i forget to do this, to write about the ordinary life which will turn into extraordinary memory for the whole family. I want to remember these days with you little girls: our singing on the way to school to Billy Jonas, Bethany Dillon, Nickel Creek and the way we are all pretty tense trying to get out the door on time. We have to work together. If one person is ill, cranky, slow to get up and get moving, the rest of us focus on that person like an immune system goes to the site of infection with an extra pulse and attention, and we work to get them back on track. Ele is not a morning person, Madison is very efficient and non fussy about her clothes and so she can stay in bed longest and be ready first. She's not big on breakfast, so that cuts out time, too. Mya always takes a long bath first thing in the morning and loves to take her time getting out, drying off, and can never find that one piece of clothing she was dreaming of wearing. Ele hates early morning. She hates it. It's hard for her, she fights, we plea, she grunts and kicks and storms around stomping. She requires babying, caudling, coaxing. It's a feat. But so great when we all finally get into the car and ahhhhhh, we did it! We also make lunches, sign things, search for shoes, pack extra shoes for p.e., etc. all while we're half asleep. It's quite a way to start the day.
It makes me remember the quiet way we woke the campers at Celo with strumming and singing "Here comes the sun" while we walked slowly by their closed tent flaps. Then the yawns, the bed head and the slow walk to breakfast. Summer is coming. Hallelujah.

We have 3 pretty brown hens, a mother black hen and her 11 chicks, a bunny, a gecko, a dog, and a cat currently. The little brown hens were waiting on the porch for Mya and I this afternoon. My rose bush has exploded with pink blooms. We will work on the chicken pen this Saturday. My mom's birthday is on Saturday. She has a slipped disc in her back for the 6th day in a row. We are getting ready to go and see Luke's game and bring Lizzy home for a sleepover tonight. Mya and Bryan just got back from a run.

A normal nothing out of the ordinary day of waiting. The best of days; free from sorrow, near to the blessing of the Lord.

Sometimes my students from Metrolina flood my mind. Besides the fact that they were a huge investment of my life and time, they were a beautiful lot. I loved them for many reasons. They were my treasures, and still are. So I started thinking of many of them last night. I have not written to them in quite a while and wanted to hear from them, but I'd lost all of my contacts. And I didn't know what I would say. It feels like I have nothing to say. Lately, I am plugging along trying to have the girls clothes cleaned and folded so they can have their favorite things to wear, have Bryan's clothes for work ready to go, feed the chickens (15 of them) fed and watered, the bunny, the cat and dog, the gecko (that reminds me) and think of sunday school materials i need to pick up for 30 or so kids that will be waiting on me on sunday, preparing the workers, being an available aunt, vacuuming, windows, you know. and my mind just wants to sit and spill words out and arrange them into meaning so as to reveal the beauty of God. When in the world will i ever ever ever have time to be a vessel? to be a disciple? to do this grand thing that i have been called to do, marked to do, glorified to accomplish?

And so Sarah wrote to me. And Haley wrote to me. And delivered messages from the Lord of love. And as I sat this morning, taking a break from laundry to respond to Sarah, I realized something very key and powerful. It was through ministering to her that God revealed himself to me. And something that didn't occur to me until this instant is that when I am doing what God has called me to do, God shows up and says this is my son listen to him! I was helping Sarah to see the Lord through her confusion and in that, God spoke to me. The hauling of this cross occurs as you face these duties with grace. The way my spirit responds to chaos and to the relationships I have where no one else wants to help or is able to help is Christ in me. What I must do is to be Christ in His patience, His love, His forgiveness, His patience, His love, His forgiveness over and over again. I cannot manage people. I am a horrible leader. I am an encourager. Let the leaders be born. Let them come out. Let the feet be in motion, and the hands reach to help else the entire system, the whole body is in a cast of motionlessness. All I know how to do is to continue to encourage the others to move, move closer in. Forsake the fear of becoming too predictable. God wants to assign new glory to those establishments that man has marred. That will occur through our willingness to be Him in ordinary situations. Whether what i am called to is successful or doomed for failure, I must be Him daily. And I can't determine my own worth by how much I master a new thing He's revealed to me. I must sink lower, go further away from pride in spiritual accomplishment and call myself chief of sinners, so that as I become less and the light of revelation is lowered deeper into the caverns of my being, my breath is slow and steady and His spirit becomes a loving wind that goes out and not stays in. Okay. it is miserable to be outside of the body of christ and to then manage productivity on my own. this. this is what we were created for. at all stages of life, to be for someone Christ's voice and power and love and hope. it cannot happen alone.
i see that from the time of my teaching high school, teaching pre-school, and now teaching students. people need to know that He's still here and they will often know that by Him in us. If no one is around, if you and I are alone because it's easier to be alone than to deal with people, how will He ever be known? It isn't mysterious. It's mud upon my eyes. It's so grit real, so much in the table full of snacks and the pots of chili and the bowing and getting back up and loving and the ceasing of analyzing for a second to praise God for THIS place, THIS time.

Madison and Mya have been making movies over the past couple of days. Mya's are claymation and Madison's use her Calico Critters in a series of short clips and editing their movements to stream a scene. It's amazing to watch them invent and set stages and to work at their editing for so long without moving. The movies are cute animal scenes with events like going out to dinner and playing in the sand.

Madison is 10 now and I honestly don't think she is going to face an awkward phase. She looks so much like Bryan; she is a beautiful little lady. She doesn't want braces. She likes the way her teeth are. She is still innocent, so innocent compared to the other fifth graders in her school. She hated ballet at first since she was the oldest in the class, but she is so lovely in motion that I think it has been a good experience for her. She loves the theater. She does not love unnecessary time in school.

She is a child i am only able to describe in verse, because the composition of her character is an equal balance of creative genius and type a hyper sensitive over reaction. She is an organized artist. Rare. And so I will watch her swim through a middle school obstacle course sooner than i think. i know her too well to speak of it. she is my external heart. to describe her is to talk about those twitches and kicks that i myself feel, only she is extraordinarily beautiful.

i stumbled upon a copy of the girls singing "Jesus, You're Beautiful" on shuffle today. i didn't even know i had it still. Their voices arrested me. So sweet. i was proud that because of my love for song, because I go about this house singing day by day, they too will sing. I have thought lately during my driving that it truly is a gift to be able to wail in the middle of the day, even in your car. Not many people i pass have their mouths opened in song. it felt like God was telling me that he'd given me a song and that i should sing it. especially on independence blvd.

i allowed myself to crawl today instead of pushing myself to the mountain top. it felt okay to let myself be angry, to be weak and in need. though it's what i preach, i cannot practice it easily. Forgive yourself, Nicole. Don't be so hard on you. Fling all of the disappointments in yourself to the Christ who gave you a name and a redemption.

The words will ever leak out. this is the way they spew before the windy fan of precision comes and shuffles them into a verse.

Madison. Darling, you were the first breath of purity my broken body ever knew. Praise God for little electric you. An extra jolt, a hand from the skies curled your hair and shined up your eyes. i adore you today, sweet little lady.

In so many ways, this is my dream waking. Before I worked, when my girls were still tottering, I fell in love headlong with Jesus and his voice in my ear. I wanted to walk about with him, no, i wanted to be dusty footed no bag in hand gentle voice to the poor and the despairing. It felt that I was living that calling out when I met with mothers during my first job post motherhood. I took Mya and Ele three days a week to Central's preschool and shared my life with other teachers there. I learned the discipline of fasting, I learned the power of prayer in these intense all night vigils with my sisters there. My heart and my spirit life grew so exponentially there. But I was pulled on. The next year I home schooled and the Lord began to reveal that I was to teach and so I pursued getting my masters, but there were giant barriers to that. I was hired at MCA and eventually met my next season of intense labor. The students came in clad in different chains, but they were all chained. And I loved their beauty and I miss them so dearly today. Often I wonder what they carry from our time there in the dim, dim room in modular b. I remember rallying around the little i-pod speakers sharing amazing songs with them, sharing our days and our wrecks and coming to know them as my own. I watched them grow and stray and fight the straight and narrow. Oh, my beautiful children. You all have multiplied the expanse of my heart for ever. Flow gently sweet Afton among the green braes, flow gently i'll sing thee a song in thy praise. Call this a framework of ideas to expand on later...