Life Thoughts

Monday

April 9, 2018 by Rachel

Mondays get all the memes and exasperated sighs for a reason. It can be haaard to get back into a work routine any day of the week after a little rest, a tiny wee siesta for your nerves. Even if you love your Monday work! You may be rolling your eyes about all the #Monday drama. Of course I make fun of it, too, until I find myself having one of those Mondays.

Looking at pictures of succulents brings calm and peace to my Monday soul

It’s like quicksand at times, over here on Monday. In which you are doing stuff, but getting nothing done. Everyone else is seemingly on top of their game, making headway on the productive work week of your dreams, and you’re just standing there trying to remember what math is and wondering why the dishes are never done and knowing you have 4 appointments to make but talking on the phone can be weird….

Clarity & Stories

March 29, 2018 by Rachel

The dark felt darker this morning. When the early morning light arrived, it was heavy and dim with fog.

I love an occasional morning like this, but the repetition of gray days…well, it gets a bit old for me!

*googles SoCal real estate*

*resigns self to remaining in Midwest*

My brain felt just about as foggy as the weather. I was going round and round with a few things. To say I feel uncertain about which course of action to take in any number of areas is an understatement.

…

My Morning Routine {Version 03.18}

March 20, 2018 by Rachel

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase after clicking through one of my links, I may receive a {very small} commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting this blog! It means the world and a beautiful sunrise to me.

Anyone who knows me well knows I’m not and never have been an early morning person. {And to my brothers-in-law who came knocking on our trailer door before 9am those first few years I was a young bride and mother, no I have not forgiven you.}

I’ve always regularly needed at least 8 hours of sleep, and when my babies were little I needed at least 10! I used to wonder if I was missing out on some sort of holiness game-up, in which rising before dawn would not only improve my productivity but more importantly, my spirituality. Like, didn’t the Proverbs 31 woman get up while it was still dark? I always thought that if I had servant girls, they’d be making ME breakfast, not the other way around.

What I really want to wake up to every morning.

…

5 Things I’ve Been Working on in March

March 17, 2018 by Rachel

You know I love a good list! Here are my top 5 focus areas for March….

∇ Getting up early. It’s hard for me to find space during a busy day of homemaking & homeschooling to have my own quiet and writing time. This past week I’ve been getting up between 5-5:30 am which is rather brutal for me. I’m not really a morning person OR a night owl-I’m a sleep person! However, I’m really appreciating the quiet and stillness of our small house during those hours before everyone starts the day. Not only am I getting myself all put-together and ready, I’m making the time for meditation, prayer, journaling, and writing. I’m willing to sacrifice some sleep to make it happen, but it’s not easy for me! As part of my devotions, I’m using my friend Ruth’s lovely book, GraceLaced-Discovering Timeless Truths Through Seasons of the Heart.

∇ One-on-one reading time with my youngest, Drew. I’m reading aloud A Wrinkle in Time to everyone, which we all enjoy so much, but Drew has long requested permission to finish the Harry Potter series (up till now I’ve only allowed him to read the first few books) and this is a way we can enjoy them together and I can help him process through the last and most difficult books. We just started Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and usually read together snuggled on the couch with a good cup of tea or in my bed with a fluffy blanket before nights out.

∇ Exercising and being more active in general. Along with rising early during these dark winter and early spring days, being outside in the cold isn’t my favorite! I’d much rather be glued to a leather coffee shop chair reading the hours away. As I mentioned in this post, I’ve been doing yoga 2-3 times weekly and now I’m being purposeful about adding in more activity in general. Even little things like parking at the far end of the Target parking lot so I can get some extra walking in! I am becoming an Exercise Person and shocking myself at the change.

∇ Saying “yes” more to my kids. Sometimes I feel like I say “no” more than is necessary, so I’m trying to stop and ask myself: How much does {fill in the blank} really matter in the big picture? Is it worth saying no, and if so, why? What will saying yes mean for my child? Saying yes has meant more time spent with friends as our schedule allows, letting them listen to the music of their choice as long as it fits within our family values (which means I’ve heard a lot more rap lately, ha!), deciding their own haircuts and styles, and making creative messes in the kitchen and around the house.

∇ Self-care. Everybody is talking about it these days; it’s a topic on trend and honestly, one I find a lot of value in and enjoy discussing. For me this has included working with a functional medicine doctor, consistently taking my list of prescribed supplements in order to address some deficits in my health, focusing on getting enough sleep, drinking more water, and in general engaging in things that feed my soul (this ties in with the first thing on my list!). Also, dark chocolate because #life.

Here is my last list of 5 things I’ve been working on. What about you? Anything on your list for this month?

Photo by Silvia Agrasar on Unsplash

The Story of My Near-Death Experience

December 19, 2017 by Rachel

Disclaimer: this is not exactly your usual fare of holiday joy & cheer. I must warn you that I’m writing from my Serious Place here, so if you need to skip to something lighter, please do. I’m never offended by skipping. I myself am a skipper. Not literally, because that would be dangerous. I digress. Here are my remembrances on dying:

For me the sensation of dying was much like being underwater.

You’re nine years old and sitting at the bottom of the pool. The pressure of the water at the bottom tugs at you, pulling. Your arms wave in a motion meant to help you stay there, below the churning surface and heat of the sunshine. You’re blanketed. The distortion of voices from above and around you are muffled and far away. It’s just you here in this watery, wavey world.

When Robert at church shared the story of the woman with the issue of blood {Luke 8:43-48}, I had just been reading one of my favorite sections in scripture, the second chapter in the book of Jonah. As he read the verses describing the interaction between the woman and Jesus, the words of Jonah echoed in my heart.

My mind immediately snapped back to fifteen years prior, when I had just delivered Caleb and something went wrong, very wrong. As Robert spoke of Jesus’s compassion and grace I remembered when this was part of my story, too.

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her.

When my body began hemorrhaging uncontrollably I looked up at my mom, holding my newborn son, to say my last whispered coherent thought before I went unconscious. “All I have to do is touch the hem of His robe.” In that moment, with remarkable clarity, I remembered the story of the woman who was healed after she reached for the edge of Jesus’s robe. I had her faith, given to me right when I needed it. I knew I could be healed. This was my one thought, my one focus. Not my firstborn son, or my husband helplessly cradling me in his arms, or the voices calling out and telling me to hang on.

In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.

As the team around me injected my body with life-saving drugs and I was laid flat with my lower body elevated, I felt a detachment from my body. All became quieted. I was underwater, and the frantic orders and activity around me were heard as though I was sitting at the bottom of the pool and my friends were far away, chatting at the edge where I could barely hear them. The filter of water began to fill my ears with the thick sound of silence; my vision darkened and became softer. I instinctively knew I was dying. I sensed how easy and peaceful it was. I was not afraid; dying in that moment would be a gentle transition for me. Yet my spirit also recognized it wasn’t time and I would be healed. I kept my eyes fixed on Jesus’s robe. I can hardly explain this even now.

When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

I was told I began to pray aloud while slipping in and out of consciousness, but I have no memory of this. I can only recall where my mind was, tucked away in a place of trust even in the darkness.

She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

As my condition began to stabilize, sounds grew more articulate and my vision became focused.

I was alive! I was alive.

In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

My recovery was long and painful, as being pulled from the edge of death often is. What happened that day literally changed my life. Rarely have I spoken about my experience in detail, since for days and years I couldn’t find the words. Many of my friends have no idea how close I was to leaving earth-side. I was sentient to something I couldn’t describe in my native language.

“Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

Being reminded of my story that day in church, I share it now with a desire and hope for each of us to look to our Creator. He has numbered our days; our time is in His hands. He heals as well as walks with us in suffering. His ways are higher than our own. My life did not end in a physical death that day, but it will and when it does I am confident of my salvation and belonging.

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?” C.S. Lewis

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” Helen Keller

Photo credit: Sime Basioli and Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

Letter 29 {Snippets, BLT’s}

August 5, 2017 by Rachel

Dear Candace,

It feels suspiciously like fall outside with the sky an electric blue and the temps dropping to a lovely, cool 60 degrees. It’s the fifth of August. I will only accept such weather behavior as a reprieve from the heat and not as the early onset of fall. I love fall, but in its place; it must bow to summer. It’s summer’s apology for being over. I can’t think about this right now. I need summer with all my heart.

My head is full of books and lessons and lists as we prepare for a new educational year with the kids. Classes signed up for, new math books started, it’s all underway and I am being reluctantly swept along!

I am trying to think about what happened this past week…how do summer days escape so quickly?? Our HVAC unit was replaced, so there was a lot of in-and-out related to that. We hosted a total of four nieces and nephews one day while their mama went to the doctor, I accused the deer of razing down some plants when really it was Tom trimming things up, we went to all the lessons and all the things, another sister-in-law and her girls visited, Caleb’s snake (Mango) returned home after a summer spent at a childrens’ camp, the garden started churning out tomatoes and now my counters are lined with them (BLT’s 4EVAH*), I started reading Seabiscuit, and about 40 other things.

Remember when I started the book Simply Tuesday, something life half a year ago? I’m almost finished reading it. I’ve been savoring it-a few lines here and there during my morning reading over the last several months.

Here is what I read this morning, and it’s sticking to me like a burr:

I sat on a bench with a book and a journal at a local park, but I did more staring than reading. I watched the moms and babies stroll by, the workers with their good intentions toward the public bathrooms, the guy on his bike who roe without a helmet. I read a little about David, how he was both a man after God’s heart and a killer. I thought about how none of us are just one thing, but many shades of light and dark and shadows of gray, proof that we need Jesus.

-Emily P. Freeman

Love,

Rachel

*Facebook post about this: Here is the thing. It’s tomato season and you need plenty of home-grown tomatoes (I can help you with that), thick-sliced bacon (hard for me to share but I will make an effort), crisp lettuce (not weak, watery iceberg; the real green stuff), and mayo (you know you want the chipotle or sriracha kind). Sourdough bread is delightful, too, but if you’re avoiding bread then just wrap everything else together and throw in some sliced jalapeños for good measure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner-boom. Menu planning is over.

Letter 28

Letter 30

This letter contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase after clicking through one of my links, I will receive a {very small} commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting this blog! It means the world and a stack of letters to me.

Letter 26 {Blackberries + Nostalgia}

July 8, 2017 by Rachel

Dear Candace,

July is in full-swing and with it some familiar heat and humidity, but it’s still such a beautiful summer!

Blackberries. With July comes memories of blackberry picking as a child and all the scrumptious treats first my mom, and then my sister and myself, would prepare; namely: jam, cobblers, and best of all PIE. Blackberry pie is my jam. The butter to my bread. It’s only contender is peach pie with warm cinnamon sauce. But in July, there can be no other pie except the humble yet remarkable blackberry.

In the early nineties, before cell-phones and helicopter parenting, Mom would drop Mara and I off at a nearby conservation area. We were given a wagon, buckets, water, and instructions to be at the rendezvous point at a specific time. Then we were left alone, trudging through the wilderness, to a familiar patch of wild, thorn-encased blackberries sharing space with poison ivy.

It’s remarkable we didn’t meet our demise in those lonely woods, by wild animal or serial killer hiker. One hot July afternoon, Mara began to feel the twinges of heat exhaustion so I laid her out in the shade and kept right on picking. There are sacrifices to be made for blackberry pie, you know. I would often get poison ivy on my face from those outings, turning into an oozing, puffy spectacle known as Cauliflower Girl. The boys were mad about me in those days.*

We’ve been traveling deep in the Ozarks for Hosanna’s horsemanship lessons, to a little farm nestled by a creek and woods. It’s a lovely drive through rich green countryside, and I’m never exactly sure what the speed limit is, though farm trucks and motorcyclists pass me regularly on corkscrew roads. We drive by old white farmhouses, garden patches, fields of corn, and homemade signs that say things like WE HAVE WORMS.

During our recent visit to the horse farm, the owners graciously led us to their blackberry patch to pick the biggest, sweetest, juiciest berries I’ve ever seen! True story. Those blackberries were the epitome of everything a blackberry should be. Three times larger than my thumb, one berry filled your mouth with its juicy goodness. While Hosanna was working with the horses, Drew and I stained our fingers and mouths roaming through the bushes. In short order we picked enough berries for a pie, which became my one fixation. No matter how tired I was, or how many dishes and chores needed to be done, we must! have! pie! Back at home that evening, I quickly put together a homemade crust** and filled it high with the glossy berries. Pie for dessert, pie for breakfast the next morning; that’s how July is done! Until peaches are in season, I’m quite content in my current relationship with Missouri’s obsidian jewels.

Thinking now of blackberry wine,

~Rachel

*There were no boys. Mad or otherwise.

**I must be out of practice! It was not the best crust, being a bit chewy and rather a poor representation of the large amount of pies I’ve made in my lifetime. Such things keep me humble.

Letter 25

Letter 27

Letter 24 {Scotch Eggs & Life Contemplation}

June 25, 2017 by Rachel

Dear Candace,

The weekend is lazy, breezy and bright. June’s last parting gift, a reprieve from summer heat. I’m loving this Missouri spring and summer! One never can tell with Missouri.

Last weekend’s camping adventure was a delight. Specifically, camping in CABINS and not in tents or hammocks IN THE RAIN. I could get used to that kind of camping! Your breakfast of Scotch eggs was so delicious. The perfect marriage of breakfast food staples: eggs and sausage. I want them in my life more. Crispy spheres of perfection.

As I reflect on the past week, two things stand out. The importance of relationships, and the brevity of life. We hosted a few visits from family and friends at our home here in STL, and mis-mashed between those was a car accident.

The boys were driving with one of the aunts to a nearby park when their car was rear-ended. Tom and I were able to quickly arrive at the scene, even before police did, and found everyone shaken but unhurt. Drew was in the backseat. I have to stop myself from letting my mind consider all the “what ifs”…our time isn’t in our hands, and I can’t live in fear. The “what ifs” are in God’s hands. We know this, but when something like a car accident happens or cancer is diagnosed our focus becomes more narrow, more exact. Suddenly we see everything which had formerly been overlooked or not given its proper attention… the feel of warm summer, freckles on a child’s nose, being present in a moment, the full gift of life being lived.

The boys have been checked out and both received chiropractic treatments which were helpful. Then I started developing neck pain and tension with a side of massive headaches, because clearly I wanted it to be all about me. I have some thick muscle-relief salve which I applied on Thursday and am still trying to wash out of my hair. It’s very hard for me to be glamorous these days.

I am currently reading: Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. I’m a fairly new Twitter user, tweeting in stops and starts, but always mesmerized when I scroll through my feed. That 140 character limit is BRILLIANT! It’s all so very succinct and clever. Foodie bloggers, spiritual leaders, politicians, comedians, authors, that one guy with the big family I met once who likes to #humblebrag, it’s all remarkably out there in the world, in 140 characters. It feels less cluttered than Facebook to me, which is probably why I gravitate to it more. The book delves into the people and stories behind the startup of what is now a world-wide phenomenon.

Yes, I did once tweet a message I meant to text Tom. Since I discovered this months after the fact, I could only be grateful no one really reads my tweets plus it was mundane and appropriate for all audiences. One must be very careful which platform one’s 140 characters land on.

#love

Rachel

Letter 23

Letter 25