Meal Planning

This week has been kind of awesome. I'm such a brat about leftovers, and somehow this week we've managed to stretch two big meals into something that felt a little different each night!

On Sunday, I threw a bunch of stuff into the crockpot for Texas chili. Ross grilled hotdogs for the kids, and they had chili dogs, carrot sticks, and apples for dinner. I had leftovers when I got home.

On Monday, we had chili/chili dogs again, but I made a yummy fall kale salad to go with it.

On Tuesday, I made baked potatoes, bacon, and sliced green onions to put the chili on.

On Wednesday, I made fish taco bowls. I guess more specifically, I did the easy version of these. I used the fish rub recipe as posted (YUM) and served with rice, quick pickled onions, red bell pepper (from our garden), jalepenos, canned black beans, sliced Napa cabbage, avocado, and lime. I'm sure chipotle crema on top would be amazing, but I just mixed our favorite vegan Ranch with our favorite mild salsa and it was great! We eat tacos a lot, but for some reason this recipe just tasted totally fresh and different.

Tonight and tomorrow (Thursday and Friday), we are eating the same bowl ingredients except the fish is gone, so I threw some pre-marinated chicken tinga from the freezer and into the crockpot. People can eat it as a bowl, salad, or in tacos.

Then over the weekend, we will use the rest of the cabbage in crack slaw. But in the summer, turning it into actual coleslaw alongside grilled chicken would be great, too!

This has been perfection, because the weather has been sunny and warm in the afternoon this week, so we are taking FULL advantage of it and I'm so happy I don't have to spend each night prepping some new meal!

For the record, Rosie broke her arm 2.5 weeks ago, and for some crazy reason, she started sleeping through the night the day she got her cast on. (I don't want to jinx this!!!) It's crazy how much more manageable life feels when you sleep through the night. I'm so thankful and I really hope this is the beginning of a new normal for us! So if this week's meals don't sound as amazing to you as they do to me, maybe I'm just on a high from sleeping 6 hours in a row, 6 nights in a row!

The One Conference 2018

So I've been binge-watching this show on Netflix called Jane the Virgin. So... unexpected, right? It's the most bizarre show I've ever seen. More telenovela than sitcom. But you know what? It's really making me miss writing, of all things! It makes me want to read more and write more and really find my voice. But also... I know this isn't really the time or place to suddenly dig into that 100%. So I'll keep posting here. Little Ebenezer stones on this path I'm walking.

Amidst what feels like chaos, I'm starting to see themes emerging again. Instead of straight up survival mode, I'm sensing little love notes from God dropping into my days. Random things that have caught my mind are suddenly being tied together in my heart. And I don't want to forget. So... I write.

And today, I'm writing about water. It has been raining for what must only be 5 days or so, but it feels like forever. The ground is saturated and spongy. My feet actually squelched when I walked across the backyard this morning. It's still warm-ish, so I don't mind so much, I guess. Although I am ready to see the sun soon.

I drove to and from The One Conference in on and off rain on Friday and Saturday. Seven hours of driving in a 24 hour period, and I hate driving. I alllllmost didn't go. Rosie broke her arm last Monday, and last Friday afternoon we got the cast put on! So when I should have been leaving with the carpool, I was instead just getting home from the hospital and feeding kids, doing the naptime routine, and fretting that I hadn't even packed yet. When I did finally leave, I saw that the GPS predicted a 3.5 hour drive time instead of the three I anticipated. Sure enough, there was a super random detour 2/3 of the way through that took me off of I-35 and into Amish country. Like, I actually saw a horse drawn carriage going down the road! But you know what? The drive was really beautiful. Green hills, leaves that were just starting to turn, and a grey sky that somehow intensified all the colors with its filtered, muted light. It was just me, my podcasts, and the view.

Well, and the GPS navigator voice. And the RAIN. Noticeably and gratefully absent, though, was my companion Panic. Once I decided I was still going despite the weather, despite the crazy week, despite the fact that I missed my carpool and missed dinner and I'd be an hour late to the opening session, I just kept going. Because what else can you do? Something deep within me knew I needed refreshment and not just escape. I needed to hear words of life from wise and strong women who have walked their own journeys and found their stories in God's bigger story. And I'm so glad I listened to that voice instead of, well, binge-watching Netflix alone in a hotel room somewhere.

But back to the rain. It's stressful driving in the rain, especially if you're in a new place and the sun is setting and you're running late. I didn't think too much about it on my drive to the conference, but on the way home, the drive afforded some time for my chaotic thoughts to settle, and they started solidifying around a unifying theme: WHAT IF I'M BEING DRENCHED INSTEAD OF BEING DROWNED?* What if the very grace I need is deep within my circumstances? The faith I ask for is found by drinking deeply of what feels like a deluge. I asked for living water and it's being given to me in spades, just not in the way I expected.

"In order to find God, it is perhaps not always necessary to leave the creatures behind... The world is crowded with Him... The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake." C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom

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A varied assortment of podcast episodes whose themes seem to have coalesced into my current musings on expectations, rest, and being filled up:

Journeywomen Ep. 70: The New Heavens and the New Earth with Nancy Guthrie

Journeywomen Ep. 45: Rest with Abigail Dodds

Sorta' Awesome Ep. 162: Self-Care, Self-Comfort, What's Healthy, What's Not

Risen Motherhood Ep. 91: Coffee, Wine, and Social Media

Journeywomen Ep. 35: On What to do with Unmet Expectations

Songs:

Rising Sun by All Sons & Daughters

No Longer Slaves by Bethel Music

I Asked the Lord by Indelible Grace




*I have to credit this thoughts to Abigail Dodds, who said in a workshop on Saturday that never to we drink so deeply as in times of trial.

Sips of Living Water

To be honest, I felt kind of silly doing today's devotional at MOPS, because the truth is, my private devotional life has been less than stellar for the past 11 months. I've had dark seasons in my life where one big heavy thing casts a shadow over everything, and it feels like you need Jesus more than you need water. In those seasons, I have been able to dig deep into the Word of God and find rest.

But my current season isn’t dark so much as heavy and exhausting. It feels like a lot of medium-sized heavy things just keep coming: lack of sleep, family drama, health issues, medical bills... I've been running on fumes and at the same time, beating myself up for not having the discipline to sit down and dig deep. If I did it in that season, why can't I do it in this one? 

But I'm starting to see that different seasons call for different spiritual disciplines. I'm making things even harder with unrealistic expectations. Because you see, I tend to think that if I'm pouring out THIS much into other people all day long, then I need to fill my glass up THIS MUCH every morning. I constantly berate myself for not waking up at 4am just to have an hour of quiet Bible study. I have early risers and non-sleepers and I don't know about you, but having to address kids before I'm fully awake leaves me feeling like I cannot catch up the rest of the day.

But the truth is, Jesus never said he was a pitcher of water. He didn't even come to give me a pitcher of water. He says he IS a well of water, ever springing. More than I could ever ask or imagine is available to me through him. I don't need to constantly be trying to fill up my pitcher in this season, because there aren't enough hours in the day. But I CAN take sips of that living water throughout my day. I can meditate on one verse, listen to one song, spend one minute breathing in and out with intention.

I don't know why it's taken me over 4 years to realize that different seasons call for different spiritual disciplines, but a book called Long Days of Small Things has been a breath of fresh air for me! Each chapter can stand alone, and it comes with three spiritual disciplines to focus on over the next few days. The clincher is that these are things you're already doing! Chapter 1 focuses on breathing, walking, and eating. Little sips of living water as you go about the most mundane things.

In the first chapter, Catherine McNiel says:

I stole away into an adult world for a weekend to attend a Christian conference. In the hot, crowded room, the speaker drove his point home with passion: If we have a genuine commitment to knowing God, we must spend at least an hour each day in silence and solitude. 

There I was, ground to a halt once again. About to birth my third child in five years, I hadn't slept through the night or gone to the bathroom by myself anytime in recent memory. My physical body housed a tiny tenant; I was literally inseparable from this beloved person I nurtured. This simple suggestion of solitude-- one I would have recommended myself in a different season-- stole my breath away. 

I didn't hear anything else at the conference, because these words reverberated through my ears and soul for weeks, drowning out everything else. The list of spiritual disciplines no longer feasible to me as a mother grows longer with each new child. And, of course, any thought of silence and solitude is a happy dream mostly forgotten. 

No one tries to exclude mothers from the "spiritual life," but it happens regardless. I hear laments rising up in the hearts of mothers, mourning the losses that this season of nurturing unexpectedly brings: the impossibility of pursuing something soul-creative, something life-giving.  

[...] And yet. Underneath my unwashed hair and sleepy eyes, the truth in undeniable: These days have been made out of miracles. Uniquely and utterly female miracles. Pregnancy, labor, delivery, newborn days, and nurturing growing children have taken me to places where only women and mothers can go. These fundamental experiences are inescapably feminine, not experienced by all women, but by only women. If our daily experiences are so entirely singular, why shouldn't our spiritual disciplines be uniquely suited to us as well? 

So now, almost a decade into the most grueling journey of selfless giving and sacrifice I can imagine, my spirit is fighting back. There must be another path.
Children are consuming. They leave us with nothing left to give ourselves or anyone else. But this is the perfect training ground for our spirits, the very setting many disciplines are designed to produce! Our demanding, beloved children are what we create-- they are our spiritual path. What if we looked through new eyes and discovered that into our very life stages our Creator has placed impressions of himself, reflections of his strength and beauty, a spiritual path laid out just for us? 

[...] Some religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have a name for people in this predicament: householders. Recognizing that folks can't just up and leave their spouses or children, these religions give householders a different set of expectations. Rather than becoming meditating monks, studying under gurus and wandering alone through the forest, householders are asked, for now, simply to be faithful in responsibility. 

Though we mamas may appear half-crazed, sleep-deprived, harried, and unkempt, our souls are being taught and sharpened and purified. I'm sure of it. We're not able to sit and ponder this, or even be aware of it most of the time. But soul refining is the work of struggle, sacrifice, discomfort, and perseverance. My three whirling dervishes take me to the end of myself on a daily basis, and I'm certain my soul will emerge stronger for it.

SO GOOD. Here are some resources for more refreshment, too.


Books

Long Days of Small Things

Loving the Little Years

Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full


Podcasts 

Coffee + Crumbs Ep 28: Long Days of Small Things

Hello Mornings Ep 4: How to Begin and Build a Brilliant Morning

Risen Motherhood Ep 63: Growing in God's Word as a Mom of Little Ones


Music

This song is my anthem right now! I Asked the Lord sung by Indelible Grace

Satisfied   (My favorite version is on iTunes and it's on the City Hymns album by Karl Digerness, but I couldn't find a video of it.)