The Hubs

Today is the Hubs birthday. I am so happy that he was born.

He is working all day today and I'm getting ready to show some houses, and then later Asher and I have a special project to work on before Daddy gets home. It could be magnificent or it could be a total disaster....as projects with 4-year-olds often are. We shall see.

Hoping to have photos to post later.

Happy Birthday to my honey.

Not Numb

So much grief has been experienced in this world recently. Grief happens everyday. Everyday, somebody suffers something. Never a day goes by that someone doesn't die. Never a day goes by that a woman doesn't miscarry, or someone is abused, or a marriage breaks up, or child starves, etc. In your life or my life, these things might happen here and there, on occasion, or not yet. But somewhere, everyday.....somebody is experiencing the most tragic pain of their life. And this is just a small glimpse of the painful options.

If pain were on a shelf in your pantry, it would be crammed in, stocked high and low. And it never runs out. And until Kingdom comes, it never will.

The Bible says we are to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who are filled with joy. That might sound like poetry, and the idea sounds good.... but this is real. I took this idea of mourning with those who mourn, to heart, many months ago. I was reading a blog of a woman I do not know, and she was sharing some deeply painful experiences going on in the lives around her...and she asked that if any of the readers were willing to share in the grief so that this family could have some of it lifted off of their spirits...to please ask for that grief to be shifted. As crazy as it might sound.....I knew right then I was supposed to take some of that grief. This was for a family I did not know and for a siutation in which I had no involvement. That day, I got on my knees and I wept and I mourned and I felt a very heavy weight for several days. Then I felt it lift. I can only tell you that whatever the purpose was....it was my honor to go through it. But more than anything now.....I just know that this is true.....the we should and we can mourn for and with those who mourn. We can carry burdens that are not our own. We can lighten the load of another....and they might never ever even know. They don't have to know. This is between you and God. But I believe that person who's grief you share, will have a lighter burden...I believe this.

Lately I am depressed. I know that I know that I know that my spirit could use a lift and I have a prescription for Zoloft that I have had since Shawn was 5 months old and I was diagnosed with post-partum depression. I have plenty of those little blue pills, and I have a refill available, and my doctor would give me more if I called and asked her. I'm not taking the meds because I know for me, right now, today, I am supposed to feel what I feel. I am not supposed to be numb or even uplifted in these moments. Have we any idea the heaviness of grief that Jesus carried for us before He was crucified. He carried it ALL.

I am supposed to feel sadness and grief for the lost souls in this world. I am supposed to feel outraged that children die and starve because they cannot afford a clean water source. I am supposed to grieve for the relationships that do not work out. I am supposed to feel upside down when I reach and try and fail. Our Lord Jesus has never felt numb. He feels all of our pain and He can fill it......too.

I had a great conversation with my dear bible study girlfriends this week and we talked about how everything we do is apparantly in an effort to stop the pain or avoid the pain altogether. Our coping mechanisms may all look different. Some people drink or use drugs. Some people try to cure their pain with relationships. Some people try to steal the things that might numb the pain. Some people kill their pain (with guns....yes). Some people eliminate their pain by eliminating themselves. Some people climb to the top where they think there is no pain. Some people try to outrun their pain. Some try to outsmart their pain.

The whole world's pain is a product of sin. And it s.u.c.k.s. For ourselves and for the ones we come into contact with, all we can really do is lean into the only healer ever made available to man. All we can do is trust that there is an eternity without pain and that if we believe that and if we serve God for that purpose.....that is our gift and our treasure, in Heaven with Him.

I am well. I am good. My heart is healthy and my faith is strong. I'm just learning that maybe I can and should carry more pain than that which belongs to me. I'm honored and I am heavy....but I carry this heaviness for the savior of my life, the Lord that I love. If this glorifies Jesus, I never want to be numb.

I am not going to proof read or edit this. It is what it is.

July - thus far

I've seen this one, once, doing exactly...this...



This one is excited about his new water-wing skillz..



And, who can resist an Asher burrito? Not me!



A precious bff gave me this....(awwwwwwwww)



This one has learned to climb on top of our dining table and pretend to be a centerpiece...but for this photo op....we just have to use our imaginations...

Bath splash time, sporting a well healed scar.....

And also sporting a lovey big brother...

This last photo requires an explanation.....

Our house is for sale and today we had a showing. I always work so hard to perfectly set up our house for showings so that it is as lovely as it can possibly be. This morning, I had already finished cleaning the master bedroom suite and Asher was playing with his green (pictured) "fuzzy bunny blanket" in the living room. He kept draping it over the chair or the sofa, folding it, and just doing all sorts of wonderfully creative things with it. He asked me if he could "set it up" for the showing. I said yes, knowing full well that I would un-do any masterpiece, fold it, and put it away where it belongs. I finished all my cleaning, loaded the kids in the car and ran back into the house to make sure it looked fantastic. It did. When we came home after the showing, I walked into my bedroom to find the masterpiece Asher snuck in. I gasped. I asked Asher why he did it...to which he replied, "You said I could set it up, and I set it up in your bedroom to make it more beautiful". Oh lawdy! I wonder what the Realtor and her clients thought when they walked in.

It's a busy July so far.

Hope you are having a lovely summer!

God Bless This One and That One

Happy 4th of July. Remember to be so grateful for the freedoms we, as Americans, live day to day. The freedom to practice any faith. The freedom to go to public school and to be well educated. The freedom to challenge, the freedom to change directions, the freedom to try and to succeed....the freedom to serve or to be served. The freedom to love who you want to without being arranged, or promised to.

We have so many freedoms we cannot even count or begin to realize them. We are so spolied.

God Bless America? I sure love my country. I do....for all the many freedoms listed above and not listed above, I love my country. I've got it made, here. Men and women have been protecting my freedoms since long before I was a thought.

But I've been to Zim and I deeply want God to bless Zim. He has and He does, in ways you or I might not fully comprehend. They haven't been blessed with wealth or with options, but they have been blessed with spirits and hope that you nor I could ever imagine.

I've been to the Dominican Republic and I have served some of the Haitian community there. I so deeply want for God to bless the DR and Haiti. He surely has and will surely continue to, in was that you nor I can appreciate. He has blessed these peoples with the commitment to press on. Man, do they ever press on! It is a sight to behold, and I cannot be more thankful that I have beheld such sight with my very own, spoiled rotten eyes.

God bless America, yes. Bless us to be thankfully blessed, because many of us are not even clued in to our freedoms..... our freedom to vote, to worship, to work, to learn, to teach, to own property, to buy organic, to choose paper or cloth diapers, to stretch our minds and exercise our gifts and talents.

God, bless this one..

...Oh God please bless this one...

...and this sweet one....

...and that one....

Happy red, white and blue, freedom and independence day. Thank you to all who have served in our military, for all that you sacrifice for the countless freedoms that I forget to acknowledge.

lean.stretch.rotate.grow

For mother's day, Asher's classrom decorated tiny flower pots, and with my precious flower pot from the magnificent Asher Tate, I was given a bag of seed. Sweet.

It took me about a week to get around to the little, dirty project. I filled the small flower pot, delicately decorated with haphazzard brush strokes of paint, and painted buttons glued around the rim, with potting soil. Dropped in the seed. Added water.

Whadaya know? Things began to grow. Such is the case with seeds that are sown, nurtured and nourished.

I see my sweet little flower pot several times a day. It is in my kitchen window. It truly begs to be re-potted into a larger pot now, but then it wouldn't be in my window anymore. It craves the sun. It leans and stretches toward the nourishment of the sun's rays. Occasionally I have to rotate the plant because too much leaning and stretching in one direction makes it all lop-sided.

A child of God is truly the same. A planted, nurtured and nourished seed, leaning toward the Son of Man, stretching out to reach His robe (power), longing to bloom into His likeness, and turning every direction to share His beauty.

Lean.

Stretch.

Rotate.

Grow.


I'm a dirty little project, but He continues to nurture me and always gives me what I need, when I need it.


....... here comes the Son ~ do do do do ~ here comes the Son and I say, it's all right..........

(yes...pun intended)




My retinas may have been slightly damaged in the making of this blog. I hope you appreciate the trouble I go through......and as always, thanks for reading!

Comments welcomed and appreciated!

keep

This word keeps coming to my mind, over and over, day after day.

~Keep~

I looked it up online for a definition, cuz if you don't recall....I'm un-cool. Dictionary.com has 55 definitions for "keep". Seriously?

This word hurts my feelings. I don't care what dictionary.com says, we can't keep anything. Can we?

I can't keep my kids. Spencer has already proven this to me. Guess what folks, they grow up. They move out. Or, they fade, expire, pass on...... I just can't say "die".

I can't keep my wits. Sometimes.... I lose it.

I can't keep my friends with any form of a guarantee. They too, might expire, move on, stop returning phone calls. Here today, gone tomorrow. It's possible.

I can't keep my senses. Maybe I can. But no promises. My friend Lisa lost her sense of smell and sense of taste in a cheerleading accident, over 20 years ago. Seriously people....no guarantees.

I can't keep my figure. Actually....that one left me in the summer of '06. Oh I could keep my current figure....sure, that's totally doable. Lovely. Stretch marks, squishy pudge, a little extra junk in the trunk.... this one is certainly within the realm of possibility.

My new car will be old someday, or it will be smashed. Can't keep it. Sure can't take it to heaven with me.


Can't keep my marriage. God might bless me with it until death do us part....but even that is proof that I can't keep Joe and Joe can't keep me. Even if we vanish together.... it couldn't be kept. It all goes away, eventually.

I can't keep you entertained. I can't keep my thoughts straight. I can't even keep the memories of the precious things Asher said yesterday because my brain is weak. I have to write them down to remember them, and I can't keep paper. It gets lost. I can't even keep a journal on my computer because it might crash and even if I keep these memories in this blog forever in a forum saved on the web, there is no guarantee that even that won't crash and burn, eventually. And besides, I can't keep passwords. What if I can't access my own blog? This is more possible than you might realize. Pitiful.....

I can't keep my heart pure. I have to beg God everyday to do that for me. Only He can keep me on track, on a path to Him. I can't even keep my head on straight.

I can't keep money. Someone always bills me for it.

I can't keep my opinions to myself...well not ALL of them. I have tried.

I can't keep my mind made-up. It changes.

I can't keep promises. I think I can. I usually do. But if I have any ability to keep a promise, it is probably conditional on the premise that you deserve it, and I could easily fail someday to keep your secret safe with me. Isn't there always the threat of exposure? On a side note....this might be why we should confess to one another and lay it all out there in a willingness to be open, authentic and transparent so that God can do His work in us and through us. Secrets weren't made to be kept. We sure can't keep them from God. Trust me....doesn't work.

I can't keep my sanity. Same as wits, perhaps. See above.

Sometimes I can't even keep faith. The devil doesn't like me because I love Jesus and I want you to know and love Jesus....and he works on me. He bugs me. He pushes me around a little from time to time and he hopes I fall. What if I can't Keep my balance? Sometimes I doubt and just keep asking for clarity. I can't keep clarity.

You can't keep your job. Someday, if not today....you are replaceable. I.am.replaceable!


You can't keep your life....not even your big, extraordinary, shiny life. Just ask Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett...wait, sorry, you can't ask them. They couldn't keep breathing.

We can't keep our children small, sweet, and snuggly. We can't keep them clean. We certainly can't keep them quiet.


When we die...and I'm pretty sure we all will unless the blessed rapture happens before (Oh praise Ye God for such a possibility!).... when we die, we'll either be kept by God or kept by Satan. We keep nothing....not the house, the car, the career, the trophies, the awards, not the crafts and the scrapbooks, not the cute clothes....nothing.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Everything else is temporary. We keep nothing.

My Fall from Cool

I do not recall where I was the other day, what I was doing, if I was alone or in a group, if I was home or on the road. I don't know. But I heard the popular expression "fall from grace". We all know what this means, right? A fall from grace suggests someone has possibly been misbehaving or just can't seem to get back on track. It is just an expression. Of course, there is a very serious side to this expression, too. We all fall from grace and rely solely on God for his new mercies, everyday. But I'm not here today to be all grace-filled and spiritual. I'm here to mourn the loss of my coolness. I used to be hip. I used to be cool.

I have fallen from cool.

It is so sad.

I weep.

How did this happen? How? When? Where? Why?

Dang, if ya'll could see my closet you'd know exactly what I mean. My most popular rags are my potato sack dresses, my camo sweats/shorts, my speedo sandals, and a variety of solid colored simple shirts with absolutely no style, no flattery, n.o....c.oo.l.

If you could see my makeup drawer, you'd see a pair of tweezers, and eyelash curler, 3 tubes of mascara (almost all dried up) and some tinted sunscreen. I have no cute hair clippies, no headbands, no pretty scarves, no fresh blushers and all my lipsticks would be better suited in my waste basket.... my un-cool waste basket woven of twine or some heavy straw that I doubt even the birds would find useful for the nest making.

I dress like a worn-out mom on most days, and a struggling Realtor on other days. Even my church is casual. But I do always bathe.... this is a plus, in my opinion. That's a lie. I don't always bathe.... but I'm good for 6 days of the week, usually.

I feel like I have been totally abandoned and betrayed by my cool. Where did it go? Is it ever coming back? Are my kids hiding it from me? Maybe they stole it, cuz they definitely do have a lot of cool, I've noticed.

I'm pretty sure Joe didn't have anything to do with the disappearance of my cool. If you could see him dance, you'd back me up on this.

Good-bye cool. I don't know if you ran, if you escaped, if you were snagged, or if you simply evaporated....but I miss you....a little. My life is still sweet even though you don't seem to be a part of it....but if you'd like to come back and visit from time to time.... I'd be open to spending some time with you and getting to know you again. I think we could still be friends, even though I love Jesus and sometimes you and Jesus don't seem to make sense in some circles.... I think we both know that He is the ultimate in cool....especially considering all that He has done for humanity. Just think about it.

If you ever want to find me, I'll be here.... you probably won't recognize me, but to be clear, I'm the completely un-cool one hanging out in Bellevue searching high and low for any traces of you that might have been left behind..... yeah, I'm that one.