Apr
24
2013“Mommy, I like your polka dots.”
Aeralind is reclining on my chest. She had just asked for and received a “big fat hug.”
(You know, where you lay on your back and your child lays on your tummy and both of you put your feet in the air and then you squeeze the mess out of them? Oh… you don’t know… I’m sorry. Go try it.)
She’s poking my face while she says this. Specifically, she’s poking my ever present zits.
You heard her right: she just told me she likes my pimples.
Aerie moves to the second cheek. “I like this polka dot, too,” she exclaims as she stabs a particularly painful zit. I really don’t know what to say. Usually I’m an educator… but in that quiet silly moment, I don’t want to tell her that zits are ugly, socially unacceptable, gross, and painful. So I stay hushed.
A week ago (or so), I had edited all of my polka dots out of an image of Aerie and I (and some stray peanut butter from Aerie’s hair).
Editing them out wasn’t wrong. I’m pretty sure Aerie will remember me with clear skin, because I don’t remember my mom having skin issues or hair issues or anything else.
Yet, my sweet Aeralind Grace, with her child-heart is telling me the very message that I preach here daily in this space (mostly to myself!).
My most beautiful moments (yours too) are the messy everyday vulnerable stories. Zits and all.
And more importantly, these messy moments are the intersections of grace.
I am loved by Aeralind and, more importantly, by the very God of the universe, zits and all.
Apr
08
2013Spring is here.
I have this incredible urge to change clothes like the trees and adorn myself and my space with beauty.
I push the plastic playground down our sloped yard and into the shade. My daughters pick clover ‘flowers’ and place them in an empty spice jar on the table. I move all the furniture around in our awkwardly shaped living/dining room, trying to find the arrangement that is most beautiful and most suitable.
My back hurts at the end. The baby breaks into a puddle of tears and when I lay him on the moved couch, he stays. It’s so unusual I touch him to find his temperature feeling a little higher than normal. I’ve said a few words in unkind tones trying to prod my daughters out of the way so I could move the next piece.
My real life is filled with beautiful-mess. Sure my living room is now vacuumed and rearranged… but there are nail polish stains on the carpet, a play kitchen topped with everything we want to keep out of Sedryn’s reach, and hurt feelings that had to be healed as I hustled the littles about in an effort to get this done.
Oh… and a pile of wet laundry still waiting to be hung out on the line.
So much of the time I only want to show you the newly rearranged space. The pretty manicured side of my life. I want to hide my sin. I want to step back from true community and sit smugly with my I’ve-got-it-all-together glance around the room.
But there are always two sides to my life. There is always the sweat and blood and tears and frustration and sin and dreaming and learning and encouraging words and the very hand of God behind anything “I” accomplish.
To show you the sin, the disappointment, the pain, the sorrow, the struggle, the fear, or the achy-furniture moving back as well as the God-glory moments of beauty, joy, love, sacrifice, and perfectly arranged furniture is to encourage you that your most beautiful moments really are the messy everyday vulnerable stories. Precisely because those moments are less than perfect. Precisely because those moments are yours alone by grace.
So when Holley asks me to share the why behind my dream… I almost what to shake her. Really? Why?! Why not, Holley? But then I remember, God wired us all differently.
This passion I feel to share with you my own messes and to hopefully be invited to photograph your messy real (and truly beautiful) life is mine. It’s a calling. It’s a gift. Holley or you may never fully understand the why, but here’s the most succinct way that I can share with you why.
When I finally reach out to community in my worst sin and tear filled moments, I am most encouraged to keep walking with Jesus the next day when I hear my community whisper these words:
“Oh, sweetie, I’ve been there, too. It’s so hard. But God is bigger than this and He’s growing you to be more like Him. Let’s pray that he will help you see the beauty in that very hard growth.”
I want to write and photograph in such away that the community around me (no matter how small or large) can hear that encouragement through my work. That is why I’m pursuing my God-sized dream, because I know the power of a voice that speaks grace.
That’s why you should pursue a God-sized dream (more of what God has for you), because only your voice can speak grace in the way He designed.
Mar
13
2013I come upstairs from tossing the last of five sets of sheets in the washer to find the youngest of the three tossing his cookies (the figurative ones) right there in the high chair. Last night the wildest sleeper of the three had taken over our bed (and soiled two sets of sheets). The other twin had paid in 30 hours of not being able to keep in liquid and 48 hours of little food. My morning had started with the littlest one and I in the shower trying hard to wash away the sickly stench. I had to call Derek home from work so I could catch enough sleep to be able to handle the sick trio with sanity. He’s gone now while I clean up the baby and get them all down for naps.
Motherhood is far from glamorous. In fact, on days like this I might just want to pack up and run away. Oh, but what is puke if everything I have is grace? Grace. Puke is grace. But how?
I stop tapping at the keys a minute here while the three sleep and spend time in prayer with a bottle of diluted bleach over a high chair and my table. It’s not easy to see puke as grace. It’s not easy to choose gratitude over bitterness. Nothing worth doing is easy.
The table though cleaned with bleach still bears blue and yellow marks. And I am the same. This roiling boiling cauldron of selfishness and discontent and frustration seething just under the surface.
“But God!” Peter had preached these words just two weeks ago.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7
Puke is grace because it shows me how much I need Jesus. How ugly and messy I am without the saving power of grace. How ugly and mess I am when I refuse to see even puke as the grace pointing toward the proudly self-sufficient heart beating violently within.
This messy smelly puke it is grace because it points me to Him. To “the immeasureable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” To that place of blissful surrender that says the plans I have are not the ones that He has for me and His plans are in fact better for my own good.
Sometimes I need to be brought low to the reality of earthly motherhood so I can recognized the beauty of the perfect heavenly Father. So I can recognize just how much He loves me in all my filthy sin-soaked sheets and awake to the reality that He died to wash those sheets clean.
And, right here in this moment, puke contemplation gives me the grace to see what true love does. So I wrap the soiled clothes and rags in a towel and carry them down to the now finished washing machine. It’s time to be washed clean again.
Feb
24
2013Confession.
I was once a perfectionist.
I might have scorned anyone who told me that my most beautiful moments are the messy everyday vulnerable stories.
I was sixteen when that wall of perfectionism fell hard and nearly crushed me. A relationship that I had invested everything in had failed. Most of my friends had graduated or moved away that year. I had gained a lot of weight. Taken a lot of antidepressants. I was weak. I was lonely. I felt lost.
I was lost.
Still, I tried to pull myself up. Tried to aim myself at a dream. Any dream: writing, photography, a new relationship, making the Socastee Singers. Really anything that would show the world that I was okay.
I wasn’t okay.
That summer I was invited to a youth camp with a full scholarship. I jumped at the chance to go.
I really don’t remember much at all about the camp. Vague memories. I only had two pairs of shorts that fit. I went canoeing. I participated in my very first ropes course. I didn’t know anyone there almost at all.
But I do remember crying that ugly cry. You know the one? Snot all over your face, loud sobs, mascara trails. And it was at that very moment that I received the most extravagant gift I’ve ever received.
Whoever was up there was telling me that I didn’t have to be perfect. That I was okay right where I was in the center of this mess.
Why? Well, because I was loved. Unconditionally. So unconditionally that my Lover was willing to die for me. In fact, Jesus Christ did die for me. He lived perfectly for me so I could still bring glory to Him in my mess by His grace alone. I didn’t have to be a perfectionist and seek glory for myself. I had a bigger purpose than living just for me.
I still get goosebumps telling this story. Telling you about the best Gift ever. Nothing can top this good news. 🙂
I’m telling you this now for a couple reasons. First, I want you to hear the gospel. The truth that Jesus died for you because he loves you so that you could be free from perfectionism. In fact, he fully intends to use your messes as gifts to others.
The second reason is that my motivation for giving has changed. Before I was a reformed perfectionist, I used to give gifts because I wanted you to love me. Now I give gifts because I am loved and I want to share that joy of being loved with you.
So tomorrow I’m offering you a gift to give to others. I can’t wait for you to open it and share 🙂
