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At the beginning of December, Lindsee from Living Proof’s blog wrote a “Happiness Is” post.  I loved it and saved it to write about one day when I had some free time.  Ha! But today I want to spend time writing about what Happiness is to me right now where I am.  This world is so broken and we are all hurting in one way or another.  The world is scary and big and hard and it’s so easy to let ourselves (or me, if I’m the only one) get swept up in fear and worry.  Sometimes, making a list and writing down the things that make me happy makes me just that, HAPPY.  And what better time to get even happier than right before Christmas.

Happiness is James yelling “Mama” in the back seat so that I’ll turn around and wave to him and then him giggling at me.  And repeating “Mama” as soon as I turn back around.

Happiness is Charlotte asking for a “kissing hand” every time I tuck her into bed.  And a kissing hand for her stuffed puppy Nola.

Happiness is having our first plants planted in our new yard and seeing the first blooms on the winter camellia’s.

Happiness is having someone leave an encouraging comment on a picture you post.

Happiness is connecting with a new friend and seeing the beginnings of a friendship grow.

Happiness is looking forward to two grown-ups only trips in the next four months.

Happiness is getting to sleep late this morning because the kids stayed with their grandparents.

Happiness is Charlotte asking if we missed her when she saw us and her telling us that she missed us.

Happiness is James laying his head on my shoulder as I sing “Jesus loves James” before laying him in his crib.

Happiness is getting time to write on the computer surrounded by those that I love.

Happiness is being excited about gifts that I’m giving for Christmas and not being able to wait seeing the recipients reaction to their gifts!

Happiness is seeing Christmas through a three year old’s eyes.

Happiness is watching James gradually take more and more steps by himself and grow more confident in his walking ability.

Happiness is reading encouraging posts from other bloggers reminding me that I don’t have to be perfect to be enough for God.

Happiness is looking forward to what the new year holds and accepting that any mistakes that I’ve made are in the past and all I can do is try harder in the future.

Happiness is feeling like I have a safe space to share on this blog.  Thanks for providing me with that.  Merry Christmas to you and yours!

We’re still in the framing phase but are amazed at how quickly these guys are going!  They’ve already got the roof on!  I think they’re leaving a lot of the second floor framing until the roof is finished but it’s hard to tell since we don’t have any stairs yet and so haven’t been able to get up there.  The house is also still missing the front roof piece over the side porch so it looks a little different than the elevations that we’ve been looking at for months.  It is still so amazing to be able to walk through our house and see it come to life!

Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky has just released a new book called Graceful for teenage girls.  Today she’s hosting a link-up for people to write letters to their sixteen year old selves.  I have purposefully not read any other “Dear Me,” letters yet so I’m not sure if mine will be of the sort that she was envisioning but I have a lot of things to say to my 16 year old self as well as things I want 16 year old Charlotte to know.

Dear Me,

Sixteen was both a really bad year and a really good year.  Now, looking back on it, there is a lot that I wish you had known at that time in your life.

You’re not going to regret the parties that you didn’t go to or the mistakes that you didn’t make.
You’re making mistakes every day and that’s part of growing up.  But don’t feel bad for passing up a party full of bad decisions or feeling like you’re the only one at the lunch table who doesn’t know what some slang term means.  Keeping yourself well-grounded and out of some of the fray is not something that you’re going to regret, even if it is a little lonely at times.  

At the same time, remember that just because your mistakes are different from other people’s, that doesn’t make them any better or worse.
You’re a sinner just like everyone else and nothing you or anyone else does can take either of you so far away from God that you can’t be forgiven.  Try hard to make sure that people know that while you might not want to participate in their activities (or condone them), that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to be their friend or think you’re better than they are.

You will never get these years of freedom back, so enjoy them.
Don’t worry about weight or looks or anything else, because right now you don’t have to! You are skinnier than you will ever be again and you should enjoy it!  Don’t spend extra time worrying over what you’re eating or try to do more than you like to.  Don’t flaunt your body but don’t spend any time at all worrying about whether or not you’re too heavy or can’t wear the same size jeans as the next girl.  You will look back on yourself and wonder why on earth you ever concerned yourself with what you ate because you looked great!

In addition, if you want to do something spontaneous do it!  Spend all day at the pool or reading a book or taking pictures, whatever you want to do.  Soon life is going to get in the way and you’re interests will be put on the back burner for college and your family and you’ll wonder why you didn’t invest more time in yourself when you had the chance.  If you want to try something new, do and don’t be afraid to fail once or twice in learning something new.

Don’t let being scared hold you back.
Having a close friend pass away from cancer was scary, no doubt about it.  But you will always regret that you didn’t call to schedule one last visit soon enough.  Just because it’s scary or unknown or you don’t know what to say, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t press through it and just be there.  Sometimes a presence does more than any words can ever do. 

Call and invite someone to do something.
Most people are just as concerned with being left out as you are and won’t always think to call you and let you know what plans are.  If you want to do something, call and ask someone to go with you, and don’t read more into them not thinking to call you than there really is.  If you want people to call and invite you places consistently, you need to call and invite them places consistently!

Boys are boys and when God is ready to set your mate in your life, He will, without your help.
There are lots of nice guys, but don’t spend your time worrying about whether this nice guy is the one for you.  Did any of your thinking and wondering and questioning do anything to bring Jason into your life faster? Nope.  It just kept you focused on something other than God.  And then He went ahead and brought Jason, who you had never even thought might be out there, into your life and you both knew that that was it.  

Pray for everyone you know and for everyone that anyone asks you to pray for.
It’s pretty cool that you started praying for Jason months before you ever met him at the request of Tim during Doulos.  You were abstractly praying for him, as your husband, anyway, but it was pretty cool to watch God answer your prayer’s for Tim’s friend in a way that you never could have anticipated!

Have fun.  Relax.  Enjoy this time.
Soon you’ll be writing essay’s for college entrance.  Then papers for classes.  Then interviewing for jobs.  Then working all the time.  Then having a family.  It’s each more stressful and time consuming than the last, so have some extra fun while you have extra time.  The rest of your life is going to be awesome, but you don’t need to rush it.  It will come soon enough.

Jennifer

*You can read other letters on Emily’s blog.

Last night Beth Moore tweeted a tweet asking for Siesta’s to send her one tweet telling her about themselves so that she could picture us when doing a video taping.  I pulled up a new tweet and started typing.

“Wife to high school sweetheart. SAHM of 3yo & 1yo.”

But then I didn’t know what to put next.

Friend? But these days I don’t get out of the little bubble of my family much.

Volunteer? Who really wants to be known for volunteering?

Christ lover? It sounds so cliche but it is true. Still, a lot of the time I’m not focused on loving Christ so should I include that?

Methodist with Baptist roots? Late twenties? Type A? Control freak? Germ-a-phobe? Doesn’t exercise? Eats too many sweets? Self-doubter? Proud? Smart? Software developer? Introvert? Planner? Punctual? Hard on self and others? 

I had words describing me flowing through my brain following each other as fast as they could, but none of them were words that (A) I wanted to share Beth or (B) I was very proud of.

Which got me thinking.  How DO I want to be described?  If I could write my personal description in 140 characters or less (which I can, by the way) what would my dream self look like?  Those descriptions don’t come nearly as easy because as each word arrived so did a mound of taunting in my mind of how I didn’t measure up to those words.

Dedicated to Christ. Devoted Wife, Mom, Daughter, Sister, Friend. Compassionate. Giving. Loving. Selfless. Kind. Smart. Truthful. Considerate. Reader. Crafter. Writer. Productive. Generous. Helpful. Hard worker. Reliable. Faithful. Gracious.

But that’s 241 characters.  A good description but not twitter-worthy.  And it frustrated me thinking of them because as a word came to mind there was a voice in my head always telling me that I didn’t measure up to that word and couldn’t use it to describe myself.  So I started looking for verses to remind me that this isn’t true.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8, NIV

“God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were.  But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 5:20-21, New Living Translation

“All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers.  But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace.  When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it.  Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life — a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.” – Romans 5:20-21, The Message (emphasis mine)

How powerful are those verses?  Such a reminder.  A reminder that GRACE WINS.  That God knew every sin that I would ever make before he died on the Cross and he still walked to Golgotha FOR ME.  

But those didn’t address all of my problems with those words.  So I kept searching.

“Keep your mind clear, and be alert.  Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion as he looks for someone to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8, God’s Word Translation

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” – John 10:10, New American Standard Version

So as I’m thinking about descriptive words for me and a voice is telling me that I don’t measure up, I need to remember that that voice is Satan!  It is not wrong to strive to be a better person, but I need to remember that God loves me regardless and gave his only Son for me even while I was in the depth of my sin.  His love is measureless and has no restrictions on how “good” I have to be or what I have to do to measure up.  Christ is the measure and there is no way for me to measure up to Him, except that He gave his life and took my sin upon his shoulders so that I can stand in righteousness with him forever.

I need to remember that.  And I need to view myself in the way that God views me.  As his beloved child.  As someone who has been justified in Christ.  As a sinner who strives to do better and, when I fail, starts over striving again to do better.

So after all of that, what do I want my 140 character description to be?  What words really matter and what is just fluff?  What would I want someone to say to someone who hasn’t met me yet but is going to?  I think this is what I want my description to be.

Sinner. Saved by Christ. Wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. Striving to be loving, forgiving, faithful, generous, compassionate, kind.

Here’s praying that I can daily live up to that description.  And that I can remember that when I don’t, that Christ is still there to stand in the gap for me.

I am selfish of my nap times.

Being a stay at home mom with two little one’s the time that I get to myself each day is few and far between.  Most of the day I’m making snacks and changing diapers and doing laundry and dishes.  So when the magical hours between 1 and 3 come I tend to selfishly grab those two hours and hold on to them as if my life depends on them.  Which, if I’m honest, it does a little.

Those hours help keep me sane.  Or saner than I would be without them.  I find that on days that I don’t get a break in the middle of the day that my patience runs out.  My kindness is no where to be found.  And my motivation to help anyone is lacking.

So over the past few weeks and months as Charlotte has grown and has stopped falling asleep during that time less and less I’ve been more and more forceful to remind her of the “rules” pertaining to nap time.  No getting out of bed except to go potty.  No calling Mommy upstairs unless you’re sick or hurt.  You can play with your babies in your bed but you must be in the bed and the lights must stay off and the sound machine on.

Today I had just gotten out of the shower and was stealing a few minutes to read my Bible.  I try to make it a daily thing but I’m a few weeks behind on my chronological reading which makes it obvious when I fall behind.  Anyway, it started to storm and the thunder was pretty loud.  I started to giggle when I heard C over the monitor getting on to God for bowling on the hardwood.

“It’s too loud God! Bowl on the carpet!”

I wondered if God was giggling too.  Shaking his head at this little girl telling him how to run his world.  Of course, I do that on a daily basis too but it’s not nearly as funny or cute.

And then after a particularly loud thunderous roll I heard her yell, “Mommy! The thunder is TOO LOUD!”

And again, I’m selfish of my nap times.  So I sat there for a second and walked through in my mind that she’s not going to get hurt.  That we’ve told her that the thunder can’t get her.  That she’s fine if maybe just a little scared.  But by the time the second “MOMMY!” came off of her lips I was already halfway up the stairs to reassure her that I was there and that she was safe.

I laid down with her for a second and she asked me probably ten times in two minutes why the thunder was so loud and why God wasn’t bowling on the carpet.  And then I decided that it would be more beneficial to take her downstairs and put on a movie.  See, I was still thinking about how I could get MY work time out of this nap time.

I got Charlotte set up under the big comforter on our bed watching Mary Poppins and I told her that I was going to finish reading my Bible and then get the computer and work next to her while she watched it.  But as I looked at her snuggle under the covers with her new puppy, Flippy Floppy, I realized that I had a choice to make.

And so I forgot the computer and sat my phone down next to the bed and snuggled under the covers with Charlotte and started really watching the movie with her.  She laid her head on my shoulder and snuggled under my arm and we just were.

I’m not sure that I can remember the last time I spent an afternoon this enjoyable.  Snuggled with my girl under blankets.  Dozing and watching a movie that we both love.  Having her snuggle deeper into my arm each time the thunder roars and the rain pours.

There was a lot that I planned to do during nap time today.  I have clothes in the laundry and a long to do list.  I have emails that need to be returned and a house that needs to be picked up.  But for a few hours today I paused and made helping my daughter feel safe and loved and secure my priority.  And I hope that the next time that I get the opportunity to be selfish about my time or spend time with my child I’ll remember how glorious it feels to have a little child lay their head on me and rely on me to keep them safe.  And I hope that I’ll spend more time letting God hold me in that same position when the “thunder” is roaring in my own life and things seem out of control.

I just spent ten minutes staking out James in his crib.  Staking out might be a bit strong but that’s what it felt like to me.  Over the past few weeks we’ve had problems putting him to bed.  Problems meaning that instead of putting him down and him falling to sleep with no problems, he’s been screaming and crying for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.  I told Jason the other night that it’s easy to say that we’re “cry it out” people when your child doesn’t cry.  These few weeks we’ve been less cry it out and more respond to the screaming.

I finally resorted to taking James to the doctor this morning after he woke up crying four times last night and pulled on his ears a couple times.  No ear infection or anything else wrong with him other than that one of his top teeth is trying to come through.  We knew that without the $20 co-pay.

So after giving him motrin tonight to try and help his gums feel better I was resolved to make him cry it out for a while before we went to rescue him.  The biggest problem that we’re having with “rescuing” him is that it’s not helping.  We put him down and it’s just like we’ve reset the crying counter back to zero.  But after watching him on the monitor for a little while I just had to go and see if I could do something.

The worst thing about this is that there isn’t really a rhyme or reason.  He sleeps fine during nap time and, with the exception of last night, he sleeps good once he gets to sleep at bedtime.  It’s just that initial going to bed part that’s the problem.  And the thing is that he doesn’t start crying until he sits himself up.  Then he goes back and forth between sitting up, bending at the waist to lay down on top of his legs, and laying down on his tummy.  All the while going between screaming at the top of his lungs, sniffling, and crying sadly.

When he first started doing this we would go up eventually and rock him.  I would try to feed him and he wouldn’t be interested.  We would sing and sway and do anything we could think of to help settle him down.  And then one night we found that just going up and flipping him onto his back made him go almost immediately to sleep.  This hasn’t been the magic bullet that we were hoping for, sometimes we have to flip him back a few times before it takes, but almost always once we flip him onto his back he calms down and goes to sleep.  The crazy thing is that he can flip himself from his tummy to his back but it’s like in the dark he forgets how to do it.

So I just spent some time just out of his eyesight behind his crib.  I stood there and watched his little legs kick in the air.  I listened to his sniffles dry up and him become happy holding the puppy that’s a recent addition to his crib.  And then without warning he would flip himself onto his tummy and start wailing.  So I would jump in, put him back on his back, and jump back out of eyesight.

I’m not really a metaphor kind of girl and I don’t typically look for a deeper meaning in situations but I was struck as I was standing there watching my son, just out of his eyesight but close enough that I could swoop in and make things better in just a few seconds, how close God is to me when I’m struggling.  I thought about how I will be in a situation of my own choosing (i.e. flipped myself onto my tummy) and God will sometimes stand back to see if I can figure out how get myself out of it.  He’ll watch in the wings and see if I will use the things that he’s taught me (the ability to turn back over) to right myself or if I’ll just flail around in my desperation not seeing the easy way to fix the problem.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget when I was little and my Mom told me that no matter how much she and my Dad loved me that God loved me even more.  I can still see the brown and white checked wallpaper in our kitchen as she told me that.  I understood that on some level before I had kids but after it became so fresh in my mind.  The amount of love that I have for Charlotte and James is overwhelming.  I would, literally, do anything for them.  And yet, God loves them more than that.  God loves ME more than that.  How spectacular is that?

God doesn’t promise that he will always step in to make things right.  Sometimes he leaves us to cry it out so that we can learn and grow.  But even in our crying and desperation he is just out of the wings watching over us and taking care of us so that we can’t get too far into the pit.  He might not physically flip us back over but he will throw us lifelines that, if we’re looking for them, will allow us to bring ourselves back to safety and the loving arms of our Heavenly Father.