Positively (Im)perfect

This morning, we caught our first glimpse of mountain views from our bedroom since we moved to our new home last week. Hazy clouds and snowstorms, one after another, have covered our sky and hidden our beautiful mountains for the past five days--a little rare for the city that boasts over 300 days of sunshine a year. It was almost starting to feel like our majestic peaks had disappeared. But there they were this morning, solid and sure, beautiful and striking in the early morning light, the sun gracing the peaks as the clouds of another snowstorm loomed behind, just waiting to overtake them. But not before my husband and I stole a few moments next to the window with a bagel and cup of coffee, and a brief but meaningful conversation while soaking up the rosy mountains' majesty. The clouds rolled in just a few minutes later, but the reminder of the mountains was enough to brighten my entire morning. And it reminded me of life these past few chaotic weeks. Sometimes it...

This year (all one and a half months of it, ha) seems to be extremely intent on beating me over the head with a single lesson:  Timing is everything. I'm not talking about my own timing, of course. One by one, my plans this year have been getting handed to me. Not exactly in an I'm-getting-life-handed-to-me way, but more in a "nice try, but your plans just got totally dominated (but you still get to benefit!)" way. I think it's because I tend to get stuck so easily on when and how certain things should happen (are you noticing a recurring theme here?). I'm good at  saying  that I'm trying to trust God's plan and timing, but then I'm all shock and awe every time something happens that goes against the "plan" I envisioned. I'm blown away that it didn't happen in my time and in my way. Even though (surprise, surprise!) the different plan or path always seems to work out--often better than mine would! Anyway, from the...

The words in this post are my heart's response to stories that are not my own to tell...and therefore, it will be intentionally vague. Because my kids' lives are not my own. But, in the same breath, I must acknowledge that my kids are my life. Like it or not, their worlds collectively define mine. Which means that I cannot help but cradle their hopes and dreams and struggles and fears in my heart in a way that fuses them with my own. Many days, my heart has (and will) try to leap out of me and attempt to run after them, aching, breaking, with the desire to rescue them from their anxieties or fix their fears or find a way to make the big wide world a more gentle place for them to tred. My brain knows that they must (and will), find their own unique way to navigate this inflexible and unforgiving world, but my heart...my heart will always hate the parts of this world that demand an arbitrary standard of "normalcy" from my brilliant loves who a...

It's that time again: time to acknowledge some great causes for January awareness before the short remainder of the month officially runs away from me! (Seriously, where did January go?). I've written about only two causes so there's enough room to communicate the importance of each without offically turning this into a novel. Paring it down to just a few was difficult since there are so many that deserve attention, but I think these two especially could use some heightened visibility: National Blood Donor Month: We hear it a constantly--or at least I did, growing up in the military as I did: "Give Blood!" It was stressed even more when I went off to "college," i.e., a military academy, which ran a blood drive at least twice a year. Every cadet was required to at least show up, and encouraged to donate if at all possible. It wasn't until I reached the real Army, though, that I understood the true necessity of giving blood. Once par...

It has been another crazy week. Full of twists and turns and heart-rending circumstances and unexpected developments that have thrown every single plan we thought we had for a triple loop. I haven't exactly handled it with grace. I've blubbered to friends and railed against God and asked what the heck He means by all this and demanded that He be clear about His intentions...because in my current state of toddler spirituality, my illogic assumes that a tantrum will result in the answers I want. I imagine Him regarding me with the same loving exasperation with which I regard my tantruming three-year-old, sighing and shaking His head at me while smiling wanly, knowing how very long it will take for me to grow up and get it, but loving me fiercely all the same. If I try hard enough, of course, I can acknowledge the truth that my emotional state of affairs will not change reality, and sometimes God just has to wait till it's time to show me the answer. Yet that objective...

Last night as we sat in mass, preparing to ring in the New Year with our wired three-year-old on my left and passed-out-exhausted five-year-old on my right, our pastor reminded us that 2015 is the Year of the Family. He talked about Pope Francis dedicating this year to the re-building of family, and the importance of bringing real, authentic love into the world, starting with those closest to us. Than he challenged us as mothers and fathers to "breathe life" into our families this coming year. Breathe Life. I liked the sound of it. I looked at our kids in their different active and non-active states around me, and my husband next to me, and I nodded in agreement. Yes, I would commit to Breathing Life into my family and make it a "non-resolution" in addition to my original focus of health that I just reflected on. 2015, I decided, would be the year of health and Breathing Life into my family. But this morning as I greet the new day and New Year with...

The end of the year totally snuck up on me again, and I know I'll soon be accosted with all sorts of reminders that I need to make resolutions or goals in addition to remembering that I need to write a 5 instead of a 4 on the date that I never know anyway. I'm almost tempted to say that I'm boycotting resolutions in 2015, but that's not entirely true. Instead, I've decided on a focus for the new year based on what's drained the most energy and potential for growth out of family this past year: health. Physical health, emotional health, mental health, spiritual health. It's all tied together, and it's all taken a hit this past year, not just for me but for a number of us in the family. Though it took awhile--probably far longer than it should have--I'm finally at a point where I'm willing to do something about it. After all, with a new job and insurance come new possibilities...kind of. I'm actually still in the dark about most of th...