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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

Crowd (FMF)

March 15, 2014 by HappyGoStuckey 5 Comments

For the seventh time today, I work to clean off the counters and the kitchen table. Surely since I just did this 11 minutes ago, it should not need to be done again. But it does. They are simply crowded.

An hour ago, the warm brown table was clean and visible. It was a hand-me-over when we first moved here from family in a nearby town.

It’s not the rugged Farmhouse table I always pictured, but it met a need and it’s the color of Maple Syrup (which is good, because it’s often sticky) and we LIVE at this table. We share meals. We share our days. We share the importance of “please eat your peas!” and we share love and life and laughing. Lots of laughing.

And for my older daughter, it’s a major workspace. Hence the continuous clearing. Somehow in the last year, the little 3 1/2 year old who rarely finished a coloring sheet because “it’s too much work!” and the “I can’t stay in the lines!” has turned into a real little artist. Now knocking on Five years old, she loves many things– art is chief among them.

She cuts.

She colors.

She writes.. (She is just beginning to be able for read, so she copies words she wants to write, letter by letter.. patiently and purposefully.)

She colors some more. Markers. Crayons. Colored Pencils.

She paints with pursed lips and baby soft tendrils tucked behind her ear.

Not yet five years old– and her Creator?

He made her a little girl who loves, herself, to create.

In that way she is me. In a smaller body. With hardly any apprehension and a whole lot of assurance of who she is and what she wants to do.

She wants to create. She feels the need inside her and it brings her joy. And so she does. 

And so, what’s my role in this? The cheerleader, I hope. But definitely the mama. The mama who picks up each and every sliver of paper. Each coloring sheet. Each wonky diamond shaped “kite” she has cut and colored in preparation for Spring around the corner.

Every single stray crayon and lone art project and page with her self portrait next to mine, (My hands are always drawn huge– I hope this means she always feels like I’m ever ready to hold her.) 

I will clear the crowded counters to have her crowd them again with her bright ideas.

I will straighten and file stacks and stacks of papers just to find more of them in her little skipping, creating, drawing, coloring wake.

And I will remember what she teaches me about trying and trying again. And a love for what we were made to do.

 

 

Linking up with Lisa Jo Baker and my girls over at Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday

Lessons from an Old Calendar
No, Seriously. What are we doing?

Comments

  1. Marina says

    March 15, 2014 at 1:58 am

    Lovely word images… oh how I love those creative days!! Enjoy the sticky-ness of the maple table, the creations she makes just for you… Thanks for sharing

    Reply
  2. Chandra Hadfield says

    March 15, 2014 at 4:46 pm

    Love this, Cynthia. This is what it is all about “I will clear the crowded counters to have her crowd them again with her bright ideas.” Such a great mom to live with the crowded things in order to allow creativity in the little one. I can somewhat relate, but I think my idea of perfectionism often gets in the way of letting them be little. Thanks for the challenge to let them create, and in my own way to also create. Just lovely!

    Reply
    • happygostuckey says

      March 18, 2014 at 8:30 pm

      Thank you, Chandra! It is such a struggle to let go– most of the time, I fight it so hard!!!

      Reply
  3. amypboyd says

    March 18, 2014 at 6:35 pm

    What a beautiful picture of the small frustrations and joys of motherhood.

    Reply
  4. caseyprince says

    March 19, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    Your words describing your counters sound a lot like mine! I have little picassos living in my house too and while I struggle to let the messes go sometimes I have to because I was once one too! What a great mama cheerleader you must be,

    Reply

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Hey There!

I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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happygostuckey

Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all the answers, yet.

While you sit in a season of waiting,
the calendar can often be a cruel companion, reminding you that days go by, weeks, months— with what feels like very little change in the right direction.

Perhaps you can easily assent to: 
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but you strain to see just how it will be when: “...a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Wherever you and I are today— whether we wander, wait, stand firmly planted, or some pressed together combination of all three — we can take heart.

We are not alone.
And this will not be wasted.
What seems to be an unending blank space, an indefinite pause, is a space for new things.

Long before all is made right, and whether or not it all is tied up neatly with a perfectly crafted bow— we can know this:

We do not have to know the outcome to be faithful today.

✨Joy is not disregard for reality as much as it is obstinacy against despair.✨
Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. T Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. There. I said it. These days I’m gravitating to the true & the beautiful as rest for my weary self... and I wonder if you are too.

So much so, that I’m starting a new little offering, it’s called “The Feast: Wonder for the Weary” and the first issue goes out this weekend. It’s a bit more personal (okay this first one is WAY more personal. 🤭) It will be a little bit of everything, all with the goal of offering REST to both the feasters & foragers alike. If you’re already a subscriber— no need to do anything, if not— click through my bio to “keep in touch” and join the feast.✨
We are a people of both lament and praise. We hol We are a people of both lament and praise.

We hold questions without answers— yet we hold them in hands already full of good things.

We hold our daily bread, our daily gifts, and we hold the daily closeness of the God Who Sees.

The God who is no stranger to our lament, and Who Is the reason for our every hope.
He does not grow weary of our asking. Of our need to be told again, He will. 

You friend, are not invisible.
You are seen and cared for by the God who does all things well. (Even when they feel anything but.)
Married love ambition: making the kids roll their Married love ambition: making the kids roll their eyes at our “gushy-ness” as often as possible. 

President & CEO of the Lance Stuckey Fan Club— in every season, but especially on days like today.
Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty k Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty kitchen.😍🌧📚

On this chilly Saturday, we spent entirely too long browsing for books at our library and then all came home to a fire, mochas, and cocoa, respectively. Of all the things we do not know at this very moment, we know the gifts abound, and are worth counting.

PS, if you haven’t spread whipped cream on a foil-lined baking sheet to freeze, and then cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters to top your coffee or hot cocoa, may I suggest you get thee on that at once.
“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provide “If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” — Corrie Ten Boom

✨File under, things to save in a fire.✨

The prayer journal pictured here contains six months of the hard & the sweet.
Six months of prayers asked & answered for ourselves and for others.
Six months of seeing through prayer, not how it changed our circumstances necessarily but how it changed us.

I always appreciate a record like this— being able to clearly see the paths we are led down, rocky though they may be? Priceless.

The ways God has come near us & drawn us to Himself again and again are written on these pages and I’ll treasure it forever.

Also pictured: Psalms Illuminated Scripture Journal. Highly recommend. Thank you always, @allifarnell
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it th “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

While scrolling through my photos today, my heart was heavy to realize how far back “before” was.

Before masks and distancing, before loss, before other, more personal bits of hard. Multitudinous change, neither all bad nor all good.

With our free time, we’ve introduced our girls to Tolkien, Bilbo, Frodo, and especially Samwise the Brave. They are officially hooked and we are delighted to watch them discover another world where evil doesn’t win, and the courage of the small matters much. {they close their eyes at the Orcs and we haven’t had a nightmare yet!}🤞🏻😂😬
I’m leaning increasingly more into the analog th I’m leaning increasingly more into the analog these days.

It started with the Sourdough and a dozen different kinds of jam last year.
I suddenly find great calm in activities that stand in direction opposition to hurry, the textbook definition of ✨work in progress.✨ And really, if you could see the other side of this piece, you would believe me. 🙃

Thank you to @thebarmyfox for making embroidery so accessible!
@thenester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfec @thenester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful,” and I believe that the weeknight meal equivalent is, “Just because it’s easy— doesn’t make it a second-tier supper!”

Thank you, Spaghetti with Meat sauce for being both a ministry to mom AND a crowd pleaser. Especially on a dreary January-ish day. It is ✨quite alright✨ to make something we’ve made a million times just because we know it makes the people happy.🍝
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