Holy rollers, life with three kids three and under is proving to be a lot. A whole lot. One minute I’ve got this and everyone is content in their place: one on the breast, one playing with his ABC computer, another at the table making Valentines for her friends. But I blink and it all falls apart. Little man finally clears the gas bubble but half of his milk comes up with it, and at the same moment his big brother wants on mama’s lap and the Valentine’s fun has worn off so the three-year-old has pushed the chair to the counter and found the kitchen shears so she can make “big girl crafts.” Deep breath. Because this is it, this is motherhood. Life with my babies is all at once more than I can handle and everything I love most in the whole world.

A few days ago, Alex picked up Cannon, our sweet middle child, and he hugged him tight and said, “Cannon, I just love the way God made you.” And as I watched that hug, I grabbed those words and thought, yes, that. That is exactly what we are going to tell our kids every single day. Especially on the hard days, when it goes from good to crazy in half a second. And not because we need a false motivational talk to reorient our parenting, but because it is true: we love the way God made our kids, and we want them to know it.

At the very core of each of our kids is the Imago Dei, the image of a perfect God. When I look at Harper, who is wild, folks, real wild—she demands our attention at all times, wants to sing and roller skate in the house and tell stories about everything—I know that underneath that will and fierceness is the exact nature God wanted her to have. He wanted her bold, strong, and loud. And I don’t know what plans he has for her, but I know she will need those things, and my job is to train her heart to want to use them for his kingdom.

And then I look at Cannon, who is quiet and tender. He prefers to watch, and when crowds get to be too much I can usually find him in another room with his blocks or big orange tractor. Cannon has not found many words yet, but he sure isn’t stingy with his cuddles—this boy loves to be held, finding his place in the nook between my shoulder and head with no trouble at all. He is so gentle and mild-mannered, and I don’t know what plans God has for him, but I know he will need those things, and my job is to train his heart to use them for his kingdom.

And Jordi, my precious newborn, who has proven thus far to simply be content. He smiles at anyone who will coo along with him, and his chubby cheeks are irresistibly kissable. We don’t know what personality will emerge in our littlest, but whoever he becomes, whatever God gives him, I know he will need those things, and my job is to train his heart to use them for his kingdom.

Our kids are all so different, and they all need very different things from us. But we are ALL so different, and we all need different things from one another. I love that about God. He knew we would all need a Savior, so he gave us one. But then he layered on top of that beautifully unique ways to walk through the world and love one another, and not one of us could do exactly what he has asked another to do. I need that confidence for myself every day, and I want to give it to my babies, too. Harper will play a role that Cannon may not, just as he will impact people in a manner Harper never could. And the same will be true for Jordi. And I am so in love with every detail of it, because I get to be the mom who cheers them all on, watching God do for them what I will never be able to as he guides the steps of their lives.

Every day, I want to speak truth over these precious kids. I want to tell them that they will need grace and forgiveness, as we all do, and that Jesus is the only one who offers that without condition. I want them to look to the sky, over the mountains, across the ocean and even at the details of a flower and think ‘Wow, you did all of this, God?” I want them to love God’s words and hide it in their hearts forever. And I want to speak truth to myself in the process, giving 'out loud' reminders to my heart that the hardest of moments are part of the beauty in being a mom to these children.

I hope they look back on their childhood and remember joy and laughter and consistent training from their mom and dad, and I hope they always believe it when we say, “I love the way God made you.”

these three... thank you, Jesus.

Last night was just one of those nights.  Fed the baby at 1:00am.  Three-year-old crying at 1:45am.  Fed the baby again at 3:30am.  Toddler crying at 4:00am.  Baby needs a serious diaper change at 4:45am.  Mama finally gives in to the morning just before 5:00am, because the infant is not going back to sleep.  A snapsort of mothering little ones in all its glory.

This weekend a sweet friend asked me for an update, wondering how being the mom of three children is going.  Well, we are tired.  Real tired.  I am making it through the day just fine but by about 6:00pm I’m in the danger zone—as in, if I sit down there is a 100% chance I will fall asleep right there on the couch with three unattended children watching Dora, throwing things in toilets, attempting to pour their own milk, giving the baby his gas drops and explaining to me as I come out of my momentary coma to a gagging baby that she was ever-so-not-gently “just giving Jordi his paci, mama.”

Life with three.  Please excuse the cliché, but there is never a dull moment.

Jordi is six weeks old today, a fact I can hardly believe.  I feel like a moment ago I was marveling at his brown hair underneath the newborn hat, and today we can already load the car in under 15 minutes.  (It started at about 45, so I consider this a win).  But our newest family member is a dream: he is mello and cuddly almost all the time, save for the hours he is working out the gas his little body is still not used to.  He sleeps well at night, waking up every few hours for milk but then going right back to sleep.  He loves his swing, his big red dog paci, and his mama’s chest—and I love him there, too, so we’ve got a good thing going.

Cannon is twenty-months old, and ever my sweet, introverted little man.  Two things make Cannon giggle like nothing else: his daddy’s tickles and the map on Dora—he just loves that little guy and claps his hands excitedly every time Dora announces that it is time to ask for help because we don’t know where to go.  He could drink ovaltine all day long and be totally happy with it, and if there is a slide around he wants nothing else more than to go up and fly down again and again.  Cannon is not talking much yet; he says mama and dada, Dora and “ma” (more), and he also has the sweetest rendition of “do-du” (thank you) going on, as he taps his mouth to sign it but seems to think one says it as you hand something off rather than receive it.  He sees the sweetest speech therapist every Thursday, and he reminds me with every challenge and victory that one of the greatest privileges of motherhood is getting to be our kids’ cheerleaders.

If Cannon is quiet and introverted, well the very opposite of him would come in the package of love and energy and fire that is his big sister.  Harper is three years old, and if she is awake, she is, quite literally, putting on a show.  She can, and does, turn anything into a microphone, comes up with her own words to the rhythm she chooses—which will undoubtedly have something to do with a ballerina or princess—and shake her hips from right to left like she has been doing it all her life.  She has a wild imagination, and although we spend a good amount of time every day training her heart to listen and be kind and learn what respect is, we spend even more time laughing at the things she says.  For example, she handed me the Kazoo she earned at a birthday party this weekend and said, “Here mama, you blow.” I tried a few times and could not get that kazoo humming, so I gave it back to her and remarked with sarcasm, “I’m glad my daughter can do this and I can’t figure it out.”  To which she responded, “Well, you’re husband can do it to, mommy, and you can’t.” (Thank you, three-year-old).

These three are the joy of my life.  They really are.  And yet, they all need very different things from their mama right now, and I have certainly had my moments of despair at the incapability I have to parent each one of them well.  Harper wants anyone within twenty feet of her to watch her show and listen to her stories, and she needs a hard line of discipline to know that her strong will is a gift but it has a limit that must be respected.  Cannon wants one on one time and his own space to learn, and he needs encouragement and correction in a much softer manner than his sister does or his sweet soul will break rather than repent.  And Jordi, he just needs me: a breast to eat from, hands to change a diaper, eyes to make sure no one pulls him off his boppy pillow, and ears to listen for the rise and fall of his lungs as he breathes. But sometimes, most of the time, all three of these precious babies need these things at the very same time.  And I can’t.  Someone has to wait, and no one wants to wait.  And if the wait gets too long then all four of us are crying and that looks about as bad as it sounds.

But here’s the thing: I have never loved being a mom more than I do today.  God has so graciously and tenderly given me a heart for the training and stewardship of my babies that I just did not have a year ago.  I have always loved them, but I have not always seen this job as the job, the work of my life.  Motherhood, quite by accident, became something that I had to “finish” in order to get other things done: like writing an essay, grading papers, prepping a lesson plan, finishing a task around the house, or something really important, like posting the perfect caption to my instagram picture (obviously that is a joke.  Not the part about picking my phone over my children for moments at a time, the part about it being important, that’s the joke.  It just took me far too long to realize the joke was one me.) 

On my worst days, I saw my kids as in the way of these things.  You would probably never say that about me, though.  It was more of a heart condition than an outward action.  But that’s the sweetest thing about the Holy Spirit: he loves to gently correct the heart.  Good behavior done with bad motives is not good behavior at all; it is people-pleasing and box-checking (story of my life!) and God sees right through that.  We don’t want that for our children, and God does not want it from our parenting.  As I learned this, God began to strip down my goals for motherhood from healthy, happy, successful, smart, kind, articulate, brave kids to just this: sinners saved by grace.  That is all I could ever hope and pray for my babies.

So while I am exhausted and many days feel in way over my head, I am so full.  Did you really give me these three souls to steward for a lifetime, Lord?  He did.  My joy is too big for words here.  And I feel the weight of this blessing in a new way since Jordi joined our family.  I am not capable of motherhood.  It is a job far too big for me, because I default to worry, anxiety, frustration and an utter lack of patience at every turn.  But I am capable of calling on Jesus, and he is so happy to show himself glorious where I am the weakest.  I know that that will be the story of my parenting, one day after another of Jesus saving the day. 

This guy.  He is so mello, so content, and so fun to be around that I have given him the title “my easy child.”  (And yes, I already know this is wrong and children should not be labeled).  Cannon came into the world after only seven hours of labor and two pushes.  And since then, he has remained my low-maintenance baby boy—almost always happy, almost always pleased just to be around you.  I haven’t got a clue where the last eighteen months went, but the thought that this little guy is going to be a big brother in a few weeks is crazy.  I mean, it’s true, there’s no going back on that.  But it is crazy.

This morning I was a little more intentional than normal with my baby boy as we rocked in the cozy chair by the bay window—our usual morning routine.  He drank his milk and I ran my fingers through his hair (you guys, I challenge you to find an eighteen month old with better hair); we practiced our animal sounds and I clapped wildly when he showed me a lion roar for the first time.  And I said big prayers for him, that he would find his words and someday use them for God’s glory; that he would see his role in the world as a brave peacemaker; and that he would love Jesus and love others like He did.  I said these three things again and again, and then Cannon slid off my lap, grabbed his elephant toy, and off he went. 

Do you ever just watch your babies in their world?  I don’t do it enough.  I’m quick to let the little man slide off my lap and then go check my email or get breakfast ready.  But today, I just stared at him a minute, watched him pick up toys and put them back, determining for himself which one he really wanted.  I won’t get to do this kind of savoring forever, so today, I did.  And then, he caught me looking, and with the biggest grin and quickest feet he ran over to the chair and buried his head in my lap.  I think that’s what I will remember most about my Cannon, the way he buries his head when he’s happy.  The gift of this boy is truly beyond measure. 

This morning reminded me that, while there is so much work to be done—in our homes, building a career, or out in the world for others’ sake—my most important work is right here, in this chair, in moments like these.

Cannon Lee, I’m so thankful I get to be your mama.  I’m your biggest fan forever.

I can’t stop looking at Aylan.  And I’m sure you’ve seen it, too, the image of a tiny little body with his face down on the sand.  I can’t stop looking because if I trade the sand for a light green bed sheet, the waves for the safety of crib rails, and the shoes for the pajama feet, that is what my little Cannon looks like when he sleeps: arms to his side, on his tummy, no care in the world.

But that was never Aylan’s story. At three years old he has never known a life that wasn’t marred by ISIS and civil war.  He was born into fear, and bless him and keep him forever, Jesus, he died in fear. As a mama, the thought of having my babies on my lap one moment and then reaching and screaming and crying out for them in the rough waters of the ocean the next is enough to put my heart in panic mode even as I sit at my kitchen table.  And she couldn’t swim herself, Aylan’s mama.  She had to have felt the panic before she and her husband paid most of their life savings to someone they did not know to put everything precious in the world on a boat for the journey towards a land where bombs were not going off and terrorists were not coming to their door to rape, kill, and torture them.  She must have felt in her heart not to do it.  But what choice was there?  Possible death or certain death?  Oh friends, that is no choice at all for our Syrian sisters and brothers.

Five years ago, God put a fire in my belly, this burden to do something.  I heard stories I can’t un-hear, I saw images, like Aylan, that I cannot un-see.  I feel guilt that I cannot for anything in me un-feel.  And I wish you truly knew how much I want to un-feel!  Because some days, like yesterday, it paralyzes me.  I have to be a mom and get lesson plans for my students ready and put dinner on the table and wear actual clothes for a four hour night class and all I can do is read, research, email trusted friends and mentors, listen, sob, look again at Aylan.  And I want to walk away from it, I do.  I want to stop crying when I smell Cannon’s beach-wavy hair.  I can’t.

So I pray, and I search scripture, and I write.  At one point yesterday Alex and I had three bibles and two commentaries open, because if we know anything it is that God’s word has the answers and we have to start with him.  But scripture only confirms what I have known for years to be true: we are supposed to feel others’ pain this much.  The system is rigged, friends.  The more we desire to be like Jesus, the more the pain of our friends, community, and the world will wreck us.  There is no pressing in hard to a life following Jesus that will not come with a terrible burden for the well-being of others.  It just is not there.

A great tensions exists in the life of a Christ-follower: the desire for wholeness, self-worth, healing in our broken pasts, thriving marriages, godly children, and hospitable homes set up against the backdrop of a very, very broken world.  The fact that a young girl in Cambodia was just bought for the price of a few of my caramel macchiatos.  The ‘abundant life’ Jesus said he came to bring us juxtaposed with the reality that life is anything but abundant for so, so many.  I have spent so many weeks and months of the past few years feeling like I cannot manage this kind of tension, it’s too thick and heavy.  I wonder if many of us feel like this: we don’t know what to do so we mostly look away.  Or, you may or may not go into the kind of crazy cycle I did a few years ago and throw away all the lavish purchases you had ever made in the name of repentance—my personal sackcloth and ashes moments.  But I don’t think either of those are right, because the former is an attempt to justify ourselves with the “there’s nothing I can really do" mentality and the later is an attempt to justify ourselves by saying “look what I just did!”  Neither line up biblically, where justification is found only in Jesus and his work on the cross.

God did not accidentally put us in this place and time in history.  I did not end up in Spokane, Washington with a husband, two babies, and one on the way outside of what he ordained or allowed in my life.  And I don’t believe that God wants me walking through life apologizing for everything I have that so much of the world does not.  Salvation through poverty is not his plan for beautiful redemption.  But I am also convinced of this to my very core: we are supposed to feel pain for others as much as we feel it for ourselves.  And I think this means fighting back.  It means using my resources in any and every creative manner that I can come up with.  It means prayer, the on our knees, groaning because we don’t know what to say to Aylan’s father kind of prayer.  It means giving sacrificially, considering what our family can do without this month and sending that amount away with trust that God will use it.  It means pushing my daughter on the swing and talking to other mamas about refugees at the same time.  It means Voxing conversations back and fourth all day with a friend talking about dentist appointments and justice in consecutive thoughts.  It means buying pretty flowers at Trader Joe’s for my table and looking at devastatingly painful pictures on the same day.

I can only think of this tension as a rather narrow ridge we are walking on.  But friends, we have to try.  We have to.  In so many ways the footing is a bit more sure on one side or the other, but the life of Jesus was one of both celebration and mourning, and I think he showed us how to do both so that we could do both.  We must do both.  We can be mamas who playdate and advocate.  We can be wives who serve dinner and the homeless, fatherless, or anyone with less.  We can be business owners who make money and a mark in the world. We can be girlfriends who have wine nights and prayer nights.  We can be parents who sign homework folders and petitions.  We can enjoy every beautiful thing God gave us, and we can work tirelessly to help others experience that beauty, too.  There is no formula.  There is just an unapologetic pursuit of Jesus, and the way he shows each of us as we do. 

And to our church and faith leaders: you can ask hard things of us.  You can beg us to look, to empty our wallets, to know what the world is facing outside of our walls.  I promise we can handle it.  We can clap joyfully at the baptism of new family and celebrate wildly when wayward children come back; and we can cry for Syria and Nigeria and so much of the world on the very same day. We can do both, because Jesus did both. We will follow your lead on this.  Please, ask us to do hard things for others.  Give us scripture to sustain us when we are weary and offer a place to rest when we need it, but don’t go easy on us.  If our faith in Jesus is real, it can stand up to pain in the most raw places.  Teach us how to be like our Savior. 

William Wilberforce, one of my heroes of history, will always be famous in our home for his tireless effort to use his position to speak for those who were not allowed a voice.  I think he found that narrow ridge, and history is different because of him.  He also said these words, which I leave you with today: “You can choose to look the other way, but you cannot say you didn’t know.”  Let’s keep looking friends.