Today my daughter leaves for a day or so to go say goodbye to one of her best friends. This sweet friend is heading off to college ~ all the way across the country. Part of Mem's heart will go with her.
I hate to see my kids hurting.
And I hated to say goodbye, myself, to this precious girl whom I've known since she was born. You will be missed, Hope-E!
Today we also said goodbye to our worship pastor and his family. A pastor who has shepherded our flock for 28 years, moving to oversee a new group of sheep. It's clearly the will of God, but incredibly painful nonetheless. It would take pages to describe what he has meant to our family, and even more ink to talk of what he's meant to our church.
I hate to see my church body grieve.
I saw a precious couple in church today, I think for the first time since their darkness descended. Their second son was to have been born about now. They were waiting to welcome a perfectly healthy baby into their lives. Instead, their sweet son died in utero a couple of weeks ago.
I have an broken relationship with someone who has been very close to me. I have asked repeatedly for dialogue, for a forgiving and moving on. For reconciliation. It has been repeatedly denied.
Life is so very hard at times.
But.
"In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart;
I have overcome the world."
John 16:33b
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Random Ramblings...
It is hot... hotter than I ever remember it being (pretty sure we've brokin' records on multiple days).
And I'm confessing: I get the "Horrible Mom of the Summer" award because... my two little guys have done little else but watch TV, play on the computer, and play on XBox. For several weeks. Because it is HOT!!
When it's 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m., it is too hot to even go to the pool. I'm not pushing my guys outside to melt on the asphalt. And at this point, they are not the let's-read-a-book-by-ourselves-before-we-do-our-arts-and-crafts-project (!!!) kinda males.
So I've let them do what I said I never would: they've become the worst kind of mush-headed couch potatoes.
It's time to start school...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We had the fun of watching blue birds hatch this July. Unfortunately, we've witnessed several rounds of blue bird eggs and babies be destroyed by other birds; so we were thrilled that this group made it all the way out of the nest!
A cool extra: one of the birds was an albino! I thought it was the baby from another bird that had laid its egg in the same nest. When the birds were ready to fly, though, it was very obvious that the white bird looked exactly like its siblings, only all white! Really, really cool.
The birds have been out of the nest for almost three weeks. I'd assumed they'd all flown on off to start their own little lives. I was so surprised, however, to look out of a front window on our house this evening and see four of the blue bird siblings sitting in my front yard! Three were bathing in the bird bath while another hopped around on the grass attacking leaves.
(The albino was not to be seen. It's gotta be hard to hide when you're all white, and there's been a hawk doing a lot of screeching in our back yard lately...)
How sweet to see them all together, looking all teenager-ish. I guess they're hanging out together til they're big enough to go it alone.
The kids and I watched them for a while, thankful that we got to see them again, see that they're doing well.
God is, as always, kind...
And I'm confessing: I get the "Horrible Mom of the Summer" award because... my two little guys have done little else but watch TV, play on the computer, and play on XBox. For several weeks. Because it is HOT!!
When it's 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m., it is too hot to even go to the pool. I'm not pushing my guys outside to melt on the asphalt. And at this point, they are not the let's-read-a-book-by-ourselves-before-we-do-our-arts-and-crafts-project (!!!) kinda males.
So I've let them do what I said I never would: they've become the worst kind of mush-headed couch potatoes.
It's time to start school...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We had the fun of watching blue birds hatch this July. Unfortunately, we've witnessed several rounds of blue bird eggs and babies be destroyed by other birds; so we were thrilled that this group made it all the way out of the nest!
A cool extra: one of the birds was an albino! I thought it was the baby from another bird that had laid its egg in the same nest. When the birds were ready to fly, though, it was very obvious that the white bird looked exactly like its siblings, only all white! Really, really cool.
The birds have been out of the nest for almost three weeks. I'd assumed they'd all flown on off to start their own little lives. I was so surprised, however, to look out of a front window on our house this evening and see four of the blue bird siblings sitting in my front yard! Three were bathing in the bird bath while another hopped around on the grass attacking leaves.
(The albino was not to be seen. It's gotta be hard to hide when you're all white, and there's been a hawk doing a lot of screeching in our back yard lately...)
How sweet to see them all together, looking all teenager-ish. I guess they're hanging out together til they're big enough to go it alone.
The kids and I watched them for a while, thankful that we got to see them again, see that they're doing well.
God is, as always, kind...
Sunday, July 17, 2011
It Was Good
So this will be a weird post, I think. Very random, maybe qualifying as "mystical"? (gack, I hope not...) I have no idea.
But I've been mulling something over the past 6 months or so.
I walk quite a bit in my neighborhood. Stress reducer, get those little seratonin molecules moving around. I live in a beautiful, rural area. Lots of trees, lots of heavily wooded acreage, lots of birds & wildlife & bugs, muscadines and honeysuckle, pine and oak and red maple, sunflowers and wild roses.
As I've walked lately, the thought has occurred often: Stop and see what the LORD chose to make!
I don't know why I never really thought to stop & look at what God chose to do in the place where I live. Ever. In my life.
But He's nudging my thoughts to see, to listen, to smell, to feel the wind off the lake as it rolls up the hill. I find myself walking along, and suddenly this slight breeze comes and lifts the hair off my neck in the middle of 98-degree-my-eyes-are-stingin' (!) weather. I get this incredible "the hills are alive with the sound of music" moment, and I'm looking over my shoulder to make sure no one can see me because I still struggle with the fear-of-man thing. I see no one, so I lift my heavy, sweaty arms into a "T" and walk along and rejoice that He made wind and brought it to me. He's making me stop in my tracks to watch the dragonflies and search for the robin who called. He's pushing me to wonder at the tall, skinny pines and the blue bird babies in their nest in my bird house and the roses that popped out in the spring.
I think what's happened is that I've begun to watch the skies a bit more intently, wondering if today might be the day of His appearing. No, I'm not one who tracks with Harold Camping, nor do I believe that any person can predict the date of His coming. I know the LORD could delay another millions years. I could die tomorrow and miss seeing, from this angle, the sky being split in two.
But so much is happening in our world: earthquakes and governments being shaken and disease and drought and war. And I can't help but wonder. (I think that's healthy, to an extent. It keeps me on my toes, spiritually. I am more mindful of obeying NOW rather than tomorrow, of confessing my sin sooner rather than later, of reaching out quickly rather than letting the opportunity pass.)
I am also mindful that, at some point, this world will be destroyed. Sin has so marred it. (Don't you ever wonder what this place looked like in the beginning?) And there's something that makes me a bit sad when I think that God must burn it.
Because He made it, and because He found pleasure in it. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was good (Genesis 1:31).
And so there's a part of me that wants to worship God by looking at all that He's made & enjoy it (as I should've been doing all along). I need to observe all that I can and be amazed that someOne could actually do that! I need to look at what He's done and find pleasure in it, exclaim at it, praise God for sharing His creative omnipotence with us, and not let it find its end without marveling at the One behind it all.
Don't you think we should? Don't you ever wonder if there's some level of grief in God's heart when we are so bored by nature, that we walk so blankly by the most exquisite of creations without seeing anything, so rushed and weighed down by the non-eternal?
Do you think He might delight in us stopping long enough to enjoy, truly find pleasure in, something that He designed for us to join in with Him in delighting in?
And so I walk. And I stop, a lot, and try to truly see. And I am sad that the huge oak in my back yard and the sweet gum up by the road and the foot-cooling moss on the hill will have to be destroyed some day. And I'm sad for why it has to be destroyed. And I enjoy it now as a way of saying "Thank You" and "You are, truly, awesome."
While I continue to peek at the sky and wait.
But I've been mulling something over the past 6 months or so.
I walk quite a bit in my neighborhood. Stress reducer, get those little seratonin molecules moving around. I live in a beautiful, rural area. Lots of trees, lots of heavily wooded acreage, lots of birds & wildlife & bugs, muscadines and honeysuckle, pine and oak and red maple, sunflowers and wild roses.
As I've walked lately, the thought has occurred often: Stop and see what the LORD chose to make!
I don't know why I never really thought to stop & look at what God chose to do in the place where I live. Ever. In my life.
But He's nudging my thoughts to see, to listen, to smell, to feel the wind off the lake as it rolls up the hill. I find myself walking along, and suddenly this slight breeze comes and lifts the hair off my neck in the middle of 98-degree-my-eyes-are-stingin' (!) weather. I get this incredible "the hills are alive with the sound of music" moment, and I'm looking over my shoulder to make sure no one can see me because I still struggle with the fear-of-man thing. I see no one, so I lift my heavy, sweaty arms into a "T" and walk along and rejoice that He made wind and brought it to me. He's making me stop in my tracks to watch the dragonflies and search for the robin who called. He's pushing me to wonder at the tall, skinny pines and the blue bird babies in their nest in my bird house and the roses that popped out in the spring.
I think what's happened is that I've begun to watch the skies a bit more intently, wondering if today might be the day of His appearing. No, I'm not one who tracks with Harold Camping, nor do I believe that any person can predict the date of His coming. I know the LORD could delay another millions years. I could die tomorrow and miss seeing, from this angle, the sky being split in two.
But so much is happening in our world: earthquakes and governments being shaken and disease and drought and war. And I can't help but wonder. (I think that's healthy, to an extent. It keeps me on my toes, spiritually. I am more mindful of obeying NOW rather than tomorrow, of confessing my sin sooner rather than later, of reaching out quickly rather than letting the opportunity pass.)
I am also mindful that, at some point, this world will be destroyed. Sin has so marred it. (Don't you ever wonder what this place looked like in the beginning?) And there's something that makes me a bit sad when I think that God must burn it.
Because He made it, and because He found pleasure in it. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was good (Genesis 1:31).
And so there's a part of me that wants to worship God by looking at all that He's made & enjoy it (as I should've been doing all along). I need to observe all that I can and be amazed that someOne could actually do that! I need to look at what He's done and find pleasure in it, exclaim at it, praise God for sharing His creative omnipotence with us, and not let it find its end without marveling at the One behind it all.
Don't you think we should? Don't you ever wonder if there's some level of grief in God's heart when we are so bored by nature, that we walk so blankly by the most exquisite of creations without seeing anything, so rushed and weighed down by the non-eternal?
Do you think He might delight in us stopping long enough to enjoy, truly find pleasure in, something that He designed for us to join in with Him in delighting in?
And so I walk. And I stop, a lot, and try to truly see. And I am sad that the huge oak in my back yard and the sweet gum up by the road and the foot-cooling moss on the hill will have to be destroyed some day. And I'm sad for why it has to be destroyed. And I enjoy it now as a way of saying "Thank You" and "You are, truly, awesome."
While I continue to peek at the sky and wait.
A Love Letter
My Dearest Mem,
On the eve of your leaving for two weeks, I am more emotional than I expected. After all, it's only for 14 days. And I will see you briefly in three days and then on the sixth day, long enough to do your laundry and hug you goodnight for one brief sleep before you leave again.
It's just... longer than I realized.
The tears come because I will miss you. You bring so much lightness and support, cheerfulness and balm, understanding and help to some of my longest, hardest days.
The tears come because I know I love you too much, probably, but have no idea how to pull that back. I just keep confessing it and praying for help and balance.
The tears come because I know the day is just around the corner when you will leave for longer than two weeks. You will leave for your own life to start. And I have no idea how to do that.
How do you let the daughter go, the one who is so dear to your heart and has brought so many blessings?
The Lord is kindly reminding me of two things: I need to continue to pursue hard after Him, that He would become my richest treasure, my dearest friend. When my satisfaction is in Him alone, I will contentedly receive all that He chooses to make my life to be. I'm working on that. Crying out for that. Pleading for the heart that worships Him fully.
He is also reminding me that the grace I will need for the final release is not needed today. I spend so much effort trying to avoid pain, or at least limit the press of it on my soul. That is insanity, it is not the way of the cross. I need to embrace all of the trials and hurts of this life & let those mold me.
I am so thankful that you love the Lord, that you long to serve Him, that you will be using your hands to love on kids, your voice & guitar to lead them in worship, your strength to help those whose lives have been devastated.
And He reminds me that He will complete His good work that He began in me, that I can trust whatever He designs our lives to be, that all of His works are kind. I do know that, I just need to rest in that.
And I know that, no matter what our lives on this earth will be, you & I will worship together before the throne when it's all said and done.
I love you, Mem, and you will remain in my prayers as you worship and serve the sovereign LORD these next two weeks.
Mom
On the eve of your leaving for two weeks, I am more emotional than I expected. After all, it's only for 14 days. And I will see you briefly in three days and then on the sixth day, long enough to do your laundry and hug you goodnight for one brief sleep before you leave again.
It's just... longer than I realized.
The tears come because I will miss you. You bring so much lightness and support, cheerfulness and balm, understanding and help to some of my longest, hardest days.
The tears come because I know I love you too much, probably, but have no idea how to pull that back. I just keep confessing it and praying for help and balance.
The tears come because I know the day is just around the corner when you will leave for longer than two weeks. You will leave for your own life to start. And I have no idea how to do that.
How do you let the daughter go, the one who is so dear to your heart and has brought so many blessings?
The Lord is kindly reminding me of two things: I need to continue to pursue hard after Him, that He would become my richest treasure, my dearest friend. When my satisfaction is in Him alone, I will contentedly receive all that He chooses to make my life to be. I'm working on that. Crying out for that. Pleading for the heart that worships Him fully.
He is also reminding me that the grace I will need for the final release is not needed today. I spend so much effort trying to avoid pain, or at least limit the press of it on my soul. That is insanity, it is not the way of the cross. I need to embrace all of the trials and hurts of this life & let those mold me.
I am so thankful that you love the Lord, that you long to serve Him, that you will be using your hands to love on kids, your voice & guitar to lead them in worship, your strength to help those whose lives have been devastated.
And He reminds me that He will complete His good work that He began in me, that I can trust whatever He designs our lives to be, that all of His works are kind. I do know that, I just need to rest in that.
And I know that, no matter what our lives on this earth will be, you & I will worship together before the throne when it's all said and done.
I love you, Mem, and you will remain in my prayers as you worship and serve the sovereign LORD these next two weeks.
Mom
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Posting Pressure
I feel like I need to post something. Anything. I mean, there's a blog that got started here back in 2007 when we began the process to bring Jake home. It's been mostly an online diary, sort of a place to share, that I might or might not print off in the future (although I hear it costs a ton of $$).
I check other people's blogs daily but think very little of mine.
There's just not much I feel like typing about. And I'm one of those that, if I can't do the whole enchilada, and do it perfectly, I don't even want to get started.
But.
There's been SO much to type about these past few months!! And therefore little time (or energy!!) to type it all out. Coherently. Perfectly (!!).
So, I feel the pressure. To type. To document.
Hhhmmm... how about some things I've learned recently?
(1) Never, ever, ever go to Disney World in June. And so probably not in July, August, May, or September either. Unless we have a freakishly long winter sort of thing going on. I have never been so hot in my life. I have never sweated so much in one hour's time. I have never walked so much in one day.
(2) Never, ever, ever pass up the opportunity to go to Disney World in June if that's the only time that God gives you (which applies to July, et al, as well). Even if the hottest summer temps are forecasted. Sweating so much detoxes your body (or something like that). Walking so much releases those fun little endorphins. I think.
(3) Never, ever, ever worry about what you'll wear or how you'll look at Disney World. Because no one else will ever care, either. And no one else will be looking at you. You will see more tattoos, more muffin tops, and more cellulite and saggy knees than you ever knew existed. Along with body piercings that are truly frightening. And too many 9-month-olds that will never remember a thing about seeing Goofy.
(4) Never... go to DWorld/Hollywood Studios on the Star Wars weekend. The entire world will be there. Sweating along with you. With their muffins hangin' outta their short-shorts & halters.
(5) Never underestimate the joy you will experience when you enter Magic Kingdom and stroll down Main Street for the first time.
(6) Never underestimate the joy you will experience as you watch your kids interact with the characters while you wait in line for 55 minutes to get that autograph.
(7) Never say you won't pay $2.65 for a bag of Cheetos and $3.45 for a soda at Disney World. You WON'T get into those restaurants, and you don't have a lot of other options. Well, you do, but I wouldn't explore those... "options"... and then go ride the Yeti roller coaster.
There will hopefully be pics posted here soon from our trip. It was so good to be there as a family, a first for all of us all at once! What a blessing from the Lord!
I check other people's blogs daily but think very little of mine.
There's just not much I feel like typing about. And I'm one of those that, if I can't do the whole enchilada, and do it perfectly, I don't even want to get started.
But.
There's been SO much to type about these past few months!! And therefore little time (or energy!!) to type it all out. Coherently. Perfectly (!!).
So, I feel the pressure. To type. To document.
Hhhmmm... how about some things I've learned recently?
(1) Never, ever, ever go to Disney World in June. And so probably not in July, August, May, or September either. Unless we have a freakishly long winter sort of thing going on. I have never been so hot in my life. I have never sweated so much in one hour's time. I have never walked so much in one day.
(2) Never, ever, ever pass up the opportunity to go to Disney World in June if that's the only time that God gives you (which applies to July, et al, as well). Even if the hottest summer temps are forecasted. Sweating so much detoxes your body (or something like that). Walking so much releases those fun little endorphins. I think.
(3) Never, ever, ever worry about what you'll wear or how you'll look at Disney World. Because no one else will ever care, either. And no one else will be looking at you. You will see more tattoos, more muffin tops, and more cellulite and saggy knees than you ever knew existed. Along with body piercings that are truly frightening. And too many 9-month-olds that will never remember a thing about seeing Goofy.
(4) Never... go to DWorld/Hollywood Studios on the Star Wars weekend. The entire world will be there. Sweating along with you. With their muffins hangin' outta their short-shorts & halters.
(5) Never underestimate the joy you will experience when you enter Magic Kingdom and stroll down Main Street for the first time.
(6) Never underestimate the joy you will experience as you watch your kids interact with the characters while you wait in line for 55 minutes to get that autograph.
(7) Never say you won't pay $2.65 for a bag of Cheetos and $3.45 for a soda at Disney World. You WON'T get into those restaurants, and you don't have a lot of other options. Well, you do, but I wouldn't explore those... "options"... and then go ride the Yeti roller coaster.
There will hopefully be pics posted here soon from our trip. It was so good to be there as a family, a first for all of us all at once! What a blessing from the Lord!
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