Dec
16
2012
Why, yes, that is my Bronwyn climbing up there on the bars of the Monkey Bars! No, of course I don’t know how she got up there. I was too busy keeping Sedryn from belly flopping off the kiddie playset or eating fistfuls of mulch. Oops… Cracked me up though!
Dec
15
2012
The Sugar Plum Fairy is being lifted dramatically into the air when she looks at me bright-eyed.
“I want to do that. I will practice hard.” This little 5 year old, whom I barely know, she bares her soul at this display of God-glory on stage before us. A dream is born. And I, who know so little about this child, am entrusted with a God-sized dream. Maybe just a dream for her child-heart and, yet, maybe one she will be called to complete.
I tell her she could do it with God’s help and I lift the camera from my lap to freeze the Sugar Plum Fairy mid-air without the aid of a flash.
* * *
In the car on the way over, while my daughters sucked thumbs in the back seat, she had told me all about how the boy dancers lift the girl dancers so high up. She told me how scary that was.
“But when I am a grown up ballerina, I won’t be scared. I will be brave.”
“Sweet girl, being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means you do it even though you’re scared.” I tell her in return. She shrugs my comment off saying she truly meant she wouldn’t be scared.
Yet hours later, balled up on my bed with the stomach flu, I can’t shrug it off.
Being brave means you do what God calls you to do, even though you’re scared.
* * *
Little girl dreams, like the one she shared with me, have never left my heart. Those rolls of film spent and the ink spot permanently smeared on my fingers, they’ve left indelible marks on my heart. The desire to create is sometimes overwhelming. A week ago I was asked to sum up this desire in two words by a fellow God-sized dreamer. The words came immediately. I am called to “Capture Joy”, to reflect that joy back to the One who gives all gifts.
So I pick up a pen, curled under a blanket with my body so weak with temporary pain I can hardly stand, and I do just that:
Capture the joy of a little girl’s childhood dream and the bravery of this one woman being called to pursue her dream even though she’s scared.
Dec
09
2012
Another week where I didn’t pick up my big girl camera except for a client. Instagram images are all I have for this week once again 🙂
Dec
07
2012Dear Me at 16,
You kind of crack me up. You’re pretty quirky and have even worn two non-matching flowered items at the same time to school. Yet, you’re just like every other girl at the school. You want to be cute. You want to be liked. You wish folks would notice you.
You’re going to have a rough sort of year. Most of your friends freshman year either graduated or moved away. Your last remaining close friend will move away at the end of this school year and the start of the next. Heather makes you laugh. Love that. Enjoy it as often as you can. Eat her up. Listen to her stories. And speak the truth (but be gentle. Your 28 year old self still hasn’t mastered that… if you worked on it… maybe we’d be better at it by now?)
Stop wallowing in your own “pain.” You’re 16, and none of the issues you have are serious. They’re first world problems. Life is bigger than you. Yes, you’re depressed. Yes, things are hard. Yes, you need guidance. Yet none of that is an excuse to bury yourself in the prideful trap of self-pity. You were born for a purpose. You were placed in where you are for a purpose. You experienced some rough things for a purpose. Own it.
Go to church summer camp, and Governor’s School. You’re going to shirk a responsibility for that and not become a lifeguard at a job you were promised a year before: don’t feel guilty about it. At church summer camp, you’re going to be introduced to the truest love ever: the kind of Love that dies for you when you’re completely unworthy. You weren’t expecting that grace… after all, you’re the people pleasing good girl. Oh, but you’re going to need it. And it’s going to change you, but it’s going to take awhile. Sanctification is a long process.
Governor’s school. Oh, me, I wish you had worked harder. I wish you had dug deeper and drank lustily from all of those writing workshops. I wish you had found your voice… the one you sometimes see flick in and out on this humble blog. I wish you had done that work for me then. But, sweet Melissa, taste the failure of that summer. Taste it and be humbled, but know that it’s what will prepare you for college. You will be able to balance residential life and school because of that experience. You’ll need that balance to maintain a full scholarship.
Oh, and that conversation with your roommate. The one you judged for being that pretty skinny blond girl with everything going for her: remember that. She had the same deep struggles as you. It doesn’t matter how we live: our hearts have the same problems. We all need the same Savior. Remember that. Learn to preach truth now.
You’re going to make the Socastee Singers at the beginning of the next school year. You’re going to be the weakest musician in the group this year. That’s okay. Because this year, and the next will not be about the music for you (although that will be glorious!). That music is a guise for someone to invest in you. That teacher will grow you. Will challenge you. And by your senior year, he will have helped you grow into a facilitator-leader. That’s important. Even though it stretches you. But it’s a gift developed in you for the future. A college major, definitely. A group of women to study the world with, we’ll soon see?
You’re going to pick up a camera this year. It’s going to enamor you. Let it. Learn it well. You’ll make beauty with it to reflect true Beauty.
Forget about boys. You’re too young, sweet girl. Too naive. Too trustworthy. Too desperate. Spend these years filling yourself with the Lover. You’re really not going to. That’s okay. That time will come. But I do wish you’d have listened to me on this one. Your husband, he’s waiting for you. Saving his first kiss for you. He’s gentle. Kind. He makes you laugh. And he’s a total nerd (we both know how much you’re a sucker for nerds). He’s perfect for you: but he’s not the perfect lover. Never will be. Only Jesus is.
And speaking of Jesus. Melissa Ann, he’s worth it. His gospel is worth it. Everything. Give yourself to it. It’s a purpose. A calling. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to know without a doubt that you were put here for a reason (to glorify him), that when you fail He’s already taken care of that (oh how He loves!), and that He gives you gifts to show Him, share Him, and grow others in Him. Oh, invest yourself in seeking Him. And when you come out of those baptismal waters, don’t just give a shy smile. Oh, how I wish you’d have jumped up in victorious joy!
But in any case, 16 year old me, know that you’re neither too much nor too little for this world’s critics. Oh, Melissa, you’re perfectly made for the place you’re called to: even when it doesn’t feel that way.
Thanks for making me who I am. Love you.
Your 28 year old self.
Inspired by other Dear Me letters and Graceful
Dec
07
2012I was on my hands and knees back arched and opening myself wide to give. “I’m crowning”, I cried as my doula shot out of the room to fetch the nurse. I wan’t about to wait any longer to give birth and so I did.
And there he was. Red and new and peaceful lying below me. A new person. I was exhausted.
I was standing at the interesection between 9 months of giving my body to grow a new person and 6 months of sleeplessness and nourishing this little person.
Giving is a labor. Sacrifices are made. Pain follows. But God magnifies the joy.
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We scrape together money and buy the girls and the baby boy shoes that won’t fall apart in 8 weeks time. My adventuresome kids break through cheap shoes like so many toothpicks and their feet grow at a rate of only 1/2-1 shoe size a year. We buy a size up and the investment is worth it not to replace cheap shoes every 3 months. A couple weeks later I slip on my sneakers to go to a workout class. There’s a hole in the toe of my beloved 6 year old Asics.
The in-laws they always send us an open check for Christmas. They ask quietly to be told how we spend it. This year we divide it equally 1/3 for Derek, 1/3 for me, 1/3 for the children. I want a camera body and lens combination that costs 10.6 times the amount I now have. I’m burdened with whether to save or spend it. But I spend the children’s on 3 large gifts and a little people nativity. Toys that will cause laughter and magic while I save for my dream.
I dig through the scrap pile and cut up an old pillow for stuffing. Twin dolls for each girl and a pirate for the boy materialize. Matching cards too. An old set of sheets paired with a new set will rise to make a magical reading/play tent with pillows to go in the girl’s new room.
We sell a server: 1/2 the amount I’d need for my camera. We talk about what we need most: to build the girl’s loft bed, to buy Sedryn his full sized mattress. A one button mouse
and a movable alphabet for my girl who just isn’t responding to my current reading curriculum because it doesn’t match her kinetic learning style. We need a toilet fixed downstairs to move the girls to that room.
Christmas will be magical. The joy of gifts given a true sacrifice for the joy of our little people. Giving is love.
______________________________________________
I wonder aloud to Derek last night if we should have some other children over the Saturday before Christmas. If we should throw a birthday party for “the brave little boy, who was God, but made himself nothing”
. To have the children gather around, hear the story of the Christ child, sing him happy birthday, eat cake, and play. But most importantly to ask the children to give Jesus a birthday present. Ask them to bring some allowance, or the coins in the couch cushion, or their piggy banks. To pool their money and buy a playground for children who have no playground. For children like our Delsys from Compassion international.
To teach the children that giving can hurt in the most beautiful joy filled life-altering way. To teach them that giving is love.
Giving is caring for someone more than yourself.
