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.