Another 5 Things Challenge

So, I noticed that I've been a bit whiny and butt-faced in my past few posts. I apologize for that. I wish I could say that you've just caught me on bad days, but truth be known, the past several weeks seem to have been string of bad days - mostly of my own doing. I wish that I wasn't a pessimist by nature, but I am. I, in fact, have to work extra hard not to be a pessimist. But I have this good friend who is actually quite the optimist - has been since I met her in the second grade. And I love that about her. I just visited her blog a little while ago and discovered a rather lengthy list of her things to be thankful for. Some of the things are rather small and trivial [which she acknowledges] but I love the fact that she sees them as things to be grateful for, things she has not earned but that have been given to her to enjoy! In honor of my "glass-half- full" friend, I am presenting you with another challenge. The 5 Things to Be Thankful For challenge. Even if you have to dig deep, I know you can think of 5 things - big or small. Here I go:

1. The Birth of Jesus...really and truly. The miracle of Jesus Christ - God in the flesh - being born to a virgin. Growing within her, waiting to be born and grow up and show us what God looks like walking among men. Then, He died on the cross so that we could have life...complete, full, abundant life...now and forever. If you really stop and think of the magnitude of the whole deal, it's a little overwhelming! And the tragedy for me is that I don't stop and think about it very often. This Christmas Season it's going to be different. I am going to reflect on Jesus - who He is, what He's done, and how His very presence brings inexplicable joy and peace to my life.

2. My husband. He just recently had the opportunity to show me some serious unconditional love. I mean he always loves me unconditionally, but on this particular day I'm sure he had to dig deep. I was ultra inconsiderate of his feelings and I pretty much just screwed up big time. It was the most real picture of Jesus' love I think he's ever shown me. I am grateful for him and for his sweet, tender heart as well as his glass-half-fullness. Plus he's my best friend and we have fun together - I like that, too :)

3. My family. I really love them a lot. It's a blessing and curse, but I'm thankful that I still have most of my grandparents, that I have parents who still love and guide and encourage me, that I have siblings who make me laugh and are more dependable than siblings are required to be. They make me laugh and cry and they are all still a part of my life. That's unusual and I'm thankful for it.

4. Sweets - I love, love them! The mere sight of them makes me excited - like they represent something more than just yumminess. I'm not really sure what it is - maybe feelings of being carefree and childlike again??

5. My dog, Bella Boosk. She is the most loving little creature God ever put on the planet. She is always excited to see me and never gets mad at me. She doesn't expect anything from me. Anything I give her is like a big, fat present that she never thought she would be so lucky to receive. I think there's something to be learned from that sweet little ole dog.

So those are the first 5 things to be thankful for that came to my mind. Your turn! Try it...it really does make you feel better.

Good luck getting through this one...

1. Sorry I've been slacking. It's been an interesting couple of weeks...no time to gather my thoughts enough to write them down. The end.
2. I miss the Deep South...deep down ache and long for it. The smell, the land, the people. I had a dream last night that I was in this unnamed smallish Southern town and my heart was so full I could hardly stand it. Then Preacher Man was standing beside me telling me that we had to go. And my heart hurt so bad at the thought of leaving such a wonderful place. Must I have those feelings in my dreams, too?
3. I had a conversation with this guy the other day. Okay actually I just listened while he had a conversation with my coworker who actually has other friends here. Anyway, he sings - like woah sings. So a friend of his asked him to come sing at the church where he's now the Music Pastor. So ole boy who grew up here in this rather large and diverse city went to a smaller church in Tennessee. Not very super small...just smaller. And this is what he said, "Ya know, it was nice. Just one of those churches where everyone is the same and they all wear a lot of floral." Here's the thing - I get what he was saying. He wasn't being ugly. He was just noticing. He even said that and said it was great for his friend but, "I wouldn't be happy there." That's how he ended it. Well that got me to thinking. He definitely wouldn't be happy there. He's served jail time and has tattoos and loves hanging out with the homeless and downtrodden which is a very cool thing. But those people in their floral love Jesus, too. And maybe they reach a different group - the kind that wear a lot of camo and shoot guns and stuff. Or the kind that just need to be loved on because they live far away from their families. I don't know. I just think that I might could have been happy there. Maybe even happier there than here. Because some people love diversity. And I appreciate it...I really do. But other cultures don't fascinate me and I don't think that learning to speak another language is the best thing since sliced bread. I absolutely think you should reach out to all nations and all tongues - but what about THIS nation and THIS tongue??? I don't know. I'm wrestling with it.
4. I'm sick and tired of feeling like a slacker because I have not yet learned the other language Preacher Man speaks, which happens to be Portuguese. In a few days some of his friends who ALL speak Portuguese will be coming to visit and they will all ask, as they did a year and a half ago, "Your wife hasn't learned Portuguese yet?!" And Preacher Man will say, "No. She needs to though. I got her this learn to speak Portuguese program for her birthday but she hasn't used it yet." And they will look at me and say, "Oh...you have to learn!" And I will smile and nod and say, "Yeah I know," all the whilel thinking, "Why? Why do I HAVE to learn? Leave me the stink alone, okay?"
5. My whole family is going to have a big fun time in Branson for Thanksgiving. I'm going to stay here with a bunch of people I don't know that well and eat turkey [not fried] which I'm not really that crazy about. And people will try to make me feel better by distracting me and trying to form some sort of make-shift family for me but the truth is, I don't want another family. I like mine just fine thank you very much. I want to be closer to them. Father, I am begging you to let me live closer to them.

It's Not Enough

Hello to my peeps. Once again, sorry for the absence. I'm working through some things. I don't really know how to put it all into words right this second, but in order to work through these things, I am required to put forth a great deal of effort, which I never like to do. Or I only like to do it on my terms when I'm in the mood. That's so incredibly vague. Sorry.

I love the part where I get to love Jesus and we hold hands and skip together down a very sunny road lined with the most beautiful wildflowers ever. Then we stop skipping and He asks me to do something gut-wrenching. He promises that after I have done the gut-wrenching thing, we will resume our skipping. He'll hold my hand the entire time, He promises. And I really do believe Him. But what He's asking my to do has me standing there on the sunshine covered road, holding Jesus' hand, frozen in fear. Have you ever experienced anything like that? Something you really don't want to do, but you know you have to do it - so you keep delaying it and the longer you delay it the more petrified you become until that fearful feeling creeps into other areas of your body/life until you cannot function normally? And I keep looking up at Jesus' beautiful face hoping that He'll say, "It's okay. You don't have to do it", and we'll laugh and smile and resume our skipping, but instead He just stands there looking at me, lovingly, oh yes, but expectantly as well. Death to the old self. He's asking me to obedient. And we've been standing there for a long time now. And we haven't really talked because He's just waiting for me to step out and do it. But I begin to loosen my hand from His - the very touch of His skin makes me feel uneasy. He doesn't stop me because He doesn't work that way, but He keeps looking at me, waiting patiently. I can't look at Him anymore. I feel too ashamed. And then, because I haven't looked at Him in so long, I begin to wonder if He's really still there. And I start to forget what it was He wanted me to do. And for a little while I'm just glad that the fear is gone, but then a certain discontentment sinks in. I feel so useless, worthless, and wimpy. So I look all around me. Everywhere, hoping to find a glimmer of hope. The road looks kinda cloudy now and the wildflowers are beginning to wilt and I'm not even sure that I remember how to skip. Then I catch the smallest movement out of the corner of my eye, and I look up. He's still standing there in all His bright and shining joy-inducing glory, looking at me so sweetly. Waiting for me to be obedient because He has so many great things to show me further down the road. And I remember the thing He wanted me to do. And the petrified feeling comes back. I know that I have to make a choice. I miss holding His hand so much, but if I reach up to grab it, I will HAVE to do the thing. Because I can't reclaim that intimacy and not do the thing. His love beckons me to obedience. So I try to hold my hand as close to His as I possibly can without actually touching Him, hoping that this will be enough.

It's not enough.

I have to do the thing.

A "Thing" I'm thinking about doing...

Job 6:11 – What strength do I have that I should still have hope?

I unlock the door to my empty house and drop my bags – purse, laptop, lunchbox – in their proper spots after yet another long, unfulfilling day of work. I walk into the kitchen to begin another evening of mindless, draining chores. I unload the dishwasher, my mind filled with thoughts of what else needs to be done before I can crawl into the bed and escape for a few hours. As I am wiping down the cabinet, scrubbing off jelly stains and bread crumbs left from the rapid morning exodus, suddenly I just can’t do it anymore. I leave the jelly rag sitting on the counter and dazedly walk back to my bedroom. I pause, looking at my pretty, made bed with throw pillows built up in mounds upon it. It is my sacred place – the only place where I can escape the monotony of my life. I carefully move just a few of the throw pillows over, crawl beneath the covers, careful to disturb as little of my sacred place as possible. Beneath the heavy comforter and tucked in sheets, overshadowed by the pillow mound, I wish that I could just sink into another world, one that does not look or feel anything like my real world.

I feel as though I will never be able to get up again. I’m so tired. Not physically. Maybe not even mentally. But emotionally and oh yes, spiritually, I am so tired I don’t think I can live one more day of the life that I have somehow ended up with. How different it is than the one I imagined! I was going to do great things. I try to remember what they were but I cannot, or will not, because I don’t really believe in dreams anymore. That’s what it means to be a woman living a grown-up life – you stop believing in dreams and fantasies and get right down to business. Doing the things that need to be done.

I discovered that marriage really isn’t that romantic. And I felt silly for ever believing that it was. I realized that having a baby didn’t make me feel needed or important. And I felt ashamed of myself for buying into such a lie. I found that being a teacher didn’t really change the lives of children – it just helped them pass tests. And I was angry that anyone ever let me believe I could make a difference. So now I don’t believe anymore. I just live. And I try to be kind to people. And take good care of my family. And laugh when I can.

But I’m so tired of living without hope. I miss dreaming. But I can’t risk it – because when it doesn’t come true, I will find myself broken beyond repair. Numb is better than broken, I think. What strength do I have that I should still have hope?


Have you been here? You, no doubt, had different hopes and dreams that were dashed by reality, but have you been here? Feeling so hopeless that you don’t think you can take another emotional step forward? Maybe not outwardly. You still read your Bible and pray and raise your hands in worship and believe in Jesus. But inwardly – in YOUR sacred place, have you felt the panic of hopelessness? Have you thought, is this REALLY all there is to life? Well, sister, if you have been here, I have spectacular news! I know someone who IS Hope – His very presence breeds and strengthens that feeling you had as a little girl – the feeling, no the unfaltering belief, that someday you would be spectacularly swept off your feet and whisked away to a beautiful castle where you would do things and live a life that mattered. There is hope! Join me on the journey as we discover how to attain and retain that hope.


This is the opening for a "thing" I'm thinking about doing. Is it enticing?

Nasty Gravy and the Ugly Cry

Today I got up extra early to sear a roast, slice up potatoes and carrots, and get it all in the oven so it could cook while we were at church. Well, all of that went very well. I was even ready before Preacher Man, which NEVER happens. So we attended church, which for me is crazy hectic since I work in the preschool area and people believe that we don't ACTUALLY need adults to volunteer to keep the children. They really just take care of themselves. [dripping with sarcasm] Anyway, so we made it through church and then had to wait for 45 min after the service while Preacher Man counseled because my husband speaks three languages and is extremely dedicated to what he does [not a bad thing unless you have a roast in the oven]. By the time we left I was a little grumpy/sad. Partly because our pastor told a story about dancing with his little girl, which made me miss my Daddy/cry [who is still alive but lives far away from me] and partly because Preacher Man is so dern dedicated to his job. Preacher Man, however, was in a rather yippy skippy mood and chatted my ears off all the way home. This equaled me being more grumpy.

So, we got home and the house smelled delicious and I thought, "Okay, maybe it didn't burn. Maybe it's a miracle." I opened the oven and pulled out the pot...wrong. Okay, well it didn't exactly burn but there were no more juices left and the potatoes and carrots were stuck to the bottom. You just know looking at such a scene that the roast itself is going to be somewhat lacking. So, I tried to SCRAPE some of the drippings off of the bottom of the pan and combine it with a little flour water in an effort to make some sort of gravy. In order to cover the burnt taste, I had to add A LOT of flour water. So it turned out tasting mostly just like flour. So then I had to add a lot of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, which made it taste like seasoned flour.

As I was doing all of this, I burnt my left thumb on the lid of the pot because I somehow forgot that it was in the oven for 3 hours. "Shit" is what I said. But it wasn't a bad burn, just enough to make me even more grumpy. [Stir, stir, stir] Preacher Man entered and started making the broccoli. I grabbed the handle of the pot with my right hand...same hot pot. Same burn but on my right thumb this time and significantly more painful. "Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIIIIITTT!" is what I yelled this time, holding my burning thumbs up in the air. Then my face got all squinched up and I started to cry. Ugly cry, that is. Still holding my thumbs in the air. Like a double thumbs up. Preacher Man just stood there hugging me...I mean really, what else could he do? I dried it up after a while, ran my thumbs under cold water, and finished the nasty gravy. Preacher Man fixed the rice and the broccoli and we ate our below average roast dinner in silence.

In case you have ever wondered if any one else has these kinds of days.

Back to Louisiana

"Well, how was your trip home?"

I've gotten that a lot this week - because I went back to Louisiana for my little sister's wedding. The thing is, that's a difficult question to answer. Here's the best I've come up with, "Oh, ya know, it was good. Typical family stuff. I love 'em. I would literally lay in front of a bus for any one of 'em. But honestly, some days they make me WANT to lay in front of a bus [mostly just kidding about that]. But it was good [smiley, rambly me says as I nod my head]."

It turns out that going back "home" after creating my own "home" with Preacher Man is tricky business. Things just aren't quite the same. I built this trip up in my head. It was going to be filled with laughter and ease and lounging by the pool in the evenings. With afternoon tea and light hearted sarcasm and plenty of dancing. Well as a result of the intense wedding planning that was happening, there was only some laughter, not much ease, and no lounging due to the stampede of mosquitos that happened at sunset. There was afternoon tea, not-so-lighthearted sarcasm and well, there was still dancing...we maintained the most important things.

In the end, though, my sister got married. And she was beautiful. I cried. It all changes when you get married. There is a shift in the family dynamic. God made it that way but when your original family is as great as ours, it's hard not to mourn the shift.

My sister got married and I got a taste of my old "home". And actually missed my new "home". The one that happens with Preacher Man and Belle. And it was good. Really good all around because good, bad, or ugly - my family is mine. And I will take you down if you hurt them. And although transitions are not my favorite things, God walks with me through them in such a way that I find myself enjoying the newness before I even realize it. And THAT is one of the many reasons why He is DA MAN!

The Grey T

I step out into the thick air and just stop to breathe it in. I glance around at the familiar surroundings - the old tree house that I've never set foot in because my family didn't move here until I was in college. Looking at that tree house now, I kinda wish I had seen the inside of it. I make a mental note: Check out the tree house later. The tapping of my blue tennis shoes on the driveway mingled with the sounds of the dead end by our house - birds chirping, the wind casually moving through the trees, cars distantly speeding down Jackson Street - fill me up like a breath of Spring air after a long stint in a dark closet. I reach down to touch my toes, slowly, letting my body get ready for the run, letting my thoughts drift to no place in particular. It's been so long since I have released my notions, giving them freedom to roam and roll and stretch. I can do that here, where I always feel safe and comfortable.

I take a sharp right out of the driveway, walking to the next turn, letting my legs get used to the movement. At the corner, I begin to jog. I decided to leave my iPod behind today - just to be alone with my thoughts and the streets that are sprinkled and even scarred with the memories of my childhood. I can't help but notice again, as I do every time I travel down this street, that it is the dwelling place of cats and kids. That's what I call it - the cats and kids street. It all makes me smile. The cats. The kids. The way I have named it my own name.

I begin to think about why my heart feels so full, so at rest when I am here. In the town I grew up in. I'm not the same me I was when I lived here. I'm a new me with parts of the old me still lingering and implanted but even the new me loves to be here. Somehow my thoughts drift or tiptoe or lumber, to the t-shirt I'm wearing. How it's old and soft and my favorite of all the t-shirts in the world. In true favorite old t-shirt form, it hugs me in all of the right places and floats freely in all of the right places. When I wear it I feel perfectly, simultaneously comfortable and confident. That's sort of what's it's like running down these streets. Seeing all of the old homes we lived in [we moved a lot but always stayed in the same neighborhood]. Like slipping into my oldest, most favorite t-shirt. Comfortable and confident - I don't feel both of those things at the same time anywhere else in the world. And here, today I get to slip into that old gray T [both physically and metaphorically] and run until my mind doesn't feel so cluttered and clogged anymore.

In my thoughts, I am running down this street away from a barking dog. My little sister is jumping on my back, nearly tackling me to the ground. We are both screaming and laughing in a terrified sort of way. I begin to laugh out loud. I have to slow to a walk for a little while - laughing and running are not good partners. I catch my breath as I reach the back street. Beside the field. And I have to stop for just a moment to admire the field. It's not really anything special, but it's my field. Well mine and my sister's and my brother's, too. And we grew up in the city so this was the closest thing to the great, wide countryside we ever tasted. And we felt like great explorers in that field with the river [which was actually just a drainage ditch] and the forest [which was actually just a cluster of trees that had not yet been cleared out to make more room for developments] and the wildflowers and tall grasses [which were real]. And standing there, I want so desperately to recapture some of the magic that made us believe. Made us dream. Made us hope so unabashedly.

I begin to run again, this time harder and faster, hoping to completely clear my mind of all thought. I run and run and run, begging my brain to stop. And after a while it does, and I feel free of all that apprehension and anger and hopelessness that I am plagued with most of the time. And as I round the corner and make my way back home, I realize that I am exhausted, but that after all that fighting [which is essentially what all the running was], I feel like I have reclaimed a little bit of hope. And with that a hope, a little of my ability to dream. And I think that maybe I'll start to believe again - believe that dreams really can come true. The new me steps in and makes note that they can but they don't always, and the old me feels okay with that. And the new me and the old me shake hands. They don't hug yet but maybe someday they will. And someday maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to intermingle and intertwine the me's in such a way that there is no difference between the two. Maybe someday. But today this is enough.

I tap back up the driveway in my blue tennis shoes and climb up into the tree house I've never seen the inside of. Because it looks like it was probably built for catching your breath and possibly even for dreaming big.