In the Middle of one of THOSE days

Ya know those days when you have all these great ideas of the awesome things you will accomplish? You wake up ready to take on the world, to create, to organize, to just DO IT. And then...you get up.

Today started like this: I didn't get a chance to wash my face because the child who is always ready for school 30 min early hadn't finished making her lunch but has a field trip so she can't just buy school lunch. And I look down and she isn't even wearing shoes. So I make a sandwich and she gets her shoes. Then we get in the car, and she remembered to bring the dog but not her book bag, but the door is locked, so I have to turn the car off and get out and get the darn bag and re-lock the door and re-start the car. AND it's only 40 degrees in September but yesterday it was 70!

After dropping the kids safely at school, I tackled all the paperwork received from meet the teacher night and realize the ONE form that needed to be sent in today to meet the deadline is still sitting by the computer.

Then I try to print something from the dinosaur of a computer, but the printer won't work for WHATEVER reason. But I need to print in order to accomplish one of my goals today. Sucked that up and move on to another goal: FIND A JOB. Preferably a teaching job. And I discover a great school in a nearby community is looking for an English teacher. YAY! But then I read that they want someone with their master's degree, and I don't have that, because I decided to get a certificate in interior design instead. Because after teaching for 2 years, while carrying 2 different children, and taking certification classes 8 months pregnant in order to get a PROFESSIONAL teaching license in Florida - we FREAKING moved to Massachusetts. And in MA I taught for a year in HELL with a TEMPORARY license only to be terminated at the end of that year because I didn't get my PRELIMINARY license. And then I did. 3 days later! So, I decided that I was just done with teaching. It was all too hard and complicated, and I had a 2 and 3-year-old and a husband who was working full-time and getting his master's degree, and there was just no more patience for hard and complicated. Interior design was fun and uncomplicated and not at all hard. 

Then, somewhere in the middle of trying to create an interior design business, I realized that I am ready. Ready to do hard and complicated again. Ready to teach, because it is what I feel called to do. BUT after applying to school after school, I realize I need my master's degree in education in order to get another job here and to get my PROFESSIONAL license. And I start reading the hoops I need to jump through in order to make that happen, and I just want to move back to Florida where I had already accomplished that goal. I want to go crawl in bed or go cry to my mommy and daddy! Because even though I am ready and willing to do the hard and complicated job of teaching high school students to read and write and analyze and synthesize, I cannot really afford to go to back to school again BEFORE getting a job!

So, I am in the middle of one of THOSE days. And it feels like nothing I do will work out. But I open my Bible, and I am reminded of this:

"The Lord says, 'I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.'" - Psalms 91: 14-16

And one more time, I listen to this song by Jenny & Tyler, whose music I am a bit obsessed with these days.

the LORD is my refuge and strength

therefore i will not be afraid

though the mountains give way

and fall into the sea

He will come and rescue me

the LORD comes to me at break of day

He reaches down to guide me in His ways

though the oceans roar

in this dark and stormy sea

He will come and rescue me

halleluYah, He is with me

halleluYah, we cannot be moved

halleluYah, He is with me

halleluYah, i rest secure

be still and know that He is God

He will be exalted over all

come and behold His strength and majesty

yet He will come and rescue me

halleluYah, He is with me

halleluYah, we cannot be moved

halleluYah, He is with me

halleluYah, i rest secure

So, in the middle of this day, I rest secure. He will come and rescue me. After all, it IS Friday.


Shalom,

Ashley

On the Kindness of Strangers

With all the crazy going on in the world, it's easy to see the darkness and evil looming. But when you look a little closer, there is an amazing thing happening in our communities.

I think I might call it a Culture of Kindness. There is this reach for being better humans. A brainwashing of niceness you might say. You can find it in the anti-bullying ads and in the rules at elementary schools. You can find it in television ads of the big box stores, advertising how they are giving back to schools. Even our favorite musicians are getting in on the act. Like we needed another reason to love Tim McGraw? I mean really. Giving away homes to military vets in those tight T-shirts he wears. . .HOW KIND!

This kindness phenomenon struck me the other day when I took my daughter to the doctor for her annual physical. We sleepily waited for about half an hour to see the doctor on a Saturday morning. Who schedules Dr. appointments at 8:30 am on a Saturday anyway?

This mother sucker, that's who. 

And if you know me at all, you know I hate getting up early for anything on the weekends. BUT, in order to see this particular doctor, I would drive an hour or more at any time of the day. Here's why:

Dr. Deluca enters and in her typical way greets my daughter with energetic cheerfulness. (She is a morning person by nature and a mother of 3, and kind of my hero). She proceeds to exclaim that Ali is just ADORABLE. Then she examines and asks my 10-year-old the typical physical questions. How do you sleep, eat, poop? Do you wear your seat-belt and bicycle helmet, etc. . . But then she asks about her friends at school and if she is mostly happy or mostly sad. And when Alexandra answers with 100,000 words and says she has really good friends but describes this one "friend" who drives her crazy, the good doctor LISTENS. And she responds, "Well, we don't have to like everyone, but you do always have to be kind to them, right?"

Then. This doctor, who has only seen my daughter a handful of times, anoints my child - not literally with oil or anything, but she speaks words into her life. She tells her that she sees her being a leader, a role-model. At which Ali looks at her quite dubiously. Can you hear the brainwashing? This woman, basically little more than a stranger to my child, has in a small amount of time, made a little girl feel good about herself, reaffirmed the ideals I teach my children about kindness, and encouraged her be a role model.

I see this Culture of Kindness more and more in this messed up sinful world, and it makes me so happy. When we are kind to strangers, we are doing God's work. Plain and simple. You want to know how to be happy? Be kind to strangers. Want to know how to be a "good" Christian? Be kind to strangers. Wanna go to heaven? BE KIND TO STRANGERS.

This morning I read in Matthew that exact admonition from Christ himself.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison and you visited me." -  Matthew 25:34-36

Summer in Summary

Hammond Castle, Gloucester, MA

Summer has been an emotional, lazy, and beautiful monster. And I am READY for fall. Please Dear God, let fall be Refreshing. Not vacation refreshing but goodness refreshing. I need to see and hear goodness in the world.

For me, this summer has been mostly SAD with a few sugar sprinkles thrown in here and there. Too much yucky and devastating and brutal. My globe wears a shawl of mourning, and I hope and pray that the coming Fall months drop this cloth of despair and bring something positive, or even, dare I hope, HAPPY.

When you have prayed and had faith and waited with hope, but what you seek just doesn't come, it's just so FREAKING YUCKY. But then, when you put your desires into perspective. . .life, for YOU (I mean me), is still good.

YOU (I) have an awesome husband and healthy children and a safe home and Glennon's posts to remind you that you have a refrigerator and clean water and it's all a matter of "perspectacles." (Click the link and read her post. It's awesome.)

You (I) have a smart phone and Facebook to stay connected to your family and friends, even though you are thousands of miles away. But, part of the downside (or maybe it's an upside - I'm not sure) to social media is that you can hear and SEE everything. All that connectivity is emotionally draining. When you see footage of person after person being executed and your heart and mind are SCREAMING STOP! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP! but your hands can only bang on the keyboard of your laptop and your voice dies right into the cookbook perched above you, the reality of that inability to DO SOMETHING about the things you are seeing is achingly devastating.

When rockets are launched and bombs burst despite a pledge of cease fire in the Holy Land. The Holy Land. The Land of baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the resurrection. The Land that God set aside and chose for His people, who are blamed for defending themselves against terrorists. Summer is burning rotten brutal.

And when, someone who brought so much laughter and joy to the world, stills his own life. And a town in MO goes crazy over the death of a young black man. And you blindly thought the world would never let religious persecution lead to genocide again. AGAIN. Over and over in country after country. Summer breaks your (my) ever-loving, justice-driven, idealistic, stupid, huge heart.

All this emotion led me to blurt out this poem on my FB page one night:

Pray
It feels the world is falling into despair
Tonight. Between Gaza and Israel and ISIS and Suicide of a beloved comic
Personal pains of loved ones.
The heart feels so filled of sadness, 
Squeezed to overflowing of blood and tears
Rivers into seas across oceans.
Pray.
Walk toward Him. Fall. 
Shut out the sounds.
Pray for Peace.
It's what we can do when we cannot reach
To Touch and lift to help.
We hold no weapon.
Tears are our ammunition.
Pray.
The whisper gets louder:
Relief comes after.
Pray.

But. Wait. There was lazy and beautiful too. The ability to be lazy for like minutes or even hours is something I will cherish about this summer. Reading books. Glorious. Our pace has been v e r y s l o w. No camps, no sports, no big trips. Nada. Just days and days spent in Gloucester, where the weather has been GORGEOUS. We've gone to church - thank God in Heaven that we can still go to church! And that's where we went to a great concert and heard the very talented Jenny & Tyler for the first time. (Side note: They are FANTABULOUS musicians and justice-seekers, and I completely love them. You must click on their names and listen to a bit of their music on the website. You will thank me.) 

I think we may have seen one movie at the theater. Oh, and we went to Maine! Lovely, quiet camping in Maine via Mom & Dad. And, of course, we spent days at Good Harbor beach. Sun and sand and slushies. Good stuff.

And those were pretty much the sugar sprinkles. Other than that, I played a few million too many games or lives or whatever of Candy Crush and ate a few too many pounds of chocolate.

Oh. But. The Beauty. If it weren't for 3 beautiful women writers who blog and post their hearts out, I may have gone insane this summer. So, many many thanks to you, Jen Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle Melton, and Sarah Bessey. For saying so often what I am thinking. For doing hard things. For being Jesus Feminists. For carrying on, warriors. The lives you touch. God Bless.

Please join me in praying for peace in the fall,

Ashley

These photos show some of the beautiful in our summer.

That boy right there. The one who makes goofy faces in all the pics. His beauty takes my breath away. 

And this is beautiful. It just happened when I just had to get out of the house one random summer afternoon and drove to one of my favorite spots in Gloucester.

And her. My Keesha. AKA The black monster.

Truly. This fresh face. Her beauty shines and laughs out loud.

This might be the most beautiful of all. Because they had to COOPERATE to create this pose! See that beauty in the middle? She isn't mine, but she is light and humor and such imagination! And she can get my two children to do this!