Balance

My life of a mother of small children, wife, and working full time I am discovering my life is all about maintaining a delicate balance. My to do lists are fierce and long. My desire for a clean and organized house is nearly overwhelming some days. The tiny humans in my house have the ability to come through faster than a tornado and clear every shelf in a split second. It's a constant battle - and the voices inside my head often beat myself up. The floors need scrubbed, the tubs need deep cleaning, don't even get my started on the fans that need dusting. My kids are growing up faster than this mama's heart is ready. I am thankful that they are still small enough to be worn and want to spend time with their mom. Time management is TOUGH for me, and tough to find the balance as to what I should be doing and when. It's tough to know somethings will drop and some things will be done less than perfectly.

I want to be able to do all these things at once:

• clean my house
• to deep clean my house
• snuggle my children
• endlessly without the thought of what I could be doing
• do my laundry
• or a self feeding laundry machine that can just run itself
• fold my laundry
• and get it put away
• read endless books to my children
• I want my kids to know the classics and have the words on the pages take them to far away places
• crochet
• all things - all the time
• workout
• I want my body from earlier years back - while I know I will always be marked by a couple pregnancies & my body has done amazing things but I want my jeans to fit like they used to - I want my clothes to have more space 
• cook 
• delightful food, fresh food, nightly
• build lego towers
• and lego villages
• space out on the couch
• and do abosolutely nothing
• declutter my house
• ugh, this one is desperately needed
• organize 
• EVERYTHING
• read a book for fun
• my reading list is longer than I care to imagine
• write blog posts
• because I want to remember these days - I want to utilize my space to reflect and to mark the days
• make shutterfly books
• because I am addicted - I love preserving memories and love the way Lucy now looks through the pictures
• take pictures with my nice camera
• because the iPhone is only good for so much
• get ahead at work
• so that I don't feel like I am always running so last minute
• spend kidless time with my husband
• because he's really the best
• watch netflix
• so many shows I'd love to lose myself in - and not lose myself in them while I clean the house or fold laundry - I'd like to merely lay in my favorite sweatpants, chill on my favorite chair, snuggled in a blanket, and snuggled with my babe and puppy
• go for bike rides
• soak in the vitamin d and watch the miles go by
• balance our checkbook & pay bills
• because adulting is hard work
• hike the state park
• and every state park - God made this world beautiful and I want to notice the details and explore them with my family
• snuggle my sweet puppy
• my first baby
• take vacations - explore our country and the globe
• eat delightful flavors from everywhere
• meet beautiful people from the different walks of life
• leave our hearts scattered across the globe
• be transformed by the world around us

The list goes on and the balancing act is
a crazy one at best. There are days that I totally rock the balancing act and life seems to be well and then the next day everything can just fall off the deep end and I don't think I can handle another second. I want my house to look pintrest worthy. The reality: it isn't, it won't, and I can't beat myself up over this.

Grace abounds and I am really great at offering it to others. I am quick to be an optimist for my neighbor and even the stranger, however with myself I find myself deep in the law and harsh criticism. I find myself comparing myself to others and to other parents and other working moms who appear at least according to Facebook/Instagram, to have it all together, when really my guess is they battle some of the same things.

I am trying to live in the moment and go with the flow as I can and continue to try to figure out this great balancing act. I am trying to offer myself grace, I am trying to live into my many vocations: wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, citizen, and pastor.

Here's to another day.
Today I choose joy and grace.
Today I am trying to live in the moment.

Christmas Eve

I LOVE Christmas eve, seriously possibly more than Christmas day itself. Growing up Christmas eve was always the bigger day. It was the day when all of my family got together, had a huge meal, open gifts, and went to the eleven o'clock candlelight service. When we were really little we even went to church in our new Christmas pjs. It was glorious. To make the candlelight service even better (as if it wasn't already epic enough) we often fell asleep on Grandma or Grandpa and at the end of worship during the silent night one of us grand-kids always got to go outside with Grandpa to ring the bell. I am not sure why the tradition there is to ring the bell at the end of worship but it was and if you got to help Grandpa ring the bell it was even better.

Now that I am a pastor Christmas eve is a little different and I love it for different reasons. I love it because I get the opportunity to worship with sooooooo many people and many people we haven't seen since Easter. I love it because it is festive and we get to sing all the wonderful Christmas songs. I love Christmas eve because it is filled with such hope and anticipation.

My traditions for Christmas eve have obviously had to change, I no longer can be home in South Dakota for Christmas eve as I need to be here leading worship. My parents, brother, and his girlfriend as well as my fiance are all around this year and I believe my mom is cooking dinner to be ready for me to grab between services three and four and Christmas day is becoming a bigger deal. This year we are traveling down to Minneapolis (a couple hour drive) to meet up with my uncle and cousins for lunch. My guess is tomorrow we won't be up at the crack of dawn (or as my parents would argue before the crack of dawn when we were little), we will sleep in and enjoy a lazy morning. Santa still comes (whoop whoop) and we will exchange presents Christmas morning while chilling in our sweats. We will read the Christmas story and remember the story that claims each and every one of us.

We don't currently have any little kids who will be up crazy early and be nuts, our gifts will not contain tons of assembling (I would guess at least) or batteries that need to be found. For my immediate family we are between generations, my brother (24) is currently the youngest, and trust me he'd be happy to sleep until noon if we didn't have to be in the cities by 1.

I am thankful for God who comes to us as a human, a tiny human baby thousands of years ago. I am thankful for the promise of Jesus' return. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit who continues to meet us each and every day. I am thankful for the light of God that continues to shine in even the darkest of circumstances. I am thankful for family and friends who are willing to travel to spend Christmas with me. I am thankful for my family and friends who will travel to be present at my wedding in June. Thanks be to God for all the ways that God is working and the showering of blessings.

Vacation Bible School

This week in the congregation I get to serve alongside we are hosting VBS, Pandamania, to be exact. I love the exhaustingly wonderful week of VBS. I love all of the new faces it brings into the church and I love the energy and excitement of everything going on. Not to mention what a better way to see faith like a child.

There is a portion of me that is jealous of the kids, they come, they sing, they pray, they learn, they believe. I love the faith of a child, which could be part of why children's ministry is such an important aspect to my call as pastor. I love the way in which they ask their questions openly and honestly without fear of "not knowing enough" or someone else thinking they are "dumb." It is humbling to walk alongside the kids and their families.

I also love the way in which a group of volunteers comes together to make VBS happen, I love seeing the varied gifts of people and the ways in which they shine. It is exciting the way God works and moves in and through the lives of people. It is exciting the way God has called us to community. I am humbled and honored to be called into full time ministry.

2012-2013 Calendar

AHHHH my colleague and I just set our 2012-2013 calendar for church, it is crazy exciting and crazy overwhelming. We have tons going on and lots of new things happening all of which I am super jazzed about but when I see everything that needs to get done it makes my head spin!

Excitement for 2012-2013 at Bethlehem -- we are going to try Family Faith Journey Sunday School for our 2-4th graders and their parents - parents and youth in Sunday school together! I am jazzed about this prospect because all the research shows that kids learning alongside their parents is the most effective means of ministry. I am excited to see where this leads us. This is a daunting task to me as it means I need to write a years worth of curriculum. We are going to try a 3 year rotation focusing one year on the old testament, one year on the new testament, and one year on lutheran basics. We are opting for a very non-traditional Sunday school type model for our 2-4th graders with the potential to expand it to more grades after we try it for a year or two to see how it goes.

The way I understand my role as pastor is that there are three key aspects to passing on the faith to youth/kids - one is the role of the parents, one is the role of the church (pastors included), and one is the role of other adults - together we all get to share the faith and help kids and youth to grow in the faith.

Our Family Faith Journey will have several aspects: serving in worship (ushering, greeting, reading, leading the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed, and communion serving), learning the faith (learning the stories and the Lutheran basics - grace, law, gospel, saint, sinner, trinity), community (community building activities - fellowship), and service (reaching out to the world). Through the course of the three years we will also be focusing on faith practices such as prayer.

I am excited to see how the Holy Spirit moves in and through our learning and growing as families. I pray that this will help to take away from the parents dropping their kids off for Sunday School and leaving to go grocery shopping or whatever and will help them to learn and grow alongside their kids.

Come Holy Spirit, Come.

Crochet

I LOVE to crochet. I love the way the yarn feels in my hand, I love the repetition of the stitches as the pattern emerges, I love the way whatever I happen to be making at the time slowly evolves. I love making big projects (blankets) and little projects (hats) and nearly everything in between. Growing up I always thought crocheting and knitting (which I have no clue how to do) were something for old ladies. I love the familiarity of a pattern I know by heart and I love the confusion of a new pattern or one that has a particularly challenging stitch to it. I dream of having a massive yarn stash to pick from when I am creating things, I would love to have a shelf dedicated just to yarn and have it all nicely organized by color and weight. (Also I guess I would need the money to buy a ton of yarn.)
I love giving away things that I have crocheted to family, friends, hospitals, and other organizations. I also get to sell some of what I make at a local shop and it is fun to see someone wearing a hat or scarf or something I made while walking through the grocery store. I love to make kids and adults hats all the same. It is a spiritual practice for me for sure. I pray as I crochet, I pray for the person who will be receiving whatever I happen to be making, even if I don't know them, I pray for the world, I pray for family and friends, crocheting (much like running) allows me the time pray in ways that I can't if I am just sitting still. I am the person who carries yarn and a needle with me wherever I go, given ten minutes waiting at the doctor's office I am bound to pull it out, or if my stress levels get too high at work, I pull out my ball of yarn and my needle and crochet and pray for ten minutes. I give thanks for the woman who taught me to crochet when I was in fourth grade, I think I am going to write her a thank you note to let her know I appreciate her and what she taught me.
I LOVE to crochet.

Lately I have been creating these monster hats
they are selling like crazy and lots of friends have
requested them for their kids. It is great fun.