Headcovering- a Spiritual Reminder

My veils remind me daily to submit to my husband. But more than simply supporting my husband in the decisions he makes for our family, it should remind me to be gentle. Serenity is precious in the sight of God. As a woman I should cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit. Lately I have been under a lot of stress, and I have somewhat lost touch with my femininity and my role as a wife. Some of my old, hard edge has come back. I need a refresher on patience, quietness, calmness. I need to be more humble.

I need to increase my prayer life. Drawing closer to God will refine me until I am the woman He wants me to be, and the wife my husband deserves. It is also important to me to set an example of kindness, submission, patience, and love to my daughter.

Part of the answer is to be more intentional when I wear my veils. I have been wearing them for a long time now, and perhaps putting on my veils has become so routine that I have let the beauty and power of it fade away. Wearing my veils has become too mundane. I have lost touch with the spirituality of headcovering. It is time to start donning my veils with intention. Before I put my headcovering on I need to pause and think about the meaning of it. I need to commit to obeying God, submitting to my husband, being gentle, guarding my tongue, and having a sweet and quiet spirit. Headcovering should never be mundane no matter how vital it is to headcover daily. Just as we should strive to pray daily without letting our prayers become rote, I need to headcover daily without letting my headcoverings become just a daily part of my wardrobe. It is so much more than that. Headcovering is spiritual, feminine, and powerful. It has brought me closer to God. I need to leave my complacency and let the headcovering that God expects of me bring me closer to Him. Obeying the Lord pleases Him, but doing so intentionally is even better.

When She Becomes a Mother…

Someday, I hope my daughter will be a mother. This is a picture of her at church on Mother’s Day holding the carnation I was given. She really wanted to hold the flower!

Seeing my baby with babies of her own will undoubtedly be bittersweet, but I do want to see that. I hope Angelica loves being a mother. That is the important thing. Women that love being mothers do a better job with their children than women who don’t. The experience of motherhood is so wonderful and refreshing, and I hope that she can really embrace that joy.

I hope she doesn’t sweat the stupid stuff. There is so much conflicting parenting advice out there. Really though, you don’t need advice at all. Use common sense and figure out what works for you and your kid. I want her to know that she doesn’t answer to anyone but God for her parenting, not even me. There is no perfect guidebook. Parenting books are interesting to read, and if you find something in one that is of interest then by all means use it. But it is not necessary. She will know how to raise her child without being told.

I hope that she comes to me when she needs a break. She should have a babysitter too, especially if she doesn’t live near me. There is nothing wrong with having a babysitter and getting time to yourself. But Angelica should know that if she needs a break I’ll walk up the street (or fly across the country) to come and take care of my grandchildren while she and her husband get some much needed time of refreshment and relaxation. Having time to yourself makes you a happier person and a better parent, and I hope that comes across to her as she grows up and sees how I do things. Don’t be a martyr. If you truly don’t want the time off that is one thing, but if you do you should take it.

She should document as much as she can. I sometimes drive my daughter and my husband nuts with all the pictures I take. But at the end of the day I have all these memories and scrapbooks preserved. I do not have the best memory anymore. Photographs will help me relive the best years of my life when I am old, and will give me a legacy to pass down to Angelica so that she can view her own childhood and have that to keep. Sometimes it is good to stay in the moment and just enjoy it, but overall it is better to have a camera or phone. You’ll never get that moment back, so preserve it.

I hope that Angelica has the opportunity to be a mother, and I will help her in any way I can if she does. If she does become a mother, I just really pray that she loves it and that she makes the most of her memory making years, and that she is confident in her decisions and maintains her identity.

Little Friend 1

Yesterday we went to Lowe’s looking for an aerator. While we we were there we ended up walking through the garden section I fell in love with a type of flower, one in yellow and one in orange.  I’ll post the yellow one later.

These flowers are my new little friends! They are so cute and were so adoptable. I now have them potted and in front of the porch. I’ve actually never bought my own potted flower before. I love my little friends. I need to name them. I think the yellow one might be Sunshine (original, right?), but I’m not sure about this one.  Tangerine would be cute, but she isn’t really the color of a tangerine. She is so fiery, like the sun. Maybe I will name her Corona. Wait, that goes together! Sunshine and Corona! And they are sisters!

I’m so happy!

Gone

Masterful

Derogatory

Spacious

 

Hunger devours my fingers

one by one.

 

Eventually, I won’t be able to write at all.

 

My bunny wears very professional sweater vests,

pushes paper,

makes my neighbors disappear,

Reappear in my living room

naked and odd.

 

My stomach hates me.

On the kitchen island,

Roses as love letter to my floating shoes.

Light omnipresent,

staring lewdly.

 

Oh so hard to meditate

on the hillocks of the brain.

 

Hands going going gone

Housewife

Grateful skirts swirl in a breeze maybe meant for them.

Design is Holy,

is enamored of its Designer,

is a crossroads of means and ends.

A housewife manufactures sunshine in her laboratory,

the beakers from the store always having a sale,

her thesis supervised by green,

and critiqued by her children.

After 20 years who will know whether the

skirts were mended or replaced?

Just that they were infused with laughter

and smelled like mother in the living room

living with her eyes full.

 

Translated into Afrikaans and Xhosa, then back:

 

Skirts twirl in the grateful air
they were meant for.

Design and the Holy Spirit,

are enamored

of each other.

Is the intersection of the cross where it all begins?

The woman who produced the sun in her lab,

is studying all the ways you make happiness from the mundane.

Her thesis is green from watching her children.

After 20 years will you know that

the aprons can be repaired or replaced?

You will appreciate the humor.

She won’t.

 

 

skirts and gratitude for the atmosphere,

either of them.

Design and Holy Spirit,

make enamored designs,

are the ends on the cross.

The woman who makes the sun in her lab,

Her laboratory in Delaware furnished by a company

in Hong Kong.

Her thesis supervision is green.

So is the clock looking at her children’s energy,

their youth,

her youth.

After 20 years you will know that

the skirts can be repaired or replaced.

As you appreciate the humor in it,

and sort mothers by whether they baked cookies or used the microwave.

In her eyes you live fully,

live fully alone.

She

She is stove-mouthed

and thinks hideously.

Between her teeth are scrolls

from cities asleep.

Death cartwheels on my lawn,

mostly to impress her,

And because in his spare time he has a pinwheel fetish.

After dark she will write my eulogy and

I will thank her

and never know her name.

Beauty and Lust

Beauty has frost bite and is just

going to live that way.

The stench is aggressive.

I have been living whichever way is out of sight

from Age and Lust.

Beauty and I go way back

to a year I only remember as a pile of sugar to play in.

Skin scrubs keep Age away.

 

The truth is,

Beauty and Lust have never met,

though some think they are a couple.

Lust’s eyes are inverted in her face,

her longings contorted and her hearth

cold.