This IS extraordinary

It's only 1:47pm. And this is an extraordinary day.

Our day started at 5:45a.m. with Salem waking early, which prompts me to make his bottle, walk into his room, change his diaper while he has breakfast, and dump a container of toys into his crib so I can doze for thirty more minutes. Kanah wakes up early next, at 6:30 a.m., and crawls into bed with me (her new routine) and sips on her milk while snuggling. I don't know when it happened but she has become a morning snoozer and wants to have nothing to do with playing or jumping up or down or any such things. She wants to be on my pillow with me, cuddling and sipping her milk. Grace woke up "early" (for her) next at 7:30 a.m. and by this time she had to come find the other three of us downstairs where we were watching cartoons. With daddy off to work super early today and the forementioned and abhored word "early" mentioned so many times, we were all lazily hanging out in the downstairs living room, not exactly starting the day.

The next three hours involved me finally getting off the couch and turning off the tv, Salem going to sleep on my shoulder for nap, breakfast, verse of the day on our new blackboard and signing it with our hands, prayer for a boy named Jack, learning about the weather today and me drawing a silly picture of it, web camming it with Mimi and Pop, the girls doing an art project with markers and rolling paints (you are COOL, whoever made those), making a care package for baby Zach Thomas as well as our little friend Reilly Brunson, hair, new clothes, an outfit and a couple bobby pins for me, a little email, a big living room mess, the dress switch-a-roo game with the princess dolls, oh coffee with cinnamon creamer should have gone way earlier on this list, and then Salem woke up.

Want to take our boxes to the post office? I asked before I calculated so now we were all hands in for our one outting of the day. Now began what must have been a one hour prep time to get us out the door. Salem clothes. Change diapers. Make snack bags. Find cups. Pour milk. Break up a fight. Discipline. Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness. Pour my self some water in my Starbucks cup. Ah, super parched. Third re-heat of my coffee. Tell Kanah to find her socks and put her pants on. Bobby pin in each girls' hair. Lay Salem down with bottle. One sip of coffee. Tell Kanah her pants are backwards. Break up another fight over Snow White's dress. Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness. See what's in Salem's mouth and quickly sneak away to use the bathroom. Hurry back because when I leave the room I always come back to three cries.

Are we ready? Okay girls put on your vests. Pick one thing to take with you. I hurry out to the car to throw the boxes and my purse in the front seat, put on my own shoes, and as I return to living room am straping on my front baby carrier. (Promise, I've learned if it's raining and I am going to use the carrier when I get out of the car, it's just a way better idea to put it on before you leave, though it's silly looking). The girls stumble to the car, put on dot boots and put themselves in their seats. I carry Salem out, strap him in, and see he has no socks. Oh well. No socks. It's cold and rainy but today, no socks. Double check seat belts. Start the car and turn up the music.

Ah. Driving.

Five minutes later at the Fall City post office I unbuckle the girls and instruct them to stand against the building wall right in front of our car. I put Salem in the carrier and go to the other side to grab the packages. I shoo the girls into the front door, balancing the two boxes in one hand like a tray and Salem turning his head every which way trying to see the "show" going on all around him. Someone opens the next door for us, to which I applaud him verbally with all sorts of encouragements. (So many people let the door go right in our faces). We are finally in a square,enclosed room with minimal distractions(important details to any mom) and are only one of two customers. The highlight for the girls is looking at all the designs on the envelopes the post office sells and they like to point them all out to me. Then they talk about "the man" for like 20 minutes. (The man who took our packages). I am thrilled that this is going so well (did it seem that way??). The woman behind me thinks I deserve a mom of the year award (I do! How do I get one? I might just make one.) And then she goes on and on about how she can't even believe we are all dressed and out the door (finally a person who gets it!!!) I instantly love her and would like to have her over once a week but...she's a stranger. We're all done at the post office but with all this work getting here I'm thinking gosh, can't they read us a book or let us do something cool in the back room? But alas, letting them look at my stamps I just bought will have to do. Another man opens the door for us on the way out (Fall City I am proud of you for raising all these gentlemen!) who asks if I have twins but is more interested in me having a baby boy, which he says is "lucky." Hmm?

Similar story getting back in the car and into our house and sigh...morning done.

THIS IS extraordinary. I was reading a blog by a friend recently who was talking to her husband about all they wanted to do and see and experience in their lives and she wanted "extraordinary". For them, this looks more like risk-taking and saying "yes" to life and maybe moving and certainly just living more. God is speaking to them about opening their free time and lives and hands to MORE in places where they have maybe taken the easy route or the comfy thing. I am excited for them in their obedience to the Spirit and for what God is doing in them.

I think a lot of people hit these places and sometimes like our friends, it's an answer to God saying "live a life worthy of the calling you have received" and for some it's an ITCH, which is not a call to something extraordinary. It's just an itch and they need to sit still in obedience in that which doesn't seem too extraordinarily exciting as a Christian. Though it's what God wants. I think there are people like me who read about someone else's conviction for extraordinary callings and think for a minute, Wait. What about me? Because I can't even think about that because of our circumstances. And I always hear the Lord instantly, because I think we've had this conversation so many times. He usually says something like:

This IS extraordinary. You have had participation in the divine in creating these three little beings who are now under your authority, care, and stewardship. They are eternal souls, entrusted to your care, concern, teaching, and love. This is an extraordinary task. An extraordinary reward. Most will not see this and will scurry after other things but I will enable you to see them as arrows in your quiver, as a great heritage, the fruit of your vine, a great reward and a delight. I will enable you to see yourself as a Teacher, a Warrior for hearts, a Counselor, an Evangelist, a MOTHER. This is my daily gift, my daily stewardship, my daily delight. THIS is extraordinary.

There will be other seasons when I, like my friend, will sit and evaluate life and I will see places and opportunities and adventures on the horizon to jump into and enjoy and pursue. But for now, especially for this oh, six or more intense years of my life, I am focused, determined, enabled, and gifted for the task of raising these little beings. Who breathe and have life and who I want to DRINK and TASTE of the goodness of the Lord for them.

THIS IS extraordinary. And today, resting on my couch after an eventful morning with a simple outting alongside my three little people, I let myself be encouraged to go into "part two" of our day with peace, a will to sustain me, and an extraordinary purpose.