Dealing with Pain

A child's perspective on chronic pain

2012-01-19T10:47:00.000-05:00

Those of you who are reading this most likely know my health issues. I haven't had a single day without some level of pain in four years and six months. The pain has never dipped below my own personal 3.5 on the pain scale, and there have been way too many days in which my heart has been complicit in the matter, pumping pain throughout my body with its every beat. The days on which my blood feels like poison because it is so loaded with pain.

Anyway, when you are a sick mom, you can't only take care of yourself. You have to monitor how your disease is affecting your family emotionally. Do your children feel gypped because their mom can't play sports or run with them? Does your husband feel cheated because pain has worn you to the tiniest of particles by 6 pm? Are your children taking advantage of the guilt you feel for being sick and trying to manipulate you into things?

All of this has been my experience over the past 4 1/2 years, and without any discernible end, it will continue to be my experience. But nothing has brought it to my attention as much as the letter I found after Christmas break.

I was cleaning out a daughter's craft area and found a folded piece of Christmas wrapping paper. I was just about to throw it away when a quiet voice in my head told me to open it. Inside, I found the following:
"The gift I would most like to give is no more pain for my mom. She is in constant pain so badly that she has trouble just walking. I remember when she had no pain, which was when I was 4. Then she had a heart attack and now she has chronic pain. I would love to be able to play soccer in the backyard with her again, and mess around with her, but she can't because of her pain. Her medication pile covers our counter. I hate it so much. It would be awesome for it to be gone." Child's signature.

Even reading it now is a punch to my gut. I can't read it without crying. I wrapped it carefully and I carry it in my wallet. I don't know why, but maybe it's just that it's the one time that this child has clearly expressed his feelings about my illness and there's no taint of manipulation. The letter wasn't placed out in the open for all to see. It was tucked away in the chaos of the craft center, and I think he just forgot about it.

Perhaps the hardest part of this is that, as would any mom, I would do anything to protect my children from heartache and pain. But what pains my child the most is me and I can't do anything about it.

2012

2012-01-19T10:18:00.000-05:00

Having just supplied a link here, I thought it might be a good idea to read though my posts and reacquaint myself with my own words. I guess I should note that it is good to finally be able to read this without getting sucked back in to the darkness that covered so many of my years. That didn't keep me from tearing up, though. God has done wonderful things with our marriage and with my life. I just think that perhaps you never are too far from pain like that. It's not that it hasn't been dealt with, worked through, forgiven. It's just that going back and reading a journal, of sorts, takes you back to the emotions felt then. I'm glad that I have those words because they allow me to access the emotions suffered by any person who is going through depression or an assault on their marriage. And I think that is a crucial part of being able to empathize with someone who is going through those things now. I also think it is good for someone like me who crams everything down inside. It's a good "equipment check" to make sure that I have dealt with these feelings and not just crammed them away like outgrown mittens.

I'm very happy to report that this is the first winter I've had in eleven years that hasn't included a debilitating depression. I have finally found the right mix of counseling and medication to keep the darkness at bay. I can't even quite express how different a winter is when it doesn't involve clinging to life by my fingernails. I have my struggles, my emotions, etc., but they don't threaten to overwhelm me like a cresting wave. I encourage anyone who even thinks that they may be dealing with depression to see a doctor. If the first medication doesn't work, keep trying. Even if it takes you eleven years. Being on the other side is worth it. I promise you that you don't need to fear winter with its grey days and encroaching nights. There is hope. It involves hard work on your end: exercise, better eating habits, counseling, doctor appointments, etc.. But it is worth it. While I would love to think that the medication I am taking now will work forever more, I'm too experienced to buy that myth. I know there will be future struggles. But for now, today is good.

On the physical side, I am still ill. My own little group of doctors seem to have come to a conclusion that it is an autoimmune disease called Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, along with fibromyalgia. Not exactly what I aimed for when I was young and dreaming of my adult years, but it is what it is. It has been a very long, painful 4 1/2 year process. I have gone through disbelief, anger, rage, sorrow, fear, questioning and turning my back on God, some more anger, distress over my health's impact on my family and marriage, and a little more anger. Right now, I am at a place of peace (as much as one can have with 3 kids, a couple of pets, and a lot of physical pain). My prayer throughout this year of Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) has been that God would use me where I am, and that He might tell me what I can do for His kingdom from this illness. I have realized that raging doesn't heal me. Anger doesn't heal me. Nothing can heal me. There aren't any medications that will fix this. It will go how it is meant to go. It will either end my life prematurely or it won't. My pain will get worse or it won't. I may very well be on morphine for the rest of my life and yes, that is not at all what I want. But...anger, fear, rage, sorrow...they only paralyze me. They keep me from making the only difference I can make from my place of pain, which is to submit myself to God's hands and beg Him to use me. Allow me to reach others, help others, however He would mold me and use me, that is my opportunity here.

And so I pray.

And I wait.

2010-07-24T15:24:00.003-05:00

Wow

2009-12-09T13:41:00.003-05:00

Started reading back through my blog and found tears running down my face. So many painful things. But I'm so grateful that I've written through a lot of these things. Perhaps the pain won't ever go away, but there is something healing in writing through your struggles.

25 Things (taken from Facebook)

2009-12-09T12:22:00.003-05:00

So I thought I'd do the "25 Things About Me" from Facebook. This list is mostly different from the one I did on Facebook a couple of months ago.

1. Repetitive noises agitate me.
2. Logan's broccoli is my favorite restaurant food.
3. I want very badly to travel. I'd love to see Thailand, some parts of Africa (not picky), India, Afghanistan, and Japan. There are others, but those are the big ones.
4. One of my biggest fears with whatever is causing my chronic pain (besides dying early) is that I will not be able to see the world.
5. I no longer pray and I no longer tell people that I will pray for them. Two years of praying for God to relieve my pain taught me that God either doesn't hear my cries or He doesn't care enough to relieve my pain.
6. I rely heavily upon my husband's faith. His security in God comforts me.
7. When I have friends whose husbands have affairs, I wish that I could take their pain. I figure that I've already been through it, so isn't it better for me to have their pain than for them to go through it?
8. The two weeks in which I didn't have pain because of the Prednisone high were two of the greatest weeks of my life.
9. I'm grateful that I don't believe in divorce. Otherwise, I don't think that my husband and I would have made it throught the first six years of our marriage.
10. When my husband makes me truly laugh, I feel complete love and joy.
11. I hate, hate, hate winter. My pain is the most extreme during winter. So is my depression.
12. I have a very hard time keeping friends. The friendship maintenance is very difficult for me. I don't reach out to people.
13. Part of me enjoys the excitement of snow days. A lot of me hates them.
14. I fear having this much physical pain for the rest of my life.
15. Even though my husband strongly dislikes pugs, I really love them.
16. I didn't feel the intense love that everyone talks about when my first baby was born. I was lost, utterly lost.
17. I love learning new languages. I would really like to learn Mandarin and Japanese.
18. Sometimes during the worst pain, I cry out to God, "Help me. Please help me," but I no longer expect Him to respond.
19. Sometimes I scare myself with my anger.
20. I love water.
21. I love the smell of dirt.
22. I feel happy when I am around people, but I am afraid to be around them (before I get there).
23. I get very excited when the first snow flies, but I hate the rest of the season.
24. Although I recovered from anorexia, I don't want to try to help someone suffering from it because I don't think I could take the pain if they didn't recover or survive.
25. I don't know if I will fully trust anyone ever again, but I cram that down inside.
26. (bonus) This list is brutally honest and it scares me.

Description of Chronic Pain

2009-12-03T14:15:00.003-05:00

The following post is a quote from "Anonymous" on the following Blog post:
http://askanmd.blogspot.com/2009/10/never-say-10-how-doctors-interpret.html

The article was about the pain rating scale used by doctors. Whoever Anonymous is wrote, I thought, brilliantly on the subject of chronic pain. In my opinion, perhaps the worst thing about chronic pain, beyond the pain itself, is the inability to know the timeframe and/or purpose of the pain. Labor, though horrible pain, has the purpose of bringing forth your new child. No matter how painful it is, you know that it will end with the presence of your baby, that you will recover, and life will go forth. With this pain, there is no timeframe. No one can tell me when it will end, how it will end, what good will come from this suffering. My mind can go to horrific places when I start down the path of thinking that every single day of the rest of my life will be like yesterday, when I broke down crying in Walmart because the pain was so bad that I didn't know how I would make it from the pharmacy out to my car. I look healthy and fit, so no one can tell by looking at me that my body and spirit are in tremendous pain and that some days just are not fit for living.

At any rate, I leave you with Anonymous' comment, because whoever he or she is, the description of chronic pain is incredibly accurate and well-written. And their description of its effect on his/her children is dead on:

"And it doesn't just affect the person with the pain. My kids are 6 & 8 and my daughter has never known me when I wasn’t in pain, and my son was too young to remember it.

My pain affects their life every day, and I hate that. I find it so hard to live with that knowledge."

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"Anonymous said...

I wonder if one of the biggest challenges with classifying pain is the fact that there are 2 types, transitory & chronic. Transitory pain can be excruciatingly awful, such as a broken bone, or a migraine, or childbirth... but it goes away. A few days of medication, and there is a resolution. It is clear that it can be "fixed" by drugs, breathing techniques, meditation or distraction techniques.

Chronic pain is a trickier beast. If you have a rock in your shoe, it is not a pain worth metioning. It is a 1 maybe a 2. The assumption is that the rock can be shaken loose, that the foot will soon be comfortable again, since it is a small pain. It isn’t much, really, just a little thing. An aggravation in your shoe.

But it isn't a little thing at all.

At first, it is an annoyance, really. An aggravation, if you tend towards anger. But after a while, the pain dominates your thinking. All you can think about is how long until I can take the pebble out of my shoe.

You start trying to walk differently, trying to avoid the thing that causes pain, but then other parts of you start to ache because you aren’t using your body the way it is supposed to be used. So you go back to walking normally, pretending the pain doesn’t exist. You walk slower. When that doesn’t work, you walk faster.

You buy better shoes. You buy a cane. You take Tylenol, and Advil, but the pebble is still there.

You try hopping. You try crawling. Still a pebble.

Mind over matter, you tell yourself. Meditation. Breathing. Hypnosis. And a pebble, still in your shoe.

“You don’t have acute pain, you don’t need strong drugs,” the doctor tells you, and you can see him thinking don’t you know there are people who are in serious pain out there? Stop whining.

“What’s the matter with you?” your boss asks, “Your mistakes are costing me money!” and you want to scream can’t you see the pebble? I can barely think past the constant background noise of the pebble! How am I supposed to work as well as I used to?

But of course no one else can see the pebble. Most don’t even believe it is there, not all the time. It couldn’t possibly be. Pain is a transient thing, after all. No one could REALLY be in pain ALL the time.

Those who do believe don’t understand why you don’t just take a Tylenol and make it go away, like they do with a headache. Pain is conquerable, after all. We have the technology, they say.

Because the alternative is too scary to contemplate: What if the pain never goes away? What if I’ll always have a pebble?

Chronic pain doesn't have to be a strong pain to have a strong effect on your quality of life. Even a chronic pain of 2 or 3 should be taken as seriously as a chronic pain of 7 or 8, because your life changes in so many ways.

And it doesn't just affect the person with the pain. My kids are 6 & 8 and my daughter has never known me when I wasn’t in pain, and my son was too young to remember it.

My pain affects their life every day, and I hate that. I find it so hard to live with that knowledge.

It doesn't have to be a 10 on the pain scale to be a 10 on the "negatively affects quality of life" scale. If a doctor can give me back my quality of life by medicating my pain, even if my pain isn't a 5 or higher, then why on earth would they choose to not medicate it? Why would one force my kids to make sacrifices in the richness of their life experiences just because one thinks my pain isn't strong enough to warrant treating with anything more than over the counter meds? If OTC meds were working for me, I wouldn't be in the doctor's office saying I'm in pain and please help me do something about it. I'd be out there doing fun stuff with my kids and enjoying my life to the fullest. Yet, being young, and female, and diagnosed with fibromyalgia among other things, I find it next to impossible to get adequate pain control, and our lives are the poorer for it."

From "In Sickness and In Health: A Place for Couples Dealing with Illness"

2009-12-03T14:13:00.001-05:00

Excerpts from an article in the 10/15/09 Times Online

Until her sickness do us part: why men leave ill partners

Men are seven times more likely than women to leave a seriously ill partner, a study has found. So why are males less able to cope?

According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 144,220 divorces in the UK in 2006-07 (the latest figures available) and, of those, about 18 per cent (25,959) were due to “family strain”, a term that includes serious illness. In the US, a survey by the National Centre for Health Statistics found that 75 per cent of first marriages end in divorce if one of the partners develops a terminal or chronic illness.

Although it is not stated in these divorces which partner was ill, a study published last month in the journal Cancer found that a man is seven times more likely to leave than his wife if the other becomes seriously ill.

What causes this apparent chasm in emotional coping mechanisms between the sexes is intriguing experts, and the theories are plentiful.

Indeed, a study in the Journal of Oncology last year reported that spouses were lonelier than their ill partners and had lower levels of wellbeing and marital satisfaction. There is an immediate shift in a relationship when an illness is diagnosed. You stop being partners as you knew it and move to being patient and carer. That can lead to feelings of fear, not just about the disease, but about the relationship and the well partner’s ability to cope. Feelings of anger and resentment about life and the situation can quickly arise.

A few researchers have suggested that men are more likely to walk out on a wife whose condition is newly diagnosed because the illness is more than they bargained for when they married.

There are suggestions, too, that traditional roles shift more significantly when a woman becomes ill. Men may still be working full time, but may have to cope with additional tasks such as ferrying their wife to appointments, arranging childcare, cleaning and doing household duties.

What a women wants most of all when she is ill is not so much for her husband to take charge, but for him to listen to her feelings and to express his own more often. Men have an urge to ‘fix’ things. They want to get in there and make it better when what they really need to do is shut up and listen. Even if you have heard it one hundred times before, your wife needs you to respond by saying that whatever happens, you are there for her.

For some people, illness proves a positive factor in bringing a couple closer together. One recent study at the University of Quebec found that 42 per cent of couples thought that the experience of breast cancer had strengthened their partnership. Accepting the changes that take place is a process that takes time and effort. But many people do find their love grows stronger as a result.

2009-12-03T09:02:00.000-05:00

"Hold My Heart," Tenth Avenue North

2009-06-01T11:43:00.000-05:00

How long must I pray, must I pray to You?
How long must I wait, must I wait for You?
How long 'til I see Your face, see You shining through?
I'm on my knees, begging You to notice me.
I'm on my knees, Father will you turn to me?

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin' heart?
One light, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there's no other way, I'm done asking why.
Cuz I'm on my knees, begging You to turn to me
I'm on my knees, Father will you run to me?

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin' heart?
One light, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart.

So many questions without answers, Your promises remain
I can't sleep but I'll take my chances to hear You call my name
To hear You call my name

One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin' heart?
One light, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart.

Hold my heart, could you hold my heart?
Hold my heart.

Hearing from me, hearing from God

2009-03-25T16:24:00.005-05:00

Someone reminded me a few weeks ago that it's been a long time since I posted here. Part of that may be that it's just really hard to concentrate on what I want to say when there are three kids and two dogs who are all constantly vying for my attention. (one dog barks incessantly - that's the one Adam calls "Toad;" the other one is tall enough to walk under my arm as I type and use her head to shove my arm upward away from the keyboard. I'd take it as a subtle hint that I'd been online too long, but she starts it as soon as I sit down at the computer).

The other part of my absence might also just be that things haven't changed. For the better, at any rate. My faith feels lost; the pain does not. I used to wonder how long I could continue to wing my prayers upward, prayers for pain relief, prayers for energy, prayers for patience. Now I just don't pray.

It's odd to me, though, that the weaker my faith has become, the stronger my honesty has been. I find myself being truthful at the oddest times. I think it all started when I was on my way out the door for our church's women's retreat. I really didn't want to go...my faith was already on life support at that point. Adam forced me out the door, and before he shut it, he said, "And don't lie. When people ask you how you're doing, don't lie."

Because I usually do. I usually say I'm fine or smile and say, "Good." But I'm not. I'm not fine, things aren't good. I don't pray, because I just don't think God cares. I don't tell people that I'll pray for them because I don't want to be a liar or a hypocrite. I don't spend time in God's Word because I don't find any hope there.

A dear friend wrote me an email a few days ago. It took me a while, but I finally responded and was pretty honest in my assessment of how things were going. She wrote back today urging me not to give up, not to stiff-arm God. Rely on Him, find hope in Him, she urged. I haven't written her back yet because the only response I have is that I think it's just too late for me.

I've been reading a book for the past few days. It's one of Jodi Picoult's books. I love her writing...you cannot skip a sentence or even a word, because every word, every sentence has meaning. I love authors who don't waste words, and she is one.

At any rate, in this book, the mother goes to her daughter's school because the daughter has had an incident for which the teacher has called home. The daughter is disabled, suffering from a genetic mutation that causes her bones to be extremely fragile, and the family is split on whether the mother should be suing her OB for not identifying the disability earlier in the pregnancy and giving the mother the option of terminating the pregnancy. (all background to establish the amount of strife and heartache present in the family).

The teacher explains that some of the students were playing house at school. Two of the students were role-playing the mom and dad and they wanted the daughter (who was tiny in size because of her disability) to play the baby. The daughter was upset about being labeled a baby and had an outburst. Explaining the situation to her mother, the daughter says,"I didn't want to be the baby. I wanted to be the dad."

Confused, the mother asks, "The dad? How come you didn't want to be the mom?"

"Because moms go into the bathroom and cry and turn on the water so no one can hear them."
"Handle With Care"
Jodi Picoult
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Yes, some of us do. And some of us just die quietly inside and hope that no one can tell.

Shattered Dreams - part 2 (from Girlfriends In God devotional)

2008-11-20T09:27:00.000-05:00

November 20, 2008
Shattered Dreams (Part 2)
Sharon Jaynes

Today's Truth
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11:15 NIV)

Friend to Friend
In the New Testament, we find a story about two sisters whose dreams were shattered by a death in the family. Jesus received word that one of His best friends, Lazarus, was sick. In reality, by the time the messenger had made the one day journey to inform Jesus about Lazarus' illness, he had already died. Jesus didn't leave right away, but tarried two days before making the journey to Bethany. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. His death shook the entire village and many Jews from surrounding cities went to mourn their loss. For these two women, their dreams for the future were bleak -- no husband, no children, no father, and now, no brother to take care of them.

When Martha heard Jesus was coming, her hopes soared and she ran to meet Him.

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:12). Can you relate to Martha? Have you ever felt, Lord, if you had been here, this would not have happened to me. Where were you? Where are you now?

Then it is as if she thought better of the words that had escaped her lips and said, "But I know that even now, God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has to come into the world."

Martha went back to her home and told Mary that Jesus was on the way. Like Martha, Mary ran to meet him and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Do you see a pattern? Once again -- If you had been here this would not have happened to me. Where were you?

Do you think God hurts when we hurt? Oh yes, dear sisters, God hurts. Jesus wept when he saw the pain of those around him. He wept for the two sisters and I suspect He wept for a people who did not understand the power of God.

After four days, Lazarus' body would have already begun to decay. Make no mistake about it: God was about to do something so incredible, no one would refute His power.

Jesus ordered the stone rolled away from the mouth of the cave which served as Lazarus' tomb. Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?'

They took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

And he did!

Jesus resurrected Mary and Martha's dream.

Those of us who have lost a loved one may be thinking....yeah, but God didn't bring my brother back. God didn't save my child. God didn't resurrect my dead marriage and if you read yesterday's devotion, God didn't bring Will back to life. (If you didn't see yesterday's devotion, I encourage you to go back and read part one of this series.)

Let's go back to Will for a moment. Did resurrection power take place after Will's death? His mother would say a resounding "yes."

Luanne shared with me that just days before Will's final football game he had said, "Mom, I'll be glad when this is all over. Now that I'm older, I see just how unimportant all this sports stuff is."

As Lou Ann knelt beside her boy on that football field, she begged him to keep breathing. But then, as she felt him take his last breath, his words echoed in her heart,"I'll be glad when this is all over."

"It's all over, son," Luanne whispered. "Go on home."

At Will's funeral a few days after his death, Luanne stood and shared the gospel message about the Jesus Will loved so much. What was the result? Thirty people attending the service committed their lives to Christ or renewed their passion for serving Him.

"Mrs. Johnson, I gave my life to Christ today!"

"Luanne I haven't been following Jesus like I should. I recommitted my life to Him today and I'm going to get serious about my relationship with Him."

"Luanne, our family was in a shambles and I was thinking about leaving my husband. After today, I have decided to make our marriage work. I see how important family is."

"I have been putting my family on the back burner and letting everything and anything come before them. After today, I'm putting my family second only to God."

The Johnson family continues to minister all across the state about the power of Jesus Christ that sustains us when our dreams are shattered. Because of Will's death, hundreds have come to Christ, many family relationships have been restored, and churches have torn down denominational walls as the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Pentecostals in the tiny little town have made a historical move to worship together. Being from a small North Carolina town myself, believe me - that is a miracle.

The Bible says that before we know Jesus Christ, we are dead in our transgressions. We inherited a dead spirit from our father Adam. However, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, God gives us a new heart and a new spirit that is fully alive. This is resurrection power at its best.

Why did God allow Lazarus to die? He allowed it so His Son could be glorified through it (John 11:4). Why did God allow His own Son to die on the cross? To bring salvation to all who believe? I suspect that is the same for Luanne and Bob's son as well.

Let's Pray
Dear Lord, there are some aspects of my life that have not turned out like I thought they would. There are shattered dreams and many things I do not understand. However, I do know this. You are a loving God and nothing happens to me that You cannot use for Your glory. Help me to be open to see the good in the circumstances that seem at times to be so hard. I choose to believe that You can redeem every situation in my life and use it for good.

In Jesus' name, Amen

Now It's Your Turn
Is there something that you have been praying about and perhaps you feel that God is "late?"

What can we learn about God's timetable from today's devotion?

In today's devotion, I quoted Jesus as saying, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" Could it be that Jesus is saying those same words to you today?

Would you be willing to pray that God would show you the dreams He has for you?

Would you be willing to give up your unfulfilled dreams and reach forward to what lies ahead?

Read the following verse and ponder what God wants you to leave behind and what He is calling you to reach toward. "But one thing I d Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead" (Philippians 3:13b NIV).

More from the Girlfriends
Shattered dreams are a part of life, but God has big plans for each of us. Can you risk the hope that God still has dreams for your life? That He hasn't forgotten you. Place your hand firmly in His -- then take a deep breath and begin the exciting journey to a place you thought you'd never find: the dream God planned for you all along. You'll find all this and more in Sharon's book, Dreams of a Woman-God's Plan for Fulfilling Your Dreams.

David speaks my heart's cry

2008-11-19T14:53:00.001-05:00

In Psalm 13:1-3a, David cries out in anguish to God, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.”

From the Girlfriends in God email Devotional

2008-11-19T09:13:00.001-05:00

November 19, 2008
Shattered Dreams (part 1)
Sharon Jaynes

Today's Truth
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." (Isaiah 49:15 NIV)

Friend to Friend
My husband and I were reveling in our time with our good friends from our college days, Larry and Cynthia Price. It had been almost a year since our last visit and I was hungry to hear of the latest family news about their children, Daniel, Julianna, and Laura Beth. While the four adults feasted on grilled teriyaki chicken, steamy baked potatoes, tossed salad with home grown sliced tomatoes, the kids ran out the door to attend the Friday night high school football game. For over an hour, conversation and sweet tea flowed like a mountain stream. We were just finishing the last bites of chocolate silk pie when our laughter was interrupted by the ringing phone.

"Hello," Cynthia answered.

I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I could tell something was terribly amiss.

"Daniel, calm down! What's wrong? Talk slower," she urged. "Oh God, no," Cynthia gasped. "OK, Daniel. I'll meet you at the hospital."

An ashen Cynthia turned to her husband and could barely force the words out of her mouth. "Larry, Daniel said that Will took a bad hit at the football game. He went in for a tackle. They hit. Will stood up. He fell on the ground and never got back up. They are taking him to the hospital in Clinton."

"Cynthia, you two go on to meet them. Don't even think twice about us," I assured her. "I'll clean up and take any calls that come in."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I hate to leave you here."

"Absolutely, now scoot!"

Before they left, we held hands and prayed for Will, his mother Luanne, his dad, Bob, and his two brothers and little sister who were all at the game.

Larry and Cynthia drove down their mile long driveway and my mind rushed back to another time fourteen years earlier when I first met Luanne Johnson. She was Cynthia's best friend in the sleepy rural town of Rose Hill, NC, four hours from our home. She had just given birth to her third child, Bailey. Bailey was born with a hole in his heart. When he was seven months old, Luanne kissed his cheek as the doctors and nurses rolled him into the operating room to attempt to correct the defect. The physicians assured the Johnson's that the procedure had a 98% success rate and there was no cause for alarm. While Bailey came through the surgery just fine, he developed complications a few days later and had to go back in for a second procedure. This operation was not successful. Bailey died on the operating table. Bailey died on his brother Will's third birthday. Now this.

I pictured Luanne riding in the ambulance or perhaps following in a car close behind the blaring sirens. I recalled the words I had penned in another book, "There is an inexplicable bond that exists between a mother and her child. Even though the umbilical cord is severed in the delivery room, a cord of love connects them for the rest of their lives." Luanne already had one deposit in heaven. The thought of a second was almost too painful to imagine.

Oh, he'll be OK, I thought. I'd grown up in a small North Carolina town where high school football was a part of life for the entire community. When I was in elementary school, I went to Friday night games and ran around under the bleachers paying very little attention to the pigskin on the field. When I was a teenager, I was a cheerleader and knew just enough to know which cheers to yell when. My father-in-law had been a coach. Boys were constantly, "down on the play." But they always got up. Didn't they?

I'm not sure how much time passed, but Cynthia's phone call startled me back to reality.

"Sharon, this is Cynthia. Will didn't make it."

"What do you mean 'didn't make it?'" I asked.

"Will died before he even got to the hospital," she said.

Somehow, the news spread through the quiet little town that Will Johnson had been hurt at the football game. All through the night, I fielded calls that came to the Price's home. Cynthia was Luanne's best friend and Daniel had been Will's best friend.

The next day, the news reported the story. Will had gone in to make a tackle and when he hit the boy carrying the ball, his opponent's helmet crashed into Will's chest On impact, Will's heart had a concussion. He stood up and said, "Coach, I think I need to come out." Then he collapsed and his heart never beat again.

I was just a visitor from 200 miles away. I didn't know most of these people but one thing was clear. What affected one, affected them all. A mother's dreams had been shattered and the entire town felt her pain.

Shattered dreams are a part of life. Children die, husbands leave, jobs are lost, cancer tests come back positive, proposals are rejected, teenagers rebel, houses burn, terrorists attack, and the list goes on. Part of the pain is the feeling that God has forgotten us, grown deaf to our cries, or lost our address. Zion cried, "The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me" (Isaiah 49:14). David lamented, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent" (Psalm 22: 1, 2). Even Jesus called out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) I have cried, "Where are you, God? How could you do this to me? Have you forgotten all about me?" Then He answers, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:15).

Ah, the string around His finger, the brand on His palm, the scar on His heart. No, He doesn't forget. Join me tomorrow as we continue looking at Shattered Dreams and God - the Restorer of Broken Dreams.

Let's Pray
Dear Father, sometimes I don't understand why things happen. Why would a tsunami take hundreds of lives? Why would a mother bury her child? But this one thing I do know. You are always good and Your ways are always good. Help me to trust Your heart when I don't see Your hand. Help me to trust You in the dark.

In Jesus' Name,
Amen

Now It's Your Turn
Think of a time when you felt as though God had deserted you. How did He assure you that He hadn't?

Perhaps you still feel like He has forgotten you? That's OK to admit. I have felt that way at times myself. However, what does the truth of Isaiah 49:15 tell us?

The next time you are wondering where God is, just recite His promise to you found in Hebrews 13:5.

Day 8

2008-11-02T13:11:00.002-05:00

Obviously not following calendar days here anymore...

Today I am so thankful for health insurance. Having it comforts me that if we have to take a child to the ER, we will be covered for a good portion of those bills. I am grateful for the job that provides the health insurance and I am grateful that we can afford the coverage.

Day 7?

2008-10-21T17:19:00.001-05:00

Today I am thankful for Tramadol.

Moreoever, however, I am thankful that God forgives me my constant errors and that my children forgive me as well.

Day Six

2008-10-20T15:13:00.001-05:00

I am thankful that Adam is willing to let me disappear into a dark room with an ice pack, lock the doors, and hide when I have these terrible migraines.

Day Five (better late than never)

2008-10-20T15:12:00.003-05:00

I'm grateful for our doctor and the nurses at Saint Mary's Mercy Medical Hospital whose quick and competent actions six years ago allowed our sweet little girl Avery to celebrate her 6th birthday on Saturday.

Quote of the day

2008-10-16T11:32:00.003-05:00

To my four-year old:

"Honey, you aren't meant to be shut in a dog crate."

(She's still throwing a fit because I won't shut her in the dog crate. Can't wait to bring this up at high school graduation.)

2008-10-16T11:31:00.000-05:00

From the 10/16/08 Girlfriends in God devotional

When I Am Afraid
Mary Southerland

Today's Truth
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV).

Friend to Friend
We do a lot of laundry at the Southerland house. There always seems to be a load in the washer that needs to go in the dryer, a load in the dryer that needs to be folded and a load of dirty laundry waiting to begin the process all over again. Sound familiar?

Our washer and dryer have numerous settings for everything from hand washables and fine delicates to cotton and permanent press. In an effort to raise responsible young adults, our children began doing their own laundry at a young age. However, there was a price to be paid for that lesson. After a few loads that yielded pink male underwear and sweaters shrunk to fit Barbie dolls, we decided to wash everything on one setting. Heaven help the man, woman or child who dares to change that setting.

When a life crisis comes, we generally have an automatic setting of fear and anxiety. The good news is that we can change that setting to peace and joy! How? By counting on God.

Count on God to be with you. We battle stress every day, but God is faithful and we can count on Him to be with us every step of the way. Worry is trying to fix tomorrow's problems with today's resources. My husband and I are flying to Charlotte, North Carolina. Dan booked the tickets and reserved seats for both of us. We have packed our suitcases and made every preparation we can think of. However, we really don't need any of those things...until we get on the plane. Grace is much the same. God gives grace in daily doses -- just when we need them.

Isaiah 43:2 When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you (NLT).

Count on God for direction. Life can easily spin out of control in a whirlwind of confusion. God offers direction and guidance through His word, through His people and through the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 32:8 I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you (NLT).

Count on God for provision. God goes before us in every area of life. Nothing that happens to us will ever surprise God. We must be careful to stay away from the scenario sickness of "What if". There are no "what ifs" when we choose to trust God for every need.

Isaiah 65:24 I will provide their needs before they ask. I will help them while they are still asking for help (NLT).

Count on God for protection. God will fight for us when we are attacked. When we follow God's agenda, God fights for us. When we follow our agenda, we are on our own.

Exodus 14:13 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still" (NIV).

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, "If God is your Co-Pilot, switch seats!" Many of us have good reason to be afraid because we are sitting in the pilot seat of life, determined to be in control. Fear feeds stress. Stress thrives in an atmosphere of fear and doubt when our hand is on the steering wheel of life. We need to move over, surrender control to God and find the peace waiting in His hand.

Let's Pray
Father, my heart is filled with fear. It seems like I am drowning in the uncertainties of my life. Lord, help me to surrender my fears to You. Strengthen me to face each one and walk through it, knowing that You are with me. I choose to trust You and doubt my fears. I choose against stress and choose for peace. I choose You, Lord.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.

Day Four

2008-10-16T11:05:00.001-05:00

I'm grateful for my longing for God.

Day Three

2008-10-15T05:45:00.002-05:00

So far, I am thankful that God got me out of bed to meet with Him early this morning. I"ll probably cheat and have more items for which I am thankful later today :-)

Day Two

2008-10-15T05:42:00.002-05:00

(a little late)

I am thankful that I got to spend the morning with my baby sweetpea on her preschool field trip to the pumpkin farm. What a wonderful morning of viewing her with complete joy!

30 Days of Thankfulness (Day one)

2008-10-13T16:30:00.002-05:00

As I was driving to the Southport Great Banquet #48 that Mom and I attended together last weekend, God prompted me to think about all of the things for which I am grateful. It's so easy to get caught up in the swirl of everyday life, the aches and pains that plague us, the betrayals that befall us, the frighteningly steep downturn of the economy. In getting caught up in those things, I forget to appreciate all with which I've been blessed. I remember to mention them when I pray, but I often forget to call them to mind during the hurry of daily life.

So God prompted me to start a daily record of thankfulness. My goal is to blog daily, each day recording one thing for which I am grateful. We'll see if I can keep it up. I have good intentions, but much like thankfulness, blogging often gets lost in the chaos that my family calls daily life.

So....

Day one: (I'll cheat and have two today)...I'm extremely grateful that I was able to swim laps for an hour today (the last 40 minutes consisted of repeated mental chanting of Philippians 4:13 )

I am also thankful that my children are obsessed with homophones right now and make me laugh when they stretch the English language to find homophones everywhere. :-)

The Impala Syndrome

2008-10-10T08:12:00.000-05:00

The Impala Syndrome
This devotional was written by Jim Liebelt

HomeWord Devotional, 10/10/08

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.—Hebrews 11:1

I recently read a story on the Internet about the deer-like African Impala that reportedly can jump to an amazing height of 10 feet in the air, yet can be restrained in captivity by a wall that is merely three feet tall. Why? It seems that the Impala simply will not jump without being able to see where it will land.

This reminds me of the faith life of many Christ-followers. We have been given the wonderful gift of faith. By simple acts of faith, both small and great, God chooses to expand His influence in the world (See Hebrews 11). Still, it seems that many Christians live like Impalas when it comes to exercising faith. I know that for myself, time and time again, I’ve let any number of small walls; those made of fear, or worry or even ‘common sense’ restrain me from exercising the gift of faith that God has given. How about you?

When we insist upon living by sight and always determining the results before we act, we short-circuit faith, cutting God and His power out of the equation in our lives. When living by sight overcomes faith, our spiritual lives begin to shrivel, we live at a lesser level of satisfaction, and our own participation in influencing the world for God decreases. According to the Scriptures, faith is a foundational principle for living the Christian life. (See Romans 1:17.)

The solution to the “Impala Syndrome” of faith is found in choosing to trust. When we choose to trust God enough to walk by faith rather than by sight, we exercise our faith and as a result, its capacity grows. Our spiritual lives are strengthened, which results in our living life to its fullest.

So, how are you doing when it comes to matters of faith? Are you consistently living by faith? Or, is your daily experience more like the “Impala Syndrome”? Today, you can make the choice to trust God and live by faith not by sight. Let our prayer today be, “Increase our faith, Lord!”

Pain

2008-10-08T14:27:00.002-05:00

I was going to write a post based upon the devotional below, talking about the path I've traveled on the way to forgiving my former friend for her betrayal. It's true what she writes about the vision of the "other woman." Do any of us wives view the "other woman" as someone railroaded by a bad decision made multiple times? I certainly haven't. One minute she was one of my closest friends, the next she was words that I wouldn't utter in polite (or even necessarily unpolite) company.

But pain has obscured my thoughts on the matter. The fibromyalgia has reared its incredibly ugly, despised head over the past 5 days. It's times like these, when I am just overwhelmed with unrelenting pain and fatigue, that I wonder if there is any end in sight. When every bone in my body cries out for relief and rest, but when I awake from a nap or night's sleep in the same exhausted and painful state, I do start to wonder...is this it? Will I feel like this forever?

Part of that is because I've been loyal to the restrictive vegan, allergen-and caffeine-free diet I've been following. I've been exercising a minimum of 45 minutes a day, even through the pain and exhaustion. And I still feel like this. That is the truly disheartening part of this. I'm doing everything I've been doing for over 4 months and I feel rotten.

But then I realized that maybe I just really need to pay attention to the article about fog that I posted below. This is my fog right now. I've no doubt that depression is lurking around the corner, waiting to welcome me into its clammy grasp if I just give in. So I need to think about truly clinging to God's promises right now, not just thinking they are awfully nifty when I'm feeling well. I need to cling like I am drowning and not give into the thought that I'm facing this on my own and this may be all I ever am.

Isaiah 43:1-2 (thank you Celeste!)
1.
But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

2.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

Forgiving the Other Woman

2008-10-01T17:29:00.001-05:00

From the Crosswalk Women's Newsletter I receive, October 1 2008

Forgiving the 'Other Woman'

Rebeca Seitz

I was 22 years old, married for just over a year, when my mom said the words that opened my eyes. "That dog won't hunt." It's a phrase my southern mom has used for years when the story being told doesn't add up to truth in her powerfully discerning mind. Mom's never been wrong when she utters that sentence. When I described to her the goings on in my marriage and she came back with those words, I knew she'd just declared what I hadn't wanted to face. My husband was cheating.

I never considered that betrayal would enter my marriage. I suppose that was a bit naïve given the prevalence of betrayal in the marriages around me -- my dad's first marriage, two aunts, some cousins, several friends. Throughout my childhood, marriages around me kept falling apart due to adultery. Yet it simply didn't occur to me to be on guard.

My world shattered that day. Everything I thought I knew to be true suddenly came into question. Who was I? Who was this God that would allow my life to get so off course? Who was this man whose last name I shared? Where was the future I'd so meticulously planned since my girlhood days? How would they respond at the megachurch for which I worked? What sentence could I say to my husband to put everything back the way it had been -- if only in my mind? Could I forgive him? Stay married? I knew the Bible allowed for divorce in the case of adultery, but it doesn't demand such. That left me with choices to make instead of a dictated path.

My dad is a marriage counselor -- how's that for irony? I spent hours on the phone with him, wrestling over what course of action to take. Just as suddenly as I'd decided to forgive and stay, though, my husband decided the future. In a phone call from his mom's, he explained that he simply wasn't "created for marriage" and had "made a big mistake." He moved out on December 1 - my birthday.

For the next few weeks, I lived in a haze of disbelief. Questions and thoughts swirled through my mind like a southern twister in a thunderstorm. One kept coming to the forefront. How could one woman do this to another? I couldn't wrap my mind around someone purposefully causing this much pain and confusion in another's life. Weren't we women supposed to stick together and help each other out?

Throughout my life, as others were hit by betrayal, I'd had an image of the "other woman" as manipulative, scheming, cheap, tawdry, and desperate. The entire Hollywood cliché formed my image of her. But I couldn't reconcile that image with a woman my husband would be attracted to. And if that image was wrong, then what belonged in its place?

I read a lot, cried bucketloads, threw up my hands, journaled my heart out, and prayed even more and eventually picked up When Godly People do Ungodly Things by Beth Moore. Beth shared scripture which revealed that satan plots against each individual Christian. He's fine if the ultimate demise he's after takes years to accomplish. What else does he have to do but wait for his own defeat? And so he plots -- he plans, step by step, how to pull a believer down into the muck and mire.

Can't you just envision him now? Rubbing his hands with glee or chewing on the end of a pencil as he studies you and determines exactly which buttons to push to steer you down his path?

I've got a lot of buttons and -- entirely too often through the years -- I've allowed satan to have control over me. I've let him lead me right into the story he wrote. I've hurt people in the process -- parents, family members, and friends.

It dawned on me, sitting there with Beth's book in my hands and an image of a scheming satan in my mind, that I wasn't very different from the "other woman". I don't think she -- or anyone who commits adultery -- wakes up one morning and says, "I think today I'll commit adultery." I highly doubt that's what my husband did. No, I think it's a gradual process of steps laid out expertly by a grand manipulator. Our fault lies in taking those steps, in ceding authority of our story to one intent on our demise.

When I saw her in that light, I could empathize with the "other woman". I could forgive. I could understand. She gave up control of her story just like I've done so many times in too many ways. Her decision wreaked havoc in my life, but I've done the same in others' lives in other ways. If I couldn't forgive her this, how could I expect forgiveness myself?

It would have been easy to judge this woman, to judge my husband, to spend the rest of my life comfortable on my high horse and safe in my solitude. I tried that for a while. But, in reality, my horse rides lower than a lot of folks and keeps going only by the grace of God. He's a God who is clear about how forgiveness works -- asking for it without giving it doesn't work.

He's also clear about His ability to make beauty where sorrow stood. In forgiving, I became able to love again. To trust in His story for me again. To take steps toward healing and acceptance. Today, nearly six years later, I'm a (usually) happily married woman with a three-year-old son and a daughter to be born in October.

When I sat down to write my novel Coming Unglued, I knew that Kendra (my main character) was ripe for an emotional affair. She'd taken enough steps in satan's story of her life to be at that monumental moment. I checked with my husband before embarking on this novel's writing because I knew the emotions would affect our marriage. He prayed me through, handing me Kleenex as I cried while I typed and patting my back as I shook my head at Kendra and at the remembrance of my first marriage.

I get asked a lot how I could write a story from the "other woman's" point of view, given my history. I smile, knowing that I'm just as fallen as any "other" woman. On days when I yell at my son or take my husband's love for granted or fail in any number of ways, I'm grateful for a God who forgives and who surrounds me with people who forgive. In the face of such a gift, how can I not offer forgiveness in return

Fog

2008-09-26T12:26:00.002-05:00

From the September 26, 2008 Homeward with Jim Burns devotional I receive via email:

Don't Lose Sight of the Goal
This devotional was written by Jim Liebelt.

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 3:14

Numerous sources have told the story of Florence Chadwick, who on one foggy morning in July of 1952 waded into the waters off Catalina Island, intent on swimming across the channel to the Southern California mainland. This challenge was not too difficult for Chadwick as she had been the first woman ever to swim the English Channel in both directions.

However, on this day, having lost sight of the land because of the fog, Chadwick decided to give up. As it turned out, she had only been one-half mile from reaching her goal. She was not exhausted or cold. Rather the fog, having obscured her vision from the goal, was the reason she quit. Still, some two months later, on a clear day, Florence Chadwick attempted the same challenge -- and this time succeeded, setting a new speed record, because she was able to keep her eye upon the goal.

As Christians, we have a goal: to follow Jesus, to become like Him, to love and serve Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. But, we often encounter the world's fog, which can obscure our vision and keep us from seeing the goal clearly. I'm afraid too many of us have chosen to give up pursuing the goal because we become distracted by fog -- the fog of busyness, of career, of material pursuits, of self-interest. We will all experience foggy days, spiritually speaking. Don't quit. Persevere. Do your best to keep your eyes focused on Jesus who awaits with reward in hand, at the finish line.

I love the words of that old hymn written by H.H. Lemmel:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

Today, let the fresh breeze of the Holy Spirit's presence in your life blow away the world's fog. Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

GOING DEEPER:

What "fog" exists in your life that obscures your vision and hinders you from following Christ?

What actions can you take to regain your clear vision in order to pursue the goal of following Christ? Will you commit those actions to the Lord today?

FURTHER READING:
Hebrews 12:2; 2 Timothy 4:7-8; Hebrews 10:36; James 1:12

A picture I took while in Hawaii...there certainly was beauty in the fog there. Perhaps I need to remind myself of that beauty when I start berating myself because I've gotten lost in the fog yet again. Don't spend so much time belittling myself for having been distracted by the world's fog and just remember to get back on track, to persevere.

2008-09-25T11:29:00.002-05:00

Talking to God

2008-09-21T17:37:00.003-05:00

I woke up early this morning. In good part, it might have been the five year old elbows and knees that kept assaulting my kidneys throughout the early morning hours. But I also like to think of God waking me up early in the morning so we can have our time together. I've been doing that pretty regularly lately. I find that meeting with God early in the morning sets me off into my day on much more solid ground. Much like a child who has had a good breakfast in the morning before setting off for school. I'm more patient. I'm more likely to draw on the materials in the books on anger that I've been reading. I feel that I'm more whole, less pulled apart into angry, frustrated little pieces.

Anyway, I had a conversation with God this morning. It's taken me a few years to get comfortable with the notion that God can talk to me without me hearing an actual voice. I've struggled with that for a long time. Can it really be God talking to me if the thought just pops into my mind? Don't I have to hear a thundering voice from Heaven (at lower volume, of course, to avoid the wrath of the 4 year old who is quick to cast blame when she is awakened earlier than she would prefer)? But when Adam and I were in Hawaii last January, we attended a wonderful church service with our friends Nathan and Shawna. The pastor there described hearing from God, and his description was so spot on to what I've experienced several times that I decided just to accept the experience as hearing from God.

So I was laying in bed this morning, longing for God. I just really needed to hear from Him, to have a conversation with Him. It doesn't typically work out for me this way because I either fall back asleep or the cacophony in my brain either drowns God out or stresses me out too much for me to truly listen. But today, God got through. And I'm so grateful for that.

I learned last weekend that I don't trust God. Adam and I attended a Focus on the Family Weekend to Remember marriage conference. It was wonderful, and I highly, truly recommend it for couples wanting to learn (or relearn) how to put the right focus back on their marriages. We learned about communication, forgiveness, raising our children, love as created by God, and much much more. One of the biggest (and saddest, for me) things I learned is that I don't really trust God.

I relied upon Him and leaned so heavily against Him after Adam's affair. I try to rely upon Him for big decisions. There are times that I wake up in the night, petrified. I can only find calm and peace in Him during those times. But as to trusting Him, I learned that I don't really. I keep my anxieties to myself and don't give them over. I don't trust Him to work in Adam...I try to change Adam myself. I try to control everything. Absolutely everything. I don't trust God to run things; I try to do it myself. And I don't know how to stop.

When I was hospitalized for the second (or third? Final, at any rate) time with anorexia as a teenager, God saved my life. I think I was under 80 lbs at that point. I'd just heard a passing employee tell another employee that they didn't expect me to live. It had never dawned on me that I was killing myself. I just wanted to be perfect. I needed to have a perfect body to be loved, accepted, liked. I didn't want to die - I just wanted perfection. But the thought of death frightened me. I couldn't imagine my parents losing a daughter (the other one had already furiously moved out at that point, I think, and there was a lot of heartbreak over that angry departure). So even though I hadn't been saved at that point, I asked God for help. I didn't want to die. I took a deep breath and a picture came to mind. A picture of giant cupped hands that waited to gently catch me if I would just leap from the cliff I was so precariously perched upon. I took a breath and jumped. And God, true to His Word, caught me. I recovered. So many anorexics do not, and I am absolutely convinced that I would have died had God not come to me that night.

But this situation is different. It isn't one particular situation that I have to give up. It isn't one fear that I have to face, as it was back then. I don't have one cliff to leap from here. I have many. So I brought that up to God. "God - I don't know how to trust you. This isn't the fear of eating that I can just face with your strength. This is everything in my life and I don't know how to just stop controlling everything."

Then God said, "Trust me." It wasn't His voice. It wasn't a sudden thought that just popped into my mind like, "Hey. I'm craving ice cream." If you can visualize thoughts having different appearances in your mind, this was an ethereal thought that gently unrolled in my mind.

"God, how do I know that these are your words and not just my mind so desperate to hear from you that it's making these things up?"

"Trust me."

"God, I'm scared to trust you. I'm scared."

"I won't betray you."

Then I cried. Because I guess that's at the root of everything. People fail you. People wound you. You hand them your heart and they shove back at you a shattered, mangled mess that scarcely resembles the gift you so lovingly entrusted them with. I'm not just talking about Adam here. There are other people who hurt me so badly in that situation. And God gently reminded me this morning that I haven't really forgiven them. I've nursed my pain in a small (likely dark) place in my heart and considered it extremely justified in light of everything that happened.

I have to forgive. Not because people who hurt us deserve forgiveness, but because when we didn't deserve forgiveness or mercy or grace, Christ died a horrific, violent, unimaginably painful death so that we could be forgiven. How can I not forgive those who so willingly inflicted pain on me when I am faced with the reminder of what Christ did for me? It hurts me and it hurts my relationship with God if I don't forgive. It holds me back from being who God made me to be, from opening up all of me for God to use.

But God. God won't betray me. He won't wound me. He won't let me down. He won't fail me. I just don't know how to believe that. But I guess that's what faith is. I thought that faith was just believing that He is. Apparently I also have to trust Him. And that is my great battle right now.

It's pretty sad, I guess, that I could survive anorexia, rape, car accidents, law school (little joke there), terrible hyperemesis, an affair, a heart attack, terrible depression, and the incredible pain of fibromyalgia and still not trust God. But I think there are different degrees of trusting. I trust Him to get me through terrible pain, to get me through the seemingly unsurvivable darkest days of depression when all you can do is pray to make it through each second, each minute. But I haven't trusted Him with my emotional fears, my angst over parenting and fear of screwing up my children for life, my anger when Adam doesn't meet my expectations. And I'm not sure how to do that. That isn't a situation involving jumping off of a cliff. That's a bigger, and seemingly much more difficult, situation for me to trust in.

"I won't betray you."

I want to trust you, God. And I'll try. I'll really try.

More bubbles, a car, and produce shopping

2008-09-04T14:50:00.001-05:00

I was inordinately proud that Caroline had opted to fill her cart with plastic produce while the other kids opted for the empty oreo boxes. Doesn't mean she eats produce, but hey...I'll take what I can get!

Drums and bubbles

2008-09-04T14:48:00.002-05:00

More Museum pics

2008-09-04T14:46:00.001-05:00

Trip to the Children's Museum

2008-09-04T14:44:00.001-05:00

These are a few photos from our big trip to the Children's Museum today. It was a Mommy/Caroline day. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons now, Caroline and I are alone together. Tuesday we went to a new coffee shop, had lunch with Adam, and ran some errands. Today we went to the Y and then went to the Children's Museum. We played with the funny mirrors, made lots of bubbles, went "grocery shopping," ran a restaurant, worked in post office, dressed up like bee keepers, "drove" a car, and, oh yes, played with bubbles! I am really going to cherish these special times with Caroline as I really only have about another year or so of having time with her alone. We'll be sure to keep you posted on all of our adventures throughout the year :-)

First Day of School shots (K and 2nd)

2008-09-03T15:24:00.002-05:00

2008-09-02T17:00:00.001-05:00

Diving right in...I hope: Thoughts on prison.

2008-08-29T09:05:00.004-05:00

It's been quite a month now. God's done some amazing work in me and I know that He is pushing me to do some work too. Quite frankly, I'm scared.

Adam and I went out to dinner with some good friends about a month ago. Awesome, fun, Godly people. We got into a political debate on the way home with me standing firmly on my Obama ground, the other three standing firmly behind McCain. We talked about economics, the welfare system, the war(s), and that hot-button issue abortion. I have always, always stood behind freedom of choice, largely because of issues in my past. I have never had an abortion, but I have had an experience that cemented in my mind the wisdom of having that option available for those who have been victims of violent crimes. These people challenged my thinking that night. We finished our debate on friendly grounds and went our separate ways.

The next day, I was driving to work when God almost literally reached down and slapped me. Do I love life as God gives it? Yes. Do I love babies? Yes. Do I believe in adoption? Yes...I haven't given up on the thought that we might be able to adopt in the future. Do I believe in the sanctity of life? Absolutely. But here I was blindly accepting the legality of eradicating wee lives because of something in my past that has controlled me without my knowing. I have been so blinded by what happened to me years ago that my life has been steered by it, my decisions have been made on the basis of that history without me realizing it. How can that happen? How can an intelligent woman be so blindly driven by something in her past?

I think we all are, to a certain extent. Certainly our environments growing up form and shape us and our beliefs. God just opened my eyes to the way I was blindly making choices that go against my core beliefs, and all on the basis of one violent act committed years ago.

The next day I emailed my friend to tell her what had happened that morning. I wanted her to know what incredible change had been wrought by God, all as a result of our debate the night before. We ended up having a multi-hour conversation in which I shared what had happened in my past and she in hers. That God would see fit to bring someone into my life who could not only empathize but KNEW the horror of that act and the fallout it brings. I love her dearly for being so open with me and for listening to me cry, and I hope she reads this someday and knows to whom I refer.

But God didn't stop there. Two days later, I got together with a friend in the park and had lunch. We starting talking, as we always do. We ended up on the subject of eating disorders, obviously something in my past. I never ever would have guessed that my friend has struggled and still struggles with the entangling web of thoughts that an eating disorder weaves. For years I've considered myself cured, and I still do. And what a blessing that has been, because so many victims of eating disorders do not ever fully recover. But Satan still sees fit to trip me up every now and then with a thought of, "wouldn't life be better/happier/easier/more wonderful if I were thinner?" Thankfully I've not been pulled back in. But it is a reminder that eating disorders might not ever completely go away, leaving their trail of thoughts behind like a wound that festers over time. I'd always just thought of my friend as an incredibly fit, slender woman...it never ever dawned on me that she might share my past struggles.

I think I was just amazed that within the period of two days, God had brought two friends to me who collectively shared three of my greatest battles and the wounds therefrom: anorexia, depression, and rape. He is so loving, and so kind, and I am still choked by the kindness of these two friends in sharing their battles with me. I don't feel quite so alone. It's one thing to talk to your husband about your struggles, and Adam has become a good listener. But it is completely different to talk to a fellow victim about the fallout, the fear, the crushing blow to who you used to be, the blame, the terror, the anger, the hatred, the violence,and how you fear never again being who you were.

So, guided by a friend, I'm in the process of seeking help through counseling. Truly, I want to be free. I don't want my life to be controlled by fear and darkness as it has been for so long. I want more of me to be available to God. I've shut so much of me off for so long without even realizing it. And honestly? yes...I'm terrified to have this out there. Who will read it and view me differently? Who will think me a freak for having this out there? Who won't feel comfortable talking to me anymore? And how will I keep from crying if anyone brings this up? Because I cry just typing it out. I've tried for so, so many years to keep my emotions inside. If people are nice to me about a hard subject, I shut myself off and don't allow myself to feel. After Adam's affair, when I saw my awesome dr for the first time after it all came out (the office knew b/c I'd called, sobbing, saying that I thought I needed a stronger anti-depressant), he came in and said,"I'm sorry, Sarah. You don't deserve this." I actually begged him to say something mean so that I wouldn't cry. I can't handle people being nice to me about bad things in my life b/c I try so, so hard not to cry, and kindness brings me to tears every time.

So, yes, obviously a lot of work ahead of me. But I am so grateful to God for bringing me to this point, and I just pray that He will bring me through. I am under no illusion that this will be easy. It will be ugly, dirty, incredibly hard, and Satan will be there the whole time, trying to lure me back with my comfortable old thoughts of me not being worth the work, of nothing changing, of God not loving me that much, of my husband and family not loving me that much, of anger over past hurts. But I have to do this, because I can't take this prison anymore.

2008-08-05T13:33:00.005-05:00

Wow...sure haven't posted here in a long time, huh? Maybe that's good...I've noticed that I tend to post when things are bleak and I don't feel like I can talk to anyone about them. It's been a crazy 6.5 months since I last posted. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in early May after a 6 month bout with incredible pain and fatigue. I count myself very lucky in getting diagnosed so quickly. I thank my wonderfully progressive and open-minded doctor for that. We experimented with various prescriptions for the fibro for about three months until I started reading up about more holistic ways to deal with the illness. I tried Flexeril and Lyrica, along with the prozac I had been taking for depression. But it dawned on me that I've never really tried just taking care of myself to see what my body could do with that. There's always been one thing or another in the way - anorexia, college goals, law school, hectic work, three babies in a row, depression, debilitating migraines, marriage in crisis...you get the picture.

I read a book by the name of Foods That Fight Pain by Dr. Neal Barnard. While he is a vegan and therefore may be considered to have an agenda, the information contained in the book was well-researched and well-presented. A lot of the migraine information was consistent with what I'd learned other places but never had the energy to implement. However, body-wide pain that keeps you from standing or walking upright and crippling fatigue are powerful motivators.

So in late may, early June I started exercising daily. I started with 5 minutes of walking and added one minute/day. I'm now up to 60 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise. I ride, I walk, I use the elliptical, and one of these days I'll throw in swimming for kicks and giggles. I am also doing strength training 3-5x/week. In July, I weaned myself off of all of the medications I was taking and started adding in some supplements that my research indicated have helped others {I do love my geeky research :-) } Each day, I'm now taking about 2400 mg Malic Acid, 1.5 g Magnesium, a Shaklee multi (Vita-Lea with iron), Calcium, a B supplement, Ginseng, Folic Acid, and a few others I can't remember (yes, I rattle when I walk now). I am also (mostly) following a vegan diet. My weaknesses are both surprising and unsurprising (surprising that I couldn't resist taking a bite of a brat, unsurprising that I cave and get a mocha from time to time and find myself daydreaming about medium-rare steaks).

Long story short, it is working for me right now. I still have bad days, but they make me appreciate the better days more. It is hard not to get discouraged when I feel like I am doing everything I can but still get hit with days on which I can't straighten up or even seem to get out of bed. On those days, I just pray for relief, patience, and the energy to keep doing what I need to do.

Part II, hopefully to come soon, will be about all of the great things God is doing in my life. Until then, though, please take care of yourself. Take care of yourself the same way you take care of your child when they are young and sick and fully dependent upon you...with love, gentleness, and the utmost of concern.

2008-01-15T14:06:00.002-05:00

I wanted to post to let everyone know that I am feeling better. With God's grace and a new medication, I've crawled out of that terrible pit I was in. I know that there is a purpose in this depression. It certainly makes me empathetic to those fellow sufferers.

I should be working on a big project right now, but I am hoping that God will bless this time that I am taking to write this and that He will open up some other time for me to work on what I need to do. I am hoping that I am right in believing that He would have me break from researching in order to write this.

I'm not even certain of what to write. But God is impressing upon me just how bad this last depression was. It was terrible, and it was frightening. I would never ever kill myself b/c I would neither want to risk my eternal salvation nor want to put my family through that terrible pain. But in this last bout with Depression, I believe I was as horrifically depressed, as close to the edge, as one could get without committing suicide.

Every breath was an effort. I just didn't care enough to breathe. To eat. To speak. To live. It was black, terrifying, suffocating, deadly.

I guess I write this because while I did actually let my husband and my mother know, mostly at the time (more toward the middle/end of the struggle), how terribly bleak things were, I didn't talk to others about it. After I started the new prescription and began clawing my way back (with God's help), I confided in a close friend about how dark things had been.

I didn't wear all black. I didn't stop showering or washing my hair or wearing makeup. I didn't cry all day or break into dramatic tears in the grocery store. I was certainly less engaging with others, but I think that might have been the extent of the external signs of the depression.

I *think* the point I am making is this: while there are certainly external signs of depression to watch for, someone can still be standing on the brink without showing the more obvious signs. The smile you give a stranger, the kindness you show while driving, the "hello" or "how are you" you opt to speak even though rushed, might make the difference in that stranger's battle that day.

We all have different battles. I just know that in mine, the times that someone met my eye or smiled, or just showed a kindness...those were the times that I could live with just a little less struggle for the next few minutes.

If God prompts you to pray for someone, and you have no idea why, please pray. If you struggle with depression, find someone you can trust and share some of your thoughts with them (even if you can't share the scariest or darkest ones). If your reason for living isn't God or isn't your family, find that one reason that you must live and hold onto it as your life jacket. Do not let go. Please risk confiding in someone that you just can't do it anymore, it's too tiring, and you just don't care enough to keep holding on.

Just don't give up.

One of the best descriptions of depression that I've seen...

2007-11-21T12:04:00.001-05:00

...particularly the bit about forgetting to fight and needing reasons to survive...

"Paradise"

once upon a year gone by
she saw herself give in
every time she closed her eyes
she saw what could have been
well nothing hurts and nothing bleeds
when covers tucked in tight
funny when the bottom drops
how she forgets to fight... to fight

and it's one more day in paradise
one more day in paradise

as darkness quickly steals the light
that shined within her eyes
she slowly swallows all her fear
and soothes her mind with lies
well all she wants and all she needs
are reasons to survive
a day in which the sun will take
her artificial light... her light

and it's one more day in paradise
one more day in paradise
it's one more day in paradise
one last chance to feel alright... alright

don't pretend to hold it in just let it out
don't pretend to hold it in just push it out
don't you try to hold it in just let it out and
don't you try to hold it in you hold it in

[chorus]

once upon a year gone by
she saw herself give in
every time she closed her eyes
she saw what could have been

The Monster

2007-10-25T18:21:00.000-05:00

I wonder whether anyone has considered that depression might very well be a monster that eats at your very soul, the substance of who you are, until you are nothing more than a shell. So hollowed out that were someone to place a candle inside you, the glow would shine out through your thin covering. Or, conversely, so that the world can see when your light no longer shines.

Mine certainly has been snuffed out by darkness creeping throughout my mind. How else to describe the insidious tentacles of depression that burrow into my thoughts, my personality, everything that makes me Me. It poisons every thought, every moment. Driving down the road becomes a question of whether you could just keep driving and escape. Thoughts of escape turn to the realization that it would be an escape for your family as well, because surely they deserve so much better than I can offer. I've tried for years to get out from under this monster, and it just goes nowhere. It sits there, waiting for negativity on which to feed. Something to make it grow bigger until it can eclipse my very being. Any negative thought will do.

Usually my combination of faith and an antidepressant successfully combat the darkness. But I've been without the medicine for a couple of days now, and I feel so miserably faulty in every aspect of my life that I think surely God must have turned His back to avoid seeing how awful I am. It's hard to accept that anyone could love me as much as He says He does. Let alone accepting that my husband might actually love me despite my depression, my impatience, my need to be alone, my tendency to spend money when I am lost.

I just feel a right failure. If I'm honest, I guess I always have. I can't be perfect. But somehow that knowledge does not permeate deeply enough to prevent me from feeling like a failure in everything in life because I am not perfect at it all. If I can't do it perfectly, then I am a sham at everything. Being a perfectionist has made me a great attorney, I think, but a miserable everything else.

It's just at times like this that I can't see a way out.

2007-07-17T10:35:00.001-05:00

I really felt the need to post these lyrics again. They speak so much to me every time I hear this song.

Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice (Come to Jesus)

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don't be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall...so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can't contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

...but on the bright side,

2007-07-05T19:24:00.002-05:00

After I posted my last entry, Blogger presented me with an opportunity to make money from my blog by allowing Google to place ads related to my blog with Google AdSense.

The only thing I now wonder is what they would place in my blog. Anti-depressants? Armaments? Tranquilizers? Cages?

Food for thought.

2007-07-05T19:09:00.005-05:00

It's hard to describe just how dark I feel right now. I almost leapt thru the computer screen to strangle Blogger when it dared to tell me that I had no blog associated with my account. Apparently Blogger didn't know how awful the day had been and thought it might be fun to toy with me. All is well on that front, as indicated by my typing here.

I can't quite describe why things are as bad as they are right now. But it's been long since I last felt this despondent, this dark, finding things this bleak. A very large part of it, I think, is having watched a friend struggle horribly this week. Her husband had a massive heart attack last Monday, June 25. So many of us banded together to pray for his recovery, and for a few (too) short hours, it seemed so promising. Rob started to recover, enough to kiss Aggie, to smile at her, to interact with her. But then things changed. All too suddenly, organs began to fail. And Aggie was faced with the horrible decision of what to do. She decided, after much prayer and struggle, to let Rob go.

I just feel that I failed her. I cannot think of any time in my life when I have prayed harder, more frequently, more fervently, or with more tears. I tried so hard to give her hope, but in the end, I did nothing. I feel empty, and I feel stupid for saying that, because Aggie is the one with true loss. All I did was fail.

But it's just hard to rebound from that feeling. That feeling that you put every little ounce of anything you had into something, just to watch someone, in the end, struggle so horribly and with so much pain. I do not regret for a second any time, energy, prayer, emotion, etc. that I spent, because I truly believe that Aggie will be a sister for life. But I just wish that I could have saved her this pain. And I wish that God would have.

I know that God's will is sovereign. I know that we will probably never understand His reasons. But it is so hard not to feel angry about this. God can heal anyone; why didn't He heal Rob? And please don't tell me that He has His reasons. I know that. I just feel cheated, because there was such hope there for a little bit. Why give that little bit of hope if, in the end, there is nothing more?

So I've cried most of today. Cried and raged. I've had no patience with the kids, and I feel like a horrible, angry, terrible, worthless mom. I know they are blessings, I know that so many are not able to have children. But selfishly, I just wanted to be able to lock myself away for a while today to cry and rage and sob and sleep. And you cannot do that when you children continue to pick on each other, antagonize each other, cry about each other picking on them, and fuss about every little thing. If this is sibling rivalry, I honestly think that I might not survive it. I now know why pharmacists created Xanex and Valium. I have to believe those would help.

I just feel angry and horribly sad and I have no where to put those emotions. I talked to Adam on the phone for a while today and just couldn't explain it. I don't think he could understand why I was so horribly depressed, and I guess I can't adequately explain it. All I know is that it was probably last summer, the last time I felt this lost.

"Living Hallelujah," Sarah Kelly

2007-07-05T13:30:00.001-05:00

Who am I?
That you came to Earth for me
To die on a tree
Who are you?
Son of Man, Son of God
Yes I believe its true
More than words I bring to you
May all I say and may all I do

Be Hallelujah
Hallelujah
May everything about me be
Hallelujah to my king
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
May everything about me be
Hallellujah

All of me
I surrender completely
Take control
I want all of you and I am letting go
I am healed and Im forgiven
I am free because Im living

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
May everything about me be
Hallelujah to my king
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
May everything about me be
Hallelujah

Its all so clear
Its all so clear
I was born to worship
Its all so clear
Its all so clear
I was born to worship

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
May everything about me be
Hallelujah

"Lord Have Mercy" lyrics

2007-07-05T13:13:00.000-05:00

Jesus, I've forgotten the words that you have spoken
Promises that burned within my heart have now grown dim
With a doubting heart i follow the paths of earthly wisdom
Forgive me for my unbelief
Renew the fire again

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me

I have built an altar where I worship things of men
I have taken journeys that have drawn me far from you
Now i am returning to your mercies ever flowing
Pardon my transgressions
Help me love you again

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me

I have longed to know you & your tender mercies
Like a river of forgiveness ever flowing without end
I bow my heart before you in the goodness of your presence
Your grace forever shining
Like a beacon in the night

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me

Still Here Waiting - Todd Agnew

2007-07-05T13:09:00.001-05:00

It's cold outside
Or is that just the chill I feel inside from standing here
Steeping in my shame
I can't deny
I'm surrounded by the very thing You freed me from
That's why I can't come home

I don't know where I turned around
From chasing what I always found completed me
More than I could dream
I don't know why I can't remain
Safe here where I always came to meet with you
And You always met with me
And You're still here waiting

I fail to see
Why You'd still be waiting to forgive me
After all that I have done
But I cannot say
That one time I returned and You had turned away
Your love never fails

I don't know where I turned around
From chasing what I always found completed me
More than I could dream
I don't know why I can't remain
Safe here where I always came to meet with you
And You always met with me
And You're still here waiting

You say, "Come home" and You'll be there
I can run into Your arms

I don't know where I turned around
From chasing what I always found completed me
More than I could dream
I don't know why I can't remain
Safe here where I always came to meet with you
And You always met with me
And You're still here waiting

Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice (Come to Jesus)

2007-07-05T13:04:00.000-05:00

"Hold On" by Nichole Nordeman

2007-04-16T13:51:00.000-05:00

I love these lyrics.

It will find you at the bottom of a bottle,
It will find you at the needle's end.
It will find you when you beg and steal and borrow,
It will follow you into a stranger's bed.

It will find you when they serve you with the papers,
It will find you when the locks have changed again.
It will find you when you've called in all your favors,
It will meet you at the bridge's highest ledge.

So baby, don't look down -
it's a long way.
The sun will come around
to a new day.

So hold on,
Love will find you.
Hold on,
He's right behind you now.
Just turn around
and Love will find you.

It will find you when the doctor's head is shaking,
It will find you in a boardroom mostly dead.
It will crawl into the foxhole where you're praying,
It will curl up in your halfway empty bed.

So baby, don't believe that it's over.
Maybe you can't see 'round the corner.

So hold on,
Love will find you.
Hold on,
He's right behind you now.
Just turn around
and Love will find you.

To hang between two thieves in the darkness,
Love must believe you are worth it.

You're worth it.

So hold on,
Love will find you.
Hold on,
He's right behind you now.
Just turn around
and Love will find you.

What on earth is wrong with me?

2007-02-16T19:38:00.000-05:00

There have been a couple of things I've learned about myself in the past couple of months. First, I'm almost completely emotionally closed off. For years, my brain has been automatically shuttling away emotions before they can manifest themselves. Angry? No problem - the brain will stuff that away here...next to the sadness, hostility, and rage. Secondly, my biggest issue is feeling like I just don't matter. Feeling that if I disappeared right now, there would be no detrimental impact to that. If I were a pebble, I feel like I would leave no rings if someone threw me in the water. I know, rationally, that it isn't possible for someone to be here on Earth without having even a little impact. At least one person would miss any given person on this earth who disappeared. And I'm an intelligent woman. So I would think that my intelligence would recognize the irrationality of my position that I don't matter.

But it doesn't.

I was sitting with a friend who is working with me on forgiveness. Forgiveness of Adam, forgiveness of Becky (I haven't gotten around to the latter yet. I have never hated and despised someone as much as I despise that latter...person.) but when I was listing the sins Adam had committed against me, a necessary part of this forgiveness voyage I'm taking, my friend noticed something. She observed that the actions that seemed to have hurt me the most weren't the ones she thought they would be. I wasn't hurt most by the fact that Adam had an affair with my friend...I was hurt most by his actions that indicated that he just didn't care about me, that I just didn't matter.

And it's been that thought that hurts the most. Getting to the core of things, the very darkest part of me is the part that convinces me that I just don't matter. It wouldn't make a difference if I was here or if I wasn't. I would never, ever hurt myself...this isn't a suicide note. This is just me wondering why I just can't believe that I make a difference. Why can't I just believe that people might actually love me? That people care about me and that I might just be an important, or at least valuable, part of their lives?

I really don't understand. I want to feel that I matter. I don't want my cheeks and jaw to ache anymore, like they do right now, from trying not to cry about this. And I would have to believe that it is completely counter-intuitive to my faith to not accept that at least God loves me truly. But I just seem to dismiss that, to not be able to embrace that.

It's just that every time I think about that, about this feeling of not mattering, I automatically start to cry, my heart breaks a little more. And for someone who hasn't been able to access emotions for the majority of her years on this planet, that is a little strange. I don't know what to do with this pain, and I don't know what to do with this loss. What do I do? How do you start to truly believe and/or feel that you matter, that you make a difference?

I hurt a truly close friend of mine yesterday. I had doublebooked on plans, so I backed out of my plans with my friend. I felt that the greater obligation was with the other plans I had made. But I really hurt my friend by doing that. So Adam and I ended up juggling things around and worked things out. And I apologized several times to my friend. But I think that this issue was at the heart of that. If I truly believe that I don't matter, then it is like removing vapor from the evening. There were going to be three of us at dinner, but my unconscious thought was that if I wasn't there, it didn't make any difference. I wasn't that valuable of a contribution anyway (acutally valueless, I suppose).

And so, since last night, I haven't stopped crying all that much. It hurts too much to realize that that's how I feel about myself. And I just don't know how to turn it around.

Miscellaneous update

2007-01-17T10:14:00.000-05:00

Some neat things happening around here. I am starting to see the Holy Spirit working in our son, and that is very, very exciting for me. He is starting to think outside of himself, and to think of ways to make other people happy. It has been a long uphill journey to get to this point, but I am so excited about it! I think a lot of it is due to Adam and I being on the same page now too...both committed to raising our children to know God and to seek His wisdom in their lives.

I wrote about cleaning and organizing my scrap room. A very neat thing happened. I was driving home one day when God make His wishes known to me. I guess you could say God spoke to me. I didn't hear his voice, but His plan was instantly very clear to me...He spoke to my heart.

I had acquired so many supplies in a desperate attempt to buy happiness (which, of course, doesn't work). Six months ago, my neighbor mentioned a woman who is a missionary on a Native American reservation in far northern Canada. My neighbor mentioned that this woman (Nancee) uses scrapbooking in her ministry and would probably welcome any donations. My thought at that time was that I couldn't afford to donate...I needed to sell these things to make back some of the money I'd spent.

But on that drive home recently, God instructed me to give my scrapbooking supplies to Nancee. At the time, I didn't know her name. I just knew that He wanted my supplies to go to the Native American missionary. So when I got home, I called our neighbor and asked her about the missionary. Her response? "Oh! You mean Nancee! You aren't going to believe this...She's actually here! She very rarely comes back, but she's here right now for the next few days!"

So I called Nancee, who said she'd come right over. When she came over and saw my scrap room, she got tears in her eyes. She told me that they had just completely run out of supplies and hadn't known what they were going to do. Donations had dried up b/c the economy is so bad. She'd been praying that God would help her to continue her ministry. And what happened? God answered her prayers and helped me to erase 5.5 years' worth of guilt in the process!!!

Another neat thing: Nancee took one box back to where she was staying, just to go through. When she came back the next day to pick up some more boxes, she told me the coolest story. She and her daughter had gone to Walmart a couple of months ago. You have to understand that the town nearest to the reservation is several hours away, so going to Walmart is a very, very big deal. She and her daughter had each picked out a treat: Nancee had selected an eyelet-setting tool, and her daughter had picked out a package of fancy eyelets. When they finished shopping, they realized that they just did not have the money for those items, so they put them back (missionaries, of course, survive on donations, and those are very tight right now). But when she opened that first box of scrapping supplies, guess what items were on the top? That's right - - the very eyelet setting tool and eyelets that they had not been able to afford!!!! How awesome is our God???!!!!!!

So, about 75-80% of my scrapping supplies headed north for the very best possible use...as an instrument in leading people to God. And I am so very grateful to God for allowing me to see His work in progress. So often, His work is behind the scenes, or I am too unobservant to notice. But He showed so much grace by allowing me to see His work, by "creating beauty from ashes," as Nancee said. What had weighed down my heart and soul with guilt became a possible source of life and light for others. I am so, so grateful to Him!!

But wrapping this back around to our son, he blew me away the other day. Adam and the kids came home on a Saturday afternoon with a surprise for me. They had bought me a huge pad of scrapbooking paper at Hobby Lobby. Why? Ryan cited something he'd learned at church. (sidenote: neither Adam nor I are certain of the exact citation, as we can't find exactly what DS said, but we think it's Luke 6:38.) As Ryan stated, "to those who give much, much will be given."

That really floored me. The son with whom I've been struggling to get him to think outside of himself, coming up with that idea, with the addition of biblical support to back up his thinking. I'm hard-pressed to think of a prouder moment in my life to date. :-)

So that's the news here. I've got to sign off, as the young Napolean sitting behind me insists on visiting the Noggin site, and she's been quite patient up to now. May God bless you and keep you.

Sarah

Rejection, true friendship/love, and a new start

2007-01-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

Today I am cleaning out my scraproom. We are getting ready to put the house up for sale. Adam and I went back and forth as to whether we should move. When one of us decided yes, the other decided no. We looked at some houses, and Adam found one he loved. I think his need to escape the "scene of the crime" is greater than mine, but I have to admit that a new start is intriguing. Additionally, we will move into the school district our son is attending, so we won't have to worry about losing his spot. (It is amazing, and somewhat disheartening, for me to think about just how many changes we have made as a result of Adam's affair. For one, I will never, ever, ever own or drive a silver Toyota Camry, and I have a primal kneejerk reaction of violence when I see one on the road.)

Anyway, I am blogging because I was thinking while I was cleaning. (surprising, I know). I was thinking about Adam. Obviously, his affair had a huge impact on me, and I do sometimes fear that my heart will never be whole again (I don't really see how it could be). But today I was thinking about the impact on him. More particularly, I was thinking what this affair revealed about other people around us. Some of the revelations were comforting. Others...not so much.

With one revolting exception, every friend or acquaintance we had who is a Christian has welcomed Adam with open arms. God has taken the one very bad friendship Adam had away by virtue of the affair, but has filled Adam's life with loving, true Christian men who hold Adam accountable and guide and support him through his new walk with Christ. As to the exception, I hold a greater grudge than Adam. I will forgive the friend, of course...I have to. But I find it hard to believe that a true follower of Christ would make Adam's mistake all about himself (the friend) and drop Adam like he was the Anti-Christ.

So that is the good news. Our lives are filling with Christian friends who love and accept Adam and I as faulty but loving followers of Christ.

The bad news is those who couldn't distance themselves quickly enough. There is one couple whom Adam and I love dearly who have continued to be supportive and caring. I have also learned a great deal from my parents. I think we both have. Honestly, had this happened to a daughter of mine, I don't think I could have forgiven the husband and continued to welcome him with open arms, volunteering to do whatever I could to help them put things back together again. But they have, and I continue to be amazed by their response. I think a lot of that is God's work, but much of the credit goes to my parents, who have opened their hearts to accepting Adam as a man trying to change with God's help.

It just makes me sad that other people just could not run away from Adam fast enough. They couldn't establish great enough a distance from him, as though his mistakes were contageous or reflective. How must that feel? How must it feel to know that some people will run when you really screw up? Perhaps in order to preserve their self-view as infalliable and unrelated to the black sheep's behavior.

I feel badly for Adam in that context. He says it doesn't bother him, but I can't understand how it wouldn't. Personally, I would feel abandoned, as though I was somehow unworthy of unconditional love or friendship. But I hope he is being truthful with me...I hope it doesn't bother him. I hope that God has healed that part of his heart, and that the flow of support and love from our church, our good true friends, and others who have remained steadfast in their love and support for Adam has taken away the sting of discovering who would not support him in the aftermath of his mistakes.

Happiness for sale

2006-10-31T17:04:00.000-05:00

I felt the old demons creeping back in today...the urge to buy something, anything to distract myself from feeling so empty. In an effort to stave off that urge, I searched Ebay for "happiness." I'm sure you will be relieved to know that Ebay offers 1,923 separate listings for "happiness."

Costumes

2006-10-31T16:44:00.000-05:00

Today is Halloween. It's been a hard day for me so far. Nothing attached to the holiday...just a hard day. No patience, no energy, no joy...just nothingness. Not necessarily related to the events of the summer. I'm just tired. My body is tired, my mind is tired, my spirit is tired.

Part of it may be a drain in anticipating the future. I believe we are moving. We've found a house, and I think that God is pointing us that way. I'm not sure. The move is, in very large part, a response to what happened in our marriage. A fresh start. An escape. A new beginning.

But a move takes so much. So much energy. So much time. So much money. Things that I'm just not sure we have right now. I do know that I don't have the energy to do the things around here that need to be done. Decluttering. Selling. Cleaning. Decorating. I can barely make myself do laundry...what makes anyone think I could actually declutter a house?

All I can do, I suppose, is just keep praying that God will direct us, that He will make his answer clear to us.

As for tonight, the theme of Halloween is disguising yourself. Making everyone think you are something or someone else. We will have an Anakin Skywalker, a giraffe, and a Care Bear. As for me, I'll try to disguise myself as someone with energy and joy. And I'll keep praying that God sees fit to clothe me in real joy, strong faith, and energy to live.

Happy Halloween

Photography

2006-10-04T16:44:00.000-05:00

www.flickr.com/photos/67151755@N00

(I wish I knew how to make that look pretty, so it could just say something like "Fabulous international photography" and be a working link, but I have three bickering toddlers/preschoolers in the background and only the most basic fundamentals of computer knowledge. Let's not get crazy here....)

Anyway, this site features the work of Junior Bonner Photography. The only problem with photography of this talent is that it makes me want to travel the world even more so I can experience the sounds and scents that go along with the phenomenal sights.

A side note from the editor

2006-10-04T16:33:00.000-05:00

I was just sitting at the computer, listening to some beautiful piano music (Rob Costlow, if you are interested...he is incredibly talented. Reminds me of George Winston.) But I digress.

I opened my eyes, looked to my right at the treadmill, and found my youngest naked, swinging wildly from the arms of the treadmill.

Yep. She's a free spirit.

Just a little more valuable.

2006-10-04T13:30:00.001-05:00

It's been such a long time since I last posted. It dawned on me, and was pointed out to me by a friend, that I tend to blog about my struggles. And yes, that is a good thing. To work through emotional struggles in writing, to consider the comments made by people who read my ramblings. But I should blog about positive things as well, lest you all think I'm about to off myself (joke!)

Sorry, but today I have another struggle. I was reading the alumni report from my law school today. I never usually do that...the report finds itself quickly filed in our circular vertical file. No time, no inclination. But I read it today. And maybe I now know why I don't usually read alumni reports.

It was full of the information you would expect to find in an alumni report. Short blurbs on the great feats of various alumni. I am not being facetious. Some of the people who have graduated from IU Law in years past have been doing phenomenal things. Moving to India to work on teaching economic self-sufficiency to people struggling through indentured servitude. Working in Northern Europe to help preserve the global environment. Teaching women and children to break the bonds of slavery and poverty in some African nations.

And I had to wonder what I've been doing with my life. I feel like I had such potential to do incredible things. God gave me such gifts. He gave me the ability to quickly learn and retain foreign languages. He gave me a hunger to travel globally. He gave me intelligence and a phenomenal memory.

What have I done with those gifts? I have to wonder if I've wasted them all. I know that I shouldn't crave power or success in this world, but when you are a partner in a law firm, or when you lead your own global effort to end poverty, people know that you are smart, able, and a darn hard worker. I...am a mom.

I know, I know, I know. Being a mom is the hardest job. Staying at home with them means I won't look back in future years and miss the time I didn't spend with them while I was working. And I do know that they benefit from me being home...they have the freedom to engage in any extracurricular activity they want, because I can take them. I can take them to the library during the day and play checkers. I can spend hours purusing the Magic Tree House section in the library because we have nothing but time. I can take them to the museum, gardens, or zoo when the facilities are less crowded (during the weekday, of course) because I am always here. I know that those are more important to them than more money as a result of mom working, or than the status mom gains in others' eyes because mom is an attorney (by golly, she must be smart and a hard worker!)

I just feel like I've failed in some aspect. I totaled up thousands of dollars in loans for law school. I truly loved my slightly-over-one-year tenure as an attorney in the firm. I'd found my professional home. Then I left to raise my baby, who quickly gained two siblings, and I never went back. Could I in the future? Perhaps, but then what about my children, who I really feel need someone to come home to when they are older.

I guess I miss feeling intelligent. I miss practicing law. I miss feeling like I produce valuable work. The group I practiced with was phenomenal at providing feedback ("great job...just what I needed") that made me feel effective. I felt that I had great rapport with the other attorneys in the practice group...I actually enjoyed going to work, and I felt good coming home at the end of the day.

I have to be careful not to let my yearnings paint the perfect picture...of course there were problems. There were days I struggled. There was one 25.5 hour day. There were days I would close my door and hope certain attorneys didn't knock. (But I had a door to close!!!! Ohhhhhhhhh to have a door to close now...!) But you know? As bad as this makes me sound, I was an attorney. I was what I had worked hard for for seven years. I was what I had aspired to be for nine years. I met my goal, enjoyed the fruits for a little over one year, and then...left.

Am I doing what God wants me to do? How do I know? I'm dense. Though intelligence, I am dense. I need God to erect a billboard outside my bedroom window telling me what he wants me to do. (The neighbors might complain, but at least I'd have my guidance.) Am I wasting my gifts? If I started taking classes, would I feel better? If I volunteered in a legal capacity, would I feel better? If I volunteered, traveled, and learned, would I feel better? That wouldn't pay off my student loans, but maybe I'd feel a little smarter. A little more valuable.

I need help, God. I just don't know the answer.

Escape

2006-08-12T20:48:00.000-05:00

As I drove home from the cottage tonight, I purposefully drove past the interchange I needed and kept driving north. I just couldn't face driving straight home. I needed to feel free. I needed to drive without purpose. As I drove, I listened to music and thought about things. I cried. I felt broken. I felt empty. I felt lonely. I felt sad.

I noticed as I drove that if I ignored the street signs and just saw the gentle slope of the exit ramps, I could convince myself that I was driving through a completely different city. Detroit, maybe. Or Philadelphia. Indianapolis or Cinncinati. It didn't really matter where, as long as it wasn't home.

I didn't have children with me, so I had no one's needs to tend to but my own. I entertained the notion of just driving up to Traverse City. Calling home and saying I had just needed to escape for a while and would be home by Sunday evening. I thought about calling a friend and seeing if I could spend the night in her guest room.

I just didn't want to go home. I wanted to escape.

As I drove, I listened to a CD I'd made from iTunes. I was listening to the same Evanescence song over and over. It wasn't until I finally, almost unwillingly, took the interchange home that I realized the bitterly humorous irony of the lyrics that were playing over and over.

"Wake me up from this nothing I've become."

Which is really where I stand right now. What am I? I'm a mother. I'm not even sure if I'm a good one. I love my children fiercely and would do anything to protect them, probably even staying in an unhappy marriage if I thought it would be better for them. I'm not sure if that makes me a good mother, however.

What else am I though? I feel like I've become nothing. I'm that woman whose husband cheated on her with her own friend. I wasn't important enough to him to ensure loyalty. It's hard to feel like someone important, someone loved, after that.

I want to feel happy. I want to feel love that isn't tainted by questions of loyalty or survivability. I want to feel so important to someone that they wouldn't ever dream of hurting me.

Is that possible? Or is that a remnant of the fairy tales we grow up with? I've started changing the ends of the Disney stories I tell my 3 year old daughter. I simply cannot end a story with "And they lived happily ever after," because it just is not true. Why lie to her? I've varied the endings. Some variations: "And they lived a married life in which they settled all disputes with reasonable conversation;" "And they parted the best of friends;" "And they got married, had many children, and talked through all of their disagreements."

Should I blame Disney for this? For tainting me with unrealistic expectations that I could find someone who loved me so much that they would hold my heart in their hands like a valuable treasure? Because I'm hurt enough to send Disney a strongly worded letter.

In the meantime, I can't help but wonder where this strong need to escape will take me. I've read novels in which the main character, always an unappreciated, burdened mother and wife, just takes off. Leaves her responsibilities (almost always after the kids have matured and left for college, of course...not irresponsible or cruel are these women) and hits the road. Sometimes they return to their former lives refreshed and with renewed vigor. Sometimes they discover true life was out there somewhere the whole time, just beckoning them with open arms.

My point here is that I completely understand that desire to just leave. Leave it all behind. Drive until you have to sleep, then get up in the morning and drive some more. Get yourself some coffee. Stay in anonymous roadside motels (use the chain lock and deadbolt.) Eat in greasy spoons while reading the local paper. Refuse to make conversation until someone you just can't resist comes along. Become a gardener, a chef, a rancher...whatever dream waited for you all those years while you just marked your time as a spouse and mother.

I feel that urge so strongly now that it's almost painful to ignore it. It was hard for me to turn the car west and head home tonight. I just wanted to keep going so I could what awaited me out there.

But I can't leave my children. Not in a million years. Ever. I cannot imagine not seeing them every single day.

And maybe that's why I don't escape. Because I don't want to evade the constraints that my true love for my children imposes. That is a wonderful, untainted, magical love that I could never question.

Escaping from everything else would be okay.

2006-08-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

What if this can't be repaired?

I found myself wondering that today. I had a day to myself. All to myself. My husband took the kids over to the east side of the state to visit family. I lounged around for a bit, hit Starbucks, and headed out to a cottage owned by someone my husband works with.

It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not too hot. Light breeze. Small bluegills trying to nibble at my toes when I dangled them in the lake. I actually touched a few of the eager fish with my fingers. Life was peaceful, life was good.

But somewhere along the line, I started thinking about our marriage. As it stands now, I wear my engagement ring, not my wedding ring. That was his idea. The idea being that I put on my wedding ring when it feels right again.

But maybe that symbolism triggered my mind. An engagement is less formal than a marriage, not viewed as a legal arrangement in the eyes of our society or our courts. People break off engagements all the time. I broke one off in college. (Thankfully. I fully believe that marriage would have been incredibly unhappy. Maybe he would have cheated on me too. Perhaps earlier.)

My point being that people walk away from engagements much more easily than they do marriages. A simple "It's over" can end an engagement. No protracted legal discussions, no messy alimony discussions. Just return the ring (or not, depending on your point of view) and walk away.

So perhaps wearing just my engagement ring triggered these thoughts. Can this marriage be saved? Can I ever feel madly in love with this man again? Because for much of the time I spent being in love with him, things were amiss...I just didn't know it. Even the period of time in our marriage that he claims was miserable, I thought things were okay. Ideal? No, but okay. Superficially, however, that marriage didn't appear too different from the marriage we have today. He is present more, and he helps me more, but as far as the things we do together, or the way we relate over dinner or casual conversation, things appear remarkably similar.

So how can I ever, ever know the true state of our marriage? I thought things were okay then, but apparently they were so terrible that he turned to my friend for comfort and love. So I obviously cannot trust my own instincts as to the health of our marriage. I can't trust him for that either.

The question, then: Do I continue on and just hope and pray that someday I will be able to trust my own assessment of our marital health? (Answer: How could I ever, ever again trust my own assessment when I was so pathetically incorrect before?) We already know the answer to whether I can just rely on him for an assessment of marital health. (There is also the fact that I just refuse to become someone who constantly begs her significant other for assurance that things are okay...I cannot live like that.)

Or do I just decide that I can't live like that and pray that someday someone will truly love me for who I am, and love me so dearly that they could never conceive of breaking my heart?

I really don't know, and that is what scares me the most right now.

2006-07-31T12:47:00.000-05:00

How does somebody fool themselves? I guess we all do it to some extent...convincing ourselves that the last daring haircut we got wasn't that bad. Or convincing ourselves that we were justified in snapping at our spouse because, darn it, we'd asked them five times to pick up their clothes!

But how exactly does someone ignore reality and twist it to suit their purposes?

Those of you who know me know that I'm going somewhere with this. I just get caught up in establishing the background so I don't lose anyone. I do that in conversation too, which leads to misunderstandings and/or glazed eyes. It's a fault. But at least I haven't fooled myself into thinking it's not...

But I digress. My husband called me this morning. It was just the baby and me, as our son is at all-day YMCA camp, and our other daughter is spending her week in bliss, having her Baba and Papa all to herself.

He called about 8:20 and left a message asking me to call him back. I'd been lying in bed with a pillow over my head, trying to convince a migraine through sheer will that it did not want to set up residence. I'd been keeping audial tabs on my daughter, springing up from time to time when she got silent, as her silence results in emptied bottles of shampoo, overflowing toilets, or Crisco smeared all over her room (don't ask.)

When I called him back, he said,"She emailed me." Of course, we both knew who "she" is. "She*" is my former friend, his former fling, the wench who, along with my husband, threw my entire heart and life for (hopefully) the biggest loop I could imagine.

"She" emailed him because "She" "needs answers." "She" feels that "she" deserves answers. "She" feels that "she" is a victim. "She" feels that he owes her answers.

I should back up and explain. When my husband first told me she'd written him, I initially thought I'd email her a vicious response telling her exactly what she deserved. After all, this is the woman who promised me that she'd never contact my husband again. Obviously I couldn't request that of her as a friend, as she'd never been a true friend. So I requested that of her as a woman who'd been wronged by her husband before. I truly thought that she would be able to think back to the pain caused by her husband's affair and rely on that in order to fulfill her promise to me not to contact my husband.

Obviously this is a woman incapable of thinking of anyone but herself. I should have known that, obviously, but I honestly thought that having been hurt by an affair in the past, she would be capable of stepping outside of her own twisted, selfish needs.

Obviously not. I am a fool.

She claims that she is a victim. That she deserves answers. That my husband took advantage of her. Essentially, that it is all his fault.

I intended not to read it. I was going to just forward it to a friend for safekeeping, as I couldn't let it sit in my Inbox and pollute my environment. But as I started to forward it, I started to read it. My hands started to shake, and my heart started to race. The nerve of that selfish, twisted, insensitive, lying *itch!!! Then I found myself responding.

The point of responding? Nothing, really. My email is set up to permanently delete any message from her without me ever seeing it, because I am weak. I tend to open her rubbish and let it throw me into a tail spin. And I can't take many more tailspins. I've already had my anti-depressant increased once...any more and I'll likely become an oblivious, drooling nincompoop. (although that doesn't sound too shabby on some days lately). But I was so angry by the nerve she must have to have painted herself as an honest, giving, caring woman who was taken advantage of that it was either vomiting or responding. Those were my two choices.

So I responded. I told her that she is pathetic and beyond redemption. I told her that she gave me quite the laugh in portraying herself as, and I quote, "a woman who lives her life by honesty and the Golden Rule." [Note to self: Golden Rule has obviously changed to include having affairs with friends' husbands as a guiding principle for our lives. I'd better get on that one, no pun intended.]
I told her to stop wasting her oxygen and energy in portraying herself to anyone as a noble victim, although if she wanted to break her arm patting herself on the back, she could be my guest. I told her that this was my final communication to her and that she is not to contact any member of my family from now on. That I will take any and all precautions necessary to ensure that she will not be in contact with my family members or myself.

This is truly a twisted, confused, pathetic wretch. But I take satisfaction in knowing that if answers from my husband are what she seeks, she'll never get them. He'll not contact her. That is the premise on which our precarious marriage now wobbles. I hope that in time, our marriage will have a basis of true, honest, open love and faith, but that will take time. Right now, nothing is certain, and that is frightening.

I know he's trying. I know he's changing. I know he hates the man he was, as do I. I just don't know how you move beyond this pain to the newer relationship. I guess it takes time...everyone tells me that.

But of course, hearing from this psychopatic *itch doesn't help.

There is a friend's wedding coming up. All of us were invited. My husband and I will not be attending, as we did not wish to overshadow the bride and groom's wonderful day with the drama in which we are involved. But the dark, revenge-seeking part of me truly hopes that the *itch attends and is incredibly snubbed. I hope all the other wives refuse to talk to her and keep her from their husbands. I hope people whisper about her and point at her. I hope she has the most miserable time of her life, and I hope her life goes to the toilet.

I still cannot believe she had the nerve and twisted ability to portray herself as a woman who "lives by honesty and the Golden Rule."

Give me a break. Please.

*Feel free to substitute the appropriate term for "she."

That's gonna leave a mark...

2006-07-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

Yep...I'm quoting Tommy Boy now...things are that bad. I was thinking about a conversation my husband and I had about the affair, and that phrase from Tommy Boy kept coming to mind. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, it stars David Spade and the now-deceased Chris Farley. Farley cashed in on his large size, his ability to play the clumsy but charming oaf. In Tommy Boy, he is a son who longs desperately to fill the large shoes left behind by his father. He takes over his father's business and, against all odds, succeeds despite his oafish qualities. Throughout the movie, he is banged by doors, hit by moving objects, and pummeled by various items. Each time, he responds with, "Son of a!!! That's gonna leave a mark!"

That's what I'm feeling about this affair. Hearing from my husband that he had the affair because he was miserable in our marriage. That he was insecure, and she made him "feel good" about himself. Ouch...that's gonna leave a mark.

An irony, if you can call it that, in this situation is that the other couple's marriage was on life support even before they moved across the state to our neighborhood. The husband had cheated on the wife, an emotional affair, some three years ago. At one point, he regaled her with a list of reasons why this mistress was so much better for him than his wife. He moved out, only to move back in 4 days later. Yep...that had to leave a mark. This wife, my "friend," would tell anyone who stood still that the day her husband told her that and moved out was the day "he killed [her]."

I have to questions why a woman who had been broken by infidelity by her husband would go on to inflict that same sort of pain on another woman, especially a friend. The background of this situation is this: This woman was my friend. We went out for coffee several times a week. We did our grocery shopping together. I listened to her complain about her apparently unbalanced husband who allegedly had her followed, checked her phone records, etc. When she first started talking about divorce, I had a four hour dinner with her to listen to her talk through things, to give her a neutral perspective. (Her affair with my husband had already begun at this point, and had existed for about 3 months.) So I have to question how she was capable of having an affair with my husband when she knew, first hand, the pain caused by a spouse's infidelity. It's too easy to say she just doesn't have a heart. She claims to have a soul, and she claims to be "on a journey led by God." (Don't get me started on that one...last I knew, God does NOT make us sin. So her claim that the past 10 months have been a God-led journey for her, through my husband nonetheless, really leave me absolutely enraged and gasping for air.)

So, yes...the past month and a half have really left a mark. And there are times that I just don't know that the marriage can or will survive this much pain. So he was miserable in our marriage? How about without it then? Because I guarantee you that whatever "misery" he experienced in our marriage is a petty scratch compared to the pain he has inflicted upon me. And I don't know that a mark that big is ever going to be erased.

A letter of advice

2006-07-15T14:14:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine is celebrating her tenth anniversary with her husband today. I am going to their party with one of my dearest friends as my date. I really couldn't have a better date for this event.

I made a card for them this afternoon, but it just wasn't complete. So I sat down and wrote them a letter about marriage. It's probably strange coming from a woman whose marriage is on life support. Nonetheless, I thought I'd post it here. I've just eliminated their names, as well as my husband's name.

A Letter Regarding Marriage

I want to congratulate you on your celebration of ten years of marraige. Somehow, a card didn't seem enough, so I started to write this. It probably seems very strange for a woman going through what I am experiencing to write a letter with marital advice, but I think the problems (dH) and I are having have given me insight into what should have been different. Into what our marriage should have been.

I write this assuming that you two have not and will not experience the pain cause by infidelity. One of my greatest wishes for you both is that you never do. But I'm hoping maybe I can write something that will help you both keep your marriage as strong as it can possibly be.

[personal paragraph omitted]

I guess what I would tell you two from my experience is this. (None of this advice is new - these are things we've all heard before. But looking back now at what I thought I had, I can see the incredible importance of these facts.) Marriage is active. It is not something passive that exists simply becaause you two have entered into vows together. It is always growing, always changing, always adapting (for better or for worse.) Please put your marriage first. Above all else but your relationship with God. Your marriage cannot survive because you have children together. It can survive because every day you decide to put your best and your all into this relationship.

Be on the lookout for fading connections. I always thought I would recognize if we fell into that rut that everyone described. The condition of existing as parents, but not as partners. The existence in which we circled the children as orbiting planets that did not share a common denominator other than our incredible babies. But it sneaks up on you without you realizing it. Although it is incredibly hard work, I encourage you to examine your relationship daily in the light of a new day. Is there something you can say to encourage your partner, even though you may not have the energy? Even though you may have had a disagreement the night before? What can you say or do today to show each other that they are truly your other, possibly better, half?

Don't ever let a disagreement live. Don't agree to disagree. Compromise. Don't walk away angry. If you need a break before saying something you will regret, take five minutes. Ten minutes. But come back and talk through the disagreement. Anger and sorrow left unaddressed thrive and become something ugly. Negative emotions not aired become a cancer that will eat at the foundation of your marraige. Talk about eveything, no matter how silly, embarrassing, painful, or angering it my be. This is the person you want to grow old with. The person you want to retire with. The person you want to see with your grandchildren. The person whom you secretly hope you will die before, so you will never have to live without them. Don't let unspoken anger erode that, because it will.

That is the most important advice, I believe. Talk about everything. When it is still relevant (although later is better than never.) Don't wait until it all builds up and anger causes you to speak words that cannot be rescinded. Although you can apologize, words spoken can never be erased, and hurtful words can break a heart.

Loving someone means putting them before yourself. It sounds trite and/or impossible. Even if you rarely succeed at this, the few times you do will do incredible things for the strength of your marriage. Love means having faith that your spouse will do the same. It means trusting that your spouse will put their everything into your relationship, just as you do.

You two are each, in your own right, amazing people with incredible strength. Raising children who will be strong, intelligent, giving people is the best thing you can do for the world. Putting your marraige and each other first is the best thing you can do for yourselves. Your children will learn from you how love and marriage should be. From all I can see, they have an incredible model before them.

Congratulations and blessings to you both.

With love,
Sarah

Dear God...please bleach my mind or turn back time

2006-07-14T16:49:00.001-05:00

I truly wish He would. I wish that He would selectively erase those parts of my mind that recognize that my husband had an affair with my friend. I wish He would erase that friend from my mind altogether. I wish He would turn back time so that my husband would have the option of making different choices. I wish He would eradicate that part of my brain in charge of emotions so I just wouldn't have to feel this much pain.

This is a day on which I just don't think I can take it anymore. I can't take the pain, rage, sorrow anymore. If I cry any more, I'll be dehydrated, I think. I just can't comprehend how the actions of two people could hurt so incredibly much. I'm at a point today where I was when this first came out...in so much pain and sorrow that I feel as though I'm trying to crawl out of my body. I just can't really stand to be in this body right now. If I could unzip my skin, crawl out, and leave my emotions behind, I would in a heartbeat.

If I hadn't opened the email from the truly evil woman who claims to have been my friend but was actually having an affair with my husband, I might be better. So yes...I should probably blame myself. But you know what? I won't. Had they not had an affair, I wouldn't have had the option to open this email and have all of this pain revisit me. So I'm just going to stick that blame where it belongs.

It makes me physically ill to read an email in which this woman claims that she's been on a journey led by God. (Last time I checked, God did not cause people to sin. And He took marriage very seriously...therefore, using my incredible skills of deduction, God did not lead her on a journey to adultery with my husband. I knew that law degree would come in handy.) It hollows out my stomach to see her write that she "was trying to do the right thing by everyone." (Interesting to know that having an affair with your close friend's husband is the right thing. Note to self: make no more friends.) Her claim to have done "all [she] could to help [me] in any way possible" makes my head spin.

I don't think I've ever before wanted to hurt someone physically. I certainly do today. I"m not sure I would hit the brakes if I saw her standing in the middle of the road. I guess I'd swerve, just because I do want to go to Heaven. But maybe my car would hip-check her a bit. I wouldn't lose sleep over that.

I'm just not sure the human body was made to hold this much pain. I want so, so badly just to crawl out of my body and leave this pain behind.

Today

2006-07-13T15:10:00.000-05:00

Today I am "blah." No real reason...I just have a case of the 'blahs.' The girls and I went to the doctor's office today to find that the baby has a couple of ear infections. A bottle of goopy pink amoxicillin, two muffins, a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry large coffee, and lots of attempts to climb into the water fountain later, we were on our way home.

I am tired. For the past three nights, at least one child has been waking up and requiring attention. Either the baby has woken in the early morning with what I assume is ear pain, or the three year old has woken sobbing that she doesn't like her room...the very same room that we just painted an electric shade of lilac in order to appease her. It was a game of Musical Beds two nights ago. 3 y.o. DD woke up sobbing, so I crammed myself into her tiny toddler bed to comfort her. When I woke up later, she was asleep, so I trudged back to my bed...only to find her climbing her way into our bed 10 minutes later. After an hour of (cute, but undeniably LOUD) high-pitched yawns, physical rearrangements, elbows, and hair twirling (her, not me), I trudged back down the hallway to my son's room in pursuit of sleep. (He is at his grandparents' house for two weeks, so his bed was conveniently vacated.) I had just settled into the twilight of sleep when the baby started shrieking. I rocked her for an hour and a half to no avail. My husband tried his luck at getting her back to sleep (he has no luck apparently). Finally, we declared it a very early free-for-all and let the girls go wherever they wanted. The baby took off down the hall to organize my husband's morning work preparations. 3 y.o. DD climbed into my son's bed with me and picked up where she'd left off...loud yawns, hair twirling, and sharp elbows. Life has a way of finding you, doesn't it?

There's really nothing significant to write...I'm just down in the blahs and thought blogging might jolt me out of it, but I guess not. On the bright side, I'm finally taking steps to sell some of my scrapbooking supplies and to put money towards our debt. And at least I'm not buying SB supplies to try to cheer myself up. That's a start.

These photos are just miscellaneous pictures from happier times.

Broken hearts

2006-07-11T15:37:00.000-05:00

It has been a very long time since I've blogged. I'm no longer the same person, to be sure. I read a book earlier this week in which the main character found out that her husband was having an affair. The character wrote that "she had died at 10:10 the previous night" when she found out. I think that sums it up pretty well.

You do die when you find out about a betrayal like that. Your heart is shattered and there is no way to make it the way it once was. Think about a vase. When it breaks, if it isn't irretrievably shattered, you try to glue it back in a desperate attempt to make it look the way it did before. But even with the most professional of glue jobs, you will always see the fault lines. It will never hold water the way it once did. If you think about it, it will never be the same. Out of necessity, it may become a decorative piece...it certainly cannot be a functional piece, as it no longer can keep a seal.

So I think that's what a heart does. It shatters. You can try to glue it back together, but I think you have to accept that it will no longer be the same. Maybe it will just beat for a while and keep you upright, but it won't hold those same emotions. Trust, love, hope, happiness. Those will just leak out because the heart no longer keeps a seal.

There are so many levels to betrayal. There's the main betrayal, of course. Falling emotionally and physically for someone outside of your marriage. That certainly hurts. But there are so many levels. Betrayal is more like Phyllo dough than pizza dough. There isn't just one thick layer. You peel it down and there are numerous paper-thin betrayals that underlie the one betrayal anyone can see from the surface. There's the betrayal of talking about your spouse in negative terms to "the other woman." There's the betrayal of having convinced your spouse all along that the marriage was fine. There's the betrayal of refusing to work on your marraige, while reserving the right to blame it for your indiscretions. There's the betrayal of putting things before God, your marraige, and your family. There's the betrayal of tearing two families apart.

There are more, but you get the picture.

There are so many levels to faith, too. When this came out, I knew that God would get me through. That was my mantra: God will get me through; God will get me through. I just need to keep breathing, because God will keep me upright. But as I continued to meet with my discipling friend, I started to learn about all of the many levels of faith. Mine began as something almost superficial. Me taking, taking, taking. "God, I need this. God I need that. Please help me God."

But I'm learning that faith is much deeper than that. True faith is honestly believing with your whole being that God really will get you through anything. Even if things get horribly worse, believing that God will carry you. True faith is letting go of an obsessive fear of the future, agreeing to hand those horrible, fearful thoughts over to God. It hadn't dawned on me that my fear that I was being taken on another deceitful ride was a weakness of faith. That has been the hardest part for me: letting go of fear. Handing those thoughts over to God and not letting them run my life - - letting God run it instead.

It's interesting to me how little things can bring the pain and fear and hollowness and emptiness back. Not little things, because they aren't little. But I'd been going along okay for the past two weeks. I think my brain was trying to pull a fast one by hiding the emotions...it's been doing that for years - why stop now?! But I found out over the weekend that a friend is going through a very similar situation. Hearing that it got worse over the weekend, I found myself weeping for both of us on Monday. Every fiber of my body just aches so badly for her. I so violently want to head down south and run over her husband. I want him to suffer 1/1000 of the amount that he has caused her to suffer. I start to wonder why I didn't feel this violent towards my husband, and then I decide it must be the survival instinct...no point to going to jail.

So hearing of her pain reminds me of mine. It's brought the anger and sorrow and jitteriness all back. And receiving an email from the former friend with whom my husband's betrayal occured has brought it back as well. The nausea, the hollow feeling inside, the sense of unrest...not knowing what to do but needing to be in motion so I can't sit still and think about things.

I suppose it's good to blog about these things. Then there will be a record of this process...whether it is a process of healing, forgiveness, and a new beginning, or a totally different process altogether.

I'm hopeful. He is hopeful. It's a start.

2006-03-27T21:52:00.000-05:00

I received a PM (private message) over at Willow Traders, the scrapbooking message board I frequent. The message arrived at 9:41 pm, and showed up just seconds before I was going to sign off for the night and go to bed. My heart was heavy, because a family near and dear to my heart is hurting so badly right now. It's one of those situations in which you just want to take their hurt away from them and carry it yourself, because you cannot bear to see such wonderful, loving, giving people suffer. You wish you could carry the burden for them.

But more on that later, because I'm still struggling with what to say, how to make them feel better, and how to take their sorrow away. I know I can't, but I want to so badly.

Anyway, this PM was from a woman I don't know. Though we are on the same message board, there are just under 3000 members there, so it is impossible to know everyone, or even most of them.

But she wrote that she has been thinking about me and praying for me. And the most wonderful sentence she wrote was "Just wanted you to know someone is praying for you and rooting for you."

Isn't that amazing? I wrote back and tried to convey just how much that meant to me, that someone I don't even know cares about me and is rooting for me to make it through! Of course, I didn't succeed in conveying that; I merely succeeded in repeating myself over and over again.

But to me, that means so much. You know, or at least hope, that those who know and love you recognize the hard times and pray for you, pull for you to get through it all unscathed. But for someone I don't know to take the time to write me privately, to let me know that she's rooting for me...It makes me feel like I can do anything. I have a cheering section that I didn't even know existed! And I admire her, for too often, I let my brain talk me out of things that my heart tells me I should do. Like sending money to someone that I know needs it. Or giving someone I don't know that well a hug. Or emailng someone to tell them I care.

So I resolve to do better about that. To go with my heart more often and to tune out the skeptic in my mind. I'm usually confused about whether it is God pushing me to do something, or just my mind conjuring up ideas. But if I feel something in my heart, I'll believe it is God telling me that the person I'm thinking of needs a little something. To me it may be little, but if the PM I received is any indication, it may very well be a huge deal to the recipient.

Thank you Kristen.

...and still more photos

2006-03-17T10:52:00.000-05:00

These are really just a miniscule representation of the over 700 photos I've taken since the camera arrived last Friday afternoon. It's safe to say that I am in love with this camera. Granted, I have a lot to learn about using it, but I just absolutely LOVE it!! In fact, I've taken so many photos that the baby now hides from me when I pull out my camera. But I did manage to get a cute photo of her hiding behind her high-chair. There is no hiding from this camera!!

Photos taken with my new amazing camera!

2006-03-17T10:50:00.000-05:00

Quiet desperation

2006-03-03T10:54:00.000-05:00

I watch Desperate Housewives. More specifically, I Tivo Desperate Housewives. I used to watch it every single Sunday, but fatigue won out and I now record it every Sunday. I'm waiting for some magical day when I am no longer too tired to watch all of the episodes to catch up on what is happening on Wisteria Lane.

I ran across an interview with Felicity Huffman on the Internet. She plays Lynette on Desperate Housewives. In the interview, she seemed remarkably down-to-earth, and remarkably in tune to what motherhood is like. (I say "remarkably" because most Hollywood actresses seem to have nannies who do the dirty work, which somehow does not preclude those actresses from enthusing about the beauty and serenity of motherhood. That always serves to make me feel even worse as a mother.)

Anyway, Huffman had the following to say. '' I signed up for Lynette because I thought she was a voice of motherhood that was silent .... I don't know why women can't turn to each other and go, '[Geez], if I have to give my kid a bath one more night I'm just going to shoot myself in the head.' ''

So here I go, traipsing out on a limb to agree with Huffman. I've fought revealing what I think are my inherent weaknesses as a mother for so long, thinking that surely I must be the only mother who is so tired, so desperate always for more time to herself, that I cannot bring myself to do all of the creative, crafty "SuperMom" activities that I can't escape thinking must be the hallmark of a good mother.

Maybe my image of the "good mother" is warped or unrealistic. I guess it would help if it was an unrealistic view, because then I'm not such a failure. But in my mind, the "good mother" has these characteristics. She plays often with her children. She does crafts often with her children. She never grows weary of "battling" with light sabers. She is creative and fun, a lively, positive influence for her children. She never grows impatient when her child repeats the same thing over and over. She never grows impatient when her child always reacts with a fit to not getting exactly what he or she wants when he or she wants it. She never yells.

I started this article on a day when I was just musing over what Huffman had said. I'm finishing this article on a day when I'm trying not to cry because I feel like such a failure (mission not accomplished on the crying, by the way, so please forgive any typos). I'm sure I'll have a more profound article on the wisdom of Huffman's statement, but today...I just feel like a parenting failure.

Twice today, I've yelled. I've yelled to cut through the din created by two children screaming at me and at each other. But that isn't an excuse. I just feel terrible for yelling. I got an email from a friend today praising me on parenting our difficult son. I feel like replying that I don't deserve that praise. Because I yell.

To the outside eye, our son is funny, lively, athletic, and hardly short of brilliant. He started reading at 3 1/2. He is 5 1/2 now and is fluent in addition, subtraction, and reading chapter books. He has a firm grasp of multiplication, and is pretty good at division. My husband has been working with him on the mechanics of "carrying numbers" in multiplication. DS's preschool teacher told us that on a day when they were playing a game with guessing numbers, DS shouted, "Now let's do negative numbers!!"

Yep...he's smart. But somehow, I just don't see that as a reflection of my parenting. I don't know why. I guess it should be, as I am home with him all of the time. But DH spends a lot of time with DS at night working on things. I don't. All I want to do is to escape to the quiet of our bedroom, the peace of curling up in bed with a wonderful book. My escape.

And to me, that makes me a terrible mommy. Doesn't the good mother want to spend most of her time enriching her children? Why do I usually want to escape?

At the same time, I am panicking about kindergarten starting next year. I'm afraid that I haven't taught DS the important lessons he'll need to know. I'm afraid that kids will be mean, that he won't know how to react. I'm afraid that he'll hear things that I won't be able to filter for him right away. I'm just afraid that I haven't done the right job to prepare him. Sure, he's well-prepared academically. But I'm worried about social preparation.

I've been through this cycle of despair before. I've often worried that I'm just not a good mother. Suggestions have been made. But I just can't think that going back to work full-time would be the right answer. That, I think, is wrong for a myriad of reasons. Someone else would be raising my children (I know...if I'm a terrible mother, wouldn't that be better? But at least I've got undying love for my children, a crucial qualification in my mind). The only time I would have with the kids would be at night or on the weekends, if I was lucky. The career DH and I share is extremely time-consuming, so weekends and nights would not be a given. Things around the house that I do during the day right now (laundry, cleaning, having repairmen come) would be shifted to nighttime/weekends, and that would further diminish time with the kids. And maybe I just cannot bring myself to think that I am such a terrible mother that it would be better for them and/or me to make the conscious choice to leave them the majority of the time.

I know this is not the happiest of entries. I'm just really struggling right now. At some point, things became so different that I now feel virtuous for playing Candyland three times in a row followed immediately by two games of Chutes and Ladders. When DS was a baby, I read him three books before every nap and bedtime. That was a minimum of 9 books a day. I also spent a lot of time on my tummy interacting with him, introducing him to things.

Somehow, that all got washed away in the timeline of 3 children and 3 pregnancies back-to-back-to-back. And now virtuosity comes in the form of playing a game, or reading a book in the middle of the day. That is so far from my image of a good mother that it makes me cry (again). The obvious solution would be just to DO these things that I associate with good parenting. But I honestly don't know if I have it in me. Sometimes it is all I can do to put Disney or Noggin on and escape to the basement for a bit. Great parenting there.

Perhaps my doubts lie in a lack of knowledge. Maybe the majority of SAHMs feel the way I do, and I just don't know it because no one talks about it. Perhaps the majority are also applauding Huffman's honesty, but quietly so that no one will hear them admitting to being anything less than perfect.

Then again, maybe I just wasn't cut out for this.

I just don't know.

Blogging. A Class D felony???

2006-03-02T15:16:00.000-05:00

I learned shortly before starting this blog that the term "blog" is an abbreviation for "weblog," which is, of course, an online journal of thoughts, observations, and/or experiences.

But I just can't get past the violent sound of the word "blog." Some words just seem to denote their very meaning. Somewhat similar, I suppose, to an onomatopoeia. But not quite the same. After all, we aren't talking about "buzz" or "hummmmmmmm."

It sounds like an act of violence to me. As in "Yes officer...that is correct. He was defenestrated and then blogged!!"

Surely that is a Class D felony??!!

Shock and Awe

2006-03-01T17:14:00.000-05:00

Today, 18-month DD threw a fit that was obviously intended to shock and awe. It happened because I refused to give her a second granola bar. I really shouldn't have even given her the first, because it was already 4:45, dangerously close to dinner time. But...she was just too cute to resist. Little pink cheeks, tiny white teeth, bright blue eyes fixed upon mine as she pleaded, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!!" (please).

So I caved. I gave her a granola bar. And that was sticky fun for all involved.

Except...

she wanted a second one. And I didn't cave. I washed her off, extracted her from the highchair, although she clung by her toes for dear life, obviously realizing that once extraction was complete, her dreams of a second granola bar were destroyed.

When I tried to put her down, she refused to lower her landing gear. She just would not unfold her legs. So I sat her on her bottom.

That really offended her. I could see the warning signs developing. It's much like tornado season in Indiana. The sky turns an ominous deep green, and things actually seem still. Then...the tornado.

Similarly, things got very still in our kitchen. Her eyes became bright blue (amazing how tears turn eyes a different shade, isn't it? Anger too....), and her face a bright tomato red. Then...the siren. A loud, piercing wail that I swear sent our neighbor's dog into a frenzy and the local police scrambling.

Then she flopped back onto her back. Of course, we have a wood floor, so there was a resounding 'thunk!' I offered to hold her to make her feel better, but that was given the same reception Osama would face if offering to kiss George Bush's boo-boo. No go.

She flipped over to her tummy, allowing her greater clearance from the floor whilst angrily kicking her legs.

But then I noticed the blob of granola. It was stuck to the bottom of her foot, right in the middle. It's very hard to take someone seriously when they have a blob of granola stuck to their foot. Just like in a meeting, you simply cannot concentrate on what your boss is saying if he has ketchup on his chin.

But once I started laughing, she was so startled that she paused, and then she started laughing too. Don't know that I would be that lucky if my boss was over 33" tall.

I should mention...

2006-02-28T16:35:00.001-05:00

that the pelican in my banner is a photo I took while on that wonderful vacation in Florida. I think it turned out incredibly well. And I should point out that the quality of that photo is a testament to the pelican, not to my photograpy. Because although I love takng photos, I'm a beginner.

GO, GO, GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-02-28T14:37:00.000-05:00

Well, 18-month DD ("dear daughter") is saying her first real phrase. It's "Go, Go, GO!!!!!!" It makes sense. After all, the photo above is pretty much the state of our household at any given moment.

This one is the kids waiting for Daddy to come home. All three, lined up like dominoes.

This is a family photo taken after the kids' Christmas program. I like that we all pretty much look happy here (well, except for the youngest escape artist. But 4 out of 5 isn't bad!)

Friendships

2006-02-27T21:06:00.000-05:00

I recently had a fantastic opportunity. I had the opportunity to go on vacation with my mom and my cousin. My cousin is closer in age to my mother than to me, and he and my mother spend a lot of time talking on the phone and texting each other. Each year, for several years running, they have traveled down to Florida, to a small island and a beautiful home there. They spend their vacation talking, reading, visiting book stores.

This year, they invited me. Had the invitation not been issued over the phone, I most likely would have leapt into their arms with delight. As it was, I (relatively calmly, I thought) said I would have to check with DH to square away child duties. And so I did. DH agreed to watch the kids for 5 days while I went to Florida.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. Friendships. I truly, truly believe that everyone should be so lucky as to have deep, lasting, true friendships within their own family. I think that every child should be so blessed as to develop a friendship with their parents when the child has become an adult. I've seen my mother thrive as a result of the friendships she's developed in our family, and I really got to see the beauty and value of those friendships first hand on our vacation.

I already knew that my cousin was a neat guy. Just looking at his life would tell you that. But getting the chance to know him showed me things that I value in a friendship with him: his horribly witty sense of humor ("Java the Hut" anyone???); his intelligence; his firm grasp of current events and ready willingness to debate them; his loyalty; his faith; and just his beauty as a human being.

I got a lot of things out of that incredibly wonderful vacation. I rediscovered myself (we'll save that for a later date). I drank lots of incredible coffee. I perused some wonderful used book stores. I got to walk on a beach and find shells. I met the most wonderful dog in the world (Hi Cooper!!!) But easily the most wonderful things about that vacation were the following: reaffirming and strengthening my friendship with my mother, and forming a strong and lasting friendship with my cousin.

I hope everyone can be as lucky as I am.

more photos

2006-02-27T14:32:00.000-05:00

As I'm still technologically challenged, only one photo showed up in the last post. Let's try this again!

That seems to be a little bit better - now the kids can't grow up and accuse me of favoritism and demand that I pay their therapy bills.

Now if only I can figure out how to easily add an entry, I should be off and running in the wild world of blogging. :-)

My first post as a blogger.

2006-02-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

So...this is my very first post as a blogger. The first time I typed that word, it came out as "blooger." Would that be someone who's just obnoxious as a blogger? According to my 5 year old's vocabulary, it would be.

About me. I am a stay-at-home mom ("SAHM"). A lot of my friends over at Willow Traders have blogs. It finally dawned on me that this might just be a good way to keep my family and my husband's family in the loop of what is going on in our lives. Plus, it's just a good way for me to journal about what the kids are doing from day-to-day. You know all of the cute things kids to that you mean to write down, but then forget before you can find that notebook, the expensive one you bought for the sole purpose of recording your kids' antics? Yeah...those. I'll just write about them here, then (hopefully) remember to scrapbook about them later.

Which brings me to scrapbooking. I call it a hobby. DH ("dear husband") considers it an obsession, very possibly an illness or a cry out for help. But I really love it. I'm trying to make the shift from acquiring scrapping supplies to using scrapping supplies. That, however, requires organization. Not my forte. Definitely my mother's forte. Have I yet mentioned how much I love it when she comes to visit and organizes my books for me? Seriously! She claims to enjoy it, and I hope that's true, because I just loooooooooove having my books alphabetized within genre. I think that is the only way to go! But....I just don't ever get around to it.

Have I mentioned that I ramble? You've probably figured that out by now.

We have three children: 5, 3, 18 months. Becuase the main purpose of this blog is to record stories about them, I should probably get around to discussing them. Our son is 5. He's a veritable firestorm of energy. I recently sat next to a British man on a flight. We talked about children, and he described his 5 year old son's presence as "an atomic bomb that's just gone off." I thought that was a pretty good analogy. Every night our family room looks like weapons of mass destruction have been tested there. Five light sabers strewn across the carpet in a seemingly-innocent rainbow of weaponry. The football wobbles on a bit of sticky granola bar (despite my rule of no eating in the family room). The basketball is under the rug, creating a safe haven for any other toys that are hiding under the rug. The cable picture is fuzzy because the TV has taken too many hits from the basketball being thrown at the hoop established up above the TV and VCR. Couch cusions are lumpy and flattened from being used as battle platforms for the staged light saber duels. Really, I think if governments are concerned about cleaning up weapons testing sites, they should offer to pay SAHMs. We're used to it.

One daughter is 3. She is her daddy's princess. Or her daddy's little gingersnap. Or her mommy's snickerdoodle. Or her mommy's little cuddle-monkey. Depends on what given moment she chooses to inform you of her identity. She's recently decided that the world can just operate at her whim. I tell her it is naptime. She very seriously informs me of the following: "Mommy. I will eat my Fruit Lops(sic), then I will watch Rolie Polie Olie. Then we will have naptime." "But honey, that is an hour away. We need to have naptime now." "No, mommy. We will have naptime when I am finished."

All right then.

The other daughter is 18 months. She has inherited/adopted the most dramatic and stubborn characteristics of her siblings. You don't tell her no. Telling her no is buying a ticket to the most dramatic show you've ever seen. It involves wailing, collapsing to the floor, fat tears rolling down cheeks, actual kicking of the floor and gnashing of the teeth and rending of the garments. (Okay...maybe not the last two, but you get the picture.) Her hobby? Eating toothpaste. Yep...eating toothpaste. More flouride the better. Every morning I have to fight her to extract the toothpaste tube from her fierce grip. Then, when she reaches her peak volume of screaming, I try to sneak the toothbrush in and give most of the teeth a quick swipe. That fit can be expected to last a full 10 mintues. And she won't stay put. She'll follow me around the top floor, screeching, wailing, kicking...generally letting me know that by refusing to allow her to swallow vast quantities of bright pink princess toothpaste, I have broken her wee heart.

I should probably close this up with some pictures. I'm afraid I'm going to get an error message telling me I've just written too darn much to include. More later!