^” Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. “- Philippians 3:12 – 15

A new year has begun and I am full of hope. Not because everything is easy or all is perfectly tranquil in my life. In fact, it is quite the contrary. Never have I been so fully spent at the end of each day, fully “used up” for The Lord by serving my family. Never have I had so much placed upon my shoulders. And yet, my hope is here – in this one thing – that Jesus said to come to Him when I, when we His children are burdened and heavy laden and that He, He alone, can and will provide us with the rest and peace that we need from the strain of our labors. He said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light and that when we come to Him, we will find certain rest for our souls. I relish in this truth today.

Never before have I been so aware of the need to “cut the fat” from my life. I am unable to do much more these days than simply take care of our family of five and keep the household running properly – and it is enough for me. The “extra burdens” I had readily heaped on my shoulders enthusiastically now seem to reveal themselves just for what they are – unnecessary weight on my journey.

I don’t know about you, but I feel strongly that this is a year to travel lightly, friends. To lay down unnecessary burdens, cares, and responsibilities that God has not given to us and to focus on the ones that we know for sure that He has. It all becomes pretty black and white when we do.

I don’t know about you, but when I am physically carrying too much (car seat containing 12 lb child, diaper bag containing all but the kitchen sink, and often a 32 lb toddler with the other hand) I move much more slowly and snap more easily. The same goes with our spiritual lives. A man (or woman) whose life is weighed down with cares cannot run joyfully the race that God has marked out for him.

Our society, our workplaces, our families, our friends, our communities may all seek to hand us these extra burdens but we are our worst enemy when it comes to taking on unnecessary weight. We simply need to learn a very easy, two letter word that is most toddlers first: “No.” Why is it so hard to turn down tasks, offers, assignments, even opportunities when they come if we know deep down we shouldn’t be doing them? Lots of reasons – fear, worry, regret, feeling we might miss out on something, and all sorts of others, but none of them good.

For me, I have found some very good reasons to say “no” to some very good things that come my way these days that are not God things.

1. The “good” is always the enemy of the best – we are not often tempted to exchange our time and attention for that which is useless and unprofitable. It is something good, something worthwhile that draws us away. So I ask myself, “Is this a good thing or a God thing?”

2. The days are long but the years are short – a friend of mine told me that these “little years” with the kids go by in a flash, in the blink of an eye they are grown and independent and needing us so much less. While it is hard for me to imagine during the long days that I face now, full of diapers, messes, play dough, cookies, dress ups, and loads and loads of laundry, I know that these times will not last forever. Which brings me to the topic of this blog post – foresight.

3. If we can foresee the outcome of investing our time, money, and attention in the areas and ways God is calling us to today, we will reap the rewards of a happy harvest when the time of realization comes.

Dream with me here. I have a 3 month old, a 2 year old, and a 4 year old daughter. My number one job is caring for them and loving them. As I said before, right now I expend every ounce of energy I have in training and caring for them. Teaching them why not to touch hot things, why they really shouldn’t eat sugar all day, why it is good to learn to put their clothes away, wash their hands before eating, and hold my hand when we cross the street. Why they should choose their friends wisely, invest their time in that which matters for eternity, spend long hours (but now, for them, minutes) gazing into the face of Jesus worshipping Him and meditating on His Word. I am sowing seeds. I expect a harvest. I have faith.

I have faith and I foresee with hope:

1. Three little girls brimming with hearts of love and jealousy for the Lord to be their all and everything in this life and the one to come.

2. Three little girls who will love and forgive each other and be each others friends and companions through even the hardest times.

3. Three little girls who will love the unlovable, the despised of society, those who are different in every way from them.

4. Three little girls who will pick up litter on the road, pay for a ruined library book out of their own money, or give away their allowance to someone in need.

5. Three little girls who will care so much more about soul image than body image.

6. Three little girls who, when grown, will enter into this dark world drenched in light,  wisdom, and discernment; covered in our prayers, love and grace, and guided by their Master’s hands.

7. Three little girls who will value giving more than receiving and will store up their treasures in heaven.

8. Three little girls who will be a voice for the voiceless and will be strong and firm in their convictions and beliefs.

9. Three little girls who will become three older girls who will become three ladies – who will become my very best friends in the world – who will know without a shadow of a doubt that in our imperfect, flawed home, they were loved tremendously and lavishly and unconditionally – and always will be.

10. Three little girls who will shake the nations of the world for Christ.

What is your dream, what is your vision? What is the field you are plowing in today, my friend? Laboring and sweating and toiling in? Take some time at the start of this year to assess – is this the ground I ought to be sweating for, toiling in? If it isn’t, change your field or prune where needed. If it is, take some time to foresee in faith where all this sowing and plowing and investing is going to take you – because it is taking you somewhere, dear one. We are all on a race, we are all on a journey – lets run for One alone – looking at One alone – the face of the One who saved us for His Kingdom.

I am a mother. I will be honest that in this season of my life, it often seems that is all I am, but that’s okay with me, because I know I am a better person for it. I am grateful for the three beautiful daughters who have made me a mother. They have taught me extraordinary lessons. Lessons that I don’t think I could have learned otherwise.

They have taught me what it really means to deny myself. I thought I knew what self denial was, but honestly my selflessness was limited in scope. Then a child came into my life – surprise! They don’t wave goodbye at night and go home. You are their home. They are reliant upon you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Even moments alone are often invested in thinking of them, their needs, how to serve them and love them.

They have taught me to laugh and enjoy life.  I have always enjoyed life, but I have a tendency to be a bit melancholy and serious and more focused on discipline and productivity than is good for me. Then these little wonders came, one by one, mussing up my little orderly space and creating beautiful chaos with strewn toys and joyful noises.

They have revealed my own selfishness and vanity, thus bringing me to my knees and to Christ’s Cross. How often do I long for my own way, my own rights, my own – anything??! How contrary I am to Christ when I am self-centered! Their very existence within my womb caused my shape to change, grow, swell, three times over, revealing my own pride and vanity over my body image – again, driving me to the Cross for the only cure for my worldliness.

And perhaps most importantly, they have connected me to humanity in a way I never was before. I have had the honor of holding the lost, hurting, dying children in this world. The poor, orphaned, victims of violence and oppression and evil. But never before did my heart break for these atrocities as it has since I became a mom.

Because in becoming a mom, I became in a new way a citizen of humanity. I know the way it feels to have your baby kick inside of you and long for their appearing. I know how it feels to think something may be wrong with them and worry about them every night. I know how it feels to bear them, hold them in my arms for the first times, and tremble with joy and complete fear over the hallowed responsibility of raising a living human being in the days we are living in.

Because I am a mom, I see other children in a new way and with new love and admiration. I also see people in general differently than before I had children. They are all, in fact, creations of God and made in His image. They are all, in fact, someone’s child. My friend Caroline Jarboe once explained it to me as I expressed these sentiments with a wonderful illustration – she said someone told her once that when you become a mother you “decide forever to have your heart go walking outside of your body.” I couldn’t agree more.

So when I heard the news of this shooting yesterday at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, my heart felt like it leaped outside of my chest. Then I heard the details. Little babes – right around Grace’s age. Many of them. Bright faces, fresh faces, new faces, faces full of innocence and excitement for their day, for their year, for their life. Little lunch boxes packed with notes from their mommies and daddies, eagerly anticipating the Christmas holidays and perhaps sharing excitedly with one another what their plans might be. And then, in an instant, all of that fresh life, joy, hope…snuffed out. In an instant.

It is enough to make even the calmest, most temperate person angry. Angry with that shooter. Angry with the world. Angry with the evil in it. And then – sad. Sad for the children first, then for the parents left to cope with unimaginable grief that the Virgin Mary knew well. Don’t we easily forget that she was a mother, too? And that Simeon prophesied to her when Jesus was just a babe that “a sword will pierce your own soul“? And that she was there when he died, her heart out walking around outside of her chest, suffering and in one way dying right along with him.

How did she go on after that? We know that, in fact, she did. She kept breathing and living and not just half-heartedly, but spreading the good news that her son’s life came to proclaim. His death would not be in vain.

Satan is still alive and active in his influence in our world, as Scripture calls him “the ruler of this world” in John 12:21, which we would do well to soberly remember – but it doesn’t end there. He doesn’t have the final word. Because of what Christ did at the Cross. Death is swallowed up in Victory. As believers in Christ, we can comfort each other that a day is coming when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).

But what about now? What about today? How can we comfort those who mourn, encourage our children and ourselves in the midst of such tragedy that God is alive and well in the world today?

The answer is quite simple – God is alive and well, shining brightly through His Church – His people – You and I, if we proclaim Christ as Savior and as the Son of God. And we are admonished “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21.

Evil will continue in this world until Christ returns. But “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”- John 1:5.

I challenge you, my friend, what will you do in the face of so much evil, so much horror, so much pain?

Will you stand in shock and awe, horrified and grief stricken, holding your family and children much tighter today? I hope so. But I also hope that it doesn’t end there.

I hope that you and I both will choose to sow seeds of hope, life, peace, righteousness, joy, and every other fruit of the Spirit, in our world. Let us blast the light of Christ into this world in every way we can, with all the strength and grace we have been given, with all the love that Christ has put in our hearts. Let us tend to the hurt, broken, angry, bitter people of this world, spreading the good news of the Gospel with those whom the world has deemed “forsaken” and love them with the same love that Christ has shown us. Let us expel the darkness with light, loose the chains of those bound in bitterness and anger – and start first by dealing with the evil in our own hearts. Let us pour truth and wisdom and light and love into our children and the children around us to prove that this generation will not be devoured by evil but flourishing in love.

And above all these things, let us hold fast to hope, for our hope will not end in disappointment but in redemption, victory, and the Love that will triumph over all.

Forgive my long silence (again)! For the last 8 weeks, I have been totally preoccupied. With my three children. When I have not been preoccupied with them, I have pretty much been sleeping or attempting to sleep so that when I am again preoccupied with them, I will have some semblance of energy to keep up with them. I’ve been downing sublingual vitamin B complex as my mother has sworn this gave her energy when my brother and I were little.

After Abigail was born, for a couple of weeks I thought “hey – this isn’t so bad. Three kids? Not so bad!” but…that was when I had help all day long from either my mom, mother in law, or husband. Right around the time that my help had to leave, I also got a breast infection. Not good. For the following three weeks I battled to overcome this infection, which was stubbornly persistent. During this time, I felt completely overwhelmed. My midwives kept telling me that what I needed was to get plenty of rest.

“How can I get plenty of rest when I have a newborn and two little children to take care of??,” I thought. This was especially unlikely when all my wonderful helpers had to leave. At one point during this blur of a time, I really felt like giving up. I wrote in my journal something like this: “I can’t seem to get my head above water long enough to see the shore that I’m swimming towards.” If I could just get well, I knew I could take care of  my kiddos. I cried a lot, I will not lie. It was therapeutic somehow. I got lots of hugs from Joel and the girls, and this helped. And, being the birthing teacher that I am, I researched everything possible about plugged milk ducts and breast infections, thinking that if I found something that helped me, I would be able to share that information with my students in the future. But I couldn’t help thinking, “Why God? Why is this happening now? Don’t you know that my husband and kids need me? Don’t you know how much I need to be well right now??!”

this picture from our photo shoot pretty much sums up how we all felt: