life between the highlights

Stubbed toes.  Rusty ladders.  Slimy steps.  Chipped nail polish.  

There is so much living that happens between the highlights. We all know it's true, yet we sometimes believe that ours is the only life that is ordinary, mundane, uneventful or filled with heartache.  We are dazzled by the vast number of "likes" on our friend's Facebook pages or Instagram accounts.  We believe they are proof that everyone else in our circle is experiencing life more fully, taking more exotic vacations, accomplishing more items on their bucket list, eating healthier, raising all-star children, achieving their purpose-driven life........living the dream.

But what about all those in-between moments where some of the really important stuff happens --the ones we would never post for the world to see? Where disappointments stretch our character? Where misunderstandings give us opportunity to  forgive? Where we learn about humility through illness or injury? Where we struggle and strive and learn to dig deeper? Where our dependance on God grows moment by moment?

I want to share with you some of my in-between moments as a sort of sequel to the post before this one entitled Summer Sweetness and Seasons of the Soul [link here]  and one from last summer called Summer Gifts and Dreamy Spaces (link here).

I wrote my "Summer Sweetness" post over the course of a day and a half alone at the lake. Normally I just love the idea of a couple days alone in such a beautiful place with time to myself to do whatever I want: think, swim, walk, write, day-dream (and clean with no-one messing it up behind me.)  But what you won't know from reading my post is that I actually felt so lonely this time when my family was leaving.  I cried when they pulled away.   I just felt strange and weird and out of sorts -- with tears that seemed way too close to the surface.   I'd had a misunderstanding with my daughter that we hadn't really resolved well; I was feeling disconnected from my husband - sensing that his thoughts had shifted out of holiday mode and back onto work and real life; I'd felt disappointed earlier that morning that I was the only one who wanted to go for my "birthday"waterski  - when the lake was so glassy and it was our last opportunity before we took the boat out for the summer.

So that was how my "alone" time began -- kind of gross, but I knew it was just temporary weirdness.  It didn't take long before I settled into the peaceful solitude of my surroundings and sat down to write.

Then there was the rat. Yes, you heard right.  RAT!!  I won't go into all the gory details, but suffice it to say that later that night after I'd gone to bed with my bedroom doors open to the top floor deck, I'd heard a nighttime visitor scurrying just a few feet away.  Though I jumped up and flipped the light on, I didn't see anything.  But sure enough the next morning, (which also happened to be my birthday) I discovered evidence left by the critter that assured me it was bigger than a mouse.  YUCK!  It had also left evidence all over the main deck as well.

I am an Alberta girl who knows nothing about rats, but I do know about mice.  This was not a mouse.  So, I had a problem to solve.  As a result, I spent the morning of my birthday researching and looking at disgusting pictures to find out if I was actually dealing with a rat.  Then after lunch I drove into town to buy the only three rat traps I could find.  Which, by the way, are huge.  Again....yuck!!

To make a long story short, and to save you all the suspense that must be killing you, I set the traps with peanut butter, one on each level of the house, and by the next morning, I'd caught myself a pack- rat the size of my foot with a long hairy tail.

Life between the highlights.  Not glamorous.   Often not so humorous.

I guess one of the main reasons I write in this blog is simply to celebrate the grace that lines each of our moments - the highlights, lowlights and every bit of living in between.  It is a very precious gift to be able to see God at work in our lives, no matter how things appear.  This is what I ask for daily.  My earnest desire is ALWAYS to see and recognize God's grace and then to share that grace and hope with others.  This is what I love to do. Yet, you may be surprised to know that I experience a lot of angst about my writing.  Yet another part of my own story of life between the highlights.

Almost every time I sit down to write,  I worry that my posts will sound trite or cliché.  Most days, I agonize over every line; rarely does my writing happen effortlessly.  Instead, I grapple with wording and often scrap posts altogether because I am afraid of how my words will be taken.  At times, I find writing about joy and beauty the most difficult of all topics.  The whole time that I am trying to encourage and share beauty with my readers,  I am thinking about all the ugliness that so much of the world faces every single day.  I think about the secret heartache of people I rub shoulders with at the grocery store.  I think about the vast, indescribable suffering of people on every surface of the globe.  I worry that my words will make people scoff or feel even more cynical about the hurts and disappointments of life.  I worry that my joy will highlight someone else's pain.  Or if I write about hurt or sadness or struggles, I worry that I'm not qualified because I have such a good life overall.  I worry that I will sound like a princess who takes her own perfect life for granted and only obsesses over minuscule first-world problems.  I worry that I will sound completely naive or insensitive to the tragedies occurring all around me.  I worry.  And that gets in the way of me following my calling.

A dear friend recently challenged me when I shared these feelings with her.  She is the one who, back when I was a teenager, helped me fall in love with writing and poetry and who still encourages me to write from the heart today.  She said simply and pointedly:  "Try not to judge who needs it and who doesn't.  Let the Lord have his way with your writing.  There's a million message he can bring through your words. "

Let the Lord have his way.  If I believe that I'm following my calling when I sit down to write, then why can't I simply trust that my writing will land where it needs to and touch those it was meant for?

Trust.  I am learning to trust God with all of the in-between parts of my life.I want to practice noticing and celebrating God's gifts of grace that come during all the seasons, especially those between the highlights when life is tough, or ordinary, or confusing, or overwhelming.  I have a hunch that as grand as the highlight moments are, it's the in-between stuff that matters most in the end.

words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2016

roots and blooms

I went for a walk a couple weekends ago while my daughter was at an early morning volleyball practice.  It was a gorgeous, cool, spring morning and truthfully, I stopped a lot more than I walked.  My intention was to walk over to a local coffee shop and spend a few quiet moments writing but I got a little distracted along the way.  Luscious blossoms everywhere were just begging to be touched and smelled and photographed.

When I finally arrived, the thought foremost on my mind was the transient beauty of spring.  The transient nature of beauty itself.

Spring always provides a feast for the senses.  Each year we are gifted with the opportunity to witness the stunning unfolding of fragrant new life, the sudden arrival of bold yet delicate buds and the warmth and sunshine that coax them into bloom.

There is something exquisite about a blossom opening to the world.  It is an image of courage and possibility.  It is beauty unspeakable, fragile, temporary.

I think we sometimes long for a life of endless spring, a life teeming with newness and dreams unfolding.  If only every day of our lives could look like such a spring morning, a shocking splendour of colour and texture and possibility.  But...there is no spring without winter.  And this is the part we disagree with; this is the part that we would likely do away with altogether if it was in our power.  After all, why suffer through the cold, the desolation, the dormancy, the dying?  And now, only a few weeks later, the blossoms have faded, the fragrance has passed and the glory of spring has lost its edge a little.  Spring surrenders to summer.

I guess this conversation makes me think about roots.  Unlike blooms, roots never have the spotlight.  They never arrive on the scene to take our breath away or inspire.  They are unseen and unexciting, simply growing deeper day after day, year after year, in every season.

I think I can sometimes spend too much energy trying to find ways to keep my life in constant bloom -- wanting it always to be colourful and interesting and new.  I want to see my dreams blossom (and preferably against a backdrop of dappled light, thank you very much!).  But given how quickly spring passes and the dreamy, fragrant petals fall to the ground, I think I would do better to spend my energy on growing deeper roots.

The creator and author of all eternity has a beautiful, perfectly crafted plan and his plan includes seasons -- all of them.  He works out his purposes, each in their own time.  Whether the ground is frozen or bursting with life, whether storm clouds build or the skies are cloudless blue, whether branches bend heavy with fruit or are stripped stark and bare, God is still faithfully and mercifully at work.

He is growing our roots.

Strong. Simple.  Beautiful.

Words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2016

soul stillness

what does it look like?

this thing called "stillness" 

 that my soul longs --even aches for?

this thing I unconsciously arrange for

this thing I am supposed to BE

so that I can know God

is God

the more I reach for it

the more elusive and fragile it becomes

I chase after it

 like a delicate soap bubble 

floating and lifting on a breeeze

but the moment I think I might actually hold it

it's gone

words (with exception of quotes within the collage) & images  © copyright Melody Armstrong 2013

seeds and growth

Seeds.  Such tiny things.  So seemingly insignificant yet they are the perfect encapsulation for life and promise.

But new growth takes time.  Once these little globes of potential are tucked beneath the soil, you can't do anything but watch, weed and surrender to the process - even when it's painfully slow.  You can't rush it.  You can't control it.   

I learned it again this spring as a huge patch of our lawn struggled to come back to life.  While tender shoots of green were popping up elsewhere, this one section remained stubbornly brown and dry.  (The fact that it was buried beneath a skating rink from November to March could have had something to do with it.)  

So we added seed and loam.  Then we watered and waited.  Nothing much seemed to change so we did it all again in mid July. 

More loam...more seed...more water...more waiting....and still pretty patchy.

There are places in my soul that feel this way sometimes.  

Plenty of seed gets planted and watered, yet I am bare and showing in too many places....nowhere near the lush, green lawn I'd imagined.  It seems to be taking forever to become the person I want to be.

As a result, I'm constantly learning what it means to wait and to trust this process of death cycling into life.  The seed that holds so much promise and potential is only produced once a plant begins to die.  I forget that sometimes --that the dying process is always intimately connected to the beginnings of new life.  Too often, I'm looking for a short cut.  I want instant results --- and by the way, I don't want anything to have to die first!!   

It's September and the grass is almost completely filled in now.  Woooo Hooo!!  Just in time to be covered with an ice rink again this winter.

And maybe, just maybe......after a little dying, a little planting, a little watering, and a lot of waiting, some of my patchy places have filled in a little too.

Thank you to the One who died to make me fully alive.


Words and images © copyright Melody Armstrong 2013

let it rain

(pardon the photoshopping.....it's just so fun to play)

I took the above image last year at this time while following my amazing friend around for a day and photographing her life as a rancher and cowboy-girl (or "superwomen" as I like to call her).  I had just finished participating in my first "mini-cattle drive"  (she said I did pretty good, by the way!) and was still riding horseback.  Good thing he knew his own way home cuz I was too busy taking photos to "drive."    Urban cowboy, anyone???

I could have taken similar photos today (minus the jeep, cattle and horses!)  The landscape around here looks just the same.  Rain clouds are hovering on the horizon and the fields are thirsty, waiting to soak up some much needed moisture.

I am these fields today, thirsty and waiting for soul rains to fall; to soak; to drench me through and through.  My soul is preparing for new seeds to be planted and I believe that bountiful crops can still grow in my life.

Are you thirsty today?  Is your soul in need of rain, the life-giving, soul-cleansing kind?

If you are like me, the answer is a resounding yes.  And so I pray for all of you out there, that you will lift your face to the sky and say "yes".  Soak in all in.  Let it fall over you till it seeps into every dry crack and crevice of your life.  LET IT RAIN.

My prayer for you is that:

"You shall be like a well-watered garden; a spring whose waters never fail."

Isaiah 58:11 (NIV Bible)

words and images copyright © melody armstrong 2013 (unless otherwise cited)

The Mended Tea Towel...for my mom!

It was just an old tea towel.  It caught me off guard, but it shouldn’t have.  I’ve seen it so many times before, with other things.  There in my mother’s kitchen, folded and hanging neatly on the stove was a blue and white tea towel that had been carefully mended.  Even then, with her failing eyesight, my mother still managed to mend things beautifully and often invisibly.  

The very fact that this tea towel still existed at all is what moved my heart that morning.  Why didn’t she just throw it away?  Well, I guess because it was perfectly good except for the hole.  My mom has always had the gift of seeing value and worth in something.  She could take an item that others had  no choice but to discard, and give it a second life.  Her careful pinning and meticulous attention to detail produced  patches and mends that were rarely noticeable. She didn't seem to mind putting in the time it required either.  And it did take time.  To her, this process of caring and restoring was a simple, natural and everyday thing.  I see it as extraordinary.

It isn’t just things that my mother mended, like tea towels or a favorite shirt that my husband couldn't part with. She mended people too.  She still does.  I think about all the mended people that have sat in my mother’s kitchen through the years.  I’m one of them.  So many of us were broken, worn out, stained and feeling worthless.  But she saw all of us differently.  In her eyes, we had great value.  We were worth saving and restoring.  In fact, we were perfectly good except for the holes.  She knew what we could become with some loving, careful attention and a lot of time.  It was just a simple, everyday thing.

There were people in my mom’s mending basket who I thought were almost impossible to deal with.  I remember as a kid wondering when she would ever give up on them.  I think of the time and energy she poured into so many lives….and the heartache.  Broken people can be hard to mend.  But she wasn’t afraid to tackle anything that she deemed worthwhile.  I love that about my mom. I see now that I really should have paid more attention to this everyday part of my mother’s life.  I can sew on a button and I’ve even tried mending a few items, but I clearly lack my mother’s skills.  She really is a master.  I can only hope that I have somehow learned to apply this skill to people the way my mother does.

She has shown me so much about God’s great love for people; the way He cherishes those who are broken, worn out, stained and discarded.  He sees them the way they could be with some careful attention and His loving hands upon them.  He knows they are valuable and He paid the highest price for them by allowing His own son Jesus to be nailed to a cross --surrendering his life for all humanity.  This single act of love alone brings wholeness and restoration that reminds me of my mom’s invisible patches.  To God, we are perfectly good except for the holes.  We just need to be mended.     -April 2009 for MY amazing mom.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL OF YOU AMAZING MOM'S OUT THERE!!!

words and images © copyright melody armstrong 2013

do you need permission?

It was something my friend said last night that got me thinking....

"Give yourself permission to not be good at everything."

I wrote it in my journal. 

I wrote it on my hand.  

The thought of it was so freeing and refreshing and ludicrous all at the same time. After all, do I really believe I have to be good at everything, or even most things? (and is it that obvious?.....yuck!)   Is that why I can be so hard on myself.......cuz really, AS IF!! 

I just wanted to hug her and do a little dance right there in her kitchen.  It was such a simple but powerful observation.  How come I hadn't thought of it before?  She has a beautiful way of calling things like they are, just plain and simple.  It's what caring friends do.  She knows I'm not good at everything (who's kidding who - she doesn't even pretend about it) and, most importantly, she doesn't expect me to be.  

I feel so much lighter after digesting her words.  They were like some kind of crazy instant diet.  I dropped weight in just one day.  

Magic.  

Friendship.

Permission.

 words and images copyright © Melody Armstrong 2013

riding upstream

Living life against the current

answering His sacred call

pursuing things eternal

walking lightly on this earth

laying down my life, not fighting for it

forgiving because I am forgiven

choosing to see the best in others

 trusting when the way is hard and uncertain

pouring from my emptiness in order to be filled

letting my weakness be my strength

walking in Christ's footsteps-

even when they lead to a cross...

and though I lose my footing

falling hard and often

and find myself in the river

currents wild, rushing against me

cold soaked right through

I shout out what I know:

 God's faithfulness

-the grace gifts that 

flow harder and deeper still.

And right there

in that moment with my soul laid bare

I find courage and strength

in His tender, ever-present voice

in the compassionate grasp of His hands

where, alongside the scars,

my name is engraved. 

words and images copyright © melody armstrong 2013

the guilt thing...

 I struggle with which way to go.  Always.  So many choices...and saying yes to one good thing almost always means saying no to another. Guilt follows.

I was so excited to know that a friend of mine was moving into my neighbourhood.  I drive past her house at least twice a day, yet the last time I saw her was just before Christmas.  Daily, I think how I really must call her, or at least stop by with a little note and tulips to let her know I care.  Couldn't I at least arrange a short walk or a quick cup of tea?  But no, I rush right past.  I have many neighbours I would love to spend time with.  I remind myself what a poor friend I am --echoed voices from the past, of friends who have been hurt because I didn't give enough.  I wasn't there enough.  I didn't call enough. 

My head spins.

I try to step back a bit and look at it again.

But there are people to love and pray for, projects to be involved with, volunteer positions to fill, sports to get to, classes to take, meetings to attend, calendars to arrange, cheques to write, books to read, neighbors to have for dinner, photo albums to create, kids to snuggle and read with, piles to sort, walls to paint, grout to re-apply, corners to clean, out-grown clothes/shoes/bikes/skates/skies to be replaced, friends to keep in touch with, coaches to please, bottles to return, a husband to make love with, appointments to schedule and show up on-time for.....and as the list of good things grows, THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL GETS HEAVIER AND HEAVIER.  

JOY SEEPS OUT.  GUILT SEEPS IN. 

 I WITHER.

When I'm forgetting to "think on whatever things are true," I look around me and see competence everywhere.  Women who appear capable of doing it all and then some.  I see fit bodies, healthy meals on the table, kids in every sport, and attendance at every school council meeting.  So much value placed on so many things.  Where does everyone find the energy to do it all?  My 100% doesn't seem to be enough when it's divided so many ways.  

Is there anyone out there who feels as tired as I do?  Is there anyone else asking "what is all this for?"  (As soon as these words hit the page, guilty voice kicks in with:  "What a whiner!  You don't even have a job!! Why did you even go to university?  What do you do ALL day?  Don't you know how privileged you are?") 

Yes.  But still, I am tired. 

 I long for a simpler life.  I long for quiet -time to think and pray and create and just BE...and let my family just be.  I'm not keeping up.

I love watching my kids dance, ski, mountain bike, play hockey, volleyball, basketball, soccer, piano....and I'm proud of them. I want them to achieve, be active and enjoy opportunities that their friends enjoy.  I know these are "the best days of our life."  But I'm exhausted from the running.  And warts!!  Have I mentioned those nasty things yet?  I've been making appointments since spring to try and get rid of a wart on one child's toe.  I don't have time for warts!  Don't even get me started on orthodontics for three children!!!

A few days have passed since I wrote the words above.  I've had a chance to rest, to enjoy a little fresh air while cross country skiing with my son's grade 8 class, and clear my head a little. I've turned around and enjoyed a completely different view altogether.

this was the same evening sky as pictures above - but just 90 northwest - another perspective altogether.

The truth is, I was tempted to scrap this post altogether when I read it again.  It just sounds so self-centered and pathetic when I consider the huge brokenness and heartache in our world.  

And yet, it's where I am at right now.  I feel tugged and pulled by the dichotomy in my own soul.  I care so very much about the world out there, and never want to be complacent about the suffering.  I want to be active, to do what I can to heal the hurts and alleviate the injustice.  Yet too, I feel the magnetic pull to my family life....the world of which I am the hub and my kids are the various spokes that join up with my husband -the wheel ( what a wheel!  Haha, sorry Lance!) who holds us all together, supports us  and bears the weight of our lives together.  

If I am exhausted and grumpy, my family suffers.  If I haven't found a way to operate from a place of peace and calm, my family life can get spinning right out of control.  If I don't have clarity about what choices to make in order to ensure that we are all going in the right direction together, our family can come right apart at the center.

It becomes more obvious to me every day, especially now that my shoulders fit nicely beneath the arms of my eldest son as we hug and his heavy footsteps down the stairs always make me think it's his dad, that family life as we now know it will soon be changing drastically.  I don't want any more regrets than necessary....I don't want to look back and wish that we'd shared more meals, or had more hot tubs together, or that I'd laced my own skates more and joined the kids out on our backyard rink, or gave more back-rubs and had longer snuggles and prayers at bed time.  These simple things are the first things to go when we're too busy, too exhausted, too irritated.  But they are also the brush stokes, each a different color and shape, that create the most amazing portrait of family life.  What am I sacrificing when teetering on the edge?

So I revert to chocolate!!  :)  Really.  I found one left over from Valentines and I sit here (right before supper time) unwrapping an "irresistibly smooth" Lindor chocolate and popping it into my mouth.  (more guilt!!)  After all, aren't all the world's problems solved with chocolate?

Thanks for reading and please forgive the rant!!  xoxo

words and text copyright © Melody Armstrong 2013