Sink or Swim...Is Flounder an Option?

I learned to juggle in elementary gym class.  Using silk scarves.  I succeeded with those slow floaters, but I have never managed to juggle anything more substantial.  Right now, I am trying to juggle what feels like way too many responsibilities, and it makes me feel pretty unsuccessful.  You see, it isn't so much the main bullet points on my list (mothering and sweetie-pieing, keeping house, managing the Beaver Camp office, managing a church library renewal, miscellany).  It's that each of those bullet points is made up of about 111 sub-points.  My dad would want to know the current "job description" of each of these different projects, but to make a long, not-comprehensive list here would just sound like complaining.  And he'll be up for a visit at the other end of this weekend, so I can describe for him directly :0)  

It's going to be OK.  The library grand opening is June 17.  We will starting living at Camp part-time the first week of July, which will allow me to work more days with greater focus (because Lewis will be with daddy and Lincoln tramping around with campers, instead of under my desk).  And then, before we know it, September will come and with the changing leaves I will come home to be with my boys full time.  Writing about this reminded me of a section out of Rachel Jankovic's book Loving the Little Years, so I just flipped through awhile and will share her thoughts on my current feelings:

It was somewhere around this time that I realized I had better strike the word   overwhelmed from my vocabulary.

God gave me this to do.  I may not be overwhelmed about it.  I can try as hard as I can, and maybe fail sometimes.  I can try as hard as I can and fall asleep at the dinner table.  I can try as hard as I can and be completely burned out at the end of the day.  But I may not be overwhelmed.  Actually, I may be overwhelmed, but I may not say that I am overwhelmed!  The words have a real power over us.  If you say it, you allow it for yourself.  You give yourself that little bit of room to say, "But I can't!" (p. 41)

For a friend last night, the fragment of a verse came to mind: "keep him in perfect peace."  I love that my Bible has a concordance at the back, and it took me right to Isaiah 26:3, which says "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."  What a fitting reminder for right now, when my quiet time might need to happen while brushing my teeth.  But it's so much better than no quiet time at all.  Jehovah Jireh ("my Provider") and his Word must be the foundation of all I undertake to do.  Because everything that's needed (and He'll help to know what is and isn't needed) I can do through Christ who strengthens me!  

The Best Laid Plans

I had lots of errands to run in Boonville yesterday.  It was beautiful outside, so I planned to end our trip with a picnic lunch in the park.  

But in Boonville, the sun shone bright...and the wind blew cooold.  That doesn't make for a fun picnic.  And boy was I bummed.

And then I thought, "Hey!  We'll have a picnic in our own yard, where it's just as sunny and not as windy!"

But when we pulled in the driveway, I found my toddler floppy-asleep, and Lewis content to nap in his car seat.  So I ate lunch without them, at the kitchen table.  

And at 2:00, we finally had our picnic :0)

"Dare Alla Luce"

"The Italian phrase for 'giving birth' is 'dare alla luce,' which literally translates 'to give into the light.'"


          From the 2011 Christmas letter of Ed Schwabenland, friend of my parents


I want to ponder this awhile, then paint a sign with the phrase to hang on my kitchen wall (or other often-looked-upon spot).  There are so many  beautiful applications for giving a person or a thing into the light.