Too Much and Very Many

That is what I have: too much and very many. I am blessed by a great deal of things- materially and spritually. We have many children and a decently sized, beautiful home that fits our family. This also constitutes a great deal to clean and manage. There are many birthday cakes to make, smiles to savor and fights to referee, and never enough band aids for the boos boos- both real and imagined. Right now there is too much heat, and I have too much baby in me to deal with all this heat and an un-air conditioned minivan in which I have taken 2.5 million whole-lotta trips today. With a 1 year old in tow.

This evening I have a great many papers sitting on the school table behind me. Semi-organized but not good enough for the homeschool review I have tomorrow at 10 am, after I drop kids off at camp and pick up the babysitter, take her to our house and set out to my appointment. Inside this box by my right knew are a whole ton of files on the hard drive for me to print out to show our field trips, art projects and whatnot. Unfortunately I do NOT have much ink for the printer left. I also am short on the energy and tenacity required to slay this organizational Goliath by midnight when I assume I will expire. I running out of space in my body for this too- big baby- measure 4 weeks ahead of where I should be given my due date. Too little of me. Deep breath. (Getting out my sling shot…)

my goal for my children is “Heaven, not Harvard”

this is not to say that Harvard is not an option, I would be happy to assist them in pursuit of an educational goal. However, my goal for my babies is that they gain a Kingdom- not just a diploma and fancy tassel.

Is Heaven and church in the same league with piano lessons and soccer and karate and doing well at school? Is it just another thing to do? Another "activity?" We all have to keep on top of our goals for our family- assessing them almost daily, to be sure that we are honoring our responsibilities.

Rarely do I have even a few moments anymore to write in this blog- not that I don’t take the time to check other peoples! Perhaps I simply find their sharing more interesting than my own musings.

According to my doctor (and my self-appointed Dr. Husband) I am supposed to be resting more- evidently having 2 babies so close together isn’t so easy on the body (or the psyche). So while I have had to “rest” more, and forgo any further thoughts of even short vacations, MUCH to my chagrin and sadness, I have been delighted to journey to India, Massachusetts, Peking, Mexico City, Chicago and Buenos Aires through the pages of books. I delight in the library we have, and take great joy in celebrating the creativity of talented writers. I am intrigued by the literature of Indian ex-pats, specifically that their poetic and often lithe writing is laden with family obsession and dysfunction and often contrast the contemporary Indian family with the westernized family unit. In contrast the relatively formal writing of the Indian natives, I have also taken a shine to the casual, storytelling styles of some of the Latino writers that I am just discovering. I get lost in the sensual descriptions of place and home, the intense passion of the lovers, and the centrality of familia.

Besides the reading- I have not included the reading I have been doing on the emerging church, and the persecuted church in the world- both of which are fascinating, I have also been distracted by upcoming milestones. A first milestone- my youngest daughter’s 1st birthday is coming this week, and I have to say that I am grateful to be pregnant because this first year celebration has taken me aback- so soon my baby has turned into a toddler! Another set of birthdays are coming as well- my impossibly beautiful daughters will soon be 9, and are quite the perfect ladies. I am so proud of their behavior, and so grateful for their dear, pure, hearts. They and their siblings inspire me to make a good life in this home- to nurture this garden that the children planted here may grow strong.

I am in the dreamland of my life. This is not to say that my life is perfect- there are always wrinkles in even the best ironed of cloth- but I am perfectly blessed. My life is not how I envisioned it. There are many more bodies involved, many more complicated circumstances surrounding, well, everything. But there are the summer nights with candle light illuminating upturned faces as they tell stories, and soft breezes and twilights, and so much laughter- and the love of a good man. So very grateful I am- for the kindness of strangers, the dependability of family and friends, and for the blessings of turmoil that helps us to chart our course carefully and deliberately with God as our true north.