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Different

The song entitled "Different" by Micah Tyler speaks perfectly to my life's desires right now....

Once I desired sameness.... balance.... comfort....control...
Once I prayed for the ability to hear, see, and know what was best....
Once I prayed for pattern...routine...preparedness....
Once I prayed that my children would be able to look like the rest of the children in the world....

Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word." Psalm 119:67

 Now I desire difference....
I pray I will learn to listen.... only respond to an accurate vision....live in the unfamiliar
I pray I never stay the same...move away from gaining the world....give up everything....
I pray my children never look like the world's standards....

I wonder if or when Levi will ask me about some of his little "Levi differences." Two "belly buttons," slow and quiet in speech, weak in muscles, a smaller hand, turned feet, and prone to vomit daily (as he did after his first day of school). He may actually look quite similar to the children in his preschool class, but deep down, he is very different. His experiences in three years are very different from my first three years of life or that of all his siblings. Unbelievably, amazingly, beautifully different. I envy Levi sometimes. I begin to see those kids with external differences greater than my son's, and my eyes see a beautiful blessing because they have the ability to live- changed -always. Some may scoff at this and assume my naiveté is offensive, yet I truly believe that the times my life has been easy, comfortable and predictable, I stray, I worry, and I become lukewarm. Nothing is worse than lukewarm people or coffee? Amen?!

Thus, may I never trade God's plans for something familiar. If it takes selling everything, moving to a far away land, or simply learning to live very different in a neighborhood of serious sameness, may I live different and changed, always.


Sneak Peak last week was great until Levi realized Silas was in a different class!
This big Kindergartner wanted to sit with his new supplies and crunch numbers  for hours just like his daddy!

Practicing "reading to our trucks"- I love boys!

P.E. practice with indoor Zumba!

This one has decided he just needs a bunch of blankets in order to sleep through it all.

Every mama's end table reading...
The face he made when I told him we were hanging out without his brothers for once... :D

The face he made...

And then quickly afterwards he was too tired to play.

I can't believe this boy is already in Kindergarten!

Silliness without big brother Si 

The days without my biggest helper can prove a little too mischievous.
This little-big boy was nervous about school, but did great on his first day (minus the exhaustion afterward).  

I love that you are different Levi. Keep teaching us all how to be our own kind of different.

~Different Buster

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