Morning Confession

I woke up today tired and poured out. I just wanted to climb back into bed with my blanket and let someone else be the mom for awhile. It has been such a difficult week and I just didn’t think I could bear up anymore. Alas, such thoughts are only a fantasy because responsibilities are waiting and I must bear up and press on, so I went to the computer to turn on a song which speaks to my heart and pour out my troubles in song to the Lord. When I did, this picture was waiting for me on the desktop. It was God the Father, waiting to meet me at my point of need. He sees me. He knows. He loves me and is for me. He is waiting for me and we will face this day together.

From time to time, people will say to me, “You are _______________. I don’t know how you do it,” and I recoil because I am not, I really am not. Can I get a witness? I AM NOT. But God…. The Great I AM, HE IS.

I don’t like being this raw, this exposed; but 2 Cor. 1: 3-4 says

“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

No matter how alone I feel, and trust me there are days when I feel utterly alone, I know I am not alone. There are many others struggling to find the strength to face this day and I say to you, we are not alone. God sees you. He knows. He loves you and is for you. He is waiting and you can face this day together. And you know what? I am rooting for you too.

 

Hope for Messy Families

This is the article that started it all.  It got me thinking; took me down memory lane and about some lessons that God has taught me.  But what good is it to learn lessons the hard way, if not to share your stories with others so they don’t make the same mistakes you did?  So here goes, this is a word for the young moms and the tired moms and discouraged moms: TAKE HEART.

I have been a born again Christian for over 30 years.  I have been a stay at home mom for 22 years.  I have been a homeschooling mom for 15 years.  (Did I really say those things out loud?  Now I feel old.)  One would think that with a resume like that, I would have this parenting thing down and our family would be the picture of love and tranquility.  Did you hear that sound?  That is the sound of God and all his angels laughing at what I just said.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  We are a very messy family.

When I began homeschooling, I went with my friends to the annual homeschooling convention.  These days were promoted as a time of encouragement and refreshment.  At these conventions, I would see other homeschooling families with their children:  Angel, Goodly, Neatly, Sweetly, and Perfect ; all wearing matching, homemade outfits.  I came home to my own messy family:  Grumpy, Stubborn, Sassy, Argumentative, and Disobedient, wearing clothes that may or may not be stained, have holes, or match. Rather than encouraged and refreshed, I was discouraged and disheartened.  I don’t go to homeschooling conventions anymore.  (Please note that this is not in any way intended to be critical of homeschooling conventions.  The people who put them on work very hard and many people are blessed by them.  They are just not a good fit for me.)

But this is the good news:  God, does indeed, specialize in messy families.  Messy families are the perfect place to learn forgiveness and grace, the heartbeat of the gospel.  Those things don’t take place in a perfect, sanitized setting; they can only happen surrounded by messy, sinful people who trust in a gracious, forgiving God (Eph. 4:32).  God is not done with us yet, but He is faithful to complete the good work that He started in each one of us. (Phil 1:6)

Comparison is a trap that we set for ourselves.  So what if that mom at the convention has Angel, Goodly, Neatly, Sweetly, and Perfect?  God did not give her the grace to raise my family.  He gave me the grace to raise my family.  He gave her the grace to raise hers. (Eph.4:7)  And if I was honest, sometimes Angel, Goodly, Neatly, Sweetly, and Perfect turn into Grumpy, Stubborn, Sassy, Argumentative, and Disobedient too (Ro. 3:23).

If you are a mom who woke up tired and discouraged this morning, take heart.  God’s grace is new every morning.  He does not grow tired or weary and in His strength you can meet the challenges that this day holds (Isa. 40:28, 2 Cor. 12:9, Heb. 4:16).  So have the courage to be real, think Biblicaly, and live the gospel.  And you have my permission to let your kids wear the play clothes.  They are the perfect attire for messy people like us.

I Want You to Know…Revisited

April is Autism Awareness Month and yesterday my newsfeed was filled with posts calling for acceptance of neurodiversity and contending that autism is not a disease, but rather a difference to be celebrated.  While I support and cheer on each and every one of my sister-moms, to a large extent I find myself on the outside looking in because their experiences are not my experience.  As my friend Laura rightly pointed out, “If you know one kid with autism, you know one kid with autism.”  each of our journeys is unique.

This morning seemed like a perfect time to revisit something I wrote four years ago.

I Want You to Know…

In a Facebook world where we share a status for an hour to show we care, there is something I want you to know about me.  Being a parent of a child with disabilities isn’t just about the disappointment of altered dreams for what your child could become…although there is that.

Being the parent of a child with disabilities is also the heartbreak of seeing him not included; not because his peers are mean, but because they just don’t know how to relate to his world.  It’s seeing friends move on and leave him behind and there is no one to get mad at because they are just growing up normally and your child is not.

Being the parent of a child with disabilities means making a thousand hard choices every day; sometimes in the blink of an eye.  It means choosing carefully which hills to die on and accepting the judgement of friends and strangers because they would never make those choices and knowing that now they think less of you as a parent because their child would never act that way.  I want you to know that I am acutely aware that your child would never act that way and that makes the world a lonely place sometimes because when faced with the choice of explaining my actions so you will like me or protecting her privacy, I will choose her privacy every time. It means knowing that in my fatigue I will sometimes make poor choices and it means asking her forgiveness and forgiving myself and moving on.

Being the parent of a child with disabilities means remembering that there are other children in my family who have needs too and making sure those needs get met.  It means knowing full well that there is not enough of me to go around and trusting God to enable me.

I want you to know the words I dread most in the world are “You must be so ________.  I could never do that.”  I take them in the spirit of the encouragement they are intended to be, but I dread them because I know that I am not.

I want you to know that although my child has cognitive disabilities, he is not stupid and he is aware that he is not like other children.  I want you to know that she feels deeply and her pain is real and her joy is real even when it is not something that would move you at all.

I want you to know that I celebrate small accomplishments and victories and that I know the value of a really good day.

I want you to know that the greatest gifts you could give me and my family are genuine love and grace extended freely, being included, being invited, and providing a safe place to be weak when necessary.

Four years later, I still mean every word.  Four years later, there are a few words that I would add.

I want you to know that I have become quite adept at discerning true friends from those who are just polite enough to stay out of trouble.  If you belong to the former group I want you to know that I owe you a debt I can never repay and I pray that God rewards you richly for your kindness.  If you belong to the latter group, I want you to know that your condescending smiles and utter lack of room in your world for him are daggers in my heart.  I know, I get it.  He can be weird, she can be exasperating, you don’t know how to relate; but it still hurts…a lot…every single time.  But I also feel sad for you because you are missing out.  God has lovingly created each one of us in His image and He makes no mistakes.  That means God made him the way he is for a reason.  That means that if she is in your life, she has something to contribute to it.  That means by dismissing him, you  have missed out, in some small way, of seeing the glory of God.

To those who have befriended our family and included us in your lives, I want you to know how deeply I treasure your friendship; because I know we aren’t always easy to love.  I know that your friendship has come at the cost of forgiveness and grace extended on more than one occasion.

Finally I want you to know, I want ME to know, there is hope.  The mind is a mysterious thing and we are so much farther than I could have ever imagined four years ago.  Life is still hard and there will never be any escape from that in this life; and some days hope all but disappears.  But no one knows the future but God and He is good.  I want you to know, I want ME to know, there is hope.

God at Work

On the afternoon of Tuesday, January  28 a fire began in the attic of our home.  By the time the fire trucks left at 8 p.m. our home was unlivable and our lives were turned upside down.  But in the midst of all of this, my crazy, control-freak, doesn’t-like-to-be-overstimulated heart remains calm.  When friends ask how we’re doing, all I want to do is tell them about all that God has been doing.  Our house burned.  We are so blessed.  These two statements should be incompatible but they are not.  Praise God, they are not.

 

Praising God for His Protection….

Nathan’s classes were cancelled for the day.  Since he was home, I asked him to help me rearrange the furniture in Emma’s room.  Because we were working upstairs, we were able to detect the fire much earlier in the middle of the afternoon.  The epicenter of the fire was right above Anna’s closet.  If the fire had gone undetected or had broken out at night, we might have lost one or both of our daughters.  We are all safe.  Everything else is just stuff.

 

Praising God for His Provision…

Before the fire trucks left our yard, my friend Lisa was texting me with an offer to stay in a house they had not yet sold while our home was being rebuilt.  She could only do this because months earlier, the Lord had laid it on her husband’s heart not to pursue selling the house because someone may have need of it.  It shouldn’t surprise me.  I believe and teach that God is omniscient—He knows everything and that God is eternal—to Him all moments are “now”.  But I have to admit, every time I think of it, my heart skips a beat to know that God was at work providing for my needs long before the first spark.

My brothers Justin and Jason were on the scene the next day to begin the process of clean up and demolition.  They are both highly competent men of integrity and God has gifted each of them with unique abilities that work well together.  It has been so comforting to me to have them at my side, not just because they are my brothers, but also because they are good at what they do and I know it will be done well.

 

Praising God for the Gift of Health…

While we wait to move into the rental house, we are staying with my parents, their dog Molly, and their five cats.  I am highly allergic to cats.  To be fair, four of them live in the basement waiting to be relocated in the spring; but as we learned the year we hatched baby chicks and kept rabbits in our basement, basements count when it comes to breathing.  I am very thankful for a warm place to stay while we are waiting, but by all rights my health should be a wreck.  To the contrary, I can count on one hand the number of times I have needed to take an OTC medicine.  I can only attribute this to God’s sustaining grace.

 

Praising God for The Body…

John and I have been overwhelmed by the love of God as expressed through His people toward us.  Our church, my mom’s church, our homeschool group, our community, saints near and far, we are a part of the Body of Christ and every meal, every card, every collection, every prayer, every hug, everyone who stops to ask “how are you?” is God saying “I love you…I love you…I love you…I love you,” and we have been so loved!   I think this is how the Body is supposed to work.  They have wept as we wept, they have rejoiced as we have rejoiced.  They have held us up in prayer, cared for our needs, and done good unto us.  We live in a time when the Church is ridiculed as being hypocritical and dysfunctional.  From my perspective there has been a sacredness in being part of the Church functioning exactly as it was designed to and to quote Eric Liddell, “I can feel God’s pleasure.”

 

Praising God for His work in our Lives…

“…we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Ro. 5:3-5)

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Ro. 8:28)

“Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

“God always looks upon me and treats me with gracious favor, always working all things together for my ultimate and eternal good.  God’s grace abounds to me even through trials.  Because I am a justified one, He subjugates every trial and forces it to do good unto me.” (Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians, p.63)

I have to confess it is not my natural inclination to exult in this trial but I can exult in my God.  I do not know what God is doing in our lives, but I know that He is at work and that it is good.  I am confident of this because I know that He is faithful and His Word cannot fail.

I’m not sure where this quote came from. Maybe when we move back in our house, I can unpack my box of Bible studies and give the author proper credit; but in the margin of my Bible above James 1 are written these words, “When we endure trials by faith, with joy, it brings glory to God.”  That much I can do.  I don’t know what God is doing, but I know that He is at work to bring about my good and bring Himself glory.

 

Praising God for the Gift of Himself…

When we came back to my parents’ house the night of the fire, my youngest daughter asked me, “Why did this happen to us?”  That is a totally normal question and we talked about Job and how he never lost his love for God or his hope in God and how God restored all that Job had lost.  But for me, the question “Why me?” is very unsatisfying because the inevitable answer is “Why not me?”  As I have been reading the books Be Still, My Soul by Nancy Guthrie and Glorious Ruin by Tullian Tchividjian  (I highly recommend both of them), I have discovered a better question is “Who?”

“Thankfully, the good news of the gospel is not an exhortation from above to ‘hang on at all costs or ‘grin and bear it’ in the midst of hardship.  No the good news is that God is hanging on to you, and in the end, when all is said and done, the power of God will triumph over every pain and loss….(God) loves you; his chief concern is to be himself for you….we don’t need answers as much as we need God’s presence in and through the suffering itself.  For the life of the believer, one thing is beautifully and abundantly true:  God’s chief concern in your suffering is to be with you and be Himself for you.”  (Glorious Ruin, p. 10-11)

This is a great and glorious gift and it is the one theme which keeps coming back to me over the past several years—that God is my Enough and my Enough is more than enough.

 

 

Morning Gratitude

Is there any symphony as stirring as the one God plays for me each morning outside my window?  If I visited the great museums of the world, would I be surrounded with any more beauty than I am outside my door?  Could I visit any spa or take any vacation which would bring more peace than dwelling in the shadow of His wing?  Truly I am blessed beyond all measure and I sing with King David:

 “Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? …How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you.”  2 Samuel 7:18,22

 

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

I was running late for my hair appointment today.  I had everything planned to work out just fine, but my execution was off due to two girls who decided to play with friends without checking in with me, so when it was time to leave homeschool coop today, I had to go looking for them, and I was running late.

I blew into the salon, sat down at the sprayer sink, and started chattering away with a pent up fury of a woman who has gone way too long without getting away by herself and feeling  just a bit stressy.

When I paused to catch my breath, the sweet woman who has cut my hair for the past several years began to speak.  She spoke with pent up anguish which needed release.

Her best friend had been recently diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and would be starting treatments soon.  She had been asked to shave her friend’s head and didn’t know how she would be able to bring herself to do it.  She was struggling with pain and fear and guilt for feeling these things.

My “problems” suddenly seemed really small.  Sure, we live with uncertainty, and a constant level of chaos, I mean madness, I mean stress; but it is not life and death.  It is not.

She attacked my hair with all the pent up pain and fear and guilt and anger at cancer that she had been carrying.  When she finished, my hair was a little bit shorter than I was planning on and a little bit more layered than I like, but I do not have cancer.  My hair is not going to fall out.  It will grow back and life will go on.  I asked her if I could pray with her and so there, in the salon, as her next customer came in, we prayed.  I was able to share my experiences with the cancer center she was working with and how much respect I had for them.  It is the same center, the same doctor who took care of Edmund.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Cor. 1:3-5)

Because we walked the cancer road with John’s father, I had some idea of how the chemotherapy would affect her friend and we talked about some practical things her daughters could shop for to make a care basket. (Boost, peppermints, fiber-con, books/dvds,etc.)

People are hurting everywhere.  Oh Father, please open my eyes and take them off of myself.  I cannot be an instrument of Your healing if all I am concerned with is my own comfort.  I cannot be an instrument of Your healing if I talk more than I listen.  Thank You for putting Your hand over my mouth and giving me a brief window into someone else’s life today.

My joy, My hope, My goal, My reward

In the midst of all this uncertainty, John and I have found great comfort and hope in God’s Word.  There is a list of verses that I keep in my Bible and add to them as more are sent to us by friends or from our very great Friend. 

Psalm 121:  1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Job 1:21  And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;  blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Job 2:10b  Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Job 19:25-27  25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

Job 23:10 10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

Is 43:1-3a  1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…

Jer. 29:11 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jer 32:17,27   ‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you…”Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

Jer 33:3   Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Matt 6:25-34  25 “Therefore I tell you,  do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But  seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble

Psalm 20:1,5-7  May the LORDanswer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!…5 May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the LORD fulfill all your petitions! 6 Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Ecc. 7:14  In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

Psalm 50:10 For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.

James 1:2-4, 12  2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that  the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing… 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life,  which God has promised to those who love him.

John 6:68-69  68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have  the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that  you are  the Holy One of God.”

My first goal in writing here has always been to make a record of things I want to remember; a record my children can read someday when I am gone.  I thought for awhile this morning about making these past two posts private, but it is my hope that if there is someone who reads this who is facing their own time of uncertainty that they would find hope in the One who holds our past, present, and future in His hands.

Where’d he get THAT idea????

Now all of my children have gone through the putting-things-in-the-toilet stage.  If you have ever had a toddler or had to care for a toddler, you know what I am talking about.

For some reason, Sam has taken this to a whole other level.  I’m walking into the bathroom to find things I’ve never seen before in the toilet…bath towels…blue jeans…where’d he get THAT idea???

In our extreme “Duh!” moment for the week, I’m swishing out a poopy diaper before taking it to the diaper pail, when Nathan wryly observes, “Uhh, Mom?  I think I know where Sam got that idea!”

😀 BA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Parenting by Peers

This thought keeps coming back to me this summer:  my chidren do not all have the same mother.  Oh I gave birth to them all..I remember that much..but my younger children definately do not have the same mother that my older children had.  I am not the same person at all.

It’s a good thing, really.  I cannot imagine anything sadder than living through 16 years of life, 16 years of walking the path of faith, and not growing as an individual.  But the gift of growth has left me a changed person and the mother that I am today is very different that the mother that I was to my boys when they were that age.

Gabe was born when I was 24 years old.  Nathan was born the day before my 26th birthday.  There was a miniscule 14 months between them.  I was young, inexperienced, and most definately overwhelmed.  I parented the way my peers did.  If everyone else did it this way, then it must be right.  Right?  My peers introduced cereal at 3 months, vegetables at 4 months, fruits at 5 months, and strained meats at 6 months, all out of a baby food jar, so I did too.  It would never have occurred to me to breastfeed exclusively until my baby showed an interest in eating table food, then feeding him directly from the table.

My peers all potty trained their children on a specific time table, when the child in question reached 2 or before.  They kept rigorous potty schedules and so did I..and it worked…but I much prefer waiting until my child indicates he or she is ready, even if it doesn’t fit with socially constructed norms.  It doesn’t take nearly as long and we don’t make each another nearly as stressed and I find that if I don’t bring the subject up, nobody else does either.

My peers all put their children in  half-day preschool (at least the stay at home moms did) for “socialization”, so I did too.  We’ve skipped the whole preschool thing this time around, finding plenty of socialization at home, at church, at life.  I don’t miss the expense or the extra running around, and the kids seem to be making friends just fine.

It’s not that any of the above things are wrong..to my knowledge,none of my peers ever had children who grew up to be serial killers.  To the contrary, they are all pretty nice kids.  It’s just that the plan that God has for you may not necessarily be the plan that He has for me and it’s taken me awhile to be OK with that.  There are still plenty of opportunities for peer pressure within the homeschooling community~and I’m refering to the parents here, not the kids.  Pressure to eat certain types of foods, pressure to use only natural medicines, even pressure to have lots and lots of children.  I have dear friends who happen to eat only certain types of food, or who happen to only use natural medicine, or who happen to have large families (larger even than ours!) and each one of them has chosen a good path.  The test for me is my heart.  If I seek to do any or all or none of these things because that is the direction the Lord is leading our family, then that is a good thing..but if I seek after them because someone else does it that way, then I am parenting  by peers, which at it’s heart is idolatry, and I don’t want to go back there again.

Works for Me!

Wow!  Has it really been this long since I have had a thought worth writing in my online journal?  Scary.

I have found a wonderful new (to me) blog called Raising Olives that I have been enjoying immensely. It is here that I found the instructions on how to make darling little seeded bobby pins for my daughters (mine are pretty plain~not nearly as fancy as the ones she pictures~ but still pretty darn cute and a closer match to my personal style anyway.) It is also here where I found out how to turn your entire wall (or anything else) into a chalkboard We considered painting our prospective chalkboard the same color as the rest of the kitchen, but then decided that plain black would offer more contrast for colorful sidewalk chalk on rainy days and during the long, cold, northern IL winters for budding artists and bored preschoolers.

One of the features at Raising Olives is “Works for Me Wednesday” I’m not sure that my tip qualifies for WFMW, but hey, it works for me. :o) I discovered this one completely by accident. We have a darling little red wagon~the kind with the hydraulic tires that you have to order through a farm supply catalog~ that I bought when my bigs were littles and I was parenting by peers (more on that later). It has served us well over the years. The wooden frame got pretty well beaten up and Nathan lovingly rebuilt it as a 4-H project the summer Emma was born. (He also learned to use the power saw and electric drill that summer and I have the gray hairs to prove it, but I’m getting distracted.) The said wagon happened to be left near the clothesline the other day when I was hanging out laundry, so I set the basket of wet, heavy clothes in it. Wow! The basket sat much higher off the ground so I didn’t have to stoop down as far and rolling the clothes down the line instead of constantly picking up the basket to move it both were much easier on my back and saved me a lot of time. Here is a picture of our wagon with the clothes by the line. I briefly considered placing a clothes basket in the wagon for artistic reasons, but honestly, it was already in the house being used for other purposes by that time and it seemed a little silly; but please feel free to use your imagination.