Mama, you're a good maker.

WARNING: If you're hungry, don't read this.  I've eaten two helpings of ziti, one cookie, one cup of ice cream and a couple handfuls of Reese's pieces just while writing this blog.

One of my favorite things that I remember about growing up was cooking with my mom.  My mom did many things well but food was one of the things she did best.  She did it so well that she groomed me into becoming a bonafide "food diva" as Brett would say.  (A title that he gave me to give me a hard time because he wants to eat at Mayflower Seafood grease-pit-who-knows-where-that-seafood-came-from restaurant and I want to eat my favorite salad at the Village Grille, but I am proud of it nonetheless.)

But back to mom, I say she did food well for several reasons:

1. She made delicious food.  Still does.  Everything mom makes is a labor of love and you can taste every minute of effort in it.  Here are some of her recent amazing creations:

 
2. She taught us not only to eat our vegetables but somehow to LIKE them, too.  One of my favorite memories is when I went home for a weekend in college and she and my brother and I watched a season of Friends together and ate a pound of asparagus a piece for dinner.  It was AWE.SOME.

3. She let me cook with her.  I know that I was mostly in the way, but I distinctly remember where the ovens were located in each of the houses we lived in and how I would stand in the spot beside it watching her and asking questions and "helping."

4. She taught us to like food.  Which doesn't seem that difficult but all sorts of negative emotions are attached to food for many people, most especially girls in my experience, who feel the pressure to be thin or pretty or the like and to them food is their enemy.  I am so thankful that she gave that gift to me and spared me from the battle I have watched many girls and women I love fight.

And so as you can guess, with this kind of upbringing, I like to cook.  Now don't get me wrong, fixing dinner with a fussy baby on your hip and tired three year old at your ankles is not my idea of fun and we order pizza like the best of them, but on the whole, cooking is fun for me.

Since Haddie was born, Karis and I have had a lot more down time together.  In the mornings when we would have typically ran errands or gone on a play date or something of the sort, we are at home together while Haddie takes her morning naps.  Lots of mornings I passed out while she watched 19 episodes of Daniel Tiger because let's be honest, when you're nursing and trying to sleep-train and dealing with a colic-y infant, you don't have all sorts of extra energy to be Mrs. Pinterest.

But Karis loves all things crafty and so we have also logged tons of hours painting, making crafts, doing chalk in the front yard, ruining markers by leaving the lids off of them, and yes, baking and cooking.

One day I wanted cinnamon rolls so I asked Karis if she wanted to make some with me while Haddie napped and you would have thought I had invited her to Cinderella's ball as the guest of honor, she was so excited.  And so we rolled up our sleeves and made these amazing cinnamon rolls, that my mom (who else?) taught me how to make.

As we were making the cinnamon rolls with flour LITERALLY going everywhere (sorry to the people who will live in this house after us and will find flour in nooks in crannies of our kitchen forevermore), Karis turned to me and said, "Mama, you're a good maker." 

Out of the mouths of babes.

Oh my sweet three year old, thank you.  My precious girl has always been an encourager and when I get to be on the receiving end of that encouragement, it's the best.

In the months since she said it, that phrase, "Mama, you're a good maker." has echoed in my head.  And then the other day I read this blog by Ann Voskamp, about why your soul needs you to make time to be more creative, and this sentence stopped me in my tracks:

"God made woman TO BE A MAKER, to open her empty places and let life be knit from within her." 

Of my closest friends, five of them have had babies in the last year and one of them is so close to having her baby boy that she very well might be texting me right now that she's heading to the hospital.  I have had a front row seat to see God INCARNATE in these women who I love lay down their lives to be makers of babies.

But it's much more than making babies, right? We are all making things.  It's what we do.  I think about some of my friends in town right now.  My fantastic type A friend Katie makes lists.  My friend Ashley makes a budget stretch like WOAH. My crazy talented friend Jenny makes things on her sewing and monogramming machines.  Her sister, Sidney, makes beautiful art work with watercolors.  My friend Pam makes beautiful images with her photography.  My friend Crystie makes relationships happen in Young Life by pursuing people relentlessly with the Gospel.  My friend Casey makes magic happen on a computer while doing graphic design.  My friend Rachael (aka Rachypoo) makes gorgeous events like weddings and such get pulled off without a hitch.  My friend Ann makes BSF happen for 70 preschoolers every Wednesday.  My friends Olivia, Courtney and Katie make miracles happen as they serve as medical professionals. 

We're pretty aren't we?  (And humble, too. :))

But we are so much more than just makers of babies or food or crafts or anything else.  I don't think it's really about what we MAKE as much as it is that we are image bearers of THE MAKER.  Because we are made in His image and He is a Maker, then we get to carry that in us, too. And as I have reflected on that over the past few days I can't help but being overwhelmed at the thought that this is such a HOLY PRIVILEGE. 

"Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness." 

Genesis 1:26

Call the Midwife.

Kinda funny that my last post was about New Year's resolutions because this one's gonna be about Lent.  Which is hysterical because if not done with the right heart, Lent can just be making a Christian New Year's resolution.

And just like New Year's resolutions, I am no good at Lent either.  Well, at least with the giving something up thing.  So instead of taking something away to remind me of Christ's journey to the cross, I decided to add something--Scripture. So for those weeks in Lent, I marinated in some verses in Matthew, knowing that His Word never comes back void and always produces fruit.  And fruit it did produce, it just came when I least expected--while I was watching TV--the holiest of all spiritual disciplines.  :) 

This year, my heart was stuck in the garden of Gesthemane in Matthew 26:36-45 as Jesus faced head on the enormity of the task set ahead of Him.  Surrounded by His friends who loved Him but were weak and fell asleep instead of praying for Him, He poured out His heart to His beloved Father. He was preparing His heart for the transaction of the WHOLE WORLD'S SIN to be dumped onto Him--for Him to BECOME SIN (2 Corinthians 5:21)--as One who had never known sin. And to prepare Himself to take on the consequence of all of it, the worst of which I imagine being separation from His Father.

And as I meditated on those verses, I was overwhelmed, as I'm sure many Christians were this Lent, with the enormous gift Jesus gives us in the cross.  The righteousness I can't earn and don't deserve.  The sacrificial love.  The pain He endured and the comfort to know any pain I have or ever will feel, He has felt it ten fold.

But then, holy week came.  And, in an effort to really prepare my heart for the agony of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday, I decided to catch up on Call the Midwife.  Obviously, I'm kidding but really I did watch Call the Midwife.  And you should, too.

Before I keep going, here's a SPOILER ALERT.  I'm about to ruin the end of episode 2 of season 3 so if you don't want to know, stop reading, run and watch it.  Do not collect $200.  Do not pass Go. Run, don't walk. 

I started watching Call the Midwife last year when Haddie was a couple weeks old which was not the smartest decision.  Haddie cried A LOT from day 3-week 10.  A lot.  And Call the Midwife, as the title suggests, is about child birth and a group of nuns and midwives in east London in the 50's.

Which means what you ask?  Lots of crying babies.

So there I would be watching Call the Midwife while Haddie was miraculously napping at the same time as Karis and every time a baby cried on the show my stomach would DROP thinking that Haddie was awake.  I'm not exaggerating.  It was torture, but the show is so good it was worth it.

7 week old Haddie.

Now fast forward back to holy week 2014.  It's midnight on Tuesday night and I can't stop watching Call the Midwife.  I'm snuggled into bed with earphones watching it on my iPad feeling a little bit like a sugar addict sneaking M&M's into bed.  The main story line in episode 2 is of a white woman, Doris, who had an affair with a black man and planned to have the baby in secrecy, give it up for adoption, and tell her husband that the baby had died so that he would never know about it.

Watching her labor (which they spare no details, so be warned when you watch it) and embrace her newborn after was almost as heart wrenching to watch as it was to watch her give her baby girl, who she names Carol, away.  To say that I was weeping as I watched is a massive understatement.  It was weeping + ugly crying all while trying to keep quiet so as not to wake Brett up.  I was a hot mess.

It took me back to the hospital on October 2, 2010 and March 27, 2013 when the doctors handed me my baby girls.  Holding them and realizing they were mine and I got to take them home.  Watching Brett hold them and sing to them.  Showing them off to the hospital staff and our friends and family that came to visit.  

What if, on those days, I had to give them away?

And every day, this happens, I know.  Women give their babies up for adoption all the time.  My friend, Katie, is a NICU nurse and sees it first hand.  Another friend I was a Young Life leader with who was in her 50's gave her first son up for adoption when she was in her 20's. I also have friends who have felt it on the flip side as they have fostered and adopted babies.  Giving babies up is real and hard no matter which way you twist it.

But back to the garden of Gesthemane.  Just as God had already revealed to me, Jesus was in fact giving up His life, His rights, His comfort, His privileges.  But at the same time, in the mystery of the Trinity, THE FATHER was also giving up His Son.  His only Son.  The Son He called "beloved" in Matthew 3:17.  The Son who was the firstborn of all creation. The Son He had never been apart from since before the beginning of the world.

And I can't help but wonder if it felt to the Father a bit like Doris felt giving up her dear Carol in Call the Midwife.  Heart wrenching.  Completely unnatural.  Unbearably painful.

But He didn't do it because He had made a mistake or because He had to like Doris.  He did it for me.  For you.  For us.  All of this brought to life for me a verse I've heard a million times, that we've taught our 3 year old to memorize, that is written on billboards all over in the south..."For God so loved the world that HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

He gave up His baby.  For me.  For you.  For us.  That gift COST HIM in agony and sorrow and gut wrenching pain.  His generosity knows no limit.  And more than ever, I am begging for the grace to live with hands wide open to receive this gift He is giving me and that I would share it with every person within earshot of me.