Some time ago I started writing this blog. I write for me for the most part. It helps me document my days and see if there is a pattern for chaos. Hello…chaos with pattern is not chaos I tell myself with a proficient eyeroll. Ok, so it is still chaos, and it is my perspective. There is a validation for self in here but the fact that I can NEVER find time to write due to the amount of writing material flying at me should tell you a bit about me. I am strong. I am busy. And I am tired. Much of my life the fight has been against the world. I always did it my way and suffered the consequences. I do not conform is what my tombstone should read. I have no real fear of jumping because I know God will either catch me or teach me to fly. What I hate is hitting the ground. Sometimes God lets me do that for…I cant remember. Posterity? A dose of humble pie? The reality that He is God and I am not? Yes, these things. I also think it is a training exercise but that conversation is for another day. Suffice to say I have been stand up comedy for my cloud of witnesses since I found out there was such a thing.

This past weekend I went to a writers conference. I always show up at these things believing that I have no business being there and I should also go more often if I am serious about writing. The google amount of paperwork I jot on all the time does not count. Near anxiety and self loathing I argue with myself the entire first day. I am alone in a sea of artists. The creators of writers conferences know this about me so they schedule an outrageously good speaker to motivate me and let me know she is like me somehow. I finally buy into this stuff and fall head over heels in love with hanging out with grown ups who are smart and gifted and funny and tolerate my run on yacking-slash-rabbit-trailing. I am also starved for adult conversation and put that on the list of things I would like to improve on. Soaking up the atmosphere of teaching and sharing, my internal fighter puts down her (my) bow and arrows and begins to twirl with elation for the break in the battle. But this is not a play exercise as much as it is a freedom grab. My words have power. All words have power. Spend some time in the book of James and realize the healing power and the damaging power of words forged by the wagging tongue. Wielding them carelessly can deliver such agony, slaying hearts in ways that cannot be undone. Using them to edify and lift up a wounded soul and maybe even become the next motivational speaker at my future writers conference. Words will be how to lose the battle of light and dark or it will be how to win it. As a mom to five, each of these children react differently to their own world, their view formed early as their lives sprouted forth in bad soil laid down by people who could not parent well. My job is to decipher, discipline and disciple communication lessons to them. Choosing carefully, creatively, I pray my words are good. I repent when they are not. I am human. I learned this a few times by hitting the ground while in a flying lesson.

Upon return back to the land of “home” I am met with the reality of spiritual warfare. My wingless wonder has broken my moms computer again, my daughters have left priceless dolls in the mud at the treehouse, my smallest has a fever. By Monday another has a fever, the house is a mess, I cannot find time to connect with the AMAZING grownups I promised I would connect with. I have no less than 4 medical specialist appointments by Wednesday and wonder boy has gotten suspended for not choosing his own words very well. Yes, there is much work to be done. But there is power in word-warfare and I am a word gardener. It is planting time; I am no ordinary farmer of words. I am a superhero mom (spelled wow if turned upside down) and my kid-crop needs so much tending. “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” 2Timothy 1:3 (esv) There is pattern in the chaos of our lives together after all.