It’s 5:30, and I am up early, tapping away at my computer long before the sun rises. This is the only time my house is quiet, but it’s grown increasingly difficult for me to get up at this time, because when my house is quiet I WANT TO SLEEP!
We’ve officially been in the crazy time of life for a couple of years now, but I feel like it’s all starting to swirl together and crash on top of me. Between soccer and gymnastics, homeschool and middle school, and the active (dare I say ornery?) toddler in the midst of it all, most days I barely have time to catch my breath.
We jump from one activity to the next, and we don’t stop jumping until the house silences again at night, and I look around and wonder how on earth it’s already bedtime again, and have I had any water today? What about any real food? Did I eat an actual meal, or simply graze the half eaten plates of the tiny people all day?
I CANNOT REMEMBER!
When we brought our first born home from the hospital, I felt the confidence that only comes from inexperience. I immediately got him on a schedule, and felt such pride at my Mom-ing abilities.
Yes – I just used “Mom” as a verb. It’s the most active thing a woman could do, so it only makes sense. Frankly, I can’t believe we haven’t officially made it a verb before now.
When Sloan was around 18 months old, I remember noticing the first chink in my mom armor. My angelic little toe-headed cherub didn’t seem to want to follow my directions anymore. He had a will, a strong one, and it was all his own. It was at this point that I lamented my loss of daily freedoms.
“I’m just so busy!” I wailed to my husband one evening after a particularly rough day of Mom-ing. “The only free time I have are the three hours he’s sleeping in the afternoon, and then the rest of the day I’m at his beck and call.”
I think back to that younger version of me – sweet little fresh-faced girl who felt certain her life was being swallowed up by her baby. I want to give her a hug…and maybe a little chocolate. I want to whisper in her ear that she will never have so much time to herself again.
It is now twelve years, and three more babies later. Gone are those three hours stretches of alone time in the afternoons. Gone are the early bedtimes and precious evenings alone with my husband. This house is filled with noise and chaos. It’s always dirty.
Always.
I eek out slivers of stolen moments here and there throughout the day. I grossly underestimate how much I can actually accomplish on a daily basis, and am constantly overcommitting myself, because I still forget that Mom-ing four kids takes every waking moment of the day.
In the midst of it all, I wonder if I’m doing okay. Did I do the right thing yesterday? Did I feed them any vegetables? Fruit? Meat? Tell me they didn’t just eat bread and candy.
Mom-ing is hard.
Most days I’m sort of feeling my way through the dark, but I’ve convinced myself of one very important thing:
At the end of the day, if I can tally up a few shared moments of laughter, and obvious displays of love, then I did alright.
Last week, I took the kids to the beach during a day off school. As we made our way down the road that leads to our favorite stretch of sand, Sloan put on Lacrae, rolled down the windows, and messed with the sound settings until he had the bass pumped at full volume.
Shrieks of delighted laughter floated up and out of my pumpin’ minivan as we literally rattled the windows of the cars next to us. The kids rapped and I laughed, and people definitely stared, but who cares. Because I was Mom-ing the heck out of that one moment.
Moms, you’re feeling buried under the weight of it all. I know that you are. Maybe some of you have some silence built into your days as kids go to school, or young ones take naps. Or maybe, like me, the only silence you’re offered is in the dark hours of the early mornings.
Either way, I know it’s a lot. Mom-ing takes all of us, and so I want you to know that I see you, and I offer this encouragement:
Roll down the windows of your (smokin’ hot) minivan. Fling open the doors of your home, and put on a little Lecrae. Rattle the windows with your pumping bass, and let the world know that despite the insanity and never ending to-do list, you are Mom-ing the heck out of life.
[Tweet “Pump the bass, and let the world know you’re Mom-ing the heck out of this life. #momlikeaboss”]
Find moments of each day for laughter, and dole out as many hugs and kisses as you’re allowed. And when your head finally hits the pillow at the end of the day, whisper into the blessed silence, “I Mom’ed like a boss today.”
I sat up tall in the chair, elbows resting on the desk as I soaked in every word. I leaned in close, hoping to maybe catch the magic of each phrase and bottle it up for later.
“You each have a story to tell,” the professor said. He wasn’t flashy, like some of my other professors. He didn’t bring in a clunky keyboard, like my Latin professor, and make up quirky songs about the Greek gods.
He didn’t come to class dressed as Chaucer and recite The Canterbury Tales for twenty minutes like my Lit professor.
No, this man was different. He was a writer, and he had the aura of one. He was cool and laid back, with a sharp wit and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He leaned on the podium and looked at us, one at a time.
“You have a story to tell,” he said again. “And that story is only yours.”
That was a long time ago. A loooooong time ago.
It took me thirteen years, and several drafts to write my story – my first story. Because as soon as one story ends, another begins. In between all that storytelling, you see, is a whole lot of living, and life breeds story.
When I finished my novel, I wondered if I would ever find another story to tell. For several months, I thought I’d used up all my words. It was about this time that my blog began to die, and swirling inside all of that was a healing heart after a terminated adoption.
I had to fall into the heartache for a bit so the wound could scab over. Did it heal? Yes, I believe it did.
But there’s still a mark.
Scars are stories, though, aren’t they? I have scars on my knee that tell of a young girl who could swing the parallel bars…until she landed wrong and tore her ACL. It’s a story, and it’s all mine.
It’s been two years since I finished my novel, and in that time I’ve also written a non-fiction book, a couple of short stories, and lots of online words. But I wanted a new story to tell. And I was getting impatient.
In the last month, I’ve felt the tickling sensation of an idea formulating. It likes to prick at me late at night, usually when I’m tired, and I want nothing more than to crawl up in bed with a cup of hot tea and Netflix. At first I tried ignoring it, but then I remembered this is what I was waiting for.
So I recorded it.
Chicken scratches on a scrap piece of paper next to my bed may very well hold the key to my next story. It’s relieving to know there’s more to come. I’m not finished typing words just yet.
But life is hectic. There are so many small people running around my house, it makes my head spin. Half the time little people who don’t even belong to me are here! So I’m fitting the storytelling into the cracks of my day, and in the larger chunks of time I’m choosing to live.
Because life – with all its hectic hilarity, all its pain and confusion, all its joy and laughter, all this smashed up living inside four walls – breeds story.
[Tweet “So first I’ll live the story, and then I’ll tell it, because a story cannot be forced.”]
You have a story to tell, too.
Maybe you don’t desire to write a book. That’s okay. I don’t blame you. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a story worth telling.
All of mankind, every bit of the history that tells us who we are, and from where we came, is built on story. Consider this my podium moment as I lean in close and look you in the eye.
You have a story to tell, and that story is only yours. You live your story every day, and it holds weight in this world.
So live your story, and then tell it.
Write it in a journal, on a blog, or on the walls of your home. Tell it with the lens of your camera, or with a video camera strapped to your wrist.
Life is happening right now, all around you. Everywhere you turn, life is waiting to be observed and recorded, and you have a perspective that no one else shares.
Tell your story. I promise, the world needs to hear it.
“You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right… or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.
NO! That’s not for you!”
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Dr. Seuss
Let me tell you a little story about what it’s like to write and launch a book.
It’s a process filled with waiting places – places where you can choose to sit back and hope good fortune stumbles over you, or where you can take matters into your own hands and walk to the good fortune.
The beginning of this journey is filled with excitement. You head down these long wiggled roads at a break necking pace, and it’s exhilarating and terrifying, and you sort of stumble your way through the process until you reach the other side. Finished. A completed manuscript in your hands.
This is when you enter the first Waiting Place.
You hold in your hands a tiny piece of your heart, and you have to decide if you’re going to let anyone read it. So you timidly hand it over to strangers, hoping they like it. And you wait for the “Yes” amidst a whole lot of “No.”
If you’re not content to stay in that waiting place, you persist and push through all the “No.” Because eventually, with a little dedication and refusal to give up, you find your “Yes.” Someone agrees to bind up that piece of your heart, and put a title to it. This, it turns out, is where the real work starts.
Launching a book is like running a marathon in the dark. You sort of stumble along pitch black roads, feeling your way toward the finish line, hoping you don’t peter out and die before you get there. That’s where it’s imperative to have running partners by your side.
Last weekend, I headed up to Greenville, South Carolina for the Allume conference. This is the third time I’ve attended this conference, and it holds a special place in my heart. This is the place where I found my running partners.
There’s a confidence that comes from being with a group of people who understand this crazy journey of publication. They understand the rejection and the fear. They understand the extreme exhaustion that comes from pouring your heart out on the page, and the utter terror that you feel when you must submit those pages to be judged.
The first year I attended Allume, I went all alone. I had the unedited manuscript for my novel tucked away in my bag, and I met with several agents, all of whom loved the concept, but “fiction is a touch sell,” and on they went.
Except for one.
She agreed to at least read the first 50 pages and give feedback. “It’s too long,” she said, and she was right. 150,000 words was a ridiculous length for a debut novel, so I spent the next year editing, and cutting, and shaping it up.
I went back the second year with my edited novel, but I was also joined by Wendy, and together we had a proposal for a new book – a book for creative moms, meeting them right there in the mess of motherhood.
I went to Allume this third year with two books in production, and the weekend was spent trying to learn the ins and outs of marketing and launching. It’s intimidating and overwhelming. I’m running a marathon in the dark.
But at least I’ve got running partners by my side who are cheering me on. Several of them have already walked this path, and so they offer advice and wisdom, lighting the road before me just slightly.
It’s exhausting and overwhelming, this journey I’m on. But I’m glad I pushed myself out of the waiting place and onto this path. Dr. Seuss was right – waiting isn’t for me. The journey is so much more fun when you move forward…even if you’re moving in the dark.
So, what are you waiting on? What’s stopping you from moving forward?
“I just love the way the world looks upside down.”
She said the words with a sigh, her mouth turned up in just the hint of a smile. I glanced at her long enough to see that she wasn’t looking at me, but rather up at the sky. She wasn’t really talking to me at all. She was just stating a fact.
She loves the way the world looks upside down.
As I prepare to head out to a writer’s conference tomorrow, I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about platform. What does it mean, and can I really stand on one with any amount of emotional stability?
It dawned on me when Tia spoke those honest words that I feel so much like her. I love the way the world looks upside down. I love the way it looks on my computer screen. I love the tapped out rhythm of life that echoes across the keyboard. I love the way the world looks when I’m writing.
Because stories are my upside down.
It’s a beautiful thing to embrace the world as one was meant to see it; whimsical and bright – the world is a fascinating place when turned upside down.
You see, I am the girl on the platform, spinning her way around the stage, and finally feeling warmed by the Light that illuminates the space in front of me. No longer concerned with the applause of the auditorium, I find myself increasingly fascinated with the world as He created me to see it – all topsy turvy.
It’s not always easy, though. I still forget at times to focus on the Light, and instead I strain my eyes toward the seats, wishing there were more listening. I’m not so secure that I’ve forgotten the desire to be seen and heard.
But when I allow myself to simply love what I do for no other reason than I was made to do it, then the Light fills in the dark places once again. Because I love the way the world looks upside down.
Maybe you’re standing on an empty stage, gazing into an empty auditorium, and you’re feeling lost and confused. Maybe the world is to right side up for you right now.
Can I offer a few words of advice?
1.) Know you have a story to tell
Your story is unique, and it’s a story that only you can tell. Maybe there are others around you telling flashy stories. Maybe they have a bigger stage, and wider audience. But they don’t have your story. They couldn’t. Only you hold that story.
So tell it.
2.) Know how you love to see the world
This is akin to finding your voice. How do you love to see the world? What is upside down for you?
Are you a Bible teacher? Then give us scripture laden wisdom, and make us crave the Word.
Are you a humorist? Then tell us a funny story, and make us laugh out loud.
Are you a story teller? Then tell us a story, and make us long for more.
Find your voice, and show us the world from your vantage point. Because the world is waiting to hear from you.
3.) Know that you’re there to reveal the Light
I heard a story once of Billy Graham. As he ascended the stairs to the stage at one of his famous rallies, the cheers and applause from the crowd below reached a deafening level. Stepping before the podium, the humble man held up his hand, and a hush fell over the group.
“God shares His Glory with no man,” Mr. Graham said, and then bowed his head to pray.
When you ascend the steps of your platform and you take to the stage, no matter how big or small your audience, remember that you’re there to reveal the Light. You’re there for them to see and feel the warmth of the Light. Because that story you have to tell?
He gave it to you. And He shares His glory with no man.
There was a little girl I once knew whose entire life was an empty stage, and she knew in her heart she was the one meant to fill that space. The hall echoed with waiting spectators, but she couldn’t see who they were, for the glare of the spotlight left her blinded. So she shielded her eyes and stood center stage, waiting for her cue.
She waited a long time, and the more she focused on the auditorium, the better she was able to block the glare of the spotlight until it sort of faded into her periphery. That was when she realized – the seats were all empty.
She stood on a barren stage, in an empty performance hall, with nothing but a spotlight to keep her warm. How terribly downcast she felt about the whole ordeal.
Dejection tried to push in, but the girl quickly convinced herself that she had only to begin performing, and then people would come watch her. So she started, loud and bold.
“COME LOOK AT ME!” She cried out in her most dramatic voice, each word inflected with a sense of purpose.
“YOU WANT TO WATCH ME, BECAUSE I WAS MADE FOR THIS! THIS IS MY STAGE! ISN’T IT GRAND?”
And a few people trickled in. Some sat in the front row – they were her family – and they clapped the loudest and most enthusiastically. She liked that.
A few more came, and the girl squinted through the spotlight to see a seat fill up here and there, and so she raised her voice again.
“I WAS MADE FOR THIS STAGE! IT’S MINE! I WANT TO BE UP HERE, SO IT MUST BE MEANT FOR ME!”
As she shouted her monologue, more people came, but some also left. It seemed they were a fickle crowd, willing to come and go, and so the girl pulled back and looked around. And that’s when she noticed hers wasn’t the only stage in the room. In fact, the auditorium was filled with stages.
Some were quite large, much more so than the girl’s. And the ones who stood on those large stages had lights, and music. Some had lasers, and even back up dancers. The girl felt very small and inadequate next to those large stages.
But there were others, she noticed, who had smaller stages than her own. Some of those on the small stages stood nearly motionless with arms pinned to their sides, timidly speaking, their whispers drowned in the noise.
But some on the small stages spoke quite eloquently, and the girl noticed that people were listening and watching those speakers. They were illuminated by nothing more that the spotlight, and she felt compelled to incline her ear toward these strong speakers on the small stages.
The girl looked back out toward her own audience, and suddenly realized they all looked bored. Well, all of them except those sitting in the front row. They always looked proud.
And then the girl couldn’t remember her story, or why she stood on that stage in the first place. So she sat down, put her head in her hands, and began to weep. No longer a girl, she had grown into a woman, and she found that being on the stage wasn’t where she wanted to be. She was tired of trying to be heard.
She wanted to be in the audience, comfortably choosing which speaker to follow. So she pushed to her feet, and decided to leave.
Only she couldn’t leave, for the stage had grown around her. It wasn’t a cage, but she found there were no steps on which to descend. She was meant to stay up there. But why? And for what?
Turning circles on the platform, the girl tried to make sense of it all. Finally, she turned back toward the audience, but she couldn’t see them, the glare of the spotlight having grown increasingly bright. For a brief moment, she quit looking for the people and allowed herself to be warmed by the light. And that’s when she knew.
The stage wasn’t hers – it never had been.
And the story wasn’t really hers to tell. All of it belonged to the Light, and in the Light. She wasn’t there to be seen, but to reveal the Light. The audience wasn’t warmed by her performance, or her words – they were warmed by the Light alone.
So she stepped forward, this time more humbly, and with much more trepidation. Lifting her chin, she turned her face toward the Light, and with a smile she held her hands wide.
“Come see this Light,” she cried, in a hushed and hallowed voice. “I was made to show you this Light. Isn’t it Grand? This Light is for you, too.”
