All 10 Popes

I'm late. Again. This time, for my mother's day post. My excuse? Mothering. How is that for ironic? 7 kiddos in the house and one on the way and I am late. Again. I'm certain there are women out there with 10 kids who are always on time and their kid's shoes always match their clothes, but her name isn't Kari Jo Pope. Nope. Finally, finally 4 more kids later and I can just breathe. Because being late doesn't mean you're a bad mom. Let me say it again, being late doesn't mean you're a bad mom, or friend, or wife, or husband or heaven forbid...Christian. Oh I hear it. That voice in your head saying, "yeah, but, Kari isn't being perpetually late a sign of disrespect for others?" Well, yes maybe in some cases. But maybe it just means that there is a foot of snow on the ground still. It is April, and you have to get 7 children and one husband layered and out of the door for Easter Sunday breakfast at 9. And remember your Bible too. And tho...

Let me just tell you about this thing called the Cross. It just up and wrecks a person's life. Your expectations. Your plans. Your agenda. What you think is right or wrong. And whatever you think your life should look like. Or even, what others think your life should look like.  And let me just tell you, that is a scary thing because in this beautiful land of freedom we call America, much of our time is spent figuring out what to do about our lives because most of the time we actually have the freedom to try to figure it out. This planning, trying to make wise decisions is a gift. Yes, it is. And there is this pressure to do what is "right." The problem is when many times our worldview of what is "right" is just a laundry list of things that may be wise as many of us, in our culture see it, but not altogether Biblical. There is this pressure to have it all planned out as if you are some sort of failure that after...

A certain dear Christmas-loving, English teaching, Mexico living, sister-in-Christ friend, Melody tells me it's time for another post. And since I have some of the best, most wonderful family-friends in the world who took our children for the weekend I have some "extra" time to plunk around here. And dear ones, you must know that that handsome man I call love is snoozing on the couch and so it is sort of a sacrifice to be typing here and not cuddled right up next to him. Nap or type? It was a hard call, but the computer won...just this once. You can thank me later...or not, depending on how much of your time you wasted, er, I mean spent reading in this place. Ok, enough rambling. The thoughts in my brain have been a bit scrambled lately. I find myself repeating myself a lot. And not just to people shorter than myself (AKA children.)  Pregnancy brain, I could blame it on, I guess. So that is just what I will do! ...

There she goes. Saying it again, better than I would ever dare. Yup, Ann says about this 2014 New Year: "She preached the Gospel to herself: Sure Mount Everest might loom in front of you, that mountain you have to climb in the next 364 days. But the deal is: Every mountain that every Christin ever faces, the Lord levels with sufficient grace: The Lord Will Provide . You don't have to climb mountains named I Will Perform. You don't have to climb mountains named I Will Produce. Jesus flattens that mountain before you with His Grace: The Lord will Provide. With enough strength. With enough wisdom. With More Than Enough of Himself . More important than you trying to muster up sufficient grit and determination for the new year -- is that you simply accept His sufficient grace and liberation every day ." ~Ann Voscamp (writing at A Holy Experience . Posted 1/1/2014) So when a dear friend asks, "HOW in the WORLD do you do that??!! How WILL you do that??...

Foster care in a word is: humbling. Now that doesn't say a lot does it? I mean I could say that about a great many things couldn't I? Marriage. Parenting. Friendships. Working a job you don't really like. Having a friend you don't really like. This list is long and could go on. And there are these things in our lives that, perhaps, rib us a little more in the area of that great, smallish word: humility.   And as we walk this trodden path through foster care, I am constantly, and completely, being humbled. And it's hard. And messy. And sort of like nothing I've ever experienced before in my life.   And as I put my three year old to bed and he says, "hug n kiss mommy" I think what we mothers of children think often, "I am a terrible mother." Because do you know how many people have asked how in the world we can give our own children the attention they deserve with three more children in the...

  I get off the phone with an acquaintance and they thank me for telling me that we are praying for them. That seriously we are praying for them. Daily.  And they say thank you....I NEED IT! My reply? Well, some of us walk around thinking that prayer is something for when your house is set on fire (literally and figuratively) and for others of us it is a ever present reality that we would not survive the next minute with out prayer.   But isn't it true? My very own words convict.  Oh, how I would learn to live what I speak. Grace upon grace and it is a slow process isn't it?   So here I am again. Taking up a challenge to read the Word, and memorise a little too. And though things are a little hectic, to think of another to bless...outside my immediate family. And to pray. A lot more.   This is not a list. NO, because I could merely whisper the words to "As the Deer" this morning in church, the weight heavy for...

It has been a long while hasn't it dear friends? A forced sabbatical of sorts. More like me not really knowing how to manage time properly. Or perhaps it is the sheer thought of putting pen to paper or typing out what is really going on that is just so very overwhelming that really, the thought of it all gives me writers block.  Where to start? What to say? And does anyone really care. Thing is, I don't really know. Seriously, I don't know an answer to any of those questions. And maybe there are just parts of our life that I want to keep off of this blogosphere...or maybe not. Again, I just don't know. I keep thinking that it is going to come to me. That I will know exactly what to write and how to explain why in the world we would take in three foster children while having four of our own. My sister teases me by saying that I will turn out to be the old woman who lived in a shoe. If I believed in modern prophecy, I would call her a prophetess. No, I don't live ...