Is it Friday yet?

It has been a long week--and it's only Wednesday. I guess if I were assessing the last seven days, LONG would be a good assessment. I mean, most of it was good, but there was a lot going on.

In the last 7 days, I have driven to & from Dallas, to & from Austin, and about 400 more miles around town. I have had several nights with fewer than four hours sleep, sandwiched between days full of activity. Thirty-one family members travelled in from out of town, in addition to the seven who already live here, all to witness a wedding that no one really believed should happen.

Here's the deal--the wedding happened. Now it's time to pray that the Lord pursues the heck out of them and changes hearts in major ways. Just pray and pray and pray and pray. I have rarely seen so many graceless relationships as I did at this wedding. I would be completely devastated if I didn't know and trust that the Lord pursues us 1-in His timing and 2-when we are unlovable.

Now, the good news. We had fun visits all around. I had good times with sisters and parents and brothers and nieces and nephews and friends. Plus, there was amazing food, 6 a.m. coffee dates, and lots of babies (big and small) to love on. I didn't take a single photo. I'm counting on a few good peeps to send photos my way. At this point, I am not in a position to buy a new camera, so I am at your mercy--if you've got photos, please share :) Here is one that has come my way--it's pretty fun...



If you can believe it, the big kid is cousins with the little kid she's holding. My nieces & nephews are growing into adults and I'm missing so much of it. I am pretty proud of them...as a group of young adults they are turning out pretty okay. The other good news is that the laughing we did in this photo was accompanied by much more laughing over the weekend.

By Monday, I was really thankful that I had the forethought to take the extra day off work. I was T-I-R-E-D. On top of that, my sweet Junnah puppy died sometime between Sunday night & Monday morning. She will be missed...she was super-sweet. That event was not how I wanted to start my week.

Okay--some good news...I promise there is some...our church plant here in Temple has a place to worship--and it's only about a mile from my house. After five years of commuting lots of miles to church, our new worship site will be within walking distance of my house :) Yeah! In a few weeks we're going to start doing Sunday worship right here. God has certainly blessed our city & I have been praying for Him to show us how best to serve the city. Also, my friend Mandi asked me to speak at the Survivor's dinner for the ACS's Relay for Life. The dinner is in September, the overnight walk is usually within a month or so of that. I told Mandi I'd speak, now I am searching for what I want to share. The dinner is sometime in late September, so I guess I have some time to decide what I want to share. Last thing--I applied to get licensed to do foster care. Who knows what will happen with that, but if all goes well, I could have foster placements by Christmas--that would be a change of pace for sure!

Last thing--I told my boss today that coming back from vacation I had to preach to myself that I didn't hate my job, but that I really loved vacation. I am tired. Unlike most people, I am looking forward to the end of summer, the quiet-ness to return to my days. I miss being able to check things off my to-do list.

Here's hoping the next seven days are less eventful, and more full of God.

Time marches on

Pick a number between, say, 1 and 10. Now, think back that number of years. What in your life is different from that long ago? At Debby's the other night, we talked about six years. After hearing about all that has happened in Debby's family in six years, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try for my life.

I thought about listing all of the things that are significant, but I don't have the time, the energy, or the memory to list them all. The thought that sticks with me is how grateful I am for that passage of time. You have beautiful kids that weren't around six years ago. I have friendships now that are so much richer because of the passage of time. I also have friends I've made in the last six years that I cannot imagine my life without. I have seen friends move away, families grow, and sometimes, I've seen hearts break. I have learned how to love more fully, to cry with the grieving, to laugh with abandon, and that it is perfectly okay to sit in silence.

In those six years, I have changed jobs, survived cancer, bought a house, learned vulnerability, and missed family far away. I have watched life slip away and miraculously return, and I have stood on the precipice of heartbreak and stepped away stronger and more hopeful. I have learned that God's promises are real, doubted them, and then seen them fulfilled in the most faith-filling way.

Here's to more years, to time passing, and taking time to appreciate what each day brings. If the last six years have taught me anything, it is that we cannot know what the Lord has in store. We should shout joyfully about this day that He has made, and love the ones we spend it with in whatever way we can.

Spring is Here!

It's early enough in the morning that the sun isn't quite fully awake. I've got my first, most essential, cup of coffee close at hand, and I can hear birds waking the neighborhood just outside my window. I love spring. I cannot wait for everything to be in full bloom. A couple of weeks ago, I went against my own common sense and started planting--lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and some pretty flowers. I could hear my mom's voice in my head, "Don't plant until after Easter. You'll miss most freezes." But I couldn't resist. It had been in the 70s for more than a week--surely that meant it was safe to plant, right? I planted on a Sunday (thanks, Kari--I wouldn't have done it without you!), and the following Saturday it was threatening to snow, or freeze, at the very least.

Fortunately, the nasty weather that affected almost everyone else I know missed my area. It got colder, and rained some, but it did not freeze. Knowing what I do about my yard and my soil, that does not give me any reason to think that everything that was planted will grow, but it does leave me to wait and hope...looking for new life in my yard. Anyone who watches me leave for work in the morning would wonder what I'm doing, carrying my lunch, and my gym bag, and my coffee--wandering around the yard, searching for signs of new life. If you see me, please know I didn't get lost on the way to the car, I am just anticipating what's to come.

Right now, I think I am anticipating all good things. Work is getting more manageable. I'm "getting over myself" and reconnecting with my life. My friends all still have time for me. Exciting things are happening all the time. I love spring--it reminds me of what's to come.

Okay--a quick update for you. The new job is challenging. Things are going well, but I am working a ton of hours, just trying to keep up with the demands of a growing business. If I just had another me who could work 20-30 hours a week, I might actually get home at a decent hour a couple of times a week! I know someone else in Temple who is looking for workers--maybe that means the economy is improving here in my little corner of the world.

I have been fighting a cold since Friday, and I think the cold is winning. I have been taking Nyquil since Saturday night, and I love the fact that I sleep through the night. I cannot say it's making a big impact on the cold, but at least I'm getting some good sleep!

Reading became a revived obsession for me for the last few weeks. I hadn't ever finished the Harry Potter series, so I re-read books 4 and 5, then checked out books 6 and 7 from the library. I think I read all four books in about 3 weeks. It's hard to believe sometimes that I live in this world and not the world of Harry Potter. I did enjoy the books. I guess when you wait two or three years to read a good book, it's much easier to find in the library!

Tomorrow night, I will finish the first draft of my first book, being written with my friends Daniel and Lee Ann. It is exciting and scary, to see months and months of hard work being sent out to have our editors read it. What if they don't like it? What if they want us to change too much? What if the book is really bad? Have I set too much hope in MY opinion of the book? I think I must not be alone in those fears--we worked on the last page of the book for hours at our last meeting, and still couldn't come up with a good ending. Hopefully tomorrow night will be more productive!

That's about it from here. Work-check. Reading-check. Writing-check. The only thing I haven't mentioned is cooking. I pulled out a cookbook I've had for about 11 years and have been trying to cook 2 new recipes a week. So far, they're okay. If I find one that's awesome, I'll be sure to share it here. Thanks to my friend Mandi, I have a new obsession with cupcakes. She taught me how to make chocolate souffle cupcakes with a white chocolate-whip cream frosting, (from smitten kitchen) and since then I have been obsessed. They're delicious, but you've been warned!

Have a great day!

I promised

I had dinner & coffee after work tonight. It's the first time in 4 days I've had the energy or the time to do anything after work. The job change has meant several very LONG days, but I think things are settling down a bit. During the coffee, I mentioned to my friend Jamie that I would blog about a couple of different things. Of course, it's approaching midnight now and I can only remember one thing I told her I'd write about. It made me laugh for quite a few minutes earlier tonight...I hope it does the same for you.

So, three of us were sitting in Starbucks. We were talking about life and books and who knows what else, when one of the ladies noted that there were an awful lot of babies in Starbucks all of the sudden. (One guy had just walked in with twin babies...still itty bitty, and one family pulled a slightly older child out of a laptop case or something, because seriously, one moment no baby, then suddenly there she was...anyway...)

I thought maybe it was one of Starbucks genius new marketing plans--
"Free baby with your coffee purchase. If you place your order inside, we include the car seat!"

OR

"With all of this coffee you're going to be up all night anyway, might as well have some company with this BRAND NEW BABY!" (think Bob Barker on The Price is Right--you'll get the enthusiastic inflection.)

Okay, so maybe it's not a good marketing idea, but you just can't ever be too sure what might work, right?

Writing and Writers

In case you don't know me, I love words.  I love how people can turn a phrase into something amazing and lovely.  I love to write.  Turns out it is very therapeutic...who knew?  Recently I have had several different people tell me I should "be a writer."   This is a hard concept for me to take one.  Because I write, I am a writer.  What else can I be?  

I think my friends who were encouraging me to be a writer were thinking I would do it for money.  I don't know anyone who ever really was great at something they just did for money.  I write for lots of reasons--I can't sleep, I am pondering things, or my brain is too full and needs a download of sorts--but I wonder how I can turn those musings into something real, something meaningful.  Any suggestions?  Where does one even start "becoming" a writer?  

Church Testimony from October, 2009

So, here it is, after much delay.  Please bear in mind that there is much more light now than there was as I wrote this testimony for church.

Life is full of darkness.  Death, disease, disaster....we have all faced them.  It is in these times that I usually turn to God.  I answered God's call shortly after my brother died in 2001.  When my niece was very ill two years ago, the Lord was a great comfort.  I though that was how I'd feel in any darkness.  

In May of 2009, darkness landed on my doorstep.  I hadn't felt well for several months, but, like many women who are busy with other things, I let it go.  One afternoon at work, the physical pain was too great to ignore, and I finally made an appointment with my doctor.  

The news was not good.  I had huge masses on my ovaries and was scheduled for surgery the next day.  During that surgery, I had a complete hysterectomy, and over 25 pounds of "suspicious" tumors and fluid removed.  

Two days later, my doctor's worst suspicions were met.  I had cancer.  AND I'd lost any chance of having kids.  It was TOO MUCH.  I wasn't sure which was worse...a disease that had invaded my body, or my dearest hope--dashed.  

My family & friends kicked into an all-too-familiar caretaker mode.  Schedules were re-arranged, my Mom came down from Missouri...we were suddenly connected over something no one wanted.  I had phone calls and text messages, and very little energy to deal with them.  When people asked how I was doing, I kept saying, "God will take care of this," but I'm not sure I believed it.  

For me, that was the heart of my darkness--being able to speak the truth, but not quite believing it.  My physical pain was overshadowed by a noticeable lack of comfort in God.  

I tried, I really did.  My bible went everywhere I went.  I read it, but I didn't feel any connection to it, or its promises.  

I have often heard, and said, that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.  If, throughout this ordeal, I had been angry at God, it would have made sense.  People often commented about how calm I was.  I think they saw grace and acceptance, but in truth, it was indifference.  I just didn't have any interest in God.  I did not think God had abandoned me, rather, I was completely indifferent to Him.

I remarked to several friends, at different times, that it was a good thing that I knew God loved me, because I wasn't too fond of Him.  This went on for weeks.  Finally, with one friend, I followed it up with a question, something along the lines of "What do I do?  How do I change how I feel about God?"  My friend directed me to the Psalms.  He reminded me that many of them were written in times of deep despair.  Somehow, that light came through the darkness and revealed my heart.

Then Jeff (my amazing pastor!) started preaching from Psalms.  Then another friend read to me from Psalm 73, v. 21 "my heart was grieved, I was like a beast before God..."  That's how I'd been feeling!  Thankfully, she did not stop reading there, she went on to verses 23-24, and reminded me that "God is continually with me...His counsel guides me...I am His."  Much like Abraham in the Old Testament, God was with me, seeking me out, even though I was a sinner, lost in my own darkness.  

God's light became more clear to me then.  I was able to look back and see God's light in the family and friends who had gathered around me during my treatments.  The light became evident to me in the meals provided, the cards and letters I'd received, and the countless small acts of love in between.  At long last, I was able to see what Psalm 130 refers to as "the Lord's mercy, His abundant redemption."

On October 27th, I was told I am cancer free.  It would seem that the darkness is being overtaken by the light.  

This is not to say that worry won't creep in occasionally, that the sadness of not being able to have kids won't be a companion in the days to come.  When those times come, I trust that the light of Christ that has been revealed to me so clearly in the last several months will once again be a comfort and a certainty I can rest in.