A Christmas Wish Come True...

This year I really got into the Christmas spirit, big time!!
Only problem was that this meant I was terribly homesick as well.

Growing up my daddy was in the ministry and we moved around quite a bit. I have made four states and ten different cities home in my thirty-three years! And though I have probably lived in my home in Clinton now for the longest single period, I still feel restless. Especially this time of the year.

I guess that’s because I have always found my heart to be in several different places all at once.

My daddy, a Mississippi boy, found himself in seminary falling in love with and marrying a Missouri girl. This meant that our Christmas time as a family in subsequent years was spent divided between the two states. We always tried to see both sets of families this special time, no matter where we ourselves had made a home that year. This usually meant a road trip of at least a few hours if not several, and though we became good little travelers, I know this was hard on my parents who drove us through ice and snow up and down the highways and interstates. But I am thankful to them for doing it! I have so many lovely memories of this time of year spread out from the north to the south!

Mom grew up in a little town called Mountain Grove, but her parents had settled at The Lake of the Ozarks by the time I was born. “The Lake” is a wonderland of excitement during the holidays!! I can remember as a kid just about jumping up and down in the back seat when the scenery began to familiarize itself to me and the game of spotting Christmas lights through town would begin. We had usually driven all day and would arrive just in time to view the scenery in its wintry night splendor! Since this part of Missouri is a lake community much of the decoration centered around water sports. Santa dressed in swim trunks atop local businesses, the reindeer attending a pool parties and elves enjoying some time in the sun were all expected sights each year. But the best of them all came just as we crossed the bridge over the lake! If we strained in our seats to peer out the window and over the side of the bridge we could see the Big Man, himself, water skiing on the lake!! What fun!

Mom’s parents, Mamal and Daddy Duke, had a home high on a steep hill just outside of town. When we were younger the whole family tried to gather here for at least a few days. This meant a large family of aunts, uncles and lots of cousins!! Some of my best memories are of sleeping on pull out couches, or divans, as Mamal called them, with some of my precious cousins, giggling long into the night as the old clock in the living room chimed the night away. I can still hear its sound and funny as it may seem, I can recall some of those late night conversations we had as girls.
Dinner time was always a grand affair! Daddy Duke was head chef and his meals were and still are, legendary! Roasts, mashed potatoes, parsnips, Cornish hens!! “The Sisters” all helped him make it, in their matching aprons and the smells were intoxicating! But our favorites were always the me-maw rolls!! A labor of love well worth it for the taste!!

Christmas in Missouri almost always means lots of snow! Bundling up and trekking out into the cold was one of our favorite things and there are many memories we made as kids together in those woods.

If you carefully made your way down to the bottom of the steep hill the woods opened up to reveal the lake below. This time of year it was usually frozen on the edges and though not cold enough in this part of the country for it to freeze solid, this was always a source of excitement to me. It didn’t get cold enough in places where we lived like MS and TX for the water in lakes and such to freeze at all. I can remember standing at its edge with some of my older cousins and just marveling at it, wondering how far out we could walk before it would grow too thin. (Thankfully we never dared to see!)

We were always the entertainment at family gatherings such as these. It was always a big to do planning what we would sing and perform. I can still feel what it is like to be standing in the “red room” with Merrilea, Caroline, Minda and Coday, our matching sibling sweaters traded and turned into cousin sweaters, knowing that the parents and older cousins are just outside the door in the downstairs den waiting to hear what we have been practicing. Usually “Silent Night” or “Away in a Manger” but it seemed big business back then!!

And then the parents would get in on the act together as well. As Aunt Polly played the piano they all would sing and laugh. We loved to watch and listen!
Such simple things we took for granted then.
The sound of our parents all singing together in harmony.
The look on Mamal and Daddy Duke’s faces as they sang.
So many, many memories.

Christmas in Mississippi was usually a bit more warm. But I do remember one Christmas where we got almost all the way to Mimi and Dandy’s house only to discover that ice and snow had knocked out the little bridge we had to cross to get to their house. We were probably ten minutes away and had to take a detour that took maybe another half hour, but you better believe that felt like an eternity after driving so far and being so close!
Though Dad’s family was smaller, the excitement over cousins was just as great!
Much of our time was centered around the same activities, cooking, eating and singing.
Mimi and Dandy’s house had a little balcony from which we could perform our Christmas “pageants”. I was the oldest cousin on this side and therefore the director! Ha ha
We almost always did some version of the manger scene. I always gave myself the lead as Mary, Minda would play the angel, Scott, with his mascara painted on beard would be Joseph, a baby doll would play baby Jesus and Wes and Coday would be barn animals or shepherds! If Kate and Emily were there we would get them in on the action as well!
And then it was downstairs for songs and games. Mimi and her sister, our Aunt Evie, who I talk about a lot on here. Were big game players. Evie usually had a game of some sort she had copied from somewhere for us all to play.
Bed time brings to mind memories in that house too!
Pallets with all the cousins bundled together as we waited for Santa.
And I recall the clock in that house too.
Not the same high pitched chime as the one in Missouri, but rather a lower, “bong, bong” sound that rung out the night. I guess I must have spent countless hours trying to stay awake for Santa in both houses to remember the sounds each old clock made. It strikes me that this is a memory that Campbell may never make one like in this new era of digital clocks!

In both houses we opened gifts one at a time. I remember the first Christmas I spent w my husband’s family when we were still just dating. When it was time to open presents they tore into them all at once and though there was joy over seeing the person beside you open a gift it was all over in about two seconds! We always take turns, even if there is a large crowd, and make it last. Each gift is opened slowly and the joy of giving it is experienced greatly by the giver as well as the receiver. I think this is the way giving is supposed to be!

Wow! I am really reminiscing now!

But those two houses play in my mind almost as important a role in my memories as the people who filled them, As the years have gone by and grand parents sadly have passed so have those houses passed on to new families. Its such a strange thing to think I will never set foot in them again.

New memories have been made in new homes since then. And precious new family members have been added that I cant imagine life with out.

But no matter where we had Christmas, no matter what precious memories I made with family I loved and held so dear, there was always a longing in my heart.

I say always because I truly remember feeling it even as a child.

No matter what I asked Santa to bring, a baby doll was always on the list.
Mamal always got us a porcelain collector's doll but they were not really for playing with. We usually got our play dolls from Santa.

We asked for Cabbage Patch dolls one-year, care bears the next; I even remember one doll that I had to go back and Google just now to find out what it was called. It was a magic nursery baby and it came with a little card that youd dip in water to discover the gender of the baby. This deserves a YouTube search if you never had one or even if you did, so that you can walk down memory lane as I just did.

I think I was about 12 or 13 when I got my last doll for Christmas. I remember asking for one that looked as real as possible. I wanted a boy baby doll (probably the only boy doll i had ever recieved.)and I remember that I had decided to name him Michael.

Momma did her best to find a little doll that looked real and I remember her talking to me about how she thought that maybe this ought to be the last doll I ever got for Christmas.

I think she knew how much I longed, even then, to be a mother. She understood that no doll, even this really real looking one could fill that void. She knew it was time to put away those childish things, not many little girls at my age still played with dolls after all, and I think she was right to talk to me about this. But even now I can feel in my heart what I would feel that Christmas and for many more to come.

It would be almost 20 years of that longing.

Time is such a funny thing.

How it drains the hourglass taking with it so many things, and yet it also fill our lives each day with blessings.

Those sands pass quickly it seems in some ways and yet in some ways I feel that someone, somehow flipped the hourglass over.

This Christmas we spent Christmas Eve as a little family, just Cliff, Campbell and me at our home in Clinton as Cliff had to work. (if you go out to a store or restaurant or coffeeshop during the holidays that's open tip the people who are at work!) It it was a tiny bit sad to be away from the other loved ones on the eve of the big day.
It was also sort of nice to be just us. The Lord has blessed me this year with all that my heart has ever desired at Christmas or at any other time and I'm thankful for the time that I had with my very own Christmas wish made complete in the form of a husband and a preious baby.

As I wrote this blog I was struck by the thought that for Mary and for the Jewish people as whole, there had also been a time of great longing.

The Isrealites,too, had known many homes over the years, their memories made in times of change as the nation itself was growing and learning to trust God throughout the stories we read in the old testament.

Years of slavery followed by wandering in deserts, replaying the same scenarios of sin and sacrifice, and all the while longing for the messiah to come.

In fact it was in a distant place far away from loved ones that Mary found herself alone that night in a stable with just she and her new husband. I can not imagine what that must have felt like.

And yes, at that moment, when the hopes and dreams of all of God's people was finally made complete it, too, was in the form of a baby.

I do not attempt to draw comparisons here between myself and the holy family. I only mean to say that i think this Christmas, more than any other before, I understood.

I understand what it is to finally have the void filled.

I know better what it was that Mary must have pondered in her heart.

I can begin to comprehend on a small level the sacrifice that the Father made to let Him go.

To let Him come to us.
To be born a lowly birth to an imperfect, earthly mother.
And to become the grace that the Israelites had yearned for, for so long.

The hope of the whole world resting upon His tiny head.

I do not know what the years to come will hold for my little one, for our new family.

I can only trust that same Hope will lead us forward into the Love it came to create.

a new mom...

i had to go back and add a few things on my about me.

i am no longer only a daughter, sister and friend.

i can now add to that list wife and mother.

and wow!! what an addition those two things are!

ever since i was a little, bitty girl i have dreamed of being those two things. a wife and mom. sure there are gazillions of them through out history. none of us would be here if it were not were for them. but for me it seemed still, to be a noble calling.

there are some women in history who have blazed the trail for us girls in many wondeful ways and i am thankful for them!

women like susan b. anthony who i have thought about in these last few weeks when i exercised my right to voice my opinions and vote.
and others like florence nightengale, annie oakley,and eudora welty.

all who dared to strecth the boundries of what it means to be a woman.
the list goes on and on.

but not many women in history are known or remembered for being a mom!

i think that Mary is just about one of the only women in history i can think of who was famous for just being a mom!

and yet, that has always been my hearts one true desire!

in history (and still in the south!! ha ha!!) thirty two is quite old for a first time mommy to set out on an adventure with her new little one. but i am doing my best, and learning as i go. it was hard to break my "singles habits" in the first year of marriage and harder still to adapt to being mommy so quickly after adapting to being wife! but i am getting there!

i am so blessed to have an absolutley wonderful husband who has played "mr mom" in the mornings while i am at work. since he is at school part time and works part time as he earns his degree i had been the primary bread winner for us and we have had to continue this even after the baby came along. he was almost forced by our finances into a role that he never dremaed he wanted. its funny. i always wanted to be a stay at home mom, and up until a few years ago he never even wanted kids, but God, in his infinate wisdom, had plans for us bigger still than we could imagine! i have been blessed watching cliff and campbell bond and i know even through the fussiness and dirty diapers, cliff has been blessed too, by this time together with his son that most daddies don't get.

but where this has left me has been hard to say the least.

i have dealt with feeling like i abandoned my baby for work. even though that work was necessary for the financial success of our family.

i have let our house suffer because i am having a hard time juggling work and household chores..

i have probably led to the beginning of some spoiling behaviors in our son because when i get home all i want to do is hold him.

i have said that i feel like that olympian who has trained their entire lives for an event only to be told that they must stand on th sidelines and cheer for another team mate as they go for the gold. like gabby douglas and jordyn weiber.

but i have learned something in the process.

i do not take my time with my son for granted, thats for sure. but also i have learned that sometimes the things we are called to do, do not come easy. and only when it is a true calling will we work to accomplish it no matter what!

daddy reminded me recently in his blog on veterens day of my great aunt evie. he lamented how the old maid we all knew and loved may have perhaps been not the picky spinster, but rather, the broken heart whose soldier never came home.
her calling was interupted when her dreams of being wife and mommy were shattered somewhere on the foreign soil of war.

but she picked up the pieces and became a "mommy" still.

she placed herself so dearly in our lives that my dad and his siblings referred to her as their "other mother" and us grandkids thought of her like another grandmother too.

she taught sunday school and trained teachers to teach sunday school for probabaly fifty plus years in the baptist churches in mississippi. she was one of the first women to be a minister in our state and she pioneered in many ways what we now know as how to love a child at church.

i think also of Mary, who i mentioned earlier. bless her precious, young heart. what dreams did she have that changed so quickly that day that the angel appeared to her? i can only imagine that given her culture and the fact that she was chosen, she must have dreamed of being a mother one day. but not in the way in which it happened. not so soon. not before she was wed or before she felt, im sure that she was ready.

sometimes the things that we are called to do happen all too quickly it seems, before we even feel prepared. sometimes they happen in all together unexpected ways. and sometimes they take so long to happen that when they do we are different people than we thought we would be.


i never dreamed i would be the working mom.
but for now.
for today.
i am.


and i know that this is ok, too. one day i will look back at these days that i watched my baby boy grow...
...closer to his daddy who somehow found the instinct he never dreamed he had
...closer to his mommy who learned letting go just a bit rewards exponentially
...closer to becoming the man that i know i was called to raise.

truth be told

ok you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. here it is. i am not the domestic goddess i aspire to be! and how bout this one, being married is hard!! and further more there is such a thing as post wedding depression, when the big day is over and all the planning is complete and you are left with a foggy memory of a day you dreamed your whole life about. i almost couldn't even look at pics, i was so deep there for a while in this post-big day funk. after two years or so of blogging on this site i decided to switch to a new blog with a brand new title and twist. "from the knot to the nest" was supposed to chronicle my journey from wedded bliss to peaceful mrs. and on ito my life of motherhood. i had dreams of awe inspiring photos, tear jerking posts and clever how to tips. what i ended up with instead was a few short boring blogs of day to day blah blah blah and a whole lot of nothing. i hated this but i have finally come to grips with the fact that this is because, again, truth coming out here, if i had actaully chronicled what really happened in the last year and half you would have my journey to the brink of becoming a bridezilla, my never ending struggle to keep up with housework, and my exciting but oh so soon and unexpected preganancy barely three months after our marriage. not exactly the blog i had in mind when i pictured them making the next julie and julia movie about me! and now, as i round the corner of the third trimester of this preganancy and look headlong into not only my first wedding anniversary but also to the birth of our first child, i realize honesty is now, if ever, the best. and when i am honest with myself, i realize i was never going to be a domestic goddess with baking recipes, cleaning tips and well thought out marriage advice. thats just not who i am. i will leave that to the bettys, and marthas, and annes. no mine has always been a less formal style of just a writer, an untrained one at that, who is honest with herself and with the readers about the inner workings of her heart. and so i pledge to begin again. because writing out what is in my heart somehow nourishes my soul, and to be running low on ink is better than to be running on empty any day.

toward...

its raining outside.
a much needed rain.

i got home this morning from keeping ms holden at about 715 and daddy was practicing his guitar a little bit before getting ready for work. i laid down on the bed and listened to him for a moment and i was struck with the thought that some things never get old.

in this world where all is fleeting, and time moves much too quickly, there are some things that we never tire of.

for me, hearing him play and sing is one of them. i have mentioned this before i know, but this morning as he played some beatles and some jt, and i listened i let my mind wander to the people and places and things that never grow tired for me.

i could listen to this rain for a very long time i think. its pitter patter that lulls to sleep and at the same time brings life and renewal to the earth.

i could spend countless days at the beach. listening to the waves crash, feeling the sand beneath me.

christmas always seems too short. the time with family and loved ones always seems not quite long enough when the last of the decorations is put away and all must return to the busy routine of life.

and then i thought of dandy. how daddy's soft voice is starting to remind me of his.
how trips in the golf cart, and explorations in the woods come back to me like they happened yesterday. i recalled his hair and mimi brushing it in the car just before church. in my minds eye i saw him as he prayed and passed the plate. i can see his wink, his smile, hear him as he laughs.

the other day some one at a drive thru asked me a question and without even thinking i said, "don't believe, thank you."
a true dandy-ism.

its funny how even the things that are so fleeting somehow stick with us.

my mind wandered next to sweet ev. i remembered her hoola hooping in the back yard one endless summer just before she got out the bad mitten set and we all played. i can hear her too. its a sad and beautiful thing how we can not hear any longer and yet always hear the voices of loved ones.

what i would give to hear again aloud a "now girl" or a "babe".

i have thought for a long while about the things in this life that are eternal.

namely love.

the Bible says that God is Love.

and we know that God is eternal.

i think, therefore that when we love here on earth we catch a glimpse of heaven. of the divine. of the everlasting.

i think thats why real love never stops, or goes away.

even if the person does.

i think thats why certain moments in our memories stick out when they spark within us that old home movie in the mind that plays over and over of loved ones and days gone by.

can you see them?

the days you could live over and over? the moments you wish you could spend again?

i think in some ways thats what heaven is. its this place where all those precious forevers are.

and we catch these glimpses of them here on earth when we love. when we reach outside of ourselves and cling to the eternal, hold on to the Divine and for a moment in time become like Him. transcending time and space. touching on the realm of the infinite.

maybe thats how it is that we can be with Him too. maybe His grace that covers us also unveils this whole new world of possibility.

maybe all is not fleeting, but rather moving toward Him.

i wanna write you a love story...

Mrs. Earlora Holden is 101.

I have been staying with her at night to keep her company and give her a sense of safety. She is amazing, even at 101 she has a better mind than i do. She reminds me to set the alarm before we go to bed, to plug in her cell phone for her (yes, she uses a cell phone) and she remembers everything clear back to the early part of the last century.

She told me that she was fourteen when she first saw Mr. Dobie, her husband of fifty plus years who passed away some thirty years ago. she remembered that she had a bow in her hair that was bigger than she had ever worn before and though she was a little self conscious, it caught his eye and he spoke to her.
"Hello."
that's all he said. maybe a quick nod. but it was the first time that a boy had ever spoken to her and she told me that it frightened her. so she ran home to tell her mother. her father had passed away at a young age and so Ms. Holden's mother was raising three kids on her own. Commonplace today, but a quite a feat one hundred years ago. Ms. Holden smiled as she told me what her mother told her.
"Well, next time speak back to him!" and Ms. Holden said she did.

years later they found the two teenage love bird's school report cards that someone had tucked away and from ninth grade on Mr. Dobie took every class that she did. even the typing classes that were primarily made up of girls. how cute is that? i love that he put himself where she was every second of everyday in order to get her to notice him, like he noticed her.

after he graduated from lsu the two were married and he began his coaching career at a high school in south mississippi, before ending up at pearl river community college. and she never left his side.

it was his lungs that gave out on him in the end she told me. back then they didn't know what the young people know today about smoking she said. but she loved him til the end. loves him still.

i love stories like that.

simple.

but what makes them beautiful is that no matter how many times throughout history the love story has been repeated, each one is unique and universal at the time.

its this common personal joy that we all share.

i was reminded recently by a dear old friend about the letters that we wrote to each other as girls. we were pen pals of sorts, after she moved away to texas. i have a box full of letters that she sent me back in the late eighties and early nineties. im sure if i were to look at what i was writing to her back then i would get quite a laugh. the love life of a fifth grader written down on pink paper in purple gel pen, bragging to her best friend miles away.

maybe its because i grew up in this generation of girls who were spoon fed love stories and fairy tales. maybe its because i had such precious love stories lived out in front of me through my parents and grand parents. but it seems i have been trying to create this great love story my whole life.

in my novel, that AT is still waiting on me to type up so he can tear it apart, the protagonist struggles with this too. (i guess because secretly he is me.) how to write your own love story?

what used to flow so freely from the purple gel pen of a wide eyed, freckled faced girl, is now hard for the woman who found her first age spot above her eye the other day to get out. i guess years of heartache make the story teller more cautious of the tales she spins.

but truth be told, the Lord is creating one for me whether i am ready or not.

i guess the same was true for Ms. Holden. at fourteen she never would have said she was ready for the Lord to bring the man she would spend the rest of her life with into the picture. she didn't even know how to talk to him! but the Lord's timing is perfect.

and at almost thirty-one, and trust me when i tell you that i am just about the last thirty-one year old in the south who is not married with three kids, the Lord's timing is perfect still.

and still i hesitate to pen the words i feel.

i guess all i can say is

story developing...

a hard drive...

so my hard drive fell out.
literally.
one night in late May it fell out of my lap top and crashed to the floor.
it spent most of the summer getting fixed, and i have somehow found it difficult to blog again since it has returned home in one piece.

its hard to be honest. with my thoughts. with what has happened to me.
and if this blog is anything, its honest.

i think that my computer hard drive was lost, but i think that this was intentional. i think that the Lord was trying to teach me something.

in many ways this summer my internal hard drive was lost as well.

as Madilynn embarked upon her kindergarten journey, the family i worked for decided to put Ben and Nathan in preschool too. a decision that was, for varying reasons, an answer to my prayers, despite how much i loved the children.

and while this loss of my beloved job was major, it is still minute in comparison to this whirlwind summer.

what happened?

well, when my hard drive crashed i lost things. pictures, writings, plans for the future.

and while this was hard to stomach, it was no surprise to the Lord who had already begun to set into motion new tomorrows.

but with each new day comes the daunting task of letting go of what has come before.

i have learned much of letting go and moving on this summer.

i have been thinking a lot about how we say that God has the ability to forgive, but also to forget and i have come to a conclusion. i am no biblical scholar and maybe there is scriptural evidence that would prove me wrong, but in my opinion, He doesn't forget. He is the Creator of the Universe, the Master and Designer of thoughts and emotions. He knows our actions before they are even begun and He knows the actions that will turn us against Him. No, i don't think He forgets, i think, rather, that He chooses not to remember.

our memories can be beautiful things. a gift from the Father. but they can also be an immobilizing force that keeps us from moving on.

it seems a strange thing to be afraid of, but i was scared to drive across the Pontchartrain. i was reminded of that old country song by george i think, "for your love id swim the Pontchartrain." well just driving over it was proof of love for me!
the bridge over it is long and low. the water seems too close to the winding lanes that cause that "christopher columbus syndrome" where you feel like you are about to fall off the edge of the earth. a feeling not favorable when the croc infested waters of one of the South's largest lakes is below you. just being a passenger in the car when i was not driving scared me, and i hate to admit it, but i cried the first several times that i had to drive it solo. but the reward on the other side was always on my mind, and i found that if i just focused on that, focused on the road ahead, i could make it.

one night in particular it was raining pretty hard as i left picayune, about twenty minutes from the bridge, and i was terrified. crossing the Pontchartrain on a clear night was bad enough, but as sheets of rain came pouring down across the windshield my tears began to pour down as well and i began to pray. not just to pray, but to bargain with God. if He would just cause the rain to stop long enough for me to cross that bridge, i would try really hard not to be afraid to cross it ever again. just so long as it was dry. i was just laying these great big old worries and fears at His feet so fervently, when all of the sudden i had this thought. at that same moment in time there were women in the world dealing with much greater things that required courage. famine. wars. oppression. heartache greater than i have ever or will ever know. and here i was crying because it was raining and i had to cross a bridge.

but wouldn't you know it, just as my tires hit the bridge, the clouds moved back and revealed a crystal clear blue sky over head. maybe it was coincidence but i like to think that God wanted me to know that my problems, big or small, are not insignificant to Him. i think He wanted me to put it all into perspective, but He also wanted to remind me that He will always be with me as i press on. through my fears, over obstacles, into new tomorrows.

and so with a new hard drive in place, and with perspective in place after facing a hard drive, my summer has brought many changes. good changes.

but it has also brought the choice to let go and embrace what's ahead. clear skies or rainy days, pressing on.

oh, yeah, and i still won't hesitate...

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.