being imperfect mommy

{my family, May 2011}
me, my mommy, my daddy, my sister

your mother is so amazing
you have a fantastic father. 

these are words i hear often, frequently filling my ears from the lips of those who encounter the people that raised me. not just church people, not just family people, but strangers too, sometimes, who know me through them.

my father is the life of the party, loud and wild with a whistle and a laugh that both boom and echo so loud that they can be heard in the front of the church where i sit, compared to the back where he sits with my mother, always just that one second after the joke when the rest of the laughter has died away.

but he has these eyes, my father, the eyes that draw men to speak and share their hearts when most would rather withdraw and be quiet. he was good to his girls, my dad, my mom and sister and me, and soon his granddaughter too. most men wouldn't have cared. my daddy did.

and then there's my mom. this red-haired, coffee-carafe toting powerhouse who often starts her sentences with i'm not perfect or only by the grace of God am i here. and she's right, of course, because it takes God and only God. but mommy needs to give herself some credit too. because she spends hours with women, holding their hands and weeping with the broken. she gives of herself endless and endless to teenage girls who love her and call her mom like i do, and it's amazing.

and women tell me that listening to my mom is like listening at the feet of Jesus. and it is, because she raised me when she could have said no, and adopted me when she could have been content to give to others who didn't hold corners of her flesh in their fists. but she chose a daughter, and then another. and gave even more of herself -- the most bits of herself -- to us, my sister and me.

and i'm going to be a mom soon, any day now. and i sit and press my hands to my swollen stomach where my daughter, due tomorrow and stubbornly waiting beneath my skin where she seems to be quite comfortable in her silent liquid world. but wouldn't you be too?

i want to be the kind of mom that has people come to my little girl and say your mom is doing good. your mom is amazing. 

{via pinterest}

and i fear i won't be that kind of woman for her. i fear i'll live in flesh and in self, and not in the Jesus-shawl that my mother drapes over her shoulders when the world brings her to her knees. and i fear that i'll chose my own feet instead of kneeling on the sheepskin that my father has used for prayer since i was a little girl.

i have big shoes to fill, these ones of sacred parenting that were emulated for me by the two most amazing people i have ever encountered. and sometimes i call my mom crying, and tell her that i don't feel good enough to mother like she mothered.

and then i remember that He fathered her, and me, and my dad, and my husband. and fall is coming, a death and a life all at the same time. and my little one is coming to make me a mommy, and to make my husband a daddy.

and we won't be perfect parents. but we will be parents who love. i won't be my mom. but i'll be me, and that'll be okay, won't it?

and she'll love me for me, those tiny flailing arms and fluffy little cheeks and big still-unseen eyes of an unknown colour and hair to match, also still unknown.

but He died to make me worthy to hold this tiny one in my arms and call her my child, and made me worthy to be called mommy. He didn't die to make me perfect, to make me supermom, to make me anything but me.

He died to make me whole.

and i'm who she'll call mommy

imperfect mommy who loves Jesus

loving mommy who tries

her mommy. 

who loves her forever & always 

{linking my imperfection with dear emily and her community today. join us?}

the guy

i'm not sure how to start this post off. i have a lot to say, so much that it's brimming over and twisting my tongue into knots with the magnitude of how to begin. i feel like whatever i say, no matter how carefully thought out and prepared for your eyes, will fall entirely too short.

it's about this guy. this man i've spoken off in bits and pieces, mostly because he doesn't mind being waiting offstage while i write my soul in the center.

this man i call "husband."

and i'm ashamed to say, i've had the sun in my eyes. too blind to honestly appreciate just how much this man has done for me, and is doing in days of exhausted wife with piled clothes and unwashed plates.

he works in a factory, fifty hours of grind, and still has a volunteer's pager strapped to his belt for when fires start and cars flip over. he works all day, and sometimes late at night when the beeping wakes us both and he grabs for boots with bleary eyes and tousled blonde hair, barely time to press a kiss to my sleeping lips before he's gone out the door to save a life.

now he takes the piled jeans and puts them in the machine, and washes dirty plates and knives when my feet ache too much to stand. and when my stomach churns, he sits outside the door because it makes him sick too. but he does what he can because he doesn't want to leave me alone.

there's late-night runs for grape slushies and onion rings with ranch dressing, and countless nights of sleep disturbed while his wife tosses in discomfort and leaves little room for him in bed with the thousand curving pillows and left-side sleeping.

and still his strong fingers find that one spot in my back and press for relief, and rub my neck and brush my hair. this is man i share a booth with, pancakes and bacon and root beer every Saturday morning. the exhausted man, the hard-working man.

{via pinterest}

the one who kisses my nose and brings home chocolate when he knows i'm overwhelmed. the man who holds me in one arm with the other hand on my stomach, waiting to feel the kicks for himself.

and my daughter carries his genes. oh, how honoured i am to carry the strength of this man's flesh and bone merged with mine to create a whole new tiny warrioress for the world. she is not all me -- she bears more than my feeble strength. she has his too, and i am so glad.

this is the man i'm having a baby with, the one i'm sharing my life with. the one that waited in a white suit with a red rose on his lapel at the end of a long aisle two and a half years ago.

this is my husband. this is my hero.

so the nights will still be long, but he will still tangle his legs with mine and run his fingers through my hair while he rubs my back and waits for a little kick to remind him that he is "daddy."

 he is altogether lovely.

this is my beloved, this is my friend,

    daughters of Jerusalem.

steak and potatoes

{via pinterest}

i spent last night with my parents. 


not the whole night, but enough of the night to have steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream, and laugh until we wept with too much joy overflowing from the corners of our eyes. 


and then i leaned against the counter and talked to my mom. 


and we talked about the baby, and about everything else that comes in between. and we talked about life, like we haven't done in what feels like ages. life has been rushing and i feel like my family connections have gotten a little threadbare since the beginning of two dark purple lines. 


but we're all doing a show together this spring. mom and dad and me and baby too, all on stage together for the first time since i was thirteen. and connections form with theater lights and velvet curtains, just like they used to do when i was a child and i had my first tied pair of ballet ribbons draped over my arm. 


did you know steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream and so much laughter could do so much? 


i think i'd forgotten. because i think i've allowed myself to retreat, to dwell too much and live too little. to wrap too many shaking fingers around fears and cling just that bit too tight. 

{via pinterest}

going home feels good sometimes. at the end of night, we got in our car and drove back to our little apartment with bills and laundry and pizza rolls in the freezer.


but going home feels good sometimes, to steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream and the warmth of familiarity when things are too much to handle on our own. 


because two are better than one. and a bundle of sticks are better than two. and we're making our own stick bundle now, turning two to three, and five to six. 

well the sun is surely sinking down

but the moon is slowly rising

and this old world must still be spinning 'round

but I still love you

:: you can close your eyes :: brooke fraser ::

and so now i'm singing lullabies to the baby in my stomach, the same ones my mom sang to me when i was a little girl. and i'm repeating familiar melodies over and over again. 

cross shadows and repeated lines.

and steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream. 

{thank you everyone for your patience with me as i figure out this pregnancy and my body's new way of life! giveaway winners from January are going up in a matter of minutes on the original post, and the new giveaway is up as of tomorrow morning!}

awaking mother

{via pinterest}

{five minutes. refusing to over-think or over-complicate. in these moments, we write for love}


when i went to bed on Wednesday night, i was a me. single tense, just one body.

or was i really? 

because this little one was already growing within, without me even knowing that i wasn't just a me. but a we.

but this morning, i awoke. and it was different.

because i was mother. i could feel the change. maybe not physically yet, maybe it's too soon. but i found my fingers pressed against skin, whispering good morning to the lentil in my tummy.

because i awoke new today. 

no more will Friday the 13th speak of bad luck. it will be the first full day that i knew i was mother. 


today was the day my mother hugged both me and her grandchild at the same time. the first day that i wandered through my home with Harry Potter in hand as i read familiar words to the tiny one who can already hear me.

i awoke different today, though i have been doing it for six weeks without realizing.

today, i knew. and i awoke mother.

{thank you so much to each and every one of you who wished us well. we are so incredibly excited. 

we are due on September 3rd, 2012. expect lots and lots of updates as the weeks progress!}

expecting brave

and now i know, this is why my word is brave.

because in a moment when a stall door slams behind me and trembling fingers tug silver and paper away,  life changes forever. when stomach is now cradle and fingers now press against soon-taut skin.

because he and me are becoming we.

and this is frightening, in the most beautiful way. i'm not me anymore. it's we, me and little one curled against my innermost parts as He weaves and crochets little eyes and fingers all together.

{via pintrest}

we are expecting a child. 

:: our first ::

and i feel unworthy. this vessel filled, and maybe now i understand my own mother a bit more. because i love this child fiercely, and it still lingers with only six weeks of life beneath my skin and bone. 

we don't know daughter or son, we don't know eye colour or richness of hair. but we know we love this tiny babe growing deeper and stronger. 

and so i press discovering fingers to my abdomen where my little one grows and i whisper of the Lion's song to these developing ears. 

mama loves you already, dearheart. 

and so does daddy.

and so does Abba. 

and i saw the light in my own father's eyes as we held hands today, a grandfather already to the unborn. and i heard the laughter in my mother's soul, a grandmother long awaited. and i heard my sister's gasp of disbelief and cry of joy as sissy turns mommy. 

and i watched my husband's eyes light up with the strangest sparkle as he pressed lips to tummy and whispered sweet dreams, baby. 

september comes fast. thirty-six weeks to go before a ring of fire and blood and life in infant cry. 

and i now know why He wanted me brave. because i'm becoming warrior of a new sort. 

:: mother :: 

twenty-nine

{my parents on their wedding day}

i love fairytales. i love happy endings.

i love those storybook moments that make people sigh and give those little smiles and maybe, just maybe whisper into someone's ear

that'll be us one day

i grew up watching a fairytale. not a perfect one, not one without the occasional villain or rolling fog or even broken-hearted tears. 

but still a love story. a passionate beautiful thing where two people pledged their love and it remained. 

for twenty-nine years

today.

my parents are a legacy in their own right. barely into their fifties, but still a legacy. 

their love is a bonding of heart and soul and everything good and sacred.

{my parents on their wedding day}

 if you want to see a God-touched love, a soul-rippling marriage

take a look at them. 

twenty-nine years ago, my Daddy wed my Mummy. 

he still looks at her the same way as he did then. 

they still dance in the kitchen to silent music. i still hear them laughing in that secret teenage way.

and i know they are still passionate together.

not just romantic. but passionate in that way only man and wife can be. 

and it was never hidden. 

{my parents on their wedding day}

never 

stop, the children are watching. 

he kisss her lips daily. more than, even. and he has never hidden his affection and admiration for her. not to us, his children. not to anyone.

yes, they have their secret intimacies, as do all couples.

but they are newlyweds forever. holding hands, singing, dancing, raising my sister and i in full view of that love. 

she still blushes when he looks in her direction. i've seen it, i've seen the notes and the flowers and the little signs of this and that. 

and they're my parents.

{my parents on their wedding day}

i'm fortunate to have parents still this much in love, twenty-nine years since they said i do. 


perhaps my bias is higher than most, but i am confident that i have the greatest parents in this world.

their covenant connection to one another is Biblical, strong, and connected by cords of love that only the King of Kings could weave.

they cling to Him. they cling to one another.

til death do us part.

happy anniversary, Mummy and Daddy. 

i love you so much. 

wise men say, only fools rush in

but i can't help falling in love with you