Be SEEN. Sometimes it makes ALL the difference!

Me and some of my girlfriends got together for dinner last night.  It was glorious.  It worked out for us to meet at 6pm, which hasn’t happened in over a year, at least.  Usually when we get together, which is STILL too infrequent, its past 7:30pm because the evening hours are just so busy.  By 4:30 I caught myself checking the clock every 15-20 minutes, mentally doing the backwards math until I would get to leave.  At 5:50pm, I put one last spoonful of pureed peas into Selah’s mouth, saddled her chair alongside Kevin’s and grabbed my purse.  It wasn’t until I was almost to the stairs yelling ‘I love you’, that I realized I hadn’t kissed anyone goodbye.  I spun on my heel, passed around kisses while reminding everyone to be good for Daddy, turned, and in my head made a dead sprint for the door.  In reality, I probably just walked a little extra fast.   Once outside, the cold rainy drizzle did nothing to dampen my mood.   Girl time feeds my soul no matter when or where it is, but there is something a little EXTRA gratifying when I get to skip the evening insanity along with it, especially on a Monday night.     Monday’s are HARD.  It’s just me and four littles, alone, with work, school, and life to be managed.  The house get’s destroyed.  I hear ‘Moooooom’ approximately 800 times before lunch.  I basically endure Monday, knowing that sanity comes with Tuesday when Desiree comes.  She provides the extra set of hands and eyes I need, so that she can entertain Selah and AJ, while Caleb, Logan, and I do school and work.

The original plan was for four of us to meet up, and it wasn’t until I got to my car that I realized one had to bow out. Knowing how DESPERATE I was for this time, and the release I felt when the door closed behind me, my heart ached a little in that moment for her.  I celebrated her awesomeness last night via text, but I wanted to do it again here, today.  These tiny little moments and decisions that almost universally go unnoticed and uncelebrated, they are the things that should be making front page news, because they are likely the SINGLE most RELATEABLE struggle of the collective family dynamic.

My sweet friend had mom’ed two littles ALL day, and not two semi-self sufficient littles, an almost 1 year old and an almost 3 year old.  She is absolutely forehead deep in diapers, potty training messes, cutting up food for one and fully feeding the other.  Wrestling and begging for a nap time, that by the grace of God will only coincide for 30 minutes of quiet at best between the two of them, hoping for a few moments of quiet.  Just about enough time to get that breath of air that allows your eyes to refocus and see the mayhem that the morning wreaked on your home, deflating that brief glimmer of hope for maybe a little ‘me time’ while the babes sleep.   You can get that second wind though, the one to clean and remain focused and diligent when that carrot of a girls night out is dangling just a little bit further along in the day.   So when I got the text, that the stars didn’t align with her expectations, and she couldn’t make it out but she was choosing to focus on the GOOD…. I knew exactly what was going on, and I knew exactly how big a deal it was.

Those tiny, seemingly inconsequential moments, that no one but YOU even can understand.  The ones where you desperately need a cheerleader to say ‘I see you, and you’re doing awesome’.  Unfortunately, that tiny cheerleader voice is usually steamrolled by the booming voice that says, you just got screwed, you should get all sorts of pissed off about it, because THAT will make everything better.   Lies, lies, lies.  It will make nothing better…. it will actually make everything much worse, more tense, and rather than being able to quietly celebrate a personal victory of biting your tongue, you get to feel like crap too.  Boo.

So, it may not be front page news, but I’m celebrating my amazing friend today!  She choose love, she choose faithfulness, honor, respect.  When it was hard, she was exhausted, and she deserved the break, she did the thankless work of doing MORE, and for that I salute her!  I also want to encourage anyone that needs a personal cheerleader, someone to see them making the hard choice, when no one else does.  Send me that ‘slightly TOO cheerful’ text.  I will NOT think any less of you, I will celebrate you, because I’ve sent that text too, the one that says…. ‘Even though there is crap ALL over my house, and people are acting ALL the fool, and I want to be doing ANYTHING other than this right now, I’m going to KEEP doing it.  I’m going to do it with a smile on my face (even if its slightly crazed), and the only person I’m going to tell that I’m choosing THEM, is you’.

Sometimes all we need is that long distance high-five to help us keep choosing love.  Sometimes we just need to know that someone sees us.  We can tell ourselves all day long that God sees us and our reward is in heaven, and if that is all you need, I salute you too and applaud your maturity.  God also gave us each other though.  Flesh and blood to reach out too, people that can send us words in black and white, that we can hold onto, and re-read…. Words that in truth ARE actually from Him.  My understanding in reading about how God seems to work, is He prefers using His sweet kids to pass love letters back and forth to each other, and do His biding.  When the booming voice get’s REALLY loud, and is saying terrible, tempting things like; ‘what is the point, you do the same freaking thing everyday and can barely see a difference.  Get mad.  Get angry.  Lash out at the people you love the most.  You’re not making a difference.  How selfish are you, only focusing on your family and your friends, when a world is hurting and broken, surely if you were doing ‘kingdom’ work it would be more glorious than THIS?!?’…… You need that tangible flesh and blood to remind you, that what you’re doing IS important, and you ARE seen.

I don’t want my friends suffering silently…. I want to raise my long distance glass of wine and give them the slow clap they deserve for making the hard choice, and doing so with grace.  So give me that chance, when you need it, cause I LOVE you, and I can only SEE you, if you let me!

(Apparently there are only gifs of men slow clapping…. but you get the point 😉

LOVE YOU!