As you now know, my Emma is quite fond of exercising her vocal chords regularly. She’s a champ. In fact, she’s gotten remarkably good at simultaneously exploring the height of her vocal range and turning the volume knob up to 11. The girl goes from 0 to 60 in, like, .2 seconds.  In about as long as it takes for her to realize she has some need that I need to immediately know about.

This, mind you, is only because she’s got something to say. It doesn’t mean she’s upset; it just means she wants to be heard. I understand that feeling quite well, as a matter of fact. And I try to give her other ways of talking in an effort to help her out.

“Emma,” I say, “screaming is for outside. Can you talk to Mommy using your hands or your words?” Or sometimes I say, “In our family we don’t scream at the kitchen table.” At this she gives an overly-excited effort at baby sign language that is usually indistinguishable. And if I don’t catch it and fulfill the need within about 5 seconds of her confusing delivery, it’s all over. She goes right back to her high-pitched, ear-drum busting ways.

And sometimes, Ellie, Tim, or I, at any moment, together or separately, will say “Emma, geez!  No screaming. Shhhhhhhh.”

Truly, though, she’s working very hard. She wants to communicate well. She just doesn’t know how. And she rides at such a high level of emotional intensity most of the time, she probably just can’t help the volume or the pitch. I mean, think about it . . . aren’t us women famous for getting louder and louder and higher and higher the more excited or upset we become?

Well, today as Tim and I were pondering our belting beauty over huevos rancheros that turned out to be more like a burrito, Tim asked me if Ellie ever screamed like that when she was Emma’s age. He didn’t remember! Well. She did.

In fact, I remembered this morning, it was a fairly significant thing in my mommy heart back then.

I was very afraid that if I told Ellie to be quiet or to use her inside voice or especially if I shushed her, that she would grow up with the same wounding I had. You see, the enemy lied to me all through my growing up years (up until recently when I shoo’d him off, as a matter of fact) telling me that I was too loud, too much of a presence, too boisterous, too much to handle. Even though I never remember any of those messages coming from my mom or dad–and frankly, it’s ridiculous to think that my innocent attempts at teaching my children good social etiquette would scar them for life–I was afraid of what the enemy might do in her little heart that I love so much.

But I realized one day in the car almost two years ago as I was sharing all of this with my mom (with Ellie quickly reaching the stratosphere in the backseat) that I can’t live under the responsibility of preventing my daughter (and now daughters!) from receiving wounds from me, or anyone, as they grow up. It’s too big a weight for me–for anyone–to carry.

Shoot, even if I did try to censor everything in their lives, my well-intentioned efforts to shield them from the battle would probably back-fire and land me as the impetus behind some future book about how to get over your mother never telling you that you just can’t scream at the top of your lungs in a small, crowded space. If I continued to parent under that weight I’d undoubtedly be like that mom we all shake our heads about during American Idol auditions as we ask the inevitable question: “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you can’t sing??”

No, that day two years ago in the car with Ellie and this morning at the dining table with Emma, I had to get up the guts to tell my children to be quiet.

That day with Ellie was the first time I ever told a child of mine to be quiet. It was a huge deal. It was another step toward trusting my baby girl and her heart to the Father, who is so much more capable than I am at protecting her.

I’m learning with both girls that I can trust myself and my ability to parent Ellie and Emma well, and I’m learning to believe that the Father has given me what I need to be their mother. I’m learning to release the pressure I put on myself and put it where it belongs: with the Father. And I’m realizing that I just get to do the best I can with what I have and trust the Lord with my babies’ hearts.

Because for the sake of all humanity and their ear drums, my children have to learn that this is not acceptable behavior for a functional human being, and they have to learn it from me.

Dress project #2.

Every time I put the scissors to a piece of fabric I get a little nervous. Sometimes I chicken out completely and go make some popcorn or something. Scissors feel so permanent.

Then I remember what the Dean of the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College said on my first day of college: It’s not that a great musician doesn’t make mistakes; it’s that a great musician knows how to cover them up.

Hmm.

And then there’s Tim Gunn from Project Runway,

who I imagine towering over me in my sewing room, saying, “Make it work, People.” And I start to realize that it’s not about perfection, it’s about making it work–covering up my mistakes, being flexible and able to change course if needed.

So, for this next project, I set off to Goodwill to find something that I wouldn’t cry over if I messed up.

Enter this completely unattractive man’s shirt.

So ugly, and SO big.

Using this tutorial on Made By Lex, and this tutorial on Craftster.org, I started cutting and pinning, nearly breaking my back and breaking a sweat.

After two nights of doing and re-doing. I emerged from downstairs with this! Yay!

When the Father told me to read my Bible more often, I didn’t know where to start. So I turned to The Lord’s Prayer. I figured it was a good spot.

So I read it over and over and over. I was especially drawn to this part:

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.                 –Matthew 6:12

The more I thought of it, the more I started to think that this word,  “debt,” might extend to everything–including finances and relationships and stuff like that.  If it does, I realized, then the level of freedom I have in these other things is connected to whether or not I hold any unforgiveness in my heart. This is the part when I raise my hands in the air and sing, “ahhh-haaa!”

These kinds of realizations excite me because through them the Spirit shows me how I can have more and more freedom in Christ to be who I was created to be. And it ignites the same fervor in me that the word “repent” does because I feel like I’m on the brink of going into deeper and deeper connectivity with Christ. Ooh. Love it. Bring it on.

So the logical course from there? I asked the Father to reveal any unforgiveness in me. I repented (yesss!) of my unforgiveness and forgave those that came to mind.  I also asked if there was anyone I needed to ask forgiveness of. And then I called or had coffee or ate a meal with all the people that came to mind. The Spirit again led me to pray for the prospering of my spirit (as he did in the parking lot of Wal-Mart not too long before this), and I made my aim reconciliation, zealous for the freedom that I hoped hoped hoped would follow.

It’s not surprising, is it, that as I sit here writing this, watching my girls play in the wind together out on the deck, that I can think of several relationships that have sprung into new life since the Father’s been at work at this in my heart. I think of my own walk with the Lord that just a few months ago was distant and discouraged that now feels full of joy, refreshment, and rest. He does what he says he will, doesn’t he?

What stories do you have of forgiveness, refreshment, and joy? If you want, leave them in a comment and let us all be encouraged by your faith!

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. –Isaiah 40:31

I used to love the last part of this verse the most. The “they shall mount up” part, the “they shall run” part, and the “they shall walk” part. I always garnered alot of strength from it; it would help me gird myself up for the waiting part.

And then I would work at waiting.

But this morning on my run it occurred to me that working at waiting is weird.

To wait on the Lord means to hope in him, which means to trust him. And to trust in him means to believe that he is good and that he loves me. And if I believe that he is good and he loves me, I can relax and let go of my working, striving, and worrying. And then I can be patient.

And then waiting isn’t work. Waiting is rest.

I gave up on doing my daily devotional a long time ago. At the time, I was reading the Bible only because I was supposed to. I was ridden with guilt if I didn’t get to it, and I was constantly under condemnation that I wasn’t doing it right when I did get to it.

So, I stopped.

I think that I needed some space from the pressure I was putting on myself. It was making me tired, and I doubted whether or not I could hear from the Lord–I certainly wasn’t hearing him much through the Scriptures. But that was  probably because I was so consumed with the duty of fulfilling the “daily devotional” rule.  During that time, I learned that my standards for “doing it right” were human standards and not the Lord’s standards, and I’ve learned that I do, in fact, have good ears to hear the Lord speak–through Scripture and in other ways, too. So I have spent the past however long reading the Bible only when the Lord took me to it in prayer or when I was songwriting. It felt good to be released from the pressure and guilt I had been heaping onto myself. And it felt even better to get to rest and have fun with hearing from the Lord in different ways.

And I felt like the Father was okay with my choice.

But come December and January, I fell into such a funk that I was having a hard time hearing the voice of the Lord.  It was obscured by the judgments and offenses I had taken into my heart and we were not communicating well. The fact is, I just decided I didn’t really want to talk much anymore, but at the same time I was frustrated that I wasn’t hearing from him.

That’s when the Lord directed me back to the Bible. He said, if you hide my word in your heart, then you will always have something in your well to draw from.

There’s a Scripture that goes along with that, but true to my normal inability to remember things like that, I can’t remember what it is. So if reading this brings any passages up in your hearts, please comment with them, because it bugs me that I can’t remember it.

The point is: He was right. Now that I have started regularly reading my Bible again–this time out of obedience to what the Lord was requiring of me, not out of obligation to a rule or standard for a “good Christian”–it has been life-giving. When I don’t know what to pray, I can pray what I read. When I feel like I’m not hearing right, I can search the Word.

And that’s the goodness of the Lord right there. And it’s the freedom of living as a son and not as a slave. Now that my readings are directed by the Lord and not by my slave-ish thinking, they are fruitful in my heart and in my spirit. Now I look at my time in the Word with great anticipation and excitement.