Archives for September 2016

09-28-2016

When The Broken Way is Really the Only Way: An Invitation to Read Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way

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Tucked into the fetal position on a cold hard concrete floor, a nine year old little boy beckons with God…please, just please keep my brothers & I safe. Please, God, please let the yelling and the throwing pass over us.

A forty two year old woman cries herself to sleep after watching her husband walk out that door. Alone and afraid, she wonders what her friends will think.

A four year old chestnut haired little girl teeters precariously on the kitchen stool, making her and her brother’s cheese sandwich for dinner. If she doesn’t, there’s nothing to eat tonight.

There is a lot of hurt & broken in this world.
All too often, we turn away from the broken in our hearts and deny it ever happened or made any impact on us.

We hide it all behind our shiny cars, clean houses, and lipstick smiles.

And I get it. I’ve been broken. I’ve been depressed. I’ve had moments when I wasn’t sure what the point in keep on, keeping on was.

When we’ve been broken, when we’ve been abused and trampled on, when taking a breathe feels like engulfing fire on the shame deep inside. When that is what our life is or has been – why wouldn’t we want to put on a pretty plastic facade and pretend we are a-ok.

Because if we say we are a-ok, then eventually, the longer we say it, a-ok becomes reality, right??

Ultimately though, the weight of that facade wears us down. The tension of day after day, holding it all together, pulls half-an-inch too tight. And our world comes crashing down around us.

What do we do then? When we just want answers and we just want our messy, broken, hurting souls to feel better. To be mended. We just want a way out from the all consuming crushing weight we’ve been wearing on our backs.

That my friends is what Ann Voskamp’s newest book, The Broken Way, is all about.

Ann, in her signature poetry prose, makes us consider…

“Maybe you can live a full and beautiful life in spite of the great and terrible moments that will happen right inside of you. Actually – maybe you get to become more abundant because of those moments….Maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom.”

I’ve never, in all my times of reading Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the 5,000, pondered the significance of the word broken. Ann does…

Jesus “took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the the people”

Jesus fed the people out of the brokenness.

As Ann writes, “The miracle happens in the breaking. Not enough was given thanks for, and then the miracle happened.”

Could it be that our messy traumatized hearts is what becomes the miracle in our lives?

What if…

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I was humbled and thrilled when I got the acceptance email for being part of Ann’s launch team for this book, The Broken Way. Her first book, One Thousand Gifts, transformed my life when I was in the midst of grief and despair following a loved one’s death from suicide. Her dare to write down 1,000 things I was thankful for in 1 Year’s time changed my heart and my life. This morning, five years later, I jotted down reason #4,799.

Giving thanks in all and letting our brokenness be the miracle God unleashes for the world are intricately tied together.

I hope you’ll journey with me as I read through the book and each Wednesday share nuggets of encouraging wisdom from Ann. The book releases October 25th and you can pre-order here.

Love,

jessica

 

09-14-2016

Dear Pinterest, I’d Like A Divorce

Dear Pinterest,

You with your oh so cute little red icon.
You with your oh so clever how-to & DIY posts.
You with your oh so charming photographs of perfect lives and speck free homes.

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It all started so innocently. Cousin Stacey expounding about all the loveliness found on your site. Friends promising it was just like cutting clippings from a decorating magazine but this way I could organize it all with just the click of a button.

But you know what Pinterest, we seem to have VAST differences in our filtering ideas, on the ‘ease it takes to create something’ and on what real beauty is.

For one, my brain filters things much different than yours Pinterest.

I doubt I’ll ever pick up a magazine with the feature article “How To Know If You’re A Toxic Parent.”

But it’s there on Pinterest every.single.time.
And my self discernment isn’t fail proof because I eventually click on the link.

Who knew that if you’ve ever looked at your children in a “I CANNOT BELIEVE You Just Did That” look, then – clearly, you are one horrible parent and your children are doomed to certain toxicity.

Or what about “Mom Teaches Daughter Valuable Life Lesson with a Tube of Toothpaste”…Can we just give it up for this lady…she clearly has far greater Parenting power than I do.

I’m not sure how katrillions of generations of mama’s ever made it before you Pinterest.
How in the world did they know how to parent?

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Mamas today are bombarded with articles such as…

Teach Your Child to Respectfully Disagree

What Not to Do During  A Temper Tantrum

How Much Stuff Do Kids Really Need

SERIOUS??? What about instead…

Just Do The Best You Can Do and Survive this thing called parenting

and clearly here in the developed world we need an attitude and materialism adjustment check.

When I was a kid, dirt + books + soccer ball = satisfied childhood. If you’re worried your children have too much stuff, then the answer is yes, they probably do. And there are some kids in your very own town who could use the excess toys your kids never play with.

{As a caveat, I’m all about parenting advice, but really, I want it from the people I live ‘real day to day’ life with. People that I actually know, trust, and most important…the people who know the real me. Your bombardments of “parenting to-do’s that I am failing” leaves me with feelings of ‘less than’, ‘never going to get it together,’ and I want to curl up in a ball and throw in the towel.}

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You & I also have a VAST difference in our understanding of the words “This crafty Christmas & Mother’s Day Gift is SOOOO easy to create”.

Yeah, I’m talking about you, Transfer Grandma’s Heirloom Banana Bread Recipe to a Tea Towel. After running around town attempting to find an old school copier that prints with ‘just the right ink’, countless hours spent scrubbing ink and dousing my house in citrus fumes, I am left with faint black scribbles on a tea towel now stained dismal brown.

Even the ornaments I try to make for Christmas are failures. Crayons don’t melt inside a glass ornament when you focus the hair dryer on them.

Half made, half sewn, fully broken, fully laughable presents abound under my Christmas tree and my family members are now experts at faking an “I love it” expression.

The worst part is, I get sucked in every time I open up your site, Pinterest. Even this morning, as I’m writing these words, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by “20 Christmas Ornaments Kids Can Make Themselves”.

It sounds so promising, but the reality is….those beautiful ornaments in the photos were probably not made by kids. They were probably made by people who have master’s degrees in using hot glue guns, people who really do have organized closets, and people who can actually make vegan fro-yo desserts taste good.

And if one more person pins Black Bean Brownies Taste Just Like The Real Thing, I may throw up.

They don’t taste like normal brownies. Serious, don’t waste your time or money on those recipes.

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And my husband, he most definitely wishes for this divorce to happen post haste. I’m pretty sure husbands across the globe would gladly unite to never again hear the words”I saw it on Pinterest and it’s so easy. I’m sure you could do it this weekend.”

The best one liner my husband has ever said, hands down, was…
“Just because it’s on Pinterest, doesn’t mean it’s to code.”

That was after an epic fail.

I mean epic burn down the house proportions.

I hotglued nautical rope to the kitchen fan light globes. It was on pinterest, afterall. What could possibly go wrong?

My husband telling me it was a fire hazard couldn’t be accurate I thought. He got the last laugh when the rope literally started falling off the light globe as the glue melted from the heat and a burnt smell took over the kitchen.   I found out later that if only I had used LED lightbulbs this wouldn’t have been a problem. But to save my husband a heart attack, I decided who needs light globes in the first place?

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Pinterest, your website is NOT REAL LIFE.

Real life is not meant to be or look perfect.

Real life is messy, it’s chaotic, it’s broken.

Perfection is a facade, the masking of our real souls.

Imperfection is being okay with our human frailty and letting others in to see that we’re really all the same. None of us have it all together. All of us use a party as an excuse to finally get that photo wall hung or dust the cobwebs off the ceiling.

True beauty is found in doing the best we can and accepting it’s okay to be imperfect.

Loveliness is found when our realness is exposed and our mess shines through.

Memories are made of the broken, ragged edges of our lives.

My Grandma Buckner’s floors, you know what they were made of Pinterest?

Green, yellow, and brown linoleum tiles, that in no way matched one another in size, shape, or design; all patched together, very randomly.

They were what she could afford (her & Aunt Budge probably found them for free, knowing their thriftiness) and while those floors were nothing fancy nor elaborate, they are recessed into the memories of my childhood. Those ugly beautiful floors welcomed children’s dirty feet, dogs named Sadie, and held up hundreds of National Geographic magazines discarded haphazardly under a vinyl orange sofa.

I can’t keep up with you Pinterest.

Consider this your official “we’re separated notice”.

But before I serve you those final divorce papers, I need to write down that recipe for those “to-die-for” gluten free chocolate chip cookies and photograph the “how-to-make” a perfect gallery artwork wall. After all, I’m only human.

jessica

 

09-07-2016

New Puppy, New School, New Frogs

September is here and change is on the way!

We have a new puppy, Sawyer, who reminds me daily of why I do not want to have another child. My ability and desire to wake up at 2:13am for bathroom breaks and just needing to be cuddled, has waned.

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We have a new school the kids adore. We miss old teachers who hold special places in our hearts but having a flexible learning schedule {Montessori} leads to a well rounded and much happier child.

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And we have frogs, frogs, frogs galore.

It’s clearly the birthing season for frogs.
Or the mating season.
Or we’ve simply gone back in time to the raining frog plague.

You can’t step toe outside the front door without accidentally shortening one’s life. {Okay, that might be a little dramatic. They aren’t in quite that stage of plethora.} However, they are everywhere. And if you are on the phone with me, there is a good chance you’ll be asking “What’s that noise” because the chirping is THAT loud. Even with the doors closed.

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Here’s to shorter days, cooler temps, and dog hair everywhere!

jessica