Vignettes from a Borrowed Life

Last week I did something I've never done before ... I played "Mom" for a whole week to my three awesome nieces (ages 8, 10 & 10 ... mid-week the little one had a birthday, so it was 9, 10 & 10.) My sister had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Nepal for a month and trek around on a particular trail on Mount Everest, which gave me & other family members the chance to spend some time with the girls by alternating weeks.  By the end of my week with the girls I was EXHAUSTED ... and totally bummed it was over. I had so much fun and I owe so much to three special young ladies who made that time unforgettable!

Here are some of the priceless moments from the week that I hope to always remember:

• Coming to the realization - pretty early in the week - that my sister (and all others who take raising a family seriously AND who have to juggle everything else in life) are pretty much real-life superheroes. I feel very strongly that she has a cape and mask hidden somewhere in her house. Without it I don't know how she does it.
• Having a heart-to-heart with my oldest niece over a cup of frozen yogurt.
• Doing an impromptu photo shoot with them while toodling around up in Nevada City, when we came across the perfect brick wall!
• Having random conversations about faith, Jesus and godly living throughout the week, especially with my oldest niece - mostly because of questions she asked me. One was about how I can know that the Bible is trustworthy. We talked about things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, prophecy, carbon dating and consistency. She also asked God's view on temptation and sin in the middle of lunch. We all had a good talk about "not returning evil for evil" when they'd be snippy to each other because "she did it first." We've talked about the good ol' line, "everyone else is doing it" and how God's people are never the majority in society, so it's usually a good thing if you stand out from the crowd! We've talked about "garbage in, garbage out" several times and how no matter our age, we always need to be mindful of the influences we are mentally & spiritually digesting.
• Awkward Moment of the Week award goes to: having to explain my "no" answer to my youngest niece when she asked if I ever wanted to have kids.
• Coming to appreciate even more how much of a full-time job and entire-life sacrifice it is to raise kids. You can't take a day off or "check out" of it for a while. It's the most important - and quite possibly the most difficult thing - anyone could ever do.
• "Dangers of Technology & The Insane Speed at which Things Can Go Awry" Awareness award goes to: showing my nieces how to start a 2-player game of Words on their Kindles using a family member's known username, checking back 10 minutes later to find they've started roughly 15 new games with random opponents, some of whom they'd already started live chats with. Eeek! 
• Being teased about my having had multiple weddings. While playing dress-up with them, my niece got a good long laugh out of having to specify which wedding of Aunt Karyn's that red dress of their mom's was used in. ;-)
• Even though I only "played Mom" for one week, I have a newfound appreciation and compassion for all those people who have to deal with chronic illness and a family. I don't know how they do it.
• Not-so-different with age: I learned that even if kids are wide awake and able to have fun during a late-night slumber party, where they're up over 2 hours past their bedtime, it doesn't mean they'll be able to do their next morning's chores without pinching each other's heads off. Slumber parties the night before our busiest morning of chores (as we were getting ready to leave to take them elsewhere for the next week) was not a good idea. However, the night was fun and I have some awesome pictures of the hours we spent playing dress-up. So I guess in the end it was worth it. :)
• Selfishly Awesome Moment of the Week: while with the girls at their ceramics class (an hour and a half each for four days) the teacher actually allowed me to work in clay too! When she heard that half my college degree is in ceramics, she told me to feel free to use the clay and the wheels to make anything I wanted, and she would fire it for me! I worked on the wheel one day ... the first time in the 11 years since I graduated college!! ... and it was sooooo wonderful!! It was like a therapy session with a trusted counselor! And then the next day I worked on a hand building project along with the girls. Even though I ended up not saving the bowl I threw (below), it was all worth it just to have the time on the wheel!

• I can see especially now how parents have to walk a line in their relationship with their kids where they are not just "friends" with them, but are parents. I have seen many-a family fall because the parents want so much to be liked by their kids and to have someone to hang out with that they fail to uphold standards and discipline when the need arises. I'm not saying at all that there shouldn't be a tightly-knit love & relationship ... I'm just saying they can't be your buddy. Being an aunt is a special sub-category -- and while I have the benefit of not being the disciplinarian, I still hope to set a good example!! (While at the same time allowing them to eat ice cream for dinner.) ;-) 
• Realizing that other than special occasions, I've never once called my nieces just to say hi and see what they're up to. Sure, when I talk to my sister I will sometimes chat with them too for a bit ... but I don't ever remember calling just to talk to each of them. So I've made a resolve to do that.
• Watching the girls document their day each evening as we took some time to write in our journals that will be given to their mom when she gets home, both as a way of "talking to mom" while she's gone and as a fun memento for this time.
• Coming to look at pop culture (like music) in a whole new light. Parts of songs I never really noticed before jump out at me when listening to them with 10-yr-olds!! And realizing just how toxic pop music is. One of the hit songs right now is "Teenage Dream" ... and you know what it's about?? Here's just a few of the lyrics: "Let's go all the way tonight/No regrets, just love...You make me feel like I'm living a teenage dream/The way you turn me on/I can't sleep/Let's run away and don't ever look back." YIKES!!! And even when listening to a decent song on a decent station on Pandora, the cover art and ads that pop up can be crazy!! I can see why some parents want to put their kids in an insulated bubble ... which of course you can't do ... but ohhhhh it's a tough world to be a kid or to raise a kid in right now. :(
• Biggest AUNT FAIL moment: asking the oldest to hold the strainer while I pour out the noodles & water I just boiled - and having some of it splash her hand because I poured too fast! She didn't cry, but I sure wanted to!!
• (This one will be hard to explain ... so bear with me. And if you're good with kids and/or have spent a lot of time around them, this might not make ANY sense to you whatsoever.) I realized just how very much little people they are. I mean, they are each striking individuals. Each of my nieces are profoundly unique from not only their sisters, but from anyone else. They are already the core of what they will always be ... they have the core personalities and traits and dis/likes they will likely always have. They are people!! When you have never really spent a lot of time around kids, it's all too easy to think that they aren't just little people - at least not yet. At what point did I think they became little people?? I don't know. Teenagers? More?? I don't know. It's not really a logical thing to try to explain. In fact, I have no idea how to explain this. Suffice it to say that although they're little and they're young, they very much have unique and distinctive traits, goals, dreams, preferences and styles.  I can already see much of the young adults and even adults they will likely be. Even though I wholeheartedly believe we have the power to change much about ourselves (I sure have!!) I also believe that there is, deep down, a core to your soul that makes you you. And even at 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... you've already got it.
• Getting to play "Tooth Fairy" for the first time ever!!! My oldest niece said she was finally going to put a tooth under her pillow that she lost a year ago. Let me tell you, it was stressful to do!! I held my iPhone in my teeth as a flashlight, trying not to shine it on her sleeping face, while I oh-so-carefully lifted the [giant] pillow slightly with one hand & tried to search for the tooth with my other hand all while nervously holding my breath trying not to wake her. I finally found it and slipped the dollar in [having no idea what the going rate for a lost tooth is], but BOY it was stressful!!!
• Moments of the week that stand out that show how they are being raised right:
• seeing how incredibly polite they are. They aren't pushy little kids or whiners or beggars. They are just plain fun to be around.
• after eating chinese food for lunch and saying I was tired and could sleep the rest of the afternoon, all three girls piped up with, "That means this is the best time for you to go exercise." I just laughed!
• upon waking up from a short night's sleep (due to our slumber party the final night) and in prep for a morning of chores, the oldest one said to the others: "Since we didn't get a lot of sleep last night we are more likely to be cranky this morning. We really need to watch ourselves and check our attitudes."
• two of the girls recently saved up enough money of their own and each purchased for themselves a Kindle Fire (a 7" tablet, like an iPad.) 
• Even with the excitement of their brand-new Kindles, when they youngest one asked for a turn playing on them they each said yes without any prompting.
• at a frozen yogurt place where you dish it up yourself and then are charged based on the weight, the only topping my niece would add was whipped cream, "Because you can get a lot and it doesn't weigh hardly anything." Even when I encouraged her to pick something else, just for this one special time, she said, "No thank you. Those weigh too much."
• after eating take-out or fast meals pretty much all week, when we hit a Chinese buffet on Friday for the little one's birthday the middle one came back with a big plate of salad. She said, "We haven't had many greens this week."
• But most of all, more than any other moment, I remember the way I dreaded Saturday's quick approach and my sadness that the week was over. Was I exhausted beyond any reasonable level? Absolutely. Would I have loved to have my time with them be longer? Without a doubt.

.........Aunt Karyn

Rewind #26: Gettin' Back in the Saddle

Original air date: 29Jul2010

Well good morning everyone! Wow, it has sure been a long time since I have been active on this blog. I have many things rumbling around inside my brain and hopefully I will be organizing them into some kind of logical mess that you can read through soon. So much has happened here lately! Danny and I were *greatly* blessed to go to Tennessee mid-July and be part of a retreat with Christians from all over the country ... our eyes were opened, our hearts refreshed, and our lives challenged. We met some amazing new friends and no doubt have started lasting relationships. God has definitely been working in our hearts and we feel a fire to serve Him maybe more than ever. 

Danny and I have also been just enjoying the summer - (so much more temperate than usual! I can’t believe it’s almost August and yet the high is 93º today!) - we’ve been camping a couple times and are just having a good time. We have some travel plans coming up for this fall that are still being worked out .... not sure how much of what we had originally planned we will still be able to do at this point, but we’re playing it by ear ... I am helping to plan a Christian women’s retreat coming up mid-September that I am really excited about - the title is “Interior Design - Redecorating God’s Home In Our Hearts” .... and then of course aside from all of this fun stuff we have going, I have been facing some turbulence in my health. I was just released on Tuesday after spending 10 days in the hospital due to a flare of my Behçet’s Disease. Since the disease manifested for me in 2004 I have been hospitalized 6 times for similar flares - but I can happily report that of those 6 times, this was one of the 2 most moderate. It was by FAR my longest stretch between hospitalizations -- 27 months!!! -- and I am very thankful for that. Now that I am dealing with “cleaning up” after this flare (with the new pulse of medications & treatments, etc), the plans for proceeding with surgery and treatment of my Endometriosis have now been quite postponed. The surgery that I had *finally* been able to schedule for August 10th has been cancelled, and it is now looking like the beginning of this next year before we can move on with that.

Ahhh ... like I said, so much has been going on! In the midst of all of this, God is continually teaching me. He faithfully brings me lessons and opportunities for growing and maturing in my walk with Him and I have been trying very hard to be in tune with these lessons. I believe I have had small successes and even some larger breakthroughs - and I am excited to share much of this with you. Stay tuned, because more entries will be coming in the near future! I pray you are all having a wonderful day. God bless!

Rewind #13: The Conversation EVERY Married Couple Should Have

Original air date: 10Feb2010

I’m really trying not to make this blog a moment-by-moment account of my life ... I guess that’s a lot of the difference between Facebook and a blog - I’ve determined that this blog would be for more of my “deeper thoughts” and more in-depth discussions (even if they are just one-way!) But something happened this evening with my hubby that I really want to pass along - and really, something I’d recommend every married couple should do.

It all started with a conversation about speakers. It morphed into a conversation about ways that we have permanently changed each other, where even after the other spouse is gone, the effect would remain. I am going to keep as a special treasure in my heart the different ways that Danny said I have impacted him (and vice versa,) but all I can do is recommend that all spouses take the time to tell each other the things we usually don’t. Too often we tend to take for granted that our spouse just *knows* that they are our best friend, or that we are proud of them, or that we respect them, or that they make us happy or we appreciate the work they do ... and on & on & on!! That’s one of the big things I’m learning from the “Love & Respect” book we are reading - that we need to actually say those words to each other! Women: when was the last time you told your husband that you were proud of him? That you respected how hard he worked and all the sacrifices he’s made for the family? When do we think to actually say those words? Don’t we take for granted that he knows it? I hope the guys will think about how often he has told his wife that he loves her & enjoys spending time with her, that he thinks she is the prettiest girl in town, and he appreciates how hard she works, and that he loves how she is raising the kids... stuff like that. Whatever our day-to-day life is, that is typically the stuff we overlook showing appreciation for. I always want my husband to be convinced without a doubt that he is the most amazing man on the planet to me - and I know I have a long ways to go in expressing enough of my feelings about that. He needs to know that in an entire room full of men, he would be the ONLY man to stand out of the crowd to me. He has forever changed my life, and I hope I am thoughtful enough to tell him that! You know what’s weird??? I have even thought about what I would say at his --funeral--, yet I don’t think I’ve ever told HIM. I resolve to tell him soon. 

Again, just food for thought.

Rewind #11: Things That Make Me HAPPY

Original air date: 6Feb2010

You might consider this a continuation of the entry: Some of the good things!, or you just think of it as a Happy List. My life is filled with some absolutely AMAZING things, and there are opportunities to be filled with joy & happiness at every turn ... so I wanted to share a few of them with you! I once read about a woman that kept a “happy box” ... it was filled with all kinds of little things that made her happy. It might be dried flowers from a special event, a meaningful card from a friend, a hilarious comic she ran across ... anything that would make her smile if she looked at it while feeling a little blue. Think of this blog entry as my happy box! (And since I covered all the deeper spiritual stuff before, this is just the kind of stuff that can make me smile during the day.) :)

First, a good song. There are SO many songs that are just GREAT to sing along to in the car. Sun shining, my windows down and sunroof open, my radio up & singing at the top of my lungs, complete with funny looks by the people in the car next to me at the red light. But that’s alright ... I’ve seen that look before, and I’ll see it again. Here are some songs that are absolutely impossible to sing along to and stay in a blue mood:

“Loco” by David Lee Murphy. Now just TRY to
say you can sing along to that with the windows down
and the sun shining and NOT be instantly in a
better mood!!

Fun fonts. I *really* hope these are showing up
on your computer too ... because few things about
working on a computer are more fun for me that cool fonts. Believe me, Danny hates it when he has to get on my computer for something ... he thinks I make “everything all weird.” :)

I like calla lilies, daisies, and anything other flower brave enough to
bloom in my yard. I love horseback riding and I love birds. I have had
several little hand-fed cockatiels and really enjoyed them! Unfortunately,
they aren’t the cleanest of pets. :( Other happy things are: the color red,
artsing, craftsing, and creating anything with my hands; cross stitching,
learning new things - like sewing, which is the most recent thing to be
added to my repertoire. And yes, I like spell check, which enables me to use words like "repertoire."

You don’t have to know me very long to know that one of the things I
enjoy the most about life is a good excuse for a gut-busting laugh. I
can’t think of many things in life that aren’t made better by some humor &
learning to take myself a little less seriously. Got a great joke? Share it with me! Know a
funny quote? I like to collect those too. This is one of the reasons I enjoy comedy movies so much (plus the fact that they are a GREAT excuse to cuddle with Danny on the couch.) Danny & I tease each other that we talk in movie lines more than we talk in actual invented conversation. You’ll hear us often quoting from shows like 24, Dumb & Dumber, Kung Fu Panda,  House, Honeymooners ...... well shoot, we quote just about anything we can remember!! There’s also another habit we have when we watch movies that is hilarious to us and I’m sure annoying as can be to anyone sitting with us: we LOVE to talk, criticize, guess, advise and jab our way through the shows! Danny says it’s like Mystery Science Theatre ... but since I’ve never seen it, I can’t confirm or deny that. ;-) We watch movies so much and so many times that we say that the next thing we’re going to do is start watching the shows on mute and we’ll make up our own dialogue. 

My life is filled with ALL KINDS of good things ... all I’ve done here is scratch the surface of things I enjoy. I hope to continue to post things I like and bring a little joy to this blog. Right now I am surrounded by a few of my favorite things in my life: my husband (who is my best friend) is sitting right next to me -- (even if he is asleep, making cute little partial conversation-sounding noises;) a semi-warm cup of really sweet coffee and a homemade dark chocolate thingy that my mom made on the end table next to the couch, and of course, the world of my friends sharing their lives with me through the wonders of things like Facebook ... as I wind down from a day of worshipping the Lord and spending time with my church family - with the bonus of knowing that my Mom & Dad will be in town soon and I’ll get to spend time with them and my sister this week. What a night! It is easy for me to see that I am blessed and my cup overflows.

Hope you guys are having a most fabulous day!!

Rewind #9: The Shoes I'm Wearing

Original air date: 2Feb2010

I see life from my own point of view and more often than not think I’m right. I don’t think this is particularly narcissistic or unique to me, it’s just life. I think that’s how we all work, really -- and anybody who claims anything else is either lying, or they’ve spent a lifetime training themselves to put others before self. Even when I try to think about a situation through someone else’s eyes, all I’m really doing is putting their sunglasses on over my own eyeballs. I mean, REALLY, is it truly possible to see life from someone else’s genuine perspective? I don’t think so. At best we look through what we imagine their perspective to be. But we don’t carry the years of associations that person has into a particular situation, so it’ll always be a shallow version of their perspective.

Nothing drives this point home more than being married. A “situation” comes up, and I immediately default to “I’m right.” This stance has different variations, including “My feelings were hurt first,” “I have a better reason for my poor behavior,” “This is one of those times I need your benefit-of-the-doubt,” and “HOW could he be so selfish?!” It sometimes amazes me how long it takes for me to work myself out of one of these positions. Sometimes I put *just* enough thought into the other point of view to determine that, if *I* were in his shoes, *I* would have been able to excuse the poor behavior and in fact I would have brought home a bouquet of calla lilies to him. It’s only when I’m realllly motivated that I continue past that point and realize that yes, I was in fact being a jerk. And yes, in fact, he did have the right to be hurt and expect my apology -- and NOT the kind of 6-year-old pouty mom’s-making-me-say-sorry-so-SORRY, sorry. A real, ‘I didn’t mean to be so selfish and I’ll try to be a grown-up next time’ kind of sorry.

So I guess here’s my point: I don’t know that I can ever spend TOO much time trying to walk in someone else’s shoes. Mine fit so well and are so comfortable that it’s hard to want to get out of them, but sometimes the souls of others are worth walking in ... and not just for their benefit. I can’t remember a time that I felt worse off for putting someone else first. Even if they took advantage of my niceness or didn’t even commend me for doing it, I really can’t go wrong by doing more of it. I guess it’s just an area of constant effort and - hopefully - progress, by the grace of God. After all, if I even sit and think for a moment of all the terrible things I’ve been forgiven of, a snappy comment or poorly timed criticism really AREN’T that big of a deal in the big picture, now are they??

Rewind #8: Some of the Good Things

Original air date: 1Feb2010

It might be easy to draw an incorrect conclusion. By reading through these last few posts, you might get to thinking that all I think about are things related to my health [or the lack of,] or the struggles I am having. While it’s true that I *am* at a pretty crucial point with a lot of those things -- I am on the verge of making some decisions that are going to affect the rest of my life -- I am surrounded EVERY DAY by some WONDERFUL things in this world! Unable to be topped by anything is the fact that God answered me when I decided to seek Him with my whole heart, according to His truth. He has been knocking at my door for many, many years, and I finally answered the door and He came in! I can’t explain the same thing that couldn’t be explained to me when I was an atheist - and that is the peace that passes all understanding. I know that the cross is a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others, but to me it is God’s power to salvation. No disease, no hormone, no injection or surgery or therapy can ever take that away. I know that God has given me the freedom to walk away from Him at any time, but He has given me too many reasons to stay.

Beyond that I have an AMAZING husband who has loved me from the beginning and has stood by my through EVERYTHING. And that’s a LOT. This is the man who has wrapped my hands with gauze, done countless trips to the pharmacy or to the dr’s office for me and with me, he has slept many nights in the back of our Blazer parked in the hospital’s parking garage because the night nurse was enforcing visiting hours. Danny has had the guts and the love to stand up to me when I stood too tall; loving hands that have always caught me when I was falling; and feet that have always stood beside me. He has weathered the storms of Prednisone and Lupron ... which were NO small feat. He allows me to be me, while helping me grow into a better me.

Even though I went years without truly appreciating what an amazing family I have, I am now wholeheartedly convinced that my family is knit together tighter than most, and I have blessing after blessing flowing from that spring. I continue to grow closer & closer to my sisters and my parents, and I love how these relationships are deeper than ever -- not to mention the family I inherited when I married Danny, which includes everyone from Chris & Kayla to Danny’s mom, Mama Stroud, his amazing sisters & hilarious brothers (I’ve been told many times to always have a lock on the suitcase if you’re staying at their house,) plus nieces like Misty and Tonya and all of the other wonderful McNeals! It is only by their warm welcoming into the family that I know I would be at home wherever they are, whether TN or FL or TX or beyond.

There has also been an entirely new family I have been adopted into, and that is the family of God - the church. Ever since the Lord added me to His church on March 16, 2003, I have been blessed by the love and support of my family in Christ. I really can’t overemphasize the encouragement they have been! I have developed some of the closest friendships I have ever had in the church ... but I SO hesitate to name names because I have grown SO close to SO many people, but if my brain misfires and I forgot to write a name of a person that was really important to me, I would just die. But I know my closest friends know who they are. :)

I am blessed to have the medical coverage and healthcare that I have. Of all the places in the world, (that kinda sounds like, “of all the gin joints ...”) what were the odds of me being born in a country where I would have access to such things?? Why wasn’t I born in Zambia, where just getting a drink of clean water is a big deal??

I am reading several books that are blessing my life too:

• Danny and I are reading Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. The book is based on Ephesians 5:33: “Each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” God has designed us so that the man’s deepest need is respect, and the woman’s is love, and this book is helping us embrace that & communicate it to our spouse. We are learning a lot about our marriage & communication!
• Michael J. Fox’s Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. The title’s use of the word “incurable” is a pun on the fact that he suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, an incurable condition -- but he refuses to let a devastating disease rob him of his joy of living. I highly recommend this to everyone, but especially those with health struggles.
• What’s Submission Got To Do With It? by Cindy Easley. It’s an “every woman” kind of book on embracing God’s design for a submissive wife. She talks about how our nature is to rise up and want to control things (see Genesis 3,) but that God has an order to everything He designs. Unfortunately the word “submissive” has been misused so many time to mean more like “subservient,” and it robs us of the nobility that being a true helpmate carries. I can’t watch a movie like The Cinderella Man, The Glenn Miller Story, Rocky, -- or any of the others where the man can NOT succeed until his wife wholeheartedly supports him, and think that being a helpmate is a second-class role! I like that the author writes it in such a way that you don’t feel dumb nor wicked if you struggle with putting away the thoughts of the world to embrace God’s way.
• Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired -- Living with Invisible Chronic Illness, by Paul Donoghue. It talks about the unique struggles of living with diseases that are invisible to the people around you -- sometimes even those closest to you -- and how it affects us differently that those battling conditions like cancer or being in a wheelchair ... anything that can be easily seen.

Sometimes it’s just a great habit to pause & look at all the countless things in my life that bless me FAR beyond what I deserve. God has TRULY been amazing to me!! In my next entry I will include a small list of scripture that serves to always be an encouragement to me. Depending on the day, this list could vary *widely* - but there are some that always lift me up. Stay tuned for those!

Rewind#3: While I am Waiting

Original air date: 26Jan10

(Blogger’s note: don’t worry, dear reader - not all the posts on this little blog will be this long!  But when I’m trying to explain probably the second most profound revelation to my heart and soul in my adult life, it’s not going to be a quick note. So grab a cup of coffee, get in a comfy chair, and read on!)

Recently, I have been humbled. I have been brought to my spiritual knees and things became clear in my heart that have been struggling to find the surface for YEARS. This revelation has only been rivaled by my initial conviction to turn my life to Christ - almost 7 years ago! But I certainly don’t credit myself for this big breakthrough. I know in my heart of hearts that the Lord has been working diligently on me -- He has been using the people in my life to talk to me, He has used years of frustration and a general feeling of being lost & spinning hopelessly to get my attention, and He has used pain, sorrow and heartache to bring my heart to a point where I would truly listen to Him with my whole soul. I have known that God is bigger than any situation in my life, and that He is powerful enough to use all of these things together for what is good. This requires a “big picture” point of view! It is WAY too human and easy for us to only be able to see a day behind and a day in front of us. All we can see is the hurt we feel RIGHT NOW. We don’t see the blessings that come from what I will learn and grow in and mature by going through this. We just feel our pillow, wet with tears. We feel our fingernails digging into our own skin, the sinking of despair in our hearts. It takes the faith of a saint at THAT moment to know that God will use THAT moment for what is good. The Holy Spirit tells us: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to {His} purpose.” (Rom 8:28) - and now my soul is accepting that, beyond just my intellect believing it.

So what WAS this big breakthrough? What was powerful enough to shake the very core of all my thought processes and up-end and re-align my emotions? The shortest way I can explain it is by saying it’s putting my faith where my head is. I have always thought when I should have trusted. I worried when I should have trusted. I made my own plans, blazed my own trail, and then later asked God to bless me along the way. We all say the words and quasi-intellectually know that we can’t control the circumstances of our lives .... but then when our lives are changed by things outside of our control, we are TOTALLY lost and confused and mad!! Or, at least that described me. I have been living my life working towards the goals that I have set for myself - which, in and of themselves were not sinful goals or anything wrong - I had graduated from college with a degree in Metal, I had been working as a goldsmith, which was a job I just loved! I LOVED taking raw metal and having a vision of what it could become, and through the process of many cuts, burns, and laser welds on my skin, that hunk of metal would eventually turn into a beautiful piece of jewelry. Call me crazy, but I love the callouses on my hands and the permanent black fingernails from the polishing compound (although I quickly learned that people who make their own meth have hands that look the same, and therefore I was hit up for drugs more than once.) But at the ripe ol’ age of 25, my world was changed when Behcet’s Disease (BD) began manifesting in my body. Two years later I took some time off work to heal from a flare, (which had become my pattern by that point) -- but what I couldn’t have seen coming was that I would never go back. I would never sit at that bench again. Where I hung my torch that day is where it would remain. Whatever joints I hadn’t soldered or stones I hadn’t quite finished setting yet would never be done. Even right now as I write this, that is incredibly hard for me to say, and gets me a little teary. Right now I type this with clean hands, long nails, and a girly manicure. Not that I don’t like those things, but if I had to pick one or the other, *I* would have picked the nasty jeweler’s manicure in a heartbeat! But God had other plans for me, which are being revealed to me one painfully slow day at a time. That’s not the way I like it. (Which is weird, because I really am QUITE a spontaneous person ... in fact, too much routine will drive me nuts faster than most other things. But when it comes to my life, evidently I like to know what I’m getting into.)

So where am I going with all this? (If you know me at all, you already know that I am easily distracted by shiny objects and funny stories, so me getting off on tangents will NOT be a stranger to this blog.) :-P 

The last year of my life has been one of the most difficult years of my life. There haven’t been any big new developments (well, other than the addition of a new disease. I guess that counts as “major,") yet my mind has been in a constant struggle to accept my “new life.” I have heard that we can never go back to our old normal, but must create a “new normal.” That is especially difficult if you didn’t have anything against your old normal! My faith is strong and by far the most important thing in my life, so why was I so devastated about the changes in my life?? I have always considered myself an optimist, so it was really bothering me how negative the majority of my thoughts were. I had always wanted to be the kind of person that took everything in stride ... the kind of person who, when their left arm was cut off in some tragic farm equipment accident, could simply smile and say, “My wedding ring fit better on my other hand anyway,” and never think another thing about it. Then I’d travel the country speaking to other farm equipment victims and motivate them to be in the one-handed Olympics. But the reality was that I was having a tough time!! And I didn’t want to be having a tough time, so it made it even worse. If you had ever asked me, I would have said that what a person DOES for a living is NOT what that person IS. “A job title does not an identity make.” Yet in practice, now that I didn’t have a job title or a career, I was feeling totally lost and without an identity. So here I am, 31, without a career and without little kids runnin’ around the house ... so what did that make me? Without a career and without a family, what did I DO?? Who was I? I was struggling very much to feel intrinsic worth as a person, without making a tangible contribution to society in the work force. But I have never looked at anyone I’ve known that does not work (or is not raising a family) as if they were any less of a person because of it, but I was overwhelmed with those feelings for myself. Quite the double standard! 

Through a lot of conversations with people, through soul-searching and prayer and asking for prayers, and just by keeping my antennae up for direction from the Lord - it all revealed amazing things! I think it all came to a head and gelled together while listening to a sermon by Dane Bengard in Chester a couple weeks ago. The basic point of the sermon was yielding yourself and allowing the Spirit to work in your life, and not only asking for God to guide your life but also making yourself available to be guided daily. This was revolutionary! --even though I had known that intellectually for quite a while. The book of James talks about when we make plans for our lives, we should always say, “If the Lord wills we will do this or that.” But does our heart say that too? The litmus test is how we react when our plans don’t come through. I was failing that test miserably! I was devastated, pouting, hurt, angry, and unsure of where to go or who I was. As if God had been waiting for my agenda to move forward, and if He didn’t have MY plan to go by He’d just be at a loss for what to do next. I suddenly realized that I had never lifted my plans up to the Lord and asked if it was His will that I do the things I was planning!! It all came home when I realized (not for the first time in my brain, but the first time in my heart,) that I serve a God who does NOT simply close doors and leave us scratching our heads. If God is closing a door in my life, it is because He has another door opening for me. 

I have no idea what that door is. I don’t know what’s on the other side. I have no idea what I’m going to find when I walk through it. But I know one thing is for certain - GOD is on the other side of that door, and Christ is there waiting to walk with me every step of the way. Why do I need to worry about where the path leads, when I have Christ at my side? So I am waiting. I know that my old plan is not the way God is leading me, but I don’t know yet the form of the new plan. But while I am waiting I will be hopeful, and I will be peaceful, and I will continue to worship the God of my every tomorrow.

Rewind#1: Getting Set Up

(Original air date: 23Jan10) Well here I am, certainly no jet-setter ... I am joining the world of online blogging at a point when many people literally have years of entries in their archive! Choosing to start a blog at this point is, as I believe most things in life are, at just the right time. This is an outlet I need and a connection I desire, which will hopefully carve out a niche much deeper than Facebook, different than email, but certainly no replacement for all those deep conversations that happen over a great cup of coffee at wee hours of the night. Blogging is an adventure and a style of communication all its own .... and here we go! I have some hopes and some thoughts and even a few plans of what I’d like to include in this blog ... but mostly I look forward to the identity that is created along the way. I want this blog to have the freedom to morph from one identity to the next ... which I guess will meet the needs from one situation to the next. I will pay close attention to my grammar and spelling and punctuation (trying always to remember if the question mark goes inside or outside the quotes, and when to use “effect” and when to use “affect”,) but the bottom line is, this is not intended to be a discourse about English composition! I hope that you can bear with me as all the days I skipped English class to go hang out in the Metals or Ceramics studios become quite clear ...... so to my readers who excel FAR more than me at those topics (you know who you are!) - I apologize in advance and ask for your patience. :)

Since this blog will follow and document certain parts of life, it’s natural to assume that we will cover all kinds of topics! This blog will likely reflect the areas that are most important in my life, which all center around relationships: first and foremost is my relationship with Christ. How the day He entered my life forever changed everything about me, and why I will NEVER be the same; my relationship with my husband -- why a man who knows he is “second-best” in his wife’s eyes knows that is the best place he can be ... why he desires to have a wife who will always put God above her husband; and also my relationships with my two families -- my family by my parents’ blood, and my family by the blood of Christ. I am SO grateful for the love and support that both of these families has given me over the years. And I have to admit that it is only in recent years that I have REALLY grabbed ahold of those relationships. My family has always been there for me ... giving me much more help & support than I had ever returned with gratitude ... yet it has been a recent chapter in my life where I have wholeheartedly embraced that. Why? Well, the selfishness of youth is the best reason I can give. I don’t think my experiences and feelings were any special phenomenon among teens & early 20-ers, but I am not using that as an excuse. I simply took these people for granted for too many years. For way too long I saw relationships as tools in a tool belt - they sat there patiently waiting for you to realize they were useful at a particular time, and then I’d pull them out of the bag, apply them to the problem at hand, and when the crisis was resolved I would clean them off and put them back in storage until the next crisis would surface. I now realize how selfish an outlet like that is, and I pray that I am now seeing myself as a tool in THEIR bag, trying to be useful in their live (for a change) ... basically embracing the mutual nature of any relationship that is built to last.

So here we go, you and me - off into the wild blue of the world of blogging! Get a fresh mug of coffee, pull up a comfy chair, and let’s go solve the world’s problems together!! :) God bless!