Don't Wait to Be Happy

Despite the dreams of lots and lots of babies by pregnancy, our pregnancy years are over. And they ended with two losses, not a beauty-from-ashes-pregnancy.

We said "No, and that carries a weight of impacting a little boy's life with epic proportions.

Shiloh isn't fully ready to be passed in a home study just yet and it all takes time and as time passes the ache grows a bit more with longing to hold our children. And the journey is evoking deep emotions and cold logic and more time than the heart says it wants to take, before our children arrive.

It's not how I planned.

It rarely is.

Wisely Vulnerable

Heart doors swinging wide open in order to be available to love and nurture, even as our minds told us great caution and discretion was needed. Seventy-two hours of prayer and aching and seeking and finding. Our "No" leaves a little one in a distressing situation but it's what The Author of our story directed us to say.

And as we say it, we know that The Author of our story is also The Author of his, and we trust there is a plan for this life which briefly intersected ours.

There is a history of recognizing and knowing His voice when it nudges our hearts and what peace feels like and even more, what a lack of peace doesn't feel like. This is vital to the process of Shiloh and I can't imagine going through it without this life lesson girding the foundation of our pathway.

For forty-eight hours, for the third time in our marriage, I allowed myself the daydream of a child who may have our names written on his heart and his, on ours.

And for the same period of time I found myself on knees on a yet-unfinished concrete bedroom floor, asking God, the Creator of Him and the Finisher of us, to show clearly if this was the time and this was the child.

And He said "No".

The Journey to All Natural Living | Part 9

I originally titled this 52 week to All Natural Living.

A bit unrealistic.

These things take time.

A lot of time!

But slow and steady wins the race and we're winning here. :)

To recap:

Work out Week (Take your Pick)

There has been a niggling question as to whether I should be working out. Or at least, pursuing all the fitness goals I have aimed for.

While I know my reasons for wanting to work out are right and healthy ones, because of my past with eating disorders and the underlying motivations to them, I have to constantly re-evaulate why I'm working out. 

Eating disorders are complicated.

Mine, as with every other ED woman, was complex and multi-facted. It took years to understand the "why's" behind it. And while this May 22 sees 11 years of walking in victory, it is a rare day that the old compulsions and desires don't try to take over my mind. From thinking I need to lose weight to feeling like a fat, lazy failure because I didn't get an intense work-out in, to life being all wrong and not wanting to go out in public because I think the pair of pants that fit perfect yesterday make me look huge today which tries to start the panic of "Weight! Fat! Get it off, get if off! You're such a failure. . . !", the struggles abound on a regular basis in regard to this issue.

But. . .

This.

I've been a child of God for 30 years.

Wow!

That's pretty incredible.

And for the past ten, I've had a great devotional life.

As in, it's not a "duty" or an "I should" but instead, an "I want to get up and do this!" thing. Which is such a blessing, because for years I struggled with it as something I "should" do and felt so guilty for numerous days that I failed to do so.

My routine has varied through the years. Devotionals from My Utmost for His Highest to Murray and Spurgeon, to Beth Moore and Blackaby Bible studies.

Then, four years ago I felt pressed to not read any books but only the Bible, cover to cover several times. It proved enriching while at the same time, showed how much I still didn't know about God's Word.

The depths of it's richness can never be plumbed on this earth. I am certain of that.

A weekend of:

~ Yellow roses from Handsome who had such an incredibly long day and yet, took the time to stop and purchase them, bringing them home and winning my heart yet again.

Endless Life

Blessings abound.

One being, boredom is never an issue.

The word is not any part of the definition of our family. We may find our definition in "beauty" and "discovery" and "passion" and "love" and "laughter" and "creativity", but certainly not "boredom".

It occurred to me last night, as my head was hitting the pillow at 10:00 after being up since 5:00 a.m., that I was made for eternity.

I already knew that, but the realization was renewed as I fell into bed, mind struggling to shut down as the list of all that I had hoped to accomplish blazed across. The piano hadn't been played, the photography chapter I had wanted to knock off in the latest book on my desk wasn't, and the flower patch hadn't been planted yet.

There are photos to be put in photo albums and more to be printed and three skirts I wanted to sew and several craft projects I wanted to try with the kids and vegetables to get started and oh! One more evening slipped by without a ramble out back to see if we could startle any deer or see what the geese are up to in the pond out back or if the apple blossoms have burst out yet.

Eternity is necessary. To finally have the time -- relatively speaking -- to soak in and create the beauty our hearts long to take in, capture, and then spill back out again. All in a constant act of praise and worship to Him who sits on the Throne.

Not because we have to or we ought to, but because our heart longs to.

As natural as a bud that must burst forth into flowering bloom.

Seasons of Friendship

She drank diet Coke and I ate peach gummis, in our effort to stave off hunger, arms with fresh cuts laid bare in the privacy of our individual apartments where onlookers couldn't stare. She chain smoked, I hacked while she did. We spent hours watching movies that gave false notions of true love, longing for it, even as we spewed the hate and anger that kept us from all healthy relationships.

I understood her. She understood me.

No one got us, like we got each other. We fed off each other, as the ugliness resounded in the mirrors of our hears and instead of encouraging each other to greatness we instilled greater sickness in each other's lives.

Until the day we attended the revival service.

And the speaker spoke directly to both of us but only one of us went forward.

Alone.

While I was surrounded with women who prayed for me and with me at the altar, doing mighty battle to lay it all down, she escaped to the parking lot of a smoke and a Diet Coke. And that night we parted ways, as I left forever changed from surrender and the liberation of the chains that had bound me and she walked away with her chains still dragging her down into so much less than she was created to be. 

I run into her sometimes, the last time, last summer. The long sleeves hid her recent self-destruction activity on her arms as well as kept the fragile bones warm. Her face was gaunt and yellow and bitterness and old age shown out from eyes long dimmed by anorexia and self-abuse. My sleeves were shoved up as I wrestled my toddler, scars visible but white instead of raw and red, and I'm sure my face was flushed, even as I laughed at my son who was grabbing my face and kissing me while I looked at him and told him he was making my life miserable as I shopped.

Plumb Lines and Context

Muddy clothes on the clothes line are the indicators of a weekend well spent. Handsome and I look at each other and laugh when we see our five year old princess laying in a puddle of mud because, "I wanted to look at the sky from here."

It's country life. And it's what water washes away at the end of a day. 

The discoveries of our life, are so simple and yet so complex in the joy they bring us sometimes. Clearing our overgrown blackberry patch and we discovered this beautiful master bush (on the right). I failed to capture it's grandiosity with the cell phone. A more proper attempt will be made later in the week.

Before/after