Creating the Love Spark, Days 1-14

Last year here on Treasure the Ordinary, the "Creating the Love Spark" thread offered a bit of encouragement for feeding your marriage every day, from February 1 right up until Valentine's Day.  This year, all the Love Spark challenges are all in one spot, right here for your convenience. 

If you didn't take the challenge last year, it's never too late to choose to invest in the health of your marriage.  Just click on each day as it comes, read, pray, and follow your heart. 

"Creating the Love Spark" Challenge:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

 

This year's bonus "spark" idea:  How long has it been since you and your spouse had some photos made together?  The picture above shows it doesn't have to be a serious, costly venture (although that would be wonderful as well!)---it can just be you and your camera on a tripod, with a stick-on mustache from the dollar store.  The point is to have fun together and make some memories.  And in a culture where couples often air their frustrations with each other in public, it never hurts to have something to show to the world that yells, "We love each other!"  So, go ahead, put your commitment to each other on display!

27 Days and Counting

This January, I jumped on board the 365 project.  The plan?  To take a photo a day for 365 days to document an entire year in the life of our family.  I had a few friends who did it last year, so I'd been thinking about it for awhile.  The new year seemed like a great time to get started.

Only twenty-seven days in, and I've already learned quite a bit.

1.  It's harder than you'd think to remember to take a photo a day.  There have already been a couple days that I forgot and had to find a picture on someone else's facebook to "borrow" for my project.

2.  My life is not so full of exciting happenings, but a whole lot of ordinary joys that add up to make an exciting life.  It's the shot of our boys walking close together, our daughter snuggling with our doggie, or my husband making a crazy face at our son that I keep going back to gaze at again and again.  Small moments captured forever.

3.  Time goes by quickly.  A month of 2013 is almost gone, and with just a few scrolls of the iphone, I can glance through day after day of happenings--and they just keep coming and coming.  And every one of them means my kids are a day closer to being "grown up."  If there was a way to freeze time with my photo, I think I woud do it often.

4.  We have great friends.  The people in our lives had made their way into our photos, and I treasure their faces.  Playing with our kids, volunteering at our church, laughing with my husband--friends sharing life with us.  What an honor.

5.  I am blessed beyond measure.  No fame.  No fortune.  Just real life, shared with the people I love.  What more could a girl ask for? 


Author's Note:  Want to start your own 365 project?  I'm keeping mine on my iphone, and plan to print my pictures in a photo album at the end of the year.  Other people are sharing theirs with a photo community at http://365project.org/.  You can check it out to see glimpses of 365 projects from all over the world.

Yes and Amen

This last Monday, as I was preparing to leave for a few days away, I hurriedly packed a lunch for my son.  He still likes a note in a lunchbox (a fact that pleases me to no end), but prefers them to be funny or have some kind of riddle to solve.  In other words, no mushy love notes that might cause him to get the wrong kind of lunch-time attention!  Our compromise: we have an understanding that if any mushy notes find their way into his lunchbox, they will be buried on the bottom, under the sandwich, and marked "TOP SECRET."  That way, he can read it on the sly and no one's the wiser.  (I hesitated to write of our secret, but I figure there probably aren't any fifth grade boys reading "Treasure the Ordinary," so I think I'm pretty safe!)

Monday morning called for a mushy note, as I wouldn't see him for three days.  And just as I buried the napkin declaring my love for a certain blonde ten year old, his sister saw what I was doing.

"A top secret note?  I want a top secret note!" she pleaded, her huge gray eyes lighting up.

"But, you're not taking your lunch today.  You're eating in the cafeteria." 

"Well, maybe I should take my lunch, then."

That did it.  I didn't have the time to start on another lunch at such late notice.  I quickly headed off the morning rush catastrophe by telling her I would put a Top Secret note inside her backpack for her to read while she was at school.  This solved everything--a secret note AND the school's chicken burger, which she happens to really like.  It's a both/and world she's living in.

Only it wasn't. I forgot. 

I have no idea how it happened.  Too many things on my mind, I guess.  But, it wasn't until I was two and a half hours down the highway that I remembered.  And I was miserable, picturing a little girl excitedly opening her backpack to find her top secret note and discovering that she must have been disavowed as a spy, or, even worse, that her mom didn't keep her word.

And that's what was really bothering me.  For the last fifteen years, as we've been on this wild adventure of parenthood, my husband and I have had one very important commitment to our children.  We keep our word.  Which is not always easy.  It's taught us to be very careful as to what we commit to.  We learned pretty quickly not to announce our plans way in advance, as plans can change, and we we wanted our kids to know that if we said we were going to do something, we were going to do it.  It's probably why we're still in the habit of not announcing the "special treat plans" until we are in the car, backing out of the driveway!

So, my forgetfulness left me in a dilemna.  I finally decided I needed to make amends via the phone, which meant recording a "top secret" voice message and sending it to her daddy with the strict instructions that only a very specific eight year old girl could listen.

Success. 

I was forgiven of my absent-mindedness in the thrill of receiving a spy-worthy voice recording.  Oh, sweet absolution.

And while I'm grateful for the second chance in the promise-keeping department with my little girl, I'm still very aware of how many times I fail to keep my word in my other relationships. 

The offer to pray for a friend that I don't think about again.

The commitment to myself not to do "that" again.

The promise to the Lord I gave in a moment of earnestness that too soon fades into apathy.

And my shortcomings make me grateful.  Grateful that I serve a God who does not forget His promises, and has never failed to fulfill even one of them.

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God." (2 Corinthians 1:20)

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" (Isaiah 49:15)

His promises are written all throughout His word, and each and every one has been bought and paid for. 

Each and every one are still redeemable, with no expiration date. 

And each and every one are for me.

Just another reason why I love the Promise Giver.  And just another reason I want to be like Him.

The Joy of Respite

I always love to turn a calendar page, but I can not remember a time I have been so excitedly anticipating turning my weekly planner from one week to the next.  It's not that this week has been terrible, it's just that next week holds something precious---a respite.

It was my husband's idea.  After a season of intense labor in our ministry, he felt we both needed to take some time away on our own.  A time for each of us to get away from daily life to recharge, refuel and be re-envisioned.

He went first, driving a couple hours away to hole up in a borrowed cabin and plan out the church's vision for the new year, away from all distractions.  I could tell when he returned that he came back stronger and ready to impart what he had received.

And next week, it's my turn.  I was thrilled to see the cottage he chose for me to stay in has the beautiful word "respite" in its name.

Respite: a delay or cessation for a time, especially of anything distressing or trying; an interval of relief

And yes, I have some goals I would like to accomplish while I'm away.  Some things that have needed my attention, but are hard to devote mental energy to when I'm in the midst of daily urgencies.

But, on the top of my goal page is written a word with several lines drawn underneath it.  It's the same word I have displayed above my office door, where only I can see it and be reminded:  REST.

How long has it been since you've had a respite--just you, God, and your conversations with each other in a place away from home?  If you never have, or it's been years since you've done it, pray today and ask God if it's time.  I promise He's the best road trip friend imaginable.

Sometimes Healing Comes From Strange Places

For several years now, my husband and I have carried around a large burden of guilt and shame.  And it all stemmed from owning a dog. 

We had paid good money for an adorable puppy, even traveling to an airport three hours away to pick her up.  We had brought her home, introduced her to the eager children who had been begging for a dog, and bought all kinds of doggie supplies.  And then our lives had promptly fallen apart.

We couldn't train her to go outside to go potty.

We couldn't train her not to chew everything up.

We couldn't train her not to bite the kids.

We couldn't train her not to jump the fence and run away....every single day.

We were complete failures as dog owners.

And a year later, by the time I dreaded going home every day because I had to deal with her, I knew we were beat.  We shame-facedly gave her away.  And a few months later heard her new owners had trained her well and she was now a perfect little angel.

We were not only complete failures.  We were complete failures who had funded someone else's dream dog.

And so, we believed that was the end of the story.  We gave away all our doggie supplies.  We bought a fish.  We said never again.

But, there's something amazing about God's redemptiveness.  He doesn't do "never agains" real well.  He has a way of taking our vows and turning them upside down and bringing everything full circle.  He has a way of making us forget our shame (Isaiah 54:4) and bringing us to new tables of joy.

Enter the angel of mercy who found her way into our carport one cold winter night, now over a month ago.  We tried to find an owner, but without a collar and no one to answer our internet queries, we decided she was probably dumped in the pasture just a bit down the road from our house.

My heart was hard where her kind were concerned, but she was not deterred.  She wore down my defenses with her soft velvet fur, her huge, kind eyes, and her ability to go potty outside.  She made me love her further with her snuggles in the morning, her snuggles on my lunch break, and her snuggles on the couch at bedtime.  She entwined herself around my heart with her kindness to my children.

We now own all new doggie supplies, along with a collar that reads "Sugar."  And oh, how sweet she is.  She has removed the shame in our house from past dog failures, and healed our hearts by becoming the member of the family we didn't know we were missing. 

I'll need to remember that the next time I'm tempted to say "never again."  Maybe failure isn't always the end.  Maybe it's just a longer walk to the finish line.