All 10 Popes

Today was that day. You know the one. The one where if there was a grading scale for parenting you would give yourself an F in mothering (or life in general.) And for those of you that are hollering at your computer, "Oh, Kari you're always too hard on yourself!" well, today that is just not true. Today, it just is the plain, ugly truth. And these days? We all have them don't we? There were many a time where I thought, "you know they are not going to be here forever...." and then just went on being an F parent. And here is the thing that I have found to be most true when this happens. My focus is myself. My focus is my circumstances. My focus is on what others are doing or not doing. My focus is on what others may think of me. My focus certainly is not Christ. And the brutal, honest truth is that today...this very day... I didn't want it to be. There must be a reason that many times, I find in the Word, (as I told my daughter today...again) that fa...

Sometimes all you can do is open your hands, receive the gift....and say thank you. Sometimes thank you is all you have to give...and not even in the form of a card. Just a hug, a meagre smile and a thank you. A thank you to the friend that showed up weeks before the move. Told you what to organise where and when. And then showed up those weeks and packed like a maniac. And unloaded and unpacked and positioned couches and worked it all out lovely in her mind. Oh, and she's teaching you to garden. Oh, and she's homeschooling one...and teaching art too. But there she is helping you...still. She is called mother. And all you have is thank you. A thank you to the dear one who brought you meals the two days it took you to move in. And enough to eat later for left overs. She has been on her knees and prayed for you. She took your fire and ice boy for a night and kept the littlest one too though she had 3 at home too. She teaches with her life and ...

Describing motherhood is a bit like catching a slippery fish don't you think? I mean it's hard to get a hold of and certainly hard to describe in words that are adequate. It is a job that I always thought that I was fit for...that is until #1 made her grand entrance and well then it was soon after I realised that changing diapers and holding crying babies at my mom's daycare all those years didn't add up to wisdom. Preparation? Yes. Wisdom? Nope. And so as we celebrated our fourth turning three at the circus and all that entails, I realise that it is in the letting go of expectations (you know those silly ones we keep hidden in our hearts) that has helped this unprepared girl along the way. Babies cry. They don't sleep. Toddlers whine because they don't get the $15 light up toy. Big ones moan because they have to wait and well, "we NEVER get cotton candy!!"  And there was a day when I couldn't really enjoy being with them because they were no...