Beach Trip 2013

How to weed eat for the first time when you're 41

Since the "How to fly for the first time when you're 40" post was so wildly successful {read my mom and two friends loved it} I thought I would add another installment to the "first time" series.

He lived across the street, and he was in high school. He was a senior in high school, but that didn't stop me from having a crush on him. 

Never mind that I was in first grade. 

I remember the day he was weed eating and something happened. He got slashed right across his chest. I was devastated. 

I guess you probably shouldn't weed eat with no shirt on.

And I'm not sure exactly how it happened. All I can figure is that they have made improvements in weed eaters in the last thirty years?

I think this was formative, though, in my slight fear of weed eaters.

I didn't give them much thought until I moved in with my stepmom and dad. My stepmom loved doing yard work.

I didn't really understand that. She said it was a job she could actually finish and get satisfaction from a completed job.

I didn't understand this either.

It would take me having children before I knew what she meant.

You know, they are finished eating dinner before you are done cooking it, dirtying clothes as you put away the clean ones, making a mess in the room you just cleaned while you clean the next one, and pretty much undoing everything you just did. 

Then I got it.  

A job completed. All at once. That stayed completed for awhile.

Ah. Gotcha.

So I always wanted to do yard work. I wanted to be like my stepmom in that. 

But my kind husband said that was his job. 

In the eighteen years we've been married, I think I have cut the grass twice. But it may be only once.

He just likes to do that for me. And how do you complain about that?

We had a yard service when the kids were young. I didn't care that it cost money; I needed my husband inside on the weekends helping me stay sane. There was this one day where the four year old and the two year old stood at the door crying with their snotty noses pressed against the glass watching him mow the grass while I bounced a crying newborn (I have a picture somewhere of this scenario but those days are sort of a blur, and I'm not sure I could locate it) and the very next day I called a nice man who came and did all the yard work during the week like magic and then the daddy held the baby on the weekends and entertained the other two while I tried desperately to find my brain. 

Then when the kids got older I decided to cancel the yard service because people were bigger now and wouldn't cry at the door. They could maybe even HELP THE YARD DADDY.

And all was well.

Fast forward to this month. It has been a hard, long month for my poor husband. He has worked so much and had so much going on. As I sat on the patio one morning doing Bible study, my eyes slid over to the weeks that had snuck up slightly higher than normal with all the rain and I thought, "Gosh, I hate to ask him about the yard." He hasn't even had time to be in the backyard, much less notice that the weeds were high. 

I casually asked him early in the week if he thought he would get to it any time soon and he sadly said, "It'll be Saturday morning." 

"No big deal!" I answered. See, I had thought of a plan. 

I texted my neighbor/dearloyalfriend and asked her to help me learn how to weed eat. She, who loves an adventure, and me, said she would. We set a time, and I met her in the back yard holding the weed eater. 

I was a little nervous.

I have a habit of falling down. And dropping stuff. And tripping over stuff. And being a klutz in general. And when it comes to yard work, I have proved less than stellar at it already.  

I think I went through three extension cords the first time I trimmed the bushes. 

It was a surprise for the hubs.

Yep. He was real surprised to find out we had to buy three new extension cords.

Those things are expensive, dangit.

Anyway, with visions of cut extension cords dancing in my head, along with lost toes and a flying rock putting my eye out, I was as ready as I ever would be. I had on jeans and close-toed shoes. I was properly outfitted and ready to take on the world.

Or at least the weeds.

Karen and I investigated the weed eater, got a plan, and I cranked her up.

Actually it's electric so I just pushed the handle.

It roared to life and I was a bit trepidatious. 

Karen may have even laughed. 

And she may have said out loud, "I wish I had a camera!"

Well, me being me, I whipped my phone out of my back pocket and then this happened:

You can tell she was surprised. 

She said I looked really scared. I agree with her.  

Then this happened. 

And then it just became like a party.

I learned as I went. And here's what I discovered:

• you have lots of time to think while you're doing yard work 
• you get really dirty when you're doing yard work
• edging is really harder than it looks {straight lines, anyone?}
• yard work is harder than it looks
• i hope i said "thank you" every time the husband got done with the yard work
• your back and arms get pretty tired. 
• your arms feel like jelly for a period of time after {how long does this last?}

But I got used to this machine, this weed eating machine, and once I figured out that I couldn't break it, and it wasn't going to eat me, I got aggressive with it and actually sort of had fun. I think I was even sad when I was all done. I even got out the blower that hubs had begged me to use every time he saw me with a broom in my hand, and I blew the heck out of those cut weeds too.

That was fun. Although there is an art to not blowing the weeds in a circle, right back to where you had just blown them from.

 I had to figure that out.

I knew better than to push my luck and actually mow something, since the day had been such a success. Hopefully this will be a surprise to the hubs when he goes outside to do yard work tomorrow, and I liked it enough to make it sort of "my" job. Maybe he'll mow still. But I might like that job too. {See, the kids can't come behind me and make the grass grow before I'm done. I see how this works. I do like it. A job completed all at once}

As soon as I got done, I heard another weed eater crank up in the neighborhood. I had to resist the urge to go find the operator and give them a fist bump. 

You know, from one expert weed eater to another.

***edited to add: Hubs looked at the picture on my phone when he got home that night and said, "That's not the weed eater. That's the edger. The weed eater is by the lawn mower." {It stands to reason I didn't see it there since I was AVOIDING THE LAWN MOWER.} Okay then. My friend said since it's whacks weeds, it's a weed eater. I tend to agree. So I weed eated with an edger. I still did it. But maybe this means I should leave the weed eating to the experts? Hm.....

Lay your burden down?

It was a normal day at the store where my friend Michelle and I were working. The owner was there too, and we all heard it at the same time: the rush of running water. We looked up in horror as a flood of water poured down a wall, threatening to soak everything in its path. In this upscale, high end store that was an especially worrisome potential disaster. 

We three flew into action and with nearly super human speed cleared the area, saving most of the merchandise. In a couple of hours, when everything had calmed down, the owner and I noticed Michelle laughing hysterically. Thinking perhaps the stress of the situation had made her a little crazy, the owner said, "What in the world is wrong?" Through fits of laughter she told us what had happened, that in all of the melee, we had missed. 

In that soon to be flooded corner of the store sat a beautiful antique table. Part of its uniqueness was the fact that it only had two legs. It was a corner table and the corner of the table fit into a corner of a room. The two front legs, along with the tension of the table against the corner of the wall, fit it securely into its place. As we had quickly cleared off the small table, Michelle had grabbed the table and run off with it. 

She was telling us later, through tears of laughter, that she had run around in a panic trying to find a corner to put the table into. Every other single corner of the store was already occupied and while the owner and I were frantically trying to save valuable merchandise from an impending flood, she was stuck with this table and had absolutely no place to put it. She literally ran from corner to corner in the store until finally the frenzied cloud lifted from her mind she had the wherewithall to lay it gently in the middle of the storeroom floor on its side. 

Now that the water was stopped and the damage was at a minimum,  the relief allowed us to see the humor of her being stuck with that corner table, and the three of us laughed until we cried. Surely the trauma and stress had made us a little lightheaded, but never did I dust that table or arrange merchandise on it that a giggle not escape from me at the mental image of sweet Michelle stuck running around with that table with absolutely no place to put it. 

And in the now probably fifteen years that since that day, I have thought of that table on more than one occasion.

As I reflect back, I think it was my miscarriage that first felt like that corner table. I had no where to put it. I certainly had love and support from so many during that time, but no one could truly bare the grief that I felt for my baby. Even my gracious and well meaning husband tried so hard to understand my deep grief for a child that was his too, but I felt the distance in our griefs. I don't think it was possible for anyone to truly grieve the way that I did for that baby. And to this day I will occasionally and quite surprisingly find the longing for that child so great that I lose my breath, especially when I see a toddling girl with blonde bouncy curls. 

See, there was no where to lay this grief. 

I became more and more thankful to the Lord for the work He was doing in me. I appreciated the way He was growing me, teaching me and stretching me.

And there were days I asked Him to stop because it was too hard. And too much. 

Then as should have been expected, the Lord graciously added more to what He was teaching. Lead me on new paths. Soon I found myself in completely uncharted territory. No manuals here. No one to help. No one to ask advice. Just a wide open road of trust...

And no where to lay the fear of the unknown.

Just like that corner table, I simply carried it with me all of the time. 

Soon I found myself more of a confidant that I had every been before. Willing to carry burdens of those I loved. Willing to be one who would not utter another's heart. I was thankful to be used. And I had no place to lay these new burdens. 

I struggled under the weight of it.

I got quieter. More reserved. I felt the need less and less to outwardly express myself. I felt myself turning inwardly more and more, relying on God to share my heart. He felt like the only safe place to lay it all down. Unfortunately my pull toward the tangible missed the concrete place to truly cast burdens down. I struggled to learn a way to give God the burdens of my heart and feel the physical release of it all too.

This is when I picked up a pen and paper again. I spilled it all out onto yellow paper, thankful that the receptacle honored the secrets that I bestowed upon it. I would feel relief as I pressed word into paper. It felt like I really gave it to Christ. 

My corner table had found a corner. A safe corner. 

And I was healed from the desire to share my heart with another human.

And soon that became a problem.

{dangit}

I then became called to share my heart with others. 

And I wasn't okay with that. I felt the fear that sharing again might undo all that I had learned. I had been healed of the constant sharing, but now perhaps too healed? Now I proudly needed no one. 

This was problematic in a new way.

And I was exhausted. 

The Lord pressed me to learn to share my heart appropriately, and it has been a hard, hard journey. I prefer still to pour it all out to Him, pen to paper. I am learning to trust. I am learning to share. I am seeing the benefit of the properly shared heart. 

And I am learning that my heart still wants to whine and complain instead of sharing the hard in a way that gives Him a change to be glorified in my weakness. 

It was hard to study 1 Corinthians 9 last week and see Paul's exhortation to suffer in silence. 

1 Corinthians 9:12 " ...we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ."

"The basic meaning of  'endure' is 'to bear over or to pass over in silence.' ''

Ouch. This means I don't get to complain? I see this as one side of my issue.

I like to whine, "this is hard..." from time to time.

On the other hand, Paul said I didn't have to share my heart.

See how things work over here?

I am struggling to see how to balance this all in the way that best shares His gospel and points to His glory. 

Being honest and truthful about my story, yet telling it in a way that gives the glory to Him, is hard. 

Even in the day to day stuff: I want to make sure everyone knows how hard I'm working over there. 

Someone really needs to appreciate all this hard work and dedication. 

I am so fleshly. 

See, I spin this the way I want to. I shut myself off from those that love me so that I don't have to push myself out of my comfort zone and share my heart. And certainly I don't have to share parts my heart, or all of it, with the younger girls God has graciously allowed me to share life with, or with the friends that I have that are my own age. {Yes, I have friends that are my own age. I promise, I do.}

But as soon as things get hard, I will, with the perfect flavor of humor as not to be "complaining" share my discontent with the world via social media so that I feel vindicated and validated that this is all, indeed, rather hard.

...slow to anger and abounding in love...

This is the Lord that bears with me. 

And here is where He is teaching me to learn how and when to bear and when to share and when to shut up:

I found myself in a potential freak out spot last week. 

I mean I wanted to full on FREAK OUT. 

Tears, yelling (or hollering as the redneck me tends to do when really FREAKING OUT) all with a good dash of whining.

I felt the unmistakable pull of the Lord saying, "Come meet Me in Scripture..."

"Well, Lord, that takes WORK...

I'd rather freak out. Thankyouverymuch."

Proof of His gracious work in my life proves itself in the fact that I actually obeyed.

I met Him in Scripture. 

Seriously. I really did.

He did a work in me through His Word. 

Just me and the Word. 

So instead of FREAKING OUT and complaining and whining to the kind soul who was willing to listen in the first place, after obeying, communing with the Lord and spending time with Him in the pages of His Word, I got to go back to that patient soul and rejoice in how the Lord had just worked in my soul, taught me new ways of dealing with the same old junk, MET ME IN THE HARD and hallelujah, kept that kind person from hearing me vomit my dysfunction all in their general direction.

I think that's praiseworthy.

That's when I was struck again by Paul's exhortation to "suffer silently."

It's not punishment.

It's not to make me crazy. Or to make me feel secluded. Or make me feel cut off from the world. Or make me feel like I'm all alone.

It's to 

SHUT ME UP LONG ENOUGH FOR GOD TO DO SOMETHING.

And you know what? That's far better than me babbling some complaints to someone who really feels helpless to actually help me. Instead I got to celebrate a powerful, caring and loving Father who really is willing to meet us where we are and do a work if we will let Him.

Sweet hallelujah. 

So.

This is what I'm learning about how and where to lay burdens down. Maybe for me it's just the learning to take it all to Him first. And be willing to wait while He tells me what to do next. Share it? Get over it? Forget it? Put it aside until another time? Pray over it? Search Scripture about it?

Or, heaven forbid, tell someone about it?

I'm learning. I'm learning when to share. I'm learning when to shut up. I'm learning to want whatever I say to glorify Him more than I want it to gratify my flesh. And I fail. But I'm learning. 

And praise be to Him that He's a patient teacher. 

And praise Him that He really will not leave me hauling around this corner table unless it really does make me look more like Him. 

First Day of School 2013-2014 School Year

It was time.

Time to start school.

 We had a two month break, which sort of seemed like two weeks.

But anyway. 

It was a great two months full of busy fun. We were sick some, we sent friends overseas, we swam and played and cleaned and organized and rested and read and then it was time...

School.

 Starting early is necessary for us since we have vacation days to account for, along with sick days, sanity break days, holidays and a definite need to be done by Memorial Day, all while packing 180 days and 36 weeks into the school year. 

I could panic about it all if I think about it for too long. 

But August 1st seemed like a great time to start. I know by now to start with a short two day week, my friend and neighbor was starting the same day, and MY GOSH WHY NOT?

We have to start some time.

One resolution of mine for this school year is to make it all more fun. More activities and more laughter and more...

fun. 

I'm determined.

So to set the mood, I decorated. 

I wrote them notes. 

I woke up early, did everything I needed to do, and so did they.

And at 9 am ON THE DOT we were ready. 

All in our chairs. 

Even the dog.

They read their cards.

Our principal, boys' advisor, PE coach and financial liaison prayed over us and our year.  

We made our traditional beginning of the year signs. 

 

Then we actually did school.

Mainly we remembered where we left off and figured out what we have to do next.

And we figured out we forgot EVERYTHING we ever learned in math. 

Sigh. 

Then, because we are slightly crazy and addicted to fun, we went to the next to the last night of our church's Vacation Bible School, or "Rock the Block" as we call it. Seeing a gaggle of kids flying happily down the hill made my heart so happy. 

Making some good memories there. 

Then I came home and found a treat from a precious friend on my door. Perry is always a wonderful surprise:

So that was day 1. 

Only 179 more to go.

I am exhausted. My house is a disaster already. My head is spinning from all I have to do and I'm already wondering how I will get it all done. I finished the day fully knowing that unless the mercy and grace of our great and gracious Lord fall on me, I will fail repeatedly at this mission of educating my kids. Thankfully I was reminded that He who calls is faithful. 

And I am thankful.

My broom tree

It's been awhile since I've sat to pour out thoughts here. The reasons are many, mainly being busy and also this newfound idea of keeping blog posts around five hundred words for the ease of the reader. That in and of itself was enough to keep me from wanting to write. I pretend no one reads anything I put here and trying to censor myself leaves me unable to even attempt to write anything at all.

Plus how many different ways can you write

~things are hard, still

~He is good

~it's all going to be okay 

~I'm learning

I think every blog post written here in the last five years fits into one of those categories. Or all of them.

I ran out of new words to say the same old ideas.

And a couple of weeks ago I found myself in a familiar place: under my broom tree.

{I can't call it a bush. I have to call it a tree.}

Last spring will forever be known as "the Elijah phase." The spring stretched into summer and I spent days and weeks and weeks studying Elijah.

I literally came away a different person, changed so fundamentally that I think of Elijah and what I learned frequently.

Especially when I find myself back under his broom tree.

Don't worry, he doesn't mind sharing.

"...But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, 'It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.'"

Elijah had just in the chapter before brought fire down from heaven and here he runs from Jezebel after she tells him she'll have him killed. He flees to the wilderness and crawls under the broom tree and quits.

Yep.

As soon as I realized where I was, I quickly tried to diagnose why I was there. Sin? Selfishness? Self pity? Anger? Exhaustion?

All of the above?

Being the slow learner that I am, it was a little while before the realization came to me that it may be the good Lord's intention that I was here. Again.

As a result of my sin, I'm sure.

Things certainly changed for Elijah once he got to his broom tree, and he never quite recovered. That made me sad. I didn't want the broom tree to be life changing for the worst for me. I wanted to stay here for a while and then crawl back out and get back to it. But I couldn't. I couldn't muster the energy or the determination or the wherewithal to army crawl out of there.

I wasn't sure what to do next.

I asked my friend who recently relocated to the land of the broom tree to send me some pictures of my new home and she soon obliged. I appreciated it greatly. It felt good to see where I was lying.

I think my greatest desire was to somehow honor God while I was under there. I suspected that He stripped away a few of my creature comforts and thus paved a way straight to that tree. I think He wanted me under there to set a few things straight. He certainly got my attention.

I think that I collapse under this tree when my fleshly ways of dealing with this life fail. When I bit by bit start to rely more on myself than Him, easing my way more toward myself than Him, He shuts it all down and I awake to find myself flat on my back staring up at the sky through the branches of a tree.

Disconcerting.

Like a child I start to whine and ask God why I'm there, like an imprudent child sequestered in a time out, squirming in my chair trying to escape far more than quieting myself under this God to hear from Him. My eyes dart, refusing to look Him in the eye, so much like my child caught in a sin he refuses to own. I wrestle and maneuver and justify and question and rationalize and explain, twisting and turning until I spend all of my energy and become still...

Only then can I hear the quiet, the gentle song of creation ignored until I relinquished all of me. In that stillness I hear all of creation quietly singing its praises to the God who holds and sustains it all. And I hear the Lord whisper to me, just as He did to Elijah,

what are you doing here?

I'm not sure exactly how He said it to Elijah. In my head, He was kinder to Him the first time than He was the second time.

And I feel Him say to me again

I need you to trust Me.

Same song, same verse.

So I lie under my tree and will myself to trust.

Because it's hard for me to trust. It takes work. More work and more strength and more than anything I have in me to trust. It's more than just "let go and let God" or study more or pray more or whatever. This takes me to places I don't even want to go or know how to get back from. And more often than not, I get to go alone, because who exactly can go with you with you're learning the hard things from God?

It's usually very solitary under this tree.

 

So what I have decided is this it's okay to be here from time to time. It's okay to learn the hard things from God. And not by any means do I want to appear to have it all together more then Elijah did, but my desperate prayer is not to hear from God and then not come away a changed person. I want my broom tree vacation to change me forever. For the better.

No matter how many times I find myself here.

And that's 988 words. I quit. 

Last day of school - 2012/2013 school year

Ah, I cannot even blog about this school year yet. The dust is still swirling around in my head at a hurricane's pace, and all I want to do is locate my clean, organized house. 

That may take awhile.

Let's just say I hope to locate it before it's time to start school back in August. 

{and I can't talk about the fact that we are doing summer school this year. Nope. Not yet.}

But all of that goodness aside, it's my most favorite picture taking day of the year. 

If you knew how many attempts it took for me to get this kid to give me a decent picture...

[it may or may not have ended with me hissing through clenched teeth "if you think you're gonna play video games with your friends tonight, you'd better give me a decent picture first...]

Ah, this baby kid. 

And may I introduce my new favorite picture in the history of the world? 

The baby kid HATES it when the middle kid does this. Can you tell? *H A T E S* 

Just checking. Yep, still doing it.

Cue lots of yelling. Lots.

The girl kid and I couldn't stop laughing. Whew.



And here are the beginning of the school year's pictures:

{{{gosh, why did they grow so much this year? WHY?}}}



 

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Sweet hallelujah, it's summertime. 

Suzee

I dug into the purse in my lap looking for the parking ticket. The downside to an oversized purse is the eternal abyss that it becomes when looking for something elusive as a small piece of paper. I knew it was in there because it dropped it the parking deck and I stepped on it nearly missing it laying there on the concrete in the shuffling of all of my bags while trying to read the signs and navigate the maze that this hospital is all while trying to rush to make the start of visiting hours. 

I leaned back in the chair in the lobby wondering what to do when you lose your parking ticket. I focused on the small group of people huddled in the corner of the lobby. They were all crying and hugging and saying things like, "I knew she'd pull through" and "She's so strong!" and "Prayer really does work!"

I dove back into that purse with renewed determination. I needed out of that lobby. Just when I was ready to give up, I spotted the ticket. I snatched it out, read the directions on the parking payment machine, retrieved the newly stamped ticket and pushed my way into the blinding sunlight.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. Clear and bright-cheerful and green. Promising. 

The antithesis of pathetic fallacy: weeping rain would have been appropriate. 

I was determined not to cry until I was in the safety of the van. I saw him walking towards me long before he saw me. He smiled into each face that passed him: deliberate kindness. His collar was starched stiff and perfectly white. His kind eyes found mine and it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I smiled and hurried faster. 

Across the sidewalk, up an elevator, down a long hall, more elevators and finally my quiet vehicle. 

I opened every window and let the cold wind whip. Where to go? I wasn't ready to be with my sweet people yet. I drove, made a U turn and headed to the only other place I could imagine being.

Don't cry yet

I wasn't ready to let it out. 

I remember the night we became friends. We waited tables together. She was bent over the ice, filling a pitcher, fighting tears. I took the pitcher from her, went to the table that had been giving her fits, poured some sticky sweet Southern charm along with the sweet tea and sent them on their way. She grabbed my hands and said, "thank you..."

We bonded over the trauma of a table full of people completely dissatisfied with the quality of their steak.

I remember the night she got engaged. I remember the day she got married. I got married. She had a son. I got pregnant. She taught me everything I know about pregnancy, childbirth, and how to care for and nurse a baby. How to cosleep. She was who I fled to when I had been dilated four centimeters for two weeks and was afraid to leave the house yet was completely stir crazy. She helped me labor with Laney. Helped me get her here. She's the one who called me to tell me that a plane had crashed into a building on a day in September 2011. We would watch"Trading Spaces" at the same time and talk to each other on the phone while I held a newborn and cried. Her husband worked as much as mine did. She understood. She made me beautiful jewelry. She listened to me. She sat with me. She helped me find work I could do with a small baby. She gave me hand me downs. She fed me, taught me, listened to me and loved me just like I always imagined a (slightly) older sister would. 

She knew me at my worst. Those long years where I had stepped away from most everything good in my life, she had loved me and cared for me. 

I held her hand today. The ventilator breathed for her. The sound was almost deafening in my ears. 

I was walking with my sister around a small lake, later, when her brother called me. 

She's terminal 

I kept looking at the sun dancing on the water, like diamonds sprinkled thickly on the surface. The beauty was in stark contrast to the words that assaulted me through the phone. 

"I think it's actually a large pond..." my sister remarked. She walked beside me. I was so thankful she was there. Comforting. 

I need to Google what in fact makes a body of water a lake or a pond.

I actually thought those words. 

I held her hand, swollen and unrecognizable, and fought back tears. I told her I was sorry. Sorry that she was friends with the person that wasn't the real me. The crazy me. The sin sick me. I told her I was sorry I hadn't been there for her. Sorry that she didn't get to spend time with the person that was rescued. Rescued from the life that could have killed me. Sorry that I escaped and didn't force her to come with me. Sorry for all that had happened to her. Sorry we had drifted apart.

I told her I was saved by Christ and that He had rescued me again. I asked her to trust me. The person that loved her. I asked her to listen to me tell her about the One who was real. The One who saved me from me. Who made me able to live this life. I told her we had to think about heaven and hell, but what I really wanted her to know was that He died in part so she could live this life. This hard, hard life. 

The nurse shyly and apologetically asked me to leave. They had graciously allowed me to overstay my visit. 

I looked back at her. I have to go...

I sat in the waiting room, not knowing what to do.

I noticed a puddle on the floor of the waiting room. The coffee had been brewed incorrectly and had overflowed into the floor. 

The hospital had a coffee disaster too. 

He was neatly dressed. Red cap, plaid shirt buttoned all the way up, black belt cinching his blue jeans that ended just above his white leather shoes. He clutched the phone to his ear.

I just needed to tell someone that my wife is in the hospital...

Was he calling a church? No, a doctor's office I decided. I heard the voice over the phone. A female. Hurried. Busy. "Do you need anything else?" I suppose she thought she was being kind. "No, I guess not," he said. He pressed a button a sat, still.

That's next. I saw my future. Suddenly my world seemed a bit easier. The noise the van was making. The dog knocking my ipad off the chair and cracking the screen. (Another score for the nonanimal lovers out there) The kids and school and the laundry and the house and the shower that is slow to drain, the emails that need answering, the friends struggling, the crushing weight of all that God asks of me and the never ending to do list...

That all got lost in view of the look on that man's face. 

These are the good days.

I saw his face go by the door. I flew to the nurse's station and stood next to him. The words tumbled out: "Hey, I'm Amy and I'm your wife Julie's friend and I go to church with you guys and I am here visiting my friend in the SICU and the coffee overflowed in the waiting room and there's a puddle on the floor and I'm afraid the man in there is going to slip and fall and I know we're in a hospital and he wouldn't have to go far if he got hurt but can I have some paper towels so I can clean it up?"

His kindness was palpable.

"I'm sorry about your friend." I could tell he really was.  He paused. "I'll clean up the coffee."

I didn't want him to have to do that but he did. I'll never forget that. 

I sat there until I talked to her mom on the phone. Her voice was so tired and so sad that I thought my heart would split open.

I made my way to the church. I held back the tears and fought the memories until I sat on the floor in front of the steps that I called an alter and I sobbed and sobbed, asking God to save her. I sat and breathed the quiet. I'm not sure I have ever been that weary. Of it all. 

Soon I was walking around a small lake, or a large pond, and her brother was saying that she was going to die. I told him my story with the gospel in it too.

I yelled at my sister, "People keep dying. If you get within 5 feet of me, I'm going to tell you my story about how Jesus saved me. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of people dying."

My husband has lost three friends lately, two to drug overdoses. A friend of mine's father is clinging to life in a hospital even now. Death seems to be winning. 

So I ran this morning. After I begged the Word to help me do this day. I felt it whispered in my soul

...He was acquainted with grief...

and that same second a raven flew just in front of me. Luke 12~ These birds were unclean and nearly worthless, yet God cared for them. How much more will He care for me? And those I love?

I'm not sure how to stop the flood of memories or how to trust Him completely in this or how to wake up tomorrow and check my phone to see if she lived through the night or how reassure those that I love that is really is going. to. be. okay. even when I'm not totally sure it is. 

I do know how to pour it all out to Him. And I am thanking Him that as I contact other friends from this era that He saved several of us. Married, parents, Christ followers. We emerged. Rescued by Him more than once. I'm praying for her mom, her brother, and especially her two children-13 and 15 years old. The younger a girl that I simply cannot stop thinking about. I hope to make my way to her very soon. I'm praying she'll let me in. I'm praying. Praying. Praying.