Penny Thoughts

Moving on up

2011-10-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

Hey there

This blog can now be found at http://www.leannepenny.com

I will no longer be updating at this site, but I'd love to see you at the new one.

Pea Soup

2011-10-19T08:03:00.001-07:00

I grew up eating pea soup. My mom and aunts made it all the time, and my Grandma Verkaik made it best. I am pretty sure that her mom made it and that this recipe came across the ocean from the Netherlands, memorized by the minds of my great grandmas. I like to think that they sailed into New York Harbor, gazing at the statue of Liberty thinking of freedom, new opportunities and Pea Soup. I’m sure this isn’t the case, but it’s my story and I can tell it how I want to.

simmering, savory pea soup.

Yesterday I made my family’s pea soup. It starts by boiling a leftover ham bone, so right away you feel resourceful. This is the sort of recipe that takes time, you keep the pot simmering and add to it all afternoon, so that it thickens, but doesn’t burn. If you haven’t had dutch grandma pea soup, you probably think it looks sort of gross. I know it’s thick and greenish yellow and trust me, I didn’t love it when I was younger. In fact I remember a story book my Mom read me about a pair of hippos and split pea soup. The girl hippo, Martha made a ton of pea soup and the boy hippo, George, hated it and tried to hide it all over the house so she’d think he was eating it. I sat on my mom’s lap and empathized with George, pea soup wasn’t really all that great.

But now that I’m a mom, I make pea soup, and the other three Pennys indulge me. Kel is even coming to like it, I think, unless like George the hippo is hiding it in his shoes. When I make this soup I feel connected to my past in a really positive way. When I grate peeled potatoes into the simmering pot I think of all the women I come from who stood over countless pots of soup, thinking about life, love, God, husbands and kids. In good years and bad, my family made this soup. After it was just right they gathered around the table to fill their stomachs and souls with fellowship and warm, green goodness. And probably a side of warm homemade bread.

We all have pea soup type things that bring us back to who we are and where we come from, these are the touchstones that remind us of our rich heritage and history. When you do these things, you can almost touch the roots of connection with your ancestors. Pea-soup type things strengthen and ground us and they give us pride, in a good way. They remind us that generations of people lived life on this earth, they loved and lost and struggled to connect and find God, just like we do every day.

And so even though I get most of my recipes off the internet these days, I always return to my roots and my old school wooden 3×5 card box for this pea soup recipe. This soup is thick and rich and it sustains me and my family in countless ways. I hope you have pea-soup type things in your life and if you do, I hope you go make a big metaphorical pot of green goodness to remind yourself of who are, whatever that looks like for you. Go out and tell the stories of where you comes from to your children so that one day they will have pea soup moments when they remember your faithful strength over simmering pots. Right now they make be more inclined to dislike it and hide it in their shoes, but I assure you someday they will be infinitely thankful that you did.

Gramma Verkaik's Pea Soup
- One ham bone, bring to a boil in water until the ham falls off the bone. Take the bone out and sort through the tender meat, removing the fat etc...
- Add two cups of celery to the ham broth you made
- Add onion to taste
- Add 1 1/2 bags of pea, split and whole or all split.
- Add a bay leaf, don't forget bc Gramma Verkaik swears it makes all the difference.
- Add some basil and salt and pepper
- Add a ring of sausage, or Gramma Verkaik calls it metwurst. I usually use turkey sausage
- As it simmers, grate in peeled potatoes to thicken it.

Don't let it burn and once it is all done, pour and enjoy. It freezes well.

Soundtracks

2011-10-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a concert featuring two of my favorite bands, David Crowder and Gungor. Despite the five straight hours of standing in a sweaty crowd, I really enjoyed myself. When I look at God's people I see a huge painting, each of us an unique color splashed onto the canvas. Musicians add an essential color to my world, and I am immensely thankful for their faithfulness. I love both lyrics and music, but if forced to chose between the two I would have to confess that I am lyrics gal. Nearly all of my favorite songs make the cut because the lyrics strike a chord in my heart.

Every year my Dad released a soundtrack that served as his musical journey, and he gave that CD out to friends and family. I am totally his daughter in that respect. He didn't live in the world of the iPod playlist, which is where I do the majority of my soundtracking. Since music was made to be shared, I decided to reflect and release my soundtrack for the past year with you. So this is one year of grieving my mom, in musical form. Complete with lyrical snippets of the words that really had an impact on me this past year. I am so thankful to these artists for allowing these words to flow form their souls and into my ears.

1) Beautiful Things by Gungor

All this pain
I wonder if I'll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us.

This song came into my life just a couple weeks before I began the process of grieving my Mom. I heard Gungor perform this live in Waco, TX and I knew immediately it would be played over and over and over again in my car, my home and my walks around the park. Also it makes me want to learn the xylophone something fierce.

2) Resurrection by Nicole Sponberg

I'm at a loss for words, there's nothing to say
I sit in silence wondering what led me to this place
When did my life become so lifeless and cold
Where did the passion go?

Here I am, at the end, I'm in need of resurrection
Only you can take this empty shell and raise it from the dead
What I've lost to the world, what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in your hand and make me whole again.

At the planning session for my mother's funeral my aunt suggested using this song and honestly at the time I just trusted her judgement. I had no time to process the song before we buried her, but over the next few months the lyrics really had a powerful effect on me. There are many days when I think about my mom's death and I can almost feel her freedom from mental illness. I pray incessantly that I never know her pain.

3) Give me Jesus by Fernando Ortega
And when I come to die, give me Jesus.
You can have all this world, give me Jesus.

I've always loved this hymn and after playing it at the funeral it is even more intertwined into my life. Have you ever thought about what it would mean to really be at peace with God taking everything out of your life and finding true and total contentment in Christ alone? When you process these words, your realize that this really is a concise description of the journey itself.

4) Still Fighting it by Ben Folds

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
And you're so much like me
I'm sorry

After my son was born in January I was strangely convinced that he was born sad because he had been on such a deeply painful ride with me during my last trimester. As I was processing what it meant to be a mother to my two beautiful children this song helped me along. I have to grow into my role, even though it hurts sometimes.

5) Held by Natalie Grant

This is what it means to be held, How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your lifeAnd you survive.
This is what it is to be loved and to know,
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held.

I think when your mom takes her life, it really does feel like the sacred is torn away from you. We all want to believe our moms have us, that when life is overwhelming they can swoop in and make things all better, or at least a little better. I felt that was ripped away, I spent long evenings in my bathtub just wishing I could physically feel God holding me and wiping away my tears.

6) 7 x 70 by Chris August

I’ve been living in this house here
Since the day that I was born
These walls have seen me happy
But most of all they’ve seen me torn
They’ve heard the screaming matches
That made a family fall apart
They’ve had a front row seat
To the breaking of my heart

As my family and I went through the process of packing up my Mom's house, this song kept popping up on my radio. I wasn't there for most of the sorting and boxing up of my childhood home, but knowing that home was permanently gone was a grief in and of itself as well as a relief. This song confirmed those feelings and after hearing Chris August perform it live last night I love it even more.

7) SMS: Shine by David Crowder Band

Send me a sign, a hint, a whisper. Throw me a line, cuz I am listening...

...Shine your light so I can see it,
pull me up I need to be near you.
Hold me I need to feel love.
Can you overcome this heart thats overcome?

I don't know if I would have fallen for this song so hard if it wasn't for the light bright music video. Go watch that video, you won't be sorry in the slightest. I am so connected to the story line of the two little lite brite people, the hope at the beginning, the tragedy in the middle and the idea that out of death, something beautiful can grow. I want to be that something beautiful.

8) Please be my strength by Gungor

Please be my strength
Please be my strength
I don't have any more
I don't have any more

This is my prayer many mornings. 'Nuff said.

9) Death in his grave by John Mark McMillan

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

Also I need to add: "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow, because he lives all fear is gone, because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living, just because he lives." The lyrics of these two songs, one contemporary and one a hymn from my childhood, serve as a reminder of where our comfort truly lies. When we face death and pain and un-mendable brokenness we cannot forget the promise that is wrapped up in the empty tomb. One of the reasons I heal and press on is because I know where this path leads. We have already won.

So here are 9 songs that made my soundtrack. They top the charts now and they will always be a part of the my life's dance. They fed me on days when I didn't know where to find food. Most of them fall in the "christian" music genre but I certainly don't limit myself to that genre. Wherever musicians are pouring out truth you will find and connect your story with God.

I hope you practice the healing discipline of soundtracking your life. Music is something God wired us for, so take advantage of it and take the time to soundtrack your life in the gray and sunny seasons. I can't see why you'd ever regret it.

Would you share a few songs on your current soundtrack? Please?

one year with suicide

2011-10-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

This post is best read with a mug of something warm such as coffee, cocoa or hot tea. Also hot apple cider, if available is a great choice.

In Michigan the leaves are changing bold and beautiful hues and falling to the ground. Fall has always been my favorite season, but this particular fall day lacks beauty for me. You see, today marks the one year anniversary of my Mom's death. One year ago today she took her life.

Last year on October 13th I was just getting into bed after staying up too late when I heard my cell phone ring. It was my brother, and after a glance at the clock I realized that time in Michigan was midnight thirty. My heart sank and I braced myself for a blow, because calls after midnight rarely bring good news. My husband took the call and after he hung up the phone he gently filled me in. Earlier that evening my mother had taken her life on the same train tracks that my sister had her accident years before. I didn't burst into hysterics or tears, instead I sunk into shock. I couldn't believe that all the hope I had been grasping so desperately had shattered on the tile floor of our bathroom. There was no coming back from her depression. It had finally defeated her spirit. She had been so mentally and emotionally unavailable for years, and now she had faded out of my life completely.

I wanted to write about what it feels like to spend one year processing and grieving suicide. I know a lot of people tell me that they can't imagine what it would be like to have your mother take her life. Well I think that if I could sum it all up into one word it would be this: confusing. After 365 days of living with suicide I am still confused. I know that the body, mind and soul of a person are unbreakably connected. When the mind is very sick it has the power to take down the other two. When the body is sick it can take down mind and soul down as well. However, I have seen enough optimistic cancer patients to lead me to believe that the worst place to get seriously sick, is in the mind.

My mother struggled with depression for about 30 years, and it eventually took her life. Some days I view her death as a struggle with terminal depression, a disease of the mind. Other days I wonder what was inevitable because of her diagnosis and what she could have fought through. But every day I wonder who my Mom really was underneath that thick gray crust of pain and sadness. Toward the end of her life she was usually a warm body and a blank stare, existing in a world I couldn't seem to reach. I listen to stories and glean pieces of the person God made her to be, she was bright and fun loving, a warm hearted and servant minded person. She felt other people's pain like it was her own and she was the star of the school play. I miss her even though I hardly knew her at all. Mostly I am frustrated that I missed out on her. That my life was spent watching her blow away like dandelion fluff, piece by piece drifting somewhere unknown.

I can honestly say I was angry at her, for all her failures as my Mom, and for being locked behind a wall I couldn't penetrate no matter what I did. I kept reaching for her just like my own baby son reaches up for my face. As much as you hate to admit it, You always need you mom, and she couldn't be mine anymore, even though she was sitting right across from me. I won't ever fully understand that, it's utterly terrible grieving someone who is still alive.

I don't know why some people die of physical illness, some people die of mental illness and some people die in sudden tragic accidents. I do know that one out of every one person on the earth will die and that even though my moments on earth seem endless, they are anything but.

I try to remember the good memories of my Mom, but most of them happened years ago. When she was alive, the idea of being like her terrified me, so I rejected everything in hopes of avoiding her fate. Well now I am confident that I can avoid her fate while at the same time being her daughter. I am now brave enough to talk about some parts of her that I carry on in this life.

1) When Noelle was born she came to visit and kissed her right on the lips. I thought that was weird, but now I smooch those little lips whenever I want to, because I am mom, and I can.

2) She always left her coffee cup in the bathroom because she finished her last mug while she was doing her makeup. I do that too.

3) My mom's favorite season was fall, mine is too. She would drive us around town just to find beautiful trees to fuss over, as a kid I didn't get it, but I have every intention of subjecting my kids to that as well.

4) She wore the diamonds my dad gave her when he proposed, I am now brave enough to wear them too. They are a symbol of all the beautiful intentions they had when they started our family, and that's a part of all of this that I want to carry into the future.

Suicide is messy and inexplicable selfish, I doubt she had too much control over it, as far gone as she was. It is a terribly confusing thing and difficult legacy to leave your children. All that being said, I am my Mother's daughter and I have every intention to fight like hell against metal illness. I will love autumn with reckless abandon. And every morning I will leave a mostly empty coffee cup on my bathroom counter before I get out there and live life to the very fullest with every intention to leave an amazing legacy in my wake.

Reminder Bear

2011-10-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Michigan. It is so unbelievably lovely here right now. Wherever I go I pass roadside produce stands brimming with bushel upon bushel of freshly picked apples. I am snacking on them between every meal and spending most of my days with my family and friends as we share memories and simply enjoy the rare gift of face to face time together.

I have been contemplating the idea of a top ten list for my life as it stands right now. This list would be the top ten things I need to be reminded of often, not only because they are foundational and important, but because I often get distracted and forget them. I decided it would be hilarious yet practical to record these top ten truths and put them in a teddy bear voice box. That way anytime I feel lost I could hug my soft reminder bear and God could use it to give me direction.

Also, since I hate the sound of my own voice so I decided that I'll have Morgan Freeman record my top ten list. This will really add impact and authority to my reminder bear. I am pretty sure that when I get to heaven God will sound just like Morgan Freeman anyway.

Top Ten List for Reminder Bear:

(Don't get caught up on the order as the bear will dole out these truths at random)

1) In the busy-ness and the mess, be still and know that I am God. Yes today and yes for you.

2) Every part of life, the good and the bad, is a season. Don't let the bad destroy you and don't forget to savor the good moments.

3) While you're out, swing by the store and buy milk, eggs, and bananas. Because you're probably running low on all three. Silly but true, and I bet when Morgan Freeman says it, it sounds so profound!

4) You aren't destined to become your mom. You are own person and your family will follow a new course, through my (God's) faithfulness I will be glorified in your perseverance.

5) I (God) don't need another "them" but I absolutely need you to be the you I made you to be.

6) Remember the order of your Calling. You are my daughter, Kel's wife, your children's mom and a writer. You aren't a chef, maid or professional Facebook-er so use your time accordingly.

7) When life gets too much for you, you should probably get in the bathtub and remember who you are and where you are going. A glass of wine wouldn't hurt either.

8) Believe the best about other people, they are rarely being jerks on purpose, so often they just don't understand. Be patient.

9) You don't need to earn my (God's) love, you already have it, rest in this truth, and stop trying so hard.

10) Stop right now and be thankful for five things, this is a healthy and healing discipline and you will never regret doing it.

I think we could all use a reminder bear, or at least a chalkboard that we could go to when we in our human weakness forget. These are the truths that I need for today, for the leg of my journey that I find myself in right now. I am certain that my reminder bear needs will change as I grow, but for now I am loving this little list. Now to tweet Morgan Freeman and ask him a small favor...

Your turn, share a few things that you would put on your reminder bear list.

Simba's daddy takes a nap

2011-10-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Just like everyone else in America, I grew up watching classic Disney movies. So, I am really happy that they are re-releasing the films I loved for my own family to enjoy. As you may well know, The Lion King just came out on DVD. So my 2 year old daughter and I drove to the media store to pick up a copy for the Penny family. We made some popcorn and slid it into the DVD player to enjoy the magical musical journey together. Okay so honestly I was in the kitchen making chili and singing "I'm gonna be a mighty king" but we were together... ish.

I assume you have seen the Lion Kind, but in case for some reason you missed it, In the middle of the story Simba gets caught in the path of a wild stampede. In order to save Simba's life his dad, Mufasa runs in and plucks him from danger. But in the process his own brother Scar pushes him off a cliff to his death. After the stampede passes Simba rushes in to his father and realizes with wide, sad eyes that his dad is gone.

It's brutally heart wrenching. At this point in the film, my two year old daughter looked up at my husband and said: "Daddy, Simba's daddy take a nap? Simba feel sad?"

At that moment my Mom heart broke a bit. I ached inside, Oh God, not yet, I am not ready for her heart to comprehend death yet. I'm not prepared for that moment where she tries to process the awful permanence of it. I don't want her to lose so much as a pet hamster, let alone a cherished person in her life.

This moment has been weighing heavily on my heart these past few days. Just like any Mother, I want to protect her from the pain of this world, but I know that's not really an option. I can provide the healthiest and safest environment possible, but she will still encounter heartache, sickness and death on her journey.

After a great deal of pondering I have come to several conclusions. First of all, I don't have to explain this to her right now. Cognitively she isn't there yet so for today it's perfectly fine for her to go on believing that Simba's daddy takes a nap. On the other hand I do have to prepare myself to explain to my children eventually why they don't have the typical grandparent situation. I think I'll start by telling them that all their grandmas and grandpas are in heaven. And that God has put special people into their lives to love them, but that their Grandmas and Grandpas in heaven love them very much too. And then someday I will have to explain what suicide is, although I plan to hold off on this for a long while.

It is a blessing when you come to realize that your concerns for the future don't need to have concrete resolutions today. We only have to be prepared to do our lives now, and then wisely prepare as best we can for the future. That's really all we can do. I don't have to explain death to my daughter right now, so I am not going to let it spoil my today. Heck, I'm still trying to explain some aspects of it to myself. I'm in the middle of sorting through my own sleeping lions this week.

So today I will cherish the innocence that is found in her beautiful young heart. I will educate and prepare myself to parent her well in her current and upcoming life stages. I will pray for wisdom to be her mom and to know how God wants to use me to teach and guide her on this earth. And I will thank him for the abundant gift that she is, and be thankful that for today it's okay to think that lion daddys are just sleeping.

Mobster in the corner

2011-10-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

What seems like forever ago I wrote about how grief is like a ninja. . What I meant by that is that once you have loss in your life, you never know when it might jump out from behind a corner and ninja kick you in the face. This doesn't mean that you aren't living life to the fullest and worshiping God with your life, it just meant that you loved someone who isn't on earth anymore and when you are reminded of that, it can cause pain.

I have been ninja kicked a lot lately, and I think that this season of my life grief isn't so much like a ninja but an Italian mob lackey in a pinstriped suit standing in the corner. He has sunglasses on and he had a chest the size of a Volkswagen. Every so often he just nods, walks over to me as I am chopping peppers in the kitchen and knees me in the gut. You know for good measure.

You see right now my grief feels palpable. It's right there, and it may take an afternoon break but it always pops back up and my mood falls as my insides seem to sink to the floor. My mom walked out in front of a train last year, and that is now a painful part of my story.

I suck at self care, and as much as I encourage other people to take space and time to sort through painful loss I am really bad at doing it for myself. I confessed to my husband this morning that I really felt like if I enter into the grief season right now our little world would fall apart and I would be letting everyone down. So I don't always practice what I preach, I'm just that human.

But even though it will result in a huge mess I am going to "go there." I am going to remember who happened last October and I am going to remind myself of who my Mother was. I am going to try to cling to the good parts and separate her from her illness. I am going to start to be okay with some of the ways that I am like her and not see them as ugly spots on my life.

Because even though she and my Dad are both gone now, I am their daughter. A piece of them that can still speak to this world. And speak I shall, so take that mobster.

Thoughts after Dark.

2011-09-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Good evening from my patio, I feel like this is the nightcap version of Penny Thoughts since I pretty much always post in the mornings. I'll paint you a picture of my moment so that you can feel like you're across the table from me. It's all the way dark outside and the moon is on the other side of the house so you can't see it. The stars are out and the oil rig just beyond our wooden fence is squeaky and annoying. We are trying to tune it out. There is a beautiful breeze blowing through the rose bushes and some used sidewalk chalk nubbins scattered beneath our feet. There, now you feel like you're right here with me.

I am sitting here with some wine and I decided to write after another attempt at getting into Anita Shreve's "Sea Glass" failed. I usually like her stuff but this one is slow and it's not hooking my interest. So I put it down, partly because I don't love it and partly because I feel like God has something bigger for me out here, something I need to hear or maybe smell. No, not smell, I have sniffed several times and I can't smell anything significant.

I have been scrambling for perspective this week and I still don't have a firm grasp on it. I have been desperately wanting to be fine with my Mom's death but as the anniversary of it gets closer the events of last October get brighter and more vivid. ALmost like it is here all over again. I think about the unpleasant details a lot, the nuts and bolts of her death. I wish I didn't, I wish that I could make this season pass unobserved but something about it demands action. So I bought a plane ticket home today, and I will be leaving a week from tomorrow to navigate my way through this gray anniversary with my family and friends back home. I want to be with those who knew my Mom directly. It will be a comfort to go through this side by side.

A few days ago I was finishing a kitchen rug project when I snipped the tip of my finger with my sharp fabric scissor. It was the tiniest snip but it left a small hole on the top of my left pinkie. If I look very close I can still see the scab, but for the most part it has already healed up. Are you ever just astounded at the human body's ability to heal? I didn't have to do anything about that cut. I just went about life as usual and it scabbed over and mended, soon to be indistinguishable from the rest of my finger tips.

I really wish that emotional pain was that simple. There is a lot of truth in the fact that time heals emotional wounds, it plays an unarguably important role. However, if you have ever experienced pain, tragedy or loss. If your life has ever suddenly been altered for the poorer, you will know that you have to move through the pain almost tangibly. You have to do more than just allow time to pass. You have to shed tears, talk through feelings, put up pictures and perhaps go to counseling. Sifting through deep pain is some of the hardest work on the planet. It is exhausting on every level. However, I truly believe that if you don't grieve you can't heal fully. You have to "do grief." There is no easy band-aid, believe me I wish I could tell you that there is.

So tonight finds me coming to the stark realization that I will have to find ways to continue healing over these next two weeks. Two weeks from right now, almost exactly, will be the one year anniversary of my Mom's suicide. I have to deal with that. It will make me think through who I am as her daughter, as my children's mother, and as a woman dealing with life on this earth. I will continue to reject the dangerous lie that I will share her exact path. I will not. I am my mother's daughter, but I am not my mother.

I don't want to face this milestone, but the hard part is, if wholeness and freedom is my goal, then dealing with it is my only option. Pray for me, and if you are facing something hard that you wish that you weren't facing, talk about it with your support people. They love you and that love will be there for you as you deal with your junk. Don't deal with your burdens alone, I'm not going to and neither should you. Heavy things were made to be carried by a team.

coffee date

2011-09-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

View from my front door. If there was sound you would hear a rooster crowing.

I am a morning person, I love coffee and breakfast food. I love the sunrise and the cool breeze that wafts in from the window. As long as I have about 6 hours of sleep under my belt, I'm fine with getting up. My husband hates the morning and even though morning comes every day, it always seems to hit him like a nasty surprise. This has been a source of tension in our marriage. I expected a coffee date every morning with the man I love and instead I usually get a grumpy guy squinting and grumbling around the house in his boxers. Ah well, such is life.

It wasn't until this year that I got the coffee date buddy I wanted, and I only realized it this very morning. Every morning I share a cup of coffee with my two year old daughter, Noelle. Every morning when I help her out of her toddler bed she hugs me with an enthusiastic "Good morning!" After the coffee is made, I pour myself a cup and then I heat up a bit of milk in a sippy cup and top it off with a couple tablespoons of coffee for her. And this is my unexpected coffee partner. I always thought my morning date would take place over two mugs, but it turns out that for now, it's a mug and a sippy cup.

The remnants of my morning coffee date.

Even though we often part ways after we receive our java (she watches mickey on the couch and I usually sit down at the table to write before the boys get up) there is a camaraderie that links us across the room. She is the coffee date I always wanted, and every morning I try to make her feel wanted and seen. Even at the age of two we all long to connect, and since she isn't able to connect on my level, I have to get down and connect with her on hers.

Pretty much any time I reflect on mothering, I drift back to my own Mom. Who doesn't? Our relationship was usually pretty hard. For starters, I am energy incarnate. I don't' stop moving from the time I leave bed until the time I crawl back in. I have always been this way, I played so hard I often fell asleep face down in spaghetti in my highchair. My daughter is a lot the same way.

My energy was a source of frustration for my Mom, because she was coping with mental illness and I pushed her buttons and ran her down with my willfulness. Growing up I often felt all- wrong, like a mistake or a problem. I was taken to a lot of doctors and put on a lot of pills from the age of three until the age of 18. For along time I felt like they were trying to fix me but that they couldn't because I was too screwed up. My mom made some mistakes, but in hindsight I give her grace, mostly because being angry with her now solves nothing. However, this insight does serve as a reminder of how I want to respond to my own little energetic girl, who just came over to steal sips of my coffee after she drained her own. She also is refusing to eat the overnight fig-raisin steel-cut oatmeal I made us. Sad.

Everyone wants to feel important, seen and loved and so I try to respond like that to my daughter. Even when she asks the same question ten times in a row I respond to most of her chatter, because I remember how awful it is to feel like an annoyance every time you open your mouth. I am not a perfect mom, I screw up every day, I promise. I am not always intentional and I am not always patient. Some days I feel like all that is keeping me going is the hope of a glass of wine after they fall asleep. But I love my children, and I want them to feel cherished. I know that they will have moments of self doubt, but I want to do all I can to communicate to them that I love who God created them to be, even if some days it flat out exhausts me.

So most mornings Noelle and I drink coffee and watch Mickey Mouse. We build a lot of block towers and we bake pretend cakes. We race across the backyard and draw endless shapes on the patio. Right now she is running around with a clothespin in her mouth. I should probably go put a stop to that. So in closing, I hope that you are able to see the people in your life as the beautiful gifts they are, even when they drain you dry. God is the source that will quench your thirst, and he typically only gives you enough to do one day, it keeps you coming back. He's brilliant that way.

We all have pain from our past, but instead of carrying it around with you, forgive. And use it to influence the choices you make today. What is something from your past you can unload from your backpack. Haul it out and leave it this morning, then use the memory of it to change the way you move forward.

I want to be bundt cake

2011-09-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

I didn't proof read so if you're anal about that, read at your own risk. And then volunteer to be my pro-bono editor.

Confession: Sometimes I censor myself on this blog, and insert a little more optimism than I am really feeling. I don't want anyone who is struggling to feel like I gave them permission to go off the deep end, or falter in their belief that God is crazy faithful. He is times a trillion.

But somehow I forgot that I am not the only voice speaking to people. God doesn't need me to inspire or encourage people, nor am I solely responsible for how people behave as a result of reading what I write. God doesn't need me, but I am thrilled that he uses me. I just want to be of use to him.

On that note, I have been pretty discouraged this past week. I have been experiencing a lot of discouragement from inside of me and coupled with a bit of discouragement from around me, I often feel like sitting on my couch like a puddle of jello. Maybe not even jello, jello jiggles and keeps a pretty constant motion, I want to sit on my couch like... bundt cake. It has a nice crusty outside and doesn't move unless you move it.

Science: A bundt cake NOT in motion will stay NOT in motion unless another force acts upon it.

Crusty, stationary bundt cake. It doesn't jiggle at all, it stays put.

The truth of the matter is that as the anniversary of my Mom's death approaches the shade of my attitude gets a little closer to gray. But blah, I don't want to be down, I would rather reject the pain, proclaim that I am a fighter and "ain't nothing gonna get me down." Pretending to have it all together is easier in some ways but it always bites you in the end. Somewhere inside God is whispering to me that he is using my struggle in big ways. He wants my real and dirty approach to grieving to be used as an example, to help give others the permission to do the same. At least I think that's part of what he is calling me. So I am going to operate under that philosophy.

I am coming to terms with the fact that this next month is going to be hard, and I am listening for God's voice on what would be a healthy approach to moving through it. I know that pretending it's all good isn't it. I know sitting depressed on my couch and watching entire seasons of TV and eating bowl after bowl of cereal isn't it either. It's something else, and I am on the watch for it.

So I will use this space to be honest about it. To process through it, and to help God speak through me. More than I want to be needed or exalted by God, I want to be used by God. If right now he is using me to help other people learn to grieve then yes. I guess I want that.

And also now I sort of want bundt cake. Pumpkin or Apple preferably. Stupid weight watchers...

Good Trails

2011-09-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

The Oklahoma Night Sky

God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding.He's a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere.He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones. So now you can pick out what's true and fair, find all the good trails! ~ Proverbs 2: 6-9 MSG

If you visit here regularly it's no secret that I often use the idea of life as a journey and our choices as paths. It is easy to get off the main path and hop off down bunny trails that lead to dangerous and unhelpful places, and we all do it. But the idea is to stay on the path God is leading us down, with full knowledge that there will be pain and brokenness along the way.

I have a dear friend Jessica, and we enjoy journeying together. Even though I'm older, we both support each other in a million ways, big and small. One gift she gives me and Kel on a regular basis is babysitting so we can have a date night, something we couldn't afford often if we had to pay for both dinner and childcare. Last night was a date night, and strolled through a salvage, went out to dinner and took walk in the park. At the park we were able to go to an area of the park that we don't see too often because it's not stroller friendly.

After we got home and got the kids asleep we finished last night's Grey's Anatomy and surfed facebook on our phones. A pretty lame finish to date night. At one point I opened a window and turned off the AC and instantly I was swept away by the cool breeze that blew in. So, surprising even myself, I grabbed a big blanket and headed outside. I don't typically do this but I found the idea of star gazing irresistible. I convinced Kel to join me and we laid there in our backyard, talking and marveling at the big dome of sky that loomed above.

We realized that we hadn't given the stars much of a glance since our trip to Taos, NM last Labor Day. It had been over a year since we really looked at the stars, together or individually. A year without stars, I really hope I don't ever do that again. For me there are few things in life that give perspective as quickly as taking in the night sky. As we laid there our conversation slowly deepened to good stuff like heaven and how God gives Wisdom. If we would have started another TV show instead of venturing outside we would have missed connecting like that.

Good trails in life are so much more fulfilling than easy trails, but they are almost always an uphill climb. Yesterday was a day of uphill climbs. We did our budget meeting and reigned in our spending, we watched what we ate during the day so that a dinner out wouldn't be as detrimental to our health, and we chose to take a walk instead of go to a movie. We were tired at the end of the week so a lot of these choices weren't instantly appealing, but as I crawled into bed last night I was so glad we had hiked down the good trails.

I don't want you to think I am bragging about star gazing or budgeting, I am not. We have been drifting on our discipline lately, on where God is leading our family, so these choice really were painful and unappealing. They were not what we wanted to do but I am finding over and over again, that the things in life worth having are cost me something.

I hope to have more date nights under the stars soon, because I want to explore the trails we find as we lay there together realizing how small we are in comparison to all God created. Just the concept of a light year blew my mind last night. I was looking at something that was so far away, we measure the distance in the time it takes light to travel a year. Light moves faster than my eyes or brain can even process. Think about that. That's how far away those stars are. We are small but we are so significant, and well loved by our Father. I hope that God's wisdom leads us all to delight in choosing a hard trail, even if we are only thankful after the fact.

Off the top of my head, here are some good trails that are hard but worth it:
reconciling with a friend
serving your church or community
bringing a meal to someone who needs it
talking a walk instead of watching tv
getting swept up in a good book
sitting down and talking with your significant other to work toward a better relationship
building a fort with your kids
calling your grandma
eating an apple instead of chips
putting down your phone and connecting over a meal
reading the bible instead of Facebook over your am coffee

You may think these are cliche, but they're good trails, God led paths that will lead to deep and more fulfilling life. If you are tired and broken, they are especially good for you. Healing always takes work, but we serve a God who is longing to support you as you hike.

Maybe tonight I'll go out again to gaze up at the stars, maybe you will join me and we will support each other just by gazing together, even from different back yards.

My compass zone

2011-09-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I lost it. I ugly cried. I didn't see it coming, I couldn't fend it off and so I gave into it. At some point after lunch, I stopped making sense and started spouting nonsense that centered around how worthless I am. I had completely lost sight of the truth in my life and I laid there wallowing. I wallowed hard core. I still can't tell you exactly why I broke down, but I can tell you that it took a series of tough choices yesterday evening to climb back out.

Isn't it scary how easy it is to lose sight of what is real and buy into something gilded and fake? Personally this often happens when I start to believe that my worth is measured in hits on this blog, the organizational state of my house or the numbers on a scale. We all have useless numbers and standards we use to qualify success in our lives, when those numbers get low... or high... look out because break down alert is at orange.

No one in my life, or yours for that matter, uses the same stupid things to measure your success. My family and friends still love me even if my weight takes a 2 lb swing or my blog hits aren't as high as they were last week or if I have a foot-tall pile of randomness on top of my dryer. Which I always, always do.

Large chunks of our world are set up to distract us from almost everything truly valuable about life. We turn on the tv or log into Facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc and if we are not careful we are immediately reminded of who we aren't and what we don't have. I have heard at least 67 people say that they often feel bad about themselves after Facebook-ing. And here is why: typically people are only posting the good stuff on their walls, and not the ugly moments. I don't post the pictures of my kids snotty and crying, so you may falsely believe we don't use kleenex or have tantrums. We do, I just don't whip out the camera in those moments, and neither would you. We have to remember that people are typically putting their best stuff out there, who would want to immortalize their ugly moments. So measuring your life against what you see on tv or social media is usually a bad and dangerous way to go. Don't do that.

So I have found that we need to have compasses in place to keep us from going off the deep end and believing the worst about ourselves. These compasses can be people, songs, scripture/quotes, or places that remind us of our true value that is far deeper than any unit of measure our world often suggests we use to gauge our worth. Think like...bulletin board, a collage or something along those lines.

To add a touch of real life, my kitchen window compass zone is show with dishes and all. please enjoy.

I used to put reminders and quotes on my bathroom mirror, because a long time ago in a life far far away I spent a decent part of my morning there, primping, blowing and spritzing. I tried to use the mirror as a compass zone for the past while, but it wasn't doing it for me. Then about a week ago I realized that nowadays I spend a lot more time at the kitchen sink than I do in front of the mirror. So I have swapped these spots and now the kitchen sink is home to my quotes and notes.

The thing is that it is almost always easier to lose yourself to BS than to stay on track with the truth. So we have got to use all the resources God gave us as compasses to stay on track or get back on the path if needed. God surrounded you with friends and family, so use them to speak the truth to you. If you have walls, put up memories and quotes that tell the truth about who you are so you remember where exactly you are going.

The amazing Tiffany Anderson send me a verse from Proverbs (The Message style) today and it knocked me off my chair with its timely fantastical truth. (If you don't know Tiffany, I'm sorry for you, but mostly I'm thankful for me. God loves me so much that he put her into my life to encourage me and love the heck out of my kids. She was the first person I met in Ada, and the last person I want to hug should we ever leave. If there is a word that means blessing x1,756 then that's the word I use to describe Tiff)

Anyway, sorry about the ode to Tiffany but it was appropriate and necessary, but back to that verse from Proverbs. I wrote it out on an envelope (because we are completely of all paper) and it made my kitchen window compass zone along with other pictures and cards and quotes.

1 Good friend, take to heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life.2 Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding.3 That's right-if you make Insight your priority, and won't take no for an answer,4 Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,5 Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you'll have come upon the Knowledge of God. ~Proverbs 2:1-5

I hope that snippet from God's truth grounds you and/or shakes you and brings you back to what is really true about yourself and this world we live in.

oh the baggy eyes, if only the little Pennys would sleep.

And just to prove that I am all about being real here is a picture of me in a pony tail with no makeup and huge bags under my eyes. This is my gift to you and is sure to make you feel better about however you look today. The cute baby is my only accessory, and yes its hard to type when he tries to help. He's going to be an amazing author someday but for now he just likes the space bar and the ,/. keys a lot.

You is good, you is smart, you is important

Anyone feeling brave enough to come clean with one of their lies or fake standards? Come on, I showed you mine...

Raw

2011-09-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

It's just another evening of life and I am sitting in bed reading and writing, windows open and a cup of tea on my night stand. There's some sort of chirping creature outside my window who seemed charming at first but who is now becoming an unwelcome addition to my solitude. I tried yelling at it through the screen, because I am apparently that crazy.

Do you ever catch yourself experiencing a moment where you are caught off guard at where your life has taken you? These moments are not necessarily good or bad, simply surreal and surprising. Often I think that they start with an "I never thought I would be..." and end with something timely and personal.

For example "I never thought I would be a full time Mom"
Or "I never saw myself living in Oklahoma with an oil well in my backyard"

I have had a lot of moments like these lately, especially coming up on the one year anniversary of losing my mom.

"I never thought I would be orphaned before 30."

I so often try to ignore the statistics of my life, like the fact that between Kel and I, all four of our parents are gone and our kids will never know their real grandparents. It's such an awful stat about our family and I try really hard to downplay it. To simply confirm it and move on.

I spent the weekend with a friend, supporting her as she attended the funeral of her roommate's brother, who died last week in Afghanistan. Experiencing that death third-hand kept taking me back to last October and the gut wrenching, hope-crushing process that was burying my mom. Through helping process this new loss I was continuously reminded of the shocking and harsh nature of death. There is usually this look of utter disbelief on the faces of those left behind, as if to say "Is this really happening?" "Are they really gone forever?"

Yes, it really is. And I am so sorry about that truth. If I could carry it away from you I would. There is nothing as permanent as death, in a world where almost everything is negotiable and can be fixed, death is not and cannot. For me the shock of my mother's death still hits me. A year later I still go to call her each and every Sunday afternoon, as if almost 52 Sundays of not talking has had no effect on my routine of connecting with her on her loneliest day.

Normally I am all about optimism and hope, and if you look closely I still am tonight. But death can't just be patched over with sweet words, no matter how true. Just because you are honest about the harsh, hard, sharp reality of death doesn't mean that you lost faith. Faith can be there among the shock. I think we show a lack of faith when we refuse to "go there." We have to do into the pain of loss in order to emerge whole again. I think true faith shines brightly in an individual who goes into the deep painful seasons of life with faith that they can be real with pain because they serve a God who brings us back again. He is all about restoring but he is never about pretending or burying the truth.

There is no raw pain like that of sudden and shocking loss. Loss hits us in all sorts of ways: loss of relationships, loved ones, jobs and health. I still visit that shock from time to time, but not always. It's okay to mourn deeply, I promise if you keep digging through the darkness you will find light and strength. But I know that it sucks deeply and steals your breath. Be real about that. Keep going there, keep going and going. Life is composed of seasons, and this it just one temporary one, albeit the darkest sort.

Journey with friends and never stop talking to your God.

This world has nothing for me

2011-09-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

Right now I am staying with some friends and they are in the "grown and flown" stage of life. The stage of life where your children have launched from the nest and are following Gods call in their own adult lives. A stage where things stay generally where you put them and you don't find little people ponies in your bathroom sink and blocks in your dryer. This morning after I finally figured out how to use the coffee maker, I found myself admiring the tasteful decorations and thoughtfully organized kitchen. Especially the spice cupboard, I sipped coffee and gawked in awe at the myriad of spices to be had. I am not materialistic but spices are the... spice of life? Sorry I had to.

I wondered if this made me materialistic and if I was somehow wrong. I wasn't feeling discontent with my current stage, but more looking through a window into a stage that awaits me someday. This took me back to a moment I had in church earlier this week, we were singing a song with the lyrics: "This world has nothing for me, I will follow you." Instead of just singing these words and allowing myself to get distracted by who was wearing what (Maybe I am materialistic, or just high strung) Whatever I am I took a long moment to ponder those words in light of my own life and what I love.

"This world has nothing for me, I will follow you." I am following him but my mind starting drifting to good conversations, beautiful mountain views, hearty meals enjoyed with friends, and the feeling I get every morning when I get my daughter out of bed. All these things are happening in the world and they are feeding my soul. And I am positive they are good things, God things. Then I figured it out, I was able to frame it in a way that brought clarity and understanding. If you are loving God's way, they things that bring you joy are happening on this earth, but they are really more heaven than earth.

This is our father's world and when we view the world through that lens, the things we love are eliciting that feeling because they are pieces of heaven. My moments of joy are direct gifts from my father and so as long as I don't define myself with stuff and I know who I really am in him, then I am finding heaven on this earth. Originally this world was heaven, it was eden and we were in direct and daily contact with God. Even though it has all fallen, when are living in his love you can start to see pieces of how it was and how it will be again. And when you choose to channel that love in your own life you get to bring heaven to earth. There is no greater calling than this.

So when we are living in connection to our Father, his world is filled with bits and pieces of heaven.

I hope that you see some heaven in your earth today and better yet that you bring some heaven into someone else's world.

Rosie the Robot

2011-09-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. Deep down in the bottom of my soul I have started seeing myself as Rosie the Robot. Shocking, I know. If you don't know who Rosie is, I have provided this wiki-link. I came to this conclusion last week Friday morning. To say that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed would be the understatement of the year. My mood was so foul and I was so angry I may as well have been pushed out of bed onto a pile of legos, doused with ice water all while "Come on Eileen" (I HATE that song) played loudly in the background. I was just. that. pissy. However nothing that dramatic happened. I woke up to a hungry baby boy just like I always do. After I took care of his urgent hunger I proceeded to do things I'm not proud of, like throw laundry baskets in our bedroom to wake up Kel and kick the dryer, all this in addition to yelling and only speaking in thickly sarcastic phrases. I am sure you have never yelled or thrown anything, so please try to love me in spite of this.

After about 45 minutes of this rage bender I was able to step back and get a glimpse of what was really causing this crazy behavior. I slowly softened up as I explained myself to Kel and as I did I came to realize that I had developed some seriously flawed ways of defining myself. In the middle of the snot and tears I blurted out "I feel like I'm just Rosie the Robot and all I do is cook, clean and watch afternoon television, but I feel like I supposed to be so much more than that!"

Ah, there it is. I feel like "the help" of our family, a machine who cranks out food and clean laundry and doesn't need a lot of upkeep to keep functioning. You don't need a therapist to point out that this is an unhealthy mindset. I don't currently have a job outside of our house and so I believe that my days less valuable than Kel's because he has a career right now and I don't. I spend most of my time playing blocks, singing the ABCs and picking up messes. Most days I don't do my makeup or hair, I just change into a clean sports bra and yoga pants and keep doing the mom thing.

The lie is that I am a robotic maid and the truth is that I am a mother, guiding the steps of two beautiful little people. I am building a strong foundation for the life of children and this will echo in eternity. All the pot roasts and endless laundry are just fluff.

When I started to view myself as a maid or cook instead of a wife and Mom I threw myself down a slope that was bound to result in a dangerous crash. In my case it was the crashing sound of plastic laundry baskets against drywall, but for you it could be any number of weird noises. It is so easy to look at what you do with your days and think of your role as "less than" what someone else does. The enemy is all about making you feel small and insignificant, because people who feel worthless won't do too much about bringing the kingdom of God to their surroundings.

So now you may realize that you too have a flawed "rosie the robot" type view of yourself. Now you have to start seeing yourself as God does. None of us are worthless and every role is valuable. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 12, it talks about how every different set of talents and skills are valuable and essential, just like the different parts of the body. Perhaps the hands are more often seen in action but they couldn't do much without the invisible workings of the brain.

No matter what you do with your days, if you are living in God's will, you are fulfilling an essential and valuable role in this world. When we live with this attitude God will use our days to echo in eternity. Maybe you work at WalMart, a fast food restaurant, a shoe stores or you deliver pizza. I have been there. Just because you aren't in a business card toting career doesn't mean that God doesn't need you to do the Heck out of the job he placed you in. Almost everything in life is a season and if you are flipping burgers and you do it with gusto, you won't stay there long. God always promotes hard workers in one way or another.

I honestly believe that we each have some faulty ways of viewing ourselves and when I look around I am painfully aware of how easy it is to feel irrelevant. So know this: God didn't put a single irrelevant person on this planet, and that includes us. So today when I get around to putting on a clean pair of yoga pants I will view them as my super hero cape. I am a valuable person to my children and all I will interact with today. I have to remember what it is I am really doing with my life. I am a strong mother, a new author, and a faithful wife and friend.

So if you are feeling insignificant Remember that what we are doing with our hands is often not nearly as important as the mindset and attitude with which we do it.

Is there any way in which you need to redefine the way your view yourself? Maybe you too have been seeing yourself as a ridiculous old-school cartoon character. I would love to hear about it, and I really hope and pray that you realize how essential you are to this world.

Choosing Joy 9-11-11

2011-09-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's impossible not to type the date above and be instantly taken back to the events of ten years ago. The ten year anniversary of the attacks in New York and DC will be all over television and social media today so I don't want to say too much here. However in my own voice I wanted to add this: As we remember and grieve the enormous tragedy of ten years ago, we cannot lose sight of the fact that God has promised restoration for all of us as well as our broken and fallen world. It is right and good to remember, but it is terribly dangerous to freak out and forget that God has promised to redeem it all.

This past week has been beautiful and difficult all at the same time. Our family is adjusting to new routines and with that comes stress and anxiety. For me "back to school" had been a beacon of hope for my writing. A time when I would finally have space to let all the things that have been collecting in my mind out onto the keys of my new computer. I found myself frustrated and disappointed, and realized that in the midst of all my thoughts about perspective and seasons I had lost a good chunk of mine. I threw a few laundry baskets and kicked the dryer for a while. I think that will become a whole post of its own tomorrow or so. But for now I want to focus on all the little and big ways that joy found me this week.

First of all, if you haven't already noticed I love food and I love to cook. So I am unable not keep my favorite recipes to myself. I will get the recipes out of the way first so you can skip them if you enjoy being in the kitchen as much as I enjoy WalMart. Here are my 2 favorites from this week.

Apple Caramel Bread Pudding (healthy!) : This is a tasty dessert and I liked the concept but I fiddled with this a little and used real skim milk from a cow and real eggs from a chicken. I also added two sauteed apples in the middle of the layers of bread because I wanted an authentic apple texture. I went easy on the caramel sauce as well and just did a small drizzle after I pulled it out of the oven. I am really contemplating creating a breakfast bread pudding for myself this week that is whole grain and low fat. You could make it once and eat on it all week. The wheels are turning....

Perfect Pot Roast: I used to be so anti beef that it actually came up during the sermon at our wedding. My move to Oklahoma has changed a lot of things about me, and being surrounded by cattle ranchers was bound to have an impact on me. I still use a good bit of ground turkey bc my Dad had serious heart disease. However this week my friend Sarah brought me this recipe as well as the meat I would need to fix it. Best play date gift ever! This was the best pot roast I have ever had and the first one I ever made. It will be made again, and probably again.

Chimenea Night

We have a chimenea on our patio and for the first time since spring it was cool enough to sit outside and enjoy it. Our family enjoyed a long and amazing weekend of cookouts and parties and ate hamburgers on the grill and homemade potato salad for dinner every night that weekend. As our last party of the weekend came to a close we made an intentional decision to turn off the TV and head outside to chat and watch the sun officially set on this past summer. If feet gross you out I am sorry for the silhouette of my talon-like toes above.

Nerdiness:

He finally made the right adjustments to his dixie cup to achieve the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.

This week we watched the Big Bang Theory, a lot, and then on Saturday took our kids to the Oklahoma Science Museum where we did extremely cool things like play with air tubes and show Noelle how to play hopscotch using the periodic table of elements. So this week nerdiness really made me laugh and also illustrated how much science I forgot since my Freshman year in college. Eek.

My New Laptop: This week has been so busy that I haven't even found a spare second to change the desktop image on my new computer to a syrupy sweet picture of my kids, but I am overjoyed by my new present and when the UPS guy came to the door I had my camera in hand to take a picture of him for this post, but I chickened out because I am pretty sure we can all agree that would have been a bit over the top.

Before I close I feel compelled to post this because maybe you need it this morning as much as I do: On the Sabbath- we ask the question: what feeds our soul? And then we do that ~ Rob Bell

Well I am off to enjoy my Sunday, we are having dinner and supper with friends whom we love so I expect it will be a great day.

Change Day

2011-09-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

Fall finally came, and no matter what the temperatures do in the next few weeks I have gotten enough autumn on my skin to remind me that the seasons do change. If I look back in my life I can assure you that God has 100% track record of changing the seasons. And I have also observed that as each season ends there is a "change day." A change day is that day at the very beginning of a new season where everyone emerges from their houses or cars in total shock that it actually happened. On the change day of spring we roll down our windows and marvel at tulip and hyacinth bulbs popping up from the cool wet soil. On the change day of winter we all break out our scarves and coats and no matter where you go it seems like a crazy colorful wool fashion show. I love change days and they are some of my favorite days of the year.

Last night we were driving around town running a few errands. Returning a disc of Big Bang Theory, which is the funniest show ever and I want Jim Parsons to be my kooky cousin. You should watch it if you don't. You'll thank me. Anyway, back to errands: we rolled down the windows and listened to music just soaking in the breezes and smells. As we drove I felt myself start to unwind and breathe deep and as I sank blissfully into my seat I wondered what is it about human nature that causes us to freak out and believe that whatever season we are in will last forever? Why are we so often surprised that God faithfully changes the seasons and carries us through?

Well the simple answer to this question is just that we are drawn to doubt and cynicism like moths to a flame or kids to bubbles and sidewalk chalk. Can you tell I live in pre-school land? I buy chalk and bubbles in bulk. Anyway, doubt and despair are clearly part of our fallen and human make up, and so season change in both our weather and our lives always comes as a shock. But He is just so faithful and always provides for our needs no matter how hot or dry our season is.

The one difference between weather change and life change is that you can't do anything about changing the weather but often you have to do something about changing the season of your life. Not always, but often. I think this is a concept that we are not born with. We tend to look at good things other people have, like physical health, a strong marriage, financial smarts or good parenting skills and we think that they are special people who have mad skills that we were jipped on. This is false. They have learned to do work that we are not doing to achieve some great stuff that we haven't yet. We can get there, but you have to pack up and decide to go. As soon as we realize this we can start gathering knowledge and support and doing the work that needs to be done to bring ourselves into a healthier season. Which is worth it 100% of the time.

For example, Kel and I have gotten some compliments on our marriage lately. Every time I receive any words of praise in this area, I just bounce it right up to God and give him credit. It was through faithfully implementing his teachings into the way we do life with each other that lead us out of a really hard season and into a much healthier one. We bought a marriage book, and we went to counseling, we poured a glass of wine after the kids went to bed, turned off the tv and talked through our junk. I accepted that he isn't a morning person and he learned not to actually growl at me when he wakes up. We each moved toward each other and started living with a new attitude. We learned that love was all about putting what was best for others before what we wanted for ourselves. And lo and behold, one morning we woke up and realized that the season had changed. God was faithful and he brought us through a desert, yet another desert of life.

So my prayer for you is this, that you can find the tools you need to change your season and if you are already doing it, I pray that one day very soon you will wake up to your change day. I also pray you go out and buy something appley and pumpkiny and embrace the beauty of fall as well as the current healthy seasons of your life. It's all about the little moments that we have today, they make up the big picture of our life.

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear about your love of seasons and change both weather and otherwise.

Two Gather

2011-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks at our church we have been doing a series called "Two Gather." A good sermon doesn't always surprise you with new information, sometimes it just puts words to a feeling that you already had inside. This was the case for me, for months my heart has been processing openness and community. You may recall the saltine diet post, and I am still thinking along those lines, and I am gaining depth.

To check out this series please visit here and you'll be so on the same page with me it's not even funny.

The promos for this series make me laugh outwardly but cry inside. They depict a lonely guy trying to do things on his own that just aren't right. Such as water ski or ride a tandem bike, only catastrophe can ensue. Those are the parts that make me laugh. The part that makes me cry a little inside is this picture.

This is a guy, all by himself on his birthday. Blowing out candles alone. Suck pill...

If that picture doesn't make you a little bit sad inside, go get your heart strings tuned up a bit. We all know from personal experience that loneliness sucks, especially on birthdays, holidays and times when we need a friend the most.

A million years ago (or so it seems) I heard a talk by Rob Bell at Mars Hill about community and how it was not really created, but discovered. Here is what this means: Lets say that you are lonely in your life and longing for community, you may be thinking that you need to go through a series of elaborate hoops and scour your city to find people to connect with. Or you may be looking for someone else to form community for you. Here is the sneaky secret that I want to let you in on. The odds are very good that at your work, school, gym, etc are people. And the odds are even greater that those people are struggling with life. Stuff like marriage, temptation, kids, addiction and loneliness. These are the sort of things that people deal with every day and it could be the same stuff you are dealing with. So there you are, surrounded by people who are silently dealing with heavy stuff alone yet side by side

So back to the concept of community being discovered rather than created. People are all around you and there is connection waiting to be solidified. One thing that I have learned over the summer is to stop waiting for community and friends to come to me, but to get out there be a part of it all. I had to start connecting with and supporting the people who are already in my life and allowing them to go deeper into my life and do the same for me. I am not saying that there is anything easy about this, it takes guts and gumption and a big long jump outside your comfort zone. It is not easy at all, but I can guarantee 100% that it is totally worth it.

Here are a few things that you were not designed to do:
1) Go it alone (Read all about it in Genesis, God said it point blank: It is NOT good for people to be alone. Period. finitio. Ad Nauseam.
2) Figure it out for yourself (There are people who have been where you are, who want to pull you along and teach you the next steps, just reach out your hand)
3) Pretend like you have it all together (no one does so I say this with great confidence: cut it out)

We were designed for community, support, and opening ourselves up for wisdom and love. Again I know that this isn't easy, because you may have been burned and inside you are resistant to try again. I am sorry people hurt you, I hope you can take a step toward wholeness. I promise that I'm praying for all who read this, because believe it or not, I love you and I want your life to be big, beautiful and full of community.

Some Action Items to try: As to you without excuse.
1) Start a group that shares your interests or check to see if one exists
2) Check out a church that seems to be full of honest, on fire Jesus people. They may have something all lined up for you to walk into. Bring brownies! Everyone loves brownies.
3) Volunteer- Nothing builds strong connections faster than cleaning up trash, dry-walling or serving someone a glass of lemonade side by side.
4) Call some friends over for dinner, turn the TV off, look them in the eyes probingly (but not creepily) and ask them how they are really doing. I will even plan your menu for you, I want you connected THAT BADLY!

Please don't stay lonely another day, I pray that something brave is stirred up inside you and your desire to connect finds feet and walks toward something real. Thank you for reading, I pray you have at least one real deep and soul quenching conversation this week. We all need them.

Those are my thoughts, a penny for yours?

Choosing Joy 9-4-11

2011-09-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

I got to go on a sunrise walk with the little man this morning. I pushed him in the strolled and in turn he held my water bottle. It was a really good system. As we strolled I thought through all the ways big and small that God has given me joy this past week. These days I am full of faith and optimism both for my future and that of my family. God has placed the right people in my life these days and they encourage me in very specific and necessary ways. I don't want for anything I need right now, although I lack a lot of things I would like. God is teaching me every day to simplify and be thankful.

This week has definitely been a week that highlighted who my home team is, those people who have my back and want God things for my life. I hope you are thankful for a home team too, those people who cheer for you and will catch you when you fall. Who know what you like and what makes you smile. You should thank those people, and maybe make them a pie. Especially if I am on your home team, because I love pie.

I think I can sum it up best with these Jesus Culture Lyrics

Come away with me, Come away with me
It's never too late, it's not too late
It's not too late for you

I have a plan for you
I have a plan for you
It's gonna be wild
It's gonna be great
It's gonna be full of me

Yeah That right there, that is how life feels right now. I feel renewed and optimistic, on a journey of great importance with a faithful God who knows my every nook and cranny and knows very well what we are capable of. And no matter who you are you are capable of greatness in this specifically unique way that blows my mind. You should probably download that song immediately.

So here are the big, small, normal and quirky ways that I have chosen joy in the day to day.

1) The Phantom Puzzle:

Nothing lightens the mood of a serious living room quite like a random horse whinny

For my daughters birthday this year my Aunt Betsy sent down this great animal puzzle. Kids love it because when you put each animal puzzle piece in the correct spot, it makes that animal's noise. IE: The dog barks, the fish bubbles, etc. This puzzle doesn't stop there, oh no, it will randomly make noises at any time of day, when the play room is clean and no one is around it will still sound out a random bark or chirp. Cracks me up every time. I think they did it on purpose to give the parents random enjoyment as well.

2. A full fridge

Please feel free to draw conclusions about who I really am based on my fridge contents...

I am always walking the line between being frugal and ensuring good nutrition for my family. Fresh food isn't cheap and so anytime I go to open the fridge and find it overflowing with fruits and vegetables I breathe a little prayer of thanks for God's provision. This week we got to take a trip to the grand opening of Sunflower Farmers Market in OKC and that accounts for a good deal of our current fridge contents. Great grocery store, check it out!

3. Football Season

I think I am pretty good Oklahoma wife... Although the "for realsies" Okie dressed the kids today.

I'm too easily distracted to be any good at watching football, however I am great at making snacks and snarky comments so generally I do pretty well for myself. What I love about football season is that it's a reason to get together with people, share food and get excited about something. It's a reason to gather and if you don't stake your happiness on the outcome (which a lot of people do) you are guaranteed to have a great time.

4. Brunette Hair (as seen in picture above) Lets face it, I wasn't cut out to be a blonde and it turned my hair to straw, so after a couple hours of salon therapy with my hair guru Emily I am one happy dark headed lady and my time at the salon was pure heaven. If I ever tell you I am going blonde again please poke me in the ribs with sticks until I come to my senses.

5. Our Lifegroup-

Cookout by the lake in 100 degree heat made somehow fun by these fine folks.

We are new to this group but I can tell you that God is already using them to speak into our life in a big way. Last Sunday I didn't want to attend our group's cookout because it was over 100 degrees outside this may come as a shock to you but, I hate heat. My mood immediately changed upon arrival because no one was cranky about ludicrous temp, so I shut up and joined in. After we left I think I told Kel how much I enjoyed myself at least 2 dozen times. I love doing life with people, and I am really falling in love with doing life with these people.

6. Knock Knock Jokes- I was cleaning up cheerios of the floor (this is my real full time job) this week when this started. Apparently my daughter has learned the art of the knock knock joke. And when a 2 year old tells you a knock knock joke, they always have the same punch line. At least my daughter does. Knock Knock, Who's there? She is! every time. I have no idea where she picked up knock knock jokes.. but they make me smile every time.

7. Surprise Gifts- When I came back from the city Wednesday night, with my van full of the aforementioned groceries and new kid shoes, my husband had a surprise all for me. The best gift he could give me right now, other than maybe a nanny, and that's my own laptop for writing. He ordered me a mac book, a gift full of frivolity and generosity. He wanted to show me that he takes my writing seriously and so he gave me a tool to do it on, and specifically an apple lappy, which he knows I would love. The Kel is an endless spring of joy for me, and apple products are just the icing on the cake. Although, they are very thick rich icing. Maybe even ganache.

8. This Forecast-

It had to happen and I think the winds of change have found us! Look at those glorious eighties! If this pattern continues I will be sipping coffee outside in jeans and a hoodie in no time! We are living in faith that the 95 day on the end will just go away and that 2011 will not see another temperature with three digits or that starts with 9. Come on God, please?

9) The Henson Family-

I think I could put this on each and every week because this family adopted us when we needed it the most. Not many people get adopted at the age of 26 but God knew what we needed then and now. Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Dave, along with their awesome sons make us feel like we belong. They spoil our kids with frozen yogurt and new shoes and I feel so much stronger with their support than I ever could without them. It just solidifies my newly forming belief that even when the worst happens and you lose the irreplaceable, God provides.

9. Man on the Move

If you are under 5, pants are optional at the casa

The little man has found his groove and I never know where I will find him as he rolls and reverses his way around the house. Although odds are it's usually halfway stuck under the couch. He can't resist.

10. Garage Sale Finds

Cleaned up gilded mirror tray (little fall votives are ala Target)

We are a young family and I am at home with the kids, so it goes without saying that we are on a budget. So I have taken to free blog tutorials and garage sales for our home decor pieces. I am ridiculously lucky that "shabby chic" is in right now. Yesterday after Kel made our Peach French Toast breakfast we loaded up and cruised our town for garage sales. We ended up with this antique gold mirrored tray, a handful or antique spools, a little pink chair for Noelle and cheap kid shoes, which as we all know the Holy grail of garage sale shopping if you are a parent. Because kid feet grow an average of 6 inches a month. Or at least it seems like that.

So yeah, this week was all about people for me, I love my people. I am thankful to be surrounded by lovely individuals and I hope that I am able to support you all as well as you support me. I hope that this Holiday weekend finds you surrounded and thankful. Know that I am thankful for you. Now go Labor Dabor with your people and grab a fine piece of Joy. It's ripe for the picking if you look.

And yes I know there are two nines. A) Math has never been my strong suit and B) I didn't want to go over ten so I doubled up on nine. Deal with it.

PS I Love You & Paul

2011-09-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

The other night I found myself in an exhausted heap on the couch watching PS I Love You. Nothing in my life has every worn me out like being the primary care-giver for a 2 year old and an 8 month old. I am tired to the bone every night and I often find my rest in books, movies, ice cream and the occasional generous glass of wine. Last night I popped in PS I Love You for the 874th time because I love it and it called to me from my DVD collection.

I have had a love for Kathy Bates since I was about ten, and this movie is no exception. If you haven't seen the movie it centers around Holly, a very young widow who is searching for healing and wholeness after losing her husband to brain cancer. Her mother is a hard-knocks bar owner and has been doing the single parent thing for years since her own husband left her. She isn't cuddly or soft in any way and when she talks it's always to give advice or speak her mind. She loves her daughter, but as you watch the movie you get the feeling that years of fighting life have made her tough and taken away any softness she started with.

Around every corner of the film I found myself enthralled with her character and totally jealous. For one Kathy Bates looks a lot like my Mom to me, and for two I would have given anything to have a hard knocks, wise mom spurring me on and speaking her mind. For my entire twenties my Mom was so far gone to depression we didn't really have any conversations of substance. I ached to be able to speak to the woman I knew that she was behind her illness and pain. She was the star of the school play and a cheerleader, they all tell me she was so bright and fun, but I never got to see it.

I long for something very simple in my life, to have my parents back. To have a dad coming over to fix the sink or a Mom giving me more advice that I care for on trivial stuff like cooking or kids. I hate the big Mom and Dad shaped holes in my life. And sometimes the sheer size of them sucker punches me to the ground. And I curl up in a ball, and it sucks so bad. A lot of days I find contentment with it, but some days I just can't.

Check out Philippians 4:11 - 14

11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. 14 Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles

So this is written by a guy named Paul, a rock star of a man who traversed the known world and told a million or so people about Jesus. He did all this while being starved, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and flogged within an inch of his life. And yet he was content.

Think about the very legitimate things we struggle with and ask for prayer on. Broken relationships, loss, abuse, neglect, divorce and illness. For me, I struggle with death. I miss my parents for who they were and who they could have been. I am in the process of finding contentment with my life but I still have moments of sharp jealously. I get lumps in my throat, I cry big fat tears. When I see grandparents holding brand new babies: jealous. When I get a call from a friend and her dad is there fixing her sink: jealous. Honestly, anytime I hear a friend use the words "Mom and Dad" in reference to their parents it seems strange to me. I don't use those words much anymore. It's weird I know, but it is where I live. And I am learning to find contentment in it, even though it sucks and it doesn't seem fair.

What are the things you are praying and longing to have? Like me, your prayers and longings may seem normal and natural. So why do we have to be content with gaping holes in our lives?

I don't know why we have our specific holes and gaps, but we do. And if you look around you'll find many people with gaping holes. Maybe not the same ones as you, but so many of us have them.

I am jealous of parents and I want my Dad back and I want to go on a walk and get unsolicited advice from a mom like Kathy Bates.

I don't know where you are in your journey today. But I can tell you that I know what its like to hear about the idea of contentment in the midst of immense pain and to scoff and get pissed. How dare God call me to be okay with this crap? I've been there, asking Paul where he gets off even suggesting such a concept. I can't make it all better for you, but I can tell you contentment comes with time and I can assure you that it is so normal to long for something natural you are missing out on.

I can also promise you that God fills the gaps in time. Through beautiful people and lovely moments of healing. His healing is a miracle every time. So just take one step toward contentment today, that's all you have to do. Don't hold on to your anger for dear life. It's okay to have it for now, but you don't want to buy it a collar and turn it into your pet. It'll just bite people who ring your doorbell and pee all over everything, metaphorically speaking.

Paul didn't have food, a wife, kids, a home or a functioning body. And tons of people spent their lives trying to kill him. So he has room to talk. Just saying.

Contentment is a battle worth fighting. To be honest, your life depends on it. Please contact me if I can help you on your battle.

Those are my thoughts, a penny for yours?

Epic Battle and Exciting News!

2011-08-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty excited! This blog can now be read at leannepenny.com. Quick and Easy to remember, if you can remember how to spell my name. So tell your friends, leannepenny.com is the place to be. I'm surely going to rent a sky writer and some billboards later this week, but for now I'll start small.

This morning at the Casa de Penny there was an epic battle, a saga of good vs evil that draws so many biblical parallels you can probably count it as your devos for the day. It has rainbows and snakes, mystery and victory and even people dancing in their underwear! So grab a cup of coffee and prepare yourself.

This morning started like any other morning at the casa, with one small difference. Rain. As the sun came up I noticed that our patio was wet, which can only mean one thing. Unbeknownst to us as we slumbered, it rained. Which if you read my post a few week ago, you know has been ridiculously rare this summer. As we were wrapping up breakfast I lifted the shades a bit and noticed a huge rainbow stretching from one end of the sky to the other. It appeared as though it started in a far away land and ended right in our pond. In our excitement we took the kids out to the patio to show them a real live rainbow, which turned into our 2 year old dancing around in the drizzle in nothing but her diaper.

The most glorious rainbow ever!

It was one of "those moments" and for once I was aware of the momentary beauty going on around me. I grabbed my coffee and held my baby boy as he watched his sister play and dance in the backyard. As I enjoyed the rainbow, I couldn't help but drift to Gods faithfulness from the days of Noah to now. He picked a pretty great way of reminding us, nice job in the rainbow department God.

As I sat there on our patio in bliss I had no idea that the makings of an epic battle were beginning behind me in our living room. My dreamy moment was cut short as my husband, Kel, opened the door and uttered the words no one wants to hear and everyone dreads. "Hey Baby? I found a snake in the living room. I'm going to go take care of it" He made his report and returned to the front to vanquish the beast. I frowned but decided to continue enjoying my rainbow moment as best I could. The gauntlet had been thrown and I had complete faith that my man was on the job and that our home would be snake free in a moment or two. I was thinking Frodo vs Sauron, Harry vs Voldemort and other very nerdy thoughts as I imagined Kel beheading the sake and raising it above his head victoriously. Yes our house would be safe and snake free in seconds. I should buy that man a sword or something.

A few moments later, even worse news came. "Baby, I can't find him anymore, maybe I never saw a snake." But he did see a snake, and it had disappeared in our house where it would cause me pretty intense anxiety and stress until it was evicted from the casa. How was I supposed to have a day with our kids in our house with a snake? That snake must be found, and either killed or put in a gunnysack and driven to a remote location where it would be swung in the air until dizzy and then dumped in a field. Clearly these are the only two options. However victory was still elusive because the snake had gone undercover.

I think so often I find myself in situations like this in life. There I am enjoying a rainbow moment and a snake pops up and ruins it for me. And rightfully so, because you can't just let snakes roam about in your life. You have to find them and kick them right out. Sometimes our snakes are addictions and bad habits, painful circumstances or broken relationships in need of repair. It is very tempting to pretend they never happened and try to go about with life as usual instead of dealing with them. Here's the thing: You can't comfortably live with a snake in the metaphorical living room of your life, I mean it's aptly named isn't it? The living room? It's the room where you do life. It needs to be as snake free as possible. You can't very well enjoy a good episode of Grey's Anatomy or Cupcake Wars with a carpet swimming with snakes.

So you have to pick up your snake killing tools, this morning my husband used a pair of turquoise tongs and a steamer bowl, but you should use whatever tools you have in your personal arsenal. If you know you have snakes, arm yourself accordingly and go in swinging. Snaky problems and issues have to be dealt with, because like a snake in your house, they will just pop up at inopportune moments and ruin things for you.

Here are some tools that I keep in my metaphorical snake killing arsenal.

1) Community: Don't even try to deal with snakes on your own, call a friend, confess the issue and get encouragement, wisdom and advice. Ask for accountability and prayer. Do it. Do it now.
2) Time with God: So often I don't want to go to God with my issues because I would much rather ignore them than drag them out in prayer or on paper. If I talk to God about them they become so much more real. However when I do bring them out, however painful that process may be, my snakes get smaller and more manageable and they go from rattlesnakes to glorified shoe-strings types. It always makes me wonder why I didn't go to God in the first place. Every time.
3) Solid teaching: Some people who follow Jesus avoid church. Which is not great. I have been convicted and brought to tears at church in the middle of many battles in my life. Those days where I am tempted not to go to church are almost always the days I need to be there the most. If you are hurting because of a bad church experience, start by pod-casting a teaching until you deal and heal from the snake bite that's keeping you away.
4) Quiet Reflection: I recommend a glass of wine in the bathtub as a perfect place to plot your snake killing plan, but maybe you are more of a walk in the park type. And that's okay too we can still be friends, but you need to think things through. So find your zen place and spend some time there.

So lets all grab our bright turquoise tongs and kick out a few snakes.

Oh and by the way, Kel did end up getting the little guy, tonging him and sending him packing. Sadly there were no gunnysacks or rides in the trunk of the car. But, he did take him all the way across the street where he will never bother us again. Hopefully.

So there you have it. A pretty exciting start to our week. So, what snakes do you have creeping around in the corners of your living room? I pray that this week you have the strength to find them and that God gives you the bravery needed to vanquish them. Find your inner warrior friend, and thank you for reading. I am so thankful for you and I pray that God helps you make this a week of Joy.

Those are my thoughts, a penny for yours?

Choosing Joy 8-28-11

2011-08-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

I felt called to write about all the places I discovered joy this week, from the little things to the big things, it's a really quenching exercise to reflect on your week with thankfulness and see the joy no matter what your week brought with it. So for me, here is some little springs where I was refreshed by Joy.

This week has been a fairly average one and the week days flew by. What wasn't average was my daughter breaking into some prescription pills on Friday. It was a hectic moment but God is good and I don't think she swallowed any.

So without further ado, here is what brought me Joy

Pioneer Woman Sheet Cake... stop, make it, gain a pound, deal with it.

Sheet Cake- We have started going to a new life group this summer and I am really in love with this group of people and their intentional passion for life and relentlessly pursuing God in their lives and their families. It's no secret I love to cook and eat, and this past year I have absolutely fallen in love with Sheet Cake. After my son was born in January a friend brought over a southern meal of brisket and sheet cake, and I have to confess I ate the entire sheet cake in less than 36 hours. I'm chalking it up to needing calories from having a baby... it makes it seem less shocking. Anyway, last week I remade that very sheet cake (here's the recipe) and I found so much delight in preparing it and enjoying it with friends.

Behold the tooth in all of its splendor.

The Tooth!- My almost 8 month old son has one tooth, just one, and it stick out of his bottom gums like a little monument to progress. A butte ( love this word) in the dessert of his mouth and it cracks us up every time with see it all lonely and white. When you have just one tooth, looking goofy is part of the territory but when you have a smile like he does, well, goofy = adorable.

Ree Drummond's book from Black heels to Tractor Wheels: I promise that I will get off my PW kick soon but for now you are going to have to deal with me where I am. I read this little novel / biography in less than 36 hours and I highly suggest that you do the same. Here's a morsel to make it even more tempting for you married types: Kel and I are going through a marriage workbook right now, just some marital maintenance. Anyhow this book did more for my marriage than the marriage book did. I won't say marriage anymore, but read this book, marriage! (sorry I couldn't help myself)

I snuggled and watched this not so new release this week: The Lovely Bones.

Movie Nights- Ask anyone who has ever worked with me, lived with me, or spent more than 37 seconds in a room with me, I don't sit still. Period. Ever. I took up crocheting just so that I could watch movies, because if I can't do something with my hands then I won't make it through even the most engaging flicks. This week however I endeavored to change that and I sat on the couch with Kel and watched a movie. We sat on the same couch, we didn't play with our phones and with him so close with me I found something to do with my hands. I held his hands, get your mind out of the gutter. (We watched the Lovely Bones and Something borrowed)

Rosemary Lemon Water- I'm still nursing so I can't have caffeine from sunup to sundown, nor should I, and I am trying to steer clear of diet pop too. I also trying to continue to wear my current pants. Along this lines I drink a lot of water. A lot. It gets bland, so I have started to flavor it with lemon and a sprig of rosemary from my garden. Eureka! Give it a try, even skeptics are coming over to my side.

My old timey rag rug. Your grandma would be impressed ;-)

Freeeeee Sheeeeeeeets- I am making a rag rug for my kids' room out of old sheets. It really fits with the crafty shabby chic look I strive to maintain around Casa de Penny. Along those lines I have been scouring thrift stores around our town for color coordinating old sheets. I wash them (because it would be nasty not to) and I rip them up and make them into a beautiful rug. Well yesterday I had to resort to garage sale-ing for sheets because to be honest I bought all the ones at the thrift store that match my motif. Yesterday I cruised by a garage sale that was packing up and scored 2 color coordinating queen size sheets for FREE! I think I probably texted at least 7 people only 2 of whom cared about my haul. I'm aware I'm the only one on earth excited about free mismatched used sheets.

Alright, those are my thoughts about Joy, a Penny for yours? I would love to hear about where you found joy in your kitchen, your home, and your world. And hey, if you need a home for your old sheets, I am crazy enough to adopt them.

Celebration

2011-08-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty much every morning my daughter wishes me an enthusiastic “good morning!” usually followed by a “Happy Birthday mommy” which I love. Children are phenomenal at celebration and even the simplest of things like cinnamon sugar sprinkled on pancakes can bring a level of excitement and joy that most adults won’t hit in a year. What wall do we hit in our adolescence that forces our drive for celebration to be thrown from our lives as we travel toward adulthood? Because I suggest that we figure out where we dropped it, pull over and get it back.

If you read through the books of law in the Old Testament you’ll notice that God repeatedly commands Israel to put celebrations and festivals in their annual calendar. He commands them rest and celebrate, feast and festival. And there are consequences if they decide to ignore his command, pretty serious ones like death. Now I am not suggesting we take it that far at all, but I think that as adults we need to return to Gods call to rest and celebrate.

We are committed to celebration in our marriage, to rest and to rhythm. So when milestones come along we carve out time no matter where we are financially to celebrate in some way, big or small. Our busy lifestyles tend to make us believe that celebration is frivolous and wasteful but I can assure you that God says otherwise. I know that many of you let birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and other milestones pass by without any sort of pomp or party. I have found immense connection and joy in being intentional about the practice of celebration.

Growing up I saw my parents repeatedly let their anniversary pass with no celebration that distinguished it from any other day of the calendar year. I vowed that when I got married I would take elaborate trips and go out to fancy dinners on my anniversary, somewhere really nice, like Applebee’s or TGI Fridays. Thankfully my taste in sub-par restaurants fell away but my dedication to make celebration part of my life stuck around. So for the past few years we have taken a night at a Bed and Breakfast coupled with a fancy dinner out. And two days ago when my daily blog hits soared above 100 for the first time I headed down to the wine shop and bought a bottle of red, and after the kids nodded off for the night, my husband and I toasted God’s faithfulness and prayed for dedication to continue down the paths God is leading us on.

I hope that God stirs you up as you read this, don’t believe the lie that any birthday after 21 isn’t worth celebrating. Life is worth celebrating and milestones are so much sweeter and relationships deeper as a result of celebration. God is calling you to this, what is holding you back? Those are my thoughts, a penny for yours?

Bold

2011-08-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Fact: Cinnamon Coffee is a gift straight from heaven
Fact: I still have a massive girl crush on Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman
Fact: My son only stops talking or squealing when he is asleep
           Sub Fact: We have been going through a lot of advil ^

If the last week of my life got it's own catch phrase it is this: "In God, good change happens" I mean I am cooking southern gal recipes for crying out loud, hello? That's change.

Up until this past month or so I lived in a pretty gray place when it came to believing the best in the about my future. Then our church started doing a teaching series called "Bold." And more than any other series in the history of our family, we have changed for the good. Through boldly believing in God's plan for us, much of our cynicism has melted away. Kel and I are more in love than we have been in years and there is much butt grabbing and couch snuggling in our home again. Rejoice! The reason this series has had such an impact is because it has shaken the dust off our family and helped us believe in the good again. Not all change is bad change.

Watching my Mom go through more than a 20 year battle with depression conditioned me that the power of God wasn't always enough. That you can throw all your best intentions and efforts at life, read your bible and go to church and still sink until you drown in the pain of life. Here is the thing: Depression is a disease I don't have, so is cancer and so is addiction. These illnesses are not of God and he does not send them to us. We live in a world that is sin-sick and fallen but God loves us enough not to control us like puppets. We are in a sick world, we will make sick choices and I don't know why some are healed and some are not. I have stopped beating my head against that wall and started living in thankfulness for my health, both physical and mental. For me leaving behind this gray world of questioning was Bold. Very Bold.

All the grayness of our past year has made us wonder, when God says he has plans for us, what does that mean? Can we trust those plans? We were living in fear of what life might bring. And so through this last month we decided to go bold and believe. Believe that no matter what happens, our future with God is bright. We will obey him boldly, pray boldly, and speak bold faith to each other and over our future. We were challenged and we are changed.

And through these things, life around Casa de Penny is drastically different. Kel is leading us and his college students like never before. And me? I am pursuing my writing career, faithfully believing that my past does not dictate my future. For me the impact of this new way of thinking is like a pebble in a pond, it changes everything.

God is massively powerful and through him people do change. We changed, all we are seeing people around us change too. I am re doing my mind and tearing down all the dark wallpaper, the patterns and textures that forced me to live in fear and worry of depression, heart disease and car accidents. I am plastering my life with God's truth and Boldly believing in a bright future full of romance, laughter and a future following a path I can't see. This path will have more dark valleys as I journey, that is guaranteed for all of us I am afraid.

But I boldly, BOLDLY, believe the best.

PS- Check out the sermon series that shook us to our core. Just podcast it, you can make time, you won't regret it. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Actually you have fear, worry and doubt to lose. And that is a very good thing.

My prayer for now

2011-08-22T06:21:00.000-07:00

We are always changing and growing as God calls us onward in this life. All too often I will come face to face with a glimpse of where God is leading me and it infuses life into my weary heart. Unfortunately the glimpse fades too quickly and within the next few days the wisdom I saw all but disappears. God is constantly discipling me along the road and I am always on the watch for new devices or systems to keep these lessons at the front of my mind. I tape verses and quotes on my bathroom mirror and the window above my sink. I re-tweet relevant thoughts from teachers I respect and admire. This all helps, but today I feel led to write a prayer, something I can change up and add to as I progress. A personal prayer for me to repeat often to remind me where I am and where I am going, my own little litany.

So I have been jotting down notes and thoughts in my phone and on a plain legal pad and this is my "for-now" prayer.

Dear Father

You are so faithful and I am amazed at your relentless pursuit of us, me especially.

When I take a look around my life I am amazed from the depths of my soul at the extravagant way you have blessed me.

There are no words in the English language to express how thankful I am for the gifts of my family, Kel and our two kids. Their faces bring me a powerful joy I didn't knew existed this side of heaven.

When I look back on the journey you have taken Kel and I on, I can only shake my head and be thankful. I ask that you strengthen and shape us into people who bring heaven to earth, both individually and together.

So often I feel small and incapable of navigating the life you put me in. I want to be obedient to the amazing plans you have ahead of me, grant me more resolve and courage to believe myself capable of your call.

Remind me every hour that you don't need another carbon copy of anyone I compare myself to. Strengthen me with the truth that I am uniquely equipped with a story and voice that can change the world, but only if I use it.

Banish the fear that so often keeps me from following your voice.

Help me trust what can be and not doubt because of what has been.

Help me trust and not be cynical.

I want to serve those you have placed in my life, people are a gift. Through your spirit I want to serve them fiercely and put them before myself.

Teach me to be more of a listener than a talker and more of an encourager than one who demands praise and encouragement.

I want to be generous in the way I give my resources to others, from my time to my money it is all yours and I want to spread it out and not waste it.

I want to be in love with today, even if it isn't ideal or where I thought I would find myself as I approach my thirtieth birthday.

Continue to help me find delight in the small things from my morning cup of coffee to my fluffy duvet as I turn out the light. I want to choose joy in the here and now, no matter what that means.

Never stop calling me to connect well and deeply as I seek to push aside distractions and give my full attention to my family and friends.

Give me patience as I slow to the rhythm of your timing. Help me to live today to the fullest as I move at your pace around each turn.

Help me to know Jesus more today than I did yesterday, to immerse myself in his way of living and to conform to his patterns.

Thank you for the wisdom that it took to meet in this moment and speak this prayer over the day you have so generously given me.

I'm ready. Amen.

If you even feel a little called to write your own prayer "for now" I can't tell you what a valuable practice it is. I am so thankful I have it out of my heart and onto paper, ready to be prayed this afternoon, evening and tomorrow morning over yet another 5:45 am mug of coffee.

Big metaphorical pumpkins of hope

2011-08-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

I know I have mentioned it before but this summer has been unprecedentedly hot and dry. Unfortunately if the weather forecasters are correct our triple digit days are slated to go until October. This news makes my heart sink to the floor because I am running out patience with scorching forecasts. I want to pull out my phone, flip to my weather ap and see a ten day forecast with no triple digits in sight. Really I would like something in the 60's but I will settle for mid 90's at this point. So I have decided to spite the weather and ignore it as much as possible. Along these lines I have spent the late morning hauling out my fall decor and scattering it around the house.

Fall is by far my favorite season. Pumpkins, apples, cider? Love it love it love it. So I got started early this year and my bar now has a trio of harvesty candles and an apple basket, the light fixture in my dining "nook" is wreathed in leaves and I am plotting something epic for the mantle. This morning I made pumpkin oatmeal and had cinnamon spiced coffee. I am declaring that in my house, it is fall because I need it be fall now regardless of the weather outside.

I am actually a fan of the phrase "fake it until you make it" for some situations in life. I don't mean that I encourage pretending, on the contrary I think I have a pretty good track record of authenticity. However, sometimes when you are thirsty and of a change of you have to do something drastic. Maybe you need to start living like the next season has arrived, even though it is still around the bend. So today I am going to put a big pumpkin out as a reminder that things won't always be this dry. For me, I need to remember that I won't always live in toddler land, my nights won't always be sleepless and I won't always be crunching cheerios when I walk to the kitchen. Life has seasons, and this one is good albeit difficult.

It can be confusing to figure out when you need to live the hard season that you are in and when you need to change it up. When I was in the season of heavy grieving for my parents it would have been damaging for me if I hadn't lived in the darkness of it for a while. However, even in that season I did need to decorate with hope and reminders that a new season would come to my life. Sometimes we are called to bring change to our season and sometimes we need to decorate our lives with visual reminders that it isn't forever, for me right now this is a pumpkin. In fact I am coining the phrase "big metaphorical pumpkins of hope. It's so concise I am sure it will catch on.

No matter what your season I promise you there is something to love about it, even if only in hindsight. Even in my darkest seasons I have sweet memories of being surrounded with prayer and love from my closest friends and family. You may be in one of three places as you read these words. Perhaps today you need to pour a big glass or mug of your favorite liquid delight, whether that's coffee, wine, etc, and sip as you breathe prayers of thanks for your season. Maybe today finds you somewhere terribly difficult and you need to pray for some big metaphorical pumpkins of hope to come along and remind you of God's faithfulness in cycling our seasons. Or maybe you need to decorate your life for the next season as you pray for the strength to do the work needed to change your forecast. All three of these types of seasons find their way into our lives.

Look for a pumpkin of hope as you go through your day, and if you find it put it somewhere obvious to remind yourself that seasons change, and they are all at least a little sweet no matter the circumstances.

Peanut Butter Mouse & Expectations

2011-08-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Life never turns out exactly as you planned. I know that because today as I am writing to you from my office / play room there is peanut butter on my computer mouse. I didn't plan that, It got there because my daughter made off with a peanut butter sandwich before I realized it. And since the peanut butter is delicious and the computer has tons of buttons there was an obvious collision. I chuckle a little when I click the mouse and come away with a sticky palm because this is so typical of my life these days. I'm still in yoga pants in the afternoon, we haven't left the house and as the kids nap and I switch my brain into adult mode, I find I cannot escape kid land.

I finished college, I even did a little grad school and during those times I used up some of my mental energy envisioning myself in heels and trendy outfits working happily and efficiently in my tastefully decorated office. Life didn't exactly turn out that way and I can pretty much pinpoint the moment I decided to put the high heels, business card lifestyle on hold. Being a full time mom is a choice I made, but believe it or not it was harder for me than going back to work. I like life organized and neat. I love to click around in high heels. I love adult conversation around wine, fancy dishes and $17 cheese.

However now, any time I clean something, my 2 year old ensures that it immediately gets messy again, there isn't room in the budget for expensive cheese and wearing heels around the house is both stupid and hazardous considering that extreme sippy cup spills are commonplace. I have had to grow and adjust into this little people life where I give a lot more than I get. My expectations of life were totally different than the reality I am living in.

If I didn't learn to adjust my expectations I would spend my days miserable, and I did for a while. This concept is so much bigger than me and I am convinced that it applies to everyone on the planet. I have stopped expecting a spotless house or dinners filled with adult conversation and I donated a lot of my heels and invested in a wardrobe that allowed me to chase my kids around and be comfortable.

Whatever life you are living now I am sure that it's different than the one you expected to have. I think God works like that on purpose to keep us guessing and relying on him. You have to learn to love the life that God gave you, because if you hate it that much you should probably make a change, and if you're not willing to change you may as well fall in love with it.

Just when I made peace with the full time Mom life God started to drop hints that he wants me to be a writer. He loves to keep me on my toes, and I am thankful for the ways I see him using me now and on the horizon.

Stacy's muffins

2011-08-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Everything we experience from the moment we are born to our last days on this planet is woven together to form our memories. Our five distinct senses are really just doors to our memories. The smell of baby shampoo takes me back to a place of new innocence and the sight of a red convertible will always remind me of my Grandma Mac, who at the age of 69 drove a red sunbird with the top down, so cool.

The other day I was flipping back through some pictures of last October and I came across one of my daughter, naked and playing in what we call the "pillow fortress." The pillow fortress is automatically created anytime we actually make the bed all the way and there is wall of pillows to hide in. This photo is the last image my mom ever saw of my daughter and the email which contained it was the last correspondence I ever had with my mom. When I saw it, I instantly I tucked my knees up to my chest and I was back in last October all over again. My senses stopped experiencing the moment I was in and started to recreate the sounds, smells and experiences surrounding my mother's death and funeral.

The same thing happened to me last week when I was baking blueberry banana muffins in my kitchen. I used whole wheat flour, flax and fresh fruit and as I pulled them out of the oven I was instantly taken back a few semesters back to a time when I was leading a college bible study in the hallway of our ministry. I always tried to bring a home made breakfast of sorts that would fuel conversation as well as the bodies of the students I met with. One student, Stacy always begged for my "healthy muffins" and they were the litmus test she used to measure anything I cooked and labeled as healthy. "It's good" she would tell me, "But not as good as the muffins." Stacy died this past spring and when I made those muffins I was flooded with the details of the weekend we lost her. Those muffins made me ache for Stacy all over again.

It is funny how our senses work with our emotions to help us process grief. I never know what small event will whisk me away to a place I wasn't planning on visiting. I have found it best to just go with these moments when they arise rather than fight them. Loss and pain cannot be contained and they appear in our lives as needed. Last week I think I needed to stop and miss Stacy because this week our students are all returning to school to haul bags to class and collapse exhausted on the couches of our college ministry. As they return to these simple rhythms of college life today I have no doubt they will find themselves missing her. We have all lost in this life and we all encounter moments like this.

When you find yourself swept up in longing for someone who is gone, I encourage you to drift for a bit, to honor that person in your heart with memories of their life and all the color and texture they brought to our world. Take the beauty they gave you and carry it with you as you move forward. Grief is not weakness, it is one heart missing the unfillable hole left by the absence of another. Never seek to replace someone you lost. You will develop new relationships and they will all be exquisitely unique. Though I will be blessed by new care takers and meet new students there will never be another Mom or another Stacy.

So to my college students, friends, family and all who find themselves surprised by grief. You are strong in your remembering and to live in the face of loss is necessary, beautiful and brave.

steak and storage containers

2011-08-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Writers, myself included, have a tendency to use storms as a word picture for dark and trying times. Yesterday that was not the case for me because yesterday in my little town, for the first time in months the heavens opened up with the most glorious rainstorm of my life. To say that the land around here is dry would be the understatement of the year. To give you an understanding of just how dry it is: our grass is dead, our pond is almost completely dry, no one has been able to grow a tomato in our county and the dirt is so dry that its cracking the water mains and leaving thirsty people without water. The average rainfall for our town in July is around 8 inches, last month we got .5 inches. I have never experienced a summer that has left me hotter or thirstier than this one.

Yesterdays storm rolling into our backyard

Yesterday morning when the sun rose it came without scorching heat but grey clouds that rumbled in the distance. As I watched the storm approach I opened all the shades covering the bay windows in our dining "nook" and the kids and I watched it all roll in. As the drops blew against our windows I swear I felt quenched on a soul level.

My mind kept conjuring images of dry plants busting open with big beautiful flowers and of dry ground popping up blades of thick green grass. As I stood there in my kitchen, coffee in hand, I realized that the quenching had been happening for the past little while, the much needed moisture soaking through me and causing seeds to sprout.

I have had experiences with a few friends lately that have reminded me of who I really am and ways in which I had forgotten to bloom.

Last weekend we went to our friends Joley and Jason's for a cookout and before we had a chance to change her into her suit, my two year old got into the kiddie pool and then rolled in the dirt. There was no salvaging her clothes and when it came time to wrestle her back into the house we had to opt to cross-dress her in some of their son's clothes. When we went into his bedroom for boy clothes I noticed Joley's meticulously organized closets and I was simultaneously depressed and jealous. They were lined with storage bins and drawers, which were both labeled and full of folded clothes. I used to work at an organization store and in a past life would drool over a good shelving or filing system. When I saw Joley's closets the dry seeds of my love for organization got watered.

Then earlier this week I visited my friend Sarah for our first play date/lunch at her house. Her house is beyond gorgeous and she has the most amazing style which is sort of vintage meets shabby chic. To top it off she made a phenomenal salad for lunch complete with roasted chicken, kalamatta olives, feta and homemade balsamic dressing. She also introduced me to lemon water with a sprig of rosemary in it. Sarah is an amazingly sweet person and she's also kinda fancy. As I sipped my herbed water and admired her antique bird scones I was reminded that I used to like being kinda fancy too. My evenings used to be cloth napkins and new recipes and I used to enjoy artisan cheeses and home decor magazines. Somewhere along the way that part of me got so thirsty that it went dormant, but that afternoon on Sarah's couch those seeds got a little water too.

So because of these two encounters with my friends, this week was just a little different. Yesterday I hauled out some plastic storage containers and organized my spice drawer as well as all my crafty stuff. And tonight for dinner we will be enjoying seared steaks topped with mushrooms and rosemary butter and served beside vanilla bean whipped sweet potatoes and roasted corn on the cob. I'm doing this because I am a little bit organized and a little bit fancy and when I let those parts of me bloom I am a whole lot happier.

Please enjoy the bold and beautiful colors of my organized spice drawer. It's okay to be a little jealous.

Along the way parts of us get dry and usually it takes interacting with someone who is blooming in an area we let shrivel to make us realize how thirsty we are for something. So perhaps today you are thirsty for something small like organized drawers and herbed butter or maybe you are thirsting for something a much more important like God and connection. Don't let another day go by where you choose to stay parched, turn the hose on your life and be the vividly stunning person God planted you to be.

Nerd-fession

2011-08-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

This is my confession (not an Usher song) about being a nerd, my nerd-fession if you will. In my previous anniversary review post I mentioned that part of our anniversary celebration was a 3D viewing of the final installment of Harry Potter. That's nerdy enough, but to truly confess I must inform you that my nerd streak goes a whole lot deeper. I have loved two great novel series in my life, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I had an affair with Pirates of the Carribean and once dressed up like Jack Sparrow, but I try to sweep that one under the rug. Nevertheless I must let my inner nerd out occasionally and now seems as good a time as any.

Nerd Proof 1) My husband bought mt an exact replica of the Evenstar necklace worn by Liv Tyler in LOTR for our first Christmas

Nerd Proof 2) We bought two copies of the final book in the Harry Potter series because we couldn't share and had to finish as soon as possible.

Nerd Proof 3) I saw LOTR Return of the King at a 12:01am showing and then went back to see it 4 more times.

Nerd Proof 4) I had my name translated into elvish, it's Tari Nienna. Which is pretty awesome, you know... if you're on your way to a sci-fi convention.

There. I feel so much better after confessing my inner nerd. So, back to last weekend when I was watching the Harry Potter Finale in budget breaking 3D IMAX. I won't spoil anything but in the final scenes where wands and spells were flying and the students and faculty of Hogwarts were striking blows against Voldemort and the bad guys I found myself incapable of containing myself. And I actually began to cheer out loud in my theater seat. My heart was wrapped up in the story on screen and it seemed as if my future depended on the good guys defeating evil in the film. That my friends is a sign you are in a good movie, but as we walked out of the theater I started to reflect on why is it I love a well written good vs evil epic series so much.

Feel free to call me corny, I've already confessed to nerdy, but I see and feel strong connections between these fictional stories and what I have experienced about life. If you have read or watched either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, you know that the basic premise of the story can be broken down like this. Good people are forced to fight very bad guys in order to go about the basic business of everyday life. In each series there is a dark lord trying to wipe out all that is good in the world in order to achieve ultimate power. And the little guys have to step up and fight for the most basic of freedom. In each story there is one article, be it a ring or a wand through which all can be ruled and forced into dark submission.

Can we all be honest? Sometimes life feels like that. Battle language is spread throughout the bible, and when times get tough we all feel like we are in a battle for our very survival. While I am confessing I can honestly tell you that in the darkest days of my life, after my parents died, I fought for very basic things against a very dark force, death. When death, illness, divorce or loss comes you do have to stand your ground and fight hard. The bible I read does portray a story of good vs evil, and as God released the whole book all at once we don't have to wait to find out who wins in the end.

That brings comfort but doesn't take away all the pain of fighting in today's conditions, where the enemy still prowls and seeks to steal our joyful life. I think in some way we all resonate deeply with some version of these two stories. We have all fought our own versions of these epic battles and we all have scars and tales to tell. And so I say, thanks be to God we are still fighting, and kudos to us for refusing to surrender the spirit. Be honest about your battles, both won and lost, and share your story. Someday when my kids are old enough to understand I will regale them with my stories. I will tell them of the times where something dark crept in and tried to steal my soul out of me, I will tell them how I fought, how God came through and I will make sure they understand that that is why I am able to sit with them that day and explain the past.

I don't know where you are today in your battle. Maybe you are in a time of peace, resting your soul from a previous fight. Maybe today you are fighting something dark, just trying to survive. To you I say: keep fighting. Contact me and let me know if I can pray for and support you. Reach out to those who love you, ask them to revive and encourage you. We are in a battle friends, so stand strong, remember who you and who sustains you.

If you need some encouragement pop Lord of the Rings, return of the King into your DVD player or head on over to the theater to catch the latest Harry Potter movie. As nerdy as it may seem, there is truth in those films and a beautiful reminder that in the end, love wins.

Marriage advice from a Jello Mold

2011-08-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

This past Friday my husband and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. We were blessed to have overnight childcare, so we took advantage of it and booked night at a Bed and Breakfast in Edmond, OK. Before we checked in at the B&B we made an ultra nerdy move and watched the final Harry Potter movie in 3D IMAX, definitely the best and most expensive movie going experience of my life. $45 for tickets and snacks, I mean seriously?!?! For dinner we got a corner booth at Lottinvilles a few miles from our hotel and reflected on the past year over pork tenderloin with chutney and sourdough chicken fried steak.

This past year has certainly run the gamut of peace and storm, of joy and pain. We took turns sharing moments and memories as well as lessons learned. I firmly believe that wisdom and truth is made to be shared like a good piece of cheesecake, and so here is a slice of what I have discovered in my small yet significant five years of marriage.

1) Be a Safe Haven not a critic- I am a bit driven and my husband is more than a bit relaxed. For the first four years of our marriage I considered it my personal job to motivate him and point out every lesson that could be learned around every corner. When his plans failed, instead of being there to mend his wounds I was there in the fray, highlighting the failure. One day I realized how harsh I was being, that life beats us up all the time, and what we both needed in our marriage was a place where it was safe to fail. Failure is inevitable in life and when your home is a safe haven to heal, you can grow stronger together while at the same time still growing and learning from your mistakes. The seeds of this lesson were planted from a chapter called "steak frites" in the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. I recommend both of her books.

2) When times get tough don't be each other's enemies- After my Mom died, Kel and I were both shocked, raw, and we lost our bearings. Rather than healing side by side we took turns tearing each other down and keeping score of who was doing the worst job in our marriage. We focused on what we weren't doing for each other and how we weren't measuring up. We became each other's enemies instead of being an encouragement and support. This is a tricky lesson to learn and carry out because the dark times in life have a tendency to strip you of the ability to serve each other. If you are both completely empty, I have learned it is better to coexist in peace and draw strength from God and the support system surrounding your marriage until you have enough strength to support each other. No marriage is an island and when both of you are knocked to the ground, heal in peace and allow yourselves to be carried until you have legs again.

3) Have fun in the little things, life will always give you enough serious- We will both admit that we took everything too seriously these past five years. There wasn't enough laughter, dancing or inside jokes. We are learning to be silly with each other, to laugh about what would seem downright dumb to anyone looking from the outside in. This may seem trivial or easy, but it is so easily lost along the way of life.

4) Don't run the extraordinary in search of the perfect- This was the best anniversary we have ever had, and the greatness of this day was not contained in the quality of the food or the fanciness of the bed and breakfast, but in the relaxed and casual air that flowed throughout the day. Instead of expecting a perfect gift and a surprise around every corner, I just expected to have the rare gift of a whole day of one on one time with the guy I love. We chatted about life and all of its ups and downs and we went garage sale-ing for our anniversary presents. I finally got that jello mold I have been wanting all these years for $1 at a knights of columbus sale. I'm bringing jello molds back like Justin Timberlake brought back sexy. I think the used jello mold sums up the whole concept, It's not a five year diamond band but I think I love my Tupperware jello mold more than anything fancy or frivolous.

and yes I also scored a tremendously vintage-cool deviled egg platter which will soon contribute to the plate mural I am creating for the dining room wall. Oh and small food prep ramekins. Because lets be honest, you can never have too many of those....

So these are my lessons, my victories. I would love hear about yours as we quilt our lives together and savor the truth we find around the bend.

Bread and Water in the everyday

2011-08-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

Like the new look? I'll assume you do and so do I. The hidden penny "where's waldo style" banner is the new norm and it will change with the seasons and my whims. For now please enjoy these zinnias, they are the only thing besides basil that survived in our garden this stifling summer.

Every time I am blessed to witness a baptism celebration, I cry, regardless of how well I know the people being baptized. No matter what emotion I came into church with, the moment always brings me to tears because of the deep and powerful moment in front of me. I also cry nearly every time I take communion and I think these tears come out of a very thankful place, deep inside of me. This well of thankful tears springs up to God because he is so alright with my humanity that he gave me the simple but powerful practice of both baptism and communion.

If you were to make out a list of things you do on a daily basis, I can assure you that eating and washing yourself would make the cut. Some of you may eat and wash more or less than others, but the basic human need is still a common thread we share. So when God gave us the gift of Baptism and Communion he centered them around everyday elements and in doing so they have a not so simple impact on us. They are multi-faceted and can serve to connect us to God no matter where we are when we approach them.

The reason that we shower and or bathe on a daily basis is that we pick up grungy stuff as we go through a day of life. The same is true with sin, each day we live life on this earth, some sinful moments will stick to us. The beauty in baptism is that we don't have to repeat this practice daily, weekly, or even annually. What we must do, however, is remember our baptism and all that it means in our daily sin-sticky lives. Our sins are forgiven and when we take time to talk to God about it we have that fresh out of the shower feeling knowing that he washes away our sins always and permanently.

Communion for me is a sweet reminder every time I walk up to the table. It uses the elements of bread and wine as a reminder of our daily and constant need to be fed through the sacrifice of Jesus. There are so many facets to the gift of communion and one thing I always remember when I approach the communion table is the promise not only of forgiveness but of restoration. No matter how broken I feel that day, God always reminds me that he is in the process of healing the broken pieces I see scattered across my life. I live in a world that is full of the love and hope of God, but still waiting for the full promise to be realized.

And so I fall in love with my God over and over again through the simple elements of bread, wine and water. He loves me enough to give me tangible pictures to bridge the gap between us. I so easily forget the freedom I have in him and I lose sight of his promise to heal our broken world. And so when I see someone washed in the water, or I walk up and eat the bread and wine, I remember my God who loves me exactly where I am, and I am amazed and how willing he is to meet us in the everyday places.

Falling in love with runny egg yolks

2011-07-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

I wasn't born in Oklahoma, it doesn't take a native Okie very long to figure that out. For a long time I resisted new foods and phrases and tried very hard to preserve my northern-ness. You know that age old phrase "If you can't beat em, join em?" I always thought that joining em meant giving up who you were and becoming someone foreign to you. This isn't entirely true, you do become someone completely different but it's a process that is completed over your lifetime in bits, pieces and daily surrenders.

I have measured my comfort with my new state through food. When I first got here I wouldn't have touched beans and cornbread with a ten foot pole. Now I make it on a regular basis, because it's delicious, comforting and costs about $6. I have even successfully attempted my first brisket and receive multiple compliments every time I make iced tea. You may all be impressed... now.

I have developed a major girl crush on Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman. I read her blog and plan to have a week dedicated to cooking her recipes exclusively. I have her to thank for my new found love of sheet cake and egg in a hole. Thanks to her eggs over easy are now on the table and savored with gusto. So, am I becoming a full fledged Oklahoma girl? Lawdy no! But I am adopting pieces of Oklahoma that will stay with me wherever I go. Things even more life changing than cornbread and runny egg yolks.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you introduced 30 year old you with 15 year old you? Lets bite the bullet, round up and say that I am 30 for this post. I may as well be. If 15 year old me knew that 30 year old me would be a full time mom living in Oklahoma and riding next to a Pastor in a mini van, she would be shocked and disgusted. Simply because she would be completely unable to see the steps that led from 15 to 30, and I would never want to fill her in on all those steps at once, it would be more than anyone could handle.

The long and short of it is that you have to be where you are and bring who you are into play. To break that sentence down, you won't bring anything but misery on yourself and those around you if you endlessly complain about your current circumstances. A little complaining is probably okay, we are only human, but you have to pick yourself up and play the hand you were dealt. And your circumstances are just waiting for you to happen to them. If God put you somewhere he wants you to unleash all that he made you to be wherever you are. Even if where you are is over an hour from the nearest Panera bread and is still over 90 degrees at ten PM. (see a little complaining is human...)

So If you wake up this morning somewhere you never thought you would be, take a deep breath, own your life and be exactly who God made you to be exactly where God put you. Make a big pot of beans and cornbread, or better yet make something uniquely you and bring it to someone who could use a little you in their life.

a prayer of no guarantees

2011-07-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

A few items of business:

There is button to the right that will allow you to like this blog on facebook, you can also follow it by email or twitter. Pass it along if it blesses you.

Now on to the meat of something that has been tumbling in my head a long time, waiting to be polished.

Today my 2 year old daughter smacked my 6 month old son in the face with a large cardboard block. Pretty hard too. She didn't mean it, she was just twirling with helicopter arms and got too close to his face and boom, impact. Had I seen it coming I would have interceded, and I often save him from sore toes or well intended hug smotherings. However, as much as I love every square inch of him I can't block every shot.

I absolutely love my two kids, I hope this isn't a big secret to anyone in my life either online or otherwise. When I take a look back at all the junk and pain I have gone through with my immediate family one of my first instincts is to figure out a way to make sure that nothing like that ever happens to my precious boy and girl. I want to keep them physically safe. I buy top of the line car seats and follow safety standards to the letter. I also want to keep them emotionally safe and I want to do everything I can to make sure that they don't lose their parents as early or as tragically as I did. I lost my Dad at the age of 49 to heart disease and so along those lines I eat very little red meat, drink red wine and pay close attention to my blood pressure and cholesterol levels. My mom died from mental Illness and so I go to counseling, stay active, and I try to keep a good pulse on my emotional well being so that I can catch any problems early.

I'm a realist, I know I can't protect them from all hurts but I guess I wish for them the bare minimum. I want them to appreciate the depth of life, with its highs and lows, but I do pray that God shields them from the big and rare hurts. The ones that only befall a few.

This is my prayer for my children, and in a way it is my prayer for everyone I love.

My dear precious ones, until you are parents you will not understand how much I treasure you. I delight in your bright eyes and endless energy even on my worst days. Your curly hair and huge smiles have made me thankful to a level I never knew possible. I want to put a hedge around all of us to guarantee that this innocent joyful living will last forever. It is with a heavy heart that I need to let you in on one of life's more painful secrets. There is no hedge that will keep out pain, brokenness and loss.

This brokenness is the reason I can't give you the gift of knowing your grandparents. However, I am deeply dedicated to helping you know who they were so you can carry parts of them with you as you bring your own unique gifts into this world.

I am doing everything in my human capacity to keep you safe from things that try to break you both physically and emotionally. I am coming to the edge of the realization that my love and precautions can't keep the breaks from happening to you. So I am jumping in and rethinking my strategy. A life with no pain isn't really living and so for you I pray just enough pain to appreciate the joy. I know you will have disappointments, failures, and breakups and I will be there for all of those tears. I pray that as much as possible you learn well from the mistakes of myself and others so you can avoid some of life's potholes. I pray that I have the strength to let you fall on occasion, so you can learn how to pick yourself back up. Above all else I pray that God protects you from the thousands of things I worry may befall you. I will do my best to lead you into situations that will give you a knowledge of your powerful and loving God, and that your Dad and I will model trust in him through the way we live our lives. I pray that you will trust in the love of God as you discover it in relationship with him, through his beautiful creation and through interacting with the people whose lives intersect yours.

I will be around as long as I possibly can, and while I am I will do everything in my power to point to a God who will sustain you more than I ever could. Gods love, grace, and providence are the ultimate healers. If you go to him for your truth and healing, you will weather any storm that this "no guarantees" world throws your way.

Amen and Amen.

lawnmower love or lack thereof

2011-07-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was raised in a Dutch family and If you are from a dutch area you will know that the Dutch as notorious for being thrifty, frugal and well... cheap. My Dad couponed before it was cool, and when I say he couponed I mean he had two laundry baskets full of coupon packets, which he cataloged in bundles. He was known for being paid to take toothpaste and hamburger helper off the grocery store's hands. Hardcore. Somehow I dodged the frugal gene and I am actually having to learn to be more thrifty with my money. Along these lines when we needed a new lawnmower this spring instead of heading down to the John Deer dealership we cruised the streets of out hometown looking for a used mower that we could adopt as our very own. And it was through these means that Murray the mower came to live in our garage.

Here is the thing about Murray, although he is a mower he has a strange aversion to mowing our lawn. Murray prefers to come out of the garage, pretend to gear up for a marathon session of clipping the grass, but then he peters out and prefers to sun himself in the front yard. Murray the mower is clearly not tuned in to the purpose he was made for. Maybe I need to start playing some inspirational books on tape about purpose and calling in the garage to get him on the right track.

I have the right to not like Murray, he isn't cute, he always wants a new battery and he does not pull his weight around here. I have expectations of mowing from Murray and when he doesn't meet them I am entitled to be crabby about it. Through his antics however I have learned a very important lesson. Although I don't have to give grace to Murray I do need to have grace for the guy riding Murray and trying to coax him to mow. If that guy has had a busy week and I start nagging him about shaggy grass I have lost perspective, haven't I?

People are not lawnmowers, you have to love them whether or not they are doing what you think they should be doing. This doesn't mean that my husband gets to lay around, do nothing for our family and I have to be okay with it. He would never do that, that's not being faithful to Gods call to show us love, love is a two way street but at the same time its not conditional.

I have to learn to love people more than what they produce. I can't treat my family and friends like I treat Murray. I need to love the person God created them to be above all else. Out of that kind of love they can draw energy to follow God's call on their life. I don't need to chase them down with motivational matnras and advice, I need to support and listen to where they are at. God is more than capable of teaching and correcting them, and life doles out enough tough love that they don't need it from me. I need to be more of a harbor than a harpy.

Loving the product more than the person robs both of you of the relationship you really want to have because no one signs up to be loved like a lawnmower. But you get distracted and selfish so sometimes you end up there. It comes from a mentality where you are more focused on what people are doing for you, rather than who you are being called to be in that relationship.

This kind of thinking can have a broad and drastic impact on your life because you begin to examine your approach to love in all your relationships. With my friends, family and those I minister to it is so easy for me to get side tracked and love the product more than the person. If you are looking for failures and reasons to walk away from people, our sinful nature will usually provide it in spade. But guess what? You provide reasons for them to walk away too.

So maybe you have a few relationships where you are loving people like lawnmowers, only if they start when you say so and mow with turn on a dime precision. We are all guilty of this from time to time, and I hope God reminds you as he did me of how he called us to love each other. He wants us to love us each like he loves us with reckless abandon, extravagantly and selflessly.

Sabbath struggles

2011-07-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

Well I already did the devos post this week, I may as well go double cliche and talk about Sabbath while I'm at it.

Why is Sabbath so hard for us as Americans? When I was a kid the adults around me were often overly legalistic about the should and should-nots of Sundays, and now that I am adult it seems as if there are no rules or regulations at all. I guess we should have stopped somewhere in between 1988 and now. But we didn't.

A few moments ago I was lounging on the couch laying out our Sunday in my head. Shockingly we have no commitments tomorrow other than church, so honoring the Sabbath should be a piece of cake. I am even planning on honoring a long standing family Sunday tradition, that of Sunday dinner. Which is actually lunch, but we call it dinner even though we eat it around 1:00 in the afternoon. It consists of a roasted meat, potatoes, anywhere from 3-7 side dishes, a jello salad and then dessert. Then you lay on the couch and don't move until Monday morning. This enforces Sabbath rest because you've eaten so much you have no other choice. With all this in place I still find myself tempted to schedule in no Sabbath activities for tomorrow like mowing, filing and closet-organization

So I guess the point I have to come to is what does a healthy respect of God's call to Sabbath look like for us? I know that God doesn't want us to be legalistic about it but I also know that it should look different than the other six days of the week. I've been to bible school, I've done some reading, some listening and some general thinking on this subject of Sabbath and this is what I have come up with. You may disagree or feel called to add to this list, and I can honestly say I respect that. However I do encourage you to focus more on what you should do on Sabbath rather than what you shouldn't.

1) Set aside some time to focus on God- Typically this could be church but I fully endorse non traditional means of focusing on God as well. Someday I would love to go to a monastery and meditate (this will likely kill me) or spend my Sunday morning worshiping God by simply breathing in a mountain view. Whatever you do, draw near to him and breath in his word, his teaching. Lift your heart and your hands in worship to his faithfulness over this past week and commit the upcoming week to him as well.

2) Don't produce anything you don't need to- My favorite example of navigating Sabbath in regards to work-load came from Rob Bell at least five years ago during my time at Mars Hill and it has stuck with me. He said "imagine yourself in your backyard, sitting in a chair and enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon and you see a weed growing in your flowerbed. Today, don't pull it, it will be there tomorrow." God must have known our propensity to over commit and overwork ourselves. So he commanded, not requested, us to take a day where we live in the knowledge that he didn't create us to be machines, but to be unique extensions of himself. So I may wash a few of the dishes that we create on Sunday, or pick up the blocks in the playroom, but I don't launder, I don't weed, and I don't organize.

3) It's okay to enjoy who God made you to be- Here is the part where a lot of people get hung up. What is and is not okay to DO on the Sabbath? Where I grew up the cardinal sin was mowing your lawn on Sunday. But what if lawn care was your most passionate and enjoyable hobby? A lot of Jewish families don't cook a thing on the Sabbath because they consider it sinful, but what if cooking for the people you love and enjoying a big meal together fills your heart to overflowing? The long and short of it is that God created us each with unique passions and hobbies and pouring these things out is worshipful to him. So if you love to cook and mow, then go for it. If you like to stroll with family, lace up your Asics and enjoy. Worship God through being you and don't be quick to judge other people's Sabbath activities.

4) Community- There are thousand ways to say it, No man is an island, birds of a feather flock together and all that jazz. However, the long and short of it is that God created us for each other as well as for himself. I heard it said once that we recognize the God in each other and think that is exactly right. So from my corner I think that enjoying time with the people you love is an essential part of Sabbath rest and it's easy to do when you incorporate the first three suggestions.

So: Worship & draw near to God + rest + be you + be with the people you love = Sabbath

In my 29.5 years this is what I have come up with in regards to Sabbath wisdom, take it or leave it.

Why am I always fighting so hard against this day? Oh yeah... I am hopelessly human, so are you. Luckily I have another grace filled Sabbath at my disposal and hey... so do you.

In case you're wondering the number of times I used the word Sabbath in this post is 15.

Throwing out why: another call to devos

2011-07-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make to you that may send you running in the other direction, never to visit this blog again. I love mornings, I am a cheery bathrobe wearing, coffee loving, oatmeal making morning person. There I said it. Also I am weirdly fascinated by morning routines. If it weren't a weird question, I would regularly ask people about their morning routine. Morning routines typically fall into two categories: The lingerers and the leavers. The lingerers (which is where I fall) like a good couple hours to get their day in order, make breakfast, take a shower, do some quiet time and build a solid base to their day. The leavers have calculated down to the second how much time it takes them to do the bare minimum amount of a.m. prep needed to leave the house. Then they take that time and use it to set their alarm for the last possible minute.

I used to have a morning routine that involved getting out the door, but now I have a baby and a preschooler and all bets are off. It's not new that you need to put God into your morning routine. Honestly, for so long I have used my kids and their completely unpredictable a.m. shenanigans as an excuse. I was never faithful with my quiet time before kids but now it's ridiculous. I actually feel like I avoid it intentionally. And often if I am up first I choose to do the dishes, turn on the Today Show, hop on facebook, fold laundry and all manner of other tasks before I meet with God.

Why in the name of bacon and eggs do I struggle to put God before dishes and Matt Lauer in the morning? Why is it so hard to line up my actions with my beliefs? I have thought about this for a while and come up with all manner of possible answers. In the end though I consistently land in the same place. I have found deep wisdom and I will share it with you here and now. Here goes: A lot of times in life "why" doesn't matter. Groundbreaking stuff, isn't it? Why it's hard for me to make time for God isn't near as important as how I am going to do it anyway. I think sometimes we use an unanswered "why" as an excuse to avoid things we are called to do in our lives.

Why is it so hard for me to stop eating fast food and go for a walk? Doesn't matter do it anyway

Why is it so hard for me to turn off the TV and talk to my spouse? It's a button, push "off" and talk about your day.

Why is it so hard for me to stop playing angry birds? You need to leave this question for the archaeologists that study our culture a thousand years from now. No one knows the answer and pondering it is futile. Stop putting your self-worth in golden eggs.

So I am taking the suck it up approach. I moved my bible app to first place on my phone and I left the dishes in the sink. I signed up for a very easy and quick reading plan, because I know that I need to crawl before I run. I did still make the coffee first, for me quiet time is better with coffee and since God made java, I feel he understands. The long and the short of it is, I stopped making excuses and I am doing it anyway.

All conditions don't have to be perfect when you meet with God, and perfect attendance isn't all that important. I almost didn't want to write this because I feel like the world doesn't need another "do your devos" blog post. But what we do need is time in our lives to learn to love to being in the company of our Father. Maybe, if you are like me, you need to fall in love with his presence again. So instead of feeling guilty right now, maybe we can feel a passionate resolve to rediscover the beauty of relationship and connection.

You are a quilt

2011-07-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Up to this point in my life I haven't really enjoyed quilts. I like things a certain way with an easily identifiable color scheme. Quilts are usually straight crazy and made up of every color and pattern imaginable. But what I am learning about quilts is that they are almost always full of love and memories. Kels grandma made us one and it is a typical rainbow explosion type quilt, and I have no idea where to put it since doesn't really "go" in any room. I have taken to using it as a blanket for our kids to play on and it goes perfectly with their multicolored toys and serves as a reminder of how much I need to un-bunch my neurotic panties. I mean seriously.

The thing is that life is like a quilt, it is also like a box of chocolates, but today we are talking about how it's like a quilt. You can't pick one person on earth to pattern your life after and you shouldn't have just one mentor to learn from. Life gives us a variety of people and sources from which we glean knowledge. This is just one of the things that makes us exquisitely unique.

Case in point, I have a fabulous friend named Jenni, and I love to gather advice from her for many different areas of life from kids to cooking to marriage. God has given me a beautiful friend and mentor in her. Jenni and I both arrived home in the last 24 hours from long road trips. As I was nearing home I asked her how she was liking being home, and she said something to the effect of home is where her family is and that she would travel all the time if she could. At first I thought that since I respect Jenni's opinion perhaps I should love travelling more. But you know what? No. I have found that I like to travel sin between stretches of steady routine at home. I need a routine to break, otherwise I get anxious and irritable. I am not trying to be a Jenni clone, God doesn't need another Jenni. So I take our conversations and quilt some of it into my life.

My life philosophy is a quilting of many different sources from friends and family to books and songs and they all make up the texture of my life. I enjoy identifying and appreciating my sources. And, I hope, I am contributing to the quilts of those around me. And so in this way we are all growing side by side in rich and vibrant ways.

So who are your sources for patterns and textures? And who is taking scraps of you into your life? Take a quiet moment to be thankful and intentional for these sources. If it is a person, thank them and if it is a book or song, pass it on. What comes to your mind? I would love to hear about your quilt.

Failing follower

2011-07-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

My husband is an amazing dancer, he took several semesters of ballroom in college and was even asked to compete on the University of Oklahoma's ballroom dancing team. He also can cook, likes to go to musicals and on the more testosteroney side of the coin he can build a fence and change the oil in a car. Yes, I am aware that I hit the husband jackpot.

Last night at my cousin's wedding we hit the dance floor, not super serious waltzing or tango-ing but something light and casual. I must admit that I am the perfect counterpart to my husband, in that I have two left feet which become even clumsier in high heels after a few glasses of wine. But I dance almost constantly regardless. Back to last night, we were dancing and spinning away when my husband caught my eye, pulled me close and said "so, are you ever going to trust me to lead? You insist on spinning yourself, when I promise you you'll have more fun and spin plenty if you would follow my lead."

The object lesson that can be drawn from this brief conversation isn't hidden too deeply and it struck me on a marriage level and on a God level almost instantaneously. Dancing is an amazing image for life because it requires little steps that add up to something extraordinary and unique. It struck me how very little I trust a leader in my life's dance.

Metaphorically I get out on the dance floor, get excited about a song and immediately buy into the belief that if I don't shake my tail feather, twirl and throw my hands up in the air sometimes, good times won't come my way. I have adapted in such a way that following a leader and trusting someone else to navigate my steps has become a revolutionary concept to me. I don't think I am alone in this. I think many of us believe that if we don't lead the dance, it's not going to go anywhere.

I have some big ideas on the horizon of my life, and I hope that you do too. I am feeling called to new tasks, people and places. But Ironically even though I feel a call, I don't trust the caller to lead me through the dance at all. Deep down I am coming to realize that I believe that only I can lead myself to happiness. Which is prideful, dangerous and kinda dumb.

So, are you struggling to follow a leader in some aspect of your life? Or maybe you're like me and you're struggling to think of an aspect of your life where you succeed in following at all. The next step in mastering the dance is to admit it, and to talk to someone about it. Certainly pray about it and keep exposing that truth about yourself so you can stare it in the face and put it in its rightful place, which is probably in the garbage can on the curve.

I am coming to realize in my heart that the leader of the dance can take me to graceful and beautiful places that I can't shimmy my way into alone.

snapshot

2011-07-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

No excuses, I have been shamefully absent from writing in this space. In my defense I have been in every state in the midwest, but still, I am sorry.

As I write I'm sitting in a sanctuary of sorts for me, Panera Bread. I take great delight in working on my laptop while enjoying a bagel and a cup of a smooth hazelnut coffee. This morning I chose a table that I spent countless hours at in college studying, reading and wasting time on facebook. My thoughts drift back to my friends Alyssa and Cassie who were battling college alongside me and were often my amigos at this table in the loft of the Grandville Panera.

As I sit here I am working on my cousin's slideshow for her wedding in two days. I am so thrilled to be here to celebrate with her and her new Husband Ryan and I find such amazing perspective in looking through picture of them from birth to their engagement photo shoot a few months ago. There is something grounding about looking through snapshots that span the life of someone you love. We often do this at the biggies, you know birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings and funerals. Watching the screen as a person changes in pictures from a pink brand new baby to a ethereally beautiful bride never ceases to astound me. And so many of the moments on the screen were just days in the life of that person. Many of the memories we collect in our lives are so random aren't they? You and the people you interact with daily never know when you are forming a memory that will place itself permanently in the memory of your life.

A little ordinary moment from my childhood, just three little girls on a picnic table in matching teddy bear sweatshirts that turned out to be the kind of picture you put in a frame on your piano and in a wedding slideshow.

My good friend Becky says that she measures a photo by whether or not it is wedding slideshow worthy and will often rank my kids pictures by this standard. It is so beautiful that the little moments you and I will have today are brushstrokes on the canvas of each other's life. Doesn't it make you want to breathe in today a little deeper? For me I want to look at life in this way more often, not just at the biggie slideshow worthy events but on a random Wednesday morning. To look at my marriage and the lives of my children with awe and respect. What we are building with our hours and days is monumental and these lives we lead make a deeper impact on the world than we will ever now.

I start today with awe and more than anything a deep gratitude and respect that I have been given the gift of being a wife, a mother, a sister, a niece and a friend.

Geared to Veer.

2011-06-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

If I had to write something short and poignant that effectively explained the connection between the mind, body and spirit I would give up before I began. I am still years away from understanding that let alone explaining it simply. However my life has taught me that these three are tightly woven together in each individual and it is impossible for one to fail without effecting the other two. And on the opposite I think success in one area can lead to success in the other two areas. Lets say you are really digging in spiritually, then I think the Holy Spirit may get after you about your physical health. Or if you study the intricacies of the human body, how could you not wonder about a creator? And finally many extremely intelligent atheists have found God just by voraciously digging for truth, God is at the bottom of any quest for truth if you dig long enough. These three areas cannot be ignored as you go through life and proper care of these three areas leads to successful living.

We all know that we should eat fruits and veggies, get adequate cardio and give a portion of our day to relating to God. We should, but so often we don't, and then when we don't do what we know that we should, we find ourselves in guilt-land. And no one enjoys a visit to guilt-land, it's the suckiest vacation destination of the century. So for me the obvious question is how do I transition from should to do in these three areas? I already know that I will be happier, wiser and healthier if I do. Every aspect of my life will benefit from this and so will everyone around me, then why is it so freaking hard to do what we should?

As for why it's so hard, the answer is simply that we are bent away from success and happiness by a flawed and sinful human nature. You know when you get a shopping cart at the grocery store that insists on veering left and running into every end cap display? Well that's you. You are that cart, completely geared to veer. One alignment will not fix this issue, you need daily tune ups otherwise you will knock over displays of Corn Pops and Tuna Helper like they are target practice.

So that's why it is hard, so now how do you do it? Well it's a choice just like everything else, but to set yourself up for success I have found three things helpful. Knowledge, community, and prayer. If you want to be a healthier, wiser person who is closely connected to God and his truth you have to make yourself aware of how to be successful and what to avoid. This means reading, and googling and discovering some new truth. The second part is community, talk to some people who seem to be embodying authentic (key word) success in these areas and ask them what they do. It is silly to try to reinvent the wheel, God made us to help each other so swallow your pride and talk to someone who is farther along the journey than you. And thirdly is prayer, you have got to continuously talk to God and ask him to give you strength and resolve. Remember you are geared to veer so be faithful and if you fall keep getting up.

And a bonus lesson. I was once talking with a dear lady in a recovery ministry who gave me one of the best advice I have ever heard. "Don't should on yourself." Because you can't gain anything from dwelling on should. You can only make new choices now.

Faithfulness Hurts

2011-06-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

I read something earlier this week on twitter that said if you consistently write, you are a writer. If you put something out there, you are an author. I immediately rejected that as ridiculous because even though I have now sold one article and write on a pretty regular basis, considering myself an author makes me feel like a little kid claiming to be an astronaut or a super hero. We think they are cute running around in their cape but we don't take that statement very seriously. The percent of kids who grow up to be astronauts is pretty small. So is the percent of first time writers who get books published. So I feel like a kid in a cape when I tell someone I am writing a book proposal. Behind the encouragement I am sure there is a cynical thought that sounds something like, "Sure you are honey, that's great." Maybe there isn't, but that's how I feel.

I can honestly say that being faithful to Gods call to write through grief and healing is one of the hardest tasks I have set out to accomplish. It's painful and it drags up every self-conscious skeleton in my closet all the back to grade school. It's the best/worst thing that I have done, and God simply will not let me drop it and I am still completely unsure if it will amount to anything.

But just because writing is more public than say, becoming an RN or getting your Masters, or going for a promotion etc, doesn't mean it's any scarier. Feeling that the place God is calling you to is so far away it may as well be the moon is a pretty common feeling. Maybe you're quiet and being called to lead. Maybe you're shy and being called to mentor. This list is as long as there are people on this earth. God always call us out to something that feels uncomfortable to us so although I am the only person I know who is working on a non-fiction book proposal, I am by no means the only one who feels called to more than they are capable of.

And just by writing this, I feel so much better.

life... with sprinkles.

2011-06-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt like the farther you go on the journey of your life, the more you have to learn? This feeling is very real to me right now. I have had a very tough year, and that's putting it mildly. I have dealt with some heart breaking and extremely difficult circumstances and I've continued to solider through them. For me, this is a point of pride, because I feel as though it speaks to my strength and my resolve, and in a way it does. However lately I have come to realize that with all this fighting and forward motion I have picked up some unhealthy thought patterns and coping mechanisms.

I have come to realize that I do life in battle mode with armor on all the time. I believe that I have to fight for every good thing, for every moment of peace and happiness. Like a cunning secret agent I trust no one and nothing. Each moment that ticks by on the clock is one that could bring me another blow and I need to be prepared. Now, I am sure you are already aware that this is flawed thinking. If I keep this up it will rob my life of the fullness God wants for me. You see every solider has to come home from the front to rest and the secret agents in the movies take a beachy holiday in between assignments. So I guess I need to learn to trust that I will be safe if I take the armor off for a while.

I became even more painfully aware of my problem this afternoon. I had to go in for some medical testing which required sedation. I was totally out of it and I hardly remember anything about today before 1:30 pm. At one point I woke up to the sound of my son crying, I was asleep in bed recovering as the drugs wore off and after what seemed like 30 minutes of crying I jumped out of bed to investigate. My husband had him in his car seat and he was rocking the seat with his foot. I grabbed my son and marched away with him confident that only I could discover and rectify the source of his tears. Now I hardly remember any of this but from what they tell me I yelled for more than five minutes about how no one could take care of things but me and I would never be able to rest because of it. Eventually they had to talk me down and coax me into handing the baby over and going back to bed for a few hours. So today I learned that drugged up me is even more wary and guarded than regular me. I had apologies to make when I finally came to my senses again. So I struggle with a big lack of trust and this is not the diagnostic end I was expecting from the medical testing I went in for.

I have also become aware of this distrusting nature in every day life. I regularly check to see if my children are breathing while they sleep because I live in fear that they will be taken from me. When my husband and I talk about our future I hear a small cynical voice inside me that whispers, "You're never going to be THAT happy." When I think about letting God lead my future, my thoughts go something like this: "Of course we want to do that in God's timing and in his will, but he's not going to give me what will truly make me happy, so I better start doing some research to make it happen." I say that I trust God, but it's really just lip service. In my heart I believe that if I want it to be good, I have to do it myself.

I know that my cynical, calloused and mistrusting self can't stick around. I don't want her to. I need to go on a journey of unlearning these life-sucking beliefs I have picked up. I know the the truth I need to integrate, but moving it from my head to my heart seems like a painfully long journey indeed. I don't have the road map all lined out and I can't google how to get there. I just have the knowledge that I need to move in that direction.

So I have this little story that helps me with hope, that reminds me of a better way. Any time we can, my family and I go get frozen yogurt, we love the fro-yo. It's fairly healthy, amazingly delicious and the control freak that I am loves that I can do it myself. I was helping my two year old daughter get her fro-yo out of the machine and then I took it away to pay for it and add to it her absolute favorite thing, Sprinkles. She loves sprinkles more than anything else on the planet, so much so that we centered her birthday party around them. Well when I took her bowl away she fought me and burst into tears and had a meltdown on the floor. Her two year old brain doesn't trust that I am going to go and pay for the fro-yo and bring it back, because I know that it will be so much better if it has sprinkles and isn't stolen. Eventually she calmed down when I brought her back her paid-for vanilla fro-yo, covered in sprinkles.

As I watched her eat it one of Jesus teachings came to me, and it's found in Luke 11

11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."

So if I promise my daughter fro-yo, am I going to show it to her and then not let her eat any? Of course not, I'm going to give her the fro-yo with a mountain of sprinkles on top, because I love her THAT much. I love her to the moon and back, and even on the days when she pushes all my buttons and the ones that screw up the dishwasher as well, I still can't wait for her to get up the next morning so we can do it all over again. I am flawed, hopelessly flawed and I still yearn to see my little girl enjoy all this life has to offer. But I struggle to believe that God wants the same for me and that is an ouch realization for me. Writing all this doesn't fix my issue, it's just a diagnosis. I have to pray that God will help me on the road to recovery. He will, I know, but I have to take off the armor and be vulnerable.

Gets em every time

2011-06-20T05:54:00.001-07:00

A short post about squirrels

In my family we have a pretty funny anecdote about squirrels crossing the road. It basically goes like this: "Indecision, it gets em every time." My Aunt Betsy brought it back to the front of my mind last week. If you have ever seen a squirrel crossing the road you know that they are skittish, they approach the road and take a few steps back, you never really know if they're going for it or if they're going to chicken out. As the oncoming driver you want to cut them a break but you don't know what they're up to, are they going for it or aren't they? Hence the phrase: "Indecision, gets em every time."

I have really taken some personal wisdom from this idea lately. I think so many of us, myself included, squirrel around the side of the road, indecisive as to where we are going. We can't commit to the path that we know in our hearts we want to take and the enemy does a great job at keeping us distracted by what is going on around us. And if we are distracted running circles we aren't paying attention to the oncoming traffic and bam! life hits us like the bald tires of a Chevy Cavalier.

So I suppose what I take from this lesson is this. If there is a road that you need to cross, decide to cross it, educate yourself about the best way to the other side and then set your eyes on the opposite curb like your life depends on it. Life gives us a lot of roads to cross. There may be a relationship that needs fixing, a discipline you need to pick up, or heck I think each day is a road that needs crossing.

So it's a Monday morning, start the day and week off right by figuring out what the other side of your road is, figuring out how to reach the other curb and then run your little squirrely paws like there is no tomorrow. Because you don't want to be the squirrel for whom there isn't a tomorrow, metaphorically speaking that is.

Oh yeah, God

2011-06-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last time I had what I would call a normal week. I am beginning to think that normals weeks are the new unicorn. They don't exist but you still sort of hope for one. The last not normal week I had in Oklahoma was spent getting ready for our two week trip up North for the wedding. I was busy. The kind of busy where you just have to start cutting things off your list and "Want to dos" become expendable.

I was quite seriously thinking of scheduling a nervous breakdown sometime in August because breaking down any time before then was simply not an option. Too many people depended on me and there was clearly no way that the world would continue functioning should I cease to be ridiculously productive and efficient. My tasks were piling up and my life felt like a never ending mountain that I could not climb.

Then I had an amazingly profound and simple thought.

"Oh yeah, God."

I have stressed through an entire week in desperation over my life and not once did I involve God in my stress. Not even once did I go to him in prayer or ask him to re-shift my perspective. I acted like the details of my life were paramount and capable of knocking the world out of orbit, I pretended the only one who would make everything alright was me. I didn't trust God with my stuff and not until I had reached red-light nuclear levels of stress did I resort to asking for his strength and guidance. And if I am perfectly honest this is a trend for me. If life is great, then I feel like I have it all in control and I simply thank God for my daily bread, or daily sandwich. When life is stressful I struggle to juggle every ball perfectly on my own and not until I have exhausted every mental and emotional resource do I call in the big guns, God, to step in and help me out.

God shouldn't be the secret weapon I keep in a silver, foam padded case and take out at the last resort moment. He should be the guidebook by which I live. And the worst part is that I know better, but I keep going back to it again and again. I loathe asking for help in almost every situation. For example I want to get all the groceries and both kids into the house in one load, every time. Think about that. Two kids 2 and under, a weeks worth of food for a family of 4 and 2 gallons of milk, in one trip. Stupid. If you ever catch me with casts on each wrist you will have no reason to question why. I was too stubborn to ask for help.

Stubbornness. It gets me every. time.

So when you recognize an unhealthy habit what should you do about it? I think step one is to identify it and then I would also go about treating it like a stalker. Expect it to creep into your life often when you least expect it. Just when you thought you had all the right restraining orders in place there it is, peeking out from your pantry or back seat. Be aware of the unhealthy patterns you gravitate for. Put their picture up (so to speak) so that when you see them you can deal with for what they are. Deadly really.

So you identify them and then you start the long process of researching and learning how to replace unhealthy patterns with healthy patterns. Confess your crap to someone, always confess to someone who can help you walk a new path. Get accountability and wisdom and knowledge and just keep replacing the bad with good. One of my favorite metaphors for this is to re-wallpaper the lies with truth. For example me? I don't trust people, and I don't trust God very well at times. I want to take care of everything in my life on my own and at an unattainable level. I need to learn to trust God, to daily admit that I can't be the wife Kel needs or the Mom Caedmon or Noelle needs without his love flowing through me and his wisdom replacing the faulty human logic I am so fond of ingesting.

I can't do it alone, I can't do it perfect and neither can you. You have to daily realize that you need help only God can provide. Broken wrists are just stupid, either take 3 trips or ask for help. And your unhealthy pattern may be totally different than mine but I hope that it is still being identified in your mind. Mental and physical health are really optimal life choices, but they don't come easy. We can do it, you and me and we should. God has given us these beautiful hours to spend, lets spend them in healthy places.

Seasons

2011-06-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my little brother Brian's wedding and I was honored to stand in the wedding party as he and his sweet, beautiful new wife Lisa committed their lives to God and each other. It was an all day affair from getting my makeup done at 7:45 to the reception which went late into the night. The brides family throws one heck of a party and you could tell from the moment you walked in how much thought and love was put in to celebrating Brian and Lisa. When dinner ended, they brought out a color coordinated candy bar and as the beat went on, they kept the guests going with a pizza buffet. There was indulgence around every corner, and I as I sit here the morning after my nearly 30 year old body is reminding me of just how much I indulged. I don't think I left a mint chocolate truffle or a piece of red velvet cake uneaten in that ballroom. It was a beautiful celebration of life and love that I will never forget.

I am so often reminded of the cyclical nature of life. The seasons constantly change, the holidays circle around in their set pattern and around every corner it seems that something ends and something new begins. In the last year our family has experienced 2 funerals, 1 birth, and a wedding. I wonder if there is a still an emotion in existence that we haven't felt deeply this year. We have cried together during tragedy and loss, but we have also shared the joy of new life and new beginnings. Through all of those moments together runs a strong reminder of the faithfulness of the God we serve side by side.

The thing about life's cycles is that you never enter the next cycle of your life unchanged by the cycle you were just in. Each season of our lives recolors the way we see the world and it is beautiful and natural to change and grow as you experience life. Both the painful seasons and the times of joy and celebration. I think it is essential to remember that you have to be intentional about drinking deeply the season you are in. If you are going through a dark valley, you have to be there for a while to emerge healed and changed from that experience. In the same way when you are in a time of celebration you have to be intentional about entering in to that season as well. Even if your painful times and joyful times seem to be shockingly close together, celebrate as best you can. Don't let the pain steal your joy and don't be so afraid of the pain that you pretend it isn't there. Be where you are in this life as much as you possibly can. It's the only time you really have on your hands.

Don't misunderstand me, there were moments yesterday that were very difficult to swallow. There was a candle in the back of the church at the ceremony that represented our parents, neither of whom were there to light the unity candle for our family. There were moments where I felt their absence like a huge gaping hole in my chest. However the God we serve, the God they are now with, commands us to live in the cycles of life. Mourn and party, work and rest. My family and I deeply missed my parents yesterday, but there is still so much to celebrate. We have a new sister, and her family has a new brother and son. God is going work beautifully through this new union, and we are going to bear witness to, and support these two.

And so recently, we have gathered at the church to mourn, but yesterday we gathered together to overflow with thankfulness and joy. We have stood together in the tattered moments of grief but yesterday was a day of dancing shoes and wine and remembering that life is made up of all these moments in their seemingly strange patterns. We have been given beautiful and painful life, how you choose to live it is on you.

Running on...

2011-06-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

Note: I always write in the morning but God wanted me to write at 11:00. And last night my two kiddos had me up all night, so, excuse typos and runaway trains of thought until I have a chance to edit more thoroughly.

As much as we all complain about being too busy, all too often if we are honest we're glad we keep our lives moving at a brisk 300 mph pace. Lately I have become aware that I have been living at a unsustainable, breakneck pace, I realized this because I actually sat down to watch TV one evening, I sat down to watch Glee and ALL I did was watch Glee on the couch. I didn't make anything, organize a pile of papers or try to catch up on email. I just watched a tv show. Would you believe that was the first time I had done that in months?

I have been running, and running and then for a change of pace, I ran. Have you ever heard the phrase: "Wherever you go, there you are?" It basically means that you can pack up and move, get a new haircut, a new relationship, a new job, a new car, a new whatever, but it will still be the same you in all those new things. You don't change unless you open up and work toward change. God can move so much more effectively in our lives if we slow down and let him show us what is broken. So often we know what's wrong but we thing if we run maybe we can avoid it for a while longer. If we slow down, we are still the same person we were when we were running. The broken bits never left just because we dyed them blond or outright ignored them.

I realized just how hard I had been running tonight when I went to make a prayer list in the notes app on my iPhone. I scrolled down and realized that I already had an old one I could just update. So I pulled it up and realized that two of my top prayer priorities from last July both died from exactly the thing I had been praying against. Ow, I mean really very Ow. I didn't want to deal with that, I just wanted to jot down some names, say a few prayers and move on to the next thing. I didn't want to think about how badly those dashed hopes hurt me on a daily basis.

So I guess I am entering phase one of project "slow down" I am acknowledging that there is something I've been avoiding that needs my attention, and that is about all I know right now. Even animals stop to lick their wounds, what are we so afraid will happen if we slow down and take time to heal what is broken? When it comes to this topic I have so many more questions than answers. But I do know this much, we all, everyone, have a broken bit that could use some cleaning healing wound licking time. (How great is this word picture?!) God wants to talk about it with you, and there is a good chance that some of your friends are game to talk about it as well.

So maybe we can all stop running together, take a look around and see just where we really are, and acknowledge that God has been there holding out hands full of healing from the very beginning. We were just avoiding him like cooties on a playground because it's not cool to slow down and deal with your junk. The it thing to do is to keep running from it, even and sometimes especially in church land. Forget looking cool, and always appearing all together. Real life is born in the moments when you admit you don't have it all together and let God move in and show you how beautiful a life of reliance upon him can be.

Gotta have faith

2011-06-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Dawn posted this quote on twitter earlier this week from Lecrae: "lack of prayer says you bought into the lie that life is manageable and you've got everything under control." This has been stuck in my head all week because it absolutely sums up the way I have been handing life lately. Earlier in my life I didn't pray because it was easier to blame my problems on other people or God. Now instead of blaming I put it all on my plate and insist on handling it myself. Can you help me? No, thanks I got it. I could be laying on the floor bleeding from every limb and if you texted me and asked me if I was okay, I'd nose text you that I was fine, you know before I passed out from blood loss.

I am not really ready to write about all the deep muddy details of my faith issues. So instead I am taking it in a different direction.

Life has been rough lately, I am not a whiner, but I have been through a bunch lately. I have been either sick or pregnant or both for over a year. I have gone through deep and personal loss. And it all seems to keep building, problem upon problem, doctor visit after doctor visit. And today I reached a threshold of sorts. I got put on a new prescription today which laid me out with dizziness and tingling and I have no fewer than 67 things on my to-do list to prepare for our impending 2 week trip up North for my brother's wedding. I managed to muscle through it somehow and kept trying to pack, clean, and play with my kids. After lunch I sat down to pay bills and do a trip budget so we would stay on track while traveling. As I reached for an envelope I knocked my water glass all over all my bills and checks, smearing ink and dousing my pants with icy water. I lost it, dropped some choice words, and ran into the bedroom to change clothes and rant. In the midst of screaming and finding a new pair of pants that lecrae quote popped into my head, which caused me to just scream, "ARGHHH I gotta have faith! And so help me Kel if you play that annoying 80s song I will straight UP murder you."

I took three deep breaths and walked into the kitchen for a bottled water, vowing to drink out of only things with lids for the rest of the day.

And then this happened.

Let that sink in. Aren't my boys crazy awesome?

And I was thankful to be reminded of so many things, the most obvious of which is how much I love my husband, and how thankful I am that even though I am falling apart at the seams and he has every right to be irritated by it, he knows me and tries to make me laugh. I like to believe that in the worst moments of our lives God uses the people around us to speak his truth. What is he trying to say to me today? I'm not completely sure but I think it looks something like "Hey I love you, and trust me, in the midst of soggy pants and taking every antibiotic known to man, life is still so beautiful. Life is belly laughing at a chubby baby dancing to cheesy songs beautiful."

And maybe "Hold on, you're halfway there, Hold on, you're living on a prayer."

Yes, yes I did ^

Think Memorial Day, think Buffalo

2011-05-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

It's Memorial Day and flags and graveside flowers abound. This is moving me in a non traditional way. Today I want to center my holiday around resourcefulness. So if this day finds you grieving loss, I mourn with you. I am completely aware that loss can take many forms, whether it is a loss through death, loss of a job, loss of a relationship, lost focus, lost ground or lost traction in your life. We all lose in life, and it wounds us. So help me digest the idea of being resourceful with our losses, you can't lose anything more by trying.

Whenever someone uses the world "resourceful" my mind immediately feeds me an image of a buffalo, in a field. And yes this went on before I moved to Oklahoma. I am pretty sure I imagine buffalo because when I was younger, all my grade school teachers got together once a year to see how often they could talk about buffalo. And more specifically how the Native Americans hunted buffalo, and used every part of it, not wasting a thing, not even a hoof. I am pretty sure I heard the Native Americans / buffalo lesson no less than 37 times before 6th grade. So when I think of the word resourceful I think of buffalo, every time. Well done grade school teachers, well done.

Ahh the majestic buffalo, let us drink in his majesty....

In spite of the repetitious nature of the buffalo lesson it has always fascinated me and I love the concept of not wasting anything. I like to recycle and I really want a compost tumbler. It may look like extra work to you but it jives with the very nature of who God is changing me into, I don't want to waste anything. Not a yogurt tub, not a moment with a friend, not a chance to grow, nothing.

This is a very God inspired movement I assure you. If you need proof read with me in John 9. I love John 9, because it's all about resourcefulness (among a ton of other things). Do you need me to link you to it and make your holiday a little more relaxing? Well fine, click here and type in John 9. I recommend you try either the message or the NIV versions, they are both delicious.

So there you have it, in summary Jesus and his disciples encounter a blind man, who has been blind his whole life. And in keeping with the thoughts of their day the disciples want to know why he is blind, they need an answer for why God would cause this man to be born this way (now you can sing lady gaga all day long, you're welcome) Anyway, then Jesus redirects completely and tells them to quit focusing on "why" and instead focus on "what." What can God do through this? How can God be glorified? And then he tells them, hey as long as you have daylight, (ie: if you are alive) ask this question: What can you do today that lines up with God's work? You have pain? Glorify.

The man at the gate had a painful life, his days consisted of begging for the cash he needed to meet the most basic of needs. He didn't just lose his sight, he never had it to begin with. If you follow human logic he had every right be pissed at God, and demand why he didn't get his fair share of the five senses. However, Jesus isn't interested in explaining why, he skips that path completely and heads straight in to the concept of glorifying God in spite of it.

I like to use the first few books of Genesis as a foundation for the rest of the bible. God didn't create us with pain, disease or death, but because sin entered the world we have to live in a world where those things are our reality. God didn't choose the pain for us, we sinned and it all fell apart. After that we had to learn to follow God in new parameters. To have a relationship with him sight unseen and to live lives that will end in bodies that will fail. So if you are like me you do not believe that God is on a throne somewhere up there sending death and pain at us like lightening bolts. He's not in heaving yelling: "Cancer for you! And depression to you! And a best friend in a car accident to you!" I think that when people say "This was a part of his plan for you" at funerals or in hospital rooms it creates that version of God, and really confuses people.

To sum this idea up, God didn't send you this. Whatever your "this" is, it's part of our broken world. Your pain is not a punishment, you didn't directly cause your "this." But you are responsible for how you handle it, and you are called to glorify God in spite of it.

So if today finds you heavy with the loss of something, take heart and take a deep breath. Slowly start to shift the way you think about your loss. Start to imagine the beautiful things that can come out of it, and grow to trust God again. It would be hard to serve lightening bolt, cancer sending God. The good news is that you don't have to. The bible teaches us that God hurts when we hurt, painful loss wasn't part of his plan A for his children. However we live in plan B world, were hurt happens, and sometimes it happens, and happens, and happens.

So allow your wounds to heal in light of how much he loves you. Talk to someone who has been there and chooses life in spite of pain. Take their hand and let them help you along. After you have done that a bit, take a look around and I can almost guarantee you will find someone else hurting in the same way you were. Grab their hand and help them start to move forward. Let us be resourceful together with our hurts and losses as we remain faithful in God's work of redeeming what is broken.

Go team buffalo.

Can't relate

2011-05-22T04:15:00.000-07:00

For the last 4 days we have been celebrating my newly two year-old daughter. Even now our kitchen is brightened by birthday decorations, and I think I am going to let the celebrating continue, it's biblical, it's refreshing and our family loves to party. Also I got most of the decorations up yesterday and I like them, I'm not ready to part with my hard work.

Changing topics: This morning I have been doing some serious pondering and puzzling and I am going to give you the gift of my honesty and confession. Today neither of our kids woke up at all until 5:30 AM, this is new for us these past few weeks as they seem to enjoy playing musical needs all night along. So I stayed up after I fed my little guy and started in on some bible time. And I am ashamed to admit I actually had this thought: "If I get my God time out of the way now I can look at magazines and read my book over coffee before everyone else gets up." So yeah, apparently I view time with God, the God of the universe and beyond, as something to get out of the way so I can flip through a magazine. How ridiculous and all-wrong of me.

I believe in God, but I don't really grasp the idea of relating with Jesus in this whole relationship with Jesus thing.

This shameful thought led me to revisit some of the things I picked up at Bible College, one of the most central of which was the concept of world-view. If you break down the word world-view it defines itself. How do you view the world? What beliefs or experiences are at work governing the way you process information and make decisions. For example, if you believe you are bulletproof and immortal, you would regularly eat the BK quad-stacker or the KFC double-down (so much meat!). If you believe garden spiders are life-threatening you would jump on a chair and scream should one show up in your kitchen. On a more serious note, if you believe that God is good and his love permeates your life you would feel safe in all circumstances and one of your life's goals would be to share this news and love in the way you live.

So here is how I am connecting world-view with my lack of passion for doing my quiet time with God. I believe in the bible, and what it teaches heavily impacts how I live my life and respond to the situations and issues that I am faced with. I believe this truth like I believe in gravity. The truth of God is deep within the way my mind processes life, and this is no easy task and it is to be celebrated. I believe that I will spend my life trying to weave this truth into the deepest levels of my thinking and believing. I want to take my past experiences and future plans and continuously look at them in the light of the truth of God. I want to unlearn dark and wrong beliefs and replace them with this truth. However, here is the kicker: I am almost all world-view when it comes to God and not very heavy on the relationship side of things. I believe the truth, and I strive to live it, but the concept of relating to God is a struggle. I am not good at carving out time to sit with him, truth to be told I am not good at carving out time to sit, period.

There are old hymns and new songs that speak to knowing him, hearing him, walking with him and talking with him. I want more of this in addition to my deep level, life-governing world-view. I know how to think about God, but relating with him in actual space and time now, it's a struggle. Is relating to a God you can't have an actual conversation with supposed to be easy? On the other hand I believe that I relate to him in others as we are all carrying this truth and love that we share, but I am talking about actual quiet time, moment by moment relationship with God.

Am I looking at this all wrong? Does anyone else feel like they are either missing it? I need fresh eyes and a new perspective, I need a deepened desire to be still and to listen for his voice. I need to clear a wide amount of room for God in my daily life, in my TIME and not just my thought processes. Has anyone else been where I am today who isn't here now and is willing to help me along? Or, are you where I am and we can journey this together?

Wide View

2011-05-18T18:15:00.001-07:00

For the last week I have been enjoying and exploring all that is the Salt Lake City area of Utah. I went to visit my good friend Jenni and her family. I had a fabulous trip and Utah offers everything I need in a city. Noelle expended her boundless energy at the aquarium, the children's museum, the farm at Thanksgiving Point and build a bear workshop. As for me, I bought $13 of pretentious cheese at the very foodie friendly Pirate O's and got to try a Crown Burger. This is a delicious meaty burger topped with a heap of extra-meaty pastrami, and I declare it to be delicious. Also the entire city is surrounded by majestic snow capped mountains, it's like a city that God made just for me. There was only one, make that two, small issues with my time in Salt Lake City. The day before I left I got food poisoning, and while I was there I developed two separate infections complete with fevers and more antibiotics. I have been sick more this year than any other year in my life, and it's only May. I have had to swim hard to stay above the water, and fight even harder to keep a somewhat positive attitude.

Last week I was playing with Noelle in Utah and starting to jump into the cycle of self pity. But as I stared at the mountains a single phrase popped into my head, "keep a wide view." In this moment I felt close to God, mostly because in my head the mountains are closer to God than just any ol spot, but the concept of a wide view felt so spiritual and refreshing to me. Yeah, I have been sick a ridiculous amount this year, and yeah I am still coming out of some really deep personal loss, but you know what? I choose a wide view. Twenty years from now this year will just be a portion of my life, a season, a small part of the awesome picture God is painting with my time on this earth. In the middle of the pain and the doctor's visits and the frustration, if I can remember to keep a wide view, big picture attitude, I will survive and thrive in the worst circumstances. Someday my life will be a story to be told by those that remember it, and this will be a chapter in a book that I hope impacts this world in a very unique way.

I am still dealing with the loss of my Mom and I am beyond tired of fighting infections, but this will pass and I will feel healthy and strong again, I can feel it. Life holds too much beauty to focus on momentary issues.

I choose the wide view.

Mothers Day and Hope

2011-05-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

So, this past Sunday was Mother's day, and for me it overflowed with an immense range of emotions. It seemed to all center around the concept of hope, both new hope with its endless possibility and crushed hope with its painful finality. For starters, it was my first Mother's day as a mom of two, and we were having Caedmon dedicated at church that morning surrounded by friends and family. I have so much hope for our kids, I want them to feel free and safe and loved. It was my first Mother's day without my Mom, she lost her battle with depression last October, and all the hopes and prayers I had for her healing and freedom went with her. And to add weight to my already heavy heart, one of my students from UCM, Stacy, had died of a drug overdose just the day before. I have so much hope for all of our students and to lose one to drugs was a kick in the gut. I had special hope for Stacy, and I told her this often.

And so there I was Mother's day morning with my tummy full of a tasty French Toast breakfast made by Kel, on my way to church. As we made our way to the front with all the other parents I started to lose it. There I was holding my son, a little guy with a life full of hope, a little guy my Mom never got to meet because all the hopes I had for her couldn't save her from depression. And on my heart was a student who I loved, and encouraged, and prayed for, gone in an instant from a bad choice on a Friday night. So I was holding hope in my arms while my heart was heavy from hope that didn't pan out. I am fairly certain I was the only Mom up there weeping, just trying to process the dichotomy of this world we live in where the beauty of dedicating my sweet son and the tragedy of sudden death coexist in my heart.

Some days are heavy with bitter pain and some days are as light as meringue or whipped cream, and just as sweet. I think the ones that really get me are the bittersweet ones, trying to feel immense joy and sadness at the same time. It seems like they don't belong together, like they should be corralled apart from each other, and experienced separately. But life is messy, isn't it?

The more I do life on this planet the more I come to realize that it's not black and white and it is certainly messy. There are at least a million less absolutes than there were when I was in college. When I was sure I had it mostly figured out, as long as it didn't involve managing money or going to bed before midnight I was an expert. But now? I don't have it even close to all figured out, and I am at peace with that. I have completely stopped trying to figure out why things happen. I choose to focus on what, as in "now what?" I choose to live in spite of things and I choose to live in response to things. And I refuse to give up hope, even when it's budding out of the ashes of something lost.

So Happy Mother's Day, hold on to hope and don't forget to water the flowers you inevitably received. I always get hanging baskets, because that's the way it should be, you just can't celebrate a mom with out suspended flowers.

Saltine Diet

2011-05-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have been hungry for a long time. I've been starving really, like the kind of hungry where you are ready to tuck in to a holiday feast, with pie and appetizers. This hunger hasn't been for food, although I do love food don't get me wrong.

I've been hungry to connect with people, with friends, with family. I want a good long meal filled with good food, laughter, and that comfortable feeling you have when you can be totally safe with someone. Where you're not fearing judgment because you know you are safe, loved, and known. However most of my communication these days comes from texts, tweets, and e-messages in various forms. These feel like saltines for my hungry soul. When you are so hungry you are about to eat your own arm and someone hands you one saltine it's a joke! You are thankful for a little something to chew on, but you need a whole lot more than this one little saltine. It won't last.

Does anyone else feel like our techy forms of connection aren't cutting it? Does anyone else long to have a good deep belly laugh instead of a twitter-inspired chuckle? Does anyone else want to eat pot roast together rather than take out alone over their iPhone? Is it just me or does anyone else feel like we are missing out on the connection God really had for us because face to face is so much more than pictures on a screen. The mountain view of the actual mountains can not be captured in a screen shot.

This whole year God has been calling me to something deeper. To something more satisfying. So I am going to throw some more dinner parties and try to get some more play dates. I am going to open up my home to friends in the hopes that they want to connect as much as I do.

This isn't whining, or a guilt trip to you the reader. It's a manifesto, a mini or maxi revolution. I don't want to leave this earth not knowing those I love as fully as I can. I want to be known, to open up my closed off heart and be vulnerable. I want more connection with real friends and less casual contact with acquaintances.

So many poets have written about drinking deeply of this life. I am certain I am not alone in this world or in this time. Lonely is a human condition, we aren't in the garden with our Lord anymore, there is this rift which isn't healed yet. He is the only one who knows us fully and we aren't in face to face relationship with him right now. However he lives in each of us, so lets connect with each other and get as close as we can.

Go team.

Butterfly Circus

2011-04-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

http://thebutterflycircus.com/short-film/

My husband made me sit down and watch this tonight and even though I considered myself too busy to be bothered with it I am glad I gave in. If you have a few minutes or so check out this short film. I am pretty sure that the people behind it weren't going for a biblical message necessarily but I am a firm believer that all truth is God's truth and the redemption and restoration shown in the characters of this short film line up exactly with what God does in our lives.

I am reminded of this story from the life of Jesus. Check out John 9 and you will read about a man who is born blind. Back in Jesus day if a baby was born with defects it was assumed that the parents had sinned and caused it. The teachers of Jesus day asked him who had sinned and was to blame for this man's blindness. Jesus skirts right around that question, which I love, because when it comes to the pain in life, why is irrelevant. It changes nothing. It's all about how our pain and struggle can glorify God, bring wisdom and peace to others and make us stronger so we can strengthen each other.

Good stuff right there.

Booger Grace

2011-04-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

Yes booger grace, this post has been a long time coming and I've been turning the phrase and concept of booger grace over in my head for at least a month.

You will understand what I am talking about soon enough. Allow me to paint you a picture from my everyday life. I am doing something around the house while Noelle plays in the other room, in this picture she is playing with an actual toy and not the computer, the toilet, or my hairbrush. So anyway, she stops what she is doing and runs up to me, throwing her little arms around my legs until I bend down and give her a big hug. Then she utters the words that every mom loves to hear, "I love you mommy." Wow, we live for these little moments right? What in the world could spoil it? You guessed it, I spot a booger poking out of her nose. In this moment I have two choices, ignore the booger and just soak in the toddler love that it being so freely given. Or end the happy moment immediately by attempting to remove the booger as Noelle protests and runs away screaming "no!"

Sadly to say folks I go for the booger every time and spoil the beauty of the moment. I have to go after the one little green crusty thing that is wrong. It's almost compulsive. Here is another example, we have a beautiful pond behind our house, it's lovely in the morning and evening when the sun makes it dance. However right on the other side of our back yard is a squeaky rusty oil rig, and I can't enjoy the pond when the sunsets because I see the oil rig. I can't have booger grace in that moment either.

The truth of the matter is that if you look hard enough most every moment has a booger or two. Maybe someone gave you a fabulous gift, just not in the color that matches your living room color scheme. Or your husband cleans your kitchen, but there is still a bit of food on the floor and exploded soup crust in the microwave. If you can't learn to have booger grace you will miss so much beauty in your life because you focus on the little negative instead of the positive. A lack of booger grace can stop you from have a close intimate marriage, make your kids feel inadequate and leave your lacking in close friendships.

Because when you fail to give grace to people and keep picking at every little thing, eventually they all run away screaming no. Trust me. No one likes the booger patrol.

So think about it, how can you have more grace for the tiny sticky insignificant boogers in your daily life?

Our world of inbetween

2011-04-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

I think I had a mini epiphany this morning, is there such a thing? I am huge fan of the show Scrubs, which is only now shown in syndication but nevertheless it is one of my all time favorites. And every time I hear the word Epiphany I think of the epiphany toilet episode, which guest starred Michael J Fox. There was a toilet on the roof of the hospital and anytime you pooed on it, you had a epiphany. It was Season 3, Episode 13, "My Porcelain God." If you want to follow this rabbit trail feel free to click this LINK and then THIS LINK. You'll see what I mean, it's worth it I promise.

Anyway, back to my mini epiphany, which I will have you know happened over a traditional cup of coffee and not on a toilet, roof or any other kind. At least that's my story and I am sticking to it. I was reading in John 14 this morning as I work to wrap my heart around this Holy Week. I am trying to know Jesus more through this endeavor. I want to feel a deeper connection with my Savior, to take my knowledge farther away from the academic and closer to the relational.

In John 14 Jesus is in the middle of the passover dinner with his students, the disciples. He covers a lot of ground during this meal, he tells his disciples of his impending death, he fills them in on Judas' betrayal, he tells them he is leaving them, and he gives them a brief preview of Pentecost, when they will receive the Holy Spirit. But John 14:18 is what really struck me. Jesus said "I will not leave you as orphans." Huh, as a recently orphaned adult this word jumps off the page at me. For those of you who aren't orphaned, it feels weird at first. Sort of like the roof has been ripped off, all the sudden all the potential problems and possibilities of adult life hover right above you and there is no buffer between you and them. I know the older you get the less your parents buffer you from life's struggles, but just knowing they are there is a buffer in and of itself.

So back to Jesus orphaning us, it's an interesting analogy because just as my parents aren't in the world, but are in heaven, so is Jesus not on this earth but in heaven. However just as Jesus promised in John 14, he has left us the Holy Spirit to live in us. He says that the holy spirit will be in us and we will know the truth. My parents weren't deities, far from it just like any other human parent. But I like the idea that what they taught me while they were on this earth helps guide me as I navigate this world without them, just as Jesus left us the spirit to do the same thing. Because my parents were learning from the Spirit of truth, their teachings coincide with his and they work in harmony to continuously direct my adult decisions and feelings. Pretty cool eh? I sincerely love the fact that the bible uses a lot of family metaphors, like father/son, children, and orphan. We can relate to those words, can't we? God's pretty good at giving us footholds that we can relate to. He wants us to understand and ingest all this.

Here is the other teaching I take from this verse. Jesus says that he won't leave us as orphans, that he will come back for us. However, that hasn't happened yet has it? We are still living in that orphaned state. If you have ever done a lot of reading on theology you may be familiar with the term "Already, not yet." This phrase is used to describe the fact that God has ALREADY won the battle against death and sin, but it has NOT YET come full circle. Jesus defeated the devil, and death, and pain, but he hasn't come back to tie it all up yet. Currently the work is up to us, to use the light he put in us to illuminate the world to the hope found in Jesus. And it's a good idea to let this light shine on our own pain too.

The thing about living in orphaned, already/not yet world is that there is hurt. I think for a long time I have been waiting for the hurts to stop coming and I often sit in wonder that every season of life has hurting. Someone I love is always hurting, sick, confused or broken down. And so my epiphany this morning looked like this. "Duh Leanne, we are living in a broken "not yet" world, pain is going to happen and happen and happen again. We know the hope found in the resurrection of Jesus, but the pain is still here. People still hurt, long, and die. It's going to keep happening, and God is there to help us and hold us in our orphaned state. When pain happens God isn't sitting up there sending it, he is holding you and hurting with you, his precious child.

So we live in the in between, and we aren't really alone at all, we have God's word, his Holy Spirit, and each other. If he lives in us then we can very really give his light to each other, we can be Jesus to one another, and in that way he's right here among us. So next time you hurt or your wonder why there is all this pain, know that we live in the in between right now, God isn't sending all this pain to you, he longs to redeem and restore, but we live in a world of sin. So wherever you are, take hope, know that all this pain will be taken away, the easter season is all about restoration and hope and victory. Can you feel it?

Moving On

2011-04-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

Good morning from my office, I write again with coffee as my companion and french toast as my muse. Not really, but I did just make the most amazing french toast which had pumpkin in the batter and a sprinkling of flax seed meal on top. It was good, all you who say I don't like healthy crap would have tucked in with relish. I feel my soul waking back up again today, maybe it is spring or just the passing of time, who really cares? I am glad to be feeling some depth in my insides again. I felt shallow and apathetic. Not a whole lot has brought me either extreme joy or extreme sorrow. I've been numb and boring. I was even given an iPad and that failed to excite me. Whoa, I know. I'll give you a moment to let that soak in.

Thanks to Sheridan for yesterday's comment, Philippians 3 has spoken to me yet again. Here is a story from my past. I remember a few days after my Dad's funeral, during the coldest bleakest March of my life, someone asking me what was next now that my Dad was gone and the funeral was behind me. I remember the conversation like this:

Person: "So, what now? are you just gonna.... keep going?"
Me: "Yeah... wait, is there really another option?"

I don't know who this person was but I remember this moment distinctly because it set the tone for the last six years of my life. Grieve, heal, keep moving. Grieve, heal, keep moving. You absolutely don't have to have lost a parent tragically to invest in this. Life is full of griefs, physical pain, emotional pain, but you have to... you HAVE TO keep moving on. When you experience a physical injury you have to go through therapy to get the affected muscles to regain strength. I consider emotional and mental injury in much the same light, you have to heal and rehab that part of you if you want to experience a fully functioning self. Maybe for you that's actual therapy, if so. Go to therapy. I go, I have no shame. I love me some counseling and therapy, I equate it to a massage for my soul.

There is another option though. You can stay wounded, stagnant and hurt. You can live in your pain forever. It's a legitimate choice, although not a very good one. You end up wasting the time God gave you and choosing to suck the joy out of your life. You also steal beautiful memories from those around you. I don't write this as one who has experienced a lack of pain in their life. I have hurt and my hurts have screwed me up but mostly they have made me stronger. On the dealing with grief front, I am probably a body builder, and that's cool, it's given me the ability to be the personal trainer for the newbies. I may be a little bit like a Jillian Michaels though. I will absolutely mourn with someone, but if I love you, I want to help you grieve, heal, move on. But unlike Jillian, I'll try not to yell and cuss at you though, at least not to your face.

I have seen this stagnant other side, the grieve and stay there side of it. And it leads to death on every level. I promise. Go here: http://www.youversion.com/ and read Philippians 3. Paul knew, he was put through it all he had physical pain and watched his friends die brutally. But so often he said things like. "I press on" "I run the race" He had a mission and a goal. He didn't carry around the baggage from his beatings and losses, he kept moving, literally, and because he did we can talk about this passage of scripture. We are majorly blessed from his perseverance.

Wherever you are today, my heart is there for you. If you are grieving with a fresh raw wound I want to encourage you to feel what you need to feel. Cry, scream, hit pillows, experience your situation. If you have scabby wounds and you keep picking them, I want to encourage to let them heal. Wherever you are, you are on this earth today with a precious gift, you have today. So take a step forward. Heal, move on. Dodge and move. Oh, and while you're moving God will put someone in your path who needs you to help them get up and move. That's how he works, it's like we are all on a hill holding hands, someone above us pulling us up, as we hold the hand of someone behind us, pulling them along.

I'll leave you with a little Paul. "Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal... there's far more to life for us. We're citizens of high heaven! We're waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ,who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He'll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him." Alright, lets go do today. Go team.

Two different Gods

2011-04-04T04:10:00.001-07:00

It's early, but Caedmon has slept enough that it's after six and I feel the motivation to stay up and maybe do some things that I want to do. Like write, pray and exercise a little.

This is raw, I haven't thought it through 110%, also it's 6:30 am so I haven't proof read....

Here is what has been on my heart lately, and it's not easy, and you may want to fight with me. My heart is wrestling with God on this issue, and I want to strongly preface this post with these words: I am not angry with God, I am confused and a little jealous. This is my humanness coming through.

Some days, especially lately I feel like people have two different views of God, although I am sure there a millions more than just these two. There is the "ask and if you have enough faith it will be yours" version of God. This God is very sunny and good and seems to answer every prayer with the yes you were hoping for. No matter what happens, things seem to be sunny and bright with this God. And then there is the other view of God, my view, which is more like a "I am in control of everything but the world is fallen and people have choice and love wins in the end but it isn't the end yet" God. This God has a heart that breaks with yours when you are hurting. This God doesn't push with an answer for "why" when tragedy strikes. This God isn't as cut and dry. I guess what I am saying is that sometimes I feel surrounded by people who pray hard, get their way and always seem to have this radiating sun in their life, and I am jealous, and I struggle to relate.

If you read the book Prayer by Richard Foster he discusses the fact that our hearts and desires are flawed and so by the very nature, so often our prayers are mixed up in these sinful desires and flaws. But God loves us enough to see through that and he is happy to be in conversation and relationship with us. He sees us through Christ. So I understand that if I hit my knees and pray selfishly for a million dollars and a trip to Jamaica, God didn't answer that prayer not because I lacked faith but because my heart wasn't in the right place. But when I pray for healing for someone I love, or freedom from bondage, or something along those lines... then why does my life seem like an endless string of loss?

The thing is I believe God is good, that God is love for us, that he is faithful. I believe this just as strongly as those with the sunny days view of God. But what makes me hurt is when the issue of faith comes in. Jesus often says that those he healed were healed because of their faith. I don't know what to do with this, were my people not healed because of my or their lack of faith? And when people quote these scriptures and say "Yes Lord, by our faith we are healed" then what do those of us who had faith and didn't receive healing supposed to feel? I think at these moments I feel like the Inadequate black sheep in the congregation, wondering what I did wrong.

My church received a message last week from Steve Furtick, about how if you pray with enough faith and ask God for big and bold huge things, he will make the Sun Stand still to show off his power like he did with Joshua. And I found myself feeling angry and dark during this message. I prayed often and hard and my Sun didn't stand still, I still lost to car accidents, depression, heart disease and suicide. He went on and on about Jesus bringing a little girl back from the dead because his father had deep faith. Well my dead people seem to be staying dead. I am alive, and I am in love with my God, but my God doesn't raise my dead or take away the diseases of those I love, they died and they seem to be very much staying that way. So what do I do with this message?

During these dark times I prayed for strength and I prayed for daily bread and I made it through, giving God the glory for the mere fact that I am still here. This is what I have asked for lately, for health, and strength, and the ability to see the good in the midst of the dark, like fireflies and stars in a dark night sky. And God has held me, and he has shown my his love in these ways.

So often I don't post lately because I just don't want to offend people, if you have the Sunny view of God, mostly my heart is glad for you, jealous but glad. Sometimes I just wish I got to speak that language, I wish we could meet in the middle. I wish I didn't feel so dark when all the sunshine comes out to play.

Old Clothes

2011-02-24T04:45:00.001-08:00

I am just finishing a french toast breakfast with my two kids. Noelle is sitting across from me in a bright pink t-shirt wearing her mostly empty plate as a hat, and then in rotation a mask. Caedmon is chilling contently in his bright pink hand-me-down bouncer, yes he's man enough to rock the pink bouncer.

I think perhaps french toast is one of my muses. It's my favorite breakfast. Wait, I don't know that I can commit to one favorite breakfast. It's my favorite of the syrup topped breakfasts, at least for now. Even better with this home made blackberry syrup we make. Anyway, the breakfast fare isn't really why I am writing.

I feel like if I had the time and the audience that I would make a new mixed tape CD for my friends on a monthly basis. My Dad used to do this annually around Christmas time, and I would help him with the more technical aspects of CD making, like playlist arrangement and label design. He made 4 or 5 of these during the last years of his life and I still cherish them along with every song they contained.

One artist that made his lists often was Randy Stonehill, he's an old school Christian artist and I have no idea what he's up to now. I am sure that I will google him later to quell my curiosity but if I do it now I will lose all focus on what I am trying to write. One song that Randy Stonehill was famous for, at least in my family, is called "Old Clothes"

Here is a favorite line

Toys from my childhood, old photographs
Left in this dusty old suitcase
Things I once cherished are lost in the past
Seek out the treasure that always will last

So I'm packing up my old clothes
And my old and foolish ways
They just don't seem to fit me anymore
I can see the light of morning
With different eyes today
And I'm giving my tomorrows to the Lord

These lines struck me in a new way this morning, and highlighted some thoughts I have been having lately. I was in Michigan last week for my Grandpa Mac's funeral. He was an amazing man, larger than life, loving and original, fun and friendly. He is deeply missed by all who loved him, and even those who only had casual contact. He was one of those people who leaves a mark on your life quickly which doesn't fade with time. I spoke at his funeral last week and as I was preparing to get up to speak I quieted my mind and stared at my newborn son who was sleeping next to me in Kel's arms. I thought wow, here we gather to honor the closing of my Grandfather's life, and his brand new great grandson sleeps peacefully next to me, with years and years of life in front of him. Life is so precious... what am I doing with it? Look at where I have been, and where am I going?

It's true, I have done a lot of funerals, and I have lost a lot of my family. And as I sat at my Grandpas funeral last week I had an all too familiar feeling. I don't want to lose the past, I don't want to be the grown up, I want to be the kid still, I want my parents and grandparents to protect me, keep me safe. I want to be irresponsible, impulsive, eat the Christmas feast but not have to worry about the cost of the ham or the dishes afterward. I don't want to wear the big girl pants. Usually this feeling is fleeting because I am woken up out of it by one of my two kids expressing a need in a way only infants and toddlers know how: Loud and Impatiently, and then I remember, I'm the mom now, I do the dishes, pay the bills and buy the milk. I'm the safety net for a whole new generation.

And so again I realize that I have grown, packed up the past, the old mistakes and habits, and that I will continue to pack. I will evolve and the clothes I am wearing now will become old, and get discarded as I slowly and steadily grow toward the light of Christ. If you stop learning and growing in life, you become stagnant, moldy, and increasingly useless. None of these are positive adjectives. Life will change and we must grow, there will be curveballs, huge tears and big fat unknowns. So to throw back to the song: I can see the light of morning With different eyes today And I'm giving my tomorrows to the Lord.