got my new shoes on...

i don't know what it is exactly, but lately, i have been trying to accomplish something like crazy.

what?

I'm not quite sure. just something, anything really.

i turned thirty last December and all of the sudden a few weeks ago i realized its almost June.

it was such a big deal to turn thirty to me, and its almost half way over. I'm almost half way to thirty one.

i know that age is just a number, and getting older doesn't bother me so much now that i have hit big three-oh~

its just that, i guess as human beings we are constantly looking at our lives and going, what am i doing?

so, what am i really doing?

i go to work everyday, but you have to understand that even this is hard to qualify for me now. used to at the bookstore i could measure the success of my day by how many invoices i reconciled, how many book orders i filled, and how quickly i balanced out and got everybody home. i had chatted about my prayer requests and dreams with ms Debbie and ms Linda, gotten all the good MC gossip from the girls down front, lunched with manner or Laura or Suzette, and Karen and i had more days than not had a chat about the future of the store.

these days i measure the success of days in time outs, and temper tantrums, and poopy diapers. and most days, if I'm lucky, i have maybe interacted socially with some one over the age of five for about ten minutes all total by five pm.

don't get me wrong, i love my job. its just that my life has changed so drastically in the last few months and i feel like in many ways, by the world's standards, i have dropped off the radar.

and today, when i took the kids to the library for story time, the librarians (the only adults i have spoken to all day since the kid's mother left at 7:30) where so rude to me! and over a thirty cent library fine. i felt like screaming at them. i felt like telling them that they should be congratulating me for successfully getting three kids under the age of five dressed, out of the house and into their car seats, (a chore which usually takes almost an hour) and not only did i get them to the library all in one piece, but they did not run around, but rather sat quietly and actually listened to the story! when Ben had to potty, he got up from the story and quietly told me. he went in the library bathroom and i felt like telling ms rude pants this, too. i had forgotten to put a diaper on him before we left just in case he had an accident, but he had not! i was so proud of him and how good they had been and here she was giving me that look over the rim of her glasses because of thirty cents. i just paid the fine so i could check out the kids books and left. it wasn't worth it. maybe I'm just having one of those days. maybe she was too. but i quietly wished that someone had realized exactly what it was that i had accomplished today.

at the bookstore, as i said, i could measure my success. but what did those successes matter really? we used to joke that we worked hard to make some fat cats in home office richer, but that's exactly what we did. its no joke. nothing that i did, (with the exception of my relationships with the women that i worked with) had a lasting effect on anything. except the bottom line.

these last six months, Nathan has learned to walk.
madilynn has begun to read.
Ben is potty trained.
we have been to the library, the park, the grocery store.
we have made recycled jewelry, paper penguins, Easter eggs, wild flower collages, mothers day frames...
i taught them the Christmas story, the Easter story and to say the blessing before meals.
my goal for the summer: teaching them to swim.

maybe to some people, to those who do not understand how precious these things are, this does not sound like a lot. but to me i have accomplished more in the last six months in the home of this family than i did in four years at the bookstore. more that matters anyway.

so, why do i still feel this overwhelming need to accomplish something?

maybe its because they are not mine.

maybe its because i still have not accomplished what i thought i would by the time i was thirty and half years old.

maybe that's ok, and I'm ok...

but maybe, if I'm brutally honest, and for some reason today i am brave enough to be, I'm not totally ok. at least not all the time.

but maybe that is ok, too.

today i read the blog of Rachel Coleman, creator of signing time videos.

she has a child that was born deaf, and another child that was born with cerebral palsy. the world of sign language has opened up doors for her and her girls that doctors told her would never be possible.

she had seen the story of "team Hoyt" the father son iron man team whose you tube video linked up with Nicole c. miller's version of "my redeemer lives" had touched millions. but for her it had personal significance.

she decided to enter her town's half marathon. and to enter her entire family even though the registration form said no wheel chairs, no strollers, no exceptions.

she had been fighting for her girls their entire lives, this was no exception for her.

after months of phone calls, and getting the run around she finally got the news she had been waiting for. she would be allowed to run with her family, her entire family, in the race. and last month her youngest, who she pushed in the running stroller because of her cerebral palsy, received a medal.

Rachel's blog reads: Run with your life!--No exceptions!!

i guess that i am feeling this need to accomplish something so greatly because, like Rachel, i did not ask for this hand that i have been dealt.

this is not what i dreamed thirty and half would look like.and though i do not profess to have been dealt a hand nearly as challenging as Rachel and her family, this is my life and these are my own personal challenges that i must face daily. big or small. they are mine.

Rachel said when they found out that their oldest child was deaf at one year they mourned and grieved and cried until they looked at their daughter. they realized that nothing had changed for her. she was still the happy baby looking to them to be loved that they had known since birth. that, she said, was when they began to stop grieving and start moving toward whatever came next.

i have to look at my life too and realize that the Lord is looking at it and saying, still here. still what i always dreamed and planned for you. so stop feeling sorry about things not working out how you planned. start looking to me for what comes next!

I'm trying...

and despite the world's measuring systems, and stupid thirty cent fines...

watch out...

i feel like running.

Think About It, Think About It...

When i was in high school i had a Sunday school teacher named Mike Smith who i think about from time to time. He influenced me, and probably many more of my compadres back in the day, more than he ever knew. He was Texas, through and through. still is i imagine. he was a deacon at our church and we always loved it when he prayed. he said the word, "fire" like "fur" and the word, "lord" like "lard". when he would pray "Lard, fill our hearts with your "fur" we would almost lose it, and love it at the same time. he meant it so genuinely.

and he studied the scriptures so intently each week before our lesson. he would read a scripture or lecture us on some point and then he would say, "think about it, think about it." he wanted us to really ponder what he was trying to tell us. and i did. and i still do. but it was these words that stuck with me. i do not read a scripture now, or read a particularly deep paragraph in a book, or story, that i do not hear Mike's words reminding me to stop and really take it all in.

its funny the things that we remember.

i had a friend this week comment on a status post i made on facebook about the sunburn i have gotten as of late. she said that she remembered once i fell asleep on the trampoline in her back yard with my legs crossed and got a very unusual striped sun burn. Ha! so funny.

truth be told she is the younger sister of one my younger sister's friends and i don't remember much time spent with her at all. i would have at least been in ninth grade when this happened and so she would have been in elementary or middle school. im sure i never gave much thought to her remembering me at all.

i joked with her that in the memoirs i write when i am ninety i will probably spin this tale in order to leave the reader pondering the glow that she remembered i always had from the Lord. sounds much better than the truth of a red headed, freckle faced, dreamer who probably never said anything worthwhile or lasting to her.

her father was my driver's ed instructor. i drove endless hours it seems with him and Lara up and down those old Texas high ways. and i have a funny memory of him too. once when we were pulling out of the school parking lot and i was not paying attention to looking back at what was behind me, he said,in true coach's fashion, "always look where you are going, not where you have been." i can't tell you how many times i have remembered that. backing out of parking spaces, driveways, and in my life at certain times. its funny. all the fca lectures, biology lessons, Sunday school classes and sermons on creation i sat through that he taught, and that is the one thing that plays over and over in my mind. it got me through drivers ed and its getting me through life, now, as well.

lately, i have been trying to live life with a little more purpose. i have been trying to "think about it, think about it" a little more.

it has amazed me, (though i know that it shouldn't ) how awesome the Lord is when i stop to see it. really see it. and when i think about how lasting a thing our actions and words are, even the small things...well, its scary really.

wonderful and scary.


i have to tell myself that even Jesus had a hard time being influential on some of the people from His home town. he was remembered as Joseph, the carpenter's son, and so people found it difficult to remember him as much else.

i dont know what else i may have done in high school that was stupid that people remember me for. there is no telling.

i am thankful for katie's good memory though. it made me laugh, made me "think about it, think about it."

but i hope that with a little more intentioned living, i might be remembered for better things in the days to come...

persevere...

i've been thinking lately about what it means to persevere.

i started trying to walk/run again. not an easy task for one so out of shape. i have started out slowly. very slowly. we will see.

i heard recently about this tribe of indigenous peoples in northern Mexico known as the tarahumara who are world famous for their long distance running abilities. and i mean long distance. a few men who have traveled to the US from this tribe have frustrated the rest of the world as they have run along side other athletes in marathons; not only do they win by a long shot but they stop for long breaks along the way, sometimes even to smoke, and still win.

for these people running is a way of life. they cover long distances of up to 50 miles to deliver mail, messages etc..often times in bare feet and in unbelievable time. they still practice persistence hunting. a method used by early humans where over the course of several hours an animal such as a gazelle will die from exhaustion while being tracked by a persistent human runner. their games mostly consist of running. the men's games make use of a ball much in the same way soccer is played, and the women roll hoops. but what makes these games so incredible is that they will cover up to forty miles over the course of a several hours. when running is your only means of transportation, sport and part of of your very survival, you get good at it.

some researchers believe that this is a specific and isolated incident where this one group of people are just genetically destined to be great runners. others, however, have determined that this is more than likely closer to the way that all humans existed at some point or another. they believe that our modern lifestyles with varying modes of transport and other comforts have slowly over time caused us to lose these "super human" abilities still possessed by the tarahumara.

i tend to agree with the latter. after all the human body can be trained to do amazing things. even me. the training method i am using as of late is called couch to 5k! heh. and it works. over several weeks i hope to be able to run at a more persistent speed, but for now i am starting out slowly. running only for minutes at a time to start, before resting with a slower walking pace. interval training.

its all very interesting to me.

its gotten me thinking about my spiritual life as well.

lately my thoughts and prayers have gone something like this, "God, im just so tired... i feel so drained."

and i do.

i feel like in the last several weeks my spiritual life has kicked off with amazing speed. all of the sudden i found myself at this steady stride alongside the Lord, jumping over obstacles in my path, (some not quite so easily, but making it over them all the same in the end) and for a while there the pace seemed almost easy. every scripture i read was meant just for me. i was surrounded by "god sightings" where i could see the lord at work in my life. i was full of insights and happy thoughts. so why am i now feeling like i have run out of gas?

i think i understand what hebrews 12:1 means more and more.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

our spiritual lives are like a long distance marathon, and i am no tarahumara.

i have thought lately about all the things that can trip me up. the lies of the enemy, my own emotions and my habit of perpetual planning. not to mention your other more commonly known and thought about sins. but i had not considered that even if i was "throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles" that i still had more to consider. the perseverance part may prove to be even more difficult.

but i press on. whether i like it or not, time moves on and the lord continues to work on my life. if i choose to keep stride with him, well, that is up to me.

i think the lord designed it this way on purpose. where the road to following him is not easy. the narrow way and all of that. that way we must learn to trust and follow him over time. making him a part of our very lives the way the tarahumara have done with running. when he is our only means for living, its more natural to act as he would and turn to him for everything.

i guess for now i will pray for endurance, continued peace and a persistent heart...