Mother's Day Musings

I am blessed to be a mom! What treasures I have in the children God has given me.

I really don't know what people are talking about when they say the teenage years are hard. It hasn't proven to be true in this family yet.

Responsible. Happy. Content. Hard working. A servant's heart. Sensible. Solid.Talented. These are the words that describe our oldest. Vanessa (17)  is so in demand around here she finally broke into tears Friday evening after the third time of driving into the driveway and the phone rang again with a request that she please be in neighboring town in an hour to play prelude music for meetings at their church. She hadn't even unloaded her harp from playing for the elderly ladies at their mother's day tea in a retirement home, yet. "I just want to be home with you  for a change and help in the garden!"

Artistic. Original. Diligent. Conscientious. Practical. Economical. Naive/ innocent. Candid. Able. Joyful. Those would be the words that describe our Brianna Grace (16). Not only did she pass the college entrance exam on Friday, Saturday night she found out that she had won 1st place in the Young Writer's Contest of our local newspaper in the grade 10 -12 category. She was so, so surprised!!

Spontaneous, Witty, Smart, Spirited, Confident, Leader, Adventuresome, Knowledgeable, Techi. Christina (13) embodies those words. She's flying over the Atlantic on her way to Tanzania. We hope she remembers to put all her techi to work and keeps up her blog so we don't feel so lonely. She's the family clown and we miss her constant chatter.

Happy. Chatterbox. Singer. Singleminded. A pleaser. Tenderhearted. I was reminded yesterday of mother's day a year ago. What a difference! I don't mean to overuse the term. It's just true. Apparently I was too discouraged to blog about it, but it's memory is seared into my brain. It was the LAST day James swore at me or anyone. It wasn't the last screaming, raging hike on our mountain complete with spitting, swearing, running away, and it wasn't his last defiant stand, but it was part of the process of bringing him to the new person he is today. If anybody cares to remember what life was like back then here's a post from this week last year: TMI... A Morning in the Life Of....  I am grateful for the sweet boy we've found under all the layers of fear, anger, hurt and distrust.

Determined. Strong. Hard Worker. Helpful. Persevering. Cute. Describe Anna-Joy.  If she didn't have those qualities I would be really worried. Because she is strong, and persevering, and determined, making a difference and change in her character has been difficult.... but because she is strong, persevering, and determined, once she makes a conscious decision to put her will on the side of God's she will be victorious and conquer. We see steps and movement in the right direction. We celebrate her milestones and her progress towards becoming whole. She can be very sweet and affectionate and even joyful and we see those moments stretching into hours and days and maybe soon weeks of happiness and surrendered will. Yesterday she wanted to join Vanessa and Brianna singing the Lord's Prayer as they practiced for an upcoming wedding. At first I was chuckling as I watched her - she was so happy, so "into" the singing and being a part of the big girl's efforts. But then as I continued to watch I crumpled into tears. Her off-key "singing", her making up of mumbo jumbo words, her enthusiastic pretending to read the music was so appropriate  -

for a two year old.

At the moment she was blissfully unaware that at the age of 7 she was but a toddler, however, this is not always the case. Sometimes it's obvious even to her she isn't keeping up with kids her age. I was just sad for her. Sad to think of the difficulties that lie ahead for her. She isn't toddler all around. Some of her skills are age appropriate. Some of her thinking is that of a 4 year old. Some of her thinking is more immature than that.  Sad that I don't really know what the best course of action is to help her bridge the gap. I am reminded as I work in the garden that a lot of things require a wait. You plant, you water, you feed, you protect, you weed, but then in the end you have to wait for the fruit. And so it is with little Miss Muffet. After nurturing, watering, feeding, stimulating, and praying we have to WAIT.

 Missy was so happy that it was mother's day that she was good as gold all day. At the end of the day I thanked her for making my day special by just being happy all day. She threw her arms around my neck and was giddy with herself.

Just for fun, here's another  post from last year  worth a laugh. Can We Just Call It A Day?