Raising Magnolias

Mums, Birds and a Message from Jesus. :)

Yesterday I ran quick into Wal-Mart before church.

And then I didn’t go to church.

So technically I went to Wal-Mart instead of going to church.

We needed bread.

And fruit chews.

Good moms are never without fruit chews.

And I’m a good mom.

Walking into Wal-Mart, I was distracted by the swirling, twirling thoughts running through my head.

I’d had a really hard weekend.

And a fantastic weekend.

And I’d spent hours and hours and hours on a project that I didn’t want to spend hours and hours and

Hours on.

But I’d also seen good friends, had a pedicure.

And Starbucks.

I’ve gained 5 lbs since giving up diet coke.

So, I’m re-thinking that.

I went tripping up the curb because I sometimes forget to look down, and I saw them.

Mums.

MUMS!

Mums are worse than school supplies on the 4th of July.

Mums are worse than Christmas decorations during Halloween.

Mums come in their array of colors and they mock you.

Summer is over.

School is starting.

Within weeks, I will be all crumpled up, fading in color and you—

You—

Will be freezing your tush off.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually kinda like mums.

I decorate my porch with mums.

And pumpkins.

But it’s like the playground rhyme. First comes love then comes marriage.

First comes mums.

Then comes the death of all living things in the frozen tundra that we call home.

And it’s possible that I have some unresolved issues considering that I just compared love and marriage with death and misery.

And I have precious friends (even more still as I write) that have faced and are facing REAL death.

And REAL misery.

But as I look to tell my story (and I try super hard to only tell my story but sometimes I forget and tell your story  and if and when I forget, please know it’s only because you’ve meant something in my story.)

Anyway.

For me walking through and beside and looking in from outside, for me.

And for mine.

This is our story.

Of Summer.

Blessings rained down.

They were easier to see and easier to feel and I tried new things and learned new things and trusted new friends.

And opened.

Myself.

And believed.

All is grace.

Because even though I write it. I don’t always believe it.

In a few days, this part of the journey will be over.

The journey through.

You go through it with faith and fear and fighting and trusting and crying out to God and crying out to friends and you get it right and you get it all so terribly wrong and you rush God and you push God and you fall.

On.

To.

Jesus.

And you go through it.

2 years going through.

And our day is Thursday.

And it’s humiliating to admit this, but, this going through?

It wasn’t 2 years.

It was 8. 

8 years ago.

I knew.

I confided in one friend.

She listened.

Nearly 4 years later, I confided in my family.

They listened.

My sister-in-law gave me a print with a tiny little bird that read.

“Everyday is an opportunity for a happy ending.”

And I looked at that print for still another two years.

Wanting and waiting and praying.

For a happy ending.

Last year for my birthday (that is coming up on September 4th in case you were wondering), she gave me a bright, cheery wall hanging with a Momma bird and two baby birds that said shine your bright light.

And we are trying to Shine.

Bright.

And I love those little birds and I told my mom recently, I’m feeling this weird connection with birds.

Flying.

And free.

Just for the record, I really don’t like actual birds.

Especially in Fremont. They seriously will dive-bomb you looking for food. They think my friend Jenny’s hair is a nest and they’ve been known to go for my  headband flowers.

Anyway.

This past weekend, I needed help with the hours and hours and hours project and I asked my friends. They came and they came and they came.

And they stayed.

And they helped.

And they were the hands and feet of Jesus.

One morning after a group had been here, I noticed a little gift bag in my foyer.

I’m a total child.  No way, can I not look inside the bag.

Maybe it’s for my birthday (September 4th, in case y’all forgot!)

Maybe it’s not for me at all.

Maybe.

Whatever.  I opened it.

It was a bird house.

A wonderfully pink, happy little bird house.

I set it right inside my grapevine wreath that I got from my neighbor who actually has grapevines growing in her backyard and I smiled.

And I laughed out loud.

Y’all know that Jesus talks to me.

And here He was. 5 O’clock in the morning reminding me that He’s got us covered.

He will choose our home.

He will be our Shelter.

Momma bird and her little chicks.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:25-34