If you are one of the 2.5 billion people logging on to social media every day, you have heard about the current debate over Colin Kaepernick and Nike. As you scroll your newsfeed, Colin’s face appears again and again. Everyone has an opinion. Good. Bad. Hero. Villain. Maybe you are burning your Nikes or maybe you are rushing out to buy new ones.

The truth is, this is an old debate. [tweet_dis]Racial tension is as much a part of the fabric of our country as the American Flag.[/tweet_dis]

The face changes, but the issue remains. Today it is Colin Kaepernick, yesterday it was Jesse Owens.

I am not here to convince you I am right. I am not here to prove you are wrong. Everyone else is already busy doing that.

I am here to ask you to listen.

Let me tell you a story.

When I sent the manuscript for OKAYEST MOM to my publisher, I thought I had turned in a complete book. Then my editor, Adrienne Ingrum, asked for 10,000 more words. She wanted me to write an entirely new chapter dedicated to the topic of race. She said, “You touch on racial issues, but you kind of dance around the edges. I want you to dig a little deeper.”

ADRIENNE INGRUM, Senior Editor at Hachette Book Group

I was nervous. I am a white woman raising black children. I am still in the process of learning and unlearning many things about race. Adrienne is African-American. What was she going to think about my opinions? Would I be able to do justice to this complex issue? Would I offend her with my ignorance or my feigned enlightenment? I wrote Chapter 17, titled the chapter COLORED, and sent it to Adrienne with trembling fingers.

After reading my entire manuscript, the actual entire manuscript, Adrienne wrote a letter. Here is an excerpt:

International, cross-racial adoption is controversial. As early as 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers issued a position statement on transracial adoption declaring the organization “has taken a vehement stand against the placement of black children in white homes for any reason.” During my two visits to Ethiopia, I saw many white families at hotels and the Addis Ababa airport cuddling beautiful, big-eyed brown babies. I noticed they received both approving stares and disapproving glares. In conversations with Ethiopians about the topic, I heard ambiguity. All of this controversy swirled in my mind as I began to read Natalie Gwyn’s story.

[Gwyn’s] account offered a perspective that had never dawned on me, even though I’m a rabid Jesus follower. She was not a privileged-perfect white woman who had plenty of household help and a savior complex for starving children. Reading Natalie’s story lifted the adoption controversy above the politics and black culture rhetoric (which usually tends to be my view). OKAYEST MOM placed international, cross-racial adoption in the realm of God, of callings. After reading OKAYEST MOM, I viewed motherhood by adoption as a spiritual thing.

I cried when I read Adrienne’s letter. I had shared my thoughts/opinions/heart with her, she responded by sharing her thoughts/opinions/heart with me, and we both listened as the other talked. We have since discussed Trump, the closing of Ethiopia’s borders to adoption, and the use of the word “Colored.”

Discussed. We both talked. We both listened. Back and forth. A conversation.

Sharing our stories, listening to each other, building relationship; these are the things that will move our country towards unity.

Racial unrest. Rioting. Gay marriage. Gun control. Abortion. Trump. Starbucks. Nike. The NFL. Vaccinations. There is no end to the number of issues trying to divide us. These are all important topics and we need to have conversations about them, but yelling at each other isn’t going to get us anywhere.

I urge you to approach each other with compassion. Lace your words with kindness. Maybe you are right. And then again, maybe you are wrong. Of course I would like to think my opinion is the truth, but what if it isn’t?

As a Jesus-follower, my words can either point people towards my Savior or turn them away. I would hate to lose the opportunity to talk to someone about something as important as ETERNITY because I was too busy being angry about (insert current hot-button issue).

So…let us talk. And let us listen. But most importantly, let us love.

The world doesn’t need another social media post full of hate for the other side.

The world needs more respect for differing viewpoints.

The world needs more listeners.

The world needs more relationships that look like this.

If I want the world to be less hateful, I need to be more loving.

Blessings!

Order Natalie Gwyn’s new book OKAYEST MOM here.

I hate dress-up days! Spirit week, wacky hair day, school colors…they all drive me crazy. My goodness, do we have to celebrate every minor holiday with a costume? For Dr. Seuss Week my son was supposed to wear the following:

MONDAY: crazy socks

TUESDAY: wear green

WEDNESDAY: mixed up day

THURSDAY: pajama day

FRIDAY: school spirit

You guys, I can barely get my kids out the door with their hair combed and two shoes on their feet. Why you dogging me like this?

For Spirit Week we had five days in a row of costumes! The school lovingly chose a different theme for elementary, middle and high school. Six children, five days, fifteen different themes, thirty different costumes.

I freaking love Spirit Week.

My third grader recently took part in a little school play. He played a pig in Charlotte’s Web. Not THE pig, Wilbur. No, just an ordinary, no-name pig. One of Wilbur’s friends.

The night before his play, I found a pink marker and colored this costume for him.

Look at his crazy eyes. He is simply overwhelmed by the magnificence of his costume.

I drove him to school in his pig costume and then hustled in to find a seat for the show. Through the door walks one of his cast-mates. A fellow barnyard animal. This is the costume her mom somehow managed to throw together.

Why you tryna make me look bad, Goose Mom? Maybe you should dial it back a little.

Surprisingly, when it was time for the Spring Musical, I was not asked to join the costume committee. Goose Mom, however, not only joined the committee, she made all of the hats from scratch.

Do you SEE those hats? They are works of art. I mean, if you are into that kind of thing. Of course, Goose Mom has crazy eyes, too. I’m sure it’s from too much glue-gun action.

My kids asked me to take them to the amusement park. It was cold and I was tired, but I said yes. When we got there, I offered to hold everyone’s belongings while they rode the roller coasters. This is me having fun with my children.

Good times, good times.

I wore this shirt when I picked up my kids from school.

Did I mention my children attend a private Christian school? One of my children almost died from embarrassment. “Mom, that is like you are wearing a shirt that says ‘I SIN!’”

Oh, honey. Don’t we all?

Because I don’t waste my energy on silly things like costumes and roller coasters, I have somehow managed to find the time to write a book.

This book is about learning to be okay with being okay. It is the story of God’s grace shining through my own broken places. It is all of our stories, your story and mine, our very lives proof that God uses ordinary moms to do extraordinary things every single day.

If you struggle to use your inside voice when yelling talking to your children, this book might be for you.

If your children occasionally forget to wear underwear, this book might be for you.

If the dog licks up the spilled milk and you call it “cleaning the kitchen floor,” this book might be for you.

If you pee when you laugh (or run, sneeze, jump, or tie your shoes), this book might be for you.

If you have ever driven away and left a child behind, this book might be for you.

If you count yourself to be one of the world’s okayest moms, this book is definitely for you.

Please join me in proudly claiming your okayishness! Order OKAYEST MOM by clicking one of these images:

Blessings,

The woman on my right was painted with tattoos. A ring pierced her nose, her bottom lip, and her brow. Her dark hair swung forward over her eyes.

Even for all of this, the first thing I noticed was her arms.

Raised lines ran across her like prison bars. They started at her shoulder and continued to her fingertips. It was obvious that several of the scars were thicker than the others. These must have been the places she cut deeper, pressing in not to numb the pain but to end it.

The tank top she wore left little to the imagination. She was exposing herself for all the world to see. No, not her cleavage. Her pain.

As the waiter refilled our coffee cups, the young woman began talking. She spoke of a childhood of abuse. A lifetime of trauma. A protector who didn’t do his job but instead preyed upon the innocent. She spoke of her addictions: to substances, to denial, to the feeling that would wash over her when she held a razor blade in her hands.

She spoke freely, hiding nothing, holding her hands out before her with the gift of her scars and her story.

As she spoke, the woman across from us listened intently. She nodded her graying head slowly, her kind eyes accentuated by laugh-lines. If ever there were two such different women having lunch together, I have not heard of it.

Suddenly, the grandmother reached her hand across the table and placed it lovingly on the arm of the young lady next to me. She began to gently rub her fingers back and forth, tracing the scars.

“Honey,” she said, “The fact that you are not wearing long sleeves to cover these up tells me so much about you. You are not trying to hide your scars from the world. These scars are so beautiful. They are beautiful because they are a part of you. They are a part of your story. Thank you for sharing them with us.”

She called her scars beautiful. And they were.

It felt holy, that moment at the lunch table. It was a table surrounded by women from vastly different backgrounds, each of us with different struggles and different stories. But in that moment we were all the same. We all carried scars that had been declared beautiful.

What courage it took for that young woman to bare her pain for everyone to see.

What courage it took for that grandmother to reach into the pain and call it beautiful.

What courage it takes for each one of us to share our scars with each other.

I love this quote from Iyanla Vanzant. The heart of what she is saying is true. Your story is a healing agent for you and for others. However, I would add one caveat.

The healing power is not contained within your story. The healing power belongs to God and He allows it to flow through your story.

When God first asked me to write my story, I said no.

Of course, when God first asked me to adopt, I said no then too.

I have a history of stubbornness. Thankfully, God has a history of patience and He leads me gently.

When my husband mentioned the idea of writing a book, my gut reaction was fear. I prayed about it for an entire year before I sat down with my laptop and started working.

Through the writing of my story, my heart experienced great healing. I was able to hold up all the shattered pieces of my life and examine them under the light of God’s love. I was able to see the miraculous ways He used my broken places as an avenue for His glory.

As Liz Curtis Higgs said to that lunch table full of writers, speakers, and doubters (I was sitting firmly in the last category), “Honey, if God has taught you a lesson, you need to share it with others. It is not yours to keep. It is yours to give away.”

I encourage you, friends: give your story away. It doesn’t need to be told to the whole world (although this might be the audience you choose), but it does need to be told. Your story is a gift of great value.

This is my story. It contains all of my messed-up, run-down, worn-out places. It talks of brokenness and redemption, trauma and triumph, joy in the midst of pain. It speaks of laughter and healing and how God uses misfits in the most unlikely of ways. You might just recognize yourself in these words.

I have poured years and tears into these pages and I have mixed feelings as OKAYEST MOM makes its way out into the world. I am excited to finally place it into your hands. I am nervous about how the tender parts will be received.

But I am resting in this: God first asked me to live this story, then He asked me to tell it. I have done my best to do both.

If you would like to join me, OKAYEST MOM is available for pre-order. Simply click one of these links and my story will show up in your mailbox on June 26, 2018.

Thank you, friends. You make me brave.

Blessings,

It was 11:00 on the first day of summer break when I heard the words, “I’m bored.”

Eleven o’clock in the morning! On the very first day of summer! My kids had only been awake for a handful of hours when they managed to utter those dreaded words. The words that cause mothers everywhere to lose their ever-loving minds.

Of course I responded with the tried and true momism: “If you tell me you are bored, I will find something for you to do.” (This phrase must be uttered in a voice that sends chills down your children’s spines. It works best when accompanied by laser beam eyeballs, one finger pointing at a mound of dirty dishes and the other at the overflowing laundry basket.)

I love summertime. I really do. I love sleeping in and going to the lake and watching movies in our pajamas at noon. I love not having the pressure of homework weighing down our evenings. I love the ability to spend loooooooong hours with my children.

But sometimes I feel like I might lose my mind.

Having six children home all day long means I can never find a quiet minute alone to write, or answer emails, or pee. Summer break means instead of the regular meal schedule….

We have the bottomless pit meal schedule….

The summer meal schedule is designed to keep me in the kitchen all the live long day. It also guarantees there is never a clean dish in the house. Speaking of dishes, I only have six children so why at the end of every day are there five thousand three hundred seventeen dirty cups lining the countertops?

To help ensure my survival and the survival of our species, I have put together a list of my Top 5 Summer Survival Tips. We have made it this far, fellow parenting heroes. We are more than halfway through summer break. Let’s finish strong.

Survival Tip #1 – Give Them A Schedule

Summertime is about freedom and flexibility, but we can still provide some kind of routine. Children thrive on structure. It doesn’t have to be military-esque. We need just enough schedule to keep our sanity. Even though it is summer, I still enforce a loose bedtime. Around here the summer bedtime is 10:30ish. Sometimes we stay up late to finish a movie. Sometimes we have sleepovers and stay up all night. My oldest knows he is the last one to go to bed so his bedtime is usually closer to 11:30. Despite the variations, everyone understands that around 10:30 on most nights I will be sending them off to brush their teeth and wash their face. Having a loose bedtime cuts down on the daily arguments about how late they should be allowed to stay up.

I also have a meal schedule. I hate rummaging through bare pantries and empty vegetable drawers at five o’clock, trying to figure out what to feed my starving children. It helps me to have a dinner menu planned out for the week. I make my menu every Sunday and grocery shop every Monday. Having a dinner schedule also provides security for my children. Coming from a history of hunger and malnourishment, they tend to worry about their next meal. I hang the menu in a prominent place to provide reassurance that I will in fact feed them, as I have fed them every night for as long as they have known me. This also helps to eliminate the oft-repeated and delirium-producing question, “What’s for dinner?”

Survival Tip #2 – Give Them Chores

I know, I know. This does not sound like summertime fun. I am not saying my children enjoy chores. They complain just enough to let me know they don’t appreciate it. But they don’t whine too much. If my kids give me a hard time about doing one chore, I have them do two chores instead. They have learned to keep their whining to a minimum.

We do chores all year long, not only during the summer, but having children home all day means there is more mess to clean and more hands to help clean it. I can’t do it all alone and I shouldn’t have to. Every single day my children help with something around the house. Taking out the trash, emptying the dishwasher, folding the laundry, feeding the dogs. These kinds of chores often take less than ten minutes to complete, but they teach life skills. I want to raise my children to be fully capable adults and this includes being able to do their own laundry and clean their own toilets. You are welcome, future spouses.

Survival Tip #3 – Have Fun With Them

I am not here to entertain my children all day long. They need to be able to entertain themselves. However, I am here to have fun with my children. I don’t sit back and watch my children participate in all of the fun activities, I join them. I don’t want to miss out on summertime memories.

Plan a lake day, put on your swimsuit, and jump in the water. Go on a bike ride. Take them bowling and show them how you throw a gutter ball. Walk down to the corner store, get an ice cream cone, and lick it while it melts sticky on your fingers. Stay up too late and watch a movie. Pull out the board games and sit down to play with them.

We have done all of these things this summer and I do not regret even one of them. I don’t want to be on the sidelines of my children’s memories, I want to be smack-dab in the middle.

Survival Tip #4 – Read

A good book is like a good friend, you can spend hours together and it will seem like only minutes. Find the good books. Give them to your children. Enlarge their world.

Four of my children are avid readers. It is easy to walk into any bookstore or library and find a stack of books they are eager to dive into. Two of my children struggle to read. It takes more work on my part to find a book they are willing to spend time with. I take the subjects/people/sports they enjoy in real life and look for books related to this topic. My daughter loves to play soccer. I found some biographies on professional women soccer players. She devoured them. My youngest loves superheroes and anything related to science. He is smart and inquisitive and asks a million questions, but he doesn’t enjoy reading. Here are some books I found to tempt him with.

While your children are reading, you might be able to enjoy a good book yourself. Here are my top three picks, the books I most enjoyed reading this summer. You guys, these books were AMAZING. I highly recommend adding them to your summer reading list.

Photo Cred: my daughter Leah.
Bonus tip: allow your children to be involved with your projects. Create opportunities for them to work alongside you. They will feel valued.

Survival Tip #5 – Sprinkle Grace All Over It

Here’s the truth: I struggle with mom-guilt. My children are finally old enough to stay home alone but I feel guilty when I leave them too often. I work outside the home three mornings a week. I also have an editor who appreciates it if I meet my deadlines. Add to that grocery shopping, running errands, taking children to appointments, etc. Life is busy and I find myself feeling guilty that I am not spending enough time with my children.

Sprinkle grace all over that.

I worry I allow my children to spend too much time on electronics. I have loose boundaries on screen time, but the boundaries are fluid and change depending on my schedule. If I am working, they get more time. If I am home, they get less. If I am tired, cranky, and close to loosing my mind, they get more time. If I am well-rested, caffeinated, and ready to play, they get less. If I read an article about online predators, the dangers of social media with teens, or how computer screens are scientifically proven to rot your brains, I unplug everyone forever (or until my next article is due and I am faced with the reality of working from home.)

Sprinkle grace all over that.

Our summers are going to be loud and busy. Our kids are going to have fun and they are going to get bored. We are going to enjoy the lazy summer mornings and we are going to count down the days until school starts again.

Sprinkle grace all over it and enjoy the beautiful chaos of summer.

Blessings!

Warning: contains explicit language.

My daughter’s words dropped heavy in the air between us.

She pulled the comforter up over her head so I wouldn’t be able to see her. She hid her face from me while she cried.

I sat on the edge of her bed and drew a deep breath, the nasty words echoing in my mind. I tried to push down the anger that tightened the back of my throat as I gathered my thoughts. How should I respond?

I had known something was wrong as soon as she got in the car after youth group. Her sisters and brothers were chattering away in the back seat, but she turned her face to the window and stared quietly into the dark. She was withdrawn during the ride home and then escaped quickly to her bedroom.

I managed the chaos of our nightly bedtime routine and when I finally had everyone else settled and tucked in, I climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

It took another twenty minutes to convince her to tell me what was wrong.

“Erin* (not her real name) and I were walking through the parking lot before youth group. I told her I liked the shiny black car parked in front of the church and she said to me, ‘Oh. Not that car. It is nigger colored.’ Then she kind of covered her mouth with her hand, giggled a little bit and said, ‘Oops. Sorry.’ But I don’t think she really was sorry.”

The comment had pierced my daughter’s heart and festered there for the rest of the night. By the time she got home and climbed into bed, she couldn’t contain the hurt anymore. She didn’t understand why her friend would say this to her.

I rubbed her back and talked about ignorance. I told her those kinds of words are a reflection of the person who says them, not the person who hears them. I reminded her we don’t find our identity in what other people think about us, but in the One who created us.

But nothing I said really mattered in that moment. She needed some time to process her feelings and a little extra love from her mother while she did it.

When she cried herself out, I kissed her beautiful coffee-colored cheek and said her prayers. I walked softly out of the room, afraid to shatter her still-fragile feelings.

I thought about calling Erin’s mother. I know her well. She is my friend. She would be horrified if she knew Erin said that word to my daughter. She would sit her down immediately and have a serious talk with her.

Then I thought, Why has she not already had this talk? Why has she not discussed the vile meaning and devastating implications of this word? Why has she not impressed upon her children the importance of never using this word, even in jest?

There is the possibility that she did talk about all of those things and still her daughter chose to use that word. But there is also the possibility that this is a conversation she has never considered having with her children.

Have you?

When you talked to your children about their behavior — about coarse language, profanity, or bullying — did you discuss the n-word? Did you single it out and explain its origins? Did you talk about the dark underbelly of our country’s history? Did you tell your children that this particular word is not the same as other curse words? This word wields more power. It carries the weight of hundreds of years of slavery and institutionalized racism.

Dictionary.com says “The term nigger is now probably the most offensive word in English. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. A contemptuous term used to refer to a person of any racial or ethnic origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.”

It is not a word white parents like to discuss with our children. It makes us uncomfortable. We don’t know how to deal with the feelings associated with it: feelings of guilt and shame, feelings of unease surrounding racial tensions we don’t fully understand. We worry we might further perpetuate racial divides. We wonder if we can properly address the topic. We don’t know what is okay to say and what is not.

Why do some people whisper the word “black” and cut their eyes to me when we discuss my children’s heritage?

Not because they are racist.

But because they don’t know if it is proper for them to use this terminology.

Why did the lady standing behind me in line at the department store say to her friend, “I don’t know what to call them anymore. They don’t want to be called African American because they are not from Africa. What word should I use when I talk about them?”

I almost turned around and said, “People. Human. Brother. Sister. Friend. Take your pick. There are plenty of appropriate words to use.” But I held my tongue and stood facing forward, thankful my children were not with me to hear.

Of course, if my children were with me, she never would have had this conversation with her friend. She felt free to say these things because none of our African American brothers and sisters were nearby.

Parents, we must take it upon ourselves to teach our children. Ignoring the racial tension in our country is not going to make it disappear. Feeling uncomfortable about discussing it does not give us a free pass. Let’s accept the challenge of training up the next generation to be better than we are.

I will lay it out for you.

African American? Okay.

Black? Okay.

Nigger? NOT OKAY.

I don’t pretend to understand all of the complexities surrounding this issue. I know there are nuanced layers to the word and its history. Many steps need to be taken to begin to heal the racial tensions in our country.

Let me tell you step one.

Talk to your children. Tell them about that word. If they don’t understand it, they might feel free to use it. Not because they are racist, but because they are ignorant. And the fault for their ignorance will rest squarely on your shoulders.

I am not claiming to be an expert on this topic. This is not a comprehensive discussion on all things race-related. In fact, I am probably getting some things wrong and ruffling some feathers while I do it. But at least I am talking about it. I am trying my best. [tweet_dis]I am willing to make a misstep if it means I am moving in the right direction.[/tweet_dis]

Let me finish with this: My daughter is going to meet people who think less of her because of her skin color. She is going to have to fight harder to be granted the same privileges my white children will be automatically afforded. She is going to hear this nasty word again in her life.

Please do your best to ensure it is not coming from the mouth of your child.

Thank you.

The girls stood at the finish line and laughed at me.

“Look at her stomach. It jiggles like jello.”

“I can hear her fat screaming for help.”

“Thunder thighs! Ugh. If I had her legs I would never wear shorts.”

My face burned with embarrassment as I pretended I couldn’t hear their taunts. I finished my lap and quickly escaped to the locker room.

I dreaded PE. Every day it was the same. The constant teasing about my weight never got any easier to deal with. I developed strategies for changing out of eyesight, often hiding in the bathroom stall and waiting until the other girls left. I started wearing baggy sweatshirts to school, even on the hottest of days, hoping to hide my body and my shame.

Seventh grade was a hard year for me. A new city. A new school. Three months of homelessness. Bullying. It was the year of the urine-soaked shoes and the lack of toilet paper (read the story here). Food became my comfort. I ate to make myself feel better about life. Cookies and ice cream were my friends when I didn’t have any others. The girls at school made me the target of their teenage angst and I was lonely.

Thirteen year old girls know how to use their words like weapons.

So do thirty year old women. But by this age, the weapons are most often directed at ourselves.

Our society is obsessed with the thin ideal. We are constantly being fed the message that thin equals happy and healthy and smart. Thin is what we should all be striving for. It is the pinnacle of success.

We swallow this message and it fuels a fat phobia.

We are afraid of being fat.

A recent study found that 50% of females between the ages of 18 and 25 would rather be hit by a truck than be fat.

They would rather be HIT BY A TRUCK.

Two thirds of these women would rather be mean or stupid than fat.

Why do we believe fat is the worst thing we could possibly be?

19 years old. Six months before my wedding.

When I was twenty years old I was obese. By the time I was twenty-one I had lost 75 pounds and became a fitness instructor. When I was twenty-four I had a newborn baby in my arms and extra weight on my frame. Over the years my size has fluctuated.

I have been fat. I have been thin. I have been somewhere in between.

As I journeyed through all of my shapes and sizes, I searched for self acceptance. It was hard work. I had to learn how to speak kindly to myself. I realized my worth doesn’t come from the number on the scale or the size of my pants.

It comes from within.

I still struggle with wishing my stomach didn’t jiggle. I still find myself criticizing the size of my butt. I still hear those voices from seventh grade telling me I am fat.

And then I remind myself that I am healthy. I am strong. I am happy.

I try to focus on the voices that matter.

My children telling me they love me.

My husband telling me I am beautiful.

My God telling me I am worthy.

Being a fitness instructor has allowed me the opportunity to meet many people. It is the best part of my job. I love the new friends I make. The relationships we create. The chance to intersect lives with someone I might not have otherwise ever known. I want to help them realize their goals. The number one reason people join a gym is to lose weight. This is okay. It is a valid goal. But it should not be the only goal.

These people, my new friends, come from all backgrounds. All professions. All demographics. I have the great privilege of being entrusted with one hour of their life three times a week. I want to use this hour wisely.

I want to focus on becoming MORE, not on becoming less.

MORE confident.

MORE powerful.

MORE accepting of ourselves and others.

I don’t want them to spend an hour with me as a punishment, but as a reward.

I want to help people focus on their whole person, to become healthy in body and soul.

If I can do this, I have done my job.

I am turning forty this year. It seems a milestone of some sort. A milestone of self acceptance.

My forty year old butt is smaller than my twenty year old butt. It is bigger than my thirty year old butt. It is a happy and healthy butt. I am thankful it is mine.

Blessings!

I looked at him standing there in the evening light. So strong. So handsome. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore and my heart beating in my chest as I crawled between the sheets in our beachside hotel.

He joined me in bed and we began kissing. Softly. Passionately.

I enjoyed the feeling of him next to me. The warmth of his skin. The lightness of his touch. The…..what WAS that? Sand? Was there sand in the bed? I felt tiny granules rubbing into my backside.

I shifted my weight and tried to ignore the gritty substance beneath me. I needed to get my mind back in the game. Focus on the task at hand.

But ewwww! The sand was getting stuck behind my knees. I could feel it mingling with my body heat and rubbing me raw. I had to say something.

“Honey. Honey, stop. Don’t you feel that?” I said.

Disoriented, my husband pulled away. “Stop? Did you say to stop?”

“There is sand in our bed! The maids must not have changed the sheets after the last guest left.” I jumped up and turned on the lights.

Flinging back the covers, I pointed an accusatory finger. “There! Right there!”

Wait a minute.

Peering closely, I realized it was not sand that filled the bedding. It was……black? Small, black crumbs covered the white sheets. What in the world?

And then I realized.

It was my lingerie.

My black lace nighty had disintegrated into a pile of dust.

It had been so long since I had worn my lingerie that it had literally disintegrated off my body.

Taking selfies before selfies were a thing.

When my husband and I decided to go away for the weekend and leave our three-year-old son and infant daughter home with grandma, I wanted to bring along something special. I searched everywhere. I shuffled through the nursing bras and the control top panty hose and finally found it in the back corner of my bottom drawer. Aha! My long lost black lace nighty. His favorite one.

Ever since having my second baby, I had been too tired to care about a lot of things: cooking, cleaning, and lingerie to name a few. Between the middle of the night nursings and the colicky crying, my lingerie hadn’t been getting a lot of action lately. But I was determined to change that. This weekend away would be the perfect opportunity to remind my husband of the young girl he had married all those years ago.

Obviously, things did not go as planned.

We called the maid and asked for new bedding. I hid in the bathroom while she changed the sheets, too embarrassed to show my face. We showered to remove the lingerie fragments from our crevices. I threw what remained of my nightgown in the trash. And we laughed at our predicament. What had happened to us? Were we really two old married people whose romantic weekend rendezvous had turned into this?

Yes. This was us now. Instead of leisurely lingerie-filled nights, we had cold showers and laughter. Things had certainly changed over the years. We were no longer the teenagers who stayed up until two o’clock in the morning talking on the phone, whispering so our parents wouldn’t hear. We were no longer the high school students who skipped third period to make out in the parking lot. We were no longer the college freshmen who rushed home from date night at Taco Bell to try to make dorm curfew. We were no longer the starry-eyed newlyweds who thought they would wear lingerie every night for the rest of their lives.

High School Graduation

The night he proposed. We were babies! 18 years old and so sure we had love figured out.

No. We were now the parents of two young children, fixing up our new home, busy with DIY projects on the weekends. Business owners, working long hours in order to make payroll. Tired, overwhelmed, short-tempered some days. Figuring out what marriage really means.

It means loving your spouse even through the dry spells. It means finding joy in the everyday life you have built together. Serving each other in the small things: a cup of coffee in bed, a foot massage while you watch TV, a listening ear and a soft place to land when the world conspires against you. Laughing when your lingerie disintegrates and realizing that lingerie doesn’t matter in the long run. Love matters. Choosing each other over and over again matters.

My husband and I are celebrating twenty years of marriage in May. We added four more children to the mix since the Great Lingerie Debacle of 2005. We have done a lot of life together and let me tell you something – lingerie is not a big part of what makes our marriage successful. What does make our marriage successful? We don’t expect perfection. [tweet_dis]After all, expectation is preconceived disappointment.[/tweet_dis] We champion each other. We laugh together. We choose to love each other even when, especially when, it is hard. We forgive.

At the end of every day, he is my favorite person to come home to.

Blessings!

This is my friend Jen. We have never actually met, but we lead similar lives. She is also a mom-to-many, a writer, and a fitness enthusiast. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my run-in with a person who the world views as unworthy. Jen had a similar experience. Here is her story:

My new favorite Starbucks is about two blocks from my kids’ school—Fifth Avenue, downtown. I went there this morning. The perfect parking spot opened, just as I arrived. There were two minutes left on the meter and no change in my pocket. Lucky for me, this location takes credit cards. I quickly paid to avoid a parking ticket and jumped into the hustle and bustle of the city life. This Starbuck’s is pretty small. The barista’s aren’t the fastest in town. But it pulses with the heartbeat of my downtown neighborhood, and I find it quaint.

It’s always fascinating to watch people there. I have met up with a mom or two from school a time or two. But the amazing thing for me to observe is the big business deal happening right alongside a young man receiving some form of acupuncture from a beautiful Latino woman. All of it right there–everyone with his or her cup of “Joe.” Of course every city is full of young hipsters. I find beauty in them sipping cold brew right next to retired men, who unknowingly wear the same suspenders. There are the “haves” from the downtown penthouses and upscale lofts. There are the “have nots,” straight from their bedroll on the sidewalk around the corner. It’s racially diverse, socioeconomically broad, multi-generational and everyone seems to belong there.

This morning’s visit left me standing in line for the bathroom. As I waited, my back up against the wall, I watched a woman, likely in her fifties, pouring extravagant amounts of cream and sugar into her coffee. She paused, then began stirring rapidly. She was alone, yet talking as though in a conversation with someone. She was passionate about her topic and I couldn’t help but listen in. She was ranting on and on about Jane Seymour–about her having twin boys, sired by the President in 2009 and the cover-up conspiracy that was duping America. She was intense, perhaps even desperate. Her words rambled on. They slurred together, not always making much sense. I leaned in. I stepped a little closer. I wanted to be a listening ear for the story she seemed frantic to tell. She was determined. There would be no convincing her of any other truth here.

She had no idea I watched her. She didn’t see me listening. She couldn’t hear or care about me … thinking. She just stood, stirring her coffee, talking to herself. I realized she was one of the ‘broken’ ones. Somewhere along the road of life, her mind began playing tricks. I wondered about her family, her siblings, her … mom. Not long ago, she was just a child—just a little girl. Now, she was here, mumbling about the CIA and the President and Jan Seymour, while she stood, alone and mentally broken on Fifth Avenue, stirring her morning coffee.

How did she get here? What path landed her so fragmented at Starbucks? Was it the choices she made? Where was she from? Was she born into an average, middle class family and drawn into darkness by the wrong crowd of friends in her teenage years? Or maybe she was a product of her environment—born into a cycle of mental, emotional and economically hardship, leaving her fighting upstream with no other resource to get her out.

Perhaps someone harmed her. Was the trauma of another human’s poor choices so damaging to her that she simply snapped? All these questions and wonderings ran through my mind as I stood watching. But does it really matter? Does it make her less human? Is her life any less valuable?

Where I live, she is not extraordinary. She is on many street corners in my neighborhood. She is one of them. I pass them daily on my morning run. We see them on our drive to school and they reside on the streets just blocks from our home. They are at my grocery store, or living on my sidewalks. And today, I just so happened to see to her at my favorite Starbucks. She has become a part of my “normal” daily life. And to me she matters.

I understand it’s complicated—all the brokenness around me. I’m not naïve. But what’s simple in my mind is that THEY are loved by God. On some level, we’re all broken.

Life just hasn’t been quite as harsh to me. But some days I feel lost and fragmented at the coffee counter too. I get a little crazy on Fifth Avenue from time to time. And sometimes I have a story to tell, but I struggle in solitude—big crowd or not. So when I see her, — and when I see all of them —I think any one of them could be … me.

I bumped into a confused, broken lady over coffee. And I’m glad for the time granted me by a slow barista and a bathroom line. Time to lean in, step a little closer and see God’s love.

Thank you, Jen, for taking the time to lean in. Every day we are presented the opportunity to do the same. May we take those opportunities to see others as God sees them. If you want to read more from Jen, you can find her here.

Blessings!