Beginning and the End

This weekend I got to stay overnight at a lake house for my sweet friend Bree's bachelorette party.  She is getting married in less than 3 weeks! 

God used this little trip to reveal His goodness to me in such a cool way.  There was a girl there who talked about loneliness; she just moved to a city for a summer and had no one to hang out with.  Earlier that day she had asked me about my tattoo and I told her about the lyrics to this Nicole Nordeman song which partially inspired it.  In the song she talks about praying to God in different ways throughout her life; as a "super-hero" when she was a child, as a best friend when she was a teenager, as a Shepherd when she started a family, and each time He says "I Am."  The song wraps up like this, cataloguing God's names throughout a lifetime: 

Creator, Maker, Life-sustainer,


Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer,

Lord and King, Beginning and the End.

I Am, yes, I Am.

After she had poured her heart out to us about how tough it was, how her time of isolation had tested her faith, I thought for a moment how much more I could have shared with her about my story that would have been relevant had I known her circumstances.

Man, have I gone through a wilderness time like that! Don't we all? At the start of Bree's bachelorette party (and Casey's two months ago for that matter), I was struck with what a rarity it is for these girls to have friendships that have lasted a lifetime.  I do not have friends like that which I've known since elementary school.  Part of me grieves over that; over the season of loneliness that I had in parts of high school and parts of college that this girl is experiencing now, over the close friendships that I did have during those times that failed. However, I can rejoice now knowing that Jesus met me there on those Friday nights by myself, He saw me through the end of those tough seasons of despair when I didn't know how to relate to the girls I thought knew me best, or the confusion when I knew nothing of what the future held.  Just like He will do for this one girl, and all of these girls, and me throughout our whole lives as we trust in Him.

I think the neatest part of this little detail of my story is that even though I have broken relationships, God has blessed me with these new ones! He has given me all these strong inspiring women to grow with and be encouraged by.  He sets the lonely in families.  And then I think about each one of those ladies, and the stories that they could tell about Him as the Beginning and the End in their lives. Whew, it is mind-blowing!

Anyway, I hope this makes sense and is an encouragement to anyone reading right now.  And Bree, I'm thrilled for your upcoming marriage and that we are friends : )

Can we rewind?

Maybe it is because she had a fever yesterday.  There is nothing worse for me than a baby with a fever.  Maybe it is because she will be 10 months old tomorrow.  Maybe it is because it is almost summer, thus almost her birthday season.  Maybe it is because I have made meals for families with new babies practically once a week over the past few months.  And that I get to hold said newborns, sigh.  But I've been hit with the realization recently that my baby is almost a one-year old!

During Landon's first year, I wrote him practically a letter a month.  I haven't written Copeland nearly as much, and sometimes I feel bad about it.  *But, I take solace in the fact that Copeland and I have something in common that Landon and I never will.  He will read those letters maybe when he becomes a Dad, or maybe earlier?  But when Copeland reads hers, she will understand with a fullness that he will not because she will be a woman. (I'm not saying that Landon or men in general aren't nurturing or can't love deeply) I am saying and appreciating and noticing the difference between femininity and masculinity.

Recently among my friends and acquaintances, I've heard a lot about marriage.  We've celebrated two weddings this year, and will celebrate another one next month (and I get to go on a bachelorette weekend on Saturday, whoooo!) A common theme is that, gosh, it is tough sometimes! To understand one another when we are innately different, to reject selfishness and embrace selflessness.  Parenting is similar!  Especially right now when Landon has begun showing his age, throwing the occasional tantrum (which is not like him), and beginning every sentence with "No, I want..."

Copeland from the beginning has grown us and stretched us.  She has not been as laid back as Landon was. And although with her there is less relaxing (for us and her ;) I love the way that she loves us.  Even though it can be frustrating when she cries dramatically just because you sit her down, I love that she wants to be close, that she prefers us.  I see a lot of that in me.  I hope to steward this element of her heart well as she grows.

I love this baby girl so much.  My emotions with Copeland have been more tempered than they were with Landon.  I didn't cry when I took her hospital bracelet off.  I didn't cry when she got her first shots.  I didn't cry when I left her for the first time.  But as I sit here and face her first birthday, it almost brings tears to my eyes now!  She is such a sweet sweet blessing, and I am so glad to be her Mom.

 'One day the water's gonna wash it away'

I started to take a picture, but the flash was on embarrassingly, so I threw it down and got this ;)

And I'm going to take that grain  I'm going to crush it all together 

Into the flour of a bread 

As small and simple and sincere 

As when the dryness and the rain   Finally drink from one another

The gentle cup of mutual surrendered tears

Come on!

I was swimming through the waves

For what must have been days

But could find no relief,

When I started sinking down

I thought for certain I would drown

Until I saw you in the ocean underneath

All the bright colored fish

Tell of a treasure in a dull shell,

"Such subtlety, so easily missed!"

You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love

And I'm the living example of 100 percent the opposite of this.

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist

while watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew

if ever you come near I'll hold up high a mirror

Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you

Or if I'm a crown without a king, if I'm a broken, open seed

If I come without a thing, I come with all I need

No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head

The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead

Mewithoutyou!!!!!

This weekend we are going to see my favorite band ever Mewithoutyou play in Columbia at New Brooklyn Tavern.  Words cannot describe how excited I am to attend this show. Their last album came out three long years ago. So much has changed since then.

I was wondering recently if you have a window of time in which you can accept and analyze and fall in love with new music, and then when that window closes it is done. Because for me that is the case. I don't know if it is that no good new music or bands have come out in the past ten years (wowzers, is that how long I've been out of college? Nearly.) or if Greenville just has no scene (that is definitely true) or what, but Justin will try to play me new songs/bands and I'm always just like, "eh."

MWOY came out with a new album that 'dropped' (do non-rappers say that?) this week.  It is so good.  It makes me happy when I listen to it, and reminds me of the night I heard them the first time (at a Beloved show, same venue we will be at this weekend), the cd Justin made me with tracks from their second album before it had been released (we were broken up, and I thought I definitely wanted to get back together with a dude who had the inside scoop like that,) road trips to shows in Charlotte, etc.  Here is my fave song so far:



I read a review that said their music was, "rife with bucolic settings and ethereal subtexts."  Who says that? But it is true. I know nothing about pumpernickel bread, rabbit hutches, train tracks, or bob cats, yet these details attract me. Someone created a glossary for their latest album here. Who writes an album that needs a glossary? I love the obscure allusions, and the elaborate intricate stories developed around something as simple as a fox. And that is just the writing.


I think I know a little about writing, or atleast that I feel it if it is good. I don't know much about music. Justin talks about different drum set-ups or will point out when a chorus is off-beat or how guitars can sound bright or clean or rich and none of that makes sense to me. I know nothing about indie or folk or alt-country. I don't know how to pronounce Sufjan Stevens name.  I literally like a month or so ago heard Bon Iver for the first time and liked them.  I remember when Maroon 5 became popular and then played out on the radio and how I had heard them like 3 years or something ridiculous before then. So when I heard that Goteye song on American Idol for the first time, I knew. That band had been successful for years, and now was so old they were big. Therefore, I am officially out of the loop. 


I used to be in, but I am out now. I used to know emo and screamo and hard-core and post-hardcore and some singer-songwriters. Band names and up-and-coming ones, first albums which were always better than subsequent ones.  These days I unashamedly listen to the Top 40 pandora station when I work out. But I've got this band atleast. I love this band. Hopefully I'll take lots of pics so you know what I'm talking about come Monday.

Motherhood

Can we talk about just how cool in general life is?  Justin sometimes makes fun of me for using the word 'season' to talk about a stage of life, but I've always liked that word.  Perhaps because man, they keep coming and changing don't they?  I remember my first Mother's Day (although I wrote three posts about it), all I could see was the good, the easy, the joy of it, the blessing.  There is still so so much of that.

I mean how can you not be blessed by that look?

But now as Landon gets a little older, there is so much more.  As time goes on I am able to see not only how God has used them to change me, but how I hope he uses me to change them.  I hope they remember songs we sing in the car.  I hope they remember laughing a lot when we swing them around.  I hope they remember bringing meals to friends and giving elbows and holding hands while we pray.  I hope they remember running around church with zero abandon, and that they don't stop worshipping that way like so many of us have.

Right now a lot of people around me are having their first babies and a lot are having their second babies, and it really makes me see the difference between the two transitions, and the difference in me as motherhood changes.  When I became a mom through that first year of Landon's life, my heart expanded like the Big Bang.  The world revolves around you and your child and you swear your heart will stop when you leave them for even an hour.

And then thankfully your perspective changes a bit, you can watch Publix commercials without crying, and recently I've been able to see a bigger picture. A friend and I were talking last night about really thinking about God's promise to Abraham--descendents as vast as the stars--and how much of an overwhelming blessing that is.

I tell Justin all the time I would love innummerable babies.  Too many curly-headed Snow babies to count.  Because my prayer is that we teach them well, it really is.

9 months of girl

2 days old

9 months is a big one.  I remember when Copeland was born, we kept calling her 'him' or 'he'.  Before this doll baby, we had only known a certain boy newborn.

I know that I joke about it a lot, but I seriously am grateful that I have the opportunity to experience the difference (the glorious dramatic difference) between boy and girl in the form of my sweet daughter.  How can they look so alike, yet be so different? I remember wondering what she would look like. So ironic, that I already knew. (Landon at 9 months)

I remember when I found out that Copeland was a girl, I was nervous because I'm a girl! :)  Meaning that I'm responsible for teaching her about not boys, boobs, periods, and makeup (not to mention hair, help me?!) Past the superficial heels and princesses and purses ofcourse is, how men and women are created in the image of God, where we are to find worth (my bff), how and why to make friends, how to be a good wife and mother.

What a responsibility and honor that I get to remind her that charm is deceptive, beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

At nine months, my Coco puff is 20 pounds (81st percentile for weight), she has grown an inch since her last checkup, and her head size is still 99th :)  She is eating tons of finger foods...bananas, sweet potatoes, pears, watermelon, puffs ofcourse, biscuits (as you see here).  She will sometimes wave if you wave at her, and babbles all kinds of ma-ma, na-na, ba-ba, da-da sounds which Landon will die laughing at. I cannot believe this girl is almost one year old.

Literally as I am typing she is trying to stick her finger in the electrical socket, so I guess I better go re-baby-proof the house.  Somehow those outlet covers have one by one gone missing since Landon was her age.  We love our girl, and she is always keeping me on my toes!

Some days are so full of joy because of these two.

Some days I feel like I know what I'm doing.

 Some days I've got no clue.



Some days I feel like I am not competent to do this job well.

I am learning to let go of the things that don't matter much,



and embrace the things that will last.