May
13
2011Blogger has been down for about 30 hours now so please pardon our tardiness 🙂
Julia and I are exploring the meaning of Beauty, intersecting Beauty with the word of God, and letting Beauty live in our lives. Inspired by a joint feeling of just not measuring up in the beauty category, we’re tackling some hard questions:
- What is Beauty? And does it reside in me?
- And when my husband says that I’m beautiful, how can I receive those words as truth in a culture that says the opposite?
- What am I going to teach my daughters about Beauty?
- And most importantly, what does the Word of God say about Beauty?
Join us as we converse about a topic that touches the heart of all women.
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Dearest Melissa,
Before I get started, I must ask your forgiveness. Three weeks ago you wrote a beautiful letter in response to mine. You poured out your heart, and offered grace to me.
And my response? Lady Gaga.
The post really was well-intentioned. I didn’t mean to put Lady Gaga up on some pedestal. To be honest, saying I “love” her might have been a bit of a stretch. Truth be told, I know nothing of her politics, personal life, or even all of her music. I do enjoy grooving to her tunes when I’m working out, or to motivate myself on my way to work out. As I told you in an email—if Amy Grant could kick it like Gaga does, I’d totally jam to that.
I realize, too, that both the song and the Glee episode had implications of homosexuality. I absolutely did not want to go there. There was truth in the message, for what it was, without opening that can of worms.
My letter was on topic, as far as our theme about Beauty, but it ignored the words from your heart. You are right, friend. When things get serious, I tend to find ways to interject humor and fun. All of that is well and good, but not when I ignore you and come with my own agenda.
Thank you for your grace in your response last week. Please forgive my insensitivity?
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So, in light of my words above, I in many ways, feel like I’m responding to two your letters.
A few weeks back you wrote these words:
Our histories are meant to be told because they are parts of His Story. Our histories, however sordid or bleak, are meant to be told, meant to be shared as the beautiful gifts that they really are!
Julia, we can’t hide our history. We can’t toss it out in the trash like a group of journals and live as if it never happened.
I love this.
It made me think, oddly enough, of The Ugly Duckling, the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Hang with me. I know it’s random. I can explain.
You know the tale. A mother duck’s eggs hatch, and one of the ducklings has brown feathers, and isn’t beautiful like the others. He suffers ridicule and torment over his appearance, and wanders from place to place searching for love. After surviving the cold winter alone, he joins a flock of swans, because he realizes that he is one of them. Finally–he found love and acceptance.
Hans Christian Andersen was once asked if he would ever write an autobiography. His response:
“It’s already been written–The Ugly Duckling.”
Isn’t that my autobiography and your autobiography too, Melissa?!
We have wandered through life looking for love, for beauty, for acceptance. We endured cold winters alone—those years the locusts ate.
It’s all part of His Story. You’re right—our stories need to be told.
Danny Kaye (the other guy, not Bing Crosby, in the movie White Christmas) sang a song called, The Ugly Duckling.
The lyrics say:
Till a flock of swans spied him there and very soon agreed
You’re a very fine swan indeed!
A swan? Me a swan? Ah, go on!
And he said yes, you’re a swan
Take a look at yourself in the lake and you’ll see
And he looked, and he saw, and he said
I am a swan! Wheeeeeeee!
You’re a swan, Melissa. You’re a swan, because God made you. He made you beautiful, out of his very own image. He redeemed you, and your story–His Story. You went through the ugly-brown-feathered awkwardness and wound up like this:
.jpg "Swan")
Only God can make ugliness like that so beautiful. You, my friend, are a very fine swan, indeed!
May
10
2011Sometimes I’m just overwhelmed by grace.
Money is tight here, especially with surprise baby #3 on the way. We’re saving for new carseats for the girls so we can fit 3 across in our Corolla while we wait on next year’s tax return to purchase a used mini-van. We rapidly meeting our family deductible of $6000 between ear tube surgeries, OB appointments, an ER visit, (what a blessing! We didn’t really need to go after all, but they allow a payment plan whereas the OB is a stickler about everything being paid before month 8!) Things weren’t looking up financially for awhile.
But God.
(does anyone else get chills when they hear those words?)
Derek’s boss went on vacation and took a class leaving us with lots of overtime. I had a very profitable print order from a client. The first client referred a second client to me! The second client is super eager to order prior to Mother’s day. We’re saving a good deal by couponing (though I’m not extremely good at it).
Suddenly, we’re so much more secure in the grace of God’s provision. And completely aware of how much of a miracle it is.
#1830-1880 of the Thousands of Gifts He gives
- Little bare legs dangling over my bare legs as we all read together
- Aeralind picking and attempting to blow a dandelion all on her own
- First coats of real pain on the kitchen cabinet doors
- Perfect color of green-blue
- Taking Ryan Elizabeth’s photos
- Ryan’s parents enjoying snuggling on the bed while I took photos
- Their trust giving me the confidence to try the harder poses
- Ryan just sleeping blissfully
- The unexpected way I keep recieving business with having spen any money on marketing
- Outside worship service with the entire church.
- Little girls beggin lawn chairs, snuggled, and toys off all the nearby families
- Derek graciously painting cabinets with me
- Going strawberry picking
- Watching the girls eyes light up as they realized just what was growing on those plants
- Laughing hysterically as the girls ate their weight in strawberries while we picked (ok, so maybe I exaggerate)
- Girls squealing in utter glee as they ran up and down a pier chasing after each other
- The smell of honeysuckle
- Explosive too many strawberries diapers cuasing me to have to remove and wash the futon cover
- Half on the fram futon mattress becoming a slide almost immediately
- Excited squeals of “Daaa-DI!” He’s such and excellent and loved father
- Thrift store shopping coming up with two tops for the girls, two PJ tops, two pair of play shorts, and white Linen (my favorite material to wear!) maternity pats.
- Contemplating tea dyeing the maternity pants 🙂
- Still being small enough to wear most of my extra long DownEast tops comfortably since all of my maternity wardrobe is with a friend due in this month.
- Shade under the cherry tree
- Salad with Catalina Dressing
- Dereking seing 48 species of birds in our back yard that’s a tiny quarter of an acre
- Magnolias blossoming
- Pea and bean plants flowering
- Volunteer tomato plants over 8″ tall
- Content little girls
- Breezes making 80 degress seem cool
- Feeling the baby move when lying in bed at night
- Girls practically crying because they didn’t know how to defend me from the scary blood pressure cuff or the heart beat doppler
- Barefoot girls running free
- Listening to the girls talk to one another
- Being able to understand about 5% of whaty they’re saying
- Hard conversations with Derek
- The grace to hear
- Little footprints all over freshly painted cabinet doors
- Editing 40 pictures in two days for a mother’s day rush
- Little girls giving kisses
- Lamb on last day sale snatched up by hubby
- Lamb made into Gyro Meatballs
- Cabinet Frames fisnished
- Mother’s Day Breakfast in Bed
- Sneaky Derek getting both sausage and bacon without me knowing. Mmmm!
- Little girls stealing and gobbling up one piece of my French toast
- Little hiking trip all packed up and waiting for me to eat and dress
- Seeing pretty birdies
- Frogs making noise at the dam
- Katie’s surprise baby blessing (nothing is impossible with God!)
May
06
2011Julia and I are exploring the meaning of Beauty, intersecting Beauty with the word of God, and letting Beauty live in our lives. Inspired by a joint feeling of just not measuring up in the beauty category, we’re tackling some hard questions:
- What is Beauty? And does it reside in me?
- And when my husband says that I’m beautiful, how can I receive those words as truth in a culture that says the opposite?
- What am I going to teach my daughters about Beauty?
- And most importantly, what does the Word of God say about Beauty?
Join us as we converse about a topic that touches the heart of all women.
________________________________________________________
Dear Julia,
Two weeks ago I wrote, inspired, about being parts of His Story. And I know that’s true- my history, my present, and even my future are Redeemed by His Blood. They’re being used for His Glory.
But the hardest person to preach the gospel to is always myself.
Lately, my story feels like Cinderella’s— and not the good parts. I feel like all I ever do is cook, or change diapers, or feed babies, or edit photos, or clean (when the mood strikes me), or paint cabinet doors (whose idea was it to remodel the kitchen herself?!). My hair is limp, my face feels the greasiness of summer humidity, and my daily uniform is a lightweight pair of paint spattered PJ/sweatpants because I lent a friend all of my maternity clothes prior to finding out about our surprise baby on the way.
And then my prince walks through the door and reaches out to embrace me…
(Cue the uplifting fairy tale music!)
But wait, nope, the Cinderella girl is pushing the prince away. She’s gone back to cooking or is sulking with her dinner plate.
Is this what happily ever after is supposed to be?
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Hop on over to Julia’s home on the web to read the rest of this post.
May
04
2011I started this post over a month ago. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration; I really just put a title down as a place holder. But now that I’m finally feeling up to sitting at the computer to write this post in honor of your 18 months on this earth, you two are actually 19 months old.
So happy 19 months to my precious little girls!
The last three months have gone by in an incredible blur. I’m very unexpectedly expecting your new brother or sister. For the most part, your mommy has crashed back into bed as soon as the two of you would consent to take a nap. Some day I even woke up to the two of you squealing like banshees trying to wake your momma from a coma in the next room. Thanks for that… I think I might still be sleeping if not for your efforts :-p
You’ve become such big capable girls. You’re able to feed yourself with spoons and forks (when you choose to). You’re able to climb the ladders to any slide in any playground on the universe. You’ll gleefully go down slides (on your bottom!) that are taller than mommy and steeper than a roller coaster. You can take off your shirts if I get one arm out for you. You can make your daddy cower in the corner by roaring at him with dinos, lions, and giraffes (though I’m still trying to figure out why giraffes roar?).
Today you fell asleep in the car as mommy drove home from the gym. It was so unexpected and not even near naptime. You looked precious. You might be big girls and you might be big sisters soon, but you’re still the most precious snuggly little babies ever.
Aeralind Grace
Your primary goal in life is to be helpful. With a little direction, you shut doors and drawers. You mop floors with a rag. You put away clothing and diapers. You’ll hand me items out of a clothes basket to hang on the line. But your absolute favorite way to be helpful is to point out birds. Your daddy is a birdwatcher; he collects bird sightings like some people collect stamps or porcelain dolls. You patiently point at a bird and say “Burd” until daddy notices and tells you what it is. So cute!
You have developed a love of stuffed animals/dolls and books. You will walk around the house carrying anything stuffed. Dolls, kitties, Chick-fil-a cows, and mommy’s ancient teddy Cranky are not safe. If you can’t find a suitable stuffed object, you grab the nearest shirt with a tag and carry that around for awhile. Your other love is books. You will sit there and let me read books to you for hours. You even know what it means when mommy says “Go get a different book,” because she’s so tired of reading certain books. Sometimes you beckon Bronwyn to sit with you and will read entire stories to her in baby gibberish.
You melt my heart when…
- You attempt to blow dandelions.
- You twirl and dance whimsically to music.
- When you say “mwah!” while giving me a kiss.
- You walk around the house sucking your thumb and carrying a stuffed creature or a tshirt by it’s tag.
- You hand me diapers to hang.
- You get so excited to point out birds and ducks for daddy.
- You get all squealy.
Bronwyn Hope
Your primary goal in life is to figure out things. You wrestle with a marker until you discover how to take the lid off. You climb a bar stool just to see if you can stand on top and reach that forbidden food. You climb up the computer’s CPU just to get on top of the desk and try to figure out how to operate the computer.. You re-program clocks. You try to take your shoes off. Sometimes your curiosity gets you in trouble… other times it’s just so adorable to see your joy when you figure something out!
You have developed a love of communicating in the past 3 months. You can clearly sign “eat,” “more,” “please,” and “all done.” You love pointing at things and saying “please” accompanied by a verbal “blah”. It’s hard to resist you when you’re being so charming and polite. But I love how your mastery of those three simple words has made you 100% less frustrated. You hardly ever throw temper tantrums and freely answer when I ask you “What do you need, Bronwyn?” I’m glad you caught on to these signs!
You melt my heart when…
- You sign “Please!”
- You crawl up on the couch just to sit shoulder to shoulder with me.
- You smile with your nose all wrinkled up.
- You smile and wave right before you intentionally disobey. How am I supposed to deal with that?!
- You figure something out and have to show it to me.
- You want me to feed you because you’ve gotten too frustrated with your cutlery.
- I find you on the desk trying to figure out the computer.
- You eat your sandwhiches: always taking the first bite from the middle like a vampire.
I love you two so dearly.
P.S. I managed to get this up a whole week prior to your 20 month birthday! Aren’t you two proud 🙂
Apr
29
2011Julia and I are exploring the meaning of Beauty, intersecting Beauty with the word of God, and letting Beauty live in our lives. Inspired by a joint feeling of just not measuring up in the beauty category, we’re tackling some hard questions:
- What is Beauty? And does it reside in me?
- And when my husband says that I’m beautiful, how can I receive those words as truth in a culture that says the opposite?
- What am I going to teach my daughters about Beauty?
- And most importantly, what does the Word of God say about Beauty?
Join us as we converse about a topic that touches the heart of all women.
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My Dear Melissa,
I have three confessions to make.
The first confession is that I am a “Gleek”. Yes, I love Glee!
Your voice once echoed through Carnegie Hall. You know what it’s like to sing beautifully.
I don’t.
You dance. You dance in costume, no less.
I cannot dance. Unless I’m sitting down. I’m an excellent chair dancer.
But–in the privacy of my kitchen as I cook for my family during naptime, I dance and sing along with those crazy Glee kids, pretending to be a rock-star-diva.
Second confession, I love Lady Gaga.
Sure, she wears dresses that look like hanging meat and plunks a hunk of raw steak on her head for a hair bow, but that chick can kill a performance!
I think that what’s so appealing about her to so many people is that she’s an original. We all are, but she really lets is all hang out—in her music, in her fashion. She just doesn’t care.
So—on this week’s episode of Glee, my two loves collided, and it was too amazing, and too fitting not to talk about!
The episode started out with one of the characters, Rachel, getting her nose broken, and then grappling with the decision to get her Jewish-looking nose “fixed”. The Glee Club’s teacher, Mr. Shuester (Mr. Shue for short), had this to say:
The thing you’d most like to change about yourselves is the most interesting part of you.
Mr. Shue then made it the Glee Club’s assignment for the week, to figure out what that “thing” was that they most wanted to change about themselves, and to own it, by putting it in big letters across their shirts. Rachel, who made the decision not to get a nose-job, put “NOSE” across her shirt. Each Glee Club member revealed the “flaws” they saw in themselves.
Then, they performed a rockin’ rendition of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way.
As I watched, this is the third, and probably the most embarrassing confession yet, I found myself almost in tears.
In this world where kids are mercilessly bullied, sometimes to the point of suicide, for choices, flaws, or sometimes for no perceivable reason at all—the message of this episode and Lady Gaga’s song is to love yourself, and to love the flaws—because that’s how God made us, and there is God in each of us.
This message makes me hop out of my chair and do a happy dance.
I’m beautiful in my way ‘cause God makes no mistakes… ~Lady Gaga
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What would go on my shirt?
Definitely EXTRA SKIN.
Turns out Mr. Shue is right.
The thing I would like most to change about myself is one of the most interesting parts about me.
I carried twin girls inside me for 35 weeks, and gave birth to over 12 pounds of baby! That excess skin that puckers around my waistline tells that story. I’m proud of that story, and dare I say, proud of my EXTRA SKIN—it’s a shirt I’d wear proudly while I dance around my kitchen in all my rock-star-divaness.
