“I can’t.”

I remember being one of those kids who would try something for just a minute or two. Trying to go across the monkey bars. Trying to tie my shoes. Trying to turn a cartwheel.

And if I didn’t get it quickly, I’d say, “I can’t.”

Hudson is my child to the core. When building something with his Legos or dressing himself or when we ask him to put his dishes in the dishwasher.

He follows it up with a big, “I can’t.”

And usually it’s something that he’s trying for the first time. But every single time he says, “I can’t” to us, my heart aches for him. I don’t get upset; I want to scoop him up and tell him that I think he is one of the greatest, coolest, most talented people I know. I want him to understand that he can do anything and that it hurts my mama heart when he says that about himself.

As a kid, I could never understand why adults would get so upset when I’d say those two little words. Why were they so mad because I couldn’t do something?

As Hudson’s mother, I’m upset because I want him to try. I never want him to doubt himself. I never want him to feel some of the huge insecurities that I feel. I never want him to feel inadequate, and I want him to know that God will help him do anything that he wants to do.

I’m a big believer in praying scripture for our children. I will occasionally come across a verse that jumps out at me as something that I need to be praying for Hudson or for Hayes. And this verse, that is one of the most familiar verses in the Word, is the one I’ve been praying for sweet Hudson.

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

When he’s playing soccer and learning something new, I want him to do know he can do anything. When he’s learning about independence and doing things himself, I want him to know he can do anything.

We encourage him and tell him how proud of him we are. We walk alongside him in these years because the day is coming where we can’t hold his hand through the hard stuff. But we also let go and teach him how to sort through his frustration and disappointment without us.

It’s tough as a mom. I want to do it all for him. But I know that I’m not doing him any favors that way.

I also know in my gut that he can do it. He can do anything that he tries to do. And I’m praying that he believes that in his little heart, too.

Last fall, I attended the Influence Conference. I heard Emily Freeman speak, and one of the things she said that stuck with me was, “Write about what makes you cry. Because your tears are tiny messengers from God.”

Gah. So true.

So throughout the months since then, when something has made me cry, I think of it a little differently.

On Sunday night, Ben Affleck won an Academy Award for Best Picture for Argo.

In his acceptance speech, he said, “I want to thank my wife who I don’t usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work but it’s the best kind of work and there’s no one I’d rather work with.”

I noticed on social media that some thought this meant that the Affleck-Garner marriage was in trouble.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have been married since 2005 and have three children together. I think to acknowledge that marriage is work, and that they choose to work at it means the exact opposite of trouble.

Because marriage is work. And going into it without knowing that it’s work, will leave you disappointed and wondering what happened to the fairy tale you were expecting.

Why did it make me cry?

Because I thought of my own life. And the things we work on every single day.

We work through budget conversations. We work around busy schedules. We work on giving things up for the other person.

I love to blog, but there are days when I only get two or three hours of awake time with my husband. If blogging means that I can’t spend any time with Todd that day, then I don’t blog that day.

Many of our conversations involve trying to convince our three-year-old to stop talking so Mommy and Daddy can finish talking to each other. And sometimes we may not finish our own conversation until we’re lying in bed. And other times we never finish the conversation at all.

Many of our mornings begin with a small child walking into our bedroom and asking to climb in bed with us to watch cartoons.

We work through adjusting as we live with Todd’s grandmother and recognizing that marrying each other also means being committed to the other person’s family. It is love. It is work. It is worship.

These are not the events of a fairy tale. These are the events of a marriage. And it’s a marriage that we work on every single day. When we realize that our calendars have gotten the best of us and not enough time alone has taken away some of our focus on each other, we work to do something to change that.

Our marriage isn’t perfect. It is work.

But, to me, work is worship. I love my husband and I love our marriage. I love our family and what each member of our family means in our marriage. And without work, we’d be a mess.

We were meant to experience struggles. God promised us that we would struggle. Without those struggles, we’d forget our desperate need for Him.

There is mutual responsibility in marriage, and we have to work each day to live up to that responsibility. And that is when love flows freely. From respect and selflessness and patience and forgiveness.

All the really, really difficult things.

1 Corinthians 13:5

(Love) does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

So, that’s my big thank you to Ben Affleck for showing us, in a world of happily ever afters and immediate gratification, that it is normal to sacrifice things and a certain lifestyle for marriage. It is worth it to give up so many of our comforts for the sake of our marriage and for our children.

It’s what God calls us to do, and our obedience is worship.

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There’s a big announcement over on the Influence blog today about the Influence Conference 2013!

This is one of those posts that I don’t know how to write. I was trying to tell a friend the other day that it feels weird to not write about certain things because it makes me feel like I’m leaving something out of our story. And that’s what this blog is.

But I also don’t want to use my words and my space to be negative.

So over the post few weeks (and months, really) I’ve pouted a good bit, prayed a lot, and done my very best to just see the Lord’s plan in all of this disorder.

For those of you that may not know the full story, we sold our house and closed on it at the end of 2012 after 9 months of it being on the market.

It was bittersweet. And we never imagined that it take us a few months to decide to build a house, and then take us a while to even get started on the process.

But since we left our home, I’ve been fighting and trying to overcome this dry feeling. I’ve just felt uninspired. And almost limited.

2013 is already flying by, but in many ways it can feel like we’re just living in limbo. We’re dangling in this place in the in-between where we’re tip toeing around and trying to get settled in Todd’s grandmother’s house. We’re trying to make ourselves at home while being respectful of her space.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was so excited. I thought, “This sweet little blessing was God’s plan for us, and this is that big sign of hope that all of this uncertainty will sort itself out soon.”

The pregnancy did give us the nudge that we needed to commit to building a house. But we were heartbroken just a few days later when I began to miscarry.

Today, at Bible study, someone spoke a very powerful piece of TRUTH into me when she said (not directly to me, but it felt that way),

“Stop waiting for Jesus to do something spectacular, and just focus on the joy that can be found in the every day and the ordinary.”

It may be 2014 before we find ourselves settled into a home. It may be 2014 before we decide that we’re ready to try for another baby.

The joy is happening all around me every single day.

And my hope is not to be found in anything of this world. It’s in Jesus Christ alone. And He fills me up with joy.  He has blessed us with a beautiful family and a warm, comfortable home that we share with family.

It’s a daily decision for me to choose to be joyful in the midst of the heart ache and displacement. It’s clear that I have been just waiting on something spectacular to happen to perk us up a bit. And it’s not likely that it will happen that way. My fulfillment and hope can only come from One place if I hope for it to sustain me.

 

For a while recently, I had reached this point in my time as a mother where I was in this quiet little place. Hayes was this sweet, content toddler. And when Hudson reached 3.5 years old, we turned a corner. There was peace and cooperation.

And then as Hayes’s speech therapy caught on, we added a little more noise to the home. Okay, a lot of noise.

But the noise is in the form of sweet, intentional words from Hayes that we prayed for and waited on for months. In fact, Hudson can’t help but do his cute little grin every time Hayes attempts to say a new word. He’s not making fun of him. He’s just so surprised and thinks it’s about as cute as I do. (Which is pretty stinking cute.)

His new favorite word is “Mommy.” Sweet, right?

Yes, it’s sweet. But there’s a little problem. “Mommy!” isn’t as sweet when it’s screamed in rapid succession. (Imagine Stewie Griffin in that ad they used to show on TBS all the time.)

I know deep in my heart that I will survive the toddler years again, but every time I hear Hayes start shouting “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” I doubt myself. Especially at 6:30 p.m. when we are counting down the seconds for Daddy to walk in the door.

I know that Hayes just wants my attention and that’s the way he thinks he needs to get it. But it hurts everyone’s ears and it makes my shoulders tense up. And when we put Hayes to bed at night, I realize that I can slowly relax my shoulders and bring them away from my ears.

I absolutely love that his favorite word is “Mommy.” And if his favorite word was “Daddy” and he screamed that all day, I know that we’d all be on edge just the same. Coming unglued bit by bit.

Thank goodness my husband is a “together” man. Because I do not have it all together.

But you know what? In a year, I will have to look back on this post to even remember that Hayes did that. And then I’ll laugh about it. And I will physically ache for my 21 month old baby boy who loves to laugh and run and try to jump and bounce while he shouts for his Mommy to look at him and so he can say, “Hewwooo, Mommy” or “peek-boo, Mommy!”

My sweet Hayes who falls asleep in the car on the way home from school and nuzzles his head into my shoulder as we walk into the house. And before I can lie him down in his crib, he’ll look at me and give me the sleepiest grin.

My sweet Hayes who used to be so content and never made a peep, is now showing us so many answers to prayers with his words and his voice and his crazy wild man activity.

It’s this place where I am so afraid to wish away the small things that bring headaches because time will take the sweet smells and funny giggles with it.