You're Our Favorite

"You're my favorite."  If you were to look up the word family in the dictionary you would find a gathering of words that individually don't mean much of anything. Those words gathered together would basically says a group of people who share the same ancestry.  A collection of mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and perhaps you have a collection of these people you call family yourself.  However, if you were to ask me about a family that I think anyone would want to be a part of, one that I wish I had been lucky enough to grow up in at least their family dynamic, without question or delay I would tell you about my friends in the Hueston, Maynus, and Cruea  family.

From the moment I met them I knew they were different.  They have a bond, a connection of faith, that I could only dream about growing up. Spending any time around them makes you a better person because they set a standard of how to love God and love His people. Any one of them will jump in to help anyone.

They are so ingrained within the community that I was once a part of, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't know them. I am blessed to know them. So when tragedy struck everyone has felt it and will continue to feel it along side them because this family makes everyone feel like part of their family.  They didn't just lose one of their own, we all did. Everyone is heartbroken and wherever you turn in the community or social media sadness is evident.

Katie Jo had just graduated from high school weeks before.  They had just the weekend before her passing celebrated her graduation with family and a few friends after being in quarantine for so long. The next week she was killed in a car accident that could have been prevented by a visible stop sign.  An accident that has rocked everyone to their core.  Even a thousand miles away the shock waves have overwhelmed us.  We weep alongside them from afar.

Let me tell you about Miss Katie Jo, though admittedly I did not know her as well as her younger sister and a couple of her cousins. Here is what I know and what I have gathered.  Katie had a smile that would light up a room.  She loved rainbows because she was so filled with love and light she couldn't pick just one favorite color.  She loved helping others. She served in her church.  She worked at a sweet shop called the Hydration Station where she was well loved and served her customers with a smile. She knew and loved Jesus which I think is the most important part.

I don't know what her plans were after high school.  But I know she was and still is so very loved by everyone she crossed paths with. She is the favorite. All of her family is.  I think that is one thing I love most about them.  They tell each other that each of them are their favorites.  They love like that as though each of them is the favorite.  How can anyone question if they are loved in a family like that?  The strength, the faith, the perseverance they have shown is nothing short of miraculous and can only be explained as their unwavering trust and faith in God.

Even in their loss they continue to give.  Katie's heart beats in another chest.  Her lungs, her kidneys, her liver, her pancreas all giving new life to others whose families would likely still be praying for a miracle or going home to mourn their loss.  Katie Jo is as much of a miracle in death as she was in life.

I was thinking about how God mends our broken hearts and puts our pieces back together.  Over and over again He is faithful.  Psalm 147:3 says, He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. We are all praying for that, trusting for that, because they need this and yet they are showing everyone how big our God is as he is holding them up.  Oh God how we love how you love us when we need you most. Holding us even when we can't hold ourselves upright or conceive of it.  Sending rainbows of your promises after the most horrific of storms.  Rainbows...her favorite.

Wear a Mask and Come Alone

The text read "Upon entrance a representative will ask questions & take temperature w/ a non-contact thermometer.  Please wear a mask  or one will be provided to you.  Please ask companions to remain in the vehicle or outdoors.  Thank you."  Don't get me wrong I get it.  I do, but...when I read it I read it as basically cover up your ugly face and come alone.  Come alone? Are we doing a heist?  What is happening here?  I'm going to the eye doctor not doing deals in a back alley.  I need glasses to see, I have to pick out new glasses clearly I'm going to need assistance with that process. But it's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine.  I'm going it alone.

Two days later, the day of my appointment, I made the fantastic decision that we should go stand in line in the rain under an umbrella at a food truck for hot fresh donuts before my appointment. My husband thought this was a crazy idea but because he is use to my antics, he drove us to get donuts and dutifully stood with me under an umbrella while I ordered us donuts to eat on the way to the appointment. There was a line, two actually, one for ordering and one for picking up.  For me, I loved the donuts.  My husband didn't necessarily think they were worth standing in the rain for.  He is far more practical and not necessarily at the level of foodie that I am. But I digress....

I arrive for my appointment and am met with a sign saying that I should text a number when I arrive and wait in my car until they let me know that I can come in.  Seriously?  Does no one else understand how strange this is?  Just me?  OK I'll be the weirdo, it is fine.  I dressed up in donut clothing one day and stood in the rain for a donut the next.  Clearly I'm the weirdo here and having an eye doctor appointment that seems like something that should take place in the back of a restaurant with a mob boss is perfectly normal. Any how I text the number "Heather Nestleroad has arrived" and started to walk to my car even though the entire thing seemed ridiculous when a girl opens the door and asks me if I had an appointment.  I said that I did and she let me in because the texting thing they had going on wasn't really working out that day what with the rain and all.  I go in and almost fall from my shoes being wet and having to stand on a circle to keep with social distancing.  Because clearly I'm the threat here having not had my temperature taken and I'm standing in a mask (pink no less) squeaking my shoes waiting for this adventure to turn around the next bend.  

Finally it is my turn at the desk.  I give them all the necessary things, answer questions, and get my temperature checked.  I was a cool 97.7 and because the only place I mostly go to is work they let me stay.  BUT...I had to go sit and wasn't allowed to look around at the glasses while I waited. When I was taken back it wasn't long before I realized how insane this all was. When you wear a mask it can make your glasses fog up making it hard to see.  When you get drops in your eyes and you wear a mask and have to look through their instruments they tend to fog up too.  Add fogged up instruments to dilated eyes and well.... When the gal leaves me to dilate in a dark room to wait for the doctor I started getting really sleepy.  The doctor comes in before I drift off and asks me how I'm doing.  I said, getting pretty sleepy actually.  He says the drops will do that and goes over everything, does his exam prints my prescription and sends  me on my way to pick out my new glasses.  At this point I knew that one of the two people I like and trust to help me pick my glasses was working.  What I didn't realize was that I was unrecognizable. Apparently having not been there in a couple of years as I was not able to go last year and having longer hair and a mask covering my face made me unrecognizable. It was only when he said I had to take my mask off so he could see how the glasses looked that he realized who I was.  

Listen...I do not hang out with people (I work a full time job and a part time job. I don't hang out with anyone besides my family in general) and I get that I don't have a face that is memorable or really any redeaming qualities aside from one thing.  I somehow turn into a comedian when I go to doctor's offices.  I don't know why this is. Nerves maybe?  I don't know.  But when I go to my family practitioner and when I go to the eye doctor or chiropractor they remember me as the funny one. A psychologist would probably tell you that I hide behind humor and sarcasm as a way of dealing with my undeniable lack of confidence and a feeling of unworthiness that stems back to my childhood.  All true I'm sure, but nevertheless I make an impression as a jokester and a complete dork.  These two people that I consider my friends even though we have spent zero time together outside of the eye doctor's office know who I am. We'd be the kind of pals that all hung out together with our loved ones for game night and pizza if everyone didn't have to work ALL. THE. TIME. and we knew each other maybe a bit better.  They wanted me to apply for a job there so we could work together.  So...it was hilarious when he got all embarrassed when I took off my mask. Amy will have a good time with that, I'm sure.  

In the end I did choose some spectacular new glasses that I'm so excited about.  They are movie star level glasses.  Actually they were brought out of a cabinet and not even on display yet they were so glorious. I love glasses.  I do wish sometimes I could work there.  I could use the employee discount.  I get as excited about new glasses as other women get about designer clothes. I'd rather wear my t-shirt collection and denim capris and have spectacular glasses. One of the reasons I really don't fit in here I'm sure. Who needs to fit in anyway?  Someone has to be the oddball and shake things up in this land of manufactured perfection.  May as well be me and in a couple of weeks I'll have just the glasses for the job.  

God IS

I am on a roller coaster.  The peaks are as high as the sky will permit and the lows go to the depths of the center of the earth.  I've never been one for roller coasters.  I'm scared of heights and I much prefer simulated rides because I can always look to see where I am and that I am safe.  My emotions have run the gamut that a human can endure.  It is a mind game really.  The inner ninja warrior I want to be fights with the scared shell of a human that I really might be.  

The thing is that my husband and I both work in a pharmacy.  Both.  In the middle of a pandemic where we are considered essential employees and yet we are not listed on the prayer lists because people forget that the sick people no matter what is wrong with them, if they aren't hospitalized, end up in the pharmacy. In all actuality sometimes people go to the pharmacist first to avoid going to the doctor.  All our children are home, all of their jobs closed, and sometimes I feel like I'm under water and I can't find the surface because of the fear I might catch a virus and bring it home to my family.

The mind can go off in many different directions in a time like this.  If you think about it hard enough you can almost will something to be wrong with you.  You can think that anything is a symptom of the worst possible illness.  The internet is no help.  If you work at it hard enough you can get WebMD to convince you that you are dying and all you have is a cramp from working muscles that you don't normally work.  

I take my temperature every day.  That's new. When we arrive home after working, we come in through the garage.  We wipe down/spray down everything we have with us. We strip down and put our clothes in the washer, shut the lid then wrap in a towel and scurry off to shower and put on fresh clothes before we can sit or even talk to our family.  That's new.  I analyze every emotion.  That's not new.  I feel guilty for emotions that I do have.  I am disappointed because my plans were cancelled for my 25th wedding anniversary and I feel guilty for being disappointed.  Who am I to feel such disappointment when others are going through far worse?  I talked to my friend about this and she said it is ok to be disappointed.  It is not ok to live there.

Here is the thing...it is ok to run the gamut of emotions.  It is ok to be depressed because you can't go visit friends and family.  It is ok to be missing going to work.  I miss going to my main job of working at preschool.  It is ok to miss taco Tuesday at your favorite Mexican restaurant.  It is all ok.  It is not ok to live there.  When I can think logically, which admittedly comes and goes, I know this. All of these things are inconvenient.  Imagine what this would have been like in the 90's before we could use modern technology like Zoom, or Facetime, or Skype.  Imagine schools closing for the rest of the school year without anything but dial up internet. Imagine going through this having to wait until after 9 p.m. when talking on the cell phone was free.  

It is easy to get caught up in all that is wrong.  It is easy to sit in quarantine watching the news and criticize who is doing what right and who is doing what wrong.  I can't do it.  I am aware of what is happening, but I cannot, nor will I sit and focus on these things 24 hours a day because I will lose my mind.  I tend to think there is a better lesson here.  

My husband was talking to his dad and trying to reassure him, he told him that he thought we would all be back to normal by November or December.  I thought about this and honestly, I hope not.  I don't think our normal was really working for us.  If you take a minute and look around for the good you will see families spending more time together.  You will see neighbor helping neighbor.  You will see entire communities rallying around people who are in need.  You will see that people are waking up to the fact that we are far too "self" focused in our culture. I get it.  I fall into the trap of busy and disappointment in my own things as well.  Clearly.  

But God.  If I take what I know about God and who He is and apply it to what is happening in the world instead of listening to the noise of other people's opinions, I can focus.  I can get centered on what I know instead of what I feel.  The world is in utter chaos, but God has gone before us and already knows the outcome. Someone I know is fighting COVID19, but God has heard the prayers of many, and he is making strides toward recovery.  The He IS part of God must take over in my mind.  Maybe you don't struggle like I do. I have seen so many things saying that we are all in this together, but we are not all having the same experiences or reactions to it.  I must remember God is.  Whether I take every precaution and my husband takes every precaution and something still happens to one or both of us whether it be an illness or accident or anything the enemy can put in our minds to worry about, God is.  Not God was.  Not God will be.  God is good on his promises.  God is still in the miracle business.  God is.  

Please stay home and let all of the people who are considered essential do their jobs.  Be thankful that there are people who are willing to fight on the front lines for you.  People willing to drive trucks and deliver supplies, people working in grocery stores, restaurants, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy staff, the list could go on and on, anyone you can possibly think of. Pray for them.  Do what you can do to support them. Stay home, stay healthy, pray.  There isn't much else you can do.  Take a break from the news and play a game with your kids.  Read a book for fun. Take your mind off things you have no control over, take a deep breath and remember that God is.

Mom, Do you trust me?

It is late summer of 2003  The sun is out and our pool is at just the right temperature.  My mother has her diagnosis and she is living with me mostly full time.  She hasn't felt well but she is having a good day so I suggest she get in the pool with me.  My mother doesn't like the water.  She has a fear of water that I believe may stem from the fact that she had a brother who drown in a boating accident when I was a small child. I didn't grow up going to a pool to swim because of her fear.  She likes the beach but not the ocean.  She prefers showers over baths. I share these things with her. Shortly after my marriage my husband put me in swimming lessons.  My intent is not to scare her but to help her face her fear.  I too, am afraid of this uphill battle that we are facing.  Our Goliath is daunting in the face of the unknown.

She agrees to get in the shallow end with me and I convince her to relax and lay on her back and try floating.  I assure her that I will not let her sink.  I tell her that I have her but even if I didn't she could stand at any point and be fine as the water doesn't even come to her waist in this part of our pool. "Mom, do you trust me?"  She lays back and I hold her and watch to see if she will relax.  She can feel my hands under her, supporting her, assuring her that I am there and I won't let her sink.  Eventually she floats on her own for a couple of seconds before I replace my hands and then she is done.

"Mom, do you trust me?"  It occurs to me now how symbolic that moment was for the journey we were embarking on. Essentially she was entrusting her decision making to me when it would come to the point she was unable. How well did I do?  The evaluation of this still haunts me over fifteen years later.  She should be turning sixty eight this month.  I shared with my father once how I struggle with this and he told me that "we all have our struggles." This brings me no comfort in light of the fact that I question every decision I made.  When I lie awake at night wondering if there were something I could have done to keep her here.

She should be driving around in a yellow convertible in the sunshine state taking her granddaughters shopping and warning them about boys.  She knows all about boys.  I'm fairly certain the only boys she liked are my husband and my son.  How different my children would be if she were here.  How different I would be...if only... "Mom, do you trust me?" I believe she did.  Perhaps she shouldn't have, after all, I am but a mere human who makes human mistakes. I am not a doctor.  I am not God.  What qualifications did I have other than the fact that I love her more?  I need her more. I want her to survive more.  But alas, I'm also a realist. I understood enough about medicine that I know we would not win this fight. We could only prolong the inevitable. When the doctors gave her 6-8 months we determined to defy the odds.

My mom was a dreamer.  I'm not sure I believed any dreams would come true before this journey.  I think maybe I am a dreamer too.  She was also a fighter.  She was all of maybe 110 pounds soaking wet but she was scrappy and she was preparing for a fight. When taking care of her I ballooned up to possibly my highest weight ever eating her food and my own when she couldn't or wouldn't. I was preparing to fight as well but I wouldn't know until later what battle I was really fighting.  Sometimes our battles are not external but internal.  Months of chemo and radiation, months of watching her fight a seemingly losing battle, months of seeing her already small frame diminish, months of dying inside of hopelessness, months of begging God to show his miracles.

Miracles...are miracles and dreams similar? My mother had a brief pause in her fight where she was "cancer free" for her birthday.  Her friends had a party for her.  Perhaps they had more faith, perhaps they didn't hear the doctors or see the scans. Perhaps I didn't think we should tempt fate but I thought it was a mistake.  In her brief period of relief she also went to visit her brother in another state.  It was when she returned that the decline progressed at a rapid speed.  "Mom, do you trust me?" Mom couldn't speak.  She was lost in her own mind. Mom didn't know me.  Mom couldn't walk or stand or roll over or sit up.  "Mom, do you trust me?" and yet....hospice came anyway.  There was nothing they could do and I was defeated.  At her funeral her brother would tell me I should have done more.  I should have taken her to another state to specialists.  I should have... I could have...I would have.... He wasn't there.

The battle continues and I learned too late the lesson of surrender.  Mom learned it.  She faced the giant and she, a woman afraid of the water, was baptized in Christ and when Jesus came for her and stood at the foot of her bed during a lightening storm in July she stepped into eternity.  On a July evening on the floor in her room surrounded by funeral flowers I fell into the abyss of despair and ran from God and into the pit where I deserved to be. Funny really when I think of it. She had only put her faith in Jesus a very short time ago and I had believed since I was eight years old. She hadn't even went to church with me until she got sick. She knew surrender and I knew running.

As we approach her birthday I do believe in miracles, I do believe in dreams, and I do believe she got her miracle just not how I wanted it. I can't picture her at 68. To me she is always and forever 52.  I have friends that age and it seems odd to me that we age and she doesn't.  I wonder if there is cake in heaven, I wonder if my battle will ever end.  I wonder if she sees us and laughs at us.  I wonder if she misses us too and I continue with my thoughts of what could have been and should she have trusted me?

Then this morning I realized that it wasn't me she needed to trust but God.  God had her, supported her, walked with her, supported her, and saw things that I couldn't.  Something I need to remember for myself as well.  I think maybe her hair is long and her smile is vibrant and grandma will bake her cake.  I can't see her but I think maybe she's just as beautiful as ever and I don't think she looks tired.  I think that is reserved for here.  Happy birthday mom I hope your day is as beautiful as you.  I miss you like the flowers miss the rain in a drought.

The But God Writer

Not so long ago I was talking to my oldest daughter about writing. She (unlike her mother) has now graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. It is her dream to be a writer and she is quite talented. Her professors seemed to think so as well so I'm not so bias as you might think.

As we discussed the fact that we have the same, yet different, dreams she expressed her fear of comparison.  She wants to be taken seriously as a writer and not as a kid who does as her mother does. Let me just take a moment here to address the fact that we as humans (especially women) spend FAR too much time living life in the land of comparison.  Comparison only exists to steal joy. If you want to look at where someone is and use that as incentive to work harder? Fine.  But do not look at others and lose sight of the blessings that you DO have in the process. Comparison is the work of the enemy and it does nothing to further the kingdom of God nor does it do anything to help your mind or heart.  

But I digress...I pointed out to her that we have very different styles in writing.  I can only write what I know and while I have many ideas for works of fiction, I lack the know-how for getting any of it written. She, however, has the education to do just that. It was about that time that she said, "Yeah you just write about how much your life sucks and then add something about God at the end."  I'm not sure if that is exactly how she sees what I do or if she was trying to feel better or more confident in what she does.  I don't really remember my exact response to that.  I will say that my life doesn't suck but I do go through trials much like everyone else and I find that writing about those trials and how God gets me through them helps me and maybe they can help others too.  I think that I tried to explain that to her. Maybe....  

Life does get hard for us sometimes, doesn't it?  I struggle with anxiety and sometimes depression.  I have control issues.  I doubt often that I'm a good enough wife and mother.  The point is that we all do struggle in life at some time or another. But God says that, “in this life you will have trouble but take heart for I have conquered the world.”  As for adding something about God, that is the point. I need the reminder and maybe someone else does too.  That is why I do what I do.

I struggle with anxiety.... but God.  Philippians 4:6 says: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests before God.

I struggle with worry...but God. Matthew 6:25-27 says: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

I feel like I’m not enough…but God. 1Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people.  You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.  As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.   

I could go on and on about the struggles that we have as humans or maybe you don’t struggle at all.  Maybe your life is full of sunshine and rainbows and you are perfection and quite possibly an alien from another planet because who doesn’t struggle in life from time to time.  A pastor once said, you are either going into a storm, in storm, or coming out of one. I don’t know what your storm is, but I know that if you live on this planet if you aren’t in one now there will be one coming at some point. My God is bigger than all of it.  So maybe I am the but God writer and maybe that’s ok.  I hold no fancy degrees.  I doubt if I did it would change anything anyway.  I said I am only capable of writing what I know at least so far.  But God…. I don’t know what his plans are for me.  I’m not on the planning committee for what happens from here. When I try to plan it never works out.  It is better if I am just a willing servant.

My daughter is full of ideas and has a passion for writing that I have no doubt will take her far once she hits her stride.  Once she lets go of her fears and figures out the but God part.  As I explained it to her, I realize that I cannot do anything apart from Him.  I’m not smart enough, strong enough, or equipped enough but God….is. 

Fighting Anxiety

I was in a kayak once or maybe it was a canoe...it had two seats and I sat in front which meant the person in the back was steering us, at least that is what I was told. We were on intercoastal waters and at one point we were heading straight for a wall that was covered with spiders that was reminiscent of the spiders from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. At least that was what popped in my head when I saw it. I immediately used my oar to push away from the wall and began to try and steer.  Isn't that what we do, or is that just me?  I'm always trying to steer.

I had never been in a canoe in my life and at one point I was pretty sure that would be the end of me. I was going by way of manatee or spider, not what I would have chosen but it would make for quite the story. As I type this out several years later having never stepped foot in a canoe again I can say I think we're safe from that fate.

As I looked at those spiders on the wall that beautiful sunny day though they were huge.  The largest I had ever witnessed and so many of them that I panicked. I hadn't prepared for this situation. A wall to the right of me and a wall not ten feet to the left of me and the only way out was forward or back the way we had come.  Life feels that way sometimes.

As I look at the storm we currently find ourselves in, not one we haven't been in before mind you, but one I never thought I'd be in again to this degree. and one with several complications,  I can feel the panic rising. I feel like I'm in a canoe and there is a wall of spiders on either side of me and the water is beginning to get waves that are rocking the boat.  There is only one way out, I know that, and it isn't the way I came.  What is done is done and there is no going back. All I can see are the waves and the spiders and I didn't bring a life jacket and I was never a good swimmer and I'm pretty sure there are alligators in that water.  Fear and panic rise. I can't breathe.  I can't see. My inability to rationalize and think are gone and I'm probably going to have a bit of a breakdown before it ends. I'm exhausted.  I need rest. I can't find it. I'm consumed by trying to steer and find a way out.

That is what anxiety and stress does to me.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.  I'm not sure how it plays out for others who go through it. All I know is I am so tired. I am ill equipped to deal with the ongoing stress of trying to steer a boat I don't even hold a license to drive.  I tell myself I need to work more. I need to work more. I need to work harder.  I just need to work more and just work harder and my heart races and time speeds up and slows down at the same time. I can't possibly work every hour of every day. I will die...or maybe I will just wish for it. Do you feel that?  Do you get to that place?  Or maybe you talk yourself out of things. I'm an expert at that. You may not know this but I can't do anything.  It's not true, if I slow down and get out of my own head long enough to see truth, I know that. It's not always easy.  In my memories on Facebook recently I was reminded of a quote from one of my coworkers, she said, "We're drowning but we're still swimming."  I laughed so hard when she said it at work.  I still chuckle when I think about it.

But what if...even though we are drowning we kept swimming?  What if instead of concentrating on the waves and the walls and the spiders and the alligators and whatever else we just kept focused on the shore?  What if we shifted our focus and searched for Jesus in the midst of the sinking ship we think we are in? I'm a runner you know. I mean I don't actually run. I'm a 0.0 miles of actual shoes to the pavement in running kind of girl. If you see that I am running, a zombie apocalypse may have arrived.  I don't run but I'm a runner. I will run away from my source trying to figure out my own problems and stress myself to the brink of a breakdown every single time before I will surrender it to the one who is capable of carrying it for me.  I am a from the belly of the whale kind of girl.  I have no idea why...better story perhaps?  Pure stupidity?  Probably the latter though I wish it were the former.

In all of the worry and working I have forgotten how to dream.  I have forgotten that I moved here in the pursuit of dream fulfillment and I've made it so that all I'm chasing is my own tail. I'm not having fun.  I don't lounge by a pool sipping iced drinks making plans for if and when. I'm living as though I've come here to die.  Not reading books for fear I won't live long enough to finish. It also came up in my memories on facebook recently that a few years ago I had finished reading over forty books in a month. I am unrecognizable to myself. My husband reads more than I do at this point which is unheard of.  As though he is confident that all things will work for the good.  As though he can see the other side of this and we won't drown by exhaustion from treading water for too long. Oh how I long to be more like him in most areas of life.

Living a what if life can be good if your what ifs get you excited about what could be. It's only when you fear the change that the what if can turn to crippling anxiety about whether the change is for the good or for the bad.  I've often said I'm a cross between a Moses and Jonah in my faith but what if I could be David?  What if I could have an even though faith like David? Wouldn't that be easier?  I want to walk through the fire knowing that I don't walk alone.  I don't want to be blinded by anxiety and fear.  I want to head to the battle ground of a sword fight with only a rock and a sling and know that I will not perish because it isn't my fight and that God will win it for me.  I want to be a woman who dreams again, who tells stories and isn't bothered by what others think of her because she isn't writing for them, she's writing to further the kingdom of God.  Where did she go? I really liked her.  She was cool.  What if she could resurface and believe in the One who could see her through the battles she faces and share the stories?  Who knows what could happen....only God.  It's time to draw a line in the sand.  It's time to choose.  It's time to tell the devil who whispers in our ears that we do not belong to him. It's time to fight.  It's going to be hard.  It's going to wear us to the brink.  It's going to be worth it.  Are you ready?

Fifteen Years...

It is a strange thing to think about for me.  The thought that in just three short days it will have been fifteen years since my mother went to be with Jesus.  How can it be fifteen years when the hurt still feels so fresh every time July rolls around?  The replay of the last few weeks, days, and hours play as though they are playing in slow motion. I could describe the evening of her passing to you with as much clarity today as I could the day after and yet the days after...nay the two years after are a blur.  Almost as though a part of me shut down not to be reawakened until I was ready.  The view out the window of the lightening show, the feeling of the room, the feel of her hand in mine, the moment Jesus stood at the foot of her bed, every expression of her face, and yet I cannot quite remember how many days it had been since I had heard her voice.  The days when she didn't even know who I was and the days she was so mad at me because she didn't even know who she was and missed out on an entire day those I remember with extreme clarity....but then she was always mad at me for something.  I miss that actually.  If she was mad at me it meant she was around.  Perhaps that is why I don't remember when she went silent, lost in her own mind and unable to communicate with me.

To think of all the things she has missed seems strange.  Girls driving, girls graduating, getting jobs, the boy getting hair...driving, getting a job. The boy doesn't have a single memory of her.  The younger of the two girls barely remembers her.  This hurts my heart. It seems absurd really the rotation of the universe, days turning to weeks turning to months turning to so many years. The idea that in just four days I will be only five years younger than she was when she died.  How distant that age seemed so many years ago and now I'm in the front yard of it slowly and quickly walking towards the door.  I have so many mixed emotions that I don't know how to process.

I don't know how to put away the pain or make it stop showing up every year.  The hurt...the guilt of not being able to perform miracles that I'm not qualified to even perform arrive on schedule every year.  I hold it close to me and try to push it down, then I get up and put one foot in front of the other and decide that though she is not here I am still here and there must be some reason for it.  Some unknown, unfathomable reason why God wants me here though I do not know why.  I offer no great contribution to the world at large.  I cannot stop the oncoming train of despair from barreling towards me even fifteen years later.  I don't even know how to help others deal with their pain.

All I know is that every morning, July or January, it doesn't really matter the date on the calendar I wake up with a choice.  I can choose to wallow or I can choose to make an attempt at thriving.  I can choose to be happy or sad.  I can choose a good day or a bad day.  I cannot choose the events around me.  I cannot choose the decisions of others.  I cannot choose anything other than my reactions and how I choose to live in spite of the things I cannot control.  So it is July and the oncoming train is barreling at me at 180 miles per hour and my heart hurts though it was yesterday, but I am putting one foot in front of the other and I'm going to work instead of laying in my bed.  I choose to show up and be present because I know I wasn't before.  I know there where two years that I missed.  I have had to learn to hold my thoughts captive.  To sort out what is true and what is not and dismiss the ones that are not.  I'm a slow learner in this.  I still struggle.  I can't do things on my own.  I can't function any other way.  I pray in the shower, in my car, I fall asleep with one thought "you know" because he does know.  God knows what I can't put into words because I'm fighting the quicksand of my emotions.  I'm exhausted, my energy depleted from just breathing in and out and fighting the attack of my mind that I know will come every year.

Last night I was trying to remember her at my age.  How old were the girls then?  What were we all doing? I would call her when I was making dinner. She worked all the time.  She slept with the television on QVC.  She would find a shirt or shoes she liked and buy it in every color.  She drank hot coffee year round black with nothing in it to actually make it taste consumable. When I meet her again in heaven I want to introduce her to a caramel macchiato because I feel like she missed out on that.  The places and experiences I've missed out on taking her to, the life and love she shared, I miss it all. It crushes my soul...and yet I have the hope that I will one day see her again. Until then mom know that I love you always and think of you daily.  I look forward to the day I hear your voice again.

No one Can Love you Like Jesus and Your Mom

No one but no one can love you like Jesus and your mom.  That's the thought that occurred to me this morning. As I approach the fifteen year mark of the loss of my mom I am still struck by that fact.  I can't wrap my mind around all the things she has missed. Her two granddaughters have graduated from high school, with the oldest about the graduate from college. The baby boy she last saw before he was two years old is now sixteen and learning to drive. As for me...well I'm not sure what all has changed so much other than the never ending ups and downs on the scales and perhaps a few wrinkles and grey hairs that I like to cover up. She's not here and I feel her absence today just as fully as I did ten, five, and even one year after she went home to be with Jesus.

My mother was a hugger.  She could give such great mom hugs.  She would stroke my hair to help me fall asleep.  I would call her while I was making dinner. She could love me and talk to me in a way to make me feel better and yet she could infuriate me like no one else in the same paragraph.  Who can do that? It's a skill I'm not so certain I didn't inherit from her. She made the best spaghetti, the best cookies of every kind, the best cakes, and her fudge was too dry.  Which she would get mad at me about when I told her.  She made hamburger helper with cottage cheese and green beans as a side dish.  She told stories of being so poor when she was growing up they had to have popcorn for dinner some nights and when she made Popeye spinach as a side dish I would ask if I could have popcorn for dinner. She had a look that she could give and you knew it was time to retreat.  I didn't get that.  My look is more hilarious than scary.  I'm told I have no game.  My mother had game.  Oh but did she have game.

I remember the first time I said a cuss word because I was trying to get a game from the top of my closet and they all fell on my head.  When I came out from my room with a game she said, "What did I hear you say?"  I was in trouble but yet when I explained why I said it, she still played the game with me.  Also she was pretty sure I had learned it from her.  I remember getting chased around the house with a fly swatter.  Mom didn't play. It was her way or the highway and she informed me that I had to be home before dark because a little girl disappeared and was never seen again because she didn't make it home before dark and she was taken.  I believed her every word and I didn't test her boundaries until much later.

She taught me how to ride a bike without training wheels...well she tried to but then she got mad at me and went into the house. Which in turn made me mad at her so I picked my bike up and taught myself out of anger.  So in actuality she taught me to figure things out for myself. She let me drive her around in parking lots when I was learning to drive and then she had a professional teach me in driver's ed. Yet she was fearless to drive us to North Carolina or anywhere else she decided she wanted to go.

She taught me a meat tenderizer can me used as a hammer to hang a picture if you can't find your hammer.  She taught me to look for sales and never pay retail.  She taught me how to overcome and to be picky with my choices. She had terrible taste in men.  She had excellent taste in shoes.  She drank coffee hot year round without any cream or sugar which is nonsensical because she had the biggest sweet tooth of any human I ever met...which I may or may not have inherited from her.  She smoked and drank coffee at the same time while watching Days of our Lives.  Which woke her up and calmed her down at the same time and I'm pretty sure kept her at a size 4.  Not a plan I intend on trying out but I think that is how that worked out.  She loved yellow and sunflowers and she loved me.  Even when I felt like she hated me or was disappointed in me or was mad at me she. loved. me. I can only hope that my own children know that I love them, even if, even when, no matter what.

It was me and it was her and we grew up together.  She clung to her mom and I clung to her waiting for my turn for her to cling to me.  And she did...but then she died...and I was broken. As I sat at her bedside and felt the presence of Jesus at the foot of her bed, it never occurred to me at that moment that I would fall so far into a state of hopelessness and depression.  Instead of being held by the comfort only Jesus could provide I held onto my loss and pain.

The key word in this is 'was'.  The shattered pieces of my heart slowly were picked up and glued back together by a God who understands heartache, a God who understands pain, a God who understands loss. Even if nearly fifteen years later I still hurt and miss what in my mind should have been, I rest in the fact that my mom is now whole.  Her journey complete even as I still tread mine.

I find myself struggling with things I can't control, things I can't fix, things that aren't going according to the plan I had imagined.  In such a time as this I find myself reflecting on what I have already endured.  On what God has already completed.  I have to remind myself that it is not my will but His.  I'm not the author of life, I am not the one who has to spin everything into orbit, I do not hold the world in the palm of my hand.  I can't.  I'm not meant to.  I'm not strong enough to. And I am relieved as my heart hurts and I struggle with things I cannot "fix".

The verse found in John chapter 11 verse 35 is "Jesus Wept"  In this I take solace knowing Jesus himself wept.  He who holds the world in the palm of His hand, He who is the author of life, He who spins everything into orbit, He who knows every hair on my head, He who formed me in my mothers womb, He who died to save me so that one day I could walk with him in eternity, He wept.  How can I get through all of what I'm going through?  How can I put one foot in front of the other when all I want to do is cry?  Because Jesus wept.  I have a father who knows.  I have a father who can put back together all my broken pieces.  What was old can be new again.  Nothing but nothing can ever happen to snatch me from His hand.  So I pace and I pray.  I pray and I pace and I try to remember to eat. I try to remember that I can do what is needed because of a father who wept.

To Menopause or Not to Menopause

In life there are things that you enjoy and things that you don't.  I enjoy wearing soft fuzzy slippers, watching movies, and eating ice cream.  I do not enjoy going to the doctor...any doctor (except the eye doctor I love to go there) but most especially I HATE to go to the lady doctor. I have had the same doctor since I moved here three years ago and this year they changed my appointment and put me with a nurse practitioner/midwife.  Don't get me wrong, I think she is more than qualified to perform an annual exam.  Here's the thing: I don't make it a habit to meet people in my birthday suit.  It's not my thing. In fact, I don't even like to be in my birthday suit at all.  I like my big soft "The Comfy" that I got for Christmas and my soft fuzzy memory foam slippers.  Basically I want to be covered in soft fuzzy fabrics at all times but I digress.

They called Friday morning to change my appointment because the doctor was called away to surgery.  They asked if they could put me with a nurse practitioner on Wednesday and I said that was fine.  What can I say, I had just woken up and was about to get ready for this appointment and they caught me off guard. At the time all I registered that I was agreeing to was a postponement and more sleep on a day off.  Fast forward to Wednesday morning as I'm getting ready for work and they call again.  Now in my mind I'm thinking, "I'm going to get out of this.  This is fantastic.  This is when you know that God is real and wants us to be happy." So I answer the phone and it is the doctor's office.  The nurse practitioner they had scheduled me with was out but if I could come in at 2:30 then I could see the other nurse practitioner.  First of all...when they called the first time to change the appointment was the first time I was even aware they had nurse practitioners working there.  Now they have not one but two.  I'm going to now continue going down the chain of command here until I don't have to go.  This could work.  Unfortunately for me, they didn't call to cancel the whole thing later in the day and by two o'clock I'm calling my friend FREAKING out because I'm really going to have to go meet a woman I have never seen before while in a gown open in the front and covered in a paper sheet.  I don't know about you but I don't hang out like that around people I DO know. So I call my friend and she is trying to tell me this is going to be ok. Let me preface this by saying that this friend I have known only for the three years I have lived here.  I love her but I'm afraid now that she thinks I'm a bit unstable to say the least. I called her on my way home from work, I may have called her on the way to the appointment I'm not sure but I was definitely texting her while waiting to be called back and I called her on the way home.

While we are talking we talked about a story we had both read about a woman who had been getting ready for her annual appointment and happened to grab a wash cloth that she didn't realize had glitter on it before she used it to shall we say...tidy up?  We laughed then I started panicking about grooming.  How much is too much? This was not covered in health class.  "How to Prepare for the Lady Doctor 101" was not a chapter in any of my classes nor was "How to Maintain Dignity While Naked in Front of Strangers (aka The Lady Doctor). Once upon arriving at home after work to prepare for this appointment I changed clothes, used the restroom, brushed my teeth, and ran a brush through my hair, general maintenance.  I left my house and actually drove around the block and back home just to make sure I was good to go. This stranger woman has made it her life's purpose to look at women naked all day long and I was not going to be the one she remembered and talked about around the water cooler later.  On the way to the appointment I realized I had made a mistake.  I had used the restroom.  They always have to give a sample to make sure you aren't pregnant and now I have to drink my entire Tervis of water to make myself have to go when I get there and I only have at best fifteen minutes drive to make this happen.  Now I have pee anxiety.  Leave me alone and I have to pee all the time.  Tell me to go on command and I can't do it.  The last time I was asked to go on command I had to sing the potty song to myself from the video my kids watched when we were potty training them.

I arrive at the appointment and check in.  I texted with my friend and laughed a bit before getting called back.  Scales.  I am overweight and can we discuss how to remedy this situation because me being overweight makes little to no sense because of the way my work schedule is.  Basically I stand up all day, rarely ever take a break, barely eat anything or drink anything, maybe use the restroom once or twice in a 9-12 hour time frame and so please explain to me why I'm not a size 4, thank you very much.  The nurse didn't know but she told me to let her know if I figure it out.

New development: We went straight to the room after the scales without passing go.  No restroom stop on the way.  So what we can surmise from this is that I look like an overweight middle aged woman who couldn't possibly be pregnant.  This is correct because we took care of that years ago but it is kind of like getting asked to a party or to go out with friends on the weekend.  You don't want to go, even though you want to see them, you have no intention of going but you still want to be asked.  So I didn't get invited to that party....weird.

I had a great time chatting with the nurse who I thought was the nurse practitioner because I'm an idiot.  She was quite nice to talk to and said that my blood pressure was great.  We discussed that I might be starting menopause because I have convinced myself that obviously we are there now.  My mother had started early so surely I would too.  I had research (I asked my cousin about her mom and menopause and she feels she started early so obviously we will start early too), I have been moody, I have had some hot flashes, and I'm a pretty happy person in general but something isn't quite right so menopause makes sense.  She then told me that the nurse practitioner would be in soon and that I needed to get in the gown open I the front and cover with the paper sheet.  (I had such high hopes that I was making a friend here and now....not so much.)

I prepared and waited.  She came in and introduced herself and sat down.  We talked about all sorts of stuff.  I get very chatty when I'm nervous.  I discovered this as did she as I talked and talked and talked all in an effort to feel better about what was to happen once we stopped talking and I would be forced to be naked in front of this stranger.  It's uncomfortable and I told her that.  She responded with, "Yes, but that is what you are here for."  So basically I have to pay this woman who I have just met to talk to me, see me naked, essentially violate me in the name of medical science and I don't even get dinner out of it.  AND while she is a lovely person and we could potentially be friends we can't.  You can't go to coffee and Target with a woman who has seen you in all of your glory unless that woman gave birth to you and changed your diapers.  It's a rule...I made it up...but I think it could be real.  We eventually got down to the task at hand and I, of course, never stopped talking because I'm uncomfortable with silence when I am uncomfortable.

Side Note: When I was pregnant for my third child I went to get a massage and ended up with a male masseuse.  Absolutely could not relax at all and never once shut up.  Chatted the entire time because I was so uncomfortable and I never ever returned. The only massages I had after that experience was when I went to a spa night at a friend's house for the MOPS group I helped with once all my kids were in school.

OK so back to the story. Once she finished she told me the nurse would be in to draw my blood so they could test my hormone levels and then she sprinted for the door.  I dressed as quickly as I could and waited.  The nurse returned and I told her she had one shot at it.  If she didn't get my vein the first time we were not doing it.  I don't like needles. We chatted and chatted and she actually said, "I feel like we're friends now."  We might be able to be friends because she did get my blood on the first try and she hasn't seen me naked.

I received a call the next day.  I am not in menopause. Apparently I'm just in my terrible forties as I saw on Facebook recently.  I'm moody, I'm having hot flashes, and I'm gaining weight, I thought sure I was starting menopause.  Now I'm just a terrible person who apparently needs medicated. I'd rather get a kitten and eat chocolate.  If this is the forties, I can't wait to see what the fifties hold.  Maybe I will get uninvited to my next yearly.  One can only hope.

In The Middle

I have been living in the middle.  I have been living in the waiting.  So basically, I’m in the season of waiting in the middle.  It is unsatisfying, frustrating, heart breaking, stressful, and it robs my rest.  Did you watch the series finale of The Middle?  My family has so many similarities to the Heck family.  I cried all the way through the finale and I probably only watched a handful of episodes when it was on.  I’m not sure why, perhaps it seemed like my life was in the show and I already knew the story.  I did watch the finale because I wanted a glimpse into how it all turned out.  I wanted to see the end.  That’s the thing isn’t it?  We always want to see the end, so we can get through the middle.  At the start we can’t wait to get to the middle because then we know we are almost there.

I have spoken recently to my best friend about how I’m unsatisfied with my performance in life.  I have a great life that I fully do not deserve, don’t get me wrong, I am well beyond blessed. She knows that as do I.  It is only that I am not sure that I have or that I am really contributing anything to the world at large. I’m not so sure I am a very good example to my children.  She said to me, “Maybe you need to reevaluate your definition of success.”  Maybe…

I told my husband this weekend that I feel like I’m always in the middle waiting.  Before we moved it was waiting for the house to sell so we could get on with our lives, now it’s waiting for a school to call and give me a job so I can feel like I’m making a difference somewhere in the world.  Always waiting for my kids to have confidence in themselves, for them to see themselves how they really are and not how they tell themselves they are or how some stupid kid saw them in high school.  Waiting for a friend to call, waiting for direction, waiting for a sign from God as to what my purpose and direction is supposed to be because here I am still waiting and wondering if my life has even mattered at all.  He asked me one question, “Have you been having trouble living in the moment?”  Have I?

I then happened upon a picture on Facebook that had a list of successful people and it said that they were all basically broke or had been fired or were working doing things they didn’t necessarily want to be doing when they were twenty-three.  Now they are all very successful and it said it was all going to be ok.  Well I’m not twenty-three anymore, so I asked the question, “Sure, but what were they doing at forty-five?”  My oldest daughter decided to look it up and see just where they were at forty-five.  The were all going to movie premiers and hosting award shows and the like and I was tempted to become quite discouraged all over again.

I’ve been listening to a few preachers online.  I’m trying to get over this negative track that likes to play in my head.  One preacher in particular was saying that we spend more time listening to ourselves and less time talking to ourselves.  It’s true.  I spend a lot of time listening to the ongoing playlist. “God would never use you, you are ridiculous.  God doesn’t even talk to you anymore.  When is the last time you wrote anything?”  “You are too old, you are too broken.”  “You are too sinful, What did you just say about that other driver?”  “Don’t you remember what you were told when you were a kid?  You are ugly and you will NEVER amount to anything!”  “Give up no one reads your writing anyway unless they are related to you.”  STOP!  The preacher said that we need to spend more time talking to ourselves.  We need to spend more time preaching to ourselves.  He also said that we talk ourselves out of what God has planned for us.   

Another time he did a sermon that we are in the middle.  Salvation means we are not what we once were, but we are not what we want to be.  He said that we need to look back to see how far we have come, that the expectation is that as we grow we get closer to Christ, but the thing is we stay in the middle.  When we start getting close He moves forward.  I take that to mean that the finish line keeps moving.  We need to recognize how far we have come but still be mindful of where we are going. 

I think I’ve figured it out now.  I’ve continued to keep looking forward at things that seem to take too long.  I see it as taking a step forward and two steps back.  I just keep forgetting to look back.  Oh sure, the saying don’t look back you don’t live there anymore is what you are thinking.  But here’s the thing, if you never look back to see how far you have gone you will not be able to appreciate the middle.  You won’t be able to see that He is in the middle too.  He isn’t just in the beginning to get your started on your journey and then he skips ahead and is waiting until we get to Heaven to ask us what took us so long.  I wasn’t until my daughter showed me where all those “successful” people were at forty-five that my ‘yeah but’ showed up. I have even listened to another preacher talk about the ‘yeah but’.  Weeks ago, I listened to this and I’ve listened to all of these messages more than once.  What can I say, apparently I’m a slow learner? 

My yeah but did arrive as I was reading where they were.  So here’s mine:  Sure I have not written any best sellers that have been made into movies, I haven’t hosted an award show, I haven’t landed a job that I had planned for myself, BUT by the age of forty-five I have had three children, two of which have already earned associate degrees and are working on their bachelor degrees.  I have managed to put food in their bellies and no one has ended up in the hospital due to my cooking.  I have lost my mother and fallen into the pit and fallen off my beam for far too long and by the grace of God gotten back on again.  I have had a miscarriage and while I miss having my number four I haven’t missed my children because of the loss of the one.  I have written and published two books that didn’t become New York Times best sellers but at least ten people that I am not related to have read them and one time someone left a review that said my book helped them to see God.  I have moved away from everything and everyone I ever knew and while two years later I haven’t got everything down pat here I have become braver than I ever was.  I’ve been uncomfortable.  I’ve met new people that I never would have met and I am eternally blessed to know them.  I have repeatedly show that when I get knocked down I can, with help, get back up again.  Why?  Because HE is in the middle.  HE is in the waiting. 

                                                                                                                                               

Taking it Back in February

I am having trouble picturing her at sixty six.  It is hard to imagine.  She never looked old, just tired mostly.  She didn't get to be old.  Fifty two is far from old. She worked all the time so of course she looked tired.  On our evening walk this evening I asked my husband how he thought she would have aged.  We were discussing how a man will look at a woman's mother to see how she will age.  A woman could look to a man's father to see how he will age. I'm sorry that he has no reference point to see how this is going to go.  He isn't going to know how I'm going to look in my sixties or seventies, it'll be a surprise I suppose.

I have so many questions about her and for her. Would she have moved here with us?  Would she be shocked that not only I but her granddaughters drink coffee now?  Would she like a caramel macchiato? She drank black coffee but she loved sweets, so maybe? Are my curls something she would have liked?  Are they a family thing you get once you turn forty? Or am I just weird or lucky? Does she get birthday parties in heaven?  So much of who I am is because of her but also because of the loss of her.  I'm not sure if it is for the better or the worse.  Would she be proud or dismayed?  I think in retrospect even though I fell even after I met Jesus that night at the food of her bed, I did two years later have a better understanding of the love of God.  I still forget however, that that love applies to me as well.

I struggle in February just as I do in July.  Memories overtake me...feelings of loss and heartbreak creep in even when I don't realize what is happening really.  Every stress takes over my thoughts.  I lack focus.  I can't concentrate on anything or perhaps I concentrate on all the wrong things.  Worry over things I have no control and a feeling of helplessness and yes even hopelessness come into play.

As more questions swirl in my mind over even the most trivial of things like what it would be like to ride in a car with her at this age and look over at her and see strands of gray peaking through and if she would have nicknames for the kids.  If she would still bake, if she would still be watching Days of Our Lives and if so would she have a DVR because I'm not sure you can still get VHS tapes to record shows anymore. I wonder how a woman who has felt the presence of God at the foot of her mother's death bed not two feet from where she sat holding her hand and watching the lightening show out the window, a woman whose God told her when it was time for her mother to go home with him can still struggle with her faith...can still have doubts.  I wonder what kind of a woman she has to be.  How broken she must be to worry and be troubled knowing that her faith should be stronger and yet she still thinks she should be able to fix everything.  That if she could just be better, if she could just be stronger, she could help everyone and she could get it right.  Maybe make up for her wrongs, you know?  Maybe if she could just fix something for someone she could make up for the fact that she couldn't do anything about the fact that her mother died on her watch....because those are the thoughts that surround her, her mother won't be turning sixty-six tomorrow because she died and there wasn't anything she could do about it and she is heartbroken all over again. And why?  Why after nearly fourteen years does she still struggle?  Why does she still think she has to earn God's love to be worthy of it?

I take it back.  I think that's the heart of it really.  I get along ok mostly in the day to day of life.  I don't dwell, I stay in the moment.  I am happy in my life which I feel guilty about.  Mother always said I was so spoiled, that I got everything I ever wanted.  Not a fair assumption at all really considering my formative years were scarcely without trouble.  Tormented and abused by her husband and mostly ignored by my own father it is a wonder I turned out by most accounts to be as well rounded as I did.  But she is right I suppose, I did get my happily ever after.  I did get the family I always wanted.  God blessed me after my earlier suffering.

I, being the well rounded individual, who was in the presence of God, who has done bible study after bible study, can't let anything be released to God to handle because obviously he has more important things to do.  Who am I that he should be concerned with the fact that I'm worried about this or that or the other thing?  Who am I, the one who fell apart and withdrew after being in his presence, that I  should ask him to hold me and carry me through the trials of life?  I am but dust....made from dust and back to dust I will one day return.  So I pray and I ask God for his help and to sustain me and to be with me and my family and I pray for my extended family and friends and their families.  But then I take it back...because I really think that one or more of my friends needs Him more so I'll just take my stuff back.  I've got it.  I can take care of it.  Don't worry about me just take care of them.  I need them to be alright.  My stuff is so small in comparison. So what if I'm lonely with my girls off at college.  It's fine.  So what if I'm stress eating and my stomach hurts and my shoulder is hurting again and I pulled a white hair from my face and I'm sure that's just an early sign of things to come.  I'm forty five years old I'm a little old for abandonment issues to go alone with my trust issues and control issues.  God, really, please just let me take my stupid trivial crap and have some control because I need you to be somewhere else helping all my loved ones and beloved friends who really need you right now.  I take it back.

It's so heavy really, going through the motions.  Giving it away and taking it back.  I'd like to take back the take back.  I don't want it really.  I'd like to believe that God has the time and the desire to take care of me too.  After all maybe the real problem is that I forget who I am.  Or I don't realize yet who I am, which is scary too to tell you the truth.  The clock is ticking I'm running out of time to figure this out.  Mom made it to fifty two and I'm pushing forty six.  I'd like to see at least eighty five but I'm scared to wish it.  Scared to get my hopes up really.  Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I called my best friends and asked her how you get the kind of faith that you can just turn it all over and not think about it and not worry about it anymore. She said it is a daily thing.  So Thursday I woke up and I looked around me and realized how far we had come.  I thought about all of my worries about bills and how we'll manage everything and how I can't be there for all of my friends in person when they need me.  I also thought about the fact that we've been in a place like this before where I worried about the same types of things and God sustained us, that yes the bills are piling up right now but I have a roof over my head, I have food in my kitchen (that may be going bad in the fridge to be honest) and I have a soft mattress to sleep on at night and at the end of the day a bill, just like money, is just paper.  A temporary thing that at the end of the day doesn't mean a whole lot in comparison to other things like family and friends.  I decided to redirect and look at my blessings instead of my stressings (which isn't actually a word, it's stresses but it sounds better with blessings, amiright?)  One day at a time, like eating an elephant one bite at a time, I have to focus my thoughts and try and figure out who I am.  I am a child of the one true king, I was made in the image of God, He has promised to turn my ashes into beauty, he has plans for me to give me life and a future, he will never leave me or forsake me...even me.  My God is big enough to be with my friends and family that I worry so much about that I don't even have to tell him about them because he already knows. He is even big enough to be not only with them but with me and also with my mom up in heaven ready to have the most amazing birthday party with her tomorrow and every year into eternity because she isn't sick anymore, she is strong and beautiful and has amazing hair.  She hangs out with grandma and her sisters and her little brothers and they have no worry of the future because the future for them is now.

So today I am missing my mom and tomorrow I will miss her too but identifying your problem is the first step in recovery.  I will not be taking it back when I tell God my stresses anymore because I have been reminded of who I am (and who I am doesn't have time for it). I have been reminded of who my God is and lastly I have been reminded of where my mom is and that that is ok too.  It's just February, it's a short month and it is almost over and soon it will be March.  I will not let the enemy toy with me and lie to me in March even if my daughter will officially be the age I was when I married her dad.  It's not weird at all.  I know who I am now...even if I have trouble believing it.

Two Years of Believing God for More

This morning marks two years since we left our home in the Midwest we had lived in for sixteen years.  This morning marks, for some, the day we left everything and everyone we knew and just left them behind.  This morning marks for me, the day we dared to believe God for more.  Today marks the day we believed that as long as we were together and God was with us there wasn't anything we couldn't do, any place we couldn't go, any new experience we couldn't go through.  Sometimes leaving isn't about walking away but about walking toward something....more.  It's not about a place or a people not being enough but about a place or a people needing you more even if you don't realize it or know it at the time.  You see to me today doesn't mark the day we got into the cars and drove over a thousand miles away from our friends and family because we took all of them with us in our hearts.  No today marks the day when we got into the cars and drove the thousand miles or so to the place that God had set for us, to the place that God had things for us to do, the place God had people who needed to be part of our lives we never would have met if we had stayed.

Here's the thing I know about God, He doesn't need our permission to do the works He is going to do.  He isn't going to take a poll.  He isn't going to ask around to see if He has a good idea because his ideas are always for our good.  He doesn't even have to ask you, when you are the one being sent.  God will accomplish what He wants one way or another and you, having the gift or the curse (depending on how you choose to look at it) of free will, can get on board and head to the blessing or not.  I've been here for two years and I'm still not sure of the plan here.  You see, he didn't come to me and say, "OK Heather, here is what we're going to do.  You are going to go to this promised land in the south and you are going to get a job HERE, and you are going to meet THESE people, and you are going to do THESE things, and you are going to go to church HERE, and your kids are going to be blessed by this here."  No, I didn't have that kind of conversation.  He didn't come to me with charts and grafts and pictures.

In fact, when we arrived there was a moment as I stood inside my empty house and as I realized we were actually not going to automatically have friends and people we could count on that I thought, "Uh Oh what did we do?"  As we tried to find a Walmart and find an air mattress and a toaster and something to eat and we didn't know what road led where and how to get from point a to point b and everything was so foreign and unfamiliar that maybe this was a mistake, and I questioned what we were doing here, and I thought maybe I heard God wrong or maybe it wasn't even God who sent us or put the desire in our hearts to come here, especially as my son walked around and said, "Nope.  This is not going to work." Are you with me?  Have you ever had those thoughts about anything in your life?

Fear and confusion and isolation are not our story though.  If you were to take a snap shot at any point in our first year here you would find that picture, but that picture is not the story.  Our stress and our confusion is not our story it is a byproduct of our lack of belief in things we cannot see.  Our crying and our fear over things that we feel may not come are not our story, they are a byproduct of incapacity to believe God for who he says he is.  It is a byproduct of our lack of believing God for what he can do. Stay with me here because you need to hear this.  Someone needs to know this...even if I'm just reminding myself here.  If I gave up every time I had doubts, every time I couldn't see where things were leading, when I was sure that God had picked the wrong girl, that I knew I was unworthy, God should have killed me and taken me away when I was a teenager.  If he didn't want to do it then, He should have definitely taken me when my mother died and after I felt his presence at the foot of her bed and know he took her home himself and I fell into the pit after they lowered her into the ground anyway.  When I went from being surrounded by people to never feeling so alone and isolated in my life.  He should have taken me then. I'm not exactly sure of how much proof of God's existence you need when you've actually experienced feeling his presence in your own home but I did and I fell anyway. But that is a picture of my life it isn't the whole story.

Two years later my daughters have met people and made friends through school.  My son is making friends with the entire varsity basketball team and talks to more girls than guys on his phone.  I don't know whether to be scared or not by that.  Two years later and my husband comes home and talks about one of the guys at work and laughs.  Two years later and I am just as busy as I've ever been and I have adopted some of the kids I work with and have decided I don't care if they like it or not they are just our extra kids.  One gal at work calls me mom and shows me pictures of her son who she calls my grandson.  I've only ever seen him in pictures but he is so stinking cute I can hardly stand it.
Two years later a house is a house and anywhere we are together is home.  This place where we were lost and couldn't find the airport, where we went to a random Walmart and didn't know our way home in those first two days, we now drive all over.  We know our way around and if we leave to go somewhere to visit we know when we are getting close to home because this too has now become familiar.

Let me tell you something, this writing thing isn't familiar.  Some of you may or may not know that in school I didn't do a lot of reading.  In junior high and high school it was my best friend who read a lot of books and did some writing.  I preferred English to literature.  It was faster. I didn't have time to read books I was too busy reading people.  I was too busy looking at boys.  I was too busy trying to find anywhere I could go to get away from my home life because home was not where I wanted to be and if I had just picked up a book I could have escaped from the safety of my room with my door locked so the horrors of my house couldn't come and get me.  I didn't read in school aside from what I had to read.  I didn't go to college and study English and literature.  I didn't major in creative writing.  I didn't major in anything I've ever used.  My degrees are in Medical Assisting and Marketing and I couldn't market anything over and above a garage sale to save my life.  I didn't intend to write, I just talk a lot and found I had things to share that couldn't possibly be from me because I was a stay at home mom and I'm not exactly Chaucer over here.

My mom died and while I was in the pit God started talking to me and I found things to write about to find my blessings in the middle of my heartache.  I found humor in my daily life.  I found God had a message he wanted to share and I had to write it down because while I can talk to you one on one all day long whether I know you or you are just trying to check out my groceries I can't talk to a group of people and share what God is telling me.  I'm not even qualified to share it anyway.  I'm just a girl who has jumped from one pit to another and stayed at home and raised kids and doesn't hold the degrees or the education to share it anyway.  I didn't intend to become a writer (I'm not even sure if you could call me a writer except that I keep typing things out and here you are reading it.) but when I started writing I couldn't stop writing.  I couldn't not share what I felt needed to be shared.  I have two books and only about a thousand people read them and I only really thought that my best friend and my grandma were going to read them anyway.  They were a 'what if' experiment that I didn't know where God was going to go with it and I am still unsure where God is taking me on this journey anyway.  I don't have to know because if I know then I can see and then I can take credit and I can't take credit because I don't know what I'm doing to begin with.  I don't need to know the plan because if I know the plan I can say no and stay on my couch where it's safe, where it's home, and I never learn anything new.  If I know the plan then do I really have faith?  I have to have faith because I don't know why I started this writing thing to begin with.  I wanted to be a fashion designer.  I wanted to be a fashion buyer.  I wanted to do something in fashion because clothes and shoes I understand (or at least I did before the world went crazy), don't ask me to explain the ways of God to you, don't ask me to explain poetry to you, don't ask me to explain why Nicholas Sparks books always have a death or a sadness in them because I don't know.

Listen, we drove away two years ago and I may live a thousand miles away from everyone I ever knew but I know what is happening.  I know how God is working in our lives and in the lives of my friends.  I pray and I see God at work.  My best friend's mom just moved away from the home she lived in for well over forty years and yesterday I was told about how God showed her mom how this was the right place for her to be, closer to her daughter.  One of my other dear friends has a daughter who is battling a brain tumor and yesterday I was told that the doctor was pretty sure he got it all with the second surgery.  She still has a long road ahead but God is showing that this is only part of her story and I'm believing God that there is more for her.  I have other friends that have had a hard year.  Some things have worked out and some haven't but I'm praying for all of them.  My own daughters have had some struggles this year but sometimes we have to walk through the fire to get to the promise.  God doesn't leave you when things get hard, he gets to work and we have to get to work too.  I don't know what that looks like for you.  I don't know your story.  I just want to remind you that whatever you are going through isn't and doesn't have to be your story.  It's just a snapshot, a picture that is going into a larger picture.  Don't get stuck.  Put on your armor of faith and get to believing God has more.

Collateral Beauty

There is an ongoing battle that rages within.  Thirteen years after the loss of my mother and the battle continues.  The war between truth and lies.  The inner voice that tells me that I didn't do all I could have done for her and yet I know there was nothing else I could have done.  There is a movie with Will Smith called Collateral Beauty that we have watched recently and repeatedly actually that really shows the grief process.  He lost a child and I lost a parent.  He shuts down and closes himself up in his grief for two years and I did the same.  In the beginning of the movie which starts three years prior he is on top of the world and he is giving a speech in front of his employees and he says that life can be summed up in three abstractions;  "We long for love,"  "We wish we had more time," and "We fear death." I've thought some about these things and while I didn't write letters to Love, Time, and Death, I did spend a bit of time trying to figure it all out.

Anyone who knows the story of my beginnings knows that I spent the better part of my formative years longing for love from my dad.  A love that he was incapable of fully giving.  Likely because he was never shown the love of a father himself.  While he did provide for me, he didn't come around and show me how to ride a bike or how to throw a ball or how to throw a punch to protect myself if ever needed.  It wouldn't be until much later that I would come to know that I had the love of a father from the beginning, it just wasn't coming from my earthly father.  My heavenly father loves me and knows me and I wouldn't know that until later.  He, knowing this also would send a young man into my life when I was seventeen to help me navigate life and to try to help mend some fences or rather break down some barriers that I had built to protect myself when it came to a relationship with my dad.  He would help me to know love and help me to grow in my faith.  So yes, I do believe we do long for love, whether we admit to it or not.

I wish every day that I had had more time with my mom. I wish she could have seen my son with hair.  I wish she could have taken the girls shopping and they would have heard her say, "What do you want to do now, Kong?"  I wish I could have made her jewelry.  I wish she could have read my books.  I wish she could be here in the southern state with us enjoying the palm trees and laying on the beach with us.  I wish she had more than fifty two short years.  I wish she could be here to tell me about life and menopause and talk me down from the ledge when I get overwhelmed.  I wish she were here to fight with me when one of us needs an attitude adjustment.  I wish my kids were younger longer.  I wish we could turn back time and I knew then what I know now about how fast it goes.  I wish I hadn't wished any of it away.  I wish I hadn't checked out for two years of their lives and been more present even though I was crumbling inside.  I wish for many things and more time is near the top of the list.

I don't fear death.  I think that's where the difference occurs.  In a family that has endured it's fair share of deaths over the years I think it is hard to fear it.  I don't long for it, but I think when the time comes I will not fear it because I know so many people on the other side.  My mother, my grandparents, my aunts, and some of my cousins have all gone before me.  There was a time when we had so many funerals on my mom's side of the family the funeral home was starting to know us all by name. I don't fear death for myself.  I'm not sure that anyone who knows God fears death for themselves.  I think rather I fear life without people I love.  It always felt so weird and uncomfortable to me that someone I loved could be gone and life continued without them.  The earth continued it's path in the solar system.  The sun rose and set.  Businesses continued to open and close at the end of the day.  Life moved on.  How can that be?  How can life just....continue to move on when my heart is shattered and I feel so battered by grief and loss?

Those are questions that I continually asked myself and sometimes still do.  When holidays come and go and my loved ones aren't here.  When I'm cooking dinner and I'm not able to talk to my mom while I cook and she can't come to dinner.  When a birthday comes and goes and the void of her not being presence permeates within my soul, I ask God how can life go on, how can I possibly go on.  The answer is...because you just do.  You get up in the morning and you put one foot in front of the other and you move.  My falling into a pit for two years did nothing to honor my mother.  Perhaps it was my outward sign of my grief but two years is a lot to miss.

In the movie Howard (Will Smith) missed quite a bit but he also observed quite a bit.  He checked out of his own life, divorced his wife, almost lost his entire business, and yet...he still knew what was happening in his friend's lives.  His wife told him as their daughter was dying a woman told her not to miss the Collateral Beauty.  He didn't get it, but she did.  As I sit here thirteen years later I can see it too.

My mother found Jesus as she was given her diagnosis.  She went to church and the number of people that came to her visitation and funeral was amazing.  I didn't know some of the people that came to pay their respects and yet they all told me of the beautiful, funny, kind woman my mother was.  My mother who worked and worked to make a life for us made an impact on this world.  She wasn't famous, she didn't make any great discoveries to help with furthering mankind.  She worked in a factory for thirty years and also as a realtor for a few years before she died and she was beloved by many. 

To be honest when I started writing this I wasn't sure where God was taking me on this.  I often don't.  I'm not trained in writing.  I hold no degrees that I have ever used.  I was a stay at home mom for eleven years.  I often try and figure out what my purpose is and feel I have fallen short.  I don't contribute to society as a whole the way I probably should....and yet....perhaps my view is too small...or too large depending on your perspective.  I may never know of the impact I have had on this world this side of heaven.  I may question whether or not I am doing enough for my family and others every day of my life but maybe I can use that as a drive to do more.  Maybe by sharing my journey someone else can see themselves in it and find something to focus on outside of the pain.  If you are looking for it, I promise you that it is there.  Jesus can take the ashes and make diamonds.  He can take your pain and use it for good.  Jesus is love and he is in all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly. He is the giver of time and he conquered death. And maybe none of this is what that movie was about and this is just my translation of it.  Maybe it isn't about anything at all and it is just a movie but aren't movies a form of art?  Isn't art open to interpretation?  I think God has the power to speak to us in ways that help us to understand what he is trying to get through to us.  Whether it be a movie, or a book, or a song, or a blog from a wannabe writer, sitting on a college campus, writing in a cubicle, trying to blend in with the students while she waits for her daughter to get out of class.  My hope is that instead of shutting down in your pain like I did, you will look to the light that is Jesus and let him turn your pain into a promise.