The Monkey Barrel (Arters Blog)

I have long held a view of gratitude that took a soul cutting lesson to drill into my heart and soul.  If you cannot be thankful for what you have, you do not move forward to the next round.  You stagnate in your here and now.  Somehow I stumbled across a book by an author and her journey to the same lesson.  I am reminded afresh in the pages of One Thousand Gifts how crucial it is that I bend my heart into an attitude of thank-fullness.  Because it is fullness. 

When I have been up a thousand times in the night with the baby and then with Noah and with my own thoughts and dreams that cause me restlessness I wake up grumpy and short of temper. No one escapes my thunder.  The screams come easy and self control is lost and our day is washed up before it has even begun.  I am overwhelmed.  I lose.  We all lose.  I never thought these four incredible blessings could spawn such an undoing of myself.  And really, I need to be undone.  I need to lose my self.  Because it is in the losing of self that I am brought up short, right into the face of God to be reminded who it all comes from.  I needed to be reminded who is really in control.  The more I assert my self, the further we plummet down the rabbit hole of chaos.  I am ungrateful.  I stagnate.

This last week has proved better.  The first in practically 8 or so months where the corners seemed straight and life was wrinkled but was not my unraveling.  I gave it away. I gave over the control.  Every morning before my feet hit the floor, I whispered to Him beneath the white sheets.  Whispers of my brokenness, my frustration, my selfishness, my weakness.  I begged God to take back the helm through clenched teeth and drowning soul.  And He did.  He always does.  He is so patient.  He is merciful.  And His heart whispered back into mine the reminders of a thankful spirit.    I am so apt to forget.  My self charges in and takes over, wreaking havoc and devastation, where His whispers peace and healing.  I am still learning.  But He is I am.  And where I end, He begins.  So we begin, fresh, new, every day, every morning.

These are my thanks.  There are so many, and yet still too few:

Thank you that I wake every morning to the warmth in the curve of his back.  Thank you for his hands that find mine in the dark. Thank you for the fifteen years that he has not tired of me.  Thank you that he works so diligently to provide for us.  Not just for our needs, but for our wants.  Thank you that he strives so hard to be an image of you to us.  Thank You, that he stays.  That he is all present and all in with never a though or glance to being anywhere else.

Thank you for the precipice of 12 years that made this heart a mother heart.  Thank you for the journey.  Thank you for his gentle spirit.  Thank you for his diligence.  Thank you for his music and his heart that understands the song as he plays.  Thank you a thousand times over for the gift of his life. 

Thank you for 6 years of his tender spirit.  Thank you for the soul in his eyes and for the seeing in his heart that understands others. Thank you for his gentleness.  Thank you for the way his soul grasps language in the written and the unspoken words.  Thank you for blessing us twice so tremendously.

Thank you for 3 years of out right audacity.  Thank you for his exuberance.  Thank you for his kindness.  Thank you for the loving spirit emerging under the tumult of a fiery temper.  Thank you for three times trusting us with another life to guide and shape and bring up in your admonition.

Thank you for 6 months of bubbling joy.  Thank you for her eyes that shine bright in smiles and smiles wreathed in dimples.   Thank you for her happiness and contentment.  Thank you for the fourth untold blessing and the first of girlish things.

Thank you for standing beside me every day.  Thank you for encouraging my heart when my spirit lags, for strength when I weary, for truth when I doubt, for wisdom when I seek, and mercy when I am undeserving.  Thank you for your faithfulness.  Thank you for all the things I will discover to be grateful for when I am willing to pull off the blinders of selfishness and look to find Your heart.

As a baby my brother dubbed him Da and the name stuck, carrying on through the rest of us grandchildren. I have a million and a half memories of my Da coursing through my brain as I reflect on his life as I was blessed to see it. I remember walking through his gardens and picking pole beans and squash and harvesting lettuces and planting seeds and dribbling sun ripened tomatoes down my chin. I remember feeding the fish in his koi pond and sticking little fingers in the surface to poke at them and make my reflection wiggle. I remember the stilts he made with plastic cups and whirlygigs he’d make from crepe paper, a bit of cardboard, and some string for us to trail in the wind as we ran. I remember his voice in song and in whispers goodnight and all the thousands of I love you’s called across yards and rooms and parties and Christmases. I remember the smell of Old Spice and Brut lingering in my hair after his hugs. I remember spending the night at their house and the phone calls that came in the early evening hours as he manned a prayer line. I remember the sweet and loving tone of his voice as he prayed with broken and desperate folks, seeking answers, seeking love, seeking salvation, seeking compassion.
Da just oozed joy out of every fiber of his being right up to the crinkles in his eyes from the wideness of his smile and let me tell you it was contagious. So much so that people often asked him what made him so happy and he would pipe right in about his Savior. His Jesus. Da talked about Jesus constantly as though He were right present in the room at all times. Rarely was an opportunity missed to tell us that as much as he loved us, Jesus loved us more and He was always the most important thing. And with every telling to us or to anyone else, the end was always followed with a question, “Do you know Jesus?”. Da was never ashamed of his Lord. And his easy and pleasant demeanor put others at ease so that the question he was determined to ask would never sound accusatory or shaming, just simple. I love Jesus. Do you know Him?
I can’t even comprehend their meeting in heaven but the picture I have in my head is much like one that happened when I was a little girl in first grade. (This was always his favorite story to tell me.) Da had come to the school to pick up my cousin and walked by my classroom. I was glancing at the door just as he strolled by. I hurled my little girl frame out of my chair and across the room and threw myself around his legs yelling DA! DA! DA! at the top of lungs. He grinned his big wide grin as he stooped to grab me and hug me as I clung to his neck. I can just see him walking through the gates of heaven and catching his first glimpse of Jesus and racing for His throne and yelling Jesus’s name over and over and over at the top of his lungs as Jesus gathered him up to welcome him home.

falling asleep is very dangerous in our house

We are so busy in the making of our life that there’s rarely a time to record it of late. Some days I despair that there will ever be any regularity to write here again. So I’m resigning myself to be content with the snippets I can toss on and look forward to the day when life settles in a bit and I can share fragments of the moments that make us laugh and love and live.

We’ve enjoyed an enormous summer of welcoming not only our sweet girl, but loads of visitors. I am loving all the company! God has outdone Himself with the range of guests we’ve had the joy to host, and it seems the fall is determined not to be outdone. Friends old and new are pouring in and out of doors with a speed that normally would make my head spin but it just seems par for the course at this point.

I’ve been up to my elbows and eyeballs organizing closets and bedrooms. Changing over clothes and bedding, packing up the summer, unpacking the cooler weather gear. This year I’m hoping to get family pictures done in the beauty of this fall as an early Christmas gift to myself. We haven’t had one done since John was born! We’ve had loads of pictures of the kids taken through the years and Lizzies are the most recent. In fact, they’re due any day and I am on pins and needles to see how they turned out.

I hear the natives getting restless and I better go break it up before something or someone gets broken or pee’d on. Ah the life of potty training. Added that to the never ending list of to do’s!!! So I’m off and I’ll leave you with a few pics of the star of the show of late that I snapped this afternoon. She’s just amazing that kid!

p.s. (by the time I finished posting this, someone’s face hit the wall and there was a bloody nose. geesh)

On July 2, 2011, my 35th birthday, I recieved the greatest gift you could possibly imagine. Elisabeth Frances joined our family after about 2 1/2 hours of hard labor although some might say it was really 3 weeks of labor given I held on at 5 cm for about that long! She weighed in at 8lbs. 5 oz and 21 inches long.

I can’t even begin to describe the joy this sweet little girl had brought just in the anticipation of her arrival. Her physical presence is even more of a delight. She’s a good sleeper, a voracious eater and from day one she has been strong and bright and alert. Her eyes smile with crinkles around the corners and wrinkles on her nose. The boys are all head over heals in love with her.

I’m still trying to organize the words and thoughts in my head to describe just what her presence has meant to me. How it has changed me. The words won’t congeal or meld together to form one thought. It is a million emotions yet only one. Gratefulness.

Grateful to be given the chance to mother a daughter. Grateful to share the experiences that I had growing up as female. Grateful that God chose to entrust her to our care. Grateful for the clothes and colors on the spectrum I couldn’t even dream of for myself before. Grateful for the promise of long hair, bows, dolls, and tomboy romps with her brothers in muddied ruffles and ribbons.

She is the fulfilled dream tucked away in a momma’s heart that had been placed in a box she thought would never be opened. She is so many wishes, murmured prayers, tears shed. She is God’s promise, God’s oath. Elisabeth. Our sweet baby girl.

Yesterday I was watching Noah run around and I had a distinct flashback to when he’d just come home from the hospital. We’ve been watching old family videos of each of the kids births to give them an idea of what it will be like when Elisabeth comes. So Noah’s first few days were fresh in my mind. But I remember sitting in the glider rocker when he was just 3 days old or so and thinking, “I need to soak this all in as long as possible, as much as possible, because I”m going to blink and you’ll be a year and then two, and then three. Pretty soon you’ll be all grown up and I’ll wonder if I held you long enough when you were tiny, cuddled you often enough, or told you how much I love you as many times as humanly possible.” Yesterday I blinked open and sure enough he’s two and a half years old and all the time in between seems to have folded into a tiny envelope of minutes and memories that flew by too swiftly. I know I’ll feel the same when Elisabeth comes. I am both anxious to meet her but grateful for the time that she is still safe inside my belly. We have these moments that only she and I share while we are entangled together this way. I’m trying not to wish it all away in my discomfort. Before I know, I’ll blink and she too will be 2 1/2 when I open my eyes again.

I just looked at the date for the last time I blogged. Holy Moses!! I knew I’d been slacking but criminy! I wish I had more time to write right now but I’m up to my eyeballs prepping for the any day or minute arrival of our little girl. Yeah, I’m still wrapping my head around that last word. Girl. Daughter. It’s crazy! My house looks like a pink bomb exploded and I am loving every second of prepping for her to join us. I want to promise I’ll do better about posting and keeping up here, but reality begs me not to be so naive. Maybe during those midnight feedings I’ll sneak a few minutes on here and catch you up on the insanity. In the meantime, stay tuned for pictures and stats of the girl who will rock the testosteroney world of Arters!

John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

I woke this morning to my the monkeys rough and tumbling with their dad. Fred had been away for two days on business and they were so delighted to have him home and he was equally so to wake up to their crazy shennanigans. As I lay in bed listening to the squealing and mirth I began reflecting on the fact that this morning was the anniversary of Good Friday.

Until today I had been equating what Christ had endured and sacrificed just to me and to my own sin. I have made no secret of the wretch I was before returning to Christ 15 years ago this Sunday. I can often be found crying during worship or in the car listening to KLOVE remembering where and who I was and how much God has changed in me since those days. But today it dawned on me the selfishness in only thinking of it in light of my own salvation.

I know that if it had only been to rescue me, Jesus would still have withstood all of the torture and devastation and mockery and abuse and beatings and death to save my life. This morning I realized that His love stretched so deep and so wide that He desired for the generations leading to me and coming after me to be with Him in heaven as well. As I listened to my family playing I was overwhelmed with the thought that God loved me so much that He died for them as well so that we would share eternity together. He saw them each, Fred, John, Luke, and Noah and calls them by name in the same breath that he breathes mine. I am still rocked by the thoughts as I write to share them with you. I am still struggling for the words to adequately convey to you how much this astounds me but I cannot seem to pull them from my head.

Here’s another stab at it. God loved me so much that He blessed me with an amazingly compassionate husband who led me back to the cross, He gave us children I never deserved to carry, and so many years ago He sent His only child to endure a miserable death so that this family He was going to create would be able come and share life with Him in heaven together. TOGETHER!!!!!! And one step further, not just my immediate family, but my extended family and my friends. All of us, together, eternally. I still can’t get my head around it completely!

Today as I continue to reflect on the brevity of this Good Friday, I am filled with a new hope and a fresh perspective on how He loves us. He loves us so. I hope you get a moment to see the journey to the cross in a light that you’d never seen and the depth and grace of His love washes over you afresh as well. And if you have never understood or accepted the love of Christ, I pray that this is the year for you that it becomes a living and breathing reality that strikes you more with compassion and grace than shame. Jesus sacrificed all of Himself, withholding nothing, for the beauty that is you.

(weird video yes, but Oh How He Loves Us)

My dear friend and former neighbor, Tracie Vaughn Zimmer is a published children’s book author. I have a highly prized autographed copy of Sketches from a Spy Tree which was her first publication while we were still neighbors. She has an incredible imagination and a beautiful way with words and poetry. I am delighted about her newest offering Cousins of Clouds: poems about elephants!!!
Check out a little excerpt with this video short she put together
Cousins of Clouds
And you can visit her blog here at
Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

I hope you find her as amazing as I do. I have the absolute best friends!!!

Oh and I almost forgot!!! Ack… If you’d like to order your very own copy, check out this link Cousins of Clouds at Amazon

Here’s how much I have always sucked at saying good bye. When I was little my grandmother got rid of a couch. I’m guessing I was around seven. As I went to bed that night I sobbed in my night time prayers about missing the couch and then asked my parents if we could have it. They asked me what on earth I would do with it and where we’d put it. With a heave and cry I blurted, ” we could put it on the wall outside the bathroom so people would have somewhere to sit while waiting to go!!!”. Sob sob (parents snicker) sob sob

A few years later mom and dad decided to sell the old station wagon. Again my little sentimental heart was devastated. I had no creative plan to keep Bessie, just an aching little soul not to see her go. Many many tears ensued. Are you catching a pattern here yet??

Life is so chock full of little and big goodbyes. I went to few funerals as a kid and they were pretty much all older people who had lived full and excellent lives and though I missed them horribly I knew where they were and that at some point we’d be reunited. Oddly I do better with those than the little things and the material goodbyes. It’s seriously retarded of me.

Tonight my heart weighs heavy because we say a final goodbye to our home on Riverton in a few more days. She is emptied out and bare, nearly ready for her new owners. But in the echo of my footsteps wandering the rooms and halls I remember the cries of the two boys born during our time at that house and the joy of their big brother at their arrival, the tiny life we lost there, and all the holidays and birthdays and dinners and friends and family that truly warmed the hearth at Riverton. The memories are endless and assault me at every corner I turn. At 34 the goodbyes just don’t get easier for a big sap like me. I think perhaps I may have missed my true calling. I could have been a very highly paid Jewish Mourner!!

I brought my two older sons with me to work today.  They started out the morning working on school work finishing up their Math and English around 11:00.  It was then on to game time in the ironically name ‘quiet room’ where we have a projector and an XBox 360 setup.

At 12:00 I checked in with my work-mates to see where they were headed for lunch.  They replied, in what I assumed was a joking manor, that they were talking about going to Chuck-E-Cheese.  I laughed.

Turns out, they were not joking.  It was a fun lunch!