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.

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...