All Things New

A mother of 5 was killed suddenly in a car accident... 

A beloved husband and best friend died this weekend near Wilmore... 

A beloved husband and father of three was killed on his way home today... 

Each of these stories is true, and each one has been a part of my life recently. I didn't know any of those who died very well, but I know their families and I know their communities. When I hear stories like this, my heart hurts because I know what it is like to lose someone. I also have an ache in my heart--I feel like saying "Not again, Jesus." Please don't let someone else experience such pain. Sometimes I experience a paralyzing fear--please, please don't ever let it be me again. Don't let me hurt like that again. 

With these stories in my heart, I was reading to Isaiah from The Jesus Storybook Bible tonight. I couldn't help but glance at these words on the last page: 

"I see a sparkling city shimmering in the sky: glittering, glowing -- coming down! 

From heaven. 

And from the sky.

Heaven is coming down to earth! 

...And the King says, 'Look! 

God and his children are together again. 

No more running away. Or hiding. 

No more crying or being lonely or afraid. 

No more being sick or dying. 

Because all those things are gone. 

Yes, they're gone forever. 

Everything sad has come untrue. 

And see -- I have wiped away every tear from every eye!' 

And then a deep, beautiful voice that sounded like thunder in  the sky says, 

'Look, I am making everything new!'" 

While we live here in this place we get to experience great joys. Beautiful babies. Cuddles before bedtime. Dogs chasing balls into the pond while a 2-year-old shouts, "Good girl!" 

But we also experience great suffering. Broken hearts. Betrayal. Death. 

The words of Andrew Peterson's song are echoing in my heart tonight: 

"The world was good, the world is fallen, the world will be redeemed.

So hold on to the promise. The stories are true that Jesus makes all things new." 

Quote of the Day

Momma: "Isaiah, do you want to wear the Star Wars shirt or the Guitar shirt?" 

Isaiah: "I want to wear the Guitar shirt! I need to find a pick!" 

A milestone reached...

First time for Isaiah to use the potty! For real!!! 

Woo hoo! 

There were 2 in the bed and the little one said...

Roll over! 

This morning I am working on a paper, so D. took Ezra with him to run some errands. About an hour ago, I received an email with "he did this by himself" as the subject line. 

So Ezra is rolling back to front already. 

Ezra--3 months old

On Sunday, this little guy turned three months old. It makes me sad just to think about it--the tiny little baby stage is over already! 

Ezra weighs about 16 pounds and he is about 26 inches long. 

He smiles and coos and gurgles when he wants to "talk" to us and it is maybe the cutest thing. Ever. 

He can grasp toys, and he likes to watch his mobile and shake his rattle. 

He is starting to roll around quite a bit. He kicks up his little legs and rolls right over. 

He has slept 8+ hours straight three nights this week. It's like somebody  told him he's three months old! All this weight gain and amazing sleeping on only mama's milk! 

I am completely, unashamedly in love with him and his sweet little smile. 

30 Years Old

Yesterday I turned thirty. I don't feel as old as it sounds to me, but as I've been thinking about turning thirty, I have been getting excited. As my brilliant sister-in-law Ashley told me, 30 is still young, but old enough for people to listen to what I have to say! 

I was thinking about all the adventures my 20's had for me: I met D., I served as an RA for 2 years in college, I graduated from college, I spent a year in China, I went to graduate school by myself, I got married, I started a Ph.D. program, and I had 2 kids. I had eight different mailing addresses during one decade. Wow. No wonder I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will hold. I am hoping it holds fewer mailing addresses, just so you know. 

Yesterday was a wonderful day. We went to the Bottle Tree Bakery for breakfast, I hung out with my boys, D. gave me a beautiful present, and I received some pretty fun gifts in the mail, D. wrote the sweetest blog post about me, and Isaiah and I made banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Yum. I feel so loved and celebrated. 

I am so grateful for all the blessings in my life and I am ready for some new adventures to come my way. (My two favorite blessings are in the pictures above, by the way.) 

Quote of the Day

Me: "Did you enjoy your nap?" 

Isaiah: "Yes. I did enjoy my pi-whoaw." 

I enjoy my pillow too. Yes I do. 

Happy Earth Day

So today is Earth Day. Did you know that? I always thought earth day was kind of silly until a friend in graduate school challenged me. Do you recycle? She asked. Recycle? Where? How? I had no idea where the local recycling center was. I asked myself why she cared so much and began to think that maybe, just maybe somebody who loves Jesus should care too. Maybe I should care MORE but probably for different reasons. That was the beginning of my path toward becoming more earth friendly. 

Friends, I like to think of it this way: If someone gives you a REALLY awesome present, shouldn't you take good care of it? Shouldn't you teach your kids to take care of it too? Then I learned that perhaps my passion for social justice was tied to this issue of caring for our planet. Did you know that the poor are the first people to suffer when there are consequences for our irresponsibility in caring for the earth? It's true. 

So I started to learn more and care more. 

Today I was thinking about the changes we've made in our family to be more earth-friendly. Here are a few: 

Recycling--we let Isaiah help with the sorting. He thinks it's great fun. 

Reusable Shopping Bags--this is SO easy. All you have to do is take your bags to the store. Yes, we can recycle those plastic bags, but we would use fewer resources if we re-used instead. 

Cloth Napkins--we have made an effort to stop purchasing one-time use items like paper napkins, paper plates, etc. It's that re-using thing again. 

Buy organic or buy local--Organic foods are more nutritious (studies show, I promise) and fewer resources are used to grow them. Local foods don't require lots of fuel to transport them from California. It's also just fun to walk to the Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning. 

Earth-Friendly Diapering--okay so I am not using cloth diapers right now. We can barely keep up with our regular laundry, but we are planning to use them again when I am done with my comps. We use Seventh Generation or G Diapers, and we get them for a great deal with amazon.com subscribe and save. 50 Million diapers enter landfills every day. That's a lot. 

Finally, we planted a garden last week. We are going to try growing our own tomatoes. They're organic, AND they're local. Hopefully they will be tasty. These are just a few of the changes we've made. 

So here's my question: Can you try to make one small change each month? That is what we're trying to do. Hopefully small changes become habits and maybe they'll stick around. I do want to take good care of this gift we've been given. For 40 suggestions, (it's okay to try just one each month, I promise!) see this article. 

Peek-a-boo!

As if you could stand to look at something this cute after my last post... 

something to make your day a little happier

Easter Sunday

Bible Stories

We enjoyed reading the Easter story with Isaiah this year. It is the first time he has really been able to talk about it and think about the story. It was kind of exciting. We do not skip over the death part--we think it's important to go ahead and talk about it even if he can't understand everything. When we get to that part, we talk about how it is very sad that Jesus had to die. Isaiah has been able to talk about it and connect with it because he understands what sadness is. 

He has been talking about Bible stories a lot lately. He's even been "reading" them to Ezra. It's pretty cute. 

My mom got Isaiah The Jesus Storybook Bible for Easter. I have to say that it is amazing. It includes retellings of many of the important stories in the Bible and connects them all to Jesus. We believe that every story in the Bible is part of God's big story of redemption, so we love how the author connects everything. It is still a little old for Isaiah--the stories are too long--but we look at the pictures together and talk about the stories anyway. It has beautiful illustrations. We are actually thinking of getting prints of a few of the pictures in the book and hanging them in Isaiah's room. We highly recommend this book for families, and if you're not a parent you might like to read it anyway. 

News

I have started two blog posts in the past week and not been able to finish either one... We are a little busy right now. Here's a little bit of what's been going on with us: 

We had such a fun Easter. Isaiah went crazy for the Easter Egg Hunt while his Nana and Poppa were here. The next weekend (Easter Sunday) his Mema and Pop came to visit. I had a lot of fun putting together an Easter Basket for both boys, and I even made a special bunny cake which deserves its own blog post. 

On Easter Sunday, Ezra was baptized. This was a very special day for us as infant baptism is very meaningful to us. This is the time when we recognize that God is doing a work in Ezra's heart even now, and we are trusting God to draw Ezra to himself starting at even this very young age. We are emphasizing the work of God in salvation rather than the work of the individual by choosing to have our children baptized as infants. (That is a little bit of theology for you.) 

My parents have been visiting all week, giving me some extra (very needed) time to do some schoolwork. 

This weekend D. and I are in Jackson so I can present a paper at the Eudora Welty Centennial Conference. I got the chance to visit her house today for the first time. It was really neat to see where she lived for 76 years. My paper presentation is tomorrow (Saturday) morning. 

That's all for now. Pictures will come later. I promise. 

balancing act

Just in case you were wondering, I am still working on school. I am currently working on my written comps. What that means is that I have to write a 25-30 page publishable paper. It is due at the end of May. 

I spent today reading, studying, and writing an abstract all while either nursing Ezra, trying to get him to stay asleep, or with Isaiah jumping on the bed (only for the last 10 minutes). 

This is the balancing act that is my life, but I have to say I love it all too much to let any of it go. 

Just in case you want to know (or if your name is Heather Lowcock) my paper is entitled "Where is my little one?": Race, Power, and Motherhood in Kate Chopin's Fiction.

27 Months Old

Today Isaiah is 27 months old. It's not really an even number, but he is growing up so fast that I wanted to write about the way he's changing. 

He's pretty tall for his age. He is the tallest in his age group at his babysitter's house, and he is about the size of several of the three-year-olds at church. He is about 36" tall and 32 pounds. 

His vocabulary is amazing. I am a biased mom, but he really is very verbal for a 2-year-old boy. He speaks in complete sentences most of the time. Here are a few things he said today: 

"I hear a bird." "I hear a dog." "I hear a fire truck." --we are learning about hearing, obviously. 

"I want to play outside." "I throw the ball for Rigby." 

He really does a good job of creating sentences and using the parts of speech properly. Something else that I think is really cool is the way he can contextualize vocabulary. For example, the other day he told D. that he wanted a granola bar for lunch, and D. suggested something else, like a sandwich. Isaiah said, "No. I want a granola bar first." That was the first time we heard him use "first" in the correct context. We've noticed this with a few other words as well. 

Things Isaiah likes: Clifford the Big Red Dog and his owner, Emily Elizabeth, granola bars, blueberries, playing outside, tractors, dogs, our friend Matthew, and baseball. 

Things Isaiah does not like: being told what to do, staying in bed, getting out of the bathtub, time outs, and putting on pajamas. He often says "I don't like it" in order to express his opinion. 

So we have a strong-willed, opinionated 2-year-old on our hands. But really, is anyone surprised? We are both slightly opinionated ourselves. 

Uncle Miles

Uncle Miles is really great. Sometimes Isaiah calls him "Michael" which sounds like Uncle and Miles put together.

Uncle Miles is very talented at silly voices and fake accents, which makes him an excellent person to read the book Skippyjon Jones. If you heard him read it, you might crack up. I did.

Uncle Miles is very cuddly and sweet. He loves babies, and he is great at changing diapers. Even really stinky ones.

Uncle Miles is a talented guitar player, but he is also willing to play silly songs that inspire dancing.

I think this might be "Father Abraham."

Doesn't this look like fun?

We are so glad you came to visit us! We had a blast.

Strawberry Shortcake

Nobody knows Strawberry Shortcake like us... we did grow up in Plant City, you know!
Did you know that licking the beater from the whipped cream makes strawberry shortcake taste so much better?
(Cool Whip? No way! Don't even speak of it.)

10 Years Ago

Ten years ago I fell in love in the way that only 19-year-olds can. Brandon was handsome, charming, funny, and obsessed with music--he loved everything from the Jackson 5 to Johnny Cash. We spent hours talking while driving along winding Kentucky back roads and listening to U2. (The Best of 1980-1990 album had just been released.) Other friends will remember other things about Brandon, but I remember his beautiful smile, his easygoing spirit, and the way he made sure to tell me that he thought I was beautiful at any and every opportunity.

We were in love, so the obvious next step was to make the entire world aware of our love. We decided to go on a road trip to Brandon's home town, so I could meet his parents. Our visit was over Easter Weekend. We left on Thursday afternoon after I had (finally) finished a Spanish exam. I remember the 10+ hour drive just like I remember the rest of my times with him. We had so much fun. We laughed, sang, and listened to a lot of Johnny Cash.

My next memory is of flashing ambulance lights, a neck brace, and being placed on a stretcher. Ten years later I still have no memory of the accident, although I was told that we were trapped in the car for over an hour. It wasn't for several hours that I would learn that Brandon had died in the ambulance while we were being transferred to Savannah.

Brandon died on Good Friday, 1999. His funeral was on Easter Sunday.

Every Easter season I remember Brandon and our time together, and I mourn his death. I think about what knowing him meant for me, and how his death changed me.

Brandon's death was one of the most significant events of my life, but ten years later, my first response to remembering the trauma is gratitude.

I am so grateful for a God who works in the midst of suffering. God showed himself to me in the midst of great pain and heartache, and I have grown to know him so much more deeply as a result of my heartache. I do not believe that God made this happen, just like I don't believe that God makes any suffering happen. There are so many in our world who have lost so much more than I have, and who have hurt much more deeply than I did. I believe in a compassionate God who longs to meet us in our suffering and show his face to us.

Arriving at a place of gratitude has not been an easy process. I still struggle as a result of the accident. I fear that I might lose a loved one again. I make sure that my sons have the safest car seats I can find. I pray when someone I care about is on the road. I cling to the words of Isaiah: "For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you" (Isaiah 41:13).

My fears help me turn to Jesus and remember that he held my hand through a very difficult time. When difficult times come again, he will continue to hold my hand.

At 19, I couldn't have imagined that I would be part of such a tragedy. Car accidents are so terrible because a laughing, healthy, whole person can be broken so suddenly. The loss just seems too fast. At 19, I also couldn't have imagined the blessings I have received over the last ten years. I can't begin to write them down.

So it is with gratitude that I remember Brandon Mitchell and grieve his death this Easter Season.

Some of you reading this didn't know me ten years ago. You might not have known this was part of my story. Some of you who are reading walked beside me, prayed for me from afar, or held my hand. I am so thankful. Some of you felt his loss in your own way. I just wanted to take some time to mark the day and remember a beautiful life.

Driving

If you need to know, he is going to Wal-Mart. He told me so himself.

Some important guy stuff...