Threads of love

I got a very special package today from some very dear friends back home. A garlic press, which is amazingly welcome in our house, and a handmade blanket. I smiled at the garlic press because I this of Kellye O every time I think of a garlic press so it's fitting that there should be a garlic press in our home from her. I draped the blanket over my (seemingly huge) tummy and told our daughter that someone loves her so much to use their hands to make this for her. And that;s just one of the reasons why Amber is a wonderful perosn. It just makes me feel like no matter where God takes our family the threads of love from our past are still interwoven into our present. I am starting to feel at home here more and more. Or at least at peace here, happy. But home is still home in a sense. If this makes any sense.

I have spent the last week or so of my life coming to terms with our sideways daughter and analyzing what this might say about who she is. Is she going to be difficult? Can I still feel like the mom I want to be with a c-section? An C-section was never what I wanted but if it can't be avoided I have to come to peace with it. And all the other unknowns that are flying around my head right now. I am praying for my faith to grow, to become more solid. There is so much at stake to be and to teach and learn. Bring it? Yeah... bring it on.

In America?

I am really glad to live here in America. We have freedoms here that are unparalleled in other parts of the world. Don't get me wrong sometimes the greed and cosumerism we display on a daily basis embarasses me and I see us through the eyes of the rest of the world and well. We may have liberty and freedom but we have a few things to learn... That's not really what this is all about however.

I am currently re-reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. (Author of "The Kite Runner.") I am re reading it bc I enjoyed it the first time and because I have yet to get to the library to check out a few more novels to see me through the days at my boring job. This book is about the plight of women in Afghanistan and the cultural norms that are in place which serve to make the lives of women harder. It's heroine who was born out of wedlock, is persecuted and considered "less than" because of her birth status. She is given in marriage by her insincere and absent father at the age of 15 to a 50 year old guy. And all that goes with married ... Her life is hard and she struggles through beatings, mistreatment and more than you can imagine.

And so I sit at my desk with nothing covering my head carrying my soon to be newborn daughter. Each of us two gals have an endless meadow of possiblities before us. I can still be or do whatever I want to be or do, do back to school for dietetics hopefully. And she can also live and grow, free and loved, with a father who doesn't send her away as an adolescent or treat her as anything less than a beautiful creation of God with the same rights as all the rest. I could have been born into anything, she could have been born into anything. If you are a women the same is true, if you are a man you could have been raised to believe truths about women which are quite different than the ones you currently hold. (which I hope are equalistic and biblical) Anyway, you weren't. I wasn't, and baby girl Penny won't have to experience it either. So today I am just thankful to be a woman in America. I am thankful for my husband, my education, and my upbringing. For my God, and I pray he is with those and shows himself to those who are so much less fortunate than I am.

So here's to pants, push-up bras, and the right to vote, and all the other (maybe more important :-) things we get to have as american women.

Easter

I love the power of Easter. I love the hope that it brings to my life, the realization of the hope that is with me all year long. We spend so much of our year focusing on what cannot be, what is broken, what is not. And then on Easter morning, God reminds me that because he lives, he will restore. We have nothing to fear. The words to so many hymns come rushing back to me.

- 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
- No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me, from life's first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny.
- Where oh death is now your sting?

I could go on but those are the foam on the top of the mug of Easter hymns floating through me.

I love mixing contemporary worship in with classic hymns because I really do believe that some truths have already been perfectly stated. And I love that it brings me back to hearing my Grandma sing them in church as a little girl, and the smell of her Sunday coat, and the windmill cookies and orange drink after church...

But you have to apply it to your own life in order for it to resonate so here is my Easter hymn

Because he lives...
- The mental illness of my family has no power of the kind of Mother I am.
- I will get to laugh and cry about life with my Dad someday
- I will never let this life overtake me, and destroy my hope
- I will bloom where I am planted and stop lamenting about where I am not.
- I will not let worrying about potential problems steal the joy from my life
- I will demonstrate this faith to my children
- I will show them the love that runs between Kel and I and model for them what marriage in Christ lives like.
- I will fight to feel the hope and see the truth in each day
- I will keep going, keep fighting, and keep healing from whatever this life throws at me
- I will remember that because he lives restoration from the brokenness is coming for my sister.

I will live as one in-between salvation and restoration.

Because he lives.

Sunny Sunday Morning

I am trying to figure out if there is really anything new and worthy to write about or I am just up with the sun and feel like blogging. I am one of those morning people, I am unable to sleep in for the most part. Although this morning I think I could have but I woke up with a cough and have continued to cough since that lovely moment of awakening. Which is sad because the bed was warm and the puppy was snuggling with me and I was so comfy, but I didn't want to continuously disturb the peaceful ambiance with my hacking. So I got up and ate bran cereal with bananas on top.

Yesterday was a productive day indeed. We got a lot done and then I crashed on the couch. I have been sick all week and I overdid it, promptly followed by an evening of what I would call underdoing it. But today is still Sunday and there is no pressure to be up to anyone's standards. I would still like to grab some cough drops and head to church, I really love my church.

So I don't feel right entering Holy Week. I feel like it snuck up on me, I feel like my heart isn't ready. I never feel like I feel it enough to be worthy of what it's all about. Its gets lost in the busy-ness of what we are gearing up for or coming down from or just plodding along with. And then it sneaks up and surprises me with it's reality and I worry that I just don't give it the heart space that it is due. If you think about Jelly Beans more than Jesus, we have a problem folks. Not that I do but I wouldn't put it past me.

Also no one is having Easter dinner, that is strange to me. Last year when that was the case I made it for some friends in KY but here I figure everyone has an easter dinner place to be. And by dinner I of course mean sunday dinner which is a big meal centered around a big piece of shared meat served in the early afternoon. I'm game if you are.

I need a shower and I suspect the steam will feel lovely on my throat.

Simplicity

I have heartburn right now, I had to throw that out there before I get started. I have heartburn and I am not a huge fan. Also I am out of tums... boo.

The older you get the less you need. I mean who can figure out what to get their parents for Christmas let alone their Grandparents? I need less today than I did a year ago. This may seem ironic due to all the baby supplies that really are needed in the Penny household but a wave of simplicity has overtaken me. I love simplicity. I love simple flavors and clean lines. I like having less things to dust, never been a fan of the kick knack. I have willow tree figurines (3 of them and I have one twice ironically) Anyway Kel and I have been giving up 40% of our grocery budget for lent and we have still managed to eat fine and even healthy. We are not going out to eat, and we don't have the TV on. Instead a snapshot of our lives looks like Kel working on the Nursery while I sit here heartburning and blogging in the dark with our puppy Bella snuggling and falling off my lap. There is less lap room as I get pregnanter... poor puppy :-)

I am so happy right now. I really like I am under the tutor-ship of my God, who is shaping me to be... something... which I am totally excited about. I am clearly being shaped into a mother. I pray daily that God will prepare me to be the example she will need me to be. That she will see my faith that God will provide, that she will see the romance between Kel and I, that she will want to wear shoes like me, and walk like me, at least before and after she is a teenager.. I am still a realist don't worry :-)

Ooh, on that note I just heard a bang crash in the nursery which merits investigation.

I miss you friend from across the country. I would hug you and share a ... treat of some sort with you now if I could... Brusters if you are Danessa, Coffee if you are most everyone else, or just a board game and a brownie...

Goodnight. Peace of Christ to you.

Blades of Grass

Life can somehow feel completely overwhelming, like when I sit and think about all that needs to be done before baby girl Penny arrives in May (most likely June if you ask me- Due May 31) Things like...

1) A mini Van or larger vehicle
2) a rocking chair
3) bedding for her crib
4) Bottles to drink out of
5) Clothes so she's not naked at least some of the time
6) a sink tub to stay clean in
7) A mom who feels prepared for all this!! :-)
8) Paint and some pretties in her bedroom
9) Pack n play to sleep on the go

I know there is more, I fear registering for a shower... Eek!!! :-)

But I am really trying to give it all over to God and just trust that he IS in control of every detail, from mini vans to onesies to my heart's preparedness to be a mom.

I am still crazy lonely for community here in Ada, we have a church home that helps and I really like a lot of the women that attend. Now I just have to stalk them and make them my friends! Not really, I know it's all a process that takes circa a year or more. I have small worries like, what if no one comes to see me after the baby is born? What if I need face to face Mom advice and no one wants to help. I just want someone to want... me. You know? We all feel that, the need to enter a room and have someone go Oh look (hugs) YAY! It's you!!! I lack that belongingness that I so deeply need here in Ada. And it will come, like all the other provisions that I have needed that have always been filled.

Not to mention March is coming up and with that brings all the sadness of four years ago when my world was torn apart and then slowly reconstructed. I hate march, I was telling Kel last night that March is the month where I just can't shake how much it sucks. For me it's not Christmas or his Birthday, although Christmas comes with sharp pains of its own, but not like March. I want to be around family this March, to be with them because I know they miss Dad like I miss Dad. Or to be with the friends who held me up at the funeral, not try to explain this raw Dad-missing emotion to a new set of people. Twice removed, with more akwardness.

But for now it's still February and I think I will make my world famous waffles, regardless of how guilty I feel because they're not on Kel's diet plan. If we were in Michigan Grandpa would shove more waffles with more butter in front of him that I could possibly cook in Oklahoma so if I look at it that way, hey, we're coming out ahead??

Thanks for loving me, most likely from a distance. Right back at you I swear.

sweet timing

It is amazing how the right timing makes the good things in your life even better. As I lay here on the couch feeling my baby girl kick with my puppy asleep on my arm I am amazed at how happy and relaxed I am with my life. I keep hearing about how crazy people think all our new changes are but well, we are so content. Any of these things at other times in my life would have been, and have been so negative. But for now, my life is bliss. That's all really... sigh...