Moms, this one is for you. You who struggle to work and raise kids. Who are figuring it out as you go. Who are in it for the long haul – the rest of your life. No vacation days. No sick days. No pay other than the love deposited in your soul from countless hugs and kisses. While preparing for the arrival of my first child, I was taught that labor lasted about ten hours. Six children and nearly two decades later, I now know that labor lasts a lifetime.
Do you long for change? Last December, when we bought our little house in the big woods, the weathered shingles were as gray as a dreary winter day. A rusting light fixture hung outside the mold-stained fiberglass door, with the house number scrawled on front with black permanent marker.
Sometimes it feels that we can do little to stop the violence and hatred. Whether in our own country or far away, there is so much strife and misunderstanding, such fear. It is easy to become paralyzed. How can we, with our little efforts, bring lasting change?
I wasn’t going to read the news reports on the murders at the Bangladeshi café. I was scanning the paper last Sunday morning when I saw the headline on the siege at the Dhaka bakery and passed right over it, not wanting to see one more bloody, terrifying image of pure hate. But the horror was so overwhelming, I found myself reading anyway.
Now that the snow is truly melted and gone here along the southern coast of Maine, there is no denying the amount of work my family must do to transform the land surrounding our little house in the big woods into the lawns and gardens we desire. First, there are dead trees to cut down. As we moved in when the ground was still covered in snow, we also didn’t realize how wet it was – despite being near the top of a significant hill.
Wife, mom, writer, friend, sharing God in my everyday life through “Faith Notes.”