At least six inches; at least. A snow storm, they say. On it’s way.

Already a gentle whirlwind dons her glittering gown, dances past the window panes. And all she passes sparkles, twinkles with delight.

It’s coming. Yes, I shudder. Let’s get ready.

And so the little feet run—off to get ready.

She finds her sunglasses.

And she gets into her suit.

She pulls her rubbery flip-flops underneath her bared, small toes.

And she parades down the shag-carpet stairs, in all her summertime glory.

She is proud to wear the sun as winter does the snow.

Perching atop the couch, she peers through the panes; summer keeping watch on winter’s day.

It’s coming still.

She doesn’t budge; not for sweater, coat, or hat. Bare arms and legs and sunglasses set hard, coldly staring down the snow.

She is not moved. Not by drift or chill or frost. And not by spring, either.

The summer sun warms her heart; upon it she is set. And it’s the secret they both keep—winter and summer’s child.

Yes, it is coming.

* * *

My daughter just loves to don her summerwear—all winter long. She reminds me how childlike faith can confront the challenges of my everyday. While the snow piles outside our house, no sign of letting up, she parades around suited for the pool. You know, sometimes it feels like winter—I mean, in my heart. And in the hearts of those around me. The wind chills, the cold bites; skies seem empty, the sun far off. Green leaves and grass and the scent of flowers are all imagined; they never were or will be. But a child knows—summer comes; it always comes.  What about you? Is it winter out your window–out the windows of your soul? Do gray skies hide the summer sun? Remember, He can turn your winter into summer, though you have no spring…

Then she held the flat package up to Daddy, paper and ribbon all in place. And he smiled to find two new “screwdribers.” She gave them because they’re shiny and useful and just what a dad would need. And so he should have them from her.

Big sister unwrapped her gift next. She’s not sure what to make of it. It’s a yellow duckie—”and you have to wind him up” she’s informed. And so she winds and the duckie scoots and spins and and rolls right off the coffee table. Closed lips say too  much; it’s a silly gift for a seven-year-old. But little sister doesn’t hear that. She found the most thrilling thing a little person could find—and that’s the one she gave away.

She unwrapped the last one for her little brother. A tiny fork and spoon, with tiny crabs and seahorses and fishes playing on the handles. They’re just his size—and they’re “new ones!” She’s so happy because she found them and she knew they were his.

They were common gifts, with nothing common about them.

They were gifts from the heart, wrapped up and handed over—along with some little Christmas treasures.

Minutes pass, and hours; the pendulum sways them all away. We pass into the new day together.

Until a small voice cries; grows insistent. It rouses me from the silence of myself. I am no longer alone. And I remember now: I never was.

For a moment, the pendulum stops swinging. Gives me a chance to weigh which deadline cries the louder, then presses on.

I stand, decision made, and push the door wide open. Tiny eyes seek; little fingers point. Tears make it clear.

He is lost. Dark is for rest, but tonight he can’t find it alone. Mother sets it right, picks him up, holds him close.

And the deadline presses hard, hard against arms and heart. Flood the words, flood the thoughts, from the inside to the out. He finds a cradle in my arms, and in the cradle he finds what he was looking for.

Minutes pass; I ask for hours. The pendulum sways them all away.

We pass into the new day together.

Deadline met.

She cried for Jesus.

Because He died.

She cried like it happened that minute; and for her, it did. Until then, the reality remained in her ears only—truths she’d been told that had no real home. But while we flipped through the picture Bible, they moved to her mind, and finally found her heart.

With no concern for clocks or calendars, it happened that very moment—the one in which she realized it. Her face turned red, her eyes welled up. And the floor absorbed the shock of it all.

He died! He died!

I chuckled; how sweet. I laughed; how silly. Then it hurt.

That’s right, he did.

He had to, we tried. No use. So we quick hurried to the tomb. And she stopped crying when we got there.

As Mary might’ve looked, or Peter, so did she: wide-eyed, red-faced, wet-cheeked. But quiet and still and listening very carefully.

The tomb is empty; the linen is formless; the angels are questioning, why do you search?

He is alive! 

There He is on the road to Emmaus. There He is in their midst. There He is by the water with Peter; look He’s eating breakfast. And there He is ascending.

Now all is well. The tears are wiped away with her little palms. Now they can be dried. All is well and good and right, now.

May the truth always fall so fresh. May it quicken the tears, and be quicker to dry them.

 While I constantly deal with my “management-challenged” lifestyle, I also combat the desire for complete perfection in all aspects of my life at all times. So that makes me a disorganized perfectionist. I suppose this could explain a lot of my troubles. So here’s how I’ve always handled myself. Once the messy life gets too stressful, I muster up my will-power and courage and attack everything at once: schedule, paperwork, housework. I work tirelessly until everything is completely perfect.

 And then, three days later, I need to do the whole thing again. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. Cause it’s tiring, and it always needs to be done again! If I could have my perfect life, everything would be done perfectly all the time. The fact that this work needs continual doing – so in a sense, never reaching finality or perfection – just drives me crazy. I just don’t know how anyone lives out well-managed days without taking years off their life from the stress of it all.

 But oddly enough, the people that I know or that I’ve read about who live out the organized life don’t look like they’re stressing or struggling. They look peaceful and? sane. So what are they doing that I’m not? Or what do they know that I’m missing out on? Wisdom and faithfulness. It’s faithfulness in practicing wisdom that separates the peaceful, well-ordered life from the tiring, chaotic one.

Proverbs 3:13;16 says this about wisdom: “Blessed is the [wo]man who finds wisdom, the [wo]man who gains understanding? [Wisdom's] ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace.” That’s definitely what I need. But it’s not enough to be “wise” once a week. Another ingredient in staying organized and truly finding peace is faithfulness.

Faithfulness: a word that God repeatedly associates with his own character. Psalm 119:89-91 says this: “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.” Everything God does is done faithfully. He is faithfulness because he is eternal. Being like him, even in the daily grind, is the surest path I can take to the truly peaceful and fruitful life I’m looking for.

So it’s not just doing something correctly once, or even every once in a while. In fact, that’s only been the mark of my foolishness. I take the same ineffective measures in the hopes of creating lasting change, but in the end I accomplish nothing. It’s doing what’s right consistently – day in and day out – that will lead me to peace.

“The Peaceful Life” first appeared on GiftedforLeadership.com on May 2, 2008.

Today I’m graciously acknowledging all the cleaning God’s been doing–in me–since writing this. He’s transforming my messy life into the more peaceful one–and that doesn’t mean a perfect one. But the lasting changes that are coming are coming from Him, and not from my own efforts, as I once thought they had to. God truly is the author of all redemptive changes, even the ones that involve dust-bunnies and clean floors and clothes. Today, I’m thanking God for all the cleaning He does in us.

“Mom?”

The desperate question rang out toward the house. A shake of the maternal head; not today.

“Can I stop him anyway? I can ask if he’s got something for free!”

Child-like faith. The hoping for something. The willingness to wonder.

Maybe something’s free.

The thought tickled and pierced at the same time. I relished the sweet girls that stood there, bedazzled by the setting summer sun. I soaked in their little hands, content to wave at the truck while it passed by.

I pondered their funny-looking faith. Ask for something for free? How absurd. If they only knew how foolish…

Oh thank God, for such beautiful foolishness. It’s wonderfully like another bit of foolishness I’ve relished:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isa 55:1). 

Come, buy… without money and without cost? What nonsense! Who buys for free? My mind can hardly get around the thought. Only little children could ask for something like this.

And only an infinite  Father could make the offer His children are so desperately hoping to hear.

“…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Thank God for the foolish things made real.

I avoided eating around other kids, because I had a secret to protect: my mother was learning to make…homemade bread. Learning is the key word there.

I don’t know what kind it was. It varied from week to week. But it was thick. Much thicker than normal bread. Thick like a two-by-four, or a popcorn knit sweater. And it was crumbly. Like trying to pick up and chew a loaf of sand. 

Worst of all, it was cut all jagged. It didn’t look like bread. It might as well have been sliced with a circular saw. Actually, I think she used a dull artifact of some kind.

The more I think of it, I’m not sure that the texture or taste were the worst parts. I think I might have been able to deal if it had been properly packaged. Say, had it come in a Ziploc. Or in the less expensive, fold-over model baggie.

But Mom wrapped these wiches in whatever she had handy. Brown paper grocery bags cut into little squares. Paper plates tied together with kite string. Wood and chicken wire. Occasionally she wrangled waxed paper around the sandy stuff. And on days like those I almost believed we might find a roll of toilet paper or a box of tissues hiding in the house.

Never happened.

But the longer it takes me to get back to this spot on the lane, the more I cherish the memory I find there.

The embarrassment I cringed over as a child is the courage I hope to emulate today. I love the fact that Mom was learning to make homemade bread—and that she shared it, all sandy, with everyone. I love how she wrapped—and still wraps—her gifts, in whatever she has next to her at the moment.

I love that she’s an artist who hates microwaves and computers, and adores birds. I love her fascination with Sherlock Holmes and picking herbs, and how she paints masterpieces right on the walls. I especially love that she built a tee-pee in the backyard. 

Where can you capture that sense of spirit? Where can you find that brand of freedom?

Mine came tied up with kite string. And as I patiently sift through the sand, I’m finding all the pearls.

It became most apparent to me as I watched my son’s approach to getting down stairs. Without fail, he’d go as far as he could on his own, bring all ten toes to the edge of the step, and stare down at the five-inch drop with wide-eyes. Then he’d shoot his hand up and wait.

The moment he felt my fingers wrapping—and don’t you know I hustled to get them there—he’d hurl his body forward and fly off the step. Never mind that he didn’t know how to bend his knees or step toe-to-heel, he shot that leg out straight as an ironing board and landed it squarely on the pavement below. He’d been carried the whole way down, his entire body held up in the palm of my hand.

His approach to walking with his hands has brought me a long way too. Sure, I’ve learned to bend my knees and meet the ground toes first, but there are still so many steps before me that I can’t take by myself. And somehow, I tend to lose sight of how to handle these in the loving care of a watching Parent.

Instead of worrying or whining, I’ll pause at the edge and take a good look at where we’re going. Then I’ll shoot my hand up and wait. And when I feel those fingers—and don’t you know they’ll be right there when I need them—I won’t hesitate. I’ll lean forward and fly, knowing I’m safe in His hand.

“For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. –Isaiah 41:13

Actually, I’m a little more than thankful. I’m downright…perplexed. I guess I’m not sure what drives a person to want to be a masseuse. I’d always thought of it as “glam”–even the word sounds cool. But after the workout this woman just went through, I’m sure I was wrong. It was more than her willingness to expend energy that got me. What I’m really wondering is: What drives a person to be willling to touch someone else?

I can think of many other things I’d rather do than make skin-to-skin contact with strangers as they present themselves in the most awkward and needy manner (i.e., without their clothes). It’s hard enough just accidentally bumping knuckles with a stranger, and now we’re talking about massaging them. In my mind, it sounds horrific. Add to this the endless combination of physiques and personalities, and again, I’m not sure what you could offer me to do the job.

But now I remember something: in a roundabout way, I share in her profession. Her work reminds me of a task I’m committed to day in and day out. No, a task that’s even more intimate at times. I have a Savior who touched me–much deeper than skin to skin, but heart to bleeding heart, He offered me rest when I presented myself in my most awkward and needy state, with nothing to hide behind, in all my sinfulness. And he does it every day.

And so, I’ve joined him in his work of touching souls. Sometimes it takes a few minutes: placing an intentional fingerprint of kindness or love, a smile, an offer to help onto the life of another. Other times, I might work for hours, lose sleep, rearrange my schedule. I work diligently to alternately applying pressure and gentility, all the while offering the aroma of Christ to a weary soul.

And just as I was, I’m sure some weary recipient of His love is completely perplexed. Why give time, skill, and energy to intimately sooth the pains of a hurting soul? If I hadn’t been touched by the same nail-pierced hands, I wouldn’t understand it either.

[This article appeared on Gifted for Leadership, a ministry of Christianity Today International.]

There they were: my fuzzy, fleecey, navy and periwinkle, pin-striped pajamas. Submerged. Drenched. Drowned.

I looked down at him.

He looked up at me.

We exchanged serious, straight-faced thoughts.

And then I delivered my soggy pjs from the potty. And while I did, there was only one thing I could think: Thank you, Lord, that he doesn’t know how to flush.

In moments like these, finding any blessing to count is critical. But truth be told, he’s not the first of my kids to do it. His older sister once offered me a refreshing drink drawn from the pristine porcelain waters. Thank God I put all the pieces together before taking a swig.

Seems that all my kids, at one point or another, found the toilet to be an oasis overflowing with entertainment and delight. While I’ve not been able to understand this ghastly preoccupation before, it suddenly dawned on me: the toilet’s at eye-level. So the real question is, why wouldn’t a child be attracted to a ginormous bowl of water that’s just his height?

Well, just because you’re attracted to something—and you can reach it—doesn’t mean it’s good for you. That’s why Mom and Dad watch vigilantly over potty waters to quickly divert little fingers from dipping and dabbling in…sewage. Kids don’t know any better until they’re taught: toilets are not really something you want to touch, let alone play in.

Strangely, our water-side lessons have been teaching me something too—about pursuing my own ”eye-level pleasures.” This Scripture verse came to mind:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Colossians 3:1-2).

The ”eye-level pleasures” I encounter also seem so…delightful. From my “height” on the earth, as a child of God’s, these pleasures seem so desirable and reachable. Maybe it’s… food or clothes or goals or accomplishments I’m focused on–things that aren’t bad, so long as they keep their proper places and purposes. When I become consumed with eye-level pleasures—the things of this world—I risk forfeiting the riches of the ”things above.”

That’s a risk I’m not willing to take. So I’m looking to set my mind on things far above what this world has to offer. I’m on my way up—to growing up in Christ Jesus. And as I do, I’m confident I’ll find what I’m looking for—true satisfaction—in Him.

I, for one, am very thankful for toilets. I just don’t want to be caught playing in them.