Forever my baby. Born on “tax day” (finally, the day was redeemed) and during a freak ice storm in Sioux City, Iowa. She was a big baby, even though we were total vegan at the time. And she was born to applause because the doctor, at the teaching hospital there, was so impressed with how well Dave and I were handling the labor process (I’d been through it…a few times, very recently, actually). He asked more than once if they could bring the students and interns in to observe us. I said no several times, but when it got to the “really fun” part, my defenses were low and when I said yes, the room filled with 20+ observers who cheered us on and affirmed our expertise in baby making and birthing.
But even though she arrived center stage, the star of the show, and though she holds the position as baby-of-the-family, Stormie has never been the “typical” version of that. She was never an “absent-minded, friendly manipulator with a craving for the spotlight and everyone’s rapt attention,” those things commonly used to describe her birth order ranking.
Stormie Dae, born with a headful of dark hair, just entered the family quietly and sweetly, enthralled by all the activity in a home with 4 older siblings, 1 1/2, almost 3, almost 4 and almost 7 years of age (that’s right: 5 kids in less than 7 years). She brought joy and a certain sweetness. She got her daddy’s personlity: easy-going, peaceful, servant-hearted and deeply loving. She got his dimples, too. And she won my heart.
Today, Stormie Dae, I thought I’d give you words
Because words and song are how I show my love. So when I started listing my words, I couldn’t get Michael Buble’s song “Everything” out of my head, so it was hard not to turn this into a song-lyric-poen thing, but maybe that is as it should be. Because, “You Took My Heart by Surprise” and since the day you came I have wanted to be “Close to You.” But maybe none of this means anything since I have also been singing Stephen Bishop’s “Save it for a Rainy Day” for 3 days now, too?
And etc. {a mom is allowed to be corny on her baby’s birthday}
But I mean these words. And I could have gone on. Yes, I could have. But I ran out of space…
You may need to open another screen to see all 50 or 75 of them?
created at www.picnik.com (just plopped lots of words with 3 different fonts onto a photo from Stormie’s (and Steph’s) www.maydae.com blog
Love you, sweet-pea. So proud of you. Happy Birthday.
HOW DO YOU DECIDE HOW TO DECORATE AND DESIGN YOUR HOME/YOUR LIFE?
Easy. E A S Y !
Ask yourself: If some one spent several days visiting my house, how would I want them to recount their time here?
How you answer that question will give you insight into what your home should reflect about you. Just remember to throw out pretentiousness and airs. A real home with well-loved belongings and sunlight streaming through squeaky-clean windows (I need some of those!) filled with the sound of life will impress everytime. Plus be a place you you will want to nestle into every single day. It isn’t perfection. Repeat that, please: it is not perfection. It is authenticity. Edit, putter and enjoy the process.
And isn’t home, really, after all, the sum of the people living there?
Stef shared this with me the other day from the movie “The Notebook” (yes, yes, yes, you should see it!).
When Noah’s grown children were trying to get him to move back “home” leaving his wife, Allie, in the nursing facility as she was failing, he said,
Some days I get really nostalgic with an actual sort of hunger and bittersweet longing for a person or thing from the past; usually feeling homesick for a place or a time in a sort of regretful kind of way.
Some days I am full of memories and just so grateful for the rich, full remembrances of life.
Nostalgia makes me yearn, melancholy raring its powerful head, makes me wish for do-overs from earlier times, or for the gift of just going back and seeing things again, the way they once were, but with the wisdom of the years, with understanding so I’d not have missed anything important.
But memories“light the corners of my mind” like Barbra so beautifully sang way back when and are the things on which everything now is built. They are the building blocks of my present and have added the depth and dimension that cause intricate color patterns that weave in and out of all I have seen and am and will be. They are epic backstory, the altar of remembrance and the reminder that the story isn’t over. It is just in the middle somewhere…
“Where are you from or where did you spend most of your growing up years?” was the question.
Darla and Rachel, Joan and Sherri and I were getting better acquainted. Such a simple question causes a waterfall of thoughts on the topic. I have so many short, pat answers I have given over the years.
I sometimes say, “I am an Iowa girl,”because I was born there and we lived in three different cities where my dad pastored churches in Iowa and then after marrying, Dave and I led a church in a fourth city in the Corn state.
The house on 1723 York Street, Des Moines
Other times I claim the “near Chicago” as my “home,” because we lived in that little piece of northwest Indiana that ispart of the greater-Chicago-metro area and is actually in Chicago’s time-zone (as opposed to the rest of Indiana) and it is where the Moslanders (Ross-the-Boss, Mrs Moss and all the little Landers) ended up together before we all started leaving home.
There were the short years in Louisiana…
But my parents moved…have moved several times since, to different ministries in various cities and states and wherever they go becomes “home.” I always feel a bit unsettled when they move until I see pictures of the house and google the street and get to go visit. I need to know where they are. I need to know where the boxes (the very few that are left) which are holding the photographic proof of our journeys and my life, are being stored.
So a simple question like, “Where are you from?” throws me into a few-seconds of a spin, trying to decide how to answer accurately, but without boring them with the tedious details of a dozen different houses and 11 schools during my lifetime, of 12 different communities, some more than once, of living as far north as Minot, North Dakota and as far south as Robert, Louisiana – two locations which were, indeed, worlds apart.
Where am I from?
And in a nostalgic mood, I get all tender, feeling I am from nowhere. But in days of remembrance, in times I am grasping what Shakespeare meant when he said, “The past is prologue,” meaning it has all just been preparation for where I am now, all setting up the real story of today, I am grateful for adventures and places, for the people and times I wouldn’t trade.
I look at Darla and Rachael, Joan and Sherri, kind faces waiting to hear a geographical clue to my existence.
“I am not really from any place,” I tell them. I am from a story and I am in the middle of it now.” Home is where my heart is – and there is a little of my heart in lots of places, or maybe the places are here with my in my heart. And I am full of wonderful memories of how I arrived here, interesting people who were kind enough along the way to notice my existence and deposit something rich, funny, happy, sad, meaningful or silly treasure into my life.
The older I get, the more I realize the things of value that have been given to me and I get a strong desire to walk where I once walked and look people in the face and say, “I didn’t know it at the time – when we were just ‘passing through’ so I maybe kept a wall between us, but you were part of God’s plan, a gift {even maybe a disruption} for me straight from Him.” And I’d like to tell people thank-you and kiss them on the cheek and apologize that I just didn’t know. I didn’t know they were so integral to my story. I thought I was sometimes too focused on trying to get somewhere, trying to find home/destiny/purpose. But I see it now. They were that for me right in that moment. They were my home.
Dear little Jeanie: why so serious? God has good stuff planned for you ahead. So enjoy today.
This kind of treasure is unavailable to the 20-year old. It is gained only by getting older and by understanding the past as prologue to whatever richness I now live in – past is part of it all. And really just the beginning…
Matthew 6.6-10 NIV “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
” ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.'”
So few words, yet they say everything.
The New Testament gave us insight into prayer.
They “joined constantly in prayer” (Acts 1.14). They sought direction from God in prayer (Acts 1.24). They were faithful in prayer (Romans 12.12). They were cautioned to devote themselves to prayer (I Cor. 7.5). Paul asked them to pray for him (Eph. 6.19) and he told the Philippians (1.4) “I pray for you.” Pray with petition (Phil. 4.6), pray earnestly (I Thess. 3.10), pray continually (I Thess. 5.17). James 5.13 says to pray in times of trouble. I Peter tells husbands to treat their wives well so their prayers won’t be hindered and later to be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray (4.7).
Throughout the course of my life I have been told I wasn’t praying right/correctly/effectively if I…
didn’t pray very early in the morning (certainly before 7 am)
didn’t pray loud enough or with enough authority
didn’t command and speak the promises of God into existance
didn’t pray in tongues or, by certain groups, if I did pray in tongues
didn’t pray with my mind or did pray with my mind
didn’t pray long enough (couldn’t “tarry one hour”)
wasn’t on my knees
wasn’t pacing around taking authority
didn’t go to the altar
prayed with my eyes open or prayed with my eyes closed
didn’t pray the scriptures in the first person
spoke too quietly, or carried on too loudly
Whew! Tiring.
How will I ever get prayer right? Well, His Word is His will and when my praying lines up with His Word I can know I am praying a prayer He will not only hear, but that I will most assurredly have that prayer answered.
1 John 5.14-15 Amp. “And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us. And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him.”
But I also know that in the times I have been broken and can barely put together two syllables, when I am curled up in the fetal position, and can only manage Ab-ba….He has heard my prayer. When there are no formulas and when I am respectfully following a liturgy that is different from how I was raised, I am praying. He is hearing.
Yikes, everybody – letus pray.
Let us pray when we know how to pray and when we don’t. Let us pray when only groanings come forth and the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. Let us talk to God like Adam when they walked in the garden in the cool of the day. Let us talk to God like Moses when he questioned and avoided and moaned a little, or like David when he wanted God to gnash his enemies’ teeth, but also when he was just filled to the brim with praise and adoration and gushing over God’s wonderfulness!
Let’s quit with the compulsory formulas and mandatory prayer perimeters. When you ask me to pray for you, tell me how I can agree with you in prayer {what are YOU praying?}, but don’t insist I follow your blueprint in praying. You are already doing that. Let me talk to God on your behalf in the language of love He and I share. I feel trapped when some one asks me to pray and then tells me how to do it and what to say, or how it won’t work if it isn’t exactly like they pray. Are they really open to God’s leading? Will they really allow me to talk to the Father on their behalf and hear His heart about the situation?
Prayer ritual/formula/rules doesn’t change things. God changes things – and I can trust Him in that.He is faithful. {He knows what I need before I even ask!} He hears us even when we don’t follow the current prayer craze. Or when we don’t pray “as well as” the next person. I don’t trust my prayer, but I trust Him. If all were dependant on my well-developed prayers, I’d make it my hobby to be great at it. At times I have. It is vanity.
I will pray for you. Let me go to Our Father from the place I have learned to trust Him for you. But the real thing you have going for you is that Jesus is interceding for us (Romans 8.33-35).
FOUND: in the drafts folder from early July 2009…should I have left it there???
MY FAVORITE PRAYER IN THE BIBLE: Mark 9:24 NKJV “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Before I’d even turned 5, my dad had gotten rid of our family TV in favor of more prayer and Bible study time. He was devoted in his faith and we are none the poorer for it, after all, but it did take away Popeye and The Jimmy Dean Show for me. I loved Jimmy Dean when he’d sit on that porch swing with his guitar and sing…he died last year, I think, and I felt sad. And it ripped The Rifleman and The Fugitive from my mom’s favorite-viewing list.
Now and again, though, we’d be visiting my grandparents in Ames, Iowa or my neightbor Nancy Lydon across the alley in Des Moines and get to catch up on the television shows of the times: Mayberry RFD, Julia, Love-American Style, That Girl, Batman (pow–zowie–bop!), or Hawaii 5-O. I loved it!
One show I always really liked from those years was Room 222. When my dad decided to re-immerse himself and our family into television 5 or 6 years later in time for the World Series that fall, Room 222 was still playing and I got to watch it now and again on Friday nights.
I always just really liked Mr. Dixon (played by Lloyd Haynes). He was the handsome (quite dashing man with a beautiful smile), idealistic teacher who gently taught the high schoolers to be tolerant and have understanding on the social issues of the day, even if they were watered down for prime time TV. I thought Mr. Dixon looked like a black version of my dad (whom I also thought to be very handsome). Even in retrospect, I think I was on to something because I was looking at photos of my nephew Ross Moslander (my dad’s namesake) and still saw a family resemblance.
Fibbie is Steph’s new Etsy.com venture. She buys and sells children’s vintage clothing, toys, home decor and accessories. Steph has impeccable taste, a great eye for hot trends and a knack for finding the best o-so-very-cool vintage. Plus? Her models are extraordinary!
I happened across a mis-mixed can of Behr, red latex enamel for only $1.00 at Home Depot. I tested it on my cutlery tray. A few scraps of leftover felt and {voila}. Happy for me when I need a spoon. Or fork. Or a knife, even.
I know you will find this hard to believe, but I didn’t really know what this band’s name meant when I was a kid. I thought some one had a “bad finger,” as in a bum digit. Hahaha. Yes. I have to laugh at myself. Innocent little preacher’s daughter.
They had some great early 70s stuff. As Guini would say, “That’s just some rock. and. roll!”
These are the ones I really liked waaaaaaaaaaaay back when.
This song was produced by George Harrison (apparently the Beatles were the first to sign and mentor Badfinger) and Todd Rundgren, who, by the way, sings one of my for-all-times favorites, “Hello, It’s Me.” AND he was in the American Idol audience this past week, yes, he was!
No Matter What
Without You
Harry Nillson covered this and it went to #1. Then everybody else in the world, including Mariah Carey and Celine Dion did, too. It is a great song and Badfinger wrote and performed it first. Then they were tragic. Their main talent killed himself in the 70s and a few years later, in the early 80s, the band member who had founf him did the same. Tragic. Talented. Sad.
Then there is just the love of the music they made that a dumb little girl, 12 or 14 – and now old enough to really understand, loves still, for the innocence it reflects in her heart.
