Posts Tagged ‘Love’

I love sports. I understand sports better than most females… mainly three of them, baseball, basketball and football. I am the chic who can explain why a runner was called out, why a player fouled out and why our team was just given the ball back. I have never held a “legal” coaching position, but believe me I do A LOT of coaching from the sidelines, bleachers and my folding chair! Both of my boys play baseball, football and basketball, surprise!! One of them asked to play hockey once, ONCE.

So, it is football season and I find myself twice a week attending football games and coaching from the bleachers. The bad thing about coaching from the bleachers is that you have to yell really loud. A girl has got to do what she has to do, right?

My oldest son plays for his middle school and the parents for the most part are very, very quiet, except for one. I do not yell anything negative at the players but I do yell and call them ALL out when they do something great. I can tell sometimes that other parents are trying to figure me out and I always feel really bad for the parent who knows me, sits by me and then gets to experience me at a football game.

I started thinking maybe I should have a t-shirt printed with a disclaimer statement on the back of it or a big yellow blanket with the words “splash zone” printed on it to keep the innocent away.

I want my faith to be loud like this. I don’t want to scare anyone but I want to feel so excited and over come that when I see God working in my life or someone else’s that I scream with joy and encouragement. I want to stand up and cheer, and ooh and awe with all of God’s fans. I pray for a day that just by the way I live my life it is as if I have a megaphone, leading the crowd in a cheer for Jesus. Gimme a J… gimme an E…

Maybe one day my “splash zone” blanket will become a place where people want to sit and cheer with me. And I pray that one day; my faith brings people into God’s splash zone. Bring your rain coat because you are definitely gonna get wet.

Last week was an especially busy week, end of summer, last minute school supply shopping, orientations, school starting and football for my boys. On one of those nights my oldest son had his first football game of the season and my youngest had her preschool orientation right after the game. It was a surreal experience to go from yelling at the football game for my oldest to “get em”…. To “and this is how we make the play dough” at the preschool orientation. I had a moment. Oh yeah, a moment. It was the first time I felt the difference in the age of my oldest and youngest and it truly caught me off guard. It was the realization that my son is not a toddler in anyway, shape or form anymore. My brain has known this for awhile but it has not been talking to my heart.

And then I started to weep. I think most of the other parents were frightened and I may have just decreased the school enrollment by 20. The teachers all thought it was about my daughter starting preschool but that wasn’t it at all. It was the knowing. Knowing what was coming and just how fast it comes. I keep telling myself it is a great time in his life and to celebrate it. So I am celebrating through my tears. I smile thinking of the little guy who used to come running down stairs after his bath every night saying, I’m clean, I’m clean, smell me… and now when we stand face to face and he can look me square in the eye, honestly, it breaks my heart. In my soul I want to scream STOP. Stop growing up and away from me. This may be the toughest part of parenting for me. Sometimes I think the nights of no sleep, temper tantrums, and cleaning up vomit was just part of the “training camp” for the real parenting, the letting go part.

I am proud of the young man he has become and can’t wait for the man I know he will be (well, I mean, I can wait…) but I will miss my little boy. I am praying that it gets easier with each one, but my brain is telling my heart, “I don’t think so…”
Great, now they start to communicate!

I am trying to live courageously. I recently read some where that courage is simply fear with faith. My daughter who is four has been struggling with fear. She is trying in her four year old way to understand heaven. She insists she doesn’t want to go there, ever! No matter how much I try to explain to her how fantastic and awesome it will be. Finally, the other day in a very small voice she said to me, “Mommy when I go there, will you hold me until I get there?” I swallowed my own tears and immediately told her yes!!! In her own little way she was still fearful but had faith that with me holding her it would be ok. Courage from my four year old!
I want my courage to break the chains that bind me to certain habits or sin and I know fear is a big part of that. For me there can be fear in learning how to live my life in the absence of my bad habit or sin. My fear has resulted in me creating so many different masks for myself, in the fear that this person needs to see me this way and a different person another way. Quite frankly, it is very exhausting and I don’t want to do it any more, so I’m not.
I am going to have faith that if a person doesn’t or can’t accept me for who I am then it is time to move on. And just for clarification, I am a sinner. I’m really good at it. It seems to come pretty natural to me. Sometimes my kids listen to inappropriate music and I let them, sometimes I scream at my kids and my husband. I lie, and have lied about lying. Sometimes I drink too much and sometimes I eat too much. I gossip and scorn people who do the same. I get envious of things I can’t have and buy things I shouldn’t and hide them from my husband. And I have spent a life time of caring way too much about what you think of me instead of focusing on how much God loves me despite all of my sins and bad habits.
I am going to work on sinning less. I am going to believe for the first time in my life that God doesn’t want a rule follower, He wants me. He wants me broken, ugly and with all my masks off. He loves me despite myself. I am going to judge less, and love more. I am going to speak the truth and hold my tongue, sometimes.
I am going to try and live courageously, knowing that my heavenly Father is holding me until I get to heaven and no matter what, I am safe with his arms around me.

I am blessed with sisters, biological and chosen. I have some radical sisters. I have some conservative sisters too. Sisters who have promised to defend me even when I am wrong and who will walk beside me through all times of my life the good and the bad. They will wade into the deep water with me and help me reach dry land. My sisters will stand in the rain with me, sit in the silence with me, yell over the noise with me, and speak to my inner child like only another woman can. They will eat chocolate, drink wine and complain with me about not losing weight. My sisters will notice my new shirt, haircut or lip gloss. They will tell me when something looks good and when it doesn’t. My sisters will let me know when there is something in my teeth, my hair or nose. They pass down the word to all of my other sisters when I am hurting, make a human life line and pray with me through it all. We share our dreams of living in an all women commune together someday, where all of the dirty socks are in the hamper and the toilet seats are always left down. They remember what is important to me. They share recipes, and secret miracle cures. Some of them I have shared my whole life with and some I have known for just a little while. Some I talk to everyday and some I may have not talked to in a couple of years, but still we are sisters. None of them are exactly the same, some very different from each other, some are younger than me some are older, some are skinny some are not, some cuss and drink some would never do either of those, some have quiet voices and some scream a lot! Some are blond, brunette and red heads, and some of them have been all three. Some of them live right down the street and some a cross the country. And that is exactly how God designed it, my circle of sisters, He uses them to hug me, tickle me and wipe away my tears. They are His voice, His hands and feet. They are the reality of “you are never alone, for I am with you all the days of your life”. They are His gift to me everyday as a reminder of His love for me. They are my sisters.

There is a lot of perceived power that comes with judging. In 1990, I was a judge in a local toddler princess pageant, think pageant like but 3 and 4 year olds in Iowa in 1990…very, very high hair, corn costumes and moms who never quite made it off the farm. Now that I have set the scene, let me tell you a little bit about the power surge I experienced during my inaugural judging debeaute.
In 1988 I had been crowned Miss Iowa American Coed and I was just coming off serving my year in that role when I was asked to judge the princess pageant. I was of course a former queen so I had my groupies at the pageant with me, mom and grandma. Being a former queen, I felt completely qualified to know what qualities a 3 or 4 year old should possess in order to be a crowned princess. Yeah right.
As we were given our judging instructions from the pageant director, I can remember being shocked at the category of character, meaning the personality and character of the child. I was thinking, “How am I going to be able to judge character based on stiff modeling, corn costume tap dancing routines and programmed answers from the contestant?” Then I had an idea and the first surge of power hit me as I pretended to listen to the pageant director and decided I would judge the mom’s of the contestants. Maybe not completely fair, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The pageant began and I can remember being so enthralled with the mothers of the pageant contestants that I would almost miss the girl’s performance because of my distractedness. Some of the mother’s clearly were living through their daughters, some of them had no idea what they had gotten themselves and their child into and were looking for a quick escape and one mom must have thought it was a mother/daughter lookalike pageant because she matched everything with her daughter from hair, clothes and fake eye lashes. It was fun to watch the moms do the choreography in the audience as their daughters performed and they would very, very slowly mouth the words, SMILE over and over again.
I will never forget one little girl who came out and stood on the stage and cried. She cried and cried, no matter how much her mom danced to the music or mouthed SMILE the little girl just cried harder. The mom snapped and I surged with power. The mom came completely undone and I had a big RED sharpie! She was so upset with the little girl’s complete lack of stage presence that she went up on the stage and yanked the young girl off…. I showed the mother no mercy and included a few extra comments of my own judging expertise. Oh the power. I loved judging the mom’s actions until later that night at the banquet for the “big girls” pageant, the pageant director shared with me that the little girl had thrown a fit back stage before going on because her mother wouldn’t let her change her pageant name to Marigold. Please remember I was just a wee babe of 20 at this time and had no frame of reference to understand how a 4 year old little girl could throw such a huge temper tantrum over such a thing. Trust me when I tell you that God has sense provided me with plenty of reference to draw from, the blessing of three children but only one daughter! Thank you, merciful Father.
I wish I could tell you that I was invited back to judge again and that I never judged anyone’s character outside of a pageant again but I can’t. I am pretty sure most of my adult life I have felt very justified in judging people from everything as little as hair color to their personal beliefs. By what authority? I’m not sure because I do know that most people I have judged weren’t looking for my opinion or judgment. But the power that comes with passing judgment on someone else can be very intoxicating. I can feel better about myself and my few (eek!) imperfections. But then I had someone sober me up and share with me that all my judging really had more to do with my own insecurities and guilt. Ouch! The intoxication and power I may feel when judging others is the evil one’s way of hooking me but it Never is Jesus’ way. Jesus taught that we should love and demonstrate compassion to people who were hurting and far from Him. Ouch again!! Don’t be fooled by a lack of feeling power when judging it can mask itself in other emotions. A good test I use is to check myself and see if humility, love and a need to serve that person in someway are present, if not, guess who is trying to hook me again!!
Everyday I am learning to hand over my “Judges Score card” to Jesus, the ONLY judge, some days willingly and other days, not so much.

I grew up in a home where sports were celebrated. All types, we were not single sport snobs. I grew up watching golf, wrestling, football, basketball, hockey, and baseball. My mom loves all sports and my grandparents were avid Hawkeye fans and fans of anything their grandkids participated in. My dad coached several different sports, everything from my T-ball teams to my brothers wrestling.

I can remember grown men coming up to my dad and telling him he was the best coach they ever had. I of course would stand a little taller, as if I had anything to do with it; I was proud of my dad and the obvious impact he had had on these men. As a grown, women and a mother of three, I am always looking for my dad’s input when it comes to the sports programs my kids are involved in or his opinion on different opportunities they have. My dad lives three hours away so any coaching opportunities he gets with my kids happen on vacations or special family holidays.

My dad gladly gave his gift of coaching to so many and I truly believe it was a gift. I have known a lot of coaches in my life and trust me, they are not all created equally!

About four years ago someone suggested a hitting coach by the name of John Maitland for my oldest son Jacob. It took me about a year to actually make the call and set up a lesson but once we had our first lesson my boys met with John weekly until this year right before Easter.

John would be the first one to admit he never really was a very good baseball player but he loved it. He was a student of the game. John loved the strategy, loved the odds of succeeding in a game of failure and loved to keep everything simple.

I will never forget the first time my son had a lesson in John’s basement, not a pretty or fancy set-up and I do remember being slightly fearful of where to sit! My son hit a few balls for John and John promptly told him where he was struggling and how he could help him improve his swing and batting average. And that is exactly what he did. You could see my son’s improvement in the batter’s box and on paper but what he gave Jacob that meant so much more to his mom, was the self confidence to believe in himself.

John was the first coach to ever spend quality one on one time with Jacob building into him. If you would have ever heard any of their conversations during a lesson you would say I’m crazy to think that, most of the lessons John was picking on the Cubs (my son’s favorite team), or Jacob’s lack of focus or the fact that he was wanted by the police in several counties….. some days it never ended….Jacob loved it and would try to plan ways he was going to “get” John, but somewhere in between all of the jokes and knocks on each other, John would say, “Now that was a nice swing and he would mean it.” And Jacob would soak it up.

I have always looked forward to the weekly lessons and my conversations with him. We would discuss everything from, his latest civil war find, the Kennedy assignation and crazy baseball parents. I will miss his advice, and sense of humor, but most of all I will miss his friendship. I don’t know if he ever realized what he gave to me as a parent when he gave Jacob his confidence in the batter’s box, he gave me confidence as a parent that even if only for a little while during a baseball game, I could relax and know my kid had found his swing.

John lost his battle with bone marrow cancer on June, 22nd 2010. He was an inspiring coach to hundreds of kids and their families. I once read what matters most in life isn’t the day you were born or the day you die, it is what you did during the dash in between those two days that matters most. Well done John and thank you.

You know that saying, “garbage in garbage out”? I was wondering, is that always true? I mean can you ever put garbage in and not get garbage out? Could you put high quality non-garbage in and get garbage out? And by the way, I am pretty sure that this saying came from a mother desperately trying to convince her child that Lucky Charms is not the best way to begin and end your day. However, they are magically delicious, it says so right on the box!

The statement could also be an effort to make people think about the information they allow into their minds everyday. Something along the lines of, if you only listen to negative people talking about negative issues then you will begin to think in a negative way. I whole heartedly agree with this but is there a way to change up the negative info coming in and make it positive? I think so.

We live in such a heightened awareness of environmentally safe products, that I started thinking about, how as a person, I can change the trajectory of my thoughts, from garbage into environmentally safe renewable energy. The compost of the information one person can take in on any given day is incredible, but what if we could take all of that garbage and turn it into reusable positive information!!!

Please understand, this isn’t an easy conversion to make and it is one that involves help from someone who is the authority on turning bad to good, hate to love, and garbage to environmentally safe renewable energy!!

One of my favorite authors’s, John Ortberg, has written extensively on the idea of staying in the flow of the Holy Spirit, and connected to God, in his latest book, The Me I Want to Be. He describes a gap that exists between who I am and who God designed me to be and the only way to bridge that gap, is to live in grace. Receive God’s grace and when I fail, which I will, God will send another wave of grace that I need to receive again and keep on fighting the fight!

In other words, I need to stay connected to God; so that when he sends another wave of grace I am able to receive it. When I put my focus on everything else around me, worldly things, it becomes a lot more difficult to tap into those waves. This isn’t just about trying harder, I cannot manufacture renewable energy on my own, the Holy Spirit comes to me in those waves that John writes about and brings me power, joy and rest to use toward becoming the best positive version of myself.

This positive output or renewable energy is the type of fuel I know I am going to need on my journey to becoming the best mom, wife, sister, daughter, and girlfriend I want to be. So, garbage in, garbage out? Not always! Some may even say there is a little bit of “magically deliciousness” involved!!

These are a few things my kids have taught me about being a mom:

Unconditional/instantaneous love
Patience
Practice what you preach
Priorities
Not even a lake full of feces would keep me from my babies
One day you will attempt to “catch” puke
Skin will only stretch so far
Pick and Choose your battles
At some point you will say something and think your own mom just spoke
Time marches on
It really is all about the little things
The gut wrenching sadness of empty arms while waiting for a baby and after the loss of one
Eternal Hope of seeing all my babies in heaven
It’s all about sharing
Other people’s kids poop is NOT the same as your own kids….
It’s not about me and it really never was
Sometimes it’s ok for your three year old to eat Brownies for breakfast…
No matter how many books you read or advise you get, with some things you just have to listen to your intuition
The mess will wait for you
Laundry really is never all done…
It is definitely a smile not gas…
You can NOT spoil a baby by holding it too much
Take more pictures/take more video
One day the house will be clean, quiet, and you will have lots of time to yourself
No two children are the same…same genetics but very different outcomes!
The first cup (athletic supporter) can cause extreme jealousy
I am a ballerina in my daughter’s eyes

A special Happy Mother’s day to my mommy, Carol Ann Swore.

“Mom you have loved me during some of the hardest times of my life and at times when I know I wasn’t that easy to love. You have taught me how to love God, be a good wife, be a good daughter, a good sister and a good mom. Sorry for any of the heart ache I have ever caused you and thank you for being my mom. Thank you for always encouraging me and giving me the freedom to become what ever I wanted to become. Thank you for the gift of laughter that has helped me find my place in this world. You and Dad have always been willing audience members no matter what I was doing! Thank you for coming to EVERYTHING while I was growing up; all the sports events, music events and drama events (some that I created on my own!) Thank you for loving my kids the way you do. Thank you for being such an awesome Grandma!! I love you very much! Have a great day, Tami”

Do you hear me God!!! Are you listening God? I’m screaming!! Why? Why not? This is where I live some days. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why it seems as though God is denying me something that is not only good for me but also His Kingdom!

I pray and pray for answered prayer and sometimes I hear the answer and sometimes I don’t but that never means that my prayer hasn’t been answered.

In September of 2002, I had my first miscarriage. It was such a complete shock, I had already heard the baby’s heartbeat and didn’t anticipate any issues with my pregnancy. Michael and I were both healthy and had already had two uneventful pregnancies.

As painful as it was, I knew almost immediately that we would try again. After six months with no success, I started to become panicked. What if I didn’t get pregnant again? Why do I have such a desire to have another child? Michael and I have been blessed with two beautiful sons that we adore! Why do I still feel like my arms are empty? I prayed these questions almost every night.

We started an infertility program and spent the next year riding a roller coaster ride that I wouldn’t allow us to get off. I was able to conceive two more times but lost the pregnancies early. I remember my husband trying to console me and redirect my focus back to the blessings that we had instead of what wasn’t and thought, “Oh great now your giving up!”

I had a dear friend say to me one day, “God has placed the desire for you to have a child on your heart for a reason, it just may not be the reason you think it is.”

I was stunned at this comment. I can remember lots of blinking and starting a “yeah but” reply several times. As this new idea sunk in, I started to pray in a different way, “God help me to see your will for me in this. Or, God help me find peace if it is not part of your plan for me to have another child.”

Slowly, I came to accept that another baby just wasn’t what was going to happen. My husband and I both felt mentally exhausted and had such a huge sence of release and peace when we decided to stop the infertility treatments. It was strange what I had feared for so long, giving up the control, actually brought me peace in the end.

I started to focus more on God’s plan and will for my life and cherishing some of the little things in life with my family. It was a complete shock in late November of 2005, when I missed a period and discovered I was pregnant!!

I truly believe that God’s desire was for me to put my trust in him and recline in His loving arms and when I did that, I was blessed with a beautiful baby girl on July 5th, 2006.

I wish I could say that I always trust His plan and His will for my life; there are still times that I want something so badly and don’t understand why I don’t get it! And there have been times when the answer to my prayers is not the one I prayed for. We don’t always get what we want because we pray for it, but I know that he does answer our prayers according to His will and His love for us.

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Don’t hate me but, I am a Cat person. I love dogs too. But my whole married life for the exception of a couple of years we have had a cat. I know there is quite a large group of anti-cat people but truly I love all animals, well, except ferrets, sorry can’t take the smell!
Recently, we adopted a new kitten. We found her during a fourth of July trip to Iowa, and named her Alley Cat! Like puppies, kittens love to play with everything and anything…which can get them into trouble.
I don’t have a lot of super expensive things but I do have some things, that I probably paid way to much for…like this one beautiful vase.
Let’s just say that Alley helped the vase fall to the floor, where it became a pile of pieces of a vase that I paid way to much for. Broken, crushed, destroyed and the beauty of the vase gone forever. Or is it?
I am broken. Some days it feels like I have been broken into a million pieces. I know I have felt crushed by my past and the consequences that still haunt me. I have destroyed progress that I continue to try and make, and trust me there are more days than I want to admit that I do not feel beautiful.
As I watched my husband and son tackle the huge task of putting the vase back together, it made me think of how God can put people back together no matter how many millions of pieces they may be broken into. There is no sin that He won’t forgive. He can help you learn from your past. He can lift the crushing weight of any circumstance. What you have destroyed He can heal and He thinks I am beautiful everyday.
I am no longer fearful of my brokenness because of the One who “fixes” me. Like my vase, I am still broken (you can see the cracks) but my purpose remains and I am committed to becoming the woman God created me to be.
Psalm 34:17-19 NIV
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all

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