He is Greater.....John 3:30 says He must become greater, I must become less"

 I started packing away the Christmas decorations today.  Anybody else?  Because I singularly take them out and set them up on whichever day I decide as the holiday begins (after Thanksgiving at my house)....it is also up to me to decide when to take them down.  I have never waited long enough for the people in my family to wonder out loud why they are still up.  Typically it happens around New Years holiday.  So I started today but I always pack them away in a certain order.  First I pack away everything that looks like Santa/Christmas tree/ stockings/ Merry Christmas.  We have a fresh tree from the tree farm so I leave that up and decorated as long as possible.....something about the twinkly lights is so lovely when it is dark for more that 12 hours a day.  Most years our city garbage service will pick them up the week after Christmas but Roger read somewhere they aren't doing that anymore so I may just leave it up until it starts to look d...

 I was in my car a lot today, first for work and later driving Precious to and from Sioux Falls for volleyball.  Several times the radio station told me there are only 6 days until Christmas.  That is both fun and stressful is it not?  I am looking forward to spending time with family and friends and worshipping the Savior, turning my face to Him to remember what all the hullabaloo is for....it's for Jesus, not for us or for our kids.  The classic song Oh Come All ye Faithful tells us to come, let us adore Him...adore is a big word.  Adore means to worship, love greatly, honor highly and idolize...and to like very much...and to love with one's entire heart and soul, to regard with deep respect and affection... If I am to come and adore Jesus, I can't just passively wrap some gifts and bake some cookies....I can't even just show up for all the concerts and programs and parties....adore is a verb.  It requires action.  It demands intention and effor...

 There is a mantra familiar to those who move in the circles of mental health.  It goes like this..... I can do hard things.   You say it over and over again and if you've had some therapy maybe you cross your arms over your chest and pat yourself rhythmically while you say, "I can do hard things". I find myself reciting it tonight....not because I am facing a giant of adversity, or a scary prospect....mostly just because I had a busy night caring for my family and it involved driving at night.  I don't like to drive at night.  Other people don't dim their bright lights anymore....and it is stressful....I have a rather short night and then have to get up early tomorrow and get kids up early and then go and give a presentation to some college kids first thing in the morning.  I need to act like I know what I am doing (which I do) and present well....but they are coming to "class" and I am not a teacher.  I am a nurse.  I can do hard things....

 Today is a big day.  For 2 people I love very much, they are reconciled to a big change.  a new normal.  Life as they know it will change very soon.  They are moving on.  My heart is full of sadness and pride....and I am in wonder because how can those 2 feelings exist in the same place?  I guess the answer lies in the human-ness....and the knowing them.      One of my loved ones has had highs and lows and acceptance and rejection and a hint of something bigger....and this beautiful soul has agonized with the tension of who they are and what they deserve....I can't be more specific because it would be a betrayal to a beautiful soul.  Because I love this person I am biased for sure.  More than anything, mental health and a sense of contentment in who we are is a priority for me....so I have been a more aggressive version of myself to advocate.  I would do it every day.  That's what love does.  For this one...we a...

 Matthew 13:44-46     "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."     I listened to a devo recently about the treasure hidden in the field.  It happened that as I was listening in my car, I was noticing the beauty of the fields.  In the midwest, we are in harvest season so the fields are busy and changing.  As I drive around the county for my work, I notice the fields and the changing seasons daily.  I appreciate the seasons of planting, growing, harvesting and the winter season of rest.  I value the work being done here, to grow and harvest and feed the world with what our farmers know and grow and what our fields produce.   ...

 Recently I was in the car with one of my kids.  We were talking about how warm and dry the weather has been.  I brought up global warming and she asked what that meant so I tried to describe it in my motherly way which was probably not very scientific.  She was satisfied with my answer.  I went on to say that we as a human species are using up our resources and at some point there won't be any left...but that when Jesus returns he will create a new heaven and a new earth for us....so because we are believers, we will be ok.       I told her that the bible tells us that Jesus will return and when he does there will be an end to all the hurting and sin and misery and ugliness.....but until he comes back we need to just keep doing our best every day to endure the hard things.       This kiddo has struggled lately and it has felt like lots of days are hard.  Feeling rejected, left out, frustrated and unseen is a hard way...

 As the seasons change we see evidence of summer ending and the start of fall.  Pretty little yellow leaves lay on the green grass.  Grasshoppers and crickets and late-summer cicadas are moving around.  The trees are beginning to change colors.....what has been green for months is starting to get a kiss of yellow, orange and red behind the heavy branches......and I am thinking about trees.       Yesterday a co-worker and I were leaving a home visit.  We delighted in noticing a particular tree on our country road that had a big horse shoe shape.  It had been cut into a "u" intentionally for a power line path....but the integrity of the tree was preserved and it was full and healthy and waving at us in the breeze that always seems to blow in Iowa.  She told me she loved trees, all kinds of trees and especially the Weeping Willow trees that look so magical.  I shared her delight but also brought to mind one weeping willow tree I d...

 There are 2 places that are really hard for me to be when another one of my birdies leaves the nest.  Sunday church row and my dinner table.  Jeremiah left about 10 days ago and he is the third to leave the rhythm of my home.  I knew it was coming but it was still really hard to go to church and sit in our row and not have him there.  Palpably, achingly hard.  But this is the way this goes.  They grow up, they graduate from high school and they do what they do.  Claire and Isaac both chose to go to school right here in town but that still didn't change the way the row at church felt.....or the way I set the table for dinner each night.   Ironically, or may be not, 2 of the hardest tasks for me as a mom has been to get everyone up and dressed and to church on time week after week, and secondly, the mad rush to get dinner on the table to feed my family.  When they were all really young it was chaos and crying and struggle....and when...

 Roger suggested that maybe I should do another blog.....something more focused.  I'm considering this.  I have worked with moms and babies for over 20 years which is literally a generation.  I love this work and I have learned some important truths...and still continue to learn as time goes on.  I definitely don't have all the answers and if we are honest, who really does?  There are some things that I know that I know that I know.   Babies and children overall need lots of love and attention.  They need to be seen and heard and known. Babies and children need to have someone delight in them.  They need time and they need intention.  The people who care for babies and children overall also need lots of love and attention.  The adults who care for children need to be seen and heard and known.  They need time and they need intention because growing up kids is a lot. Parents and caregivers need a space to breathe.   Bot...

 Transitions are happening which has made my blog posts a bit quiet.  It is hard to write about moving things.  Where is the pause button where we look back, look ahead and be fully present in a season of transition?  When do we know when transition has completed?  It is a weird word and an uncomfortable season.   Jeremiah is done with high school.  He has finished baseball and officially signed off on all of it.  He is looking ahead to college at SDSU and we are starting to talk about what to bring to Brookings!  Isaac is on vacation with his sweetie in Mexico and will come back to work a few weeks, then move out of our house and back on campus at Dordt.  Claire and Jonah have moved to Sioux Falls and she is figuring out adulthood and married life there, and will start her Masters classes online in August.  She texts me once in awhile for recipes when she is cooking dinner.   Late summer seems to beat a drum of trans...

 It's the last day of June and the last hour of the day...and I think maybe I have one more post left about Father's Day to find words for.  Let's see how it goes.  I wrote about my husband who, in my opinion, is the role model for dads.  I have 3 sons and they could have no better example to aspire to if they choose to have children.  I wrote about my own dad and how this is my first year to experience Father's Day this June without him because he died this year.  I have another group of dads I want to consider.  These are the guys who show up and do dad stuff for boys that are not theirs.  These are the dad-figures that do all the things that a dad would do for a kiddo who doesn't have a dad around.  On this last little bit of the last of June, I want to remember these guys. Boys are born into the world needing mamas FOR  SURE.  They also need daddies.  They need daddies who will sing to them and jiggle them to sleep when mom...

 Father's Day weekend is here.  It's a hard one for me.  It always has been, actually.  My dad and I were not close when I was growing up but in the last few years we came to a place of mutual understanding and respect....and then he got really sick really fast and now he is gone.       This is my first Father's day without a father.  I've talked to my older kids this week and mentioned Father's day.  They asked "are we doing anything?"  My answer was something like, well, I don't know.  I don't have a dad anymore so I don't really feel like it's my job to plan something for Father's Day.      I wish I could tell my kids we were going to my dad's to visit and grill and hang out at the lake for the day.  I wish I could go shopping at the local greenhouse and buy something landscape-ish that he would like, or go to the bakery and get a bag full of Dutch treats.....that's what I have done the last few years for...

 Last weekend I let the kids know I would be going out of town for a conference in Des Moines for a couple of days this week.  I was invited to attend a conference by a colleague who not only plans this conference each year on caring for kids with trauma, but who also offered me a scholarship to attend.  It was an offer I couldn't pass up.  Jeremiah took it in stride because, well, he is 18 and is mostly independent.  He also remembers that mom does this.  Precious and Josiah don't remember.  I haven't done work conferences in person since pre-pandemic....nor have I travelled anywhere away from my home or family for business  for several years.  They had concerns.  Roger's work has been very intense for the past several years and he has not been around and available less and I have been around and available more.  Recently, that has shifted a bit as I have increased to full-time work and the kids are old enough to not need so much d...

 You know what you don't see at a sub-state soccer game?  You don't see the mom of a senior and the wife of the opposing team's head coach find eachother for a hug mid-game because they are friends and they need to find eachother and remember that they know that one will end up winning and the other will not and they both love their guys and they both love soccer.  They remind each other that while it is just a game it also matters to not just their guys but to them because it just does.  So they don't just hug once but two or three times.       You don't see how cold all the spectators are because although it is late May the rain is cold and the wind is blowing and everyone is shivering but won't leave because we are cheering for our favorite teams and in Iowa we are not wimps.  We show up and brave the weather and we cheer.     You don't see 2 athletic directors stomp out shoulder to shoulder, in step, united when things get heate...

 As I woke up this morning my waking thoughts turned to prayer.  Immediately I began to ask God for some very specific things....beg him even.  He is pretty used to how this goes for us.  Eventually in the day I can get to the place of reading scripture, prayers of thankfulnes, of worship and quiet listening and meditation, but my first waking moments are usually those first things that are the deepest needs.  Lord, help.  If today is going to go well, then please help with this part.....and the list goes on and on.  Eventually I get out of bed and start to do my part. As I was praying in bed, and going through my list, God brought to mind a photo I took yesterday in the afternoon.  We had a crazy busy day yesterday and today will be the same.  Tomorrow and the next day and the next day will be just as crazy and to be quite honest I cannot see a day on the calender that looks quiet for quite a while.....so I am really grateful for this little...

 I have a friend named Jen.  She has been my friend for a long, long time.  We have done a lot of life together.....and I mean a lot.  We have transcended friendship and become family for several reasons....one reason is because neither of us had a sister and we both could have used one with the lives we were given.  So we became "sisters from another mister".  Another reason we became family is because we don't really like all of the same kinds of things or have the same interests so staying friends could have been a lot of work....but it's different when you are family.  Family sticks together.  Here is an example.  I don't like to decorate or remodel things.  I don't like to go shopping or look for good deals.  I would rather just buy something and move on.  I also don't have money to just do things like that when it is time to do it.  God blessed me and my family with Auntie Jen.  She floats in and makes things be...

 May is recognized as Mental Health Month.  As a Community Health Nurse I can assure you that mental health is something that is a primary part of my work with families.  As a human being living in 2022 I can also testify that mental health is a solid challenge simply because it is.....it just is.  It is hard to balance health vs. disease, wellness vs. illness, whether that is in the body, the mind or the spiritual part of ourselves.  In nursing we look at the whole self and we strive to make each part equally important.  In community health we add the aspect of the world we live in......and that makes things even bigger and broader, brighter and more shadowy..... Our local Health Coalition created something called Chalk the Walk as a tangible way to do something for Mental Health awareness.  In a world that often feels helpless and hopeless to change the big and heavy problems of mental illness, there can still be opportunities to do something creativ...

       In this season of lent I have been thinking often about the veil that tore from top to bottom.  There are so many images in Christianity, when we consider the season of lent and more specifically Holy Week.  We see the palm branches and the donkey, we see the crowds yelling crucify him just days later....and as the week ends we come to this day.  The last supper, praying in the garden, being betrayed and taken by the soldiers, being tortured and led to the cross to die.....so many images that represent so much.  This is a familiar story for me.  This is my story.....and this year I find myself a bit distracted by that veil.  I have thought about it a lot.       I am not a theologian or a scholar.  I write reflections and wonderings and convictions.       For me....today....I feel compelled to write out a few thoughts and reflections and convictions on this Maundy Thursday of Holy Week....

 It's the last day of March and I completed a goal and I need to quietly declare it.  Oddly, I also feel the need to publicly post it which is curious.  I guess I'm proud of it and want it to stick in my history.  I subscribe to an online group called the Balanced Life Sisterhood.  It is a pilates fitness workout group essentially but also it is so much more.  I pay a monthly fee.  It's not free.  For the fee I get a new workout schedule each month that I can do as my schedule allows and includes other things like recipes, podcasts, a facebook group for support and encouragement, etc.  I began this journey last year in March with an invite for a 5 day free workout challenge and I liked the workouts so I joined the group.   Like all workout deals I have had months where I did great and some that I didn't do so great but somewhere along the line I found myself getting stronger and more flexible and I gained confidence and I gained pur...

 There has been a picture on Facebook the past few days.  The picture shows strollers and buggies at a train station in Polland.  The caption says that Pollish mothers left the strollers and buggies there for Ukrainian mothers who are fleeing Ukraine with their babies on foot, so that when they arrive in Polland they can take the strollers and buggies to ease their burden and travel lighter with their children.  The picture is beautiful and tells a story that stays with me.  It is particularlialy poignant because as I was reading about the unrest I was learning that Polland could be one of the next targets of Russia.  Even though they may need the strollers and buggies soon, they leave them at the train station for their Ukrainian sisters for their babies for the now....and maybe it is an act of faith for the what comes next.....so that someone else will show up for the Pollish mamas who need help if they need to flee.  Maybe that never crossed their m...

 20 years ago today I gave birth to a son.  Claire was 2 and a half, and we had just moved into our second home as a family.  I was 33 years old and when I met this child I fell in love like I never knew I could....it was a whole new version of love.  It was different than mother-daughter love.....it was set-apart-special and unique.  I still cannot find words to explain what it means for a mom to love her son.  It is very, very deep and it almost hurts.  For me, to have a son and a daughter, to get to be a mother and a wife.....was an overwhelming gift.   Isaac was a hard baby.  He didn't sleep.  He spit up all the time.  He wanted to be in my arms 24/7.....he wasn't happy....I learned a lot about being a mom from Isaac.  The things he taught me are lessons I still impart to the moms I work with in my public health home visits 20 years later....and I can tell them that it will get better, they will survive.   Th...

 When my oldest daughter Claire was a newborn she woke up at 6am.  I would feed her and then make tea and in the quiet hours of dark fall mornings I would sip my caffienated tea and play music, holding her close, and we would dance.  I was tired, a new mom, but ever so grateful for the priveledge to hold and nurse and love this beautiful baby girl that I had longed for and prayed for and dreamed about.  When she got older we went for walks and I would tell her to listen....listen to the birds and the traffic on the highway where we lived, to the sounds of nature and to the world around her...and Claire learned to listen.  She could sing the words to songs before she could walk.  She became one who would hear and know and love music and rhythm and movement in a pure way.....and when she turned four years old we signed her up for dance classes.  A size xs black leo, some baggy xs pink tights and some super cute tiny ballet flats and off she went to her f...

 If you have spent time with me and if you are little, you likely have heard me say this.  I love hugs.  Hugs are like medicine to me.  Maybe even if you are big!  I love hugs.  When a child is willing to give me a hug something in me changes.....endorphins fire, my mood lifts, my heart swells.....it is like medicine to me.  All of my kids know it and most of the kids who have spent time here do as well.  Hugs have power to change not just my mood but my countenance and my well-being.  It's physical touch.  It's affection.  It's connection. ( and it is so much more).  I would never force someone to hug me...that is not a trauma-sensitive thing to do.  If I ask for a hug and the answer is "no thanks" that's fine....but if the answer is "ok" well lets just do a happy dance and have a hug.  medicine. When a helpless, fragile, sweet, soft baby is fretting, crying, squirming, asking to be picked up, please oh please oh ple...

 I don't recall that sleep was an issue for me as a child.  As a young adult, I didn't need much of it to function....6 hours worked just fine.  Once we had children who woke up all night long I began to understand exhaustion and the deep need and craving for sleep...and by the time our kids were all old enough to sleep better.....my body kicked into middle age and sleep was interrupted by other issues like needing to go to the bathroom and hot flashes.   Sleep is something we need, long for, read about, chase, avoid, manipulate....you name it we are talking about it.  I'm even buying teas called Sleepytime and doing a happy dance when they arrive in the mail....that's how important sleep is.   When I don't get enough sleep I am irritable, I can't think straight, I am inefficient.  My memory is bad.  I make poor choices with food and don't have the energy to exercize.  My self-talk is negative.  My bible doesn't get opened....

 I reached a milestone recently.  It is one that is rarely noted publicly.  We all know I make a habit of identifying the elephant in the room whenever possible so it's that time again.  If reading about it makes the reader uncomfortable that only proves my point even more....and if it makes you smile and laugh then you get it.  What is it?  Menopause.  Not pre-menopause.  Not peri-menopause.  Full-on, transitioned through and now identified in my medical record as "post-menopausal".  I am a post-menopausal woman.  If you wish to know the definition of this you can look it up.  It has a clear definition.  I'm it.  It comes with a culture of its own, a list of feelings and thoughts and experiences and wishes and regrets and dreams and memories.  It has a lifeline of before, during and after....and it is rich with joy and sorrow, stories and ghosts, unmet needs and better than you could have hoped for realities.......