the orange rhino, #romansproject, zeruiah, and a video of the last 2...

it's been in the last month or two - since the newness of a newborn wears off and bone-weary fatigue sets in that i find my the decibels of my voice raising higher and more often then i would like them to.

i never wanted to be that mama.

you know the one.

the one who yells because she's frustrated,

yells because she's tired,

yells because what else is there to do because everyone is yelling anyways and i may as well join in.

i never wanted to be her.

and it's after a day when i yelled too often and i felt like a failure that i met a dear friend in the corner of a coffee shop and we share our struggles and she shares this plan that she found and we sit and we laugh over the crazy solutions but something clicks...

i can make a choice.

so i do.

i make that choice not to yell.

for one year.

easy, right?

yes...you can laugh.

so, i put on my orange shirts, drink out of my orange water bottle, i chuckle over the idea of taking that moment, the one where your voice starts raising and yelling instead into the toilet and flushing it all away. (i haven't tried it yet, but when i do, i'll let you know).

and resolve begins to waver and yesterday afternoon, i send my sweet friend a text. i have to start over. one too many things had been knocked over, spilled across and i opened my mouth and this exasperated mommy blew.

i sit on the floor this morning, across from my husband and i recite verses. ones in romans i'm trying to memorize. i know my failures from the day before, i know i could fail loudly again today; when the obvious dawns on me and it all makes sense - because He is here and He loves to give when we ask for His wisdom.

if i empty my mouth of all yelling, i need to fill up that empty space with Him.

instead of just yelling into the cavernous and flushing it all away, can i take those moments when i would rather vent my frustration and instead speak His Words over the moment?  instead of filling up these walls around us with mommy-angst, can i fill this space up with Him?

can i invite Him in to each moment? not just the quiet and peace-full moments that are rare and hard to hang on to.  but the loud and chaotic and the ones that quickly unravel if i don't stay on top of it all?

so, while the older three play in the background and laugh and play and whine just a little, i take the youngest and she and i? we sit on that chair and i speak His Word, penned by Paul, over her and i pray that His Grace takes over and that what fills up that memory space in my mind, takes hold of my heart and transforms this mama so that when they are grown and old and think back on us now, they really remember Him...

(i'm linking up with the #romansproject here )

the story of a chair...

it's the story of a chair.

kind of.

it's cradled me in the cool mountain air,

held me in my excitement of that sparkly ring he placed on my finger,

became a bed when i was 5 months pregnant and so very sick.

supported me in those first few days of fresh grief.

rocked me in those dark nights while we waited to see where He was sending us, transplanting us in soil unfamiliar and strange...

his dad new i loved that chair,

knew that when i came, that's where i would plop myself and so in the last days before he wasn't anymore, i received a note in my inbox from a sister asking where i would like the chair to go that christmas. he wouldn't move it until i gave my final okay.

i haven't thought about that memory since i sat down to write...

sometimes our minds guard the most treasured memories close.

it was still in storage when i made the decision those 14 months ago - that decision to print out those cards and glue them down in that book and begin to memorize those words penned from some dark prison cell.

and when it did see daylight and was placed in our home, my discipline to memorize on schedule began to fade away on waves of nausea.  

there is another father here, one who has opened his heart to us who are fatherless and at the beginning he listened every week, and then waited patiently while i would get my feet back under me and my mind would catch up to where i should be.  my book is covered with his signature...

then little miss made her grand entrance and i missed the dead line of having the whole book memorized by the new year, but i determined, despite sleeplessness and hormones and the loss of all those brain cells, to finish.

they tell you, the experts, to put your babies on schedules and let them learn to sleep on their own, but i would pick up those pages during the afternoon quiet time that i have fingered over and over for the last passing year and then i would fill my arms with the newness of her and cradle us both in the chair his father knew i loved.

and i would rock to the rhythm of ancient words scribbled down and i would whisper them over her head.  new life in my arms and His Life on my lips and i would pass those hours being changed little by little.

it was when those last words were said, the call to remember his chains and the final benediction...when what rested on her soft downy head was his blessing of grace, it was then that the tears came.

entwined in small and quiet ways are the gift of a father, the patience of a father and the Words of my Heavenly Father in that corner that old chair rests, and beth moore is right, "Never — NOT ONCE — have I ever known anyone to get to the end of a Scripture memory commitment and say that it didn’t make any real difference. Not a single time.”

so i start again with paul at pen, but on letters to the romans and we rock, her and i, to the rhythm of His mercy...