[Joy] March 2, 2011

I’m afraid my posts lately have been a bit on the depressing side. I don’t want you to think that things are all bad! I still have so much good. Lets take a little peek at the…

Joy In The Midst

The dripping of the coffee pot. Laughter with friends around the Monopoly board. Best of 3 in Marbles against Amos before bed. (Loser has to get in the cold bed first!) The crackling of the wood fire. The sound of the windmills on windy days. Listening to my husband talk about tractors. (He’s so smart and cute and funny) The sound of computer keys clicking. Listening to the cows eating hay after milking. (sometimes we just lay down in the hay, holding hands and smiling at the sound.) Amos and I, not the cows and I. J My beautiful parsley plant that sits on the kitchen windowsill. Sitting at the table, drinking coffee and listening to my husband share the gospel with all the men who come to visit. My kitchen. Everything about it. Its my favorite place to be. Buying myself flowers because I can hear Amos saying, “I wish I could keep roses on your table every day of the year.” Arriving home with them and seeing his brilliant smile. Waking up late, rolling over and seeing my cell phone with the battery out of it- evidence that my husband is my protector- even from lack of sleep! The lights above my sink. Planning what to wear for Adoption days. Crying with Amos. Not because I like to cry but because I don’t have to cry alone. Hearing people tell me, “Your husband is a good man.” Listening to Amos explaining to me why he’s losing money on a “deal” because he feels that to push for more might ruin his Christian testimony. Knowing that the reason I don’t have money for new clothes and shoes, internet and tv, is because my husband has principles that he stands on. Talking to Meg until three in the morning. Watching my niece, Heidi, run to my side after Sunday School with a big grin on her face as she slips past her Mom. Little Micah, who for some reason still remembers me and gives me smiles and lovings whenever I see him. Getting texts that aren’t actually from the person who sent them but from God himself. (Who would have thought that God sends texts?) My quilt. My guitar. (I never would have dreamed that the day would come when I could just sit down with a guitar and play…) The shelf in my room that contains my favorite books. Redeeming Love. Jungle Pilot. Roses for Mama. Pascal’s Wager. Opening my Bible and seeing a note on the margin that touches me again, just like it did five years ago when I wrote it. Watching my wedding video and realizing that I had no idea how God was blessing me that day- giving me a man who wasn’t at all what I had “pictured” but so much better than anything I could have imagined. Sitting in Sunday School, watching the girls scrapbook from a chapter in Psalms… Looking at their papers and being amazed at their depth of understanding. Getting a note from one of the WoP girls that said, I learned soooo much. I got some things right in my life. (Thank you, Father, for doing something with my fumbling attempts to do your will.)

[Dreams] Feb. 28, 2011

When Dreams Die

Nothing is quite as painful as watching a dream die

It’s like tearing a part of yourself away from your body

An arm

A leg

Maybe ripping a corner of your heart out of your chest

I know.

I’ve done it.

I spoke this weekend about giving everything to Jesus

Pouring out all our dreams

At His feet.

Giving Him control.

I should have known that He would say,

“What about you? What about the dreams that you’re clinging to?”

My mind is filled with images,

They are the essence of my dreams.

All beautiful. Precious.

But then comes reality.

All dreams are not meant to live.

Some exist to die.

And its okay!

God does good things with dead dreams.

But it still hurts.

Sometimes the pain is so bad,

It feels like you can’t breathe.

Sometimes,

When they’re starting to die-

Life bleeding its way out…

The anger is so great that all you want-

Is to take a knife and kill them yourself.

Throw them against a wall.

Trample them under your feet.

Get the dying over-

So you can start picking up the pieces.

This has been the year of dead dreams.

The lovely pictures have been replaced with pieces of death.

Tonight my husband and I stood out in the shop,

Talking and talking

Crying and crying.

Yesterday, I let a dream die that I’ve been trying to keep alive

For far too long.

Like a person on life-support

Whose brain has been dead for years and years.

Today I realized that another dream,

One that’s been, well, sick

for quite some time,

Is on its death bed.

I wanted to go for my knife.

I wanted to throw it.

Kick it.

Stomp it into the ground.

I don’t want to watch it die.

I just want to kill it.

Then I can pretend that I never wanted it

To begin with.

We haven’t decided what to do.

We just prayed and prayed and prayed.

If you have a minute, you can pray with us too

Because God does perform miracles

But it will have to happen soon.

I didn’t get out my knife.

Yet.

But I still might.

Because some days I think-

I can only stand so much pain at one time.

He never said there’d only be sunshine

He never said there’d be no rain

He only promised a heart full of singing

About the very thing

That once brought pain.

(Phil Johnson and Bob Benson Sr.)

thoughts.

I am feeling very inadequate to be teaching teenage girls.

Yet, I find myself teaching a 7th-8th grade Sunday School class

and starting tomorrow,

heading up a Retreat for 10-15 year olds.

What was I thinking?!!!!????!!!

Lord, hear me. Please. Give me words. Because I have none.

I am really enjoying Andrew Peterson's music.

Especially "Holy is the Lord"

Both things brought on by other blogs that I read today.

(Meg's post and Brianna's post)

Lord, what is worship to you? What would you have of me?

What is love?

Real love?

These questions have been plaguing me for weeks now.

For years I thought I knew...

I thought I understood what it meant to put others before myself.

To love them.

But I'm beginning to see that I had no idea.

Still, I read and read the Bible...

And I can't put what it says together with what I'm seeing.

For example:

I thought that to "love" meant to not lose my temper at people.

To take their harshness and not return with harshness of my own.

To absorb their anger

Along with my own.

After all, that is what God meant by "turn the other cheek", right?

But now I'm wondering...

Does that have more to do with enemies than fellow believers?

Would real love actually confront harshness?

I hate. hate. hate. the feeling of anger.

I would avoid it at all costs.

I would rather absorb than inflict.

But is that selfishness?

Is that the opposite of love?

Is that all about avoiding negative feelings,

and protecting myself?

I have no answers.

Lord, I just want to be like you.

I want to love like you.

If that means acknowledging anger when its there

And allowing others to see it and feel it

And dealing with the shame that comes from it

Then I'm willing.

Just help me understand.

Quilts

Quilts

I’ve discovered something about myself.

There are many things I love that I go through life without

because of fear.

One example: Quilts.

I adore quilts.

Not just any quilts-

I love ones that are filled with colors.

I’m not big on “quilted”.

I’m just big on “pieced”

And colorful.

Tied quilts are fine with me

As long as there are multitudes of colors.

(Did I mention that I love colors?)

However, when I was about fifteen I found out a terrible truth

I hate quilting.

Yep. Dislike it a lot.

I love the “idea” of quilting bees but in truth…

The ones that I’ve attended, I’ve been bored out of my mind.

The problem with that is…

Buying a quilt is way out of my price-range.

Looked at the cost of them lately?

Astronomical.

So… I went through life… without any.

Being terribly jealous of my sister-in-law

For her beautiful wedding quilt.

And then others that were given to her.

But my mother saved the day!

For Christmas one year she gave us all quilts…

Only I got the yellow one.

(My husband was ecstatic, he loves yellow)

But I love COLORS.

Then today it hit me.

I hate quilting because it is so detailed.

And details bore me.

But because I know how to quilt “right”

I wouldn’t ever think of doing it wrong.

(What would people think?

That I don’t know how to do it right?

I do.

I don’t actually need quilting lessons.)

And my fear of what other people think

(crazy, since no one ever goes into my spare bedroom

except kids under the age of 10.)

Was keeping me from enjoying the wild splashes of color that I love.

My spare bed

(my bed is lovingly covered with the yellow quilt, just as my husband wants)

Has been sporting an ugly blue comforter for three years now.

Today I changed that.

I was sitting in the spare room,

looked up and saw a pile of material cut into squares

(intended to be made into cloth napkins- don’t laugh, Meg!)

And thought,

“Why not just sew them all together?”

So I did.

I labeled my mismatched, scrap filled, uneven and wrinkly creation:

“The Perfectionists Nightmare”

And do you want to know the truth?

I. Love. It.

Seriously.

I adore it.

I showed my husband and he loved it as well.

Said he’d just as soon all quilts were like it.

(It can be used and if it gets ruined, well, it was only about 4 hours work!)

And as I sat there, estimating on the size of the squares (ha ha!)

And zipping them through the sewing machine…

I laughed at myself for my fear.

This is me.

I do crazy things like make quilts that are uneven,

And don’t iron my material because I don’t own an iron,

And go hunting through my scrap bag for something to fill in the edge that wasn’t long enough

And I love every minute of it.

The Damascus Way

The DamascusWay

I’ve been desperate lately for some good reading material. Unfortunately, the speed at which the local library acquires new fiction is much slower than my reading pace.

I’ve supplemented with quite a lot of nonfiction. The only problem is that I’m such a “studier” that I can’t just read through a good nonfiction. I want to take notes. So it is not very relaxing.

When I heard that Janette Oke and Davis Bunn were coming out with a new series based on the book of Acts, I was very excited. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to get into the first two books

Perhaps to someone who wasn’t as familiar with the book of Acts they would have been a bit more enthralling.

Still, when “The Damascus Way” appeared on the shelf, I checked it out and prepared to skim through it like I had the others.

But I did not.

I loved it.

The characters were interesting, but then again, that is something that Oke is known for- her real characters.

The story-line, in my mind, was fascinating.

What happens when a man’s wife, mistress and daughter all become believers?

The side-story of Abigail adds a bit of the quiet love-story that Oke is known for.

The glimpse into the early church is also something that excites me.

The miracles, the persecution, the rapid spreading of the gospel, the overwhelming sense that this is the church that Jesus died to create.

I’ll stop now.

But I will leave you with my favorite quote from the book.

“Part of coming to know Jesus is coming to know ourselves, Papa. Seeing all the things that we otherwise might wish to keep hidden. Even from our own minds.” (pg. 570)

Is that not the truth!

The Reality of Life and Death.

I haven't been updating much lately. The number one reason being the lack of internet at my house. The second reason is that so much of me has been swirling through a painful dark time and I couldn't find much to write about.

But, here I am! And the thing I am writing about? Well, I'm going to share with you a glimpse into the past few months. Ready? It's a bit crazy. Full of the reality of painful scary death and the overwhelming truth of life.

October 13, 2010

For two beautiful days I thought my dreams had come to fulfillment. But death slipped in. I don't feel like I've lost a child but I do feel like a desperate something from the depth of my heart has been squashed and left to die.

December 2010

God, please, please, let me get pregnant again.

Yes, I really did write this and then scribble it out.

January 1, 2011

Lord, cleanse me this year. There is so much ugliness building and scraping through my life. I want to be filled with you. Only you. Passion for your word. Not even passion against pain or struggles or sin- but passion for you.

hours later but on the same day

Bitterness. Why am I so bitter, Lord? Where did this come from? How did it sneak up on me and fill my life? God, heal me! I think I'm crazy. Dumb. Stupid. Idiotic. Crazy. I try so hard to be lovely. but I'm not. I'm not anyones love. I'm nasty. Sin-filled.

I DISAPPOINT EVERYONE THAT I LOVE.

I hate it!

DID YOU HEAR ME?

I. HATE. IT.

Why am I here, Lord?

To minister to kids? I CAN'T. I have nothing to offer.

To be a wife? I SUCK AT IT. All I do is hurt him.

To be a friend? I'M THE WORST. All my "friends" despise me.

To be in a relationship with you? I DON'T KNOW HOW! All the things that once drew me close to you now seem to mock me.

So now what?

There isn't anything left.

I'm sorry, God. I'm so sorry....

January 2, 2011

Even now, with the morning light streaming through my window... I hurt.

Oh, God, how I hurt.

I can't even feel bad for my crazy tyrant because I still hurt.

Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. Jer. 17:14

Lord, I know fully, that you can heal. I believe it. I guess I just feel like I can't figure it out. I've always been able to figure out the answers to my trials...but this time, I don't like any of my answers. So here I am...

Jehovah-Rapha

The Lord my Healer

The One Who Takes My Bitterness and Makes It Sweet

I continually turn to myself but I can do nothing...

You alone are the giver of life.

You alone have the power to heal.

January 10, 2011

God, I'm so scared. Everything is pointing to another pregnancy...

and I'm so afraid that in a week I'll be scribbling this out...

Jesus, if I'm just days away from crushed hopes-

please, please, please

take the bitterness that is sure to come pouring out

and make it sweet.

January 13, 2010

Time to face the music. Negative.

If I could somehow write a scream, I would.

Why, Lord? What was the point of that? And what the heck am I suppose to do now?

If there is some way for me to understand, show me. I'm listening!

Oh, Father, the only thing I hear is accusations and sorrow.

"If you had..."

"never will you have a baby. NEVER."

"NEVER NEVER NEVER"

I know that isn't you. Can't you speak louder?!?!

January 15, 2010

going crazy again.

Was folding laundry and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

All I could see was fat.

Every glaring fault that I have that the doctor said,

"this is why, this is why, this is why..."

"if you had... if you had... if you had..."

And all I could think was

No! NO! NO! I can't do it, God! I can't do this again. I'M DONE.

Oh, God... my crying heart can't help but ask- if you won't even heal this little thing... then how do I know that you'll even save me from my sins? The sins that have been piling up at my door. Threatening to fill my heart and life back up with DEATH. DEATH. DEATH.

I know this sounds crazy but I don't feel perfectly sane anyway.

January 16, 2011

This morning is so quiet. The calm after the storm.

I talked to Amos. Put everything away. Not going to look, think, pray...

Not for awhile anyway. Maybe never again.

I just want peace, Lord.

Forget about, Rapha, and the healing...

Just, please, I beg of you

Give me Peace.

January 26, 2011

Well, Lord, here we are again. Me with all my sin & ugliness-

searching for you- your blood and forgiveness.

I know that you'll hear me. Answer me. Give me peace.

But it doesn't seem like you should.

Still, I'm here.

For you alone have the words of life.

Pour life back into me, Jesus.

Oh, grave, where is your victory?

Oh, death, where is your sting?

January 31, 2011

The exciting part is the peace.

So many things still don't make sense.

But amazingly, I have peace.

God heard the cry of my heart.

Oh, Father, thank you for the walk through the darkness

Thank you for the promise of light

Thank you for the bursting of morning

that crushes the oppression of night

"Their blood-guilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon." declares the Sovereign Lord. Joel 3:21

How can I even being to express the thankfulness I have?

And I know that I have only glimpsed the tiniest bit of your glory!

So there you have it! A glimpse into my journey.

A tiny taste of the battle between life and death that has been happening

in my heart.

May the Lord bless you and keep you

Make his face to shine upon you

and give you peace.

Sickness.

It seems like it has been months. It's actually been about 12 days.

Amos was sick. I did all the barn chores. I got sick. He did all the barn chores. He got sick. I did all the barn chores. I got sick. He did all the barn chores. But last night! We BOTH did them. What a joy that was!

Now that I've survived the stomach bug and the flu- I can honestly say, it really wasn't too bad. But somewhere in the middle there, I thought perhaps we'd be sick forever.