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here we go again!

Just shy of five and a half years ago and in the midst of my first pregnancy, I felt a little nudge in the direction of a personal challenge. With no little ones in tow at the time and plenty of days stretched out before me to prepare for baby, I decided to attempt writing daily for the last 100 days of my pregnancy countdown. I was fully aware that God and nature might dictate more or fewer days before we would welcome our sweet babe, but 100 was a tangible number for me and a way of quantifying the waiting and time as it passed. I didn’t know how the project might evolve, nor that it would end up being a great blessing to me as a mama looking back someday. All I knew is that I was up for something, and 100 days seemed about right.

Days went by, and some were robust and beautiful while others pushed me to new limits and into new territory. I never would have remembered so many of the finite details of that sweet, growing season had I not been jotting it all down. Why I made it public, I’m not sure, but it stuck, and the end result was what I hope will always be a wonderful story for our firstborn, Henry, and a walk down memory lane for my mama heart. As others came along for the ride–reading, commenting, interacting when we met face to face, the village around me felt so tangible, and my awareness of being surrounded was great.

In this way, 100 days became a vessel of community, connection, openness and honesty that I craved. I loved the process so much that I repeated it with our second born, finding it just as cathartic and helpful and heart-driven the second time around.

It’s true of me that I like a little bit of a challenge from time to time, so I’m grateful to the handful of folks who expressed their doubt that I could see my first 100 days project through. While Henry arrived six days before my official due date estimate, the momentum of the first 94 days held me accountable all the way into active labor–a sweet, sweet memory and a hilarious story of me blogging through contractions, which Jason tells best. From start to finish, I loved the process for what it did in me and around me as God prepared my heart for motherhood that first time.

In retrospect, I’m also grateful to those who were certain I would never repeat the challenge for a second child. You know, unfinished baby books and the thousands more photos you have of your first born versus the second and so on. Doubt gave me great fuel for an already determined fire, so when we were expecting Eloise in 2013, I began a 100 days project for her, too. I’m so glad I did.

Tonight, on the second longest day of the year and after a handful of challenging days and weeks, I find myself again on the eve of another 100 days. It’s been on the calendar for some time now, but my anticipation of it is peaking just before I turn the page.

Another 100 days means far more to me than a personal challenge or a public one. Each time, but especially now, it translates into a season of expectation–this one following a more difficult season of wondering, waiting and doubt. These next 100 days (give or take) equal a million answered prayers and the very definite call I’ve sensed to mother again…every dream and heartache and hope and fear welling up and being turned over for joy in the form of a dancing babe within.

This pregnancy has not been easy for so many reasons, some of which I’ll undoubtedly unpack here in the days to come. And it hasn’t been without my constant need to die to self and to acknowledge that I’m not in control. I don’t take a single day of this baby’s life for granted. Not one. Perhaps, for me, that’s part of why this process of counting the days feels so personal and important and sweet.

This time around I feel a little more seasoned in some things and still very green in others. The call to vulnerability and trust is new with each pregnancy for different reasons. So, here we go again, foraging new territory in a practice that has become refreshingly familiar. I can’t say how delighted I am to have arrived at the edge of another countdown, nor how full my heart is that we can be here, journeying through the big and the small things in life, together.

For as long as the little bean will stay tucked away safely as he or she grows, I’ll be here.

mom munchkin baby

with joyful expectation,

mm

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sweet surprises.

My fingers have just been itching to get back to this keyboard. Life has been so full in these past months, and full of mostly wonderful things, but it’s just the nature of this season for me to run out of time and brainpower at the end of the day to sit down and write. As with all things we care about in life, this has been an area I’ve had to make peace with as I put it on hold. This, along with others like yoga, reading for pleasure, and cleaning the house to the fullest extent have waited patiently for me as I’ve danced along the wire, balancing new and beautiful and trading joy for joy. I don’t take this for granted, but I am so grateful that, from my vantage point today, there is so much good to juggle.

There has been plenty brewing under wraps here as spring comes around. We surprised Henry and Eloise with a trip to Disney World in April, celebrating Henry’s fifth birthday while we were away (this will earn its own post/s soon, just as quickly as I pick my favorites from the 2,500 photos we have from the week). It was the first time since I can remember that we completely unplugged and got away as a quad, which was timely and necessary and fulfilling and a ton of fun. We’ve also been whittling away at small home projects here and there in prep for warmer and fuller days ahead, and we’ve enjoyed longer visits with  family in town. We’re doing our best to rest a little more, to clear things out that we no longer need, and to be practical about what we can balance well as a family. It’s true that there’s no such thing as perfect balance, but there is definitely manageable vs. crazy, and we’re learning as we keep growing together than the former brings out the better in all of us. I love us as a team.

Coloring all of those moments and casting beautiful light on the ones ahead is my ever growing belly week by week. It’s true. After a long time of wondering what the future of our family might hold, and after countless prayers for another baby, God has graciously entrusted another little one to us to love. As I sit here, my 20 week old bump is full of life–baby’s kicks and movements dance within, bringing me great, great joy every time.

Life is full of surprises, and I’m discovering day by day that I’m still healing from past loss and battling back fear while I try to simply trust in God’s plan. This gets easier week by week, but it’s not lost on me that faith is in the things we cannot see, not the things we can tangibly hold. Each week my belly grows, this pregnancy is, more and more, something I can physically see and experience. And I know that God is calling me through this process to learn to give everything–all of it–over to Him again and again. I have to die to self every day to drown out the voices that are not His. I have to make a concerted effort to lean on the understanding that this baby is God’s and not our own–that His ways are higher than ours, and that every day there is life within me is one to treasure.

Remember the beginning of this year, when I committed to light as my word for 2016? In this pregnancy and so much else, God has been faithful to me to offer a direct path toward light and lightness and letting go. I want to be a good steward of these things, and so I pray that I will keep discovering the depth and marrow in each step of the way. I am terrible at this some days, and better at it on others. No doubt the sweet reminder of God’s goodness to us, increasing right in front of me daily in the mirror, has been a healing balm over wounds on my heart. In a way, nothing has changed–I am working to hand the unknown over to God every single day. And in a way, so much is different. I dream ahead to the day when our babies will meet our newest little love, and all of me wants to burst. It’s impossible to contain the hopeful joy that comes from that place.

There is freedom in expecting God. He is full of wonder, and His graciousness brings me to my knees.

I am so thankful to finally be able to share this joy here with you. Together, we weather the good and the bad, the hard and the beautiful. As such a big piece of me and of our lives as a family, no longer keeping news of the Baby Bean quiet feels right and good. I look forward to where this journey will take us in the days to come. And I’m so glad to be back to the keys.

grace and peace,

mm

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bookending february.

I hopped on just now with something pressing on my mind, only to realize that the last time I wrote was the first day of February. How fitting it feels to be back on this last day of a leap year February, twenty nine days in to a historically dreary and wintry month here in the midwest.

It’s been a mild winter, sure, but we’ve still had our share of snow-piled, sunless days, and (like most) I am more than ready for spring.

I woke up to Monday this morning with no particular sense about the day. I knew we’d head to school, that I’d have a few hours before pick up, and that we’d launch into another busy week after a weekend we’re already all missing at home. What I didn’t expect was the spiritual muck I’d encounter somewhere between the school parking lot and the start of my quiet time alone. Sometimes things have a way of flying at us out of nowhere, don’t they? Life is full of surprises, and if I pretend that the spiritual things of this world take no part in them, good or bad, I’ve missed out on a key element of life as a feeling, thinking, perceiving person.

Sometimes it feels easier to ignore the spiritual and emotional, and to attempt at rational, straightforward and pragmatic instead.

The truth is though, I’m living my life these days trying my best to walk with God–to trust him, to press into him, to rely on him for all I need–even thought I don’t get it right all of the time. And I think when we live life with spiritual intention, we have to expect that there will be opposition, and we have to acknowledge it when it comes.

I walked into the coffee shop this morning, said hello to a friend, and started to cry. Our brief conversation was a gift today, because she gave me permission and space just to let it out. I didn’t want to be crying. It frustrated me. But when something is welling up and we haven’t let it spill over, it’s going to find a way out eventually, and it might do that in an unexpected or challenging space.

“Losing it” for a few minutes this morning was probably the best thing that could have happened for me on this last day of a dreary-feeling month. It isn’t that there hasn’t been joy or goodness in the past twenty nine days, it’s just that I probably need to shed a few things spiritually in preparation for a hopeful and soon-coming spring. Maybe my heart knows just as well as my body that it’s ready for light…craving sunshine and longer days…wishing away heavy layers and ready for growth.

Maybe your heart is ready for something different, too? Maybe you’ve got something welling up that is beyond ready to pour out. Maybe, like me today, you don’t even see it coming yet.

Let’s give each other grace and space in these days, can’t we? I know few souls who aren’t ready for a refreshing–who aren’t longing for more light. And I’m convinced that entrusting the good and the hard and the sacred to God each day, while affording each other a safe place to land, is precisely where we need to start.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t be happier that this is the last day of February. I’m not one to wish time away, but I will be glad to embrace the reality of March tomorrow (even if it is going to snow again…) Light will always find a way back in.

love and grace,

mm

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grace poured out.

From time to time, I get this picture of my hands opening in the sunlight. Palms up, and grains of sand streaming between my fingers, this is a reminder to me to hold loosely the things I am inclined to keep tightly in my grasp.

In so many ways, I try to control my own circumstances. I play a game in my mind that speaks lies, on repeat, to my heart: “If only you do this one thing, then…” “As long as you don’t…” “Because you did…” “This is a result of your past…” “This moment has to define your future…”

If I let the whispers keep up, I very quickly engage in a hamster wheel of worry and fear, and I can’t stop running. Life like this is exhausting.

I don’t believe that this what God truly has for us, but I do know that it’s exactly how the enemy wants to wear us down.

It’s not hard to misconstrue God’s timing in our lives as his withholding instead. “Where are you, God?” “Can you hear me?” “Do you care?” We ask ourselves these kinds of questions as we allow our hearts and minds to wander away from greater truths that seem out of reach in our pain and waiting.

We try to control.

But the voice that says “If only…” is counterfeit. If God were to be fair to all of us, we would have so little of the goodness we’ve actually received. He owes us nothing. But he gives us breath and life. Hope. Deep joy in the midst of trials. These are all his GRACE poured out. While we’re so busy clinging tightly to the thing or things we don’t think we can relinquish to him, God is busy doing work in our lives.

When my attention is so focused on holding on to what I think I have and what I think I need, I’m not looking at what God has set right before me. And when I believe I know better than he does…what I want, what is best for me, what will fulfill the aching of my heart, God is waiting all too patiently for me to realize that he is making all things new at his perfect pace.

Without trial or need, I don’t even turn to him for help. I think I can make it on my own. I hold on for dear life to the things I can’t bear to give up. And this place of not trusting, of needing to control, of clinging with all my might…it wears me right out.

But when I open up my hands? I no longer have to buy into the lie that I control it all–that every move I make will cause me either to sink or swim. I don’t really have to worry about anything at all, because I’ve entrusted my life to the One who holds it all in the first place.

Nothing I have is my own. Sometimes I forget. But when I remember, so many chains break away. With my fingers outstretched and grains of sand pouring down, my worry, guilt, shame and doubt all fall away, too. What’s left is what was really meant for me: Light. Air. Freedom. Rest.

I want to live here, and to lead a life that honors this picture I’ve been given. God controls my life, my circumstances, and my deepest desires. I want him to know he has my heart, too.

open handed,

mm

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praying our hippos away.

I woke up to her panicked crying and rushed up the stairs. As I got to her, she clamored to get out of her crib into my arms, and once I held her, she clung to me as if for dear life and wouldn’t let go. I settled down with Eloise in the rocker and pulled her close. She could hardly catch her breath between tears.

When fear grips us, it’s sometimes hard to get a grip.

I asked Eloise what was wrong, and she told me that a hippo had come into her room to get her. Just as I could reassure her of her safety and begin to calm her down, she started back up again with a wail, “He came into my bed! And he ate me!” Her poor, giant sobs made my heart ache. Sweet babies deserve sweet sleep, and it’s hard when fear starts to creep into their bedtime hours. We sat and rocked as her tears fell into deep, wavering sighs.

It took the better part of an hour to settle Eloise back down that night; her eyes opening with a shot every few minutes in her bed as I sat by her side and whispered prayers and truth. Don’t we all need affirmation of our safety and what’s true sometimes?

***

The next morning, I was driving Henry to school and I told him about what Eloise had been through the night before. “But it was just a dream,” I told him. “She’s ok now.”

“Yes, but when you’re asleep and you have a bad dream, it feels really real to you right then,” he said to me. I loved his validation of Eloise’s feelings in this moment. He reminded me that fear is real, and that it can be arresting. When it’s real in our hearts, it’s real. No doubt about it.

***

Later the same afternoon, Eloise was playing with some of her animals when she brought a small, plastic hippo over to me. “This is the hippo that ate me, Mommy,” she said with sadness in her voice. We agreed then that we would “lock” him in a cabinet so he couldn’t get back out again. After doing this the first time, Eloise went back and forth between the playroom and the cabinet a handful of times more.

“And this one, too, Mommy. I’m gonna lock him up, too…And this one. And this one.” We put away ten or a dozen plastic animals before she was settled that they had all be sufficiently locked away. She was safe.

I took a photo of Eloise as she did this, because I wanted to remember this sweet moment with her and just how innocent it was for her to lock away her nightmares to feel safe. And then as I looked at the picture, I realized something…

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How beautiful is it when we can name our fears? And how important is it for us to be able to take them captive after naming them? Eloise’s instinct was to lock them away so they couldn’t get to her again. How much better off would I be if I always did this, too?!

***

That very night, Eloise awoke to the same fear again. The hippo was back, even though she had locked it away. “I’m safe?” she asked me unassuredly, but as if she really wanted to believe it as we came down the stairs and she crawled into our bed. And minutes later, when she wanted daddy to keep her safe, too, that sweet little babe pitter-pattered down the hall in the dark, conquering her fear alone (“There’s no zebras or lions in the hallway, either, right Mommy?”) to find the one who could keep her the safest of all and to bring him to bed, too.

To me, this is just the perfect picture of pursuing what our hearts need when we fear and need a protector to help us conquer it. Sure, I could calm her heart for moment and affirm truth for her spirit, but Eloise needed her daddy to take care of the fear once and for all so she could rest. As he came to bed, Eloise snuggled up close to him and tucked herself down tight in his care. “I’m safe,” she whispered. And she finally fell asleep.

***

We fear because we’re human. We fear because we do not know, or because we need to be reminded of truth to calm our hearts. We fear because the enemy wants at us, and because he attacks us where we have doubt. He wants more than anything for us to be captivated by fear and not free to live in light.

I love that God used Eloise and Henry this week to remind me how important it is to acknowledge our fears and to lock them away. When they have found their rightful place, and when we have pursued what’s true in the arms of our Father, then we can rest in peace and experience light in new and hopeful ways.

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Praying away all of our hippos as we name them and take them captive,

molly madonna