planning ahead is not what I would call my strong suit. This is usually fine but where long-term child care plans are concerned, this is not the case. The Peanut is turning three this May, which means we are talking pre-schools, and frankly I just don’t have enough energy to drop-off and pick up at two different places. Pre-school for Rooster too!

Enter open house dates and applications, lotteries and waiting lists and calculating the cost of after care. The whole thing feels so pressing and complicated. Do we do a co-op for less money but more time? Do we have the money? Do we have the time? Do we want to put our kids in pre-school in the first place? Lets not even discuss the fear that is on the hearts of every pre-school parent: what if we don’t get in?

As I was considering all of this I ran across an article questioning the importance of pre-school. Basically it encourages people to relax. If you have a spreadsheet that outlines the pros and cons and various open house dates of all the pre-schools you are considering, chances are it doesn’t matter. Your kid is fine even if they don’t go to preschool at all. Preschool is hugely influential as a means to bridge the gap  for those living in poverty or speaking a language that is not English at home, but if you have the resources to be discussing the merits of Montessori versus Reggio Emilia then either (or neither) is acceptable.

If we don’t get in, we’ll do something else and it will be fine. I feel much better.

The other pressing matter I have been thinking about is Pie-caken. I found out about this delicious monstrosity somehow via the magic of the internet. It is when you take a pie, and bake a cake around it. Then you frost it, your pie-filled-cake. I had never made one, but I mentioned it in passing to my friend and suddenly I had to try it. I had a long weekend coming up so I thought, why not? If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you know that I became a little obsessed about the whole thing. It became very important.

All of this leads me to this Sunday when my friends Brooke and Erin-Leigh were interviewed. They are running a marathon in March and raising money for an organization called She’s the First.  She’s the First raises money to send girls in developing nations to school, girls who are the first in their families to be educated. Hence the name “She’s the First. Making sure that the girls are educated alongside the boys is one of the most reliable, and cost-effective ways to help a nation out of poverty. The research on this is extensive and in agreement. Educate the girls, break the cycle of systemic poverty.

Erin-Leigh talked Brooke into running this marathon with her by convincing her that this organization is worth it. So, their personal campaign 26 miles for 26 girls was born. In the midst of marathon training these ladies are raising money for 26 girls to go to school for a year and have a better chance for the remainder of their lives.

Here is the part that made something twist in my heart. The cost of a girl’s education in Nepal for an entire year is $300. To put this into perspective,  the cheapest monthly preschool we could find for a couple of days a week, is roughly $300.

And I wonder if the way I look at my world, the things that I am worried about, the stuff that takes up most of my brain power and a huge chunk of my money, is pie-caken. Am I praying for, paying for, agonizing over a myriad of rich people options (pie? cake? why choose? Pie-caken!) when my brothers and sisters across the globe are starving for any crumb I have left?

Pie-caken might be good, but it is certainly excessive, and brilliant mostly for the novelty. Too much of it just gives you a belly ache. I know that we need child care, that this is part of the life that the Lord has called us to, and I am deeply and truly grateful that wherever I drop them off, they have adults there who love and care about them, but perhaps this is occupying too much of my brain, too much of my heart.

I wonder what would happen if I decided to spread the wealth, to put as much thought into how to get one girl into school through She’s the First as I do about where my girls are going to go. I wonder what would happen if I begged God in prayer to get just one more girl in Nepal into school as often as I do beg him to show me where my girls should go. I am praying over pie versus cake and neglecting to pray over life and death.

I know that pie-caken is appropriate on occasion, that the Lord delights in giving me good and extravagant gifts. But what if I shared the wealth as often as I feasted on it? I don’t want to live a life of excess and novelty. I don’t want to get to heaven and only have to show for all I have been given a delicious monstrosity of a life.

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I don’t have a lot of answers, just a lot of questions. But if you are interested in supporting Erin-Leigh and Brooke in their efforts you can donate HERE.

You can keep track of their training and funding progress by following Erin-Leigh on Twitter HERE and Brooke HERE. Or follow the story through the hashtag #26miles26girls. If you have a blog or a Bible study consider inviting them to tell your group a little about what they are doing.

The loneliness is something they won’t tell you at teacher school, the way that hanging out with teenagers day in and day out will grate on you. They won’t tell you that some days you will end up sitting on a student desk in another teacher’s room during lunch just so that you can talk to another person whose frontal lobe is fully developed.

This is only amplified when you are teaching in the midst of poverty. There will be entire days, weeks, months, semesters, where no one will tell you thank you. No one will tell you that you matter. It isn’t because these students and parents are less grateful for the effort you take to teach. It is just that the resources are already stretched so thin, there is no time, space, 5 dollar gift card to Starbucks left to tell a teacher she is doing a good job.

I remember vividly the day my colleague came in to tell me that one of my students had said something nice about me, the time at the end of the year that a student stayed after school to shake my hand and tell me I was a “real nice lady.”

Between those two instances was the tiny whisper in my head, the fearful whisper on repeat “you don’t matter, what you do doesn’t matter.”

The same plight is often true for motherhood. There is nothing like spending all day with tiny people who are unable to form a sentence that doesn’t start with “Mommy I want” that drives you to strike up a conversation with the telemarketer. It is often the people who need us the most that can’t tell us how much it means. That little voice starts cycling in the three-hundredth time you have cleaned up the dog’s spilled water.

“You don’t matter. What you do doesn’t matter.”

This December I joined the blogging team for Exodus Road, an organization that is doing some truly amazing things to fight sex trafficking. Their efforts are saving lives, restoring dignity to women throughout south-east Asia. I am supposed to write a post for their organization once a month and I have attempted to write this post at least ten times this January. But I always get stuck. That same lie keeps playing in my head “You don’t matter, you will not make a difference.”

Currently The Exodus Road is being featured on The Huffington Post, other people are writing beautiful things about it like this one. What could I possibly have to add to the conversation that would matter? Surely the voice in my head is correct, and my voice on the page is unimportant.

Folks, this is a giant lie from the pit of hell and I am ready to send it back where it goes.

The person ahead of me in line on Tuesday bought my coffee, the day before that someone had left an envelope with 5 dollar bills in it for people to take on the gas pump I was using. I didn’t have to go to the bank on the way home or for the rest of the week. I had toll money. These actions mattered. They mattered far more than their face value of $7.45. They reminded me that I am valued, that I am watched over, that I matter.

The people who work for The Exodus Road are fighting the same lies you and I are. Every time they go undercover they find more girls than they can save, they see more evil than they can hold. Because of the sensitive nature of their work, these brave men are not at liberty to discuss the evil that they battle. There are days they are sure that they are not making a difference. Today I tell them:

What you are doing matters. It matters to the girls who are trapped in sexual slavery, to the parents who are helpless to find their lost daughters, to me comfortable on a Saturday morning watching cartoons with my two lovely daughters. You are making a difference in our world too. What you are doing matters. I am so very grateful you are doing it. 

I know it is hard to believe that a like on Facebook or a follow on Twitter could do anything to help an organization that is fighting a problem as big as sex trafficking. It seems like these things just will not matter. That sentiment is a lie. As I wade deeper into the social media pond, I am learning that every follow on Twitter, every like on Facebook is a tiny piece of social capital. Newspapers are far more likely to pick up stories if the teller already has an audience. Legislators take seriously people who have thousands of followers on twitter. They can no longer afford not to.

Your like on Facebook, your follow on Twitter, you telling your friends to do the same, these things matter very much. Every set of eyes that chooses to watch this story casts that much more light into this dark problem. You matter. I promise you do.

Where in your life do you hear this lie? How can I pray for you from freedom from this lie? Cause it is. A giant lie.

My baby is a streaker. Her favorite part of the bath is the part where she wriggles free of her mom and her towel and squeals with glee through the house. If she can round a corner and catch someone off guard you will really get her going. She is right; it is a great joke. (Almost as good as her other joke, putting random items on her head and declaring, “It’s a hat!” funniest items so far, the remaining macaroni and cheese, and the peanut butter half of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had already deconstructed.)

She has no concerns about the dimples in her butt, or the rounded belly that she pats. She is not worried about whether or not she is enough. She could care less whether or not a naked baby is an appropiate addition to community group. (My community group says, yes. Bless them.) She has no qualms about the length of her legs, the proportions of her face. While she enjoys making other people smile, she isn’t even that concerned about whether or not you think her streak through the house is funny. She only knows it brings her joy, so she runs with abandon. She runs unashamed.

When I think of my “one word” unashamed, it is this tableau that comes to mind. I want to live my life like that, unconcerned about what everyone else is saying about me, doing what brings me joy, free.

This post is linked up with . She made me my sweet unashamed button and inspired my give away below. Check it out.

Please be sure to link back to this post so that other friends who may feel all alone with their “one little word” might see the button

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In an effort to grasp this spirit of “unashamed” I have for you, a give away. I love to paint, and I want my blog to grow. These aren’t bad things, I shouldn’t feel the need to down play them. So, like my blog on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter, and if you have already done that, then share my blog on Facebook or Twitter. Then leave a comment with YOUR one word for the year (if you don’t have one, pick one!) and how you liked or shared this space. I will randomly pick 10 people, get their adresses and send them an original painting of their word. I don’t know what the paintings will look like, maybe big, maybe small. It will be an original. It will have your word on it.

There were 15 comments with words and the 5 pack canvases I bought were buy 2 get one free so EVERYONE WINS! I will contact you when I get yours painted for the place to send it.

I’ve known Elissa since before there was an internet. She was older, and thus my sister’s friend, and then you grow up and suddenly four years difference is really the exact same age. I have had a first hand look (through her blog and stolen conversations at church when I visit my parents) at how the Lord has shaped her life for this exact moment and place. When she asked me to gues post I jumped at the chance.

I, like most of the readers here, have been following the story of Max and his adoption pretty closely. I had the opportunity of meeting the little guy when he first visited the United States with journey’s of joy. I started praying then for the Lord to make him a Peterson and the Lord spoke back very plainly into my heart: He already is.

Those words sprang to mind as I was stalking Elissa’s facebook page while she was in Russia waiting on the Judge to deliver Max to her, and most recently when I saw this as her Facebook update: “Max bragging to his sister: Mom thinks I’m special!” It seems like maybe Max is beginning to believe the words spoken to a stranger brushing her teeth in her parents house. “That boy is already a Peterson.” Of course his mother thinks he is special. He is hers. He always has been.

Read the rest here.

A wife of noble character who can find?

You will find her sitting at the end of the dining room table. It has been her seat since before I was born. My mother sits in this seat in the morning, watching the sun rise over our neighborhood, Bible open, tea to her left. Every morning before school, I would see the evidence of her morning time with God.

 I confess that as a child it was my father who was my spiritual hero. A criminal defense attorney with a heart of gold and huge red letters screaming JESUS in the store front window, my dad was an extreme Christian before Shane Claiborne wrote a book about it. It was my mother whose decisions allowed his ministry to survive. She modeled “missional living” before it was a term.

I have my FIRST EVER guest post at Rachel Held Evans place. You can read the rest right here.

I had a bout with depression this fall. I ignored it. Shockingly, ignoring it did not make it magically go away. I down played it. Also a poor choice. It is hard to tell someone it is not a big deal when you are sobbing uncontrollably over the milk on the floor (you are literally crying over spilled milk.) So I prayed that the Lord would lift the fog. Some would say I did not pray loud enough or hard enough. I did not want the anxiety gone badly enough. So I did what I was once instructed to do. I named, I claimed it, I believed it and received it.

I named it, with the help of my family telling me this was not okay, I did not have to live like this. This thing I was feeling, the way I was going about life, it was depression. I was depressed. It was a chemical imbalance, a physical misfire. Just like the glasses I put on my face to correct my vision before I can drive safely, I needed a correction in the way I was perceiving life and coping with it. I did not have to live in a world that was cloudy and gray all the time. It was unacceptable to live with anxiety chasing you down.

I claimed it. This depression, it was mine. I had fought the battle before and it was time to fight it again. It is one thing to say “Some people struggle with depression, and it doesn’t make their faith less, and it doesn’t make them less.” and another to own it saying “I struggle with depression, and that doesn’t make me less of a christian, and it doesn’t make me less of a person.”

I believed it, the idea that God can help you in all different ways and sometimes medical intervention is the way He chooses to intervene, and that isn’t bad or less, it just is the way God works sometimes.  I believed that being healed by a pill did not negate my belief in miraculous healing, I believed I was not believing in a lesser God if I tried medicine to make the anxiety go away.

I received it. I went to GNC and bought a bottle of herbal supplements for 18 dollars a bottle.  I received the second bottle for half off. I forgot my supplements when I flew to New York for my Grandfather’s funeral and received the blessing of an over the counter solution for sale in every town in America. I receive three tablets of St. John’s wart in the kitchen after work, the Peanut asking me if I am taking my gummies every day. I receive the support of my family, check ups from my sister, my mom, my husband occasional inquiries have I been taking my meds.

I named the depression, claimed it as my own, I believed in the healing and receive it every day after work. Hallelujah. To God be the glory.

*As with all my posts about depression, I am only writing about what works for me. It is a slippery little beast, but nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t just try what works for me, go talk to your doctor about how to help you. 

My grandmother tells a story of when she was a little girl.

Her father left for town and promised her that when he got back he would have for her a very good gift. My grandma has always had a sweet tooth, and she was just sure that he would bring her something from the candy counter. She spent the day dreaming of peppermints and chocolate, debating the merits of caramel and fudge. Her father came home with a smile on his face, a hug for his oldest daughter, and his very favorite candy in his pocket for her. It was the only kind of candy she did not like. She says to this day he felt worse about it than she did.

When we talk about God sized dreams I start to get a little nervous. I know that God has amazing things in store for us, but I don’t always know if we recognize them when they are staring right into our faces. I’ve spent weeks and months praying for the Lord to show up in a difficult relationship or situation, for something amazing and miraculous to happen, for someone to have their very own Damascus road experience, for me to have my very own Damascus road experience only to have the Lord say nothing.

When I look back I can see that He was quietly holding my hand in the dark, and the faithfulness, the grace, the love despite all the difficulties, that was where He was showing up, and in some ways perhaps that is more miraculous than a supernatural experience and a wham, bam thank you ma’am change.

This is not to say I don’t believe in the supernatural experience, the miraculous and instant change. I have seen it, I have experienced it. I know that God still does that. This is not to say I do not believe in dreams only God can fulfill. I still believe that the Lord will bring me the children he has promised me, the ones that are already mine.

Those aren’t the only dreams I have, aren’t the only ones that have been spoken into my heart. Those aren’t the only dreams my Spirit leaps up to meet. In the sixth grade at church camp, the speaker said maybe God wants to use your voice, and the Lord told me audibly “yes!” That one was mine. In the same conference where the Lord told me to begin writing, He let me know that my sisters and I having a ministry together was not just a fun what if, it was a possibility, it would please Him, bring Him glory.

So, if we are talking about God sized dreams, I guess I have a few:

1. That God would use my voice, this year. I have a Facebook page now and a goal of 500 likes. After all my family liked it (thanks guys!) I have 71 (I have a lot of cousins). I have no idea how God is going to do the rest. I also want to start speaking in front of Christian audiences. This one is scary because I don’t know how it is done. I was on a speech team for 8 years I know how that part works, but I don’t know how to get a gig booked.

2. That this would lead to a bigger ministry, with the 2 best friends God gave me at my birth. I don’t think this one is for this year (but hey God, if you want to!) but my heart won’t let me leave this one. It is perhaps, what we were made to do.

I don’t know what this is all going to look like and I know longer want to spend the time guessing. Perhaps the audience the Lord is asking me to speak in front of is the 100+ students that come flowing in and out of my classroom every day. Perhaps I end the year with 69 likes after my political opinions alienate some family members, but I impact the lives of those people, they know God just a millimeter more. I wonder if that isn’t the greater miracle, the God sized dream.

I don’t know what a God sized dream looks like, but when my Father gives me a gift, I don’t want to be disappointed in it. So I will dream big this year. I will be unashamed of the desires I have, but mostly I will seek a God shaped heart, and I may learn that the biggest dreams are the ones that no one notices.

I start second semester off with Romeo and Juliet. The girls look forward to it all year, and their enthusiasm catapults us right into the middle of February. This has worked well for me in the past, however, my first period after the semester shake up has exactly 29 boys and one very demure girl. Even with my significant help (my colleague calls my teaching style “squirrel on crack.” I embrace that.) the enthusiasm was not going to carry us even as far as today.

When I announced to the class that we would be reading “Romeo and Juliet” they all groaned. So, I shot straighter than I ever have before. “Look, I don’t know who told you that Romeo and Juliet was some huge romantic love story. Really, it is a story about two people who really want to do it.” Starting the 2013 classroom year with my first period full of football playing boys cheering me was a lovely way to ring in the new year.

I don’t know if you remember Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy from your reading of it in the ninth grade, but when I described it to my first period, I wasn’t lying. Isn’t that how it always is? We remember things for how they are described and spoken about, and not for what they really are.

I have been reading through Isaiah. It is beautiful; the imagery is crisp. It is deep enough to dive straight in and never find the bottom. And it is totally confusing to me. There are so many times that I wish the Bible were clear and concise. But it isn’t. There are times that I want my God to answer me completely clearly, but he doesn’t, not always anyway. And yet this is my God, and the Bible is his word.

As I have started walking with my new found unashamed posture, I have found that there are things that I shape to the way I want them to be, rather than the way they are. I don’t even realize I am doing it. Romeo and Juliet is a great story. It is funny, and dramatic. It is tragic in the best way and the words are, of course, strung together in the most beautiful ways. But it isn’t a remarkably romantic love story. Presenting it as such turns it into a lackluster story, an unimpressive addition to an already full genre.

The Bible is not simply a list of instructions, my God is not a magic genie. If they are those things, then they are confusing, and only do their job about half the time. But if instead I am reading a love letter, a collection of writing that points to the heart of a wondrous and loving God, even if his ways are beyond me….well I suppose that is another story all together.

Last year I stumbled upon the One word 365 community. With a 2-month-old, a not-yet-2 and my maternity leave ending I didn’t think it was the time for turning over a new leaf. This appealed to me. I chose the word grace, what a gift it has been. I learned so much about what grace really looked like, that grace with strings attached isn’t grace at all. But mostly, I learned to rest in God’s grace, to extend the grace that I was so willing to give others to myself. I learned that God’s grace is abundant, more than just enough to get by, enough to rest in, luxuriate in even. Grace was like a present that I opened all year long.

This year my word is unashamed. In many ways I think it took a year of grace to get me to the place where I could choose to embrace unashamed. If grace was a noun, a present I carried around, unashamed is an adjective, a posture I want to adopt.

It isn’t that I have a lot of shame in who I am or the choices that I make when I think about them, but somewhere along the way it became my natural posture. I second guess, I keep things quiet, I am embarrassed by my desires, I don’t want to have needs. In real life I am a chronic apologizer. If you call me out on it, I will tell you I am sorry. And I cover it all up with a thick layer of oh so confident, isn’t that funny.

This is the year that thick layer of oh so confident, isn’t that funny seeps all the way through to the depths of my heart. This is the year I will stand tall before my friends, before my family, before myself, before my God.

2013 is the year that I learn to fully embrace who the Lord has created me to be. I will walk the path the Lord has for me without apology or excuses, not because it is the road for everyone but because it is the one He has laid out for me.  I will unabashedly nurture and share the gifts I’ve been given. I will not be ashamed that sometimes this takes promoting myself. I am proud of the things the Lord has given me to do. I will not apologize when those things aren’t what other people think I should be doing. I will stand unashamed, in the choices I make, in the person I am and who I am becoming. I will bare my soul, shrug off my covering and expose my whole self. I will stand soul-naked and unashamed before my God.

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One word 365 is a much bigger community than this space right here. I know many of you don’t blog, but I would still encourage you to choose a word and let me know what it is. I would love to encourage you in it. 

A year ago today I wrote this post, with this sentence “I want to give grace because the world says it is unnecessary and a waste of time. But I believe it is healing and facilitates the freedom to do better.” A friend commented, I met with someone about my writing and Accidental Devotional was born. I learned a lot about extending grace this year, to myself, to my body, to my friends. I learned as much about receiving grace, from my myself, my body, my friends, but mostly from my God.

Highlight real commence:

In January I asked the question Does God believe in working moms? and admitted to hearing the Failure Sirens more often than I should.

In February I developed the Norman Family Creed and declared myself a Jesus Lover.  I encouraged you to Cast off Your Chains.

March was a big month. I watched God turn Pee into Living water, Clean my Wound, serve me Accidental Communion. I wrote about both Tim Tebow and Trayvon Martin and my blog got three thousand hits in 3 days!

April brought a rant against Pinterest and the liars who use it. Also, thoughts on bullying and Jesus.

In May the Peanut turned 2! I remembered my friends struggling on Mother’s Day.

June brought stepping into the deep end. July, Unruly Hair and Scissors

In August I prepared my heart for the Rooster turning 1.

September brought Mercy Mondays and I joined with Water Boarding is not Merciful. Turns out some of my best posts come from other’s prompts.

October was a big month. (I supposes birthday months are.) I came clean about my healing, my Baptist/Feminist dichotomy, my voting and praying habits. I had another Mercy Monday doozy and told you to stop shoulding on people.

November I wrote about Old People and my Thanksgiving Day Miracle. I had a Conversation with Myself.

December was my Advent Series.

This year was a big one and I am flattered when I look back. Thank you for reading, for encouraging me, for giving me room to grow. This year brought two different people bringing me to their friend for advice because they believe this space matters. I am grateful for your grace and look forward to what is next. 2013’s word is a doozy!