/ˈmämē/ /ˈkärmə/ : Mommy Karma

The clock read 12:02 AM, I was up because I have a sore throat and a cough, and then from the baby crib I heard...

Cough cough...pause...gag...and then the upchucking commences.

As a veteran mom of three, I knew what that sound meant... the stomach bug had reared his ugly head.  He always likes to make his entrance in the middle of the night... or in the car, both are equally unpleasant.

Of course Dutchy threw his guts up at 12:02 AM... and Denver was scheduled to leave town for 5 days in a few short hours.  This is how motherhood works, people.   I have coined my own term for this happenstance... I'd like to introduce you to my term

/ˈmämē/ /ˈkärmə/ : mommy karma

After tirelessly reading through all of the parenting books that your friends suggest to you, or the pamphlets that you receive from your OB's office, or the bazillions of magazines and coupons popping up in your mailbox after one purchase at a maternity store.... you would think that someone, somewhere, would warn new Moms about Mommy Karma.   

Mommy Karma can only be defined by testimonials of it's happenings... FIRST HAND examples of Mommy Karma, MAY or MAYNOT include: 

When your walking out the door, to an important appointment or engagement, and you take a deep sniff... and you realize your child has a diaper full of poop... Mommy Karma.   Yes, in fact, you have planned every detail of your morning down to the very last second, laid out clothing, prepped breakfast, showered, and you are walking out the door for a perfect exit, when you realize a blowout has ensued while your little one was "quietly" reading books in the corner.  

When you brag that your child slept all night long , never lifting an eyelid, only to be up for the next 48 hours with a baby who won't sleep more than 20 minutes at a time... Mommy Karma.   Yea... never rejoice over sleeping miracles... just tuck them away silently in your little mommy heart and give your husband silent fist bumps all day, because YOU feel like a million dollars, and if baby audibly hears you brag about his/her new achievement, revenge is theirs sweet Momma. 

How about the time you PLAN to lay down on the couch to rest for 30 minutes during naptime, then all 3 children conspire against you and no one naps... not even the smallest of all children who usually takes a typical-no-fail-three-hour nap....Mommy Karma. 

When you look over at a random child in the park pushing his sister and you think to yourself, "my children would never act like such barbarians", but as you turn your head you see your 5 year old son chasing his 3 year old sister with a large wooden stick in attempts to whack her upside the head... Mommy Karma.  FYI... All kids are capable of being heathens... it's a fact.  If you don't believe it, by all means, please take your child to Chuck-E-Cheese on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of winter break and pray to survive.  

Your pediatrcian asks if your child knows how to count to 10.  You procede to tell him that your child can count to 100 and he speaks 4 languages, but when asked to prove it, he then refuses to count to 3.... Mommy Karma.  

When your child is potty training and you let all your Facebook friends know that you have successfully and easily potty trained your cherub, and then you go to a friends house and your daughter pees allover THEIR living room carpet ... Mommy Karma. AND... guess what, I have the most awesome friend in the whole entire world and she loves my kids even if they pee on her carpet.  

Or when you brag to all your friends that your baby has nursed perfectly for 3 months and then goes on a cold turkey nursing strike... Mommy Karma.  

Or when you tell all of your friends you are done having children and you are happy with the two beautiful babies that you have... only to realize you are PREGNANT with numero tres WHILE you say the statement above.... Mommy Karma... muhahahaha... yea that was a fun memory, but alas, I am happy that Karma bit me that time, because I have a beautiful baby boy who will probably be the one who cares for me when I am senile and need a ride to my routine colonoscopy or to the dollar store someday.  

But, guess what....Mommy Karma no longer scares me.  Now, I know to expect it.  I have stopped hiding from it, and instead I embrace it as part of my reality.  You can count on Mommy Karma to make your life unpredictable and interesting, and she likes to serve up a nice helping of humble pie every once and a while. ;)

Thanks for reading.  

When Prayer Doesn't Cut It....

Sometimes, it seems as if the world around me is crumbling, like I am living within the deep crevasse of brokenness that is our "world".

Photo credit: http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=8581

• Marriages falling apart. 

• Children stricken with chronic illness.

• Mothers given months to live. 

• Relationships broken beyond repair.

• Drugs suffocating the potential of our future generations. 

• Abuse sucking souls dry and leaving inhabited shells behind, left to find hope once again.  

Being married to someone who is "in ministry" can (at times) leave me with a skewed view of reality.  I live within the dichotomy of despair and spiritual euphoria, causing reality whiplash when I am not careful to stand firm in truth.  But, as always, when I go to scripture, my barometer resets. I find new hope, I find sound advice, wisdom washes over me, and hope is revealed through Jesus Christ, alone.

Knowing all of this, still, I find myself wallowing in the puddles of apathy and pity... for our society, for my friends, and at times for myself... and again...God gently sets my feet back of the firm foundation of prayer.

Prayer is so counterintuitive.  When every cell in my body is moved to action, quickly I realize my haste, my inability to help, my complete need for codependency, and the simple fact that the situation is out of my control.  When I am confronted with desperation, my human nature drives me to anger, to rage, to a place where peace does not exist.  I want to be the healer, I want to be the provider, I want to be the protector... but i can't.  I must release it.  With open hands, I pray, because HE alone is the provider, the healer, the protector... 

So, I come to the Father in prayer because He told me to.  Jesus himself said in Matthew 6

⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Prayer is easy.  I don't need fancy words to utter the groaning of my heart.  He does not require all the details of me, because HE knows.   I do not need to enter into a church to pray, or to be heard by others... but in the quiet of my soul I can pour out my cry before HIM and He hears.  I can petition my cause to Him and call on HIS name to heal, to provide, to protect...

I love that the Bible includes the story of Job... simply because our life will never be as horrific as Job's.  What is worse than losing every family member, all of your possessions, contracting leprosy, and then having your 3 best friends tell you that it was your fault... but really, it wasn't.

In Job 16:19-21 Job replies to one of the "friends" talking to him, and says:

Even now my witness is in heaven;
    my advocate is on high.
²⁰ My intercessor is my friend^[a]
    as my eyes pour out tears to God;
²¹ on behalf of a man he pleads with God
    as one pleads for a friend.

My intercessor is my friend... An intercessor is defined as "someone who intervenes on behalf of someone else, esp through prayer"...

When Job had lost everything, he found that the only one who could offer hope to him, here on earth, was his intercessor.  We have been given the power of intercession through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Before Jesus' life we would have to approach the temple with a sacrifice so that we were clean before God, in oder to make a petition to Him.  But now, Jesus himself has invited us into the divine through the act of prayer.

I am trying to make prayer my habit.  When I encounter a hopeless situation, I pray.  But still, I have to admit to you, that even yesterday, when I prayed for a friend in the trenches of agony, prayer didn't feel like enough.  I felt the need to do more, to be more, to act more... but there was nothing I was able to do to change the situation, other than pray.   Prayer was my only course of action.

So when you feel hopeless for someone, or for something (i.e.:our government) pray.  Satan wants us to diminish the power of prayer.  He wants us to use it as a last resort instead of our knee-jerk reaction.  Satan places within our mind cynicism towards prayer, taking away the invitation of Jesus Christ, to come and pray, to ask, to intercede, to be an advocate...

Christ ends his call to prayer in Matthew 6 by offering us an example.

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,^[a]
    but deliver us from the evil one.

May this be the framework of every prayer we lift up.

Thanks for reading ... now pray. 

Laundry VS Dishes

Laundry. 



Dishes. 


Which do you hate worse? 


One more than the other?


Are they both revolting?



For me, they are both revolting.


As I stood before my dirty kitchen a few days ago, with rolled up sleeves and gloved hands, a wave of acceptance rushed over me.  "Accept my lot, Heather.  This is it.  Get over it.  Move on it with.  You don't have to love it, but do it, and do it without complaining" the quiet whispery voice said to me in my moment of contempt.

Every night I tell my children to put on their pajamas because bedtime is inching up on them and beckoning them to slow down and rest their tired eyes.  And then, every single night, I hear, "I HATE bedtime..waa-waa-waa-waa!!".

Denver jokes that "bedtime Daxx" hates his bed, but "morning Daxx" loooovees his bed.  No truer words have been spoken.  Daxx loathes bed time.  No matter how I explain the need for rest, his mind will not change.  I have been fighting the bedtime battle with this child for 5 1/2 years, and I still don't have an answer.

Well, "bedtime Daxx"  I feel your pain because guess what... I HATE the dishes...AND... I HATE the laundry.  There.  I said it.   I just do.

But gracious.  The longer I am a mother, the more I realize these things I hate have a tendency to grow larger and larger... things like:

-my laundry pile
-the stack of dirty dishes
-my lack of sleep
-the puddles of pee on the bathroom floor
-the crumbs in my couch cushions
-the stains on my carpet

At some point I must wave my white flag and surrender to the facts that I don't live in a perfectly clean home, all my laundry will NEVER be done, a dirty dish will always survive despite my best efforts, and my bathroom will smell like pee for the next 18 years....so invest in awesome candles.


I have learned that the laundry I loath is evidence of fun had and a life lived. 

I have learned that the dishes are testimony to food shared and memories made. 

I have learned that  the stains are Ebenezer stones of accidents mostly made by little hands.

I have learned that the crumbs are left by children who are free to be themselves in the walls of our home.

I have learned to embrace the lot I have been given, and to remember that when I complain about the byproduct of the lives God has entrusted me with, I am insulting the Creator.  The one who is gently telling me to "get over it" and simply live without complaining.  

Thanks for reading.