare set was, of course, in my husband’s car. Madeline had dress rehearsal for a play today in which she makes her debut as Pocahontas. I called my husband in a panic (I very rarely call him at work). He didn’t answer. It turns out he was in middle of a procedure. Once he got my message, he thankfully said he could sneak away since we live so close, so he quickly swung by to rescue his ladies (and little man). We ended up being about 30 minutes late to rehearsals. Sigh.
Aside from untimely tadpole deaths, broken Kindle cases, MIA keys, and a few other random bad breaks (not of the bone variety, thank goodness), sleep has been elusive. The night Thomas actually slept for seven solid hours straight (cue angels singing), Mary Elizabeth decided to throw a tantrum for no reason whatsoever during his sleepy stretch. When I finally got her back to sleep, Rachel stumbled in and started crying. Although she usually ends up in bed with us, she’s typically quiet as a mouse and just sneaks in and nestles her warm body in the cocoon of covers. But tonight she was inconsolable, wanting to find Knuffle Bunny
Why can’t I get a break? I thought.
Despite the fact that Rachel recently found a five-leaf clover, and a few days later Madeline found a four-leaf-clover, I feel like we could use a stroke of good luck. Maybe St. Patrick will come through for us on his special day.
But maybe not. Either way, we may be just slightly down on our luck, but that doesn’t mean we’re not blessed.
So often people equate being blessed with being lucky. Those lucky people who seem to have it all (um, like me most of the time) are so blessed. That lucky friend who doesn’t seem to work hard at anything is one blessed lady. She’s a natural rockstar mother, and she makes Rachael Ray look like an amateur in the kitchen. Or maybe those lucky neighbors who were able to sell their house, which is half as fantastic as yours, in just a few months when everyone else is really struggling in the housing market. Man, are they blessed.
I’ve been writing about my mom a lot lately because she’s constantly on my heart and mind. Now she’s someone who could certainly be seen as being unlucky when it comes to her 
health. And, yet, she is one of the most blessed people I know. It’s not because she doesn’t suffer or because things couldn’t maybe be a little easier for her – like maybe that major brain surgery would have done more than rob her of vision in her right eye and would have actually alleviated some of her chronic pain.
What makes her blessed is her ability to find contentment in spite of what may go wrong or what seems unfair. She’s always been someone who is satisfied with the person she is and someone who tries to make the best of what is going on in her life.
When good fortune comes our way, we are certainly blessed. But we’re a blessed people even when we’re most definitely not courting Lady Luck.
God blesses us all. He blesses me in midst of dead tadpoles, sleepless nights, and minor mishaps. He blesses my mom in midst of her suffering. He doesn’t hold out on us. And if we recognize that, if we submit to Him and the life He has planned for us, if we live in the present moment instead of cursing the past or hoping for an easier, brighter future, we ought to consider ourselves very lucky. And very, very blessed.
Have a lucky, blessed day!
My Brain is Still Here; It’s Just a Little Slow
Last night I fell asleep putting my Rachel to sleep at about 8 pm. I didn’t wake up again until around 10ish when Thomas needed to nurse. I promptly fell asleep next to him. After a later noshing session (around 2:30 a.m.), I found myself wide awake. A random ticker tape of thoughts traveled through my mind. I wish I could say I was dreaming up the perfect plot to that novel I’m going to write one of these days or that the Holy Spirit was moving me and I’d discovered some profound, spiritual truth to take with me during my Lenten journey.
Instead, oddly enough, I wondered out of the blue, “Did I use the word ‘insensitivity’ instead of ‘sensitiviy’ in my breastfeeding post about food sensitivity in infants?”
Surely not, I told myself, because I reviewed that post several times before I published it, and someone would have dropped me a kind note telling me I’d used the wrong word.
I felt parched, so I slipped out of bed to get a drink, and I kept thinking about it. (OCD much?) I grabbed my phone, visited my blog, and sure enough, not only had I used the incorrect term “food insensitivity” once by mistake, but I had used it every single time in my post and even in the combox. Sheesh. Perhaps in the back (way, way, way back) of my mind I was worried my post might come off as insensitive to moms who have babies with real food sensitivities or those moms who suspect their little one is fussy because of the sauerkraut they ate.
Whatever the case, I needed to get over it. Not a big deal, I thought. So I swallowed my pride. It actually went down fairly easily. Motherhood has a way of humbling you. Although if I wasn’t prideful at all, I probably would have just left my errors for the online world to see, but I didn’t. I went back and changed all (I think) of the “insensitivities” to “sensitivities,” and then I decided that rather than cursing my blob of a brain, I should celebrate that it’s not completely MIA. It’s just extremely sluggish, and it frequently kicks in to high gear and starts “working” at odd hours in the morning when it should be resting. Weird.
The funny thing is I was recently chatting with a very good friend of mine who is also the mom to wakeful, young children, and I mentioned how I’ve just had to get over the fact that I make mindless typos and mistakes in my blog posts. She subscribes to my blog via email and told me she must be just as tired because she never notices any mistakes. This friend of mine is pretty brilliant, so this definitely eased my mushy mind. I suppose it’s a good thing that a big bulk of my readership consists of moms who are probably just as sleep deprived as I am and aren’t looking for perfect prose. They’re not waiting to catch my mistakes either.
I’ll leave you with a peaceful, sleepy image that just makes you just want to curl up in bed and not pander to random thoughts about mental blunders you’ve made but instead be grateful for all the reasons you’re a little on the tired side these days.
Have a wonderful, restful weekend!
I captured this moment during a recent visit to my parents’. The girls were hanging out in Gaba and Papa’s big bed, watching a movie. Thomas and Ivy, my parent’s yellow Lab, were with us and decided to take a little snooze together.
What Lies Ahead
Yesterday I turned on the radio hoping to catch a few Christmas carols, but the station that began blasting R&B versions of “Silent Night” before Thanksgiving had already returned to its regular programming.
The station was showcasing hits from 2011 that were not music to my {apparently old, fuddy-duddy} ears. Before I turned the radio off in favor of listening to a charming audio version of James Herriot’s Treasury for Children: Warm and Joyful Animal Tales (thank you, Great Grandma and Grandpa), I heard a promo on the station that mentioned this might be the last New Year’s Eve to listen to the greatest hits since, the dramatic on-air personality told his listeners, the Mayan calendar predicts 2012 is the final year of existence.
I laughed this off, of course. There’s been plenty of apocalyptic expectations lately, or maybe I just didn’t notice the doomsday message so much when I was younger.
Whatever the case, I don’t think the end of the world is upon human creation; yet, hearing messages like these, even when they’re not meant to be taken seriously and are just a way to get people to listen to bad music, is a good reminder for me that my time on this earth could expire at any time.
I don’t want to live in fear, but I certainly could afford to be more vigilant in my life. My Advent, as it should be, was full of messages about the importance of being awake and ready. Certainly, as a new year begins, I would do well to examine my interior life and to make some changes.
Yet, I’ve missed another important theme in the past when I’ve read Scripture about being ready. I’ve too often viewed the messages through almost apocalyptic lens: Get your act together. Shape up. Stop being such a selfish ninny. Oh, and while you’re at it, clean the baseboards and those stinky kitchen counters.
Then I see the smiles of my happy baby boy who personifies joy, and I wonder if there’s something more to God’s calling us to wakefulness. We’re not only called to be ready; we’re called to an awareness of the beauty that is before us every single day. We’re called to be joyful. We’re called to trust no matter what happens, no matter how we’re feeling, no matter whether we feel like an apocalyptic mess at the end of an exhausting, disastrous day.
I don’t need to preoccupy myself with getting my affairs in order or fret about what tomorrow may hold. What I feel God is calling me to do instead is to find joy – and Him – in the ordinariness of life and to pause long enough to notice the abundance of gifts around me like my the most powerful timepiece I have in my life right now, my little man who started out looking like this:
But in four, short months he’s looking like this:
And I wonder: Am I taking it all in? Babyhood is so fleeting, and I’m one of those moms who loves babies. Am I really, really aware of the everyday gifts that show up in my life? The handpicked flowers from my daughters. The delicious rolls on my baby’s butterball thighs. My husband’s strong but tender hands. A good conversation with a good friend. The presence of goodness and light even when I feel like I’m enveloped in darkness and fear.
I don’t know what lies ahead for my life, my family, or humanity. I don’t even know what lies ahead for tonight. Will I be awake all night with the littles, or will I be able to squeeze in a little shut-eye? (Lord, I know how to be wakeful!) I don’t need to know. I don’t even want to know. (I’ll just imagine I’m going to get more than five hours of fragmented sleep.) Nor do I need catastrophic predictions to push me to be grateful, joyful, and to trust God in all things.
As a beautiful New Year’s devotional I read this weekend reminds us, “What you do need to know about the future is not what is ahead of you, but Who is ahead of you. It is the Lord who goes before you, is ahead of you, and is preparing the way for you. Your future is in His sure, strong, caring hands.”
Be wakeful. Joy is everywhere. And so is God. Happy New Year, indeed.
