Have you ever stood at the refrigerator and wondered what to make for lunch and thought “Well, I can’t make those adorable butterfly sandwiches like Kathy does. But at least I’m not driving through McDonald’s like Barbara is right now.”

No? Yeah, right. Nor have I. How would I even know what Kathy and Barbara are doing for lunch? Oh, I read it on Facebook.

One of the problems of our generation of mothers is that we are living REactively instead of actively. We respond and react to every single meteorite of information that is hurled our way. We react to Facebook posts and studies by scientists. We react to NY Times articles and blogs by homemakers.

Why? Why do we care what everybody else is doing? And when we post to Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest are we doing it because we simply want to be connected to our friends to share our lives or are we showing what we can do to the world? How skinny/smart/creative we can be. How great our kids/house/life are.

I have had so much trouble with this in my own life that I have deactivated accounts and then tried to log back on only to be annoyed all over again. I realized I was reading too many blogs by men and women who have no presence in my life. So I deleted all of those bookmarks and kept the one that I found truly edifying.

If we only know how to react to the fallen people in this world then we are telling a sad story with our lives. I want to act; to respect my husband, to teach my children, to manage my house and to do good works- but my hope is to do all that minus the white noise on this screen.

…Mom and Dad decide to record a song.

I’m one husband, three kids and four records into this life. It feels like the right time to do a song here and a song there and give them to you.

This song is called Heavy. I wrote it for Chris. We tracked it at home. It’s quiet so turn it up!

Here it is. Download it now for free!

Just have to say a quick hello to my local friends who are probably visiting because of the lovely article in Emerald Coast Magazine. So hi!

I had a great time hanging out with the beautiful Ann McQueen. And my friend Hannah Bryant Brown managed to make me feel comfortable in front of her camera even though I was pretty darn pregnant! If I thought I was pregnant then, I didn’t have a clue what I would feel like in August!

Also, a big shout out to my favorite record store/book store in the world- Central Square Records and Sundog Books in Seaside. My friends Tom and Jenny King run the two little shops in the one darling building and the article in the EC Magazine is awesome!

So, new friends, welcome. Chris and I hope to record some new songs this winter, and after that we’ll probably get out to meet all of you…maybe at Central Square? First, though, we’ll have to have this baby.

Please, will you pray with me for Kate McRae? Pray that our great God heals her little body of cancer. Pray that her sweet mother and father will continue to have strength and courage and hope. Pray for her brother and sister as they watch her go through another round of radiation, and pray that they will be comforted. Pray for all those who minister to the entire family.

You know the economy is rebounding when…more people are getting divorced? How strange.

I’m a sucker for lists. And I like this one a lot. Secrets my pilot won’t tell me? Do tell! One of my favorites: “There’s no such thing as a water landing. It’s called crashing into the ocean.”

Since watching Lost I haven’t even thought about getting on a plane. Thank goodness I haven’t needed to. I know, I know- it’s safer than driving. But it doesn’t feel safer than driving. So I can’t be convinced. Ask my husband. I recall his astonishment at my anxiety on the very first flight we took together. With every takeoff, every bump in the air, and every landing, I am a perfect mess. I clutch anything that’s…clutchable. I wear sunglasses so I can (attempt to) hide the fact that I’m crying like a ninny. It’s hard to enjoy pretzels and a Coke when you feel like your prayers are the only thing keeping the beast afloat. It’s ridiculous. So now you know why I don’t visit you if you live more than a car ride away. And why we only go to Disney – a mere seven hours by land – for vacation.

I guess today’s post was more like a round of True Confessions. Well, that’s all I’m giving away for today.

I visited Challies this morning, and got a nice heads up. Adopted For Life by Russell Moore is free this month as an audio download from ChristianAudio. It’s such a great book, and if you’ve been waiting to read it, just go get it and start listening!

Awhile back I wrote about the book on my FB page. Some of my late night ponderings:

I recently finished reading Adopted For Life by Russell D. Moore. If you, like me, hope to one day adopt, or if you are adopted yourself, or if you’ve already adopted one (or two, or more!) then this book is a necessary read.

Dr. Moore has a passion for adoption, certainly. But he has an even greater passion for the gospel. And he weaves the two together seamlessly, because, in fact, they are part of the same fabric. I don’t know why I never realized the importance of adoption in relation to being a Christian. I have been adopted into God’s family. If you have been adopted, too, then you are my brother or my sister. And we have been called to take the fatherless into our hearts and homes.

There’s so much more to the book. He discusses Joseph as adoptive father. I never thought of Joseph that way. I just thought of him the way I often think of biblical characters. God gave him a task, and he did it. Surely it was easy for him to do what the angel had told him to do it…right? Or maybe it wasn’t so easy. BUT because God called him to do it, he did it. It wasn’t easy to begin with, very likely, whether or not the baby was a King.

…My friends Jana and Billie just came in for a little visit. Jana and I carried on a good little conversation about all of this. She reminded of the line below, from the book of Psalms. So I wait patiently for the day God places a lonely, little being in our pathway. We will probably have the opportunity to dismiss the whole idea. Like Joseph could have. Or we will, Lord willing, take that little one into our arms, and hold on tight…tighter. Just how our Father holds onto us.
“…God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68:6

Download the book, and if you can, say thank you to ChristianAudio by shopping there. They have a great selection…authors ranging from C.H. Spurgeon to Flannery O’Connor to John Piper.

My internet friend, Ian Harvey, over at One21 music has given last summer’s EPs several end-of-year honors. I’ve followed Ian’s blog for quite awhile, ever since he included Chris in one of his interview series, Voices of the Undergound. He then interviewed me for the same series the next year. Ian really thinks about the state of music as a fan, and he asks hard questions. I had a lot of fun answering his questions, and think you guys would really enjoy reading what all of the artists had to say.

I also like the way One21 profiles Christian artists, and then puts them in a category or a “type” of artist. Categories like The Spiritual- (music by believers for believers,) The Message- (by believers for everyone,) and The Light- (Christian artists who are vague in their subject matter.)

Why bother with all that? The article says, “The idea behind these categories is to allow all the many ways that music is made by believers to be viewed as a unified music scene. For the artists that sing honestly about their life  and for the worship leader in the church, God uses all this music to touch people’s hearts.” And God does use all of these artists to touch people’s lives. A person that would go to a bar to hear a band but would never step foot in a church, well, there are several Christian artists out there who can be used by God to plant a seed or water a seed someone else planted.

Here are the links to the end-of-year lists:

The One21 Top 25 Recordings of 2010 (Go to this list and grab a free download of songs by 15 of the artists on this list!)

Go check out One21, and thanks to Ian, Chuck, Rebecca and their readers for listening!

My husband recently purchased what must be his fifth copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress by  John Bunyan. I have read the book many times, too; we read it every year in elementary  school. Clara is nearly five, so we should probably read it to her sometime soon. And I  think these coloring sheets will be a nice supplement to the reading for both the girls. I  could print them out as we need them, or I could print them all out in one sitting and put them in a Pilgrim binder.

I hope this aids other parents in sharing a timeless treasure with little ones.

A few months ago, my monthly copy of Christianity Today arrived at my house with Jesus on the front cover- in RayBan sunglasses. Before reading it, I assumed  the cover article by Brett McCracken, called “Hipster Faith,” would be about somebody else, maybe somebody or several people I know, but not me. But I was surprised by how convicted I felt. He was talking about me. Granted, I didn’t grow up in a mega church, quite the opposite, and I have never been a member of a hipster church, but for some reason the heart descriptions- and some of the outward depictions, as well- were hitting a little too close for comfort.

Go read the article. You might think it’s much ado about nothing, but I was happy to have my eyes opened to what I probably appeared to be to others for several years in my twenties. (I’m thirty now, so I can say that with gravity and wisdom and a single white hair.)

Oh, and I wrote a letter to the editor. Here it is:

The article on hipster Christians was a wake-up call for people like me. I don’t want to make people wonder what I am. Christ wasn’t nearly as mysterious as we like to try to be. Confounding, yes, but he said who he was, what he came to do, and what he plans to do.

I will keep singing the old hymns. I’ll continue the organic thing. I’ll keep my heart open to all who need help. But I will also remember that I am called to be a light: not a dim, vintage lamp or a string of paper lanterns—a light.

Oh, and CT also reviewed the EPs while I was on my blogging break. Here’s the link for that.

(A “hook” in music is meant to catch the listener’s ear. The Hook around here is whatever I come across in the cyber universe that catches my ear and eye.)

The Fairy Tale Struggles: An interesting article from NPR. But I’m more interested in this comment left by a reader: “I’m a 24-year-old girl, and while I grew up on all the Disney fairy tales with Prince Charming being the hero at the end of each story, the society we live in today is constantly bombarded with negative media and an overwhelming divorce rate. How easy is it to believe in fairy tales and the idea of living ‘happily ever after’ when these problems are so prevalent? I could be way off and it might just be a natural feeling to have after growing up, and maybe this occurs with every generation. But it might be interesting to delve deeper into the subject. Does anyone believe in ‘happily ever after’ anymore? regardless of age?”

I’ve had this discussion with my friend Jana. It was a while ago, so I can’t remember the particulars, but I do recall that we agreed that Disney had a hand in creating the generation of young women we found ourselves in. We “want much more than this provincial life” and that is a slippery hope. (Jana, what on earth were we talking about? You’re such a fun person to have a rousing conversation with.)

When Disney does sequels, well, they’re not usually sequels- they’re prequels. See, Disney can’t do a real sequel because who wants to see Cinderella back to mopping the floor as a wife? A couple of sequels do come to mind, now that I’m thinking about it. There is one about Cinderella and her life in the palace after her marriage and the Prince is out of town for the whole thing, if I’m not mistaken. So that’s not real life. And there is a sequel about Ariel and Eric, but it follows their daughter, and would you believe she is a human who wants to be a mermaid?!

We’re not satisfied. We never will be if we’re chasing after the fairy tale ending. It doesn’t end the day you find your prince or the day you get married. No, instead that is just the beginning.

I know I didn’t do a very good job of preparing for life after marriage, and there were times when it hit Chris and me so hard that we felt winded and hopeless for hours or days. We are blessed that we made it through days that we hope never come again. (Eight years next month!)

And now we feel that our most solemn duty as parents is raising Clara and Mercie to be prepared for marriage, if that is the life God gives them.

I still love a good fairy tale, but it helps to know the reality: If a girl is meant to marry, then she begins a new chapter in her life with the words “I do.” And I don’t see anything wrong with that fairy tale wedding, as long as she is putting as much thought and prayer and effort into preparing herself for the days after she weds. When all the toasts have been given and everyone has gone home and the dress is hung up in the closet- there are just two people in this thing from here on out.

A good resource for younger women: Joyfully at Home by Jasmine Baucham

A good resource for younger to older women: Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss