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Whew...

You know...

If you have three kids...

Cleaning out closets is a bit fragmented...

I spent a furious 15 minutes deciding what clothes...

Make me feel fabulous, sexy, young, hip, trendy, energetic, professional...

Then I realized it would be bad if I threw all my clothes away.

*Sigh*

More tomorrow...

Hanging me out to dry

Do you want to know something truly shocking?  I sometimes use my dryer even when it is nice out.  I know!  I refuse to buy paper tissues or towels, and I waste perfectly good sunshine by drying my clothes in the dryer.  The real kicker is my dryer is so slow it might be faster to hang my clothes on the line.  I am puzzled by this.  I love the smell of sun dried clothes.  I love the way my jeans don't shrink.  I love that my sweaters don't pill.  But I can't seem to coordinate it all.

What to wear...what to wear!

Enter my Easter celebration challenge!

For 50 days I am going to celebrate freeing myself up.  Want to spend the whole day outside?  Sure!  Want to go visit a shut in?  Sure!  I can because my life is organized and tidy.

For me I want to start with clothes.  We just have too many.  Laine has 14 pairs of pants.  14!  Now, I made 5 of them, but still, 14!  Annabel...well Annabel has lots of clothes, but most of them are beautiful hand-me-downs and her foofy dresses are so magical...ok...let's not start with her.  Ollie is fine, he only wears a size for about two minutes, so I just get him dressed in a new size every morning (I am exaggerating a little).

So, me first...and how about you?

Here are the rules:

Keep only what makes you feel good.  Even the sloppy clothes should at least make you smile.
Keep only what fills up 80% of your space.
Give joyfully.

Deeply Deeply

I have wandered far this Lenten season.  I have shed more tears in the last 40 days than in the last 4 years. Probably not true, but close.  I have been taken by the spiritual shoulders and spun around to take a closer look at the heart in the mirror.  I am trying really hard not to blink and look down, but the light hurts my eyes and I just don't want to look anymore.

Luke preached a moving resurrection sermon this morning that churned my thoughts up even more.  How can we "serve a risen Savior" without acting anything like him.  I don't think that Jesus went through the agony of the cross for us to be saved but to serve.  When we deny the immediacy of sanctifying grace and focus on the someday of heaven, we refuse to serve--demanding to be served.  Jesus's grace that is so freely offered breaks sin's hold on us so that we may be free to serve and to love and to dance and to weep.  O, Church, refuse to let Jesus be a means to avoiding hell and embrace his call to love the ugly, smelly, lonely ones.

And I puzzle...how do I serve when I can't see beyond the horrendous pile of laundry in my "guest room" (laundry graveyard) or my own children are beating on each other?

Jesus suffered and died and overcame death to give us freedom.

Let's use these 50 joyful days of Easter to explore how those of us who spend actual time and energy thinking about socks can embrace this call to go wash each other's feet (do baths and diaper changes count?).

Jesus's kingdom was first proclaimed by such as us...

Dust and Ashes

Laine 2009...I swear.

Ash Wednesday is one of those bizarre Christian days.  I saw about five tweets about me being dead, ashes, dust, or dusty.  Wanna join our party?

Probably not.

You know that day right before spring when you feel compelled to rake out from underneath bushes?  Or that day right before spring (or finals) when you tear everything out of your closet and put back just what you want where you want?

This is that day.  Our day to return to our disciplines, to engage in meaningful practice, and to not eat chocolate (not me people...I don't want to become murderous).  People all over the Christian world are remembering that they came from and will return to dust.  Little ashen crosses marking that today we begin our journey toward Jerusalem and Christ's death and resurrection.

The disciples should have been ready.  They were warned.  Jesus told them repeatedly that they would watch him die, but that he would return.  They journeyed next to Christ and were still shocked by the brutality of God's love for us.  We run the risk of not only being unprepared, but of missing it altogether.  If we do not engage, we will miss the resurrection.  Of course, I mean figuratively, but I do not want to miss the poignancy of the journey, the drama of the Passion, and the joy of the resurrection.

This year I am giving up sleeping in and will try to cling to my schedule to carve out a few minutes for personal (haha) meditation (HAHA).  Follow me on Twitter to see how I'm doing.

Also I am giving up Diet Coke.  Might want to stay away until the D(C)T's wear off.

Fertile Soil

So I was at church all day (I mean from 9:30...well...9:40 until 8:50) and I was thinking about dirt. Apparently I do this a lot! My son is seven months old, and as we played in the church yard, I began to think about what rich soil he is sprouting in. He is constantly surrounded by children who love him and seek him out to play in loving and gentle ways. I am becoming so grateful to be a part of this church community that I do not know what I would do without it! As a mom to my tiny sprout I am hyper-aware of the richness of his environment and any weeds that might encroach on him. In this loving community, I feel that he is surrounded by loving arms and nutrient rich experiences. So on this second Sunday of Easter, I find myself reflecting on the generosity of our God who recognized that it is not good for us to be alone.