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On Stepping Back & Letting Go

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Sometime soon– you will find that you have to let go again.

You will pour cereal and smile at sleepy faces. You will pack lunches and breathe a prayer. You will grab keys and kiss foreheads and tousle hair.

You will help them take this step. And even though you will want to turn the car around, and around and around until you find yourself in their old nursery with the crib and the blanket and lamp and all these days still ahead — be brave.

You get to show them what brave looks like. You move forward with hope. You’re living the example that growing up is good and more time given is a privilege. That we were not placed on this earth to stand still or to go back– but to move forward in faith and courage. To be lights.

No matter how the shadows of this world lengthen, our role does not change. We are the lights. We may often lay down heavy hearted at the state of the planet we will awaken to, but this is the purpose of lights. It’s what they do. They shine in dark places.  And the light that shares your last name? You’ve been preparing them to shine since they padded around in footie pajamas.

They are ready. And so are you. And the moment we remember that they were made for this– to go out and shine– is the moment our grip loosens with a little less fear and a little more peace. Our hands relax to open and offer back what was given us for a season.

If they forget to stop and turn and wave, it is only because you gave them courage and confidence.  They haven’t forgotten.

If it feels like they need you less all of a sudden, it is because you were there, all those days when they needed you more than anything.

Whether they stare in the face of preschool or fifth grade or freshman year– your job is the same as you take a breath and take a step back.

Step back knowing that God never does. Not for one second that they are out of your sight, will they ever leave His. When your arms aren’t long enough to pull them back, He is firmly holding them right where they should be.

And the soul ache- heart ache- head ache of watching them walk away? It’s the seared mark of a deep abiding love. We are rarely ready to let go of what we love the most. But letting go is holy when it makes room for God’s glory. So, yes. Take the tiny step back that feels horrendously risky. And know that there is no risk too great when true obedience is present.

Tomorrow in houses strangely lacking the din of summer togetherness, let us remember to pray not only for God’s protection over our children– but for His glory to be seen through them.

Let their kindness be clear, their hope be sure, and their belonging to Him be deep in their bones.
Let them come to us when they feel too much or not quite enough.
May they know who they are because we have written it upon their hearts with a thousand conversations.
May God fill in all the spaces where we fail them.
May He be the One they know as the standard for love and acceptance.
May they make their schools better by their presence– lighting up corners and sparking from cracks.
May they be known as true friends who speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves.
May they shine, diamonds on a backdrop of midnight– reflecting the Light of Christ.

Also, it’s completely acceptable to sit in the parking lot, cry, & flip through all those mental snapshots of their baby days. Wear the dark sunglasses and know you are not alone.
And neither are they.

Taking Care of Teachers: Free Teacher Printable

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Around here we still have one full week until school begins. (All the Double High-Fives in the world.)

We are soaking up days in the pool, breathing deep the smells of warm slathered sunscreen and late meals on the front porch.

We languish in the afternoon slump that results from a morning in the sun and wish we had just a couple more weeks of freedom.

Pretty soon, we will have to put our responsible pants back on. Locate those lunch boxes that were hopefully cleaned out properly in May. Check off those school supply lists. Sign all the forms and try to force ourselves back into routine even though the temperatures will remain sweltering for a couple more months.

Still I enjoy a good routine. I like a loosey-goosey routine, but I need a little structure.

I know that while we are soaking up a smidge more summer, many teachers are already back at work. Making things ready for our kids and preparing to welcome them to another year.

Throughout the year, there are many opportunities to bless a teacher and this printable gives you the tools and information you need to bless your teachers well.  I hope this will make taking care of your teachers easier.

Hello!

 

Just click here to download: Hello Teacher Printable

Save as a PDF and print at home or at your local print shop then pass out to your teachers and then save for future reference!

Enjoy and please link back or give proper credit.

 

 

Green Onions and Quiet Growth

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I am strangely attached to the green onions in the orange pots out back.

They first came from my Grandfather’s sandy lake-front yard. After he passed away, they made their way to me through my Dad’s own hot garden. He offered them to me with gas money and a grin as I left their house one day. A five gallon bucket of pungent spring bumped along in the back seat on the drive home. For five hours of interstate I just hoped I could keep them alive.

We planted, watered, and waited. For weeks they sprung up and we cut them. They graced scrambled eggs and Green Jacket Salad and everything but ice cream.
Then one day I bounced outside with my herb shears and gasped.
Dead as a doornail, my onions were brown, withered, and mostly gone. I had killed them. I killed my sweet grandfather’s scallions. Shoulders slumped, I turned to go inside– resigned to buy them like a commoner in the produce section from then on.

After several weeks of avoiding all things garden with my Dad, he said — “Hey, I forgot to tell you. The onions might die. But don’t worry, they always come back. Even when it looks like they’re long gone— just wait. They’ll be back.”

He was right. A couple months later, they sprang up again. Tiny tender sprigs of green from black soil.

That was more than a year ago and I’ve watched those same green onions die a sudden death multiple times. Each time, I wait for them and it seems they’re finally gone. But they always come back. Small and green and hopeful. No amount of time spent forgotten keeps them from coming back.
It’s what they do, they live.

And every time they shoot up overnight, I remember.
I remember that growth often happens in the forgotten darkness. In the quiet places where no one sees. It may happen slowly and an inch at a time, but it happens just the same.
Because slow can often look like death to us. A failure to produce much can look like a failure to thrive at all. Slow progress is easy to ignore, and when we ignore it— we despise the quiet growth.

This is the growth we have as the created ones, created by One much bigger than ourselves. Our very need to grow and make things and learn and get better reflects our need for Him.

But we often disdain the slow for the immediate. We snarl at the tiny group for thousands of ears. We sigh at the “we didn’t do today” list and completely disregard the progress that was made– even if that progress was melting popsicles and belly laughs with our people.

May we be content– you and I, with where we are today. May we be happy with what we have to offer, with the very best we can do– And remember that underground, in the dark? That’s where the roots are. That’s where the real growth happens. 

Peach Blackberry Cobbler in a Cast Iron Skillet

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When I was fifteen, my parents moved out to the edge of the city in which they lived. They bought a house with a stretching yard and massive hydrangea bushes. They planted rows of blueberry bushes and waited for them to grow. Other produce graced the garden, but the blueberries were the real crowd pleaser. In the middle of the summer they produce more than a gallon a day and they freeze like a dream providing fruit all year round.

Sunday lunch almost always took place around my parents table, and more often than not a piping blueberry cobbler sat waiting for us in the kitchen. A scoop of vanilla ice cream dropped on a bowl of warm cobbler was the sweetest ending to our time together.

Once I moved away, I had a rule against ordering cobbler in any restaurant because it was never the same.
Over the years, I made my own tweaks to my Mom’s recipe, but she definitely gets all the credit. Same thing here. And also here. This Peach Blackberry Cobbler is a classic southern dessert. It is the perfect last minute summer addition to a meal and it feeds a crowd. The cobbler batter is quite liquid, but it bakes into a cake-like topping that gets in all the grooves of the fruit. Let it bake until it’s golden brown and serve it with spoons and ice cream. Yum!

peachcobbler

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Peach Blackberry Cobbler in a Cast Iron Skillet
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • 6 cups of fruit, I use mostly peaches with 1 cup of berries
  • 1 tbs. cornstarch
  • 1 stick of unsalted butter
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 1 cup of self-rising flour
  • 1 cup of sugar, plus 1 tbs. sugar
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 325' F.
  2. In a large cast iron skillet-- (I use a 12-inch skillet or a 9x13 baking dish,) Mix together the fruit and cornstarch.
  3. In a separate bowl, melt the butter and combine with the flour, cup of sugar, cup of milk, and cinnamon. Mix well until no large lumps remain.
  4. Pour batter over the fruit and top with remaining tbsp sugar.
  5. Bake at 325' for 60-75 minutes until bubbly and golden brown on top.
  6. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

On Pinky Pledges & Laying Stones

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Amidst plates circling the dinner table and clattering forks following suit— I almost didn’t hear what she said. I might have missed it completely if she had not jabbed her petite pinky finger up toward my face.

She said it again. This time I heard her loud and clear—
“Pinky Pledge, Mommy.”
“Do you pinky pledge that God is real?”
My pinky locked with her own— brown eyes staring into blue. And I just told her.
I told her what I knew to be true. Well, all I could sputter out in 45 seconds.
She smiled, looked away, nodded her head in a satisfied staccato, then continued lining up her tiny ponies.
“Ok–ay!” She Chirped.

pinkypleges

Activity resumed all around us but I froze for several seconds.
All this imperfect struggling to be always funneling truth into their shampoo-scented heads and it sneaks up on us, sharing the Gospel in tiny four-year-old bites.

This time it wasn’t a planned Bible story time. It didn’t have the feel of some sacred moment.
It was just our real life—
Words drifting around the kitchen, floating on the easy fun of a Friday night.

And you and I know it like we know that iced water is the perfect chaser to a hot latte.
That this is a scary and glorious part of parenting and life in general. That we rarely see all that God is doing. Most of what He does, He does in the secret places.

Somehow I still forget that they are always listening. When Joshua told the people of Israel to lay stones in memorial to what God had done to save them– he said the children would see the stones and then they would ask and they would tell them– oh, would they tell them.

They will ask.
They will notice.
They will have questions.
And we hope that if it is really real and true for us, it will be clear enough for them.
But at the end of our hope that we’re doing it right, there is One who does all things well.

I’m still learning that the journey of teaching them is one of constancy. One of every moment an opportunity– not to anxiously squeeze lessons out of every breath we take, but to teach them as we are going. In the joy we have and the life we embrace. In the gratefulness we walk in and in the hope of what is to come.

As we run into waves and slather on sunscreen. As we play silly games and search for illusive socks.
In the Sunday afternoon moments, when preschool papers litter the kitchen table like paper mache’.
When forgotten paper plates blow across the front porch scattering cold pizza crust and scooters zip up & down the driveway.
When night time dance parties fizzle and we settle down under puffy duvets, red-faced and big-haired. In both the bedlam and the quiet– we get to lay our stones.

Even when we are overwhelmed, we get to be the ones. This is a great gift, this mission of parenting.

Even when we feel stomach sick at our not-enough-ness, we can relax a little.
God is the One doing the calling. But lucky us– we get to translate, we get to extend His offer, we get to keep laying the stones of all that He has done to rescue us.
We get to tell them both with our words and with our laughter.

So let’s tell them well.

On Being Good Listeners

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We do a lot of listening. We hear well-meaning voices of input and take in respectful feedback. Let it loll around in our minds like a scrap of fine sandpaper— sloughing off and making smooth what we have.
We are better together and we should give a measured and occasional ear to tools such as google analytics, which tell us what our guests are looking for and if they even stay long enough to pull up a chair…

But sometimes–
The voices are louder than they should be. Sometimes the voices of the internet are quite shouty and they say things, untrue things that cause us to forget what we already know in our hearts.

 

And isn’t that just the way adversity needles its’ way into hope? It shrieks out our audacity in believing what God has called us to. It is low whispered lies that slander identity and paint us with the broad strokes of not nearly good enough.

But we listen anyway.
We feel nauseated at the bounce rate and the screaming silence of words that fall flat. We may stand happy and stiff-armed, presenting our gift with hope— until we look to the side and see them.. with their glossy gift. So we slink back into the shadows where doubt speaks louder than truth and we forget what we already know.

But here’s what I do know.
Most of social media is not the place to go when we feel anxious.

Too much looking from side to side makes me twisty inside. When I don’t stay in my own lane, I want to retreat further and further into things not so hard— like laundry and netflix and reading and things that I know well how to do. I can fold socks like a boss. I can flip on Gilmore Girls and laugh like it’s my job. But creativity? That takes work.

And this isn’t good, but it’s true– When I spend all my energy looking over the fence, weeds begin to grow in my own lovely little spot of land.

But, Friend?
We need to hold tighter to what we have been given in the noiseless hush of midnight. Snatch the whispers of the Creator of your soul. Hold onto them with white-knuckled belief no matter the din rising all around you.

“What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops.” –Matthew 10:27

If a thousand others say no— but God still whispers yes— keep going.
Keep making art.
Keep doing that thing He’s sketched on your soul.
Keep loving those people no one else loves.
Keep struggling.
Keep listening.
And know that Adversity is not Failure.

Did you hear that? Because we may need to hear it again– Adversity is NOT Failure. Opposition is not an off-ramp. Struggle is not where we are meant to stop. 

We know who we are. If we really stop and listen, we know who we are– that we are His children. The children of perseverance & patience. Children who know that the God who made us as creatives is the God of “Enough to go all around.”

He is the God of more than plenty.

Banana Coconut Flax Muffins

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I can serve my children instant waffles like a boss. Slice up a few strawberries, dust that powdered sugar and boom. Done, and they are happy little campers. Most mornings that is exactly how we roll.

But sometimes I realize that spring break is coming ’round the mountain and they’ve been stuffing their cheeks with cadbury eggs every time I leave the room. Sometimes I notice that yogurt has been their main protein for the last few meals and the only part of nature’s rainbow they have tasted has been orange juice. Every now and then I recognize that if I’m going to infiltrate their diet with things like rolled oats and flax seed, I’m going to have to get out the mixing bowl and be sneaky.

muffinsflaxThat is exactly how these Banana Coconut Flax muffins came into our world. They are super quick, very hearty, and will likely please even the pickiest tiny human or their parents. We add a little crushed almonds and raw sugar to the tops for crunch and texture, but you could do crushed granola or even more coconut. Enjoy!

P.S. Try them with an Iced Coffee— it’s pretty much the greatest antioxidant ever.

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Coconut Banana Flax Muffins
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 12
 
A hearty, lightly sweet muffin which makes a great breakfast on the go or afternoon snack.
Ingredients
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
  • ¼ cup canola oil
  • ¼ cup of raw sugar
  • ¼ cup of maple syrup
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 3 medium ripe bananas
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 heaping tbs. greek yogurt
  • ¾ cup dried, unsweetened coconut
  • ⅛ tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. baking powder
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • 2 tbs. flax seed
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • ½ cup rolled oats
  • ½ cup all purpose flour
  • ½ cup chopped pecans (optional)
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a muffin pan.
  2. In a medium bowl- mash bananas. Combine melted butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, syrup, yogurt, egg and coconut. In a separate bowl- add dry ingredients together-- flours, flax, cinnamon, oats, baking soda, powder and salt. Add dry ingredients into wet all at once and stir gently to combine. Fold in pecans if using.
  3. Topping. We sprinkle the muffins with a mixture of crushed almonds and raw sugar to give them a little extra crunch on top, but you can top them with cinnamon sugar or even nothing at all.
  4. Scoop into a prepared (sprayed with oil or lined with paper liners) muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes or until they are lightly brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

 

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