I confess to being smitten with my little one in her new sweater, hat and gloves.  Yeah, she’s cute.

My four year old was equally cute in her getup.  Shorts.  But she was thrilled with herself because everything was pink, as she put it, “dark pink, hot pink, light pink.”  It was warm enough that I let her run around until she felt cold.

Their big brother was intent on one thing only:  building a snowman by himself.

My little one had a conversation with it.

Generally we had a lot of fun.  It was a truly beautiful afternoon.

Oh, I love that little face!

Since it might turn out to be the only snow we get to play in all winter, I’m glad I let the laundry sit a little longer.  We made a great memory.

HH

My association with the phrase comes from a speech given a year ago by D. Todd Christofferson which influenced me deeply when I first heard it.  I listened to it again and again, then printed it and read it several times.  I have learned a lot about receiving my daily bread from the Lord, a lesson begun by this message.

For your convenience, I share the passage I was referring to below.  If you want to read the entire speech, which I highly recommend, you can find it here.

Elder Christofferson’s words:

“Asking God for our daily bread, rather than our weekly, monthly, or yearly bread, is also a way to focus us on the smaller, more manageable bits of a problem. To deal with something very big, we may need to work at it in small, daily bites. Sometimes all we can handle is one day (or even just part of one day) at a time. Let me give you a nonscriptural example.

“A book I read recently, titled Lone Survivor, recounts the tragic story of a four-man team of U.S. Navy SEALs on a covert mission in a remote sector of Afghanistan five and one-half years ago. When they were inadvertently discovered by shepherds—two men and a boy—these specially trained Navy servicemen had a choice either to kill the two or let them go, knowing that if they let them live they would disclose the team’s location and they would be attacked immediately by al Qaeda and Taliban forces. Nevertheless, they let the innocent shepherds go, and in the firefight that followed, only the author, Marcus Luttrell, survived against well over 100 attackers.

“In his book, Luttrell recounts the extreme training and endurance required for one to qualify as a SEAL in the U.S. Navy. In Luttrell’s training group, for example, of the 164 men who began, only 32 managed to complete the course. They endured weeks of near-constant physical exertion, in and out of cold ocean water, swimming, paddling and carrying inflatable boats, running in sand, doing hundreds of push-ups a day, carrying logs through obstacle courses, and so forth. They were in a near-perpetual state of exhaustion.

“I was impressed by something a senior officer said to the group as they began the final and most demanding phase of their training.

“First of all,” he said, “I do not want you to give in to the pressure of the moment. Whenever you’re hurting bad, just hang in there. Finish the day. Then, if you’re still feeling bad, think about it long and hard before you decide to quit. Second, take it one day at a time. One [phase] at a time.

“Don’t let your thoughts run away with you, don’t start planning to bail out because you’re worried about the future and how much you can take. Don’t look ahead to the pain. Just get through the day, and there’s a wonderful career ahead of you.”1

“Generally it is good to try to anticipate what is coming and prepare to deal with it. At times, however, this captain’s counsel is wise: “Take it one day at a time. … Don’t look ahead to the pain. Just get through the day.” To worry about what is or may be coming can be debilitating. It can paralyze us and make us quit.

“In the 1950s my mother survived radical cancer surgery, but difficult as that was, the surgery was followed with dozens of painful radiation treatments in what would now be considered rather primitive medical conditions. She recalls that her mother taught her something during that time that has helped her ever since: “I was so sick and weak, and I said to her one day, ‘Oh, Mother, I can’t stand having 16 more of those treatments.’ She said, ‘Can you go today?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, honey, that’s all you have to do today.’ It has helped me many times when I remember to take one day or one thing at a time.”

“The Spirit can guide us when to look ahead and when we should just deal with this one day, with this one moment. If we ask, the Lord will let us know through the Holy Ghost when it may be appropriate for us to apply in our lives the commandment He gave His ancient Apostles: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof” (3 Nephi 13:34; see also Matthew 6:34).”

Close quote.

Aren’t those wonderful words?  While I know my daily experience is nothing like that of a Navy Seal, I can’t help but think that the words of the officer apply so aptly to motherhood, to daily life.  So to all of us who are tired or worried or frustrated, let’s finish the day.  Let’s take it one day at a time when we need to.  Don’t look ahead to the pain, and there’s a wonderful life ahead of all of us.

How can you not have a great day after considering that?

Jennifer

My two oldest boys are wrestling with their Dad, who “ties them up like shoelaces” every time they attack.  I admit that it’s fun, and I know that it’s healthy but I can only handle so much because it makes me cringe and wonder what will break before we’re done, especially with bodies this size flying around the room.  But they’re laughing.  They’re bonding.  They’re making a memory.

My youngest is sitting next to me on the chair, doing my hair, which really means she’s pulling my hair.  Three of the girls sit at the table calmly and quietly, giving themselves a little lesson in who knows what.  The seven year old just ran into the room and turned off the light mid-match.  Suddenly our five year old son is bouncing happily on the couch, waiting to dive on top of the next pile.

This is my life.  Crazy, noisy, children sitting on the table, laughing, crying, yelling, smiling.  Now seven of the children have combined to attack their Dad and somehow he’s like an octopus with an arm shooting out in time to catch anyone about to get away.  And in the middle of it all he finds a moment to reach out and tickle my feet with a happy smile on his face.  Then he rolls over, lets them all climb on his back, and does a pushup just to show that he can.  He makes their lives so much more fun than I do.  I’m so grateful for him.  At last even our two year old wants in on the action, and he pauses to let her “pin” him.

Our four year old yells, “Dad! Remember the pygmy stuff?” [referring to a wrestling match from Friday with just the little ones]  She runs to the other room and returns with a roll of wrapping paper, her sword of choice.  She bounces a little and looks up with an enormous smile on her face, ready to take him on.

Soon someone will get hurt.  Dad will be done and we’ll read scriptures, pray, and put them to bed.  But for these brief moments we’re all in a jumble, four year-olds and fourteen year-olds in a tangle of screaming bodies.  Vaguely I wonder what someone would think if they stood on our porch right now.  We wouldn’t hear them knock or ring, but I’m sure they’d walk away wondering what kind of crazy people live here.

So, naturally, I’m typing.  Because it helps me stay calm while they howl.  Because all of this craziness is part of being a family – an important part – and THEY. LOVE. IT.

Suddenly the craziness ends, as quickly as it began.  Everyone collapses on the couch to catch their breath.  My oldest daughter helps the baby hide under the nearby desk, behind the chair and the last activity of the night is for Dad to find her.  He looks happily in all the silliest places, in big brother’s shirt, in big sister’s backpack, in big sister’s lunch box.  Then he pulls out the chair she’s hiding behind, turns his back on her, and looks under the chair, all the while yelling “Puddles!  I can’t find her!”  He gets on his knees and grabs the camera bag right next to her to see if she’s in it.  He looks on top of the desk.  And she sits there, calmly, still as a statue, watching him look all around her while the other seven pile up behind him squealing with laughter and delight at the ridiculous nature of the search, the knowledge that we all know where she is, the fun of pretending that we don’t.  All of it happens inches from my elbow and I pause to look at them.  All of them, oldest to youngest, faces plastered with happiness and wonder and LIFE, laughing together.  And I think, THIS is why we had 8 kids.  THIS is what life is all about.  I cannot, I cannot forget THIS.  I sat there, absorbing the joyful faces around me, trying to fix in my memory this moment so I can return to it when the laundry pile seems bigger than I am, or when the homework battles rage, or when I’m just plain tired.

Life with 8 kids is a lot of things.  It’s legos all over the floor, more laundry stacked up than I care to admit, toilets always needing cleaning.  It’s two dishwashers running every night, a pile of toothbrushes and toothpaste smeared all over my counter, books everywhere you look.  It’s a fifteen passenger van, a grocery bill that amazes me, a life fuller than any calendar has room for.  It’s a mother who forgets a lot, but remembers a hundred things for every one thing she forgets, a mother who goes to bed exhausted at the end of the day thinking “I’ll try again tomorrow.”  It’s worries and hopes and fears multiplied.  It’s a father who carries the weight of our needs on his back, giving up time and hobbies to provide financially by day then come home and provide emotionally by night.  It’s planning and teamwork and tears and toil.  But 8 kids is mostly about love.  All those pluses and minuses somehow add up to more love, more laughter, more joy than you can imagine.

And by some incredible twist of fate, it’s my life.  My life with 8 kids.  And I love it.

I stumbled upon the store, Janie and Jack, entirely by accident during the Christmas shopping season.  I walked in and two thoughts hit me simultaneously:

1.  Yes!  I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before!  I have five daughters!
2.  It’s a really good thing I’ve never seen this before!  ($$$ in my head)

So, it’s my new favorite children’s clothing store even though I can’t afford it.  Their clothing is beautiful, high quality, and well, the style I love.  I scoured the clearance rack and came away with new dresses for three of my girls, all at a great price.  {thank goodness for clearance racks!}  With shopping bags and coordinating gift boxes that look like vintage wallpaper, I was smitten.

I had already decided I didn’t want to buy more “Christmas” themed dresses; we have enough of them.  But I did want to get all of the children something new to wear to church.  So on Christmas morning my younger three girls went to church in these:

And for Easter I would LOVE to be able to put my two year old in this dress.  Sigh.  Having seen it in person I’m pretty sure it’s the cutest dress I’ve ever seen.  If you can afford $150 per outfit, you should head there.  If you’re like me and you only think of $150 in terms of utility and grocery bills then you can join me in drooling.  Either way, pretty is pretty.

Let’s get something straight.  I know that clothing and stores and dresses mean very little in the big scheme of things.  But I also know this, that every girl who grows up dreaming of having a family has, included in her dreams, little pictures of the cute clothes they’ll wear, pictures of little girls twirling in pretty dresses and little boys looking dapper in their shirts and ties.  I had those dreams.  I want to remember that I lived them, too.   My children don’t wear a lot of high end clothes, but they look nice.  They look clean.  And the dresses, oh the dresses.  I have been so blessed to watch many a girl twirl in their pretty dress and felt that clench of joy in my heart that accompanies it.  I want to remember that feeling.  Soon everyone will be choosing their own clothes, then buying their own clothes, and then I’ll be watching them twirl in white wedding dresses.  My heart will break a little, but in breaking I hope it will also burst with joy, and that I’ll discover the bursting allows it to grow even more.

Until then, I’m treasuring all the little girl moments with cute clothes and pretty dresses that I can get.  Because I love it, and I guess part of me is still a little girl, too, except that they look a whole lot cuter in their dresses than I do in mine.

HH

Forty five minutes later the timer went off and I checked the cake.  Looking good almost everywhere… except for one spot that had fallen.  The hole looked deep and I wondered if it would turn out.  Reminding myself that the recipe called for another ten minutes of baking, I closed the oven.

Ten minutes later the sunken spot tested fine and I removed the cake from the oven to cool.  And for some reason my eyes kept moving back to it.

That sunken spot had created such beautiful texture on the cake, making me want to study it.  Had it been perfectly smooth (as I planned and expected) there wouldn’t have been much to look at.  I would have let it cool, inverted it and missed an opportunity to  notice more.

This momentary pause in my day to study a flawed cake with rapt attention and fascination got me thinking.  Isn’t life like that too?  We think we know how things should go and confidently mix together the ingredients and pop them in the day with high expectations.  But sometimes the day (insert just about anything in place of  “day”) doesn’t turn out how we hoped.  Part of it falls, sinks, looks mushy.  We eye it warily and hope it will turn out, which it usually does, but not how we pictured.  What was meant to be is now flawed and too often we wonder at its worth, or our worth.

But it was the flaws that created my moment of beauty, not a perfect cake.  It was the sunken area that made me want to look at it longer.  And you know what, the same is true of people.  The things we wonder at are the sunken areas that turn out, the areas that somehow come together in spite of adversity.  There is beauty there, not the perfect kind but the kind that we earn as we go through life.  The kind of beauty that follows faith, hard work, squaring your shoulders to do the best you can.  It’s a beauty that also follows the valleys in our lives, the days of uncertainty, fear, worry and tear-stained faces.  But because it’s one-of-a-kind, completely custom beauty, we marvel at it.  {Funny how we appreciate this kind of beauty in others but rarely welcome it in ourselves…}

Another thought hit me as I was wondering at all of this.  I know people whose lives hold no visible evidence of any flaws whatsoever.  Although some cakes have no flaws, we can be assured that all people do.  We all have disappointments, fears, heartaches.  It’s just that most of us manage to invert our cakes pretty well and come off looking normal.

And as for my worry about the cake, I needn’t have wondered.   It looked beautiful and delicious {which it was, every single crumb of it} and my family had no idea it wasn’t “perfect”.  So when we’re worried that our holes reveal too much we can remember that most of the time the flaws end up on the bottom and the best that is in us rises to the top.  And it all turns out just fine.

{I suppose I should insert here that this is probably just a pep talk to myself, but I’m sharing it in case it might cheer you up, too.  Sometimes I feel like I have some deep, ugly holes…}

All this thinking reminded me of a quote I liked in one of my current reads:

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time;  keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, ‘Oh, nothing!’  Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts – not to hurt others.”
-George Eliot, Middlemarch,  published 1871

And yes, it made me cry.  I love her, too.  I love all of them.

HH

My husband took the oldest two snowboarding for several hours, providing our son with the opportunity to try out the new board he got this week after our snowboard designing friend warrantied his old one to inspect it’s flaw and gave him a brand new $500 board for nothing.  We are NOT one of those families with lots of connections but in this case I guess we got lucky.

While they were up there, I took the time to sit outside in the sunshine and watch some of the others play a game of football in the backyard.  Notice the shorts, t-shirt and bare feet?  Winter has yet to hit where we are, and much as I hate the snow I’ve started praying for it so we’ll have water in the summer.  It’s not looking good and I have big dreams for my gardens and flowers this year.

My youngest has been incredibly sweet, funny, silly, etc. today.  It’s been delightful to be around her.  For a little while she lay on my couch in a silly position and I took a picture.  She carried the camera around, laughing uncontrollably, for 15 minutes as she looked at this picture of herself.   I realized how much she’s grown, as she can now identify a picture of herself as “me”.  Sigh.  Like her outfit?  She came up with it herself.  She does this about 27 times each day, and is now in the habit of drawing from any drawer she can open, which means she comes downstairs in all kinds of sizes.

One of my daughters was bored and couldn’t find a friend to play with so we drew a bird on some muslin and she spent the afternoon learning to embroider.  To my surprise she was quite good at it and didn’t quit until it was finished.  Not once did she get her thread knotted or anything else of that nature.  I need to do this for her much more!

We chuckled as we sat there because our little one wanted to kiss an owie on her sister’s foot.  Big sister warned her not to (remember the barefoot football game) because her feet were so dirty so while she stitched she got her feet lovingly cleaned.

And I thought to myself that I’ve GOT to find a way to slow down and enjoy this kind of day unfolding much, much more often than I do.

I got out a stack of fabric that I haven’t touched in 9 months and enjoyed spending some time at the sewing machine for the first time in weeks.

This was my after-Christmas splurge.  These rolls of wrapping paper (from Target) make me smile.  I guess I’m loving bold geometric prints more all the time.  I’m going to find something really fun to do with this!

The children are taking turns playing the Wii and gawking at the television while the others have their turn.

Right now I sit with my five year old son leaning on my shoulder.  Our little one is, at last, in bed fast asleep and the four year old is asleep on the other couch.  Our oldest is away at a New Year’s party which leaves #2 through #5 hanging out together in the room.  I enjoy listening to their conversation as they share opinions, giggle and all pile on the same chair together.  It’s moments like this that I hope they remember when they’re older.

We’re celebrating New Year’s Eve simply.  A simple, casual dinner of mostly appetizers.  Earlier this evening my husband and I enjoyed one of our favorite drinks, a cherry cream soda from a nearby shop.  I need to remember and appreciate these simple things.

For the past two years I’ve carried an adorable Cath Kidston notebook in my purse.  It’s completely full so I ordered a new one, along with a small agenda for 2012.  I’ve been working hard on my goals for the new year and I’m almost ready.

I’ll be back soon with a wrap-up for my Year of Habits, but for now I’m going to enjoy simply being here with my wonderful family.  And I’ve learned some good lessons from this year so 2012 will be much better.    I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Happy New Year!
Jennifer

I feel like December entered and swallowed me whole.  It’s still chewing.  I’m wondering which direction I’ll be facing and how my heart will have fared when at last it spits me out somewhere in January.  The month has been an exercise in crossing things off my list… undone.  An exercise in letting go of all expectations.  Somewhere in the middle of it all my amaryllis bloomed.  Yay! A bright spot.  And now my paperwhites are teaching me with their delicate beauty.

What to write about?  The plans I made for a new year?  The stress that’s got my stomach tied in an iron knot?  The week spent with two toddlers down with severe croup, struggling for breath day and night for more than 6 days (AFTER Decadron shots and breathing treatments)?  The exhaustion of not sleeping?  The happiness of seeing extended family you rarely see, and having them with you for Christmas?  The stress of preparing for such a visit while nursing the sick children?  The emotional pendulum daily swinging back and forth between joy and tears of discouragement and frustration while knowing the swing is irrational and at least 50% related to exhaustion?  My gratitude for a few days of sunshine for Christmas (no snow here)?  The heaviness of the gray skies which have once again descended?  The sore throat that hit while washing dishes after Christmas dinner and how I escaped crying in front of all my relatives only by racing outside into the cold darkness?  The wonder I felt when my two brothers walked into my house, took out the dry tree, vacuumed my family room, smashed down the trash cans, emptied the kitchen trash, played with my little ones and generally restored a sense of order and calm to my house and heart in about 20 minutes?  (Thanks, guys.)  Wondering how to judge the year after the month we’ve just lived?  The embarrassment of being stretched so thin by all these things while knowing that others are suffering far more?  Fear?  Trying to kill that fear with increased faith?  The joy of a few hours of creativity?  The incredible humility of having God show you weakness after weakness?  The uncertain future which just became even less certain?

All these things lay jumbled together in the forefront of my mind, overlapping one another, clouding my judgment and generally making it difficult to focus on any one thing.  My mind is racing and my heart is racing with it.

We are SO blessed.  But this month has felt SO hard.

JOY.  I need to find joy.  I need to fight the battles God has given us to fight right now with JOY and not stress, with FAITH and not fear.  I need to learn how to live without the ball of stress in my stomach being so heavy that I cannot eat.  Christ came to offer LIFE.  Abundant life.  JOY.  Eternal joy.  It’s time to rejoice.

So in spite of all my worries, I am going to seek joy in 2012.  Not sure exactly how, yet, but I’m working on it.  I’ll keep you posted.  Until then, I hope your December has been much better and that you’re planning something amazing for the new year.

Jennifer

I feel more confident because I’ve accomplished just enough to think I might pull it all off, and far enough behind to feel terrified that I won’t.

I’m trying very hard to focus on what’s in front of me, to breathe, and not to worry about what’s three or four items down the list.

My desk is currently covered with three different projects.  Not the best strategy, but somehow I have to get them all done simultaneously, so there they are.

There are, however, a few highlights:

This week I learned how to do hair in bows, meaning to put a girl’s hair up in the shape of a bow.  Every one of my daughters has had something like this in their hair this week:

The above picture was at the end of the day when the left side had started to come out just a bit.  Below is a mini version in piggy tails.  So cute!  And I’ll even admit to doing my own hair like this in a half ponytail.  It’s so much fun to learn something new.

Today I had an hour’s notice that my daughter needed to be at an activity this afternoon with a dozen cookies to take caroling.  I decided to make a batch of E-Doodles to test the recipe and because I’ve been craving them.  They turned out great, and made enough for me to bundle up a few to give to a friend whose birthday is today.

I figure it’s better to be remembered with something small and simple than not at all.  It’s the best I can do today.  It also reminds me that I’d better get to work on the birthday we’re celebrating at our house on Tuesday!

My Christmas cards are almost done.  Relief.   BUT they still need me to put letters inside them (which I have yet to write and copy) and the envelopes all need addresses on them.  Stress.  I have a package I still need to put together and mail.  And a long drive to pick some things up.  And I’m supposed to be at the school to help with a Christmas party tomorrow.   More stress.

Look what I made last night!

They’re so cute I can hardly stand it.  I’m using them as part of some Christmas gifts that have to be put together by tonight.  I’m also doing something with chalkboard paint:

More on all that tomorrow.  I might be up all night long tonight but I have to get it done.

Tonight my husband and I are going to a holiday dinner for a company he does contract work for.  I don’t have time to go but am really excited to enjoy an evening with him.  I hope we can both calm down and relax for a couple of hours.  And I hope my children are kind to each other while we’re gone.

And that’s where my day stands.  I’m off to the craft store to buy a new glue gun because my daughter borrowed mine for a project at school…. and didn’t bring it home.  It’s now nowhere to be found.  I’m sure she’ll be disappointed when her allowance reflects the purchase price of a new one but we have to learn these things somehow, right?

I hope your day is going well!

Jennifer

We had a birthday to celebrate on Tuesday, extra commitments every day of the week, a mandatory lacrosse team meeting for spring play (can someone please explain why THAT had to happen in November?), Parent/Teacher conferences at the Junior High, a Christmas party, a baby shower to host on Saturday, etc.  I planned to clean and decorate the house for Christmas this week, and that schedule was crucial to all the other things that need to be accomplished in December.

And then my three year old got sick… again.  And then another daughter got sick.  And then, on my son’s 11th birthday I got sick too, so sick that I was not one tiny bit helpful in any way.  I barely managed until my husband got home from work, getting in the car to drive when I had to, then coming home to go to bed until I had to drive again, unable to care about feeding my family, getting homework done, or anything else.  I pleadingly sought the help of my teenagers until their Dad got home.

And so the least exciting birthday in the history of our family came and went with the cake unfrosted and untouched in the pan and a fast food dinner for those well enough to eat.  By Wednesday we had six of us sick.  I watched my poor husband trying to work and play nurse while he also managed to move the laundry through their cycles over and over again.  I sat on the couch watching what seemed like every old movie we own while holding one or another of the little ones who felt as lousy as I did.

Sometime in the night my stomach decided to feel normal again and  a massive headache hit instead.  This on the day when I had to be well again.  On the day when I had to pile my little ones in the car and drive far from home in 60 mph winds to pick up a bulk food order that is late coming in, to be divided and delivered to a couple dozen people who wanted it two weeks ago.  On a day when I really needed to be able to think, organize, and have my eyes properly focus.

Isn’t it funny how something so small as a stomach bug can feel so huge when you’re staring it in the face, then looking around at the carnage that spreads across your house as everyone feels too crummy to do their part and no one feels well enough to enforce any of the rules?  Saltine crackers get ground into the floor by toddlers, books and blankets and movies end up strewn all over the place, and we won’t even talk abut what happens to the kitchen.  As our family has grown both in size and age I’ve also found that the stress builds, too.  The stress of knowing how many people it has yet to hit, being torn between hoping a few escape it entirely and hoping everyone will just hurry up and get it over with so you don’t have it hanging over your head – or your plans – anymore.  The stress of knowing that six students will be behind in homework, knowing that there are more commitments to be broken than there were back when they were all toddlers and all you had to cancel was a playdate.  And, this week, the stress of mentally gauging the distance between today and the day of the baby shower you’re hosting, weighing how much time it will take to whip things into shape and sterilize the main floor before the event.  Hoping the rest of the family will be well enough to just go do something for a couple of hours instead of having to corral them all upstairs, half healthy and half not, while you entertain mostly strangers.  And why, may I ask, is the stress doubled simply because today the calender says “December”?  And why does it bother me so much that the house likely won’t be decorated for Christmas before Saturday like I’d planned?  The baby gift I’d planned on making for the shower will certainly not be completed and I need to find time to go buy something instead.  Grrr.

I’ve been feeling these feelings all day.  Fighting back tears of frustration and exhaustion; the only thing keeping a good cry at bay is a determination to NOT allow the headache to get worse.  Could it?  I suppose my head could explode.  And yet I’m also fully aware that we’re incredibly blessed and that none of my worries really matter.  Everything will work out just fine, even though I’m worried about it.  How fortunate we are that this is the most serious health issue we’re dealing with this week, that none of my concerns are matters of life or death.  How blessed we are that we have a roof over our heads, a furnace that works, warm blankets to wrap up in, each other to hold.

I think back over the day, how tense I felt while driving in high winds to a place I was completely unfamiliar with.  I remember my silent prayer and how I was able to drive safely and directly to my destination.  I was so worried the children would be grouchy, or need to use the bathroom, or get sick… but they didn’t.  They were so good.  And when the car was packed full of cases of food I prayed again, knowing I needed to be stronger than I felt, knowing my emotions were irrational and largely a result of exhaustion, but also knowing I had to get home safely.  I know the Lord has much bigger problems to deal with, much more important prayers to answer, but although the headache got worse it was as if He made me a little windless tunnel to drive through on the way home.

I remember laying in bed last night so worried that I would forget something essential because I’ve been sick, but somehow the details came to mind in time to take care of them.

For the first time in my life, I missed a Parent/Teacher Conference.  I couldn’t get my headache under control in time to go and I knew it would be pointless to try.  Being in that overcrowded Junior High gives me a headache on a good day!  I feel so overstimulated every time I go inside and leave marveling that so many people can be talking at the same time and that none of those kids seem to notice or be even slightly bothered by the volume.  I’m amazed at how much noise they can handle and it makes me feel old.  Was I like that once, too?

And then, in perhaps the least intelligent twist to the day, I decided to go to a sewing class I’d signed up for – impulsively – before I knew about the Parent/Teacher Conferences.  I guess it was the thought of money down the drain and nothing learned that got me to go.  That, and knowing there would be no more classes offered on this subject until after Christmas while I stared at the stack of supplies and recalled that this project was on my Christmas list.  Maybe it was to escape the continued persuasive efforts of a teenaged son who cannot see how a sick family should slow down his social life even a little – and especially on a Thursday.  Whatever it was, I went.  To my amazement my head cleared enough to understand what was being taught and even finish my project.  (Simple, but a big deal to me.  I’ll share soon.)

Then the texting started.  First to notify me that another child just got sick.  (Seven down, three to go?)  And then a curve ball from my husband:  the baby’s body is covered with a rash, looks like it might be chicken pox.  Suddenly I feel ready to throw up again.  But this is different; this is 100% STRESS.

I race home.  I snatch that little one into my arms and inspect her.  We circle a few of the spots to see what changes in the night.  No fever.  In fact, she doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by the blotches covering her body.  She already has two skin problems; we’ll see what happens.  We read the scriptures as a family.  We pray for help through our minor problems that have ruined our week.  We thank God for our blessings.  We tuck children in bed.  I listen to my baby say her prayer, and after she finished she starts praying again.  I hear my little angel say, as she’s covered with ugly red splotches, “I’m so sorry my pretty Mommy was so sick.”  The tears prick again.  I hug and kiss her and tell her she’s too good to be true.  I lay by my five year old son for a little while, who throws his arms around my neck and tells me how much he loves me.  Oh, how can life be so good and so hard all at the same time?

I believe God knows how to stretch us past our limits so he can plant seeds in the holes that appear in our hearts.  Sometimes  He does it through really big things, things that break our hearts wide open.  And sometimes He does it through a thousand little things, little things that wear us down, humble us.  For me, this is a week of a thousand things.

Instead of doing something rational, like maybe cleaning up the dinner dishes, I went to the basement and hauled up the so-artificial-it’s-almost-embarrassing Christmas tree I bought last year as a consolation prize for us when we knew we’d be out of town for the holiday.  We’ll see what becomes of our plan to go cut a tree on Saturday.  I decided this tree could be my little creative experiment in the living room.  Right now it stands a few feet away from me without a single ornament, the lone evidence of a holiday approaching, casting it’s white glow across the room.  It was the glow I was craving.  Do white lights do that to you?  Do they ever make you feel like everything is better than it felt before you turned off the other lights and curled up near the tree?

It’s long past my bedtime and I know I’ll pay dearly for it in the morning.  But sometime, weeks or months or years from now, I’ll be so glad I typed instead of sleeping.  I’ll laugh at all the things I’d forgotten about a week that seemed unforgettable at the time.  And perhaps, if I’m good, I’ll see that I’ve grown or that some of those seeds planted in the gaping holes of my week have bloomed.  But if, instead, when I read this again, I’m experiencing another thousand things, I’ll be grateful for this reminder:  His grace is sufficient for the day.  The day wasn’t pretty, but it was enough.  It will pass and everything will be ok again, all because of HIM.

And that’s why Christmas matters.  So I guess this week is an adequate start to the season, after all.  It’s reminding us how much we need Him.

Jennifer